Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
The flying saucer powers upwards away from the Brood world. Most of the group are flattened to the deck by the acceleration, which is more than 3G. Only those with superhuman strength, and Chronos (being Master of Time, and in the command acceleration couch) are not too bothered. Chronos plays with the controls at random, and at super-speed. As he does so, one of the carved stone panels on the mini-consoles which form part of his acceleration couch swirls and the image of six symbols in a row, the right-most of which changes every ten seconds or so. This looks a little ominous, so he looks more closely. It seems to be some kind of counter in base six, counting down...
Chronos decides to try and look outside to see if the saucer is being followed. He manipulates controls on the forward consoles, and manages to get the same view as before - looking sideways, in front of the forward consoles (which is to the side of the direction the saucer is going). He can see the curve of a world below, covered in dirty-looking grey clouds with the line of dawn visible coming round the curve of the planet. He tries to shift the view to look behind, and plays with more controls. The view vanishes. Oops.
Meanwhile, in the airlock, Blitz, Noesis, Avenger, Truth, Servo and John Doe are lying on floor. This is not comfortable under 3G. Blitz and Noesis decide they can, with the aid of some flight, move around. Avenger just stands up and takes it. Servo is too weighed down in his un-powered armour, and Truth not strong enough, to move. John Doe is a happy relaxed puddle on the floor. Blitz, Noesis and Avenger head for the bridge to discover what is going on. Avenger does not look best pleased.
Once they leave John Doe changes into a miniature peaceful English suburban garden, with a nice lawn, a shed, a small shrubbery and a pond with fishing gnomes, filling the entire airlock. The gnomes occasionally get up and wander about. Servo and Truth lie on the grass.
Back in the bridge, Chronos pushes more controls. Instead of turning on the view-screen again, this time he seems to turn off the thrust on one side of the saucer, and it starts to spin at 3G or so, like a tossed coin. Blitz and Noesis manage to maintain control in the air, but Avenger tumbles to the deck (not improving his mood). The miniature garden falls over. Servo and Truth tumble about the airlock.
Chronos pushes more buttons. He can't go as fast as he likes, because he always has to wait for the ship to respond to his actions. He seems to get all the thrust going again, so the ship is no longer tumbling. Then he gets the view-screen working again. The saucer is powering straight for the planet! Bad!
Everyone falls over. Chronos frantically plays with the controls, and seems to gain some control over the ship both turning from side to side and up and down. He turns the saucer away from the planet and back out into space. Blitz and Noesis make it up the stairs from the lower deck and onto the bridge, behind the command chair.
Chronos pushes more buttons and manages to slow the ship to a manageable acceleration, about 1G.
Blitz, Noesis and Avenger see the Chronos-shaped blur on the bridge, manipulating controls and occasionally zipping back to check the countdown. Avenger goes over and shouts at Chronos, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"
Chronos cleverly uses his time manipulation powers to take the time to come up with a convincing explanation. "I knew you'd make it into the ship, even without any real warning, and I felt it was time to leave," he explains. Avenger grudgingly accepts this.
Chronos goes back to zipping about the bridge, playing with controls. Noesis reads his mind to see what he is doing. Chronos' train of thought is swapping between playing with the controls and the countdown. He also discovers where Chronos is intending to go - out, and away from the Brood world.
In the airlock Servo and Truth recover in the 1G acceleration. Servo gets up and sits on John Doe's garden shed as he continues to work on powering his armour from the Brood power cells. The miniature gnomes begin to have a tea party in the miniature garden. Truth joins them.
Chronos turns the acceleration off, and everyone starts floating about in free fall. Servo's little bits of electronics float about too. Then Chronos turns the acceleration back on, and all the delicate little bits of Servo's power pack modifications land rather heavily. He decides to give up on modifying the power packs for now and go to the bridge instead.
Noesis thinks about surgery to remove the Brood eggs from people.
Suddenly something hits the ship, making it shudder from the impact. Chronos manipulates the controls to try and move the view-screen point of view to behind the saucer. He turns it off, then on again, then gets it to expand to cover the whole walls and roof of the bridge. Servo just gets onto the bridge when Chronos increases the acceleration of the saucer.
Chronos gets the point of view to where he wants after a bit. Behind the saucer is a group of maybe a dozen shark-ships, closing.
Blitz heads for one of the gun ports. Noesis does too. So does Avenger. Servo falls to the floor as the acceleration increases again.
More blasts hit the saucer.
Blitz, Avenger and Noesis get to the gun ports and climb into the acceleration couches there, but unfortunately none of them can work out how to operate them.
Chronos turns the acceleration up again. It's now at about 5G. Servo groans in pain as he's crushed to the deck in his heavy armour. Unfortunately, they all know the shark-ships will do about 20G. The counter on the command couch is getting faster.
More blasts hit the saucer.
Blitz fiddles with the controls, and manages to turn some lights on on the gun control console. A cracking sound comes from Avenger's gun position as he 'accidentally' breaks it because it doesn't work for him. Noesis is too depressed to do anything once he reaches the weapons position.
In the airlock, John Doe is hardening the garden against the high acceleration; the little blades of grass begin to turn into something not unlike nails. Truth tells John Doe to stop, then to turn into an acceleration couch. He does, schlepping over Truth and pulling her up onto the couch. Truth sinks into it. John Doe, armours the 'couch', then heads for the control room in a form that is a cross between an acceleration couch and a slug.
More blasts hit the saucer.
There is a cry of, "Ah Ha!" from Avenger. He shouts to the others how to operate the weapons console. Blitz operates the controls in the required sequence. A needle on a jointed metal arm extends from one side of the acceleration couch and stabs into Blitz' neck, at about the carotid artery. The carved stone panel in front of the console swirls with energy and then clears into a view outside the ship. The controls on the acceleration couches seem designed to be used under high acceleration; the view moves about under the control of a joystick under one hand, and the other controls seem under the other hand. Blitz and Avenger fire at the pursuing shark-ships. Bolts of blood-red energy shoot from the ship (no-one is entirely sure exactly where - there were no guns visible on the outside), but unfortunately miss the following shark-ships.
The slug-acceleration couch which is John Doe crawls up the stairs to the bridge. Servo watches a bit nervously - he is right in the way, lying helplessly on the floor at the top of the stairs. John Doe crawls slowly up Servo's body, covering him. He grows and gets wider, and the 'slug' forms two acceleration couches now, one for Servo and one for Truth, each with a transparent armoured bubble over the top.
Noesis tells John Doe he's got about ten minutes to figure out how to survive in vacuum.
Blitz fires and hits one of the shark-ships; it spins out of control, then recovers and continues the chase.
The counter continues to change; it seems to be getting faster and faster. The saucer's acceleration starts to slow perceptibly, so Chronos puts his hand onto one of the carved hand-prints on the forward console and has his blood drained by the ship. The acceleration increases again.
More blasts hit the saucer.
The counter stops, having presumably reached zero. The saucer's acceleration suddenly drops to about 0.5G. A number of gems light up on the consoles. Chronos stops giving blood - he's feeling a little weak by now.
Now that the acceleration has dropped, Servo climbs out of John Doe and makes his way to the last gun position. The needle in his couch tries to sink into his neck, but just bounces off his armour instead.
Noesis sits in his acceleration couch apathetically, and does nothing.
Chronos manipulates some of the lit up gems. The acceleration builds again, but only to about 2G.
Blitz is looking for a more powerful attack, and seems to find one. He feels the needle in his neck sucking blood from him and multiple bolts of scarlet energy blast from the saucer and hit one of the shark ships. It explodes in a ball of orange fire. Blitz shouts out how to do this to the others. Avenger and Servo fire too, with less accuracy. Both attempt to use the multiple-fire technique, but it only seems to work for Avenger, not Servo...
Chronos starts manipulating the control at high speed again, looking for the 'enter hyperspace' button. The acceleration goes up to 5G again, then drops. Three purple gems light up on the central console. The acceleration increases again.
Blitz and Avenger fire on the shark-ships. Avenger destroys one with a multiple-bolt attack.
Coming from two sides, around the curve of the planet, Truth and Chronos notice several gigantic fish-like ships/creatures approaching. They seem to be (somewhat) smaller, living versions of the huge carcass where they woke up on the planet. Like the carcass they have bubble-cities implanted in them, and various other cybernetic attachments. Blitz fires with a multiple attack, and hits one of them. It writhes, seemingly in pain, and starts to stream iridescent blood into space.
(For reference, the 'small' ship in front is about the size of Manhattan Island!)
Chronos manipulates the controls some more. A blue glow starts to build up outside the saucer, and its acceleration increases further.
Blitz fires at the same huge 'ship' and hits with another multiple attack. It writhes again, and its blood starts to stream into space from another wound. Servo fires at it too, with only a single blast, but the wound it does is like a pinprick compared to those done by Blitz.
The glow outside the saucer shifts from deep blue, to blue, to cyan, to magenta, to purple, to deep purple. Everything seems to twist about directions the group were never aware existed, and suddenly space outside vanishes, replaced by a featureless pearly grey expanse. The acceleration cuts off, leaving the saucer in free fall...
As everything goes quiet there is a loud hissing sound from below.
Blitz removes the gun position needle from his neck.
Servo leaves his gun position and goes down to the lower deck to investigate the hissing noise. He finds a metre-diameter hole in the floor through which air is escaping the saucer. Fortunately the actual hole out through the hull is only fist-sized, which is why there is still some air in the ship. Servo calls John Doe down. He sits in the hole and shapeshifts to block it, but it hurts him to exposed to hard vacuum. However, thanks to Truth he is still happy and relaxed.
Servo tries to find something to repair the hole. John Doe is not doing well at resisting the vacuum, and tries to get Avenger to take over, but even Avenger thinks that would be a bad idea.
Servo searches the storerooms on the lower deck. He finds one room with repair equipment of various kinds. A cupboard contains big rubbery ellipsoids full of some kind of gloop. He carries one to the hole and throws it in as John Doe slides off. It fills the hole and sticks to the edges. The rushing of air stops. John Doe continues to feel happy. Servo offers to heal him, but John Doe refuses, and the damage quickly regenerates.
Globules of water and blood are floating up from the hole. Servo finds that various pipes and tubes have been broken by blast that made the hole. He fixes them using rubbery tubing shed by John Doe. John Doe sucks drops of blood and water off Servo's armour.
Blitz goes to check the engine (rod) room. It does not look well. The big stone slab on the floor is cracked right across the middle, and one of the white stone rods has broken in two. Truth has a look inside the hull behind the accessible areas, and finds that most of the pipes and tubes under the slab are broken; blood, water and air are leaking out of ruptured tanks.
John Doe shapeshifts down into the inaccessible areas and starts fixing what he can, and ingesting any blobs of blood and air floating about. Truth wanders about fixing what she can too.
Blitz goes back upstairs and fires the ship's weapons, partly to test whether the greyness outside is simply fog. It isn't - a bolt of blood red energy shoots off, curving behind the saucer (as if the saucer is moving on past it) and seeming to recede much faster than it should, or more as if far away is much closer than it should be.
Servo goes to the airlock and starts mending the inner door. Fortunately, only the mechanical parts seem damaged, not the crystals and blood pipes, which are making Servo a bit nervous.
Chronos notices that as things are fixed by the others some of the purple gems go out.
In the bridge, Truth notices that the saucer is beginning to shake slightly, and emit a whining noise. Chronos tries to alter the ships speed, to stop its shaking. The shaking gets worse. He decides to push more buttons at random. The shaking increases more, and a deep groaning sound starts. A deep purple glow appears outside the ship, which shifts down to purple, to magenta, to cyan, to blue and to deep blue. Everyone feels a twisting sensation as before, and the greyness outside turns into multicoloured swirling gases with a few bright stars faintly visible through them.
John Doe turns into a table football table. No-one plays. He turns into a table tennis table with rather floppy bats. No-one plays that either.
The view-screen is moved around to get a good look all around the saucer. The brightest star is directly behind - presumably the star of the Brood world. The saucer seems to be floating within one of the nebulae visible from the Brood world.
The upper deck is searched. Some scrolls of some thin, tough silver metal are found in a cupboard in one of the cabins. They seem to contain holographic star charts and lots of accompanying text, the script of which no-one recognises. John Doe goes to the lower deck, secretes some glue and sticks the broken white stone rod back together. Avenger re-fills the blood tanks. Truth searches the recreation room/galley and finds lots of dried meats, fruits and vegetables, plus spices and other dried supplies. She makes dinner. Servo goes back to fixing the inner airlock door. Everyone else explores the rest of the ship.
Truth and John Doe join in once they are done.
Lots of the store rooms contain dried food of various kinds. Others contain tools and parts for repairing the saucer. The ones to each side of the airlock contain spacesuits, which look like light armour - fine chain mail with breast and back plates, greaves and shin guards, and close-fitting Grecian-style helmets (though without crests). The back plate has a small hump in its centre. Each suit has a symbol in a different colour on chest and beck. John Doe finds a weapons locker. It seems to contain blaster like weapons, pistols and rifles, which jab needles into the ball of the thumb to draw blood when they fire. John Doe decides to test them on himself, and extrudes a big block of flesh to fire at. Like the ship's weapons, they fire beams of blood-red energy. Eventually he knocks himself out.
Chronos gets the ship moving again, testing it. There is a loud crashing sound from below, and the ship's acceleration tips to one side. He stops the ship and rushes to the rod room. John Doe's repair hasn't lasted, and the bottom of the rod which John Doe glued back on has fallen off again.
John Doe wakes up again and wanders about poking into things. Truth finds what looks like a medical bay, or at least a room with an operating table. Several carved stone slabs are mounted in the walls, there is a gem and stone slab covered console, and drawers and cupboards hold a variety of fairly normal looking surgical instruments. Over the operating table a cluster of various colours of gems are mounted in the ceiling.
Truth plays with the controls. Energy swirls on one of the stone panels on the wall, revealing an image of the top of the table. Truth puts her hand over the table, and it appears on the screen two, but in a hologram-like form, showing everything inside her, too. She calls in John Doe, and with his help plays with the equipment some more. Truth gets up on the table, and they look inside her. Now that they know where to look (after Noesis' exploratory surgery on Blitz) they can make out her Brood egg quite easily.
John Doe sheds a body of Chronos and they dissect it (practising their medical skills, honest). Then they call in the others to show them what they've found.
Servo finishes fixing the inner airlock door and goes back to adapting the Brood power packs to run his armour. After a little while he finally figures out how to do it, and after disassembling his taser for parts gets his armour powered up and working properly again. He strides off happily.
The others arrive at the medical bay. Truth and John Doe show the others what they've found. John Doe eats the Chronos body. The real Chronos is a little disturbed by this, but he's getting used to it by now... John Doe wanders off. The others talk about how they could use this equipment to help remove their eggs, and removing the eggs generally.
Suddenly a clang runs through the saucer. Everyone rushes upstairs and sees two shark ships close by. One has docked with the saucer and they seem to be cutting their way in through the airlock. The other hovers nearby, covering the saucer with its guns. Off in the distance they can make out one of the Brood's huge living ships.
Everyone goes to the spacesuit lockers, and put them on in their various ways. Truth desolidifies into hers - unfortunately it is too heavy to go with her when she turns desolid; John Doe flows in. The others put them on more normally. They are flexible enough to hold a wide range of sizes, even over Servo's armour which is, unfortunately, not air tight. Needles enter their necks as people put the suits on. Noesis is in a suit inside John Doe, which means he cannot really see out at all. People also pick up blasters from the weapons lockers. They are little worried that the blood-drawing needles on the weapons will puncture their suits, but it seems the suits are made to let them in without losing their integrity.
The outer door of the airlock shows a red hot circle with just a little remaining to be cut through. Servo charges the door, breaking the last little bit of metal and charges in, knocking aside the two Brood who were wielding the cutting equipment. Beyond are six other Brood, in spacesuits, with blasters pointed at the door. However, they seem a little surprised at the moment. Blitz spreads his energy blast and hits them all, stunning them; this also destroys the glove of his spacesuit. Oops! Chronos shoots with a blaster rifle and one of the Brood is knocked unconscious.
John Doe shoots a Brood, knocking it out. Truth turns desolid, leaving her space suit behind, and runs through the group of Brood and into the shark ship. Servo, right in the middle of the Brood warriors, pulls his truncheon and hits one of them. It falls to the deck, unconscious and with its face plate shattered. Chronos shoots again, grazing a Brood. Blitz blasts another Brood, knocking it out. John Doe fires, missing his target but burning a hole in on wall of the airlock. Globules of blood squirt out, and he is blinded as his face plate is covered in blood.
The Brood fire. They miss Chronos and Servo, hitting the wall. A smell of burning starts to fill the air; only Blitz, with his glove gone, really notices it. Servo smashes another Brood with his truncheon. It too falls unconscious, it faceplate smashed. The one remaining Brood is shot in the chest by Chronos, but remains standing. The smell of burning increases.
Truth runs into the shark ship. She finds it filled with at least a dozen other Brood 'marines' in armoured spacesuits, clinging to the walls, floor and ceiling. The 'room' she has run into is carved from the flesh of the 'shark', and its walls are raw flesh. Truth runs about trying to distract the Brood. One, who seems to be the leader, orders the others not to fire, and to "ignore the mammal". Truth runs up to his, puts her desolid hand into his head and grabs things inside him. The Brood commander screams and goes to shoot her (disregarding its own order), but misses. Truth runs back through the Brood into the saucer, screaming to the others about the Brood 'marines'.
When she gets into the saucer she also notices that burning smell, which continues to get worse, in fact is that which she smelt back on the Brood world when they saw a human turning into a Brood. And Avenger is nowhere to be seen. Truth screams to the others that Avenger has changed in a Brood, and runs around like a lunatic.
At about this time, a hugely impressive giant Brood, three or four times bigger than any Brood seen so far, emerges from the weapons locker - the former Avenger. "See the fate that awaits you all, mammals," it booms, "Surrender now and you will not suffer before you change." It fires at Blitz, hitting but not hurting him too badly, as it says this (presence attack!). Everyone is awed and shattered by the sight of it and its actions. It takes advantage of this by rushing over and smashing Chronos into a wall. He falls unconscious.
As the former Avenger does this, the group start to pull themselves together. Truth grabs a concussion grenade from Servo and chases after the Brood, but it dodges nimbly. Servo fires at the Brood with a blaster, but misses. Blitz shakes himself and regains his senses. He blasts the Brood. So does John Doe. It nimbly dodges both attacks. The Brood smashes Servo against a wall.
Blitz attacks again, and hits. Servo fires a binding band at the former Avenger and hits too. It envelops the Brood, trapping it.
Truth takes advantage of this, and, desolid, puts the grenade she's carrying into the Brood's head. A muffled explosion follows, and the Brood slumps in its bonds, stunned, but not unconscious (!).
At about this point, the airlock to the shark ship opens and the Brood 'marines' start to pile in. John Doe shoots one. Noesis exits John Doe and his spacesuit and flies round the corner out of sight of the airlock. It tries ego attacking Avenger/Brood, but it is difficult - the Brood mind is about as strong as his own, and well protected.
Servo attacks the former Avenger, and it grins nastily. Truth puts a second grenade inside its head, and it is stunned again.
The 'marines' attack. Servo takes an acid bomb right on the chest of his armour. It burns through the spacesuit, and penetrates his chest plate, burning him. Servo quickly removes his breastplate, leaving his chest un-armoured, but at least not being burned by acid.
A beam of purple energy fires from a Brood weapon and hits Blitz in the head. His mind is filled with all his worst fears and hatreds, and, as far as he is concerned, they are right in front of him. He goes to destroy them in an insane rage. To the others, he suddenly turns and blasts Servo.
Noesis mentally attacks Blitz. Blitz turns towards him.
John Doe fires at the marines, and knocks another over. Chronos, who has just regained consciousness, runs up to the Brood/Avenger and ages it, to little effect.
The Brood fire again. A capsule explodes next to John Doe, entangling him in green glowing binding bands, which start to constrict. Chronos, Servo and Truth are also fired upon, to no effect.
Servo activates his armour's cutting torch attachment and brings it down to the head of the Brood, which, from the talk of the Brood 'marines' is in fact a Brood Queen. Servo threatens to cut off the head of the Queen unless the 'marines' withdraw. He starts to cut. The 'marines' hesitate.
Blitz fires at Noesis and misses. Noesis mentally attacks Blitz, trying to make him think the Brood is in fact the enemy, not the group. Blitz shrugs it off, but it does distract him.
John Doe shapeshifts a hole in his spacesuit, pointing at the Queen. He shoots himself at it as a javelin, stabbing deep into the Queen's eye, leaving a shell behind trapped in the binding.
Blitz finally, with a great deal of effort, shrugs off the effect of the Brood weapon, and comes back to himself.
At about this point, a silver sparkling starts to fill the air, and it seems to solidify, as if it has become crystal...
Back to the London Champions Page.
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