Session 22: Dying to Get Out of the Graveyard Report

General Summary

Introduction

"Good Evening, I'm Rick Rakely of Universal Media with breaking news. The Galaxy rejoices tonight as the Krasian Meritocracy's brutal expansion into the Rim comes to a grinding halt, bringing an end to the largest military expansion in recent history with a death toll currently estimated at around 37 million. Support for the expansion of the Borders and colonization of several Rim worlds has dwindled recently with Citizens inside of the Krasian Territories, especially after the disastrous military blunder at the Hersperus Nebula. The military resistance of several notable Rim-centric corporations, including the Caspian Mining Corporation and the Star Forge's own FreeST, combined with the reported assistance of several disreputable organizations, put a grinding halt on the Krasian Navy's seemingly unstoppable advance in what is now being called the War of Colonization. This defeat seems to have left the Krasian navy unable to advance with the same brutish force that allowed them to previously disregard the economic and diplomatic pressures they have been receiving from both the ATS and Versian Binderate over the last few years. The protests of citizens on Krasia Prime have forced the new Accolade to acknowledge the loss of support from their Citizenry and all reports indicate that the Krasian navy has been withdrawn into the Krasian Territory from the newly claimed "Krasian Colonies". In a press conference held earlier this evening, President Merryweather called for a de-escalation of military presence along the Krasian border and a renewal of trade revealing a stop to the current embargo in recognition for the Accolade's secession of hostilities. While this is excellent news for the Rim as a whole, no reports indicate a removal of Krasian forces from the several planets previously held by the Caspian Mining Corporation, including their primary refinery in the Sihnon System."   FreeST Supervisor Jaquelyn Mayfield released the following statement in response to the demilitarization and the President's announcement: 'This absolute massacre of simple, hardworking colonists was ignored for too long by both the President and the Law despite our warnings and multiple requests to both entities for military assistance. The Core will try to claim credit for this victory as they always do. Let no one forget that only the combined effort of Rimmers, supported by corporate entities like FreeST and CMC focused on improving the Rim and lives of freedom-loving colonists actually put a stop to this galactic level tragedy. Krasia has shown their true colors and murderous intentions to anyone who refuses to kneel to their supremacy and we Rimmers will never forget. Krasian must never permitted to rise again, and while we stand together, while we stand with strength of steel in our hands and titanium in our hearts, the Rim will never fall.' This development, and more, will continued to be covered by Universal Media for all citizens of the ATS. This is Rick Rakely signing off."

149 years later

Shards of the KPO Demorte rain across the hull of the Intrepid Explorer as the ship rides the rippling shockwave of the battlecruiser's explosion outward. Li and Alexa, combining their talents to reveal expert control of the slow, unwieldy ship, manage to keep the ship angled to optimally prevent the blast or shockwave from ripping apart the freighter. The Intrepid Explorer dives down as the blast lessens and the crew inside manage to find their feet stable once more. The static of the radio, only broken by occasional fanatical proclamations from the flagship of this assault so far, crackles over your coms as long as they remain forced opened by the local general alert channel.   As the immediate attack slows and you each have a moment to process what you are seeing, each of you look out and begin to comprehend the severity of what is happening around you. It has been over a century, but the stories of Krasia's brutal assault on the 'untamed' portion of the galaxy and the long recovery the universe went through in the aftermath are still taught to students from all backgrounds, granted with different takes. What you are looking out at as the lights of massive gravity cannons rip from the large battleships around the graveyard, as wings of fighters fly in formations of 3 spiraling around the Scav's outmatched Hornet Pods and Chariots, and as you see the distant specks of the Krasian titans, massive ship-like mechs, nimbly blast into fleeing ships approaching the perimeterwhat you see is an organized military offense with obvious precise information and careful preparation coordinated in an assault on one of the only organized forces that could warn, or even possibly slow, a new Krasian assault on the Rim. The military strength surrounding you should not, to anyone's knowledge, have been possible to muster within the Colonies without alerting someone...but it obviously has been. It is the strength of a nation intent on conquering the universe...a military effort that the Rim has not prepared to counter as no one believed it had anything to prepare for.   Finally, you see ships, both your size and smaller ships like Chariots, attempt to jump past the tightening perimeter of battleships into the Asteroid Belt. The battleships of various sizes fire repeatedly into any ships approaching or attempting to slip past. Even without Empathy checks, a rising fear gives you clarity on what you are seeing on an internal level. They can't and won't let anyone escape if at all possible. This force has the element of surprise on the galaxy as a whole as long as each and every ship here is disabled or destroyed. This force remains that much stronger, that much more deadly, every moment that any proof of its existence is contained.   You find yourselves drifting on the remnants of the shockwave below where the Demorte once stood at the seat of the Court of Scavs, its debris pelting against your hull and spreading around you, and have moment to look for a pattern in the chaos. It seems that the largest ships, the truly powerful ones larger than the Intrepid Explorer capable of incredible destruction, have a perimeter on X,Y, and Z planes surrounding the inhabited portion of the Graveyard and are slowly pushing in while destroying all nearby ships and large ship hulls. Inside of this closing net, wings of Fighters zip around nimbly and seem intent on destroying all moving ships.

Positioning at Start

Rose, Kyra, and Chiara are all in the hallway leading to Rose's newly assigned bunk. Rose is pushing herself back up after her gut reaction, Chiara is bracing against the wall as the ship went careening with the blast, and Kyra stands in the doorway bracing herself instinctually as the shockwave subsides. To my knowledge, Alicia went back towards her bunk as things began. Mark and William Blake come running down the hallway towards the cockpit. Li and Dash are in the Cockpit. The blue light from Alexa spirals around the cockpit frantically as her mind zips from one system to another.

Game Start

Masterful Deception

The Crew immediately took a moment to examine their surrounds as the shockwave dissipated. As they did so, Rose caught sight out the port window of the Shieldbrovs. One slumped over his Hornet with a chunk of metal in his back while the other seemed frozen upright in place. She alerted Kyra, but they slipped out of sight before she noticed them. Meanwhile, Li and Dash spotted a fighter wing approaching them rapidly in attack formation. Dash ordered William Blake into the turret but said to hold fire.   Jason ran his Black Box taken from the Demorte to Alicia. She managed to break into the Box, hack its ID, and alter it just enough to be able to broadcast a slightly altered Krasian Military ID. By a stroke of Fate, the ID randomly chosen was a correct ID that wasn't present in the battle already. They ran towards Systems to hook it up so the ship could attempt to use it to deflect attention off themselves. Rose and Kyra headed towards the cockpit with Chiara limping behind and Rose dealing with the aftermath of her nausea. Kyra ran to join Alicia in the systems room while Jason followed the others to the cockpit. They immediately went to work in surpressing the Jammed Signal keeping their coms on a static alert signal.   With the ID in place, they avoided a series of attacks by the fighter wing narrowly while preparing their plot. Rose used her hologram technology to look like a Krasian SpecOps, then Dash and Jason provided her with legitimate Krasian military ID codes from their service to transmit. With their help, she bluffed the squadron leader into standing down as they drifted towards a capital ship by claiming to be a returning special operative team coming from the Demorte with data obtained by Slade. Meanwhile, they broadcasted a Krasian operative distress signal to the Capital Ship to convince them to hold fire and open communications.   They were contacted by Lady Ash while their radio was restored asking for them to rendevous and assist Lady Ash and the chariots with her to escape past the opening Taylor's pod (and a second pod assisting her) opened through the barricade. She called in one of their favors owed for them to come and support them by serving as a diversion so the Chariots could slip by unharmed. Dash recognized the remaining ship as the Kiani-Adler, recalling the mercenary group encountered on Nibian 6. 4 members of Taylor's pod seemed to be the only remaining combat forces protecting them from the encroaching Battlecruiser. The group refused, claiming it was a suicide mission, then debated before Rose used her screwdriver to feign feedback over the line. The last words they heard from Lady Ash were "This will not be forgotten."   The fighter wing backed down as Rose began to trick the Captain of the ship and convince them of their returning SpecOps mission, the lie that they had volatile materials on board (to avoid being tractor beamed in), while also trying to convince them that the Kiani-Adler was compromised by Scav spies. In a final, clutch move, Dash transferred a video file taken from Nibian 6 of Jack Morrison shooting Sonya MacKay dead in their cargo bay. The Captain watched it, seemed flummoxed, then began to have his people verify the authenticity.

A Demon in the Works

While still talking, the feed randomly cut out. Moments later, the entire ship's power flashed and stopped. Red lights kicked on as emergency power spun to life. The cockpit crew heard a slam of metal behind them as the turret hatch slammed shut, followed by William Blake's muffled cursing. Spinning around, they ran back into the ship to find William's hatch locked with a large piece of metal forcefully shoved between the lock and hatch to seal it. Li and Jason grabbed and yanked on the metal to dislodge it while Dash ran towards the engine room and the noise he'd heard. Rose ran a quick diagnostics on the ship before sprinting towards the Systems room as well.
Jason and Li pulled the metal free, releasing the flash bomb trap the metal was holding in place. Before it had fully fallen to the floor, Jason threw his body over the grenade and soaked the blast to protect Li and the others. William Blake was released from the hatch and descended after them. Jason ran after Dash while Li followed Rose and Chiara.   Meanwhile, Kyra and Alicia had discovered that the door to their systems room was locked. They immediately began running diagnostics on the ship's systems, discovered damage to the Engines and second Systems room, and managed to boost the Emergency Power to buy themselves a few more seconds before life support failed. There was a horrific noise at the door before they realized that Jason was forcefully ripping the door open to free them. The panel outside had been sabotaged and damaged to seal them inside. They ran together towards the systems room to try and restore power to the ship before life support failed. Enroute, they saw Rose (still holographically a Krasian Demon) and Alicia dove for protection in the hallway. Rose and Li ran into the Systems room and began repairing the blatant, haphazard sabotage until Alicia, Jason, Chiara, and Kyra joined them moments later.   Meanwhile, Dash ran into the right-most Engines room. He saw the obvious sabotage, but his keen senses revealed the prescence of someone else. He was assaulted from the dark, flashing shadows by a Krasian SpecOps Demon, the man they had left unguarded temporarily in the Smuggler's Hold, who struck out with his sharp blade. They battled back and forth for a few moments, Dash quickly realizing that the man had the blazing mark of Fate warped in threads around his head when peering at him with Fateweaving. The man ducked with superhuman power in and out of stealth as they fought in the engine room until William Blake arrived. The Demon, Captain Harland, appeared behind William Blake. Only their training together and his survival instincts gave William the warning to move out of the blade that headed for his back.
The demon vanished again as Dash pushed himself deeper into his Fateweaving trance to try and fight him. He found the thick, silvery cord rising off of the man as he vanished and ran. Dash reached forward, grasped the cord, and ripped it apart with all of his willpower. His Curse of Fate symbol on his leg burned until his entire leg was charred and injured, but he snapped the cord. As he did so, the man went flying backwards into the wall unconscious as the power flickered back on from the efforts of the rest of the crew.   William helped Dash to the cockpit where they met the rest, sans Alicia and Kyra who ran to repair the engine damage. Rose continued her deception and they convinced Captain Bilson of the Chihoa to apprehend the Kiani-Adler. They assured him their ship would remain there for him as his ship drifted away, leaving them an opening to escape. They saw Lady's Ash's chariots escape the Kiani-Adler into the asteroid belt as well as they slowly, deceptively drifted towards the opening. They were approached by a final fighter wing, recently returned from destroying another chariot, and narrowly managed to convince this squadron leader to check with Captain Bilson before attacking them. Two of the fighters remained nearby as the ace moved towards the Capital ship. As soon as their engines were online and Li's gut told him it was safe while drifting and waiting, they gunned it for the edge of the Asteroid Field.

Rewards Granted

[Major Milestone]

Missions/Quests Completed

Attack on the Graveyard