Warden's Log #4 - Spoilers for Dead Planet

The party arrives at the harpoon base, greeted by Young, one of the riggers whom they had spoke to over long-range comms on their way in.

He informs them that Brekt, the man in charge, is currently at the bunker, but he will be back soon along with the leader of the colony, Malta, giving the party an opportunity to join up. Young accommodates them in the crew's barracks, locking the doors from the outside.

The party waits there for several hours, pilfering through some of the riggers' lockers for supplies, but soon enough the locked-in aspect of their containment wears on their nerves, and they decide to break out and look around. AKT-0 picks the lock, and they head outside to the spot where they met Young.

None of the riggers are out here, but they can hear their voices faintly in the distance - working.

They head back to the barracks and pick the other lock, leading into a tunnel which ends at what looks like a metal shipping create with a door retrofitted in.

They press their ears to the door and listen.

Nothing.

AKT-0 picks this lock as well, and the opening reveals a living quarters about the size of a trailer. There are many mismatched pieces of furniture, clearly the cream of the scavenged crop. The carpet is a stitching of different rugs, tarps, and towels. The room illuminated by strings of lights (what earthlings know as Christmas lights) hanging from the ceiling. The walls are covered with hand-charted star maps, the tools for charting them on a workbench along with needles and spoons.

They poke around, careful to leave everything as it was, and they AKT-0 (again) discovers a seam in the wall. The star maps to the left to this seam have curled outwards as though they have been passed over an edge several times. Elijah depresses the door, and it opens slightly before hitting a catch.

A hallway.

The party decides not to break in, go back to the barracks, and wait for Malta and Brekt as if they had never left.

About 8 hours pass, and Young comes to receive the party.

He brings them outside to an interesting site:

A black woman, bald with only her left arm, in a wheelchair pushed by a pale, slender fellow. To their left, a bulky, fat-but-strong man in work gear. Malta, John, and Brekt.

"Hello travelers. We are so glad that you have joined us on this, our moon, even if it may be under uncomfortable circumstances," Malta glares at Brekt, "We regret that your ship was forcibly crashed here, but as I am sure you already know, there's not much chance of escape from here anyway." Brekt shifts anxiously, every so often drawing breath as if he is about to speak, but retreating at Malta's continued homily. "Given the circumstances, we welcome you to our colony, but I want to be clear, joining is no laughing matter." John's breath undulates at a slow rhythm, amplified by his respirator. "You will be expected to conform to the colony's tradition of, as you may have guessed," she gestures to herself, "amputation."

The party is a taken aback, a reaction Malta is accustomed to.

"When the colony was founded, we quickly ran out of rations, and those who survived were the ones willing to make sacrifices. To sacrifice part of themselves for the preservation of the colony. Today, we have food, so we no longer needthe amputation, but as the colonists know, we still need these vital symbols of unity - of who we are - to survive. This is John," he raises his pant legs to reveal prosthesis, "he is responsible for performing the amputations, and he has grown into quite the artist. He will certainly make sure your beauty and dignity are preserved. In fact, among the colonists amputation is a badge of honor - that is, if you join of course. Anyway, take some time to think on it, and I will have Brekt send us a message when you decide. It was a pleasure to meet you all."

John wheels her away, and Brekt steps foward.

"Hi. Look, I know that's not the most appealing bargain, so if you'd like I can let you work here to avoid amputation in return for crashing your ship and all - we usually wait 'til everyone's dead before we scrap 'em."

The party asks, "Why has this colony stayed here and put themselves through this? With all the scrap you've got, don't you think you could build a ship and fly out of here?"

Brekt stares gravely for a moment. "Look - Malta says we won't be able to leave. The people in that colony are convinced that things are stable and manageable and that they shouldn't try to change things."

"We have a mostly working ship. It may be crashed, but with a few parts from your heap we should be able to do something, right?"

Brekt's eyes shift and then thin on the party. "Okay. We can talk more about this, but first, I need you all to take care of something for me. Kill Dennis."

The party is shocked by this extreme request, but they don't know what else they can do. If Brekt will not move forward with them, they will have to become amputees at best, murder victims at worst.

"Why?"

"Don't ask questions, just do it. Being on my crew means following orders. You can have the privilege of not following orders if you pay in limbs."

The party tentatively agrees, and Brekt leads them up the stairs of the massive Janis, a scrapping machine. They climb flight after flight of stairs hundreds of feet above the ground, leading them to the top of the structure where Brekt sends them off to complete the job.

Dennis stands alone on the platform, lunar wind blowing. He has his hand raised to keep the dust from his eyes while he repairs a valve with the other. Startled, he says, "Hello."

"Hi, Dennis."

"Who are you guys?"

"Brekt sent us up here to talk to you. We are new - from that ship you guys just harpooned (no worries) - anyway what are you doing up -"

"Arggh, missed 'em again."

"Who?"

"Malta and John. I've been meaning to say hi."

"Why's that?"

"Oh...", he laughs to himself, "Malta is my adopted mother."

"Oh... that's nice."

"Yeah. I never was much for the amputation thing, so she set me up here with Brekt. I think that kind of disappointed her. She has never really liked Brekt and Brekt likewise for her, I don't know..."

In a flash, Private Carl steps forward and snaps Dennis's neck.

He had put together what the party hadn't earlier. Some thought that Brekt wanted to see if they were amoral brutes, and so they shouldn't kill Dennis, but when he said he was Malta's son, knowing Brekt's disdain for Malta and the brutal cannibal mind, he knew that it was a test of trust, but the test was whether they would follow orders... and whether they were loyal to Malta.

Brekt steps up from the flight below and tells the party to follow him. They walk down the many labrinthian courses of stairs to the base of the Janis, enter the tunnels, and follow Brekt to the trailer they had visited once before. He shows them the familiar trappings, and opens the secret door they had discovered earlier, leading them through another tunnel to a large hangar.

In the hangar is an almost completed ship. Fully-functional from the scraps.

"With the parts I'm sure you have on your ship, we can fly out of here. We have cryochambers and all."

The party agrees to use their ship as scrap to fly out, ad they load up with a dump truck, a couple four-wheelers, and some of Brekt's crew to head for their crash. They scavenge, collect precious cargo, and head back to the harpoon base.

Brekt sets the crew working on the ship. It will take about five days to retrofit the parts, but Brekt tells Malta that he has brought the refugees in as crew, and she leaves them alone for most of the workweek.

On the fifth day, the night of which they plan to leave, Malta arrives unexpectedly. She has made a special trip to see Dennis.

John hangs her over his shoulders with some elastic straps, and heads up the Janis despite Brekt's resistance.

No one disposed of the body.

John climbs step after step, passing every crew member of the Red Sun Alpha.

She passes Dr. McKraken last, who sees John carry her to the highest catwalk looking for Dennis. The others of the Red Sun Alpha and Brekt are all anxiously heading up the steps below.

John walks back down the steps, and Dr. McKraken avoids looking at them.

His footsteps stop behind her.

She instinctively shifts to her left as John's machete bangs into the metal railing next to her.

Malta reaches out from John's chest and grabs hold of McKraken's hair, shouting insane babblings that resemble language but cannot be understood.

McKraken screams for help and pulls out her tranq pistol, jamming it into John's neck. His movement is too eradic, so she only wounds him with the pistol, not putting him to sleep.

The others come to her aid, and with their combined effort, they eviscerate the leader of the colony, and their most venerated member.

Brekt's crew - the one's not planning their escape - are furious. Brekt leads them down the stairs as quickly as possible, taking advantage of the frozen shock the others are in. His escaping crew fall in by their side and rush to the hangar.

As they run, one of the crew fires his rifle. One shot skims Dr. McKraken's thigh. The other blows a hole straight through AKT-0's chest, and she collapses power off. Dr. McKraken picks her up and they keep running towards the hangar.

They load up on the ship and open the hangar. Dr. McKraken spendds a minute re-soldering AKT-0's wiring to make her temporarily functional.

Brekt has to help his guys finish configuring the computers as they take off, so he takes AKT-0 and McKraken with him, and leaves Elijah in charge of the launch. Carl mans the guns.

As they lift off, another group of the crew swarm out of the Janis.

Private Carl takes aim.

He rolled a triple 0

A flurry of white hot bullets rips from the ship's rail-gun, grinding the crewmen into tiny viscera and igniting the fuel next to the Janis, obliterating it and the entire harpoon base as the blast jettisons the ship,t the Lucifer Rising, into space.

End of Warden's Log #4

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