IC

The stapping Human enforcer rises to his feet and looks at Bud
and speaks. "Bud, you tub of goo, I didn't think you had it in you to
escape. What happened to your travelling companion? Hey how many Drals
does it take to...Oh forget it! Who are your friends?"

"Payne's starts to look at the the rest of the party. He stands
just over six feet tall. Payne wears a rather dirty military uniform.
Those familliar with White Light will recognize the uniform as that
of a branch of the service that is made up of off worlders who fight
for White Light(OCC: much like the French Foreign Legion.) Even in
captivity he has retained the composure of a soldier. He bears a 2 inch
scar down the left side of his face. His dark hair is now close to
shoulder length. His intense green eyes carefully study each member of
the party.
    BudRREEPboopboopboop pauses a moment from unloading supplies from the
supply room with Telgar and turns toward the human prisoner.  He offers him
the White Light salute that Payne taught him in captivity, and says,
"GEEEECH-gloop-burrrUUUP!"  His poly-vox translates, "I *told* you I would be
back for you, Payne, old chap!  Did I not?  I regret to inform you that my
companion DARgoop was vaporized by our captors in our attempt to escape.  I,
however, made it out by the epidermis of my membrane.  Not bad for a
terraformer from Inner Reach, wot?"
  Bud places his pseudo-extremity on his belt, caresses his albedo screen,
and says, "GABBLE-gruuuuup-SCREEEECH."  His poly-vox translates, "I only wish
I had been equiped with *this* device at the time.  I may have been able to
get the others out alive with more protection.  Nevertheless, I kept my
promise when I told you I would not let you perish here, did I not?"
  Bud tosses Payne two doze grenades from the supply crate and says,
"Burble-BOOP!"  His poly-vox translates, "Now I say, old man, arm yourself
with a couple of these and help us rescue the others."
  Bud points a pseudo-digit at each party member, "My friends are Kah'liss,
Brenon, Raleigh, and Telgar."  (Bud blatantly omits one.)  "Gentlemen, meet
T.J. Payne."
    Payne then speaks to the group. "Who is incharge of this unit,
and what brings you the garden spot of Volturnus?"
   Bud steers clear of *that* little Pandora's Box.  He defers to the rest of
the group to let them argue that one out for themselves, and returns to
inventorying the loot.
    Zhirrzh slides a careful eye over the newly freed prisoner. The steady stance and confident demeanor told him that this man was a warrior. Nodding mentally to himself, Zhirrzh hoped that the man fought as hard as he looked.
        He notices that the cowardly Dral had omitted him from his list of "friends." A toothy, satisfied grin escaped Zhirrzh's lips, despite his best efforts at suppressing it. The Dral was rattled. That was good. As Zhirrzh listed to the rest of the conversation unfold, an idea began to take form.
    With no immediate answer from anyone else, Zhirrzh steps forward. "Brenon gives the orders around here."
     Deciding that he didn't know enough about the Lab or Computer rooms to be of any use, Zhirrzh decides to search the Power Generator room.
The freed prisoner asks which of the group was the leader.
     Brenon steps up at the question of leadership. "That would be me." Brenon says, emotionless. He extends his left arm; so as not to have his gun arm occupied. "You're welcome to join us if you wish....."
    Brenon leaves the offer hanging and moves on to give more orders. "Telgar, retrieve our subspace radio from the explorer, we're long overdue to send a signal to Pale? Zhirrzh, I'd like you come with me to the communications room, you're right about checking those comm logs? Kah'liss, continue to see to Raliegh, and check out our new friend here. After you're done there I believe you'll find some things of interest that need to be logged in the Laboratory....."
     Brenon and Zhirrzh step over the dead body of a pirate and enter the
     Radio Room. On the desk is a radiophone that is obviously not working.
     It is dismantled and some of the parts are lying about on the desk. A
     logbook also sits on the desk. Brenon picks the book up and begins
     thumbing through it.
        After examining the book, Brenon and Zhirrzh find that one
     transmission is made every day at sunset from the outpost to somplace
     called "Slave City One." The last few days reports the radio
     transmission becoming increasingly poor. The last entry in the log
     book was yesterday's sunset (remember, it is about 4am right now).
     The last entry reads "Problems with primary radio circuitry - will
     repair tomorrow. Transmitter chip probably bad."
        The notes in the log are short and cryptic, and most just
     acknowledge the communicaiton with Slave City One was complete. Just a
     few have side notes, such as the following: "Edestekai research good."
      "Rodnium ore dep. found" and "Another escape attempt. Killed
     escapees."   The last note, dated 2 weeks ago, states "all prisoners
     sent to Slave City except one, T.J. Payne kept here...Outpost
     reinforced since loss of copter, all well."
        BudRREEPboopboopboop hangs over the side of one of the crates, digging deep
down to the bottom, his pseudopod legs wagging in the air as he balances
precariously on the edge of the crate.  He hears Brenon mutter the log entry
and his voice echos from the bottom of the crate, "Buuuurg BeDEEP."  His
polyvox translates: "Not all of us."
    Euromada, the head of the Kurabanda warriors, seeks Brenon out. In
     his familiar broken Pan-Gal, he tells Brenon they are ready to return
     home, as it is early and the Kurabanda will be expecting them. They
     want to take the heads of the defeated pirates home as trophy.
         Following orders, Telgar makes another trip out to the Explorer and retrieves the sub-space radio. After making his best attempt at setting it up, he ventures over to check on Raleigh. "How's he doing, Kah'Liss?
       Payne steps towards Kah'Liss, stoping a respectful distance from the
Vrusk as not to interfere in the of the wounded Human. Payne then snaps
to attention, straring off at something without blinking. He continues
this until he is spoken to.
    BudReeep heads back into the corridor and upon seeing the freed human in trance, speaks. Bud plops back down onto his pseudopod legs, studying a gizmo from the crate
and notices Payne in a trance.  He snaps his pseudodigits toward Payne to try
to awaken him, "Pynnn!  Pyynnnnnn.  GarEEEP DudOOOp!"  [Polyvox translation:
"Payne!  Payne!  I say, old chap, on your toes, wot?  What's eating you, old
man?"]
       Zhirrzh walks lazily down the hall, carrying a supply of charged items back to the Explorer. He stops momentarily over the body of LStaric, just long enough to spit on the smear that is LStaric's head. Satisfied, he continues on to the Explorer.
 
    Satisfied with his find in the radio room, Brenon will enlist Telgar's help in searching the remainder of the rooms. Again, stressing to Kah'liss the importance of logging everything in the Lab room.
 
Brenon speaks into his chronocomm:
"Telgar, when you're finished with the supplies I could use your hands and eyes, in searching the remainder of the rooms. Kah'liss, when your finished with the wounded, find them a spot in the living quarters to rest the remainder of our visit....after that I need you in the Lab examining everything in there... And Telgar, tell Bud on your way to the radio room that I'd like him to round up the Kurabandai and tell them we'll be leaving shortly......"
    When Telgar arrives, he an Telgar will go through each room, CAREFULLY searching it for anything useful.
    Payne turning to Bud, "I do not need medical attention at this time.
While Kah'Liss tends to the wounded I am going to look for some real
weapons. These doze gernades are fine if your a pacifist. I am not a
pacifist. With that Payne walks off to what is left of the dead Vrusk.
Payne looks to see if the headless corpse that was formerly Lstaric has
any worth while equipment. The blood and guts that surround the stiff
does not bother him, almost as if it was sight he was all to familliar
with.
    Telgar acknowledges Brenon's request and finishes with the sub-space radio. On the way to the radio room to meet Brenon, Telgar speaks to Bud, "Hey Bud, Brenon says to gather the Kurabandai together and let them know we will be leaving shortly." With that, Telgar reports to Brenon.
    Brenon and Telgar enter the Power generator room as Kah'liss, after
     making sure the wounded Raleigh is as comfortable as possible, heads
     to the Lab to investigate the strange creature there.
 
     POWER GENERATOR ROOM
        In this room is a small type 1 power generator and a small reactor
     which powers the generator itself. It is the central power supply for
     the outpost. Nothing else is of importance here. Brenon and Telgar
     make their way into the computer room.
 
     COMPUTER ROOM
        "Ahh," Telgar says as he takes a seat at the computer. This guys is
     locked all up. He gives a grin to Brenon. "I know a bit more than the
     muscle, this computer business has come in handy quite a few times."
     He begins chattering on the keyboard, announcing what the
     security-locked system is presenting to him.
        "Looks like a level 3 system with a few programs running on it -
     Computer Security, Installation security....Information storage...
     hrmm, Life support....Analysis. This baby is loaded."
        "Can you get anything out of it?" Brenon asks.
        Telgar shakes his head. "I don't know anything about breaking this
     security program...I tell you who could do that -- Raleigh. It looks,
     though, like the data in this thing is encrypted. I can tell by some
     of the data footprints here." The enforcer looks odd as he looms over
     the computer, typing away with the finess of the stereotypical wiry
     programmer. "If indeed this stuff is encrypted, I can give a hand at
     cracking it. I don't think Raleigh has any Cryptography experience.
     Kah'liss might not like it, but if you want to get into this thing
     now, Raleigh's gonna have to crack it."
 
 
     LAB AND RESEARCH
        Kah'liss examines the lab, the operated-on creature, the notebooks,
     and the rock samples. After 20 minutes of investigation, he reports.
        "Looks like the pirates have found good deposits of vibrillium and
     tomarium, rare minerals, somewhere around here and are preparing to
     build a second mining operation here. They've discovered an
     intelligent race, this being here, who call themselves 'Edestekai'.
     These live in the hills far to the northeast, near 'Slave City One'.
     it appears the pirates have taken advantage of their religious beliefs
     to enslave them. They accomplish this by capturing priests, planting
     radio receivers in their brains, and convincing them that the voices
     they then hear are the voices of the gods. Of course, the voices are
     the Star Devil, telling them they must serve and obey the Star Devil
     and his men.
        "This Edestekai has been operated on, but is quite dead. Either the
     surgery failed, or was abandoned. This facility is quite nice, and I
     should be able to use it to aid with Raleigh's treatment (+1 Column to
     medical rolls here, as it is a well-stocked medical room)."