A Biorg threat

We received a mission briefing by deputy director Gregorious. There had been reports of aberrant activity on the moon. There had been an attack on Kantor station mining outpost, a collapse in Freak alley in the Olympus colony and disappearances in downside which were believed to be linked to the Episcopalian order.

We were ordered to travel to Luna and meet with Hector Ramirez, Trinitys liaison to Luna. Hector explained the local situation. We were advised that the lunar police force was responsible for law enforcement on the moon and did not tolerate civilians wearing heavy armour or powerful weapons. They had put Kantor station off limits after the attack as everyone on the station had been killed.

We travelled to Freak alley, where we determined the collapse had been caused by the discharge of a high energy plasma weapon. We also found a witness whose memory had been wiped. Scathe tried to read his mind but got nothing so we decided to take him back to the pit.

On the way we were ambushed by two attackers who we subdued easily. They had been hired to find and kill all the survivors who had not received treatment at the Beaulac clinic. A local crime lord called The president had given the orders.

We joined in a tour of the Beaulac clinic. I was able to hack into one of the general access computer terminals and learned staff from the research levels had been transferred back to earth and replaced with interns. There had also been large quantities of equipment transferred back to earth.

I created a fake ID in the system, then later returned to the clinic and claimed I had forgot my pass. They issued me with a temporary pass giving me free access to the clinic. I was able to enter the computer centre and access the secure systems.

I learned organ receipts had increased by 27% over the last 9 months. All psychiatric patients from the collapse had spent at least four hours on sub level six. Equipment transferred related to telemetry of psyon and aberrant powers. There was no record of an invoice or budget.

The ship 'painted bird' was paid to ship the equipment to earth. It also went to lunar orbital station Stronsville on the 7th February (12 days ago) and returned after 3 hours. It is registered at Rancore space port.

Deputy director Grabowski was due to return to earth on a quarterly trip, but I found a memo saying it was to be a permanent transfer back to the Monteray clinic in Switzerland.

Orgotech had been paying for research at the Beaulac clinic. There had been large numbers of visitors to the Orgotech ward including from Limna telecom.

Dr Mangles had performed an autopsy on a John Doe recovered from Cantor mining station. Mangles subsequently transferred to earth. I transferred the autopsy report to my minicomp.

I found a heavily encrypted section of the computer. It had been partially erased but I could recover some data. A Huang-Marr project was mentioned and it contained telemetry on advanced bioware. Biorg research subjects and a Cantor test were referenced.

There were some partial medical records of messing persons and a journal which discussed orders to shut down the project just before the equipment and personnel were transferred.

The journal also revealed Grabowski was experimenting on people. The experiments went wrong and he covered up. Where was a video of Grabowski being killed when an aberrant appeared to melt through the wall and killed him.

We were sent to Boltzman station to investigate a series of murders following transmissions from 'Ancient master' urging to kill. The transmissions consisted of emails with encrypted attachments. When decrypted they were found to be chantings of mass in Latin.

The bodies were all found in an access hatch. They had been beheaded, cut open, and symbols had been carved on their bodies. They were all members of the night shift at Lumna telecom, and appeared to have been killed on their way to work.

We got the autopsy report from Dr Sevevitek Kriso, deputy head of Boltzman Cylinder Clinic. It stated cause of death as decapitation, with the bodies being gutted shortly afterwards. Fragments of the zodiac and symbols of historical /mythological origin had been carved with an unusual type of blade. The decapitation had been performed with a different weapon to the other wounds. Kriso appeared to be able to block psi powers.

We examined the crime scene but there was no other physical evidence. Someone was watching us at the crime scene. She escaped our pursuit but Rodregiz was able to pilfer her minicomp. From it I was able to discover she was assigned by Orgotech and her current assignment was surveillance of the crime scene to see if anyone took interest, especially trinity. Her contact was security chief Dennis Feldman at Limna telecom, though 'Option 8' were actually in charge.

We went to Limna telecom's office and met with Patrice and Andromeda Willam who were the heads of the facility. They were unhelpful.

We decided to seek access to the facility from outside through part which was under construction. We were attacked by several 'Option 8' operatives who we were forced to kill. We worked our way to a lab but were forced to retreat when a poison gas was released by the security systems.

Jackobus, head of Boltzman station security reported an unscheduled launch from the BILS system (a rain gun used to put goods into orbit). Two employees overpowered two others to make the launch. The 2 canisters which were launched came from Lumna telecom and were sent on a trajectory to Mars.

We went back to Lumna Telecom and found the place deserted. In the computer system I found files on the Huang marr project marked 'Willam eyes only'. They were using two aberrants called Anders Nash and Fiore in their research. They were using carbon nanotubes and aberrant DNA to enhance humans. Nash had regenerative and molecular disruption abilities and was providing intelligence on the biorg project.

The aberrants lived in the basement lab. Fiore escaped and was recaptured. It is likely he committed the murders while loose. The cannisters were designed for the Willam's to escape in an emergency. They were going to meet Dr Doris Ashilua who had been previously transferred from Luna to Mars.

In the basement we found a dead aberrant and a broken containment bubble. We recovered some security footage which showed the Willam's and Kriso in the lab. The container bubble shattered from the inside revealing a hideous creature. The creature conversed with the Willam's before the footage ended.

We procured a transport ship called Yellow Horse for our trip to Mars. The journey took 3 weeks. As we neared I picked up a faint transponder signal from the Freya, a federated states transporter. It was on a trajectory directly towards Mars at a dangerously high speed. I was able to dock with the Freya and change its course to put it on an orbital trajectory.

We went in to the Freya to investigate. On the bridge we found a blob of goo, the remains of one of the crew. We then heard a psychic scream followed by the voice of Dr Kriso pleeding over the intercom. We located Kriso who told us Nash had gone berserk and started killing people to heal himself when released from the canister he was in. The Willams had been in one canister, Kriso and Nash in the other.

We searched for Nash and found him back on the bridge where we fought and killed him.

We then interrogated Kriso. He was to meet a Dr Ashiluna at the summit centre on Olympus Mons. The Willams had been taking orders from someone called Minerva, probably from Earth.

We took Nash's body to the Yellow Horse before contacting the Chinese authorities on Mars. They sent fighters which escorted us to Wan Jing. We gave the Chinese details of our mission and were granted permission to pursue Dr Ashiluna.

We took the maglev train to the summit centre. Shortly after we arrived there was an explosion in the reception hall. Someone on a balcony was firing a grenade launcher at us but we were able to overpower him. Upstairs a fire fight erupted. Option 8 were fighting the Willams. We joined in. The Option 8 operatives and both Willams were killed, but Dr Ashiluna survived cowering under a table.

In his minicomp were lots of incomprehensible notes about combining psionics with aberrant taint. It suggested psi ability was enhanced 400% but there were bad side effects. They planned to set up a base on Mars with the equipment sent from Earth. Minerva was mentioned along with names of other contacts at the Beaulac clinic on Luna. There had also been a large sum of money wired into her account.

On interrogating Dr Ashiluna we learned she believed up to 1000 psions were involved. She had overheard the Monterey clinic in Switzerland mentioned when Minerva was speaking to the Willams. When we interrogated the guy with the grenade launcher we learned his name was Kurt Hills and he had been hired by Ashiluna to kill us.

We were then ordered to return to trinity HQ in Britain and report to deputy director Emma Bates. Our next mission was to travel to the Monterey base in Switzerland and talk to Zeuelder, the head of the Aesculaplan order.

The Monteray clinic had 2 security operations. Normal security was headed by Jacob. Black company, who were psyons, were headed by April Gluck. We were shown round the clinic before being shown to Zeuelders office. We were also introduced to Administrative director Monahen and Special projects director Delamont. We were granted access to communications records and invited to a reception in Matenza building later.

Minerva communications had been removed. I was able to partially recover one email about equipment transfers which contained the word Schilltronix and the name Ilse Wannamaker. Schilltronix corporation is a company which recently formed a joint venture with Orgotech around the North American blight zone researching strains of blight resistant plants. Ilse Wannamaker is vice president of new projects there.

I hacked into the Schilltronix systems and found an agreement to pursue the blight project. Horice Meeks and Ilse Wannamaker signed a deal for shipments from Schilltronix to Luna and Mars. Dr Gustav Betz, a specialist in plastic surgery assigned to the Monterey clinic had organised the shipments from Basal space port. Information about the shipment manifests would be in the Basal space port computer.

We spoke with Gustav. He seemed surprised the emails had been wiped. He said he did not get along with Catalan Otto, an assistant in the organ bank, and that he might have done something. Email backups on Gustavs personal system had also been wiped. While we were interrogating other people, Gustav fled to 'Basal space port'. We searched his personal quarters and found a book on Greek mythology with a page on Minerva marked.

I partially recovered some data which had been erased from Gustavs computer system which gave connections to Schilltronix and Ilse as well as the manifest numbers of shipments stored at Basal space port. A foreman called Monz handled the shipments from Luna. They contained medical equipment, bioware implants, other components and carbon nanotubes.

We went to Basal space port. The equipment had been marked as electronic and had been collected by truck, signed for by Ilse for Schilltronix. We then went to Schilltronix to speak to Ilse. The shipment had been forwarded to Worthington at the edge of the blight zone in North America. During the questioning Scathe read her mind and got the names Meeks and Betz, so she knew more than she was admitting. I hacked into her computer. There was more than 1 shipment. She dealt directly with Dr Betz who overpaid to keep under the radar. She knew Orgotek and the clinic were in the dark about the project and wanted to find out in case there was an opportunity to make money. Betz may be on his way to North America.

We contacted Orgotek, and were in return contacted by Alex Cassel, head of Orgotek. He wanted to help. He had found out about a group of individuals and Worthington. He arranged fo us to fly to America. We met with him in person. He had been monitoring all Orgotek projects for corruption. He was going to visit the blight project sites and arranged for us to fly to Worthington.

The project in Worthington was run by Ella Wang and Able Marr though they were missing. Gerry Gabrawski had asked them to investigate enhancing biotech to fight abberants. Betz arranged funding and Meeks embezzled money. There was no sign of Betz either. Orgotek brought people to Worthington to look for traces of the Wang-Marr project. Some equipment and other shipments had been transferred to the Eyere space station. Eyere was a recently constructed station in orbit 400 miles above Earth researching gravity temperature and pressure. It had the ability to simulate many environments like the surface of the sun or a vacuum.

While at Worthington we were hit by a psychic scream similar to when we were on the freighter Freya. The source was over 100km away. Cassel picked up a transmission from low earth orbit which he fed to the monitors. The feed was from a maintenance pod near Eyere station. It showed something the size of a cargo hauler firing on Eyere station. It then fired on the maintenance pod and the transmission ended.

We crewed one of 5 Orgotek yellow jacket interceptors which were sent into orbit. There was 1 large vessel and several smaller vessels with an 80% probability of being chromatic fighters. The ships had a passing similarity to Earth biotech. Another ship was docking on the station. We engaged the fighters but they appeared to have regeneration capabilities. After a short fight our ship was cut in half. Rodregiz jumped into space trying to reach the station. Scathe grabbed a gas cylinder and tried to follow him. Somehow Rodregiz made it to the station. Scathe went off course and ended up adrift in space.

After myself and Harkin were rescued, we picked Scathe up.

On board the station Rodergiz managed to kill some chromatic aliens with the aid of station personnel and destroy a briefcase the aliens had stolen. The alien ships then withdrew.

We caught Meeks, Betz and Whang in the Aesculaplan order lab on the station, and took them back to Earth.

From there we were ordered to the Crab Nebula on Operation Revelation to capture chromatics, where they appeared to originate from. We were issued with psychic bands, prototype bioware which was intended to allow us to interrogate the chromatics. We were to travel the 6500 light years on a Leviathon jump ship. Karro had been isolated since the Upeos (teleport psions) disappeared from Earth 4 years ago and contact only recently re-established with the invention of the jump ship. On board was commander Marsden of Aeon military, Constance Feist the claresentient pilot and Robert Wei the backup telepath. We jumped to Karro in the Crab Nebula, arriving 2 days out.

On the way in we encountered a storm and the Leviathon was shook about. Some of the other ships were damaged. Rodregiz panicked and ran about screaming 'we are going to die' before running into a terminal and knocking himself out.

When we arrived at Karro we met with the mayor Susaan N'gamba and her second in command Iodema. They told us chromatics were seen to operate in 3's or multiples of 3. Karro does not have the resources to attack, just defend. She sugested we speak to Fatima Tamosa, chief of astronomical facilities, Ingi Stalaski, chief of security/defence, and Ruth Kowokole, chief of mining ops.

Kowokole told us she had invented 1 Man ships called exhaust jet fighters. They carried a crude plasma weapon which had proved effective. She would give us some plasma charges. She said the chromatics seemed to have leader types who did most of the 'talking' through light.

Inge told us chromatics were scared of cold and dark. She thought the chromatics in the nebula were cut off from their home world.

Dr Tamosa claimed to know where many chromatics were. They used to have their main base on the Karro side of the shield but it was destroyed by a trio of Upeos 2 years ago before disappearing again. There were 3 targets, an observatory, R&D and command/control sites. We chose to target the command/control site.

Rodregiz was considered a liability by Marsden and assigned to the diversion force where he could be watched. The diversion force was to attack another site, drawing off all their fighters then we would attack the main target with a small fast force.

We flew to the chromatic base and docked. It appeared to have been hollowed out of an asteroid. There were several coloured paths. Red led to a bio plug with high radiation beyond. Yellow/green led to another plug with more moderate radiation. A purple path led to a critical level of radiation, and a second red path led to another high radiation area. We then tried a corridor with no coloured path. Exploring that we would a panel with a handle which Haken pulled. The corridor turned red so we decided to wait for chromatics to investigate. When they came we engaged them, killing 4 and capturing 2, including a leader. We sedated and restrained them before heading back. A chromatic ship tried to follow us but I outran it.

Scathe interrogated one with a psychic band. They thought in light and shapes. They had memories of humanity – aberrants accompanied by feelings of fear and hatred. Chromatics did not differentiate between humans and aberrants, thinking of them as corrupters and tormentors. Religion caused thoughts of bars of light from a being brushing humanity aside. He got images of biotech designs being given to the chromatics by others who offered to help against aberrants. There was an image of a human in a harness on board a vast ship. There was a feeling from someone in the room psychicly and the word Upeo. Behind the ship was the image of a reddish brown planet and a fleet of 10 ships, an invasion fleet to earth.

Mayor N'gamba had gone missing. We opened her safe and found data cubes. One had strong encryption. I cracked it and found a message from proxy Boyland Atwan, head of Upeo, to Susan N'gamba. “As head of our order it is my sad duty that my plan has to come to fruition and we need to jump away before being pressed into the service of the other orders.” dated 2114 (6 years ago).

We got an urgent message that a chromatic was breaking free. We went back to the lab and shot it. The psychic band had been erased. Wei had been interrogating the second alien. Iodema was also present. I started trying to recover the data from the band.

We got a report that N'gamba had returned. Scathe and Rodregiz went to investigate. They got ambushed by miners who seemed immune to anything short of lethal force. Rodregiz ran away and Scathe was killed by them before others came and overwhelmed the miners with lethal weapons.

N'gamba appeared on the leviathons bridge and offered to teleport the leviathon back to earth as she could do so to bring the warning faster than the leviathon was capable of doing so itself.

Scathes body was blasted into space and Marsden assigned a private John Constantine to replace him.

N'gamba teleported the leviathon back to earth. We met with William Renton, head of Protius division for a debriefing. We were told they think Opeo agents were navigating the chromatic fleet, though probably not voluntarily. N'gamba said it was possible some had been captured when they attacked a chromatic base.

We travelled to Luna to attend a UN meeting to discuss the crisis.

3 assassins tried to kill Ramirez. Rodregiz had been staying with him and was in the shower at the time. The assassins were also immune to anything short of lethal wounds. The assassins were killed but Ramirez nearly died as well.

The UN agreed to meet the chromatics with everything available to blow it to pieces. There was a plan to send 4 teams to 4 of the ships to try to rescue the teleporters. We were assigned to 1 team with Ravit Israli, a pilot and clairsentiant, N'gamba to teleport us and Wei as a backup telepath.

We were transported to Mare Inganni, a base on the far side of the moon. 4 scarab frigates were waiting. We got a fusion warhead which I jury rigged with a timer that we could leave behind on the chromatic ship. When the chromatics jumped in 1 day from earth we moved to intercept.

As we approached the chromatics N'gamba teleported us on board. We appeared in a storeroom. I set up the fusion warhead behind some boxes. When we left the storeroom we encountered chromatics immediately. After a short fight we teleported directly to the bridge and killed the chromatics there. There was a human in the ceiling attached to machinery. N'gamba said it was Clarence. We freed him. As we did so, a 1 metre diameter ball of light came from Wei. It seemed resistant to our weapons so we teleported out.

Two of the chromatic ships escaped, one badly damaged. No other telepaths were rescued as the other frigates were destroyed, but the attack was repelled.