Play@YSDC

Day 2
12th March 2189
19:00 Earth Central European Time
Waystation, Titan

Leaving the incongruous islands behind them it's another hour or so before Kiara is able to make out the smooth shoreline of the far side of Ligeia Mare. The journey is quiet except for one time when Li starts to ask something, 'What...?', then lapses back into silence. There is no further sign of any waves or anything breaking the inky black surface of the liquid methane. There's one moment where Kiara thinks she sees something in her peripheral vision, almost like something flying, like a bird, but when she turns her head to look there is nothing there.

Waystation is clearly not a pumping station, there's no sign of any construction along the shoreline, no railing or walkways, no silver pumps, no tubing snaking into the sea. As they fly beyond Ligeia Mare, over the smooth beach-like shore with its inlets and bays, something starts to become visible in the distance.



Flying closer the silhouette of a mobile derrick looms above several metallic prefabricated buildings. There's a central cleared area just to the south, a jagged crater cut out of the crust of Titan, at least thirty metres across. Piled around the derrick are several hundred metres worth of pipes, along with a now-iced over bulldozer. To the east stand four gigantic storage silos, each more than twenty metres tall. To the south is what looks like a storage shed and a prefab building that could be a small administrative office. On the western edge of the pit are four barracks-style buildings.



A little further off there is a watch tower beside a landing strip. And on the landing strip is a shuttle in Richter Dynamics markings.

As the chopper flies over, Kiara studies the site with great interest, trying to figure out just what the operation was at Waystation.

“Can you circle around low?” she asks Li. “I’ll try to take some readings and maybe see if I can connect wirelessly to any local control processors.”

The copter circles around the Waystation site and Kiara uses the sensors to take some readings. There seems to be something wrong with the sensors because her measurements of density, magnetism, and a whole host of other parameters are fluctuating wildly and completely uninterpretable. She also tries to access the station wireless network but can't seem to connect.

Looking down into the crater she can see a diffuse blue glow but otherwise struggles to make anything out. There does seem to be a noise, she can't tell exactly where it is coming from but it is loudest over the dark hole in the orange snow. She can almost feel it rather than hear it. A high-pitched throbbing noise.

You can try Computer Use to try and get into the wireless network. Try Spot Hidden to see anything more about the site. Or anything else you want to give a go.

[46] = 46
Computer use 65 d%: [ 46 ] = 46

“This is just weird…,” Kiara mutters as she jabs at her pad in an attempt to forge a connection to Waystation.

“Mind you, I don’t suppose we should expect anything else. I’m gonna try to access the local control network and find out what’s going on down there.”

Oh, and also try to establish contact with the shuttle on the landing strip…

Kiara is able to bypass the protocols to access the Waystation network. She brings up the main interface and enters her own credentials. Through her datapad there is an audio response, 'Hello Science Officer Khan, welcome to Waystation.' It is the a synthesised female voice of a CENTRAL intelligence.

Reluctant to engage with another CENTRAL, Kiara tries hailing the shuttle directly, but there is no response on any channel she tries.

Unable to hack into the shuttle, Kiara curses under her breath. This becomes even more heartfelt upon hearing CENTRAL’s dulcet tones.

“CENTRAL, please explain the function of the Waystation facility,” she asks, whilst signalling Li to keep circling.

“I have full authority CENTRAL. Contact your counterpart at Bernard’s Rest. It will reply if I don’t have the right clearance,” replies Kiara, hoping that she can bamboozle an advanced computer with basic logic.

The smooth artificial voice is unperturbed, 'I am afraid that communications between Waystation and the Barnard's Rest Colony are prohibited due to operational security, Science Officer Khan.'

“Understood,” Kiara sighs, reminding herself of the futility of trying to get sense out of CENTRAL.

“We are running low on fuel and will be landing soon to replenish,” she continues, hoping that they will at least be able to land.

'You have clearance to use the landing strip, Science Officer Khan,' says CENTRAL.

'We can put the copter down just about anywhere,' notes Li. 'We don't have to use the landing strip.'

“Set us down near the shuttle if you can,” Kiara replies after cutting comms with CENTRAL. “But let’s try to contact the others first.”

“This is Kiara: can you hear me? We’ve reached Waystation and will have to land soon. How are you guys?” she says into the radio mic.

Li flies towards the landing strip and inverts the copter engines to gently hover thirty metres above the surface as Kiara tries to radio the others.

All she can get is static on the usual frequencies but she does pick up a transmission, at the very edge of the usual channels. A whining sound, repeating in a cyclical pattern, speeding up and rising in pitch until reaching a crescendo and then starting over again.

Kiara attempts to record the sound, so that she can maybe analyse it.

“I suppose we should land and find somewhere to refuel,” she tells Li.

Kiara is easily able to make a recording of the rhythmic sound, now she listens to it a little more she notes that it is similar to the sound she heard when the copter was flying over the crater, only that was a high pitched throbbing noise that she could almost feel in her body.



Li grunts in response to Kiara's request and gently brings the copter in to land about twenty metres from the huge bulk of the Richter Dynamics shuttle. The shuttle itself is raised high up above the runway on its wheeled undercarriage but there is a set of steps leading down from the cabin. There are no lights on in the shuttle. 'Nobody home' sniffs Li.

“We’d better check the shuttle out first, just in case we need it,” Kiara announces. “Let’s secure the chopper and take a look.”

Now they're safely on the landing strip, Li taps a few buttons on the head-up display and the transparent sides of the cockpit slide open and broad broad metal steps descend from hatches in the fuselage, unfurling to make a ladder on each side.

Li bounds down the steps and jumps the last two to gently land with both feet settling on the black bitumen runway. Kiara climbs down rather more hesitantly, cradling her shotgun and cutting torch, boots clicking onto each step by their magnetised soles.

Waiting patiently for Kiara to reach the ground, Li then taps a small panel on the side of the copter cockpit, a keypad illuminates, and she enters a sequence of digits. The doors slide closed and the ladders retract. 'Activation code's 59276, for what it's worth.'

The two of them then walk slowly towards the shuttle. It's dark bulk silhouetted sinisterly against the low light of the sun. Once they reach the steps they can see the door to the shuttle main cabin is still open to the freezing atmosphere. There is no sign of life, no lights from inside or within the cockpit. Placing a foot on the stairway their boots again stick to the metallic surface. 'Do we go in?' asks Li.

"I think we should," Kiara whispers, although she has no idea why she's whispering.

"This could be our ticket out of here."

Tightening her grip on her weapons, she follows the pilot.

The steps are just about wide enough for two to walk abreast. Li pauses, turns, taps Kiara's shotgun with her gloved hand and says, 'After you.'

Kiara reluctantly clanks up the stairway first, the cluster of lamps on the suit sweep their beams back and forth across the steps as she walks, and eventually they start to illuminate some of the area inside the cabin, as she nears the top of the steps.

From the outside, to all intents and purposes it looks like any other interplanetary shuttle, and as a Richter Dynamics Arcturus-II model it is largely the same as the one they arrived in less than two days ago. At the top of the stairs, through the entry hatch, Kiara can see the sealed door to the cockpit on the right-hand side, to the left she can make out the first few rows of seats. Unlike in the shuttle she arrived in several of the seats seem to have been removed and replaced with equipment storage racks.

There are no lights on inside the cabin and everything is covered in a thin layer of frost.

Kiara fumbles for a torch, whether it be a helmet-mounted light or a flashlight in her kit.

Kiara presses the suit controls and the array of headlamps built into the suit brightly illuminate a broad patch ahead of her.

The suit has lamps built in.

“Switch your helmet lights on too,” Kiara instructs Li. “Increases visibility a bit.”

Breathing nervously, and moving her head to throw the light from side to side, she takes another step into the shuttle, looking for danger.

[51] = 51
Spot hidden 37 d%: [ 51 ] = 51

[68] = 68
Listen 20 d%: [ 68 ] = 68

Perhaps it’s her nerves, but Kiara doesn’t notice anything sinister.

Emboldened slightly, she moves further into the shuttle.

Kiara steps off the stairs and into the entry hatch. On her right is the door to the cockpit which is shut fast. Turning to the left she can see the main cabin with rows of seating. The front few rows have had the chairs removed and a number of storage crates and cages installed. Cautiously she starts to walk down the aisle between the seats, her boots clacking against the metallic floor.

She pauses to glance into the storage racks which are empty. 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 back 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 isn't clear what the purpose of this shuttle flight was but there's no one here now.

“Looks like they were transporting equipment. I wonder what?” Kiara mutters, wiping a gloved hand over the frost in an attempt to see if the crates are labelled.

Most of the racks are empty. There's one half open crate that she heaves into the gangway and opens up. It is 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. Whatever was in here has been taken but it had an odd shape, elongated, like a weapon of some kind, maybe a rifle. Not the sort of thing she'd expect to find in a civilian shuttle operated by Richter Dynamics.

“Hmm, maybe accessing the shuttle manifest will give us a clue as to what’s going on here,” Kiara mutters as she closes the case.

“Li, can you help me look for a data port? If we can’t find one, we’ll have to try the cockpit door - knowing our luck it’ll be locked.”

'I'll have a look' says Li, and she shines her suit lights up and down the cabin aisle.

Sounds like a Luck roll.

[48] = 48
Luck 60 d%: [ 48 ] = 48

Despite her statement, Kiara gets lucky.

Li quickly gestures to a dataport next to some seats. 'See, standard Arcturus-II shuttle. Apart from the crates. There's dataports beside all the seating.' As she takes a closer look, Kiara can see that Li is right, there are hard dataports along the fuselage on both sides. She extracts a data connector from her suit and plugs it into the port. Tapping the control panel on her suit to access the port she can't make any connection with the shuttle. She tries patching in to a few more ports but gets the same response. The ship's powered down, none of the ports are live.

Watching Kiara struggle up and down the cabin trying all the ports, Li eventually says 'Cockpit?'

“Yeah, of course…” mutters Kiara, glad that her blushes can’t be seen behind her visor.

“Let’s hope the door isn’t locked or frozen shut.”

She clumps over to the cockpit door and tries to open it.

Li tries the control panel for the cockpit door but it doesn't respond. Probably because the power is out. Then she starts trying to force the door open. It is indeed frozen shut but with a bit of help from Kiara they eventually manage to slide the door open enough for them to fit their bulky surface suits through.



The cockpit itself resembles the glimpses Kiara has had of the one that brought them to Titan. Two flight seats, and a panel of instruments, all dark. And a view out the large windows onto a hazy orange surface, blurred by the layer of methane ice frozen onto the inside. Li jumps into one of the seats and starts tapping at the control panel without any visible results. Kiara steps in behind. It takes her a second to process what looks wrong about this scene. In the second seat, beside Li, there's something bulky. She spins the chair round, her weapons clutched tightly.



Crumpled in the seat is a figure. They're not in a Titan surface suit but a standard issue Richter Dynamics flight suit. They look dead. Frozen.

While Kiara stands there, looking at the corpse, Li starts removing instrument plates and poking around inside, seemingly oblivious to the dead body beside her. After a short delay a couple of lights on the instrument panel illuminate. 'She's low on power. It's going to take me a while to get her warmed up. Maybe an hour or more. Why don't you do whatever you...'

Li turns around to look at Kiara and catches sight of the body.

That's a SAN roll for seeing a corpse, 0/1d3.

[45] = 45
SAN 61 d%: [ 45 ] = 45

“Yeah,” says Kiara, flatly. “I was kinda expecting that. Keep warming her up and I’ll check out the poor guy. Maybe I can find out what killed him or see if they’re carrying anything useful.”

The guy in the seat is definitely dead, his skin is covered in a layer of frost and he's completely rigid. He's a man in his twenties or thirties, dressed in a flight suit and wearing, unusually, a full flight helmet, not something Kiara has seen on a shuttle pilot before. There's no obvious injury she can see and she wonders whether he just froze to death. Although his face suggests something a bit more sudden. Kiara rifles through his pockets but there's nothing in them, which she also thinks is a bit odd.

There's only one body, in the other flight seat, the one Li isn't in. I'll have a Spot Hidden for examining the body.

Oops, sorry about that: perils of playing while life is busy! Previous post duly edited.
[29] = 29
Spot hidden 37 d%: [ 29 ] = 29

Kiara gingerly inspects the frozen corpse.

His clothing is stiff and frozen, and Kiara struggles to get his flight suit open to take a look underneath. But she does manage to pull up his sleeves and find a small tattoo. Something about it looks familiar.

Want to roll Know (EDU) with a bonus die to see if you remember what this symbol means.

[47] = 47
EDU 65 d%: [ 47 ] = 47
Bonus die
[1] = 1
1d10: [ 1 ] = 1

The symbol rings a bell…

Although she's never seen them in person, the symbol of the Colonial Marine Corp is immediately familiar to Kiara. Either this pilot is ex-military or the marines were travelling incognito. The way he's wearing a military-style helmet and has no other identifying paperwork, and based on what she saw in the cabin, she thinks it's the latter. She doesn't know much about the military but she knows it is unusual for them to be using a corporate shuttle rather than their own vehicle. The marines are rarely seen on the colonies where the Colonial Marshals and the Colonial Security Service cover most eventualities. The marines are for insurgencies and uprisings, not routine security matters.

Kiara whistles.

“Someone sent down the Marines,” she tells Li.

“Question is: was this before or after the shit hit the fan?”

She scans the corpse with her datapad. In addition to checking for alien crystalline physiology, perhaps she can determine how long he has been dead for (admittedly difficult due to his frozen state)?

Li shrugs. 'Doesn't seem to have done them any good being marines,' she says, glancing at the corpse. 'When I've got the shuttle powered up I should be able to access the log.'

Using her datapad, Kiara attempts to scan the body. In the absence of any specific medical attachments she's not sure how much she can learn, but she tries to see if there is any evidence of the infectious alien organism, and how long this guy has been dead. She accesses all the electromagnetic channels available on the datapad to try and get as much information as she can on his physiology, his frozen state is not making that easy.

Sounds like a Medicine roll to see how long he's been dead (1%). Maybe a hard Biology roll (10%). In order to detect any sign of the alien organism that'll be a hard Physics (30%) or Chemistry (25%) roll. Just roll 1d100, tell me if you're using Medicine or Biology and if you're using Physics or Chemistry, and then I'll take that as a combined roll and compare it to the thresholds to see the degree of success.

I’ll go with biology and physics.

[24] = 24
d%: [ 24 ] = 24

Despite scanning the body across multiple frequencies, and trying a few algorithms to model tissue decay, Kiara can't get any kind of handle on how long he has been here. Some of her difficulty might be connected with the unusual readings she's getting back. While she can't say for sure the body has been infected by the alien pathogen there are definitely some inconsistencies in the reflection of electromagnetic radiation that suggest more silica and other dense material in the body than she'd expect.

While Kiara is busy examining the body, Li manages to get the lights on in the cockpit. 'I'm getting the power back online. I'll seal the cabin and start to heat things up and purge the atmosphere.' Several panels and screens on flight deck light up and she starts to press various buttons, dials, and monitors in a systematic way. Li pauses for a second and makes some odd noises, like she's frustrated. 'That's strange. I can't access the shuttle log, it says it's classified and encrypted. I've never seen that before.'

So fail Biology but pass Physics.

“Let’s get this guy out before the cockpit warms up too much. There’s no guarantee he’s not infected and I’d hate for him to come alive...”

Kiara shudders.

“…stuck in here with us…”

Li helps Kiara to drag the body out of the cockpit and then they pitch it off the top of the steps to fall all the way down onto the runway, bouncing gently off the bitumen and settling near the foot of the staircase. Li seals the door behind them and they return to the cockpit. 'Now what? Do you want to wait here for me to get the shuttle warmed up? I'll see if I can prep it for launch but it will take a few hours.'

Aww, it would have been fun! What do you want to do now?

“There must be something in the systems,” Kiara replies, poking around for digital clues. “Fuel usage, manifests, comms logs…”

“Speaking of which, how powerful would the shuttle’s radio be? Could we use it to contact the others?”

After accessing the console Li says, 'The radio's working. The range is usually plenty to reach as far as Barnard's Rest or beyond. But I wouldn't normally be using it from the ground. I'm not sure how much difference that would make.'

Kiara tries to access the ship's systems, to see if she can find an alternative way in to look at the log or if she can access a less protected system that might give her some idea of how long the ship has been here or even what it is doing.

That's Computer Use. Degree of success will indicate how much info you get.

[3] = 3
Computer use 65 d%: [ 3 ] = 3

Kiara expertly pokes around the shuttle’s systems.

While the shuttle's logs are protected, it doesn't take Kiara too long to access some of the peripheral systems. The fuel was last topped up about a week ago and now it's empty. No fuel has been used for the last couple of days. Which reminds her, they're going to need to refuel before taking off of Titan if they plan to actually go anywhere after that.

While she can't see the content of any messages she can see from the comms log that they never made contact with the Barnard's Rest Colony, or Waystation directly. And they have only been sending messages back out into space, maybe to Ganymede, it's difficult to pin down exactly. She can't get to the ship's manifest but she can see the access logs. While it mostly seems to have been Richter Dynamics employees until a week ago the most recent logs indicate a number of 'classified' designations, whatever that means. She thinks there were probably seven people onboard when it touched down on Titan. Obviously they've all left except for one, and she chucked him off the steps a few minutes ago.

K relaying the information back to Li gives Kiara time to process what she’s discovered.

“I guess that means they were en-route before all this kicked off… they didn’t tell Bernard’s Rest either… Somebody higher up the food chain must’ve known what was going on here.”

“We’ve gotta tell the others. Can you make arrangements to fuel the shuttle while I try to pick up the rover’s radio?”

'I don't know if they have automated fuelling on a makeshift runway like this one' says Li. 'I'll see if I can hail any service drones.' She spends a few minutes on the main console before saying, 'We're in luck, the Waystation peripheral network is telling me that there's a fuel pump and a service drone nearby. It seems to be designed to fill the copters and rovers but I can take control of it manually and use it to refuel the shuttle from here.'

Li busies herself trying to access the service drone remote override and Kiara tries to raise the rover on the shuttle's communication systems. She tries a few frequencies without much success, eventually realising that atmospheric scatter means that most of the usual shuttle channels are no use from Titan's surface.

Let's have a Science (Physics) roll to see if Kiara can figure out what frequencies to use.

Half Luck (60%/2 = 30%): 1d100 14

[93] = 93
Science physics 60 d%: [ 93 ] = 93

Kiara tries a few random frequencies, but fails to sync up with the rover.

“Ugh, it’s no good, I can’t raise anybody,” she grumbles.

Frustrated, she fiddles with the shuttles sensor controls while waiting for Li to do her thing. Assuming the sensor array is more powerful than her datapad, can she pick up anything unusual?

The shuttle sensors aren't quite oriented in the directions Kiara would like them to measure, but she confirms most of what she could detect from the copter.

So it wasn't the copter sensors, there's something not right here in Waystation. Either something is disrupting the shuttle sensors as well, or there's something about Waystation causing the sonographic, seismic, and broad-spectrum electromagnetic readings to fluctuating wildly, with measurements of gravity, density, magnetism, and vibration uninterpretable.

What she can discern is that there seems to be something under the surface, something with seemingly impossible mass, but at other times it doesn't seem to be there at all, like there's just a void, a hollow cavern.

And there's something else, a sort of pattern, it repeats, but across 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. A repeating high frequency pattern, cyclical, speeding up to reach a crescendo and then starting back over again in another sensor. It's too regular to be natural, but what it is she has no idea.

Sorry, I think that's a SAN check - 1/1d4+1

[4] = 4
SAN 61 d%: [ 4 ] = 4

Considering the amount of weird stuff she's experienced recently, these bizarre readings are of no surprise to Kiara.

Sighing and muttering to herself about why the hell she ever took this job, she rubs her eyes and sits back to wait for Li to get the shuttle refuelled.

Then she has an idea. If she and Li decide to make a run for it in the shuttle, chances are they'll be blown out of the sky. Jabbing furiously on her datapad, she attempts to formulate a way of altering the shuttle's transponder settings to either cloak the ship, or make it look like some kind of innocuous space junk.

It's a trivial matter to disable the shuttle transponder. The question is whether whoever destroyed the other shuttle is going by transponder signal or just blasting anything they see take off from Titan.

'What are you doing there?' asks Li as she busies herself with the shuttle controls. She has a look of intense concentration on her face, 'This is harder than it looks. If I'm not going to blow the fuel pump I'm going to need to take this slowly. It'll be at least an hour. Then maybe another hour before we're ready to dust off from Titan.'

Kiara knows it will probably be a few more hours after that before the others arrive in the rover.

“Okay. Is there anything I can do to speed things up?” Kiara asks.

“We should be checking things out outside, but the shuttle could be our escape route, so I want it ready before we start attracting attention to ourselves.”

'Yes. You can keep quiet while I do this' grumbles Li, keeping her gaze fixed on the display panel in front of her.

True to her word it takes a good hour for her to fill up the shuttle's fuel tank, the little service drone running back and forth between the pumps and the shuttle delivering small volumes of liquid hydrogen to the plasma-based propulsion system. All the while Li is glued to the shuttle control panel, manipulating a virtual joystick with each hand, a look of intense concentration mixed with frustration etched across her face.

OOC:   Anything you'd like to do while Li fills the shuttle with fuel?

While Li beavers away, Kiara keeps up a continuous scan of the area, effectively keeping watch for any threats.

OOC:   Sorry, not very interesting, but she’s not going to go poking around the spooky station on her own!

While cycling through the communication bands Kiara picks something up. 'Kiara, come in Kiara, this is Sam, are you reading me? Over.'

“Yeah, it’s me! Um, I mean, affirmative,” Kiara replies. “You all ok? What’s your ETA?”

“What!?” Kiara exclaims. “Why the hell did he do that?”

Over the radio, Kiara hears, 'We need to make sure it's really you. We've gotten some strange transmissions. Before we left for Waystation, we prearranged a password. What is it?'

"Um, of course it's me!" Kiara exclaims, her brow furrowing in puzzlement. "And we didn't arrange any password that I can remember."

At least I couldn't find one when I did a search!

“Oh jeez,” Kiara responds. “Someone or something is messing with us. I’ve not had anything weird like that happen; we’ve landed at Waystation without incident and are currently killing time refuelling while we wait for you guys.”

“Looks like we’re not the first to land here. I won’t say much more, just in case.”

“Okay, see you in two; but let’s keep in touch. Who knows what other tricks they’ll try to pull… whoever ‘they’ are…”

Kiara leans back and, pinching the bridge of her nose, sighs deeply.

'Okay, we'll keep you posted,' she hears over the crackling radio.

Still reluctant to step out and explore on her own, Kiara decides to keep herself occupied.

If the others have been reviving false transmissions, perhaps she can scan for other signal sources? Once again turning to her datapad, she gives it a try.