Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 16 - The Surface of Mars

 Heading out of the orbit of Pallas, the crew of the Maelstrom Strider set a course for Mars. The mood on the ship was less that of a group of confident spies headed for a covert mission to thwart the scheme of a system wide menace, and more that of a group of people facing down the barrel of a firing squad. 

Most of the adventurers felt this was a suicide mission and as they approached the orbit of Mars, that feeling was reinforced when they discovered the plant had significant floating defenses. A large group of assorted ships created a veritable web of patrol around the planet, ensuring that only those who were supposed to be coming and going from the red planet had the opportunity to do so unhindered. 

From a good, non-threatening distance, Scott.dos examined the patrol routes along with the information that Seraphina and Zaphod gathered with targeted sensor scans, to determine that approaching the area they needed to land at around 11 PM that night would bring them in contact with the least amount of resistance. Incapable, or unwilling of coming up with a different plan, the adventurers agreed that Scott gave them the best opportunity, with a good exit plan to boot. 

Zaphod identified the two RAM medium cruises they were about to approach as the Heat Death and the Adder. When Buzz adjusted the Maelstrom Rider’s course to that of a Martian surface destination, the two ships stopped their patrol and hailed the ship. 

As a group, the adventurers discussed what to say to the ships, briefly discussing cashing in their favor from Jared Robak but thought better of it. A lot of ideas were floated, but then after quickly digging through their notes, Zaphod mentioned that quarter marshal Flit Hewitt was someone that Talon frequently ran guns for. Since the RAM ships had made it clear that the Maelstrom Rider was not considered a stolen asset, the adventurers thought it would make sense to pretend to be affiliated with Talon.

Buzz radioed back to the RAM ships that their current business was with Flint and this was not exactly a sanctioned activity, the soldiers on the RAM ship agreed to let them pass, for a price. Doing some quick back of the envelope math, the adventurers decided it was OK to offer the soldiers 25k credits to be paid 10k now and 15k later when the Heat Death provided them safe passage back off the planet.

The Adder fired its engines to continue its patrol route, while the Heat Death traveled to the Maelstrom Rider to board and exchange the promised funds. After a few minutes, the soldiers took a quick count of the money in the case that the adventurers provided them, and then asked the adventurers when they expected to be back. Everyone agreed on two days time at the same time and the RAM soldiers reboarded their craft and cleared the way for the Maelstrom Rider’s descent.

Once past the planetary defenses, Scott.dos showed the group a ring of mountains to land in that would protect their ship and provide them cover while they loaded and unloaded their vehicle. 

Once on the surface, Scott.dos gave them some places in the desert to examine. The group was reminded they were here to find and disrupt the operation related to whatever was being researched and built at the asteroid base. The adventurers got into their van and started heading West. 

The moon light on mars was not significant and there were dense but sparse clouds leading to large pockets of pitch black in the open desert. As they drove toward the Western feature, they discovered a group of Sand Squids that were herding and predating on a group of smaller wildlife. Alex did his best to avoid the creatures, but as they got close, some of the creatures gave chase to the van. 

Alex deftly maneuvered across the dark desert avoiding the subterranean creatures and around 3 AM they found themselves near some very large areas of desert that were completely glassed over. Zaphod and Seraphina dug into all of their collected knowledge and were unable to find a natural reason for this, being much too far away from, and much too limited in scope, to be from volcanic activity, they came up blank. Looking at the angle and the degree of the glassing, Alex determined that this must have been a result of testing from the prototype weapon that was being developed on the asteroid.

Carm was not far from the group and looking around the edges of the glass, where there seemed to be remnants of stone walls, when he discovered something interesting. As he called attention to his find, everyone realized they were in the ruin of a desert runner village that must have been targeted by the laser weapon.

As Carm stood waggling some kind of quiver, a moment of bright moon light revealed two hulking forms in the ruins as well; Carm was flanked by a pair of Desert Apes. Alex drew his guns as quickly as he could, but at that moment some clouds moved between the red planet and Demios causing Alex to fire into the dark at the pair of creatures, one of which grabbed Carm and started to run. 

Buzz ran back to the truck to swing it around to get Max and Zaphod into the fight, while Seraphina ran toward the creatures where Alex stood blasting at them with little effect; the creatures simply had hides too tough and bladed arms too large to be affected by the blasts from Alex’s laser pistols, worse, Alex blasted it became obvious there were not just two Apes, but eight.

Buzz arrived with the car and Zaphod and Max jumped out. Max took a shot and also found the laser was simply not strong enough to hurt the creatures, while Zahod ran in with his sword to try and take the creature that had moved to attack Alex at the knee. 

As the chaos continued, Carm was being carried away and Seraphina ran right into the clearing and making herself appear as large as possible, screamed a primal challenge to the Apes. Four of the Apes just started running, three of them stopped in their tracks, including the one holding Carm, who dropped him to the ground, and looked Seraphina in the eye. The Final Ape became overly incensed and began to pound its chest and run in circles. Buzz took aim and shot the angry ape to death, while the other three fled when Seraphina indicated they should do so. 

After a few brief minutes, the fight was over and Seraphina was equal parts scolding and consoling Carm. Everyone got back into the van and then the group headed North to check out another glass feature in the desert.

Around 7 AM they were in daylight again, and the group examined the glass feature, discovering that it was also from massive laser fire. Spending a few minutes doing math and checking the size of the laser glassed area, the adventurers determined a potential place for the base that the laser could be mounted. 

Heading a bit West, their suspicions about where the base was located were confirmed. As the adventurers approached the large base, Zaphod noticed a number of large drop ships circling the desert above, like they were looking for or preparing for something. 

When they were within visual distance of the base, the adventurers attempted to hail the base on the emergency channel. In response, what appeared to be a targeting light began to illuminate the van, prompting Alex to take the crew north to hide in the cover of the mountains.

Shortly after they stopped and hid, one of the large ships dropped a full assault squad into the desert to try and find the adventurers. After an hour of careful examination, the assault squad was recovered and RAM moved on. 

Understanding now that this place was ultra top secret, Zaphod argued they should leave and get reinforcements, but the rest of the adventurers were quick to point out that they had at least another day and a half before they had a safe exit route. While the group argued about what to do next, Alex lead a reconnaissance mission through the mountains to get to the edge of the base and get a good look at it. 

The base was massive, with what appeared to be a large weapon mounted in the middle of it. There was a 15 foot wall around the entire facility with no visible entrances, but as they watched, more than one ship landed and took off from the middle of it. Soldiers patrol the top of the wall and there were large weapons mounted there; it was obvious that RAM had a shoot first ask questions later approach to defending the knowledge of the existence of this facility. 

As the adventurers watched the base operations, Max scanned the communication channels and discovered the RAM channel, over hearing chatter that would indicate five assault squads were being deployed to eliminate the Desert Runner village in the East.

Feeling like they had a responsibility to alert the Desert runner village in the East, and thinking they may find some help there, the group decided to trek back that way. As they drove, they inspected the quiver of bolts that Carm discovered, finding they belonged to a desert runner cross bow, and Alex identified them as armor piercing bolts. 

A few hours later, and a good amount of time before the scheduled RAM assault, the group arrived at the door to the village around 3 PM. As the van approached, a desert runner appeared from the gate and waved the adventurers in.

Once inside the stone walls of the village, they discovered they were in a narrow stone walled alley, with a RAM assault robot sitting in the middle of it. A pair of serious looking Desert Runners stood demanding to know who the adventurers were and why they were here. 

The adventurers explained they were from Earth and were here to help stop RAM from destroying this village. The Desert runner that was speaking introduced himself as Tuscan and argued that the group could be lying. Alex pointed out they had nothing to gain from being untruthful, but Tuscan was not immediately trusting. A female Desert runner demanded that the quiver be tossed to them, and so Max threw the bolts past the RAM robot into the middle of the alley. 

The desert runners seemed ready to attack, and the adventurers were ready to defend. Who knows how it will end.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 15 - Talon's Secret Base

 Remembering that Talon had a base somewhere in the belt that contained unspecified RAM assets, the group decided it was a good idea to find it and disposition those assets. Mourey was asked to be the tie breaker and he decided if there was a way to disrupt RAM and Talon at the same time, then it was a thing worth doing. 

From what Mourey was able to find out, Talon’s base was somewhere in the vicinity of Pallas, which knowing Pallas’ history, made a lot of sense. A few short days later, the group of adventurers had traveled to the Pallas orbit. Deflecting the well intentioned but mistaken welcome crew from the Athenite Church, the crew began to search for Talon’s base.

Seraphina and Zaphod worked the sensors eliminating the smaller rocks and then working to find any asteroids large enough to hold a facility. After an hour or so, a good candidate was found with a large entry point into the center so they went to investigate.

Once at the rock, Alex stayed on board with Mourey to defend themselves if Talon came back, because scans of the place indicated there was a small source of power, but there were no real signs of life. The Maelstrom Rider’s boarding tube was extended into the crater to allow the adventurers to make their way to the surface and so Zaphod, Max, Buzz and Seraphina touched down in the center of the crater. 

Around them, they found there was equipment to extend a rigid docking structure, but there was no power to it. This was someone’s secret facility, but they were not sure yet if it was Talon’s. Around the crater there were a few cave entrances and a security door leading into a prefab construction facility inside another cave area.

Max made short work of the control pad, and so the airlock opened. Zaphod stayed behind in case something went very wrong and the others headed in to see what was there. Once inside, the adventurers found the building was some kind of warehouse and processing facility. There was equipment for processing precious metal ores and packaging it, along with all manner of elicit goods in packages. 

As Max examined some crates, they accidentally smashed their fingers between them while Buzz and Seraphina took stock. The place was running only on emergency power and so nothing was operational, including the facility command and control terminal. 

Continuing to look around, the group found another room off the back that had a large number of gennie containers identical to the ones on the Maelstrom rider. They were all opened and empty, and the adventurers determined that this place must be infected with the same gennies that they had to exterminate with Argon gas on the Maelstrom rider; this must have been the RAM assets that Talon had stolen as leverage. 

The group called in Zaphod, who was told that these Gennies spread with “brain chiggers” and so immediately scanned the air and discovered that the facility was full of the parasites. This caused Zaphod to start to champion just abandoning this facility, but the group now felt a moral obligation to either eliminate the creatures or set up a beacon to warn people away from the site so that these things would not spread around the solar system like the wild fire they represented.  

In order to set up the beacon, the group had to find a way to restore the facility’s power. Not knowing what that meant, the group began to go down the hallways heading off the warehouse area. They found two doors that were not operable without power, which had actual locks, unlike the doors they had been using thus far. 

Not knowing what to do with the doors they could not easily pass through, they decided to head the opposite direction and down the other hallway leading off the warehouse. At the end of the hall was another air lock, and a door that appeared to be operable, but being kept open a crack with a thick piece of angle iron. Peeking inside, the group saw that the room was the Medical area of the facility as there was an auto-doc with a corpse on it in the center. 

With Buzz watching the door, Seraphina and Max opened it, and stepped over the metal to leave the door in the state it was in, and immediately were descended upon by three ECGs. A fight ensued with no one sustaining any serious harm, but Seraphina and Max being exposed to the contaminated air. 

Inside the room, there were a number of corpses which seemed to have been trying to correct the issue with the brain parasites, but fell victim before being messily consumed by the ECGs. Moving on, they headed to the air lock at the end of the hall. 

Once outside of the airlock, the adventurers found themselves in an obviously operational mine, but were hesitant to go trying to find and kill the ECGs that were obviously hiding in the tunnels. Zaphod showed everyone the scrapes on the floor showing how a large number of something had come through here, and the group decided it was not a great idea to dive headlong into a swarm of these creatures and so headed back into the facility, remembering that there was a great bundle of cables in the crater that likely would lead them to the power source, if followed.

Back in the crater, they did indeed follow the cables through the caves to another set of doors, which this time were large blast doors. These would not open without power for certain and had mechanical failsafes that would keep them closed, if there was atmosphere on the other side. Breeching these doors would take significant explosives that would just as likely collapse the tunnels, or significant time which would give whatever was crawling around this rock time to find them, so they headed back into the facility to see what they could do with the other doors they had yet to open. 

At the first door, Seraphina was able to quickly defeat the lock and permanently open the door using her cutting torch and inside was a large records room. Zaphod spent some time digging through the filing cabinets and found a lot of information that would tie Talon to various operations and activities in the belt at the direction of RAM, as well as a record of how the relationship went sour. Of note, there were records indicating a large number of deliveries were being made somewhere in the orbit of Mercury, but the specifics did not reveal where. Among the records, Zaphod also found and pocketed 1000 credits worth of Grandrubles. 

While Zaphod searched, Seraphina and the others discovered a service hatch in the back of the room that led outside the facility and had all kinds of warnings about explosive decompression. Max, Buzz and Seraphina then cut through the second door and discovered a living area, with rotting food and signs of a struggle. In the back of this room was another service hatch. 

Not sure where to go next, they decided the best thing to do was to open one of the service hatches and see if they could make their way into the other part of the base where the power source was. Rigging the hatch release with some rope, Seraphina released the hatch. The resultant rapid decompression threw things around the room, including the adventurers to Seraphina and Max’s detriment. 

A little roughed up, Max, Seraphina and Buzz went into the tight service tunnels and started following cables once again, eventually finding another service hatch that had windows in it looking into a room full of all three stages of ECG. 

The group hatched a plan and then sprung the hatch. Max threw a pair of stun grenades into the room, but clipped the frame of the hatch with one and landed it too close, knocking themselves out. Buzz stepped to the hatch and took out a few of the still conscious creatures, while Seraphina dove in to try and slice the most advanced gennie up with her mono sword. Eventually the creatures were all dispatched. 

With the power restored, the group set up a massive radiation leak warning to ensure that people would not attempt to salvage the site and spread the ECGs before heading back to their ship to prepare to head to the surface of Mars.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 14 - War crimes, but for a good reason

 On the top of the landing pad, hiding behind the railing, Max began to weigh their options. Max could see the pirates, but was also aware that trying to shoot them was challenging; due to range and sustained wounds. Deciding the best place to be was not on the top of the landing pad, Max took a risk and jumped through the non-existent atmosphere over to the building. 

Buzz began to radio everyone the movements of the pirates on the dusty dirty surface of the asteroid, while he lined up the Maelstrom rider to strafe the pirates. Flying very carefully to avoid hitting the fuel depot, Buzz began to pepper the asteroid with the ship’s lasers.

The strafing from the Maelstrom rider convinced the pirates that they needed to not be on open ground, and so they headed for the building and the landing pad to try and hide. Buzz was able to kill most of the pirates before they managed to get under cover, with Alex taking a few more of them out with his Rocket rifle. 

The pirates tried to hit Alex with heavy sniper laser rifles, and a missile launcher, but were unable to do so. Eventually, Max and Alex mopped up the pirates that Buzz was unable to kill, and one remaining pirate attempted a dangerous jump, resulting in accidentally flinging himself from the surface. If Alex and Max had not come to the pirate’s rescue, the man would have drifted right out into space. 

When Alex and Max captured the pirate, Alex dismissed the man as a threat and did not execute him. Zaphod was very vocal about his disapproval of this course of action, but the group let the man go back to the ships on the ground while they looted the corpses of his comrades bodies. 

Not wanting to miss out on the ordinance that the pirates were carrying, Buzz landed the Maelstrom rider and also helped try and find the corpses among the glass patches on the sandy surface of the Asteroid. A few hours later, Seraphina reported that the pirate must have managed to jury-rig the ship whose engines had been damaged earlier in the conflict, because it was gone. 

With the pirates dealt with, the adventurers turned their attention to James. James was glad to have been rescued and he finally explained how they were expected to get the battle armor that had been promised as a reward for the assistance, providing the adventurers with a small stone disk and telling them they had to head to Vesta. 

A few minutes of noodling, and the adventures determined that they had been given a special stone that was inscribed with a contract number and lots of artistic flair to distinguish it. These stones were used on Vesta to create a physical representation of a contract which the owner of the disk could then redeem at a later date for a specific service. 

James admitted he did not know exactly what the disk would entitle them to, but was certain that it represented a favor large enough to cover some equipment. James went on to tell them that the owner was a man named Teve Henderson, and Teve would be able to get them what they were after. 

The adventurers did not like this outcome, but recognized they really had no other options, so they decided it was time to head to Vesta. As they left Jame’s rock, they discovered that the lone pirate who had sneaked away in the repaired ship, had destroyed the ship they had captured. Zaphod was very displaced with this and wasted all breath making sure everyone knew. Alex was ready to space Zaphod, but eventually Zaphod stopped complaining and everyone calmed down. 

A quick 5 day trip later, Buzz had managed to get them to Vesta without any issues. On the approach to Vesta, Buzz was hailed by a representative of Forward Base Adam, one of the largest RAM facilities not only in the belt, but the whole of the solar system. 

Forward base Adam appeared to think that the Maelstrom Rider was there for some kind of official business, because the RAM official that was hailing them was directing them to a secure dock at the base. Buzz explained that they were not there for RAM business but instead were there for some R&R. The official did not seem to be bothered by this at all and bid them good day.

Buzz easily found a civilian space port and within a half an hour, the group was walking the surface of Vesta. The first thing they noticed was the abundance of large cylindrical structures mounted in large frames which apparently housed the various living quarters and businesses on Vesta in order to provide artificial gravity. 

Knowing they had to figure out where Teve was, and how to redeem the stone disk, the group headed to a local bar and began asking questions. The Bar Tender Crochety Tim seemed to quickly develop a bond with the group, and when Max expressed interest in learning more about the business, Crotchety Tim put Max to work in the kitchen washing dishes. 

Alex continued to sit quietly and drink heavily, while Zaphod made a menace of himself, eating off plates that were not bussed yet, but which the owners were done with. The bar had unusual entertainment that involved a specially made gennie and a consenting woman, which continued to attract Zaphod’s attention, since he was very curious about the gennie. 

Zaphod attracted the attention of the overly large Gennie bouncer, who was a good 7 feet tall and had golden skin bursting with more muscles than the frame would seem to be able to hold. The bouncer had to menace Zaphod into leaving the entertainment alone, which he eventually did. 

Buzz went looking for women to interact with, and without having to look too hard, discovered a group of half a dozen women laughing and having a good time at a corner table. When Buzz approached the women, he saw Ron ‘The Swan’ Johnson sitting at the table entertaining the women. When Buzz tried to address Ron, Ron acted like he did not know Buzz or what he was talking about. Buzz got angry at this, and went to the bar to get a drink, which he had Zaphod drop drugs into. On the way back to Ron, Buzz saw Ron leaving after having talked to Alex for a minute, apparently inviting Alex to a party in a few hours. 

Meanwhile, in the kitchen Max was talking with the other people working in the bar and learned that there wasn’t a lot of gossip to be shared. The Vestian people did have a story about how a small pirate fleet came to menace Vesta, which ended rather quickly with RAM deploying one of its battlers and a handful of cruisers, making the pirates disappear completely. 

Max was also able to make friends with a woman who had a cousin that worked in the Vestan government. The new friend explained to Max that all they had to do with the disk was take it to a municipal building and they could find out who the contract was for and what it was for. The adventurers also had managed to get Crotchety Tim to tell them where Teve lived and so made plans to visit Ron’s party, then head to Teve.

Having two hours before Ron’s party, the group did decide to visit the municipal building and speak to the cousin that Max had learned of. In the building, Zaphod once again made a menace of himself, ending with him having to be removed from the place by security. Meanwhile, the other adventurers learned that the contract was for a life debt. Whoever had originally received the disk, must have saved Teve’s life.

Having received the information they were after, the group headed to Ron’s party. Inside the very nice living quarters of Ron, there were servants with trays of food and may people having a good time. Zaphod was literally tearing up the carpet, so Max managed to distract him by engaging him with a video game, while Ron explained to Alex and Buzz that he was here on Vesta at the secret NEO rocket Jock training base. 

NEO had established the base right under the nose of RAM and now used it to train the best of the best pilots. It was a tough program and not many made it through all ten weeks of training, but those that did were much better pilots. Buzz wandered off and found a woman willing to spend some intimate time with him, while Ron and Alex relaxed. Eventually the party ended and the adventurers headed off to meet with Teve. 

At Teve’s house, which was a simple, almost industrial dwelling, the group provided the man with the disk, and explained they were there to collect on the debt it represented. Teve explained that he was a quarter master and was in charge of organizing and moving equipment around for Forward Base Adam. Because of this, he was accustomed to having things fall off the back of trucks. The group had a lengthy conversation about what they wanted to get, with Teve aiding them in determining what was feasible. After an hour of negotiation and planning, the group agreed to ambush Teve and his convoy later that day. Teve asked that they not kill him and made sure that the adventurers knew what truck he would be driving. Everyone mostly agreed to this request and so everyone headed their separate ways until the time when the ambush was to take place. 

The adventurers headed across the rocky surface of Vesta into areas that were obviously under the control of RAM, but which had very little population. As they got closer to the ambush point, the adventurers observed a large metal road in the middle of a valley. On either side of the road was loose sand and it was obvious that whatever vehicle was designed to travel those roads would be bogged down off of them. Knowing this, Max and Zaphod worked to rig a missile as an IED to blow up the first truck in the column and force it off the road. After placing the device, the group took positions around the valley and waited for the vehicles to approach. 

A little while later, our trucks came down the road toward the ambush point. As the first hit the IED and was indeed forced off the road, the group sprang into action. Alex shot the back two trucks with missiles, having Zaphod reload the missile launcher in between shots. Max and Buzz shot the terrines that came out of the lead truck and in a few short minutes, the fight was over, with no one but the driver in the last truck, along with Teve alive. 

Alex shot Teve in the leg to make the assault more authentic, which Teve did not object to, but Teve explained he had to radio the problem in, since the base was likely already aware that something was wrong and would be sending more troops in short order. No one agreed with this, but as Alex hunted down the remaining troops to clean up loose ends, they all grabbed one of the four cases that had the gear that Teve had ordered for them, and then together managed to grab a fifth. 

RAM deployed a reactionary force which showed up shortly after the adventurers had hidden the crates. The adventurers laid low at Ron’s place until RAM security left the area, and then they smuggled their new gear back to the Maelstrom rider.

Once back in space, the group checked out the new gear they had received, trying things on and discovering money and food in the fifth crate they had stolen. Meanwhile, Buzz transmitted the pictures of Ron chumming it up with all the scantily clad women at his party to Salvation III in the hope of getting Ron in trouble with his girlfriend.