The Children of Cathedral Part 1


The Children of Cathedral Part 1


The death of Federal Special Intelligence Service, agent Gurt Russel, Serena's (Dales character) old academy friend leaves the group with an encoded data packet and a set of Coordinates that point to the 9th planet of the Baudu system. Recovering the black boxes, an ex Ayerdhal police officer (Dmitri's character) comes to assist. While scooping with his sidewinder one box is destroyed.
Bhadaba System - Federation owned contested by  Sirius Corp.


Ayerdhal City - Bhadaba

The station Ayerdhal City is an Orbis class Star Port. Based on the Stanford Torus concept these measure around 4km in diameter

The glass topped torus ,the cities main accommodation sat in lush green parkland set at a stable 1G.. The central hub contains the landing bays and the main stopping points and facilities for pilots and business travellers, and to the rear along the central access, giant bays reach to the rear, providing the vast storage capability for these mega markets. This is just one of the main business hubs of this giant star system.
Illuminated by the main star 23million km away. That’s pretty close (earth being 150m km from the sun) if you were outside you would cook without a space suit before you suffocated. You can imagine the residents of this station enjoy a tropical paradise.


One Black Box picked up off one of the 'Imperial ' ships you destroyed,.. when Gurt Russel was killed. You find someone who can give you access to a BB Reader. At Bar 03. You make your trade first, and make 1000cr per ton profit. Simons ship was damaged and so is sent to the repair bay, it will take 3 hours to fix.

Trade hub at Ayerdhal City


Bar 03
Lily Lockwell, a dealer on the Jonty tables (its a bit like poker) is willing to help. She takes 'a shine' to Serena (dales character). You now have a Black Market contact at Ayerdhal City, Lily Lockwell.

Lily Lockwell

THE BLACK BOX:
While not damaged it has been wiped of most of their data, though it would seem not perfectly, small traces of data remain. The black boxes from the Imperial ships have been tampered with, they are actually Sirius Gov registered, and so it is clear that they have been trying to hide their connections for some reason. Even more interestingly though, the word Echidna it seems to have been scrambled into their flight data but no system or station that you know of carries that name.
Heading to the Sirius Gov diplomatic building, to try and get questions answered. It provides no results, other than raising the suspicions of the Sirius gov officials. Time to head back to Bar 03 and see if Gal Net (the galactic news and information network) has any  info.
What is Echidna
The computer speaks ‘Three references have been found’.
1. Echidna is an animal  belong to the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals. Despite is status as a mammal the egg laying echidna…..
2: Echidna in Sol mythology it was the lover of Typhon and mother of several creatures, notably Hydra, Cerberus, Scilla, Gorgon….
3:Echidna Corporation was the research and development contractor for Empire between 3235 and 3286.
‘Expand’ – No records available.
‘What did it research and develop’ – No records available.
‘Who owned the corporation’ – No records available.
‘Which Imperial body commissioned them?’ – No records available.
‘So where did the reference come from ‘ – Please Wait…  .. working..

4. Echidna Corporation, reference from scientific thesis ‘Extracting perfection – options for genetic hybridisation’
“..However genetic improvement is not of complex worth given the lack of support from adequate census. The optimal use of genetics, breeding drones with enhanced mental abilities and expanded physiology, which would make long term military campaign or exploration of dangerous worlds possible. Unfortunately this kind of cloning research when expanded to humans, has been hampered by social taboo and legal control. Such controls were alluded by Admiral Tobias Havalock, in his research paper ‘Perfecting the human’ in which he said ‘through my working life practical application of these theories have been limited. Even the work at Echidna, on genetic restructuring of mammalian DNA, we were able to do very little that could be committed to public record, despite the advantages it provided the Empire beyond mere military or exploratory application.’
It may be that our aspirations are being limited by our very human and very antiquated morality.
… Extract ends…

Locate the paper ‘Perfecting the Human’ by Admiral Tobias Havalock.  – No records found.
Information on Tobias Havalock – No records found.
... recalling the data stream from Gurt's ship. 'Need to find senator Tobias Havalock, you will find the answers there, keep it out of enemy hands.'
The co-ordinates he gave point to the system of Baudu... but first you deliver your original mission Data Package to Fisher's Rest in Aldebaran.

Simons ship is not repaired in time, Dale and Dmitri head off to Aldebaran, dock without incident and complete the original data mission and sell more commodities for 100cr/t profit.
Add caption

Aldebaran

Fisher's Rest


Lily Lockwell's message/warning.

Hey commanders, I thought I would just warn you that Sirius Corp Security landed at the station have been asking questions  and offering rewards for information on your whereabouts. Seems your ship ID are hotter than Minkata A (its s Giant Type 0 Star)  at the moment. I thought it funny Sirius were sniffing about an Imperial Issue, so I thought I would offer my services to them.. and collect the bounty.

Business is business pilots, but honestly I was trying to set them on a different course, you have my word on that. Seems however they were a bit more persuasive that I had hoped for. Wrecked my Box scanner, took the er… copy of you data I had made .. for safe keeping you understand!  Anyway they nearly wrecked my face too!

I tried my best but they are on your tail. If you’re quick or smart you might keep ahead of them. I doubt it though. Whatever you’re tracking down they seem to want it to. 

Dale and Dmitri head towards Baudu but are interdicted by bounty hunters. First encounter they destroy one enemy ship and chase away another. 


The Engineer

Simon enters the repair bay to find a lone ship engineer putting his craft back together . Iains character. Three Sirius Corp Security personnel enter and attack them.  





Baudu System
50ly from Sol. Low extraction reserves make it an unpopular system for miners but it still has importance as a refinery system. Surrounded by Federal systems and once a forward Military outpost for the Empire security here is High, and the Cold war between Federation and Empire is a tense affair here.
With only two orbital extraction and refinery outposts  and two planetary, one which is the old Imperial military base the system has a small population of about 160,000. The leading faction is the Baudu Empire Party.
The main star is a Type M so scoopable. The coordinates you have seem to point close to Baudu AB 9 1.2 billion km from the main star - a Class 1 gas giant with two rings- 15 times the radius of earth, about the same size of Saturn . There is nothing on the nav system indicating a base, a station or anything out there.



Baudu AB the coordinates point to something in low orbit.

The INS Esparanza- You drop out of Supercruise, the Gas Giant fills your view, the atmosphere of the gas giant broils and rolls in deadly electro-magnetic storms, the clouds looking like shifting mountains of mist separated by valleys of wirling dust. You can see ahead the white hull of an Agonin Class science ship. These were the height of technology 100 years ago with a large 0.2g research and a smaller separate 0.1g habitation ring at the front. A long spaceframe ‘boulevard’ spans between these and the engines at the rear, holding storage, fuel tank and the landing bays. At 1000m long it half the size to the modern capital ships but still dwarfs your vessels. The ship is rotating slow about its long access.
INS Esparanza

Dale and Dmitir didn't make it this far, having taken damage from bounty hunters, Simon and Iain arrive on their own.

Buccaneer attack. An unidentified vessel attacks the players. A powerful fighter with dangerous weaponry, even so it is destroyed and its Black Box recovered, indicating it is an experimental craft built by Sirius Corp.


Without the ship computers rotational correction landing will be very tricky, but luckily the stations automated docking system seems to be active.

Welcome visitors to the Imperial Navy Science vessel Esparanza. Your ship has been cleared for docking in hangar 3. Please fly carefully along the central boulevard, and flow the disembarkation instructions.’
As you approach low over the boulevard the research ring towers up infront of you and you can see it two structural stanchions that house the walkways from the central spine of the ship to the ring rotating in front of you. As you line up with the landing pad (you are both berthed next to each other), the rotational correction kicks in and your ship aligns itself with the sheep of the station, as you set down onto the pad and are lowered into the vessel.
Inside the hangar opens out so you can both see each others ships and exit together. You guess form the shape and size of the hangar that it could take up to medium sized vessels but no larger, and there are probably 3 more hangars of the same configuration.
As you step out of your ships you hear over the docking bay comms..’Welcome Core Dynamic Hotel Sierra Alpha …. To the Imperial Navy Science Vessel Esparanza. Please be aware that photography is not permitted.

STATUE:
‘Whats that noise?’Some sort of computer activate motion system. A holo wall appears next to the statue. ‘Welcome to the INS Esparanza Memorial Garden, planet in honor or Imperial Admiral Tobias Havalock. Born in3210 he served the Empire diligently  until his death in 3286. Admiral Havalock was a champion of the Imperial way of life, staunch proponent of military strategy and advocate of the Enhancement programme, a bill that ensures all imperial troops are more combat effective than their counterparts in the Federation or Independent worlds. His is a tragic loss to the empire and one which is remembered here in the INS Esparanza his personal science vessel, for all to consider and reflect as they enjoy this beautiful park.


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