"Lethal force is authorized." the Captain smiles, his eyes narrowing as he does. "Memory cores are easier to transport, feed, and interrogate. Once the core is removed, the rest is of little value."
"Right! Can do sir!"
"Understood sir....Come on Otosh. I'll show you how to program your pod." She gives a wink and a smile to Otosh since she has heard him complain many times at meals about his trouble with the programming interfaces.
Otosh follows Sleestack.
Remaining at attention, Katarasi repeats the mission parameters, "Deploy using Drop Sleds to planet surface, then mobilize to target, assault research facility in which deadly force is authorized, recover workstation and/or server memory cores or documentation, prisoners are unwanted, and then call for exfil, Sir!"
Then Katarasi hand salutes and walks away with the others. Upon arrival of the drop sleds, he first attempts to configure his own drop sled.
... and appears to have accomplished the first small object of the mission.
Sleestack and Otosh spend some time going over the dropslead interface.
Captain Zumanka informs you the trip through the Drift will take 21 days. Plenty of time for training, drills, research, and recovery. An uneasy edge starts to settle in as star travel generally, and Drift travel specifically, has a troublesome way of making the passage of time seem meaningless.
After the evening meal on day cycle 11 Zumanka says, "Each of you already know a version of the Legend of Jioh. Our traditions and our stories make us who we are, and they bring honor to the Veskarium. Our differences bring strength to the Veskarium! I will now share with you House Vaskren's Legend of Jioh."
"As you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, before Jioh became the legendary warrior we all know her to be she served her first assignments aboard the VHS Starlight. Many glorious campaigns were fought by the well trained crew. This is the story of the final mission of the Starlight. The ship had been heavily damaged and gotten off course in a massive fleet battle and ended up in a previously uncharted close space system. The captain brought the ship into orbit around a planet in the system where surface conditions were favorable for survival, and the crew began in orbit repairs."
"The Starlight was attacked by scavengers, and the hull was breached. The crew took to their dropsleads, forced to abandon the Starlight. Seventeen warriors made it to the surface of the planet. As we know, only Jioh returned to the stars. Praise be to Damoritosh!"
"Seeking to humiliate the might vesk warriors, the scavengers followed them to the planet. Scattered, many of the warriors were picked off alone or in pairs. Jioh had managed to rally the Six and setup an ambush. Ultimately it was only Jioh that survived the ensuing battle. She was able to use gear from the wreckage of the scavenger ship to contact the support ship that came to aid the Starlight."
Zumanka smiles, "And thus began the career of one of the greatest warriors to ever lead vesk into battle in the name of Damoritosh! Honor to the House! Glory to the Veskarkium! Conquest to Damoritosh! The Captain raises his mug in salute, and drains it.
Otosh raises a glass and drinks.
Katarasi raises his glass in a mug salute and also shouts, "Honor to the House! Glory to the Veskarkium! Conquest to Damoritosh!" And then he also drains his mug of spirits.
Sleestack will try to redeem herself and not get sick before a mission. She raises a glass in the toast and drinks a small amount.
Katarasi also only has one drink. He does not need to have a hang over, be intoxicated, or injured before the mission.
Without much fanfare, the Drift travel passes without incident. The ship exits the Drift at the beacon near the outer edge of the solar system and Captain Zumanka sets in a course for the planet that will put you in senor range after about 2 hours of travel. Someone can make a sensor scan (Computers) using the ship computer bonus of +2 to see what you learn on your approach.
"Scanning..."
Otosh performs a standard sweep of the surrounding space as the Jioh's Spine approaches the planet. Otosh finds no energy signatures for other space craft, there is no planetary communication satellite or defensive grid. There is a single satellite in a geo-sync orbit of the planet. The satellite does not have a very strong power signature.
Captain Zumanka asks, "Well, warriors, how shall we proceed?"
”Perhaps disable it remotely?”
"Why not use it for our own purposes? Hack in, and see what data we can draw from it!"
"My thoughts exactly!" Sleestack opens her hacking kit and attempts to establish a wireless connection to the satellite. Proceeding very methodically through her hacking checklist.
First disable any countermeasures.
Attempt to hack the system to manipulate modules.
Now access the unsecured system to extract the data we are interested in.
Then try to elevate access to the root system access to use it for our purposes.
If successful on the root system access, disable all external accounts and set up a back door administrator account on all connected systems including below on the planet surface.
Katarasi nods his head in agreement, "Yes, I agree. Hacking in without them knowing is more strategic than shutting it down. Slee, make sure they don't know we are here if still possible nor that we are hacking them."
As the closes in on the planet, in preparation for establishing an orbit, Sleestack sets to work trying to get useful information from the communication satellite. It appears to primarily perform message relay functions. While she is unable to gain full administrative control over the satellite, she is able to compromise an account that gives access to read and copy the communications logs. She carefully transfers the logs for review. The logs do not contain the transmissions, only the relevant data about when they occurred.
The logs go back approximately 240 day-cycles. Near the beginning of the logs there are some inbound messages in addition to the outbound message traffic. The log is largely comprised of outbound message relays that occur every 17 day-cycles. The last such message was relayed 9 days ago.
Katarasi looks at the screen of logs, "At the end of the logs, any distress calls at the end of the logs?"
The last log entry seems to match the approximate profile of the other 17 day-cycle messages in duration and transmission time.
Captain Zumanka smiles and rubs his hands together excitedly. "It is time, mighty warriors! Time to take the next step in your Journey and decend to the planet! Achieve your objectives and I will return you to the ship!" Zumanka touches a sequences of keys on his wrist computer. "May you serve the will of Damoritosh! For the glory of the Veskarium!"
Katarasi snaps to attention, hands salutes, and then he pumps two raise fists as he shouts, "PRAISE TO DAMORITOSH! GLORY TO VESKARIUM!"
Then he about faces and grabs his gear, "Come on team, to the Sleds, GLORY AWAITS US!"
After packing his gear so it can be retrieved if something goes wrong, then he helps the others that needs helping. He then climbs into sled, "Varak to Control, request permission for lift off?"
Otosh says a prayer to Damaritosh...
Sleestack helps Otosh as she said she would. and does contemplate a little bit of mischief while plotting his pods course. but decides to keep this mission on the straight and narrow.
"Any one else need a few pilot pre-check verifications?'
Then she finally comes to her own pod and stresses internally about: now don't mess up your own pod!
Everyone sets to programming the dropsleds, performing pre-drop diagnostics, and preparing to leave the ship ready for combat! You all check your personal comm units and make sure you are able to talk to each other.
Prayers are given to Damoritosh, everyone climbs into their sled, and after a short countdown, the sleds are launched toward the planet!
The ride is bumpy, and warm, but short. The interior of the sled suddenly fills with impact foam, and the sleds come to an abrupt stop.
Each of you extract yourselves from your sled and take in the immediate area. You immediately notice that there are 3 sleds, instead of 4, having landed within a pretty tight 100 meter radius. Otosh, Sleestack, and Vralakosh all emerge from their pods in an open plain. Katarasi and his pod are nowhere to be seen.
You are able to establish communications with each other on your StarSlack channel, using the orbiting Jioh's Spine as a comms relay. Katarasi's position is about an hour north of the rest of the team, and the team is about an hour north of the research facility. You are able to communicate, plan, and coordinate activities as you see fit from here.
How would you like to proceed?
"Katarasi, WTH? Start making your way to our position. I recommend that we start moving towards the research facility and I will volunteer to run scout forward. We can take the stealthy approach while Katarasi moves at speed to catch up to us. Any different thoughts?"
"Not related to the mission, but Kat will definitely be buying a few rounds for this when we're done."
"Hm, if we proceed towards the station at half our optimal speed, Katarasi will have time to catch up."
Katarasi rolls his eyes at the comms from Sleestack and does not answer with much more than, "Continue on, I will catch up." He then grabs his gear and starts to do a light jog with his LRC at port arms but with his head on a swivel. He keeps out of sight as much as he can as he jogs. In his mind, he sings running (double time) cadence in his head while he watches the area around him.
Otosh points accusingly at Sleestack, "did you spike his navboard?"
A solid, reasonable plan in place, the vesk set off to the tasks at hand.
Sleestack and the others practice open terrain coverage and movement tactics. They made some forward progress, intentionally lagging back so that Katarasi can catch up. Sleestack can make a Survival check, and include an additional 1d6 results. Vralakosh and Otosh may Aid the check.
Katarasi, on the other hand, moves at a much quicker pace in an attempt to close the distance missed by his drop-sled. Please make a Survival check, and include an additional 1d6 result.
"If you recall Otosh, Katarasi said he could handle his pilot check all on his own and didn't need my assistance. But I did notice that he tried to do the checklist from memory. And every good pilot knows that you must have the checklist out during your preflight checks."
"That's why I keep mine on a card in my pocket!"
You are making good time trying to catch up to your team. The plains you are moving across are light work, with few shrubs and tree clusters. Remembering your briefings, you do not expect any large predators. Further off in the distance you can see small hills and a decent mountain range. After about 30 minutes you notice a bit more in the way of trees and they look to be following a winding river nearby, which you follow. About 20 meters ahead of you, you notice a metallic glint as the sunlight reflects off of something. You slow your approach, ready your weapon, and take caution as you approach to investigate. Closing to about 10 meters ahead, you see the unmoving form of a humanoid laying on its stomach, the metallic glint appears to be coming off a thermal wrap that is caught in a shrub next to the body.
Sleestack and Otosh get slightly distracted in a bit of back and forth about Katarasi’s failures as a pilot, the key features and bugs in the latest vOS update and how it changes the dropsled interface, and suddenly come to realize that Sleestack has wandered you all into a dense patch of razorvine. You can try and go around it, but it will take you about an hour or you can try and press through with an Acrobatics check (or I’m open to substitutions if you’d like to suggest a different approach).
"Bah! I knew we should have taken that left back at that last hill. But maybe this is a good test of warrior skills to overcome a challenge?"
Sleestack will attempt the acrobatics to see how hard it is to get through.
"Piece of cake. Come on you two. Let's see how you handle the challenge."
Despite lacking much acrobatic skill, Vralakosh manages to wriggle his way out of the razorvine.
”Oh bother!”
Sleestack and Vralakosh make it look easy and manage to find ways through the razorvine with a minimum of cuts and scrapes.
Otosh is doing quite well himself, until he misjudges where he plants his right foot and shifts his weight suddenly to compensate only to lose his balance completely, pitching forward and sidways at once scratching part of his head and neck in a thick patch of the sharp vines! It immediately stings and throbs painfully! Please give me a Fort Save.
+2 racial bonus to saving throws against disease, mind-affecting effects, poison, and sleep
Katarasi thinks to himself, "I don't have time to deal with whatever is going on there. "
He marks it down on the map just in case the team wants to investigate later. Then he looks for a way to go around without interacting with the scene.
Katarasi presses on, keeping a quick pace while the rest of the team makes its way though a massive patch of razorvine. Coming from a different approach, Katarasi is able to meet up with his team shortly after they pass the patch. You are now approximately 2 km from the research facility, and Vralakosh is the first to notice a faint trail of dark smoke in the direction of your goal.