Authors: Mike Knee & Nafees Mujtaba
We’re now definitively decided on the name Bellerophon for the ship found and now crewed by the Enlil Adherents.
Flying back to the Bellerophon, with the sarcophagus containing the Corona Mantle (and the woman it’s embedded in), the crew has a moment of rest and respite.
Pinnacle
Bill is simmering with fury, and wants answers from his erstwhile demi-god. He places a hand on the obelisk and is brought beyond himself to the wind-wracked peak of Enlil.
As the wind whips, up on the crags, a monstrous suggestion of feathers and a yellow spherical eye gazes down at him. He wants to know why Revel had to die, what was so important to Enlil that the first words she spoke to him were “Kill Them”.
And, as the great bird shifts down towards him, taking on a humanoid form blurring and shifting into the suggestion of great flapping wings, she speaks back like a chime in his head. The Corona Mantle connects to The Anunnaki, acting as a conduit for their voice to be heard in the physical world. The Mantle’s proximity allowed Enlil to speak at all, and now allows it to take on form.
The Mantle, and its bearer, can become the voice of Enlil.
We used the brand new and excitingly untested Commune Downtime Action
Commune Downtime Action
The first time you take this action with a specific higher power or entity gain 2 faith with that entity and make a note of this. Your faith cannot go above 6 or below 0.
When you attempt to commune with a power beyond mortal minds roll:
On a 9 or Less:
You receive fractured, mind twisting visions, lose 1 faith to ask for clarity on one topic the entity could understand.
On 10-19:
You commune with the power and sift through the visions it gives you. Choose 2:
- Gain 1 faith if you recently demonstrated devotion to the power.
- Ask for clarity on one topic the entity could understand.
- Spend 1 faith to gain additional clarity on the same topic, or a different topic, the entity could understand.
- Gain foreknowledge of the future, and note it in your reserves for the next mission.
On a 20+
Gain 1 faith, then choose 2 options as above.
Foreknowledge
Foreknowledge can be spent after any roll takes place to change the result (after adding bonuses and any accuracy/difficulty) to a 19.
Who the Hell is She Anyway?
As Bill returns from his communion, he returns to the casket to ponder. Looking on in the greater hangar is Autumn Fall, with a ruffling companion on her shoulder. The others are nonplussed by this, but are accepting - Autumn will likely join them while Bill broods.
Lonnie would like to know exactly who the hell this woman is, anyway. He heads back to the warren of Baldachin Station to surf the NET and find out. Radical.
Hacking in on public computers, he discovers this woman is an ex-merc named Catherine Hallow. She was picked up by Octopotenta Biotech for what appeared to be a series of fairly routine jobs over the last few years, and subsequently went missing on one of those; the internal action report was thin on details and high on allusion.
Unfortunately, Lonnie is going to have to implicate someone innocent as part of his hacking, so casually decides to implicate whoever this bozo is sitting next to him at the NET cafe.
Cue Vangelis.
Who the Hell is This Bozo Anyway?
The person next to him is a broody, cigarette smoke-wreathed Union Investigator Ben Kilmer1 - who knows quite a lot about Lonnie. Lonnieaffords him the respect he deserves2 and bounces.
Back on the ship, the group leaves Baldachin Station in a rush - only to have ENLIL prioritise a message from Vance, an electronic entity associated with Inspector Kilmer, requesting they meet with the detective. Begrudgingly, they turn the Bellepheron around. Rather than meeting on board their ship (wise), they arrange the meet at a third party location where they won’t be noticed - the latest screening of a Yumai film3.
Cold Fish
The smoky cinema screenroom contains only Ben, sat in the middle of the room. Lonniechecks for communications on official channels - it appears isolated - or at least quiet.
The group meets the DoJ/HR investigator with loathing - Gorn even attempts to intimidate Kilmer (with a combat regular drill). This unfortunately does not work - Kilmer is clearly not interested. Perhaps he knows enough about the group and is a little too comfortable with the administrative safety his Union badge usually affords him.
He’s here with a complication for the group - Alzabo Extraction has accused the group of theft and damages, and decided to begin with Union procedures, pressuring Ben into investigating. Ben does not seem to care that much about this case - more frustrated that it’s taking up his time. He instead offers the group a bargain - if they take up a militarised operation on his behalf, he would have the evidence necessary to close the case against Alzabo.
A tablet computer is passed over, with grainy footage from an Alzabo mining site, where a group of mechs appeared to have entered a base before one brightly-illuminated mech whites out the camera feed and the recording stops. Ben’s not convinced this matches the profile of any particular mech from the ENLIL group, but reminds them that the corporation does have reasonable cause to suspect them4.
The sell of this mission seems suspicious to the group - Lonnie does some quick searches on his networks and finds that Ben is who he says he is - but some semi-reliable information on hacking networks suggest his mech facilities have recently been hacked and taken offline. Leveraging this, Lonnie demands access to the Union civilian database for the system as part of the deal. He gets it almost too quickly.
Autumn asks after the mission briefing information before looking through it for anything that’s missing. She successfully spots that there is indeed missing information - but it seems like it would be more operational.
After considering their options, the group accepts the briefing.
Tales Of The Future
Kilmer forwards them the remaining information - which includes a temporary deputised police electronic badge, information about the outpost and most interestingly, a projected threat level. This is intelligence gathered from various sources to predict the average HASE of the upcoming mission:
Hull: 2.06 Agility: -0.06 Systems: 0.63 Engineering: 2.06
There is also evidence that there may be high heat point weaponry being used by these combatants. Considering this, the group moves back to identify their options and complete their downtime actions.5
Blush Response
Yumai focuses on logistics - the location seems like an extremely difficult approach, but modern problems require modern solutions. He puts out feelers via his social media networks, offering a chance to be part of ENL-EG’s next great recorded mission. Immediately, his inbox is filled with offers6, several of which appear more interesting, but not really suitable. Only one message seems to be perfectly placed; from Vance. “You could have just asked, you know?” Attached to this message is a specification for a Union hired IPS-N make orbital dropship. While Kilmer’s mech facilities have been hacked, he still commands a fairly broad group of people here. This is a tentative agreement; the group does not like being indebted to a cop any more than they have to be. However, this does mean that they will be able to safely deploy behind enemy lines anywhere there is not direct antiaircraft or antiorbital defence at the base. This effectively skips a massive portion of the approach through the quarry, greatly expediting their movement. Yumai is almost hurt by Vance’s sarcasm, however, and reaches out further, exploiting his entertainment network as best as possible to seek out more equipment for his mission. He finds this power, at the cost of losing a level of influence amongst his flock - it’s very clear that this is selling out, and his fanbase grumbles.
Gorn Gets Creative - by which he means dumping a load of thermal paste into his mech. Gaining and using these reserves instantly, for the next mission he has a +2 heat cap.
Autumn begins thinking about who these combatants could be. She heads to the library at Derrick Dome, looking through old technofiche records, and finds a list with her name on it - as well as the others in her group. It’s an public facing employee list for Alzabo, with omail addresses and indications of fired and retired members7. While there are a lot of these names, a block of fifty or so names all appear to have been excommunicated at the same time - around a year ago. Running a hacking ploy using these omail addresses8, she doesn’t get any particular messaging data from this, although she does see that around fifty or so names appear to be in communication with each other. About half of of these addresses match the earlier list, and the other half are fully private and encrypted. There is little indication whether any of these names are outside this outpost, either - while the engineering contact Autumn used appears to be messaging from outside of the base, the location data for the rest of the addresses is private information. Medium level intelligence.
Mi-Tenz instead thinks about the antiorbital defences. Intel from Kilmer suggests these are missile based emplacements. While initially considering seeking out hacking equipment, Kilmer’s information reveals that these are mech-sized turrets; when connected, the turret is under the user’s control. She decides to go scrap-hunting. Baldachin Station is no stranger to mech-sized thrift shops, but at the hangar-side of the station there is a gigantic scrapyard where old ships and mechs go to die. Prowling through the wreckages, she sees a number of people also scavenging the wreckage, and spots a particularly old woman nearby with thick-lensed glasses who seemed to be holding something rather interesting. Leaning on her charm, Mi-Tenz sidles closer, and the old woman9 appears rather delighted by the appearance of a cat, whatever its size discrepancies10. After a moment of toying with her prey, Mi-Tenz liberates what looks like a control cuff; this could go very nicely with her Ferrous Lash, and would allow her to connect up to the missile emplacements from a much further distance. Very useful.
With everything in place, the team assembles.
Footnotes
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“Sushi, that’s what my ex-wife called me.” ↩
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“Get fucked, cop.” ↩
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“Beverley Hills Cop 60” ↩
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“Alzabo” is even stamped on the side of Gorn’s drill. ↩
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This author felt that this was a little closer to the approach that Lancer encourages - and also keeps up the feel of the training montage for Beverly Hills Cop 61. ↩
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Unsolicited solicitations aplenty - the life of celebrity with open DMs is not always glamourous. ↩
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Considered “excommunicated” from the mining cult. ↩
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“CLICK HERE FOR MEGA DEALS ON ENGINEERING STORAGE SOLUTIONS!!” ↩
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Did I mention how thick these lenses were? ↩
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“Okay, one last time. These are small, but the ones out there are far away.” ↩