28/04/2020 - War of the World

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.

End of Episode Four