Port Newton, Northern Ridge, Askarian | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System
Askarian Shores
Snow (Low visibility. Actions toward distant objects incur a small penalty based on distance)
Freezing Wind (-1 to all actions when exposed)
"Orion. Stop. This is not even necessary, as I got my fun out of this, just give up and lemme get my pay."
Look for the bastard in the gears. Get a pipe or something in my hands.
[5] You find a pipe. Actually, it's a spare axle, from a box you found that contained other spare parts and several cans of lubricant.
You proceed to hunt down Orion, making sure to listen for any rustling or footsteps while checking every gear. Expecting more difficulty, you instead find him fairly close to where you left him, although with his neck contorted in a really painful-looking way.
Initiative:
[1] Hal
[5] Other
(4) vs [5] You hear the characteristic sound of a weapon's safety switching off.
...
Habitat Ship Gamma, Askarian Orbit | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System
Crash Site
Confusion (-1 to your first initiative roll)
Find a suit and slip it on. These dumbasses exploding should be pretty funny.
You put on one of the suits. Clunky, and thermally insulated, they provide meager protection from heat and pressure, but protection nonetheless.
[2] The shuttle airlock begins to depressurize. The police cross their fingers, while the charity workers bow their heads. The Guild official stands and watches much as you do.
Slowly, but surely, the high-pressure gas mixes in with the station's atmosphere. The circular door unscrews and pops out, allowing a mid-sized humanoid stingray creature in a pressure suit to emerge.
The police cheer. The charity workers rejoice. Eric Walker gives a thumbs up and approaches the creature, then talks to it.
"Alright, so explain to me what you guys breath..."The creature responds in a raspy, low-pitched voice. Despite the bassy sound, it feels like the creature is incredibly small. Your brain is playing tricks on you.
"I figure the methane causes it.""Methane breathers?""No, oxygen breathers. Methane is a byproduct.""Ah I see, the rapid decompression heated the gas, igniting the...""You are correct.""Alright. I deeply apologize for your loss... I will take responsibility for it, as does the Guild. This will not happen again.""We do not take your apologies.""Excuse me?""Take us to your leader."The alien does not make a threat, it just seems particularly irritated over the whole ordeal. The request to talk to the Guild Hierarchs is justified.
...
Excelsior, Francia Orbit | 235d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System
Crowded Spacecraft
Heavy Chatter (-1 Intellect, +2 Stealth)
Eh, no reason to care, it's the rebels who will try and stop me. I can just kill them.
This ship needs as much pirate deterrence as it can, so I'm sure the captain will let us stay for the trip.
Stay on the ship.
[6/1] The unrest dies down for a moment. Eventually, everyone settles in for a nice, short flight to Burgundy Spaceport. Through a virtual viewport (a holographic viewscreen on the wall), you see a cluster of grav-rings interspersed with freefall modules, docking clamps, boarding tubes, and a single space elevator that curves slightly due to some esoteric aspect of physics, leading to the groundside colony.
Two rebel starships, the
Insignia and the
Retribution, languish in the dockyard, secured by tethers. The ships were previously named something else, with an 'FNS' prefix to boot, but the previous names have since been crossed out with silvery paint that does not quite match the shade of the rest of the hull.
Looking down is nauseating. In Lunosynchronous orbit, there is no gravity, and the stars hold place silently, as do George and Francia in the skyline. The only motion not manmade is the subtle flow of George's clouds, as well as the slight movement of the bright dots along the planet's equatorial plane: Britannia, Hispania, Romania, and Germania.
You may hang out in the local amenities. Bars, gambling houses, convenience and luxury stores, film theaters, libraries, datanet cafe's...
Alternatively, you can simply go down to the surface. The Georgian Stars are cold, barren rocks, powered by nothing but the atom. Francia is the largest of the moons, and it boasts a liquid mantle as well, but geothermal energy is actually more expensive here deep inside George's gravity well.
Burgundy is a sprawling metropolis, buzzing with activity beneath the surface. Its upper layers are ablaze with flaring smokestacks and radiator fixtures, contributing to the thin atmosphere of smog that has formed over the world. Occasionally it even rains acids and other noxious materials that condense above the skies.