Introduction
Was it all for naught? Were those tens of thousands of murders on my hands only worth a decade of peace? Is that all I purchased with so much blood? How could I have been that wrong?
I simply inconvenienced the monsters. Delayed them, turning myself into a monster in the process. And like Lady MacBeth I continue to scrub and scrub my hands, screaming “Out, out damn spot!”, failing to wipe away the indelible stain of my sins. I could never make it right. But I could spend what little time I had remaining to me trying.
-The Memoirs of “Gentleman” Jack Cartwright
7-30 July, WY603 – Whistler, Trilby
The crew meets to discuss Angelica’s revelation that Jack may have sided with the insurgents. All the facts seem to fit.
The crew decides to follow Cordova and Peach to Trilby. Daniel takes on supplies for an extended trip, and they set off - choosing to travel conventionally rather than letting Dirk accelerate the trip.
Three weeks and three jumps later, they arrive at Trilby. Uninhabitable and too far out of the way to be useful, the Trilby system is completely uninhabited, with nothing but Council survey beacons to show any human presence at all. Dirk picks up Peach’s locator, landed in a mountainous region on Trilby’s southern continent.
The crew takes a squad of marines and shuttles down to the surface. Peach is parked in a small patch of level ground high in the mountains. Nearby is a cave that appears to have been recently excavated. They secure the Peach, finding it in normal condition, and her crew alive in the emergency suspension freezers. Angelica checks the ship’s logs and finds that the ship had only just arrived in Trilby three days prior. The learn very little else about the hijacking, save that Harrington gave over the ship’s command codes early in the trip and the crew had been in the freezers ever since. They set the marines to unfreeze Harrington and take the Peach to orbit, and have Blackmoon fly the shuttle off-planet as well to ensure Cordova has no way off-world. They arm Daniela and Angelica with dart guns loaded with Aiden’s anti-psychic drugs and establish a “dart first, ask questions later” rules of engagement with Cordova.
The cave appears to be a recent excavation, with no sign of explosives or heavy equipment used, it’s assumed that Cordova used his psychic abilities to do the work. The excavation uncovered a wall of arnite with a hatch. Dirk is able to determine how to open the door, and it reveals a tunnel and airlock made entirely of arnite. Unlike on Helena, the structure seems in pristine shape, the arnite walls, ceiling, and floors intact. After getting through the lock, they find themselves in a tunnel descending into the mountains.
After about a mile walk, the tunnel opens into a huge cavern. The space is overgrown with foliage much like on Helena, including the fireflies, as well as a number of very large statues of roughly humanoid aliens. A second cavern opens up roughly a half mile away through the subterranean forest.
On the hike through the chamber, the crew comes to notice that the fireflies have gone, and Dirk feels the unnatural dread associated with the “sea monsters” encountered during his dives. The crew takes cover. Din is attacked by a creature seemingly made of shadow - which Dirk perceives as an extension of a much more titanic leviathan in n-dimensional space. The crew opens fire on the entity, and Dirk manages to get its attention psychically. It charges at Dirk, but Din jumps in the way and is injured. Concentrated fire from the crew causes the creature to retreat.
During the battle they hear the sound of a single handgun firing from the far cavern, as well as some yelling. Shortly after they dispel their attacker, the sounds of battle stop and a psychic burden that had been upon everyone suddenly lifts. They continue to the far chamber. The far cavern is similar to the first, at the far end stands a spire hundreds of feet high. It is in continuous motion, with rings of arnite swirling about it at odd angles. A light emanates from the tower and is growing brighter.
The crew approaches quietly, and sees Izzy Cordova in a daze, his hands pressed against the tower. Daniel shoots Cordova with the drug and he barely seems to acknowledge the dart in his neck. However, over the course of several minutes, the speed of the swirling rings slows and the light from the tower dims and Cordova comes to himself and he finally notices the crew. He’s very disoriented, and keeps asking what the crew did to him. Over the course of the conversation, the crew learns the following:
- Cordova’s killing of Wei and Piney Newton were accidents. He didn’t understand and could barely control his power.
- Cordova used his power to dispel the attacking creatures, and with his power suppressed he was no longer able to do so.
- Cordova is insistent that the threat of the “sea monsters” is existential. The ancients had built this machine to protect themselves, but were wiped out before they had a chance to activate it. It was his intent to activate the machine to protect humanity from them.
- He insists that the “others” have to be warned. Any time he’s asked who these “others” are, he repeatedly says “look to the East”.
- Cordova explains that the monsters are antagonized by dive travel, and the depth and frequency of such travel draws their attention and ire. The ancients travelled (and indeed partially existed) in this space and their entire civilization was wiped out.
- The tower on Trilby controls “the machine”, which both Cartwright and Toussaint are part. The machine is designed to create an n-space bubble around an area, making it impenetrable to the monsters. This has the side-effect of making dive-travel impossible in the affected area.
- Dirk interfaces with the machine and confirms Cordova’s assessment of the machine. It can create a bubble that will cease all dive travel in an area. The minimum radius is Cartwright’s current orbit between Brin and Yang in Whistler. The maximum radius is just under six parsecs, which would cover all of Council space. As far as they can tell, there is no way to adjust the bubble after it’s deployed, nor is there any way to deactivate it.
- The crew theorizes how such a bubble would impact the politics of the Reach, including bringing the Council’s aggression to an immediate halt. However, extending the bubble over systems that can’t sustain their populations alone, such as Foxglove, would cause untold deaths.
“Well,” observes Dirk after separating from the machine, “this is kind of a lot.”
