Session 59 (30 August 2024)

Location: Outside the Wigoy coral hive on Karth, a desert moon orbiting the blue gas giant Tabernas in the Mendezo-Eeren system (Halcyon 2022)

Date: 343–5600

Travellers: Griff Kodiak (gunner), Nogudnyk (steward), Torka Jax (security), Jacobe Kyman (pilot), Dr Fomstep (ship's doctor)

You trudge into the desert, the telepathic farewells of the Wigoy seedmind echoing in your brains. It wishes you a safe journey and looks forward to eventually assimilating you and making you one with itself. Judging from the rate at which the Wigoy have multiplied since the freeing of the seedmind, you guess that it won't be long before all alien life on this moon is endangered.

With that in mind, you give thought to getting offworld. Accessing the space elevator at Larstown will be impossible without the approval of the Manian authorities who surely are suspicious of you as a result of your recent shenanigans there. Sneaking in would be extremely difficult, and the alternative — raising an army of allies (say, Rangers and Wigoy) to take the place by force — even more daunting. When you were last there you managed to get a message out to Captain Jonas Kelly, letting him know that you had valuable cargo and needed passage. He's now your best hope.

You make for the rendezvous point at the place the locals have named the Ship Graveyard, where there's an inexplicable concentration of space wrecks: the accumulated detritus of centuries of the devastatingly accurate energy beams of the ancient orbital platforms guarding the moon. You reach the site on Tuday 346–5600, just as the Long Night ends and Karth moves out of the shadow of the gas giant Tabernas. The direct sunlight blinds you at first as the desert comes alive with activity. It's a welcome change, for your supplies of food and water have just run out: foraging, hunting, and water collecting will be much easier with the resumption of a "normal" day-night cycle. You spend your first day here gathering edibles, setting up moisture collectors, and constructing a solar still. The collection of wrecks here, many long since stripped of anything of value, still yields useful bits and bobs, like plastic tubing, for these endeavours.

Meanwhile, Nogudnyk wanders among the broken hulks and stumbles across something interesting: a gleaming chrome shuttle, almost buried under drifting sand. It's a compact four-seater, the kind of craft someone from the one per cent might use for a quick interplanetary jaunt. Its smooth exterior has been marred by hits from the energy weapons of Karth's orbital platforms, but Nogudnyk's quick inspection suggests that there is no obvious structural damage. 

The next day you gather around the tiny craft and conduct a more thorough examination. After several hours, you conclude that this is a spaceworthy ship. Only one part needs replacement: a cylinder about the size of one's forearm that spaceship engineers colloquially refer to as a "flipper." It's a common part: surely there's one still inside the guts of one of these wrecks! All you need to do is rip out the damaged one, install a "new-to-you" one, tune it to the correct delta-theta inverse quantum deflection resonance, start up the power plant, and hey presto! you'll have a functioning vessel. Whether you dare risk the orbital defenses in it is another question: the odds are massively against you. But if you're desperate to leave the moon, it may be worth a shot.

Concerned that Captain Kelly may not be coming, you decide to throw yourselves into repairing the shuttle. Breaking into small groups, you scour the wrecks. It helps that in most cases you know exactly where you should be looking. It takes hours, but finally you find what you need. Elated, you rendezvous back at the chrome shuttle. On the way, one of you passes by your campsite and notices something odd: Huwel's nowhere in sight. You hail him on your comms, but there's no reply.

Change of plan: find Huwel. In case you need a quick escape, Jacobe stays with the shuttle and begins the repairs.

The camels and gear are all still at the camp; only Huwel is missing — plus the kilograms of ossified Wigoy remains that you plan on using to buy your way off-moon. Did Huwel abscond with them? If so, why leave behind his survival equipment and the camels? Nodugnyk reaches out with their telempathy and detects Huwel's characteristic emotional "aura": he's nearby and very afraid. Strangely, there seem to be no other sources of emotion in the area, other than yours.

Moving toward the source of Huwel's feelings, you see some footprints in the sand, nearly effaced by drifting sand. They lead toward the midsection of a hulking battleship. Choosing one of several great rents in the hull, you enter the dark interior and, following Nogudnyk's telepathic directions, move cautiously toward Huwel. You find him in a cavernous space, evidently a cargo hold: he's gagged and tied to a metal pillar supporting the roof. His eyes show a mixture of fear and alarm: he shakes his head as if to say, "Look out!"

Before you can act, an emotionless metallic voice addresses you from behind. "Reach for the sky, hombres. Resistance is futile." You hear the sound of a revolver being cocked. 

There's a tall, lanky humanoid robot blocking the way you came. It's got a massive slugthrower in the grip of one skeletal gunmetal grey hand. Even as you turn, three squat wheeled bots roll out from hiding places and form a line in front of the hapless Huwel. Each has its own large calibre revolver clutched in its utility arm. Their round visual perceptors glare at you pitilessly.

You try to bargain with the robot, but it's not having it. Refusing to give a name, it tosses you a datapad showing a WANTED poster with all of your mugs on it. It seems the Manian Security Forces have decided that you are saboteurs and placed a generous bounty on your heads. The robots intend to collect it.

Thanks to your open comms, Jacobe knows that you're in trouble. Grabbing his laser pistol, he makes his way to the wreck and sneaks up behind the Robot With No Name. Coordinated by Nogudnyk's newfound telepathy, you are able to act simultaneously, taking the robots by surprise. Jacobe's first, carefully aimed shot takes the robot's gun arm clean off. A blast from Torka's shotgun sends one of the sidekick bots spinning across the hold. Griff sprays the others on full auto, some of his gauss rifle rounds striking dangerously close to Huwel. Dr Fomstep's laser pistol puts a smoking hole in the lanky robot's chest. Its last words are menacing: "You will not escape; my associates are nearby. Good luck, humans." Was that sarcasm? The mechanical monotone makes it difficult to tell. You dispatch the android with a shot to its CPU.

Relieving the bots of their weapons, you free Huwel, who explains how he was ambushed and dragged into the hold. He saw the robot take the bag of coral, but he doesn't know where it hid it. If Kelly returns, it's your ticket off this world: you need to find it. Jacobe returns to repair work on the shuttle while the rest of your scour the nearby area. 

When you reconvene several hours later, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that you found the Wigoy fossils. The bad news is that the repairs have gone badly: the "flipper" burned out immediately after installation. [Snake eyes on the Electronics skill check!] Your Plan B has gone up in smoke and Plan A is still a big question mark. Unless the robot was lying, it might not be safe to remain here much longer.

Suddenly there's a voice hailing you on comms. It's the Catherizer! Guided by your signal, the smuggler swoops in low and lands in a flurry of dust, the retractable gangplank extending even before the landing gear touches the ground. "Shake a leg, there!" shout Captain Kelly. "We narrowly escaped some patrol boats on the way in and this moon is turning into a war zone. Let's get the frak out of here!" You hasten on board with your gear in hand. Huwel frees the camels and shoos them off to find their way back to Larstown, then follows you up the ramp. The ship is airborne again in seconds. Airlock pauses, looks back the rising ship, then turns and canters off into the desert, farting softly.

As the Catherizer whips around the moon toward the Dejah Thoris, Captain Kelly accepts payment for the rescue: half of the Wigoy remains. It's a decent haul. But you're not out of danger yet: a Manian system defence boat, the Escorial, has picked you up and is heading your way. There's no time for a leisurely docking; you quickly don spacesuits and gather in an airlock. The smuggler matches the velocity of the Dejah as best it can and flushes you into space before jetting away. You're falling towards your ship, whose lights and engines are coming on, thanks to the quick work of your new repair bot, TL-3907. You drift closer and closer, nothing but the sound of your own breathing and occasional static from the comms reaching your ears. The starfield that fills your vision is a welcome change from the dunes of Karth.

You're almost home. 

Adventures in the Distant Fringe is on hiatus until December — see you then!