[MUSIC]
[MUSIC] A bald man stands against two massive bulkhead doors. The sound of banging on the interior of the doors rings out in the room as he smurks to himself, holding his rifle against his chest, keeping eyes down the adjacent hallways that leave out from the doors that he's guarding.
Bang comes again from the interior and then another bang. The man looks up, a second bang, a third bang.
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] A patch about 15 feet up the wall across from the man opens up, and our three heroes can spill out, smashing into this man who takes all of your fall damage as you all arrive outside the deer have. You land, you have crushed this man. It's tubes alive. Yes, you come toppling out,
tubes then Andre, then fish cakes, then Kiki. Two, oh god. Andre, if you don't mind.
Oh, sorry, god. Who is this way, we killed?
“Oh, yeah, I think he was one of the guys.”
Oh, no. All right. Okay. Let's get back to it. Okay. I'm going to jump and help tubes up onto his feet. Okay, great. You help tubes up. All right. I think this is where they're holding everybody. Tubes walks over and starts working the kind of with the control panel across from the door. Pops off the kind of digitized keypad and starts connecting wires, kind of sparking things, seemingly trying to get the door open. And he looks over it, you Andre.
Oh, what the hell having up there, man? I've done it. We were at the goal of the reception
and Martians have taken the ship. Oh, god. Damn, plug it. I was down in the DRC and I don't know what it was, maybe solar flares or something. We started taking on a lot more electrical magnetic power than we were supposed to have. It was luckily me and Audrey and Louis were there, working to jump out some of the nuclear through the phase regulators and conversion vaults make sure the whole thing didn't explode. We saw the alarm go off, but it was just too much power coming in.
Sorry. Who else was with you? Uh, these new fresh cadets from the, uh, from G-sackers, some boy named Arjun and another one named Louis. Arjun's all sweaty and Louis is kind of too cool for school. Okay. Uh, where are they right now? They're back up in the DRC making sure everything is stable. I'm going to give just a little pointed look over at Andre, because I feel like he has such rapport with tubes. I'm just kind of vibe checking anyone that sounds like they're new given
current events. I want to remember back to everything that I saw the new guys doing today and run back through if any of them have possibly been paving the way for these hijackers. Yeah, go ahead and give me, uh, you can give me insight or oh, also, can I assist with my, uh, knowledge of what I saw on the security cameras? You can. Will that be the help action? That would be the help action
“or investigation. If you want to do investigate, rather than relying on my people sense, I just want”
to look if any permissions have been changed on their accounts or if any, if there's any log of them doing stuff on the ship, they should not have been doing under the guise of training. Yes. That is going to be a 17 17. I would say on a 17, you think about your meeting with those two guys when they were introduced to you with the member of the executive council. And I think you realized they are pretty green. I mean, you, the TRC is a complicated piece of machinery. If someone was going to try
and take over the ship, fuck with things, your head goes to the TRC is not the avenue of sabotage. It's, it's too complicated and nuanced, a system. Like, especially with tubes being there, you think tubes would have called bullshit on any sort of fuckery that is outside the balance of
“the kind of delicate work you need to maintain the machine. Don't have to worry, I think. Those two”
cadets too young to have, I mean, not to stereotype, but too young to have the training to take
Over the ship from here.
drive new car you never drove before by putting a wrench in the engine from the driver's seat,
“or you're just going to sit in the shotgun seat and put a gun to the driver's head.”
There. Well, we need to take it back. Otherwise, the council is going to take care of us. Yeah, I know these tubes. Keeps, can you spot the work? Got it. A yellow light begins to kind of siren as the two bulkhead doors slowly open, revealing many of your friends, including Commander Mameshart, pointing guns directly at the floor of you. Hands up, huh? Oh, hundred. Kiki, Kiki. But you put your guns down a little too quick. You don't know what side we're on.
I mean, I know Andre Dalko, and I know if any more, I could trust this man. Jesus Christ,
I'm glad you're alive. He hugs you. They have my daughter. They have her. Listen, we have sent out communications to G-SEC, which is a good thing, and it's also a bad thing.
“They cannot be here in time to liberate the ship. So if we don't liberate, they're going in.”
Secure the asset. Andre, it's, it's just come, come inside. Two, can you fuck with the central lift, give us another 10 minutes? Got it. Nate, that comes you guys in, and you enter the Nendier ham, an exterior ring stacked three high with rows of sleep pods, a separate med bay, and then in the center kind of the opposite of its zenith counterpart, a tall kind of stacked cylindrical
area that has a mess hall in the bottom, a slide ball court on the second floor, and then a gym,
and other kind of amenities on the third, and then descending from there another visibility tab, much like the one at the top of the station. Nate brings you in. You tell me what you've seen, and I'll show you what we've been dealing with down here, or at least trying to figure out how
“we're going to deal with. And you see that he's leading you down kind of down toward the visibility”
of the bottom of the show. Okay, what's all happened? We are there at the Gala, Martian, Fire Guns, Kill, Dr. Cortez, Jesus, they take hostage, how many geeky fish you see them, how many takes from the ship? I give a quick rundown of everything that I've seen on the security cameras, and then the current status of all the different rooms. You see Nate kind of furrow his brow rubbing his forehead kind of, and that makes they flipped the command, you know, we were working during the
building process, everything was isolated, and the reset is clearly, they're making it so they can run the ship from the command bridge. Okay, yeah. And there's no way to interrupt that. Once it's thrown, we during the development process, you know, Gisec has a way they want to do things and they want control, they want everything to be isolated, they want everything to be separate, but they also want everything to talk to each other. And during the development process, well,
Andre was doing his work, people were working on the different systems, everything was separated. Now everything is talking to each other, and that's all going from the command bridge. It's it's the beginning of Andre. And you see, as you arrive down at the bottom of the spiral staircase, leading you to this kind of suspended lounge area that hangs over this kind of viewing window that exists at the bottom of the ship, hanging motionless in space,
lit only by the lights of the arcline and the nearby maridians, a fleet of Martian vessels, hangs motionless in the void. The station's lights catch only a fragment of the ships as they rotate around glints, a lot of holes, a red flicker across and exposed vein, the thousands of smaller coffins, XRV2s, reflect almost nothing. Their needle thin bodies vanish entirely when the beacon
strobes pause and behind them loon larger transports, fewer in number, but monstrous and silhouette, wide ribbed spines bristling with dormant vector pods and shield pylons. You see, Nate stand and point. It's in our motto. The arcline taking the ship as the beginning. This is it. We're on the front lines. They're going to come for Earth.
Yeah.
that's the best way to push back against everything talking to each other on the ship.
This point they have commanded the ship and they've isolated it in the command bridge. We have other ideas and we're getting everybody together on the slide ball court in about 10 minutes
“we'll figure out what we're going to do next. I think it's going to be important to know what”
what the point of no return is because at some point G6's going to want to hit that button and we need to figure out what we can get done before they make a choice they can't take back. Miss Davis, I agree with you, but there's also part of me as a soldier that has to acknowledge it may be it is on us to make that choice. You guys, I don't know if you're low on gear or if you need anything for whatever when it's getting out. Yeah, it was at a party. Yeah, please. We have got clothes
and other things feel free to change. Andre, can I talk to you for a second? Yeah.
We all heard the announcement. You're the one with the locator?
“Unfortunately, yes. I think Dr. Calder might have some, you might be able to zap you, literally”
empty or something like that if that. If you're open to them. Oh, God, you want to come with you? Yes, please. He points you guys up towards the Med Bay as Nate stands with you Andre. Andre has during this time his eyes tilt down after seeing all of the Martian ships hanging in space. There's just been one kick to the gut after another, after another, after another, and this final realization.
This wasn't the terrorist attack. It wasn't a heist. It was a military asset grab and now realizing
that this appears to be a full military push meaning we're not being taken back to Mars where only our fate hangs in the balance, but actually the fate of our entire planet hangs in the balance. Andre has gone deep within himself and his eyes dart back and forth like he's reading a manual hanging in space in the middle distance, thousand yards tears eyes darting over something that only he can see. I understand it's a lot. Are you doing alright? We're going to need you, man.
Talk to me about what the plan is. We've been communicating with tubes a bit and I understand that solar radiation is overcharged. The electromagnetic sources or or stills, I don't know what you call them in the TRC. If we could release those in some way, would knock out most of or at least a substantial amount of fleet. Yeah, it's true. This is something we are hoping for because it rely on a technology that we presume Mars does not have access to. Makes sense. If Mars has
this technology, why they're going to come steal it. They cannot be better at us than literally everything. So they come for this at some point. I mean, they're tech. I mean, at least at least from our understanding of the war. If they haven't made substantial jumps, a large amount of electromagnetic energy being pushed out would disrupt in some great way their systems. Right now, I'm looking at a big knot of tangled wire. He's very dangerous. Don't have the ability
to shut reactor off. We're going to have to operate with everything live. Nate, hear my question for you. You Mars, right? You're going to come steal this thing and you're going to come with a full fleet because you have some way to use this without needing to break it down, without needing to start to eat, without needing ability to build one of your own. They're not going to drag us back to Mars to cut us up. They're just going to do it all right now. Right? So the
“question is, how come you so sure that Earth, not going to blow up your prize? You have to think”
that way, right? You Mars, you're not stupid. They're going to shoot it out of the sky. So why are all these ships? Why they so sure? Earth, not going to destroy this? I mean, I don't. I don't think that's what they're after. I mean, I don't think the arcline is the prize. I think Earth is the
Prize.
let Mars know. We built something that could fucking hold its own against all their technological bullshit. Everything they fucking all the ways in which they fucked themselves and put plugs in their head,
they knew we finally had something that could maybe hold its own. And I think they realized that
“if they neutralized this, they neutralized us. Yeah, and I think that someone talked. That's why”
I have to ask you, do you trust those two? Because the last thing I need is to share the one thought, the one idea I have, that might get us out of this and have them relay it to some fucking red goon. Fucking, he called like that from under us. Do I trust them? I made them today. No, I don't trust them, but their behavior don't make a ton of sense to me. Don't make a ton of sense for them to, I don't know, not keep me imprisoned. They know that I'm one of chief engineers.
They're not going to grab me and ship me up to commemorate to explain how to take this over quicker.
Seems like a screwy plan to me. No, not. I don't trust them, but I don't I don't know how many choices we're going to have. I'd be dead if they're not helping me get here. You hear it screams from up above. Let's head back up and figure out what we're going to do next. Just outside the Med Bay, you see that Kiki and Fishcakes are you staying just outside the Med Bay where a, you know, a bald man with a goat tea gentle green eyes is just holding a wand
over you. And I'm holding my razor and one hand up sort of circling with him crap like
I'm over, all right. I just want to be clear and hand it over. She's killed several people today.
“Oh, keep it slow. I'm understanding this case. What's doing?”
Just this person wants to help you. What if he's one of them? What if he's trying to get it back? I'm just trying to tamper with my body. This is just, this is just, so I can see what it is we're trying to deactivate. Yeah, you've seen ones like that before, yeah. Do you want to get a closer look? Yeah, can you don't have to put your weapons away? Can I just get them below below your ribcage? Are we sure she can't put the weapons away? All right, you don't write it. Below the ribcage.
Okay, get a closer look. Get comfortable. Okay. Can I pat your shoulder? Yeah, I like that. And I'm going to walk over and I think you feel the room get a little heavier as I get closer. And I'm actually going to cast heroism on you. I think there is something. There's like a weird neutral, like there's a sense of distance. It's sitting in Kiki right now. She's slowly going through a bit of an ego death thing. But for right now, she understands where you're coming from,
what you're capable of and what needs to happen in order to make everyone a little safer. So I think, yeah, this is just, uh, until the power ends, you're immune to being frightened and you gain temporary hit points, uh, you get five temporary hit points. Yeah, thank you. It's almost like heavy blanket, like I'm not going to like fold like hug box,
“but just a little like, hey, you're not as unmoored as you need to, as you feel right now,”
get heavy, go back to the rational part of you that can work through this. Okay. Now, now's good. Uh, let, let fish cakes tell you when. Okay, understood? Thank you. What's your name? Uh, Dr. Calder, but you can call me Troy. Hi, Troy. I'm Kiki. Uh, nice to meet you. All right. You see, he begins to scan through the device over you. Kiki, give me an inside check. Whoo. You rolled. I got a two.
Uh, the doctor is doing his work. Yeah. I don't even, I think after this point, Kiki's not even looking at the two of you anymore. She's just at a point on the wall, unspooling, inside her own head. The doctor is acting like the doctors who have kind of checked you up before scans over your body. Wow. Okay. I think the device we're looking for is in the the base of your neck.
Just a here.
There is some sort of signal emitting from the the base of your neck. It seems some kind of
chipper or tracking device. Do I know about all of this? You would not. Yeah. You've had experiences where when you got into fights with other kids, you beat them thoroughly. When you you can run faster than other kids, you're stronger than other kids. This this is unique. This kind of look like some sort of chip or device being inside of you. It's not something that's ever been
“acknowledged or spoken about, but I think give me a give me a lower or or investigation.”
There's a 12 investigation. There's part of you that can imagine that this device has not been needed or been used until today. Okay. A location tracker. All right. How do we disable it? I'll get rid of it. We have devices like this in Gsec. I'm just going to give you a minor shit. What are you going to do? Give you a minor localized shock to the area. To just disrupt the signal. Okay. I do an insight kick on him.
That's a five on the dice. All right. Uninsideable man. The doctor just seems to be at a calm, very congenial demeanor. Perfect. Perfect manner reminds me of, you know, the doctor, the pediatrician I had back on Mars in the good time. So, okay. Do what you got to do. All right. He steps back into the med bay and returns with like a small, almost like a, it looks a little bit like a taser. It's that shape like two prongs at the end. All right. This is going to just sting a
little bit. A kick, kicky. Anything happens to me. I need you to take care of this man. I'll kill him. Thank you. And then you. Okay. Good. All righty. You feel, uh, a lights, a zac, you feel the muscles in your neck and crack. And then all done. All right. How's it going now? You see he produces the X-ray mark. Signal seems to be disrupted. Thank you. That's good enough. Thank you very much, doctor.
You, you said you were from Mars? Yes. You have a number of
“augmentations. What did you say? A, a perfectly normal word from Mars?”
You, you said you, you said I was like the good doctors are Mars. You're, I think, we watch. I'm going to pull up hand out and like click it and like end over end. I'm aiming for your eye. Just a proof of point. I catch it. Two hands, clap. Yeah. Okay. Well, that would make a lot of sense. I suppose it wasn't retrospect. Yeah. Traumatized orphans don't do that. They get one less eye.
Well, I've never met any other traumatized orphans. That's not true. Yeah. Didn't you come here
with several? Well, I just assumed that I was more traumatized than most. And that led to being stronger and faster. Uh, what, I, you are stronger. You, there are, um, it's quite elegant. Actually, a number of, uh, metal augmentations on your muscle fibers. Um, which, do you, do you remember those being given to you? No. No, everything's kind of a little hazy before, before, you know, so I've got Martian augmentations. Okay. All right. Well, this is, well, I suppose this is a good
opportunity to use them then. That's good. And you, you don't feel them. Do you? I flex my hands and sort of wave wave them around, including the hand that has, has the razor. Yeah. Yeah. No,
“I don't, this is, I just assumed that that was what everybody else had. What does this mean?”
Well, it, it's, it's, it's magnificent. I mean, subunatic implants. I mean, we're, on earth, we're unable to give subunatic implants to children because of your, your, your growing. And thus, the implant would have to constantly change. But you've, you've had these for some taught. I'm assuming.
Well, I kind of hit a growth, but earlier on, and never, really, never, really, they kind of
Stopped after that.
Isn't the question how special they mentioned you on the inner calm? Well, okay. Thank you.
“Are we done here? Oh, yes. Great. Thank you. Do you have any sort of sweets or anything that I may have?”
No, you threaten it. You don't get candy from the man you threaten. That's very fair. I have a mint. Oh, troll. I take, I snacked it out of his hand. I want to walk in. I want to walk in with Nate. Everyone seems to be, like, as you come back up with Nate as this kind of interaction ends, people seem to be slowly feeding towards the slide ball court on the second floor of the center pillar. I'm going to walk towards the slide ball court. And I'm going to look
over to fish cakes. What was the name they say on the speaker for you? The Vera.
You like fish cakes more? Well, it's just kind of always what I, but I've been called. So, you can,
you can call me whichever one. I appreciate you asking, though. No, there's not helpful to me, which one you like to be called? I like fish cakes. Fish cakes, thank you. Yeah. I'm walking in back on my shoulder towards the, uh, as you walk into the slide ball court. What exactly they say when they call out for you? Why they call out for you? Well, you see, it turns out that I have, when I look over at geeky, hmm, that as well. I have a cybernetic augmentations that are
the intellectual and physical property of the marching government. And they want those back. So,
I also, I guess, am an asset. Yeah. Doesn't make any fucking sense or just rubbing my eyebrows, splitting head. I started my whole family's about to get destroyed by G-SAC. So, this, okay, they end the middle. They're holding the weapon. They have the hammer in their hand that they're going to smash Earth with. And they say, hey, maybe we're going to kill two birds with one stone. Maybe we win the war against Earth. And while we hear, we make a quick stop by to get our
old intellectual property mutants back. Hmm, I don't make any fucking sense something. It makes more sense if I'm going to say something that will be vaguely unpleasant, but know that I care about you. I will keep that in mind. How did you get away? Did you do it on your own? My parents, my parents shoved me into a ship. Do you think that was an act of love?
“Or were you deployed? If I remember back, what do I remember about all of that? Because I think”
it was all very hazy and all I can kind of scrape together is happy times good times. There was a really bad night, then drifting in space and eating mostly fish cakes. And then the orphanage. But I don't remember a ton of specifics, just more feelings. Yeah, go ahead and get me a lore check with advantage. 12. You were a child. And I think that what you are able to remember of that time is the faces of your parents, the tenor of their voices as they
discussed, getting you to the ship that you were loaded on that they were not. I think the actual details of it, I think are quite far from you. Well, I could be upon in some sort of sinister military
“political plot. But all I remember is being a child on Mars and then suddenly not being a child”
anymore. When I was asked onto this ship by Bogo, do I know who contacted Bogo about bringing me aboard? Vice-countler Quill. Do you a specific guest of the Vice-countler to come and be recognized on this trip around the Sun? Well, I don't remember anything about being, I mean, perhaps it's true, I am some military political asset. But all I do know is that Bogo asked me to come here and Bogo was asked directly by by Big Man Quill. Yeah, and here's the vaguely
kind thing. I've sent a lot of drones out back in my day. It helps me find better asteroids to keep mining. The benefit of a good drone is not its intelligence. You are a kid, but all you need to do
Was be a homing beacon.
team. I'm going to die. But we knew that already. No, I could have very well gotten to command and
sold y'all out. Try to buy my way. By one day, you're going to die. Sure. I'm going to look over at Nate. Can I, I want to cast frequency scan and I just want to look at any of the transmissions taking off or leaving the ship. There's two questions that are bigger than what I have the magic to be able to answer, but I'd love to make an investigation check to see if I can confirm one of two hunches before this slide ball game starts. All of this is like a machine, and it's
“not coming together right. You know, I think Andre back in the day loved to build flat back”
furniture with his family back in Nairobi without consulting the thing where he's like the parts tell you what to build, right? If something is well designed, you presume that it is not wasteful. There's not going to be a random arm that you can't use. And he wanted his kids to stop thinking about following instructions and start thinking about what is this telling you that it wants to be? And I think there's two things that this hinges on for him. One is a hunch that the Icaran
rather neat is saying that this is a very lunge that in other words, Mars is knocking the Icaran to the side like it was a weapon to get to Earth. And I think Andre can't help but wonder like if they had the overwhelming force to get Earth, to invade Earth, they didn't have it a week ago, they didn't have it three weeks ago, they didn't have it two months ago, like why the timing? If they had the ability to take on Earth and a fair fight, wouldn't you rush to do that before the thing could be built?
Are they parrying the Icaran or are they disarming and using the Icaran? Is this a weapon that they
“want to use right now? And that's why they had to wait till today, right? That's the number one”
thing is is this a parry and then a lunge or no, this is a seizure of a super weapon and they're counting on the Icaran to make whatever is going to happen. And that's hunch number one. And then hunch number two is is Vera just a homing beacon or does Vera have some other role to play? 'Cause why the fuck are you wasting the precious minutes of readying your Martian Armada looking for this kid in the bowels of this station if she's already fulfilled her purpose of being an
air tag? Damn, justice for Vera. Great, I love it. I'm going to modify your power a little bit. Cool. Your frequency scan is kind of like a read. Detect exact thoughts. Yeah. I want you are using it in general. I think in this moment as you approach the slideball court, you are taking in tons of transmissions kind of reading through missives that have just passed through nature's desk. Nature is the security commander for this vessel. He was in charge
of securing it up into the point where it would have become an official G-SEC vessel and been deployed
“militaristically. So he has seen countless number of missives in information. So I think in this”
moment you were going to be taking in a lot. Ask me those, give me your two hunches. The order of priority is essentially like is G-SEC's determination if they can to destroy the Icaron. A really good idea. Meaning like, oh yeah, that is the superweapon that Mars is depending on to make this attack on Earth work. Or attack on the moon. You know, we see
there aren't mod out here. They're taking something. Right. And is the Icaron essential to Martian
plans because of its capabilities or is neutralizing its capabilities, the necessary for the Martian plans. Do they need us or not? Right. Do they need us active? Or do they is us inactive? Fine. Well, that's the first time. The second hunch is just via a larger role to play in this than just being a locator. The third thing flying around in my mind is just about quill, but I almost think that's that's clean up. Right. Like quill, like kind of we need to save our lives and if quills
a rat, we can get into that outwards. Right. Those are my two hunches. Great. Go ahead and give me
infestigation on the first hunch. On is the Icaron essential to Martian plans or is it a,
as you said, the peri before the lunch? I wish I could help you with everything in my heart. I'm going to look to Kiki and think about Nate's question. Do you trust this person? I'm going to look at Kiki, you know. Do you wish you had not been here today?
I had to complicate an answer.
that's happened in a while. There's a version of me that I killed maybe 10 minutes ago
that would have tried very hard to sell you all out and survive. That person, which is she had made any other choice, then to be corded by earth. But who I am now is curious about how today's going to go. Why do you ask? In one way or another, everyone in my family has devoted themselves
to have a greater portion of their life's effort go to everybody and not themselves.
My son, he represented workers on the moon. My daughter, she worked for Jisek. My other daughter,
“she worked here on this ship. And I think now about trust. My thought is that with”
gray space, that maybe you don't really care who win between earth or Mars. And it make it hard to trust someone if all of the hours of the life you missed with the people you care
about getting poured into something that's going to outlive you. Hard to trust someone if you think
that don't matter to them. That's fair. Gray space works a little different. There's so many big powers with big old grudges. So now I didn't. I didn't care about the fight happening between earth and Mars before I got caught in the middle of it. I came here to make the best deal for my people, but neither your people nor her people did anything to make sure I wasn't in harm's way.
So I'm still looking out for myself right now. And my best chance to go see the people I care about again is to make sure we all walk away from this. I don't want to tell you to trust me.
“I don't think you would believe it. And that's why I like you.”
I don't trust you. But I know that you have to take care of yourself. I want to talk to you about how Martians think that I can help with. I'd like to get Kiki's help on these investigation checks. Let's go. DC 15. Thank you for some. I see 18. I give you a lot. You roll over 20. I give you the whole damn thing. You got this dog. You got this dog. 11 on the die is the higher the two rolls. Plus nine is 20. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you, fucking God.
Something we discussed when you were talking about Andre is that you were somewhat invested or at least interested in Mars as it was developing and growing. Mars sucks. Mars is an awful place. It has been terraformed by these billionaires, perhaps now trillionaires, to make life there manageable at all. As you're scanning through Nate's documents, looking through
“missives emails he's received discussions. I think the thing that keeps coming up is this discussion”
around hope and around the idea that Dr. Cortez spoke to in her speech that this thing would protect Earth, that it would inspire Earth to continue to have hope that space was something that could be explored. It was still filled with discovery and not something simply to fear. I think as you and Kiki discuss how Martians think what this all could be about. It is the Perry and the lunch. They want to remove this so they can take Earth and above all, they don't want
A war.
They want to take back the Earth. I think in putting this all together, there's part of you that
believes that the Martians goal in taking this weapon and bringing it back to Earth space is that it will lead Earth to simply roll over and accept Martian rule, thus preserving a planet worth happening not one ruined by the scars of war. It's a haymaker. You throw it all in one punch, but if you miss, you're not going to keep fighting. Do I have any sense about Vera about fish cakes? Kiki is helpful here. Martians are prideful. They want credit for their work.
“I mean, a huge part of what led to the war in the first place. I think in things that you were”
able to understand on your end and your experiences in gray space, was this level of thanklessness or
expectation that was around the nature of Martian tech that was being used to keep Earth habitable and alive. I think that Vera is a geotech. It is the ability to find where the Icaron is in space. But above all, I think it's that somebody worked very hard on Vera and they don't like the idea that someone else gets to have their work. It's theirs. In some way, there's Pharaoh Allen, whoever he was, once returns on his investment and he's not happy to just see it out in the world living.
Talking was Kiki through various communications that Nate has received or been involved in
“the Icaron is being taken as a captured hostage to Earth space. I'm going to look out and go”
pride. All come back to pride. They don't want fish cakes crawling around in events because does not make them look good. These are men who called themselves Pharaoh and they want to ship captured. But it used to make a show. Maybe if Earth don't roll over right away, they blow us up to make sure of their incredible force. That's the difference between Earth and Mars. Earth is a place of plenty. You can make more soldiers. You can make more stuff. Mars doesn't have the endless resources
of Earth. They don't waste. I heard food grows on trees and Earth. Is that true? That's the
saddest thing I've ever heard. Fish cake does true. But I want to tell you something. Earth was not always
a place of plenty. It took a nuclear war and almost a destruction of the planet for us to change ourselves so that that fruit that grew on those trees was fairly distributed. But there were a lot of people who didn't like that we changed Earth into a place of plenty. Do you know what they did? They weren't built pyramids on Mars. That's exactly what they're fucking did. Yeah. And now we're going to give their Himaker some more head to make. No, I'm going to let that happen. I'm going
to let that down. You guys. Walk onto the slide ball court. Stretching 30 meters long, 20 wide with walls rising just under three meters before capping off in a smooth overhang. The floor is gently concave. The center dipping to encourage the strange ballet of slide ball. Today the court is clear. No netting, no paddles. Just a hollow table at the near end with tactical overlays of the station and schematics. The small crew that is here is clustered around and is speaking
quietly as you approach. On the wall of worn banner reads ghost servals, clearly it's hanging
“interrupted by the invasion that is now occurring. Nate looks over you as you guys approach. Good?”
Yeah, I'm good. Let's do this. He stands next to the overlay. Based on the current trajectory and velocity of the Icaron we will be in a space by morning and likely within striking distance of Earth by new. Our ship has been taken. Martians currently control the command deck and in the ship itself. We have got to stop it from reaching Earth. And in my opinion, you do as much damage to this Martian fleet as possible. We are locked out
Of the system wide commands.
We make a run at the command bridge. You see he begins to indicate on the schematics. We have
strike teams moving up. These service tunnels probably another strike team here in the maridians trying to distract. Maybe a pho escape to pull the forces and separate directions. Making a run at the command bridge. Someone gets there. Someone is able to overcome whatever force is present there and we take back the ship. However, there's a lot of unknowns in that plan.
“That's why I feel obligated to present another. Having conferred with tubes,”
there is the reality in which we could overload the TRC with raw electromagnetic energy
without converting it into plasma, whatever that means. Until it explodes, discharging the
energy through the ship and surrounding area. This would greatly affect the Martian craft, likely the Martian soldiers on the ship as well. But it would mean also the loss of the all die. You got it? Yeah. I know you're wrestling with it, but you did it. Good job. The level of catastrophic malfunctions compounding, the meltdown would likely take out the ship in any of its life support systems. However, the fleet would be impacted.
Is there any chance that we could do that closer to Earth to threaten Earth, too?
I'm sorry. I mean, they want your planet back,
pristine if we threaten to blow it up, too. I think that's even better deterrent than blowing up a thousand of their coffins when they can make 10,000 more. Sorry. I don't, I know we don't want to die. Everyone's families are up here and we're very sad about it. If we're going to talk about blowing ourselves up, let's maybe be the bigger stick of you don't get good Earth either. It's just Mars, too. Got it, I'm so sorry. Let's say that badly.
Everyone's looking at me crazy. No one's going to blow up Earth, Kiki. I mean, I'm just saying threaten to do it. You see, everyone gets really quiet. And if everyone's looking at me weird,
“but I'm saying things that we're all thinking, maybe we're not thinking it. You should be thinking”
this. That is how not Marsha's negotiated, it's true. Thank you. I'm going to look at Nate and I want to, I want to do like a technology, something. I want to see if there's any ability to dive into his understanding of exploding the ship, which is obviously, it's very easy. You have to do a lot of work to keep things from not exploding, right? But I'm wondering if there's something that's possible that's more that has more finesse for us to do, because yeah, I know that he's been talking to tubes,
but I also, you know, his other plan of storming up and taking back the bridge of the ship, I think I go, I'm going to look over on the slide ball court and I'm going to get down on the floor of the court and just start writing an equation out with some dry erase markers and just start feeling like that's just as weird as what I was doing or saying, "Oh, you're going to make it, okay, because you're going to put it through." If you saw a plot plasma, yeah, a plot plasma
that's tear through the reactor. Mr. Doke, are you calculating how to blow a stop? No, I trivially easy to blow a stop. Yeah. A lot of good people have to work very hard to keep us from blowing up. No, I'm thinking something that's actually going to be hard to do. Okay, we're going to go up, we strike team, we're going to take the bridge, great, we take the bridge, and then what happened? We surrounded by Martian vessel. Yep. So Martian vessel going to say,
"No, our plan failed." Well, let's blow up this thing and go back home and we shake hands. We say, "Yeah, it's a good try." We're not going to take the bridge back and survive until we back in Earth space regardless. This thing you say striking distance. Now, if we have a way to bring Martian vessels to Earth space, and then disable them without harming Earth itself. I look at Kiki. Kiki's is just, just, just like you're hitting wildly but silently. You very much say to
“her, it's a different plan. Give me, would you like tech or investigation with advantage?”
I'll take investigation. I feel like we were saying the same thing. That is a 27
27.
which I'm not good at, but I'm going to do my best. You listen to Nate talk. This is a soldier's
plan. Nate is a soldier. Nate is eager to die in glorious combat and sacrifice all for Earth. You're not that you're an engineer. You're a dad. You want to keep everybody safe and
“safe the day. And I think as you are doing these calculations, Nate's plan is good. Right? It”
answers the question of how do we deal with the fact that we have this fleet here, like as well as this ship, and something comes to mind. Coolant. Sweet, glorious, coolant. If you were to intentionally trigger a high intensity electromagnetic pulse using the ships TRC and redirecting plasma flow
to an electromagnetic overload state, you might exhausting the entirety of the ship's coolant
reserve. Be able to harden key structural and thermal pathways allowing the station itself to survive the discharge. The TRC is normally designed to channel plasma and specifically electromagnetic energy across the ship's systems. It is very possible that you can use the electromagnetic energy coursing through the TRC right now to turn it into a massive EM capacitor and use the station's coolant network to shape the event thermally, essentially creating frozen zones that contain the
energy and route it safely and directly at the fleet of ships posing the imminent threat to Earth. I'm going to turn to Nate, these both very good plans. Plan to take bridge, very heroic. Plan for us all to die, very brave, very selfless. It does job, right? It's stop the destruction of Earth, but the issue again is, it's a systemic problem. The problem here is Mars, they go home again, they stop us from here again, they don't know who the rat is, we have to have a system, we have to
we have to freeze the zones. We have to use, okay, you're going to fry the coolant, look, good fast cheap, this is not going to be cheap, this is going to use, this is going to
“fride the coolant, this is what it's going to be, I'm sorry to listen, okay, it's the only way tobs, you can't”
get more coolant. Yeah, but it's not really, and it's going to be expensive, that's the problem,
we are talking like a couple billion dollars. How much is the whole thing cost? Like a three trail?
I mean, I think that's before the fixings, and that's before the fixings, and it's not an equilibrium. I think it's a bargain. If we were to rush the coolant, right, you're going to take the TRC going to overload, but instead we're going to put it out through as MP output. What we're going to do is, in the moment before the MP wave go out, we're going to rush the coolant to every main computing's life support, we're going to do navigation systems, and we're going to short
circuit because what's going to happen is it's going to be a hard reset, all those computer systems going to fry when the coolant comes through and do a hard shutdown, not going to be active. We're going to have a few nanoseconds before the MP come out. And if one of those fails, we're all
“going to die anyway, yeah? Hey, listen, you want to make a egg, you have to scrumble on with.”
So what it knows is bleeding. We're going to have the MP go out. Nate, we can do this when we have access, but we're going to have to, because of how the compartments work, not everything, everything, talk together until it don't. So we're going to need the ability to go through and do this semi manually, but we could do it early. We're going to fry all the Martian ships, and maybe we reboot faster than they reboot, and we fly away
back to Earth, or if we time this right, we're going to freeze the Martian Armada when they and us are in striking distance of Earth. Really think we could do it. You're just going to do what they wanted to do to you, hit them hard enough one time that they're not going to want to keep fighting, and to get this close to their prize and to be so thoroughly
Robbed of it, maybe they go back to building their little pyramids.
private world, they agree, they let's make them pay if they want it so bad.
All right, Andre, you let us know what we need to do. We'll get to it. On that both the fence, we need them. We want to map both the fence. Kid, you want to map the fence, you got it. You see, you see, a large scroll is put in your hands. How have you ever considered public speaking?
“I have, and I do not care for it. I think maybe you should reconsider, because the closer we”
get to Earth, the more I'm going to want you to get very loud about being from Mars, and exactly who sides you're on. Oh, hit them in the pride. If they foolish enough to try to announce you over the PA, then they're going to be foolish enough to try to grab you to make the victory perfect. Well, they're not going to grab me. No one can grab me. But they're going to try. But they will, like emotionally grab you. No, I'm saying physically. No,
okay, okay, okay. And I'm saying this good. I unroll the blue prints, and let's start looking at the vents. I'm going to look out to the assembled team here.
Everybody, today, the day, all of you have very important first flight of the Ecaron.
Today, the day we're going to save Earth. Hands up, who here was really excited to do the go rush the command and die. I have a backup plan. You see the tomb man. Cool. Come with me. Da, you say they walk towards you. I just want the ones that are excited to go rush the command center. We need to do something. So Mars thinks our plan is to rush the command center. Great. This is going to take more time, and we need them to not be curious what we're up to.
So you essentially want to create a strike team that seems to be doing the bullish kind of a desperate thing. They know that we have to do one last chance to save the Ecaron. We can't prove them wrong here. Fantastic. I'm going to look over to everybody with these equations on the floor. We need small teams of engineer to run coolant manually because of security measures. If it is done, we can rush the coolant from a central source, but not without Martians at command
“knowing. So to do its secret means to do it manual. However, Kiki is right. If any of us”
are spending this whole time quiet on the deer have Martians know something's up. Everybody know everybody else smart. So they know if we quiet, it means we're doing something sneaky, we want to be loud. We're loud and brave. We buy them time. I like it. Toops points over at your vent map that you have unfurled in front of you. Fish case goes, I mean, we use easter. This is exactly what we need. People moving through the vents dropping,
making sure that the coolant is exactly where we need it to be when the chain reaction starts. There is safety in the hole. Okay. Yeah, for sure. 100% we love the hole. Sorry. Fish case really rattled me at the end there. Okay. But you want to have people putting coolant in the necessary places for when the chain reaction starts. Yeah. And doops. We're going to have team rushing the bridge. To buy us time, we're going to have team going through
vents to manually set the overrides for coolant. And we're going to have to put together the engineering language because we're not going to be able to dodge needing central command. It's just that we're going to need everything primed and ready to go. By the time that central command comes through, they're not going to have any time to react to it. But for timing reasons, we got to have one kill stroke. Everything got to go off at the same time. So you and me going to be making kill stroke,
“you have to be perfectly time for when we get in with the strike distance of earth when the”
Martian or mother can be hit by long range earth weapons. And hopefully we have a comms set up
to go out at the last possible second explaining to earth what has been done.
So that they know not to hit us too. Yeah. We can do that. We can do that. Can I say one difficult thing for you now, Andre? Sure. In the event that we get a little decent on time and our cover gets rocked early. And you hear over the inner calm,
A demand to surrender or hostages start to get shot.
I will put my life on the line, but I need you to promise me that no matter what you finish the
“mission. When the Martians came and attacked, tranquility, my son was there.”
When you're a parent on earth, you know that dying is going to be kinder than going where they want to take you. I'm not going to hesitate. Please do everything you can to keep her safe. This is so sick. We're doing it. You all set to your work. It's probably about four and a half to five hours before morning and kind of your entrance into the edges of earth space. So there's not
a second to lose. Andre, where do you see yourselves? You had it back to the TRC. Yeah,
I'm going to finish where I started. I'm going to be at the TRC. This is where we're going to have to make the code. I'm going to have to trust everybody else is doing their part. You see that a number of members of the crew head up with you, members of the overseer of the Nadir Hab,
“communications executives, kind of some of the more intellectually minded folks. I think journey”
with you and Tubes, back up to the TRC, where you see that waiting for you are Arjun and Lewis,
who looked down as you enter. Mr. Dralka, is everything all right? No, not the really guys,
a circle up. You see that Arjun and Lewis go down and you begin to administer details and explanations. Listen up, the beauty of this planet is its complexity. Everything needs to go right or no part of the plan work. Right, totally, man. Sounds good. Everyone circles up and begins that work. Kiki, you, Nate and his two, large men, wide men, both incredibly stout to identical twins, Mohawk's tattoos on the side of their heads. You'd think they were spacers, if not,
for the fact that they are led by Nate Sharp, he walks up to you. This is Valk and Vat. Valk and Vat, all right? Sounds like we're the ones getting live. I love getting live. I'm going to grab the vent map once I waited till fish cases done with it and I'm comfortable jury rigging a lot of stuff in space. So when you improvise, you improvise with sound. So I've like carved the loudest, but safe as path to get to command. That's just going to throw up a bunch of sound.
Kiki's whole thing is just getting them gasped up to fight and be willing to die to make sure we win. I'll give me an entire check. That's a 19. Nate Sharp presented two plans of which he
“likely died, whichever way you go. So you see a determination and acceptance. I think in the”
eyes of these three men, as you talk about the loudest, most violent path back up to the command bridge. You actually see that Nate goes, actually if we go through, if we go through central intelligence here, I think they'll really think we're trying to fuck with him. Let's fucking go. And I think at this point, Kiki who already had her black jumps suit on under her formal wear. She's rolled up her arm like her like right arm sleeve up to the elbow and there's just a really long tattoo of
like a spindle and like stylized spindle in rope. And she's just going to take a little knife out at where the like rope tattoo ends and just cut her arm there. Blacks is disposer of lots. We don't get to know all of us when our time's over. We just get to decide what we do with our destiny. Let's go make some fucking noise boys. Fishcakes, you see the a number of personnel kind of walk up to you. So we're placing the coolant. I like them up and down with my arms crossed. Are these
vent ready people? Not at all. Okay, I have a better idea. And then can we jump to be popping out of the vent in you know where the kids are? Okay. Give us the vent children back because while everybody else is like prepping and stuff maybe I just like go solo into the vents. Let's roll
About it dude.
wearing kind of formal wear from the party or slide ball gear from the game it was about to happen.
“We're supposed to be climbing through the vents. Oh, no, I don't think that you're suitable for that.”
Oh, I have a better idea. Fishcakes, you take off. You have the schematics of the ship. Where is fishcakes headed? I'm headed back to the area where Bogo and the children are. Fantastic. You see
also in this moment as you guys are planning tubes walks around with the communication collars
that they use when they're in the TRC and it goes, these are on a different frequency from the station.
“So we should be able to draw directly without interference. So all of you have these different”
communication collars that allow you to hear each other by switching between different channels
as you take off. You have the schematics you are able to start climbing through ventilation shafts
up toward the top of the ship. You hear a click on your communication collars. Hey, get this two for you at it. I'm going back to get my strength in. All right. Well, let me give you some help.
“You feel in a second gravity switch and your ability to climb the ship. You're leaping and”
bounding 30 feet at a time. Let's go through the different ventilation shafts. You just let me know when you need me to flip it back down. Thank you. You bound up the ship through wiring and rigging eventually popping out in a similar place where Andre came out when he slipped into the vent earlier. You are back at the top. What's your AC? 15. On a net one, tell you, misplay shot. Coney protocol, everyone. And all the kids. What hit the vent? Yeah. That's right. You see Bogo goes up here.
Now are we sure that's a good idea, fish cake? Reverse the gravity. You see all the kids sprinting away as you back in the vents, gentle flow of gravity as you are pulled slowly back down toward the net deer half. Your teams are assembled. Your goals are clear. And all that's left to do is save the Akaron. That was Erika Ishii as Vera Fishcake's land. A Priya Iungara as Kiki Davis. Brendan Lee Mulligan as Andre Dalka. And me, Lou Wilson as everyone and everything else.
Flight of the Akaron is produced by Fortune at Horse and Worlds Beyond Number. Editing sound designed by Brian Flarity of many sided media and score by Will Savino. For even more stories like this, join us on our Patreon. We'll see you there.
