Session Five: The Cryo-case at Hand
General Summary
The Crew had arrived at Koltar IV. Landed the The Morningstar in a large hanger filled with a variety of random and exotic objects. Ramiel, Gabriel, Sand, Angelique, and Korvas are at a secure door that Korvas had hacked open. Jack is with the ship 100 feet away. Six security drones, each about the size of a volleyball, have activated and prepare to attack. Initiative is rolled. Gabriel swiftly ducks through the open hatchway. Taking cover in a rough hewn chamber with two passages delving deeper into the mountain. Korvas follows on Gabriel's heals Ramiel fires on one of the drones. A shower of machine parts showers down as the drone explodes. "one down boys." Sand takes position in front of the doorway. He draws his heavy blaster and shoots another drone, destroying it. "I got one Ramiel!" Jack warms up the Morningstar's weapons. "Just in case." he thinks to himself. Four targeting lights focus on Ramiel. But the four blaster shots miss, as Ramiel dodges away. Ramiel fires, dispatching another as his shot takes the drone in it's side, spinning it around and bouncing it off the wall a couple of times before it breaks into pieces and slides down the wall. Sand steps in front of Angelique to provide cover for her, and blasts another drone, destroying it. Jack waits to see what happens next. Gabriel prepares to shut the secure door. Korvas leans out the door and shoots a drone with his light blaster. exploding another drone with a well places shot. The last drone targets Korvas. But Korvas jumps back through the doorway avoiding the blast. Ramiel easily removes the last drone with an almost casual shot. Jack stays aboard the Morningstar while Korvas leads the rest down a winding cavern deeper into the mountain following the directions that are on the data crystal they recieved from Mr. Gregori. Twenty minutes pass and they arrive at a small chamber with three passages leading away. The directions indicate that they are to take the leftmost chamber. Clanging and other industrial noises can be heard distantly from the center passage. They turn to go down the center passage. "We should continue to follow the directions" Gabriel says. He notes to himself that this site used to be a palladium mine. Jack attempts to keep tabs on the party via the communications system, but there is to much interference from the intervening rock. Despite Gabriel's objections the crew heads down the center passage. He hesitates briefly pointing at the left passage before following the crew. After about ten minutes the passage opens up into a large chamber. Heat and light wash over them. And in the center of the chamber, operating smelting machinery, they see what was once a factory drone, a heavy-industry robot. But this drone seems to have been self-modifying itself in the many years since the mine shut down. Metal plates and other unrecognizable items have been welded to its chassis in an apparently haphazard manner. It looks to be smelting palladium ingots. Off in the far corner you see a pile of palladium ingots stacked with machine precision. It looks like the robot continued to mine and build this chamber after it was left behind after the owners pulled out. Gabriel studies the robot. Angelique stays back towards the passage they entered from. Sand stands ready, holds his rifle in a non-threatening way. Korvas and Ramiel wait to see how the situation plays out. Gabriel approaches the robot. It notices and spins around. Wicked looking appendages dripping molten metal gesture at Gabriel. "You are un-authorized to be here. Prepare to be rendered." the robot says. "All extraneous details must be rendered." it slowly approaches Gabriel. "I am not an extraneous detail." Gabriel begins to attempt to reach the robot with logic. "I was created, as were you. I am an internal detail. Acknowledge; palladium is mined for the act of terraforming of planets. That is my function. We are of the same function. Stand down." The robot whirs for a moment before responding. "User recognized. Proceed." Gabriel begins to question the robot. "Debrief protocol." "Task to smelt metal. Modifications made to improve efficacy." "When was the last time you experienced carbon based lifeforms?" "Processing ... Processing ... Twenty standard term years." "The purpose of smelting materials is for transport. Confirm." "Comment exceeds programming." "Very well. When was the last time unit was maintenanced?" "Twenty-two standard years." "What is the standard maintenance interval for a unit of your type?" "Point five standard years." "Therefore unit is due for maintenance. Confirm." "Logic complies." "This technician shall review your programming and hardware to confirm you are operating within standard parameters." "Acknowledge. Shutting down for maintenance." The robot shuts down. Korvas begins to search through the robots logs. The logs show the robot was originally a smelting droid. After being abandoned he began to modify himself with drilling and hauling capabilities so he could continue its programming. Korvas begins the difficult task of reprogramming the robot, with Gabriel's help. The players name it H3ph from Hephaestus. They turn H3ph back on. He now functions under Korvas' programming. They have H3ph haul the 100 palladium ingots to the ship. This takes one trip and about an hour to complete the trip and place h3ph in the cargo hold. Gabriel pauses next to H3ph for a moment and says. "Welcome H3ph. Welcome." and pats it gently. They head back down into the cavern to take the proper passage way, and finish their mission. Oddly and unnoticed by them, their communicators have a noticeable buzz that was not present before. Jack, back on the Morningstar, watches a sudden electrical storm slam into the force field protecting the landing bay from the outside. The Morningstar's sensors are completely boggled by the storm, and visibility outside has dropped to zero. The now follows the passage way that Mr. Gregori had instructed them to. They make a few more turns, and arrive at the blockade of boulders and rubble that Mr. Gregori said would be covering the object they were meant to retrieve. With the whole team digging, it only takes about ten minutes to uncover the object. It is a Bio-Cryogenic cargo crate. It is about 4' x 3' x 2'. Clearly marked on the crate is the corporate symbol for Bio-Genomics along with their motto of "Building a better you." Also marked on the crate is the ID code:Helix-(Tau)(Sigma)-01010000-101. They use a device to look inside the crate to reveal row upon row upon row of injection unit. "It's a bunch of syringes." Ramiel says. Sand (and Angelique) leads the way back to the Morningstar. Ramiel and Gabriel, carrying the crate, follow. Korvas brings up the rear. Jack asks H3ph if it can teach him chess, and it spews out the rules in binary. As Jack chuckles to himself, but stops as he notices movement out of the corner of his eye. out of the viewport he sees a shuttle entering through the force field of the hangar entrance from the storm outside. It's a combat shuttle. On it's side is a snake eating it's own tail, with an L in the center. The corporate symbol of Loga Corp.. Jack aims the warmed up ship weaponry at the shuttle and fires. The challenging shot hits the shielded shuttle soundly. The now smoking shuttle spins down and lands uncontrollably. Jack sees armored figures jumping out of the wreckage. Jack fires again, vaporizing a very valuable statue that he had noticed earlier, and exploding the shuttle as well as many nearby treasures. A fire begins to spread. The rest of the crew is about ten minutes away, comms still not working, when they hear a huge explosion from the hangar bay. "Kwathoooom!" They rush back to the hanger bay, and see the devastation caused by the flaming wreckage of an assault shuttle. Five shadowy figures, armed and crouching out of view of the Morningstar. The figures see the new arrivals as the crew sees them. Initiative is rolled. Gabriel strains his servos, causing himself damage, and carries the crate by himself to the Morningstar and rushes inside. Ramiel observes the skilled special forces troopers approaching with a care that he knows well. He takes a shot at the nearest one but it's a glancing shot that doesn't penetrate his battle armor. Jack preps the engines for liftoff, raising the ship slightly off the ground. And, over comms, orders the rest of the crew to get back on the ship as fast as possible. The Loga troopers split their fire between Ramiel and Sand. Ramiel is hit by two of the three shots aimed at him. Sand is hit by both the shots directed at him, but is mostly unaffected because of his skill with powered armor. Angelique runs for the ship. Sand shoots back at the troopers, hitting one. Korvas runs for the ship. Gabriel sets the cyro-case down, and goes to the edge of the gangplank to aid others onto the ship Ramiel runs for the ship, and takes an overwatch position after Gabriel helps him aboard. He yells to Sand, "It's time to bug out!" The Troopers all shoot at Sand. Three shots hit home, but cause him little damage. Sand runs for the ship, making good time for a man in battle armor. Korvas helps him onto the ship. "There's five of them out there." Sand says. "I know" Gabriel responds. "Let's never come here again" Korvas grumbles. When Jack hears that everyone is aboard, he flies out of the hanger into the violent storm. Sensors blind. He attempts the formidable task of using the storm to hide from the Loga ship he expects to be in orbit, and escape into fold-space. Ramiel grabs a console in the cockpit and uses his knowledge of meteorology to help. Gabriel plots a trajectory to aid in Jack's plan. Sand settles in to gunnery station to take opportunity shots where possible. Jack flies along the storm to the edge of the atmosphere and bursts out of it. The Loga ship is half occluded by the planet. Not even in weapons range yet. As the Loga frigate turns, Jack flies to minimum safe fold distance and transitions into fold-space. Moments later the Loga frigate appears in fold-space, hot on the heals of the Morningstar. Tune in next week!
Rewards Granted
100 Palladium ingots (1,000 each ingot), each ingot weighs about 5 pounds. H3ph, the self modified smelting droid.
Notes
Five Loga Troopers survived the Morningstar's departure.
