Call to Adventure - From Outside of Our Galaxy
IFN (Interplanetary Freight Network) is an organisation filled with people of questionable pasts. As long as you have a basic pilot license, people here will gladly rent you a broken old mech for you to go kill yourself working in space. It is rumoured that most who joined don't survive past their first year. However, if you managed to survive your 10 years contract, you would be recognised as a professional respected in any circle. Despite this reputation, the network doesn't do much in the way of monitoring the captains and ME suit pilots in its employ. Infighting is common and members of the network are often even hired by opposing sides of a conflict. The network itself only utilizes a decentralized ledger system to record each individual's contract completion and rewards. Do NOT trust anyone you meet on your missions. While some might help you, they may just kill you for their next contract.
It has only been a few days since you joined up with the IFN deep-space transport ship Nergüi for your first mission as entrants to the network. Due to the urgency of this mission, you have been burning at 1.5G towards your target for several days. The increased gravity has taken a toll on everyone but you try to manage. As all of you are still new, the captain has confined you to your ME suit cockpits. Food is brought to your hatches by automated drones and you are only allowed out for an occasional biobreak. With your suits magnetically clamped to the outside of the ship with its thrusters locked, one wrong move and your suit, together with yourself will be ejected into the void of space. The Nergüi is no better than a flying prison.
You saw the hatches of the other four ME suits. They are suffering the 1.5G as well. You can almost feel the stress and anxiety emanating from them. The destination is the location of the next contract. As far as you know, it is an unnamed mining station within the asteroid belt. This mission is highly unusual. While your captain is said highly experienced, the entire team of ME suit pilots are just entrants new to the network. They are sending a new crew but with an experienced captain on a mission with no intel, not even the name of the station. You can shake the feeling that you are sent just to meet your death.
Plot points/Scenes
Scene 1
"We are close. Prepare for 2G deceleration burn in 10 minutes." You quickly finished your business and returned to your suit. The transports engine turned off, making you immediately weightless. A force pressed you to the side of your pilot chair, that is the flip. With a powerful rumble, your entire weight is squeezed into your chair. You feel crushed by your own flesh and bone, the head attached to your neck was about to rip itself off if not for the chair. "Meet me in the briefing room. If you don't wish to come, you and your suit will be abandoned right here." It was the voice of the captain. Moving in 2G will be challenging. Everyone in the briefing room can barely stand. Except for the captain, apparently. Despite wearing a thick, armoured combat suit, he stands straight like a soldier."I figured it will be good for us to meet face to face before we officially start our mission. We're not expected to see combat but the place we are going is definitely not safe for you rookies." He expanded a map on the briefing room's projection table. "This is the station we are going to. Currently, it is surrounded by hundreds of rogue asteroids. Last we heard from the station, a giant asteroid nearby broke up. Chunks of the broken asteroid resulted in this debris field. The anti-asteroid weapons kicked into high gear but so far they are barely holding on. Your mission is to go in and retrieve the personal and any data the mining station may have. You may need to blast through a few asteroids in your way, but otherwise, keep your guns in their holsters." Through your suit's monitor screen, you see a distant asteroid fragment quickly approaching. It's in your way. A muffled clash of metal can be heard from your magnetic clamp to the ship. The asteroid shattered. "Nice shot." The captain commended. The asteroid field you encountered is much denser than expected. Usually, asteroids are kilometres apart. However, within your immediate detection range, there are already a few dozen asteroids travelling in seemingly random motion. Fortunately, your computers systems are integrated with the ship much more powerful sensor array. Your captain's voice came through the intercom, "There is no way this ship can make through the debris unscathed! All of you will have to proceed on your own. Do your job and I'll make sure I pick you up once you are done so we can get out of here! Don't worry, the anti-asteroid weapons seem to be operating so far, your job should not be a challenging one." With a loud metallic clang, your ME suits detached. The sound reverberated through your bones and into your head. "Thrusters unlocked." Your suit reported. Checking your suit's controls, all systems are nominal.Scene 2
A few asteroid fragments came close but were quickly obliterated. As the group inches closer to their destination, more asteroid fragments impede their journey. Some of the fragments are larger than the ME suits themselves. The team avoided what they can and obliterated what they cannot. The MPI defence grid on each suit is forced into overdrive, vaporizing the micro shards of high-velocity stone and ice before they can touch the suits. The entire section of space is so full of asteroid dust that even laser communicators began to fail. As the team proceeded toward their objective, strange phenomena began to occur. Every once in a while, everyone can feel a sudden force pulling on their suit. Powerful enough to jerk ME suits with a mass of several tons. Sudden enough to catch the most experienced pilot among them off-guard. Direction, seemingly random. While not deadly, the unusual occurrence put the entire team on edge. What happened here? Finally, the anti-asteroid weapons are now within scanner range. "Mayday, mayda... mayday! This is mini... station... ... We're experiencing extre... gravitati... anomal... Most dea... A few surv... Help..." A distress beacon sets on repeat. Its signal obscured by dense dust that is now almost as thick as smoke. Before anyone had time to digest the message, the captain's voice came. "The mission does not change. Approach the station under the cover of the anti-asteroid weapons. Save anyone who is still alive, extract any data available." The anti-asteroid weapons are now in sight. Lasers, railguns and missiles destroy any asteroids coming into range. At the exact same moment, the intercom on every suit began broadcasting a message. "Cat 5 debris storm. Cat 5 debris storm. IFF disabled. Do not approach. You will be fired upon." An eerie silence envelops the entire team. "I fucking knew it!" Emanual swears. "Continue the mission. If you back out now, I'll leave you to die right here. As a sign of support, I'm sending in two repair drones." The voice was cold and emotionless, all of you knew he was serious. There is no choice but to carry on. "Let's rush this!" Tom Mario's voice came through the intercom as he accelerated forward, the end goal in sight. His railgun smashed through a small asteroid approaching dangerously close. The solid tungsten slug barely slowed down. As the team gets closer, the strange phenomena are also increasing in both intensity and frequency. It seems to be building up to something. The mining station is almost within reach now, just a few more minutes! A bright flash of light engulfed everyone. Every electromagnetic sensor, visual, x-ray, infrared, was immediately overwhelmed. Radiation warning blared with every monitor screen completely overtaken by white.Scene 3
As the light fades, a hypercube of brilliant white sits between everyone. Leaking gravity, it pulls ME suits and asteroids to its side. Even gigantic asteroids kilometres in diameter cannot resist its power. In desperation, the team tossed at it laser beams, railgun slugs and everything else they can muster. Every contact, another bright flash. Gravity pushes and pulls, the metal and composite that made up the frame of your suit groans under pressures they were never meant to handle. There's no way any of you can reach the mining station now. Only the rail gun round was stubborn enough. "Woops..." Tom watched helplessly as the tungsten slug impacted the communications antenna. "At least the annoying mayday signal stopped." He quibbled. "The hypercube... It looks exactly like Edward teleport anchor!" The quiet thought sweeps through everyone's minds. You have no time to care about that now. Finally, it has had enough. Gravity stretched from its centre, with seeming intentions this time. It wormed past you, feels around your suits. Your actions did not please it. You are ignored. The asteroids are more obedient, ready material for construction. The hypercube is pleased. The asteroids are yanked from their natural paths, determined by inertia and kinetic forces. They pull close to the asteroid, smashing into one another. The anti-asteroid weapons, previously disabled by the bright flash are now crushed between them. Occasional flashes of explosion can be seen between the gathering asteroids before they fall silent. Like a hermit crab, the hypercube has found its asteroid shell. Feeling its new home, it released another pulse of energy, gentler this time. "Cat 5 deb... Cat 5 debris sto... IFF... Do n... ...Fired upon!" Whatever anti-asteroid weapons that remain come online, seemingly corrupted by a touch of the gentle energy. Tom finally managed to land on their original objective, the mining station. He hopes no one was hurt by his careless mistakes. As his suit computer scanned through the base, there was no sign of any living creature's heat signature. If anyone is alive, they are hidden deep inside. Walked past the crater that was the antenna, he found a maintenance entrance designed for ME suits to perform repairs and entered. All dead. Everyone is dead. Perhaps it was the proximity to the hypercube, perhaps it was something else. These people were crushed and smashed into a pulp onto the wall. Tom proceeds deeper. All of you need the data here if you want the captain to bring you out of this hellscape. Tom found it, the central data servers. After locating the connection port, he carefully extended out a data cable from the front of his suit. "Connection established... Downloading." His suit prompted. "Filter the security camera feed. Play the most recent recording of anything important." "137 H.E., December 5th, 1 pm, Earth time. Recording of the central laboratory. Tagged, experiment 31. Mild corruption detected." The computer on his ME suit announced. A video feed appears and the voice of an unknown man. "I'm sorry! We’re sorry! Humanity is sorry! Don’t hurt me, please! We didn’t know! If only we knew..." The footage ended with a bright flash of white. Outside, the team is circling the amalgam of asteroids and weapons that were once the hypercube. They nimbly dodge the lasers, anti-asteroid guns and the occasional missiles. Whatever controlling the weapons seems to have a poor grasp of their purpose, often firing into nothing but empty space. Layers of stone and ice were peeled off like peeling an orange. Vladimir and Jack pulled asteroid guns off their sockets. Jack even tried to fire one. Alas, without an appropriate hardpoint, the recoil is simply too great. "We have the data." Tom emerged from the mining tunnels of the station. "Get us out of here." He pinged on the Nergüi channel. "Good job! I knew you would not disappoint. I'm on my way. Destroy that Amalgam so we can leave this place." It was the captain. The Nergüi can be seen quickly approaching the station. "Gotcha!" It was Edward . For some time, he has been lurking at the edge of the battlefield. He seemed to be assisting the fight by eliminating incoming asteroids. However, as the Nergüi passes by, his suit quickly grabbed onto the hull of the ship, avoiding the magnetic clamps that trapped them before. "I already have my teleport anchors set up. Surrender or I teleport a chunk of this ship with me!" "You think I would let you do that?" The captain's smug voice came through the intercom. "System locked down. All advance functions disabled." Edward's suit reported. In his primary display, he can see a mechanical arm reaching out, grabbing his suit by its thorax. The direction of its movement shows its intention, to attach this suit to the magnetic clamps. In desperation, Edward repeatedly scanned the Nergüi. The ship is much more complex than he realised. Under the hull of a simple deep-space transport, drone systems, sophisticated scanners, even what seems like a massive jammer array. Everything hidden by the ordinary hull of one of the most common ship configurations. "Who are you?" Edward asked bitterly. "You think you can steal from us without us noticing? Be happy that I'm not destroying right here because I need your help." The captain coldly responded. It was at this moment, another bright flash. The amalgam can no longer hold itself together and broke apart. A celebratory feeling rushed through the cockpits of everyone. "Quick, come to me before it reforms! I'll bring you out!" As the dust settles, the hypercube at its centre is visible again. Pulsating, annoyed that its new shell is shattered, the hypercube is looking for a new home. Without a choice, the rest of the team reattached themselves to the Nergüi. Now that they are a safe distance away from the hypercube anomaly. "Just who are you?" Tom asked. "You seem to be expecting this, whatever this is. I think you owe us an explanation. If you want the data from my suit, I need you to give some explanations right now." "Indeed, I do owe you. And I need that data. Currently, this channel is open to all of your ME suits. I am here looking for Mok and more importantly his ME suit. He has stolen something from the network. An experimental teleportation device that can potentially help us not only to leave Earth but the solar system. Think of what we can do out there! I did not reveal myself at the start because we don't know his understanding of teleportation technology. Fortunately, it seems like he knows very little. You have 30 seconds to decide if you want to join me." Tom submitted to the captain. Vladimir boasts about his wealth, promising the captain rewards if he is allowed to return to his family. Emanual submitted too. Jack told the captain that he will only follow if he agrees with the captain's actions. Even Edward seems to give up, claiming that he was not the one who stole the technology. Though deep down, Edward is getting ready to escape when he has the chance. "Very well! If we agree then let me bring you to our headquarters. We will decide how we deal with you once we are..." The captain's voice shuts off abruptly and everything went dark. A vibration came through your hull. Someone is vibrating the hull of the ship and its magnetically attached suits to talk to you. "This is the Exclusion Zone Enforcement Agency of the asteroid belt. We have been observing your actions for some time now. You have violated the Joint Declaration of Shared Responsibility for the Asteroid Belts . We are bringing you back for questioning. Knock on your hull three times to indicate your submission. Resistance will not be tolerated." Maybe it was the hull vibration, the voice that came through was gravelly and all-encompassing. One by one, each pilot knocked on their hull. Three times. The echoes pulsate and resonate. Five sets of knocks were heard. Two missing. It was Edward and the captain. As the echoes fade, tension rises. There was no further communication. You are in complete darkness. There was no sound. Your eyes hallucinate a caleidoscope. Among the brilliant colours, you see a dot of white. It did not disappear like the other colours. Instead, it grew brighter. Soon, all other colours were overtaken with a blinding white.
Completion Date
H.E. 137 Mar 26
H.E. 137 Mar 26
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