Session 5, part 1: The Still Waters of Serradine IX

The trauma pod is a triumph of medical technology.
Capable of treating virtually any serious injury, its only
drawback is its significant operational cost.

"How is he?"

Doc' Merrill looked up from the display he was monitoring. At the entrance of the medical bay stood Forrester, Cassandra, and Fang. He sat back in his chair and considered his response.

"Well, the tissue damage was extensive, and the Colonel was clinically dead for almost twenty minutes. However, I was able to induce chemical hypothermia on the brain to prevent degradation of the CA1 cells in the Hippocampus." As he spoke, he stood up and began to pace back and forth across the room. "You see, most tissues in the human body are relatively unaffected by clinical death, limbs can be reattached with little permanent damage even hours after separation, but the brain is much more vulnerable. Degradation due to rampant free radical disassociation begins with minutes, unless proper steps are taken to prevent the damage."  Turning back to his audience, he saw that Forrester had a bored look on his face and the other two had left. He sighed. "I managed to get him in the trauma pod quickly enough that no permanent damage should occur. His recovery time might vary but he should be back up in three to five days."

"Good to know Merrill, keep it up." Forrester said as he turned on his heel and strode out. Merrill went back to his display and sat down, grumbling to himself.

"Forrester, you gotta help me."

Forrester stopped and turned to face Hetzer, they stood alone in the corridor that led from medical to the crew spaces.

"What are you talking about?"

"It's the lit'l girl, she's evil. I think she wants to eat me brain or sumfing."

Even for Hetzer, this was a particularly odd thing to say. "What are you talking about, she seems quite nice for a one-of-a-kind genetic experiment.

"To you, but whenever she's around stuff keeps fallin' an' hittin' me on the 'ead."

Forrester chuckled, "You mean you think she's making things fall on you, what have you done to her?"

"Nufing! Only time I ever talked to 'er was at chow when I asked her for the last biscuit."

Knowing there was more to come, Forrester simply waited.

"Ok, Ok, maybe I told 'er I was gonna sell her and 'er lit'l brother back into slavery if she didn't gimme the last biscuit, but that's it, 'onest."

"..."

Forrester turned and walked away without a word.

Fang sat on the extended loading ramp when the bay doors opened, in marched Vronune and half a dozen Svesh thugs guiding a set of massive cargo canisters. Fang jumped to his feet and contacted Forrester,

"They're here, a group of them."

"I'll be right there, don't let them on the ship yet."

Fang dropped to the deck in front of the big cargo crate. Addressing himself to Vronune he said "Wait here, Forrester will be here in a moment."

"Out of my way dog," Vronune replied condescendingly. "We have an agreement and I mean to leave immediately."

"We had an agreement that you would come alone, now you're here with six of your lackey's, what are we to think?" said Forrester as he hurried down the ramp to join Fang.

"These are here merely to load the cargo. You didn't think I would haul all of this myself, did you."

"Well, alright let's talk about that, what's in the cargo containers?"

After a very brief pause Vronune answered, "Mission-critical equipment."

Forrester regarded the Svesh gangster, "...and?"

Vronune grimaced, "The place we are going is called Serradine IX. It is covered almost entirely by deep ocean. I don't have the exact coordinates of the research base and I know that it is hidden by an electromagnetic jamming field generated by a secondary outpost. We will need to locate the jamming station and eliminate it before we can determine the location of our ultimate objective. Because of that, I have brought a small submersible and diving equipment to enable us to find and enter the base"

Forrester smiled broadly, "Ahh, good thinking." He turned to the rest of the group, "Let's get this cargo loaded and secured." He shouted. As the loading recommenced he leaned in closer to Tobey, "Check everything over with a fine-tooth comb. Make sure none of it is sabotaged and any bugs, tracers, spikes, or god-forbid, explosives need to go."

"I'm on it."

Vronune was brought aboard and they settled him into a small cabin near the cargo bay, away from the command section and critical engineering spaces. He rarely left his room and insisted his meals be brought to him. Forrester reciprocated his manners by feeding him a tiny tracking device.

Despite it's perfect temperature and non-toxic atmosphere,
Serradine IX is an unlikely spot for colonization. Because it
lacks dry surface there are very few Photsynthetic lifeforms
and therefore, little free oxygen for respiration.

The party gathered in the drop bay, having spent most of the trip working up the dive gear in a flooded secondary hold. They had transferred the submersible from the main cargo hold here and loaded it into the dropship. It took up most of the smallcraft's carrying capacity so the party would have to find what limited space they could. This meant a relatively sedate insertion so they were hoping that planetside defenses wouldn't be an issue.

After discussing things with Vronune and Captain Saul, it was decided to bring the ship out of warp very close to the planet so they could be down before any possible anti-air defenses could be brought on line. This meant the ship itself would be extremely vulnerable to spaceside defenses, as a ship coming out of warp always needed a few minutes to stabilize its systems before it could intelligently defend itself. This was deemed an acceptable risk, Vronune had informed them that the base relied on remaining undetected for its primary security and he did not believe there would be any orbital defenses.

At drop stations, the group waited anxiously for several minutes as they felt the indescribable sensation of warp fade as the ship re-entered an Einsteinien inertial frame of reference. They breathed a collective sigh of relief as Captain Saul came over the intercom;

"Deep orbit looks clear, no artificial contacts of any kind and I'm not picking up any active tracking systems. The whole western hemisphere is blanketed by the jamming field, I've got Harris doing signal diffusion analysis to get an idea where we need to drop you."

The intercom clicked off for a moment, and they sensed rather than heard the air being evacuated from the bay. Less than a minute later, they felt the deep vibration as the armored hangar door opened beneath them.

"We've got it narrowed done to about a ten square kilometer area, you'll be able to refine it further with handheld instruments. We're beginning our run, thirty seconds to launch."

The party hunkered down and tightened their grip on safety ties and secured equipment. When the dropship was released from the bay, the descent was initial very peaceful, only the mild sensation of freefall. Soon, however, the hull of the dropship began to bite into the planet's thick atmosphere. The tiny shuttle began to buffet violently despite the pilot's best efforts. The party sat crammed into corners of the troop bay around the submersible and hung on as best the could.

Within two minutes that seemed much longer, the dropship shed the last of its orbital velocity and settled into a smooth atmospheric flight path ending in a gentle hover over the target insertion point. The aft ramp lowered and the group pushed the submersible out the back. It fell the two meters and slid into the water with barely a splash. The rest of the party quickly followed suit. Once everyone was off, the dropship moved off slightly and gained altitude rapidly on its way back to the Bastard.

The party gathered together and hooked their safety lines onto the sub. Vronune strapped himself into the control harness at the front of the little craft. Checking the mounted radscanner, he clicked onto the open comm; "According to the readings, the source of the EM field is at about 80 degrees. The return is fairly strong, it seems your pilot put us pretty close."

With that, the Svesh keyed the drive and the submersible began to move ponderously off into the deep water."

They glided gently through the barren waters, the party gripped the handholds along the sides of their tiny vessel and kept searching for anything. Based on a maddeningly non-descriptive entry they had found for the planet in their shipboard database they had reason to believe that there was some truly terrifying mega fauna native to this world. It was light on specifics, but words like "hypercarnivore" and "unprecedented size" were not designed to inspire a relaxed attitude.

Soon, looming out of the distance, they spotted a massive rock outcropping soaring hundreds of meters above the seafloor.

"This must be it, The radscanner is off the charts." Said Vronune.

Switching his visor to thermographic view, Fang observed the spire. "There is heat leaking out of it, several degrees warmer than the surrounding water. It looks like there are three separate sources." He pointed them out to the group.

"Look-at-the-radiation-levels. Could-be-exhaust-ports, for-some-kind-of-reactor, yes?" Sputtered Shik. He desperately hoped they would be able to get out of the water soon, he did not like being in any situation where there was nowhere to hide and something a hundred times his size could also outrun him.

After a moment of thought, Forrester spoke up, "Alright, assuming it is an exhaust system, we'll want to enter through the center port, less likely to be directly attached to the turbines."

The party anchored the submersible to the side of the undersea mountain, gathered what equipment they thought they'd need, and began the swim up against the gentle current of warmer water coming fro the dark cave on the side of the mountain.