Session 25 (3 November 2023)

Location: The planetoid belt around the star you know as Bergan (Far Home 0928) which in another timeline contains the human settlement known as Bathur's Edge but in this one is inhabited by the reptilian humanoids called Sath.

Day: 154-5600

Travellers: Nogudnyk (steward), Jacobe Kyman (pilot), Torka Jax (security), Griff Kodiak (gunner), Sasha Danlami (comms)

You need fuel to make the jump back to the ghost planet and its mysterious timeline-shifting device. The most ready source is the hydrogen carried by passing mining ships.

You plan your heist carefully. Selecting a lone 800-ton vessel that has just begun decelerating after the mid-point of its journey, you make your move. Jacobe slips into the vessel's sensor blind spot and steadily closes the distance. When you get near, Sasha starts jamming its comms. Griff trains the Dejah Thoris's pulse laser at the ship's comms array, in case the stealth option goes south and you need to get rough. And, boldly, Torka attempts the riskiest part: remotely inserting a virus into the ship's computer and seizing temporary control of it.

In your own timeline, attempting such a hack without direct access to a ship's computer would be an exercise in futility. But it seems centuries of relative peace have left these Sath without the elaborate safeguards you take for granted in your own timeline. Their ship's computer is an open book and Torka's Computer-3 prowess is enough to get him access.

Aboard the mining vessel Skukrirrek, the crew are startled by a sudden cacophony of alarms, informing them that their life support systems are failing. They rush to stations, begin diagnostics, check and double-check systems, get their vacc suits ready to hand — a perfect chaos that distracts them entirely from what's going on outside their ship.

A Sath crewmember aboard the MV Skukrirrek

While Torka works feverishly at his console maintaining the hack and Jacobe keeps the Dejah Thoris tucked in tight behind the Skukrirrek, Sasha, Nogudnyk, and Griff, in vacc suits, spacewalk over to the refuelling valve they'd spotted on the aft underside of the mining ship. Once there, they pull across a fuel umbilical. Torka unlocks the valve remotely and, with some clever jury rigging and liberal use of space-age duct tape, you manage to make a connection. Soon, liquid hydrogen is running from their tank to yours.

The next five kiloseconds are some of the longest you've experienced: when will the Sath will figure out something's wrong and clock on to your deception? Bored, Nogudnyk passes the time by acting out their favourite movie for the amusement of the others. Soon enough, you've got enough fuel for a single jump. Emboldened by this initial success, you decide to keep siphoning until your tanks are full. 

Anticipating that you may need to make a hasty departure, Sasha plots the jump back to the ghost planet. Meanwhile, a restless Griff ropes Nogudnyk into investigating a nearby airlock. It's mostly empty, but you grab a first aid kit and flashlight as souvenirs of your daring heist.

Three more kiloseconds pass: your tanks are now full. But the jig is, finally, up: a determined Sath computer operator has begun wresting back control from Torka even as an armed party in vacc suits prepares to exit the ship and look for pirates. Throwing open an airlock hatch, Deckhand 3rd Class Griuxxolti looks out and catches the briefest glimpse of the Dejah Thoris a half-second before it shimmers and disappears into jumpspace. 

A ssship — it wasss right there! I ssssaw it! hisses the hapless deckhand to their fellows. No one believes them.* Later, it's determined that the aft fuel valve was improperly closed and has been leaking for days. The captain is livid. When corporate finds out about this, everyone's paycheques will suffer. For now, the MV Skukrirrek continues on its way, its crew none the wiser.

As for you, you have a week during which to plan what'll you do when you reach the ghost planet once more. Will you attempt to manipulate the device that you hypothesize will shift the world back to your original timeline? Will you succeed? Or will you remain trapped here in Sathspace until the end of your lives?

* 99% of Sath — virtually the entirety of the active population not directly involved in biological reproduction — are neuter and prefer non-gender-specific pronouns.

Image credit: Panicking Sath crewmember at computer created using AI Comic Factory.