Voidshore

The Deepnight Revelation leaves the system of Eromi behind, after having spoken to the remains of the uploaded civilisation there. They’ve been warned not to head to VS-X, but that’s not going to stop them. They head to the system of Ive, on the border of sectors Voidshore Seven and VS-X, where they stock up on fuel and food. The radiation belts around the gas giant force them to refuel from one of the icy moons rather than the gas giant itself. This is slower, but considered to be safer.

The Deepnight XO gets a call from the Political Officer Haif-al-Tarik aboard the Solomani vessel Leonard Hussey. He has a complaint to make. Apparently the crew of the Deepnight are making available inappropriate content to his crew. ‘Comics’ called “Frontline Mercenaries”, about Imperium mercenaries fighting on the Solomani Front, where the Solomani soldiers are made out to be stupid and incompetent. He finds it completely inappropriate, and wants the Deepnight to do its part in ensuring such content isn’t been shared. The fact that some of the Solomani crew members are finding the material quite amusing probably doesn’t help.

Kirk agrees, and asks if there is any content Haif-al-Tarik wants to share with his crew. So the Deepnight get several series of “uplifting” material about brave and heroic members of the Solomani security forces.

I thought it’d be amusing to try and get Midjourney to produce some sample comic book cover art for “Frontline Mercenaries”. It turns out that Midjourney’s AI really can’t spell.

It sort of gave the feel of what I wanted though. The Deepnight makes the jump to the next, and final, sector of VS-X.

Once they are in jump space, one of the crew members, Kaablun Luukis, begins doing a Mystery Science Theatre style of reaction performance with some of his friends, for the Solomani content. This turns out to be quite popular.

It’s also time for another episode of the Into the Deep shipboard magazine.

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1121-070: VS-X

At last, after some fourteen years, we are approaching the half way point of our mission. Our destination is about 25 parsecs away. We are to find out what’s there, explore, decide what to do, and then head home.

Surprisingly, we are no longer alone. Though they are not technically our allies, the Solomani ships have teamed up with us, which should increase the change of success. They are less well equipped than us, but haven’t come as far, plus there are three of them.

Unexpectedly, though possibly not entirely so, we have new crew members.

• Zuran, son of Dr Zurjar Sezinsi, born 1120-171
• Lassina, daughter of Len Henga. Len herself was one of the first newcomers to join our mission since leaving the Imperium. Born 1120-267
• Tricia, daughter of Lav Anistasi and Dr Nekuna, born 1120-306
• Kaddellan, son of Deck Officer Linale Rashamziijan, born 1120-321
• Odephia Yip, daughter of Nurse Pazishi Misaneje, born 1120-347
• Pikka and Jenna, twin daughters of Technician Elama Zaakami, born 1121-015

There seems to have been a decision to not give the children family names, and the mothers have move their quarters closer together, so that they can share the caring of their children away from the rest of the ship. The fathers are being kept away, but expected to take the children away during parts of the day.

Apparently, this is how things worked for Len’s culture, and the others have decided to adopt it.

Crew Talk

As has been done previously, a chance to interview some of the crew and ask them three basic questions:

• Why did you join the mission?
• What did you hope to get out of it?
• What are the highlights so far?

Lilly Targas

• I wanted to go to space, and get away from the civil war that had been raging on my home world of Columbier in the Reformed French Republic.
• Promotions, a chance for a better future. If we come back, I’m hoping the experience will open up a lot of job opportunities.
• Meeting you guys. We’d heard so many bad things about the Imperium, but some of you seem to be okay. Your cooking sucks, but it’s not much worse than on board the Leonard.

Vania Ervine

• After the Entity killed my friends aboard the Deepnight Revelation, I wanted to do what I could to avenge their deaths. Joining this mission seemed like the obvious choice.
• To see what is behind the Entity get destroyed. After that, a long rest.
• There’s been a lot of good science done on the mission. Despite the limited resources, we’ve had a lot more freedom than you normally get in a commercial lab.

Elama Zaakami

• Where I grew up, there were no opportunities. If I was to amount to anything, I needed to leave home and take risks. I got a job as a steward on a star liner, then a merchant cruiser, and finally the Deepnight Revelation, which has been my home for almost half my life. It was a chance to be part of something bigger, where hopefully the status of my birth wouldn’t be seen as a limit on what I can do.
• To prove that I’m just as good as some of those rich bastards back home, if not better. That I can learn, and given an opportunity, I can do anything I set my mind to. The offer to become a shipboard technician was something I’d been dreaming about for years. All those late nights studying the ship’s technical manuals and deck plans have finally paid off.
• My daughters, Pikka and Jenna. They were a complete surprise. I’m not sure who the father is, there are three possibilities. I don’t want any DNA testing done though, and I’ve asked them not to do it either. If they want to be involved, that’s fine, but I’m not expecting them to be. Maybe I’m being selfish, but they are the first thing that I have had which I can get to be selfish about. I want them to have the best possible of all lives, however this mission turns out.

Navigation

The navigation plan is now quite easy. Our current jump will take us to Hahosi 3213 in sector VS-X. From there, we will perform some more more scanning, but our route will probaby take us to:

• Isa 3013
• Exogi 2716
• Stasod 2515
• Shotuha 2117
• Hemigucu 1816
• Ixisa Yxe 1720
• Orafo 1623
• Quiso Major 1223

After that, it is a five parsec jump to our destination. We don’t have full information on the systems around there, so there might be another staging point we can use, otherwise we will need to construct fuel dumps.

Alternatively, the Deepnight could provide fuel to one or more of the Solomani ships, allowing them to make the final jump. There are a lot aboard the Deepnight though that have come this far, and would object if they missed out on the final destination.

Ship Status

She is holding up. The strain of the mission is definitely showing, but she can keep on going for a while yet.

The M-Drive and Power Plant are showing signs of age especially, though the Jump drive is surprisingly still in good condition. The sensors are in a worsening state. We are by no means blind, but we’re not seeing quite as much detail about distant star systems as we used to.

Using the Solomani craft as an extended baseline, we can actually do better than we were doing before though. The Solomani ships aren’t in as good a condition though, and have suffered some damage to their frame from repeated rapid jumps.

The Deepnight shows signs of stress within her hull, but nothing to be concerned about yet. We might be worrying about it in five to ten years, but there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it right now.

One of our engineers, Mudeki Nagushgumsash, has a number of spreadsheets in which he has been tracking the status of the hull for some time. He insisted on showing it to me, and I have to say I didn’t understand any of it.

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A few days later, the small fleet of ships come out of jump at Hahosi/3213. A few hours after exiting jump, the command crew receive a message – there is an announcement that has been pre-recorded, and set to play when the ship reaches their final sector. It is apparently from the Duke of Tobia, and is due to be broadcast to the whole crew in 12 hours.

I did give the players a chance to try and find out what the message was first, or to prevent it, but they didn’t do that. They did ensure that a lot of systems were shutdown, just in case it had a nasty payload. I did write up a message, then wasn’t happy with it, so got Gemini to rewrite it.

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There was some grumbling from the players about the ship’s guns having been taken away when they were meant to try and destroy the Entity. However, they are more likely to find biological warfare far more effective than a few extra particle beams.

The second phase of the vaccination play is put into play, and the Solomani are also vaccinated against the Entity. The route to their destination is confirmed, and they begin going through what is left to do on their todo list. Most things are now crossed off (completed, or considered to now be irrelevant).

The items that are left:

• Why is there so much Fungus in FSD Transition Spinward?
  • Possibly proximity to VSN-X as point of origin
• What is Dr Nekuna doing?
  • Dr Nekuna has to work on the Star Trigger with Trennance
  • Making babies
• Psychic defence research is now a priority. A big, fungus related one.
  • We now have a Solomani Psyhelm. They might be boring but they’re organised
• Review the to-do list regularly?

So, the goal of the campaign is now being rapidly approached. I still have no idea how things are going to play out, and trying to figure out the best way of running things. Though the crew do need to get back home afterwards, the players are aware that we’re probably actually approaching the end of the campaign. Whether things will go that way or not, I don’t know.

It’s been a long campaign, and it would be good to bring things to a successful ending (I definitely don’t want to see the players fail or die after such a long game, but that’s always a possibility). To say that I’m nervous about how things will go is possibly an understatement.