DMDM's Last Fleet (Inactive)

Game Master Douglas Muir 406

She swallows hard and wipes the sweat from her eyes as her radiation monitors go from yellow to orange. Although she knew she should still be protected by the shielding and the meds, that little spot between her shoulder blades started to tingle and prickle as if the enemy had a pistol poised and ready to pull the trigger if she so much as twitched wrong.

Nice.

[dice=Seek Out to find the Refinery]2d6+1

I will go ahead and Raise Pressure for a +1, to at least make that a success at 7.

Huh, that's right: you can spend Pressure after you roll the dice. Okay. And a partial or complicated success. Hm, let's see...

Thea: you're coming around the curve of the asteroid, low and slow, scanning.

This thing is right on the border between a big asteroid and a small moon... a couple hundred km across. Normally that's not quite big enough for gravity to pull an asteroid into a sphere, you get some kind of lumpy potato shape instead. But this one is properly round, probably because it's so dense -- it's mostly metal, not much rock. It's also a very weird landscape: few craters, because there hasn't been time for impacts since the supernova half-melted it. The surface is all weird lumps and runnels, like frozen slag.

And then something comes over the horizon: a collection of domes, half buried in the slaggy surface. A moment later, a faint signal on your comm: beep-beep-beep (pause) beep... beep... beep (pause) beep-beep-beep.

And then a moment later, something else: behind the domes, a tower. Several of them. An industrial complex. It bristles with antennae, with radiators... and with weapons. You're flying right at a heavily defended ground installation.

As you realize that, your comm crackles to life. "Approaching ship! Identify yourself or be fired upon! This is your only warning!"

"But there's nothing I can do about that. If it comes to a figh, we've got the best pilots in the Federation on our side. And Gunny, or course."

Enjoying the Gunny-Sasha interactions -- really, enjoying it all; everyone is RPing, it's great. If I don't respond in detail, doesn't mean I'm not reading.

"Holy S$#t, Firefly! Are you seeing this? I'm picking up multiple missile emplacements and gun batteries." Rattler shouts into his comm. "This place has got more firepower than a blasted dreadnought."

Thea did indeed see the defenses lighting up all over her scope, sending her targeting computer into a downright hyperactive tizzy. Sasha wasn't kidding about this guys paranoia.

"Easy Nathan." She tries to sound calm. Not sure she's doing a very good job. "Tag everything and squirt it back to Cerberus, scrambled, tightbeam. I'll try to make sure we don't get blown out of the sky."

She keys the channel to her squad. "All units, throttle back and do not engage. Repeat, do not engage. Take up a defensive pattern and maintain a ten click distance for now." She says over the squad channel before easing back on her speed and switching frequencies.

"Industrial complex, this is Lieutenant Gillis of the Federated Starship Cerberus. We do not have hostile intent. Repeat we do not have hostile intent." She says, unsure exactly how to engage a paranoid trillionaire likely grocked out of his mind by radiation meds. "We wish to trade for fuel. Please stand by and I'll patch through our rep." Gods! How long has this guy been living here? She wonders patching a channel through to Sasha back on the Cranberry.

She really hoped the negotiations worked. Really, really hoped. Seeing the defenses, it would be a blood bath if they tried to take the place by force.

"Cranberry...This is Firefly...we've got communication contact...coordinates should be coming through now...Captain Maran patching you through in a moment..." Thea signals back to Sasha aboard the lead Juicer.

"And Sasha...mind how you go...this guy's armed to the friggin' teeth...and he sounds just a wee twitchy."

That tingle in her back was not going away.

After making another pass around the tankers, Gunny reaches over and keys his mic. “Emmm..Listen up. This is General Deigon Black to Sasha.” Unlike his last transmission, which came across somewhat playful, this time Gunny's tone sounds almost intoxicated. “I have been doing some thinking about your last communication and……….I have decided that I’m no longer drinking at YOUR STOOPED BAR! In fact, I never want to see or hear from you AGAIN! General Black OUT!”

"Industrial complex, this is Lieutenant Gillis of the Federated Starship Cerberus. We do not have hostile intent. Repeat we do not have hostile intent." She says, unsure exactly how to engage a paranoid trillionaire likely grocked out of his mind by radiation meds. "We wish to trade for fuel. Please stand by and I'll patch through our rep." Gods! How long has this guy been living here? She wonders patching a channel through to Sasha back on the Cranberry.

[...]

That tingle in her back was not going away.

Nice. Okay, then:

"Unauthorized spacecraft, stand by. Do not approach the facility."

There's a pause. A long pause -- it stretches into many minutes. This assumes you are willing to wait and not do anything rash...

If not, then...

After considerable time has passed, your intercom crackles again: "Unauthorized spacecraft, we need to confirm your humanity. Please drop a landing party two kilometers east of the main tower. Your party must be unarmed. You will approach the complex on foot."

If you're okay with this, just tell me who wants to join the landing party. If not, tell me what else you want to do.

A pleasant stroll through vacuum across the slagged surface of a radioactive asteroid, under the heavy guns of a paranoid, unarmed.

Who's up for it?

A pleasant stroll through vacuum across the slagged surface of a radioactive asteroid, under the heavy guns of a paranoid, unarmed.

Who's up for it?

Gunny is willing to escort whoever wants to do the talking. That said, under normally conditions he isn't the best choice for diplomacy. Now that he's under the effects of the radiation, he's even more off his game. I'll leave it to the rest of the group if they want him to escort or stays with the flight squad.

"Seems like I'm done most of the talking! Why don't you tell me about yourself?

Sasha's sudden redirection, throwing the conversational ball to her without warning, leaves Hannah tongue-tied at first.

"I'm... I was in the graduate program for bioengineering at Valmeira University. I'm from Ninmahon. I started out in biomechatronics but changed my concentration to bionanotechnology and synthetic biology after my first two years."

"It's completely an accident I'm here. I'd rented a little place up in the mountains for a couple of weeks to unwind, do some hiking, that sort of stuff. I was on a shuttle going there when the attack started. From what I understand, most all of the air traffic made emergency landings wherever the closest place to set down was. My shuttle's pilot did the opposite. He went straight up, into orbit and made contact with a ship where we could dock. I wasn't long at all after that when we jumped out of the system. A freak accident. I happened to be in-flight, and on a shuttle that made the smarter minority decision."

"So it's just me. I was traveling alone. I hadn't talked with my family for some time. We weren't close... I mean we didn't stay in close contact. Aside from my parents I had an older brother."

"Um... I'm vegetarian. My favorite author is Hester Lennox*..."

Hannah's report peters out as she runs out of things she can think of that are worth mentioning.

"There' something I need Captain Maran. I'm going to need you to tell me what to do. I have no idea how this works or what I'm supposed to do. Can you walk me through things as we go?"

What do you most need at this moment? You shouldn't trust me. Not the hardest to answer, but circumstances like these favor meat and potatoes over more existential dilemmas.

*Hester Lennox is a well known and widely read author who's known for writing novels in alternating genres. She writes a one novel in her blend of paranormal mystery/romance, and follows it with a social commentary comedy novel.

Hannah gets a warm smile in return. "First up, it's just Sasha - *Captian* is for emergencies or underlings and you aren't that. And you can count on me to walk you through it all. For now, it looks like we're going to be doing that EVA a bit sooner than I thought - you up for a stroll in teh starlight?" It's not really a question. She pushes a button on Cranberry's intercom, calling up to teh pilot. "Hey Nancy, it looks like I'm going to need you to drop us down on that rock, two East of the main tower. Once we're down, take off again quick but stay in radio range."

With that done, she radios her reply out to the other side. "This is Captain Moran of the Colonail Fleet to the unidentified voice. Me and one other will be dropping down from our fuel ship to your landing site in a few minutes. We'll be unarmed as requested." Except for our brains she thinks scornfully. Her wits and her people skills have kept her alive far better than any gun. She then switches the comm back to private. "Thea, Gunny, hang tight for now. Keep an eye out for any Shrooms and please try not to frakk things while I'm still down there."

Hannah gets another grin. "Right, let's get suited up!" If Sasha is worried, or scared, she is doing a great job of hiding it - she genuily seems to be enjoying herself. It's not everyday you get to schomooze a billionaire. There's a profit here, if she keeps her eyes open for it.

Hannah suits up with a silent nod to Sasha.

Okay!

Your airlock hisses open, and... huh. The first thing is the gravity. Your instruments tell you it's just 9 centimeters per second square, a bit under 1 percent of standard. That's just barely enough to tell your muscles and your inner ear that there /is/ gravity, with a clearly defined up and down. But you weigh, with suit and airpack, well under a kilogram. If you jumped hard, you would soar tens of meters into the sky. You'll have to walk slowly and carefully.

Approaching from orbit this was a landscape of slag and cinders. Close up, there's a bleak, eerie beauty to it. It was melted, partly vaporized, and then chilled again. So it's mostly curves, but here and there are strange, delicate crystalline formations, where complex alloys condensed out of vacuum on the shadowed sides of hills and ridges. Over there is a shiny, reflective ribbon; it takes a few moments to realize it's a dried watercourse, where liquid metal briefly flowed for a few hours under a short-lived atmosphere of vaporized rock.

It's very interesting, and you might want to look at it more closely... except that, as soon as you step out from the shelter of your ship, your radiation monitor begins a faint incessant shrill whining, like a small animal in pain.

Chatter among the Wolf Pilots.

MACKINTIRE: We should scan the facility just in case we have to engage.

MACKINTIRE: Roger that.

[pause]

MACKINTIRE: They're dug in pretty good.

JAGGER: Then why is the ground warm?

[pause]

JALASCO: Ummm...

The ground is warm. Not hot, but warm. You can feel it through your boots. It's oddly uncomfortable.

It takes a few minutes to realize why, and then it's even more uncomfortable. The ground is warm because the supernova plated this asteroid with millions of tons of radioactive isotopes, and it is warmed by the energy of their decay. You're walking across the surface of an open atomic pile.

Fortunately you won't be here long! Unless you want to stop and look around, which of course is totally an option. In just 20 minutes or so, you're approaching the entrance to the refinery.

It's a tunnel sloping downwards from the slaggy surface. (Of course, you'd have to dig underground to avoid radiation from the accretion disk. And then line everything with lead to avoid radiation from the asteroid itself.) There are gun emplacements on either side, empty muzzles opening on the vacuum of space.

The tunnel plunges steeply downwards...

JALASCO: Okay, going to try something different here.

JALASCO: Yeah so the whole asteroid is a big damn neutron emitter, right? So we can scan for shadows. Hang on, transmitting.

[pause]

JALASCO: Yeah there's the refinery. You see part of it is shadowed and part isn't.

TIN MAN: Look closer.

[pause]

JALASCO: Aw, heck.

TIN MAN: Someone had a fight down there.

The tunnel is long and dark and, frankly, ominous. But there's one good thing to say about it: a few steps inside the entrance, your radiation alarm goes from constant whining to a fretful whimper. A few more steps, and it falls silent.

And at last, ahead of you, an airlock. You step inside. It closes. Through your helmets, you hear the familiar hiss of filling air.

Gunny follows the transmission and eventually chimes in. "Jaraco, can your neutron scan locate the facility's main power source or where they have the juice stored?"

MACKINTOSH: Bunch of those domes busted all to hell.

TIN MAN: Someone had a fight down there.

Thea curses as she listens in on the comm traffic. Means this whole blasted place could be compromised.

"Raven...Buzzsaw...can you confirm Wolf Squad sensor readings?" She orders. "Rattler...Cockroach try to get a closer look at those weapons platforms are they actually online? I'm going to run a bio scan to see if we've got any spore remnants on the surface or in lower orbit.

She brings her scout fighter in as close to the surface and facility as she can without setting off any proximity alarms or automatic defense systems. She focuses most of her passive array on the broken domes. Looking for the now all-too-familiar signs of spore corruption and the subsequent breakdown of matter. Her eyes start to water as she stares at the screen looking for the telltale melted-muddy-ice-cream look that usually means the Shrooms have paid a visit.

She clicks her comm to hail the ground team. They need to know what they might be walking into.

"Sasha...Hannah...stay alert *static* down there. *static* got signs this place *static* been....*static*static*"

"S$%T! I'm loosing comms with the ground team. Wolf Squad is anyone on your side able to get through to them?"

She pulls her Yellowjacket back up and away from the surface. Getting a bit higher would give her comp time to analyze the scans and for the enhancement filters to clear up some up the grainy images.

"Come on...come on..." She says to herself flicking through the photos as soon as they pop up on her screen. Let it be an accident or a meteor strike...accident or meteor strike...

Looks like another Seek Out to try and find what they are hiding down there.: 2d6 + 1 ⇒ (4, 1) + 1 = 6

Dang it...going to have to Raise Pressure again to get a +1 to make that a 7.

Gunny resounds to Firefly's request. "No, it looks like the facility is lined with something, most likely lead. We are trying to locate its main power supply; in case we need to shut down those ground batteries. My gut is telling me that our politic team might be in for an unexpected situation."

"Our guts are apparently drinking from the same hooch." Is Thea's reply back to Gunny. "We're trying to determine what might have caused the damage..." She pauses for a long few seconds. "Could have been just an industrial accident or maybe a rival gang. My understanding this guy doesn't exactly swim with the nicest fish." She leaves unsaid the most obvious answer about this being yet another case of the Shrooms beating the Fleet to the punch.

"Could be all of the above. My concern is if we have to extract our people quickly, those ground batteries are going to be a big problem. That is if they are still active. Then there's the Juice. Without it, the fleet is going to be in a bad way."

Climinbg into an EVA suit is not exaclty comfortable at the best of times - the shielding around them makes them a rigid shell, almost like armour. In artificial gravity of the ship, without the servo-motors powering them you'd be stuck trying to shift a half-ton bodysuit under your own msucles. Sasha gives a hiss of pain as she has to contort before standing up, and she feels one of her stitches twinge. Now she's in the suit, she can't take a look to see if it's just complaining or whether it's actually given way. Either way, she's looking at another trip to sickbay and a telling off from Doc Balor.

Once outside, she stamps down a couple of times on the hot rock under her feet, testing it before looking across at Hannah. "You OK in there, girl? You probably figured this out already but - we're gonna have to walk there, if we try to use the compresed air jets there's a real risk we escape gravity and dont get seen again." She sounds cheerful enough about the whole thing, but the walk there is a nightbmare for her. Walking in microgravity requires careful control of your movements, using the core muscles - whcih is exactly what the rebar went right through when it went rigth through her. She's sweating with exertion and pain by the time the two of them reach the airlock, but she gives Hannah a smile. "Don't worry about being unarmed, a gun wouldn't do any use anyway. Your best weapon is between your ears - keep a lookout and if you see antying that looks interesting, you let me know. Don't assume I know what you know." She points at the airlock. "Like, for instance - if we have to leave here in a hurry, could you get that open from here or is it only controlled remotely?" She does her best to reassure the student. "I'm not saying we *are* going to have to leave in a hurry. I just like to plan for stuff."

"Sasha...Hannah...stay alert *static* down there. *static* got signs this place *static* been....*static*static*"

Sasha does her best to keep her voice unconcerned, but she was counting on having contact with air support.

FRAKK

"Say again - you're not coming through clean. Say. Again." She looks at Hannah again. "Right, first test - can you do something to boost our comm signal?"

It never goes smooth. How come it never goes smooth?

Hannah walks along with Sasha, looking around as best she can in the suit. She has a lot of competing feelings about the moment she's in. Just within the short time they are marching across the distance between the ship and the facility Hannah sees a couple of dozen things that she will likely never see again. It's heartbreaking there isn't time to collect some data, or at least some samples of the crystals and metals.

Even if they weren't compelled to hustle along by the madman's (Hannah has settled on the conclusion the resident despot must be crazy) minions, they are being slow-roasted by radiation. So much so she's not sure it won't kill them sooner or (more likely) later.

Finally, the kinds of questions Sasha wants her to unravel, like the airlock one, aren't things she can possibly answer by looking at things from some distance. It's akin to walking down the street and while passing a house demanding to know if they could make a decent espresso if they went inside.

Hannah settles on a reply that brings things back to where their concerns should be.

"Do you think we're moving as fast as we should? The radiation is really blasting us."

Sasha's unable to stop the pain from showing in her voice as she replies to Hannah. "I can't go - sssss - faster than we're going now." She gives another hiss of pain. "These suits are rated for hours and we'll just have to hpe they hold for a few more minuts." She keeps her eyes focusd on their destination. "Just a bit further now," but it's not clear whether she's reasuring herself or her companon.

She brings her scout fighter in as close to the surface and facility as she can without setting off any proximity alarms or automatic defense systems. She focuses most of her passive array on the broken domes. Looking for the now all-too-familiar signs of spore corruption and the subsequent breakdown of matter. Her eyes start to water as she stares at the screen looking for the telltale melted-muddy-ice-cream look that usually means the Shrooms have paid a visit.

There it is again: that faint staticky signal. beep-beep-beep (pause) beep... beep... beep (pause) beep-beep-beep.

"Come on...come on..." She says to herself flicking through the photos as soon as they pop up on her screen. Let it be an accident or a meteor strike...accident or meteor strike...

[dice=Looks like another Seek Out to try and find what they are hiding down there.]2d6+1

Dang it...going to have to Raise Pressure again to get a +1 to make that a 7.

No melting. No signs of spore corruption.

But... there...

She sounds cheerful enough about the whole thing, but the walk there is a nightbmare for her. Walking in microgravity requires careful control of your movements, using the core muscles - whcih is exactly what the rebar went right through when it went rigth through her.

Oh, nice. (And true!)

The airlock door rumbles open. (Rumbles is the word. That door is massive and /solid/. You've seen lighter bank vaults.)

A light flares in your eyes, glaring, blinding. Behind it you can just make out the silhouettes of half a dozen men -- all pointing weapons at you.

An amplified voice booms out. "STOP WHERE YOU ARE. DO NOT APPROACH FURTHER. REMOVE YOUR VAC SUITS, NOW."

No melting. No signs of spore corruption. But... there...

It's an Amanita. A Corax ship -- a combination fighter and troop transport. It looks intact and unharmed. And it's parked right next to the refinery, practically touching it.

beep-beep-beep (pause) beep... beep... beep (pause) beep-beep-beep.

Chills start running a circuit along Thea's spine as she picks up the faint signal. It's one she's heard way too many times over the last months. That's a...

"Raven...Buzzsaw. Triangulate the coordinates on this signal." She deftly patches the info through to her squad mates. "Get me an exact location five minutes ago."

"Roger Firefly."

"On it!"

She clicks her comm to the scrambled mission frequency.

"Cerberus...Firefly here...I'm picking up a Federation S.O.S signal originating in or near the refinery. It's faint and we're working on pinpointing the location now."

"So far the destruction of the domes doesn't look like a standard Corax attack. But something is frakked up down there."

"Cerberus advice on next...wait...what's that...Holy S$#t!" She finishes enhancing the most recent image clicking through from her scan. As she does alarm bells clang in her head. The bulbous domed shape of the Shroom ship sat there, the double row of evenly spaced swamp green opening marking its multiple spore launchers "All Fleet units! All Fleet units!" She shouts into her mic. "We've got a Nita on station. Coordinates coming through now. Corax transport appears to be undamaged...repeat...the Nita is undamaged and sitting right on top of the blasted juice!"

Seek Out to Pinpoint the SOS Signal: 2d6 + 1 ⇒ (5, 6) + 1 = 12

"Cerberus...Firefly here...I'm picking up a Federation S.O.S signal originating in or near the refinery. It's faint and we're working on pinpointing the location now."

Man I was staring to wonder if anyone would catch that.

"So far the destruction of the domes doesn't look like a standard Corax attack. But something is frakked up down there."

Correct and correct...

"STOP WHERE YOU ARE. DO NOT APPROACH FURTHER. REMOVE YOUR VAC SUITS, NOW."

Assuming that you're good with removing your vac suits...

The antechamber is full of hard-faced men and women in full battle rattle -- body armor, helmets, weapons -- including two in powered armor with vac capability. There's also one person carrying... yes, that is a flamethrower. With the safety off.

"All Fleet units! All Fleet units!" She shouts into her mic. "We've got a Nita on station. Coordinates coming through now. Corax transport appears to be undamaged...repeat...the Nita is undamaged and sitting right on top of the blasted juice!"

Gunny's vision began to blur as the radiation catalyzed a thin layer of milkiness along the outer ridge of his epithelium. Felling with his hand, he finds the comm's switch and changes the tact to the local channel. "Wolf Pack to Green One, did you say you had a visual on Shroom activity? Over."

"Affirmative Wolf Pack. We've got one Amanita class transport on station." Thea replies to Gunny. "The Shrooms are there. Odd thing is, that dome damage doesn't match the usual Corax patterns."

She continues to examine the images of the domes. I wonder....

"Computer...photo enhance and enlarge...current image....sectors G15 to X45." Her onboard system responds quickly reframing the designated quadrant and sharpening the surveillance shot. There...the way the supports are bent up and out. Those pieces of debris scattered about the surface.... She squirts the enhanced image off to Gunny.

"Wolf Pack Lead, take a look at this. I think someone blew the domes from the inside. Maybe a desperate attempt to clear out a spore infestation? Could be our SOS is from whoever survived after pulling that off."

"Thats a good copy Green one. Do we currently have a twenty on our boots on the ground, over."

Gunny looks over at the image. "I second your evaluation Green One. If that place was directly attacked by the Corax, it would be covered in spoor pods. I'm not seeing any pods in this image. Can you confirm that?"

After a brief delay, Gunny continues. "Wolf pack to green one. Do we want to assault the ship, or give them time for diplomacy?"

"Negative on the ground team. Between the radiation and whatever they've lined those tunnels with, we lost them as soon as they left the surface. We're trying to punch a tight beam through, but so far, no joy."

Thea takes one last look at the images, just to be sure and then clicks open her comm. "That's a confirm. I've got negative spores."

"No orders from Cerberus yet. Currently I'd advise a hold on any assault. That ship's sitting too close to the main refinery and the juice. One stray, unlucky shot and the whole frakkin' thing could go up and likely half this rock with it."

"Copy, Green One. Keep me updated on any change or activity. I'm assuming that ship's choice of landing spot was intentional. It's very odd to see only one of those things sitting around.'

Hannah relies on her history of entertainment consumption for her first gesture toward their hosts. She raises her hands.

"Greetings. We come in peace?"

Not to be outdone, Sasha's follows that up with "Take us to your leader."

"Please."

I'm sorry for the really short post but I've been busy

"No orders from Cerberus yet. Currently I'd advise a hold on any assault. That ship's sitting too close to the main refinery and the juice. One stray, unlucky shot and the whole frakkin' thing could go up and likely half this rock with it."

Wait, someone was paying attention when I mentioned how Juice was unstable and. if nudged just right, could catalyze spectacularly powerful nuclear reactions?

-- someone paid attention to the DM's flavor text! +happy
-- that attention meant the PCs didn't make everything blow up (this time) -sad

A short (~30 minute) time skip forward...

There are three sorts of people in this refinery: Security, Management, and there's Mr. de Vries -- or Mister V., as everyone seems to call him.

Security are hard-faced, heavily armed, and mostly silent. They look very competent -- in fact, you're pretty sure some of them are ex-Marines. The only one who talks more than the occasional barked command is the leader, Captain Loza. Loza is crop-haired and bullet-headed and radiates cold efficiency.

Then there's the management group. It looks like they were originally what you'd expect from upper management -- upper middle or upper class, university educated, well dressed and groomed. But now... well, some of them don't look too healthy -- pale, haggard, tend to flinch at sudden movements. Like the security guys, they don't have a lot to say, but more in a "don't want to make eye contact" sort of way.

And then there's Mister V.

Ninety percent of the time Mr. V. comes across as pretty much what you'd expect from a very, very rich guy who has had things pretty much his way his entire adult life. He's egotistical and self-centered, but also charismatic; when he pays attention to you, you feel you're the Most Important Person. Sasha has seen this before, but never with quite so much voltage behind it. How much is the man's personality, and how much is the completely unconscious arrogance of being able to buy your own continent, is unclear.

But then there are these little moments of weirdness. Like, when he threw open his arms and greeted you "as foretold!". Or -- well in your conversation, he's dressed pretty normally, rather casually actually. But there's a hologram of him above the waterfall, wearing silvery robes and carrying some sort of --

-- oh yes, the waterfall. Your interview with Mr. V. is in "the atrium". Most of the refinery is what you'd expect from a refinery: utilitarian, lots of metal mesh and concrete and bare cables. The one oddity is that there's a lot of spongy padding on the walls and ceilings, but soon it's clear why: in the micro-gravity, it's quite easy to bounce upwards and bang your head. But otherwise, it's a pretty standard industrial facility: bare, harsh, utilitarian.

But the Atrium is obviously part of Mr. V.'s private space, and it's spectacular. It's an open space twenty meters across and over fifty high. From the top, a waterfall drops into a pond. In the low, low gravity it descends with dreamlike slowness. Green vines twine everywhere; flowers bloom; you can hear crickets and the song of unseen birds.

At the top, a huge skylight looks out on the starscape. "Leaded glass, quite rad-proof," said Mister V. with a chuckle, "and later this morning the neutron star will rise. Quite a sight! I sit here sometimes just to contemplate the grandeur of the Celestial handiwork."

-- right, so there's a hologram of himself in a silvery-white robe, carrying some sort of complicated looking staff, and holding one hand out, palm down.

But /mostly/ he seems pretty sane and normal? Very curious to know what's going on with the Fleet -- "We've been isolated here for some little while now."

"Copy, Green One. Keep me updated on any change or activity. I'm assuming that ship's choice of landing spot was intentional. It's very odd to see only one of those things sitting around.'

That's true. You've never seen one just... sitting around, like that.

beep-beep-beep

(pause)

beep... beep... beep

(pause)

beep-beep-beep.

Sasha tries not to look around too obiovulsly like a yokel, but she's never seen anything like this. She never imagiedn you could be this rich, and she tells herself off for such a lack of creativity. That waterfall-

She's brought back to ground by his quesitons about teh Fleet. "Right, yes." She does her best to move smoothly back into the terrain she knows best. "Obviously lots of information is classified, but I can tel you that I'm authorisd to negotiate with you for some of your fuel. More importantly however, as a mark of our respect for you, I have this - " She pulls out some vids she has made of the statue (of *course* seh didn't bring it with them, it's stone - it's safely in the hold of Cranberry). "I understand you are a collector, and if you give our ship permission to land then we can bring this to you. If you'd like to accept it, of course. I hope it pleaess you." Smoothly does it - it's as if she's completly unaware that there's an alien ship partked nearby. Which of course she is.

I don't think there's a move for this, maybe personal touch? I haev overusied that one a bit but I can't see another obvious one

You don't always need to use Moves (though it's always good to be asking whether one of your personal Moves might fit). Sometimes just RPing is fine.

"Firefly...Raven. That signal is coming from the domes. Sending general coordinates to you now."

"Roger that Raven. I've got 'em."

Thea plots the radius of the signal's possible origination point on her screen and curses. She clicks her squad channel.

"Buzzsaw tell me you've narrowed it a bit."

The big pilot's voice comes back a heartbeat later. "Sorry boss. No joy. It's too weak from this distance."

She slaps the covered canopy of her fighter. We need to find out what by all the Gods is going on down there. She flashes a tightbeam, scramble to the Manticore flight lead.

"Wolf Pack Lead...This is Green One. Gunny, we've narrowed that SOS origination point to those battered domes. The signal's weak. Might be someone trapped beneath wreckage. That would explain why this reads more like someone banging rocks together rather than an actual transmission."

"If we can get close enough, I could pinpoint it and maybe even make contact. But I need some cover. Your Manti's have a better ECM suite than the Yellowjacket. Can you jam their sensors while my squad drops to the surface to get a better look and hopefully a lock on that emergency signal? If I can pinpoint, then maybe we can bust a tightbeam through and find out what in all the dark void is going on here."