You Can't Hug Your Children With Nuclear Arms (Christmas Episode)

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Premise
The scene fades in, but only static can be seen. After a few moments, the static resolves into snow, swirling around a winter wasteland. The subtitles read, 'Planet Rucina - Anaiansi VIII - Date Unknown'. When the subtitles fade, four dark shapes can be seen moving through the snow.

The Worm Beast
As the crew trudge through the snow, they feel the sudden shake of the earth beneath them as the ground erupts in front of them. From the snow's depths emerges an enormous furry worm whose maw is filled with razor sharp teeth. Snow and rock are thrown everywhere as this Volkswagen-sized monstrosity bursts forth from the ground. The worm quickly arches and comes crashing down onto Mr. Sicarian, swallowing him up whole. Inside of the worm, Mr. Sicarian's power armor is giving off warnings of high temperature and pressure. Men In Black style, Mr. Sicarian shoots his thundergun from within the worm, causing it's side to explode open, allowing Mr. Sicarian to climb out of the beast. Mr. Sicarian hysterically laughs into the air, "Yes! It literally broke them apart from the inside!" Wilbur Higgins III pulls out his pistol, takes aim at the beast, and then re-holsters the pistol back thinking better of it. Piani Pic grabs her laser rifle and hits the worm with it. Happiness overwhelms her because she can't remember the last time she hit anything with her rifle. The worm retaliates back at Piani, shooting a green blob of mucus at her. The spit does not hit her however as she activates 'destiny shield' and dodges out of the way. Erik Fretheim yells, "Hey Piani, watch this!" as he throws his spike thrower into the air, and then using 'complex manipulation', moves the spike thrower into the already-open wound in the worm and pulls the trigger. The worm shrieks in pain and charges at Erik. Erik is not fast enough to move away from the worm's trajectory as it swallows him whole. After a few moments, a crackle is heard and Erik suddenly appears next to Mr. Sicarian, worm guts falling all around him. "I didn't like that," says Erik. Having taken too much damage, the worm jumps into the air and then burrows into the ground, disappearing for good.

The Beginning
The entire crew is at the bridge of the Swan Song when the ship's missile lock warning goes off. Subtitles read, 'Swan Song Bridge - Rucinian Air Space - 3 days ago'. A missile hits the side of the ship and the crew hears, "Thrusters damaged, crash imminent." The ship then begins to descend toward Rucina's surface. From inside the bridge, the crew can only watch as the planet's atmosphere tears apart the ship's outer hull. The Swan Song crashes into the side of a snowy mountain, rock and snow fly everywhere as the ship barrels down the mountain side. Before the ship is able to make it to the bottom of the mountain and get crushed by the falling debris, Erik creates a telekinetic shield around the ship protecting it from harm. Higgins asks Pi how long until the ship is operational again and Pi says that they think they can repair everything by the time the crew gets back but that they'll have to bring fuel as the missile broke open the ship's fuel tanks.

The scene fades into a nice looking office located high up in a tall tower. The subtitles read, 'Cabral - 6 days ago'. Looking out into the city-scape, the crew can see the beautiful silvery skyscrapers of Cabral laid out before them. In front of the crew is a woman standing at a desk. She shakes Higgins' hand and tells him that she thinks he is perfect for the job. That the planet is primarily uninhabited due to high amounts of radiation from a past war. She then says that what they are looking to do is to retrieve a computer that is in an abandoned facility. When the crew leaves the office, the woman goes over to her phone and says, "They are on their way. Yes, yes, they bought it."

The Eternal Winter of Rucina
The scene fades onto the crew walking through the winter slurry of Rucina after just having dealt with the giant worm. They estimate to be about a days' walk away from the facility that houses the computer they are looking for. In front of the crew is a city-scape reminiscent of that as seen on Andoni, but with a cold environment instead of a warm one. It is a city full of sky scrapers and its center looks to have been hit by a massive explosion. As the crew walks through the city's crumbled streets, Erik notices that they are being followed. The crew then heads to a nearby underground subway that has entrances on opposite sides of the street. They go down into one of the entrances expecting the unwelcomed company to follow. Higgins then pears out from the opposite entrance and sees half a dozen armed people go into the first entrance. Higgins warns the crew that they are coming and as soon as Erik sees them, he picks up a massive piece of rubble with his telekinetic powers and hurls it towards the enemy. Due to the heaviness of the rock, it moves slow enough for three of the enemies to go up the stairs and the other three to take cover behind the rock once it lands. Mr. Sicarian shoots the rock that the enemies are hiding behind which causes it to explode into pieces. Two of the remaining men run up stairs while one attempts to fire at Mr. Sicarian. Due to the primitiveness of their weapons, the shots are unable to pierce Mr. Sicarian's armor and innocently ricochet off onto the walls of the subway. As Mr. Sicarian begins to say that he will try to apprehend one of the men alive, Higgins shoots one in the head. Mr. Sicarian quickly goes after one of the running men and knocks him onto the ground causing the man to fall unconscious. After inspection of the man, Mr. Sicarian notices that the man's blood is purple, that he does not radiate much body heat, and that he has three eyes.

Interrogation
The party spend some time setting up in a position where they think they will be less likely to be ambushed or have debris fall on them during the night. Higgins gets a survival knife from Erik and walks over to the unconscious man who the party has tied up. He then takes out his stun baton and uses it to wake the man up. The man screams from being shocked but quickly passes back out. Higgins then shoves Erik's knife between the man's toe and nail. The man wakes up screaming for a second time, this time he does not immediately pass out. Higgins attempts to communicate with the man but he speaks to Higgins in an unknown language. Pissed off, Higgins burns one of Piani's flares into the man's previously injured toe. The man screams and passes out for a third time. Higgins walks over to Mr. Sicarian and says he is done with him. Mr. Sicarian then takes his monoblade and rips open the man's rib cage. He then uses the flare to burn the body. The scene ends with the reflection of the fire on Mr. Sicarian's visor.

Erik and Mr. Sicarian stand watch for the night. Having a hard time paying attention to his surroundings, Erik finds that there is a large amount of radiation in the area where they are to pick up the computer. He relays this information to Mr. Sicarian. The night is not without company as both Erik and Mr. Sicarian keep an eye on a group of scrawny dogs that take notice of the crew but do not engage.

The Journey
The sun rises with a new morning and the crew continues to their destination. As they are climbing through rubble, a bullet wizzes past Higgins and the crew makes for cover. Mr. Sicarian looks up and locates a sniper stationed in a building ~100 meters away. Taking aim, Mr. Sicarian fires at the sniper with his thundergun. A column of air pulses out of the gun and an empty hole appears where the sniper, and part of the building that the sniper was in, used to be. As the crew continues on through a clearing, Mr. Sicarian hears a click from under his feet. Realizing that he stepped on a mine, he stands perfectly still and warns the rest of the crew to back up. Erik tells Mr. Sicarian that he can press the mine down with his mind and that Mr. Sicarian will be able to safely back away before he detonates it. Trusting in Erik, Mr. Sicarian steps off of the mine and true to his word, Erik ends up setting off the mine once everyone is a safe distance away.

As it begins to grow dark, the crew starts to see lights appear through the snow. The crew follow the lights up to a stadium where there are a group of people clustered together. When the crew walk up to this group, one of the elder men holds up his hands and everyone who was previously talking goes silent. This elder walks up to Higgins and in broken English asks why he is there. Instead of answering, Higgins asks the elder if they are human. The elder replies that they are of the village and then goes on to say that Higgins and his group had been struck down by god [their ship hit by a missile]. Higgins tells the elder that it was god who sent them and then asks the crew to show the man the wrath of god. Erik lifts Higgins into the air a couple of feet and immediately all of the men drop down to their knees and grovel at the crew.

The elder then tells Higgins that he wishes to take him to see the oracle. He then leads the crew down the stairs of the stadium. Eventually the elder arrives at a door and tells the crew that inside is a holy place and that they must remove their weapons and armor. Mr. Sicarian tells the elder that he should watch how he speaks to the priest of the sky god. The elder then goes to grab at Higgs which causes Higgs to strike at him. The guards point their guns at Higgs and when he sees this, he shouts "Your foolish guns mean nothing. Erik, show them." "I don't know what I should show them" responds Erik. "Float me!" exclaims Higgins. Higgins gets elevated into the air and then tells the men that they have upset their gods and that now they shall be punished. The elder stands back up and gestures for his guards to put down their weapons. He then says to Higgs that he will let the oracle judge them for their crimes and then allows the crew into the room.

The Oracle
The inside of the room is reminiscent of a 20th century SAM launch control room except everything is completely dusty. Also laid on top of the equipment are a bunch of burned down candles as well as some animal bones, effigy dolls, and other ritualistic symbols. Piani notices a desktop with a flickering screen and goes over to examine it. She boots up the corresponding computer and finds four commands: launch control, satellite control, orbital surveillance, and admin/debug. She inputs surveillance and gets directed to a group of tracked ground-based assets (supply caches, troop movements, fuel etc.) She takes note of where the fuel is for later use and then shuts down the computer. Erik then opens the door that had been locked behind them with his telekinesis. As Piani removes the computer from the room, the elder shrieks, saying that they cannot take the oracle. Mr. Sicarian shows the elder a message that he typed on his comm-pad that reads, "I would like to go with him." Mr. Sicarian explained that he received this message from the sky god. The elder backs up and says very confusedly that he doesn't understand what they did wrong, that they had always done what the sky god had asked of them. Mr. Sicarian then writes on the pad that the men did good and that the sky god wants them to live in peace. The elder then begs for the crew to take him with them. Erik asks Piani if she is able to make a comm-pad spit out random platitudes and Piani makes this happen with an old comm-pad that she got from one, Jarred Crane. The crew then leave this comm-pad behind with the group of mutants and make their way to the nearest fuel supply.

By the time the crew arrives to the ship with the fuel, the ship is mostly repaired and ready to go. The ship fires and takes off into the sky leaving a carbon-trail of smoke behind. Before handing the computer over to whom they are supposed to, Piani adds hundreds of fake nuclear-bomb coordinates into the computer's systems. While flying back to Cabral, Higgins sends an email to 21 that gives him the location of where they were at and reads, "Mutants. Not worth very much. Consider genocide?"

Crew Status

 * Mr Sicarian finally shoots the Thundergun he got on Sigrid

Ship Status

 * Hull Integrity:

Criminal Activities

 * New Crime:

Business

 * Credits Acquired: 10,000
 * Credits Spent:
 * Jobs In Progress:
 * Jobs Completed: 1
 * Debt Increased:
 * Debt Paid Off On Swan Song:
 * Current Debt On Swan Song: