Upon our return... The power is out...the lift is dead...we have two robots and a knocked-out vrusk. We wait around a bit, as Rodworth gives Artemis a call to make sure she's well. Kyle takes some time to make some quick alterations to the robots and slaved them to his commands. He has the robots start carrying the vrusk and we move on to the stairs. When we hit the stairs, a few guys and a robot come out of the Fight Club and ask to join us. It dons on Balthasax that this robot is Dack! When he says hello, Dack draws his weapons and sweeps the crowd. A quick conversation later, the folks decide to go back into the bar and Dack comes with us. We move up a bit and decide to try the air shaft ladder and climb up. As we climb, more doors open and the Minotaur folks start pouring through, climbing the ladder. When Dack sees the Minotaurs, he says, "Nope" and heads off his own direction. After a few minutes, we head the same way. We get a PSA message from the Gov't, stating that martial law has been declared and a strict curfew has been enacted. Stay in your homes or be shot on sight. We dare the streets and make it to Scooney's to check on him. He's ok, so we move off to our base. We make it there uneventfully. Rodworth calls Artemis again to let her know he's ok. She sends him a video file showing a prison break and the Blue Boys and many other criminals breaking into the police armory, stealing weapons and vehicles. Our computer is tapped into cameras all over our dome and are reporting several odd instances. There are gun fights, looting/robbery and a weird set of people are keeling over for no apparent reason. Eusyl, Joseph and Balthasax head over to the place where the people are unexplicably dying. They find that people have been hit with some kind of energy that killed them from the inside out. We also noticed that there was an odd weapon lying about. When a skeinsuited individual touched it, they'd die. When an unarmored guy picked it up, he was fine. Eusyl, Joseph and Balthasax come back with a body for an autopsy. Joseph and Balthasax examine the body to see what was killing the people. There appears to be a weapon that is projecting a microwave beam that creates the field inside of a target. There has to be several focusing dishes to move that much energy to a single point. Eusyl starts trying to track down the locations and triangulate the location of the weapons. He pulls it together and finds a dish. We head to the location of the building housing the dish. Upon hitting the second floor, we crack open the door and see 6 quillbats flying about the main hall. Looking across the hall, the door to the room we're looking for is opened...and we see another Sathar computer. Rod and Bal toss grenades into the hallway and wipe them out. Yaz takes a shot at the computer (controlling the dish) and takes out its sonic disruptor. He takes a second shot and knocks away its automatic rifle. In case this computer is also setup with a bomb, Yaz remotely hacks it and turns it off. Examining the system, we find another chunk of TD-19...1000gms. After some discussion, Rodworth disarms the charge. Yaz hacks the computer and disconnects it from the power and we heft it off to our base. Kyle takes the energy emitter from the radar dish and away we go. Once back, Kyle hacks the computer with a deep security logic probe. About 2 hours into the hack, we get another PSA . The Malthar and Alice Stryigi state that they've formed an alliance and she's allowed him to send troops to the surface to help regain control of the chaos. We start get messages from all the spacecraft. They're still in orbit, as the stations won't let them dock for fear of quillbat infestation. So, they're still stuck and confused. After the last 5 hours, Kyle totally hacks the computer and gets crazy information. We get a full map of Styrigia and the domes...down to schematics of the plumbing, wiring and bathroom locations. We also see that the system was programmed by a Sathar. There is a list of all the Sathar agents on the planet, who are mostly Vrusk. We end up with the locations of all the other dishes. Rodworth calls the Malthar station to talk to Alice. She gets on the call, but sounds very weird. Very likely under duress. We tell her that the Sathar have agents on the planet. She seems disinterested and says we should call the UPF base, Pinnacle Station. We do call UPF and the operator transfers us to MI. We send the some photos to the MI guy. He needs direct proof before he can get involved. We end up heading back down for a sathar body part. As Eusyl and Yaz are headed to the shaft, they get intercepted by Nargoo, the reporter. He badgers them for an interview, but he gets excited and upon hearing the plan, he jumps in the hole. Joseph is rolling like mad down the stairs...and Bal decides to try and glide down the tube...and freaks out. He clips a wall and goes spinning out of the control. Obviously, he beats the other three to the bottom. =) When the guys get back to the Sathar bodies, they get back to the UPF and prove that these are dead worms. Officer Mamba says he'll have people on the ground shortly. We inform him of Alice's likely dangerous situation. He's going to try to do what he can to get her back. Nargoo gets all geeked out about the Sathar, but the guys shut him down until the situation is under control. We tell him about Alice and the Malthar and he thinks that is a big story. Another Mexican standoff occurs when the Malthar/UPF and Alex Styrigi all vie for control. The Malthar claims that he was sending people form Pinnacle, Alex threatens to blow them up, the UPF claims the ships and heads to the planet. The UPF finally make it to the Sathar cave and go googoo over all the goodies they find. We inform them of all the sites around the city and they said that they'll inform the other agents and get everything taken care of. We hand off the Vrusk agent as well. Epilogue - UPF kicks ass - We get a job offer from the UPF - Everyone is looking for Quillbats to try and avoid quarantine. The UPF offer is indefinite, so we have time to think about it.
