Gas Giant Atmospheres

Del and Drent ask Orac a number of questions about the implications of taking the Liberator deep into the atmosphere of the Gas Giant. Orac suggests they should avoid going beyond 35,000km deep and they are likely to be destroyed at 40,000km.

Orac suggests it is unlikely that the Navigation Computers of the Liberator have sufficient competence to pilot the Liberator automatically in such an environment and it will be necessary for manual operation by a skilled pilot. There are two people on board who have that skill.

Drent volunteers to be that pilot, supported by Del. He begins by programing routes that involve dipping down into the atmosphere and pulling out again.

Diving into the Gas Giant

The first route takes the Liberator to 5,000km depth but nothing in detected. Drent then programs a 10,000km drive. At the lowest point, the G-Band detector registers a significant disturbance. Orac calculates that it is approximately 35,000km depth and a prime location within the area that previous readings have indicated.

He also recommends activation of the Force Wall beyond 10,000km depth and switches it on.

After some discussion, Drent’s next dive into the atmosphere is 25,000km but they are disappointed when nothing new is detected. Zen warns that Liberator is operating in a dangerous environment and the Navigation computers do not recommend going deeper into the atmosphere.

Deeper and Deeper

The next dive is 30,000km. Liberator is now significantly difficult to pilot at such a depth and the ship buffets and shakes. At that depth, Cyrus picks up something on the sensors that is a few thousand km lower.

Del has Zen push the Force Wall beyond its recommended power level. Zen suggests no higher than 120% of capacity, which Del orders him to push it to 120%.

They go to 35,000km. Liberator shakes alarmingly. Del orders Zen to push the Force Wall to 125% and he has him override safety protocols.

This time, Drent slows their acceleration and has the ship hover at around 35,000km with the main drive thrusting against the gravitational pull of the planet. The Force Wall is holding the pressure effectively.

Large Unidentified Spacecraft

Cyrus can definitely detect a source of complex metals and alloys only a few 1000km below them. Drent drops Liberator’s acceleration slightly and slowly begins to descent towards the sensor location, letting gravity pull them in.

At around 35,500km depth, Liberator comes within a few kilometres are a large object about ten times larger than the ship. It is some sort of alien space craft, which is projecting an energy field over its upper surface. It is also lit up and they catch a brief glimpse on the main screen of the ship, when suddenly some sort of hydrogen squall hits them and Drent loses control of the ship.

Crash Landing

Liberator begins to spin and fall downwards towards the alien ship at high speed and then hits it, bouncing off its energy field. Zen begins to report partial collapse of the Force Wall and damage to the hull, but the crew are too affected by the spin of the ship to pay too much attention.

Drent begins to bring the spin back under control, but gravity has now begun to draw the Liberator back towards the alien ship, though much slower than the first time. Drent tries to stop another collision but is unable to.

Unexpectedly though, the energy field of the alien ship now opens up a hole sufficient for Liberator to pass through. Drent continues to correct Liberator’s spin, but not in time to prevent the ship colliding with the surface of the alien ship. The impact is at a reasonably low speed and Liberator skidds along the surface briefly before coming to a halt.

Damage!

The collision throws Cyrus and Grant across the flight deck, injuring them both. Drent, Dirk and Del manage to hold onto their seats and only take minor injuries.

The lights have dimmed and Zen begins to report significant damage to the ships’ hull, engines, power conduits and one of the outer nacelles has been partially crushed by the impact. Main power is down but will be auto-repaired in a few minutes.

The crew recover from the experience, with Drent first back to the controls. Liberator is now stationary but with main power down almost all the systems available on the pilot’s console are out of action.

After a few minutes, main power is restored, but Liberator is not in a good state. Zen estimates it will take 18 hours in order for the Automatic Repair system to restore primary systems sufficient to get underway.

Spaceship of the Ancients

Orac meanwhile is fascinated by the sensor readings and is absorbing all the information he can about this ship, which he believes belonged to the Ancients. He reports he is completely unable to interface with the computer systems of the ship. Their design is simply too advanced for him to understand.

Orac shows them a re-construction from sensor logs on the main screen that they were not able to notice. It shows that the large Ancient ship is projecting a stable force field over its upper surface, but not its lower deck. During their approach, it attempted to raise a force field over its lower deck. The field projected to about 75% then seemed to flicker and glitch then cut out. At that point, the G-band detector registered an anomaly.

The Ancient ship appears to be around a mile square, consisting of flat central hull with a surface above and below. The upper surface, covered by the force field, has a small number of buildings on it, one looks like a large cone, another a sphere and two square buildings towards the rear of the ship.

In the middle of the main surface is a large damaged area that is a hole in the deck, a few hundred meters across, going through to the lower deck. A force field projects along the surface of the hole.

The lower deck appears to be a series of spheres attached to the central hull. There is no force field on the lower deck and there is significant damage to parts of the lower deck.

Let’s Explore

They have eighteen hours to wait before Liberator is fixed, so they resolve to go and explore this ship, using vacc suits. They identify the airlock that is closest to the surface of the Ancient Ship and will have to descend from there.

Orac announces that he wants them to take him with them. He is unable to comprehend or break into the computer system on this Ancient Ship. It may be that with close proximity to the systems he will be able to gain more information and control.

They arrange for Dirk to put Orac into a travel box and then onto a small grav platform. Then they move to the airlock and disembark, using the grav belts they obtained from Beck’s World to descend to the surface of the Ancient Ship.

The force field on the upper surface is providing light, as bright as daylight on a planet. The atmosphere is a human-friendly oxygen / nitrogen mix and there is gravity to approximate 1G. However, the stay in their vacc suits.

Primitive Farms

The ship has some odd looking areas on its surface. Closer examination shows them to be patches of soil arranged like fields, although any vegetation has clearly died off a long time ago. There is a thin layer of dust on everything.

There are also what look like primitive huts, which crumble to dust when touched. They realise that some sort of lifeform once lived on the surface of this ship in primitive conditions, but long since died off.

The Horn

Drent is keen for them to keep moving and they go to the large “horn” protruding from the hull. It appears to be around ten feet tall and cone-shaped, starting off with a diameter of around three meters on the surface of the hull and thinning to less than a millimetre 10 meters up at the tip. At the end is a small sphere which rotates.

The “horn” appears to consist of thick “wires” made from the same material as the ship’s hull, which are woven around and around and become thinner until they are a few atoms thick at the tip.

Damaged Section

There appears to be no way to affect this thing, so they move on the sphere, which is a good 15 minute walk to reach. They have to walk around the big central damaged area. The “hull” of the ship is around 10 meters thick and the damage goes all the way through.

They see that the apparently solid hull is in fact composed of thin “tentacles”, which are frayed along the edge of the damaged area. In places the “tentacles” are moving with a purpose, binding themselves back together and repairing the damage, but a few meters behind them others are unravelling and undoing the repairs.

They speculate that the repair system of the ship must be damaged, like the force field generator on the lower deck.

The Sphere

The sphere has a clear door at ground level which is a different colour to the rest of the sphere. They approach it and the door opens automatically. Inside, they see the walls are covered in large display screens with controls around them. In the centre is a column or plinth that has a lot of symbols on it. The symbols are like hieroglyphs in an incomprehensible alien language.

Del ask Orac if he can translate the language, but Orac is unable to at the moment, nor can he access or work out yet what the purpose of the sphere is. He can only say his initial analysis suggests it is designed to provide information.

Stellar Maps

Cyrus presses one of the symbols on the central plinth. Nothing happens, but after pressing a few, suddenly the lights dim in the room, the doorway seals over in darkness and a spectacular display of stars appears above them, detailing the planets orbiting the stars. Those with astronomy or astrogation knowledge recognise the Regina sub-sector, with the Bourghene system, their current location, central to the display.

There are some anomalies though. One system that only has asteroids, Shionthy, is showing having a planetary system on this map. There are also three stars showing that are not on the current star charts. Del gets out his PDA and checks its star map to confirm those stars do not exist.

They speculate that the map must be old and possibly that the Ancients had the power to move stars.

Cyrus gets bored and starts pressing buttons on the screens around the walls of the room. He eventually gets one to turn on and it shows a planet in the Bourghene system. Turning others on shows other planets, though there is no sign of the scout base that is in orbit around one planet.

Moving On

Del checks the door and discovers that it is not sealed, just there is dark filter to help reduce the lighting in the room. After a while, the star display turns off, the lights come up and the doorway clears.

Orac announces that he has been able to work out how to give instructions to the systems in the Sphere room, which is some sort of Star Map / Astrogation chamber, to carry out the operations it has been design to do. However, he is completely unable to penetrate any further into the system or “hack” into its inner workings. It is simply too complicated and its security and encryption protocols too advanced.

They move onto the first square building, which is not too far away. Its double doors slid open when they approach and they enter. In the centre of the room is a single large panel standing upright and made possibly of a glass-like substance with a smokey, cloudy texture. Next to it is a small panel with a large central button, five smaller buttons around it and three stick-like controls under them. Some of the five smaller buttons are coloured red, others blue.

Teleportal

Cyrus presses the large central button. The panel suddenly changes texture and becomes silver and smooth and the atmosphere in the room seems to change. He presses it again and it returns to a smokey texture and the atmosphere returns to normal. Another press returns the panel to smooth silver.

Del believes the panel is a teleport terminal and he has his small floating drone pass through it. It reveals on the other side a spherical room with three columns and a large ball floating centrally above them. Del has the drone come back.

Cyrus then begins to experiment pressing the five smaller buttons, but nothing happens and they buzz as though there is an error. Del presses the big button to “turn off” the panel and then, when one of the smaller buttons is pressed, it reacts, changing from blue to red. Pressing it again turns it back to blue. The other small buttons do the same.

Pressing the Buttons

Cyrus then turns all the five small buttons blue and presses the main button. There is some sort of flashing error and the panel does not change.

Cyrus then changes one of the buttons to red and presses the big button. The panel turns silver and Del sends his probe through, but it quickly seems to error, the display showing darkness then the display goes off then all signal is lost.

They realise there are around 30 different combinations and they do not have enough drones to test them all.

Drent has become restless again and agitates for them to check out the final square building, which they agree to do.

The Last Building

When they enter that building, the ceiling above them slides back to reveal the force field and the atmosphere of the gas giant above them.

In the room are three columns with a central ball floating above them, very similar to the room Del saw via his drone. In between the columns, on the floor, is a white slightly glowing hexagonal panel.

Cyrus states that the ball is the main control for the whole ship and they need to get to it and manipulate it.

They examine the columns and discover each has a small console with a few controls on them. Two of them appear to be lit up, while a third is dark.

Playing with the Ball

Cyrus plays with the controls on the lit-up console and after a moment manages to get the ball to power down and float to the floor. This also causes the other lit-up console to go dark. A closer examination of the ball reveals that it is buzzing with energy and has a strong static-electric field. It does not feel safe to touch and Cyrus realises this is not the main control of the ship, but something else.

Cyrus then presses the buttons on his console again and the ball activates and floats back up. The second console lights back up and Grant plays with its buttons, until he is able to make the ball rotate around very fast.

The third console now lights up and Drent steps over, pressing what looks like the main button on it.

Deadly Weapon

Suddenly a powerful purple beam of energy launches from the ball and fires into the sky. When the beam hits the energy field around the ship, it causes the field to collapse.

As soon as the energy field collapses, the dense atmosphere of the gas giant starts rushing in.

Desperately, Drent presses the button on his console again, but that just causes the ball to fire another beam.

Desperate Measures

Cyrus examines his console and presses the button he pressed that caused the ball to activate. The ball deactivates and begins to descend back towards the floor. However, the ceiling is still open and the atmosphere of the Gas Giant continues to press down towards them.

Grant decides not to touch the controls of his console. Del heads over to the console where Cyrus is, assuming that is the key to solving their problem.

Drent contacts Zen on his comms and Zen begins to report to him, but he tells him to shut up and send a teleport probe to their current position. He then runs over to the doors and they open.

Crushing Atmosphere

The atmosphere of the Gas Giant has now hit their room and it begins pouring in through the ceiling and the door. Cyrus sees that two buttons are still lit on his console, the one he just pressed and another one. He risks pressing the other one and it causes the roof of the room to slowly close.

As the ceiling closes, the atmosphere of the Gas Giant continues to pour in through the door, which does not close when Drent moves away from it. There is a control beside the door and Del begins to walk towards it, fighting the pressure of the Gas Giant that is pushing him away, trying to press it. He gets very close, but the pressure coming in is too strong. However, Orac activates the control and the doors close.

The pressure in the room stabilises and they are sealed in against the crushing atmosphere. They realise they have survived. The auto systems in the room begin to pump out the hydrogen atmosphere.

What is Wrong with this Ship?

Orac tells them he was able to work out how to operate the doors. He also speculates that the automatic self-sustained systems on the ship are working but the central computer system appears to be mostly dormant, although he is now detecting increased activity.

He tells them the force field has not yet re-established itself. It could be that the force field system is damaged and will not restore itself, or fail to complete the task as they witnessed on the lower deck. Alternatively the system could be on automatic and simply running slowly or low on power.

He assures them that the room they are in has strong enough walls to withstand the pressure of the Gas Giant. The molecular density of the walls is significantly higher than they appear to be.

He also suggests that they receive a report from the Zen computer on the Liberator, but no one does so.

Force Field Re-established

Del says that the Map Room must be the main control of the ship, but Orac tells him his analysis of the systems in that room suggests they are purely for display of Star Map information. He suspects that the bridge or control room is on the underdeck of the Ship and that the Ship is modular, with a number of different systems and rooms on the lower section of the Ship. They will need to use the teleport room to reach the rooms on the underside.

They wait and Orac reports that the force field has re-established itself. The atmospheric auto-systems begin to pump out the high-pressure hydrogen and slowly restore the nitrogen / oxygen atmosphere that was there before. This process will take an hour or so, but the pressure will be low enough for their pressure suits to tolerate in only a few minutes.

Return to the Liberator

When the pressure is low enough they open the doors and head back to the Liberator. As they approach, they see something bizarre. The surface of the Ancient Ship has reached up small tentacles up to the hull of the Liberator and appears to be “feeding” on the Liberator’s hull.

Del examines them and determines that with some motion they can be induced to let go.

They use their grav belts to climb up to the Airlock and enter the Liberator. Once on board, they remove their suits and relax.

Breaking Free

Del tries to get Zen to make Liberator vibrate and shift in such a way as to cause the tentacles from the Ancient Ship to dislodge and the Liberator can detach itself from the hull. Zen apologies that such an operation is beyond the capability of the Navigation computers. Manual crew intervention is required.

Drent and Del between them work out how to operate the controls manually and achieve this. They managed to shake Liberator free from the hull of the Ancient Ship and set it hovering a few metres away from the hull of the Ship.

Zen then reports that the previous efforts of the Automatic Repair system were being undermined by external forces in all those places where Liberator was in touch with the hull of the Ancient Ship.

Further damage has been sustained along the exterior of the hull and in Nacelle 2 in those areas where there is no hull integrity, internal damage occurred when the atmosphere of the Gas Giant crushed down for a period. Now Liberator is free of the Ancient Ship auto repair can resume.

Zen also reports that the firing crystals of Neutron Blaster 2 in Nacelle 2 have been destroyed and they cannot be replaced by auto-repair. New crystals will need to be synthesised industrially.

Plans for Safer Exploration

They decide not to worry about that now and focus on how to explore the Ancient Ship. Dirk says he was spooked by how dangerous things were out there and he now wants to remain on the Liberator. He is keen to explore the Ancient Ship, but he really thought he was going to die and would rather not explore any further.

When it is suggested Orac could be carried by a robot, Orac has them instead manufacture a Relay, using the ship’s internal replication system. The Reply can be carried by a robot and will allow him to remain on the Liberator and still communicate and explore the Ancient Ship with them.

Cyrus wonders if they could use the sex robot from Bay’s ship to carry the Reply, but Orac states he will not co-operate with such an arrangement.

They also replicate some more floating probes, so that they can safely explore the settings of the Teleportal room.

Resuming their Investigation

Orac also discusses the behaviour of the Ancient Ship and speculates that trapped in a hydrogen atmosphere, the Ship is unable to obtain the complex elements it needs to repair itself. Liberator must have looked like a great source of new resources. Any complex elements left in contact with the Ship’s hull for too long are likely to be absorbed.

When they are ready, they put back on their protective suits and have Zen move the Liberator to hover over the Teleportal room. Del instructs Zen to have Liberator follow them and stay over them, so long as they stay together and do not move to the lower section of the Ancient Ship.

Grant, Cyrus, Del and Drent move down to the Teleportal room using Grav-belts, taking with them the probes they replicated, a Liberator Teleport Probe on an anti-grav floater and the robot carrying Orac’s Relay. They are now also wearing teleport bracelets. Dirk remains in contact from the ship and follows their camera feed.

Exploring the Teleportal

They decide to methodically go through the settings of the teleport device. They being going through the settings in a binary order. They are able to establish that:
00000 – Displays an error and does not work.
00001 – Probe enters impenetrable darkness and is quickly disabled / destroyed.
00010 – Does nothing / does not seem to work.
00011 – Probe emerges in a damaged spherical room, with a section of the wall missing and a small force field keeping out the atmosphere of the Gas Giant. The room is empty and its atmosphere is mostly hydrogen.
00100 - Probe enters impenetrable darkness and is quickly disabled / destroyed.
00101 – Another damaged spherical room with a force field.
00110 – A large damaged room.

Computer Interference

While the probe is in room 00110, the buttons suddenly change their settings, spinning round until settling on setting 11101. They lose contact with the probe in room 00110 and decide to send another probe through to this new room.

11101 – A complete spherical room, containing a raised dais and machines around the outer wall, including a control console.

While the probe is in room 11101, Orac reports that there is increased activity from the Ships’ central computer, which may have been the cause of the teleport control change. He attempts to communicate further with the Ships’ computer and after initially reporting success, suddenly begins to demand that he is disconnected. He continues to urgently demand this, sending messages to all the possible places the crew can receive them.

Orac then suddenly goes silent and Dirk, who is watching and listening from the Liberator, reports that he has taken out Orac’s key.

The Travellers speculate that room 11101 is possibly a computer centre and the Ancient Ship’s computer is now aware of them and wants to get rid of them.

Experiments with the Controls

They withdraw the probe from room 11101 and close the connection, causing its surface to return to a misty state. With the connection closed, Del tells Dirk to reconnect Orac, but the super computer immediately resumes his urgent demand to be disconnected and Dirk again removes his key.

Instead, Del checks what the three buttons below the main teleportal controls do. He presses button 1 and it changes to orange colour. At the same time the teleport changes from mist to a text based display, but in the undecipherable Ancient language. Pressing button 1 again causes the button to turn black and the teleportal to turn clear. Pressing it again returns it to a yellow colour and the teleportal turns misty.

He cycles through the yellow, orange and black settings of buttons 2 and 3, but they do not appear to do anything. He returns them all to the yellow settings.

Nexus Point

They reset the main buttons to 00110 and connect to that room. The remote connection to the probe in the room is restored and they are able to explore further. The room has a damaged section that is covered by a force field on one side.

The other three sides appear to have irises in them, suggesting they are doorways leading to other locations on the Ship. They use to probe to look through the force field and vague make out another spherical room on the other side of one of the irises. That room has a more distinctive series of symbols above the iris.

Robot Attack!

Suddenly the Teleportal goes misty. Then a few seconds later it turns silver and a small, floating robot carrying some sort of energy pistol emerges. It is not a human shape and appears to have wings. It fires the pistol at Del, who dives out of the way and the beam leaves a large serious scar in the wall of the room. Recalling what Orac said about the strong molecular density of the Ship’s walls, the gun must be very powerful.

A fight then ensues with Drent and Grant shooting at the robot, while Cyrus dials up room 00001 – a deadly destination and then he tries to push the robot through the Teleportal.

Grants gets a lucky shot in the face of the robot and destroys its visual circuits. It begins to shoot wildly for a moment missing everyone, then pauses, as though trying to detect where its enemies are with other senses.

Cyrus and Del, with help from Drent, are together able to push the robot through the Teleportal and then close the connection.

Del then uses Button 1 to make the portal go clear, which looks like the teleportal off switch.

Methodical Exploration

They take a pause and consider what to do next. They believe that the AI on the ship is trying to stop them reaching somewhere important but they don’t know why or where.

Grant resolves to cycle through all the locations and explore them with probes before the physically going through anywhere.

They soon realise that there are two types of rooms. Nexuses, which have nothing in them except irises that lead to other rooms, and individual rooms that have some sort of function, with one iris leading out. As they dial through various rooms on the ship, they find a number of Nexuses and interesting rooms.

Interesting Rooms

A room with a lot of unused Teleportals lying around.
A room with a large portal behind a transparent barrier that appears to be sucking in the atmosphere of Komesh.
A room with a large crystal lying against a wall.
A room with what appears to be a repair system, constantly building and destroying a sheet of material.
A room with many low births in it.
A room with three more robots of the same design as the one that attacked them. They appear to be dormant, but they withdraw the probe quickly just in case.

The Armoury

One room has a lot of damaged equipment but the probe finds three energy pistols of the same design as the one the robot that attacked them was carrying. Grant says it looks like an Armoury.

Del decides to risk stepping through to pick these pistols up. When he attempts to return to the main Teleportal Room, the controls randomise and he finds himself in a Nexus room that he does not recognise and realises he is lost. He has a quick check of the pistols, but decides it’s not safe to play with them and instead tries to work out the Ancient language.

In the main Teleportal Room on the upper deck, Grant, Drent and Cyrus discuss what to do about Dels’ disappearance. They try communicating with him, but their signals do not get through. Grant resolves to continue through the sequence of rooms and see if they catch up with him. Cyrus taking over control of the probes using his arm pad.

Yet More Interesting Rooms

The next interesting room appears to be the shield array control room.
A room containing a docked shuttle.
A room with blue boxes in it and some blue dust on the floor. When Cyrus has the probe touch the blue dust, its main camera changes quickly to a blue colour and the probe appears unable to move. He sends a second probe and sees the first probe is now in a small blue box if its own. A tentacle then reaches down from the ceiling, picks the box up and puts it in the pile of other smaller blue boxes. Then it melds back into the ceiling.
A room containing a lot of electronic equipment.
A huge room with another transparent divide and consoles. Beyond the divide is a huge gyro with a large Teleportal in the centre. The whole room hums with power and the console displays suggest they are monitoring power output.

Reunited

Then they dial up the Nexus room that Del is in and are re-united with him. He returns to the main Teleportal Room and they explore the last rooms in the sequence, discovering three large rooms with big engineering constructions that could be the Ancient Ships’ main engines.

There are some rooms that are still inaccessible, with error messages being displayed when they try to connect to them.

Now they have dialled through the whole sequence, they decide the most dangerous room is the one with the three robots in. They dial that room again, but the robots are still inactive. They send the probe through the iris in that room and find it links to a Nexus room with irises leading to other rooms.

The Nexuses

This Nexus is different to most of the others. This and one other Nexus only has three irises, instead of four uniformly at the compass points. Instead, these two Nexuses have two irises at compass points, and a third at a different angle.

Further exploration reveals these two Nexuses are adjacent and there is a small complex of rooms leading off them, but it is an isolated block of six rooms. There is no way to reach the rest of the locations except by Teleportal.

Getting to the Bridge

Once through they experiment with the Teleportal in the Nexus and find a couple of locations that were showing errors when trying to connect from the main Teleportal Room on the upper deck now take them back to that room. It is clear that you cannot dial to the location you are currently in.

Room 00000 still will not connect though and Del realises that this must be the Bridge. They cannot reach it because the Teleportal in that room is locked out somehow. They will need to find the Nexus that is next to it and teleport there, then reach the Bridge using the connecting iris doorway.

Robot Chatter

Cyrus decides to move over and close the iris that connects to the room with the robots in. When he reaches the iris, the robots in the room suddenly activate.

One of them moves over to the iris and begins to jabber something to them all over comms in a rapid but totally incomprehensible language. Grant closes the iris, but it is opened from the other side and the three robots move into the Nexus where they Travellers are.

The Travellers back away cautiously. One of the robots again tries to communicate over comms using its’ baffling dialect. They try talking back to it, hoping it will work out their language, but it does not appear to be able to.

Robots Go Crazy

Suddenly, one of the robots changes demeanour and moves aggressively towards Del. The other two robots grab this robot and there is a robot-on-robot struggle. The two manage to destroy the one rogue robot, but not before it is able to damage the other two.

The robot that communicated before then resumes its attempt to communicate with the Travellers. When verbal communication fails, it moves to the Teleportal and dials up a location, gesturing for the Travellers to go through.

Cautiously, they send a probe first and discover it is the damaged Nexus (00110) they explored earlier. The Travellers go through and the robots follow. The lead robot gestures to one of the irises, but is suddenly attacked by the other robot.

Del attempts to intervene to save this lead robot, but its head is broken off by the aggressive robot. That robot then moves to attack Del. Del keeps shooting it, but his weapon has limited effect. Suddenly the last robot has some sort of cascading failure and falls to the ground, inactive.

The Bridge

Drent gets a sudden flash of a horrible, disturbing skull image on the doorway of the room the robot gestured towards. Despite this, they decide to open the iris. It reveals a complex room with a myriad of displays around the outside and a central area where clearly a person would stand. This is obviously the Bridge of the Ancient Ship.

Del is nominated to move into the pilot / captain position. A holographic system scans him and then a soft computer voice begins to babble at them in the same unfathomable language the robots used. Del talks back in English and after a moment the voice begins to repeat what he says. Del continues to talk to it and it parrots him back, while the others strike up conversations as well which the computer listens to.

At one point it makes an intelligent response in their language and Grant says it is beginning to understand them, which the computer voice confirms. Del then has it scan his portable computer to fully understand their language. A small connector attaches to his computer and in a few seconds uploads its content.

Completing the Ship’s Mission

The computer then greets them all by name in their language. It apologies for what has happened. The Ship was damaged by enemy fire some 300,000 years ago and the computer banks were infected by a virus that has been scrambling the systems and is preventing the Ship from repairing itself.

In order to stop the virus from spreading, the computer took a policy of remaining dormant for thousands of years at a time, only activating occasionally to check its status.

It needs to complete its mission and reach what it calls a Trans-Dimensional gateway. In order to activate the gateway, the Ship has a super massive key code that can be transmitted once at very close range.

Taking Control of the Ancient Ship

Del tells the computer to give them all the instructions they need to get there, but the computer says it cannot do that without awakening the virus. It has a very limited time before the virus becomes fully active. Instead, it will grant them control of the Ship from the Bridge. They must complete its mission and get to the Trans-Dimensional gateway.

It asks if they will do this. Del agrees and the computer then goes silent.

Del beings to try to familiarise himself with the controls of the Ship. It begins to react to this and the holographic displays and controls begin to take on an appearance that is familiar to him. He eventually is able to get the Ship to move and after a slow start it quickly moves out of the atmosphere of the Gas Giant and into space, accelerating fast.

Spooked by how fast the Ship moves, Del has it stop until he can get his bearings and work out a finer level of control.

That Alien Ship

An alert then tells him there is another ship nearby. Overwhelmed by doing so much at the same time, Del asks the others to man positions that are also available in the Bridge, which now reveal themselves as further crew positions.

As though the ship can sense their skill set, Drent finds himself at a weapons console and has remote control of the two “ball weapons” of the Ship, one on the upper deck and one on the lower deck.

Cyrus is at a sensor console and determines that the ship nearby is the same one that attacked Liberator in the Phosos system and has been in the sub-sector news attacking various ships. It is clearly dangerous.

Grant finds himself at a comms console and starts off by making contact with the Liberator. Dirk answers and tells them Liberator was not affected when the Ancient Ship started moving. It seemed to project some sort of warp field that encompassed everything within the force field, including the Liberator. Everything within the warp field moved with the ship without causing inertia. He was only aware that they were moving when Zen reported what was happening.

Stand Off

Cyrus then gets a notification that the alien ship is transmitting a signal. He has Grant investigate this and is able to determine that it is not transmitting to them, but into sub-space. The Ship is able to de-code the message and interprets it as “I have found them. They are here. Come quickly.”

There is a pause and a stand-off between the two ships. Drent has been able to get the weapon systems to lock onto the alien ship and he begins to direct one of the ball weapons to it. He is not sure whether it is the upper or lower deck weapon though. Grant is concerned that they do not break the upper deck energy field and risk losing the Liberator next time they move.

It’s Uncle Vlen!

Just as Drent is about to risk firing, another ship jumps in. It is an odd, cone-shaped ship. Cyrus is able to work out it has a massive power signature.

Then suddenly there is an incoming transmission. Grant answers and a video display shows someone surprising – Uncle Vlen Kennedy, the man who is supposed to be dead!

Vlen tells Grant he is glad he has found him. He has a lot to tell him about what is really going on.

You’re in Danger

Vlen tells Grant that they are in danger, the ship they have is a relic from long ago and the being who created it is extremely dangerous, responsible for the genocide of most of his own race. They need to leave the ship immediately and let him dispose of it. Del doesn’t react well to Vlen and they soon clash, with Del laughing at Vlen and interrupting him, telling him they have a legal right to the Ship. Vlen loses patience and tells him to shut up and that he will have to destroy the Ship if they don’t hand it over. He is disappointed with Grant that he associates with such idiots.

They continue to cross-question Vlen and he admits that he works for the Ancients and that they have existed in secret for millennia. He is their agent and they cannot allow the advanced technology of that Ship to become available to the wider galactic community. It would upset the balance.

They also should not have the Liberator. He tells them the Liberator was disposed of previously and he does not know where this new one came from. Del and Drent suggests that he does not have the right to have a monopoly on advanced technology. Vlen ignores them.

Faking his Death

Vlen also admits that he had to fake his own death because Federation agents were closing in on him. Which was stupid, because he is a friend of the Federation. He cloned his body and uploaded his memories into the new body. He was on the trail of the Ancient Ship they found, but did not think they would be able to find it first.

Eventually the conversation reaches an impasse. The Travellers do not trust Vlen and are clearly not going to accent to his request to power down the Ship and hand it over. Vlen says he is disappointed. He tried to help them but they would not listen.

Cyrus detects that the small funnel-shaped ship is powering up its weapon systems and has deployed some sort of shield.

Chase

Del has worked out that the Ancient ship has locked onto the location of the trans-dimensional gateway. He decides to tell the Ship to head that way.

Vlen makes one final communication trying to persuade them to change their mind, but when Grant refuses he cuts off communication.

Drent tries to get the Ancient Ship to raise its’ shields, but they do not seem to be working. He realises that the energy field around the ship that was keeping in the atmosphere was not a defence shield at all and was just to maintain the atmosphere.

The trans-dimensional gateway is about one light-year from the Boughene system and it will take 30 mins for the Ancient Ship to reach it using its warp drive. The cone-shaped ship that Vlen was in is pursuing them but has not opened fire.

Getting Orac Back

During the journey, they contact Dirk and have him put Orac’s key back in. Orac tells them that the computer systems of the Ship were infected with a virus and he was put in extreme danger being exposed to it. They must not put him in such danger again. For now, the computer system of the Ship is inactive, but should it activate again, Dirk will need to remove his key again.

Del asks Orac what will happen when they cross a trans-dimensional gateway. Orac only has theory on such things. There could be another dimension or a sub or pocket dimension. He insists that they pass through the gateway so that he is able to fully investigate the phenomenon.

Trans-Dimensional Gateway

The Travellers continue to speculate about what will happen and Del realises the Ship has gone into auto-pilot, following protocol for the approach to the gateway.

The Ship suddenly drops out of warp, transmits it access code and passes through the gateway. The ship pursuing them drops out of warp behind them, but is not able to follow them through the gateway.

They all have a very odd feeling when they pass through the gateway. The Ship emerges into space. They scan the area but there is nothing nearby. A few light years away is a solar system and the Ship accelerates back into warp and begins to head towards it. There are two other solar systems a parsec away in different directions from this solar system, but that is all that is in the pocket dimension. Cyrus wonders if this is where the three missing solar systems that they saw in the Map Room went.

Orac tells them that Dirk has passed out. Cyrus heads back to the Teleportal room and teleports using the probe there back onto the Liberator, after asking a reluctant Orac to delay his investigation of the new dimension to operate the teleport. Cyrus is able to revive Dirk and gives him something to eat. Dirk catches up with events on the Ancient Ship.

The Ship is on auto-pilot and it will take about an hour to get to the solar system they are heading towards. Orac continues to absorb as much information as he can from Liberator’s scanners.

Landing on the Planet

An hour later, the Ancient Ship is approaching an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of the star. The surface of the planet seems to be segmented into different zones, one of which is covered by an enormous dome. Some of the spheres on the under-side of the ship begin to detach and head down to the surface of the planet on their own.

The main part of the ship descends onto some sort of enormous space port and lands, with most systems powering down. The remaining Travellers on the Ancient Ship decide to return to Liberator and met up with Cyrus and Dirk.

The sensors report that they are landed on a huge, empty space port, beyond which appears to be the derelict wreckage of spaceships, like some sort of junkyard.

Zen then reports that some small robots appears to be flying towards the ship at high speed, there purpose unknown. The Travellers decide to engage the Force Wall and the robots are blocked from reaching the Liberator. They continue to try to approach for a while, then seem to lose interest and head for the Ancient Ship, starting work at cutting up hull of that ship into sections.

Heading Outside

The Travellers decide it is time to explore. They create a new floating robot drone to carry Oracs’ relay. Dirk wants to stay on the Liberator, he is just concerned that they may forget about him. Del determines through Orac that maintaining the thrust to keep Liberator from the surface of the Ancient Ship, the Auto-Repair and the Force Wall will eventually drain Liberator’s power systems.

They experiment with landing Liberator and determine that the Ancient Ship’s systems are no long trying to absorb the Liberator. They also instruct Zen to power down the Auto-Repair systems to a level low enough that the Force Wall can be sustained continuously, which he does.

They then leave the Liberator, teleporting back to the Ancient Ship Teleportal room and returning to the Bridge, but all the systems have gone off line. When they return to the Teleportal room, the teleport system then powers down too.

They head outside, where Drent suggests having Liberator head into orbit, away from the robots, so it can deactivate the Force Wall and repair itself at full speed, which Dirk does.

The Spaceport

They explore the spaceport on foot. It is daytime and the sun is shining in the sky but the sky glows a strange colour too. They pass the flying robots that are busy slowly cutting up the hull of the Ancient Ship.

They proceed into the spaceport, passing through an airlock corridor that scans them and allows them entry. Inside in a large empty but well-maintained lounge area and they proceed further into the building through the next airlock. While passing through the second corridor airlock, beams from the ceiling scan all their electronic technology and begin to power off their weapons, but they rush through to avoid them all being disabled.

They pass through a smaller, inner lounge and head into the third airlock corridor. This one scans them and shows up images of various landscapes and buildings, but seems to reject them all and the inner doors of the airlock do not open.

They are frustrated for several minutes, not able to go forward or back. Then the inner doors open and one of the flying robots heads in, apparently intend on carrying out a scan of these Travellers at very close range. The step round the robot and through the open doors.

The Meadow

The very inner area contains a large Teleportal with three buttons, allowing for 8 possible co-ordinates. They decide to randomly dial up location 001 and pass through.

They emerge in a meadow with cut grass. Not far away is a small octagonal building. They decide the landscape is so nice and the air perfect for humans that they can take their helmets off and breathe fresh air.

When they do so, small strange metal bugs fly over and land on them, piecing them with small needles, causing them to bleed. Each has this happen to them then the bugs fly away to the small octagonal building. They swiftly put their helmets back on.

They head towards the octagonal building and find inside stairs heading down into darkness. Lights flicker on when they descend and they find rows of odd pod-like things that suggest organic cloning booths. They are lots of them with tubes feeding into them. They are all empty.

They explore further and find a computer area, with a humanoid figure inside. It is not human. It is similar but could not pass as a normal human but some kind of hybrid or mutation. He appears to be male and elderly, wearing a robe and carrying a staff.

High Priest of the Maker

The figure talks in a strange language until he adjusts an ear piece and is able to speak in their language. He welcomes them as servants of the Maker, Angels. His name is Shedin and he is the High Priest of the Maker. He is there on his own to commune with the Maker and gain understanding.

He tells them this is where his people, the Ilimdaki come from and there are around 50,000 of them. The cloning facility has not operated for many generations, but stories are passed down. He tells them the bugs take samples and now they all been sampled their DNA will be in the system. He asks them if they are able to explain the purpose of the Maker, as his people do not now know what to do to please him.

As he does so, Shedin absentmindedly examines some of the electronic equipment Cyrus is carrying. He tells Cyrus that his energy weapon is powered down - why he doesn’t fix it? Cyrus asks if he can do it, which he does will still chatting. He takes apart the power pack and starts re-charging it from the power systems of the cloning computer, suggesting a high level of technical knowledge.

Head for the Wall

He seems to intuitively understand technology and he is confused that the Travellers do not share his understanding. He says even children of his people are able to do so and they must be mentally retarded somehow. Del tries to tell him about minds focused in different ways, but he does not understand. Like a bird who does not understand why they cannot fly.

He tells them the main danger here are the Hunters, intelligent and vicious killers who would slaughter all his people if they could. His people have built a big wall to keep them out. If the Travellers want to meet his people, they will have to head to the wall and gain access.

They first get Shedin to power up all their weapons again, which he easily does for them. Then they leave him and head towards the wall which they can vaguely make out some miles distant.

Aggressive Defence

Drent notices that the comms with the Liberator are down and they can no longer communicate with the ship or Orac.

As they approach the Wall, they see it is over 10 metres high and has watch towers at regular intervals. There are figures on the battlements and as the Travellers approach, they open fire with slug weapons.

The Travellers take cover. They watch as the alarm is raised and more defenders arrived, firing intermittently. They try communications but the defenders do not seem to have comms.

Del steps out into the open and drops his weapon. He is fired at but he puts his hands up and the defenders stop shooting. He takes his helmet off and starts shouting up to the soldiers, eventually persuading a commanding officer to come down and talk.

Take Them to the Queen!

A rope ladder is rolled down and an officer comes down to talk to them. The Officer has a similar appearance to the Priest, human-like but obviously not human. Del tells him they have come from the Cloning Building and the officer asks about the Priest, who they say sent them here. The officer gets the impression they have come from the Maker and says they must be taken to the Queen.

The others come out of cover and they are allowed to climb up the ladder to the top of the Wall. They are then taken to a car-like vehicle that appears to be steam powered and driven along a road away from the wall towards a walled city several miles away. The land inside the Wall is cultivated in very neat and precise fields of varying crops and they can see more Ilimdaki working in the fields. There are not many of these steam cars on the road.

They arrive at the walled-city and stopped at the gate, before being allowed in. The city is well-ordered and busy, but very functional. It does not have adverts or any grand architecture. The only real building of interest is the Palace, which has beautiful gardens and pools of water surrounding it.

Cocktails

They pull out outside the Palace and are shown into a waiting room. The Queen is currently busy but will see them soon. In the meantime, food is arranged for them, some of which is tasty and others bland or awful.

They have two Palace guards and Cyrus decides to tease them, asking for alcohol. When they ask what he wants to clean, they are surprised when he suggests he is going to drink it. They bring him some alcohol, but suggest drink it is dangerous.

Cyrus checks and it is very pure. He decides to mix it with the various drinks and juices, making various cocktails and drinking generously. He persuades one of the guards to drink and he downs a large quantity very quickly, soon becoming very drunk.

A Royal Audience

Eventually the Queen can see them and they are escorted by their guards, though the drunk one is struggling a lot. The Queen is sat in a large throne room with various dignitaries around her. One of them with a chain is the Chancellor.

She questions them and where they came from. When they tell her they used the teleport, she says that’s not possible they are not active. There is a portal not far from the city but it has been dormant for centuries.

When Del tries to tell her about their civilisation and that they don’t have Kings and Queen, she offers her condolences that their civilisation is in decline.

She tells them her people need outside help. They lack vision and imagination and that has held them back. There was one Ilimdaki who had enough imagination to build the wall and make the rifles to defend against the Hunters. He was the first King of the Ilimdaki and her ancestor.

The Chancellor remarks that it is important that they follow the will of the Maker but the Queen says the will of the Maker is not clear and these new visitors must help them understand what the Maker wants and to advance their civilisation. Some of the assembled dignitaries seem to be less than pleased at the Queen’s suggestion. Doing things as they have always been done seems to be a popular policy.

We Are Under Attack!

The Marshall is called out by a message and he soon returns, interrupting the audience to tell the Queen that they are under attack from the Hunters. Apparently they have been coming through the Teleport which is now active and their numbers of growing.

There is consternation and they audience soon breaks up, with various members of the Queen’s Council heading off to deal with the situation. The Travellers are left on their own. They notice that the guard who drank too much is now a little sick.

They decide to go help the defenders and head outside, taking the steam are and getting directions for the teleportal. They leave the City through one of the gates and head north.

Battle with the Hunters

They soon reach the front line where scattered groups of soldiers are shooting at enemies who are hiding in the undergrowth. The Hunters, which appear a mixture of humanoid and preying-mantis insects, wait for the soldiers to run out of shots then charge and kill them with powerful claws.

Del takes command and with the assistance of the other Travellers and their superior fire power, turns the tide of the battle, holding off and then driving back the Hunters. At one point he uses the Ancient pistol for the first time and disintegrates one of the Hunters.

This takes several hours and a confrontation with an Ilimdaki officer who questions why Del is giving orders. He bluffs that the Queen ordered them to help and this is accepted.

As it begins to get dark, Del meets with the Marshall who tells him they while there has been success in his area, the Hunters have driven the soldiers back elsewhere and he is in danger of being cut off. They retreat with the soldiers back to the walled city.

Defend the City!

When they get they, they realise the city is the best place to defend and arrange for soldiers to man the walls and close the gates. Del is also shocked to see able-bodied workers in the City going about their normal business and gives orders for them to be drafted in as soldiers to boost the defences.

Del also finds out where the armourers is and gives him orders to produce more guns and ammunition as soon as possible. He finds a few hours later this has been contradicted by the Chancellor, but he reinstates the order and confronts the Chancellor, who simples states that they must do what they have always done, it is the will of the Maker. Del tells him not to interfere again or he will tell the Queen and the Chancellor agrees.

A long night ensues, during which the Hunters probe various areas of the City Wall, but are eventually driven back thanks to the intervention of the Travellers in some cases. It seems that the Hunters fight alone or in vary small groups and do not seem capable of a concerted group attack, which stops them from overwhelming the City Defenders.

Strange Light in the Sky

During the night, the Travellers notice a couple of strange things. First of all the sky is not dark at night, it has a hazy glow that is light enough to see by but not good enough to read with. Also they notice that a specific point in the sky occasionally flares up quite brightly for a period of time, before darkening down. The Ilimdaki tell them this has never happened before.

Over the next few days, the Travellers are mostly involved in defending the city and are very busy. Time passes fast, but one point of concern is that the light flaring in the sky continues to happen more and more frequently and is even slightly visible during the daytime. Cyrus wonders if it is the trans-dimensional gateway that is being attacked.

After a few days Del realises several things. The Hunter attacks have died down and the city is safe, however their food supplies will not last and the Hunters are in control of all the farm lands around them. He realises it is time to head out and take the fight to them, reclaim some ground and possible capture the Teleportal to stop their reinforcements coming through.

Making Plans

The Travellers discuss what to do next and resolve their next move should be to get to the Teleportal and stop the inflow of Hunters into the Ilimdaki lands. Del suggests getting a few steam cars and mounting armour and Gatling guns on them, then using them to head out at speed to capture the Teleportal.

They set to work arranging the car mechanics and metal workers to do this. It will take a few days to convert 10 steam cars into armoured cars with machine guns fitted.

They also get the weapon smith to construct some basic stick hand grenades with some shrapnel.

Expedition for Food

The attacks from the Hunters have started to calm down and the Travellers begin to relax a little more, as well as assisting the mechanics to build the armoured cars. They learn from the Chancellor though that the food supplies in the City are beginning to run low.

The next day, when two armoured cars are ready, they decide to mount an expedition to the nearest farm to obtain food. Del and Drent take gunner positions, while Grant and Cyrus do the driving and four other Ilimdaki soldiers for support.

As they leave the City gates, a trap goes off, a spring loaded tree branch hits the front of the first armoured car. A Hunter jumps down on the rear of the first armoured car and kills one of the Ilimdaki soldiers, but Del stabs and injures it with his vibro blade. It jumps out squealing in pain onto the road. Grant, driving the second armoured car, tries to run it over, but he is too slow and it escapes.

Grain Silo Fight

They speed along the roads to a farm depo around a mile away from the City. It is a cylindrical storage silo filled with grain and there is a large steam powered truck parked there. The Travellers are disappointed that no Ilimdaki had mentioned there were bigger vehicles until now.

They disembark, with Del and Grant covering everyone else with their machine guns. The other two help load up the truck with grain while the Ilimdaki soldiers keep watch.

As they have finished loading and are moving into the vehicles to leave, just as their guard is at its lowest, they are suddenly attacked by three Hunters who have crept up under cover and waited for the right moment.

There is a short battle in which another Ilimdaki soldier is killed, but Grant is able to gun down one of the attackers and a second Ilimdaki soldier is able to hold off an attacking Hunter with repeated accurate rifle butt hits to the face.

Del and Cyrus are able to finish off the attackers with their energy weapons and they quickly return to the City, providing much-needed additional supplies.

Expedition to the Teleportal

The following day the Travellers arrange for the stream truck to be armoured up and fitted with two Gatling guns, pointing in both directions. When that and the third armoured car is ready, they mount an expedition to the Teleportal. The truck is loaded with a dozen soldiers and the Travellers spread themselves across the other three steam cars.

Cyrus has a plough fitted to the front of the lead armoured car and it is very useful in smashing through the various wooden traps that Hunters have laid along the road.

They easily get to the Teleportal and surround it, travelling too fast to be bothered by any Hunters. They have the Gatling guns cover all avenues of approach. The four Travellers leave the Ilimdaki soldiers on guard and head into the Teleportal room. It is identical to the one they entered in the meadow where the Cloning Facility was.

Exploring Other Destinations

They discuss what to do and where to go. Drent volunteers to go through and check each of the dial locations, as there are not that many of them.

000 – Error, location unavailable. Drent is able to work out from another location that this is code for the Ilimdaki lands.

001 – They know this is the Cloning Facility so Drent does not go through to that one.

010 – Drent finds two Hunters in the Teleportal area having a fight. The Hunters stop their fight and one of them tries to speak to Drent, but it is unintelligible. He steps back through and disconnects.

011 – Drent finds the Teleportal area empty and outside there is a large swamp, with mountains in the distance in all directions.

100 – Drent finds another empty Teleportal area, outside of which is a white sanded desert with things sticking up from the sand, surrounded by mountains.

101 – Another empty Teleportal area which is surrounded by an overgrown Jungle which mostly blocks distance vision, but Drent is just able to make out a very tall cliff in the distance.

110 – This location looks like it is locked out on privacy mode.

111 – Error, location unavailable.

Privacy Mode

They get one of the Ilimdaki to examine the Teleportal and he is able to work out how to turn privacy mode on and off. They set it so no more Hunters can come through to the Ilimdaki lands.

Then they consider what to do next. After some discussion they decide to head through to 010 where the Hunters were. They all step through and find a single Hunter there still.

Hunter Lands

Del and then the others show it that they are not holding their weapons and try to talk to it. It engages and attempts to understand their language, although it is paranoid and keeps looking around it and flinching every time one of the Travellers makes a sudden movement.

They appear to establish some basic communications but it then flees into cover when a small group of other Hunters approaches. The Travellers hold their ground and when the Hunters begin to close in to attack, they draw their energy pistols and shoot them, killing one and injuring the others, who immediately flee.

Their Hunter, who Drent names Skittles, seems impressed and gestures to be allowed to look at one of their weapons. Drent empties the Gauss Pistol he has and hands it over. “Skittles” then suddenly changes his friendly expression to hatred and tries to shoot Drent, but the gun is empty.

Thwarted, Skittles flees. Del shoots him and injures Skittle’s leg, but the Hunter continues to flee. Grant goes to chase after him, but Del warns him against it, pointing out how the Hunters like to lay traps and Skittles could easily lead them into a dangerous situation.

No Way Back

Del activates his grav belt and checks out a nearby tree house, but sees it is empty except for a trap. Grant says this area is dangerous and has nothing here, it is best they move on.

They return to the Teleportal and realise it has timed out and switched off. When they try to dial back to the Ilimdaki lands, they are blocked as privacy mode has been engaged. They can’t get back!

They instead dial up the Cloning Facility and head there. Once in the meadow, they discuss what to do. They can’t go back to the Ilimdaki City as the lands all around it are controlled by the Hunters. They have few food resources and decide to go to the Cloning Facility where they can get fresh water and supplies.

Clones

When they go down to the Cloning Facility they find a number of full adult Ilimdaki wandering around naked and some of the Cloning booth, that were empty before, are now activated and growing. It looks like the Ilimdaki are cloned when they die.

The newly cloned Ilimdaki are like children, not really knowing what is going on. They find the Priest has gathered a group of them and is trying to educate them as members of the Ilimdaki society.

They talk with the Priest and have him provide them with fresh supplies. Then they warn him that it is not safe to go to the Wall or the City as the Hunters have overran it. They will need to build a new City here and fortify it.

They return to the Teleportal and work out how to engage “Door Bell mode” where the Teleportal can be opened if the destination accepts an incoming connection.

Finally they decide that the desert is the next place they want to explore and prepare to head there.

Leftover AI

They step out into the white desert and explore. There appears to be discarded items scattered in the sand, mostly buried. One thing nearby appears to be a tall black column with an eye-like display that moves around and follows them.

There is a burst of electronic radio traffic and the column begins to speak to them via radio. It is some sort of AI Computer that has been discarded here, something it is bitter about. When asked who left it, it tells them Grandfather of course. He creates so much but when it is not of any use to him anymore, he cruelly abandons it.

They spend some time chatting with the AI. It tells them its name is Oymplyth and they name it first Oym and then Plinthy. It seems pleased that they are its friends and have given it a nickname. It is clearly lonely and craves their company. Most of its connections to the outside world have been removed, it can only communicate now via radio.

Plinthy receives power from the sunlight and stores it, discharging it overnight. As the sand has encroached on him, his access to power has reduced.

The Lands Explained

Plinthy tells them they are in an old, organic experimental zone created by Grandfather that has been neglected for the last 250,000 years. The Ilimdaki and the Hunters were genetically engineered for specific purposes and have proved unable to evolve beyond their genetic coding. The swamp is for disposing of failed, mostly organic, experiments and this desert is a graveyard of abandoned, mostly mechanical, experiments.

Some of the discarded items in the desert are dangerous, for example over there is a zone with powerful gravity zones that can crush things.

The jungle is a zone of deadly plant life, very dangerous. Beyond the jungle is the Custodian, who controls the access to the interplanetary Teleportal.

Their arrival at the spaceport must have triggered long dormant automatic systems, such as the Teleport network.

The Route to Freedom

To get back to the Space Port, they need to get through to the Custodian. If the Teleportal won’t take them to the Custodian, they will need to cross the Jungle to reach his tower. It is very dangerous with spitting plants and acid fog. Towards the end is a long line of spitting plants that will need powerful weapons of mass destruction to cut their way through it. Energy weapons won’t be enough.

The Travellers decide they will need help from the Ilimdaki in order to equip themselves. They will need flamethrowers, grenades and extra fuel.

Plinthy the Teacher

The Travellers decide that Plinthy would be very useful to teach the new Ilmdaki clones, so they teleport to the Cloning Facility and get a number of the new Ilamdaki clones to follow them and help dig Plinthy out of the sand. They then carry him through the Teleportal back to the meadow outside the Cloning Facility.

Cyrus rigs up one of his drones to receive instructions via radio and Plinthy takes over it, using it to transmit voice and communicate with the Ilimdaki, who he dubs his children and begins to teach them what he knows.

The Origin of Grandfather

At one point he begins to tell the story of Grandfather and the Travellers listen as he recounts the tale.

There was once born a very intelligence man amongst a race called the Droyne. He was taller, smarter and more mentally powerful than anyone had ever been before or since.

He soon came to rule the Droyne and his intelligence lead them to become the most technologically advanced species in the whole galaxy. However, no others were anywhere near as intelligent as him. He was lonely and needed help to further his experiments from people who were his intellectual equals. So he created 20 clones of himself, his “Sons”, to aid him and then each of them created 20 more clones of themselves. From then on he was simply know as Grandfather.

The Civil War

For a while they worked together, but in time Grandfather quarrelled and fell out with his Sons, as they refused to do what he wanted and did their own things. Eventually, Grandfather decided he would have to eliminate his disobedient Sons and Grandsons. A terrible war was fought, during which the innocent people of the Droyne race were wiped out in their billions, innocent pawns in the battle between intellectual giants with massively advanced technology.

Eventually the war died down, but not before planets, stars and entire solar systems were smashed. Most of the Sons and Grandsons were killed and the rest went into hiding. Grandfather retreated into this dimensional pocket universe to be alone and continue his researches.

Plinthy Unhinged

The more they have interacted with Plinthy, the more it has become obvious that the AI is psychologically damaged. He hates Grandfather for abandoning him here and presents his history of Grandfather in a negative light, suggesting Grandfather is an evil man who abandons his Children when he gets bored of them, something Plinthy pledges never to do.

They also find Plinthy is very much in his element teaching the Ilimdaki, who he very quickly dubs his Children and starts to ignore the Travellers. When they confront him about his behaviour he is indignant and ungrateful, telling them they are the ones with the problem having big egos that are difficult to please. He has important work to do now.

They decide to leave Plinthy where he is, but before they go they catch up with the Priest in the Cloning Facility and give him a PDA that will allow him to switch off the drone that Plinthy is using anytime. As Plinthy can only communicate via radio, that will isolate him. They leave the Priest with the decision whether to do that or not at some point.

Back to the Ilimdaki Lands

They rest the night and in the morning head back to the Ilimdaki lands, using their grav belts to climb the perimeter wall and then head for the city, fighting off an attack by Hunters along the way.

The Ilimdaki are very pleased to see them and they are taken to the Queen. Food in the City is running low again and action is needed. The Travellers soon organise a raiding party to get more supplies, using the armoured cars that have been created. They leave the Ilimdaki commanders to lead the mission, mostly supporting and encouraging them.

The raid succeeds and food levels are improved.

Over the next few days, Del instructs the military leaders to continue doing raids for food but also to begin to re-claim their lands section by section, attacking and taking an area then fortifying it and moving on to take another section, until all the Hunters are driven out.

Fire vs The Deadly Jungle

During this time, the Travellers instruct the Ilimdaki armament workers to build flamethrowers and other weapons that they will need to deal with the Jungle.

When the new weapons are ready, the Travellers lead another raid to the Teleportal, relieving the soldiers they left there. Then they take their weapons through the Teleportal to the Jungle and begin to burn their way through the thick vegetation.

There are dangerous plants which spit neurotoxins in an acidic phlegm that has to be washed off as it begins to eat into their vacc suits. At one point, an acidic fog bank drifts over them and they are forced to retreat. However, the fog helps their attempts to cut through the vegetation.

They also find that the fires they start burn fiercely and notice that oxygen levels are much higher in this area.

Eventually, they encounter a tightly packed tangle of Spitter Plants that block access to the cliff where the Custodian’s tower is now visible. They saturate the area with fuel and they set it on fire, but not before they have been hit several times by the Spitter Plants and their suits become quite damaged.

The Custodian

It has taken them the whole day to fight their way to this point and they get some rest while waiting for the fires to burn a path through the Spitter Plants. When a pathway to the Custodian is cleared, they decide to move to the bottom of the cliff and sleep.

However, immediately a spotlight illuminates them from the tower and a Droyne flies down. It scans and tries to communicate, then a wire springs out and it learns their language from their computer. Although it looks like a normal Droyne, it is clearly a robot.

It says they are not Ilimdaki, where are they from? Drent tells it that they came in a spaceship that they salvaged from the atmosphere of a gas giant. It pauses then tells them they are an anomaly. It has no orders for such a situation, they will be taken to Grandfather.

It then paralyses them with some sort of gravity beam and move them to the tower, where it programs the Teleportal there and sends them through.

Grandfather’s Space Station

They find themselves on a space station, in orbit around a planet. The planet is not familiar to them and appears to be completely covered in a metal city.

The space station they are on is a sphere that is still under construction, with robots busily putting it together in a hurry.

Three more Droyne float over towards them and once again paralyse them with beams. They are then moved towards the centre of the station, where a cross-legged Droyne appears to be meditating and directing the construction of the station.

As they approach, they get an overwhelming feeling of awe and power from this figure. It is Grandfather and he communicates with them using telepathy.

He tells them their presence is unexpected but they are welcome. However, they have brought danger with them. They become aware that Uncle Vlen was working for one of Grandfather’s Sons “Seven” and Seven now knows where the portal with access to the pocket dimension is. He has been bombarding the portal with powerful radiation and has almost broken through. That is what the flashing in the sky has been.

Grandfather tells them it is very important that they understand him and his mission. He begins to transmit mental images into their brains.

History of the Ancients

Grandfather begins to project the history of his past. It begins with him being bored some 300,000 years ago as a statistically almost impossible mutation of the Droyne race with super intelligence and will. His incredible intellect lead him to develop new technology and powerful technology. He also rose to become the leader of the Droyne race. This lead to a period of intense scientific and technological advancement for his people, but it was also a strain for him.

He soon discovered he was also immortal and would not die of old age. This allowed him to take a step back and plan for the long term. He passed a lot of day to day running of the civilisation to a hand-picked High Council, while he spent more time researching ever more complicated scientific theory and planning the social expansion of the Droyne Empire, as well as experiments with some of the fledging indigenous populations on certain planets in the Galaxy.

Abduct 500 Humans!

The Travellers find themselves on the bridge of a ship that is similar to the one they found abandoned in the orbit of Komesh, though less advanced. They are in the bodies of Droyne, though they recognise each other. The crew are also Droyne, but the four Travellers are in charge, commanding a special mission. The computer gives them an audio-visual briefing of their mission.

They are on board the Imperial starship Krinyaoth, a standard transport ship. They have been tasked with collecting 500 members of the species called Humans from their birth world and transporting them to another designated world, as part of an experiment that the High Council has ordered.

The Human birth world is on the edge of Droyne space and there is the possibility, although low, of encountering problems nearer to their destination.

Allocating Modules

The ship has 20 changeable modules and their first decision must be how to allocate them. A Human Habitation Module can accommodate 50 Humans. A Robotic Soldier Module comes with 50 advanced Robotic Soldiers.

They decide the following allocation:

11 x Human Habitation Modules

2 x Weapon Modules

3 x Shield Modules

1 x Stealth Module

1 x Gas Module

2 x Robotic Soldier Modules

Cyrus suggested the Gas Module to produce enough gas to subdue 500 Humans. Del suggested the Robotic Soldiers in order to round up the Humans once they have been subdued.

The journey commences and the ship begins to jump across Droyne space towards the Human birth world. It will take about a month to travel there. During the journey time passes quickly.

Del attempts to break out of this illusionary world. By concentrating very hard, he is able to perceive that he is still stood on the space station near to Grandfather, who is projecting these images into their minds while continuing to supervise the construction of the station and several other tasks. It takes all of Del’s concentration to break the illusion and he is unable to do anything else, so he relents and reverts back into the projection.

Thao Trouble

As the Krinyaoth gets near to the Human birth world, it jumps into a system and there is a ship nearby. It is a Thao ship, an insect species that has recently challenged the Droyne Empire. The Thao ship is technologically inferior to their ship, but is a war ship bristling with weapons. Tactical analysis by the computer suggests the ships are matched in combat strength.

The Thao contact them and demand that they hand over 10 of their advanced modules for their technological study. The Travellers consider and refuse, triggering a space battle. Almost immediately, the Thao take out the Stealth Module, neutralising any advantage that gave them.

The Thao manage to damage one Shield Module and two Human Habitation Modules before being driven off. The ship has capacity to repair one Module before they arrive at the Human birth world, which they choose to make a Human Habitation Module so that they still have capacity for 500 Humans and can fulfil their mission requirements.

Prehistoric Earth

The Krinyaoth resumes its journey and arrives at the Human birth world – Earth, around 300,000 years before the era of the Travellers. The planet has several scientific observation satellites in orbit around it, which synchronise with the ship’s systems. They have been observing the activities of the Human tribes on the planet and has identified a tribe of over 500 Humans living in a cave complex on one of the main continents.

The computer recommends all the Humans be members of the same tribe to ensure optimum social cohesion and limit the possibility of conflict and strife while having 500 specimens ensures sufficient genetic diversity for the experiment to succeed. The analysis of the Humans shows them to be early Neanderthals.

Catching Humans

After some discussion, the Travellers resolve to try to capture the tribe. Their plan is to deploy gas to knock the tribe out while they are sleeping and then use the Robot Soldiers to round them up and bring them via shuttles back to the Krinyaoth. The operation is mostly successful, but as the Humans are in a cave complex covering several kilometres, inevitably some are warned and able to escape the caves and avoid the incapacitating gas. They end up with around 480 Humans, which computer projections suggest is not enough.

The next day they deploy the robots again and in combination with the gas, are able to 25 more Humans, meeting their quota.

Cordillion

With their cargo aboard, they set course for the planet that the High Council has designated as the new home for the Humans. The Travellers are vaguely aware that while non-Human sentient life is rare in the Galaxy so far, there have been anomalies with Humans being found on worlds where no Human from Earth has ever travelled before, but DNA analysis suggests they originated from Earth. Perhaps they have found out the answer to that puzzle.

Their journey to Cordillion is uneventful as they cross Droyne space, stopping to get repairs and they replace the damaged Stealth Module with another Weapon Module and the damaged Human Habitation Module with another Shield Module.

When they arrive at the designated planet, they discover it has a number of disadvantages. Its oxygen levels are too low for Humans to survive except in very low altitudes. It has limited vegetation required for Human survival. It has limited surface water required for Human survival.

Planetary Squatters

Computer analysis of the surface has identified an optimum location that has sufficient water, vegetation and at a low altitude. However, when the ships sensors are directed to that area of the planet, they show that the location is already inhabited!

They check the computer and the planet is designed as uninhabited and reserved for the experiment of the High Council. These are unauthorised squatters.

Further computer analysis shows that while there are other locations that could work as settlement areas, only this zone allows for maximum probability of success.

Cyrus suggests that they should bombard the area from space and destroy the squatters. The others, especially Drent, suggests first communicate with them and Grant opens communications with the city.

The Consensus

After a while, he is put through to someone in charge. It emerges this group is called the Consensus. They do not like what has happened to the Droyne race since Grandfather took over. He has corrupted their culture with technology which they reject. They also believe that Grandfather died long ago and the High Council merely use his name in order to perpetuate their control over Droyne society.

The Consensus spokeswoman rejects any suggestions that the High Council has designated this planet for an experiment, they reject the authority of the High Council and they were here first. What are they going to do, blast them from space?

Threats of Destruction

The Travellers confer and again Cyrus suggests that they do exactly that – blast the colony from space. Drent says their first option should not be to resort to genocide.

A message is sent to the High Council asking for clarification, who confirm that legally the planet is designated for the experiment and the Consensus are illegally occupiers. The Travellers have full authority to deal with them as they see fit.

Still rejecting Cyrus’s suggestion to bomb them from orbit, Drent contacts the Consensus spokeswoman again and this time he is more aggressive, says they have two choices, either leave the planet immediately, or face bombardment from space.

The spokeswoman is shocked and disgusted, pointing out this sort of behaviour only confirms their fears about the corruption of the Droyne race. Then she says they do not have enough transports to evacuate the planet. Drent tells her they can help them dismantle their settlement to build transports.

That will take a long time, months at least. Drent agrees to give her a month. The spokeswoman initially rejects the proposal, but after consulting with other leaders, they agree to accept the terms.

Conclusions

The Travellers become aware that their first mission has succeeded. After a month, the Consensus are removed from the planet and the Humans are settled. The settlement is a success and the Humans thrive, especially once the atmosphere of the planet is terraformed to be closer to that of Earth.

However, Grandfather has not finished with them and he has another mission for them.

History Moves On

5,000 years have passed since Humans were settled on Cordillion. The Empire of the Droyne has expanded massively. There are hundreds of well-developed planets and more being developed. The population has boomed and it is becoming extremely difficult to administer the Empire from the centre. The Empire is beginning to falling apart.

Grandfather takes action by cloning himself. He creates 20 Sons and then each of those creates 20 more Sons. He has them spread out across the Empire to help administer the vast regions more locally, with a lot of autonomy, while also helping move forward his experiments.

The Kingdoms of Cordillion

On Cordillion, Human civilization has bloomed under careful observation and intervention over the last 5000 years. Human society has reached Tech Level 4 (Medieval) and there four significant Kingdoms.

Jol, located on the original landing site, was for a long time the largest and most dominant civilisation, but over time it has split and been in conflict with neighbours until it lost its most powerful position. It is now mostly a trading Kingdom, with a large navy that helps keep its trading advantage and many small overseas colonies. Culturally Jol is the most cosmopolitan but the culture of its colonies is more dominant than its own.

Perid is a northern Kingdom which was forged from a loose confederation of smaller Kingdoms that were conquered and integrated under the leadership of a skilled Queen, Laja. They have a very militaristic culture.

Dunsan is now the largest Kingdom of Cordillion and the seat of the Church of the Sky Gods. However, it is ruled by jealous petty nobles who bicker amongst themselves and society is decadent. Its culture looks to its past and has not changed or moved forward for generations.

Thalio is a mostly isolated Kingdom and relies heavily on a martial and ritualistic culture, but its culture is also rich and interesting. It is ruled by a Secret Master, the identity of whom is not revealed.

There is also the Church of the Sky Gods, the major religion on the planet, who venerate the Sky Gods, who brought the people to the Promised Land. The four main Sky Gods closely resemble the four Travellers.

A Cultural Revolution

The mission for the Travellers is to raise the cultural output of the Human civilisation on Cordillion over the next 10 years and make it a cultural hub for helping to raise Droyne culture too.

The Travellers assess what they are dealing with and discuss what to do. Cyrus proposes direct intervention, though Drent warns that could back fire and the countries war with each other for their favour. Grant suggests a world-wide festival of culture that each of the countries compete in.

They discuss what incentives to give them to take part. Cyrus suggests drugging them with psychedelics to raise their creativity, but this is considered too extreme.

Make a Decision!

The Travellers are very engaged by this task and take a lot of time discussing through all the possibilities. However, Grandfather intervenes and pushes them along, ruling that they must make a decision soon and implement it. It seems he is in a hurry and although this is a 10 year scheme there is some sort of “real time” limit on their activities.

Del suggests each of them “adopt” a Kingdom and appear to that Kingdom. They settle on this idea and propose that they begin offering each country a new crop that will boost their agricultural output and say the winner of the Cultural Fair every year will gain a special gift just for that Kingdom.

Perid Intervention

Del takes Perid and appears before its young, dynamic Queen, who has rejected the Church of the Sky Gods, which she sees as corrupt and decadent, but still accepts the Sky Gods themselves. She tells Del in a private meeting how she was abused in a Nunnery as a child and wants to destroy the Church. Del says she should concentrate on the wellbeing of her people and advance them culturally through the Cultural Fair.

After the meeting, Queen Laja announces that the Sky Gods have told her that it is her holy mission to destroy the Church of the Sky Gods and invades Dunsan, the seat of the Church.

Del is furious and meets the Queen again, only to find her firmly of the belief he told her to destroy the Church for the wellbeing of her people. When he tells her this is not so and she must stop the war, she agrees to do so very reluctantly. After Del is gone, she renounces the Sky Gods as false and has no intention of taking part in their Cultural Fair, but also withdraws her army back across the border.

Dunsan Intervention

Drent takes the Kingdom of Dunsan and meets their young Queen and her noble court. The Queen seems a little disappointed to be given crops, she quietly asks if she could be given weapons to help her consolidate her power but Drent says that only crops are on offer.

The Dunsans initially begin to work on the Cultural Fair, mostly by repeating things they have done before, but they are caught off guard by the invasion from Perid. A significant portion of the country is overrun and Dunsan is losing. They now have little time for culture.

Drent secretly gives the Dunsan Queen access to gunpowder weapons in order to help her defend her country. However, she uses them mostly to eliminate her opponents amongst the nobility. Then the Peridians withdraw and the situation eases.

Jol Intervention

Grant visits Jol, meeting its elderly and slightly demented Queen and soon realises her Ministers hold the power. He tells them about the Cultural Fair and they agree to take part. Once Grant is gone, the Jolians instruct their overseas colonies, who are the main source of their culture, to do the work on their behalf and have each of them compete to create the greatest prize to please the Sky Gods, which will be used as Jol’s submission to the Festival. The Travellers are disappointed by this lazy contracting out of the work.

Thalio Intervention

Cyrus goes to Thalio, where he is greeted coolly but they soon warm to him. He does not meet the Secret Master but his Vasier, who quickly agrees to everything he says. Cyrus leaves before the fawning Vizier can ask for more.

Thalio enthusiastically embraces the Cultural Fair and creates new dances and rituals, with great displays of colour.

The Travellers decide at the end of the first year that Thalio has definitely won the Cultural Fair and give them a gift. They agree amongst themselves that they may fix the results to try to give something to each Kingdom over the years.

Invasions and More Interventions

In the next year, the Dunsans invade Perid looking for revenge. Using their new gunpowder weapons are able to defeat the Perid army. Del visits the Perid Queen, Laja, but she is bitter and tells him she has no intention of taking part in his stupid Fair.

Del has her killed by bombardment from space. Her Kingdom then begins to break up into the former tribes that only the Queen had been able to unite. The Dunsans advance in face of the disarray of their enemies and occupy most of Perid.

Del encourages another warlord to step up and take over Perid, but to stop having such a militaristic culture. He agrees to obey but asks how he can do this when his country is occupied and his people are hunted and oppressed by their enemies.

Del asks Drent if he could have a word with the Dunsan Queen and she agrees to pull back her armies as the Peridians are no longer a threat. With her enemies defeated and her Throne secure, the Queen is now happy to focus more on the Cultural Fair.

Secret Master Unmasked

Cyrus visits the Thalio again and there is an attempt to kidnap him by the Vizier. He thwarts it using his advanced technology and decides to find out what is going on. The Vizier take him to see the Secret Master, who reveals himself as a Dronye!

He tells Cyrus his ship crashed many years ago with communications lost the rest of the crew dead. He had no way to repair the ship, but used his advanced knowledge and the fact that he looks like a Sky God to work his way into becoming the ruler of this Kingdom. He used the guise of a Secret Master as he wanted to hide that he is not human from all but his most trusted servants.

Cyrus makes a deal with him that if Thalio continues to take the Cultural Fairs seriously for the next 10 years, he will arrange for him to get back to civilisation.

System Invasion

Over the next few years, which pass quickly in the minds of the Travellers, the four kingdoms settle down and compete in the Cultural Fairs, with Thalio continuously the most enthusiastic of the competitors and Perid the least.

Watching Cordillion from their orbiting space station, the Travellers start to think that their culture mission is going to be a success. Then suddenly they are alerted to the fact that more than 500 unidentified ships have jumped into the Cordillion system. Their configuration is not recognised and they do not answer hales. They appear to be a swarm of small ships.

The ships are more than a day away at sub-light speed and the Travellers discuss what to do. Del’s assessment of the military situation is that the limited resources they have in the system, just observation stations and a few robotic ships and shuttles, are no match for the invading force.

Run Away!

They have a message drone jump out of the system asking for help, but it will take a few days to arrive and the authorities respond. The invading ships will reach Cordillion by then.

The Travellers decide to board the only decent ship they have in the system and move away from the Invaders at maximum sub-light speed. They should be able to remain outside weapons range for a few days. Cyrus makes sure that the Droyne Secret Master of Thalio is rescued first.

As they move away from Cordillion, the Invading drones follow them. When they reach Cordillion, the drones destroy the orbiting space station and the small number of robotic ships that are sent against them. A small number of the 500 ships stay behind to salvage the technology but the rest continue to pursue the Travellers at sub-light speed.

Then suddenly a message drone jumps into the system broadcasting an automated message. The Empire is under attack from robotic drones from a long-dead civilisation near the Core of the Galaxy. The Invaders appear to target advanced technology and leave simple civilisations alone. The Travellers are instructed to observe and obtain as much intelligence about the Invaders as possible. Son Seventeen-Four is co-ordinating the counter attack and will response when possible.

Seventeen-Four to the Rescue

After a couple of days chase, the drones are slowly closing in. The Travellers decide to make a hyper-space jump and get out of the system, but before they can they are somehow teleported from their ship to another, a large ship of some new design with what looks like very advanced technology.

At the centre of the large bridge, is a figure that looks like a younger version of Grandfather. They can feel the same power and awe from him. He asks them what intelligence they have gained from the Invaders and is dismissive of them when they reveal they have little to tell him.

Their lack of intelligence causes the War against the Invaders to be long and protracted. A lot of Droyne are killed in the fighting before Son Seventeen-Four is able to use advanced technology to overcome the tenacious and determined robot invaders.

Grandfather seems to take some time making sure they are aware of the consequences of their failure. It is apparent that this story has come to an end, but Grandfather has one more to show them.

Droyne Empire at its Peak

Another 5,000 years pass in the Empire of the Droyne. Their technology continues to advance. Teleportation is now ubiquitous. It is possible to teleport between planets and Star Gates allow ships to instantaneously jump between Star Systems. An ansible network also allows instantaneous communications across hundreds of parsecs.

Grandfather’s Sons have transformed the Empire. Each rules a sector of the Empire and runs it in Grandfather’s name, mimicking the structure of the old Empire in their sector.

Technological advancement has moved into what the Travellers would class as super-science. Each Son researches his own area of science, but this has begun to hamper progress as the Sons are no longer working together but pursuing their own interests separately.

The Consensus has re-emerged from obscurity as the League of New Thought, rejecting the control of the Sons and the technological “corruption” of Droyne society.

Cordillion – a Cultural Celebration

The planet of Cordillion has developed over time into a successful Cultural Hub for the Empire. It is a shining beacon of cultural enlightenment, but unfortunately it has mostly been neglected as the Sons concentrate more on advancing the physical sciences.

The High Council, which has little power now and is mostly ignored by the Sons, continues to try to keep track of its experiments and it recognises the success on Cordillion.

The Human civilisation on Cordillion has advanced to Tech Level 8 and is now ruled over by the Droyne from a floating city high up in the atmosphere. The Humans are given a great deal of freedom to express themselves and as a result they are most culturally productive planet in the Empire.

The High Council has decided to hold a celebration on Cordillion to recognise its achievements and the Travellers are high level Droyne officials charged with organising the celebrations. They arrange for visitors to come from all around the Empire, including the local Son Seventeen-Four, who has a laboratory space station in the Cordillion solar system located in close orbit to the sun.

Assisted by robots and AI, the Travellers arrange an elaborate celebration with guest speakers and presentations. Guests begin gating into the system in their hundreds and the floating city is soon packed with visitors.

Droyne social technology has advanced until everyone has their own social media data halo, which is used to advertise their personality and ease social interaction. They notice a group of visitors whose data halos take a moment to start up, suggesting they are behind technologically. They instruct their security robots to keep an eye on these guests.

Seventeen-Four is Absent

As the ceremony proceeds, the main person conspicuous by their absence is Son Seventeen-Four, who should have turn up an hour ago but has not. A number of guests came specifically hoping to meet him and his absence rises to the top of an automatically generated “Most Discussed” list amongst guests.

Attempts at communicating with Seventeen-Four’s space laboratory result in just an automated message saying that Seventeen-Four is busy with his researches. He appreciates the message and will give it his full attention in due course.

The Travellers keep the ceremony going, getting other guests to stand in at the point where Seventeen-Four was due to make a speech.

They then receive a communication from the Ansible Network from Son Two-Twelve in the next Sector. He abruptly asks them why Seventeen-Four has failed to turn up when he is expected. They tell him they have tried to communicate with him but had no reply. Two-Twelve tells them he has had the same result and abruptly tells them it is not good enough. They need to do something about it at once and then cuts off communications.

Seventeen-Four’s Space Station

They leave a message with Seventeen-Four’s comms system telling him other Sons are demanding to know why he is not following up on his obligations. They get his robot assistant to respond, who tells them Seventeen-Four is currently engaged in an important experiment and cannot be disturbed.

They decide to go visit him directly in a shuttle. They fly to the inner system near his laboratory and notice it has been upgraded to quite a large armoured space station.

Their close proximity and tenacity eventually prompts Seventeen-Four to come on the comms. He is rude and short with them, saying his is in the middle of an important experiment into stellar gravity and he does not have time to talk to idiots. When they mention Two-Twelve he looks concerned and demands to know why Two-Twelve has become involved. He must have a specific agenda.

They are unable to confirm or deny but remind him he had committed to come to their ceremony. He tells them his experiments are far more important than the petty affairs of morons. They should go away and not bother him again – then he ends the communication.

Stellar Catastrophe

They have no choice but to return to Cordillion. One thing they notice while in the inner solar system is that the sun appears to brightening. Cyrus is able to work out this is significant and Seventeen-Four must be manipulating the Sun.

As they land on the City above Cordillion, there is a bright flare from Cordillion’s sun. Technological devices suddenly begin failing. The power system on the station goes down and the Star Gate shuts down while a ship is in the middle of passing through. The ship is broken in half and begins to explode and spiral down onto the surface of Cordillion.

A chaotic disaster unfolds in which some ships crash down onto the surface of Cordillion and others simply fail. The Travellers work on helping people evacuate the City, though there are not enough escape capsules and the replicators to create more are off-line.

They are also forced to deal with the failure of the City’s flotation system, which means the whole City has begun spirally down towards the surface of Cordillion, which would potentially be a cataclysmic event that would kill millions on the planet.

Through hard work they are able to jettison and detach parts of the City, crashing them harmlessly into the sea or mountains, while scrapping up enough power such that the City’s descent onto Cordillion is slowed to a few months before impact.

Gamma Ray Burst

As things begin to calm down, another problem becomes apparent. Radiation levels in the system have spiked massively, hundreds of thousands of rads of gamma rays are pouring from Cordillion’s sun. They realise every living being on the side of the planet facing the sun will already have absorbed enough radiation to be die over the next few hours. Some of the survivors evacuated to the planet will have taken a high enough dose to have been fatal too!

The floating City has been absorbing the radiation and is in danger of being radiated itself. They are able to Counter-Radiate as best they can but they lack the power to do a full job and the City will slowly succumb.

Attempts to send communications outside the system fail as the Ansible Network is down. Even ships in orbit on the night-side of the planet cannot use the Network. As well as Gamma Rays the Star must be giving off enough tachyons to disrupt any communication attempts, which pass straight through the planet, unlike the Gamma Rays which the planet does block.

What the Hell can we do?

They realise they must evacuate the City and they notice a transporter, similar to the one they found in Komesh orbit, is safely on the dark side of the planet. They instruct the AI computer on board to bring the ship to the edge of the dark side and launch a module at them so they can escape in it, which they do, leaving the City’s AI to continue to maintain the systems as best it can.

Once on board the transporter, shield from the radiation by Cordillion itself, the Travellers consider their options. Seventeen-Four’s space station is very powerful and protected. It will take some considerable firepower to take it down – firepower they do not have.

A Cunning Plan

After some discussion, they try having a small warp-capable ship fly at the station by remote control. It hits and causes some damage, but not enough.

Del considers getting an asteroid to crash into it, then Cyrus suggests that they abandon the transporter and have it fly over to the City and attempt to fly itself and the City at high warp into the space station. After some discussion they resolve to try this, leaving the transporter for a smaller ship.

The transporter has some difficulty taking the whole station with it. When it attempts to move, the City begins to break up, but a significant section of it moves with the transporter. They move it out of the atmosphere of Cordillion and have it quickly accelerate to warp, smashing into Seventeen-Four’s space station and causing enough damage to destroy it.

A Chat with Grandfather

The Travellers become aware that the resultant explosion killed Seventeen-Four’s body, but he is not dead. His memories have been backed-up in a “Family Bank” and he will automatically be cloned and his last saved memories downloaded into the mind of the clone.

Unfortunately, that sort of technology was not available when Grandfather cloned his Sons, otherwise he would have done that too. Instead, his Sons, while highly intelligent, lacked Wisdom, the accumulated experience of the 20,000 years Grandfather has already been alive by then.

The Travellers are now themselves again and are sat on mats around the cross-legged figure of Grandfather, like a Master and his pupils. He wants to communicate with them directly now.

Grandfather and his Sons

Grandfather has the Travellers reflect on his decisions concerning his Sons. At the time he created them, he needed help otherwise the Droyne Empire would have collapsed and his 20,000 years of work would have been set back severely.

At the time, cloning technology was sufficient to create exact duplicates of Grandfather physically and his Sons inherited all his physical and mental ability, but he was unable to give them his accumulated life knowledge. They were as children.

He took them in as his children and educated them as best he could. They listened and absorbed all the things he told them and initially did everything he said. They administered the Empire and assisted him in his research.

Over time, though, as they matured and reached their “teenage” years, they begin to want to do their own things and not be told what to do. They began to ignore first the High Council and then even direct instructions from Grandfather himself, instead choosing to follow their own way.

This would not have been a problem with ordinary children, but the Sons were as powerful and intelligent as Grandfather, in positions of power scattered across the Galaxy.

Grandfather’s Solution

Their behaviour became more and more erratic. They neglected their duties as Administrators of the Empire, focusing on their dangerous experiments. Some of them ignored their population. Others began to rule over them as Gods and even forcibly augment the Droyne under their control. They even began to fight amongst themselves over petty rivalries.

Grandfather realised that he had created 420 monsters and had to consider what to do about them. By this time, AI had evolved sufficiently that he could create robot assistants who were as intelligent as he was and would follow his instructions.

Seeing the total destruction of the Empire he had forged, he had a fateful decision to take on how to deal with his failed creations. After considering all the possibilities and options, while running complex predictions on what the outcomes could be, he came to the conclusion the only way to deal with them was to kill them all.

The Ancient Civil War

Grandfather admits the results were worse than he predicted. He was unable to kill all his Sons outright in his initial strike, there were too many of them scattered too far around the Galaxy. Also some of them had begun to consider that he may strike against them and had taken counter-measures. They were, after all, as intelligent as him and had similar minds.

The Galaxy descended into civil war on a cosmic scale. Incredibly advanced technology was used to destroyed planets or at least render them uninhabitable. Beck’s World is an example of such an action. Even 300,000 years later, it is barely habitable by life.

The worst atrocities included suns being sent supernova and entire solar systems smashed. Trillions and trillions of sentient life forms were killed, sometimes only to facilitate the destruction of the “Family Bank” to ensure permanent death, sometimes just because the life forms were perceived to be working for “the other side”.

Absolution?

Grandfather is embarrassed by his actions during this time and glosses over them a little. He turns now to the Travellers and asks them what they would have done. His mental powers are such that they are unable to tell him lies.

Del tries to give a more eloquent answer but finds Grandfather digs into his mind for his genuine opinion. Del says that it’s likely in the circumstances that he would have made the same sort of mistakes and life is a learning experience.

Cyrus is of a similar opinion and accepts Grandfather’s decision as what he thought best at the time.

Grant finds it hard to give an opinion such a massive decision and he may have done the same.

Drent tries to be diplomatic but ultimately thinks that Grandfather went too far and should not have done what he did.

An Ancient Shadow War

Grandfather tells them that the war raged for many years, but eventually it died down after nearly all of his Sons were killed or fled into hiding. He grew tired of the carnage and decided to hide what he did by finishing off the destruction of the Droyne Empire and ensuring his advanced technology could not be used by primitive beings.

He then retreated into his pocket dimension to continue his researches in private, aided by his robot servants. He kept an eye on events in the Galaxy and attempted, when one of his Sons revealed himself, to destroy them. Sometimes this worked, other times he was tricked and killed, although he was always able to restore using his “Family Bank” in the Pocket Dimension.

Both sides acted stealthily to avoid the existing sentient populations from realising anything was happening. They did not want their technology to fall into the hands of “primitives”.

Manipulated by Seven

Grandfather tells the Travellers that they have been the pawns of Seven, one of the more difficult of his Sons and a survivor of the Civil War.

Seven has been trying to find the location of the dimensional gateway into Grandfather’s pocket dimension for millennia. When the Travellers found the ship in the atmosphere of Komesh, a ship Grandfather thought lost, it gave Seven an opportunity. He had his agent, Grant’s Uncle Vlen, communicate with them and using psychology cause them not to trust him and move instead to the pocket dimension, allowing Seven to find the entrance. They were used by him to get to Grandfather.

Lacking the combination to open the dimensional gateway, Seven has been bombarding the gateway with radiation at velocities faster than light, which is why they have been seeing the bright lights in the sky. Now he has broken through.

The ship they saw is not the vessel that Seven is travelling in. He is the vessel. His “body” is a super-powered space ship.

The Death of Grandfather

The Travellers are snapped out of their imaginings back into reality. They are on the space station that Grandfather has been constructing. It has just been finished and is a powerful weapon. Seven is now within firing range of the station.

As Seven approaches and prepares to fire, Grandfather opens fire with his new weapon first. A beam of unimaginable power bursts forth from the space station and strikes Seven – but Seven’s defences deflect the power away and he is undamaged.

Seven fires back, striking Grandfather a beam that cuts through his station and disintegrates him before the station can raise its defences.

Seven launches dozens of smaller ships that head to the nearby planet and begin bombarding it is massive thermo-nuclear explosions that eventually will vaporise the entire planet. Meanwhile, he directs the firepower of his main ship to the space station, which begins to take damage despite its defence fields now being active.

The Travellers by this time have been approached by one of Grandfathers robot assistants and without being asked are told they must evacuate. The robots drag them over to a Teleportal, which is activated and they are thrown through.

Underground Cave

Reeling from comprehending the events that have just happened, the Travellers stumble out the other side of the Teleportal into the anti-climactic atmosphere of a dark, underground cave. The Teleportal immediately powers down and turns off behind them.

They look around but there is no one and nothing else in the caves. The atmosphere is breathable and their suits are compromised so they take their helmets off. They explore the caves and find their way out of it. They are on a wooded hillside. Further down the hill they can see the artificial lights of a settlement of some kind.

The night sky looks very similar to the planet they were on where the Ilimdaki and the Hunters lived, but this does not look like any part of that planet. It looks like they are now on the third world in Grandfather’s pocket dimension.

They find a local stream and drink from it using purification tablets to ensure it is safe. They eat from the provisions they took from the Cloning Machine. Soon they fall asleep, not posting any guards as they are too tired mentally and physically.

Local Farm

Hours later they awaken to sunshine, it is day time. They proceed down the mountain towards the settlement they saw the night before and find it is a farm, with the main dwellings inside a clear protective dome. The technology level looks low, around Tech Level 5 or 6 (21 Century Earth). There is a combustion engine-powered motor vehicle which looks particularly low tech compared to the buildings.

They go to the door of the dome and are greeted by a local Human farmer, with his son and daughter. The Farmer carries a slut weapon. Del tells him they come from the stars and the Farmer says that’s nonsense. Everyone knows only Grandfather comes from the stars – unless they work for him?

Del shows his energy weapon to demonstrate their knowledge of advanced technology, to the delight of the Farmer’s son, but the Farmer himself is suspicious and sceptical. Del soon loses patience with him and speaks to him rudely, prompting the Farmer to close the door and end the conversation.

Droyne

They were able to find out that there is a city of 8 million people only a few miles away and they resolve to head there. They are surprised to find that the road network is not well developed and the roads in poor condition. Low tech motor vehicles drive past occasionally but there are not many of them even on the main roads.

They decide to follow the road to the City. While they walk along, they see a group of Droyne flying over them. They stare at them and attract their attention. One of them flies down and asks these “Humans” what they are doing, but the Droyne is generally dismissive of them and flies away with his friends.

They realise that the Droyne was speaking to them in its native language, which the Travellers now appear to be able to speak after their experiences with Grandfather inhabiting the minds of past Droyne.

Church of Grandfather

Cyrus remarks that they now know who the dominant species of the planet is and this is confirmed as they approach the City. It is around the same Tech Level as the farm but has a lot of tall structures with many Droyne flying around above from platform to platform. At ground level, Humans live and their facilities are clearly less developed and lower tech.

They wander through the streets of the City and see human shops and businesses that look like the slums of the City. The Travellers’ bizarre appearance in space suits draws strange looks from the passers-by. When they pass a Church to Grandfather they decide to head in and explore.

They find the Priest in the Church is a Droyne but he is welcoming. He does however remark at their appearance. They learn from him that Grandfather was the creator of this world and everyone on it. He expects them to follow his laws and stay away from the Sky – that is Grandfather’s realm.

They ask about a sacred place to Grandfather and are told about his first landing site, but it’s not on this side of the planet and will take a month for humans to sail there by ship.

Attracting Attention

The Travellers talk amongst themselves in a corner of the Church and wonder whether to make a scene and use their advanced technology to get to see someone important, or to try to blend in. Cyrus speculates that Seven won’t ignore this world for long and they need to do something.

The Travellers are not particularly quiet and their discussion causes a few heads to turn in the church and the Priest they talked to looks worried and heads into a side room.

They decide to ignore this and continue their discussion. They decide to head up to the higher levels of the City and exit the Church, but as they do so a number of Droyne in what look like Police uniforms, carrying slut weapons, fly down and surround them.

A leader officer steps forward, brandishing an ID card and tells them they are under arrest by the Bureau of Security.

Stand Off

The Travellers put on their helmets. The officer tells them they are under arrest and going to be questioned. Del talks to the others and they agree that being arrested would simply cause too many issues for them. They would lose their weapons and face stupid questions, while Seven likely destroys the entire planet.

Del tells the officer he has no intention of going with him, he does not recognise their authority, he and his friends are from another planet. The officer tells them it does not matter, they are coming with him anyway and he calls in backup.

Del becomes angry, aggressive and derisory of these petty officials who are not listening to him. One of the Policemen fires a Taser-like weapon at him but it bounces off his combat armour. In response, Del draws his energy weapons, over protests by the Police, blasting a near-by tree to ruins.

Negotiations

The Police are unnerved and begin backing off. A demanding Police Lieutenant then takes over, but the Police hold their fire. Some sort of Intelligence Officer flies down and takes over the negotiations. Del is short, rude and aggressive with him and things nearly escalate into shooting, something that Del would survive but Drent, Cyrus and Grant, only in vacc suits, would likely be injured or killed. There are approaching 100 armed Police around and above them by this time.

The Priest from the Church steps forward and offers to be a go-between. The Intelligence Officer agrees to this and the Priest talks to Del, who tells him they are from another planet, shows him the Galactic map from his computer and finally that Grandfather is dead.

This the Priest does not accept and tells him no-one here will. They are the chosen of Grandfather and this is the home he created for them. Del tells him that the whole planet will soon be destroyed unless the Travellers are allowed to do something about it.

The Bureau of Security HQ

The negotiations are bad-tempered but slowly things calm down and eventually the Travellers agree to go with the Police to their Headquarters and answer some questions.

A rotor-assisted floating platform transports the Travellers up to the higher levels of the City, surrounded by a heavy Police escort. A grand building with a large sign “Bureau of Security” is their destination. Inside, they enter a meeting room, with a mirrored window and a table. The Travellers sit on one side and senior Police officer on the other, led by the Intelligence Officer, Atos, who took over their interrogation on the street.

Del does most of the talking and he is still very dismissive of them, talking a lot of technical detail which they just do not understand. They are at logger-heads. Atos suggests they call in Professor Ankor, a person the rest of the Police present are scathing about. Atos tells them she is the only one that can understand the science here.

Professor Ankor

Atos calls an adjournment and the Police get up and go. The Travellers are left alone for a while in the interview room. They talk on internal comms as they are obviously being watched and listened to. They consider how to get this situation resolved. Drinks are brought in for them after a while.

A couple of hours later, a female Droyne in civilian clothing enters the room with the Police. She greets the Travellers politely and asks what this is all about.

Del tells her the same thing that he told the Police and she questions him about the scientific aspects of his story. She is fascinated by their technical knowledge. She says there are only three stars in the entire Universe and she does not understand the star map. Del tells her this is a pocket universe created by Grandfather and she is struggles to grasp the concept, but is trying.

When they turn to Grandfather, she tells them he forbids them from leaving the planet. She is surprised by their story of Grandfather’s death. Some of her comments about Humans being chosen by Grandfather is a turn up for the books draw comments from the Police officers, suggesting she is known for being a “human lover.”

Science Talk

A long conversation ensues while Professor Ankor asks more questions and learns from them as much as she can. They ask her about space travel, but they have no space craft, it is forbidden by the Church of Grandfather.

The Travellers realise that they need to get a message to the Liberator, it is their only hope of getting out of this mess. They ask her about Faster than Light communications, but she tells them they have no such technology. They are despairing of what to do.

Night fell a long time ago and they have been in this building for several hours. The rest of the Police become bored and tired. They start leaving and with just Professor Ankor and Atos remaining.

Things Falling from the Sky

There is an interruption when a Policeman brings a message for Atos. He reads it then asks the Travellers if they know anything about things falling from the sky. The Travellers are disturbed by this and suggest this needs investigation.

Atos thinks for a moment, then agrees. He arranges for them to leave the building with about 30 armed Police, boarding an airship and heading out of the City. Atos tells them a large spherical object landed in a field not far from the City.

A team were sent to investigate, but there have been reports of problems and communications have been cut off. It won’t take the airship long to reach there.

When they arrive at the area, Atos tries to radio the team on the ground, but there is no reply. The Police fly down from the airship, while the Travellers using their grav belts, carrying Grant who doesn’t have one. They spread out and finding the landing site easily. The fallen object is buried in a cave. There is no sign of anyone around.

Robot Invaders

As they approach, Atos has his Police spread out and call out for the team that should be here. Then suddenly radio reports come in of Police officers under attack. A fight develops around them with an unknown foe, with Police firing at their attackers. Atos is drawn away to deal with the situation.

The Travellers are left to do what they want and head for the cave with Professor Ankor. As they approach, they see some sort of light coming from within. Then a figure emerges, a cyborg of some kind with metallic armour and brandishing an energy weapon. Del draws the Ancient pistol and shoots it, disintegrating it instantly.

They head into the cave and find themselves inside a large, metallic sphere, which has an inner wall composed of electronics, with Modules for Power, Control, Replication, Communication and large robot arms carrying out complex assembly and upgrading. It is clearly carrying out some sort of re-programmed operation.

Re-programming the Sphere

They examine the Sphere’s technology. It is not that advanced from their level of knowledge and Grant start work on taking control of the Communications Modules using his engineering skills, while Del begins to hack the Control Modules using his Computer skills.

Professor Ankor is fascinated by the technology but says she does not feel very well.

There is a noise outside. Cyrus and Drent go out and see a Policeman under attack by another Droyne, who is biting him savagely and the Policeman collapses. The attacker gets up from the unconscious body of the Policeman and they can see it is a Droyne but disfigured somehow with black lines along its body and partial electronics merging in with its skin. It moves to attack them and they gun it down.

Cybernetic Virus

Professor Ankor groans in pain, clutching her head and Cyrus checks her out. She has some sort of small, metal chip growing in the skin of her forehead and it is beginning to infect the nerve-endings in her face. It seems she has been infected by some sort of cybernetic virus that uses nanites.

Cyrus quickly operates and cuts out the chip, which brings the process to a halt. He helps her recover, while Grant and Del continue their work and Drent keeps watch on the entrance.

Atos, the Intelligence Officer, flying down, wounded. He says his men have been attacked and he does not understand what is going on. Cyrus takes him inside and treats him for a gunshot wound. He was hit accidentally by his own man, who was being attacked at the time.

Prioritising Communications

The Sphere continues upgrading all its systems, but Del has significantly hacked into the Control Module and puts Communications top of the Upgrade priority list and it focuses entirely on upgrading the Comms system. At some point it will gain the capacity to transmit significantly faster than light, at which point Drent will have it send a message to the Liberator, which is hopefully still in orbit around the original planet they arrived at.

The upgrading is taking time though. Outside, the Policeman who was attacked earlier rises zombie-like, covered in cyber circuitry. Drent guns him down.

Studying the Cybervirus

After a while, Professor Ankor relapses and now she has several chips growing in her face. Cyrus watches as the cybervirus takes over her, studying what it does. Once it reaches a certain point, it electrically shorts out her brain. She begins to drool, suggesting that she has been reduced to vegetable intelligence. It takes control of the nervous system, accelerating adrenalin and hormone glands that cause her muscles to grow. A small antennae grows, suggests the infected are linked into a wider network and controlled remotely.

The cybervirus is clearly engineered only to infect Droyne as none of the Travellers are affected. Once Ankor is completely under control of the cybervirus, Cyrus puts her down. He also discovers that Atos is also infected and does the same to him.

Mission Profile

Del is finally able to totally hack the Sphere’s Control module. This is Node-251, part of a network of nodes across the planet, acting as hubs for the invasion. Its mission seems to be to infect the Droyne and establish a network across the entire planet to search for advanced technology and track down the Family Bank of Grandfather. At present, the network is only 20% complete but it is growing by about 1% every 10 minutes.

Del attempts to hack the Network co-ordinating all the Nodes, but he does not have much time to learn about the security protocols of the system and ends up getting himself locked out. This Node still receives Network wide communications and the percentage completed continues to increase.

The Network Fights Back

Del then sees a message go out across from the Network to the local infected Droyne that Node-251 has been compromised. They are being instructed to move in and take back control.

Cyrus and Drent brace for attack and are mostly able to hold off the attacking cybervirus-infected Droyne with their energy weapons. The planet-wide Network is now 50% complete.

The Node continues to upgrade the Communication Module as instructed but Del has to allow other nodes such as Power and Control upgrade occasionally so they have the capacity to continue to keep upgrading Comms.

Time passes and the Travellers start to become very tired as they have not slept for over 24 hours and their adrenalin levels begin to drop as things quieten down. Cyrus draws up a drug concoction to keep them all awake and focused, though it’s also slightly addictive.

The planet-wide network is now 70% complete.

Sending out an SOS

As the Sun begins to rise, the Communications Module is has the capacity to transmit an FTL signal. Grant records a message for Dirk telling him where they are and beams it to last know location of the Liberator. He tries to narrow the beam, so it is not detected.

However, the Network detects the transmission and Del sees a message calling in more powerful cyborgs to attack and destroy Node-251. They will be upgraded versions of the cyborg that was guarding the cave when they arrived.

Grant sets the message on repeat and they abandon the Sphere, heading back to the airship, which still has its engine running. Using grav belts they ascend to the airship bridge and Cyrus sets it lifting into the air.

Get Away

A group of six armoured cyborgs fly over to the Sphere and begin to blast it with energy weapons. Their firepower is enough to destroy the Sphere completely.

The cyborgs fly back into the air and away, but one of them turns towards the airship and begins to attack it. The Travellers fire back with their energy weapons, but their shots are not great and those that do hit only do limited damage. This is clearly an upgraded version of the cyborg that was disintegrated.

The cyborg blasts the airship and the bridge goes crashing to the ground. The Travellers can use their grav belts to avoid taking much injury. Grant has a slightly rougher time.

The cyborg swings around to attack them again and they return fire with the Ancient pistols, but they miss. Del’s combat armour is hit by the cyborg and damaged.

Then, suddenly, they all teleport up to the Liberator.