To the moon!
Apr. 10th, 2004 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we did another session of the scifi game, and... well, I guess it went okay. The party decided to follow exactly in the footsteps of the previous parties which had vanished without a trace, but managed to avoid vanishing without a trace. Barely.
The trip to L3 station was uneventful. Shadarack tried to joke around with customs, and ended up getting interrogated and having a background check run on him, but all the cases against him were still tied up in court, so there was nothing to actually hold him on.
On L3, they saw various companies offering to take credits and extend a line of credit in the Lunar Financial System. The party was a bit suspicious of these claims, but Hesperius and Shadarack bought a bit of it to cover themselves.
Then it was down to the moon -- to Mare Crisium base, the tourist trap where offworlders liked to do business. After being scanned by 'customs' (which on the moon was nothing but a scanner to walk through so that the computer could make note of all your possessions) and walking nervously through the beautiful park outside the spaceport, trying not to look too closely at the flowers for fear of being charged, they made their way to the Starpower offices to talk to Kalomine, the primary contact which the other two envoys the Constantines had sent vanished shortly before or after talking to.
Kalomine had no idea who they were, of course, and their initial story was confused and fragmented. He offered to show them around the city if they needed some time to get over jet lag, but they demurred. Finally, Shadarack told him they were working for 'Mason', the previous envoy who'd disappeared, more or less giving away the game. Then claimed that they were lying about that and were there to buy the ship out from under him.
Kalomine said he could give them the information they wanted, as to where the ship was located, but if they didn't provide proof that they were actually working for the Constantines he'd be doing them a *big* favor and they might not want to owe him that much. They provided no such proof, but had him give them the information anyway.
"There's this group I'm with," he told them, "We'll be meeting tonight. Come to the meeting, as a favor to me. It'll open your eyes." Yes, that was an order, so they told him they'd be there, then went to find a hotel to sleep all day, since they'd left at night and stayed awake the whole flight practicing various skills in VR.
So that night, they awoke when paged by Kalomine, who told them to meet him at his office. There they joined him and a large group of people, including a few dressed like the 'cops' they'd seen scattered around the city. While walking to the elevator, it was obvious that this was some sort of religious group, as they were always talking about how close they were to converting so-and-so.
The meeting place was in the bowels of Mare Crisium, on the very lowest level in fact, which was dark and mostly deserted, except for the cops standing guard everywhere. There were other groups heading to the same place, with other people who, like the party, didn't seem to fit in, exactly... Meepas looked around for Adam or Mason (the two envoys who'd disappeared), and thought he saw one of the cops looking something like Adam, although it was hard to tell with the uniform he was wearing, which partially obscured his face.
The presentation they'd been brought there to see painted a glorious picture of the Chainer cult, which used spiritual binding to ensure cooperation outside the system's tracking, letting the group build power and influence, with the eventual goal of freeing the moon from its stifling economic system. Yes, there were system cameras watching the whole thing, even here.
Then came the testimonials from new recruits, most of whom looked terrified or unwilling, although a few were enthusiastic. They told of all the favors the chainers had done for them -- usually, they'd been approached when they were down on their luck and picked up and put back on their feet, yada yada. Kalomine told the party that if they joined the chainers, that would more than pay for any debt they had to him, and in fact he'd be in *their* debt, which would help them start working their way up in the hierarchy of the Future.
However, the party had not the slightest inclination to join, since the keynote speaker had apologized that 'Taral' couldn't be there to speak to them in person. And they knew what Taral was like. So they didn't eat the remarkably expensive dinner set for them, or join in the reindeer games, or take the various attractive girls who were sent to flirt on them up on their implied offer (Meepas had the easiest time with that, as the chainers had no sugar gliders to send to tempt him). And when the party started to die down, they refused the offer of a room for the night, and headed back for the elevator to start on their way to the Sefosa clan, where the ship was being held.
Only, the tunnels didn't look anything like they remembered. All the landmarks they'd seen were gone, along with the barricades blocking off various side tunnels, and after about a half hour of wandering, they realized that they should have come to the elevator by now, and that they were lost. There were system terminals all around, but they didn't know how much a map would cost, so instead they just wandered at random until they happened across an elevator.
It wasn't the same elevator, but it looked like it went up at least, so they got inside and hit the single shiny red button. Huge thick blast doors slowly slid closed, sealing them in, and a voice said 'Initializing Decontamination', as the room started to fill with gas. They all quickly got outo their space suits, which prompted an alert about an 'unauthorized containment field'. Karada appeared briefly, and verified that the gas was not breathable (although it wasn't instantly fatal or anything), so they decided to hit the button again in the hopes it would abort the decontamination.
Which it did. Instead, the elevator went into 'emergency purge' mode, dropping into a furnace. It didn't do so quite instantly, though, and Shadarack was able to make a hole in the ceiling which the party flew up and out of as the elevator fell. After a few tries, he also managed to make a tunnel around the door that they could squeeze through, escaping the trap.
As they emerged, they were greeted by four cops who'd been rushing to investigate the disturbance. "What are you doing? This is a dangerous, restricted area! How did you get past our checkpoints?" The party insisted that they'd passed no checkpoints, but agreed to let the cops lead them back to the surface.
On the way, following what they were sure was the same route they'd come in by, the passed a checkpoint, where Kalomine was waiting for them, acting all concerned. "I'm glad the troubleshooters were able to find you in time!" "Oh, we got out on our own." "Well... let me take you to the transport center, then, so you don't get lost again." "Just show us to the exit, we'll find our way from there."
So they got to the surface, and picked a transport center at random. There was no scheduled flight to the Sefosa clan -- it was basically a private factory which dealt mostly with large offworld corporate jobs -- but they were able to rent an old shuttle for a reasonable price, especially since they had their own pilot.
However, as Shadarack flew over the silvery lunar fields, his trap-sense started to tingle, as he noticed that there was a strange box attached to the control panel that didn't look like it belonged... and seemed to be counting down to something. A more careful inspection convinced him that it was, in fact, some sort of bomb on a timer, and he carefully attempted to remove it from the console without setting off the pressure-sensor.
But he failed, and it went off, EMPing the shuttle -- the engines and all the controls went dead instantly. They had a few minutes before they'd hit ground, at least, since they'd been flying in a semi-ballistic trajectory, so Hesperius got out on the hull and went to work de-EMPing the engine. It needed some equipment he didn't have with him, but that was easy enough to create out of this vaccuum -- sorry, 'pull from another dimension'.
So he got the engines turned back on in time, and Shadarack pulled out of the dive before hitting the ground... then slammed against the side of a mountain, disabling one of the engines. The ship wobbled and kept trying to go into a spin, but he managed to keep it stable long enough to crash-land into the regolith.
No one was seriously injured, but an important piece had been snapped off one of the engines, and while they managed to find it after an hour or so flying around near the crash site, it wasn't in any shape to be put back on without a machine shop to knock it back into the proper shape. Hesperius *was* able to cripple the other engine as well, so that while they'd be a lot slower, the shuttle would at least be balanced, and their air held out long enough for them to reach their destination.
So they landed at the Sefosa clan, under the pretense of needing emergency repairs for their rented shuttle. The procyonisks of the clan were happy to help them, and even offered to fix the body damage so the shuttle would be in good shape to turn back in. Furthermore, since they realized that the party were offworlders, they came up with various tasks and chores they could do to help pay off their bill, so they wouldn't be stuck on the moon. Hesperius was a mechanic (although not the best in the world) so there was certianly stuff for him to do, and Meepas knew healing magic and was taken to the clan's clinic to do some of that. Shadarack... got to sweep floors, and search through Jackie's pouches for something to trade.
That took all day, and as they were very tired, the clan offered them a place to sleep in the guest quarters (although they were warned they'd have to do a little work the next day to pay for that too). The party accepted gratefully, figuring that it would give them the perfect chance to sneak around the 'authorized personnel only' areas and find their ship.
last week next week
The trip to L3 station was uneventful. Shadarack tried to joke around with customs, and ended up getting interrogated and having a background check run on him, but all the cases against him were still tied up in court, so there was nothing to actually hold him on.
On L3, they saw various companies offering to take credits and extend a line of credit in the Lunar Financial System. The party was a bit suspicious of these claims, but Hesperius and Shadarack bought a bit of it to cover themselves.
Then it was down to the moon -- to Mare Crisium base, the tourist trap where offworlders liked to do business. After being scanned by 'customs' (which on the moon was nothing but a scanner to walk through so that the computer could make note of all your possessions) and walking nervously through the beautiful park outside the spaceport, trying not to look too closely at the flowers for fear of being charged, they made their way to the Starpower offices to talk to Kalomine, the primary contact which the other two envoys the Constantines had sent vanished shortly before or after talking to.
Kalomine had no idea who they were, of course, and their initial story was confused and fragmented. He offered to show them around the city if they needed some time to get over jet lag, but they demurred. Finally, Shadarack told him they were working for 'Mason', the previous envoy who'd disappeared, more or less giving away the game. Then claimed that they were lying about that and were there to buy the ship out from under him.
Kalomine said he could give them the information they wanted, as to where the ship was located, but if they didn't provide proof that they were actually working for the Constantines he'd be doing them a *big* favor and they might not want to owe him that much. They provided no such proof, but had him give them the information anyway.
"There's this group I'm with," he told them, "We'll be meeting tonight. Come to the meeting, as a favor to me. It'll open your eyes." Yes, that was an order, so they told him they'd be there, then went to find a hotel to sleep all day, since they'd left at night and stayed awake the whole flight practicing various skills in VR.
So that night, they awoke when paged by Kalomine, who told them to meet him at his office. There they joined him and a large group of people, including a few dressed like the 'cops' they'd seen scattered around the city. While walking to the elevator, it was obvious that this was some sort of religious group, as they were always talking about how close they were to converting so-and-so.
The meeting place was in the bowels of Mare Crisium, on the very lowest level in fact, which was dark and mostly deserted, except for the cops standing guard everywhere. There were other groups heading to the same place, with other people who, like the party, didn't seem to fit in, exactly... Meepas looked around for Adam or Mason (the two envoys who'd disappeared), and thought he saw one of the cops looking something like Adam, although it was hard to tell with the uniform he was wearing, which partially obscured his face.
The presentation they'd been brought there to see painted a glorious picture of the Chainer cult, which used spiritual binding to ensure cooperation outside the system's tracking, letting the group build power and influence, with the eventual goal of freeing the moon from its stifling economic system. Yes, there were system cameras watching the whole thing, even here.
Then came the testimonials from new recruits, most of whom looked terrified or unwilling, although a few were enthusiastic. They told of all the favors the chainers had done for them -- usually, they'd been approached when they were down on their luck and picked up and put back on their feet, yada yada. Kalomine told the party that if they joined the chainers, that would more than pay for any debt they had to him, and in fact he'd be in *their* debt, which would help them start working their way up in the hierarchy of the Future.
However, the party had not the slightest inclination to join, since the keynote speaker had apologized that 'Taral' couldn't be there to speak to them in person. And they knew what Taral was like. So they didn't eat the remarkably expensive dinner set for them, or join in the reindeer games, or take the various attractive girls who were sent to flirt on them up on their implied offer (Meepas had the easiest time with that, as the chainers had no sugar gliders to send to tempt him). And when the party started to die down, they refused the offer of a room for the night, and headed back for the elevator to start on their way to the Sefosa clan, where the ship was being held.
Only, the tunnels didn't look anything like they remembered. All the landmarks they'd seen were gone, along with the barricades blocking off various side tunnels, and after about a half hour of wandering, they realized that they should have come to the elevator by now, and that they were lost. There were system terminals all around, but they didn't know how much a map would cost, so instead they just wandered at random until they happened across an elevator.
It wasn't the same elevator, but it looked like it went up at least, so they got inside and hit the single shiny red button. Huge thick blast doors slowly slid closed, sealing them in, and a voice said 'Initializing Decontamination', as the room started to fill with gas. They all quickly got outo their space suits, which prompted an alert about an 'unauthorized containment field'. Karada appeared briefly, and verified that the gas was not breathable (although it wasn't instantly fatal or anything), so they decided to hit the button again in the hopes it would abort the decontamination.
Which it did. Instead, the elevator went into 'emergency purge' mode, dropping into a furnace. It didn't do so quite instantly, though, and Shadarack was able to make a hole in the ceiling which the party flew up and out of as the elevator fell. After a few tries, he also managed to make a tunnel around the door that they could squeeze through, escaping the trap.
As they emerged, they were greeted by four cops who'd been rushing to investigate the disturbance. "What are you doing? This is a dangerous, restricted area! How did you get past our checkpoints?" The party insisted that they'd passed no checkpoints, but agreed to let the cops lead them back to the surface.
On the way, following what they were sure was the same route they'd come in by, the passed a checkpoint, where Kalomine was waiting for them, acting all concerned. "I'm glad the troubleshooters were able to find you in time!" "Oh, we got out on our own." "Well... let me take you to the transport center, then, so you don't get lost again." "Just show us to the exit, we'll find our way from there."
So they got to the surface, and picked a transport center at random. There was no scheduled flight to the Sefosa clan -- it was basically a private factory which dealt mostly with large offworld corporate jobs -- but they were able to rent an old shuttle for a reasonable price, especially since they had their own pilot.
However, as Shadarack flew over the silvery lunar fields, his trap-sense started to tingle, as he noticed that there was a strange box attached to the control panel that didn't look like it belonged... and seemed to be counting down to something. A more careful inspection convinced him that it was, in fact, some sort of bomb on a timer, and he carefully attempted to remove it from the console without setting off the pressure-sensor.
But he failed, and it went off, EMPing the shuttle -- the engines and all the controls went dead instantly. They had a few minutes before they'd hit ground, at least, since they'd been flying in a semi-ballistic trajectory, so Hesperius got out on the hull and went to work de-EMPing the engine. It needed some equipment he didn't have with him, but that was easy enough to create out of this vaccuum -- sorry, 'pull from another dimension'.
So he got the engines turned back on in time, and Shadarack pulled out of the dive before hitting the ground... then slammed against the side of a mountain, disabling one of the engines. The ship wobbled and kept trying to go into a spin, but he managed to keep it stable long enough to crash-land into the regolith.
No one was seriously injured, but an important piece had been snapped off one of the engines, and while they managed to find it after an hour or so flying around near the crash site, it wasn't in any shape to be put back on without a machine shop to knock it back into the proper shape. Hesperius *was* able to cripple the other engine as well, so that while they'd be a lot slower, the shuttle would at least be balanced, and their air held out long enough for them to reach their destination.
So they landed at the Sefosa clan, under the pretense of needing emergency repairs for their rented shuttle. The procyonisks of the clan were happy to help them, and even offered to fix the body damage so the shuttle would be in good shape to turn back in. Furthermore, since they realized that the party were offworlders, they came up with various tasks and chores they could do to help pay off their bill, so they wouldn't be stuck on the moon. Hesperius was a mechanic (although not the best in the world) so there was certianly stuff for him to do, and Meepas knew healing magic and was taken to the clan's clinic to do some of that. Shadarack... got to sweep floors, and search through Jackie's pouches for something to trade.
That took all day, and as they were very tired, the clan offered them a place to sleep in the guest quarters (although they were warned they'd have to do a little work the next day to pay for that too). The party accepted gratefully, figuring that it would give them the perfect chance to sneak around the 'authorized personnel only' areas and find their ship.
last week next week
