Session 36: Black Hole Come Report

General Summary

Introduction

The Iridium Dawn lurches to a sudden halt as it comes out of Zip Space space mere moments after it dropped into it. The Zip Drives whir and whine with complaints as the overridden security protocols keeping the ship from jumping in systems or making inter-system jumps cries out. The ripples of Jump Wake ripple around your ship out from around it, the obvious proof of a Zip Drive's arrival. The Iridium Dawn's Jump Wake ripples out towards the nearby Nibian 1 and 5, both in orbit between the ship, the system's yellow sun, and the even more distant Nibian 3 off on the other end of the solar system.   However, as Captain Li Shen’s fingers immediately turn towards plotting the next emergency planing jump to safety, the darkness of the undulating explosion from across the system is the single best indication of what dangers the limping ship saved its crew from but seconds before. Rose and Kyra’s eyes remain locked on the screen, the scanners picking up the growing darkness that seems to immediately encompass any view of the stars behind it and all of the small asteroid once known fondly as Nibian 6 before it violently bursts out further towards the center of the system. On their scanner screen, still glitching and scrambling to static every few seconds, the women have the best view in the ship of the rippling darkness of the explosion that reaches like black tendrils towards the inhabited Trade Hub Planet Nibian 3 oh so close behind.   As the shockwave of the massive explosion sends the only black tendrils further into the system, dispersing far too slowly like a wave of terror as it approaches the planet, they also see the center of the explosion. The familiar location of the mining asteroid, where you each found yourself facing down a looming terrifying ship turned into a weapon merely a few breaths before, seems to shift and inverse. The rippling tendrils reaching out are violently yanked back, pulled towards the small black dot that your system screams at you is an Undiscovered Anomaly yet your heart knows to be a black hole. You see only the edges of that rippling explosion touch the atmosphere of Nibian 3 and burn it to mist before being pulled back towards the fist-sized object that seems incapable of anything but constantly growing and consuming. A mere glance at the planet orbiting so dangerously close to that growing black hole speaks to the utter horrors that anyone unlucky enough to be on the surface now surely face.   Meanwhile, sheltered from screens and viewports alike, Jay feels a large armored arm, scuffed and scarred, arc under her and help her to her feet. Ronin moves to walk towards the cockpit beside her as Burt’s scream of pain echoes through the metallic halls. Before their feet move three steps towards the cockpit, the sound of heavy boots echoes down the corridor as a fully Eva suited Astrid sprints full tilt towards the room with the lingering sound of pain from the man she cares for. Chiara’s head and shoulders, her blue hair tossled from her half-removed helmet, leans around the doorway at around knee-height leading from the hanger bay from her apparent seat against the wall. The patch sealing her suit around what appear to be energy burns breaching it is far more obvious in the fluorescent lights of the ship. Her piercing eyes follow Astrid before turning towards Jay and Ronin. “What just happened? Is everyone alright?”

Gameplay

The Iridium Dawn's crew turned and hightailed it from Nibian 3 and the existing black hole. They persisted on that path, checking signals, scanning, preparing a propoganda video, and preparing to jump. As they did so, Kyra set Burt's injured ankle almost immediately after Astrid helped him to the MedBay. He fell unconscious until the crew ordered Astrid to wake him up using Adrenaline to have him help with coms. When he did, he faceplanted almost immediately from the persistant injury.  

Scene Progression

Their Zip-Drive is going to take 7 Minutes to cool off between Activations to avoid risking damaging it.  

Scene: 1 Minute In - Message Received

Burt received a Krasian Message on the same frequency he was monitoring before. Decrypting it received the message from the Invictus to both Krasian Patrol Ships, the KPO Vanguard and KPO Entren.   Video

Scene: Emergency Broadcast KEB928

They each received the following broadcast soon afterwards. https://app.artflow.ai/gallery/story/video/b9da0b167cff43238dfb8061572e7d0d

Discoverables: Pylons

• Scan 6: There are 6 Pylons throughout the System, each around one of the planets with 2 around Nibian 3
• Each pylon begins broadcasting Emergency Broadcast KEB928 on repeat on every channel system-wide, effectively blocking out communications.
• Each are Scale 1 (High Aspect: Broadcast Pylon) with Systems 4, Rapport/Broadcast 3, Hull 2. 1 Emergency Defense EMP Charge embedded, Armor 1.
• Eliminating some of the pylons lessens the Com's Coverage

Civilian Ships Destroyed

They saw multiple civilian ships trying to leave the planet's orbit. While they observed the KPO Vanguard's attempts to send dropships down to the planet's surface, they also saw the KPO Entren firing into the fleeing Passenger Ship. The Celestial Odessy, and the 800 souls aboard, were slain. Seeing the ship fire on the other vessels attempting to flee, Li and Rose felt conflicted with their Versian values and were compelled to go back. Ronin shrugged off the impulse.   Burt found a signal from the KPO Vanguard that got through, in which Captain Kellis of the Vanguard said "My men and I didn’t sign up to slaughter terrified civilians. There’s a black hole growing under Nibian 6. There’s no way the emergency broadcast took this into account and there’s no way the relief forces are going to be here in time. The Vanguard will initiate emergency evacuation for Nibian 3 and get whoever we can off alive before the atmosphere pops. I suggest you do the same. We will keep them aboard and let the coats sort out who is who later.”. They prepared a package to deliver to the KPO Vanguard and arranged their array facing the ship to deliver it using P2P-SRB.   They jumped across the system and washed the planet in the jumpwake of the ship. Fortunately, they landed on the side opposite from the 2 Patrol Ships (with the KPO Invictus approaching steadily). They felt the pull of the black hole and headed down towards the planet's surface to save as many civilians as they can (60 shoulder-to-shoulder, 50 with a little breathing room).