Traveller: Session 17

 

This session was run on January 26, 2023.

 

While the team headed for the surface was sleeping, the rest of the crew divided their time between sleeping and running further scans and drone flights. Lukas flew a drone over Site 23 and observed that the radiation detected was coming from a collapsed cliff face. He verified that, even up close, the radiation levels should not be dangerous to humans.

 

Bob performed a fly over of Site 56 and spotted a yellow-colored area 50-100m down in the canyon. Jason analyzed the footage and opined that it was not surface sulfur.

 

Michael performed a lightside photo scan and found some linear features by an ancient shoreline, they labeled this as Site 51. He also discovered two groups of pressure ridges labeled Sites 34 and 22. They determined that linear features of that size were unlikely to be naturally occurring.

 

Hour 25

 

Sarah, piloting the lander, begins the de-orbital burn with no difficulty and are on course for Site 25.

 

Hour 26

 

Sarah begins her final approach for landing and a geyser erupts under the lander causing her to momentarily lose control resulting in a hard landing. During the landing, Sarah’s restraints broke and she came out of the seat, bouncing around the cockpit.

 

Hour 27

 

Kurt worked on patching Sarah up while Katiya and Helen exited the lander to set up the ground penetrating radar over the rectangular shapes in the ice. As they cycled through the lock, they noticed that the surface ice melted and refroze around the engine nozzle during the landing. Vic and Shireen exited the lander to deal with the ice buildup while Katiya and Helen continued on to the radar site.

 

Hour 28

 

Katiya uses the ground penetrating radar and finds what appears to be an artificial structure 8m below the surface, well within the range of their ice tunneling equipment. While operating the radar, she suffers a minor suit failure, and her drinking water stops working. She and Helen return to the lander and Katiya changes her suit.

 

Hour 29

 

Kurt, Vic, and Katiya brought the ice tunneler to the radar site and began drilling while Helen set up the fuel processor. Shireen stayed in the lander and fixed the faulty suit.

 

Hour 30

 

The tunneling reveals some kind of foundation. Katiya jumped down to examine it and found some strange script carved into one of the stones. Helen brings the winch to the dig site to help retrieve Katiya.

 

Hour 31

 

Katiya continues to examine the foundation and discovers what appears to be a chart of pulsars, perhaps revealing the original location of the rogue planet. Up on the surface, Vic’s pressure alarm goes off on his suit, but it resolves itself before any noticeable pressure drop. They begin to get concerned about the number of suit failures they are experiencing so they pull Katiya back to the surface and return to the lander.

 

Hour 32

 

Wanting some better pictures, Helen and Sarah take the HQ camera to the site and Sarah prepares to use the winch to lower Helen. Something breaks in the mechanism and the cable cuts Sarah’s suit, injuring her and causing it to depressurize. Helen scrambled to patch the suit but it took her several tries to get the emergency patch to apply correctly. By the time she reestablishes suit integrity, Sarah is unconscious and has been exposed to vacuum for almost a minute. Helen carries Sarah back to the lander. Kurt works on her. Sarah regains consciousness but is pretty banged up. They receive a message from the Far Horizon telling them that they have a slight problem in orbit, all of the lights have gone off in the ship.