The Sky God

Upon discovering that both Ross and Professor Messandi appear to have been captured by local aliens, the crew immediately pick up the trail and begin to pursue with Kelso at the forefront (since he’s the most experienced with tracking and the like.) None of them are especially enthusiastic about traipsing around in the jungle, especially Haank who is experiencing withdrawal symptoms from his VR addiction. Based on their progress that day, Kelso is fairly certain that the ‘gogs’ are making better time than the crew but do not appear to be concerned about concealing their trail. Along the way, the crew disseminate equipment and weapons, with Buck and Ibrahim swapping rifles (since the former is better with the assault rifle.)

The day passes without incident, though Kelso is forced to forage for extra food to supplement their limited foodstuffs. Fortunately, the night is just as uneventful, and the crew set out once more come morning. Along the way, Aris also determines that part of Jim’s long-range and encryption communication module is still functional, which he believes can be combined with the emergency beacon to maximize distance while simultaneously ensuring security. It is decided to hold off on this action until they have recovered the professor and Ross. By nightfall, Kelso is convinced that the crew is gaining on their quarry – they are only a half day behind!

With food notably dwindling, the third day since the abduction of their companions is considerably more stressful. Everyone is filthy, sore and hungry. Haank is in even worse shape as the first twinges of his datastarve is beginning to really kick in; he’s holding on, but really wants a VR fix right now. According to their internal timetable, the Aimless Pilgrim should be in-system now, though they don’t know exactly where at the moment. The trail of the natives continues along the coast but appears to have turned westward, which Kelso hypothesizes might indicate a village of some sort.

Rather than a village, though, they discover a bizarre stone temple-like structure wrought in an almost human-shape (complete with dark cave) before which the natives who had captured Ross and the professor appear to be conducting a ritual of some sort, complete with ominous chanting in their native language. In the very instant the the crew exit the jungle and find themselves looking down into this strange tableau, they realize that Ross is strapped on an altar of some sort. Before they can react, the apparent leader of the aliens, adorned like a primitive shaman, plunges a knife into Ross’ chest!

Eddy reacts impulsively, crying out a loud ‘No!’ and charging forward, armed only with a vibro machete, while the others advance in a slightly more tactical manner. Aris, Haank and Kelso all dart forward as well, though in a different direction, while both Buck and Ibrahim take aim with their weapons at the native shaman who has just stabbed Ross. Alerted to the arrival of the crew thanks to Eddy’s cry, the ‘gogs’ turn toward them, automatically readying their crossbow-like weapons or maneuvering toward the crew. One of them seizes the professor and uses Messandi as a (literal) human shield while another releases the six-legged cat-like creature that Kelso previously identified as an aiyankira.

There is a sudden fierce flurry of fire as the crew open up with their weapons. Ella blows the foot off of one of the aliens, inflicting so much pain that the native passes out, while Ibrahim’s shot takes one of the shaman’s arms completely off and forces him to to scurry behind cover. As the aiyankira charges toward Aris, it comes under a withering barrage of fire from Haank and Kelso, both of whom inflict massive amounts of damage upon the creature. The ‘gog’ counterattack is weak and, in seconds, more than half their number are on the ground, dead or dying, while the survivors scramble to escape, especially when they see Kelso blow away the shaman scrambling for cover. Even before the shooting stops, both Eddy and Ibrahim start rushing toward the downed Ross; the former reaches him first and even if Abe had all of his gear, saving the man would have been difficult though the effort is made. In the end, though, Ibrahim is forced to abandon his efforts. He’s lost another one.

Professor Messandi, once rescued, is very pleased and then immediately distracted by the statue looming over them. Absolutely convinced that this will prove all of his theories, he wanders into the cave even before Ibrahim is forced to acknowledge that Ross is beyond his ability to save. Ella briefs runs herd on the crew – ordering a distraught Eddy to follow the professor, she then instructs Abe to see what he can do to patch up Aris while Haank assists Kelso in field stripping the now deceased aiyankira and Buck begins jury-rigging Jim’s communication array with the emergency beacon. She then follows the professor in as well where she discovers him (and Eddy) before a pair of statues and a strangely sealed door that, after a moment, strikes her as very evocative of a starchart. With that in mind, they are able to unseal this door, revealing …

The interior of a five thousand year old Vilani starship. There are two mummified corpses present who almost immediately begin disintegrating, having evidently been hermetically sealed for this entire time. Eddy begins exploring the small craft, pocketing some baubles that he expects will be worth considerable money. Upon one of the skeletons, he finds an iridium medallion which appears to be only part of a greater piece; he hands it off to Ella almost without thinking.

While this is going on, Buck successfully makes contact with the Aimless Pilgrim before demanding they go full secure; once they have done so, he asks for an emergency extraction but, when he is told that they intend to have the local authorities pick them up, he passes the comm on to Ella who then explains the situation to Gloval. After a moment of consideration, he agrees that they need to do this discreetly – thankfully, the crew knows of the sensor hole that they can use – and Gloval informs Ella that Armin will arrive within two hours in the shuttle. This gives the crew plenty of time to get ready.

When the shuttle touches down, the crew is waiting and ready to start cramming crates into it. After grabbing a tool kit, Aris and Buck spend some time extracting the memory crystals from the vessel, though some of them crumble and break. It’s the best they can do, though, since these are several thousand years old. Aris is hoping to get information from them if at all possible as the data on these crystals is potentially worth more than everything else here.

They lift off with Armin at the helm and, as they climb into orbit, her panel pings a few times, indicating that someone, somewhere was trying to get a targeting solution on them. Almost as soon as they dock with the Aimless Pilgrim, Gloval’s voice rings out via the intercom: all hands to action stations! There are two ships converging on them in clear attack vectors!

Player Notes:

• Loki joined us again and ran Kelso during the fight since her regular character, Armin, was still on the Aimless Pilgrim. Armin became active following the fight but since that was the last 30 minutes or so, I stuck with Kelso as the active PC.
• The fight took up the majority of this session.
• Next week will be the first space combat we’ve done in a very long time; I honestly expect the majority of the session will end up there as we refamiliarize ourselves with the rules…
• As stated above, we’ve started livestreaming our games. We play on Saturdays at 6:00PM Eastern and the live stream can be found at Ronnke’s Twitch channel. He’s also setup a YouTube Channel. Bear with us, please. This is still in it’s infancy. We have discovered that Twitch keeps the recordings only for two weeks, so it’s a good thing that he published to YouTube. With that in mind, I’ve removed the Twitch link for the “LiveStream” bit at the top.