The Game: Chapter 12 - The Infinity Beyond
Recap & Disposition
With the Titan matter finally sorted and behind them, our heroes find themselves free to revisit the many lines of inquiry they'd been forced to abandon while time was of the essence.
Before taking their leave of the Goethe, Billy asks for and receives a state-of-the-art holographic recording device and a Faustian helix blaster from Captain Vasquez. In return, the IDA commander requests the specific coordinates for each of Sol's known jump gates, assuring you that the IDA intends to be monitoring them carefully moving forward.
Once this exchange is accomplished, the crew and the IDA go their separate ways.
***
Though depleted and demoralized by the tragic losses of Candy and Barachiel and the departures of Fiernas, his pups, Bradford, Abe, Huck, Muse, and Hadrian, the crew nevertheless finds its spirits lifted as the Ship of Convenience finally whisks them away from the Saturn system and all the trouble that accompanied it.
Of dubious value is the addition of a new crewmate, the thin and sickly man known as Basilisk. Interactions with him are of the 'self-serve' variety, as he doesn't seem inclined to don the suit that enables him to leave his shielded habitat unless a specific need arises to warrant it.
Kayla spends no little time between shifts trying to convince the rest of her teammates of Basilisk's value.
"He's been dying for years," she explains to Billy, Xander, and Rebecca on one such occasion, crunching some numbers into the wrist bracer containing the enigmatic AI known as Madisyn and showing him a readout displaying what he assumes to be biometric data. "So he's got to be more durable than he looks. Probably resistant to toxins, poisons, biological hazards, maybe even radiation. What if we're in unknown space and need a landing party, or need to effect repairs to the hull during a radiation storm or something? He's the perfect man for the job."
***
Your ultimate destination remains Venus, where Dr. Pryor awaits the return of his experimental plasma drive, but the route you plot to take you there is perhaps more meandering than he would have preferred.
You first travel to the 4 known jump gates in the Sol Sector, including those leading to the quarantined planet and the void pocket. Working together, you're able to record the exterior and interior of each and allow Whitney to take a series of readings on either side. The SAGE scientist has become less stand-offish of late, spending less time locked away in the engine room and more time interacting with the rest of the SOC's crew.
Your second destination is Eros, which seems to be a bustling hub of renewed activity by the time you arrive. Though the AOS and the IDA have abandoned the asteroid and its orbital station, dozens of ships registered to an entity known as Violent Acquisitions, Inc. can be seen docked with the station and flitting around the local airspace.
Billy soon informs you that he is the new owner of the orbital station, and that he'd hired the mercenary Kopfgeld to secure his property until he could arrive to claim it. Thus, when the SOC touches gently down in the primary docking bay reserved for its use, it is difficult to escape the feeling that you have, somehow, arrived "home".
Thanks in part to Kopfgeld's forces actually living in and around Eros and the orbital station for what appears to be quite some time, the facilities are in good working order.
Xander and Rebecca take point on inspecting every nook and cranny for useful technology, and are pleased to uncover a storeroom housing a pair of battered J9-series droids much like the ones that had cared for you when you had been held prisoner here so long ago. Their logic circuits are fried and they won't turn on, but those are solvable problems for anyone so inclined to tackle them.
After kicking your heels aboard Eros for longer than strictly necessary, you leave the orbital station once more to the expensive care of Kopfgeld and his associates in order to board the Ship of Convenience and take it to Venus, as promised...
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:06, Wed 10 Oct 2018.