%% date:: [[2023-06-04]] %% # [[001_20230604 And then there were two lemon suckers]] ![[alien-001.png]] ## Session Summary > [!tldr] [[001_20230604 And then there were two lemon suckers]] > We, the crew of the USCSS Montero, were woken up early from hypersleep by Mu-th-ur, who had detected a distress signal en route to our final destination of Stutter's World. We were on a routine cargo run, but were given new orders to look for a ship called the USCSS Cronus, rescue its crew (still in hypersleep after 75 years), and retrieve scientific data regarding whatever it was they were doing there. > > After nearly colliding with the ship we were looking for, we boarded it and found a grisly sight: the security staff, Wong, had his head blown clean off the spacesuit and his arms were grotesquely stretched. We restored power to the Cronus, turned on the filtration system, and then began to wake the remainder of its crew: XO Johns, doctors Cooper and Flynn, Sergeant Reeds, and a company rep named Clayton. We learned that they were a biology and chemistry crew, sent to investigate possible solutions for something called "26 Draconus strain". > > As the crew woke up from hypersleep, however, Doctor Cooper got ripped apart from the inside by an unusual xenomorph named a Blood Burster and began attacking us. The crew of the Cronus had obviously seen this before and locked us in with him, the assholes. We subdued him (it), but obviously the Cronus crew now have some explaining to do. ^summary --- ## Log [[Mu-th-ur]] is an AI that is on our ship. [[Vanessa Miller]] can access her directly from her space suit. The rest of us have to access her from a module on the ship. Our ship's cargo hold has a rare helium 3 gas. It's highly flammable (close to nuclear, and we have a dozen canisters of the stuff). [[The USCSS Montero|The Montero]] is not rated as a commercial towing vehicle but this run is a special order by [[Weyland-Yutani]]. We're supposed to take it to Sutter's World, a newly established colony. We have a glitch that happened before FTL. Our crew is just awakening from hypersleep, ready to deliver the goods to Sutter's World. We're used to hypersleep. - [[Vanessa Miller]] - [[Davis]] - [[Lyron Cham]] - [[Kayla Rye]]: Cham's buddy, female. Looking at a photo. A Polaroid of her brother. She doesn't talk about him. - [[Wilson]]: glorified babysitter from W-Y. We don't really like him. Miller sometimes looks a little more severe than she is. She likes efficiency. Cost savings. Cham: big brawny dude, cornfed country motherfucker, man of few words. Likes everyone but doesn't have a lot to say. Captain Miller gets a message from W-Y that says there's a distress call from a ship that we must check out, at the risk of losing our licenses (captain and pilot). We're still two months out from our final destination. This is confusing because we're supposed to be closer to Sutter's World. We think we were awakened specifically for the distress signal. Miller gets more info from email: We're supposed to find the Cronus crew that's in stasis and determine whether or not the ship is salvageable, pilotable, or if it needs to be scuttled and left behind. People have been stuck in stasis for 75 years. We're supposed to retrieve all the crew we can retrieve. Miller gets an audio distress signal but it's hard to understand. She asks Rye to help triangulate the signal, and Rye asks for permission to download the company info to her personal data pad. Alert! Alert! Mu-th-ur comes on on the entire ship. *Collision imminent. Brace for impact.* I manage to move up out of the way despite the fact that it's moving 11km/sec. We have damaged a couple of our fuel drives and we won't be able to engage our FTL drives until they're repaired for 12 hours. Wilson isn't happy that we've damaged some of the goods. He says he has more info-- we're supposed to secure scientific data and samples. Then salvage and escort Cronus back to Anchorhead or any other W-Y facility. I get 1 x Watatsumi Bolt Gun (4 shots) Mu-th-ur kicks on the floodlights outside the Montero. Cronus looks OLD, like 2110. We're in 22xx. Audio distress signal: "Help... drifting... disabled." We do an umbilical. There's a magnetic mechanism to dock - it's a universal thing so that all marshals can get free access to ships. We get to the Cronus and the airlock is damaged - but it looks like the door is bowing from the inside out. It's denting outwards towards us like there's been an explosion. Wilson says the power to the door is not on. Doors open and I push past. There's a man whose head has been removed from his spacesuit-clad body. There's a model gun next to him and his brains have been blown up. I almost run into him. My space suit has a little bit of frozen blood smudge. I panic a bit. I realise that something's not right about this guy. His arms are a bit too long and they've stretched his compression suit. His suit is ripped. Red blood spatter. I get his gun, Armat Model 37A2 12 Gauge Pump Action. ![[alien-cronus.jpg]] Cham seals the airlock. Cham and Wilson open the next door. It's dark in the cargo bay but there's a blip of motion. We're in a vehicle bay. It's like a garage of the ship. Most of the vehicles that would be here are missing. There are two ATVs and no RTV. They're lying on their sides like they got flipped. They were not strapped down when the spaceship took off, which means they took off in a hurry. We can look up into Deck C from where we are - there's a loading crane that's cattywhompus. There are deep shadows all over the place. Deck C is 40-60 feet up. ![[alien-cronus-deck-d.png]] ![[alien-cronus-deck-c.png]] We get to the elevator and there is only minimal power. Airlocks do not fall into the emergency power category so there's no power there. ![[alien-cronus-deck-b.png]] We go all the way up to Deck A - we're by the Cryo stuff. Our Mu-th-ur is 6000 and this is 2000. We're 4 generations ahead. Air quality is currently at 63%. We see particles in the air. It's breathable but may have allergenic consequences if we breathe it in for a long time. We can manually open the air shaft to start the filtering. We go towards the main Mu-th-ur terminal and see a code at the door holding it closed. 16-key keypad. There are 14 million combinations. We check in on Rye. Mu-th-ur has paused the debug at 80% because she's focusing on the expedition. She can't continue. She also couldn't get anything more out of the signal-- it's not the audio quality on receiving it; the difficulty was that it was sent with faulty equipment already. Rye now has visual on us through the security cameras. She can guide us as well. Motion tracker blips again. Rye says "What the hell was that? Is Wilson with you?" She thinks it's part of a glitch. Cham gets into the mainframe. We learn it's OK to remove our helmets but it probably won't be good to do it for more than an hour. We get the blueprints for the air scrubber system. We shouldn't have any issue engaging it. We also see that the cryo system is still engaged. I ask Mu-th-ur for scientific data that the crew was working on before they lost contact. The USCS Cronus was in <redacted> airpsace surveying <redacted> planet system. They were researching possible solutions for the 26 Draconis strain. They were chemistry- and biology-based. Upon liftoff, samples were taken on board. Current status of samples unknown. The samples are multiple vials - they were stored in the science lab on Deck B. Wilson asks that everything on the 26 Draconis strain be relayed to him. Miller adds that it should go through to her as well. We can engage autopilot from here, but we wouldn't want to do it. Mu-th-ur says the Cronus was caught in a micro-meteorite system and has some damage, but it should be mostly operational. Nobody has been removed from stasis since they entered it. Security Personel *Wong* expired before the crew went into stasis. Multiple people didn't make it into stasis. We go to the air scrubbers shaft. There are ventilation shafts that neutralise pollutants and generate clean oxygen. The power is fed from the reactors, goes to water filter chamber in Deck C, condensation accumulates. Cham sees that the new oxygen generation is offline. The oxygen we're breathing has been here for 75 years. There's ice on the coils. He super succeeds in freeing up the coils but also gets a big sense of unease. He keeps it together though, and gets the turbines spinning. Mu-th-ur reports that the air quality is increasing. We go towards the cryo chambers. There are marks on the outer edges of the doorway. We don't know if they were there when we came though before. The door is locked from the inside. One of the scratch marks goes through the keypad which would have been on the outside. Cham opens the door. The cryo chamber has people with looks of shock on their face. There's one that's dead. We see some of the crew of the Cronus. There are two that are dessicated corpses. There's an XO - his name tag says Johns. There's a Sergeant Reeds, two others, Doctor Cooper and Doctor Flynn, and a company rep named Clayton (female) who looks like a Karen (though she's an attractive older woman) in a W-Y jumpsuit who is dressed differently. We wake up everyone. Wilson tries to talk to Clayton but she doesn't seem to remember anything. Miller finds first aid boxes in the cryo chambers. 1 and 3 have been used, but 2 has pills that helps reduce the effects of hypersleep. Miller just controls the med kit though and only gives some pills to the ones coming out of hypersleep. He's an older guy with a blond gray goatee. He starts putting his glasses on. He's the kind of guy with mousy hair who seems like he always has allergies. Addicted to coffee, lanky. He's doctor Cooper. He's shielding his eyes from the light, rubbing his temples. He seems to be suffering the reverse effect from the hypersleep pills. He's saying things that aren't coherent. He's muttering nonsense and talking about something like the stars that don't look right. He forgot his mother at the train station. His nose is starting to bleed. Cooper is flailing as blood erupts from his nose and eyes. His eyeball launches at me! :O An ARM reaches out of his eye socket and wrenches open his jaw and opens up his face. This is not the stereotypical xenomorph - this is a blood burster and the Cronus crew seems to have seen this before. They locked us in with this thing, wtf. Combat! - Me: I hit it for 6 damage. - Blood burster: Goes towards the air duct. - Miller: Hits it with a harpoon!! There's a cable attached to the gun and it's quite strong. It jumps on top of Miller and lets off a terrifying hiss. - Cham: Takes a swing with a cricket bat. It's stunned. - Me: I hit it for 3 damage. They finally open the door, the fucking cowards.