Chapter 01 Session 11 Wrap Up

Narrative Recap

The dust of the ambush had barely settled when the crew turned their attention to the aftermath scattered across the valley floor. The attackers lay where they had fallen, their ragged, mismatched clothing stitched together over identical jumpsuits, their faces still wrapped in cloth. Six and Rock moved methodically through the bodies, searching each one, while Ronin worked to repack the disturbed cargo crates — a task that went imperfectly, leaving one small box of Castellan Biodynamics vials sitting loose atop the others. What struck the crew most, however, was that every single attacker shared the same face, the same build, the same blank expression frozen in death.

Among the meager possessions found on the bodies were canteens, crude eating utensils, strips of unidentifiable jerky, and small pouches of blackish-gray leaves with tiny spines. When Rock brought one close to examine it, a faint euphoria washed over him just from the proximity. Ronin recognized the substance immediately — black ice, a dangerous neurotoxic stimulant known to drive long-term users into a complete break with reality, a state the street called the red break. Rock’s medical training filled in the rest: the plant was Stimulodiscus pericensis, native to this very moon, a raw amphetamine-like substance that had clearly been sustaining these men in the absence of proper food and medicine. Each clone also carried nearly empty vials and primitive injection equipment, some hospital-grade, some clearly improvised from whatever materials had been at hand.

The crew debated what to do with the leaves. They were a class one controlled biohazard — possession off-world could mean immediate imprisonment and the termination of any corporate contract. But they were also worth something on the black market, and the crew was not flush with credits. After some deliberation, Rock quietly pocketed the consolidated pouch, reasoning that a medic might find some use for them, while Six filled in just enough of the booby-trapped trench to get the vehicle across and the party drove out of the valley without looking back at the bodies they left behind.

As the crew traveled across the vast flatlands beyond the valley, the landscape told a story of industry and exploitation. Wild Black Ice plants grew low along the ground in scattered patches, their dark leaves unmistakable now that the crew knew what to look for. Open-pit mines scarred the terrain, and enormous geodesic bio-domes dotted the plains, their glass panels revealing lush hydroponic gardens within. Everywhere the crew looked, groups of five to ten identical men worked the land and the machinery under the watchful eye of armed overseers in vehicles — clones, all of them, tending crops that would feed more clones, extracting ore that would enrich someone else entirely.

The Roberts estate announced itself through its defenses long before the crew reached its gates. Guard towers, fenced perimeters, and what appeared to be a minefield ring surrounded a compound that looked almost absurdly out of place on this rugged moon — a well-constructed, two-story prefab house that belonged in a wealthy neighborhood on a civilized planet, not here. A guard with a thick, unplaceable accent checked their manifest and waved them through to the medical building, a squat dugout structure half-sunk into the ground. As the crew pulled up, they caught a brief glimpse of a man with a cane stepping off the main house’s porch and driving away in an ATV with a woman beside him. Identical clones offloaded the cargo without a word, and the crew was paid their three hundred credits as the first rumbles of a distant storm began to roll in.

The storm arrived with speed and fury. Workers across the compound scrambled to close heavy metal shutters over every window, drag equipment indoors, and batten down anything that could be taken by the wind. The crew was offered shelter in the guest quarters — a semi-underground building connected to the main house by a locked subterranean passage, featuring six small bunk rooms, a shared bathroom, and steel-shuttered windows that rattled against the howling gale outside. Shack quietly assessed the space for security risks, noting that while the doors could be locked from the inside, there was no mechanism to trap them from without. Six simply lay down on his unmade bunk in full combat armor, helmet on, weapons within reach, and waited.

An hour into the storm, a well-dressed attendant appeared through the passage from the main house, extending an invitation to dine with the estate’s owner, Harding Roberts. The only condition was that all weapons be left behind. Six declared his vibro-axe a tool rather than a weapon and brought it anyway. The crew was escorted through the underground passage and up into the grand hall of the main house, where carved wood, immaculate rugs, oil paintings, and taxidermied trophies from a dozen worlds lined every wall. A portrait of a woman in clothing that clashed spectacularly with the rest of the decor hung prominently in the hall, a detail that Ronin quietly noted with the eye of someone who understood the difference between wealth and taste.

In the study, Ronin poured drinks from the decanters waiting on the side table and handed them around with practiced ease, then drifted toward the bookcase to examine the collection of rare paper books. When Harding Roberts finally entered — walking with a cane, a metal brace visible along one leg, dressed in a full suit — Ronin immediately questioned the authenticity of the paper volumes, earning a sharp look from their host. The woman who entered with Roberts, still wearing her dusty travel clothes, poured herself a large glass of brown liquor without ceremony and settled onto a couch, where she remained largely silent for the rest of the evening. Six, meanwhile, had fixed his attention entirely on the taxidermied creatures along the walls, reading their plaques and repeatedly interrupting Roberts’ proud hunting stories to demand only the biological facts about each beast — how it moved, how it fought — flatly telling the man “I do not care” whenever the stories veered toward personal glory.

Dinner was a formal, multi-course affair served by clone butlers dressed in white tails, who moved through the dining room with mechanical precision. Six attempted to distribute crumpled, travel-worn P.E.T.A. pamphlets to each of the clone servants as they passed; the clones accepted the papers without any change in expression and pocketed them without a word. When Naja mentioned there were only two things to do on the moon for entertainment, Six bluntly asked how much she charged for sex — a question that landed with the social grace of a dropped rifle, visibly mortifying Ronin while Naja, after a moment of surprise, simply accepted the proposition and led Six away later that evening. Over the meal, Harding explained the nature of the clones: bioengineered workers purchased from Castellan Biodynamics, kept alive by the very drug the crew had just delivered. He confirmed that rogue clones occasionally went feral as the drug wore off and their minds deteriorated, and that the biometric data of eliminated clones could be redeemed for small bounties at the outpost. He also spoke at length about the Acheronites — descendants of the original corporate settlers who viewed the moon’s claims as their birthright and resented every off-world interloper who had come to take what they had built.

In the dead of night, with the storm still raging, Rock was jolted awake by the sound of gunfire. He moved quickly through the guest quarters, waking the crew one by one. Six was on his feet instantly, fully armed, listening through the howl of the wind. Outside, through flashes of lightning, figures in overseer clothing were sprinting to vehicles, and spotlights were sweeping the plains beyond the compound walls. Shack and Six pushed out into the storm and made their way to the main house porch, where Harding Roberts was shouting orders into the chaos. Scavengers had used the cover of the storm to break into the medical building and steal supplies. Roberts was already moving toward a waiting vehicle. Six climbed in without hesitation, and Shack followed.

Rock, meanwhile, found the medical building’s overseer badly beaten inside, a deep gash across his head. He worked quickly and skillfully, stabilizing the man before noticing that one of the delivered crates was missing from the room. The crew’s transport vehicle, parked nearby, bore fresh scorch marks from blaster fire — the scavengers had used it as cover during the raid. Out on the plains, the pursuit was already underway. Three other estate vehicles were chasing a battered, rust-eaten version of the same ATV design, a large stolen crate jammed awkwardly into its back seat. Six spent several turns in careful, methodical aim, bracing against the bouncing vehicle, accounting for the rain and the darkness and the distance, before firing a precise burst that blew out the fleeing vehicle’s rear tire and sent it lurching across the muddy ground at half speed.

As the gap closed to less than fifty yards, Six took aim at the exposed driver again. The shot was clean and lethal. The vehicle snapped sideways, flipped, and rolled violently across the plains, throwing its occupants and the stolen crate in every direction. Naja reached the wreckage first, moving from body to body among the survivors and putting each one down without ceremony. Harding Roberts pulled up beside the carnage and congratulated Six on a remarkable shot. Six replied that it was average. The stolen crate was recovered, and the convoy returned to the compound through the dying storm.

Morning brought cold bacon, unidentifiable meat, and a breakfast on the porch that was a far cry from the previous evening’s formal dinner. Harding rewarded the crew with ten credits each for their help and pressed a business card into Shack’s hand — an introduction to Aliya Pontecorvo at The Krusty Sextant back at Acheron’s Rest, a woman who handled below-board shipping for Roberts and could arrange quick cash for crews willing to move cargo that didn’t bear close inspection. He spoke at length about Federal Republic taxes, off-world claim jumpers, and the ecological damage being done to his moon by less scrupulous mining operations, before climbing into a chauffeured vehicle and driving away to deal with the aftermath of the night’s events. The crew loaded up and made the long drive back across the hundreds of square miles of Roberts’ claim, arriving at Acheron’s Rest as the weather turned to snow.

At The Krusty Sextant — a cluttered parts shop with wrecked ATV frames piled out back — Shack and Six presented Roberts’ card to an android clerk and asked for Aliya. She emerged from the back room in pilot’s gear, her silent android companion taking up a watchful position nearby. The job she offered was straightforward in outline if not in legality: pick up cargo at a hidden site on the moon, deliver it to a clandestine station near Peric III, collect a second load there, and run it to the Katha system for three thousand credits. The cargo was not clones — Six made certain of that — but it was not legal either, and other parties might try to take it in transit. When Shack attempted to offload the Black Ice leaves, Aliya dismissed them as barely worth the trouble locally. The crew accepted the contract, and after some discussion about destination systems, Six’s interest in seeing bioluminescent jellyfish on Katha V quietly tipped the scales toward the Katha system.

The pickup went smoothly. Ronin flew the ship low and slow across Harding’s land to a camouflaged landing site where Naja was waiting, and a team of clones loaded crates into the cargo bay with practiced efficiency. Two of the clones then simply sat down on top of the crates and stared into the middle distance. When the crew asked about them, Naja explained they were hitching a ride to the next stop. The ship departed for Peric III, where a small rocket-powered drone intercepted them, performed a full-length scan of the hull, and then transmitted new coordinates via a silent text signal. Following the coordinates into the shadow of one of the system’s moons, the crew found a small zero-G station where a man named Santo Jin, sealed into a medical suit, oversaw the exchange of cargo. When Rock offered to treat the injured clones visible on the station, Santo Jin shut him down immediately. Through a briefly open door, the crew caught a glimpse of a zero-G laboratory staffed by clones operating complex hose-and-vessel apparatuses — and spotted crates of Black Ice leaves among the supplies. Santo Jin handed over a memory stick with a mining equipment manifest and delivery instructions, and the crew departed.

Rather than risk interception by using the standard jump gates, the crew chose to perform a blind jump directly to the Katha system — a far more dangerous maneuver with no pre-scanned destination data to guide them. They flew the ship to a remote stretch of empty space, plotted the most conservative trajectory they could manage by aiming for open space well away from any planetary body, and opened the vortex. The jump was a success. Four days later, the ship dropped back into normal space in the Katha system, on schedule and intact. During the transit, Shack put the time to use: with careful work and a specialized tool, he finally cracked the biometric thumbprint lock that had been securing a captured beam rifle since Aethel, rendering it usable by any member of the crew. Six, for his part, offered to begin teaching Rock how to handle a pistol — a skill the medic had long acknowledged he sorely lacked. The Katha system waited ahead of them, and with it, a delivery to make, a station to infiltrate, and somewhere beyond that, a planet full of glowing jellyfish.

Memorable Moments

Six, upon entering the study and seeing the taxidermied trophies, repeatedly interrupts Harding Roberts’ proud hunting stories to demand only creature biology facts, flatly telling him ‘I do not care’ whenever Roberts veers into self-aggrandizement.

Six’s literal, detached worldview clashing hilariously with a wealthy big-game hunter’s ego during a formal social visit

Six hands crumpled, travel-worn P.E.T.A. pamphlets to the clone butlers during the formal dinner. The clones stoically pocket them without any acknowledgment whatsoever.

Six’s earnest attempt at clone advocacy during a high-society dinner, completely ignored by the very beings he was trying to help

“How much do you charge for sex?” — Six

Bluntly asking Naja after she mentioned there were only two things to do on the moon for entertainment, causing Ronin visible embarrassment

Six fires a precise ten-shot burst from 100 yards in a torrential rainstorm at night, blowing out the scavenger vehicle’s tire and slowing the fleeing thieves.

A calculated, methodical shot after three full turns of careful aiming while bouncing through the storm in a pursuit vehicle

Six fires a lethal shot at the exposed driver of the fleeing scavenger vehicle at 44 yards, killing him instantly and causing the vehicle to flip and roll violently, throwing all occupants and the stolen cargo across the plains.

The decisive end to a high-speed storm chase, impressing even Harding Roberts who called it a remarkable shot

“It was average.” — Six

Six’s deadpan response to Harding Roberts congratulating him on his ‘remarkable shot’ that ended the storm chase

Six discovers hot running water for the first time and spends so long in the shower that he uses all the hot water, leaving the entire rest of the crew with cold showers before breakfast.

A man who has only ever used sonic showers encountering the simple luxury of hot water, with predictably selfish results

Through an open door at Santo Jin’s hidden zero-G station, the crew glimpses clones operating a complex laboratory apparatus with hoses and liquids, and spots crates of Black Ice leaves among the supplies — suggesting a clandestine drug operation.

A brief, unsettling look behind the curtain of the smuggling operation the crew has just become entangled in

Shack successfully removes the biometric thumbprint lock from the captured beam rifle using his armory skills and a burned gizmo, finally freeing the weapon for any crew member to use after it had been locked since Aethel.

A long-awaited technical breakthrough that the crew had been trying to accomplish since a previous session