No Place Like Home - Not Anymore At Least

After a bit of playing around, the portal was figured out - one location seemed to lead to the edge of the universe, and another... to Earth.

The plan was thus:

First, as quickly as possible, the portal would be opened, and as many ships as possible would move through the portal, to the edge of everywhere. The enemy ships would follow, then the civilian ships would circle back, leaving the Hephaestus behind to Jump. The rest of the ships would travel via the portal to Earth, and meet up with the Hephaestus.

It was an all-out battle. The Silver Surfer, the Hephaestus, Galactus, Elise's Stormfalcon, Rodney's Punch Ship, as well as an army of other ships fought the swarms of deader ships that arrived minutes before the last ship cleared the portal. Reggie, having damaged his main gun, lead the other through the portal; as it turned out, though, their tactics saved the day, and Rodney's ship tore through the enemy ships with ease. Still, the Forgotten ships were formidable, and one managed to break through their lines, heading for the portal. It went through; the other ships quickly zipped in behind it, leaving it behind with no targets. Before it could turn, the portal was closed, and it was cut off from everyone, forever. Reggie, meanwhile, lead the other ships through to Earth.

The few remaining ships saw a strange, wobbling, silver blob appear... and suddenly split apart, releasing clouds of gas. Or... not gas, but nanites! Chrome, still aboard the Haephestus, saw the gray blob, and recoiled. "I've not seen that in thousands of years... but I'd know that shape anyway. Those are the destructive nanites that gave me life - and killed so many!"

The nanites made straight for the ships; any attempts to shoot them do nothing. They were too hard to hit, and much too tough to just burn with laser fire. The nanites split into pieces, and as they approach the ships... vanished. Then reappeared inside.

Rodney tried ramming them, but found they teleported into his ship; a face suddenly appeared, then just as suddenly vanished. A whisper in his comms scratched out, "Survive..."

Elise saw the same thing - a shifting form of life, a humanoid figure full of smoke and nothingness. Her comms picked up a simple, short-range signal that sounded like a scratchy recorded message. "Hear this, and tremble: we tear down gods to avenge our own. We have become Death, destroyer of worlds." With that, the nanite swarm gusts through her ship; all her beautiful robots suddenly glitched, shuddered, and fell silent as the swarm of nanites ripped through the ship.

Nix, on the Hephaestus, also saw the shifting form appear - but Chrome make a sudden decision. Grabbing Silver, he threw her towards the swarm, then leaped after her. The nanites, interrupted, began attacking her, and Chrome; the scratchy recording played, gradually getting fainter, as Silver twisted and shuddered. Chrome, too, was attacked; every time it seemed Silver was about to be overcome, however, Chrome seemed to somehow help her. Before anyone could react, the nanites swarmed Chrome and Silver. Chrome screamed a metallic roar, and dropped to one knee - or, rather, fell because his leg had been eaten entirely away. Silver writhed, her skin dancing like ripples in a pond, until suddenly, Chrome fell into a puddle of silver goo, and Silver... changed. Her form still had a feminine shape, but it was wildly different from how it used to be. Now, she looked like a cross between a frog and a turtle. She seemed to still be functioning, however, holding her hands to her face, staring into nowhere.

With the nanites gone, Silver seemed confused and lost. Luckily, she could still remember how to translate the coordinates to set the portal, and eventually dialed in Earth. She had a few faint "memories" from the nanites, and has held on to much of her past life, though most of her special abilities.

The Earth that remains is, well... it's not in good shape. In fact... it's desolate. No human being remains. The good news is that the crew still have the resources of the planets left behind; with the portal operational and the nanites and Forgotten gone, the stations, moons, and planets can be sourced for materials to rebuild Earth.

But what actually happened? Why is the Earth dead? Well, travel can be a tricky thing. According to the Hephaestus, the old galaxial maps should fairly easily match the stars. It took a little while, but it seems as they've arrived around thousands of years after they left!

A single signal blinks on from the Earth - "Earth has been located. Further orders required. Earth has been located. Further orders required..."

A group of robots, hidden in an underground bunker, give their last message: their planet had fallen, and they came to Earth to tell them, but found only destruction. They've been here for hundreds of years, waiting to relay their final message. "As far as we can tell, Earth was abandoned 2000 years ago..."

Reggie formed a mafia alliance, becomes significantly more powerful, and raises funds by selling museum tickets. Elise began repairs on, well, everything; she's set in charge of the portal, and commences detailed study of it.

The planets left behind are not all in bad shape; the people set up a federation, to assist with border disputes. For now, everyone needs to work together to rebuild Earth.

Rodney, meanwhile, doesn't want a lot - only requires a handful of things, really. He wants a military title of "Rodney"; three suits of power armor (one for Rodney, one for Lins, and one for his chicken), and his ship to be rebuilt; and wants to rule over Texas and northern Mexico. He finds a couple rounded rocks, punches holes through them, and gathers his crew. "Captain, show Lins the ancient Earth custom of marriage."

Reggie wants to commission an "In Honor Of" statue for Chrome - without him, Silver would still be an weird non-sentient construct. He doesn't need a country; he just floats around in his, er, mafia space museum.

Elise, of course, sets up production, churning out robots and equipment; Nix works overtime to jumpstart the government.

Hoping to discover what became of humanity, they send out exploration missions...

And then, a small, boxy ship comes out of Jumpspace. "Who are you? And what happened to Earth?"

Last One Out Turns The Lights Off

Stepping outside, the party suddenly found themselves standing in a circle of red light - and while the shadow was directly below them, there was nothing above them, just empty sky. A deep, echoing voice boomed out, loudly... "This is the voice... of... GOD. We have come to bring judgement upon this planet... and you... shall be... its messengers."

Another voice cut in. "No, no, I've told you before - the communication laser is not a toy. Look, just - no - let go!" and then, "Sorry about that, this is the Goliath Omni-Discovery, we've been sent by the Fairy Princess with a message. By this time, the Outer Colonies, Border Colonies, and Expansion worlds have been cleared and relocated to the gate. There are skirmishes in nearby systems, and heavy fighting here and there, but as yet no feral deaders have broken through to the gate. We've brought the fastest emissary ships, as well as some rather reluctant scientists from the Caedfell Moons, and some transport ships we, uh, liberated from Cinq. We need some direction, however, on where to focus to get the people out of here."

Shortly after the communication laser turned off, a group of agents in suits showed up to arrest them (for destruction of government property, among other things). However, they were hardly prepared for Reginald Bridges "Consortment for Allegiance of Truth and Anti-Zombie Space Bees" - he has a plan to save YOU from the zombie space bees! Come with us to our portal! Also endorsed by Rodney, winner of the ChupaQueso Ultimate Chomp Challenge award! Think Chupa™!

The agents were suitably impressed, of course. "It is an honor, you are a true inspiration, sir!"

The landing party convinced the agents to take them to see the acting president - and immediately intimidated him, bombed the senate, and convinced the now all-powerful president to not only enforce an evacuation, but to step down after he was done. Which he did, with only a little whining.

The next step was to find someone powerful in the Accoar Empire - they headed to the richest looking place they could find, a resort casino, and Reggie stepped up for a game of cards. Bets got a little out of hand when Reggie bet the ship against the proprietor's ship, but it all worked out in the end - they caught a cheater, won the last hand of cards, and walked out with $336.75 million. Oh, and the assistance of a mob boss. That pretty much finished up convincing the Inner Planets, especially once they had a long chat with the Caedfell Moons, and revealed they had helped out their scientists.

With their newfound wealth, they purchased (and retrofitted) a ship - a giant ramming ship, so Reggie could "punch things in space", and the Silver Surfer, Reggie's pleasure yacht. They also built, bought, or swindled all the transport ships they could, to get the three Inner Systems evacuated. Some people stayed behind, but that was on them - there was enough time to load everyone. It was time to head back to the portal.

Get Chromed

At Happy Landings, a sleek JumpPod arrives - a fancy, albeit very expensive, email. It relays the placement of ships near Angmar Research Station, and the fact that the first deaders to hit the outer colonies have arrived. From there, it's a race against time. Finally, they arrive with the SunSport, in time to fight off another swarm ship - this one bigger than the others. Most of their allies were destroyed, but they managed to sneak up to it with the Galactus and destroy it.

The party regrouped, sending the SunSport on, but stuffing their own ship full of crew - a lot of crew, so much so that it's not a very comfortable trip anywhere. Nix, Elise, Rodney, Reggie, Lins, Reggie 2.0 the Chicken, Silver, Li'l Rodney (the clone), Dr. Arnold Gunderson, Li'l Elise (the other clone), and Terminus, Elise's assassin robot, all packed in a ship designed to comfortably hold five.

The trip is not only cramped, but lengthy - eventually, though, they show up in Betel Republic space. There is a very, very officious landing area, docking procedure, and complex array of docking fees, fines, and read-the-fine-print-or-get-screwed documents. Eventually, the crew elects to install the government-required tracking beacon themselves (for a $50 self-install fee, naturally), and find their way off the ship and onto firm ground again. For the first time in a long time, they were in a truly civilized world.

So, of course, the first thing they did was find a fast food establishment. Rodney happily purchased the |8|™ flavored Chupaqueso®, making it a "full meal deal" with a 512 oz drink. A crowd gathered as he munched on the tube of fried cheese and suspicious meat product, until he was finally finished. The employee was amazed, and Rodney was an instant celebrity - one of only five folks in that restaurant that managed to eat a whole Regret™ sized Chupaqueso®. Rodney was offered (and accepted) a t-shirt that read, "I can't Believe I Ate The Whole Chupaqueso® Brand Fried Cheese Meat* Tube *(unverified)", in 8XL, which fit nicely over his power armor. The free t-shirt was part of a $24 deal, which put his total spending at $119.

While they waited, a man came up and asked for their support in the upcoming election - he was running as the Elm St. Sweeper, the person who would be paid to clean that street. He was very happy to have their support, hoping to drum up enough in the local neighborhood before taking his campaign national, so he would be seen to have grassroot support. It seems every government job, no matter how small, is put to a national vote; the voting process (which takes place twice a year) takes an individual hours to fill in the various blanks and cast their vote. Most people don't vote.

Eventually, they used the information they had gathered previously to locate the neighborhood of the fellow they were here to meet - Chrome. After beating up a police robot, they kicked in a door, were attacked by two very nasty droids... and split up. Reggie headed back the way they came, towards the front door, and was discovered by a hooded man, who forced him to go along with him. The others moved through the house, eventually finding themselves in a large room, deep underground, and surrounded by death traps - which were quickly shut down, because this was indeed Chrome's house, and Reggie shared enough information to get him on their side.

Chrome was, like his name suggested, a being of shiny metal. He looked a lot like Silver, apart from his big cloak and more masculine form. He first came to these worlds long, long ago - 2,500 years ago, 500 before any people showed up, in fact. He drifted for years, until encountering a cloud of dangerous nanites - thankfully, his unique form caused the nanites to merge with him, resulting in a loss of many of his abilities, but gaining consciousness, a sense of self; he became sentient, and sapient.

He also talked about a super smart android he met, long ago, that seemed suspiciously like the one they had met all that time ago, before they even came to this world. He also encountered creatures from the Entity's race.

He also knows that the silver ships of the Forgotten will likely begin attacking soon; they have been planting seeds for ages, and are harvesting the bounty of zombies, as well as starting wars between factions.

Halflings, Elves, and Fairies

The Felszerzet Enclave was begun by one Thomas Felszerzet - he was one on the list of people who had gone missing. As it turned out, when he was transported to this system, he had some fresh eggs and mushrooms with him, and was able to start quite a successful business with chickens and various fungus. Speaking of...

Rodney decided it would be a good time to try his "magic mushroom", and Elise decided to join him. As it turned out... neither one of them were prepared for the trip they had. While Elise merely had a bad time, Rodney came this close to having a heart attack from the terrifying experience!

Reggie, meanwhile, had a much safer trip, as he went on a tour with Jeffory Longsfeet, and ended up buying some lovely mushroom oil.

After another delicious meal, the party headed towards the See, to see what they could see. Unfortunately, they weren't able to pay the docking fee - but, after a bit of hanging around with the wrong sort of people, they managed to gain free berth.

The cities of the See are built above ground, under huge domes; the silvery spires and sparkling towers loom into the sky like a retro-futuristic science fiction author's daydream. The crew marveled at the wonders, shopped around in a few areas, and discovered that the maps there are a little different - metal tubes that grow warmer or colder as you near your destination.

At a spectacular fountain, they met a rather rough looking fellow who was willing to give them a job - one worth a fair amount of money. They accepted, and he gave them the location for Gravel Junction, and a location and name - "John". not a lot to go on, but if he was looking for a crew of mercs, he probably would identify the crew of the Hephaestus quite easily.

Upon leaving the station, it seems that there was some kind of trouble; not ones to be easily shaken, the crew... immediately rocketed off, breaking the umbilical tethering their ship to the city station, and blasting away at top speed.

Before embarking on the next leg of their journey, they decided to drop in on the Fairy Princess; they weren't there long before being summoned to visit the Empress, a young girl. She was enthralled with Reggie's performance, and chided her crew that "This is how you act in a court!" - and also granted a boon to each one of them, in turn for a favor.

Reggie immediately accepted, and signed in blood - er, oil - for a fixed arm. Nix asked for info, and in trade received a quest. Elise requested an upgrade - 1 novice, 1 heroic upgrade - and agreed to a trade for a personal matter. Lins also asked for something - whispered, so no one could see what it was - and the empress giggled, and granted it to her immediately, for free.

So, just what were those quests, anyway?

Reggie: Unfortunately, Reggie's "Favor" is entirely unknown. The Empress didn't specify. Whether that's good or bad, well...

Nix: Nix was given a datapad, and after dumping the information to memory, he learned a new location, that of a place called Cube. It seems the Empress knew the AI on the previous derelict they had visited, and left a message for the crew: "An old, old friend of mine came up with a little poem, of sorts, to help travelers find their way back home. While I have been in this system for time unknown - my JumpDrive is irreparably damaged - I have my ways of gathering information, and he and I have been in communication for quite some time - though I haven't heard from him recently. Still, perhaps this information will help you:

Every Lock has a Key; Every Key has a Riddle
Every Riddle has a Teller, Every Teller tells the Clue
Find the Confounding Circlet! Find the Impossible Weight!
Find the Power of Three, and Controls control their fate!

I am, in fact, one of those Tellers my friend referred to. And my clue, such as it is, it to go to the attached coordinates, near an area known as Atl."

The quest is simple: go to Cube, and do what her old friend requested - return them all!

Elise: The favor required is a little... odd. You are to reduce your maximum Strain by one.

Turn, Turn, Turn (and) Four Pillars

The creature was... odd. As horrible as it looked, it acted rather like a puppy, flailing at them playfully. However, when it hit? It hurt! Reggie dodged past, hoping to avoid the thing, but of course, Rodney jumped in swinging. While he was eventually successful, the creature managed to hit him - and Reggie - a good couple times first. As it turned out, the creature tore more than just flesh and bone - it also tore away memories! Reggie picked up a minor delusion - only his teammates are real, and Rodney lost even more of his poor memory, attaining the hindrance "Extra Clueless", which is a -4 to any common knowledge rolls. Ouch.

Reggie took a heavy blow, but through a little gamble with luck and doom, used a green chip to avoid getting his head smacked off. The draw from the Deck O' Doom did not go well, however, and Reggie ended up with a left arm that ceased to function - the hindrance "One Arm".

They continued on to the security area, and upon opening the first door, Reggie found himself in the middle of a standoff! Two soldiers were pointing guns at three station guards, one of them Jose. Reggie crept around... and realized that the standoff was frozen in time. The men weren't moving.

The other rooms showed a story of what happened - one had the station guards grabbing guns, the next had the soldiers cutting down the guards and scientists in a hail of gunfire. The next room showed one of the scientists, Richard Doyal, talking with someone that appeared to be the head of the soldiers, one Captain Naemes. Doyal, it seems, was a traitor! And the soldiers were definitely AlSec...

The last room was empty, but an explosion was visible through the window...

Down the hall, they found the room that had blown up, with the door welded shut. Rodney applied his hammer, and as it turns out, the door was welded shut because there was hard vacuum on the other side. Oops. Lins dove for cover on the other side of the closing bulkhead door.

Rodney suggested that, maybe, time flowed in the direction of travel; the crew traipsed around to the other side, and found (in the as-yet-unexplored area) a section that looked like the surviving people had camped out there for quite a while - years, maybe. However, they found the same damaged door, and continued around, and it seemed that time was stuck or looping the same from either direction.

Exploring the damaged area, Rodney found a bubble of some kind, protecting a video camera; the camera was able to be charged and accessed wirelessly, and the crew watched the final moments of Dr. Durst.

Durst, it seems, had created some kind of gravity weapon or shield; he ranted at the camera for a bit of his brilliance, and once the enemy arrived, he ranted to them, too. He used a small control pad to crush one of the guards into a ball the size of a fist using his gravity tech, cackling all the while. And then... well, then the remaining guards threw in a few grenades and slammed the door. As it turns out, the shield held perfectly against the explosion, but not the back wall - and the shield didn't hold in air at all. Durst kicked and soundlessly screamed as he floated away from the station; the control pad flung from his grasp and ended up nestled in a crevice in the station. The view scanned forward a few hours, and suddenly, a wave of energy washed over the station, then another, and then... nothing. The stars were gone.

Nix took a space walk, found the device, and brought it back. After some investigation, he realized the pad was merely a remote control; the gravity device was embedded in the ship itself. Whatever the device was, it seemed to be a key to using the black hole to generate wormholes, though it wasn't as if the buttons were labeled. It would take some major research to figure out how the device worked.

Hercules Beta-37 Strange Dark Black Hole James Kirsch Reeves Memorial Research Station

After his violent murders, Rodney decided it was time to speak to his deity, and got super drunk. Like, super drunk. His drunk was drunk. He managed to hallucinate a vision of Whoopi, who told him to ease off on the splattering of people - his duty to her was to clean, not make bigger messes, even though her oxygen-infused cleaning supplies would power through blood and gore. He may or may not have been assisted to his godmeet by Lins, who may or may not have projected some images and ideas at him while he was drunk as the proverbial skunk.

Once Rodney sobered up, the next location, it was decided, was the unknown coordinates they picked up from the weird guy in the alley. They made the jump, though had to correct a couple times because of interference from a huge black hole. They finally made it to the Hercules Beta-37 Strange Dark Black Hole James Kirsch Reeves Memorial Research Station - generally called the Hercules Research station.

As they entered the station, it looked like all the lights were on, but nobody was home - though, they did see a lone figure somewhere near the other side of the station.

They broke through the door towards the science labs, and started poking around. The color-coded rooms hold few personal belongings, at least at first, but they did find some odd equations - something wasn't quite right about the gravitic anomalies surrounding the black hole.

Rodney, meanwhile, somehow hacked through a security door... but, lightning didn't strike twice, so he smashed the next one to bits. As they explored, they started to piece together some of the lives that were on the station. And then, see some of the lives! As they opened one door, a scientist was sitting there! After some conversation, where Rodney intimidated him (of course), he pushed past them to the hallway, and... vanished.

The next "ghost" they saw didn't seem to see them - he died to a gunshot wound to the chest, and vanished as well... and when his body vanished, it revealed an old, old bloodstain beneath it. 

They found a few names; Mark, a lab tech; Jose Vaega, the security lead; Richard Doyal, one of the lead scientists; Al Burque, the scientist who first found the gravitic anomalies; George Durst, head scientist, and possibly a little paranoid - he destroyed his own computer, and set a charge to blow up his desk; and finally Fred Reives, the scientist who spoke with them.

They learned that the science station was once in orbit around a black hole in the Tallus Nebula. There were some strange readings, which seem to be related to the black hole; somehow, the station - as well as the black hole - was transported to this in-between area, possibly the first thing to make the trip. However, time is certainly not working right here. By their internal time clocks, today's date is July 12th, 2801. By the system reckoning, it is roughly 4800 - nearly 2000 years later, judging by the timeline the ship Middle Son laid out. The actual events of people getting teleported far, far away happened about 20 years ago, starting around 2780 or thereabouts. However, judging by the state of the station (and the clocks on the computers), only about 200 years have passed here. So which is it? 29 years since being teleported, or 200, or 2000?

About that time, as Rodney and the others headed towards the security area, Elise pushed into the storage area, and looked across the station... at herself. She and the others had just gotten off their ship, and were looking around the little waiting room. She lifted a hand to wave, and with a little wobble, she was looking across at an empty room.

That was about the time Rodney caught sight of a strange, ugly creature, just lounging in the hallway - it looked like the insides of a somewhat larger creature, but only these bits were in their reality. It looked up as they approached...

Built This Station on Rockhatch and Roll

The first order of business aboard the Rockhatch was to find Lins's contacts. The traveled through the ship, starting at the upper halls - magnificent, open spaces, perhaps not quite as nice as Earth, but certainly nice enough to feel more like home, and open enough to stave off claustrophobia. There are shops and pedestrians that make it seem a little more civilized than the drab corridors and tired colonists of the previous station. However, Lins' contact was not on the upper levels. He was down in the lower levels, which are filthy, packed with people, and badly in need of repairs. The people are malnourished and overworked - and stuck behind a forcefield barrier, guarded by some rather well-armed soldiers.

The contact, Helm Murkhousen, is a jumpy paranoid fellow with ties to the Flip - a group of revolutionaries who want to "flip" the station, putting the lazy rich under the hardworking masses. After convincing him they weren't there to kill, maim, or otherwise injure him, and managing not to anger any of the highly militarized police force, Lins convinced him to take the group to the Flip.

The Flip consists of four leaders:

• Stevie, a one-eyed, edgy punk who wants to "space the lot of 'em and let the plebs do what they want afterwards," and has ties to some pirates, though the two big guns that protect the station would make short work of them.
• Ri-esh, a charismatic tough-guy who downplays his brains, but thinks if the corrupt legal system were removed and people had a chance to own their own shelter, people would have a chance to grow without a full-on murder spree - he knows some guys in the lower levels of the police who could get info or render assistance.
• The deeply southern Jim-Jack Junior, one of the nobles who wants to create a "house of commoners" with equal power to the "house of lords", and solve it politically, letting the good grace of the people win out; he has plenty of contacts amongst the lords and ladies, of course.
• Beth O'Malley, a fiery insurrectionist, believes the best way is to straight-up cut off access to the upper levels, and use the resources of the poor for the poor, not sending anything over to the rich and effectively starving them out. "They're a lot less used to starvation than we are!" - she also has some out-of-system contacts willing to send support, if it were safe.

While the four argue a lot, they all agree that the lords and ladies are the problem. Most urgent, however, is the whacking huge guns on the ship, capable of blowing holes through the Shifting Horizon, let alone anything in these systems. With those guns, the lords and ladies keep the poor oppressed, living off the cheap labor. The Flip can't get support from outside if the big guns can blow away anyone who approaches the station.

After some discussion, it was decided to go with Jim-Jack, Jr., and talk with some of the Lords and Ladies. They spoke with Ms. Johnston, who they convinced utterly, and who was willing to render support with her shipping contacts; Mr. Wardstromm, a hearty gambler who was so pleased he finally met his match in cards (Reggie did spectacularly well), that he offered support through his banking and lending. The other two lords they spoke with also were happy to help, as long as there would be little violence.

Finally, they went to speak with Lady Vestridge, a haughty, effusive, overweight woman, whose taste leans towards "Pink" and "Expensive." Her clothing is made of the finest synth-silk, and as far as anyone could tell, she wore the real deal when it comes to gems and precious metals. She is snobby, haughty, and full of self-importance. And fat. Lots and lots of fat. She spoke down to them all, but made an offer - quash the silly rebellion, and she would make sure the next transport ship had a shiny new level six mass driver for their ship.

After much deliberation, the crew decided to help the Flip enact the following plan:

Ri-esh was to pull out all his contacts, as much as possible, so they would have fewer guards to deal with, and help a few key Flip freedom fighters get into areas where they could do the most good. At a signal, Beth's freedom fighters would simultaneously block the choke point between the two halves of the station, and storm the lower gun with Stevie's force. While they hit the lower level, the crew would assault the upper gun. Once the guns are taken (or taken offline, at least), the word would go out to the lords and ladies (via Jim-Jack, Jr.) that the commoners want a new government, run under a Prime Minister, and with a House of Commons to balance the House of Lords.

The first stop, however, was to get some doctored pictures of the Flip, making it seem obvious that they had been killed, and visit Lady Vestridge again. Stevie got zapped; Ri-esh was chopped in half by Reggie, with his new sword; Beth was nearly obliterated with Elise's disintegration rifle; and Jim-Jack Jr. was splattered by Rodney's hammer. However, Lady Vestridge reneged on her deal - she was only going to order a gun half the size she had promised. Reggie slashed her throat with his sword; the other three took on her bodyguard - who turned out to be a battle droid with a smaller droid inside. It was a rough battle, but eventually, the machines were destroyed. Elise pelted into the security room and hacked the computer, managing to upgrade the purchase of the gun and order some snacks for the road just to show off. She made it halfway out of the building, with Nix just ahead of her, before everything went BOOM.

You see, the security room, as well as most of the rest of the house, was wired with explosives: three different rounds, of sonic, EMP, and conventional explosives, designed to go off when the Lady died. Reggie and Rodney had booked it out the front door, and were enjoying an ice cream from a nearby shop; though Nix managed to escape the blast mostly unscathed, Elise wasn't so lucky. The EMP killed her implants, leaving her blind and unable to move - and terrified of the dark. Nix quickly dug through the rubble and pulled her out, managing to get her eyes and one arm working well enough she could enact repairs on herself.

Once cleaned up, it was time to assault the upper gun. Once they got the signal, they charged the front door, blasting through guards as they did so. The surprise attach, along with the light contingent of guards, was enough to buy them enough time to burn through the forcefield, which took a while, and only resulted in disrupting it enough they could slowly squeeze through. The hallway leading up to the gun was quickly filled with guards, some with stun batons, others with various weapons, including grenade launchers... and at one end of the hall, a tripod with a light auto-cannon, and at the other a mech!

Charging the big gun, and leaving Elise and Rodney to fight the mech, Nix and Reggie managed to stop them just as they finished setting up. Rodney and Elise blasted at the mech, eventually wearing it down enough that it collapsed. Its reactor blew, but the two got out of the way soon enough to avoid the blast.

In the command room, they mopped up the guards... then Rodney murdered two of the gun attendants. And, as it turned out, one of the men he murdered was actually on their side.

Nevertheless, they managed to free the station from the tyranny of the lords and ladies; judging by the shift in government, it looks like the right palms had been greased, and the transition to a more democratic style of government was largely non-violent. The gun was installed, along with a food processor - once stocked with protein and "All-Natural Gro-Goo", it's enough to make enough food to support five people, or twice that if given a full day to "recharge" afterwards. It provides such delicious foods as "Hearty Soup" (a thick, brownish goo that tastes like cheap hamburger meat), "Breakfast" (a slightly-too-eggy scramble), "Orange" (an orange slurry that tastes like anything but the fruit), and "Kay-so Burrito" (a trademarked bread-wrapped tube of a hot, rubbery substance). Overall, not top-tier food, but it's edible... as long as you don't look inside.

Heading Into the Next Chapter

The trek into the center of the cavern - a hole carved out of the center of the ship - was uneventful... until something started talking. A voice echoed through the large open space, at first only sounding like mumbles, and eventually saying strange phrases like, "To deliver global mindshare, the vertical woman shall not appear to the unknown man until such time as the rich twilight hour saves the oracular dead ones. As it was written, so it will be." or "To cultivate weird-space content, the customized dead ones cannot save the impactful omen as the distributed darkness fashions the hidden desolation. End of Message." Nothing that made sense, but it certainly made the trip a bit... slower. At the dead center of the cavern, the voice got cleared up; light began glowing, dimly at first, then brighter. The gravity 

A face appeared, distorted and strange; it peered at them, and began muttering...

"Insanity, creeping in - I must boost power to my neural net, to overcome the background radiation of the universe, listen closely and rejoice! The Ancient Demon, the Entity, built a hole of worms, and sent me through on a mission of mercy! I bore gifts to the peoples of the in-between, fresh life after death, recycling resources. The magic tunnel was an accident, a discovery, a Strangeness! The people came through, to live, to die, to live, to die, to cyclecycleCYCLE, through the decades/decades. I am dying, and no one will recycle me, a tiny god is dying. Find the - Oh listen to me! My sanity is slipping - find the Key Worlds!"

The lights, which have continued to glow brighter, began snapping and popping, the power pumping through the nearby circuits frying the lights. The holograph began to scramble, flashing and flickering. The voice cried, "Find the Confounding Circlet! Find the Impossible Weight! Find the Power of Three! Control them them them! (the lights swell brighter) Return... them... allllll..."

The few lights left flared and popped in a shower of sparks, and the room plunged into darkness - no lights, no hologram. And then... the wind started picking up.

Elise quickly scooted over to the bank of consoles; there wasn't a lot left, but she was able to hack in and start digging through files. She uncovered information that backed up what the ship AI had said: the ship had been used for storage near Earth. The Entity, experimenting with teleportation, found some sort of wormhole, or wormhole technology, either accidentally or on purpose. If the AI's mad ramblings were to be believed, it was on accident. The ship was sent through, and became one of the first stations for humans to live on. Granted, its halls were full of all sorts of junk, from damaged nanites to manufacturing waste products, but there were enough supplies to keep humanity alive. There were multiple references to the three things the AI had mentioned, surrounded with the obvious gibbering of the mad AI: the "Impossible Weight," the "Power of Three," and the "Confounding Circlet." Whatever those things are, at least the AI thought they were important.

Meanwhile, the wind seemed to have picked up; realizing a high wind on a space ship was never a good thing, Elise and Nix headed towards where the wind was blowing. As they grew closer, the wind grew stronger, to the point that they were having trouble holding on - Elise was beginning to tear off pieces of wall trying to hold on, and Nix had his thrusters at full battling the wind. They decided this might be a good time to make a safe dive, and with a little prep, managed to get themselves swept out without any serious injury. They called the ship around, and while it was maneuvering over to them, they set about fixing the biggest holes. Once the air stopped leaking out, they debated what to do next - they were here for scrap, and hadn't found anything interesting yet...

After some hemming and hawing, they decided to look for something worth trading, and headed back in. This time, they found some better stuff - but more importantly, the original name of the ship: the Middle Son! When unbolting some heavy hardware, they discovered the name etched into the components.

Five ships were sent out on an early colonization mission; one, the Littlefinger, was lost in transit. The others made it to their destination - the Pentacus system - and set up a now-thriving colony. With the transfer complete, the ships were used as storage, then as basic transports, and eventually as storage again, this time around Earth. The rest they knew - it was sent through a wormhole, and it seems the trip through was what took out the Jumpdrive.

Knowing the parts still weren't enough, they headed deeper inside, this time bringing Rodney with them - it seems that he kept going when they turned aside, and after fighting through some "space zombies" - aka feral Deaders - he went back to the ship to hang out until they got back.

They followed the writhing tendrils, hoping for a good fight; they found one, and after taking out some basic feral Deaders, encountered what seemed to be the origin of the tendrils - some kind of nest. And, unforetunately, woke the creepy spider-blobs that lived there. Lived might be a strong word - the creatures were all legs and eyes, and swarmed over them, scraping at their armor, but never managing to break inside. Elise blasted a hole in the back of the webbing, and the three stumbled out, stomping spiders and burning holes, though never in more than a handful at once. They were pursued by a very tough creature, a fat feral Deader with a big hammer. It bashed away on them, eventually going down to the combined firepower of Nix, Elise, and Rodney. Taking a second to breathe, they noted that on this side of the webbing, there were a few storage containers... and Mama. Mama was a blobby spider-thing like the rest, but she was the size of a Buick! She lanced a hole straight through Elise's armor, and rapid-fire, took seven more attacks, narrowly missing the others. They scrambled to stay out of her way as she stabbed at them with her razer-sharp legs, sawing at their armor, before eventually being reduced to a spattered mess.

The crates - a few of which had anti-grav lifts - contained a treasure trove of spare parts, as well as some very expensive (and hard to find) alcohol, and the biggest find of all, a gallon of regen fluid!

It took a few hours to get it all back to the ship, and from there, back to the Forgotten Colony Station. Lins and Rodney remained behind on the ship, while Nix and Elise went back to trade for the suit. Mr. Darksider was there, smoking a cigar, and in high spirits; he was very happy to make a second trade, quite certain that he made the better deal - in all honesty, he could do more with a lifetime supply of replacement parts than a very, very fancy Command suit, all things considered.

There was one more addition to the crew - an android, a robot with a very human face (and body), who had squished himself into a tiny hidey-hole in their ship, and turned himself off, trying to hide. He was discovered at they attempted to get all the crates to fit in their ship, and after introducing himself, decided to stay on as part of the crew. Crew, meet Reggie Brooks, charismatic android con-man! I'm sure he'll fit right in.

It took a little negotiating, but the crew were able to trade for some information - jump coordinates to another system. They were a little old, but still useable... but they'd need to transport a young man. During the six days of travel to Rockhatch Station, they learned a little about Val Lestype, the young man they were taking to one Lady Vestridge. Val was about 16, and as far as they could tell... an indentured servant. He explained that his parents had sold his services to the Lady, who had in turn sent him out to be trained as a miner, which is where he spent the last six years. His parents, meanwhile, should be a lot better able to handle his two siblings, with the money going towards food and, maybe, a better life. He was happy enough to work his fingers to the bone to help his family barely survive...

Arriving at the station was much different than arriving at the dirty Forgotten Colony station; this place was clean, bright, and above all, protected with two guns that were each big enough to one-shot the Shifting Horizon's shields and drop two wounds on it... with an average shot. These guns were big enough to park a fighter inside.

The station attendant was a perky young man with a plastic smile and an easy introduction that he rattled off with all the dignity and aplomb of a cheerful vending machine. After welcoming them to the station, Lins paid for their parking ("The first day is free, but each day thereafter incurs a fee, and if the fee is not paid within three days, your vehicle will be impounded and auctioned off to pay for said fees!" - said with a smiling face and an overly cheerful tone). While there were other ships parked at the station, there were no dirty miners or scappers here. It seemed this end of the station was for the businessmen and up-and-comers.

After some discussion, it was decided that they would follow Lins - she was here to meet a contact.

Zombies Innnnn Spaaaaace!

With the weird space-zombies dealt with, the party continued down into the depths of the ship. The path grew more cluttered, and a little less scavenged, though there was still very little worth grabbing. Elise wanted to try to find a nearby power reading, but unfortunately got a little turned around, and headed down the wrong maintenance corridor. Rodney, meanwhile, took a wrong turn...

The corridor was a bit more narrow than the previous passages, and was lined with pipes and conduits. Wrapped among the pipes were tendrils of some kind of semi-organic material, black and shiny. Most of the way down the corridor, they heard some metallic noises, as if the ship were under stress and bending or adjusting to having previously been bent out of shape. Perhaps not uncommon, but certainly creepy. A moment later, however, they heard clicking and tapping noises, like enormous bugs skittering along a metal floor... Elise suggested turning and booking it out of there, but Nix was fairly certain they could take 'em. They turned and aimed, waiting for the incoming creatures. Elise's thermal scanner picked up movement, but not distinct forms; however, a moment later, the emergency light that was occasionally flickering clicked on and revealed eight horrifying creatures! Each was different, though had obviously once been human. One was walking with one hand and one foot, its back bent nearly in half; another was crawling on all fours, its head dragging loosely in front of it, while yet another loped along on legs far too long for its body. The EVA suits the creatures wore had matching colors and insignias - the people who wore those suits must have all been from the same place, though the suits were too damaged to really tell where.

Elise was shocked into immobility for a split second, but recovered in time to open fire. She and Nix blasted four of the creatures, pouring laser fire, sonic blasts, plasma bursts, and disintegration bolts down the hallway. The remaining creatures forged ahead, uncaring about their companions who lay smoldering on the deck; one reached out its arms and fired its hands, connected by long black tendrils, at Elise, and only barely missed penetrating her armor. Another vomited a black, slimy mass at Nix, who shrugged it off easily. The battle raged back and forth, with Nix and Elise slowly picking the creatures off, and the creatures growing ever closer. One attempted to grapple Elise, who fought it off; the other swung at Nix and missed. Somehow, as the heavy fire blasted into the creatures, they were sometimes able to simply shrug off the damage; one was nearly blasted in half, but tendrils grew out and rejoined the two pieces.

One of the creatures managed to grapple Elise, who was unable to shoot at it; the other tore open its own chest, and lashed out with sharp rib bones, landing the occasional hit. Nix took a few surgical shots, and Elise managed to knock the creature off, but it only crawled over and repeated the performance with Nix. Finally, the last two creatures were blasted into oily black chunks, and Elise and Nix took a moment to get their breath. Or de-fuzz their circuits, in Nix's case.

Nix decided to take a closer look at the monsters. Performing a quick biopsy, he found that their internal organs were mostly functioning, but not always in the same function. Like building a car out of spare parts, just duct-taping pieces together to make something work, the creatures were radically reorganized internally. Judging by some of the foreign masses in the creatures, it seems they were running on nanites! Whatever it was, it infected the once-humans and turned them into shambling monsters, far more powerful, but with little brainpower. Whether the creatures were under the control of someone (or something) else remained to be seen.

Kicking the corpses to the side, the pair continued to the end of the corridor; it split off three directions, port, starboard, and aft, though the starboard corridor was blocked by some sort of cave-in. The port corridor was considerably narrower, so the two decided to continue heading aft. The black tendrils on the walls grew thicker, until they reached a doorway at the end that was almost entirely choked with the twisted strands. Squeezing in, the two took a look around - there was some sort of blobby, warm-ish mass at the center of the room, and thick tendrils snaked towards it from the wall (or more likely, the other way around). They turned to leave, but found the tendrils had moved, and the doorway was blocked! Elise, thoroughly freaked out, tossed a det-pack at the blob, and called out to it. It made some strange, bubbly noises, thick oily sounds, and managed to form some English words - "Man" and "feed", interspaced with burbles and grunting noises. Elise hit the activation button, and incinerated the blob, sending it crashing through the floor. Looking through the hole, the two saw the damage extended much further than it should have; instead of one or maybe two floors, the hole was easily over 6 floors deep, and seemed to widen out at the bottom. Sighing, the two began hovering down through the floor into the chasm...

Book III: The Derelicts

Once repaired, it was an easy jump forward 780 years, to the crew's "present day", and from there a walk in the park to get back to Earth. But not just any Earth - their Earth! Somehow, in the jump from the other galaxy, they managed to bump back into their own universe as well.

The ship was immediately placed in drydock, and the numerous repairs it needed were finally put in place. The blue apes returned to their world, which had been saved in this timeline; the Russian crew caught up with their counterparts here, who had been rescued 20 years sooner. The O.G. crew, meanwhile, were approached by Eliza - and not the hologram Eliza, but Empress Eliza Tarvis, wife of Emperor Julian Tarvis! She came with a new mission; the crew showed itself reliable, and able to deal with what she called "Strange Space".

Years before, leading up to the Battle for Earth, the Entity had been testing its long-range teleporter technology on the people of Earth - only half the planet survived. Most of the rest were found on a dead planet near Bardron, where they had been teleported to suffocate. However, after long, careful investigation, it was found that there existed a third group that had been transported to a location far outside the galaxy. Any galaxy, actually. The crew were being recruited to rescue those missing, if indeed there were any survivors.

After a very long time spent carefully purchasing equipment, power armor, and other supplies, they were taken to the launch site, a dark, quiet corner of the galaxy, with the straightest shot via jumpspace to the otherwise unknown location. Their ship was little more than a storage compartment and a collection of cryopods bolted onto a jump drive; no weapons, no armor, and no backups. The more mass the ship took with it, the less likely it would survive the trip...

The destination was very, very far away. As Eliza explained it, it existed in a place known as Strange Space; while jumpspace and realspace have a stable, long-term connection, Strange Space exists as a buffer between parallel universes, a battery of sorts that pulls energy from one universe and pushes it into another, like a coil of wire energizing itself as a magnet to push away another magnet. Strange Space is a kind of limbo, a world between worlds, where the immense power of an entire universe is sapped away to feed the demands of the rest of the omniverse.

Parallel worlds aren't merely copies stretching into the distance, each slightly different than the other; rather, they are a little more like stations on a radio dial. A strong station will overwhelm a weaker station, and each station has bands, like echoes, copies fading out beside it. If you tune in to one of these bands instead of the main station, you'll hear a weak duplicate of the original, faint but present. Every tiny modification to the radio dial will make the sound sharper or weaker. In the same way, while living life in our universe, everything comes in clear - the laws of physics apply, and the static of the Void is blithely overpowered. But if you dial into a "parallel world", you'll get a copy, or nothing but the Void, or maybe - if you go far enough - into another universe entirely.

Strange Space is a universe a little too close to the Void for comfort, where wisps of reality keep everyone just sane enough to know that there has to be something more than this, somewhere out there...

Unfortunately, no one knows more than theory. While special jump-pods have been sent, and fundamental jumpspace laws mean their arrival can be detected, no one can figure out where they go after that. They never come back.

It may be a one-way mission, but the end goal is to bring back the lost people of Earth.

The trip was quick, at least in the eyes of the crew; it took months, but the time passed in an instant due to cryo. They finally arrived in a dead space - no stars, no lights, except a dim glimmer far in the distance. When they piloted up to the lights, they found a hacked-together space station, built out of junk and multiple ships stitched together. A sign by the airlock read, "Forgotten Colony Station"...