Play@YSDC

The running figure slows down and puts his hands in the air. Don't shoot me.' Up close they can see it is Jojo through his visor.

Before him, in a Titan surface suit, is Isabella with a shotgun levelled at his chest, 'Is that definitely you Jojo?'. Behind her are Sam and Nicole, both aiming incinerators past Jojo, into the darkness. They all look tense and ready to open fire at the slightest provocation.

Jojo looks back over his shoulder, scanning the ceiling looking for his pursuer.

Hard Spot Hidden please

"It's Jojo, all right," says Sam, though she isn't entirely sure she trusts the synth.

“Get behind us, Jojo. What the hell’s happened to Kiara?” Nicole growls through gritted teeth, trying to make out the pursuer.

Spot Hidden 50
1d100

Just missed Hard Spot by 6. Can't use luck though as an android.

Jojo will go behind the weapon wielders as he continues to look for the clicking creature.

"I don't know where Kiara is. I saw Sergei Petrov but he seemed dead or reanimated or a zombie or something. I didn't get a chance to examine him as I had to run for my life from the alien impaler creature."

The clicking has definitely stopped and Jojo can't see any sign of his pursuer, either in the gloom of the corridor or in amongst the cables and strings of lights running from the surface excavations. Isabella keeps her shotgun trained on Jojo, 'Where have you been Jojo?'

Remember you have Kiara's datapad

'Where have you been Jojo?'

Jojo feels a sense of calm and relief that the others are safe and finally down here with him.

"I've been trying to get to the bottom of what's going on. Obviously, going down was the only way we can get to the bottom!" He replies. "I'm glad that you haven't been infected by whatever has been taking control of the other humans. While I haven't seen Kiara, I did find a datapad which, if my memory is correct, was last in her possession. I haven't had a chance to analyze it yet as I was running for my life from the alien."

Jojo holds out the datapad. "Though I'm a doctor, not a computer scientist, so if one of you wants to check it out, you're welcome to."

As an afterthought, he also adds, "Oh, by the way I think I found an alien spacecraft with the mummified body of an alien in the control center but unfortuately, I could not move it because of it's decomposition and I couldn't figure out how to activate the control unit. When I came back through the area, the alien corpse was gone."

"How can you be sure it was dead?" asks Sam. "This is an alien life form, and we've never found one before. There's no telling how it works. It's life, but not as we know it. Maybe it has a dormant stage in its life cycle where it appears to be dead. Perhaps I could find a way to activate the control unit." She examines the datapad.

Computer Use roll (55% skill) trying to access the datapad:
d%

“Ur, well, welcome back, Dr Johnson. We’re glad to see you.” Nicole keeps peering into the darkness for the pursuer.
“Where’d it go? Do you think it recognised our weapons and backed down? Which means it’s intelligent.
“So there was no sign of Kiara near her datapad? Damn it, I wish we knew if she was still alive or not.”

"I could hear it gaining on me with it's click, click, click, but then when I came into sight of you, the clicking started trailing off. I know it went though the vents on the station so it could have climbed into the cables and such to monitor us. I can't see it anymore though." Jojo watches as Sam attempts to use the datapad.

"And although it's an alien, I am a doctor and I could tell that the alien I found had been long dead. I am beginning to suspect that the clicking creature is some kind of robotic helper that is still operational and following it's protocols pertaining to the crashed ship."

Sam examines the datapad. Generally they all look the same, dull grey plastic rectangles, but the crack in the corner does resemble the one that Kiara was carrying the last time she saw her. Her initial attempts to unlock the device are unsuccessful but a simple manual override gets her access to the device. Examining the access log confirms this was indeed Kiara's - she's used it scores of times over the last few days. The last several hours ago.

"I got in," says Sam. She shows everyone the contents of the datapad.

Nicole drags her eyes from the distance to view the datapad. “Just two hours ago, Kiara was alive.” She murmurs.

The last time they saw Kiara was on the 12th March 2189, around midday Earth Central European Time, in Benedict's Rest. She was with Ling Li then. Scrolling through the access logs, Sam is surprised by just how much use Kiara has made of her datapad since they last saw her. That's scientists she thinks.

Looking at her datapad the first thing she did after that was to use it to access the Shuttle Bay security cameras at 13:10. Then shortly after that she accessed the memory dump left by Jojo after his attack. Then she uses the datapad to coordinate some experiments she was conducting in the Medical Bay looking at the alien samples. Then she made an all frequencies transmission a few hours later - one that they all received - outlining her findings that light and heat seems to accelerate the alien mould while cold slows down or stops the infection. There's a message received from Sam in response. She then searches the Benedict's Rest manifest, looking for emergency flares, incinerators, and...tanning beds!

After another half an hour or so she accesses the security cameras outside the Landing Bay followed by activating the fire suppression system. A few minutes later she accesses the Benedict's Rest comms relay and sends an all channels transmission warning of a shuttle launch breaking quarantine.

For a moment everyone thinks back to the sight of the shuttle shattering into a million pieces in an orange-red explosion on the edge of space.

Not long after the message about the shuttle sent via Barnard's Rest she uses her datapad to try and send a transmission from the copter communications array to the surface rover but it seems she received no response.

Around 19:00 she uses her datapad to take some readings of Waystation using the copter sensor array. There seems to be something wrong with the sensors because the measurements of density, magnetism, and a whole host of other parameters are fluctuating wildly and completely uninterpretable. Then she accesses the Waystation network and communicates with the CENTRAL intelligence there. Then connects to the copter comms and sends a hail to the shuttle without any reply. Then she tries to hail the surface rover, again without success. She uses her datapad to record a faint transmission, a cyclical whining sound, rising in pitch until it reaches a crescendo, a pattern that is familiar to everyone.

Ten minutes or so later she makes a plaintext entry into the datapad, it reads Activation code 59276. Another five minutes later she attaches a hard data connector but then doesn't seem to connect to anything. Or whatever she connects to isn't working. Then she uses the datapad to scan something, from the readings it looks like a frozen corpse, but with some odd anomalies around density and silica contaminants. Then she uses her datapad to access the shuttle logs but they're encrypted. She then accesses the peripheral components which shows the fuel was topped up week before and now it's empty and none has been used for the last few days. She then accesses the comms meta-data which shows that the shuttle has not made any contact with the Barnard's Rest Colony, or Waystation directly, only been sending messages back out into space, maybe to Ganymede. Then she browses the shuttle access logs which seem to have been Richter Dynamics employees until a week ago when a number of 'classified' designations' are recorded. She's appended a note that she thinks there seven people onboard when it touched down on Titan and has written, Where are the other six?.

Then she tries to hail the surface rover using the shuttle comms relay, but no response. And then she accesses the sensor array on the shuttle and scans Waystation again, it mostly confirms her previous readings, sonographic, seismic, and broad-spectrum electromagnetic readings are all fluctuating wildly, with measurements of gravity, density, magnetism, and vibration uninterpretable. It does look like she detected something under the surface with seemingly impossible mass, but at other times it didn't seem to be there at all, like there was just a void, a hollow cavern. She also picks up that repeating pattern again, across a range of different sensors, sometimes it's a vibration, other times a fluctuation in the measured effects of gravity, and often a burst of electromagnetic radiation in a narrow band.

Then she disables the shuttle transponder and finally makes contact with the surface rover. After that she starts scanning with the shuttle comms array across a wide range of communications channels. Eventually she seems to pick up a faint signal, it's difficult to localise but seems to be coming from nearby. Whatever the content of that signal it isn't recorded on the datapad. Then she immediately accesses a secure channel on her datapad, one that Sam can't seem to get access to, and sends an encrypted message using the shuttle communication array. It's directed towards Ganymede Station as far as Sam can figure. Then the datapad is powered off and is not turned back on again until just now.

"I can't access the secure channel," says Sam. "I'd like to see what's in this encrypted message. Jojo, can you interface with the datapad directly and try to crack it?"

“She’s been busy. And there’s something definitely odd about Waystation. Do you think there’s an alien ship here that’s causing all the reading anomalies?” Nicole says.

What do we know about Ganymede? Did we explore the whole shuttle?

"Unless the aliens are native to Titan, or they have some other means of traveling through space, there must be a ship here," says Sam. "We'll have to keep an eye out for it. Imagine the technology they must have!"

“So much for our idea of escaping in the shuttle and running the gauntlet off this rock- there’s no fuel! Do you think Kiara could still be on the shuttle?”

"It's possible," says Sam, "but why didn't she respond to our attempts to communicate? And why did she leave her datapad?"

Computer Use 30
1d100

Bonus Die
1d10

Regular Success.

Jojo will take the datapad from Sam and peel back his thumbnail which exposes a concealed data connector which he plugs into the datapad. He closes his eyes a minute as he runs the decryption program.

"There. I've got it."

"Well done!" says Sam, eager to hear what the message said.

Nicole keeps an eye on the surroundings whilst Jojo fiddles wi the data pad.

After interfacing with the datapad Jojo loads it in its entirety into his internal memory bus and harnesses his own internal key decryption algorithms to brute-force attack the secure channel utilising the multiple parallel CPUs that make up his core computational architecture. While the encryption seed would normally be highly effective, and essentially uncrackable, the unique parallel architecture of a synthetic coupled with the ability to dump the entire datapad memory when physically interfacing is a recognised vulnerability that doesn't usually prove a problem in practice as the encryption is designed to secure the transmission channel rather than the datapad itself.

The last message from Kiara reads:

Extra-terran organism sample procured. Exfiltration in 12 hours from Waystation Facility.

Signal received from extra-terran artefact. Investigating. No further communication will follow until exfiltration.

Prior to that, a message was received around 20 hours previously. It seems that all received messages are deleted after they are read. But there is some meta-data that Jojo can uncover, some kind of communications handshake. Electronic fingerprinting suggests a 78% family resemblance with signatures used by the Walker-Hynix Corporation. It's not clear where the message was sent from, as far as Jojo can triangulate it came from somewhere between the Jupiter and Saturn systems.

Another message was received about 15 hours before that. This time it seems to have originated from Ganymede. A few hours before Kiara had sent another message, a datapacket, targeted at Earth as far as Jojo can see. The contents of the datapacket are intimately familiar to Jojo, it's the content of his memory dump.

The evening of the 11th March she sends a message targeting Earth again, it reads:

Waystation/Pumping Station 6 excavation implicated in tremors. Coordinates attached to this message.

Evidence of psychological impact on Benedict's Rest crew. Document titled Absolution by Colony Doctor Henry Holzer attached. Quotations from Security Sergeant David Montrose attached.

She has appended coordinates for Waystation and a copy of the document you found on Holzer's computer as well as some selected quotations from David Montrose. Sam, and Nicole recall him saying these things as they were present at the time, while Montrose was locked in his room.

Go away, I'm not well, I'm dying. Leave me alone, all of you, stay out of my head.

The voices, I can hear them all the time now, you're so small, so weak, worthless, and the images, beamed into my head.

Ignore me, I'm sick, I think I caught something, just fever dreams. Leave me alone. I just need some rest.

It's inside me, eating me. Fucking Waystation. I should never have gone to fucking Waystation.

The gate, the gate is across the sea, across Ligeia Mare, that's where I'll find Tawil at’Umr. I need to find the court of H'rada-Theka Pannakar.

No, no, I will not join you Ëka-Galä, you are not me, I am me, me, me.

A few hours later she received a message on the secure channel. Again, it has been deleted but the meta-data indicates that it was sent from Earth and shares the same electronic fingerprint of Walker-Hynix. It couldn't possibly be a response to the one she sent a few hours before, the turn around time for messages to Earth is days.

"So Kiara's been talking to a rival corporation," says Sam. "She told them that she's procured a sample of an alien lifeform. And she's planning to get off this rock in about ten hours. I think our best bet is if we go with her, presuming she's still alive down there. If not, we'll just have to go in her place. We'll have to monitor the datapad as we get closer to the exfiltration time, as that's when they're likely to communicate with her again. We're going to have to keep going, to try to find out what happened to her and that sample of hers, and to investigate that signal she found."

“Unbelievable. Even with proof of what’s happened to Bernard’s Rest, she still has the gall to transfer this alien to Earth with no consideration to the consequences.
No wonder Richter Dynamics has quarantined the whole moon.” Nicole waves her arms about.
“We have to stop her.”

Btw, superb techy jargon by the keeper there.

"We do," says Sam, "but we also have to get off of Titan. That means playing along for now and making our move once we're safely out of the quarantine zone. We can't let her know our intentions."

"So was Kiara watching me and she took the alien after I went through? How did I miss her?" Jojo says as he contemplates the meaning of it all. "Is she going to leave via the shuttle up top or some other way? We have the alien that attacked me to worry about also."

“Didn't the datapad say there was no fuel in the shuttle? Should we try and refuel it ready for a quick lift-off- that’s if it’s possible to do so from outside the ship.” Says Nicole. “And then we can try and extricate Kiara. And dodge the alien.”

"Jojo, do you think you can access the shuttle?" asks Sam.

"I'm not sure. My systems are badly damaged but I can try." Jojo replies. "But aren't we in quarantine so we will get shot down as soon as we try to leave?"

“Well the only other option is to hide somewhere until this all blows over. But Richter Dynamics must have some inkling about what’s going on to quarantine in the first place. And they’re never going to let us leave if they think we’re contaminated.
I bet Virgil was contaminated, it’s just hard to tell from the outside.”
Nicole says mournfully.

"Walker-Hynix must have some plan to extract Kiara and the...sample that accounts for the quarantine," says Sam. "We may find more information aboard the shuttle, or maybe even Kiara herself. We should try to get aboard and look around, at least."

“I think Is rather explore the shuttle than these alien tunnels.” Nicole agrees.

"Well let me see. As I say, my internal circuits aren't in the best of shape." Jojo says as he tries to access the shuttle through the datapad.

Computer 30
1d100

"Nope. Sorry. I can't get though. From here at least."

"Maybe I can try to use the datapad to access the shuttle," says Sam. "We didn't have that when I tried to get through the airlock. If that doesn't work, we can try it at the shuttle itself."

Jojo disconnects his finger from the datapad and hands it to Sam. She connects up to the Waystation network. A greeting pops up on the screen from the CENTRAL intelligence, asking what she would like to do.

You'll need to pass a hard Computer Use roll to connect to the Shuttle, assuming it is powered up and linked in to the Waystation network.

-----

While Jojo and Sam stand around examining the datapad, Isabella is a few feet back down the corridor. 'Um, guys, did you hear that?' she asks before there's a rattling sound, like rapid cracks occurring one after another, accompanied by orange-white flashes coming from some distance down the corridor. There's another burst of clattering and strobing flashes, followed by one louder explosion.

That's the sound of gunfire. Not small arms. Military grade.

"I wonder if that's who Kiara communicated with." Jojo says.
"Doesn't sound like the locals. Did you have any more success than me?" He says to Sam.

"Almost got it..." says Sam, fiddling with the datapad.

Computer Use roll (55% / 2 = 27.5% skill) trying to access the shuttle via the datapad:
d%
I'd like to spend 4 Luck to make that a hard success.

FIrearms(Rifle) roll (35% skill) about the noise:
d%

Trying to ignore the greetings of CENTRAL, Sam accesses the network directly and quickly finds an unidentified node that seems like it could be the shuttle. More familiar with the way colony interface controllers are configured, she's able to spoof her way into the shuttle systems. It's idling in low power mode.

She can see that it was refuelled several hours ago, seems like someone manually overrode a service drone attached to the fuel pump on the runway and then used it to fill up the shuttle themselves. That's not an easy thing to do. It also seems like the shuttle transponder has been deactivated and someone has prepped it to broadcast a new transponder code, but they haven't yet supplied the final digits needed to complete the process.

Most of the procedures needed to initialise the shuttle for take-off have already been completed. It's difficult to tell remotely but it might only take half and hour if everything is done right.

-----

Isabella gets down on one knee and raises her shotgun to her shoulder. 'We need a plan, something is going on down here.' There's another loud explosion followed by a burst of rattling. It's getting nearer.

"Let's fall back to the shuttle," says Sam. "Now that I've gotten access, we can go aboard. I'd like to see what's there, and just how long the shuttle needs to be ready for takeoff."

“That’s military grade gunfire! There must be people down there! Kiara maybe. We ought to help them.” Nicole tries to determine how many guns are firing.

Listen 45 roll: 50

"Is there anything we can even do?" asks Sam. "If they've got military hardware, they're better equipped than we are. Plus, they may not be so happy to see us and could shoot us on sight. They're probably the people from the shuttle. Although if Kiara is in danger, we really do need to help her. We'll just have to approach with stealth."

"I'm not all that quiet," says Sam, "so maybe you should go first, and I'll follow behind you and keep you in sight."

“Ok, stay back and be ready to run to the shuttle. I’ll creep down and see if it is Kiara. I’ll try to signal if she’s there.”
Nicole looks around their motley weapons and shrugs. She gets her stun gun ready and creeps closer to the gunfire.

Stealth 40 roll:28

"I'm a doctor, not a fighter. I'm not going to sneak around an active battle." Jojo says to Nicole. "Let me know if anyone needs any medical care."

Turning off her suit lights and utilising the extensive shadows and the cover of gunfire, Nicole creeps down the tunnel. Her way illuminated by the strips of low power lighting running down from the surface. Sam follows some distance behind.

Isabella remains behind with Jojo, shotgun raised and looking nervous, turning back and forth to look up and down the dark tunnel. Occasionally pointing her weapon back up at the hole in the structure above them.

After a few minutes of walking further downwards, deeper into the structure, the corridor opens up to reveal a larger chamber. The low level string lighting is supplemented by a number of site lamps illuminating the open space. There are six odd curved structures arising from the glassy surface of the floor, their purpose is impossible to determine but each one has a kind of semicircular recess.

Crouched behind one of these structures is someone in a pressure suit, facing away from her. Not the familiar bulky orange shape of a Titan surface suit but the clean olive green lines of something military issue. The sort of thing the Colonial Marines would wear but there are no markings. The figure is firing an automatic rifle into the distance at someone or something Nicole can't see. The rattling crack, crack, crack of automatic gunfire, and the corresponding orange-white strobe of muzzle-flash suddenly stops. The figure looks at the weapon and gives it a whack with their hand. Then they spin around to look back up the corridor, towards Nicole, suit lights sweeping across the black tunnel. Racking what looks like an underslung shotgun or grenade launcher.



Whoever they are they don't seem to have seen Nicole, yet.

Sam keeps her distance, just about keeping Nicole in her sight but dimming her suit lights to avoid giving her position away. Nicole turns a corner and Sam gently runs to catch up. The rattling crack, crack, crack of automatic gunfire and the corresponding orange-white strobe of muzzle-flash is suddenly immediately in front of her. She can't make out any details at this distance but the corridor has opened up to form a larger chamber. The low level string lighting is supplemented by a number of site lamps illuminating the open space. Then the gunfire stops.

Nicole and Sam disappear down the tunnel into the dimly lit darkness. The rattling crack, crack, crack of automatic gunfire continues to come in bursts. Then it stops.

can I contact the figure via open radio- or something?

Nicole watches the figure, wondering how to contact them without being shot accidentally. She risks a quick look further down the tunnel to see what they were shooting at.

Spot hidden 60 roll:79

Sam flattens herself against the wall next to the corner without rounding it, having her flamethrower ready, listening carefully.

Listen roll (20% base skill) in the corridor:
d%

Nicole cycles through a few frequencies,
“Come in, over?” But gets no response. With a last glance into the gloom she turns back and follows the figure quietly.

Luck: 40 roll: 69 stealth: 40 roll: 16

Sam flattens herself against the wall and listens. There's no sound now - all the gunfire has silenced - it is disconcertingly quiet. Then she hears the sound of footsteps. Rapid and purposeful. Heavier than the sound Nicole makes. It's getting nearer. And then there's a mechanical noise, like someone cocking a rifle or racking a shotgun. For a second there's a crackle over the radio, Nicole's voice, it sounds like she's trying to raise someone, then it's gone.

Despite cycling through all the usual channels, Nicole is unable to raise the figure in the suit. She retreats back into the shadows as they stride past her, automatic rifle held up high, braced into the shoulder, sweeping ahead for targets.

There's no sound now - all the gunfire has silenced - it is disconcertingly quiet. For a second there's a crackle over the radio, Nicole's voice, it sounds like she's trying to raise someone, then it's gone. Isabella signals to Jojo, a hand gesture, she seems to be asking if she should go down the corridor to see what's happened to the others.

"Get back around the corner, fast!" Sam calls into the communicator to Nicole, though also loud enough for her to hear in case it's not working. "Someone armed for bear is coming quick!"

Jojo signals back to Isabella, shaking his head while flicking his hand in a "no" gesture in front of his throat.

Nicole thinks the figure is acting human enough to be one. She stays crouched and hidden but calls out.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I’m human and in no way contaminated by the aliens. Please don’t shoot me.”
She grits her teeth. At least this might give the others the chance to escape if it suddenly goes tits up.

The figure whips around and raises the rifle - pointing it directly at Nicole. For a long minute the figure stands there looking in her direction. Weapon raised. Face obscured by reflection off the glass.

Then there's a subtle change in the figure's posture. They hold up a hand, signalling the number four. Tapping their helmet to indicate the suit radio. Nicole tunes it in to civilian band 4.

A gruff male voices crackles through her headset, 'Who the fuck are you?'

-----

The silence continues. No more gunfire. There's the faint sound of a voice, carried easily on the thick atmosphere of Titan. '...don’t want to...human...no way contaminated...aliens...don’t shoot me.'

"We're human, and not contaminated either," says Sam, tactfully not mentioning that there is a synth back the way she came. "We won't shoot if you won't. We want to get out of here alive just as much as you do."

Nicole lowers her weapon.
“Colonial Marshal Favre. Do we need to get out of here?” She gestures down into the gloom. “Away from whatever’s down there?”

The hoarse voice continues, lifting in pitch, a hint of panic. 'Corporal Booth, Colonial Marine Corp. It don't matter what way we go. It's all fucked. We're all fucked!'

At the sound of Sam's voice he turns back up the tunnel, 'They with you?'

----

Returning to where Jojo, Sam, and Isabella are gathered, they get their first glimpse of the man in his smooth olive green pressure suit, no markings of any kind, carrying an automatic rifle with an underslung shotgun or grenade launcher.

In hurried terms Booth explains that he's the last remaining member of an off-books team of Marines deployed by the Colonial Government at the request of Richter Dynamics. He says they met heavy resistance from the miners stationed in Waystation and then encountered something, something they don't think was human, that picked them off one by one. He had been trying to extract from the tunnels with his last team member until they ran into a Richter Dynamics Science Officer, 'Name of Khan.' She told them that she had prepped the shuttle for launch but disabled the transponder that would stop them getting shot down, 'Bitch wouldn't give us codes till we took her back inside, she's crazy, wanted something down there. Then that thing came out of the shadows - ripped right through Hernandez. I just fucking ran and fired everything I got.' He says he lost Khan but she was carrying a shotgun and he had given her some of his lethal rounds to replace her riot rounds, 'Maybe she'll survive. Maybe.'

'Are you seriously telling me you guys are the rescue party?' he asks. 'At least say you got a ship.'

"We might be able to access that shuttle," says Sam. "We weren't sent as a rescue party. Richter sent us to investigate what's going on on Titan. Kiara Khan is part of our team, but she got here first and went ahead without us. Also, Titan's under quarantine. Anyone who tries to leave gets shot down. It's already happened to someone else."

“I reckon Dr Khan had a different agenda to us.” Nicole looks back down the tunnel. “My job now is to get you all off this rock alive, including you, Corporal Booth.”

"Nothing here gets any better. Does it?" Jojo grimaces at the news. "This is just FUBAR and we're probably all going to die."

'So no rescue,' grumbles Booth. He stands there silently for a minute or so. Uncomfortably long without talking or moving. Then he thumps the side of his helmet with the suit gauntlet and then taps the round counter on his weapon. 'I don't know about you but I ain't gonna die without putting up a fight,' he says, gesturing his rifle towards Jojo. 'I'm getting off this fucking rock, question is, do we go after Khan or try our chances with the shuttle?'

"I think we should try to access the shuttle," says Sam. "I don't want to leave Kiara behind, but if there's something down there that even Colonial Marines can't handle, I don't know what chance the rest of us have. We can try to reach her on the communicator, at least, but we've heard no replies from her so far."

'Everyone else?' he asks.

Isabella shrugs her shoulders, at least as much as you can in a surface suit. 'I'm going wherever the most other people go. Safety in numbers.'

“I’m thinking Dr Khan knew what she was getting into. I think we should try to get the word out. Let’s get to that shuttle.” Nicole checks her weapon.
“Doctor, Sam, lead the way. Corporal Booth and I will bring up the rear. Let’s go!”

"Right," says Sam, heading back toward the surface.

"Let's try to do what we can to get out of here." Jojo says. "What will happen will become clear soon enough."

Sam leads them up the steps and through the opening in the smooth black stone outer shell, with its concentric patterns of hexagonal shapes and figures in bas relief. That nagging high-pitched noise starts again.

Jojo and Isabella follow a little distance behind Sam, while Nicole and Booth bring up the rear. Despite the marine constantly turning to point his weapon into the darkness behind them, there is no sign of any pursuit. Booth shudders as he glances at the cephalopodic-shapes carved into the stone.

Clearing the translucent plastic pressure dome they emerge once more onto the basalt-like surface jutting out of the methane ice, emitting a faint but disconcerting blue glow. The huddle of equipment brightly illuminated by the industrial worklights that bathe the area around the dome in a sharp white light. Clambering up the slope of compressed methane-ice alongside the tangle of thick cables they come to the flatter floor of the crater and approach the nearest metal ladder hammered into the crust of compressed methane ice. At the bottom lies the body of Moses, twisted and crumpled, seemingly in the same position it fell when they hauled it off the overhang above.

The climbing takes a few minutes, Sam leading then followed by the others, Booth coming up last. Even in the weak gravity of Titan everyone feels a weariness in their limbs, a nagging pull back down towards the buried structure. Perhaps it is just the knowledge that somewhere down there Kiara might still be alive. Standing at the edge of the precipice and looking back down, the floor is again obscured, there is just an eerie blue glow that blurs and shifts like some kind of mist.



They trudge in silence past the still prefabricated structures of Waystation. The drilling derrick and half buried bulldozer and power-loader.



The main building with its radio antenna, and the four barrack-blocks. Thankfully that high-pitched cyclical throbbing fades as they leave the vicinity of the pit. Passing the four huge storage tanks they walk expectantly towards the landing strip and watchtower. No one willing to put into words their silent apprehensions about what they'll find.



The massive shuttle dwarfs the small copter and surface rover. Everything seems as they left it, including the frozen corpse of the pilot, lying in the snow without a surface suit.



As soon as he sees the body Booth freezes and drops into a crouch, raising his weapon and sweeping the area. Once he's happy there's no one in the vicinity he cautiously moves towards the corpse. 'Looks like they got Robin.' He carries out a cursory examination, 'Weird, I can't see any injuries. You guys any idea what killed him?' He points to the man's frozen face - 'I doubt he just took a walk in the fresh air.'

"Maybe he did," says Sam. "This place has a way of messing with your head. The body we passed on the way up here was one of our team. He took off his own helmet, thinking it was safe to breathe."

"Indeed. The medical reports document people hearing voices and under the effect of some type of hallucination. It is quite possible that what an individual perceives with their senses isn't actually reality. Jojo sceconds Sam's theory.

“So let’s be on high alert for any more mind-bending experiences.” Nicole adds. “Now, we need to get this shuttle open, make sure it’s fuelled and then somehow avoid being shot down.”

It's difficult to tell through the narrow visor of the combat suit, but Booth looks sceptical. 'Okay, if you say so.' He stands and looks up at the shuttle. 'Y'know that was our shuttle right? An' Robin here was our pilot. Anyone know how to fly this thing?'

There's a repetitive beeping noise coming from nearby, not the shuttle, nearer than that.

There's a repetitive beeping noise, and a faint buzzing. Sam can feel it. Coming from Kiara's datapad. She accesses the pad and there's a written message, from CENTRAL:

****CAUTION****

Proximity sensors indicate a fast moving object approaching Waystation from the east.

ETA 2 minutes and 36 seconds.

"Let's get in the shuttle fast!" says Sam, holding up the datapad and fiddling with it to try to gain access. "According to CENTRAL, we've got incoming from the east in about two and a half minutes!"

Listen roll (20% base skill) outside the shuttle:
d%

Nicole takes Sam’s word for it and looks around for the best defensive positions in case Sam can’t open the door in time.

Walking across the tarmac of the runway, Sam approaches the dark bulk of the shuttle. There is the faintest of glows from cockpit window but everywhere else is black, silhouetted against the dull orange sun. The puts her foot onto the first rung of the metal steps that lead up to the main cabin door. Her magnetised boots clank as she slowly walks up the steps, slowed down a little by the magnetic grip. Her suit lights illuminate the steps which are covered in a fine dust of methane snow, the footprints from their last visit almost completely obscured now. The shuttle fuselage remains covered in thick encrustations of frozen methane while the main cabin door has a thin layer of frost. The door controls continue to flash with a dim red light, indicating that it is still locked but Sam finds a copy of the entry code in Kiara's datapad and the door smoothly slides open, breaking the seal of frost which sloughs off onto the steps.

Through the main door, Sam can see the closed cockpit door on the right-hand side, to the left she can make out the first few rows of seats. Several seem to have been removed and replaced with equipment storage crates and racks. There are no lights on inside the cabin and everything is covered in a thin layer of frost but Sam's suit headlamps illuminate the area immediately ahead of her. Cautiously she walks down the aisle between the seats, her boots clacking against the metallic floor, suit swinging from side to side to light up the dark empty spaces. She pauses to glance into the storage racks which are all empty but further down the gangway there's a half open crate made of some kind of toughened polycarbonate shell, green coloured. Hinged on one side it opens up like a briefcase and inside it is lined with a spongy protective foam, with a shape cut-out, some kind of weapon. The seats and other surfaces are covered in a thin layer of methane frost. None of the electronic equipment seems to be powered on, the screens in the backs of the seats are blank. There is no sign of life in the cabin, no movement, no sounds. It is silent like a grave.

It is difficult to see in the thick orange haze but there's something visible on the horizon, moving rapidly. It's all angular, like some kind of insect. The bright silver-white evident even at this distance. The thick atmosphere rippling. It seems to be a copter.

Sam hurriedly tries to power up the shuttle.

Listen 35
1d100

OOC:   Extreme Listen Success

"How big of a thing is coming?"

"CENTRAL didn't say," says Sam, "just that it's moving fast and approaching Waystation from the east."

Nicole looks East but can’t hear anything.

listen 49 roll: 56

“Maybe we can at least hide in the shuttle. Do we have time to rig a camera up so we can watch what happens? Maybe that soldier’s suit has a head cam.” She goes to look.

Although no one can see anything through the orange haze, the thick Titan atmosphere does carry sound well, and Jojo can hear a distinctive whirring sound, like the noise made by copter turbines.

Nicole examines the corpse but there's no mounted cameras. She does think there might be cameras on the shuttle as part of the standard sensory array.

-----

Sam tries the door to the cockpit and it slides openly with a slight hiss, she does notice signs of damage to the edge of the door, like someone has tried to force it. Inside the cabin the equipment is powered up but the lights are dim. The view out the large windows is the same relentless orange snow, blurred by the layer of methane ice frozen onto the outside. There's no frost on any of the surfaces.

In front of the instrument panels are two flight seats. Sam goes to sit in one to try and activate the shuttle. As she moves around the chairs, she feels the legs of her suit bumping into something. In the narrow space it is difficult to get a good look with the Titan suit's narrow field of vision, but looking down she sees what looks like a body, lying across the ground in front of the seats. An orange Titan surface suit. The figure is face down but the back of the helmet has a ragged hole.

"We got another corpse here!" calls Sam, as she continues trying to start the shuttle. "There's a hole in the back of its helmet. I've got no time to check it out now, but the rest of you can. We need to take off before whatever it is gets here!"

“Come on, let’s get on board!” Nicole races into the shuttle. “Does it have any weapons?” As soon as everyone else is on board she shuts the door.

"It sounds like a chopper, not a shuttle." Jojo says. "If we don't get shot down from orbit, we should be able to quickly rise above it.

He will move to the cockpit and try to drag the body back out of the way of the pilot seats.

Jojo grabs the body by the shoulders and tries to haul it out of the cockpit. It's more difficult than it seems, despite the low gravity and his android strength. The cockpit is quite cramped and he finds it hard to manoeuvre the unwieldy Titan suit past the seats, equipment, and people. By the time he's got the body into the main cabin everyone has had the chance to get a good look at the wounds. As well as the ragged hole in the back of the helmet, all blackened and twisted metal and blood, the front visor is spattered with gore and flesh, it is cracked in some places and in others there are holes torn through it.

Whoever was in this suit is unrecognisable, their face shredded and spattered all over the inside of the suit visor. But there's something about the slim form that is reminiscent of Pilot Ling Li.

While the face is wrecked beyond recognition, Jojo's advanced pattern recognition subroutines immediately determine from the suit and body proportions that this is the corpse of Pilot Ling Li.

From the entry wound in the back of the head to the exit wound in the face, this looks like someone was executed. A shotgun fired into the back of their head from close range.

Once she's inside the cockpit Nicole looks around for any signs of weapon systems. While she doesn't know much about the instruments in an interplanetary shuttle there's certainly nothing here suggestive of any kind of significant weapons. Which is not particularly surprising since this is a civilian shuttle.

Soon the whirring of copter turbines is audible to everyone. And in the distance, materialising through the thick orange haze, there's something becoming visible on the horizon, moving rapidly, growing in size. It's all angular, like an oversized insect. The thick atmosphere rippling around the bright silver-white shell. It's a copter. Flying directly towards the shuttle. Getting larger and larger. Approaching very quickly indeed. Too fast to easily slow down.

'Movin' fast,' notes Corporal Booth languidly. Like he doesn't get the significance of it. Then he gestures at the instrument panel 'Anyone fly this?' Isabella, looking rather less relaxed about the approaching copter, pushes past him and starts jabbing the controls, 'I'm no expert but I might be able to get it started.'

After about thirty seconds Isabella stops frantically typing into the control panel. 'I'm not a pilot but I've designed enough avionics to know how this thing works. I've started the initiation sequence and it's going to take about fifteen minutes before that's completed. Taking off before that's done is risky, really risky. Once the sequence is finished we can take off from Titan under the autopilot. The transponder is still disabled so I don't know what happens when we leave the atmosphere.'

Wow, you guys are lucky. Isabella only has 30% in Pilot (Space) but she made it. If you want to get the sensor array working to activate the cameras and other sensors then that'd be a Computer Use, Isabella is too busy to muck about with the cameras. Obviously if you wait until the initiation sequence is completed then that copter is going to arrive.

Pilot (Space) 30%: 1d100 27

"Could that be Ling Li?" asks Sam, trying to activate the sensors. "I can't get the sensors going. Someone else give it a try. And we should lock the shuttle once everyone's aboard. That should keep them out until we take off, unless of course they go in guns blazing."

INT roll (75% stat) about the corpse:
d%
Computer Use roll (55% skill) to activate the sensors:
d%

“That copter’s certainly in a rush-almost flying too fast to be safe. Does it look like it’s on a collision course, Sam? Can we see if anything’s chasing it on the sensors?” Nicole notices the corpse’s head.
“For what it’s worth, this guy looks like he was shot at point blank - an execution maybe.”
She watches Corporal Booth, wondering why he’s not bothered by the copter.

Psychology 60, roll:53

"I can't get the sensors working," says Sam, "so I don't know. Jojo, can you interface with them?"

"I'll try to interface but I'm a doctor, not an engineer." Jojo mutters in reply.

Computer Use 30
1d100

In case I get a bonus die
1d10
That would be an 08 if I get a bonus for direct interface.

Jojo smoothly uncovers the data connector under his nail and interfaces with the cockpit sensor controls. In a matter of seconds he has booted up most of the external sensors and is displaying the output on the monitors. The cameras show the copter bobbing through the orange sky at high speed, it is difficult to tell at this distance but the cockpit seems crowded, like there's more people in there, more than the usual pilot and co-pilot. And the aircraft's trajectory is odd, as well as bobbing up and down unpredictably it is also sheering off to the side, like whoever is flying it doesn't have full control. While it isn't exactly on a collision course it is certainly flying directly towards the shuttle. Interfacing with the sensors Jojo uses some of the near infrared detectors and active radar but can't identify anything that might be chasing the copter.

Sam isn't sure what's going on with Corporal Booth. On the one hand he seems quite shaken by what he's seen down in the alien structure. On the other, he probably doesn't know anything about what happened in Benedict's Rest so he might not be quite so worried about a copter coming from that direction.

"If they've gone crazy, they might try to crash into us," says Sam. "Or if their copter is damaged. It looks like they can't steer it well."

Given my engineering knowledge of shuttles and copters, can I assess how badly the shuttle (and its occupants) would be damaged in the event of a collision?

“Friend or foe?” Nicole murmurs. “I’m inclined to say friend but bringing a whole heap of trouble with them.”

It is pretty clear to Sam and everyone else that at the rate it is going, if the copter crashes it is going to seriously the injure or kill the occupants, even in the weak gravity of Titan. Exactly what it would do to them if it hit the shuttle is less clear.

Sam knows that shuttles are designed for atmospheric insertion and are thus pretty tough. But a direct hit on something vital like the cockpit or the engine and all bets are off.

Nicole isn't sure what's going on with Corporal Booth. On the one hand he seems quite shaken by what he's seen down in the alien structure. On the other, he probably doesn't know anything about what happened in Benedict's Rest so he might not be quite so worried about a copter coming from that direction.

OOC:   Sorry - posted that for Sam instead of Nicole up the thread.

"Shuttles are tough," says Sam, "and a collision will damage the copter a lot worse than it does us. Of course, if the engine or the cockpit take a direct hit, we're in trouble. Then again, if we go out there and it lands on us, we'll be a lot more vulnerable. Our best bet is to take off before it gets here."

"Let's go!" Jojo says as he watches the monitors. "It looks like it's coming for us as I can't see them running from anything."

“But they’re on a suicidal mission! Unless they’re being mind-controlled by the aliens. Yes, let’s go- we can come back to rescue the survivors if we have to.”
Nicole agrees with Jojo.

At everyone's insistence, Isabella reluctantly forces the shuttle to launch before the initiation sequence has completed. Bucking and shaking it rises up from the landing strip, downdraft from the thrusters blowing methane snow in every direction, hazy clouds billow out from the heat like waves of fog.

Monitoring events outside through the various sensor arrays displayed inside the cockpit they can eventually see the approaching copter looming through a gap in the orange fog. There's got to be five or six people crammed into the tiny cabin, pressed up against the glass. And in the pilot's seat is a familiar face. A balding, red-bearded man, wearing some kind of robe over his Hawaiian shirt, baseball cap pushed onto the back of his head. Kingsley. The look in his eye is one of complete mania as he struggles to fly the copter straight. It twists and dives in the draft from the thrusters but continues to shoot towards the shuttle at a phenomenal rate.

Can you roll me Luck

"This thing has to be faster than that copter," says Sam, routing power to the engine. "We can outrun it and keep it from colliding."

Luck 31
1d100
Androids aren't known for their luck!

"Oh, this is not good." Jojo says under his breath.

“Why the hell has he come all the way out here? I thought he was badly wounded!” Nicole is surprised to see Kingsley flying the chopper. “We’ll have to go back- they’ll need help after the crash.”

Isabella opens up the throttle on the shuttle, 'Here goes nothing...' Quivering and shaking, held aloft by the thrusters, the main engine engages and the shuttle lurches forward, gathering speed at a significant rate.

Coming in the other direction the copter spirals and lurches towards the shuttle, there's just enough room for the shuttle to clear it when something buffets the copter side-ways and it collides with the corner of the shuttle cockpit, scraping down the side of the ship before plummeting down towards the surface and ploughing into the methane snow.

Inside the shuttle warning lights flash red, Isabella desperately jabs at the control panel as the ship twists and yaws back towards Titan's surface. There are sparks from instrument panels and hisses of escaping gas. Automatic fire suppression units discharge in various directions, filling the cockpit with choking foam and powder.

"We need to set down gently!" says Sam, working feverishly to do damage control and keep the shuttle from crashing. She'll have to repair the damage fully once they're on the ground.

Despite the collision the shuttle continues its ascent up through the thick atmosphere of Titan. Booth peers into the sensors, 'Can't really see copter, too much haze, but there ain't no movement. I say leave 'em. Better them than us, right?' He looks up questioningly. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks more nervous than the the superficial confidence his voice tries to convey.

The shuttle's trajectory stabilises a little and Isabella shouts, 'I think I've still got control of this thing. We still going up or do you want me to set us down. Can't guarantee I'll get it to fly again...'

Most of the fires in the cockpit have been extinguished but several sparking instrument panels are now dark and there are a number of flashing warning lights. The most concerning ones are labelled 'Life Support' and 'Auxiliary Thrusters'.

If anyone wants to try and repair the damage while the shuttle is airborne that'll be a regular Electrical Repair or a hard Mechanical Repair or something else relevant.

"I can try to fix it in the air," says Sam, "but my chances will be better on the ground. Life Support is kind of important. Plus we could search the copter's wreckage and maybe get some answers."

“If we stay up, what are the chances of us escaping Titan?” Nicole asks Isobella.

Still concentrating on the control panel and tapping it furiously with one hand while pulling back on the steering yoke, Isabella shrugs. 'I barely got us into the air the first time. Who knows if I can do it again?'

"All right, I'll have to fix it in flight," says Sam, getting to work on the shuttle's systems. It's very difficult to do it while the shuttle is flying, but somehow she manages.

Electrical Repair roll (50% skill) trying to repair the shuttle mid-flight:
d%

"Just keep us aiming to leave. They are going to destroy the outpost and we can't be there when that happens."

Jojo will keep watch over whatever instruments are still working.

Now that Isabella has stabilised the shuttle's flight path, Sam can access some of the secondary systems concealed behind various panels and hatches. There's still several warnings lights blinking away but she is able to reroute the power to the life support systems and divert fuel from the main engine to the auxiliary thrusters giving Isabella more control of the shuttle if and when they leave the atmosphere of Titan.

'So out into space it is...' sighs Isabella. 'I can't fully burn the main engine until we get outside this methane smog then it's straight for Ganymede I guess. Should have enough fuel but that's a good 70-hours or more. Assuming we make it out of the atmosphere...'

Booth interrupts her. 'So that bitch Khan said there ain't no transponder codes, said we'd get shot down if we didn't have 'em...'

Jojo brings up diagnostics for the shuttle. The marine is right, the transponder is silent, it isn't transmitting anything. It looks like someone has partially entered a transponder code but it's too short.

'So you got a plan for that right?' he asks nervously, his voice quivering.

'Um...'

"How is it you were sent here?" Jojo asks Booth. "Do you know what you were supposed to find here? If we don't have the code, maybe we can convince them we found what they were looking for?"

"We might be able to crack the transponder code," says Sam. "The partial code will help. I'll give it a go. Jojo might be able to figure it out if I can't."

“Yes, what was your mission brief?” Nicole asks Booth.

Booth looks shifty. 'That's need to know.' Looking at everyone else's stern faces he shakes his head and continues. 'Don't tell us much. Something nasty on Titan, bio-weapon maybe. Get in there, take a sample, burn the rest. This ain't the first time, you know?'

"I hadn't known," says Sam as she works on cracking the code, "but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Just as well we're leaving without a sample. I don't like thinking about what someone might do with it. I recognize this encryption algorithm. There, I think I've got it."

Computer Use roll (55% skill) to crack the transponder code:
d%

“Oho, do you think the mind-bending alien is the bioweapon?” Nicole shakes her head. “Bloody corporations, they’re all the same- and never learn. Well, if we want to survive then we need to pool our knowledge, Booth. So give us anything you have.”

Sam tries her best to complete the transponder code. She doesn't have much to go on but constructs an unsupervised learning network in her datapad based on all the known transponder codes she can get a record of. Feeding in the initial numbers already stored in the shuttle the algorithm produces its best estimate of the last few digits, although the assigned confidence is only 60%.

Booth shakes his head again. 'That's all I know. We're just grunts. Point and shoot, that's all I need. Maybe the Sarge knew more...' He looks off into the middle distance for a second, 'But he's gone. They're all gone. Everyone's fucking gone.'

Isabella looks at Sam, 'So we doing this? The shuttle will make the outer atmosphere in the next minute...'

Nicole grimaces, “I say let’s go for it, we may never get another chance. But we should vote.”

"I don't think there's any real choice. A 60% probability is better than what everyone left on the ground had." Jojo offers. "Just to be on the safe side, maybe broadcast that we have encountered the alien and have data to deliver but everyone on the ground is dead. Do not shoot! Or something like that."

"Yeah, here goes," says Sam, entering the code.

If an extreme success isn't enough to guarantee the code is correct, I'd like to spend an additional 10 Luck (for a total of 13) to make it a critical success.

“I rather think we should keep quiet about what we know.” Nicole says quietly.

Isabella fires the main engine and the shuttle lurches forward, the opaque orange clouds give way to blackness at the edge of the atmosphere. The hazy orange glow of Titan below, the vast shape of Saturn hanging beyond the horizon. And something else. Something dark, shadowy, heading towards the shuttle. There's no lights, no signs of life. But it's moving. It's moving fast, skirting the ionosphere.

There's no communication from the dark ship. Sam activates the transponder. 'I guess we'll see which side of that 60% we come out on,' notes Isabella wryly. Booth moves right up to the window of the shuttle and gazes out. 'M-Class gunboat. Don't see many of them. Enuff firepower to blow us out of of the sky, burn the colony to the ground, without breaking a sweat.'

Okay - spend that extra Luck

The gunboat continues to skim along the edge of Titan's atmosphere, growing in size, looming towards the shuttle. No lights or radio communication. It almost seems like it might ram them. Then it suddenly stops. There's no visible thrusters or other forms of propulsion. It just stops moving. Hanging there in space.



For what seems like an eternity nothing happens. Everyone in the shuttle cockpit is silent in anticipation. Second tick by. Minutes. Then the radio crackles. Well, not the radio, it's a tight-band laser signal originating from the gunship.

'Confirm package secured.'

"Well, they didn't blow us up yet, that's a good sign," says Sam after she makes sure the shuttle's radio is not transmitting to the ship. "If they don't hear what they expect to hear, though, they may anyway. I think they may be expecting to hear from Kiara. Jojo, can you replicate Kiara's voice saying 'Package secured' into the communicator? You've heard her speak often enough."

13 Luck spent - well spent!

Jojo goes to the communication panel and modulates his voice to mimic Kiara.

"Confirm. Package is secure."

He turns off the communication and turns to the others. "I have all of the memories and downloads on everything we have encountered so far. If need be, I will go to their ship as 'the package' and hopefully they will allow you to leave."

"Thank you," says Sam. "I'm hoping it won't come to that. We do have a Colonial Marshal and a Colonial Marine on board, with all the authority and firepower that entails. The key is to get on board without being turned into space dust."

“Can you ask them to confirm who they are? Who are we speaking to? The ship seems to be a bit odd and they could be pirates for all we know.” Says Nicole

Following Jojo's transmission there is again a long silence. The gunship just hanging there above Titan. No signs of life, no transmissions, just a dark spacecraft silhouetted in the dull glow of Saturn.

Then eventually another tight-band transmission is received.

'Acknowledged. Rendezvous at Ganymede. Titan is now closed.'

Then further silence.

"Let's set a course for Ganymede, then," says Sam. "The sooner we're away from here, the better."

"Let's get going before they change their mind."

“Can we get out of range of that gunship first?Its giving me an itchy neck.” Nicole shakes her head. “What the heck was Kiara doing? I had my reservations about Virgil; he was up to no good but not Kiara; I didn’t see that coming.”

"She had me fooled too," says Sam. "I was just as shocked as you when I saw the contents of her datapad. I don't feel quite so bad about leaving her behind."

Isabella starts to enter the course for Ganymede. 'I think I can get us to Jupiter, maybe even land at Ganymede station, but I've got no idea where Kiara was supposed to rendezvous with Walker-Hynix. We'll have to land at the Richter Dynamics facility.'

Everybody visibly relaxes as they begin to pull away from the gunship which continues to sit there, floating darkly on the edge of the Titan's ionosphere.

Booth perks up. 'So this package, there's money to be made here if we play it right?'

-----

Suddenly a siren starts wailing and red warning lights flash. Across the main display scrolls a message:

*****WARNING*****Weapon Activation Detected*****WARNING

'We've got weapons fire detected...' shouts Isabella. She punches buttons on the control panel and brings up visual imagery on the main screen. The gunship is there, still sitting above Titan. But all the weapon bay doors are open and orange-yellow plumes are erupting across the ship, illuminating the dull surface in a bright glow. Several missiles are streaking from the gunship towards the atmosphere.

Seconds later, explosions erupt across the surface of the moon. It is difficult to see through the hazy atmosphere of Titan but Isabella switches to thermal imaging and the impacts become clear. Explosions are erupting across the moon's surface but clustered around Benedict's rest, the pumping stations, and particularly Waystation.

There's something strange about the impacts around Waystation. The ground appears to be rippling, shifting, moving somehow. Bringing up the other modalities in the sensor array confirms that there are bursts of electromagnetic radiation emanating from the site, gravitic readings are oscillating wildly. And as more missiles strike the area the area around the Waystation complex seems to lift up from the methane snow surface, an angular shape. As the snow shears from the surface it reveals a dark black stone-like substance underneath, with a strange blue sheen. Whatever is rising out of the planet is impossibly large, hundreds of metres across, thousands even. Rising ever upwards.

There's a final flurry of orange blooms from the gunship and the final pack of missiles streams down to the surface, smashing one by one into the black shape rising from Titan. Explosion after explosion, clouds of vaporised methane snow and debris, radiation signatures suggesting thermonuclear munitions. As the smoke clears the black structure remains. Half-out of the methane crust. No longer moving.

Then after seconds of silence and inactivity the angular black shape quivers then suddenly plunges back to the surface, and through the crust. Burning deep into the methane and grinding into the bedrock.

'Shit,' whispers Booth.

"We got out of there just in time," says Sam, busying herself by improving the efficiency of the power flow to the engines. The faster they get away from Titan, the better.

“Quite.” Murmurs Nicole as she watches, transfixed.

"Well that's not good." Jojo whispers. "I don't think they destroyed it and if it can survive that bombardment, I can't imagine what it will do in retaliation. Get us the hell out of here please. We'll figure the rest out en route."

Isabella plots the route to Ganymede and with Sam's help they manage to optimise the burn on the secondary thrusters, 'I reckon we can make it in sixty hours,' she says.

'Just sit back and wait for the payday, is that right?' asks Booth When he doesn't get any answer he stands up and opens the cockpit door to enter the main cabin. 'Gonna check out the entertainment system,' he says as he exits.

The flight continues with little conversation. There's no further signs of weaponry being discharged on Titan's surface but whether that's because the shuttle is out of range or because the firing has stopped isn't clear.

Isabella sits at the shuttle controls incessantly cycling through the various subsystems and monitors. She seems on edge, like everyone else, but unable to relax, unable to trust that they're finally going to escape whatever was going on back on Titan.

There's just the vast emptiness of space. Blackness. Distant stars. Silence apart from the wheeze of oxygen recyclers and the occasional ping of the control panel. The calmness seems unreal. There's a palpable sense of anticipation, that something is about to change, to go wrong. Yet the shuttle continues its journey through the untravelled byways of the outer solar system. There's no signals from Ganymede, or Titan, or the gunship. It feels like they're alone out here in the depths of space.

-----

Bang. Bang. Bang. Everyone is woken from their reverie by the repetitive sound of something metallic, a sort of crashing, grinding noise. It seems to be coming from the main cabin.

Sam gathers her weapons and carefully checks the main cabin.

"What is that noise?" Jojo remarks loudly. "Is the ship falling apart?"

Nicole reaches for her gun.
“Nobody checked for stowaways?” She goes with Sam.

In the main cabin the lights are low but everyone can see Booth at the far end, where the doors to the cargo bay are. He seems to be gripping onto the door as it buckles and twists against repeated blows from the other side. Bang, bang, bang. Something crashes against the door, denting the thick metal with each blow.

And in the pauses between the crashing, there's another sound. A familiar sound. Click-click-click.

Click-click-click

Click-click-click

Click-click-click



FADE TO BLACK