Crossing Over Again

With all the data in hand, it's finally time to enact the last step of the plan. The ship jumps forward, this time only about a couple hundred years - the trip isn't nearly as rough. They arrive 10 months from their intended date (May of the year 2022), which actually works in their favor. Heading deep into the outer edge of the solar system gives them plenty of time to practice for their next assault, and repair and restock, as well as upgrade their capabilities. Nix grabs a head-full of tech to help him pilot, shoot, and fight; Rodney grabs some cybernetic upgrades as well, slowly turning himself into a literal tank.

The Biothanata is obviously taking hold - while there are a few hotspots on the surfaces of the three planets, it's not fully dug in, but the tell-tale signs of red blobs floating through space shows that the planets don't have more than a few years left before being eaten by the red goo.

Meanwhile, on the planet closest to the sun, power readings are off the charts; the frequencies are similar to the portal used to journey here, but far, far less stable. Atmospheric storms crash and roar, a perpetual storm centers on the power source - an enormous entity, holding a massive obelisk. The device is sapping energy from the planet itself, slowing it down to build enough charge to permanently open the portal. Blips in power occur every few hours as more entities portal their way to the planet, preparing for invasion.

The plan in its entirety is thus: after arriving in this galaxy through the heavily modified portal, the Dark Horizon was to spread the Biothanata (to ensure no future attempts - check), steal the portal technology (check), determine the exact date, time, and location of the invasion (check), and locate any existing strongholds in the Milky Way. Eliza's knowledge of history helped pinpoint the day and time of the invasion, and the records recovered help pinpoint the exact time and date on this side. With the information in hand, the Dark Horizon will have to make a leap into Jumpspace through the portal - only this time, the safety measures are missing. The ship will have to dodge ships in the area, fly down into the atmosphere, and after making some on-the-fly jumpspace calculations, jump through the portal.

Or, in a much safer way, send down a tiny mission to slip through the portal unseen, set up a portal linked to another back on the ship, and simply walk everyone out to the planet on the other side, after stripping the jump drives, Crowbar, NOA, and other technology from the ship. Safer, but the end result is no ship and no way to get home.

After putting it to a vote, it was decided that the Dark Horizon would make the jump. Either everyone makes it out, or no one does!

Finally, the day of the big event arrived. The Dark Horizon dodged the ships protecting the planet from above, and used their shield to phase through the planetary defense system. In the atmosphere, Nix dodged and weaved with incredible skill, thanks in part to his new upgrades. As they grew closer, a scene unfolded on the planet below:

A handful of humans suddenly arrived on the surface below; armed with little more than baseball bats, wrenches, rifles, and a spear, the men (and one woman) charged the entities and their armies, carving a path through the chaos, and eventually reaching the huge entity with the obelisk! A signal blinked on; unknown, but apparently friendly? It came from the rag-tag group, though how was anyone's guess. The woman stabbed the creature in the leg, and the guy with dual baseball bats took a swing, hammering it in. The fellow with a wrench grabbed a terrified flying entity, and once he was high enough, dived onto the massive creature with the obelisk, slamming it in the head! Together, they bashed the creature enough to weaken it, and it dropped the obelisk.

Nix quickly rand the Jumpspace calculations, and made the jump, just as the obelisk shattered into fragments on the stony ground. The last they saw of the group was them running back the way they came, with the hordes in hot pursuit.

And with that, the Dark Horizon leaped through the portal.

The journey was faster than the previous one; the larger portal and the much improved power source shortened the distance considerably. However, it wasn't a carefully tuned journey, and as the Dark Horizon popped back into reality, a cascade of failures took out the jump drives and brought half the system offline.

Out of sensor range of Earth, the crew took stock - a few minor injuries, and enough damage to the ship to keep Elise busy for a day or two, but overall, nothing but the Jumpdrive was damaged beyond repair. The year was verified to be 2022, early May. According to Eliza's instructions, if anything went wrong, they were to contact an Agent Peregrine Cycle, who could be found on the eastern edge of where Texas City will eventually be - a tiny village named Longview.

Rodney, dressed in "casual" clothing, and Nix, wearing a hologram, headed down to the surface. Somehow, Rodney managed to not only ask the right people, but managed to do so without alerting them to the fact that he is somewhat unhinged. In record time, they found Agent Cycle, a rather stiff individual who was nonetheless all too happy to help. Oddly, he didn't seem to be at all put off by the fact that they had arrived on a space ship, though he did apologize for being rushed, as he was in the middle of dealing with a successfully rebuffed alien invasion, which thankfully went a lot better than he had hoped.

After a few day of seeing the sights (and watching Mr. Clean commercials), the crew was met by one Captain Caelie Kay, the time-traveling captain of the Tempus Fugit, offering parts and assistance. Her engineer, a woman named Daisy, seems very keen on meeting the crew, and fixing their ship!

Into the Dragon's Den

Once NOA finished the calculations, the Dark Horizon made the perilous journey to a rocky, desolate planet, barely capable of sustaining life, orbiting a tiny red dwarf. Also orbiting the planet is a strange ship, covered in sensors - it's got a familiar (if 125-year-old) call signature, though. The ship is swathed in sensors of all sorts, with tiny, undersized engines. It's the UEA SS Eliza! As they crew scanned it, the ship suddenly vanished, and reappeared a split second later in front of them, hitting them with a barrage of scans, then a moment later, a woman blinks into existence on your bridge!

She introduced herself as the UEA SS Eliza; the original Shifting Horizon helped her, and she's returning the favor. She explains, as a swarm of drones arrive to attach the J0 drive, the Crowbar, and the existing J3 drive.

"When the Oncoming Storm was returning from its tour beyond the Wall, something happened in Jumpspace. Whatever it was tore the Oncoming Storm into two ships - identical, except for the crew. While most of the crew remained aboard the ship, some of the crew were torn from their own reality and dropped into an alternate reality - a parallel world. Like throwing a rock nudges a person in the opposite direction, throwing a few of the crew nudged the rest back to their own reality. It is not an unknown effect - people have gone missing since the dawn of time. Tiny nudges, keeping the universe on track.

What happened in jumpspace knocked your ship out of its jumpspace corridor, and temporarily disengaged the jump drive. The ship, trying to quickly return to course, entered and left jumpspace a dozen times, trying to reorient, until ultimately it shut down, unable to rouse the crew, and unable to contact anyone.

Lucky for you, I was not far not far from where the tear occurred. Investigating your drifting ship, I found I had full access; I was able to... compare notes with my alternate self. I realized what had happened, and what would happen. I merged my consciousness with that of the data from your universe's Eliza, and after verifying that the ship would survive, I left to find out exactly what was going wrong.

In this universe, your... Entity, I believe you called it... had never met with the resistance of the Shifting Horizon, and its plans continued on schedule; where the Entity had begun moving from interfering with politics and science in your universe, the Entity in this parallel world had no need to escape its prison early. When the technology it had seeded was finally ready, it merely gathered its forces to this planet and simply... walked away, through a portal to a different galaxy. Of course, it won't be gone for long - soon, it will return, this time with reinforcements. It must be stopped. Even if we destroy the portal, the Entity knows that our world is sheltered and rich with resources, which will give it time to build an army to wage war on the universe."

Eliza modified the Entity's portal, and together with the other technologies, the Dark Horizon jumped through the portal.

The trip wasn't a smooth one. Unlike normal jumpspace, the view was beautiful; it was like looking into a million galaxies. But, that wasn't the only thing in jumpspace. First, a horde of jumpspace aliens, the strange creatures that walk through jumpspace like taking a stroll in the park, started teleporting into the ship; one by one, they were put down, and though some minor injuries were sustained by the crew, the aliens were put down, hard. And, Elise ended up with a nice disintegration rifle, to boot!

Their wounds were barely healed before the ship was attacked by enormous, blue-lit, worm-like creatures, who strafed the ship with gravity blasts, and slammed into it with their enormous mouths. One by one, the worms were blasted into pieces; Rodney was only able to provide moral support, as the other crew refused to load him into a torpedo bay and fire him at the worms.

Though the ship sustained some damage, they managed to destroy the worms, and finally complete their voyage. The crew of the Dark horizon - a motley mix of third-tier crew, Russian survivors, and blue apes - were the first humans (and, indeed, first blue apes) to visit another galaxy.

Sifting the Dead

Once the Russians were installed on Placidus, coordinates for the next location were decoded: a location on the map marked, simply, "Ship Graveyard." The journey was speedy enough, and upon arriving, they found the description was apt. The system consisted of a single white neutron star, burning hotly in a system free of planets. No planets, but a huge crowd of ships, derelicts new and old, many of which were completely alien. Millions of ships slowly spun around the star, a macabre dance of death. Only a handful of the ships had any readable energy signal; most were little more than floating scrap, with no way to even dock.

The ships spanned ages of space exploration, from early pre-Jumpdrive ships to modern wrecks. There are a number of ships built in styles unknown to Earth, or even the known galaxy. Russian, Chinese, American, Japanese, South African, French, EU, UEA, and... well, some slightly more fantastic ships as well.

As the crew stared at the strange readouts, NOA announced that another message was available. Once again, the woman's voice echoed over the voice system:

Here you will find something very important. There is a single piece of lost technology that will turn this universe around, and it waits in the darkness around this star. Track the only energy source, and you will find an older Earth ship with an early J0 drive. You must salvage that drive, intact. There is no greater weapon against the enemy. Wait here for the next message. I hope it will come.

Eliza out.

There were four ships that they were able to find could be docked with; knowing they were looking for a J0 ship, they tried the old Russian ship first. After docking, the human and two droids carefully entered the ship. It's design was a very old one, with little in the way of thrusters, relying mostly on the J0 drive to get it anywhere. The first room was empty, and exposed to space; the next room, the engine room, showed just why: the main engine was missing, with an engine-sized hole in the side of the ship. Peering outside, Rodney noted the shadow of a man on the side of the ship - the nuclear-powered engine must have gone critical, and the engineer pulling it out didn't survive the experience.

The next few rooms were empty, pocked with micro-meteor holes. The last room was closed off, the door somewhat stuck, but Rodney pried it open. As they floated inside, casting their flashlights about the room, everything seemed still... until a hand landed on Rodney's shoulder. He turned to stare into the dead, frozen eyes of a corpse. Flinging the body away, it bounced into the netting on the walls, which tore, releasing dozens more bodies! Rodney kicked his way out of the room, opting to stay safely on the other side until the two droids finished exploring. He picked up a bit of a phobia of the long-dead...

The next room was an airlock - functioning, in fact, with air on the other side! Rodney zipped through the room into the airlock. The hallway beyond opened into a living area, crusted with dirt and grime. Four bodies hung motionless in the air. The first was dead of a broken neck, judging by the grotesque angle the head was hanging at; the second seemed less... damaged, but a closer inspection revealed some sort of poison crusted around his mouth. The third had hung himself by tying a rope around his neck and a spring around his leg. The fourth died of a self-inflicted headwound from a makeshift crossbow. All four were obviously malnourished. Rodney bravely waited until the droids had dumped the corpses into the airlock.

The other rooms were largely uninteresting - the greenhouse had dirt but few plants remaining, obviously eaten by the starving crew; the water purification room was left unmolested; the storage room was mostly empty, except for the Captain's log. It seems the crew had abandoned a number of settlers on a rocky planet, and left - but it wasn't long before the engine blew, stranding them with the little power they could eke out of the solar panels... for generations. Food gave out, and the few remaining turned to cannibalism. Luckily, the Jump drive was unharmed; Nix ran some tests on it, and verified it was in working order.

One door was locked; there were obvious markings on it from people trying to get in. Rodney, desperately hoping there were no more dead bodies inside, smashed the door open with his power hammer. Inside was - well, a dead body. But next to it was a tiny medical cryopod - his daughter.

Back aboard the Dark Horizon, the Russian crew were overjoyed to hear about the little girl. The ship was the one that dropped them off on Pyl'nyy, and the little girl was likely a relative. She was immediately adopted by one of the couples, and named "чудо", pronounced "Choodoh", and meaning "Miracle." Meanwhile, the Russian engineers were sent over to begin carefully moving the J0 Jump drive over to the Dark Horizon.

While they were working on that (and reclaiming any water they could), the trio explored the other ships. The next ship on the list was the lumpy ship with no windows. Inside, the corridors were laid out in a strange, meandering path. Going room to room, the crew found no signs of life; Rodney, however, was able to use a map-like object he found in the Russian ship to locate a hidden library, filled with books with crystal pages, and etched in an alien language.

The various personal objects they found were alien - belongings of a race of reptiles or turtle-men, perhaps? There were no pictures, nor even mirrors; colors of walls and objects were a mish-mash of gray, with no paint or other colors, though textures lined the walls, and the books were filled with etched words.

NOA scanned the books, and was able to translate them. As it turns out, the creatures had no sense of hearing, smell, or sight; through vibration alone, they communicated, engineered, and eventually reached space. Whatever killed them, they literally didn't see coming... but they felt the doom. The race was, as a whole, a very emotional and colorful bunch; they ached for greatness, and spread to the stars to find it. Even though it got them killed, they will be remembered.

Next, the crew walked the halls of a strange, holographic ship. The entire ship was nearly weightless; though its databanks were locked, the little read-only access they gained revealed that it had been populated by a crew of holograms, hard-light replicas of... well, unknown race. It may have been human, but then again, maybe not.

The last accessible ship was one that was strangely familiar - the last battle before the crew was mysteriously lost was against ships just like this one. This is a fairly large version of the organic, alien ships, and inside, it's obvious that it is dying. The hallways are filled with sludge, and the glowing light-panels are barely lit. Tee was a bit distracted, and missed what the other two saw - an alien, lurking in a side corridor! It sprang out, and Nix and Rodney engaged. After a brief battle, the three overpowered the creature. There were no other aliens aboard the ship, and little that could be salvaged; even the power system was nearly dead.

It took a few days, but the crew of the Dark Horizons were able to strip the J0 drive and other parts, as well as downloading the various databases. Just as the work was finished, a JPod popped into the system, blasted a short message to the ship, and steered itself into the sun. The secure tight-beam visible-light transmission was an audio message, with attached coordinates - another message from Eliza!

You must have noticed that everything you once did was never done. Pyl'nyy. The neutron star. The Biothanata. The work of the Shifting Horizon saved the galaxy, but now... [sigh]. All is not lost. You have seen places and peoples not recorded in any log. Use your resources. Infiltrate. The overthrow has not yet begun. History may yet repeat itself. Allies are coming. Meet me at the location I have sent - but first, you must rescue a friend. The signal is weak, but the need is strong. Go to the nearest set of coordinates; once you have finished, you must find me.

Eliza out.

The coordinates lead to a yellow star, deep in space; the map marks the location as that of the Littlefinger!

Ghosts and Zombies

Once again, our intrepid heroes are waltzing across the galaxy, laying waste to everything I, their tireless GM, throw at them. Seriously, that power armor... don't worry, though, they may well meet their end in the next adventure.

But enough of that; on to this week's adventures!

Book III: Corruption

In Book I, the crew began their exploration in innocence and excitement; last week saw the end of Book II, in which the crew marveled and wondered at the strange world deep in unknown territory. This week sees the introduction of the third book (or season, if you're more of a TV person): Corruption. The many adventures of the Shifting Horizon are going to grow darker from here on out.

That said, on to the adventure!

History: Jumpspace

Jumpspace was discovered in 2137 with the first successful jumpdrive test. Originally, jumpspace was researched as true FTL travel, but once the first tests were successful, it was discovered that the jumpdrives were actually moving through extra dimensions. With their discovery, the future of the universe was forever changed. Humans were the first to discover jumpspace in the Milky Way; the Kchk'Trrs created their jump drives by building off of shared human technology, while the Duul'Tlak created their drive from a reverse-engineered ship they captured.

Known Jumpspace Routes