IY6026.306
SAFCO and Caliban Tisk still in orbit of planet Chamax.
Lucky, Flint, and Caliban, in vacc suits, are standing inside the alien disk ship, just inside the cargo door. Atmosphere is still escaping that ship. Roger uses the mining pods claws to grab the edge of that door, as he has noticed the escaping air is thrusting the ship away slightly. He exits the pod and joins the others. Barney and Fardt remain about the ramble, Barney at the pilots seat and Fardt in the bottom turret.
Lucky closes the door of the disk ship. As it closes, the ships interior lights activate. They notices the sound of “a ship returning to life” as the vessel’s systems come back online. Their vacc suits indicate the temperature inside is -100 C.
Looking ahead, there is a central ramp that leads up. On either side is a ramp that leads down apparently to a lower deck. Just inside there is a 1 meter by 1 meter hatch on the walls of each of the side ramps.
Looking down the left down ramp, no lit up, Lucky sees about 10 meters away one of the meter-diameter fur balls they found on the planet that are apparently hibernating creatures.
Going up the central ramp, Roger gets to the end and finds a curving corridor to the left and right. Down to the right he sees a fur ball.
The fur balls are not moving. Lucky uses binoculars to look at his. There are no apparent eyes or other sensory organs focused on him. It is just a fur ball.
Rogers check his suit. They have been in the ship a while now, and it is warming as the systems come back online. Up to -90 C now.
Lucky looks at the square hatch in the right side ramp walls It is 1×1 meter square. He makes and Engineering roll. He recognizes that it is a fairly low-tech hatch. A simple mechanical latch. He estimates based on that they are dealing with a lower than Imperial average tech level.
Caliban and Flint are on the left side ramp. They open that hatch. Caliban stoops and looks through. He sees a curving corridor, and about 10 meters in is another fur all.
Flint advocated simply kicking the frozen/hibernation fur balls into space. Caliban, experienced in alien first contact, thinks they may be dealing with an intelligent species. He further mentions to SAFCO that if they can make a positive first contact they might be able to benefit financially from any contracts they can make with them. He asks Barney, aboard the Rambler-II, to broadcast some of the strange radio signals they found on the planet.
Barney moves to the communications panel and does just that, and notices that the alien ship is now broadcasting radio signals. He records them and send them through the ships computer (makes COMP roll) and successfully analyzes them. They match similar patterns of what might be S-O-S or “Hailing Frequencies Open” or “We are here” kinds of simple signals. Caliban records them.
The alien ship continues to warm. Flint suggests they reopen the cargo door to cool the ship back down. He is concerned about waking up the creatures.
Caliban uses his radio, up close, to broadcast the alien signals right at the fur ball in front of him. He’s not listening to the other’s conversation. Flint re-tethers himself to Lucky and braces himself against the small square portal opening. Lucky moves to the cargo door control and uses his Elec-3 skill to try to use the alien controls to only raise the door a little bit to bleed off some of the warming atmosphere.
Caliban sees his fur ball beginning to quiver. He is determined for a successful first contact.
He manages to raise it only 1 meter, but that’s a lot. The air begins whooshing out. Flint easily braces himself and is not sucked out. Lucky misses his roll and is sucked out into space, tethered to Flint. On the upper deck, a fur ball is sucked past Roger, who makes a DEX save to avoid it smashing into him. He then fails his STR save and is blown down the corridors. He tumbles past the dangling Lucky.
Lucky makes a DEX save and manages to grab Roger by the ankle as he tumble by.
Inside, Flint manages to partially shut his small square hatch. The fur ball smashes into his back, as does Caliban. Using his great strength (he makes a STR save) Flint pulls Lucky and Roger back into the ship. Lucky shuts the cargo door. The lights and life support are still on.
In the side corridor, the fur ball begins to unfold into an adult Chamax. It attacks Flint but misses. He hits it twice with his sword, but it doesn’t die. Caliban fires with his auto pistol but misses. Lucky spots the thing through the hatch and shoots it with his auto rifle. He penetrates the creatures body and ruptures its acid sack. No one is at Close range. The beast erupts in acid, and dies.
The team is still aboard the alien ship, which continues to warm…
End of session
Still IY6026.306
Elapsed time: 413 game days
The team decides to try to find the central column of the ship, as shown in the video they were shown, to ascend to what looked like a bridge/computer room. They proceed, with Flint taking the point. As he moves through the halls another bug attacks him. He and Roger fight it. Simultaneously another bug attacks Caliban and Lucky. They manage to kill both bugs.