SHIP'S LOG: USCS FREE ENTERPRISE TSV-101701
ENTRY SIX: EARTH DATE 14 JULY 2225
REPORTING: RORY BUCHANAN, CAPTAIN
Telluride may be the worst place to spend a long weekend. We endured 36 hours of unbearable heat, followed by 36 hours of an Antarctic cold. We had to stay within the hab complex, which was crowded and smelled of unwashed humans living in close quarters. I longed to be back at Hamilton, where I could get a real shower and breathe fresh air.
We are being sent straight from Mu Ceti to the Iota Piscinum system, better known as "Limbo" to spacers. The system, if it could be called that, is essentially a giant asteroid belt. There isn't even a gas giant - fuel must be gathered by mining icy asteroids. Erebus Petrochem has tasked us to salvage essential components from a newly-decommissioned mining platform.
I have briefed the crew, and Engineer Knight is particularly eager to fill our hold with salvage. Our last salvage run paid out only on recovered components - in addition to the death of Luther Nelson, we didn't make much money, either. This time, I negotiated a standard bonus plus incentives for recovered components. The hidden benefit of this was, if we found something we decided to keep for ourselves, it wouldn't count against that payout.
AFTER-ACTION REPORT
SUBMITTED: 17 SEPT 2225
Once our negotiations and briefing were completed, we began pre-flight preparations for liftoff. The ground crew on Telluride were reluctant to refuel us, considering the amount of unrefined fuel they were providing was actually more than the tonnage of pure water we had brought to them. Evans and Garvey went ashore to help with the loading - and by that, I mean that they physically intimidated the ground crew into compliance by threats of bodily harm.
Once we were fueled, it would still be a day on the pad while the onboard processors filtered out all of the ammonia and methane and other contaminants from the gas giant fuel. While we waited, a mysterious ship landed at the port. Its configuration was unfamiliar, but Aman speculated that it might be some kind of executive fast-response ship. The passengers that went ashore were nondescript but clearly covert. Port Security allowed no one near the vessel. I couldn't shake the feeling that the ship was, in some way, related to our mission.
We were 90 Mkm from the hyperspace point, and the trip would take 56 hours. We took off without further incident, and Lewis and Chun kept us on a steady course. On route to the hyperspace point, we encountered a cargo carrier. Aldel tried to hail it, but we were met with radio silence, and the other vessel altered its course to keep their distance. It was likely that they were afraid of more pirates like the ones we had encountered on our way here.
At midnight on July 16th, we prepared for a long hypersleep. Limbo is 19 parsecs from Telluride, and the trip would take over 33 days. I could only imagine what it might be like for Desh, left alone for nearly five weeks with only the quiet ship and his electrical thoughts to keep him company. By the time we awake, I will have spent 148 out of the 231 days this year asleep. Two-thirds of 2225 in a semi-dreaming slumber. When we woke from our chilly repose, most of us had endured it well - except Leah Knight, who felt a little nauseous. "Nothing a bottle of Glycolyte won't fix," she said queasily as she choked down the sports drink that Desh offered her.
Aldel obtained a fix on our position, and Chun announced that we were 300 Mkm from the mining station, called Asphodel by the Company. Sitting in the outer system, the station was seven and a half days away at full burn. She laid in a course, and Lewis ignited the engines. About 30 hours into our flight, we received a distress call from a nearby ship. The petroleum carrier Lone Star was being hijacked by passengers it had recently taken aboard.
(Reaction: 7, failed. Result: 7 - Lewis, 4, Stubborn)
Lewis protested my decision to respond, noting that if we diverted, we would be at bingo fuel by the time the mission was complete, and that there was no gas giant or ocean here with which we could refuel. "Couldn't we get some fuel from the petro carrier?" Aldel asked innocently. She was met with withering stares from Knight and Garvey, and an eyeroll from Lewis, who informed her that petroleum could not be distilled into a suitable fuel source for a starship's maneuver drives.
Any dissent was quickly silenced when I pointed out that ICO regulations stipulated the forfeiture of our bonus shares if we failed to respond to the signal. Lewis adjusted the burn to intercept the tanker. We matched course with the vessel on the afternoon of the following day. The Lone Star was not compliant with our attempts to dock, but Lewis expertly piloted the Enterprise to mate with the Lone Star's primary airlock. Donning our vacc suits, Garvey, Lewis and I went aboard, armed with our shotguns.
(Scene Challenge: Solid, Dangerous. 8+. +DM's for weapons, training, and familiarity. Roll 8, success!)
We were met with armed resistance by a number of wild-eyed individuals in dirty blue jumpsuits. There was something... unnatural about them. They were unwilling to negotiate, demanding to be taken to a system outside of the influence of Erebus. They fought back zealously, but we knew this kind of ship well, having previously been aboard the Excelsior some months ago. In the end, they were defeated. Garvey was able to repair the systems that the hijackers had damaged.
During the firefight, the two ships had become separated. The Lone Star had been rolling erratically and Lewis had been forced to decouple our ship. The three of us had to make a short unassisted EVA to return to Enterprise.
It would take seven more days for us to travel to Asphodel Station. Thankfully, the week passed uneventfully, with each of the crew going about our daily tasks and spending our off-duty hours as shipmates do. We arrived at the station on the evening of the 27th.
Asphodel was built in a classic design - two concentric toroidal rings joined to a central spine by four spokes. It looked as if it might have been out of a picture book from mid-20th Century Earth pulp comics. If it held true to form, the control deck would be at the top of the spine, and the engineering deck at the bottom. We would surely need to explore both.
The station did not respond to our hails and there was no docking beacon for Lewis to follow. For all of his shortcomings personality-wise, he made up for it in skill, docking our ship to the station's lower airlock. Chun stayed aboard, ready to get the ship moving in case something dangerous happened. The rest of us made ready to board the station.
The station's airlock was malfunctioning, but Knight easily overrode the security lockout and the lock hissed open. The air inside the station was stuffy and warm, and the corridors were dimly lit with red emergency lighting.
The plan was to explore the entire facility, identifying the requested components and their condition and estimating the amount of time we would need to salvage it all. The signs in the corridor showed us we were on Deck Four. We followed the right-hand corridor, which curved into a dim, cavernous chamber. The sounds of our boots echoed in the open space, whose walls we could not see with our helmet lights. There was a slow but loud dripping sound in the darkness. Garvey sniffed at the air and simply said "Smells like coolant."
We headed toward a corridor to the left, barely visible by its row of lights. The spoke led us to a chamber in the inner ring. There was a fine, gritty dust covering the deck and every surface. A huge furnace stood cold. Large machinery with pistons and burrs fed onto a conveyor belt that led back in the direction we had come. Ore must have been processed here, and stored in the vast chamber we had just left.
We continued forward into the spine, where we found a pair of lifts. They were not responding, likely because the main power was out. Continuing along the opposite spoke, we once more entered the inner ring. This area had a number of desks and a map table. The walls were hung with paper maps of the asteroid belt, and we found MRA handbooks on some of the desks. Catalog of Off-World Resources MRA-3421-8-2221-P and Guide to Interstellar Resource Extraction Regulations MRA-3411-6-2211-F seemed like the perfect reading for sleepless nights, so I tucked them into my satchel.
We continued along the spoke to the outer ring. We entered another ore storage bay, but we were not alone. Mining drones turned toward us, equipped with rock saws, grinders, jackhammers and short-range mining lasers. While a robot of this sort would not be programmed or used with hostile intent, it was clear that they meant us harm. We took cover behind piles of tailings and opened fire. "Keep them at range!" I shouted.
(Scene Challenge: Shaky, Dangerous, 10+. +DM for Engineering and weaponry. Failure. Minor Injury)
We damaged some of the drones, but one managed to flank Evans and strike him with a rock hammer. Evans was knocked down, but we blasted the drone before it could do further harm. "Fall back!" I shouted. Evans stumbled to his feet and we hurried back the way we had come.
We tried to erect a barricade to hinder pursuit, in case the drones decided to follow us. We pushed desks and cabinets against the doorway, but it would only be a temporary barrier against the well-equipped drones. Desh checked Evans over and treated his minor injuries, then we hurried back to the spine and headed down the right-hand spoke.
We found ourselves in a stairwell, which headed up to the next deck and down to Engineering, which was our next destination. Moving into the outer ring on Deck Five, we found a tankage area about the size of the cooling tanks for our ship's reactor. Lewis estimated that it would contain 30 tons of fuel if full, and if we siphoned whatever was left in it, we might have enough extra fuel for an additional burn if anything unexpected happened.
Heading counter-clockwise around the outer ring, we found ourselves in a pump room. These pumps must have been used to pump coolant from the tanks into the station's reactor, but since the pumps had failed, main power had been lost. Knight and Garvey estimated that it would be a 3-hour job to repair or remove them.
Pushing ahead in the same direction, we found a parts storage area, which should contain anything we needed for repair or salvage jobs. We proceeded back to the inner ring, and found ourselves amid the life support machinery. We could hear the soft whisper of circulating air and the huffing sound of heating units. Counter-clockwise along the inner ring was the life support control room. Knight studied the panel and informed me that all systems were operating within normal parameters. Atmosphere and heat were still providing a habitable environment within the station, but gravity was out on the upper decks. She advised me it would take about four hours to restore.
We headed back to the outer ring. A large workshop was here, naturally adjacent to the parts storage compartment. A variety of machinery could be found here, from fabricators to machining equipment. Most notably, a workloader stood in its charging cradle, like a massive, skeletal human with pincers for hands. Evans and Garvey insisted we come back for it, as we did not yet have one aboard Enterprise.
We returned to the stairwell and headed up two levels. On Level Three, we found the Hangar Deck. Moving to the outer ring, we found another parts storage area - this one for parts for small craft, rather than the station itself. Proceeding clockwise brought us to Hangar One. A
Nomad-class ship's boat sat on the deck. Lewis headed over to check it out. Apparently, it looked to be in operational condition. Regrettably, there was no way to take it aboard, so we would have to salvage what we could. Continuing in a clockwise direction, we came to the main airlock. Back into the inner ring, we found the equipment room. Mining suits and equipment sat in lockers along the walls, ready for miners to suit up for EVA work. This gear would be easy to bring aboard.
Returning to the stairwell, we ascended to Deck Two. The stairwell did not continue upward. We headed to the outer ring, where we found crew staterooms. Cautiously searching them, we found them to be uninhabited and abandoned. It appeared that the occupants had departed or abandoned the station. We continued clockwise to an area that might have been intended as a lounge, but was now being used as a garden. Plants grew in soil beds and hydroponic trays and airponics bays.
We were not alone. A number of individuals clad in blue mining jumpsuits turned toward us as we entered. They looked haggard and wild-eyed. I raised my hands and spoke quietly. "We are representatives of the Company on official business," I began, but the miner closest to me screamed and swung a shovel at me.
(Scene challenge: Shaky, Dangerous, 10+. +DM for Leadership, Liaison and weaponry. Failure. Minor Injury)
These miners fought like zealots. They would not listen to reason, they would not relent, and their only utterances were screams and grunts. There was something... unnatural about them. Crazed. Garvey was struck by a miner with a pitchfork, slashing a series of gashes along his arm. Our choices were to gun them down, or retreat. We fell back once again.
We found ourselves in a laundry area. The machines were inoperative and heavy, but we barricaded the door as best as we could while Desh treated Garvey's wounds. Stacks of uniforms sat upon shelves - the same jumpsuits worn by the hijackers aboard the Lone Star. We could hear the banging against the door and I knew that we had to move quickly. I led my crew toward the elevator shaft.
In addition to the main lifts, there was a smaller, secondary personnel lift. We checked to see if it still had power (Natural 12), and discovered that it was independently powered and controlled by a separate keypad. Knight pulled the panel open and poked around inside. A moment later, an elevator car arrived at our deck and the door hissed open. We piled inside and hit the button for the control deck.
Moving into the inner ring, we entered the avionics bay. Here is where the station's communications and sensor equipment was housed. Aldel estimated the salvage job would take four hours here.
Heading clockwise along the inner ring, we came to the Medbay. The autodoc was not working, but Desh proclaimed that it could be repaired and salvaged in about six hours. Moving toward the outer ring, we found ourselves in a conference room. Folders of paperwork lay on the conference table. Examining them, I found a number of references to some sort of work program or project that the station crew had been engaged in, but understanding eluded me as any relevant information was referenced to files stored on the main computer. I handed them to Desh for further study.
We proceeded clockwise to the Station Manager's office. It was locked, but Knight easily gained entry. Files on the manager's desk also referred to the ongoing project, but as before, specifics were kept in computer files. The terminal on the manager's desk, as the rest of the station, stood silent and dark.
Continuing around the ring, we found ourselves in an executive lounge. A thin film of dust covered all surfaces, but it was clearly opulent. Lewis headed toward the bar and examined the bottles. He found a few containing some very rare and expensive liquor, and tucked them into his satchel. Garvey found a box of Cuban cigars. From Cuba. On Earth. It would be cheaper to smoke a roll of $100 bills than one of those cigars. He put them in his bag, knowing that they would fetch a nice price somewhere. We didn't have much time, so we'd need to come back for a more thorough examination later. There were more pressing concerns at the moment.
Heading back into the inner ring, we entered the Operations Center. This was the "bridge" of the station. The computer terminals were out. Comms were operational, but attempts to raise Enterprise had no response. Aldel checked the sensor arrays. External sensors showed that the Lone Star had left the system. Internal security sensors showed that the only life signs (aside from ourselves) were on Deck Two.
Moving counter-clockwise, we entered the computer center. The core was dark, and only the emergency systems were in operation. Aldel speculated that it would take about seven hours to repair and/or remove it, but the parts she would need were down on Deck Five. Evans volunteered to go down and retrieve the parts, but we were worried that he would be pursued by the crazed miners.
(Scene challenge: Solid, Dangerous, 8+. +DM for Engineers and weaponry. Success! Complication)
Knight and Garvey would disable the main lift shafts, so that they would remain inoperable when main power was restored. While Evans headed down, my engineers would weld the doors on Deck Two to prevent the miners from accessing the transit core to the other levels. While Knight and Garvey operated the welding torches and I covered them, Evans hurried down the stairs as quickly as he could, shotgun in one hand and toolkit in the other. He stumbled, perhaps due to his earlier injury, and dropped the toolkit over the railing. It bounced down the stairwell, landing with a crash on the lowest deck. This would complicate our ability to repair the core, but it was not an insurmountable obstacle.
Evans called on the radio and announced that he could not find the parts Aldel needed. She huffed and trudged down the stairs to assist him. They returned, arms and satchels full of circuit boards and drives and other components unrecognizable to me.
While they worked, we examined the control deck more thoroughly. Lewis headed back to the lounge, while Desh worked on the autodoc and perused the medical records. Below us, we could hear the booming of the miners pounding helplessly against the pressure doors. Tense hours passed.
When the computer core was repaired and main power was restored, Aldel and Desh made a chilling discovery. They found the files referenced in the documents. It was a medical program, using radical drugs and retrogenic therapy to increase productivity and worker survivability. The miners would work harder and better endure the harsh conditions... but the unexpected side effect was cognitive deterioration and madness. These people were not like the proles on Congress - they were regular human beings, used by the Company as lab rats. I began to understand the attempted takeover of the Lone Star. They had picked up some of the crew, whose symptoms began to manifest on the outbound flight. The remaining miners had stayed aboard, seeking refuge in the most habitable area - their little farm and likely the other staterooms we had not explored.
Killing these poor souls was unconscionable - but neither could we allow them complete access to the station, or a means to escape or contact others. We would have to leave in place and repair those systems that would keep Deck Two habitable, regardless of the Company's desire to completely gut the station.
With the full layout of the station now available for display, it would be easier to make those assessments. Aldel disabled the comm system and set up a warning beacon, identifying the area as a navigational hazard. Knight worked with Evans to access the program controlling the mining drones and overriding their corrupted protocols. Lewis disabled the two small craft aboard the station, removing the most essential (and valuable) components and rendering them non-spaceworthy.
Desh came up with a way to reduce the threat the miners might pose while we worked. With some modifications to the life support equipment, oxygen levels were lowered on Deck Two to a level similar to a thin planetary atmosphere. It was breathable and they would not suffocate, but even for hardy modified specimens such as them, the exertion of combat would be impossible. The anesthesia equipment from the medbay was patched into the life support system as well, as a precaution against an unexpected attack. The miners would live out the rest of their days confined to Deck Two, a danger to no one else.
We spent the next 36 hours salvaging everything we could from the other four decks. We decided that we would keep the mining EVA suits, the workloader, and one of the Dynacat ATVs. We would not be recovering the life support equipment, hydroponics farm, medical equipment or comms transmitter. The work was finally completed in the early morning of the 28th, and we were all exhausted.
Chun had kept an eye on the orbits of the hyperspace points. The closest was 70 Mkm away, and would take us 42 hours to reach. From there, it would take us nearly 16 days to reach Hamilton in hyperspace. Fortunately, our travel through Iota Piscinum was uneventful, and in the late afternoon of September 14th, we awoke in the Ross 248 system.
Hamilton was 90 Mkm away, but Chun had an idea (Natural 12). Since we had a little extra fuel from the station, she suggested a more direct burn that would intercept Hamilton's orbit 10 Mkm closer than a normal Hohmann transfer orbit. We would have just enough fuel to make it, and arrive 6 hours sooner. Lewis was all for it, and seemed to relish the extra burn.
It would still be two days to Hamilton, and to keep the crew occupied, I decided that we would revisit the anti-hijacking training we had previously studied. We had come to learn how much we had already relied upon it, but it was clear that we needed some serious improvement in our skills. I also made note of some equipment we would want to procure - stunners, body armor, a motion tracker, security equipment, sedative gas and maybe even a net gun, if we could find one.
We arrived and docked at Hamilton without incident. A corporate ship arrived while we were unloading, and I was approached by some Company individuals who might have been executives. Or security. Or both. They seemed to be looking for someone or something. They asked me if we had encountered anyone during our time in Limbo. I knew that mentioning the crazed miners would place us in as much danger as them, so I neglected to mention our encounters.
The Logistics team evaluated our cargo, checking each component off their list as it was unloaded. In their final evaluation, the returned components were only sufficient to merit half of our agreed bonus and salvage pay, so we were each awarded $6,893 in addition to our normal mission pay.
The following morning, I heard that the Company had announced the remote self-destruction of the now "uninhabited and empty" decommissioned Asphodel Station. Each time I think they have sunk to a new depth of inhumanity, the Company continues to surprise and disappoint me. I look forward to the day that I can pay off my debt, buy out my contract and leave this stinking corporation behind.
