Chapter 3 — The Journey towards Marinagua

Bohdie will look over dossier with a practiced administrator’s eye, looking for clues that might not be evident to those who’ve not been in the kind of businesses and places he has.

Inspection of Dossier Roll:
Admin +2, EDU +2

Bohdie turns to Virel and says quietly, "This smells." He looks around to make sure they are alone. "it’s suspicious. Being here. Like this. Don’t you think?". He looks around again. "Should we share this with the others?"

Virel studies the screen without expression. After a moment, he turns to Bohdie.

"It’s disturbing," he says quietly. "And it appears authentic."

His gaze returns to the file. "A draft. Either a finalized version exists elsewhere… or there was a reason it was never completed."

He exhales slowly through his nose. A brief pause. "We should share this internally, with Chaala and the others."

He hesitates, then adds, more carefully: "But not with Captain Halsson. Not yet."

His eyes narrow slightly. "This data was stored on her ship. That doesn’t mean she knows it’s here. And until we understand why it was left accessible… I’d rather not force the issue."

Bohdie nods thoughtfully and says, quietly, Agreed. Make us a copy to share and I’ll go get the others.". With that, Bohdie stands and makes the quick rounds, making contact with each personally.

"More mysteries and we haven't even made planetfall where we were supposed to find one. Have I mentioned that I'm not entirely sold on the stories we were given about our predecessors and why we weren't given the warm hand off we were promised back on Glisten?"

Chaala looks pensive for a moment. Then she continues very quietly, "When we get groundside on Marinagua, one priority will be to secure communications that are not tied to IISS or Ironhand, just to be paranoid. Of course doing so will require off books cash, which will be hard to do in our current circumstance. This line of thinking could lead one into 'financial impropriety' and thus send home without supper. We've got time to think up solutions and I, at least, have a little bit of personal gear that could help."

Jump Emergence — Touxilay System

Jump space releases the Azure Voyager with the usual warning. It is day 135 of the 1116th year in the 3rd Imperium calendar, 1702 hours.

Stars snap into place. Inertial systems rebalance. Realspace asserts itself with a familiar, steady hum as the ship’s sensors and navigation suite lock onto the Touxilay system.


Touxilay III dominates the forward display—vast, banded, and luminous. Held tight in its gravity well is the moon below, one hemisphere locked in constant light, the other buried in endless night.

Captain Halsson is already on the bridge.

"Execute," she says calmly.

---

Initial System Scan

The hard scan begins the moment realspace stabilizes.

Sensors sweep wide, then narrow—looking not for what belongs, but for what shouldn’t.

• No debris fields
• No anomalous powerplant signatures
• No residual drive emissions
• No transponder echoes
• No signals consistent with IISS protocols

Ruiha’s voice comes back first from the sensor console. Ruhia is helping on the bridge with Edrin while Amara is in Engineering monitoring engineering directly.

"Nothing," she reports. "No active or passive signature matching the Harrier. No delayed returns either."

Edrin follows, eyes on the noise-heavy display.

"If anything passed through here twenty-seven weeks ago, it didn’t leave a footprint that survived the radiation environment."

Binary-star interference washes across the sensor bands, flaring and fading, swallowing anything faint or old.

Captain Halsson nods once.

"Understood. Bring us into orbit."

---

Orbit of Touxilay

The Azure Voyager slips into orbit over the moon’s dark hemisphere.

Here, the sensor picture sharpens—but only where expected.

Passive arrays unfold carefully, listening rather than probing.

Along the terminator band on the day-facing side, eight distinct clusters resolve—exactly where projections placed them.

• Routine radio traffic
• Microwave relays
• Short-range radar sweeps

All inward-facing. All faction-bound. All well within expected civilian bands.

Nothing reaches outward in the Electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) to the Azure Voyager, no active LADAR, scans of any sort while in orbit.
Nothing reaches deep.

"Eight population centers confirmed," Edrin says. "All activity directed surface-to-surface. No anomalous emissions."

Captain Halsson exhales slowly.

"So far, nothing unexpected."

Selecting the Refuel Site

With the factions mapped and logged, Halsson turns to Edrin.

"Find us the quietest ice."

Edrin overlays crust-thickness data with thermal gradients and subglacial models, pushing the selection farther and farther from known activity. The chosen site lies deep on the dark side—isolated, cold, and far outside any likely sensor cone.

"This location," Edrin confirms. "Ice is load-bearing. Thin enough for the laser turret to punch through. Liquid confirmed beneath."

Halsson nods.

"Take us down."

---

Dark-Side Descent

The Azure Voyager descends into darkness.

No beacons. No broadcasts. Engines throttled low as the moon’s night side rises to meet them—featureless, frozen, and ancient.

The landing struts settle with a muted crunch as they bite into solid ice.

The ship goes still.

On the Ice — Dark Side of Touxilay

Outside, the environment is brutal.

The temperature reads –101°C.

Wind scours the surface in constant, howling sheets, dragging ice crystals across the ground like drifting sand. The darkness is nearly absolute—broken only by the distant glow of the binary stars, which paint a thin, ghostly line of light along the far horizon.

Above that, the stars are sharp and merciless.

There is no other illumination.
No reflected light.
No warmth.

The Azure Voyager sits alone on the ice, its hull creaking softly as it equalizes against the cold.

Amara’s voice cuts in over the intercom, already focused, already moving.

"Engineering to refuel stations. I need four people."

She doesn’t wait for acknowledgment.

"Two in Engineering—Chaala, you’re with me.
Two on the surface to deploy and seat the refuel lines."The laser turret begins to cycle, its emitter warming as it prepares to cut a precise shaft through the ice below.

Wind howls.
Ice shifts.
Sensors remain silent.

The Azure Voyager draws breath from beneath the frozen surface of Touxilay— and for now, no one knows they’re here.

GM - Actions??

Who is going out on the surface to extend the purification plant tubing & place it into the water and who is helping in Engineering? Mech/Electronics/Engineering preferred or J-o-T instead.

The turret cycles.
A controlled beam lances downward.
Ice steams, fractures, and retreats, leaving a dark, perfectly circular opening that exhales ghostly vapor into the night.

Refueling stations come online.

The winds rake the ice at nearly two hundred kilometers an hour, screaming low and constant, punctuated by violent gusts that shove against suits and hull alike.

Wilbur steps forward without hesitation.
"I’ll go as well," he says.

There’s a faint spark in his eyes. He hasn’t worn a suit in far too long, and the thought of setting foot on a frozen, alien surface again stirs something almost nostalgic in him. The weight of the scaphander, the strange texture of a world that isn’t home — those were always moments he cherished.

"Been a while since I stretched my legs in a suit," he adds, almost to himself. "Feels good to be out there again."

Jeem frowns with the news. He hears Bohdie out, then asks only one questions:
"You sure about it?"

"I'm on the active end of decisions - decisions made by better paid individuals. That makes the job fun - you never know what to expect."

He gives Bohdie a nod, acknowledging the effort. After that, he resumes his work with a deep breath.

After JEEM helps the others with their vacc suits, making sure everything is alright and one suit is prepared for fast evacuation should anything go amiss, he will move to help in engineering.

Aboard the Azure Voyager — Pre-EVA Operations Dark Side of Touxilay | Refuel Prep

Wilber and Bohdie report to the forward suit lockers without ceremony. Vacc suits come off their racks one by one—heavy, utilitarian things designed less for comfort than survival. Seals are checked. Gloves locked. Mag boots tested twice, then again.

© 2024 Pearce Design Studio, LLC This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The wind outside can be heard even through the hull now—not sound so much as pressure, a constant low vibration that carries through the deck plates.

Amara’s voice comes over internal comms, calm but tight.

"Bridge, Engineering. Request exterior lighting for surface operations."

A short pause, then Captain Halsson’s acknowledgment.

"Approved. Bringing lights up now."

The ship responds.

Floodlights along the hull cycle from standby to full power, washing the ice shelf in harsh white illumination. Blowing spindrift flashes like static across the viewports. Shadows stretch long and distorted as the wind tears at the surface, revealing ridges, pressure lines, and the dark, perfectly circular refuel shaft cut into the ice.

In Engineering, systems come alive. Pumps spool to idle. Filters cycle through diagnostics. Status lights flick from amber to green in deliberate sequence.

Amara finishes her checks and keys the local channel.

"Surface team, stand by. We’ll start once the hatch cycles. No one rushes this."

The Azure Voyager sits solid on the ice, lights blazing into the night.

Outside waits the cold, the wind—and the work.

Bohdie takes the lead, stepping into the airlock to the outer door once he has suited up in his tailored Vacc suit (a necessity for his tall, slender frame). The airlock cycles and he heads down the ramp (ladder?). The frigid surface crunches under his boots, not really heard, but felt, as each step settles slightly. A strong gust of wind nearly whips him off his feet, the narrow space between the surface and the ship making the wind’s speed even stronger and faster. A quick decision and he radios, "Snap in your safety line. One good gust and you might find yourself skittering a hundred meters or more before you are able to regain your footing." he snaps in his safety line as he says this.

He takes a moment to orient himself as he takes in the sounds on the ice. The lonely howl of the wind pierces deeper than it should. The blowing ice crystals slap the hard surfaces, including the faceplate, ticking and pinging like a sandstorm. The flexing ice creaking and popping was, quite possibly, the most disconcerting… especially the loud ones, the ones that sound like explosions. And the ones, especially, that ripple cracks, as if the cracks were actually coming for you!

Bohdie shakes his head to clear his thoughts. "Moving to the hoses now."

Dark Side of Touxilay — Ice Shelf Surface

Surface Team: Wilber & Bohdie

The loading ramp lowers with a heavy, deliberate motion, hydraulics fighting the cold as it settles onto the ice with a dull, resonant thump. The moment the seal breaks, the wind pours in—violent and unrelenting, hammering at the opening as if trying to force its way inside.

Wilber and Bohdie snap their safety tethers into the deck-mounted line in practiced sequence. The connectors lock with solid, reassuring clicks. The line hums faintly under tension, already pulling hard as the wind tries to drag it sideways.

The ice beyond the ramp is a blinding white under the floodlights, spindrift tearing across the surface in long, low sheets. Visibility is good—but only because the lights are brutal. Everything else is motion.

They step down.

The Azure Voyager sits low on the ice, her landing posture almost a crouch. It helps. The wind still slams into them, but the hull breaks the worst of it, creating a narrow pocket of relative shelter close in. Even so, every step requires intent—crampons biting into the ice, metal teeth shrieking faintly as they dig for purchase.

To starboard, beneath the ship’s belly, a yellow warning beacon spins steadily, its light cutting rhythmic arcs through the blowing ice. That’s the mark. That’s where the fuel purification plant hose will deploy.

Getting there is work.

They move hand-over-hand along the hull, gloves locking onto recessed grips and grab rails built into the plating. The wind hits harder as they edge out from the ramp’s partial shelter, shoving at their center of mass, tugging at suit joints, trying to twist them sideways.

The safety line stretches taut behind them.

Under the beacon, half-buried in frost and rime, is a recessed plate set into the hull. The lettering is simple, utilitarian, and unmistakable:

PRESS IN TO OPEN FUEL PURIFICATION PLANT HOSE

One of them braces. The other leans in, fighting the wind long enough to drive a gloved palm hard against the plate.

There’s a muted clunk felt more than heard.

A panel irises open. A thick, reinforced hose begins to feed out, stiff from the cold, its mass immediately caught by the wind. It bucks and twists like a living thing, straining against its restraints as more length pays out.

Managing it takes both of them.

They wrestle the hose down, forcing it into alignment, guiding it toward the refuel shaft cut into the ice. Every meter gained feels earned. The hose drags, vibrates, and pulls, the wind trying to lift it clear and turn it into a battering ram.

At the edge of the shaft, vapor rolls up from the black water below, ghostly and constant.

They angle the hose down, fighting one last surge of wind, then lower it carefully into the opening. The moment the intake disappears beneath the surface, the tension changes—subtle, but noticeable—as the system stabilizes and the hose settles into place.

The line stops thrashing.

The pumps begin their low, distant thrum through the hull.

Wilber and Bohdie remain where they are for a moment, braced against the wind, hands still locked on the hose, making sure it’s seated properly.

Above them, the Azure Voyager looms—silent, lit, and waiting.

The refuel has begun.

Each of you make a Dex and a Strength Roll. 2D6 roll +/- DM for your stat. This is 2 rolls for each character, one for STR and one for DEX

Bohdie visibly struggles with the bulk and heft, fighting against the wind. His aim is better, but still the wind and equipment fight him. He tries applying himself through consistent struggle, like an endurance race. "I'm struggling with this mass against this wind." He does his best to communicate his difficulties, but also his intent… "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Let’s just try to be steady."

Wilbur is concentrating on his job.