Relay Station 11

Overview

A remote communications array atop a fifty-foot concrete platform in the jungle of Thides III — one of the relay stations the crew’s maintenance run was meant to service. Like the others it carries a sensor and comms array, an equipment shack, retractable escape ladders, and a perimeter of EM diffusers whose faint yellow glow and hum keep the wildlife off the tower. Unlike the others, Relay 11 is a lie.

The crew reached it on foot after their transport was downed, Six shooting a release bolt to drop a locked ladder while a Chitinoteuthis closed in and eventually tore the ladder away. Resting on the platform, Jareth Brand found the terminal locked with an unrecognized password and the maintenance logs showing the station falsely marked as serviced for over two years under an unknown name. Following a wire from the shack, they found a hexagonal alien device with shifting three-dimensional symbols — identical to the tech in the Processing II shipping container — wired into the communications array, jamming the crew’s signals and feeding the false maintenance record. From the platform, Shackleton Magellan’s telescope revealed the distant Kinetic Logistics Compound and a vortex dropping a ship into it. Six cut the device’s wiring with his vibro-axe, killing the platform’s power and diffusers, and the crew left the thumper beacon running as a decoy before descending into the jungle.

Points of Interest

• Equipment shack — locked terminal, falsified logs, the wire leading to the alien jammer.
• Hexagonal alien jammer — same family as the Mysterious Relay / Kinetic Logistics Container tech; scrambled comms and forged the maintenance signal.
• Retractable escape ladders — released by a bolt on the underside; one torn off by the Chitinoteuthis.
• EM diffusers — went dark when Six cut the alien device’s power coupling.

Appearances

• Session 3 (Session 03 - Buckle Up Motherfuckers) — The crew’s refuge after the crash and the site of the session’s central discovery: falsified logs, an alien comms jammer, and a first sighting of the Kinetic Logistics Compound. Left powered-down with a decoy beacon running.

Relationships

• Part of Thides III — One of the relay platforms on the restricted world's maintenance circuit — the eleventh, unserviced.