Session 4

Game Date: August 7th, EY217

Location: Labrys City (planet: Kali, system: Vishnu)

Events: Lesbian produce, much cannonfire, novel lung damage

Everyone allowed inside Labrys City gets onto what is basically a largish golf cart for the trip within the city. Jillian asks Sara Pettigrew, their guide, if she can talk to whomever was working the Labryssian sensors, hoping to get more information about the fighters that attacked the Steel Hummingbird. They're heading towards the main operations centre anyway, so Sara doesn't see any problem with this. Zanani and Roneet say their goodbyes as they are dropped off at their residences on the way. Volkova notices that they don't live in dodgy areas, and hasn't really seen any such areas. Then again, she is used to those sorts of places being dodgy on account of the dodgy men hanging about in them, so she's not sure if she can properly recognize such an area here anyway. The operations centre is in the overlapping area of the domes, and the cart skirts the lush agricultural zone in the easternmost dome, where Volkova stares in wondrous amazement at the fields of crops. It's all food, and none of it is processed, in tins, or likely to taste of chemical additives.

In the operations centre, Jillian is introduced to Ingrid, a fresh-faced young woman who was working the sensors when they were attacked. After the Steel Hummingbird dove into atmosphere and escaped from the fighters, they disappeared off of the sensors, probably having landed back on the stealth ship and continuing to wait. Ingrid and Jillian go over the sensor readings while Volkova arranges payment for ferrying the prostitutes to Kali. The Steel Hummingbird's more advanced sensor array, taking readings from very close to the fighters without an atmosphere between it and them, has much better information. Much more informative are the gun camera photos that Volkova took; they are marvellously sharp and clear -- the Hummingbird's gunner quips that the gun's camera is better than the gun itself, and Jillian reveals that she had a better camera put onto the gun for an art project. The fighters are revealed to definitely be military-grade and in good repair, unlike what one might expect from pirates, and to have no markings at all.

Disha Malach shows up while the sensor readings and photos are being examined. She's dressed up very much like a military officer, down to the buzz cut and scowl, but Jillian, having been in the navy, feels that Malach is overdoing it to the point of not actually having been in the military at all. She asks Jillian and Volkova if the crew of the Steel Hummingbird is willing to do a favour for Labrys City. There are scouting missions to see if new plant types can be found, if there is a good site for a secondary colony, and so on. These are done with land crawlers, which go out for up to a week or two at a time. The crawlers are sealed against the toxic chlorine atmosphere of Kali and have enough air and supplies for two weeks. A crawler went missing about two months ago, about 800km to the southwest. Another was sent off about two weeks later on a rescue mission, but that one disappeared too. Neither one sent any distress signals, they just seem to have dropped off the face of the planet. Labrys City doesn't have an infinite number of crawlers, and the atmosphere is terrible in the long-term for aircraft and spacecraft, so they don't have any of those. Would the Hummingbird be willing to go take a look? The Labryssians don't have too much in terms of money, but they'll be willing to refuel the Hummingbird free and would try to repay the favour at some point in the future. They will send Jody Joy, a cartographer, with them. Jillian agrees as captain, and the news is relayed to the Hummingbird over the comm system. Malcolm is not too happy to be doing a job largely for nothing, and Bishop is suspicious about the intentions of the lesbians.

Jillian and Volkova stop by the market on the way back to the Steel Hummingbird and pick up all manner of fresh foods as well as some wine, all locally made. This is far, far better fare than usual on a spacecraft, and they buy as much as they can. Back on the ship, Malcolm is overjoyed to see so much fresh food, but Bishop is suspicious of it all. The wine, he points out, is made from lesbian grapes. Nonetheless, he'll cook up a meal out of it. Everyone is told in more detail about the minor mission, and Bishop is warned not to attempt a seduction of Jody Joy when she shows up. He halfheartedly agrees and heads to the mess with the food, with Volkova following to see exactly how it is that one makes meals out of produce without massive industrial machinery. While waiting for Jody Joy to show up, Jillian starts priming the newly-repaired exterior of the ship. She's got plans for it, you see.

When Jody Joy shows up, she's lugging a pressure suit of her own along with a satchel bag of maps of the area they'll be searching. Everyone -- with the possible exception of Bishop -- is pleased to see that she's not at all Bishop's type: in her mid-fifties with thinning hair and a serious face, she's probably going to be safe from his depredations.

Everything stowed and the ship filled with the smells of a delicious meal being prepared down below, Malcolm takes the ship out of the hangar and to the southwest and is quickly reminded that the Steel Hummingbird's atmospheric engines are nowhere near as fast as her space drive, nor as maneuverable. The relatively low gravity of Kali throws him off at first, but he gets used to it over 800km of flight. Jillian is working the sensors and Jody Joy has her maps out, helping out with navigation. Flying over the rolling terrain to get the best readings possible, the trip through the yellow-green atmosphere is uneventful until, coming over a hill, Jillian detects a structure at close range that seems to detect them at almost the same time and immediately fires a cluster of missiles! Malcolm heels the ship in a tight half-circle and kicks in the afterburners to get some distance. The missiles close quickly and he has to do some fancy flying and use all the tricks he has to avoid them with the Hummingbird's sluggish atmospheric capacities. In the mess, Bishop scrambles to clamp the lid on the pot he's cooking in and heroically saves the meal while Volkova straps herself in to the gunnery position. Despite their numbers and homing capacities, the missiles are unable to obtain a proper lock and run out of fuel after a few passes. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and Malcolm takes the ship down to a low altitude, hugging the terrain as he flies back towards Labrys City. They may not have found the missing crawlers, but they're pretty sure of what happened to them, and the Hummingbird isn't a fighting ship. It's time to tell Labrys City what they've found.

It isn't long before any feelings of safety are shattered by two light fighters that come tearing up behind them. There isn't anywhere in the flat area to hide, and the low-lying vegetation doesn't help. Jody Joy gives some advice, but there really isn't any elevation that they can use to their advantage. Like the missile base, the fighters don't bother with communications and simply open fire. Malcolm takes evasive action, and it's obvious that there are two options. The first is to keep deeking and try to prevent the fighters from getting a decent shot with the trade-off that Volkova, manning the small rear gun, also can't hope to hit them. The second is to give Volkova a chance to hit them, but allowing the fighters to definitely hit the ship with their weapons. Malcolm goes for the first, and everyone is rocked back and forth in the Hummingbird. Malcolm's violent jerking keeps the ship safe: the fighters' guns don't get any hits solid enough to do much damage given the Hummingbird's armour and relatively large size. Through all this, Bishop continues to keep the meal from being ruined.

The fighters are much faster and more maneuverable than the Steel Hummingbird, and, realizing that there's no way to get away from them, Malcolm flies straight up, hoping to make it to space, where the fighters are unlikely to be able to follow with their atmospheric engines. Many kilometres up, his luck runs out and the fighters strafe the Hummingbird badly. The poor new advanced sensor array is shot off and smoke belches from the engines. Malcolm decides that the best thing to do is to fake a crash and shuts off the engines. The Hummingbird drops like a rock, and Jody Joy, frantically checking her maps, tells Malcolm of a rare crevasse that is more or less underneath them. The two fighters lazily follow the ship down its long fall, saving ammunition and letting gravity do their work for them. Everyone quickly dons EVA suits and straps themselves in (Jillian clutching her giraffe sculpture with white knuckles) with the exception of Volkova, who prepares to dump fuel and paint thinner into a fuel port to fake the ship's explosion when Malcolm kicks in the engines at the last moment. Seeing the crevasse, Malcolm reignites the engines at the last moment as Volkova dumps the flammables into the port. The resulting explosion is terribly impressive, but unexpectedly pushes the ship down and Malcolm's crash landing is much more crash than landing. Everyone strapped in is unharmed though knocked about, but Volkova, who was busy with the explosives, smashes into a bulkhead. She's dazed and bloody, but unexpectedly alive.

Those who have weapons get them and wait to see what happens next. Deep in the crevasse, they can't see if the fighters are still up there, but they wait an hour to make sure that their attackers have run out of fuel and gone back to their base. Checking to see what's been damaged in the crash, it's obvious that the Hummingbird's in bad shape. The landing gear has smashed its way up into the cargo hold, which is now filled with toxic atmosphere. Most everything has been damaged to some extent, but at least the ship is still airtight. The atmospheric engines are smoking badly, but functional, though the space drive has been damaged. At a more personal level, the crew quarters have been affected. Bishop's clothing has been doused in leaking coolant, ruining everything other than what he's wearing on his back, and Malcolm's copy of the Expansion Year (EY) 197 Ms Tool Belt calendar, featuring a centrefold of a much younger Volkova, has also been irreparably damaged.

The six hundred kilometres to Labrys City are too far to walk, and though the ship can fly, the smoke that's billowing out of the engines will leave too much of a trail to risk. The goal is to head off before whomever is responsible for them being shot down sends someone else to check on them. Volkova fixes the smoking engines in an amazingly short period of time, but it involves crawling into areas belching the toxic fumes that are too tight for an EVA suit. Always willing to risk her health for the good of the ship she doesn't hesitate, and suffers grievous smoke inhalation during the repairs. Bishop repairs what minor damage to the ship he can while Volkova is busy. Once the repairs are done the ship lifts off and between wet, racking coughing fits Volkova fires the cannon at the walls of the crevasse, hoping to make it look like the ship's wreckage has been buried. They head back to Labrys City, shutting down all unnecessary electronics to make the ship as difficult to detect as possible, keeping their communications off, and flying as low as is safe.

This time the flight back to Labrys City is truly uneventful, thought the landing is accompanied by the horrible sound of grinding metal as the Hummingbird's keel scrapes on the floor of the hangar and once at rest the ship tilts noticeably to the left. At least the food is still safe, thanks to Bishop. Sara Pettigrew comes to the hangar and is horrified at what's happened to the ship. The crew asks her to keep their return a secret, which she agrees to. She'll have to call a council meeting about this; Labrys City thought it was the only human settlement on the planet, and not only is this obviously no longer the case, but these new occupants are murderous. Bishop and Malcolm will still have to stay in the hangar, which irritates Bishop to no end. Volkova, coughing up a thick, bloody-black liquid, is quickly secreted off to the hospital.

Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: Zero. Damned lesbians. (running total: 4)

System note: This was the first real ship combat run by anyone at the table in the Fate system, and some interesting things came out of it. Malcolm's character used up his Afterburner and lots of Fate points getting away from the initial missile barrage, which gave the Hummingbird truly impressive numbers to avoid getting hit and would have been fine if that had been the end of it. When the fighters showed up, there just weren't enough Fate points left to get away. Not that escape old have been easy, given the high values for the fighters; for reference, the Hummingbird had movement values of 1, the fighters 3. I'm using a hybrid of the Diaspora and Starblazer Adventures rules, and the range bands from Diaspora were interesting. The Hummingbird was occasionally able to pull away, but overall the fighters kept pace with her thanks to their speed and nimbleness. I didn't think that the fighters would be so effective, especially with a Projectile Weapon skill of 1, but once the Hummingbird was out of Fate points it was just a matter of time until they managed to damage her badly.