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Feng took some care disarming and tying up the stunned Fifield, as Nevada and Wombat pondered the mystery of the illusionary Zhodani noble. As far as Wombat's basic psionicology was aware, with their PSI shields they should not have been susceptible to a telepathic illusion. Some investigation discovered that the recordings of their suit telemetry showed it as well, as did the memories of the robotic Shadowcats. That confirmed it; whatever they'd seen was not a telepathic effect. Whether it was some kind of hologram or something else was undecided.
Nevada collected the Zhodani FGMP and its' pack from its late unlamented owner.
Half an hour's searching finally located the controls for the ramp up to the main base, and they lowered it. Around that time the telemetry and updates from the Shadowcats guarding the entrance was cut off.
Cautiously, they worked cover up into the base, searching it thoroughly. No-one was present, though some small items of gear had either moved or disappeared. As she passed the great globe of Tarsus, Feng noticed that the orange oval over the Mountain - presumed to represent the abrupt worsening of the weather - was gone. So were all the remaining functional Servitor frames.
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Sending the drone ahead, they moved out. At the main door, they discovered that the comms splice had been disabled again, this time rather permanently. Once past the door, comms with the 'cats sprang up once more, and they discovered what had happened.
A wave of the Servitors had rushed the 'cats, which while more than a match for one, couldn't keep them all at laser range and a frantic melee had resulted. Though the Servitors were no match frame-to-paw either, the confusion was enough that while the Zhodani noble had been spotted and shot at, he had managed to dodge through and escape into the outside.
With armour probably little inferior to their own plus psionic abilities definitely including teleportation, they concluded that he was not going to be catchable. The orbiting Long Walk ran some sensor sweeps on the off-chance, but to no avail; the officer had probably found a nice deep cave somewhere to lurk while he rested before teleporting again and probably dumping his armour and simply taking passage off-world.
Emerging, they were startled to discover that the Eternal Storm over the Mountains of Dreams ... was gone. Their comms were also showing frantic messages from Haydn Poole, along the "What have you done?!" lines. Newland Down had clearly noticed the changes in the planet's weather. He was updated, and a picture of the Zhodani noble in his armour sent across on the off-chance that they managed to locate and capture him.
Last week we had five players; this week we had three. That's gaming! It did mean that the steward Feaysen had to be 'recruited' to be watch-stander on the orbiting Hydarnis. There all the time. Honest!
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Feysen, minding the bridge on the Hydarnis, had also had comms messages come in. A plain radio transmission from the surface, encrypted (which the ship had decoded) and in code which meant nothing to the listeners. It was repeated once only.
Around this point Fifield came round, to find an assortment of guns pointed at him. He stayed very still as his head cleared.
"Are you a psionic?" asked Nevada bluntly. Fifield shook his head. "No, not me. Shaw and Holloway are ... were," he finished, looking a little green. "I'm an archaeologist and xenobiologist specializing in Droyne and Ancients, and the team medic." "Can you communicate with the Zhodani officer?" Fifield looked down at his belt. "My radio looks busted," he said, "It works on the frequency they use." Nevada shook his head. "You're useless, then.."
Fifield looked frightened. "How much do you know about the base?" asked Wombat as Good Cop. Fifield brightened. "I studied the living quarters, the gym and the food systems. Those are still working, how about that?" Immersed in his specialty, he'd almost forgotten his situation. "How did you make them work, if you're not a psionic?" asked Feng suspiciously. Fifield looked a little embarrassed. "Well, I had to get help with that bit," he admitted. After making him open his handcomp and surrender his notes, they left him alone.
The combat armour of the slain Zho was assembled into a heap, from which it looked likely they could make up a few working sets. Useful if it ever came to infiltration.
A call was put in to Hayden Poole, explaining most of the situation, excepting some details of the base under Mossyface Wood. He immediately despatched some military to seal the area. While this was in hand, Wales brought the Long Walk down to pick the Cats up.
A few hours later these arrived and began to secure the area. As they did so, everyone got a bit of a scare as a subway car suddenly pulled into the station; clearly Holloway's summons had been successful, but the car had had to come from a long way away.
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Poole and Ewing Hagman had come with the troops, who Nevada noticed were in unfamiliar uniforms. The two locals looked at each other and grinned. The politics of Tarsus, it seemed, had progressed, and a new planetary government had been formed; a representative rather than universally participating democracy, with all registered citizens entitled to vote to elect a government formed from Ranch holders. It took no effort to realize that this change neatly disenfranchised the off-the-grid "wilders" from the process; something no-one seemed very heartbroken about. Eventually the IISS would get around to revising their survey of Tarsus, and the Government and Law ratings would be revised to around 4 each.
The Cats' registration of a new "ranch" on the site of Mossyface Wood was unsurprisingly straightforward, with the registration fee set off against the fees the new government was going to charge science expeditions for access to the new Ancient base. Nathan Fifield was given into the custody of the new authorities and marched away.
Loading their ATV and the Maltby expedition's Forward Base into the hold, the crew embarked and made orbit, rendesvouing with the Hydarnis. There, they revived the ship's crew from their own Low Berths. Nevada leaned into the implication that the ship was going to be impounded while the crew were questioned, but it became more and more clear that they were just another tramp crew who'd taken the wrong contract. Finally, satisfied, the Cats told them they were free to go; "All you've lost is your BBQ," Wombat pointed out. The captain looked wry, "We're not going to get paid our balance, are we?" he asked. Feng shook her head.
As they left, the Cats transferred the 16 modular Low Berths - they could be useful at some point.
A few hours later the Hydarnis jumped out of the system and was gone.
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Back at the Zoological Outpost, the Cats consulted with the rats. Communication was much easier now that Nevada (at least) was prepared to meet them mind-to-mind. They were advised to remain within the confines of the Wood and the Base, and to control their numbers so as not to be forced to expand. To compensate for not hunting Nobbles any more, they were shown how to operate the food dispensers in the Ancient living quarters, a revelation! The colony agreed, but having learned from Nevada's mind that other worlds existed, they asked for an empty one to be found where they could establish a new colony, and to send a delegation of their number with the Long Walk for this. The Cats agreed to this, and ten rats duly joined the ship's company.
As part of the process of preparing to build the 'ranch', building equipment was rented, and the first thing done with it was to bulldoze earth into the crater, leaving only a small tunnel big enough for rats leading into the Base. Plans drawn up, the contractors got on with building the structure - safely distant from the Base. The Forward Base was installed nearby to provide some living quarters until building was complete.
The crew turned their attention to the project of getting the Shortning battery technology to market, which was to include their allies on Motmos.
Aimo couldn't make this session so I have assumed that Timo remained firmly aboard ship while it was in the Collace system
Stopping at Collace on the way, they checked in on their island base. Feng was full of hopes for her biosphere project, but found that progress was merely adequate. She spent some time adjusting the programming on the horticultural robot and introducing some seeds and cuttings collected along the way. Having encountered psionics unfavourably, it occurred to Nevada that it would be worth being more alert, and asked the rats to check the island; it was free of telepathic beings.
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Wombat checked in, as he was required to do, with the IISS Scout base, and transmitted his standard report, plus a fairly brief one on the Ancient base. A request came straight back for a meeting from Moath Hatab, Commander and Administrator of the whole base. He offered to buy them dinner, but Feng countered with an offer to make him dinner instead. This he accepted, and the Long Walk was duly docked at the Highport for the evening.
Feng and Feaysen did themselves proud, and in the wreckage of an excellent dinner, Moath was given a fuller account of events on Tarsus, along with an apology for being so coy earlier. The Scout was more than a little impressed, and mentioned that reports of the new Ancient site and the Zhodani 'contact' (for with Tarsus independent, it wasn't strictly an incursion) to the subsector capital at Mertactor. He also planned to call Nita Maltby and the surviving members of her expedition back, and asked if the Cats were willing to bring her. They declined, having other things to do. He also started planning to send a Survey group to re-rate the political and legal structure on Tarsus, for updates to the Imperial Grand Survey and Library Data.
A little carried away, Feng mentioned the Zoological base - though not where it was - something the Cats had planned to keep quiet. Moath didn't comment, but the detail was almost certain to reach scientists heading to the main site. Of course, if anyone figured out how to work the subways, the point would be moot.
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A call was later put through to the Hiver robot Vespasian, to let him know that the Long Walk was travelling on to Motmos and that he was welcome to rejoin the crew.
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Some research took them to Portly Products, an arms manufacturer based in Alcard Arcology - not a high-status location, but one with a plentiful labour pool. There, once they had identified themselves as heroes of the Battle of Collace, they received the VIP treatment and were met by the owner's son, Adam Portly.
Despite their battledress being of a higher technology to what was made locally, Portly's Heavy Armour Division were confident they could install their PSI-Shield mesh into the helmets - the tech of a PSI shield doesn't change much from TL 12 on up. Various other pieces of off-the-peg hardware were procured, including a rack of five stealth drones to upgrade from the one Nevada had built himself during the Bluey caper.
Nevada spent a couple of hours on the high-energy testing range, checking that the Zhodani FGMP was in working order by creating several very big and briefly 'hot' bangs.
After collecting the upgraded helmets, the Long Walk made the Jump from Collace to Pavabid.
We tried hard to RP the fact that no-one knew the news of the start of the Fifth Frontier War was going to arrive at Collace and Tarsus on 228, and it was pure coincidence that the rolled delivery time of the helmets had them Jumping away the day before... Of course, no-one was going to be called up that soon. Really. Honest.
The Pavabid system was not one the Cats wanted to spend any time in, as the rabidly theocratic govermnent still claimed ownership of their vessel on the grounds that its piracy there was cause for impound. Because of this, they had jumped in as near to the single gas giant as they could, and headed straight in to scoop while doing running-level maintainence in flight. During the hours in the gas giant's atmosphere the radiation cut off comms, but on emergence they were bombarded with furious demands to heave to and surrender the vessel "in the name of the True Faith!" from the system authorities, along with sensor traces of the very primitive Pavabidian system defence launching SDBs to try and intercept them. Chuckling, they Jumped again.
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Wombat was keeping very quiet about the scale of the meter jumps on the Jump drives as they emerged at Motmos, though it wasn't entirely his fault the maintainance had been rushed. No-one else had noticed, however, and the Long Walk headed in to land on the blizzard moon Trensham, base of the Tyrex Walker company.
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Barton and Selma McKay greeted them as old friends - reasonably enough, after the mutual profit they had made from supplying the now-government of Tarsus during the recent war. The ship was refuelled and proper maintainance done on the drives, and a degree of news was swapped, including the not unexpected tidings that the border tensions had finally erupted and that the Imperium and Zhodani were at war again.
Barton was awestruck at the batteries he was shown, and showed a streak of mischief when he handed them over to his R&D experts to test without telling them what they were going to find. Their faces were going to be a picture... When given one of the four Ancient grav bikes to reverse-engineer as well, he was virtually speechless. "These would fit your little friends," he commented, meaning the Shortnings.
The evening saw the legal eagles at Tyrex hard at work setting up a joint company to develop and market the new technology.