Session 39 (8 March 2024)

Location: Monados (Halcyon 2223)

Date: 309–5600

Travellers: Ada Windsor, Dr Fomstep, Jacobe Kyman, Torka Jax, Sasha Danlami, and Nogudnyk

You arrive at the class-D Monados starport with an empty cargo bay and few credits in your coffers. You're owed Cr400,000 by a patron, the Forsian Fishing Co. in the Athune system, but it could take days or even weeks for the money to show up. Until it arrives, things will be tight: your next mortgage payment is due tomorrow and you almost certainly won't be able to pay it. That will leave you two months in arrears. At least you can cover maintenance and life support.

Conscious of the need for revenue, you advertise for passengers and bulk cargo for the next leg of your journey (to Eeren, Halcyon 2022). Within a few days, you've scrounged up both. With two high, seven middle (six at double occupancy), and six low passengers, plus twenty-eight tons of goods, you're looking at Cr91,000 in your account: a welcome addition, but not nearly enough to put you in the black on the ship payments. You take the risk of purchasing some oddities: seven weird-looking husks that had been discovered on a moon in the Tolost system. Dr Fomstep's examination gives you reason to believe that these are of alien origin and will likely fetch a high price from a collector or scientist on a more populous world.

Nilüfer Truax

Finally, you find a patron who wants you for a quick retrieval in-system retrieval job. Nilüfer Truax is a true interstellar blue-blood: she claims descent from the Fives, the families on the armada of human ships that first arrived in the Distant Fringe over three millennia ago. She has the heirlooms to prove it. But there's one more she wants to acquire. It belonged to the brother of a paternal ancestor who lived centuries ago. There's only one problem: it's last known location is on an irradiated hellworld, access to which is strictly regulated. She's got a way to get you there and environment suits that will protect you from the anticipated high levels of radiation. The reward — Cr250,000 for a one-day mission — is too good to refuse.

Truax fills in the details for you. When her ancestors first arrived in this system, they settled a garden world they named Naina. Generations of terraforming made it even more ideal. Humanity prospered. With the collapse of interstellar civilization during the Fringian Dark Age (3570 to 4550 CE), Naina's people were well positioned to survive off of the planet's abundant resources. But folly prevailed. Political rivalries crescendoed and, in the 45th century, exploded into warfare. Nuclear weapons were deployed in an horrific orgy of strikes and counterstrikes. In the midst of the apocalypse, two brothers strove to ensure their family's survival. One, Nilüfer's ancestor, made a desperate gamble by using long-dormant technology to launch a craft into orbit and take possession of an ancient space station that had somehow survived the Voyagers' onslaught. There, they survived until the sudden disappearance of the Voyagers allowed space travel to resume once more. The second brother refused the risk and took a different approach, hunkering down in a bunker deep underground, hoping to wait out the war and repopulate Naina after the war. He took with him with bulk of the family's treasures from the era of the Last Armada. It is one such treasure that Truax wishes you to recover. She knows of it from a final letter written to her ancestor. It is a thin disc of dark synthetic material, about 30 cm in diameter, with tiny circular grooves graven into both sides and a small hole in the centre. She believes it will be encased in some kind of transparent protective case that allows it to be displayed. What's more, this letter (which she has only recently discovered in the family's archives) also provides the approximate location of the bunker and the security code for opening the door. Touchingly, the second brother had evidently nourished hopes of a reunion within his lifetime.

Of course, it won't be a walk in the park. Naina's beauty was marred forever by the war. It remains a wasteland ravaged by savage storms and deadly radiation. Bizarre mutated lifeforms stalk the ruins. The people of Monados have renamed it Tolost Tertius and, in general, don't like to talk about it. It has become a dumping ground for toxic waste; a few mining companies operate there under a veil of secrecy. The government of Monados controls access, granting mineral licenses to the highest bidders and occasionally allowing scientific expeditions. It is one of the latter that Truax has managed to manipulate, bribing the scientists to allow you to join their team. You will take a 6-G shuttle to the hellworld, where it will deposit you at a research station that is only a few kilometres from the bunker. You will have six hours to retrieve the artifact and return to the station for evacuation with the scientists. You can only take what you can carry. You are welcome to keep whatever you find in the bunker, aside from the artifact.

What could go wrong?