Descent into Darkness : The Remnants of the dead

[Mal Malenkirk]

The bar was quite seedy. It had an oddball theme of Gravball and Muzzein Bang music. There were giant screens everywhere showing the latest match with a loud soundtrack of the latest hits. It was disturbing and obviously a bad business model; the bar was mostly empty. That was likely to be the very reason why agent Hector Ramirez had chosen the place. Sadly, the failing business seemed to be cutting on its energy expenses; it was almost as hot in the bar as it was outside under the harsh african sun.

The Hispanic man was small but wiry. His thin moustache and fine suit gave him the air of one of the those sudamerican billionaire. The image didn’t fool any of the five psions sitting at the table, facing him. Ramirez had a very solid reputation, perhaps too solid to be involved with so many rookies who still had to make their proof.

-''Thank you for your time, people. Yeah, I know, this bar isn’t up to standard with a Trinity office in some exotic chapter house. There is a reason for that. The mission I want you to undertake is on the up and up as far as the home office is concerned, but I want to hide the fact that I’m going to send five psions on it. Considering the priority level attached to the mission, it is overkill. Rookies or not, some comp-jockey would probably try to squash what he would consider a misuse of Trinity resources and force me to send a lesser team. Which is why I’m doing this off the book and using so many associates. Take a look at this. Take your time.''

Ramirez uploaded several files in his guests minicomp with a simple verbal command to his agent. Once everyone read material, he resumed his briefing.

-''I’ll be blunt. That Aesculopians connection that Triton found is weak sauce to me. You should check it out for the sake of thoroughness but there is only one things that bothers me and it is barely mentioned in these files. It bothers me so much that I have resorted to creative accounting to find the resources to assemble this here team. The aberrant attack on Cantor station drives me nuts. Two aberrants attacked. When the psions reached the mine, every workers and guards were dead as well as one of the two monsters. The Luna PD determined that the guards must have killed one before everyone else got butchered and the Norca and Orgotek patrol mopped off the last one when they finally arrived. Fair enough, but not very likely. There were only four guards and they weren’t packing heavy duty weapons. It is unlikely they could have killed an aberrant powerful enough to travel through the vacuum of space. But even worse is the John Doe they found... There were only thirty-eight men on this station. All bodies were IDed and accounted for. How does a mysterious John Doe land in this mess? Where does he come from? And don’t get me started on these weird mutilations he is reported to have suffered. This stinks and I want answers. More than anything, I want an ID on John Doe and confirmation that there isn’t a sinister explanation to his presence on the site of an aberrant attack.

To that end, I have assembled an all-psion team including two seasoned investigators and a specialist in Noetics. I know your specialty isn’t aberrants, Kerry, but you’re as good as I got. And if the s**t hits the fan, I got two heavy hitters on the case.

You know the rules. You are Trinity investigators, you can be upfront about what you are looking for. Thankfully, Luna authorities are on good term with us so you just have to be polite and not hurt people egos, you should get the cooperation you need. But you aren’t law enforcement. And if you decide to break a few rules to get what you want... well don’t get caught.
Some of you have other ideas as to what they would like to do right now. Just remember that I will be very grateful if you pull this off clean. A word from me to the right person can go a long way.

Any questions?''

[sblock]You really need to at least read the briefing file from the link I gave you or this intro will make no sense. The rest is at your discretion.

You are currently in Kenya, near the Jomo Kenyatta's Spaceport. Obviously enough, this is because you are flying to Luna from here. Where you were before is up to you. Feel free to describe the arrival and this sort of things or jump right in with some question you might have.[/sblock]

 

[kookalouris]

Repost OOC

OOC:
[sblock]I completely missed the link to this new thread and posted the following in the now obsolete (or at least secondary) thread.

A question about telepathy and precognition
Mal,

If the game is past tense and observed, how do we handle telepathy and precognition?

For example (minor spoiler):

Pat is uncomfortable around telepaths and clairsentients (a biokinetic can't disguise thoughts and no one is faster than someone who knew about your lightning reflexed sucker punch yesterday.).

Also, it is difficult for the grief-stricken youth to understand why all of the telepaths and clairsentients couldn't anticipate the Chromatic raid on Karoo, the destruction of the Esperanza and the disappearance of the teleporters.

So, the arrogant Norca was going to 'test' the team telepath and clairsentient by mentally daring his thoughts to be read and his fast sucker-punch to the clairsentient to be stopped (it won't cause any damage, it is just a display of relative power).

Don't worry, the problem with playing a character who can be the occasional jerk is not to be a jerk as a player. As far as I am concerned, the involved players and you have complete control over the results. I wouldn't mind the recklessness of Pat to be revealed and discouraged somewhat.

I assume internal thoughts and conditional outcomes would be dealt with OOC.

Let me know what y'all think...
[/sblock]

 

[hafrogman]

Carlos Ribera, Trinity Agent (clairscentient)

Carlos listened quietly as Hector gave the briefing. He looked over the files, leafing through the pages before looking back up at their handler. Once Hector's brief introduction ended, he pursed his lips for a moment before giving voice to his question.

"Is there some particular reason to expect something to 'hit the fan', as it were? Or are we merely being cautious?"

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Carlos listened quietly as Hector gave the briefing. He looked over the files, leafing through the pages before looking back up at their handler. Once Hector's brief introduction ended, he pursed his lips for a moment before giving voice to his question.

"Is there some particular reason to expect something to 'hit the fan', as it were? Or are we merely being cautious?"

The agent shrugged.

-''There were aberrants involved. What more need I say? If things go wrong, they go very wrong.''

 

[stonegod]

Spaceports are crowded places. Busy places. Places where the bustle of humanity ground up against each other, bumping along to their destiny.

But not near Ghost.

There was a visible void, a deadspace where none feared to tread. Even the most busy traveler would suddenly look up from their vid to see... well, see him... and veer. There was just something unsettling about the man's presence. Even heavily clothed as he was with dark shades and a hood hiding his features, that sense of wrongness persisted.

If it bothered the solider, it did not seem to show. He purposefully walked to the empty bar, not caring a lick about the heat even under his layers.

Ghost was quiet during the briefing, studying the notes at length. He grunted noncommittally at several parts. When he finally does speak, his voice was heavy with a rural FSA drawl. No questins.

 

[Velmont]

Kerry takes his minicomp and starts to read what Ramirez has uploaded on it while he listen to him. It seems to be an habit to read and listen to Kerry. He has done that in university, in his research lab, it is now in his nature.

"Abberant... interesting. It might not have been my main field of study in the last years, but when you have been working on such complex project as I have done, you need to have a solid base in every field surrouding your specility, that include abberant. I don't think there will be much a problem there.

Now, those report seems to point there had been two abberants in Cantor Station, one maybe in Freaky Alley. It is worst then a rat infestation. For the John Doe, where is the body?"

 

[kookalouris]

Pat McKnight, Trinity Agent (biokinetic)

Around Pat, there were as many bottles as he could consume without straining discretion, cover or the expense account. An ashtray, bong and other 'enablers', were nearby, showing the signs of as much indulgence.

Together the indulgences might have been the death of any single person or a night of terrible regret for a small group. For McKnight, these were simply fleeting rememberences of oblivion (and about a stone of fluid retention.).

He paid sufficient attention to Ramirez's briefing but his mind wandered slightly and the seeming of the screen's holovid star or the screen top athlete would subtly reflect in his features.

The only real sign of emotion from the biokinetic was upon seeing the ghostly pale legionaire. Whether Pat's skin blanched out of nervousness or mimicry was unclear and it passed soon enough, the biokinetic avoided the solider as much as decorum would allow.

Pat waited for a moment in the conversation and stated as quietly as the bar would allow, -"Mr. Ramirez, we have one of all of the available orders except for a vitakinetic, was that a deliberate choice?"

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

-''Well, Mr. Joseph, the body of John Doe is at the Beaulac clinic's morgue. The autospy report should be complete by the time you get there.'' answered Ramirez to Kerry's inquiry.

The young biokinetics cleared his throat and caught the agent's attention.
-"Mr. Ramirez, we have one of all of the available orders except for a vitakinetic, was that a deliberate choice?" he asked.

The agent appears a bit flustered by that question.

-''Well... You read the briefing. Triton is concerned that there might be a link between the Cantor station attack, the missing persons, the Freak Alley collapse and the Aesculapian order. More precisely, with their Beaulac clinic.

I am dubious that there really is a link, and the low priority level tagged to this assignment by the hgher ups says that they agree. Still... this is like a Hail Mary pass. Usually nothing will come of it, but out of respect for the guys at Triton, I can't discount it.

Truth to be told, I would love to have a rex on hand to give us a second opinion on the autopsy. But because Triton might be right, I can't use just any vitakinetic. I'd need one whose loyalty to Trinity is undisputable. Sadly, I couldn't enlist such a psion for the mission so you will need to do without.''

 

[hafrogman]

Carlos purses his lips slightly as he reviews the facts presented, and the information available.

"It doesn't look like we have much to go on here. I'd guess that we won't really have any idea how to proceed until we start poking around and get some kind of leads to work with. When are we scheduled to go up?"

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

"It doesn't look like we have much to go on here. I'd guess that we won't really have any idea how to proceed until we start poking around and get some kind of leads to work with. When are we scheduled to go up?"

-''You're leaving a 2 am today. Well, tomorrow actually. And since processing takes up to four hours, I suggest you back your thing and head to the spaceport right now if you have no further questions.''

As the group left the bar, Ramirez gestured to Pat to stay behind a moment.

-''Kid, I just wanted to let you know that the first Jumpships have lauched for the colonies this week. Shaka left for the Karroo Mining Station five days ago. It's called project Recontact and it's somewhat declassified now that it is up and running. I'll do my best to get you a copy of the report of from the Shaka recon team. We expect it in a week or so.

I'm not sure what we'll find out there, but I'll try pushing your file to the right people so that you can be on the next wave to Karroo. Of course, it will help a lot if you perform well on this assignment... They only take people with rock solid dossiers on these trips. So if there's anything to be found on Luna, do whatever it takes to bring it to me. We understand each other?''


---


The Trip to Luna was uneventful. The Mockingbird cruiser wasn't the most modern spaceship. It was old, battered and probably cheap. One more ploy from Rodriguez to keep the accountants out of his business. The trip was also hard on the body and the nerve. There was no artificial gravity whatsoever on this ship and there was no human pilot either, just a technician. It was basically a drone. While autopilots were perfectly reliable, even in the 22nd century most people usually appreciated the presence of a trained pilot in case something unforeseen occurred.

But nothing untoward occurred and our five valiant psions landed on Luna on time, fifty hours later. Most came out of the Mockingbird with the gait of people not born to LoGee. The customs personnel was thorough but polite to the Trinity investigators and soon the were on their way through the LAMP under Mount Olympus, Luna’s capital.

That vast city states was home to 90 million people, almost a fifth of Luna’s population. It was a sprawling metropolis were modern surrealistic towers built with the latest technologies in shielding and artificial gravity coexisted with the original warrens dug under the moon by the first colonist.
The Trinity Luna Office Branch was just off the beaten path, five minutes from the Mezzanine, Olympus cultural epicentre, just far enough underground not be hip but still a far cry from the underworld. In Earthy terms, this was Long Island.

It was a huge complex. Luna’s Office was the regional administrative center for Trinity’s operation in through Space, one of the most prestigious. Once you got over the bland stretch of underground tunnels that led you to this place, you had to be impressed by the cutting edge security. This was a bunker. And once inside, you were confronted to a hive of personnel working industriously in conditions that had nothing to envy to Orgotek’s HQ. The mood wasn’t relaxed, the business of saving the world was a serious matter.

The investigators, once past security, were quickly taken aside by a severe looking woman who meant business. She led them to the Armory.

-‘’Gentlemen, I’ve been told you are already briefed. My name is Joan. I’m just here for logistical support and I have many dishes cooking at the same time so don’t ask me to hold your hand. We have you covered as far as living facilities are concerned. You bunk with the temps on floor 18, rooms 1878 to 1883. I have uploaded your weapon licenses on your minicomp. You are cleared for class 7c. That’s a concealed carry permit. Do not screw up with that. We have great relations with the Luna PD and we don’t want trigger happy psions to ruin that. Mind your training. Class seven allows for most handguns. Ballistic wise, we got the discreet Cyclone or the heavier Stavros handgun. We got laser pistols too. Here’s the Voss 63K or the Wasp 11. The Wasp is biotech so you might like that because otherwise the 63K has better range. We also have the Bulldog F-40. It’s a flechette gun. You go through your clip like crazy with this stuff but it’s deadly and has precious little kinetic energy so it’s safe against hard target. It’s bio, too. But the range is weak.

All right, we also have fiberweave clothings, take what fits. Not much protection, but better than nothing and you don’t look like a soldier wearing armour which is always a plus when talking to locals. Well, that’s about it. Oh yeah, I have also uploaded a Trinity Transport pass. Not much cars around here. With these pass you’ll be accepted by any and all means of transportation you should find around here, from LAMP train to Hoppers. It’ll forward the bill to Trinity. All right, good luck.’’

And just like that, she left the investigators just outside of the armoury, ready to plot their next step.