Context
A team of assassin pleasure bioroids are falling down to Mars' surface after an emergency decompression of their planetary elevator's vessel. They were awaken seemingly by a fluke, but their organized crime overlord are hell-bent in not letting the Chinese authority get their hand on them.
Story
Down in flames
 |
| The space elevator. |
Five bioroids were packed in a pod for 3. The arrangement looked like a game of twister a few moments before general collapse. The life support alert was blinking on the display. Very quickly, the CO2 levels went up and made many enter a state of panic. Lux, one of the assassin Eros-series bioroids, had her face pushed against the display. She changed the landing site to a remote location, some 80km North of New-shanghai. Unfortunately, while playing with the interface, she disabled the autopilot. Immediately, the unstable pod began to engage into a spin. Attempts to compensate made the rotation worst. Soon, a few of the passengers began to vomit, completely disoriented.
Paz, realizing that this was the making of a low-life pleasure bioroid, shoved Lux against the wall. Lux's training kicked in as she readied the vibroblade from within her flesh pouch. Effix and Po followed suit. In high-spin, vomit coated, general chaos, Effix lodged a deep thrust to Paz's basilic vein. The pod started to fill with droplet of blood as well. Paz, on the verge of collapse from the stab, pulled her taser and shot Lux in the back. The electric shock propagated across the vomit-coated pod and stunned all but Lux into a numb stupor.
Lux, realized that the onboard computer had shut down during the taser surge. She attempted to reboot the system in vain. As the roids came back into consciousness, they all realized that the last hour of their lives would be worst than anyone could have imagined: choking on carbon dioxide, packed like sardines in a minimal space filled with body fluids, engaged in a high spin, with temperature rising until they all baked then burned upon entry.
There was nothing to recover for the SAR team waiting on the surface. The Free Mars cell would have to satisfy its curiosity by other means.
And thus died 4 PCs and 1 NPC, bringing the death count of PCs to 5, and NPCs to 4 in two sessions!
Lux, realized that the onboard computer had shut down during the taser surge. She attempted to reboot the system in vain. As the roids came back into consciousness, they all realized that the last hour of their lives would be worst than anyone could have imagined: choking on carbon dioxide, packed like sardines in a minimal space filled with body fluids, engaged in a high spin, with temperature rising until they all baked then burned upon entry.
There was nothing to recover for the SAR team waiting on the surface. The Free Mars cell would have to satisfy its curiosity by other means.
And thus died 4 PCs and 1 NPC, bringing the death count of PCs to 5, and NPCs to 4 in two sessions!
Valencia's head
Horatio recovered quickly from the last-ditch attempt to escape the decompression on Deck 3. His mission had mostly worked, except for the evacuation of Valencia's severed head. He pinged his Triad contact and received the new orders to ensure that the head couldn't be scanned. The Maestro LAI soon issued a diagnostic report of the incident and ordered him to teleoperate the Bushbot and investigate the hardware failure. Clearly, XKCD's hacking job had worked like a charm.
Horatio entered Deck 3 and began his diagnostic. He was told to leave everything in place as an insurance investigator would be on site within 36 hours. He located the frozen head in a small nook of the lounge and tucked it into the Bushbot's bay. During a later EVA outside of the Maestro, he crushed the head and tossed it into space. It burnt before it touched Mars.
Horatio entered Deck 3 and began his diagnostic. He was told to leave everything in place as an insurance investigator would be on site within 36 hours. He located the frozen head in a small nook of the lounge and tucked it into the Bushbot's bay. During a later EVA outside of the Maestro, he crushed the head and tossed it into space. It burnt before it touched Mars.
Maestro's backdoor
Anatolye, the ghost of a Russian renegade, received the report from his sleeper agent in the SAR team with disappointment. He really wanted to know what the Triad was trying to hide in the pod. He fell back to plan B. The Maestro's master system had yet to patch a critical security hole. Anatolye quickly gained root access to the ship's core system and controls. He secured the backdoor first, then generated a master datadump. Really unable to make sense of this, he pushed the data up the chain so that it may get in the hand of an analyst.
Anatolye also discovered that an SAI insurance underwriter from Ceres Mutual was remotely on site to investigate. He hoped that the analysis of the datadump would be able to put a finger on any Triad agents on the ship.
Regardless, Anatolye now had unrestricted access of the Maestro's system. This was a priceless asset considering that his mission was to find a way to sever the space elevator on the behalf of Free Mars.
Anatolye also discovered that an SAI insurance underwriter from Ceres Mutual was remotely on site to investigate. He hoped that the analysis of the datadump would be able to put a finger on any Triad agents on the ship.
Regardless, Anatolye now had unrestricted access of the Maestro's system. This was a priceless asset considering that his mission was to find a way to sever the space elevator on the behalf of Free Mars.
The forensic cyberswarm
Fredreich was a free SAI, working contract as an underwriter for Ceres mutual. He traveled from the belt to Mars in his container where his belonging and cybershells were stored. As the ship approached Deimos, he contracted the physical moving of the container to ride the elevator down to New Shanghai, and got busied working on the case.
What was known was that a hardware failure lead to an emergency decompression, killing 3 and injuring 4. Five bioroids managed to escape in one of the escape pod. However, the pod malfunctioned and burnt upon reentry an hour later. He opened a chat space with "The Maestro", the LAI in command of the vessel. The Maestro granted full access to the log and gave Fredreich the rundown of events. Fredreich wasn't sure whether the accidental awakening of pleasure bioroids about an hour before the incident was a coincidence. This, particularly because these roids escaped in the pod that got destroyed later on. It did smelled like too many coincidences were lining up into something meaningful.
Two days later, his stuff arrived in New Shanghai. He deployed his forensic cyberswarm on Deck 3. The swarm recovered the DNA for all 12 people in the area during the incident. Three of the Eros-series were barcoded to an unknown facility while the fourth was from a known location. Interestingly, the swarm recovered trace amount of blood with DNA similar to the other three. This reminded him of the missing head for the other bioroid that had been beheaded by the astropus mechanics.
What was known was that a hardware failure lead to an emergency decompression, killing 3 and injuring 4. Five bioroids managed to escape in one of the escape pod. However, the pod malfunctioned and burnt upon reentry an hour later. He opened a chat space with "The Maestro", the LAI in command of the vessel. The Maestro granted full access to the log and gave Fredreich the rundown of events. Fredreich wasn't sure whether the accidental awakening of pleasure bioroids about an hour before the incident was a coincidence. This, particularly because these roids escaped in the pod that got destroyed later on. It did smelled like too many coincidences were lining up into something meaningful.
Two days later, his stuff arrived in New Shanghai. He deployed his forensic cyberswarm on Deck 3. The swarm recovered the DNA for all 12 people in the area during the incident. Three of the Eros-series were barcoded to an unknown facility while the fourth was from a known location. Interestingly, the swarm recovered trace amount of blood with DNA similar to the other three. This reminded him of the missing head for the other bioroid that had been beheaded by the astropus mechanics.
Interview with an astropus
Fredreich got more and more interested in the fact that the freighmaster LAI had witnessed the beheading of the Eros-serie (named Valencia) by Horatio. Fredreich opened a chat space to the astropus to conduct an investigative interrogation. The astropus was nervous and clearly uninterested in engaging in the conversation. Horatio tried to explain that Valencia's body didn't fit into the body bag, hence the need for the gruesome operation. When pressed with the reason why the head somehow ended up on Deck 3, Horatio reverted to his animal state. This atavism is not uncommon for elevated animals as high stress situation triggers primal reflexes of flight. The connection to Horatio went silent until XKCD, Horatio's infomorph, informed Fredreich that Horatio was in no state to continue the conversation.
Fredreich severed the connection and returned to the microframe of his container. Something was up with the astropus. That something may just be the key to the case.
Fredreich severed the connection and returned to the microframe of his container. Something was up with the astropus. That something may just be the key to the case.
This was an epic catch for Horatio: although fialing the interrogation contest, invoked his anomal atavism to shutdown the interrogation due to stress.
End State
- Fredreich is on Horatio's tracks about his involvement in the incident.
- Anatolye controls the Mastro through a backdoor.
Character cast
- Horatio -- an uplifted astropus officially working as a mechanics for Xiao Chu Corporation. On the side, a Martian Triad hitman. (Jason)
- Anatolye -- the ghost of an Ares conspirator now turned Free Mars officer for the New Shanghai area. (Martin)
- Fredreich -- A SAI working as freelance insurance underwriter for Ceres Mutual. (Dan)
Campaign's memorial
- Lux, Po and Effix -- Three Eros series bioroids modified and trained for assassinations. (Zaahirah, Dan and Michael)
- Rose -- A regular Eros series bioroid accidentally awaken with the others. (NPC)
- Paz -- A valkyrie series bioroid pulling security on the Maestro and accidentally ejected in the same escape pod as the others. (Michelle)
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