Session 14 (14 July 2023)

Location: Mid-jump between Dal Hallen (Far Home 1428) and Pel Avena (Far Home 1528)

Date: 097-5600

Travellers: Ada Windsor, Griff Kodiak, Jac Kyman, Torka Jax, Sasha Danlami, and Dr Fomstep

NPCs: Captain Nika Jarumi, Director Yeksav Kinova

You're three days into the jump when you're wrenched from sleep by a horrific nightmare. In the dream, you were strapped to a table in an operating theatre while uncaring scientists prepared to drill into your skull for some dark purpose. It was difficult to get back to sleep after that, but more worrying is the discovery that your crew mates had the exact same nightmare. Discreet inquiries amongst your thirty-eight passengers reveal that they, too, suffered the dream, although only a few have any inkling that the experience was general. 

Concerned that a telepath may be aboard and eager to avoid a panic if the passengers find out, you decide to consult with Captain Jarumi. A crew delegation goes to her quarters, where you find her, as usual, polite but guarded. She seems fine; evidently she did not experience the nightmares herself and appears surprised and concerned by your report. After you outline the situation and float some ideas, she decides to take you into her confidence, as well as into her private sleeping quarters, where to your astonishment you see a pair of state-of-the-art cryopods. Through the frosted glass you make out the visages of two children. Both have shaven heads.

Jarumi explains: these are Idowu and Rajani, the seven-year-old son and thirteen-year-old daughter of her younger sister. Born into an eminent Firstworld family, the Jarumi sisters grew up with every conceivable advantage in life. While Nika Jarumi chose a life of military service, her sister Eduwa married into a distinguished noble house located in the Worlds of the Leader. But when Eduwa's young children displayed precocious psionic talent, even her lofty social status could not prevent that dictatorial regime from closeting them in a top-secret research facility in the Haladan system in order to study and exploit their abilities.  Jarumi left the Firstworlds Navy in 5594 to search for them, and four years later she finally located the facility and absconded with the children. Since then she has been on the run, ever fearful that the minions of the Leader are close behind. Despite the deep torpor induced by cryosleep, the children's telepathic powers occasionally "broadcast" their traumatic memories as dreams. Jarumi, who has seen this happen before, assumed that perhaps due to her close personal connection with the children, she was always unaffected by the phenomenon. Informed by you that every sophont on the ship has been affected, she agrees with you that something has to be done to avoid an anti-psionic panic amongst the passengers.

Acting swiftly, you conspire to disseminate, via medical care and stewardly duties, the idea that the nightmares were the products of minds made anxious by the tribulations on Dal Hallen and given shape by a popular holovid story available via the ship's entertainment systems. Within the day, you sense the atmosphere of worry dissipate as people's fears are assuaged by your clever cover story.

The frozen landscape of Pel Avena

Crisis averted, the next few days pass quietly. It is a relief when you arrive in the Bathazar-Pel Avena system without further mishap. Approaching the icy vacuum worldlet that is Pel Avena,  you are informed by the starport authorities that due to the recent influx of visitors from Dal Hallen, you are being redirected to Habdome 2 at the planetoid's southern pole for disembarkation by order of Yeksav Kinova, the local corporate director of Tagryn Industrial. You obey, though not without informing your entitled passengers that Kinova is responsible for their being landed at a second-rate facility.

Figurative cutaway map showing key features of Pel Avena

Not long after you've unloaded the passengers and sold your pre-fabricated shelters at a comfortable price — they're needed locally to house the excess visitor population — you get a call from Kinova's office. His staff are overwhelmed dealing with the situation and he'd like you to do him a favour — for a reasonable fee, of course. A party of four scientists investigating significant xenofauna fossils discovered in one of the mine shafts is overdue for return and he can't spare anyone to check up on them. You have a ship and you're relatively close: can you zip over and bring them back before their air supplies run out?

The unfortunate Wilkinson

It sounds like easy money. You suit up, donning the new-to-you slightly used combat armour you purchased on the black market on Dal Hallen with all those credits you earned at Cha Qu. In short order you've landed at a domed mine head, grabbed the standard rescue gear stored there by the miners, and descended by magrail into the bowels of the planetoid. Soon you find yourself bouncing (in the low gravity) along a narrow tunnel carved out by laser cutters and illuminated by battery-powered lamps anchored on the walls. You come to a widening, evidently the base camp used by the scientists, but something is wrong: crates and equipment lie about in evident disarray, and the motionless form of a spacesuited figure lies propped against a rock. It's one of the scientists, Wilkinson by name. Someone — or something — has driven a screwdriver through his helmet's faceplate.

You pause to take in the scene, but you cannot delay: time is running out on the other scientists' oxygen supplies. If you don't find them soon, it won't matter if they were still alive when Wilkinson died ...

Image credits: Pel Avena landscape is from concept art by Ben Andrews for Elite Dangerous © Frontier Developments; Pel Avena figurative map is adapted from concepts and art by Joseph Fox for Ice Station Loki © Grundylow Games; murdered Wilkinson is a screenshot from the videogame The Invincible © 11 Bit Studios.