Once everyone had gathered the things they decided they wanted, they headed south along the corridor. The next few doors they came to, Alex and Buzz entered first and they discovered a few labs that appeared to be tailor made to facilitate the design and creation of Gennies.
The larger of the two labs held large floor to ceiling gestation containers. The containers appeared to have electromechanical locks that would be able to be triggered with specific FM frequencies. The tanks lacked the normal liquids and goose that would suggest they had been recently, or ever used.
Zaphod and Max spent some time hacking the computers trying to find out what they could and found research notes. Here, a scientist had recorded information about three kinds of combat Gennies that were in development in the facility. Once was a large snake designed for camouflage and speed. Another was a large scorpion designed to incapacitate and consume, and a third was a large crab designed to breach and destroy.
Having traveled through three corners of the facility so far, the group was certain they had already seen these three monstrosities, but that did not stop them from downloading the notes to make sure that they could prepare others in the organization if these things were to have been deployed anywhere.
Continuing south, Alex and Buzz next opened a door into an unused containment area housing a number of large cages suitable for any kind of animal that may have been needed to experiment on. Across the hall was more gennie containment, but, as Buzz opened the door, he found that the place had fluids everywhere and no small quantity of large creatures were moving around in it among the opened gestation pods.
Buzz quickly shut the door and when Seraphina asked if he thought the children they were looking for could have been in there, Buzz adamantly asserted that there was no possible way, so they continued on down the corridor.
Unused offices and more containment cages were found in the next few rooms, one set of cages contained large birds of some variety. As the birds in their cages were approached, they became vicious and launched themselves toward the doors of the cages, feathers unfurled and talons in front, giving all the evidence necessary for this to be one more room that no one had to spend any quantity of time in.
Across the hall from the birds was another room with a large roll up door. Inside was a significant quantity of satellites mounted with reflectors. Between the collective knowledge of the group, it was determined that these kinds of satellites were used to target laser weapons systems from surface mounted facilities, however only one or two were ever needed and they tended to be much smaller. The reflectors of the DLSAT-X satellites were all broken, leading the adventurers to assume that the evacuating RAM scientists simply destroyed what they were unable to complete.
In the final of the four corners of the facility, the adventurers discovered a waste water processing facility. Believing that the children easily could have found their way into it to hide, Buzz and Alex walked to the back of the room and opened a door into a smaller sequestration area, where a quantity of hyper snakes had been hiding. Buzz made a hasty retreat while Alex covered him, and they managed to get out of the room before the situation got especially dangerous.
As the group rounded the corner, they decided that it would make more sense to head north once more and work backward toward the corner from the far wall of the facility. In doing so they happened upon another storage room containing precursor chemicals and another robotic vehicle loader.
Buzz decided to take the robotic vehicle and with him and Seraphina walking around in one, Seraphina lost interest in hers and they were both soon abandoned in the corridor. As the adventurers continued, without the loaders, they eventually found another Gennie lab, this time it appeared to have been recently used, but did not contain any gennies.
Max and Zaphod took to the computers, with Max finding a lot of information on how the gestation pods in this facility were constructed, including a schematic of the FM locks. Zaphod didn’t find much interesting information other than notes that would indicate that this was the primary lab where a majority of the research had been conducted.
Seraphina found a door that appeared to lead into a different section of the lab, and when she attempted to open it, discovered it had been jammed rather succinctly. Buzz and Alex took a few minutes to try and open the door as well, but were unsuccessful.
As Zaphod walked toward the group to see if he could do something about the door, he discovered a small radio transmitter, like the kind you would build as a science experiment while learning. A quick inspection showed that the device however was built poorly and so when it was switched on, it transmitted across the entire FM spectrum. Some audible clicks were heard from the gestation pod locks and Max, while downloading the schematics for the pods, was interrupted as the computer lost all connection to the mainframe and went a bit wonky for a moment; it appeared as though they found the reason for the accidental release of the gennies.
Not wanting to leave a stone unturned in their continued search for the missing children, the adventurers turned their attention to the blocked door. Realizing no amount of prying or tinkering would make the door move, their attention turned to the satchel charges that Seraphina had been carrying around.
Seraphina, with Zaphod’s help, rigged the door with a shaped charge so that only the door and its frame would suffer the blast, and everyone stood back while the timer ticked down. The explosion rocked the door and blew the metal and debris into the lab. When the smoke cleared, the adventurers stepped inside to find a group of children huddled in the corner.
As the adventurers cautiously made their way into the lab, as one of the children stepped forward saying, “Welcome, I am Milo Philips Junior. Thank you for coming to our aid. We should get to my father as soon as possible.” As Milo spoke, another young man whispered something about “DNA” which Max overheard, but Milo dismissed the boy saying “Never mind Jim, he wants us to confirm the password with you, but I don’t know that we need to do that right now”.
The adventures did not know what to do with this pompous youth, and so began to take stock of the lab. Zaphod and Max started to look at the computers while Milo continued to tell them that they should not be wasting time in the lab.
Seraphina was doing her best to convince Milo that they need to salvage the research as much as rescue the children, and Milo was not having it Eventually, Zaphod moved to put the child in his place, and everyone unanimously agreed that hitting the kid was a bad look and it should not happen. Zaphod went back to working on the computer with one of the young men following him.
As Zaphod and Max worked, Jim sat next to him and watched. Jim casually said something about how it would be funny if the adventurers were not RAM rescue personnel and were instead NEO spies, and Zaphod told him to get lost.
Max determined that there was still more to be done in the base, noticing that there was some kind of weapons system lab on premises, so the adventures gathered the four children and headed into the corridor on the opposite side of the lab, which ended up taking them right out next to the elevator they made their way down here in.
Also right next to the elevator, was the door to another lab, which contained a large workshop and many computers. Inside, the group once again began to collect information and Jim continued to talk at Zaphod, saying this time that it was fun to watch spies, and said something about how Milo constantly bad-mouthed Buck Rogers.
In the lab, the group found schematics and plans for a laser of unprecedented power. Apparently, the scientists here were working with special lenses made on Venus that collected power as a beam was focused through them. A laser made with these lenses would be far more powerful than anything anyone had seen to date, but would require specific materials with a long build time.
Letting curiosity win, the group then moved into a secondary room off the side of the laser lab. Here was a rough hewn rock chamber that housed a scale model of the weapon that was described in the documents they had discovered. The weapon was as large as a ground vehicle and hummed with power.
Milo stepped up and as they all looked on, started a speech in honor of RAM’s dominance and continued pursuit of science in the name of the Martian People. As the adventures looked on, listening to Milo pontificate and discussing whether or not they should turn on the device, Jim walked over to it and casually pressed a combination of buttons.
The machine got louder and then a blinding light was emitted from the end with a deafening sound as the laser instantly ignited the oxygen in the air as it traveled to the far wall vaporizing a section of rock the size of a twin bed. The rock and the smoke from the instant ignition made the children cough and spit while the adventurers, wearing their space helmets, struggled to see for a moment. The whole affair was as instant as it was terrifying. Following the demonstration, the group quickly understood that a full size weapon would be able to destroy something like the Moon or a large portion of the Earth easily. This was truly a doomsday device.
With everything in hand, the adventurers decided that it was a good idea to continue to take the children back to their parents and aid the evacuation of the facility. As they walked, Jim offered up that the base administrator was afraid of some man who had knives in his arm and talked briefly about how Bobby had to spend time at a dusty base in the Martian high desert a few months ago. Heading to the elevator that remained in operation, they discovered that the primary power for the facility was not on so the elevator was not running.
Without missing a step, Milo withdrew a rope from his pack and with the aid of the other boy Bobby, he attached it to the bottom of the elevator car and they began their ascent. The adventurers felt this was a risky and unwise thing to do, but in the end all was well as a few minutes later, the whole group found themselves entering the elevator car from the bottom through the maintenance hatch.
Entering the main corridor once more, Milo said they should go through the Worker quarters to the West, as it was the fastest way to get back to the administration offices. As they entered the worker quarters, they found a large number of worker Gennies dying in the room. Jim looked very upset but Milo was trudging right along as if he was walking through a field of dying vegetables.
Jim convinced the adventurers to stop and do something about the worker’s condition, and Zaphod determined they had too much nitrogen in their system, which was what was likely killing them. Seraphina found some controls on the exterior of the room to adjust the oxygen ration, almost as if this was always something that was potentially going to happen, and so she adjusted the air to be proper for the creatures survival. Milo was bothered by this, but as he saw them become revived, said something about since they salvage these RAM assets, they should attempt to get them on a rescue vessel, before convincing Bobby and Sissy to follow him toward the administration offices.
Max followed the children to the point that they could be seen near the administration offices and then returned with the rest of the group, who had decided they would accompany Jim to the evacuation vessel so that no ill fate would befall him.
As they walked toward the dock where the evacuation vessel was, Jim asked if he could stop and pick up some of his belongings. They group agreed this was a good idea and so they approached a living area. As they opened the door to go in, an elderly man was in the hallway pointing an antiquated slug thrower at them. When the man saw Jim, he dropped the gun and ran to him, elated that he was OK.
The man ended up being Jared Robak, a RAM official of decent social standing. Jared thanked them profusely and then provided them with an official digital document that declared that if it was presented, the individual presenting it had Jared’s approval and was allowed to do whatever it was they were doing in the name of RAM. Basically he provided them with a permission slip to act on his behalf in RAM matters.
After Jim had gathered a few of his things, Jim and Jarred headed to the dock. As Jim left, he mentioned to the adventurers that he saw a woman wearing an NEO uniform being taken into the prison the other day. He then told the adventurers where the prison was and wished them luck on their journey.
The group decided to find the prison and rescue the woman. Traveling through the middle of the facility Seraphina managed to disable the RAM security robots and they found some more administrative offices. Eventually they found a lounge and the prison. As they arrived, they also found that a number of people were imprisoned in the facility that did not belong to NEO. Zaphod convinced everyone that whoever they were, it was better to release them than let them rot in the ells with no one to provide their basic needs, so they let what was assumed to be a number of pirates go. The pirates wasted no time leaving the prison and the adventurers followed shortly after.
Buzz carried the woman, who Zaphod had determined was suffering advanced radiation sickness, as they found their way to the communications room. In the communications room they discovered a priority message to Milo about a facility on Mars and learned that the base was broadcasting a warning message. They also heard from Scott.dos who was informing them that he had finally gained access to the base’s system and was starting to sift the information and steal anything he could.
As they walked back toward their dock, they heard Milo Junior loudly complaining about how his father left them and he was very upset about it. Zaphod and Buzz walked back to the ship, while Max and Seraphina decided to make sure that the kids made it to the evacuation vessel.
At the evacuation vessel, the guards there handed Max a large case that Milo Senior instructed them to give to the rescue force when his son arrived. Inside the case Max found 100k credits worth of Grandrubles. As Seraphina and Max headed back toward their ship, Max decided to stop and inspect the armory, discovering that nothing very useful had been left behind, but did take a laser rifle for Buzz.
This was when Zaphod and Buzz had radioed to them and said that they were having trouble getting on the ship. Apparently there were some kind of electrical problems and Carm was not answering. Seraphina and Max made haste back to the ship and when they arrived, Seraphina was able to get the door open.
Stepping inside the airlock, and then into the main entry, they were immediately attacked with sonic stunners. With their eyes closing, they saw a man in powered armor with large blades sticking out of his arms, telling them to sleep tight, he would speak to them again soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment