Introduction
We keep too many secrets. Myself included.
I struggle sometimes to understand why.
Knowledge is power, I suppose. And we do so love to hoard power.But the truth wants to be free, and after all the lies and the endless trail of bodies, the truth is the only thing that remains.
-The Memoirs of “Gentleman” Jack Cartwright
25 September, WY603 – Solace
While Dirk stays behind with a squad of marines to keep the ship secure, the remainder of the crew and marines take the shuttle down to the BioGen facility on Solace. The compound consists of three buildings, a large hangar - easily big enough to refit a SPC like WDF Casper, a smallish domed structure, and a large building with labs, a barracks, and administrative offices.
Cara sends the special forces team, Sierra, in first. They gain access to the main structure via the primary airlock and are immediately held down by fierce fire from well-armed WDF marine defenders. The crew and the other two squads move to help and are briefly delayed by a team of defenders emerging from the hangar. After dispatching them, the crew moves to the top ofthe lab building and enters from the roof.
Inside the facility they find abandoned administrative offices, barren of most personal items and all with computers destroyed. Aiden recognizes the name on one office, Dr. Hannaford, as the chief researcher from BioGen who was in charge of acquiring Aiden’s research from SAR. Sierra finally frees themselves up and moves further into the facility, but encounter heavy resistance again while attempting to enter the barracks and are pinned down. Fearing more sabotage, Cara sends Alpha and Bravo teams back out to check on the hangar and domed structures respectively, and the rest of the crew with Swan go to reinforce Sierra.
The team finds the path to the barracks too well-defended to take, and the facility’s defenders begin shutting blast doors to pin the crew down. Angelica hacks her way through the door leading back up to the labs, and the crew moves that way.
They find the facility’s main lab abandoned and sabotaged like the offices, but the lab equipment tells a story of the research being conducted. The lab was conducting research into highly advanced dive mechanics, quantum particle interactions, and linguistics.
Meanwhile, Alpha squad reports in from the hangar. They’ve found a device, seemingly man-made, altering the gravity of a mocked-up room, suspending it upside down in the hangar with miscellaneous odds-and-ends being held “up” against the floor. An item tossed from below into the room falls upwards as well. The crew speculates that the device alters gravity at an extremely high-fidelity, and a scaled0up version of the device could very well have explained how WDF Casper could maneuver without thrusters or a Korolev drive.
While attempting to exit the lab, the crew opens a blast door into a security foyer and are met with more gunfire from the defenders. Cara convinces them to surrender, pointing out that they have no air cover and the nearest help from Whistler could be literal years away. Cara offers the defenders a no-questions-asked ride anywhere they need to go, and the defenders agree. The marines corral the defenders and civilians in the barracks mess hall.
The security foyer leads to the facility control center and the artifact vault. The crew immediately explores the vault.
Inside, they find two bays roughly the seize of a large ground vehicle.
- In the first bay they find Artifact Golf, which appears to be a wrecked version of the device that is operating in the hangar.
- The next bay contains Artifact Juliet, which the crew eventually identifies as a sort of dive system. It appears to consume some manner of fuel, versus the M² system in use in Whistler which uses capacitors.
Behind the two large bays are two small cabinets:
- In the first cabinet they find Artifact Quebec. The device is roughly the size of a suitcase and has peculiar-looking data ports on one side, but there are no other clues as to its use.
- The second cabinet has an additional lock. After bypassing it, the crew finds Artifact November. An ancient and battered dedication plaque, written in English.
The plaque reads:
Whistler Sojourner
Set sail from Terra Primus This 14th of October 5067 a.d.
A project of the University of Mysteries
Commissioned by the Empress Hannah Tarwin
