Damn! He's Dashing!

With the reactor silent and the AI within the Selshorian colony off by way of self destruction, the crew waits patiently in the El Camino for response from Edward. To the relief of all Edward is impressed and sets the Zephyr down next to the El Camino. After some quick musing about their situation and promising to deliver the weapons Edward mentions that "I'm an honorable man, so here are you're weapons. Normally I would shoot someone that might come to act as a witness against me in court, but I've thought of a way to kill two birds with one stone. I have a present for you." 2 men and a hover dolly full of the weapons crates labeled "Hand Warmers" that the crew needs exit the Zephyr. The crew ejects the consumer goods onto the deck of the starport. One of the men leaving the Zephyr is cuffed and restrained. The restrained man is left in the airlock while the other crewman quickly removes the explosive and nonchalantly walks away leaving the crew man with him. When questioned to Edward over who he is, he responds "He's your problem now mates. He's a cop, or something. But what I noticed is that you have a Seeker class ship... Crew capacity 4... and already you have 5 crew members. Now you have 6. Good luck with that."

Fully aware of the situation now the crew interrogates the new member of the crew. He's nervous and pleading for his life and for clemency. His name is Rick Ricardo and he confirms that he was an undercover cop for the Belguardian government.

Ref note: I really lost my train of thought when it was interjected that his name is "Roll... Rick Roll". Because Veln really was about to 'Give it up, let you down'.

Sam went into the environmentals and attempted to extend the system to last a little longer, unsuccessfully. The ship now had life support for about a week and a half... far short of the J-3 necessary for the trip. After spending some time sharing the deck with a criminal warship, the crew takes off. Veln readies his pistol, getting ready to solve the problem himself. The crew stopping him short, they look over the local star chart, and realize the next world is J-1 distance, habitable, and of sufficient tech to provide something to aid them. It's the only world J-1 away. They plot the course and jump cleanly.

Mainer is repaired during this jump interim. The world is brought up in the databanks that Paige stored away from the White Wing on Gollere. It's Carben, a travel world for the X'Thil and sort of breeding ground and cultural destination unique to the creatures that took care of Paige in the TAS establishment. The vast marshes and climate uniquely suit them.

Appearing over the mottled blue world of Carben they make a quick sensors check to realize the world is remarkably silent with one errant beacon intermittently transponding the location of the starport below. Paige uses the radio to hail with no response. The crew casually takes the ship down through the atmosphere when it is violently interrupted by the impact of not one but two missiles careening into the fuel tanks. The control board bleeds red as the fuel tanks dump their contents in a hot plume of searing gas cutting a hole through the bottom of the ship's tanks. Sam yanks the controls up and in the disarray catches the alarms of 2 more missiles screaming toward them. "CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!" yells Paige into the coms, dumping his message against all frequencies with no response. Strenek scrambles to the controls of the pulse laser and begins firing at them, downing one while the other missile screams past them into the depth of space missing the El Camino.

The El Camino drifts back into orbit exhausting the last of the fuel in the tanks to get there. The ship involuntarily powers down to it's emergency lights. After some discussion, Veln volunteers to fix the hole. "It's what I was trained to do back in the Thousand Worlds", later embellishing a conflict that he likely never took place in. He patches it to hold fuel but advises that it's a temporary fix at best.
During the interim while the hasty patch work is done, Paige scans the sensors and sees several high atmospheric fighters fueling and preparing to boost to low orbit. In addition, the comms continually discuss "Finally getting those fuckers", among other insults that now are in the open air waves unencrypted. Paige eventually gets a hold of someone on the ground and failing to make head way, he is insulted and hung up on.

Cpt. Tukie orders the bladder to be dumped into the the fuel tank and the ship powered up. Then, coasting toward the beacon, it is evidenced to some poorly placed, perhaps hasty or casual, weapons fire. They then pick a spot on Carben far from civilization to land the ship to fresh the air, take on water, and convert it. Successfully landing in a grassy field Veln bolts from the ship and isn't immediately shot.
The coast is clear.

Ref Note: I can't help but think of how many different way's the El Camino would have been screwed if it didn't have the bladder. It's well worth it's stored weight. It saved the game for the most part.

Paige stays on the sensor suite looking for trouble. It isn't long into the refueling operation that sensors pick up a low flying VTOL trying to evade radar on the horizon. With 30 minutes till arrival, Sam orders Rick to cut down some trees with Veln's help to cover the ship.
The rest of the crew points out how retarded that idea was.

Ref Note: For one, any IR goggle is going to see that red hot reactor. It would have been a disaster.

The VTOL comes over the horizon in a hot hurry. Sam targets the craft but does not fire. The vaguely Osprey-ish VTOL hovers disembarking 6 X'thill soldiers not far away. Seeing their intent, Sam fires the pulse laser - missing it only barely. This is the first time the X'thill are seen without all the head dressing that was worn on Gollere. It's because to a human, their teeth laden faces are terrifying. Aware that the crew is fucked proper, Rick drops his hatchet and runs into the wilderness.

The ensuing firefight sees the X'thill combat unit unloading their weapons (assault rifles) into the most impressive member of the party, Strenek, whom is wearing combat armor. The armor takes the brunt of the weaponry leaving him scuffed and walks off the insult.

Sam tries to arm the sand caster faster than usual and manages to fire it off a turn early, and blows the whole charge into the distance affecting no one. The helo spins up, aware of the lost situation only to be cut into a falling burning wreck by the pulse laser.

With the ship mostly fueled and one crew member lighter, they head to a local gas giant to fill up the rest of the ship and jump away to the next stop, Ashley's Rock. It's the last stop before leaping the void to Imperial space.

Ashley's Rock is an airless world with a rather elaborate underground colony/refueling station. As they land, the crew is incredibly cautious and clears the landing first. Once berthed they are confronted with the stale smell of the air. From behind a bulkhead, they are greeted by a frightened older woman who, through some conversation, reveals the beset panic on the station.

The transponder for the El Camino reads "Zephyr" of Edward's infamy. Sam exclaims "DAMN HE'S DASHING!". Paige checks the transponder ID on the ship to find that it is indeed broadcasting the code for the Zephyr and changes it to the proper code. Veln estimates the cost and time to repair the ship and Paige takes care of that and maintenance costs from the ship's locker. Sam barters unsuccessfully to get cheap fuel from the old woman to no avail but learns of a ship graveyard not far outside the starport covered in the ruins of the ships Edward thought took to long to get out of his parking space.
Streneck casually mentions "How did we miss that?"
The woman responds "It's just around the hill, it's easy to miss."

Ref Note: My bad on this, I should have been obvious about the littered remains of destroyed ships parked right out side the ship airlock.

The crew rents rooms individually from the starport with Paige (pampered to a fault) paying for high class accountments and paying for Tukie and Veln as well. Sam hedges by with a moderate room. Strenek clutches his credits and declines to give up anything by paying the absolute least amount of money for a sleeping tube on the bottom decks.

Arriving at the elevator to the lower colony, Veln, Tukie, and Paige leave on the luxury deck; clad in faux wood, leather, and brilliant carpets.

Sam leaves on a middle tier deck. The deck is passable with only slight leaking of fluids from the top decks permeating to this one.

Reluctantly pressing the "Fiesta deck" elevator button, Streneck leaves into a floor covered in industrial grating and exposed thermal piping. The sleeping tube he sleeps in is barely larger than what can take in his combat armor.

The crew then shops around the guest area as Streneck rigs up the local tech to upgrade his armor while painting it a woodland camo scheme ("Steiner Woodland"). Later the crew pulls salvage tonnage from the graveyard for the El Camino.

Lifting off, they successfully jump away to Aster.

Ref Note: And the DM rejoiced as the crew made it back to the original campaign scope. And then, he did a little dance. <("<) (>")> (^"^) (v"v) <("<) (>")>

Cautiously, the ship comes down to the near frozen water world to land at a LSP research station. The databanks indicate that it's some sort of hydrogen research lab. They are coldly greeted by a fueling droid but offered nothing else. Fueling up, they leave the world and jump to Overnale.

Coming out over Overnale the sensors light up with electronic warfare traffic and the constant hammering of expletives between 3 different positions in orbit. An LSP corporate fleet and a Overnale Military fleet each occupy geostationary orbits over the west and east sides of the main continent and compromise most of the saber rattling. Interrupting courteously from time to time is the Imperial capital ship Persuer sitting in the LaGrange point between Overnale and its moon.

Paige hails the Persuer about the current situation and advises of the recently upgraded TAS status of Overnale to amber. The El Camino is then taken closer to the planet and discovers 2 separate starport beacons emitting from the surface, one from Overnale Starport and the other from Ghiritz. Bringing up communications (and successfully realizing that landing anywhere other than the starport might tick someone off) with Ghiritz he convinces the operator that they need special clearance to land at the K'Kree colony of Haus under the guise that they are delivering medical supplies.

The town of Haus has been victimized by fighting recently with sand bag entrenchments lining the perimeter of the town and the outer buildings either burnt or destroyed. Picking a vague impression of a flattish spot on the ground (the impact site of the Unforgiving Boon), Veln opens the door and leaps from the ship before it even touches the down and disappears into the distance. The ship is soon surrounded by bystanders and 2 armed K'Kree asking them of their intentions and refusing to let them leave the ship. They are soon interrupted when Neil comes to sort out the brouhaha. Startled to see the crew alive at all, he asks them to come with him to see Shoval whom is now living in the back of a large truck. He mentions briefly in transit that they have a bounty on their heads that was placed on them months ago.

Shoval, somewhat frail now, is displeased to not only find them alive, but without the weapons they ordered. Cordially interested in hearing the story of the misjump, he listens on to the party's recount of the 4 month journey home. However the situation in Haus was already hostile with the weapons being necessary months ago. Grinding his teeth between words he orders the party to make do on their side of the bargain and to forget about Veln, whom without his herd is likely going to be in therapy for quite some time.

Leaving the weapons and launching away, the crew plots for New Rome where Strenek thinks he can contact an old friend in the forces, Phillip, for some assistance.

Landing in New Rome, Sam and Tukie don filter masks to breathe the air. Strenek and Paige are from here and require neither. A fuel droid rolls up and asks if they would like to refuel, Sam declines partially because bartering with droids is difficult and free hydrogen is just a couple AU away. They then arrive at the starport terminal where they look up Phillip and hail a cab to go meet him. Once there they buzz his apartment, to which the surprised Phillip buzzes them in.

Arriving to the apartment the exterior is well groomed and relatively high class. Upon entering the apartment however reveals a man in disarray. The domicile is completely unkempt with Phillip obviously not taking care of himself. He offers beers to everyone. Strenek begins to talk to him and his mental state becomes clear, he hasn't forgotten the mistake Strenek made with the rookies 3 years ago, when 2 died and 3 more were critically injured in a space borne vacuum chamber training incident. He hasn't slept since then, with the thought of all those recruits grasping their eyes trying to stay alive as the rescue teams began cutting open the capsule.

He wants to end it... To make things right and end the thoughts that haunt him... and hands him a gun and asks him if he will end it with him.

Strenek puts on his helmet and begins to speak.

Ref Note: I then ask him to cover his mouth to simulate talking through the combat armor and just what message that action would make. Though really funny, he declines to do that.

After some discussion Paige talks him out of it and Phillip writes down the location of someone that can help, a supply officer in the dockyards of Glisten by the name of Mardigan.

Ref Note: Mad Mardigan of Willow fame was the first thing I thought of. I was soliciting names for the impromptu characters at this point because I was drawing blanks since 'Rick Roll' on Selshor.

Phillip kindly asks everyone to leave as the party progressively became more insincere. Strenek turns to the door and mutters, "I'm sorry". A soft thump is heard on the other side of the door.

Ref Note: Great roleplay from Strenek and Tukie.

The party returns to the El Camino and takes off. Not wanting to spend a dime on local fuel the ship makes a bee line to the nearest gas giant. Sam mentions briefly about wanting to plunge through the clouds and makes a piloting roll.

Ref Note: Though not explicitly said, I imagined Sam proclaiming "WATCH THIS GUYS!"

*snake eyes*

As the ship plowed into the clouds of the jovian world at once the imposing visage of a monolithic object tears into view. Sam yanks the controls into hard maneuvers and successfully avoids it. Pulling the ship around they discover an ship of alien origin whose power is perceptively silent aside the obvious gravatics. Initial scans indicate the vessel to be around 7000 tons.

Ref Note: This is one of those things about good game design that I try to abide. There are a fountain of rolls that can TPK, this shouldn't be one of them (misjumps on the other hand)- hence the plot hook and the roll to save from the "oh fuck" moment. But I digress... I took a roll on the encounters table and I went with the inspiration. I rolled a derelict. And like a bolt of friggin lightening, the campaign was back on the track that was written for the first session. And thus, the DM did a little dance. <("<) (>")> (^"^) (v"v) <("<) (>")>

Landing on what is perceptively a wing, the El Camino launches its umbilical toward what appears to be a door. Sam exits the vehicle slowly, first being assaulted by the pressure difference then by the torrential winds. Upon manipulating the door and entering, the craft itself is greenish and cold despite the hot atmosphere outside. After some investigation the rest of the crew enters behind him with Paige staying behind on the El Camino and monitoring the activities of Mainer. The environment is incredibly hostile outside the ship with radiological concerns limiting any outside activities- or hope of finding the ship again if they leave. The air at this pressure of the gas giant is a helium/hydrogen mix with some trace elements.

Ref Note: Paige draws a picture of himself playing tetris.

Mainer analyzes the air inside the ship to be a chlorine/fluorine mixture and begins photographing everything.
Investigating the ship, they come across the engine room and are unable to activate it.
The come across some fighter bays and examine the strangely shaped tools.
Mainer torches open one of the doors that remained locked revealing some bunking and 8 large aliens not before seen to them. They are large (9ft tall) and vaguely crustacean/lobster like in appearance with 2 large claws and antennae. They've been dead for eons apparently.
The crew finds the command deck, but it is unpowered.
Further investigating the ship they come across some combat droids, an armory, some alien vacc suits that appeared charged and ready for use, and a boarding shuttle. Of which they successfully board and hot wire it to turn on, but were unable to discover the locking mechanism that would enable it to run. They do however learn a little of the aliens written language from the computer display.

Ref Note: No one checked the atmosphere content of the alien vacc suit. It was something that seemed obvious to me, I think I hinted at it. But alas it got glanced over and shoved into the El Camino. It was a methane mixture.

Mainer at this point is ordered to start loading the alien weapons on to the El Camino and does so successfully, barely denting the stock on the ship.

Ref Note: Paige draws himself patting Mainer on the head and calling him a "good boy".

Strenek notices a door that the others missed and proceeds to find 3 more rooms. One with no identifiable function, the other with a series of blinking lights indicating chemical codes in their simplest form. Methane keeps blinking in red. The last is a computer room with a blinking switch.

After searching around the ship and unsuccessfully attempting to hot wire the craft into running the crew about gives up before they decide to flip the switch in the computer room. Instantly, the ship comes to life. Returning to the control room, they muck about trying to get the ship to move. Unable to affect the ship, they realize the aliens had a few extra appendages than a human does.

Sam throws his hands into the air and emulates long antennae. The ship stumbles and lurches forward. With the success, he experiments some more throwing his hands around in a windmill motion. The ship tilts and rolls violently attempting to comprehend the instructions.

Meanwhile... the El Camino stumbles and slides as the alien derelict begins to move. With a quick shrug, the vessel slights off the El Camino as it careens off the side of the wing and tumbles into the cloud banks below. The panicked Paige stumbles out of the comm room and daftly presses his way into the cockpit. He straps himself into the control chair and begins hammering at the controls. The ship tumbles, unaffected by Paige's actions, and begins to groan under the weight of atmosphere as the derelict slowly fades into the clouds above. Desperate to control the craft Paige struggles with the controls but is soon silenced with a sickening thud as the planet crushes the craft like a tin can leaving only small explosion in it's wake.
The character sheet is handed over.

Ref Note: Paige then begins to scrawl "YOUR DOOOOOOMED" with a ghost-ish version of himself flipping off the survivors.

The surviving crew collectively recoils at the mistake they just made and plot a course for New Rome. Unfamiliar with the ship, it will take a hair longer than required to get there than with what their suits can provide. They set to work on the environmental controls and discover the chemical symbol for oxygen. Pressing the button causes the ship to emit oxygen, but only for a second before returning to its red methane symbol state. Strenek is asked to keep pressing the button till they reach New Rome. During the voyage, Paige's robot, bereft of the remote op that was guiding it, is disassembled to make a primitive radio transmitter.

Ref Note: This is done the moment Paige walks away from the table no less - much to his dismay.

With this the crew gets ready to approach the New Rome space yards.

Wolves in the Alleys

Taking stock of the situation on Eleson, the surviving crew of Tukie and Strenek examine the surrounds in greater detail while Veln maintains the ship and takes his chances chewing on the local plant life. The starport itself is well built but abandoned and decaying; a dirt road leads off to the west. The crew takes the opportunity to look at the visitor's center/offices after Veln begins to highlight the specifics of their plight ("We're way off course... The nearest habitable star is a J-3 away... the Barge can only do J-1, we need to find a fuel blatter or make one").

The visitor's center comes to life when the crew enters it. The building itself is in disrepair and covered in a thin yellow dust. After shuffling through some papers detailing an evacuation schedule that occurred within a week 3 months ago and some propaganda against something called "The Heirate", the terminal springs on and attempts to assist the travellers. It is unaware of it's situation and cued to some of the nationalist jingo of the Belguardian government. It recites the regional information available to any tourist, but advises quick departure.
Strenek asks if there is an arms cache nearby. The terminal asks for some identification to which Tukie quickly grabs the dog tags from the deceased Belguardian officer and recites the numbers. The terminal responds with the location of the military offices being west of the city. It even provides the location of the department ATV hidden behind the building. Upon further questioning it reveals the location of the military scrap yard/moth ball fleet to the south.
After briefly checking the hydrogen tanks (10% full, 200t) they mount into the ATV and head down the dirt road to the town. The town itself has been hit repeatedly by near miss nuclear war heads. The city itself is looted and in ruins.
Continuing on to the depot reveals the target of the weapons, a deep crater exists where a previously submerged weapons cache existed. It too has been looted of anything the Travellers could find.

Travelling back to the starship, Veln fuels it up and the crew flies south outside of the habitable band of the planet to the scarp yard. He lands the ship inelegantly a few kilometers outside the walled in scrapyard and the party walks the remaining distance.

The scrapyard itself is owned/operated by a wheel chair bound man scarred from the bombardment named James. He's almost oblivious to the travellers and otherwise interested in having visitors to take some items from his inventory. He introduces the travellers to Paige (formerly Carik) and Sam (formerly LaChuck) who are doing contract work in the yard and currently living in the on site dormitories (of which is obviously male centric- almost resembling a male fraterntiy more so than a traditional office).

Paige is a frail looking man, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and eloquent with his words. A service droid "Mainer" follows and attends to him. Sam is vaguely islander-ish, also in a Hawaiian shirt, who come across as being more of a grease monkey.

James mentions that they need to get off the rock on the next boat out and recites the history of Eleson. There has been frequent colonization/evacuations and a near constant cat and mouse games with the Heirate. They seem to be losing the war. In a desperate gambit the Heirate nuked the colony site to an irradiated cinder a few months ago. The conflict has died down since. He knows this only because rookie crews haven't been crashing through the atmosphere trying to get away from the Heirate raiding parties.

James mentions, after chuckling at the traveller's misfortune, that there is a Seeker mining vessel he needs to get rid of. It was the prize of Kouniko, who had paid for it but did not pick it up. She mentioned coming across something "BIG" before she disappeared a few months ago. James offers it to them for free to get it out of the military lot.

Among the debris of the yard included a few other vessels that James alluded to letting go, including some of Belguardian Lancers among other things. A rather large Cryptic class ground support droid ship towers in the back of the yard.

After some discussion, and at one point Veln recounts the trip to Eleson to Sam angrily, the players decide the best way to go is to trade in the Aspiration class barge for the Seeker. The ship is cleaned up and made ready for service with a 10t fuel blatter in the starboard cargo bay (giving it an effective J-3). An extra day is spent in the yard fitting the turret with a pulse laser and a sand caster with the help of a almost cartoonishly volumptious and ill-ly suited "female" personal droid acting as a cargo hauler.

During the refitting Veln brings up a troubling math. The Seeker can only support 4. The crew then decides to pack on some food (6 tons of military rations from the yard) and some air tanks to fresh the air of the cargo bay. It takes longer than expected to rig it up and another day is spent on Eleson. Veln is less than amused.

The time comes when it is time to leave SUDDENLY! Sam takes to the controls as the rest of the crew holds on for dear life.

The ship successfully jumps to Gollere and descends into the brouhaha of the starport after a quick sensor sweep. After entertaining the locals (at one point a boy offers to sell the crew some "sushi like" items. The ships computer long ago pointed out there is no natural fish... or oceans on Gollere; just a kind of all encompassing foreign lichen), selling the cargo, and fueling up the ship with unrefined fuel for cheap thanks to Sam's incessive bartering, the crew moves into town to spend the day.

Tukie and Paige hear from the kid as well as a bar keep about the legendary captain "Edward the Zephyr" whom was in port and his recent exploit regarding some arms smugglers. The star town is apparently a ghost town when he isn't in port and the locals love him. "You should be able to find him by the train of prostitutes that linger near him... where they are... so is the business"

Sam and Streneck look for the nearest weapons store. It had mostly slug throwers and other TL-7 style weaponry. Wearing nothing but the helmet from the combat armor, Streneck pleads to buy another suit. Though the shop keep refuses initially, a bribe looses his tongue and asks him to meet behind the store later that evening.
Sam barters the hell out of every item he has to earn a few more credits.

Paige learns of the "White Wing" a TAS establishment just down the street and goes there with Tukie. They are greeted within the well crafted and luxuriously appointed hostel by a tall masked alien that referred to herself as one of the X'Thil. After showing the TAS badge, and declining to pay for Tukie on a guest voucher, Paige spends the evening in abject luxury downloading information off the local net.

Ref Note: Anyone catch this Raymond E. Fiest reference? Fun times here.

Later that evening Tukie, Streneck, and Sam visit another individual behind the store. Unable to come to a deal over the primitive, but functional, combat armor that he had Sam realizes that he could get more from him and help the other 2 in their original goal to pickup some black market arms for the K'Kree.

Ref Note: I mentioned a failed streetwise check. This one was it. It was just 1 shy actually.

The shadowy figure agrees to send over a couple of tons of weapons next evening. The next day passes as Veln maintains the ship, Paige lives la vida loca in the White Wing, and the others take in the local sights and sounds. Sam tracks down an alien food bar and gets Veln some K'Kree delicacies... or at least it's as close as he can tell. Veln enjoys it.
The next evening rolls by and the party meets the arms dealer again. After a short exchange, the price of 1.2m is agreed upon for the 6 tons of advanced weapons with the condition that the combat armor is part of the deal. Money is exchanged and the dealer hands over the keys to the flatbed truck they were loaded on and hurries away.

Ref Note: 1t of Advanced Weapons is only worth 150k.

It's not long after driving down the street that the deal appears to have been a setup. The lights along the road shut off and a lone figure, somewhat portly and stuffed into his combat vacc suit stands in the middle of the road escorted by 2 other individuals clad in combat armor. In the dim distance other figures are moving about in the dark.

It's Edward the Zephyr, somewhat irate that someone was shuffling around his merchandise behind his back but otherwise happy to have it returned. He accurately describes the ship they've been using and it's something that he could use. If he could be convenienced to use them for a little operation he's planning then he gives his "honor" to not kill them immediately. It would be a hassle to recrew their ship.
After getting the crew's approval, at gun point, Edward tells of a distress beacon on a reclusive colony on Selshor that is incredibly weak and unanswered. They need to act quickly to, as Edward restated from Sam, "Liberate and redistribute the wealth" before someone does something noble. The trick is, they are dug in and Edward requires the use of the mining equipment on the Seeker class.

Arriving back to the ship, the crew discovers Veln bound and gagged and an hilariously obvious explosive latched to the hydrogen tanks. Unable to diffuse it, they wait till they receive launch orders the next morning. (Edward would later go into detail as to how it worked, it's listening for a radio signal from the Zypher. If it goes more than a week without hearing it, "kablooie").

Jumping cleanly to Selshor with the corsair vessel Zephyr, whose holographic controls and variable geometry keep shifting the ship to appear different, the crew descends down to the remote colony. Picking up the weak signal, Paige is unable to pinpoint where it is. Sam shoves him aside and begins using the sensor/com station where upon in the scuffle the machinery is damaged.
Paige shows him the door to the room and fixes the device (rebooted it). A follow up scan points the signal coming from the north in a small cave. They report the information to Edward sitting high in orbit over the airless world. He's unconcerned about some random distress signal and patiently, as much as he can, ask them to just bring the doors down so that they can get in.

Landing the ship back outside the colony at the star port, of which appears to be perfectly fine albeit not answering any communications. The drones are released and, eventually, control is handled over to the incredibly apt Veln (Remote Ops being a critical field to most K'Kree crewman). The hangar doors are brought down with explosive decompressions after a few hours and the drones are sent in, fighting what appears to be automated armatures.
Tukie, Paige, and Mainer then follow into the gaping holes the drones have been tearing loose, careful to stay outside of the carnage the drones are causing. Veln reports that he can't accurately control the drones anymore at the depth they are at and pulls them back.

Streneck points out "Did anyone just open the doors? You know, push the open buttons?"
Silence fell over the party.

Ref Note: Yes, they were open. Sam mused quite accurately at my DMing style.

Tukie and Paige proceed down the dark unlit corridor to the center of the colony. They pass what appears to be a scanner of sorts. When he does, the corridor springs to life lighting up the passage way to the last door that Veln got to and around the debris of the arm that fought the drone.

Upon getting close, the door slides open allowing entry to the now lit central colony.
Immediately upon stepping into the room, the door slams shut behind them and the colony corridors pressurize. Confetti blows from out of the ceiling and an omnipresent voice booms over the speakers. "Welcome Citizen 3215 and Citizen 3216! Please proceed to the dormitory for assignments. There is much work to be done."

The doors open and floor lights up along the path they are requested to go. Upon arrival to their rooms the voice requests that they wear their assigned jumpsuits. Tukie and Paige refuse. Instead they ask the voice various questions, invariably leading to "Permission Denied, you do not have the required security permissions". Paige presses the issue and requests to know who the voice is; earning the response "You are obviously faulty, please report to reeducation immediately".
Tukie begins enquiring as well and the voice assumes the same as two industrial armatures attempt to apprehend the "faulty citizens". Tukie slings her carbine and fights back. After a short fire fight they begin running back to the front door while being accosted by cleaning droids.
The door slams shut along with another on the north side of the domicile enclosure.

In the distance the grinding noises of the mining drones can be heard cutting down the doors to get to them.

Mainer hot wires the door to open and at once the lights go out and the air leaves the domiciles. The trio slowly walks into the room they were guided through before, a cafeteria. Slowly moving forward with their lights on, they are surprised by a mechanical culinary horror swinging various cutlery at them. The machine misses, Tukie responds with high intensity laser fire.

Paige orders Mainer forward to the next door. Eagerly complying he rushes into the darkness. He twitches for a second, his head lights flailing toward the ceiling, when a mechanical hand lunges for him dragging the droid into the dark where several knives and blades began stabbing at it. Tukie makes a shot at it.
She misses... but then hits Mainer, severing it into several hot glowing pieces that now roll around the floor in the ill lit room. Successive rounds make quick work of the culinary droid that grabbed him.

It's not long before the mining droid takes down the wall thanks to Streneck who took a transceiver down the hall way to assist with drone control. Veln orders it to pick up the pieces of the dismembered droid.

Then Streneck, Tukie, and Paige pickup some of the mining tools and begin to drill out all the cameras within the facility, steadily making their way down the halls. Where resistance is met, they respond with either drilling out the control panel and wedging the door open or sending a drone at it. Despite the vacuum, the speakers vibrate noiselessly with Paige occasionally tapping in to hear the speaker berate the travellers for not complying with citizen codes.

Again, Sam relay's their progress to Edward who is less than pleased that the colony grade fusion reactor and it's atmospheric processors are not already in his hold. Sam tapes a cigar to his helmet and enters the colony.

The party comes across a large store room full of consumables and processed ores. They ferry away 6 tons of basic manufacutured goods.

Coming to the reactor room, they discover the floor has been trapped-electrified to the point of disintegrating anything that might go through it. A drone met an untimely demise this way.

They move on to meet the hydroponics farm where they continue to drill open doors. Streneck just barely dodges the door exploding out from decompression. Sam casually steps out of the way of the cart wheeling door.

Continuing on they come across the server room and open it up. Cautiously they shoot all the cameras in the room and chuck the drill in low-G into the room to test the floor; nothing happens. They notice the room is surrounded on the ceiling by what appears to be exhaust vents.

In the distance a lone terminal is flashing a command prompt. Paige, after becoming sure the room was safe, discusses the proper command to type, walks up to it and sets off the pressure plate in the room. A high strength acid fires from all the exhaust points and dissolves the metal, servers, and everything else in the room.

As he attempts to flee the exhaust covers Paige in the acid-foam, it tears through the suit causing it to decompress suddenly. The foam enters his skin and while he looses consciousness, writhing on the floor of the room. Sam reaches in and pulls him out, his suit singing from the acid but not failing.

Ref Note: It's not failing because it's a high tech no-no. It was made explicit that all equipment purchases at character creation are to be done at the lowest tech level.

His suit is quickly patched and pressurized. Streneck loads his unconscious body on his back and huffs it back the ship (hence forth christianed "El Camino") to give him first aid where upon he quickly stops the bleeding and brings him to a stable, if slightly scarred state.

With the AI dead, the fusion reaction shuts off. Edward is pleased and begins his descent...

Ref Note: Good roleplay all around. I really enjoyed this session.

Art: Character's Megaman style

Talently rendered as envisioned by Carik's player.