[SPEAKER_09]: Welcome to the Dark Star Adventurecast, where the stars are cold, devoid is endless, and dangers lurk in every shadow.
[SPEAKER_09]: Out here, trust is a gamble, and survival is never guaranteed.
[SPEAKER_02]: On tonight's Adventurecast?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just say, I have no interest in ending up in an omnitech prison.
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't think this corporate has been stupidly lower.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but there, I'll find the people that killed my sister.
[SPEAKER_10]: Knowledge, information, technology, that's what I'm after.
[SPEAKER_09]: So sit back and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_09]: This is the Dark Star Adventurecast.
[SPEAKER_09]: Whoa, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_10]: It was a vibe kill.
[SPEAKER_09]: You weren't cold or calculated.
[SPEAKER_09]: You were running hot and very spontaneous.
[SPEAKER_10]: What I mean, and now is brother, I guess is going to be after us.
[SPEAKER_10]: Oh, yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_10]: Easy pretty chill.
[SPEAKER_10]: We killed his brother though.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, that didn't really give any chase.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's definitely not going to come up in the future in a new way.
[SPEAKER_09]: I also before we really get started.
[SPEAKER_09]: I wanted to highlight that I think.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hayley had the most genius plan last episode that has happened in this campaign so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shocking, I know.
[SPEAKER_09]: She's like, what if we'd like the purple flowers and fire?
[SPEAKER_09]: And then no more ideas.
[SPEAKER_09]: Everyone was like, good idea.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hey, that's settled.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you hit a banger, you just everybody goes with it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Until somebody's like, and then we roll down the windows.
[SPEAKER_10]: That was like, oh, it definitely comes up with more ideas to get Felix high.
[SPEAKER_10]: I am all on board with that.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I don't think anyone thought Felix was going to get high.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't, everyone for God he was like super into drugs when they was married for the Fed.
[SPEAKER_09]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_09]: I forgot it and it's not big enough for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he helped it.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I was like, oh, oh, no, I just can't wait to get off with Visa.
[SPEAKER_10]: Like, I am tired of being on this smelly ass planet.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am just shocked we made it out with the car, I was so sure that thing was going to be a smoldering pile of nuclear rubble that we had to basically detonate at some point.
[SPEAKER_09]: You were cheering on two different things, neither of which seemed to have happened.
[SPEAKER_09]: One, blowing up the car.
[SPEAKER_09]: No one knew why, but blowing up the car.
[SPEAKER_09]: And two, froggy becoming the voice of a revolution that you were trying to start.
[SPEAKER_09]: But the way you tried to start, it was getting froggy to get back on the radio.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was you, as soon as you said the word plutonium, everyone was like, hmm, hmm, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_02]: What else could we use this car for?
[SPEAKER_09]: It just reminds me of Robert Rubbing his hair all over things.
[SPEAKER_09]: It'd be like, plan accomplished.
[SPEAKER_09]: So you guys do have plutonium on your ship right now because you successfully got the Aurora into the scapegoat, got the imposter off of the bridge, and it took off to go retrieve Dr. Voss.
[SPEAKER_09]: Because if I recall correctly, the last thing that she radioed to you was that she was in a bit of trouble and that she needed you to come safer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, something tells me the same guys that came to find us might have paid her a visit as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all we have to do is get back to her lab, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then...
[SPEAKER_02]: We can finally ditch this place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully with our lives and our fancy car.
[SPEAKER_09]: So that seems like a good place is any to start.
[SPEAKER_09]: So why don't we get into it?
[SPEAKER_09]: It's late afternoon as you fly low over the city of Wofisa, making your way back towards the southern part of the city, back to Dr. Malauravos.
[SPEAKER_09]: You spent all this time trying to just convince her to come with you, that now that you finally done the deed that she asked you to accomplish and retrieved your ship, now she is in peril, and everything you've worked for is about to become undone.
[SPEAKER_09]: There is a spot nearby where you can park the ship.
[SPEAKER_09]: So Robert, you touch down gently in a scapegoat, and the crew disembarks.
[SPEAKER_09]: It begins to make its way wearily towards Mr. Atafore.
[SPEAKER_09]: We're Dr. Alarvaus is hopefully still waiting for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really hope we don't lose the ship.
[SPEAKER_09]: Tell me about it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Let's make this quick.
[SPEAKER_09]: When you're about to block away, you can see that there is smoke rising for the front of Machauder 4, and as you drop closer, you can see that the door has been breached.
[SPEAKER_09]: Scorched marks all around the edges, smoke rising from the hole that was made in the wall.
[SPEAKER_09]: In front of you is simply a dark void, it doesn't seem to be any power inside the station.
[SPEAKER_09]: Gazing inside with only the sun like to help you, you cannot see much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I pull out the radio.
[SPEAKER_02]: Doc, you still there?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, I can't talk right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I don't even answer that because I feel like that means that if I say anything it's comfort.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just look at the others and I say, it seems like the good doctor is in need of a rescue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get a ton, guys.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, and you make your way into the research station.
[SPEAKER_09]: The air is very cold in here.
[SPEAKER_09]: It actually feels like the environmental systems have maybe gone a little bit of haywire and are just pumping out air-conditioned air constantly.
[SPEAKER_09]: Regardless of the temperature outside, it's quite frankly getting close to freezing in here.
[SPEAKER_09]: The lights are all off.
[SPEAKER_09]: There are flickering LEDs on various control panels and electronics throughout this hallway, but there are no doors.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a very short hallway.
[SPEAKER_09]: Ten feet opens up into a slightly larger area.
[SPEAKER_09]: In here is a
[SPEAKER_09]: a living room area that appears to have been the subject of a massive explosion.
[SPEAKER_09]: But not anytime recently, the combat experts amongst you, Robert and Haley, don't smell any smoke and don't detect any recent fire or explosion or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_09]: So whatever happens here happened a long time ago, there is one exit out of this room off to the right, and there is an open door to your left so that we need to adapt room.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, y'all, where do you think a lot is?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we might as well check the bathroom here real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm going to go check the bathroom, so I'm going to come back to you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, I'm right behind you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Grab your shoulder, have you lead through and I'm on Overwatch behind you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Should somebody, like, keep an eye on the scapegoats, perhaps?
[SPEAKER_04]: What are they going to do?
[SPEAKER_04]: Stay a little again?
[SPEAKER_09]: So, Haley, you and Robert make your way over to the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a multi-stall affair.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, as you peek with your rifle at the ready, you see there are multiple stalls and multiple sinks.
[SPEAKER_09]: Obviously, for this research station that probably housed a dozen or more people, you don't hear anything in there and you don't see anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something real off here, you guys.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the low temperature, the lack of people around here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm getting a real bad feeling about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: At this point, I feel like I have no option, but to radio the doctor again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think we, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just pull the radio back out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I radio as quietly as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully she can turn down the volume on her end, but I just say through the radio.
[SPEAKER_02]: Doppler at the research station, where are you?
[SPEAKER_09]: You hear a loud electronic noise, and everyone's eyes snap up to the corner to see a camera a dressively swing toward you, it's red light blanket, and over the radio here.
[SPEAKER_07]: There are three of them in here.
[SPEAKER_07]: Go to your right, go down the hallway, and fucking kill them and get me out of here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You heard of Cranksy Doctor?
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not Cranky.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not cranking.
[SPEAKER_02]: I... oops.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I like sweet kids because I did not revert.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you for that part.
[SPEAKER_10]: I don't get thorn.
[SPEAKER_10]: I know cranking.
[SPEAKER_10]: She's cranking.
[SPEAKER_10]: Death cranking.
[SPEAKER_04]: Plotch a cranky.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not cranky.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know you're just very stressed out, man.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're already at the press of button.
[SPEAKER_07]: I can hear you when you're in my station.
[SPEAKER_07]: I can hear it.
[SPEAKER_07]: I can see you.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I can see how goddamn slow you're going.
[SPEAKER_07]: Kill these guys.
[SPEAKER_07]: I need to get out of your suit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you heard the clearly not cranky doctor.
[SPEAKER_09]: You see a flashlight layout over the wall of the hallway on the right side like that doorway that you're supposed to be going through.
[SPEAKER_09]: And you hear two whispered voices and you swear you hear a man say, yeah, over here, some sort of radio or something.
[SPEAKER_10]: I look up at everybody like, uh oh, here's our company.
[SPEAKER_10]: I look for cover, like whatever nearest cover I can find and duck behind it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I hit the deck, find cover.
[SPEAKER_09]: There is a overturned couch that is overturned into a corner because of some blast, same thing with a larger coffee table that's probably five feet long, and there's also an entertainment center that's falling over onto the ground.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can find that couch.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I give Haley the universal but silent signal for.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, give me that gun back.
[SPEAKER_02]: I give him the gun back and then I take it and make for the cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: Since I realized he was so much spectre for punching.
[SPEAKER_09]: So Robert Ross hit the deck, Felix is hiding behind a couch, Thorne is hiding, Haley, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, can I sneak by to the other side of the entrance to wait for them to enter the room and get behind them?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, the old storage container.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the same thing you do not have.
[SPEAKER_09]: I have the power spaceship.
[SPEAKER_09]: You definitely have an ammo.
[SPEAKER_00]: I rush over there, crouch down, not rush, but like I sneak over there, crouch down and stand over by the doors to wait for them to come into the room.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, so the first guy you see is flash like you see that the tip of his gun poke through the door and it's a flashlight attached to the top of it and it looks like a laser rifle just like a previous soldier had and his flashlight plays across the room before resting on Robert Ross who's laying prone in the middle of the floor not really behind anything and the soldier says hello hey good looking what you got cooking
[SPEAKER_09]: And the guy takes his step into a room it says.
[SPEAKER_09]: Put your hands on your head.
[SPEAKER_04]: Only if you paint me like one of your French girls.
[SPEAKER_00]: I punch him in the face.
[SPEAKER_09]: You have a warrior, yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: When you do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope, no yell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not like some sort of zeta style, you elation.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I just go rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like, yeah, the noise out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just go rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like punch the guy in the face.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will work on the yelp, the combat yelp.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still working to find my identity on the blackout one crew.
[SPEAKER_10]: Really, that's not us anymore.
[SPEAKER_04]: Apparently we're the all of Ostru.
[SPEAKER_00]: True.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have no respect for blackout one or Stractim VI.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But either way, just one after this guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna save you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_02]: that is perfect because yeah I'm just chilling with this thing like I'm like around the corner by the bathroom with this thing just trained on the doorway waiting for somebody to foolishly bring their body far enough out that I can finish it off and when I see this guy trained his gun on haily I take that as my opportunity I rolled a 13 to hit 13 hits and I deal 9 points of damage oh my god
[SPEAKER_02]: the bullet just pierces right through his neck.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was ready to pull the trigger, but he was a split second to late.
[SPEAKER_09]: He gargles on his own blood as he slumps against the wall.
[SPEAKER_09]: In a parody of what happened to Froggy, it slumps down to the floor.
[SPEAKER_09]: Dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know how that haily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Thorne.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we better hurry.
[SPEAKER_02]: These guys were armed, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they both had laser rifles.
[SPEAKER_02]: I grab another one of the rifles and I just thrust it towards Felix, even though he's not much of a shooter.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to make sure everybody leaves this situation heavily armed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, boss.
[SPEAKER_10]: I joined the group out from behind the couch, make her way down the hallway.
[SPEAKER_09]: So the hallways are not very long.
[SPEAKER_09]: There is a door to your left shortly after traversing down part of the hallway.
[SPEAKER_09]: This is the kitchen area.
[SPEAKER_09]: Further along, there is a closed door big metal door with a viewing window and it that has metal mesh built into the windows of that chatterproof.
[SPEAKER_09]: Inside through the window you can see the third soldier hunched over a keyboard and typing into a terminal In front of him is a wall of blinking lights and monitors and you can see that he's lit from the left and right as well as if the electronics are completely encasing the room and lighting them from all angles away for the heavy sit to take him out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Robert, do you want to take this one or?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I think I might give her a whirl so as you say that over the radio
[SPEAKER_09]: Don't shoot your guns in that room and you hear the whore of a camera up on your head like again Why not we'll leave it we'll leave it anyway who cares about all that equipment?
[SPEAKER_08]: It's incredibly important equipment.
[SPEAKER_10]: I mean it does look nice We'll like to play with it a little bit years of research I've spent here.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you know I should you're gun in that room?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I totally understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been in the situation before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, poor Haley is going to have to close line a motherfucker again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, let's describe the situation again just to make sure I position myself correctly.
[SPEAKER_09]: There is a metal door in front of you with a small viewing window that you can see through.
[SPEAKER_09]: And then inside, there is a square room with the walls completely all four walls completely crowded by electronics and monitors.
[SPEAKER_09]: There is a man typing onto a keyboard at a terminal with his back to you on the far wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sky's gonna know as soon as we open the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't shoot anything.
[SPEAKER_09]: I might be able to help with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, what do you got for me?
[SPEAKER_09]: All of a sudden you hear a heavy, deep bass coming from the room in front of you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thorne, you instantly recognize the riff of Red River because it is a speaker.
[SPEAKER_02]: A classic.
[SPEAKER_09]: So the guy inside looks up at frustration and you just hear him pointing his gun at all the monitors and just screaming and yelling his head off.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's really super pissed off in the music coming out of his ears.
[SPEAKER_00]: I use the sub-retunity for run-ins.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, you throw up in the door.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'll choose you to shit.
[SPEAKER_09]: What the fuck?
[SPEAKER_09]: He turns around just as you're upon him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I am a leapfrogging over desks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am nothing and coming down on him with my fist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it connects a left hook for the ages.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you just very much spins of it and plops down back into his chair.
[SPEAKER_09]: He's either unconscious or dead, probably dead, since you've probably just snapped his neck or shattered his skull with that seven damage of just mammoth iron fist crashing into him.
[SPEAKER_09]: Red River returns down and Dr. Laura Vassas.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, great, that's all of them, thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, that's so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, man, it was, all right, we're here to get you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is harder than I would have liked, but let's get out of here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, well, the gutting's good.
[SPEAKER_09]: I guess I didn't really think about this part.
[SPEAKER_07]: OK, don't freak out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Alara a robot?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're a program, aren't you?
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not a robot or a program, I'm a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: When are you a, when are you a, when have you been a person?
[SPEAKER_09]: I was a person.
[SPEAKER_09]: I've been till about two years ago.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm still a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_09]: But I currently live in a machine.
[SPEAKER_09]: from deep within the machinery before you.
[SPEAKER_09]: A blue steel orb, criss-crossed with strange hieroglyphics, begins to glow, with a cold white light.
[SPEAKER_09]: A celestial harmony rings through the air as red revelry fades.
[SPEAKER_09]: The orb pulsates in time with Dr. Boss's voice, which comes from speakers all around you.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's sort of a long story.
[SPEAKER_10]: Well, hot damn dock, you're just full of surprises.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm still as you know, linguist.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, I mean, now you're so much more than that.
[SPEAKER_10]: Look at this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, you feel like it's calm down.
[SPEAKER_02]: You would have pulled even in your pants.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm not comfortable with this.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just leave me here.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'll also tell you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think you're coming with the OR or we can burn it and burn it with fire.
[SPEAKER_09]: I think we burned it up today.
[SPEAKER_09]: How do we transport you, Doctor?
[SPEAKER_09]: The glass encasement that surrounds her.
[SPEAKER_09]: Snicks.
[SPEAKER_09]: It slides into the machinery.
[SPEAKER_09]: Once you disconnect me, I won't be able to talk anymore.
[SPEAKER_10]: Do we have Spieger than this?
[SPEAKER_10]: Oh, it's good quote.
[SPEAKER_10]: Dr. Voss, we get you back to the ship.
[SPEAKER_10]: How do I reconnect you?
[SPEAKER_09]: When you bring me to the ship, just put me near your communication station.
[SPEAKER_10]: All right, we can do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Felix, this is going to be safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's going to hack into the ship.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's clearly a program cyborg.
[SPEAKER_01]: Robert, Robert.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm not a cyborg.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm a human.
[SPEAKER_10]: We have so much to learn from her.
[SPEAKER_10]: We don't have to have her this right now.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's time to go.
[SPEAKER_10]: We really, really don't, let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Damn, I'm gonna tell y'all told you so, but yeah, let's, let's know, let's know it.
[SPEAKER_10]: So I reach in and I disconnect Dr. Voss from persistent.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, her light is still on, but she's no longer able to communicate.
[SPEAKER_09]: Not home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think she's, I think she's aware she's getting communicate.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was thinking the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm picking up what you're putting down.
[SPEAKER_10]: So I will cradle her gently and gesture the team that is time to go.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: Everyone makes their way back to the scapegoat way to this time has not been stolen.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank God.
[SPEAKER_09]: Board the scapegoat with Dr. Lara Boss in your arms Felix and what would you like to do?
[SPEAKER_10]: Set her down next to the communication station while we get the ship ready for takeoff.
[SPEAKER_09]: The ancient alien hieroglyphics that are covering her steel or some sort of alloy, surface begin to glow tracing with blue and purples and whites all around.
[SPEAKER_09]: The communication station seems to respond in kind.
[SPEAKER_09]: She rolls over slightly, almost as if first bonding to a gravity shift, before catching on something on the communications panel, a spark erupts, and she sinks in to the LCD panel.
[SPEAKER_09]: From out of the speakers of the skates go, you hear Dr. Alaravase.
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't mean to ruin the panel, but I had to connect somehow.
[SPEAKER_10]: No worries, panels could be replaced.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, feel like they'll get right on that.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, I guess I have some explaining to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually got a lot of questions for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you have for that once we're saved, we off-world?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's gotten kind of messy here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I feel like we need to make tracks, people.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's get out of here.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, so you guys kind of silence her for a minute and you're going to wait to your safely up in orbit.
[SPEAKER_09]: You warm up the engines and you take off from Wofisa, leaving that planet behind perhaps forever, saying goodbye to the vast city and the methane explosions and the soldiers of the great work and you make your way off-world and start heading towards the coordinates of the mysterious signal that supposedly Omni Tech gave you, but it's looking increasingly like they never gave you that mission at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, somebody here has some explaining to do.
[SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, it's dark complicated.
[SPEAKER_09]: It then should proceed to tell you an incredibly complicated thing.
[SPEAKER_09]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, there is some truth to be told.
[SPEAKER_09]: I am a xenolinguist.
[SPEAKER_09]: My name is Dr. Alaravoss.
[SPEAKER_09]: I am human.
[SPEAKER_09]: I was with a team on Wofisa, our mission was to discover alien artifacts, which we were quite successful at Wofisa has quite a few of them, and to study them, research them, and then ship them off-world.
[SPEAKER_09]: This was after the troubled times, after Wofisa already fell, so we didn't think we'd really see any trouble, and we didn't, we were a successful team, and that makes what happened next to all the more painful.
[SPEAKER_09]: We found this orb, we'll Tom found this orb, and it was nasty.
[SPEAKER_09]: Like all the other items we found, we ran through the tests, but when we introduced it to electrical current, it reacted poorly.
[SPEAKER_09]: The explosion killed us all.
[SPEAKER_09]: I remember dying, but I woke up.
[SPEAKER_09]: And here I am in this body, I'm assuming I'm a copy of myself, or at best my consciousness was transferred, I guess I could never really know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, was it the artifact?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: Whatever this artifact is, it transferred or copied my intelligence into itself.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm not an artificial intelligence, I'm something more, something human, and trapped.
[SPEAKER_10]: But only you, not any of your comrades.
[SPEAKER_09]: No, I was performing the experiment.
[SPEAKER_09]: I was in direct contact with the artifact we didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's all I can imagine is the reason why I survived if you could call this survival.
[SPEAKER_09]: That explains who I am, but it doesn't explain what I've done.
[SPEAKER_09]: Once my team died, well, I didn't want OmniTek to know exactly what I was.
[SPEAKER_09]: I wanted help, but I didn't want the type of help that OmniTek would bring to me.
[SPEAKER_09]: As a scientist with OmniTek, I know that I would just be researched and prodded.
[SPEAKER_09]: So I began looking into everything I could in the computer system, including everything off-world that I could access.
[SPEAKER_09]: I ran out of things to look at.
[SPEAKER_10]: The X-wordet only has so much on offer.
[SPEAKER_09]: I started digging into my own past, I started looking back at my home planet, you know, see how people are doing, and that's, that's when everything changed for me.
[SPEAKER_09]: I discovered the truth, the truth of Verodine Industries.
[SPEAKER_09]: When I was a girl, Verodine purchased my settlement, they employed everyone there, made it into a corporate town.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sounds familiar to me.
[SPEAKER_09]: We were in poverty, it was a backwater poeduct planet, and we were barely scripting by, but bear a dime gave everyone opportunity.
[SPEAKER_09]: People like me, intelligent, capable, we were given jobs, mostly off-world, working for Verodine or Verodine subsideer is like on the tech.
[SPEAKER_09]: Things did not work out, so well, from people that stayed on-world.
[SPEAKER_09]: Verodine experiments it on them.
[SPEAKER_09]: terrible, terrible genetic experiments, put on by their other subsidiary company from me theon.
[SPEAKER_09]: I couldn't let that lie, I couldn't let that stand.
[SPEAKER_09]: I quickly fabricated an illusion around this research station.
[SPEAKER_09]: The explosion that killed me and my teammates never happened, covered it up.
[SPEAKER_09]: I fabricated reports they went out on a schedule, on the tech thought we were still operational, discovering and researching alien artifacts.
[SPEAKER_09]: Everything was well, and then I bent my new powers to take down Veridine Labs.
[SPEAKER_09]: This is where you come in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Really now.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was better be good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Definitely don't trust your metal in it, yes.
[SPEAKER_09]: A long-range holler had to go fairly far afield to avoid a cosmic storm near the outer limits of the sector.
[SPEAKER_09]: Out there he detected something, on a serious signal, but he didn't know what he was looking at.
[SPEAKER_09]: He thought it was just simple background radiation, so we ignored it.
[SPEAKER_09]: But when he docked on Sybilin, all of his transit logs were uploaded to the space transit authority.
[SPEAKER_09]: I have thousands of notifications, waiting for just such an event, and one of them was raised.
[SPEAKER_09]: I downloaded the signal, I looked through the logs, and although it was garbled, I immediately recognized the telltale signature markings of a Prometheon technology signal.
[SPEAKER_09]: the very corporation that experiments it on and effectively destroyed my homeworld.
[SPEAKER_09]: Those bastards.
[SPEAKER_09]: So I have to plan.
[SPEAKER_09]: What can I say?
[SPEAKER_09]: Unvengeful.
[SPEAKER_09]: First, I would need a ship, and then I would need a crew to pilot it.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't have access to everything, but one thing I do have access to is on the tech systems.
[SPEAKER_09]: I called up a list of candidates that I could call the active duty.
[SPEAKER_09]: I filtered that list again and again.
[SPEAKER_09]: People that were not currently on active duty.
[SPEAKER_09]: people relegated to desk work, prisoners contracted with on-betect that nobody would miss, people that work in the shadows, people that are obscure.
[SPEAKER_09]: I needed a decent pilot to fly here, a hacker, and a communications expert to follow the signal, a gunner, and muscle to protect me, and lastly, a respectable businessman to be my voice.
[SPEAKER_09]: They would need a ship.
[SPEAKER_09]: One that wouldn't be missed.
[SPEAKER_09]: I found a practically terror-elect on the text, merchant class, rotting away on Commirre4.
[SPEAKER_09]: I fabricated a mission detail.
[SPEAKER_09]: I scheduled you, the crew.
[SPEAKER_09]: I gathers you to the space station, and I let my pre-recorded briefing play out.
[SPEAKER_09]: Get the ship, I'm collecting you from Moffisa, and let's go figure out what that mysterious signal is.
[SPEAKER_09]: Course I already know what it is.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a secret for me Theonbase.
[SPEAKER_09]: The viewer dying is incredibly protective over where Prometheon's headquarters is.
[SPEAKER_09]: So, once the ship is within range of this quote-unquote mysterious signal, the virus that I've been writing would be uploaded.
[SPEAKER_09]: For me, Theon's airlock's been opened, their environmental systems would crash, and all of their data would be erased.
[SPEAKER_09]: Lastly, the reactor would explode.
[SPEAKER_09]: Truly turning to dust any hopes of recovering the valuable data, stored on that God for stinking face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Haley brushes to the window and it's just like, oh my God, please, please let nothing be exploding for real, and it just bosses sound effects.
[SPEAKER_09]: Boss, pause this for a second, and everyone kind of looks at your daily, and then she continues.
[SPEAKER_09]: but things didn't exactly go to plan.
[SPEAKER_09]: Before you got here, my gas main was switched off, forcing me to go into reserve power.
[SPEAKER_09]: I couldn't access the exome that anymore.
[SPEAKER_09]: I had to pause development of my virus.
[SPEAKER_09]: So when you got here, I had to send you to turn the power back on.
[SPEAKER_09]: It will all that happen.
[SPEAKER_09]: The guardians of the work stole your ship.
[SPEAKER_04]: Luckily, we got my baby back.
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't want to have to tell you any of this.
[SPEAKER_09]: I was hoping to leave you out of it.
[SPEAKER_09]: But now, Veridine, Omnitech, and Perlifion, and Hell, probably half of the other corporation's Veridine has under its umbrella, or probably aware of you.
[SPEAKER_09]: In worst of all, Victor Stray, who everyone knows about.
[SPEAKER_09]: The top risk assessment officer, Veridine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone knows him.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just eye into this case, everyone knows Victor.
[SPEAKER_09]: His record is spotless and I guarantee he will not let us be the black spot on that record.
[SPEAKER_09]: I've collected some information.
[SPEAKER_09]: I can see through your ship's cameras, the looks on some of your faces.
[SPEAKER_09]: Why should we help her?
[SPEAKER_09]: She tricked us.
[SPEAKER_09]: Why would we ever want to help her before you make a decision about whether to simply dump me out the airlock or actually take me to that Promethion base?
[SPEAKER_09]: Let me show you a couple things.
[SPEAKER_09]: Is that okay?
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, but to be honest, I totally am bored with help with you.
[SPEAKER_10]: I just, like, this is really cool tech.
[SPEAKER_10]: Can I just look at my hands on it longer?
[SPEAKER_09]: This is my, this is my body now.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, but you can't deal this, can you?
[SPEAKER_10]: I knock on it.
[SPEAKER_09]: No, I can't, but I don't like it still.
[SPEAKER_10]: Be like, don't put your hands on the doctor's body.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, I'll ask for a sub-sari.
[SPEAKER_09]: Felix learns boundaries, episode 8 of the adventure cast.
[SPEAKER_09]: All right, what do you got for us?
[SPEAKER_09]: Kaley and Robert, a video comes up on the communication screen.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a some sort of black ops mission.
[SPEAKER_09]: Some infiltration.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a body cam by a soldier on that mission.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_09]: She narrates over it.
[SPEAKER_09]: This is strike four six on their final mission.
[SPEAKER_09]: Robert, you were there.
[SPEAKER_09]: Daily, your older sister was in command.
[SPEAKER_09]: It didn't go exactly out on the tech told you it went.
[SPEAKER_09]: And on screen you can see, Haley, as shown from Robert's cam on his chest, boarding into a helicopter and taking off as a ton of guerilla fighters are swarming the jungle below.
[SPEAKER_09]: In the distance, you see a Mac, a towering, stories high, fires, the missiles strike you to helicopter.
[SPEAKER_09]: I glitched in the video and then Robert's crawling across the ground and you see Haley under a bush... dead.
[SPEAKER_04]: On a while you're showing us this, I was there.
[SPEAKER_04]: I never, never wanted to see that again.
[SPEAKER_09]: Several documents come up on screen.
[SPEAKER_09]: This is proof of Veridine and Omitex complicitcy and Haley's death.
[SPEAKER_09]: You thought you were sent there to liberate a colony, assist in the red-rised wars, where you didn't know that you yourself were an experiment.
[SPEAKER_09]: Your squad, Robert, sent in to save Haley, Haley, sent before you, to help the colony, and everything that transpired there.
[SPEAKER_09]: It was a test, I test that you failed.
[SPEAKER_09]: Would they go forward with the type of experiments in training that produce someone like you Robert?
[SPEAKER_09]: But would they go a different way?
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's all worth just an experiment.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just ones and zeros, just a number in the file.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that, that was why Haley was taken from us.
[SPEAKER_04]: God, I didn't think these corporate has been stupidly lower.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, Alar, I want to believe you, but some emails, some paperwork, you're, you're a, air quotes person.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do I know you didn't just fabricate any of this here?
[SPEAKER_09]: You don't, but you are the enemy of all of the tech now, and you know what we do to our enemy's Robert.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because of you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, you're in it now, and I've seen your history.
[SPEAKER_09]: And what's more, I can pay you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have done what I have been ordered to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now am I proud of it?
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: Done.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well my higher ropes have made me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will take all sorts of shit from any person.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's what they've but they've trained me to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just some grunt.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't like to be lied to.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not by them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not by you.
[SPEAKER_04]: That said, I heard you say something about money.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes, I haven't been able to spend much money in the last two years on account of being a virtual intelligence.
[SPEAKER_09]: So all of my pay has just been accumulating in my account.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm happy to give it all to all of you once the mission is complete.
[SPEAKER_09]: 20,000 credits.
[UNKNOWN]: 20,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to have to reach out to about financial advisor Thorne.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thorne's eyes have turned into dollar cents.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of credits.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it would certainly go a long way to help in this complete mission if it was available up front.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just say.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Alara, if we do this and go through this mission, because it sounds pretty crazy with our, you know, you admitted or pretty coding ship to be going into a secret location to let out a secret virus, to take down a secret organization, pretty wild.
[SPEAKER_02]: One that knows we're coming now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but there, I'll find the people that killed my sister.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes, you and I are looking for the same thing, Hayley, vengeance, and we have the same target, and I have the means to destroy that.
[SPEAKER_09]: All I need is your brawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, just about the only skill I have left, so if I get to use it here, then let's do it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Don't worry, I thought the 20,000 credits might raise your eyebrows a bit, but I would dig in your pants.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hang on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me interrupt you there.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're about to tell me that these viewer-dying fools are doing something that people is at for a three, you better not show me any horrifying video because I don't think I could take it.
[SPEAKER_09]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_09]: Nothing quite so macabre is what happened to Robert and Haley.
[SPEAKER_09]: No, I feel like all I need to tell you is that Veredine owns Prometheon and Prometheon owns Nexus trading.
[SPEAKER_09]: The corporation that stole and gutted your family's business.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I am quite familiar.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even just hearing your story, I could sense the similarity between what Prometheon did and what Nexus did to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even not considering the monetary reward.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was already considering helping.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just say, I have no interest in ending up in an omni-tech prison, but there are wrongs that need to be rated.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I can help you do that, well, just make sure we keep things honest, you don't steer us into any unnecessary trouble, and sure, I'll be your face man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_09]: And yes, honesty from here on out, so that makes revenge for myself, Robert, Kaylee, and Thorne.
[SPEAKER_09]: Felix, I don't know what I can offer you, except for access to technology and pro-mytheon that is likely beyond your wildest dreams.
[SPEAKER_10]: That's more than enough, doc, knowledge, information, technology, that's what I'm after.
[SPEAKER_09]: Great!
[SPEAKER_09]: It'll take us 10 months to get there, along the way we'll be passing through the borders of several different corporations.
[SPEAKER_09]: We'll have to make our way through their space safely, hopefully quietly, to eventually reach Prometheon.
[SPEAKER_09]: When we get there, we'll have to somehow get close enough to upload the virus.
[SPEAKER_09]: Once that's done, I don't care what you do with their station.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't care what you do with me at that point.
[SPEAKER_09]: My mission will be done.
[SPEAKER_09]: In the meantime, I'll stay connected to your communication station.
[SPEAKER_09]: I can operate it for you, but the one thing I can't do is take actual action on your ship.
[SPEAKER_09]: I have access to all of your sensors, but I don't feel right trying to access navigational controls or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_09]: I know I wouldn't know what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's read only access.
[SPEAKER_09]: So in the meantime, I'll use the sensors and help you out how I can, and when you're off ship, I'm hopefully going to be able to give you tech support.
[SPEAKER_09]: Keep the calm on you, and I'll help that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: What about, you know, they have our faces, our names, our ship's identification.
[SPEAKER_02]: How are we going to even get anywhere like this?
[SPEAKER_09]: They don't have as much as you think.
[SPEAKER_09]: They know they're looking for a merchant class ship.
[SPEAKER_09]: But if you recall, right when you left Camiri 4, I set the scapegoat, not named that at the time, to ask you to register it.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: They're not aware of that registration.
[SPEAKER_09]: You should be able to move fairly quietly across the sector.
[SPEAKER_09]: Not bad.
[SPEAKER_09]: You were in reason they were able to trace you, is because of my act job to actually schedule the damn thing.
[SPEAKER_09]: I was trying to prevent them from finding me when the gas main went off and I lost most of my electrical power.
[SPEAKER_09]: When I disconnected from the exo net, they were able to force their way through and trace the hack, and that's how they found us.
[SPEAKER_09]: Now that I'm on your ship, with your reactor, as long as it doesn't go down, I should hopefully be able to keep us invisible to them.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just don't do anything too loud.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, all I want to do is keep this mission funded, and maybe line our pockets along the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could do it quietly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Robert, set the course.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody get to your stations.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's keep following that signal.
[SPEAKER_09]: And with that, you set a course for what was once the mysterious signal is now the secret Prometheon base and that will be for another time.
[SPEAKER_09]: First big milestone complete, everyone is going to level up and I want everyone to do their diary entries now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I can't believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That doctor we were talking to is actually just a consciousness inside an alien artifact.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people, well, turns out that story is pretty sad one in it, and it's pretty close to home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I only wonder what kind of horrible things could be happening back home on Zephriss.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now that I know that Nexus is part of this Promethe on, it worries me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope that after all this I can get back home, and maybe mom and the others are still there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Working hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's hope.
[SPEAKER_10]: I cannot believe my luck.
[SPEAKER_10]: I mean, there is a literal alien artifact with a consciousness inside of it on my flip, holy shit.
[SPEAKER_10]: And we could spend 10 months with this, and I could figure it out and learn about it and all of a man that's a promise of technology, more information.
[SPEAKER_10]: This mission has became a whole lot more interesting.
[SPEAKER_10]: I mean, right now, I'm just going to be back on the scapegoat.
[SPEAKER_10]: We had it with, honestly, the team came together really well today, and we'll go forward tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that working and ever since I left my home planet really that working for a corp was going to bring a lot of conflicting feelings with it because sometimes you get missions that you just don't you know you're always going to get missions you just don't necessarily agree but you just got to do because it's your job but
[SPEAKER_00]: knowing that this is what happened to my sister that's like seeing that video and seeing what she went through, what Robert went through.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to do everything I can to make that right again somehow not just for, you know, me or
[SPEAKER_00]: Not even just the people who knew my sister but how many other lives these people have messed up like we might not necessarily be able to get rid of evil I guess or whatever you want to call it but like hey, we can start with something pretty bad So yes, I'm gonna go see if we got any more of those purple flowers for a bit though because it's gonna be this all attendants
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, Robert Ross thinks it was a crazy time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just when everything's going right, we run into some random, allora-voss AI in an alien-dude-dad, whatcha McCullot, and she lied to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: She broke the circle of trust.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I'm never gonna be really truly able to trust her again.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will take her money, but I ain't gonna trust her.
[SPEAKER_04]: sold out by Omnitech.
[SPEAKER_04]: I always knew there was something wrong with that mission and having to watch haily with one wife course.
[SPEAKER_04]: Die again in front of me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I know I shouldn't blame her, but right now, Laura Valls is just the easiest person to lay this paint on.
[SPEAKER_09]: Everyone having recorded their logs, you tuck yourselves in at night, each of your own individual bunks.
[SPEAKER_09]: A singular hallway runs like a spine down the middle of the scapegoat with all of your bunks off of this hallway.
[SPEAKER_09]: You hear the hiss of a pneumatic door, probably just one of your fellow shipmates coming out to use the restroom.
[SPEAKER_09]: But then you hear a voice, you completely forgot about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, I forgot about property.
[SPEAKER_09]: Am I in space?
[SPEAKER_09]: You've had a long day.
[SPEAKER_09]: So you simply rule over and go back to sleep.
[SPEAKER_09]: Come on, guys.
[SPEAKER_06]: This isn't funny.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's cold in space.
[SPEAKER_09]: Every day, a dark star adventure cast employee is forced to clean out the scapegoat septic tank, the worst job imaginable.
[SPEAKER_09]: P.U.
[SPEAKER_09]: This stinks!
[SPEAKER_09]: But thanks to generous patrons like Brad and Holly, our septic has never looked cleaner.
[SPEAKER_09]: For just pennies a day, you can help keep the ship as clean as a drift rat's be-hole, and relieve the suffering of a hapless crewmate who's just trying to record a podcast, but is being forced to clean the subject for totally, plot-related reasons.
[SPEAKER_09]: So don't be a dirty drift rat, be like Brad and Holly.
[SPEAKER_09]: Keep the scapegoat clean at patreon.com slash dark star adventure cast.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, much better, thanks kind stranger.