Session Log 15

Mars Tier

• The Sentinels decided to split up with Rentlov, John 117 and Piv examining the apparent gate in the building complex and Terry, Kru and Nikolas shuttling over to the moving object and basically poking it with a stick by way of experiment.

• The object was under 10 meters across and moving at just over 10 kph. It seemed to have a negligible thickness, passing through everything in its path like a molecular blade. It also somehow agitated the ground over which it moved, clearing it of dust and loose soil, as if it were sucking up or otherwise vibrating the material into the air.  

• The most significant information they gleaned from the object came when Kruger fired his plasma rifle at it. The bolt entered the dust cloud with no effect, but the others back at the original portal saw a plasma bolt sear out into space on the other side of the gate through which they were looking. After several more shots they confirmed that the moving gate and the dome gate were apparently two different entrances to the same singular exit.

• For some unknown reason Kruger told Nikolas to throw a shuttle chair out the hatch and into the moving gate. Nikolas’ throw was off and the chair was sucked into the shuttle’s port engine. With a horrible grinding sound the engine ripped itself apart and with a trail of smoke and flames the shuttle went down - with only Terry’s skill as a pilot making the difference between a crash and a crash landing.

• The party is now stranded in the TITAN Quarantine Zone, on foot, in the middle of pack hunter territory.

Interlude - Operation Ice Balls

• After running countless simulspace simulations and planning for every conceivable contingency Erasure Squad Ares was finally called in to execute Operation Ice Balls. Squidward, Omar, Hanabella, Shaxx, Ill 8 and Tinman were psyched (and psycho) to get their destruction on.

• After considering the circumstances the party decided to go with plan B (subvert control of the next ice-teroid in the que) and leave plan A (we bought an ice-teroid of our own last year) in reserve.

• They attempted to infiltrate the ice-teroid corral as an authorized supply shuttle. When this subterfuge failed they tried the tired old “we need to dock for repairs” ruse, and while this too failed, it bought them the extra moments they needed to abandon their shuttle and EVA their way over to the target ice-teroid. Nikolas almost botched the attempt but at the last moment was able to use the recoil from his SMG to knock himself back into the ice for a jarring but ultimately successful landing. Unfortunately, he ended up on the opposite side of the ice-teroid from the rest of the team where he immediately attracted the attention of a security crawler.

Liberty City Tier

The Voices in My Head

Ugh. Numbness. Lethargic limbs. Gooey eyes. Storage gel everywhere. Resleeved - again. Well, memory access should come online in a moment and you’re sure you will have another reason to hate Evo and this whole damn Firewall fruitbasket. Ok. Legs over the edge. Eyes open. Whoa - dizzy.

What the fuck?

The walls of the dingy room are dank and stained by water leaking from above. It’s chilly and dim but you can clearly see the body laying on the floor nearby. You finish extracting your clumsy, naked self from the storage bag and the remaining gel oozes out and floods off the gurney onto the floor, splashing the body.

Yep. He’s dead. Or at least his morph is dead. Multiple bullets will do that. He’s dressed in a simple, dark blue coverall and here is a small, primitive ecto clutched in one rapidly cooling hand. He has no ID.

The room looks like a combination storage cache, crude workshop and flop house - there are several bins and crates, a small bench with basic tools and a trio of bedrolls and a bunch of discarded food wrappers littering the corner. A large conduit rack dominates one wall and dull vibrations are making the whole assembly rattle.

The ecto is primitive, with only a few simple apps, a retractable, non-universal connector and no wireless capability. There is a paused video file on the crude 2D display.  You tap the screen. There is a groan and panting, then the wavering image settles on the body’s live face. He groans again…

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how they found out [pant pant]. I think the others are dead, and I know they destroyed the morphs. [Groan] I saw the flames. We almost made it, but Hicks [groan] went down a couple corridors below the junction and I don’t know what happened to Zed.

I’m shot - bad I think. I’m sorry. I had no other options and I’m out of time [pant]. I’ve put you in the ‘rider and it looks like the mod is working. Here’s hoping. Careful of the sutures. That’s the last nano-bandage we had, but the Device should be relatively secure where it is.

When you [groan] wake up, head for the surface. That’s five levels and they’re on full alert in the Tombs and the Zone so be careful. Not sure how you’re gonna make it through the Greens, but that’s what you do right? All that spy shit, yeah? Get to the commercial spaceport. When you [ugh] you get outside call the last contact. Salvador will meet you.

Guess [gasp] it’s my turn to see if all these Catholics assholes are right. Damn Jovians. Don’t let this all be in vain…”

The video ends and with the word Jovians, you realize your memories have finally integrated. The Jovian Republic. Shit. Ganymede. God damn it. Liberty City and some kind of hard target recovery. Farcast in. Pick it up. Deliver it to orbit. Farcast out. Easy peasy. Yeah right.

And where the fuck is everyone else? And why does it sound like Terry and Rentlov are yelling in my ear?

• The party members realized they had just been re-instantiated again but were feeling especially confused with particularly poor memory access. As they began to explore the room they quickly realized that something was wrong. After stumbling about and arguing with each other for a few moments they realized that they were all stuck in the same single morph, running in some modified ghostrider module of some sort. Well, that will make things interesting.

• They were in a naked Freeman morph, covered in storage gel and had a newly nano-healed but still sore scar on their abdomen and could feel a small object inside their body when they pressed on their stomach.

• Besides the dead man’s ecto and clothes and a mallet and large screw driver they grabbed from the workbench, the room had little in the way of useful equipment to offer. With John 117 riding “point” they exited the room and made their way out into what they guessed from the ecto was the lowest level of Liberty City. Stealthing along they encountered a semi-conscious drunk in the alley into which they exited and rolled him for his filthy coat.

• They realized very quickly that the level was on some kind of lockdown and that there were security troops everywhere, apparently doing a house-to-house sweep for fugitives. “Oh, right - that would be us…”

Stars Our Destination Tier

• Kruger reported that while working on the digital end of damage control and repair management he discovered that there was a “ghost space” aboard the Swarm factory ship Thoughcrime. He explained that it was a series of sealed bulkheads that hid what amounted to an undocumented storage vault. In what the Sentinels realized was a very unlikely coincidence, the collision had ripped open Thoughcrime’s hull, exposing one of the salvage bays and several smaller chambers - including the secret storage room.

• Continuing to parse the list of those who joined the Swam on Luna, Kru was also able to narrow their quarry down to a single individual who had apparently been in hiding - until the collision. The target - now looking and moving very differently - seems to have intentionally used the shorting of the panopticon systems that resulted from the collision to hide his presence and actions, but all indications are that it entered the secret vault during the time that the ship’s power grid was down. Its subsequent movements and current location are uncertain.

• The party, using the continuing repair efforts as camouflage, went to Thoughtcrime and investigated the vault. There they found a number of valuable ingots of rare feeder stock as well as a collection of priceless, original Earth artifacts and an armory of dangerous WMDs. There were also a number of devices that were not readily identifiable. Everything was carefully stowed in padded cases and racks or under tight cargo netting. Both John 117 and Kruger liberated as much of the precious metals as they could carry without overburdening themselves.

• The only object that seem disturbed was the remains of a small satellite sans solar panels and maneuvering jets - just the core. It had been partially freed from its cargo netting and powered up with a portable nuclear battery. An access panel was open and inside an AR graphic glowed brightly, reading R.E.N.T.L.O.V. The core contained a massive server with long range telecom gear and though it was 10 years out of date Kruger could tell it had been advanced tech at the time.