Games & Research

The crew heads to Games and Research to search for access to the station's core

Detailed Summary
The date is unknown.

The crew are currently on a Richardson Scientific research facility called Pitcairn Station. After investigation, the crew found that the station is controlled by the Warmind, and that its inhabitants seem to be injected with some kind of nanite maltech that gives them glowing-green eyes and the ability to regenerate. Previously, the crew had gathered all of the components that they needed in order to create an EMP device that will detonate at the station's core, disabling the Warmind. The party however, doesn't have high enough access to the ship's core, and so they decide to go to the games and research block in order to find the clearance that they need.

An Abomination of a Fight
Unlike the rest of the station, the games and research section is in shambles. Debris is everywhere and large scorch marks of previous explosions are scattered throughout like a battlefield. As the party walks down a hallway and up to a T-intersection, a massive orb of plasma from the right wizzes by Alpharius' head. Everyone then ducks behind cover. Alpharius peaks his head around the corner and he sees what can only be described as an abomination. This 'thing' is a conglomerate of metal and various pieces of stitched-together human flesh. To top things off, it is holding a make-shift plasma cannon that is using the energy of the station to power its shots. Having no other way around, the crew decide to defeat this monster where it stands.

Alpharius hears a ripping sound coming from around the corner. When he peaks to look, the abomination rips its own hand off and throws it onto the ground. The hand then picks itself up on metal legs and then goes around the corner to where the crew are taking cover. Alpharius and Erik Fretheim take shots at the hand, but just like the people of the station, it quickly stitches itself back together. While everyone is preoccupied, Piani Pic hacks into a nearby camera feed and finds that there are three people dressed in civilian clothes standing behind the abomination. Piani then watches as the abomination attaches the make-shift cannon to its arm (where its hand had been removed) and then fires it.

The stitching in the abomination's hand opens up and metal pieces come flying out of it which end up harmlessly bouncing off Alpharius' shield. While the hand is preoccupied with Alpharius, Erik steps closer to it and unleashes a flurry of spikes with his spike-thrower. Taking advantage the provided initiative, Alpharius goes into the entryway opposite of the abomination, pulls out a grenade, and tosses it at the three civilians' feet. The grenade explodes and kills all three civilians as well as severely injuring the abomination.

While all of this has been happening, Wilbur Higgins III had shot a water-pipe in the ceiling which has caused a puddle of water to collect at the feet of Erik and the hand. More worried about destroying the hand than his crew member's health, Higgins plunges his stun baton into the water and discharges it.

The hand falls into the puddle of water, flops around for a little bit, and then ceases movement. To finish the job, Erik uses 'complex manipulation' to levitate his spike thrower over to the abomination and pull the trigger. The abomination gets shredded to pieces, and in just a matter of seconds, the party has successfully wiped out all enemies in the area.

The Games Section
The crew stumble upon the 'games' section of the games and research department and decide to take a look around. There is no rest for the wicked however as after only a few minutes of searching, the crew begins to hear the sound of a tram arriving. Alpharius and Erik decide to go and check it out.

When Alpharius and Erik retrace their steps back to the T-intersection where they had fought the abomination, the monster's hand is gone. They decide to peak around the corner to try and get a glance at the tram's entrance but they immediately get assaulted by suppressive fire. Alpharius and Erik decide to fall back to a narrower choke-point, but before taking cover, Erik picks up a piece of flesh from the abomination and uses it to hide a grenade in the middle of the hallway. Testing his patience, Erik waits for three men to walk past the grenade before pulling the pin with his psychic powers. Two of the three men die and everyone goes to set up defensive positions.

Piani gains access to a nearby terminal and finds that all of the labs in the area are inactive save for one; a lab that tests for cognitive improvement and precognitive, strategic, decision-making. As Piani is walking towards the lab, a ceiling-grate opens up, and the abomination's hand leaps down onto her from above. Piani is only barely able to scream for help before the hand wraps its tendrils around her neck, some of them looking to make their way into her mouth. With all of her strength, Piani grabs ahold of the hand and rips it off her face. This does not leave her without injury as the hand had barbs attached to it which tore out good-sized chunks of her flesh. Wanting to give Piani a hand and hearing her screams for help, Erik comes around the corner and fires spikes into the hand for one last time. Not having a good grip on the situation, Piani uses 'psychic healing' in order to mend her wounds. As she is handling the healing, she notices tiny droplets of silver squeeze out of her skin where she had previously been lacerated by the hand's barbs. After that nail-biting experience, Piani finds the open lab and walks inside.

Inside of the lab are two conjoined rooms separated by a one-way mirror. The room that Piani is currently standing in has a computer monitor displaying the repeated lines, "Your turn administrator Ramond." In the other room is a holo-chessboard with a machine arm on one side, and an empty chair on the other. Piani decides to walk into the room with the robotic arm, and when she does, a voice comes out of a nearby speaker that asks, "You aren't administrator Ramond. Who is this?" Piani sits across from the machine-arm and then begins to play holo-chess like she had done many times before with Pi.

Meanwhile, as Piani peacefully plays holo-chess in a nearby room, Alpharius is slowly getting pushed back by his enemies. Running out of options, Alpharius holds-tight around a corner and waits for the four people pursuing him to walk past. With the element of surprise, Alpharius is able to kill one of the men before the other three turn around and point their weapons at him. Interestingly enough, the three people decide to temporarily hold their fire. Alpharius holsters his weapon and asks if any of the men are under the control of the Warmind. One of the men responds that they were sent to the station to recover materials and then asks where the rest of Alpharius' crew is. Alpharius tells the man that he isn't sure and that they are probably somewhere in the vicinity. One of the three remaining men walks out of the room to presumably search for the remaining crew members while the other two men keep their weapons trained on Alpharius. One of the men asks for Alpharius to tell his crew to come out peacefully and with their weapons holstered. Alpharius looks at the guy dead in the eyes and says that they won't be going with them and then asks what it is that's going to happen next.

Inside the lab, Piani moves a chess piece and immediately regrets it as she loses for the third time in a row. In the other room, Higgins yells at Piani that they don't have time to be playing games and that Alpharius is under attack and needs their help. Partially because Piani thinks that the game is important because she used to play it with Pi, and partially because she is frustrated that she keeps losing, Piani ignores Higgins, resets the board, and plays again.

Higgins walks out of the room and goes to find Alpharius when suddenly he sees a soldier down the hallway walking towards him. Hoping that he can talk his way out of this, Higgins comes around the corner with his hands up. With his gun pointed at Higgins, the enemy walks over and takes Higgins' gun away from him. He then radio's the rest of his men, but they don't respond. Higgins looks at the guy and asks if he and his men had ran into his robotic friend. The man tells Higgins to shut up, and when he goes to turn in the direction that he had came from, Higgins pulls out his stun baton and jams it into the man's neck. He then works on disarming the man and tying him up for future interrogation.

Alpharius gets shot once, but in doing so, he is able to kill one of the men by slashing his throat with his wrist-mounted blade. Alpharius gets grazed by a second shot but is able to dispatch the remaining enemy. With all enemies in the immediate vicinity accounted for, Alpharius jogs over in the direction that the third man went in.

Higgins walks into the lab-room, sees Piani get beaten for the fourth time, and then asks if he can take a crack at beating the machine. Piani lets him. When Higgins sits down, the computer notices that there is a new player and greets them accordingly. After only a few minutes, Higgins wins the game. He then plays the computer for a second time and beats it once again, this time even faster. Finished with playing, the mechanical-arm goes up into the ceiling and the projection of a generic, featureless, human-shape comes into form and thanks its two opponents for playing. The hologram then asks who the crew are and why they are here at the station. Piani introduces herself and says that she is there in order to help fight for 'their kind'. After a few moments, the hologram tells Piani that it has talked to Pi, that everything is okay, and that the doors to the core are now open.

As Erik works on creating the EMP device, Piani partially heals both Erik and Alpharius. Higgins walks over to the unconscious man and slaps him around until he wakes up. When the man begins to say how bad of a situation Higgins is in, Higgins flips the stun baton on and off a couple of times and the man promptly quiets. Higgins eventually learns that the man and his team were sent to the station in order to recover various pieces of science equipment. He also learns that the man had arrived with three teams of six. One of the teams the crew had just killed and the other two teams the man had lost contact with. Higgins tells the man that there are a bunch of fucked up things happening around the station and that he is sorry about what he did to the man's friends. The man tells Higgins that they weren't really his friends, only his co-workers. Higgins turns to Alpharius and asks if they can trust him. Alpharius plainly says no because they had attempted to kill him. Higgins then shrugs, pulls out his pistol, and shoots the man in the head.

The Core
With the EMP device finished, the party heads for the tram. When they arrive, they see two trams; one that they had originally came in on, and one that the team of men took of whom the party had previously killed. The party finds many useful items in the new tram including 3 flash grenades, 3 frag grenades, lock-breaking equipment, and explosive door-opening devices. With a stroke of luck, the party finds that this tram has been hacked into and thus does not use the same navigation that is provided by the station. The crew are then able to use this tram in order to head over to the core.

"Warning, artificial gravity disabled." The door in front of the party opens up and inside, the ship's core can be seen as many concentric, large, spinning rings. In its center is a large metal orb with arches of electricity lashing out at the outward rings. Before Erik activates the EMP device, the same hologram that greeted the party when they had first arrived at the station appears before them and asks if they think that they are accomplishing anything. Erik tells the hologram that's what he likes about technology. He doesn't need to know if something is going to work and that he can simply try it and see what happens. Erik then flips on the EMP switch and immediately, Alpharius becomes limp. Piani also passes out, but before that, she sees a sudden and intense set of visions. First, she sees a room where a child of indeterminate gender and a man wearing a black robe play chess. She then sees a white bird take flight, and in slow motion, a bloody protrusion comes out of the bird and then the bird disappears. Finally, Piani sees herself. She's at some kind of fair on an unknown planet. Her clothes aren't those which she would usually wear, her haircut is that which she would never get styled... This version of her stumbles and books fall out of the bag she is carrying. The silhouette of an unknown man comes out of the nearby crowd and helps her stand up. She looks above and notices the sky turn from blue to white as chunks of burning debris begin to fall through the atmosphere.

With the help of zero-gravity, Higgins grabs Alpharius, Erik grabs Piani, and the two of them make their way out of the core. As Erik puts Piani into the seat of the tram, Piani flickers in and out of consciousness and sees hallucinations of scientists on the tram with her. Erik activates the tram's emergency power and the scene fades out as the dull-red glow of the tram fades into the distance.

A new scene fades in onto a game of holo-chess played on the Swan Song's mess hall table. Sitting on one side is Pi's robotic body, and in the reflection of Pi's body can be seen the man who helped Piani up in her recent vision. The name 'Administrator Ramond' can be seen on his nametag.

Crew Status

 * Crew:

Ship Status

 * Hull Integrity:

Criminal Activities

 * New Crime:

Business

 * Credits Acquired:
 * Credits Spent:
 * Jobs In Progress:
 * Jobs Completed:
 * Debt Increased:
 * Debt Paid Off On Swan Song:
 * Current Debt On Swan Song:

Trivia

 * Adam accidentally titled the Q&A for this week as instead of week 35.