The Last Flight of the Amuar - Part 6
After a long search, the Crew of the Skylark 2 finally locates the Amuar, on a planet that is controlled by an empire that is at war with the Third Imperium.
This entry is from
the October 25, 2020 session and is based on the Carl and Kay’s notes.
Continued from: The Last Flight of the Amuar - Part 5.
Location: Belgard in the Egyrn Subsector, Trojan Reach Sector.
Imperial Date:
090-1109.
0130
The data we downloaded provided some interesting information. The launch we got the data from was from the Amuar and crashed on Pa’an on 296-1108.
Pa'an is part of the Zhodani Consulate, settled half a
millennia ago by the crew of a mis-jumped cruiser. We will wear our Psi helmets
for sure!
We believe that the Amuar
went there after leaving Odin. The timeline has a 45-day gap before the launch
crashed on Pa'an. Where were they during that month and a half?
It will take us three
jumps to get to Pa'an, but we have to go through a Red Zone. One path has a gas
giant where we can fuel up. We needed to
review our information about the Red Zones before making a decision.
985-373 is a Terra-Prime world, with conditions almost exactly right for human habitation. There are clear indications that the world was once inhabited by a technological civilization; debris and an assortment of satellites in decaying orbits, and radioactive craters where cities once were. Some areas of the world are dangerous due to radioactive contamination, but levels have fallen in most places to a safe level. Remnants of smaller cities remain, but are not inhabited. It is not clear if the devastating conflict was internal or the world was bombed by some other power.
With no gas giant, it looks like a BAD choice
Velscur is not normally visited by passing ships, which usually skim fuel from the gas giant and move on. The world is subject to various advisories and prohibition orders imposed by distant powers, but these are not enforced due to the difficulty of maintaining a presence. Velscur has a population of around thirty thousand, regressed survivors of a failed colony. These people are scattered between several areas, each ruled by its own elite.
Good to avoid that too. Velscur’s gas giant it is for us.
We checked out the navigational data for Pa’an.
It is a distant binary system with a F3 and a M0 star orbiting each other at 154 AU’s. The M0 has two gas giants, designated LGG2 and LGG3. Both are good for fuel, but it would take our ships 20 days at 3G’s to cover the distance back to where we wanted to go, it would be quicker to do an in-system jump. In any case we would burn up most of our fuel in the process, so there would be no point in going there.
Pa’an is one of the moons of the F3’s gas giant, tagged LGG1,
orbiting at 1.6 AU just inside the outer edge of the life zone. LGG1 has six
major moons and a couple of dozen that are less than 500 Km. Due to a low percentage of hydrogen at the
levels where we could scoop, it is not a good candidate for a place to refuel.
Of the six moons, four, including Pa’an, have oceans that we could use for
refueling. None of the moons except
Pa’an have names, just long Scout Service designators about 20 digits long, so
we tagged those in order of orbital distance A, B, C, D, E and F, with Pa’an
being C.
There is another world orbiting in LGG’s trailing Trojan point, a rather stormy-looking water world with deep oceans and no land at all. It would take us two days travel each way to get to it. We could use it for fuel in a pinch, but the moons looked better.
We decided that we would jump as close as we could to “E”, a world about 80% covered with water orbiting LGG1 at about 1.4 million km, just under 10 hours from LGG1’s 100-diameter limit.
Once fueled up and refined, we would head to Pa’an. Pa’an always faces LGG1 with a day/month just over 30 hours long. The map shows only one major city, Zhdantspanon, located on a small continent. The Scout Service database says they are Tech Level 5, an industrial mid-20th Century equivalent, even lower than Gollere.
We looked up Zhodani telepathy and found with a population base that small, it would be rare for them to have a telepath who could detect a ship in orbit and even rarer for there to be one who could detect one across the system.
The other thing we learned was that the pilot of the launch was Sabina Popov, listed on the crew manifest as Ship’s boat pilot. No other names were listed, though there were two other bodies found in the wreck and the life support record was consistent with that.
0900
In the morning we spoke with Erek on the Voidskipper. We told him what we learned but not how we
learned it. He was for going to Pa'an
first instead of continuing to follow Amuar’s
path.
1600
Sam sold off the remaining cargo so we could fill the cargo bay with fuel. That
would give us the option of a one parsec jump upon arrival in Pa'an. Good to
have options when going into a potentially dangerous zone. Selling the 25 tons
of machine tools brought our total for this stop to 476 KCr, not bad for making
a quick sale on a backwater world.
Fig picked up extra life support and supplies since it looked like we probably would not be able to get any on our next couple of stops. By the time he was done, the air/raft and common areas were stacked with boxes.
With no more business to take care of, and the Voidskipper ready to go also, we headed out to the jump point that evening, ready to jump by our conventional midnight.
091-1109 0000
Jump for Eleson.
Once in Jump, we threw a quick birthday party for Sam before calling it a
night, he was 43.
098-1109 0015
Out of jump in Eleson, Voidskipper
arrived less than an hour later at about 0100.
1600
The Skylark began to skim for fuel, after taking 15 hours to reach the gas
giant at 3G’s. The Voidskipper took
the high guard position and made sure we were not interrupted by any hostile
forces.
2300
Having completed our fuel skimming, we start the refining process and traded positions with the Voidskipper.
099-1109 0600
The Voidskipper completes their
skimming and we wait for the refining process to complete.
103-1109 0800
Four days later we were ready to jump for Velscur.
110-1109 0515
Into Velscur.
1230
The Voidskipper finally arrived.
We were starting to get worried.
We took about 11 hours to fly to the gas giant. Voidskipper refueled first this time and Francesca had
it done in 4 hours. Since our cargo bay was already loaded, it just took three
days for both ships to refine the fuel and be set for the REAL jump. We sure hoped there would not be a seven-hour
difference in our arrival times.
114-1109 1000
Fuel refined and ready to jump to Pa’an system, aiming to minimize travel time
to the fifth moon (“E”).
After a review of possible scenarios and our best guess about them, we decided
we would wear our anti-psi helmets under the VAAC suits for coming out of jump,
to be as prepared as we possibly could.
Once in Jump, we transferred the fuel from our cargo bay to the wing tanks so
we could use it to jump again if needed. Unfortunately, the Voidskipper would be on their own since
they would be arriving with nearly empty tanks.
120-1109 1145
Skylark arrives in
system.
1530
The Voidskipper arrives
and both ships begin the 9 ½ hour journey to moon “E”. Sam was glued to the
sensors screen, but didn’t pick anything up.
121-1109 0245
Once at “E” Skylark landed on the day side of the moon for water refueling and completed without any events, no pirates or aggravating fauna. Afterword, the Voidskipper landed while Skylark kept watch.
Both ships refined their fuel and hung out in orbit for
three days. There was nothing of
interest on sensors or comm, no in-system chatter at all.
When Pa’an made close approach, we noted that the main city, Zhdantspanon, did
not have a line of site with us, being on the side that always faces the gas
giant.
124-1109 0545
Fuel refining complete.
1000
Hovering at orbital distance over Pa’an.
The world looks like it is a little on the cold side, the ice caps are
huge and a high plateau opposite from the gas giant is covered with glaciers even
on the equator.
Voidskipper stayed a ways off, while the Skylark crew wearing our Psi helmets began scanning, listening for a transponder, and looking for signs of a crash. We started on the side opposite from the main city. Swampy areas got special attention since there was swamp debris on the launch that was recovered. With swamp all over the place that did not narrow it down much.
Sam spotted an anomaly at the end of his shift, something
the size of an eight-story building casting a long shadow in an otherwise flat
estuary area. It was the right size; it could actually be the Amuar!
It would be an island for part of the day when the area was flooded by four- to
five-meter tides. It is not in the water now. We were lucky, it was over 14,000
Km from the main city.
Going down for a closer look, it was the Amuar alright, and it looked beat up.
The launch bay doors are open and damaged, one is hanging loose. We could see inside and both launches were
gone. There is no sign that it was shot at, just a rough atmospheric entry. We
detected a faint transponder signal; it looks like the antennas were torn off
during entry. The Amuar is only
partially streamlined and is not designed to land where the atmosphere was this
thick.
It may be that the launches were used as life pods and the ship came down
empty. We know one is on Belgard, but where is the other one?
The launch bay doors are above the water line and are a possible entry point. We beamed a tight beam to the ship - no answer.
We dropped down to 1 Km above the ship and started moving the extra life support packs out of the air raft.
There are no signs of habitation nearby, but sensors and
visual show lots of animals in the area. There are predators, a big herbivore,
some otter-like things and lots of others. There are holes in the hull, so
there may be creatures inside.
We did not detect a working power plant on the scanner and the batteries would
be discharged by now. It would be dark inside.
Continued in The Last Flight of the Amuar - Part 7
See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, Prison Planet, Leedor on Aramis, First Call at Zilla, Trade War, The Bloodwell, ANNIC NOVA, The Kinunir, Kesser's Return, Justice, Mission to Mithril, Outback and Skylark and the Pit.
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