As you some of may know last weekend we held a special event. The event, aptly named “Into the Fire” was designed to test our player’s knowledge and skills to their limits. As it turns out the event was a tad bit “overtuned” and only a few players managed to get any decent progress before the time ran out. The added challenge proved too much for most, but not RetracElyk and Bathem! They pressed on and finally managed to complete this near impossible challenge. To commend their efforts, both have received a free copy of Hellion for their efforts. If you are interested in finding out more about the event and their exploits, read on! But be warned it's a long one.
“The Objective”
Goal of the event was to use a single clue: “Only through Purgatory shall the path be revealed” in order to locate a station which was the source of a mysterious distress call. Once there the players would be tasked with rescuing a stranded survivor. The first clue was a set of coordinates at Sons of Earth Purgatory station that led to Teiora’s moon Sinha. There the second set would point towards a long abandoned and unlisted SDS outpost called “Aegis Blacksite 9” where the final set of coordinates could be obtained. This would lead the hunters towards the Hellion star itself and have them dive deep into the corona of the red giant to finally locate “Site Alpha”, the source of the distress signal.
Since both of them have been so kind to send us their account of the event, here is the full journey as documented by Bathem and RetracElyk.
Bathem’s account
Askatar Planetary System
Sons of Earth Purgatory Base (Deep Orbit)
“And you are sure that it is an SDS signal coming from those derelicts?” I asked Retrac over the radio.
“I'm telling you that there is something here.” Retrac said with a touch of exasperation. He was floating alongside the skeletal remains of a long corridor module. I couldn't blame him for his frustration because we had just finished clearing out the Purgatory’s defences and got some really good supplies and salvage. We both just wanted to get away from here and not fall prey to pirates, Sons of Earthers, or worse. A shudder went through me at the thought of the last one.
Retrac's transmission cut through my thoughts, “I can't seem to find any undamaged data ports, so I'm just gonna bring the whole transponder units from them, see what we get.”
“Alright, I'll start prepping for the warp jump back, it's going to be a 30 minute one.” My hands started punching up the numbers that would bring us home, “Should give us time to go over what you’ve found.”
“Alright I'm on board now, closing cargo bay door.”
“Copy that, pivoting for jump, 30 seconds and counting.” I always hated that we couldn't change our vector while awaiting for the warp jump system to align. One small little bump and it would fail. That time always was when you felt most vulnerable because of the trapped feeling that it gave you. Out of habit I would watch the sensors for any unknown contacts. The FTL system wasn't meant to be the safest way to travel, it just so happened to be the only way to travel.
“3-2-1, Jumping....” I started to relax and then a cold chill went down my spine as I stared at my contact screen and could have sworn that I saw another ship signal appear just as we hit warp.
I told Retrac what I thought I saw and he agreed that we got out of there in time. He stated that this SDS signal was blasting out to the whole Hellion system and anyone or anything would be noticing it. Just our luck to be on top of it as it started to blast out its distress tune.
We downloaded the transponder information into our nav computer, and it confirmed that there indeed was something at Sinha for us to find.
Eridil Planetary System
Orbiting Sinha (The Demon Moon)
After resupplying at our main base, we worked out a plan of action because we both knew that it was going to be a race to this new station. The prospect of finding this station before others was too good of an opportunity to pass. Unexploited station were rare, and Skyline Defence Solutions ones, even rarer. We both were excited at this prospect and talked about it en-route to the Eridil system.
“Popping scans,” I announced needlessly, because Retrac was looking over my shoulder at the nav screen. “Getting a reading.... it looks like three 'roids are also transmitting on the same frequency, but the debris field is dampening and disrupting the signals.”
I had a brief flash of myself trying to fly in that mess of junk, and was thankful that we had our high end radar system installed for this trip.
“Looks like we are getting a good reading on the signal modulation, I don't think we'll have to go down there for close scans.” Retrac stated.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I started to run the information through the computer and it spit out a nav way-point. “Looks like we got another jump to---”, the nav computer started to litter my screen with upwards of two dozen possible destinations, “--- make?”
“What the hell?” I exclaimed, trying to figure out what went wrong.
“Looks like this isn't going to be as easy as we thought.” my partner mused.
We talked it over and decided to go to the nearest one, we had brought plenty of warp cells for this trip. One thing Hellion teaches you, is you just don't take off without having double checked your supplies.
Hellion Inner Planets Orbital Zone
Unlisted coordinates (Deep Space)
“Well, that's the fourth nav point and still nothing,” Retrac informed me. “and nothing on long range scans either.”
Dammit, I thought, this far out, without any planet's magnetosphere to provide us protection from the star's solar winds, meant that our sensors would function at reduced efficiency. “Bloody needle in a haystack,” I muttered out loud.
“Huh? What's that?” Retrac asked.
“Nothing, I'm thinking that there has to be something that we are missing.” I replied, “Let’s look at Sinha's system again.”
So we stared at the screen looking for inspiration. We didn't actually go to any of those contacts at Sinha, perhaps the numbers were in a cipher of some sort. I pulled up the orbits of the three contacts that were sending SDS signals. And that's when it hit me.... The numbers matched up on one of the signals, a perfect match in coordinates. That was the missing information needed to plot our next jump.
Excited, we plotted the course and the nav computer showed us two possible destinations.
“Guess we'll go to the nearest one Retrac”, I said, “hows our cells?”
“Should be good for that one jump, but after that, we should really head back to base and resupply.”
“Good plan,” With that I started to align, “It's an eight minute jump.”
Hellion Inner Planets Orbital Zone
Aegis – Blacksite 9 (Deep Space)
“Wow, what a mess this is,” Retrac came over the radio, “There is some good salvage for sure, but it's pretty tangled up.”
“Well, we got the transponder codes, so anything else we can take with us is just gravy on top” I responded. This was a dream site, there was fuel, military grade shielding and engine parts. Even some of those advance Aegis Task Force assault rifles and Lance snipers.
“Coming back with another load.” I heard Retrac say, as I thought about all the living quarters that I saw, and I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the personnel that were stationed here, or what had to happen that it caused this base to split into four pieces.
“You know, with all this military grade shielding, we could bring our buddy's mini base out here, and park nearby.”
“Would sure cut down on the return trips.” Retrac agreed.
Thirty minutes later and we were both making EVA trips in and out of the wreckage until there was only one more part of the station left to investigate.
Standing at the edge of the ramp on our open cargo bay, Retrac looked through the scope of his newly acquired Lancer sniper rifle. “Yep, I see turrets, and these all look like the high end military ones.”
“Alright then, call out where you need to be and I'll maneuver you there.” I replied. He then relayed to me in short form what direction I had to go so that he had a clear line of sight to his targets. I maintained our distance and while giving him a stable platform he could fire from.
“Man... I'm liking these Lances!” I could hear the grin in his voice as he popped the last one, “We are in the clear, sir”
After a few more short bursts from the RCS thruster I matched speed with the spinning station, called out to him, and shortly saw him EVA heading towards the station. I could also see that he was armed for trouble. We kept in radio contact and he called out what he saw. There was ruptures that looked like they were caused by impacts, blast marks from grenades, as well as damage marks he just couldn't figure out the cause of. I kept my eye on the short range scanner, after all, we didn't know who else may have figured out this location. Earlier I had picked up some repeating signals that seemed to be coming from the Eridil system, but they had vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared.
“I've set this base to self destruct, we got five minutes to reach minimum safe distance.” Retrac's sounded pleased, “I also have something else that we’re gonna like.”
Despite my curiosity, I jetted away from the station and aligned for the jump back to our mini base. Once that was done, and we were safely away, I turned and was met by Retrac's grinning face. I understood at once why he was so pleased, in his hands was a military grade ship scanner.
“No way!” I exclaimed, “I've seen specs on those things, they can be used to remote view ship’s scanners!” I knew that this would let us see through other ship’s sensors and allow us to explore without putting ourselves in harm’s way. All we needed to do was maintain a tight beam link to the ship, and we could see everything it finds. As I picked up the advanced scanner system, I had a plan already forming.
“I've been running numbers on those last transponder codes. They are indeed correct, and the origin source of the SDS signal is coming from the Hellion star itself.”
Hellion Inner Planets Orbital Zone (Nimath’s Orbital Path)
Holding Position Over SDS Signal Source (Deep Space)
“OK, so we were able to salvage four of those Steropes, and we got them synced to our new scanner system?” I asked Retrac as we started to suit up in these new, heavily modified AltCorp Mk 9 Pressure suits that had Sons of Earth graffiti all over them, “and you are sure these are going to protect us from the radiation?”
“Well, mostly,” he replied with a smirk, “I don't know how long we should be exposing ourselves, but let’s not stop to sight see, OK?”
I had to go out and set the ships alignment and warp time manually, after that all we had to do was sit back and watch the show. The remote viewing system only lets a person see what was going on from a forward view as well as receive telemetry from the ships systems. “Alright, launch set in two minutes, are we clear?”
“Give me a sec,” came the reply. What the hell could he be doing, I thought, “Hey, I really don't want to be going there personally, so whatever it is you are doing better be important.”
“Oh it is...” I swear that I could see his ear to ear grin coming over the radio, “there, I'm clear.”
“Copy that,” I said then made my way quickly out of the ship and into space, “now what the hell---” I paused as my mind caught up with what I was seeing, first I was shocked by the audacity of what he had done, then I just laughed. “Nice.” was all I could come up with. Painted on the side of the ship were the words 'Helios Diver Mk I'.
“Well, it is bad luck to launch a ship without christening it.” He stated in a matter-of-factly.
With our spirits high, we headed towards the Arges, which we had docked to the top of our outpost, looking like a nesting bird of prey. We cycled the airlock and quickly gathered at the navigational console, which was already tracking the progress of Helios Diver.
“Rad's climbing, fast, it's already showing loss on its hull integrity.” He noted.
“Yea, but the warp drive is still nominal, scanner and the data link also working.” I replied, unable to tear myself away from the screen. “Recorder is running as well.”
Then the signal went dead, all at once and so fast that it took us a few moments to register.
“Wow, that went down fast.” I said.
“Last I saw was the rad's climbing past 250 per tick.”
“Uh, how could something even survive in that?”
Confused, we started to discuss what had happened and what could possibly survive in such an inhospitable area. Hellion is a rough place to live, but its sun, that is truly the heart of hell. We came to the conclusion that we'd have to wait until the signal source moved farther away from the sun.
After a few hours, and without any fanfare, we launched Helios Diver Mk II. Its systems failed farther out then the Mk I. After reviewing the recordings, we could see that the warp drive malfunctioned, dropping it out of warp and into the unforgiving hands of the red giant. It's signal warbled and then died with screech before fading to the white noise of static. No scanner contacts were detected by this one either. Radiation was recorded at 150 units per tick. Where we were orbiting right now it was 16 rads. I didn't like what my math was telling me. We'd be liquefied in our fancy suits before we could even blink.
Retrac called a brainstorming session and all we could come up with was that there was definitely something down there and that it must have had something shielding it from the exposure.
And so we waited, and planned. Hours went by before we figured the signal should be in a lower radiation zone, but it would still be too much for the Military grade shielding to prevent.
“Helios Diver Mk III away,” Retrac announced, “Tracking signal strong and steady.”
“Time to drop, two minutes, thirty seconds,” I replied, “Mil core holding, no damage to ship.”
“Rads at 25 and climbing.”
“One minute to drop, non critical systems are taking damage, FTL still undamaged”
“Rads have levelled out at 59 units.”
“Drive just went off line, but the scanner is showing that something is definitely there!” I exclaimed excitedly.
“Station name confirmed as Site Alpha!”
Nimath Orbital Zone
In Warp (En-route to Site Alpha)
“So, we agree that we protect the FTL system first, then the reactor?” I said.
“Makes sense, even if we lose air we can run red for a bit.” Retrac agreed, “Looks like we should be there in about another forty-five seconds, I better head down below and keep watch, rads are climbing past tolerance”
“Copy that, if it looks good I'll position us so the sun is to our backs, would hate for us to get cooked now.” With the heat radiation pounding us, it was causing the ship to flex and contract as it fought to equalize the temperature of its hull. I could hear the metal creaking and pinging, sharp sound grating at my nerves that where already on edge from just being this close to the sun. I mean, sure I've had close calls before, like that one time I was flying my Steropes past the sun and a freak flare knocked out my FTL drive, but this was different, this time I was purposely diving towards a storm of fire that nothing man made could even come close. 'On purpose,' I laughed to myself as I checked the systems again. “Drop in 10,” I stated.
Retrac acknowledged that he was in position and ready.
Hellion Orbit
Site Alpha
We dropped out of warp and into the brilliant glare of the sun, it took up the entire sky, glaring at us. I quickly looked for the station and there it was, two-point-five clicks out. I rotated the ship and put us in a drift so that we'd slide into position with the sun behind us. Retrac called out reports as he watched for any type of system damage or hot zones. The ship responded to my requests without delay, but the hull voiced its complaints with a muttering of groans and creaks as the temperature once again changed rapidly. Hot became cool, and cool became hot. “Almost there....” I muttered, forgetting that we had set our comms to open.
“Better get there fast, this ship is not liking this temperature switch, I've had to plug two micro fractures already.” Retrac said.
“Alright, I'm stable, better come up here and depress us, we'll go suit air from this point on. I'm gonna check the docking cams so we won't have to maneuver as much.”
“Copy that.”
Upon hearing the hatches opening I flipped my face plate down and checked my suit's air and fuel levels. Both confirmed as full, so I went back to my docking cameras and noticed immediately that I was getting positive contacts on my docking beacon.
“Uhh, we can dock to this thing? Airlock or anchor points.” I told Retrac.
“Really?! Wow, so much for having to worry about going EVA in this mess. Let’s dock to the airlock then.” He responded with a relief.
Agreeing with him on that, I rolled my ship slowly to let the temperature have a chance to equalize and positioned us for a flawless docking run. Retrac was in the topside airlock and calling out distance. Not that I needed much help as all the needed info was already being displayed on my HUD.
“Docking imminent.” I called out, “Locked, we are secure.”
Retrac was busy trying to see what he could though the small airlock window looking for any automated threats, I headed back to the engineering panel to start powering down the base. It was then that the deck of the ship heaved and struck me in the face. My mind started racing and I heard Retrac say something but I couldn't make it out, another impact slammed me around so hard that my vision went dark. Retrac shouted again and the ship took on a funny red glow for a moment. All I could think of was to get to the bridge and hit the recall system. My sight blurred and I heard a hissing sound, one that I knew too well. My suit had been punctured. Something whizzed by my face, a shrapnel I thought, the ship had been breached....
Nimath Orbital Zone
Mini-Base (Deep Space)
When I came to, I found myself back in our mini base, every part of my body hurting. Retrac was slipping out of something that barely resembled a space suit and I noticed that my suit wasn't looking any better. “What the hell happened?” I croaked out.
“Airlock blew up, and then the ship got punctured, we were too close so all the energy transferred into our ship and... well, it’s a total loss, I had to scuttle it. Sure glad you had it programmed for a return trip.”
“The airlock... that means...” I stared at him.
“Ya, a booby trap. And I was outside in it, I soaked up a lot....”
“We'll have to put you on ice for a bit, I'll go and see if I can get you some meds, and anti-rad packs.” I started to form a list in my mind of all the stuff we had and would need to get. We were not equipped to handle this kind of emergency.
Since I didn't get exposed to the sun that day I was in much better shape then Retrac. I patched myself up and moved the mini-base to the nearby Athnar’s planetary system. I got lucky and scored a recoverable Arges right away. It took me a few hours to tow it back to base, but I was able to load it up with much needed supplies. Including the exposure medicine and healing stims. Retrac got back on his feet and started to process the supplies as I went on a few mining runs for some raw minerals. I had to play hide and seek a few times as there were a few other ships in the area. All I saw were warp signatures, but I knew I wasn't in any shape to fight off a pirate or even a hostile gnat at this time.
Bit by bit we replaced what was lost, however the thing that I regretted losing the most was that mil-spec scanner. Truly, that was a game changer.
Nimath Orbital Zone (Deep Space Staging Area)
Aboard Hell Jumper Mk II (Arges Mk II H Series)
Retrac looked at me and grinned, “Like the name?”
“Hell Jumper Mk II, nice!.” I grinned back.
We went through our final checklist of supplies and double checked our fuel cells. Looking good, I gave a thumbs up to Retrac, he checked his weapons and tools, and he gave me one back.
“Warp alignment confirmed, jumping in 12 seconds,” I nodded to Retrac. He looked at me and said....
“Lets do this!!!”
RetracElyk’s Log Supplemental
Hell Diver MK II launched. We were again loaded with Sons of Earth Suits, the top weapons, EMP grenades, and a well outfitted ship. Upon our arrival, Bathem used the docking camera to move us within one meter of a derelict module. I quickly exited the ship taking minor radiation damage in the process. We worked as a team to clear automated defenses and search for any survivors. As we entered the last CQM, we discovered an active cryopod.
With so few survivors remaining in the system, this took us by quite the surprise. What was even more strange was that the cryopod was authorized to none other than Deadwolf, the deceased mad leader of the Sons of Earth and a former member of the Aegis taskforce.
His words made little sense, ramblings of a madman, he spoke of locking us in this infernal prison forever of ghosts and apparitions. At first I thought that he wanted to blow up the station with us still inside. I pulled a gun and pondered firing. It was then that he mentioned Theona and his words started making sense. We realized that this was all connected and that us finding him here wasn’t a coincidence. Deadwolf acknowledged it was time to leave, saying that he had been locked up for far too long.
He was unarmed and walked slowly with us back to our ship. As we boarded, our turret began firing at him proving that he wasn’t just a figment of our imagination. To our bewilderment he suffered no injuries, to which he just replied that the Beast wouldn’t let him die, not yet. Bathem maneuvered us away from Site Alpha and plotted a course back home.
As we warped outside of the high exposure zone and radiation fell back to normal levels Deadwolf collapsed onto the flor of the ship and shortly died, finally free from his eternal torment...