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Obozaya will aid Altronus' efforts.
Rez keeps your ship just out of reach of of the Endless Threnody's firing arcs, and within moments, Altronus' gunnery pummels the enemy ship into submission!
- - - - - - - - - -
The Endless Threnody drifts just outside the forward viewport. The enormous Corpse Fleet starship bristles with bone spurs, and a baleful red lens at its fore resembles a swollen and bloody eye. Crackles of dark energy leap across the bone spurs, discharging from the ruined ship’s necromantic power source.
With a burst of static and a flash, a blue-hued hologram of Venture-Captain Arvin appears at the Loreseeker’s communications station. “Excellent work. From the telemetry here, the Endless Threnody is incapacitated, but not pulverized. I need you to board that vessel, access the main computers at the bridge, and recover the coordinates of the missing Starfinder vessel’s crash site.
“That energy signature looks dangerous, and those discharges can damage your hull. Dock at the cargo bay at the rear of the ship and make your way forward to the bridge. Wear space suits if your armor can’t protect you from vacuum—there are a few suits in a storage locker aboard your ship. Eoxian ships do not have life support and are often exposed to space. Any questions?”
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"Yeah, I got a question..." says Rez, one paw twirling a whisker in a pensive pose. "How crazy was that maneuver I pulled back there? I mean, really! That was a once-in-a-lifetime last-ditch effort, you guys!"
Rez looks around the deck, and sees the less-than-amused crew groan at him. "Jokes, guys! I got a lot of 'em, and some are going to be better than others." He looks to the hologram of Venture-Captain Arvin, then puts on a serious face. "Now sir, this Corpse Fleet crew - they've already tried to pound us into a debris cloud, so is there any reason why we shouldn't go in with nothing other than an ornery intent to paint their heads with some laser beams?"
"The corpse-fleet broke away from the pact worlds." she says with a grin. "So they're our enemies, no matter what, Rez."
She will nod to venture-captain Arvin and nods. "We'll get that information, even if I have to drag the whole damn computer back here." she exclaims.
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Rez looks up at Obozaya and smiles. "Blast and stab it is, then."
The ysoki seals a rebreather helmet to his EVA suit, and checks its seals. His voice, a touch tinny over the comms, pipes into the crew's suits. "The docking computer is set. It'll back us right in to the Threnody, so let's head down to the airlock and give them a knock on their back door, eh?"
Altronus is excited about the mission
Alright someone get us close to the ship without crashing us into the ship. Who here is an expert at steering?
Altronus pulls out his melee weapon, puts on his space suit and gets ready for boarding.
Obozaya activates the seals on her armor, preparing for one of her favorite things: Boarding action!
"Hehe..." she chuckles to herself, shouldering her Doshko. "They should be shook up by the beating we gave them. Ready? I'll take point. Cover me."
Rez programs the computer's approach, and there's a slightly harrowing moment when there's a proximity alert beeping that increases quickly before cutting out as the docking clamps attach and seal with their entrance. Your crew gathers in the airlock, sealing your ship's air in before depressurizing to enter the Endless Threnody.
If you haven't done much EVA in the past, it's a strange experience to only hear your own breathing and the muffled thump of your footfalls on the deck. Slight tremors make the disabled Threnody shudder every several minutes, but not enough to throw off your footing.
You find yourself in a cargo bay, mostly empty save for a few scattered containers and a small computer set into one wall next to the closed door that leads further into the ship, one that might reveal a bit about what's ahead, if you can gain access!
Gesturing, she points to the computer as they move up to the near the door. "Someone get us into that system." she says on the team's comm channel.
She will stand in front of the door, and as someone moves up to the computer, she turns on her Doshko and readies to charge any targets when the door opens.
When the ship has landed and is settled in. Altronus after being equipped will walk out onto the enemy ship and lead the way.
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"All right, one second."
Rez scurries up to the door, then taps a button on the door computer's panel. He then pulls out his hand terminal, opens an app, and then proceeds to tap out a few lines of code onto the touchpad. After getting the device to sync, he straps the device to a maglock mount on the sleeve of his suit, and impatiently waits on a progress bar. C'mon...
"... aaaaand that oughta do it." he says, awaiting the door to open.
Rez cracks open the door leading further into the ship, but he also notices something else while picking around in the system. There are currents of necromantic energy pulsing through the hull and walls of the ship, but a quick change of settings appears to turn off some of these effects for the area up ahead!
The branching corridors inside the Endless Threnody are not made of solid bulkheads of metal and plastic, but of a lattice of enchanted bone and steel. A metal grating on the floor provides stable footing, but the walls have gaps large enough to fit a fist. The passages split and recombine in a manner eerily reminiscent of being inside a giant rib cage.
Down the hallway, Altronus catches sight of movement, and within moments you clearly see a skeletal figure rushing towards you!
The skeletal figure dashes forward, and slashes at Altronus with a clawed hand!
But he swings wide.
To the side, you see three other figures appear around the corners, hissing silently in the vacuum!
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Rez places a hand on the back of Obozaya, and lets out a quick shout. "Watch your step!" the ysoki says, while rolling under the vesk's legs and ending up alongside a skeletal member of the Corpse Fleet. He then takes his tactical baton, extends it with the flick of his wrist, and brings it cracking into the shambling corpse's femur.
Altronus will go into photon mode and strike with his melee weapon.
Unless Rez killed then he attacks the red one on the right. And if he kills the yellow one he will move into melee with the red one.
Obozaya steps forward, driving her Doshko into the skeleton Rez cracked.
Rez slips past the claws and cracks on the skeleton's legs, and Obozaya distracts it for a bit with the whoosh of her doshko, but it's Altronus' solar weapon that seals the deal, obliterating the thing's ribcage with a thunderous crunch that none of you can hear. The Kasatha leaps to close the gap between himself and the enemy approaching from the side passage.
Keskodai mentally levitates the skull of the defeated crew member, and propels it at blinding speed down the hallway in the direction of the approaching opponents...
...but it bounces off the wall before it can connect.
The remaining crew leap forward to attack...
...and land slashing hits against Altronus and Rez!
Altronus will swing at the undead in front of him
Altronus obliterates the skeletal crew member in a shower of bones!
Obozaya turns and swings to annihilate green.
She's obviously enjoying this.
Rez clips the skeleton with his first swing, but it's Keskodai that crushes it with the telekinetic projection of a fellow crew members remains! Obozaya lays into the remaining opponent like a goddess of slaughter, crushing the enemy with a massive overhand chop that cuts all the way down from shoulder to shin bone. After a moment of readied panic, you realize that there aren't any other enemies approaching, and you let your guard down for a bit to catch your breath before moving forward to the bridge of the Endless Threnody.
It is located behind the enormous crimson eye at the front of the ship, bathed in a blood-red glow. The crew stations are fabricated from bone and steel, apparently grown from the floor and walls of this room. Battle damage is evident throughout the bridge, but it is now empty and utterly silent—truly a ghost ship.
Quig finds the ship's computer, and a quick inspection reveals that it'll need two types of intrusion measures to get access to what you need: one to access the functions of the computer system itself, and one to bypass the computer's security measures.
Atronus will stand by and examine the computers as a backup if someone needs help and tell him about the programming.
and though he knows nothing, he will continue to aid when it comes to the 2nd computer, thinking he can be a better assitant the second time around.
Your combined efforts make quick work of the computer's firewall, and Keskodai - at the last moment, keeps Rez from making a critical error that would have wiped extra data from the records. You have located the coordinates for the lost Starfinder ship!
It looks like the Endless Threnody discovered the wreck of the Unbounded Wayfarer over a ship called Ulmarid, an inhospitable planet out in the Vast with crystalline rains and fearsome beasts. The undead grabbed little more than a few valuables from the wreck - it's likely that if they had found corpses, then those would have been incorporated into their own crew, and there's no mention of such on their records.
Of additional importance, there is an account of the combat between the Threnody and another vessel carrying the transponder name Lawblight. The pirate ship pounced, raking the Corpse fleet ship, but not before the Threnody could escape into the Drift. Shortly after the battle, the Drift engine shorted out, thus sending Exegara to Absalom Station for the necessary repair components.
There's little else in the ship's files - it's clear that the Corpse Fleet isn't about to put important information out on their far-ranging freighters.
When you return to the Loreseeker with the coordinates, you find the hologram of Venture-Captain Arvin already active and awaiting your report. "Good - you've returned! What news do you have of your colleagues fate?"
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Rez undoes his suit seals, and take a deep breath of the ship's oxygen.
"Bad news, I'm afraid sir. Looks like the Wayfarer went down with all souls lost." he sits down in the pilot's chair and begins checking the pre-jump checklist.
"Corpse Fleet stripped the ship of its valuables, and it's possible that they might have raised some of the crew to their own ranks, but there's no evidence of such. We only came across skeletons on board the Threnody, no ghouls or the such." he flips a couple switches, and begins the start-up sequence to the Loreseeker's Drift engine.
"We've got a location - Ulmarid, out in the Vast. We'll be on the lookout for pirates, too; they're the ones who crippled the Threnody." Rez looks to the rest of the crew, and then to the hologram of VC Arvin.
"Unless anyone else has anything to report, we await your command, sir."
Obozaya nods. "Get us back to fighting shape! If we're going to fight with pirates then I want us to have every advantage."
Turning to the console, she looks at the remains of their prey. "We should deny them salvage. The Corpse Fleet would do us the same courtesy."
Arvin smiles, though obviously pained by the news. "I'm heartened to know where you'll be heading next." He looks down at his desk for a moment, then back up at the rest of you. "It would be best to bring the Loreseeker back to Absalom Station at this time. We'll need to see if there is any information in the databanks here about Ulmarid, and you might need a different ship for your approach."
As an additional reward, Arvin provides a password to open a concealed compartment within the Loreseeker that contains delicacies that are suitable to most palates, such as sticks of candied meats. “I know this mission isn’t yet complete,” he explains, “but you’ve earned the right to celebrate a bit on your return trip. I asked the quartermaster to include a few delicacies so you can enjoy being alive—after an encounter with necromancy.”
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I think I'm good with the purchases for now. I have the welcome to starfinder boon if anything goes wrong. As far as out of combat, I would assume the pregens come well equipped to deal with this scenario.
Your return trip to Absalom Station is mercifully shorter, and delightfully uneventful. Arvin is happy to see you in person for a moment before he hands you off to a secretary in charge of taking back your ship and getting you on a new vessel. The Drake-class Odyssey is a heavier ship, and with just a quick stop in the station to make any purchases you require, the society sends you back out into the Drift again.
Ulmarid is a desert planet wracked with fierce storms that scour the surface. The planet’s two enormous moons collided long ago, filling the planet’s upper atmosphere with a dangerous cloud of tumbling asteroids that makes approaching the planet with large ships difficult.
Rez pulls you into a distant orbit around the planet, avoiding the asteroids for now. Shortly after, a pre-recorded message from Arvin pops up as a hologram, his hands clasped behind his back. “Hopefully your journey was uneventful. Based on your previous mission, we’ve obtained information about the planet of Ulmarid. The desert world has breathable atmosphere but is devoid of intelligent civilization. A cloud of asteroids—leftovers from a collision of the planet’s moons long ago—surrounds the planet, so you must carefully navigate the Odyssey to the surface to find the crashed Unbounded Wayfarer.
“Be sure to bring the Starfinder insignias with you; they will be critical in recovering the information the Starfinders left behind. If you can recover any of the lost Starfinders—alive or dead—please do so as well. Good luck.”
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STARFINDER SOCIETY DRAKE - TIER 2
Medium transport
Speed 8; Maneuverability average (turn 2); Drift 1
AC 12; TL 12
HP 70; DT —; CT 14
Shields light 50 (forward 15, port 10, starboard 10, aft 15)
Attack (Forward) coilgun (4d4)
Attack (Aft) gyrolaser (1d8)
Attack (Turret) high explosive missile launcher (4d8)
Power Core Arcus Heavy (130 PCU); Drift Engine Signal Basic;
Systems budget medium-range sensors, crew quarters
(good), mk 1 trinode computer, mk 2 armor, mk 2 defenses;
Expansion Bays cargo hold, escape pods
Modifiers +1 to any three checks per round;
Complement 4–7
If so, I'll take one of the computers +1 bonuses on my roll.
Rez gets you perilously close to a few of the slightly larger orbital bodies, but manages to land without any damage that the shields can't quickly regenerate.
As you break atmosphere, you're able to get a clear fix on the Unbounded Wayfarer's distress beacon, but as you circle over the landing site, you see that it crashed amid dunes too soft to safely bear your ship's weight. The closest place you can set down is about a half-hour's walk away, and you can prepare for EVA after you land.
- - - - - - - - - -
The surface of Ulmarid is a wind-scoured desert with jagged protrusions of rock thrusting up through the sand. You've already gone about half of the distance to the shipwreck,when something strikes you as off about the weather. The air has a harsh tang, like burning metal. Although the sky looks clear...
...Obozaya can tell that the metallic tang in the air is the signal of an approaching storm, a dangerous one that's likely to hurl poisoned crystalline hail at you!
Obozaya will move to protect Keskodai and Altronus, barking out a quick "Get down!"