S31 Hellworld and Bronze Ball
This marks the resumption of this campaign, though Steve has offered to spot the occasional session with his D&D 1e if I’m away. Or poorly sick as I have been since pretty much the door closed on the players after this session!
Rick’s music and acting make him a very occasional though very welcome player, which makes Jesse Wales generally available to baby-sit the ship while the PCs are doing things and other non-hazardous tasks.
Orbit, Tarsus/District 268/Spinward Marches, 235/1106
![](Characters/Merrick Sturnn HS.png)
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Merrick Sturnn
![](images/Nita Maltby2.jpg)
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Nita Maltby
After some debate, the party concluded that the best plan for the wounded and traumatized surviving members of the expedition to the Mountains of Dreams was to entrust them to Merrick Sturnn aboard the
Short Walk for return to Collace. Nevada prepared a report detailing what had happened (although leaving out his summary justice upon the miserable Hank McClure) and passing on his strong suggestion that any return expedition should wait for the
Cats to return from their trip.
With that problem solved, there was nothing left to wait for, and they dropped down to Newland to arrange any cargo or passengers they could pick up, advertising their planned route in case of long-range offers. At this time, all they managed to locate was some freight for Talos, on their route and a suitable second stop, and some freight and passengers for Judice - all employees of the fuel franchise CinqFuel or staff from the Imperial Reseasch Station returning from furlough.
Outer System, Judice/District 268/Spinward Marches, 252/1106
Jumping into Judice, the Cats looked at the library data for the system with some disquiet.
Judice’s environment is one of the harshest ever encountered in known space. The planet’s surface is an indescribably barren wasteland of rock and sand that has been blasted and scorched by the corrosive atmosphere, which consists primarily of gaseous nitric acid. What little precipitation falls is quite literally acid rain, and scars the tortured landscape with jagged crevasses and canyons before running off into "seas" of liquid nitric acid. And, as if all this was not inhospitable enough, Judice has no water, its gravity is above standard, and the average surface temperature is a sultry 33 degrees Celsius.
Judice is so absolutely unsuited for habitation by any of the major species that no government, corporation, or individual bothered to lay claim to it until the early 1100s. At that point, the planet began to excite great interest in the interstellar scientific community due to the discovery of a group of complex lifeforms that had somehow managed to evolve and flourish in the hellish environment of Judice’s nitric acid seas. Several reputable xenologists have even theorized that certain of these lifeforms possessed a limited degree of sentience.
In 1103, Imperial Research Station Theta was established just offshore of the largest sea with the mission of studying these exotic and fascinating lifeforms.
Their first stop was reasonably straightfrorward, as the CinqFuel employees wanted to be taken to their company’s moon, Drigih, where it swung around the GG Tyim. This wasn’t normal practice, but Judice has no starport and no shuttle service so dropping them off was part of the ticket.
As the Long Walk headed out of Drigih’s orbit under the massive shadow of the gas giant, sensors picked up another craft in system, identifying itself as the Leviathan-class trade cruiser We Did Not Sell Out, preparing to jump out for Collace.
From Drigih it was a few hours burn sunwards to reach the mainworld
Research Station Theta, Judice/District 268/Spinward Marches, 253/1106
![](images/Sandor Sumner.png)
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Sandor Sumner
The descent through the hideous atmosphere to the surface of Judice was tricky, as the thick nitrous clouds were whipped into constant storms in the hot air. The beacon from the research station was clear enough, however, and the slid neatly into the hanger, the clamshell doors closing overhead and the decontaminant sprays blasting every trace of nitric acid off the hull.
Unloading was straightforward enough, with the assorted shipments - especially the new puddings gladly received by the scientists and scouts populating the base. As they finished unloading, a man in a RS Theta uniform approached them, introducing himself as Sandor Sumnner, part of the admin team. He had a proposal for them.
The station on Judice was in communication with a similar operation on Egypt, a world just over the border and with fairly similar planetological traits. As part of this they wanted to share some physical samples with them. A trading ship had been contracted to deliver it, but had gone off on another route and not come back. Would the Long Walk deliver the shipment?
The PCs were instantly wary to the point of paranoia over this request, with much speculation about all sorts of horrible contamination or outbreaks aboard the ship. It came down to a narrow vote in the end.
Obviously, anything sampled from Judice was going to be pretty hideous, and the ICOSHH labels splattered all over it made some of the crew shake their heads dubiously. Sumner was realistic about the impression it gave, but pointed out that the crate was going to be sealed and could cheerfully be stowed in vacuum; the freight fee for it was slightly under twice normal rates for a dTon of cargo. With mild trepidation the crew agreed. “Good!” said Sumner. “We’re just waiting for the last sample to be collected now as it happens. One of our two grav amphibians is out collecting it.” As he spoke, his terminal chimed and by his face, the news was bad.
The grav amphibian Beagle I, out after the last sample, had apparently suffered a failure and lost radio contact. Rather embarrassingly, Beagle II was in the hanger for repairs and waiting for a spare part; her crew had been given furlough and were off-world. With the Long Walk the only starship in port, the base was appealing for help from the Cats with Guns to rescue the crew. To the credit of the administrator, he mentioned the retrieval of the vehicle and the sample in far less urgent terms.
The PCs went to look at the Beagle II, and with some help from the workshop and robots on the Long Walk managed to fabricate the missing part. Trading their own armour for the specialized HEV suits designed for Judice’s atmosphere, they flew the Beagle straight up to the Long Walk and used the ship’s sensors to locate the wreck. Though the metal mass was reasonably easy to detect, there was no power plant signature.
Adjusting their orbit to pass over, they dropped down in the Beagle and emerged from the gas clouds over a small, rocky island. In a depression lay the wreckage of a vehicle like their own, with three humanoid figures clustered atop it. Radio contact from suit radios brought near-hysterical appeals for help.
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Metal Crab
![](images/Dave the Driver - 250.jpg)
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FIFA Dave
Around the wreck were clustered several strange, crustacean-like life forms, about the size of a large car and glinting strangely in the peculiar light – certainly not mentioned in the Library Data on Judice! The crabs were clearly trying to get up onto the wreck and reach the survivors, while waving frightening-looking pincers in a threatening manner. Even more alarming, occasional sparks of what looked like electricity danced around their pincers. Nearer the ‘shore’, two still forms in HEV suits lay sprawled on the rocks. Close examination showed them to be dead of multiple slash and tear wounds; but closer examination showed they’d not been eaten from - but that everything made of
metal had been torn out of their suits with their deaths as a side effect.
After some thought, the Cats unpacked a spare HEV suit and taped several pieces of spare metal parts from the vehicles’ locker to it. FIFA Dave then jury-rigged a grenade inside so that it would go off if the suit was damaged. This was dropped conspicuously near one side of the wreck. Three of the four crabs moved to investigate, and started eating the metal parts - until the grenade went off. The crab eating it was obviously slightly hurt, and hunkered down. The other two moved rapidly to it - but instead of attacking it or ignoring it, they appeared to be attempting to comfort and help it towards the ‘water’. Not the actions of unintelligent scavengers!
With most of the crabs distracted, the PCs lowered a rope ladder to the wreck and rescued the exhausted, hysterical and starved scientists. Dave dropped a second grenade on the fourth crab, which bounced on its’ shell and exploded. The upper shell was clearly tougher than the lower, because it seemed unbothered. There was a lively debate about whether the PCs would go back down for the corpses, resulting in them leaving a beacon instead.
On return, the base director Gregori Potemkin was fulsomely grateful, among other things increasing the freight fee for the case of 15 samples by a sizeable margin and throwing in free fuel and coffee whenever the PCs came back that way. This turned out to be no idle offer, as the staff of RS Theta had made the brewing of coffee a high art in their long hitches. The crew stayed overnight, with Feaysen and Feng experimenting with coffee liqueurs using their bar’s mixers to the approval of all.
Talos/District 268/Spinward Marches, 274/1106
Talos is a world shrouded in mystery. The earliest documented account of the system dates from a Sword Worlds survey expedition that visited Talos in -147. The scouts found evidence of sophont habitation in the form of highly-distorted, undecipherable radio signals. However, no further details could be learned because a massive (50 kiloton?) bronze-colored spacecraft of highly unconventional design that was in orbit around the planet moved to intercept and fired warning shots every time the survey ship attempted to approach. It was also evidently jamming all transmissions to and from the planet.
There is a break in Sword Worlds records, but Darrian archives indicate that the mysterious vessel was still standing sentry over Talos in Imperial year zero (0). However, by the time that the first Imperial scouts visited Talos in 151, the strange spacecraft had disappeared. The planet proved to be inhabited by what at first seemed to be an entirely unremarkable human population of about 250,000 that was living at TL–7.
The Talosians were entirely ignorant of the fact that a huge, alien craft had once orbited their world, and knew very little of their own history.
The Sword Worlders had speculated that Talos was a Darrian colony that had become isolated after the Maghiz, but the Darrians themselves rejected this theory because the mysterious spacecraft bore no resemblance to any known Darrian design. When contact was finally made with the inhabitants, they were found to be genetically distinct from Darrians, Solomani, Vilani and Zhodani alike, and spoke a language that appeared to be entirely unique and unrelated to any other known human tongue. This has prompted most experts to theorize that the Talosians are the last survivors of an unknown spacefaring culture that had arisen somewhere in the Trojan Reaches and disappeared before the era of the Sindalian Empire (-2074 through -1441).
The ‘Riddle of Talos’ was of interest only to historians and linguists until 708, when the mysterious vessel inexplicably reappeared, and resumed its former habits of intercepting all ships that attempted to approach the planet. It took nearly 100 standard days for the Imperial bureaucracy to make up its collective mind to intervene in a system beyond its borders, but when an Imperial Navy task force finally arrived at Talos, the intruder immediately disappeared. Imperial and Sword Worlds vessels were both present, but could not follow the craft as it moved off under extremely high acceleration (10-12G). Since no jump signature was detected and an intense search of the inner system revealed nothing, it was concluded that the intruder had fled to the unsearchable vastness of the system’s Oort Cloud. There have been dozens of reported encounters with the strange vessel in the remote, sunless reaches of the Talos System over the past four centuries, but none of these has ever been confirmed.
The most widely accepted theory is that the intruder is an automated vessel that continues to mindlessly follow its ancient and inscrutable programming. The most fascinating and perplexing question, of course, is whether the craft was protecting the Talosians or imprisoning them on the planet, but other riddles abound. Whatever its purpose, why did the intruder disappear and then return five standard centuries later? Its flight from the Imperial Navy task force in 708 seems logical enough, but why has the intruder never returned to the inner system in the four centuries since? Last but not least, who or what built the vessel in the first place? Popular speculation on this last question inevitably points to the Ancients, whose homeworld has been tentatively placed in the neighboring Five Sisters subsector, but most reputable scholars reject this notion because human inhabitation of Talos is at most 2,500 standard years old.
After leaving Judice, the Long Walk jumped for Talos. Talos was not a very appealing place to go, with an insular attitude and little interest in trade. There was no starport beyond a marked field, and no fuel except for ocean dipping for which the government charged an exorbitant surcharge. The only thing of interest about Talos was the Riddle of Talos, and that was hundreds of years past and unlikely to become relevant.
One of their items of freight was for Talos, however, so they duly came in to land and unload it. As they did, they passed a Scout/Courier identifying itself as the Loris heading towards orbit and jump point.
As the crew were doing the regular post-jump maintenance, however, the comm system began to pick up frantic transmissions from the Loris, which had turned tail and was fleeing back towards Talos as fast as she could accelerate. According to her captain, a vast metal construct - easily in the 50kTon size band - had appeared from nowhere and fired on them with an enormously powerful laser. As the small ship came in to land, the locals were already building themselves into a planet-wide panic.
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Gold!
Local sensors being very basic, the Cats used their own to explore what was there, and did indeed pick up an anonymous spherical metallic object of the aforesaid size. Starting with first principles, they sent transmissions at it, and around an hour later a signal was received in return. There was audio and visual; the audio was gibberish, corresponding to no language known to any of the sophonts present on-world and baffling any translation or deciphering software brought to bear. The visual consisted of pictograms of stick figures with four arms and digitigrade legs loading boxes onto a craft and that craft then being placed in high orbit over a planet – presumably Talos. Streams of what was probably writing flank the pictures, but again no-one could deduce what it said or even what alphabet was used. Each pictured crate, however, was labelled with a pictogram of an atomic structure; gold, platinum, lanthanum, iridium. Assuming the figures were roughly human-sized, the rough value of the contents of the crates depicted was in the tens of millions. The message looped eleven times and then stops.
No coherent response to this appeared to be forthcoming from the local government, although the overall feeling was that they were likely to try and pay up - although the amounts listed probably exceeded their world’s total wealth. To the PCs though, things didn’t sit right.
- The Bronze Ship jammed all transmissions to and from orbit – and made none itself; certainly not ransom demands.
- The warning shots from the original were of some unknown high-energy weapon, whereas these were from a more mundane – if powerful – laser.
- The original was described as a ‘highly unconventional design’, but this vessel appeared to be spherical.
Suspicious, the PCs decided to go and take a look.
Some hours later, approaching the mystery intruder, the Long Walk began to pick up a better picture of it. At around the same range as the Loris had reached, a bolt of laser energy, many times that possible for a turret, lashed out at them, missing by several hundred kilometres. Three more shots were similarly wild, leaving the crew fairly sure the weapon was pretty poorly aimed. Dave also had something nagging at his mind, and snapped his fingers. “It’s not a weapon,” he said. “It’s a mining laser!” True, about three times bigger in calibre but he was right.
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Missile
Nevada tallied the sensor readings and did some calculations to establish the centre of the intruder, feeding them to Quin Feng at the turret controls. She lined up on the co-ordinated and fired a salvo of laser bolts and one of six missiles towards the monster vessel. Rather than exploding on the surface, however, the bolts seemed to pass through it, striking something much further on. Flickers of light from the strike were visible in odd places on the surface of it, corresponding to where the laser bolts had struck and to where the intruder’s own fire had passed in the other direction. Like... holes.
Then the missiles flashed through the perimeter of the target, striking nothing, and exploded almost precisely in the centre of the structure. Nothing else happened, and the Long Walk continued to coast gently towards the intruder. Without any resistance, she slid through the outer skin - and into a spherical area of space enclosed by a bronzen sphere of something. In the centre of this were the silently expanding remains of a small vessel. A single suit distress beacon led them to a survivor, the cargomaster of the Seeker Mephistopheles. Baver Logan was only too happy to explain the whole heist plan; a gossamer thin balloon of bronzed plastisilk and an invented message with genuine random gibberish to try and extort money from the Talosians.
Session Date: Jul 16th, 2024