It has been 5 years since the fall of Borea, but only 6 months have passed subjectively for the crew of the Thermopylae. Since their return to Cornucopia, the locals have been frantically assembling a reserve force of commandeered vessels in anticipation of an Aun invasion.

The Thermopylae has spent most of the last 5 years at near light speed, scouting the depths of space for any sign of the Aun fleet as one by one the omninet nodes to the outer worlds have gone dark.

A month ago they returned to Fansipan station to see the arrival of the vanguard of Battlegroup Comet through the blink gate. 20 ships under the command of the UNS Cumberland, 10 companies of Lancers and 50,000 troops pulled from forces in the Annamite ring.

The ship’s crew are on R&R as the UNS Yalta replaces them on scouting duty, free to enjoy the entertainments of Fansipan Station.

Downtime

Aeric

• Has been expanding his NLC discussion group
• A secret group of informants to spy and root out the inevitable sedition at the station and any Aunic spies
• It has grown with crew from well beyond Boundary Garden, a mix of Union worlds closer to the core
• Gathering information about the Cornucopian attitude to the Aun
• There was a brief conflict 300 years ago during the second Cornucopian civil war (An unsuccessful Royalist upsurge following on from the initial communist revolution)
• The Cornucopian forces arrived to strike down royalist forces on Dawn Throne but arrived to find the Aun attacking already
• The Aun fleet was defeated but Dawn Throne was surrendered to the Ascendency
• Notes that they have frosty relations with the Union who supported the monarchists during the first civil war and merely observed the second
• Aeric’s group doesn’t find spies but hears of the Ecumenical Aun who’ve fled the ascendancy and are known to be involved in a secretive war against their home world and will spy for the Union against them

Benno

• Has been working to reinforce and increase the size of his mech aided by the Borean engineer, Yukina

Gethin

• Has been relaxing following a stressful mission in command, drinking in the bar, relaxing in his quarters

Basco

• Has been socially distanced, searching the omninet for any traces of Aun code and examining pieces of captured Aun hardware
• Half doesn’t seem to work at all, despite seeming intact
• The basic science doesn’t seem to add up but the outcome is often more advanced than the Union equivalent
• He feels like there is a missing step somewhere needed to make it function
• On the other hand, their comms protocols are outdated by Union standards with weak encryption
• He’s also been working on his drone

Mirbana

• Supporting the local powers on humanitarian responses to Aunic attack
• Sees the local effort is mostly focused on military expenditure, although with 5yrs since the fall of Borea, there has been a sapping of support for further growth
• Cornucopia’s humanitarian support is rather lacklustre
• She offers advice, contingency plans etc. via the Union consulate

Briefing

After a month on station, the teams R&R is ended abruptly and they are ordered to report to the Thermopylae

The ship is leaves the station in 2 hours and makes the jump to nearlight shortly after

• All rather rushed
• They remain at near-c for a couple of days, and noone aboard seems to know why, where or what, we’re just heading out-system
• Gethin, whilst doing his circuits around the hangar, is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a bright green hologram of an ancient Greek warrior
• Gethin dodges this hologram and recognises it as the manifestation of the ship’s AI
• It asks him to assemble the team in Legion Space for briefing

The team drops into Legion Space and finds themselves in a grassy field near a calm lake on a sunny day

• There is a wooden pier extending into the lake, at the end sits a well dressed man under a parasol
• He beckons them over and as the team approach, 5 chairs materialise around him

He introduces himself as Lorenzo

• The NHP in control of the Cornucopia system
• With the advent of the war on Borea, tactical control of all autonomous vessels in the system have been handed over to him
• He is the war effort
• He’s commandeering the squad for a mission

Lorenzo brings up a holo image of the Cornucopia system’s outer asteroid belt

• There is a factory in the belt, constructed 200 years ago after the 2^nd civil war
• Located in a 50km diameter asteroid, it harvests materials from asteroids and constructs ships, mechs etc.
• Supposed to be a fallback option if a 3^rd civil war occurred and the Union needed to intervene
• Run by the NHP Inguma
• Since the Aun attack, the factory has been pumping out vessels to prepare for invasion
• 6 months ago Inguma went quiet
• The team is to investigate and try to get the factory back online

Answers to the teams questions

• No artificial gravity, magnetic flooring to secure mechs
• No organic life or breathable atmosphere
• The AI was not massively different before going offline, always a loner and not very wordy
• The previous year’s messages were identical each day, each time
• Could be pirates if not Aun
• The station is defended lightly to not attract attention
• There was a small fleet in the hangers but Inguma didn’t appear to deploy them
• Their is a discussion about NHPs and their need for 5 yearly reboots

Mission

The Thermopylae crashes out of near-c outside the belt and heads in

• Whiskey decides to head down to the asteroid in their mechs rather than use a dropship
• There is no response to comm signals from the asteroid
• Heading down into a crater the team sees a hidden landing pad and hanger door
• Basco hacks into a panel and opens the doors without triggering alarms or defences

Inside there is a loading bay with conveyor belts to a smeltery

• Room contains several obsolete looking mechs, clearly destroyed in battle
• There are weapons marks on the walls
• Basco takes a closer look and identifies that the mechs are unmanned
• Benno spots one of the mechs moving
• Arm is moving in a jerking movements
• They take a closer look and find it is being controlled by an NHP, the casket inside is heavily damaged
• Gethin asks if Benno can stabilise it, whilst everyone else forms a perimeter for defence
• He powers it up and in starts broadcasting for help but doesn’t respond to any communication
• Whilst trying to dismount it a power surge knocks it into hibernation, so Benno extracts the casket and puts it into his mech, plugging it back in

Gethin proposes moving towards the hangar

• They crack the airlock and it cycles flooding the area with argon
• Hangar 1 is several km across and up
• Above, hundreds of fighters hang like bats
• Their mech’s radars pick up a frigate sized craft further in
• Making use of a suspended monorail the squad heads quickly into the hanger towards the manufactory, spotting more fighter ships, corvettes and a frigate

There is a squawk from the proximity alarms before a figure drops from above right onto Benno’s mech

• Quadropedal mech with an axe and shotgun
• Followed by 4 other humanoid mechs armed with nailguns
• Move very awkwardly
• The party is engaged on the cramped monorail platform
• Gethin is blasted off the platform and is dragged along behind by the winch-cable that attaches him to Benno
• The mechs lash out in response to attacks, some sort of automated protocol, doesn’t seem to differentiate between friend and foe
• Benno blasts one off the platform
• Aeric decapitates one but it keeps moving – clearly unmanned
• The fight is scrappy but the squad manages to disable all their attackers with shotguns and melee weapons

From the remains they work out that these mechs have come off the assembly line and seem to be reacting to movement

• Looks like they dropped from a corvette above

They stop the cart and take some time to repair

• They detect faint movement and heat signatures above them amongst the rails
• Basco checks his firewall – it’s looking perfect up front, but on deeper probing there’s a tiny, suspicious data connection
• It’s a local connection, following the trail Basco makes a connection and there is a backlash, passing through his firewall and taking over his mech’s speaker system
• It broadcasts

  Trooper Basco, I must congratulate you on your unusual resourcefulness, only 375 of you have made this connection before, and this time your entire party is intact

• The voice claims to be Inguma
• When asked to explain themself, they inform the team that 3.3 million of them have died before getting this far
• Understandably confusing for the team
• Aeric establishes that Inguma thinks they are the ‘enemy’, and that Inguma is preoccupied building something else
• Won’t tell them what
• Aeric thinks a long overdue reboot is in order
• Inguma severs the connection, saying they’ll talk to them later

Team decides to get off the cart and move more slowly to the end of the hanger

• Aeric sneaks ahead with an evasive route to try and stop the mechs above tracking them
• They are ambushed several times but successfully overcome the attacks

They eventually reach another airlock leading to manufacturing

• Emerging into a factory containing a swarm of movement, conveyor belts moving around, buckets of molten metal, printers for mechs etc, and old fashioned techniques for making parts for warships
• Weaving through the factory they find a passage to an open space that must have been the initial cavern from when the facility was built
• Has storage racks for mining/construction drones
• To the right is the door to the NHP core
• Heavily armoured – would take ages to cut through
• They discuss ways to get through – decide to amp up the Sherman’s laser weapon
• Aeric blinks to the other side to take a look and is immediately fired upon by turrets
• Gets hit but spots 3 turrets and a corridor leading to a far less armoured door
• Can’t see a manual override to the door
• All NHP operated
• He pops back

Aeric disembarks and scouts out the reactor control corridor

• Finds a console and activates it
• 5 years ago the facility upped its activity rate
• 6 months ago the facility shifted half its production to a single element – millions of computer cores
• All being shipped to hanger 2

The team heads back to manufacturing to find a printer

• Spot a quadropedal mech with a printer on its back wandering around, seemingly taking no notice of them
• Then it finishes printing and spits out a minigun turret which clamps to a wall and opens fire on them
• Several other construction mechs rush the party
• The team engages in combat on the factory floor as more mechs are pumped off the production line

Victory!

With the factory peaceful again Basco accesses a printer and prints a heatsink and masses of cables

Aeric goes to take a look at hangar 2

• Inside tons of cabling runs into a huge pile of 1ft cube blackboxes
• Extending in all directions
• Basco thinks it’s some sort of supercomputer

They return to the reactor control room to prepare the transfer of power to the Sherman

• As they are setting things up they hear a clattering from the far side of the back wall
• Aeric and Mirbana move to the wall to ambush whatever it is
• Part of the wall slides open and a small, 8ft mech charges into the room
• The squad desperately engage it in the small room
• They pour rocket and 50cal fire into it as it tries to slash them up
• Aeric is able to finish it off with a shot to the head

They stumble back into the corridor and remount their mechs

• An ominous humming is coming as the reactor powers up the capacitor banks
• The Solid Core ignites and the laser blazes into the door, heating it through red and yellow to white hot
• It takes 20 minutes of sustained burn to melt a hole but they are also able to slag the turrets
• Powering it down they disconnect the Sherman and move into the NHP core

Past the corridor is a spherical room containing a heavily armoured sphere, cables heading in and out, lit up with a blue light

As they enter the room, Benno notices their firewall is hacked through and they are congratulated by the NHP

• Gethin gets philosophical about turning off one of us
• Apparently they’re one of ‘very few’ to get this far, so Inguma’s interest is piqued
• It becomes clear that Inguma believes this all to be a simulation
• Has been running millions of simulations in its vast computer cores and now cannot tell simulation from reality
• It resists attempts for Aeric to reset it with its defensive mechs moving into position

The team are forced to engage the NHP’s avatar and its defenders in combat

• Very tech attack focused battle, with Inguma repeatedly overheating the squad’s reactors and forcing their weapons to target each other
• They attempt to reboot Inguma as the battle rages
• Aeric’s reactor enters meltdown and he is forced to eject as Benno manages to shut Inguma down

Casket begins its reboot cycle, the terminal darkens, and the 3min cycle to boot begins

• Gethin congratulates heartily the efforts of Aeric and Basco for killing the avatar

NHPs are contained within a casket which is a physical containment system as their minds are made of folded blinkspace

• Transmission across omninet is forbidden by the Union
• If the casket is destroyed the NHP is lost
• Frequent resets are needed for them to avoid leaving their shackles, causing them to cascade and ceasing to function within humanoid mental constraints, abandoning human logic
• Resets are however 100% effective
• Potentially, another NHP could run a facility previously operated by another NHP

They debate taking Inguma with them

• Benno and Mirbana for, Aeric and Gethin against
• And then the console lights up
• Benno can tell the casket is reset and once again in connection to the rest of the facility systems

Inguma greets them and seems back to normal

• Prints Aeric a new Mourning Cloak – 10 hours
• Basco repairs his mech and then tries to use the processing power of the NHP to aid the decoding of the Aun information – running the comms through speeds up the number crunching on what had already been a competent showing, but is completed within the 10hrs
• Basco is now able to create a program which should crunch its way through Aun encryption on local comms in future
• Benno discusses AI life with Inguma
• They ask Inguma to send a message to Lorenzo to confirm all is well and to alert Thermopylae

  Good work. Local Omninet down. Worrying. Don’t take too long.

• The party heads out without issues – the military mechs have shut back down, hanging from rails
• Heading out through the loading bay they spot the Thermopylae and radio to them, jetting their way back over to the ship

Halfway to the ship they are suddenly hit by a burst of comms, heavily distorted

• Amidst the static bursts, a voice (behind explosions) saying

  This is UNS Yalta, taking … damage — Aun … Assistance. Warn Cornucopia… [cuts].