Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
Session 3.11 Index Session 4.2
The London Champions regroup on their boat, 'The Wilberforce Throckmorton Device II'. Their current plan is to beg a lift into orbit from the Guardians to go to the Project Safeguard space station in order to prevent the Brood from wreaking whatever havoc they intend there.
When prompted by Servo, John Doe turns into a large 1950's-style rocket, with 'Le Shuttle' emblazoned on the side, and starts to take off - but quickly aborts when he realises he is inside the boats cabin and has set the carpet on fire. He replaces the carpet, goes out to the stern, turns into a camouflaged 'chameleon' spaceship - and launches into the sky on a bright spear of quite visible, and very audible, flame. Some passers-by cannot help but notice this, but once high up he becomes just one more UFO...
Meanwhile, in the formerly secret hideout of the London Champions, Noesis plans the phone call to the Guardians. The party decides to go off to STOP headquarters to borrow the use of their secure communications facility. Truth and Servo sneak off, with 'Sven', to catch a bus. Chronos disappears in a blur. Noesis and Blitz drop off the side of the boat and sink into the depths (Noesis doesn't need to breathe; Blitz holds his breath). Blitz bursts from the surface and into the air some distance away.
Chronos arrives first, with Blitz a bit later. But by the time Blitz gets there the STOP desk sergeant tells him that Chronos 'had to go again'. Blitz requests the secure communication with the Guardians from Chief Inspector Heatherington. As he does so Noesis arrives. They go off to wait in the STOP canteen, the plastic chairs in the foyer being horribly uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, some distance from an orbit John Doe starts to run out of air, so he comes back down. Fortunately London is quite visible below him.
When he is low enough John Doe turns into a bird, orbits London, fails to follow some UFOs, and returns to the boat. Finding it deserted he phones Servo. Servo, on the number 21 bus to STOP Headquarters, answers his phone. John Doe is brought up to date with the plan. After some confusion about "Going to Stop" John Doe realises what is going on and also heads of 'STOP-wards'.
The bus arrives. Servo's weight causes the bus to lean into the curb as he gets off. A granny thanks him for lowering the step so she can get on. Servo and Truth enter STOP HQ, are brought up to date with events, and head for the canteen to meet the others.
A sparrow arrives at STOP HQ, flaps into the canteen and lands on Noesis' shell. "Cheep, cheep," it says, giving a very bad sparrow impression. Noesis flicks it off with his telekinetic powers so Servo, who is a lot more accommodating, extends a finger for a perch and it goes and sits there instead.
Those party members who can and who are so inclined drink warm beverages. Noesis allows John Doe to sample his ionised saline solution, nutrient solution and an anti-depressant drug solution. John Doe decides he can produce the first two easily, but the last will be a challenge - he enjoys the challenge! Samples are returned to Noesis for 'marking'.
Some time later Chief Inspector Heatherington returns and informs the London Knights that the link up with the Guardians has been arranged. John Doe decides to turn into something impressive for the video conference call - he chooses a huge, blonde muscle bound hunk with blue eyes and 'clearly no brain' in a skimpy vest emblazoned with the European Union flag.
They are led to a conference call room with a conference-call type speaker-phone in the middle of the conference table - and no video cameras. John Doe deflates from his over-inflated form, disappointed. Some comments about the low-budget nature of STOP are made. Chief Inspector Heatherington asks to sit in, and we give him permission to do so. John Doe offers him a self-made seat, but the Chief Inspector politely chooses another. The call is linked up.
"This is the Guardians," says someone with a deep, impressive-sounding voice at the other end of the line.
"What, all of them?" asks Noesis.
"We are all present. I am Magus," they say.
"Who are you?" asks Noesis.
General greetings and introductions follow.
"I do not know whether the news has reached you yet," says Noesis, "but we are having a little bit of trouble over here, involving giant space fish and hideous parasitic aliens."
"We are aware of the situation. We have received a copy of the report you gave to SI-12."
"A thing that has occurred to us and caused us some concern is that the hideous parasitic aliens lay their eggs inside human beings and take them over. These beings then become aliens, only adopting the powers of the human that they have taken over, including super powers. These aliens are hanging about in space, around Project Safeguard. This seems like a bad thing," says Noesis.
"So what is your intention. What do you want we, the Guardians, to do?" asks Magus.
"We had in mind going up there, stopping their spaceship, killing them all - that kind of thing."
"You do not think that they can be rehabilitated?"
"They are genetically evil", says John Doe, "I can prove it."
We will take your word for it, for now." Says Magus.
"The universe would be a much better place if they did not exists," comments Noesis.
"So you would like us to provide transportation for you up to orbit," says Magus.
"Could we have transportation back as well please?" asks John Doe.
"Yes," replies Magus. "Are any of you capable of flying a shuttle?"
"Er ... no," says Noesis. "We will require a pilot."
Some discussion ensues regarding John Doe's learning to fly a space shuttle. It is generally considered that there is not enough time, even accounting for John Doe's perfect memory.
"We shall provide you with a pilot," says Magus. "Come to Cape Canaveral. There is a launch scheduled for the day after tomorrow. You may ride along."
It is noted that he is using the old name for Cape Kennedy, not the current name...
"We will be there!" says Servo.
Magus rings off.
Chief Inspector Heatherington seems pleased with the conversation. He agrees to contact the RAF and try to arrange transport to the USA, hopefully by a means which avoids customs, given the equipment certain group members may want to bring into the USA.
'Sven' (actually a pacifist AI, currently living in a body cloned from all of the party other than John Doe, who is too weird) asks us what our plan is on reaching orbit. This prompts some discussion, as we don't actually have one.
We discuss the information we have and information we want:
Chief Inspector Heatherington comes back - we are booked onto a RAF flight from Brize Norton to Eglin Air Force Base, near Cape Kennedy, in twelve hours. At the party's prompting he also arranges for transport for us from London to Brize Norton (which is out of London beyond Oxford).
The psychological information we discussed is requested. Hetherington says he will try to get what we need. Before he leaves to do this he confirms that, to date, there has been no loss of communication or 'strange' events on Project Safeguard. They have been warned and are on a heightened state of alert. However they only have a force fields for defence.
Weapons are discussed. Servo will try to acquire some more of the hand grenades that work so well when implanted inside an alien's head by Truth. Noesis was thinking of longer range weapons - like kilometres! But no-one has access to such heavy weapons.
Sven says he will look into how to liberate the giant fish ships from their captivity to the Brood. Servo will concentrate on how to detect the ships whilst they are cloaked.
Chief Inspector Heatherington returns and the Project Safeguard Prisoner Roster is shown to us.
There is a total population of 150 super villain prisoners, 30 guards (some of whom are superhumans) and 300 guard robots. All the prisoners have 'natural' superpowers (including magical powers) - those who get their powers from technology just have that technology removed and are placed in normal prisons unless it is so much a part of them (e.g. they are a cyborg) that to remove it would be to kill them.
We recognise some names - those of the Viper supervillains we fought who were captured (including Carnivore and Aggro); Deathstroke (who we fought some time before that) - Scatter Brain, Shockwave, Requiem, Stinger and Chiller (Death Commando just had his armour removed and is in a normal prison). Many of the prisoners have their own customised cells which are especially resistant to their powers - e.g. Chiller's cell has efficient central heating, Requiem's has sound proofing, and so on. We also note that there is a superhuman powers research centre on the base. Prisoners who assist with this research are given time off for good behaviour or other privileges.
The prisoner roster shows that the prisoners in Project Safeguard are predominantly (60%) from the USA, many (30%) are from Western European countries and a scattering (10%) are from the rest of the world (mainly Canadian, Eastern Europe and North Africa with a few from elsewhere). Most of the prisoners are simply followers of other criminal minds (such as Carnivore and Aggro), a few are evil super-geniuses, some are plain super-thieves and a fair few (10% - 15%, i.e. 20 or so) in all of the above categories are raving loony psychopaths.
Most prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for their own safety and that of the staff, but there are Intranet chat rooms that the prisoners use to maintain what is left of their sanity.
"How many are immune to vacuum?" asks John Doe. From the records it seems that about 10% are known or suspected to be resistant to space.
So - we conclude that it sounds like there will be about 20 superhumans to fight in deep space, one or two of which are going to be frothing loonies!
From the records the prisoners are split into several factions, who do not get on:
The power levels of the prisoners range from minor (significantly less than ours) to Hideous God-like Power (thankfully there are only a few of these).
From the records, the most powerful supervillains who are known to be resistant to vacuum are as follows:
We note that around 50 prisoners have been released from Project Safeguard since its opening. About 20 have re-offended since. Several prisoners commit suicide per year. There have been a very few murders on board, perhaps due to the prisoners being kept in solitary confinement.
It is midnight by the time we finish reading this. We return to the boat to rest - except Truth. She scuttles off to visit Fiction's (a.k.a. Verity's a.k.a. the false Truth's) place to see what else she can steal. There is no sign the Verity has been back in the last few hours. Truth returns to the boat to join the others.
18th August 1995.
We all wake up to find a note has been slipped under the door:
'Having a Family crisis. Cannot help at the moment. See you later,
'Chronos, Master of Time.'
Sven decides to stay behind - he offers to look after the boat and research into anti-Brood techniques while we are gone. We agree to his doing this.
We pack for our trip to space:
At the appointed hour a police minibus pulls up some way off. We sneak off the boat. Truth, Noesis and Servo get on board the van. John Doe and Blitz fly off, attempting to beat the wagon to Brize Norton and race each other too. John Doe takes an early lead from Blitz as he has memorised the map and Blitz gets a bit lost. The minibus is left behind.
John Doe arrives at Brize Norton, zooming in over the fence on rocket power. Sirens start to go off and air-defence missiles point in his direction. He notices that there is a large jet airliner (a VC-10) parked on the apron, and approaches it. He lands, turning into a Dalek as he does so. Two RAF Police soldiers shout at him to 'stop right there'. He ignores them and gets shot at by the policemen. They miss (apparently intentionally - this is right in front of a jet airliner, after all) and demand once again that he stops. John turns into the form of Chronos. "Why are you shooting at me? I am Chronos, Master Of Time!" he declares.
They do not appear to believe him. "I didn't know Chronos had shape shifting powers!" says one of them.
At this point an officer arrives along with reinforcements and realises that it must be John Doe. He dismisses the guards and orders the sirens to be turned off. John turns into Tigger and bounces around the aircraft merrily.
Blitz arrives and apologises for John Doe's behaviour as John Doe bounces round and round and...
"I am sure you have seen the newspaper stories!" he says. He and gets aboard the aircraft to rest.
The Police minibus arrives at the gates of the air base. The driver hands over papers and gets permission to enter the base and directions to the aircraft. They drive over there. Tigger is now a Koala Bear, crawling over the outside of the plane and graffitiing it, much to a technician's annoyance. The Koala leaps into the technician's arms and clings on. Servo encourages him to board the aircraft - the Koala jumps onto Servo and clings to his arm instead.
Note that at all times both Tigger and Koala were accompanied by a huge alien blaster weapon, making them a bit less cute than might otherwise be the case!
There are other passengers on the plane, some in uniforms of various kinds, some in suits. Noesis apologises to them in advance. "This is going to be a looong flight," he says. Something scuttles between the seats - the Koala has gone.
We take our seats. The aircraft takes off and heads west.
As we fly, Servo tinkers with the alien gun, adapting it to human hands rather than Brood tentacles; he finds the technology inside more advanced than anything he has seen on Earth, but not incomprehensible.
John Doe visits most places in the aircraft and then attempts to 'assist' Servo with his tinkering.
Truth eats and drinks.
Blitz attempts to sleep. As he does John Doe creates shoe laces for him, glues them to Blitz's boots (which do not have laces of their own) and ties them together.
Later John Doe goes to the cabin and quizzes the pilots about how to fly. They explain, and before too long he becomes convinced he could do it too! He also learns how to make cappuccino from the steward. He reproduces a passable, but luke-warm, cappuccino for Servo with the same sound effects as a cappuccino machine, but from himself. He warms it in the microwave and gets the Steward to pass it to Servo. Servo finds that it tastes a bit different, but drinks it not knowing its origin...
Eventually we land at Eglin Air Force Base, in Florida. Blitz wakes up and gets up only to fall on his face thanks to his new shoe laces! By the time we land Servo has a Brood blaster that he can now fire, having reconfigured the handles and trigger for human use. John Doe makes some cases for the alien weapons so that we are at least a little discrete. The cases are in the shape of cello cases! John Doe also turns into one of these cases, and Blitz carries him.
It is hot and humid in Florida. Servo turns on his air conditioning. Blitz does not feel the heat. Noesis' shell makes a slightly higher pitched whine than normal.
"Howdy Yaal!" says a USAF Captain in a strong Texan accent. "I was told that there were five of you!"
"I am Captain Invisible." comes the projected voice of John Doe (from the cello case that is he).
"Ah - OK," Says the Captain, taking this in his stride, and leads us off.
Servo requests some time at the range to test fire his new toy. He does so, and destroys part of the range in spectacular fashion. Happy with this he joins the rest of us on the journey to Cape Kennedy by military limousine, which flies little American flags from the front wings.
Still miffed about the shoelaces, Blitz throws the John Doe cello case into the trunk (as they call it over here) of the limo and gets in the back of the car with everyone else. It drives off, no one objects. A muffled "I am Captain Invisible" and various other phrases come from the trunk. We try to ignore them.
We reach Cape Kennedy, and are waved in through a gate in the fence. On the nearest launching tower is a souped-up looking Space Shuttle, in USAF colours and markings, apparently ready to go. It is venting cryogenic steam.
"There she is ladies and gentlemen," announces the USAF Captain, who still hasn't given his name. "The Space Shuttle Explorer." We pass through some more gates, approach the gantry and pull up next to it, outside the building that forms the base of the launch gentry.
Noesis, Truth and Blitz are taken to be fitted with space suits. A hideous, black ichor dripping cthuloid Donald Duck appears from the trunk. "I need a space ship too" it says in 'Donald Cartman' voice (Donald Duck crossed with Eric Cartman - a scary prospect). Guards point guns at him, but he turns to human form and follows the others.
Inside, the team are asked whether any of their powers may interfere with the shuttle's systems. Blitz declares a tendency to leak gamma radiation.
The flight is discussed while we wait. John Doe declares it as likely to be much more interesting than the aircraft trip. Servo looks forward to the sachets of space cappuccino that the shuttle has on board.
Servo, with aid of some space suit air tanks, turns his powered armour into an airtight space suit. He fixes leaks as they spring - it takes some time to get them all, even with John Doe assisting in finding them with his powers.
John Doe dons a space suit and bleeds into it - because that is what he did last time he was in one, when we wore the space suits we found in the blood-powered flying saucer on Brood world. He complains to a technician that it is not absorbing the blood like it is supposed to. The technicians set him right about having to bleed into these spacesuits.
Noesis fits into the middle of his suite, the arms and legs dangling lifeless and his sensor tentacle at the visor.
John Doe does not like the space suit and asks Servo to disconnect the air tank so that he can just use that instead and rely on his powers to protect him from the hard vacuum and so forth of space. John Doe absorbs the tanks partially into his back and forms a pointless hose sticking out for effect.
And eventually we are all ready to go.
We clomp/hover/walk out to meet the rest of the shuttle crew. Lieutenants Goldstein, Evans, Williams, Freeman, Rostover and Corlioni are going up to Project Safeguard to replace part of the current duty crew up there. Captain Jamestown, a 40's looking Hispanic woman is the pilot and Captain Smithwick, her co-pilot, is a younger looking blonde woman.
We board the shuttle and are strapped into seats in a cell that takes up the forward third of the cargo bay. Truth asks what is in the rest of the bay and is told that it is supplies for Project Safeguard. Luggage is stowed in lockers. John Doe attempts to get through to the cabin but cannot as the door is hermetically sealed.
Captain Jamestown's voice comes over the PA system, counting down:
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Lift-off!"
With tremendous noise and shaking the shuttle lifts off and accelerates at around 3G . John Doe exaggerates the effects and oozes into his seat. Then the noise ceases and we all become weightless. John Doe and Blitz feel unwell, but this soon clears for John Doe, who just gets rid of his inner ear and stomach! Blitz just has to suffer.
"Well, it is a lovely day hear in low Earth Orbit," says Captain Jamestown over the PA. External camera views are projected into the cabin for us to watch as we climb to the altitude of Project Safeguard - several thousand miles above the Earth.
Some hours pass, during the course of which Blitz comes to feel better.
John Doe vomits up a cappuccino for Servo and warms it up in the microwave (the first few experiments with this result in luke-warm cappuccino floating around the cabin, which John Doe vacuums up). Servo accepts the final attempt - a semi-transparent bladder full of cappuccino. Servo recognises the taste from the VC-10 trip and realises what happened, but drinks it anyway.
The rest of the passengers are just sitting around quietly. One - Lieutenant Rostover - asks why we are going to Project Safeguard. Truth explains - we are concerned at the possibility that the whole station may have been taken over by the Brood. For the remainder of the journey they are quite and ask no more questions.
As we approach Project Safeguard Noesis uses his powers to try and detect minds nearby (such as those in cloaked spaceships). He detects none other than ours and those inside the station.
Captain Jamestown announces that we will shortly be docking. We strap ourselves in and watch the display as it zooms in on the station. Project Safeguard is a roughly potato-shaped rock a couple of hundred metres long with balls on the end of spikes growing out in all directions (the prisoner's isolation cells). At each pole of the rock are large cylinders on more robust spikes. Around the whole station at the distance of these cylinders something is distorting the light in some manner - the station's force field. One extra long boom extends beyond the main force field - the force field reactor, which has its own small force field bubble.
We come closer and closer. There is a clunk as we dock. Suddenly the thought occurs - how will we get home? Noesis asks the Captain when the next flight out is. "This shuttle will be leaving in a day," she says. "The next will be in one weeks time."
Oh well.
After a few minutes the hatch out of the passenger cell opens with a hiss, and we exit into Project Safeguard...