On The Run

From Lexicanum

0.1 If It's Wednesday This Must Be Whanga!

 Clarissa dropped the Star Hunter out of jumpspace into the darkness of interstellar space. The Alell system was a distant point of light on the viewscreen.  After some discussion it was decided that the Whanga system with it’s sparse population was the best place to head for. As Clarissa made the jump,  Bartie and Kemphit, both still badly wounded claimed a stateroom and settled down to rest and heal.

While Enrico tried in vain to break the military grade encryption on Vlen’s files, Clarissa settled down to read the papers relating to the Ancients that she had taken from the cabin. After reading them  thoroughly over  the next few days, two things struck her, firstly Vlen believed there was a hidden Ancient base in the Boughene system and secondly he needed Professor Ujinka’s G-band detector, currently being tested on Beck’s World in order to find it!

Discussing options with the rest of the team, they decided the best bet for clearing their names of the capital crimes of which they had been accused was to follow Vlen’s trail!

Arriving on Whanga and conscious of a possible imperial pursuit they refuelled and resupplied – pausing only for Enrico and Clarissa to become citizens of Whanga and complete a number of real-estate deals! While there, Enroco cunninigly disguised the Star Hunter by painting the "H" into a "B", and the good ship Star Bunter was born. Bartie also managed to scam the local representative of Sternmetal Horizons, who were trying to attract colonists to Whanga, that his company was looking to make a major investment in the area and was offered a bounty of  60,000 credits if he could find at least  1000 colonists willing to sign up for a minimum 5 years.

Their next stop was the Roup system, en route Enrico and Clariffa managed to jury-rig the ships comms systems to suppress the true transponder signal and transmit the new Star Bunter ID.  Rather than hang about Roup, they quickly refuelled at the local gas-giant before jumping to their next destination – Pscias.

Unfortunately Pscias was under interdiction by the Navy and as they refuelled, a cruiser moved to intercept them. Fortunately they were able to complete refuelling and jump  before the cruiser got within range, but due to the hurried nature of their departure, the jump went wrong and instead of arriving in the  Beck’s Word system they found themselves in the Enope system, low on fuel and even lower in cash!

0.2 A Matter of Antimatter

After getting clearance to land on Enope – they began setting abut trying to raise what cash they could to proceed on to Beck’s World. Bartie used most of Uncle Vlen’s stash to buy some fuel and basic supplies and then they went hunting for cargoes. Strangely there were no cargoes available for transit to Beck’s World, nor was there much interest in passenger traffic.  After a coupe of days Clarissa had identified one possible job - working for the  Enope Academy of Outshell Advancement - and Bartie another working for someone called Yorbling the Epicure. Bartie bought a nice suit with what was left of his cash – feeling the long socks, sandals and pith helmet ensemble he had left Allel in might be a tad inappropriate – and headed off to meet their patron.

Yorbling lived in a massive and hugely ostentatious mansion, staffed completely by robots. He turned out to be a grotesquely fat man being kept alive by machines and advised Bartie that he has eaten everything known space has to offer, but there is one taste he has yet to experience – the subtle, impossible flavour of antimatter.  After blagging a really rather  decent glass of port from the Epicure, Bartie signed the Star Bunter  crew up to obtaining some antimatter for Yorbling’s last meal for a fee of 50,000C.

Next morning they headed off to the Enope Academy of Outshell Advancement, and a meeting with the Principal. The Enope Academy of Outshell Advancement, was apparently a school for the few youths of Enope who want to leave their honeycomb world and explore space. They were asked to take on four apprentices, aged between 10 and 15, who will accompany them to their next port of call for which they would be paid 10,000C a head. On the voyage, the apprentices will work as part of the crew and learn from the characters. The plan was that after one jump, the apprentices will return to Enope on a different ship, however on hearing that the Star Bunter was bound for Beck’s World, he offered a further 10,000C to have them all brought back!

After the meeting, Kemphit bummed a couple of hundred credits off Bartie and headed for the nearest spaceport bar! While Clarissa gotwarning the ship ready for the arrival of their new apprentices, Bartie went back to the Star Bunter to put his unique researching abilities to the task of finding, containing and returning safely with a quantity of antimatter. He located a convenient source of antimatter in the nearby Shionthy system and after Kemphit returned half-cut from the pub they commenced constructing an antimatter containment unit using two pint glasses, some magnets and duct tape!

Next morning the apprentices – christened John, Paul George and Ringo, arrived to be greeted by a naked and very hung-over Kemphit heading for the head to throw up, in the midst of an induction lecture by Bartie. In short order and after a few mishaps in the engine room as a hang-over Kemphit tried to sort the power relays, they left Enope and made the jump to Shionthy. Over the next week of jump travel, the party actually made rather a decent fist of training their impressionable young apprentices and by they time the arrived in Shinothy they were sufficiently trained to assist in the ridiculously hazardous operation. Bartie had also tasked the kids with coming up with any suggestions to improve their antimatter containment vessel and the kids came up with the idea of hooking the magnets up to a portable generator to help create a more powerful magnetic field!

The first thing Bartie did on arrival in-system was to shut down the comms panel so the annoying warning messages form the automated buoys in the system wouldn’t actually annoy anyone. Clarissa manoeuvred the Star Bunter cautiously through the system – conscious that at any time a random particle of antimatter could annihilate them. John then relieved Bartie at the comms station while  Paul and Ringo  were left in charge of sensors. Bartie and George headed down to the cargo bay where Kemphit was waiting with their vacc suits. The suit was, of course, way too big for George but he struggled manfully inside and clomped out with Bartie into the airlock, hauling a bulky portable generator with him. Bartie carried their makeshift antimatter containment vessel into which he placed a small quantity of port as a makeshift detector  reasoning that the port was matter and if it was annihilated by whatever he caught then that must be antimatter.

After the airlock cycled, Bartie launched himself out   - forgetting to tether himself! Fortunately the power-cable attaching the magnets to the generator, stopped Bartie from spinning off into the vastness of space and he hung there ready to catch himself some antimatter.

Up on the bridge, Paul and Ringo tried to track potential targets. Eventually they spotted a micro-meteorite heading Bartie’s way that was giving off weird sensor readings. They notified Bartie and the noble idiot set out to catch it between his beer glasses, gesturing frantically to George to activate the electro-magnetic fields!

Somehow Bartie managed to capture the antimatter particle without blowing himself up into a thousand pieces and gestured to George to reel him in, which he did by the simple expedient of turning round on the spot and winding the power cable round his  vac suit. Once safely back on board the Star Bunter. The antimatter was safely stored - in a corner of the cargo hold - and they returned to Enope to collect their pay-checks.

 On delivering the antimatter to Yorbling, and receiving payment, Bartie politely requested that the Epicure wait until he had cleared the area before ingesting it. However as Bartie descended down in the lift accompanied by a robot butler, the building was rocked by an explosion. Yorbling had apparently been  unable to resist  his last delicacy!

0.3 Food, Fuel and Girls

The party left Enope one step ahead of the Imperium, departing in the wake of an Aslan freighter and, using it to shield them from the guns of a navy corvette that had appeared in-system,  successfully made the jump to Beck’s World. Arriving  without incident they noted another ship – an expensive-looking yacht  - in orbit.

The hastily renamed Star Basterd headed for the turbulent ash-laden atmosphere of the volcanic world, and it’s sole centre of population – Beck’s Town.  When the ship finally broke through the cloud cover, they wondered why they’d bothered – Beck’s Town is an ugly carbuncle of soot-stained domes on the edge of a blue lake. The “starport” was just an irregular oval of semi-level ground at the base of a mountain only one other ship was there a small ship’s boat – presumably from the orbiting yacht. A holographic sign flashed on and off atop the main dome, advertising that you can get ‘food, fuel and girls’ here.   As soon as they landed, a figure in a HEV suit slogged across the landing field and hammered on the airlock. They could barely make out his features beneath the dirt and mud on his faceplate, and he appeared to be rather heavily armed, but as he waved a laminated ID card at them – he was apparently the local customs control.

The “customs officer” was a thoroughly unpleasant type called Uro Phell. Phell’s speech was almost incomprehensible, as he mixed in loanwords from Zdetl (the Zhodani language) and Gvedh (one of the Vargr dialects), and  it didn’t help that his suit’s speakers were clogged with dirt. He wore his suit the entire time he was on board, only taking his helmet off to spit on the deck. He insisted on meeting everyone on board an poked into all the areas of the ship he could get away with. Eventually after collecting 200 credits a head “entrance fee”, he left the ship an clomped across the landing field to a small collection of habitat domes near the main one. As they watched him they noticed that there was a missile launcher on top of the dome he went into.

The party suited up and headed outside and looked around, apart from the main dome and the small cluster of habitat domes on the far side of the starport was a dome marked with the imperial starburst, not far from that outside of town was a small complex of prefabs – judging by the fact they were somewhat less grimy and of a more recent design than the other domes, they decided that must be the University of Regina research base. They decided to forgo the “attractions” of the main dome and headed to the university complex.

As they approached they could see two men, in environment suits working on an antenna atop one of the prefabs.  One of them cam down and introduced himself as  Kenton – a grad student. He told them that Dr Volsang was off at the dig-site (which was off-limits to visitors) and invited them in  offering to show them round the complex if they wanted to wait till the antenna was fixed so they could speak to her. Bartie was fascinated by the work of the archaeologists and wandered round annoying the researchers working within while Kemphit slouched down in the common-room drinking tea. while Enrico offered to help the students fix the comms antenna and headed outside. About 15 minutes later, Clarissa headed out to join them, noticing as she left the airlock that the ships’ boat

She stood there chatting with Enrico and the students as they worked atop the building, when there was a loud cracking sound and thousands of tons of rock slid down the mountain slope, smashing through the flimsy habitation domes of the University compound!

As the building she had just left was buried under rubble Clarissa was knocked to the ground. As she fell she saw  Enrico and the two students swept of the roof! Struggling to her feet she began searching for them. She found one quickly – obviously very dead. Nearby she found Enrico, injured and partially buried in rubble, but alive. She began digging Enrico out as people began arriving from the main dome. Enrico meanwhile managed to contact Bartie and Kemphit confirming that although they were trapped inside the collapsed building that they were still alive.

It was hard to work out whether the new arrivals were searching for survivors or for what they could loot from the ruined buildings, Things were made worse when a figure wearing a white spacesuit with the imperial symbol on it – the consul Jocan - arrived and began babbling about a Zhodani attack and insisting that the party ferry him immediately to Feri.   Despite the chaos and distraction Enrico was freed, just as Phell accompanied by some of his bully-boys arrived to disperse the crowd of helpers. Phell managed to calm Jocan and send him packing, insisting there were no survivors. However he seemed less than pleased when  Clarissa and Enico insisted that there were survivors inside, and as soon as Jocan had wandered off he moved  threaten Clarissa with his shotgun. Enrico and Clarissa managed to wrestle the shotgun off him, but seeing their boss was in trouble, his men moved to help him – only to be met by an offer of payment from Clarissa if they helped rescue Bartie and Kemphit.

0.4 The Ancient Shelter

With the help of Phrell and his him Bartie and Kemphit were quickly retrieved from the rubble. In short order they were whisked off to the main dome where fortunately as well as “Girls, Guns and Food” there was also what passed for a medical facility. After getting patched up, they headed back to the university site to round-up Kenton discovering in the process that the landslide had been no accident as Enrico identified the tell-tale signs of explosive damage on some of  the rocks. Kenton led them to one of the universities’s surviving shuttles and they  headed out towards the dig site.

The dig site was several hundred miles away and the tedium flight across the bleak terrain of Beck’s World was punctuated only by the excitement of surviving the periodic violent storms that lashed the surface of the planet. On arrival they found that the dig site was inside a cave system. They discovered that the base camp had also been attacked and there were no survivors at least on the surface. Kemphit briefly managed to contact Volsang on the radio who managed to tell them to follow the markers to  “the Big Stair” where they would find her, before the signal was abruptly cut-off.

Readying weapons the party descended into the cave system discovering that the markers Volsang had referred to appeared to have been removed. They wandered for some time through a labyrinth of tunnels during which Bartie managed to find a shard of metal with Ancient glyphs on it, and more worryingly Enrico found some recently planted explosives!

Eventually the arrived at what they assumed was the “Big Stair” a wide shaft which presented them a massive cliff-face descending into darkness into which ledges had been cut some 100 metres apart - which was fine if you could fly. Fortunately the archaeologists had fixed ropes, so they were able to climb down. Kemphit led the way, but the descent was complicated by strange “gravity bubbles” seemed to affect the cliff-face.

Eventually everyone managed to descend safely, though as they did they noticed they felt increasingly uneasy. At the base, they found themselves in a warren of small caverns and structures that wormed into the rock around the central shaft. Pyramidal temples and strange ovoid buildings protruded from the sides of the shaft, hanging there like the nests of improbable stone-eating wasps. Entering one of the buildings they found a piece of Ancient artwork. It was an oddly stylised pictogram of Beck’s World, resembling Aztec art. It depicted six Droyne hiding in a cavern at the heart of the world, their wings wrapped around their heads in terror. Hanging above the world is a space monster, a wingless worm in the shape of the Droyne glyph for ‘seven’.

As they contemplated the meaning of this,  a loud, though strangely child-like, voice broke the silence ‘DOCTOR VOLSANG! I AM BAY VENSHAR AND I AM A GREAT ADMIRER OF YOUR WORK. I WANT YOUR ANCIENT DETECTOR TECHNOLOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW. IF YOU COME OUT NOW, I’LL SPARE THE REST OF YOUR TEAM. OTHERWISE... THIS PLACE WILL BE YOUR GRAVE, DR. VOLSANG.’

The party headed speedily towards the sound of the voice finding its owner – a small child-like figure accompanied by a group of Vargr mercenaries standing in the centre of a nearby cave. Infuriated by the murders of the students in the camp above and what had happened back at the dome, Clarissa immediately initiated hostiles opening fire. As the gunfire erupted the child-like figure darted down a side-tunnel leaving his bodyguards to cope with the assault. As the battle raged, all the combatants – even the most battle-hardened - felt an increasing sense of panic. Suddenly the Vargr broke of combat, howling incoherently and firing at shadows they fled into nearby tunnels.

The combat somewhat surprisingly over, the party followed down the tunnel they child-like figure had fled down. They fond him about 20 metres down lying crumpled on the ground - standing over him was a small woman with a large shovel, Dr Volsang! They accompanied Dr Volsang to the surface and headed back to the dome. On the flight they told her everything that had happened – explaining their connection to Vlen and Professor Ujinka.

Finally convinced of their story, Volsang gave them the software and algorithms that would allow them to adapt the ships sensors to track G-band emissions, and they left Becks World for the Boughene system as soon as possible.

Arriving in the Boughene system they found the Alahir in orbit near the scout station which immediately hailed them calling on them to prepare to be boarded. Calculating that it would take the Alahir at least a couple of days to get to them they began their modified sensor sweeps and quickly detected an anomaly deep in the gravity well of the nearby gas giant.

With some trepidation they began preparations for the dangerous descent into the turbulent atmosphere below them.