Session 2 (7 April 2023)

Location: On board the Dejah Thoris, a 200-ton Empress Marava-class far trader, and the Alexis, a derelict mining ship, in Far Home 1525 (Demon's Eye subsector). 

Date: 057-5600

Time: 1600

Travellers: Ada Windsor,  Jacobe Kyman, Erhardt Hecker, Griff Kodiak, Sasha Danlemi

NPCs: Captain Jarumi, Spiros (engineer), Smith (steward)

You were attempting to salvage fuel from a derelict mining ship to power your jump back to Merant when an unknown phenomenon caused the pilot Sakamoto to experience, first, some kind of hallucinations and, subsequently, to be exposed to energies that left him a dead, charred husk. Now it seems that the steward Smith is beginning to experience the same thing. She reports hearing a buzzing noise and feeling a breeze, then a wind, pushing her toward the far end of the cargo bay where she sees a ball of light. It's weird and she's starting to panic.

On the bridge of the Dejah Thoris, Windsor and Danlami react quickly. They urge Smith to flee the cargo bay while scanning the ship's cameras for signs of the phenomenon. Strangely, there's nothing to see. Danlami deploys the ship's sensors and observes anomalous magnetic readings and a spike in radiation and temperature in the area where Smith claims to see the ball of light. Heeding their advice, Smith makes for the nearest exit, but suddenly stops, her expression going blank and her arms hanging loosely at her sides. She begins to stumble slowly toward the far end of the bay and no longer responds to your hails. On the cameras, you see something begin to materialize in the cargo bay: it's like a sphere of crazily spinning lights.

On the mining ship, Hecker works diligently at restarting the fusion reactor. Spiros, hearing what's happening to Smith, bolts: he wants to go to her aid. From the Alexis's bridge, Captain Jarumi orders him back to his post and pleads with Windor and Danlami to intervene.

Kodiak and Kyman are hearing all these developments as they spacewalk to the Dejah Thoris with Sakamoto's body in tow. What to do? They decide to proceed to the far trader and leave the body in the airlock, cycling through a decontamination procedure just to be sure. Meanwhile, as Smith trudges closer to the ball of lights, another transformation occurs: something larger materializes in its place. It's a spheroid tentacle monster, about 2.5 metres in diameter, with a glowing orb at its centre. The tentacles are reaching toward Smith. 

The entity

Coordinating their actions over comms, Danlami, Kodiak and Kyman meet at the ship's locker, where they grab some protective gear. Bursting through the aft iris valve door of the cargo bay, they sprint across the open space (averting their gaze from the entity), envelope Smith in a space blanket, and hustle her through the starboard exit forward. The entity waves its tentacles at them in a futile gesture and gives chase, floating lazily in their direction. As soon as they're out of sight, however, its movement slows and it de-materializes, first to a ball of light and then into apparent nothingness. The sensor readings show it drifting gradually toward the port bulkhead. Within a minute, it has left the ship, passing effortlessly through the thick hull. 

Anxious to put some distance between the Dejah Thoris and the entity, Windsor quickly activates the thrusters to nudge the ship away. It's a delicate maneuver, rendered difficult by proximity to the mining ship. Alas, the far trader was not built for such acrobatics. One of the fins shatters against the Alexis, sending a shudder through both vessels.

In the Alexis's engineering section, Hecker decides to expedite the restart. After some quick MacGyvering he reports triumphantly that he can have the reactor online in only 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, the Travellers on the Dejah Thoris decide they're not done with the entity. Kyman and Kodiak take up positions at the port and starboard laser turrets while Windsor maneuvers the ship so that both turrets can be brought to bear on the invisible entity floating in space (its approximate location revealed by the sensors). It's an awkward stunt that sends the ship into a disorienting spiral, but Kodiak's zero-G experience allows him to get off a clean shot. The anomalous sensor readings disappear: has the thing been destroyed?

Hecker determines that there's enough hydrogen on the Alexis to get the Dejah Thoris back to the space lanes. Over the next four hours, the unrefined fuel is transferred while a few of you make a cursory search of the derelict ship, collecting personal items from the crew quarters for return to the families of the dead. You also find a small quantity of neutronium that had been mined from the comet before tragedy struck. The ship's logs reveal that the Alexis has been here for over 70 years, its crew having been killed (consumed?) one by one by the entity and the reactor finally shutting down automatically after years of neglect. The last survivor, the captain, seems to have spaced himself rather than succumb to the inevitable. 

As soon as the fuel is aboard, it's time to leave. Jarumi asks Kyman to pilot, Windsor to astronavigate, and Hecker to man the jump drive. (Spiros is busy consoling Smith, his lover, for whom the terror of the entity's mind control and fearsome appearance will not fade quickly.) Within short order, a shimmering jump bubble forms around the Dejah Thoris and you are away.

As the ship disappears from normal space, we see the comet rotating lazily in the foreground with the derelict mining ship in the distance. A ball of spinning lights emerges from a rocky crevice and begins to float slowly toward the Alexis...

Time: 2030

Date and time at end of jump: 064-5600 0630