The party continued deeper and deeper until finally they came to te first fork, one tunnel begin an ascent up and to the right, the other continuing down. They paused momentarily, Fang cycled his visor through several different modes.
"The water coming up from below is deeper, and there are slightly elevated radiation levels, not dangerous yet, but noticable."
Forrester considered this for a moment, "It's possible this tunnel is hooked into the coolant exhaust system for a fusion reactor. If so there should be a maintanence access hatch somewhere ahead of us. We should follow the heat downward."
"Let's just be careful not to get drawn in to the turbines, though. That'd ruin my day." Interjected Tobey.
"Turbines? I don't wanna go into a turbine." said Cassandra plaintively.
"Well, then you shoulda stayed back with yer corrin' brother 'ey."
Forrester was only half-listening to the banter as he drifted forward. Fang came up beside him and they both peered into the darkness ahead of them. Fang let out a low growl and Forrester involuntarily reached for his weapon.
Before they consciously realized what was happening, a massive shape came hurtling out of the darkness, they saw only parts of it illuminated by the beams of their handlights, its flesh was a semi-translucent white with patches of some kind of chitinous material. The entire party opened fire instantly, having distributed the supply of Gyroc weapons. The tiny rockets flew out to meet the massive creature as it lunged towards Forrester.
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| The Serradine world-ocean has not been studied but it is known to be home to a thriving ecosystem. |
The attack was over as suddenly as it had begun, having taken a half dozen wounds from the gunfire, the creature simply reversed and fled back down the darkened tunnel in the blink of an eye.
"Is everyone alright?" asked Forrested, not entirely sure that he was alright. He paused to take stock of himself as the rest of the party responded; "No problems here," "We're fine," "WHAT THE CORRIN' FUCK WAS THAT!"
"Ok, we'll keep going, I think we hurt that thing, hopefully it will avoid us now." Forrester said, allowing Fang to take the lead.
As they continued down, they passed several more branches, always following the heat signature. Soon they found that the tunnels rock walls gave way to metal. They also began to detect a subtle current pushing against them, they were now in the cooling ring of a large fusion reactor. The exhaust pipe they found themselves in began to curve back upwards and as it approached the vertical, they saw the massive spinning blades of the turbine above them, along with the maintenance hatch about halfway up. Fighting the increasing pressure of the current, they filtered up into the main heat exchanger and clipped on to a railing around the access door. Hetzer settled in to break into the door but he soon found that it lacked all security features and he simply opened it. Inside was a small lock, big enough for two or three at a time.
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| Despite the many different engineering philosophies throughout the galaxy, all fusion power plants must adhere to certain basic design restrictions, like a robust cooling mechanism. |
As the rest of the party began to filter in, Hetzer went to the door, careful to avoid the laser tripwire, opened it and peeked his head out. He looked left intially and from behind him he heard a shout of alarm.
"Hey!"
Ducking back quickly, Hetzer flinched as several rounds spanged off the metal piping around the doorway. Thinking on his feet, Hetzer grabbed a grenade from his belt and, without arming it, tossed it around the corner into the hallway.
"FRAG OUT!" he shouted as he heard the small explosive bounce down the metal grated floor.
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| Kinassa Phase IV Security Armor is designed to provide ballistic protection to critical areas while remaining light and comfortable. |
The rest of the party fanned out and began to search the area, alert for any additional hostiles. They were on an elevated platform about five meters above the primary engineering section of a medium size power plant. In front of them rose an array of large metallic cylinders, fusing chambers for the Deuterium and Hydrogen fuel. ALong the walls were a myriad of other, unidentifiable support machines. To the left were several doors and a short hallway. Forrester and Shik began examining the reactor itself. If this was providing power to the jamming field, then sabotaging the reactor might be the best way to disable it. Meanwhile, the rest of the team set up in positions to cover the only obvious entry points.
As Shik and Forrester descended the ladder to the base of the reactor room, Fang sounded the alarm.
"I hear something! Coming down the hall," he called out over the comm.
Tobey settled the rifle butt tight into his shoulder, then he closed his eyes and slowly exhaled, allowing his entire body to relax. When he opened his eyes he saw the crosshairs of his scope pointing at the ground near the center of the short hallway. He adjusted his position so the crosshairs rested naturally about halfway up the wall near the inner corner of the corridor.
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| The Behrans-92F AMW (Anti-Material Weapon) is a shoulder-fired electromagnetic accelerator that fires a 7mm solid ferrous projectile at speeds in excess of 6,000 mps. |
The hypervelocity slug sliced through the warm air of the reactor room and punched right through the light ballistic armor of the target. The hydrostatic shock inflicted by the strike was sufficient to cut the man in half without even slowly the round appreciably. The next three men were directly behind and the railgun shot struck each one of them in turn, killing four men in an instant.
The leader of the group slowed to a stop and turned to survey the carnage behind him. At that instant Fang leapt out of his concealing position and ran up to the man, delivering a precisely aimed blow to the base of the mans spine with his wristblade. The last of the security personnel dropped, dead before he hit the ground.
Fang and Hetzer bounded forward and cleared the hallway, around the L-junction at the end they found an open elevator. The party spread out and cleared the rest of the floor, finding nothing else but a machine shop and several storage areas, plus an emergency staircase leading up. Forrester and Shik clambered back up to join them.
"Alright, we rigged the place to blow, but the radio detonators won't work until we bring down the jamming field."
"Not-want-blow-up-reactor-anyway. Not-until-we-are-far-away, at-least." Added Shik indignantly.
Avoiding the elevator in favor the the staircase, the party began to methodically move up, clearing the station as it went. The second level was given over to crew spaces, they found a console and Hetzer tapped into it, finding that this was a secondary station connected to the main facility some 20km away by a single-car tram. They also learned that this outpost was manned by eight engineers and between four and six security/custodial staff. It appeared that they might have accounted for all the security personnel but they had yet to see any of the engineers.
Cassandra was with Tobey and Fang checking the dormitory when she let out a squeel.
"What!, What do you see?" Asked Tobey urgently, thinking she might have seen one of the missing crew.
"It's sp FLUFFY!" the young girl declared as she lifted up a small, orange plastic ball and snuggled it against her cheek. Inside was a little ball of green fur skittering around erratically and emitting tiny squeeks. Written on a piece of masking tape affixed to the ball was the creatures name "Mr. Future."
"What is that thing?" asked Tobey.
"Lunch," said Fang, with dire purpose.
"No, it's a Trill."
Everyone but Cassandra turned to Doc' Merrill as he strode into the dormitory.
"A Trill? how do you know that."
"My sister's kids had one as a pet a few years ago, they're great for kids because they don't really need much care, but you have to be careful how much they eat because they are self-inducing hermaphrodites, and the normal litter size is between ten and twenty.
"I love him!"
"Give me the morsel." demanded Fang.
Forrester came in then, saw the young girl and the little creature and wisely decided to refrain from comment. Instead he waved the group back towards the stairs.
"Let's get going, the sooner we get up to the command section the sooner we can leave."
The group moved up the stairs cautiously to the top level and they gathered around the closed door.
"Watch this, I'll get them corrin' bastards to hop, see if I don't." Hetzer whispered gleefully. He again removed his lucky grenade from its rightful place on his belt, slipped the heavy door open, and tossed the small device in as hard as he could.
"Fuckin' BOOM!" He shouted unnecessarily.
Much to his dismay, there was no reaction from inside. "Aww, nobody 'ome."
The party moved in and confirmed that, it appeared that the engineers had eluded them, perhaps they had been sent away on the tram as soon as the incursion had been detected.
"This-is-terminal-that-controls-jamming-field." sputtered Shik as he approached a large console occupying a central space in the small command section.
"Good, rip it open and bring it down," replied Forrester. "We need to move fast now, those technicians have probably already warned the main base."
"Not so sure that's going to be a problem," said Tobey absently. "Come take a look at this."
Everyone wandered over to join him at what appeared to be a communication console. On the display was a flickering tri-D image that was heavily distorted by still discernable as a man. The audio was even worse, a constant hash of noise with only occasional flashes of clarity.
"..Explosion...things...help...fucking..arrival...bad..."
"That sounds like trouble," deadpanned Merrill.
"Is that due to the EM field?" asked Forrester, indicating the interference.
"No way, look, its a hardline connection. This gear is good, mist be a problem with their equipment."
As they spoke the display cut out, replaced with a simple holding pattern.
Tobey cocked his head to check the readout, "Transmission terminated at the source," he said, tapping the error code with his finger.
"I-have-it," crowed Shik from behind them. They all turned to see him lifting up a non-descript looking piece of technology about the size of a human head.
"Is that the jamming module?" Asked Tobey.
"Yes-yes, very-advanced, very-valuable-as-salvage, we-take-it, split-evenly." The small alien practically vibrated with excitement.
"Hey, where's the Svesh?" Asked Cassandra suddenly.
The party looked around and realized that they hadn't seen the cartel boss since the firefight on the bottom level.
"He must have betrayed us somehow. I will gut him and leave him to bleed to death for that," said Fang, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "After I eat the green morsel."
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