Mid-West Campaign
Session Seventy-Seven

Monday, 11 June 2001 (continued)

After a good night's sleep the agents convene for Operation: Certain Death. Jane gives Todd four letters: one for her father, one for Danni, one for Michael Levin and one for him. The team for the mission has been finalised: Bradley Ecks, Bruce Campbell-Robson, Jane Munroe, Alex Drake and Nathan Harlow (classic version). The agents have the brick in a zip-lock bag and all the explosives and weapons they could need (or so they think).

Artemis Black tries to buoy them up with is rousing rendition of the St Crispin Day's Speech from Henry V. Meanwhile a courier arrives and delivers three Klingon batleths for Ecks, Campbell-Robson and Todd. The thought of entering an alien space-ship has slightly unhinged Ecks, and he is veering from a determined Captain Kirk staccato and school-boy giggling.

Artemis Black contacts Marc Georgeson to get the coordinates, which Georgeson obliges. He scans the vessel and informs the agents of the following: "It is a Gomorrah-class deep range explorer. Sil, Keftan, Shaggai and Nalarreen implants." He sends the coordinates and then goes into deep stealth mode to avoid any subsequent probes.

Todd goes to work on the door, and ten minutes later has created a swirling portal in space. The agents approach. Bruce dives through, Bradley steps through slowly, and then he is followed by Nathan, Jane and Alex. Moments later they are in a spaceship Ecks and Drake are lying in a heap, and the others are alert for danger on a spaceship on the dark side of the moon.

The portal has opened into the centre of a long corridor, twelve feet in height. Close behind the portal is an enormous chrome door, the corridor stretches on before the agents as far as they can see. It is quite dark, the only illumination coming from the translucent plastic floor which is giving off a blue light. The heat and humidity is intense. It must be 40°C in the corridor. There is also a deafening rumble coming from the bronze-coloured walls that surround the changes. Ecks checks with his Geiger counter and the walls are giving off significant radiation. It would be dangerous to stay here for very long.

The bomb comes through the floating portal. Jane manhandles it to the side of the corridor and Ecks sets up the cameras. There is a control panel next to the door. It is covered in complicated blue script that the agents do not understand. There are also three buttons. The choose not to try and open the door, but to explore the corridor first and head down its length. Harlow is on point.

The agents proceed down the corridor expecting to be ambushed at any moment. Nathan discovers a compartment in the floor that opens to reveal cabling beneath the corridor floor and what Bradley points out is a "plasma conduit". They press on. It is getting hotter and hotter. The agents think they are heading deeper into the engines and return to the chrome door.

As Nathan takes a scraping from the mysterious alloys that make up the walls, Ecks plays with the buttons. The door hisses and opens, and a wave of heat washes over the agents. They are now looking down at the exhaust vents of the main engines. In front of them is the vacuum of space. They can see the moon. Some sort of force field is in place to stop them being sucked into space. This is obviously not the way forward. Ecks conjectures that this part of the ship is very heavily shielded, and the nearer they get to the body of the vessel the less thick the shielding becomes. In short: it gets hotter before it gets cooler. They head off down the corridor again.

Nathan's stealth skills are unbelievable in a man his size, and he quickly disappears into the darkness. Eventually he comes to a door that automatically slides into the ceiling as he approaches. Nathan goes through the open doorway and into a large room. He hugs the wall to stay out of sight. This chamber is gigantic: over two hundred feet across. The floor is made of the same translucent plastic as the corridor, and gives off the same eerie light. At the centre of the chamber is an enormous column that rises from floor to ceiling. It appears to pass through the ceiling and floor and continue through chambers above and below this one. At waist-height the column bulges into a 360° control panel covered in the same indecipherable script. Above this control panel, and extending much of the column's height, are revolving and oscillating holograms of unknowable words and pictures. The chamber is also filled with an incongruous clanking sound.

Nathan notices that there are holes in the ceiling (again about twelve feet up) but no obvious way to get through them and onto the next level. There are also semi-circular recesses in the floor, large enough for a man to stand on. The other agents arrive. Jane and Ecks examine the recess. Ecks steps on it, and is immediately transported on a lightning-fast lift to the level below.

This chamber is smaller, and boasts the same sort of control panel as the one above. The clanking sound is coming from here. The pipes that are used for cooling the engines are knocking and leaking. It looks as though the Shaggai do not know how to maintain the vessel, and the engines are overheating. It is not immediately dangerous for the agents. Bradley returns to the upper level. He suggests that they head up and look for a way into the ship proper.

Nathan stands underneath one of the open holes in the ceiling and immediately rises to the next level. This one still has the column going through he centre of it. A series of large podiums surround the column. There seems no way out on this level, except for down and further up.

Nathan tries to return to his companions, but inadvertently takes goes up instead. This chamber is different. A series translucent plastic 'shelves' protrude from the wall all around the chamber forming a gallery. Steps rise from here to a second gallery and then a third. Each gallery is filled with more of these holographic images. The summit of the column is in the centre of the chamber about six feet above the floor. It ends in an ovoid shape that tapers to a point. A beam of light shoots from this point, striking an hexagonal block on the wall. Nathan is delighted to notice there are stairs from here leading to a door that evidently leads into the rest of the ship.

Nathan returns and leads the others up to this chamber. The podiums on the level below explode into holographic life as the agents pass them. Jane stops her companions before they go any further. They have been on the ship and exposed to the radiation for thirty minutes all ready. Another thirty minutes of exposure will deal irreversible damage to their bodies. The technology is not worth the risk. If they can't find anything in ten minutes, they should return to the door. Ecks agrees.

The five agents head to the door that Ecks opens with consummate ease. They have hit the jackpot! They have come into a small workshop filled with incomprehensible alien tech. There are two other doors leading from this room. The agents quickly begin to fill their bags with whatever looks promising. Nathan finds an anti-grav trolley to expedite matters. Unfortunately when they move to return to the portal they find the door behind them is sealed.

For a moment they panic. Alex can't work the controls, so Bruce puts a charge against them and blows them up. This is not overly helpful. Red lights are now flashing. Ecks quickly uploads the AI into the ship's computer and then looks at the doors with Physicist hat on.

Some sort of complicated optical system is required to open the doors, but Bruce has mangled it. Jane suggests using all the remaining explosives on the door. Ecks and Bruce set all of Bruce's explosives against the door. There is a massive blast, but it only succeeds in denting the door.

Things are getting serious now. The agents have their loot but they are convinced they have been discovered. Drake tries to strip the control panels of the other doors so Ecks has a frame of reference to open the door they need to open. But to no avail. One of the other doors is starting to open. Bruce unslings his M60 and gets ready for his last stand. Suddenly, Drake pops the third door and the agents have a means of escape: and what a means…

They are staring at a shuttle hangar! Two wedge-spaced vessels about the size of a barn are sitting in the chamber. One of these vessels was probably responsible for beaming up the Prentices in case 1097-IND. The agents immediately run for it. Bruce and Drake are firing now at the alien creatures and the Shaggai that are pouring after them.

An enormous creature the like of which the agents have never seen before is trying to get through the door and into the hangar, but it is slightly too large. It is twelve feet high and its head is a mass of writhing tentacles. Bruce keeps shooting, but seeing it does something to Drake's mind and he collapses into an incoherent heap. Jane turns back and picks up Drake. Meanwhile Nathan and Ecks have arrived at the ship. Ecks opens the door and Nathan runs inside, hunting for the cockpit.

Nathan enters a small entry area. To the right a long corridor runs the length of the ship. To the left a set of stairs leads to the cockpit. He hurries upwards. He passes a number of stasis tubes along the walls of the vessel holding naked people who seem to be human. They are in state of suspended animation. This doesn't interest Nathan too much given the circumstances and he drops into the seat and tries to figure out the controls.

Ecks blazes away at the growing number of brain bugs while Bruce calmly takes out a LAW, points it at the tentacled beast and fires. It is destroyed in a blaze of fire. Jane rushes inside and sits Drake down on the deck. Then the Shaggai descend on the ship and the agents are in melee. A bug attaches itself to Ecks's face. Jane leaps into a flying kick that kills the bug stuns Bradley.

Bruce staggers in firing his automatic weapon randomly. Within moments the ship is going to be crawling with Shaggai, and closing the door won't help as they are phasing through the walls. "We need shields!" Jane yells up the stairs to Nathan, who is staring at a featureless bank of buttons. He hits one at random and retracts the landing gear. The ship falls five feet and hits the deck. Everyone falls over. He hits another and this one sets off the proximity cannons atop the vessel. They blaze away merrily stopping, mowing down anything that gets in range. But there are plenty of Shaggai already in the ship.

It is a long and drawn out fight. Bradley and Bruce quickly resort to batleths which is only slightly less dangerous than the bugs themselves. Jane calls out that they have to protect Nathan to give him a chance of getting the ship started, but they are all distracted as the Shaggai attempt to bond with their brains. One is sinking into Drake at the moment, and Jane skilfully kicks it away form him.

Ecks rushes up the stairs and sits in the co-pilot seat next to Nathan. A bug lands on Nathan's face, but he manages to escape from it by smashing his face on the desk. Bruce saves Ecks from another bug with his batleth and almost succeeds in taking the agent's head off. Ecks is quite happy to be sporting a scar from a batleth. Finally Ecks hits the right button and the shields go on line.

Ecks tells Harlow to turn off the cannons. They were running on the ship's battery reserve and are in danger of overheating and draining all the energy from the ship.

With the rest of the bugs unable to enter the ship, Jane and Bruce manage to wipe out the others. Drake is almost possessed, but between them they manage to wrestle it out of his mind. Ecks turns all the lights on in the cockpit and raises a 360° holographic screen that shows them what is happening outside. It is an horrific sight. There are three hundred Shaggai out there, as well as all the creatures they have possessed: the tentacled beasties, oozes, reptilian creatures and event he remains of the Prentice family in fraying and soiled clothes.

Jane considers the stasis tubes. Could any of these people work the ship better than Nathan and Bradley? But she has no way of knowing how to wake them up. Nathan inadvertently causes a security door to descend from the ceiling cutting off the bridge, and leaving Jane and Bruce on the other side. Jane quickly reconnoitres the rest of the ship to make sure nothing is hiding on board.

Suddenly everything goes quiet outside. This is bad news, because it indicates the aliens have a plan. Suddenly the agents see the other ship is powering up. Obviously they intend to bring its guns to bear on the agents' vessel. They need to leave and leave now. Nathan opens the door to the bridge and soon all four conscious agents are wildly pressing buttons.

Nathan summons an amphetamine laced drink from a dispenser than he quickly knocks back. Jane finds the button to recline Bradley's chair. Bradley shoots a probe into space and starts getting telemetry from outside the vessel. Bruce hits a switch that sends a signal that opens the external doors into space. All the entities possessed by the brain bugs (big and small) are immediately sucked into space. But the other ship is now on line, and the agents are rocked as their ship is struck by enemy fire. The shields are severely depleted, but they hold.

Fortunately, this is the moment that Jane hits a button that fires the engines and the agents's ship rockets from the launch bay and into space. The other vessel guns its engines to give chase.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Schult has a report for Artemis Black. He can no longer detect the life sign readings of the agents. They must have left the vessel. Artemis knows that it is time. Taking Burchill with him, he steps through Todd's portal and on to the Shaggai vessel. He looks down at the enemy bomb and sets it for a ten second detonation. "Alien Schmalien," he says before he casually walks back to Earth and closes the door before the bomb detonates and the frigate explodes.

From their retreating vessel, the agents see the Shaggai frigate erupt in a dazzling firestorm. An elliptical wave of energy pursues their craft. It overtakes the pursuing vessel utterly destroying it. Then the wave strikes the agents' ship. It is shaken and buffeted by somehow it holds together. Then the power goes off. Then the lights go off. And the agents are left adrift in the void.

Back on Earth Artemis is opening the champagne. He sends a message to NTOPFOR: "Party went with a bang. Presents to follow." He then contacts Georgeson, who fires up the full power of his ship for the first time in over 5000 years. He scans the skies for the agents vessel and he quickly finds it.

A few minutes later, Bradley's mobile phone rings. It is Artemis Black, patched through by Marc Georgeson. Artemis congratulates the team in his usual effusive manner. He says they have all done sterling work, and not to worry… he'll have them down "in a jiffy".

Friday, 15 June 2001

It has now been four days since the destruction of the brain bug frigate. Bradley, Jane, Nathan, Alex and Bruce know nothing about what has transpired on Earth during this time. The nightmare of having to recycle their own urine to stay alive has not encouraged their thoughts to wander.

Suddenly, the lights come back. Obviously, the ship possessed some sort of self-repair mechanism that finally managed to restore rudimentary power. They access the holographic viewing screen and learn that the ship has been in lunar orbit these past few days. Bradley says that this means they must have been visible to every observatory, university and astronomical nut on the planet.

It is then that a holographic representation of Marc Georgeson's head appears on the screen in front of them. He says that now the ship has power he will have their down "in a jiffy". Jane wonders if this is an 'Artemis Black jiffy'.

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