The Mourning Wolf, as they discovered the ship was called, sat drunkenly in the crater it had made. Nova, Chip, Bobbie and Sable were all working on securing the last section of shiny, new bulkhead to her prow and prepared to run a ship-wide seal test, increasing pressure within the ship to many times higher than normal and gauging the results to ensure there were no fatal leaks once they left atmosphere. The ship itself was amazing with many fine components, including the AI, a tetranode computer calling itself Goldie and her undamaged scanners. Chip, however, worried about the two power cores, the main core was going to be stable enough, but could not grant enough power for operation without shutting down many components; the other scrounged core would be fragile and barely let the ship run with all systems and left all of the heavier turrets aboard the ship empty. The tests were all successful and they shut down the ship's signal jammer in preparation of going to pick up Grandpa Pewter and his men.
As soon as the disrupting field snapped off, the walking corpses within sight range slowly start emanating with a faint, blue glow. Sable mentioned wanting to study one and Terikoraz stalked out, without waiting, to go grab one and bring it back to the ship intact. Hearing this, Chip locked himself in the upper levels of Engineering and had Bobbie seal the lower doors, using her telemetry to keep an eye on the situation. Terry managed to easy grab a corpse, his massive, scaled fist doubling the thing over before he wrapped it in a tight bear hug, lifting the technozombie as easily as a child, discovering it's emaciated form only weighed about fifty pounds. As he walked back to the ship, he saw the glow was composed of impossibly small machines in a cloud around the corpse and told everyone as he neared the ramp. Thankfully, everyone convinced him to not bring it aboard the ship, the danger was too great, seeing as how everyone in the city was either missing or one of these things. The Vesk mulled the thought over before jamming the sharpened tip of his pike into its stomach a few times and tossed the body aside. The glow brightened around the wound and started climbing up along the haft of the pike, moving towards Terry. He dropped the weapon and staggered a few steps back. The nearby drone, watching for Chip, shot the pike with an energized static shot from its pulsecaster. The glow brightened momentarily, then dimmed sharply as the nanites were briefly overloaded. The Vesk saw this and grabbed a bit of scrap laying nearby, setting it aflame and waving the flames through the small cloud of nanites around his weapon until they all fell, unseen, to the ground, their light snuffed. He picked up his pike and inspected it, the dense metal was pocked and scarred, as if it had been coated in a powerful acid, but still seemed strong enough for use. Blair ordered him to the ship's decontamination room for a thorough cleansing.
They spent the next four minutes warming up the ship's thrusters and departed Colbix, deciding to finish all further work at Grandpa Pewter's compound. It was both a more secure location and had the rest of the people and materials they would need anyways.
Everything was loaded quickly and efficiently, managing to fit not only the VIP Light ATV, but also a large pickup and the cargo hauler they had stolen from the looters. Pewter wanted them to drop him and his men off in the Kir system, a five system jump away. Checking the navigational charts, they found that the next system over, in the edge of the corporate sector, the Kamar system had a facility Run by Dwarf Star Technologies, a low orbital station connected to the planet via a space elevator. Grandpa Pewter let them know if any place had a stored copy of their memories, it would be that place. Both Dwarf Star and its hidden parent company, the Mikkei Combine used the planet as a trade hub.
Blair made the decision to make a stop there to try to recover their memories on the way to the Kir system. A non-existent plan set, they lifted off of Iberius and made the calculations to make the hyperspace jump to Kamar. During the jump, Chip busied himself with working on Bobbie, wanting to get her camera storage and transmission system operational, but was having a few difficulties with some of the defective parts installed on her. Aroshok walked up to him, watching him work for a few minutes before observing, "Have you tried hitting it?"
Chip looked up with a scowl, his voice indignant. "This is a delicate piece of electronics… you don't hit them to make them work!"
After a few fruitless hours of tracing connections and checking different chips and crystals, he gave the idea up until he could purchase better materials, reactivating Bobbie and letting her go back to her routine of ship maintenance. Chip tried grabbing a bunk near the engine room, but was shooed off by Sable, who snapped, "You can't take one of the medical beds, you and Bobbie go down to the crew quarters and take one of those rooms!"
He thought, fleetingly, about arguing but gave up the idea almost as soon as it came, choosing one of the closest of the crew quarters to engineering as his own… the fact it was an officer's room and a bit larger than most of the others made no difference and he'd tell them all that… after he changed the locks.
They dropped out of hyperspace, not at the edge of the system as is normal, but near the planet in question. Their transponder started reacting, picking up over three hundred ships in system and starting to transmit its own set of codes. Blair panicked, not wanting to announce their presence just yet and ordered Goldie to take the transponder offline. She sat back in her seat, somehow having found some purple crushed velvet to cover the seat with and had Sable keep an eye on passive sensors. Red lights illuminated the ship as a soft claxon blared to life, not a targeting lock warning, but a proximity warning as they neared the gravity well of a nearby vessel. The other ship scanned them and hailed them. Blair mussed her hair and crossed her legs before telling Sable to put the call on screen.
A heavily augmented dwarven face filled the screen, scowling until he saw who sat upon the captain's chair, "By the Forge of Stars! Blair! Where have ye been?"
"Working and busy, obviously. We had to repair this ship before we could come out this way… to see you."
The short man sputtered, "Why haven't ye contacted us?! We'd thought ye dead!"
"Winkin!" another voice bellowed, "Git outta the way and let me talk!"
The dwarf was thrust aside by disgusting looking dwarf covered in warts, but wearing finery and a powder wig moved to fill the screen, Winking could be heard apologizing to 'Guvna Warstein' for not moving quickly enough.
The new dwarf leered through the screen at Blair, barely glancing at the others on the bridge, licking his lips, "You were supposed to contact us months ago."
Blair decided to try bluffing her way through, not wanting him to know she had no idea who he was, "Well, we crashed the ship, you see and had to spend time getting it operational, then came right here to see you, Guvna"
He shook his head, his wig waggling left to right, a bit delayed from his face, "Blair… we've been lying to each other for many a year now. Don't you think I don't know by now when you do?"
She let out a long sigh, finally coming to the decision to tell this Guvna Warstein their very limited tale. He nodded, watching her face before finally speaking, "Come aboard, I've got drinks aplenty and we can talk more there."
His well-armed and armored shuttle pulled up next to the Wolf, shooting a line to just above her airlock hatch. Everyone but Nova suited up and went to the airlock, clipped themselves onto the line and made their way across to the sleek looking ship. Most of the crew seemed to have been made up of female dwarves in varying states of dishabille, except for Winkin and Guvna.
Several hours of drinking and talking were spent, mostly with the dwarves telling the crew of the Wolf a little about themselves they hadn't yet known. They'd worked for the Blood Wolf Legion, a mercenary company that takes contracts for anyone with enough credits for the job. Blair had intercepted a transmission from Dwarf Star technologies about shipments going to the Crystal Tower in the Kamar system, but not where they were being sent from there. Several months of bribery, hacking and just watching ships going to and from the system led them to the Vescyr system out in wildspace, home of the hidden research planet of Iberius. They had planned on sneaking down to the planet, stealing the prototype ship and any valuable information they could and getting away. Guvna couldn't tell them what occurred on the planet, but could tell them their sensors picked them up as they lifted off the planet, attacked the cities of Colbix and Jael before flying into a portal. Some time later, the portal reopened and the ship crashed. The dwarves watched on with their remote sensors, but could not tell if the crew had survived or not until they saw them today.
Blair filled them in on her daring plan to break into the Crystal Tower, infiltrate the archives and find their stolen memories. Guvna thought this over, stroking his chin slowly," I'll tell ye what, lass. Let's discuss it further in my chambers and perhaps I'll get you down to the planet when I land to do some business and you can find your way up the space elevator from there to get your memories." With that, he led her to his chambers, the door sliding shut behind them.
Chip rolled his eyes and took another shot of whiskey before suiting back up, "I think I'll make myself useful and get something prepped for this job. I'll see you guys back on the Wolf."
He tipped an imaginary hat to them and made the slow crossing over the line back to their ship. Once on board he went to the tech lab and pulled up the schematics for a signal jammer, similar in nature to what the ship used to protect itself when it was crashed, only smaller and much more portable. He figured the charge should last a good two hours on a single battery pack.
All too soon they were landing at the spaceport and handed access badges that were to be worn at all times that were bright yellow with a large, visible V on them, for visitor access. They could not go many places other than some business and the massive amount of cheaper lounges scattered around the spaceport. Chip thought a moment then grinned, "Let's go to that lounge over there."
Sable grabbed his arm, "Are you crazy? We've got something to do and you're bringing Blair to a bar!"
He cocked his head to the side, "Well, yeah. If anyone can distract someone long enough to get their access card and get them drunk enough to not notice for a while, it's her."
He kept an wary eye out, wearing Bobbie in what he called 'backpack mode', her legs clamped onto hooks on his Second Skin, all appendages withdrawn except for her antenna, looking very much like an old, bulky planetary communicator rig. After an hour, he spotted someone with a color-coded, level eight badge and set Blair to the task of acquiring the badge however she saw fit.
Blair left her latest conquest's ship, rearranging her top to fit back the way it was supposed to, walking briskly back to the lounge, tossing the badge to Sable. It was Sable's job to locate a method of getting more in the administration ward of the spaceport and bring them back to the crew. She was gone for a little over an hour when she came back, badges printed out in their cover names, Blair making sure to change hers to Judy Swallows. She walked them quickly towards the tram station that would take them to the space elevator and the Crystal Tower above, "There is a slight problem, the cards should all work, but I was not able to stop the terminal from sending out a notification that they've been made, so they might not work for very long."
They nodded and proceeded on, noticing everyone else on the tram kept their eyes down and didn't speak to one another or look at anyone else, apparently it was common to not be able to get into work due to changing badge levels when things got moved around and they were under strict orders to not notice a damn thing. The crew shrugged as this worked in their favor, but decided to be quiet for the trip to not stand out further than they already did.
The tram finally reached the base of the tether with line leading to the elevators. Six elevators ran along the tether and two of them were currently loading. They could try to rush ahead and load some of them up, or they could wait until the next one became available. They opted to wait and not split up. They were able to load themselves up, with just their own crew within a half hour and started the hour-long trip up to the Crystal Tower. Something was bothering Chip as they travelled and it wasn't before they were halfway up before it came to him.
"Sable, do you think you can monitor their communications, just to make sure no alerts have gone up yet about those badges?"
She nodded and closed her eyes, linking with their system, "I can try…" Her eyes fluttered as she accessed it wirelessly, using her neural network to try to hack their systems, unfortunately the person monitoring their networks detected her and sent a virus her way before locking her out of the system.
"Shit" she managed to breathe, before the elevator slowed to a stop and started descending.
Chip swore and tore off a nearby access panel with his prosthetic arm and linked with the elevators motors, cutting off the signals to return and had the elevator once more headed the right way, "I'm not sure what they've got up there, but they'll know we're coming."
They had a long wait until the elevator finally docked in its berth above the Crystal Tower, during that time, Chip set up a few barricades and fallback points, in case guards rushed the spacious elevator, which really seemed more like a lounge due to the time people had to spend on it. The doors opened silently and no one rushed the chamber, making the crew have to exit into whatever might have been set up for them.
"Typical" Blair said as they started out, "men making ME do all the work."
They had to file out of the elevator, the gravity plane changing drastically as they came up through the floor of the large acceptance chamber in the Crystal tower. All around the immediate opening of the elevator at their feet were see-through shields, showing the planet and the tether disappearing down into the clouds below, surrounding them on all sides were stations guards… all of the stations guards. The heavily armored guards were crouched behind decorative walls, low tables and pillars, armed with pulsecaster pistols to incapacitate people, though some of the more dangerous ones wore TacLashes on their hips and had injection gloves.
Chip waited to leave the elevator last, coming out only after Blair. There were low, decorative shield regulators that doubled as tables around the elevator, the crew stepping through the bolt of numming electricity fired by the guards, kneeling behind the tables for cover. Terikoraz naturally shunned the cover, his first steps taking him right up to a guard that had taken a position a bit too close, his pike carving through even his hardened armor. Bobbie hovered just above the height of the tables, ignored by the guards as inconsequential until her precisely aimed pulsecaster bolts started knocking out guards, their muscles contracting painfully as their muscles seized with the energy arcing through them. Chip knocked over some chairs for a rough barricade on his side, trying to cover Aroshok as he stepped boldly our, his fist closing around a red glowing mote of stellar energy, forming a sword and he covered their flank. The fight was intense, many shots impacting the tables and pillars of the rooms both sides were hiding behind. Sable shocked them all when the heat around her drained to an icy chill, the heat blooming forth before her, catching two guards on fire, causing them to have to stop fighting to put themselves out.
Blair drew guard's eyes to her, using scathing words and subtle influence to make their shots less sure, though her words were often nonsensical, "I hate you! And you! And your mother! Actually, I don't. She's lovely. She baked me cookies once. They had drugs in them, but you know, I don't hold that against her."
Blair stood with Sable, supporting her as she fired shot after shot with her laser pistol, keeping guards heads down while Terikoraz and Bobbie took care of most of the guards. Chip kept Bobbie changing targets, going after wounded guards, helping drop them with her non-lethal shots and clearing the Vesk and Lashunta to engage other targets, pulling them out of their cover. One of the guards pulled his Teclash, snaking it around Aroshok's ankle, pulling it out from under him, sending him tumbling to the ground, his star mote temporarily winking out with the impact. Chip sat up, coordinating with Bobbie to shoot at the guard with the teclash. Blair glances over and yells to the guy Chip's fighting, "Sorry I called you an imbecile. I should've realized that I would have to explain what it means."
A stray shot glanced against Bobbie, sending the drone careening against a nearby piller before it's gyros made corrections in its flight. The drone swooped low, around the edge of the low wall the guard who shot her was knelt behind, stunning him with her pulsecaster, leaving just one left. Chip vaulted over his table, firing blindly over the cover the guard had who promptly threw down his pistol and surrendered.
Chip thought to knock him out, but luckily others decided questioning was a better idea. Blair went over the guard to introduce herself, "No doubt you’ve seen my likeness on the temple walls? Maybe in the bathrooms?"
Terikoraz ignores Blair "Where do they keep extracted memories?"
The guard glares up at the two while Sable and Chip went to the security booth to lock down the tower, "I'm not telling you anything!"
"That's fair, Terry?" Blair asked, "Rip his arms off."
The guards eyes widened in fright as the large Vesk's claws wrapped around his arm, starting to babble. The archives were on level three, but level 8's could not access it. Blair called over to the two hovering over the security terminal.
"What level is needed to access the archive?"
Sable glanced up, her eyes alight with data as Chip removed the lock out for her individual systems, "Level 5 clearance is required."
Blair glanced down to the guard's level five badge, "Good to know.”
Chip inspected the damage to Bobbie, including the slight dent where she had caromed off the pillar, noting, with a scowl, that her camera was functioning properly.
I hope you've enjoyed the second installment of the Sleepers, I can't wait for the next game!
The Players:
· Chip, human Mechanic, ship's mechanic and drone operator
· Blair, human Envoy, ship's captain. Crazy
· Sable, Android Technomancer, ship's science officer and impromptu medic
· Terikoraz, Vesk Soldier, ship's PR officer and tank
· Aroshok, Lashunta Solarion, quiet wielder of celestial power
· Nova, Android Mechanic, NPC and ship's pilot
· Bobbie, Chip's Hover Drone/AI, NPC and best shot of the crew
