New Base - not that we knew it

After securing the base Max sent a message to Leon and asked him to get over to the base and strip it. There was a lot of valuable stuff here, even if we discounted the EC Scientist and her cryo-pod. It wasn’t long before the team arrived, with them arrived the newest member of the team.
 
I knew Max had had feelers out for a while and the new guy came recommended. I didn’t know anything about who it was, just that they were here. I was talking to Max when an Ork in power armour came over to us and introduced himself as ‘Dez’. Well, when I say introduced himself it was more of a grunted ‘You Max, I’m Dez’ type interaction. I won’t say conversation. Max as it turns out, had been expecting an Ork, I did think it might have been wise to let us know as my first thought had been to shoot him.
 
But Max seemed happy enough and got us all together to introduce Dez Slaughterfist. He seemed friendly enough, if not massively talkative. The best bit was introducing him to Bob. I made sure I was recording this as there was no way this wasn’t going to be funny. Bob did say hello and then just, out of nowhere, with no warning, headbut Dez. He did stagger backwards slightly but that was all and then looked at Bob. For a split second I thought there might be a fight but then Dez just broke out in a grin. Well, as much of a grin as a heavily scarred Ork can. He then just headbutted Bob right back ‘I like dis one’
 
I chuckled and got his comms connected to ours.
 
Now we were all together I told Max and Ilyara about the ECSC connections and what this could mean, both in terms of monetary values and scientific discovery. We decided to go and talk to the Dr about what she was doing here. I could get some information from the terminals but it would be quicker and easier to speak to her directly.
 
Although she isn’t happy that we’ve taken over the base, she does give us the information we ask for. Her name is Dr Nadine Cortier and she was head of two projects for the ECSC. One, Project Revival is linked to the cryo-pod. Basically the idea is that you can put someone who is near death into stasis and then perform surgery on them while they are cryo-frozen. The other she just refers to as ‘the other project’ is basically the creature in the caves. The problem is, this project has been out there in the cave since before she went into the cryo-pod, so she has no idea what it actually is anymore. She believes it’s blood may be acidic and that it is currently around 8-9 feet tall. After that we’re on our own as it has mutated from what she knew it to be. She also suggests we put on protective haz-mat gear as the area is suffused with some kind of acidic airborne bacteria. Whatever this thing is, it’s adapted to it.
 
While we’re talking Max asked her if she wanted to join us at Broadcastle. I knew she was worth a lot of money. However, I also knew that Max was not likely to want to sell her as selling people was something we were not OK with, no matter how much they were worth. She seemed a little unsure but promised to think about it.
 
She told us where to find the haz-mat suits and also where the members of conviction were as they were locked up in some cells nearby. She warns us not to open the doors as they may attack us. Between Dez and Ilyara I kind of doubted that but it was worth at least showing some caution.
 
Unfortunately Dez chose that moment to stick his head around the door. To say she completely freaked out would be an understatement. She had a gun and she actually tried to shoot at Dez, she didn’t do any damage to him physically, but he actually looked kind of hurt that she’d try and shoot him. We needed to remember that she had been frozen in stasis for a long time and was used to us being at war with the Amaranthians and not working with them. Unfortunately, in trying to explain to the Dr that everything was OK, Ilyara decided it was a good idea to turn into her wolf form. I think this sent the Dr over the edge as she looked like she was about to have a breakdown.
 
We sent Dez and Ilyara off to go looking into the rooms the Dr had told us about and to deal with whatever they found there. I stayed behind, partly because I didn’t really need to see what Dez and Ilyara were going to do to these people, I had an idea and that was enough. The other reason was to try and talk to the Dr and make sure she was OK. She was very on edge and panicky already but then we could hear the noises of Dez and Ilyara dealing with the prisoners. I left the Dr to it so she could shut the door and hopefully feel a little more secure.
 
I headed down the corridor, following the noises. As I did so I pinged Leon a message and told him about the databank I’d found in one of the rooms and asked him to make sure someone pulled all the data off for me. I got the thumbs up. As I got to the others they were being fired on by two turrets. I was able to get into both of them and shut them down so we could move without being shot at.
 
It looked like the next room had the air-lock into the cave system at the back. There were four turrets in there, I was able to get into them and bring them under my control. I thought it was best to leave them active in case whatever was in there decided to make a break for it - or had friends. We might be glad of the extra fire-power. At this point Matilda also caught up with us. I’d taken some damage to my head earlier on in the mission and wanted it at least patched up before it became a problem.
 
We put on the haz-mat suits and the others got ready to enter the airlock. I stayed outside so that I could work the airlock and Matilda could fix me up. I made sure I had the turrets focussed on the doorway just in case they were needed but whatever was in those cave wasn’t anywhere near the door and they moved in. I made sure to keep an eye on their comm feeds so I could see what was going on and dive in if I needed to. From what I could see, it looked like the base had been built up around the cave. It made sense, caves had been used as natural bases since the beginning of man, this was just upgrading it to make it easier to live in.
 
After moving through the caves and having a good look around, as expected, they found the creature, and some other, smaller creatures in the back of the cave system. There was quite the rapid fight and Max went down, one of his legs blown off. There was no way we could stay out here, Scarlett had come to the base and was with me on standby. We ran in and were able to help out killing some of the smaller critters and Scarlett was able to pull Max out and get him over to the med-bay. He looked really bad and I wasn’t entirely convinced he was going to make it.
 
I kept one eye on Scarletts comms as she made it to the med bay. Fortunately Dr Sherman, the Dedalus engineer, one of the people we were here to rescue had woken up and Dr Courtier was able to get him out of the pod and Max in. I saw everything through Scarletts cameras, including the look of concern on her face and then the amount of what I assumed to be Max’s blood down her front from where she’d carried him.
 
By the time he was there and in the pod, we’d been able to deal with the big creature. Ilyara had gone in and done something with her blood magic, I wasn’t exactly sure what as the comms always get staticy when she does magic but I saw her do something and then it was down and out. Dez was pretty banged up so we all trooped over to the med bay. Dez asked the Dr to help him. I think partly because he did need help, but maybe it was his way of being less intimidating and giving her some power over him. It didn’t work. She just got annoyed when she saw him and stated he’d be better off with a vet as she knew nothing of Amaranthian physiology. Ilyara patted his arm and took him off to the transporters so she could get her med kit and help him out.
 
And that is the story of how we took our new base. Not that we’d made the decision at this point...