The Ace of Spades Campaign - Alien Base part 11

Alien Base Sub Level 3
Rebecca rejoined her colleagues on Sub-Level 3 just as they were about to explore the rest of the corridor that led east from the elevator room. She reassured them that Tara Seven was fine and informed them about Tara's inertialism powers. Danica was sorry she had been the cause of Tara's woes, but as Rebecca pointed out, it was just an unfortunate co-incidence and Tara should have mentioned it earlier.

In this part of the base there were two rooms that they hadn't explored yet. Both were heavily protected by multiple forcefields and gun turrets, which were now inactive, allowing for easy access. The first room was the android and robot control room. The rectangular-shaped room contained a great bank of switches, dials and microphones on its long eastern wall. A number of low desks, of two different designs, were scattered about. One desk was crescent-shaped, the others were rectangular. Forms and papers with hand-written notes covered all but the crescent desk, which was clean. The explorers took all of the papers with them.
At the far end of the corridor was the android and robot repair and fabrication centre. On a low slung table were a number of androids, being built to look like Thonne natives. This was further proof that the Npurth were capable of building androids of considerable sophistication. In addition, there were a number of security and maintenance robots in various stages of repair filling up the rest of the room.
The party left and moved on to explore what lay in the corridor leading south from the elevator room. This section of the base contained rooms dedicated to recreation and combat. Five long greenhouses situated in a line were full of insects and animals which adult Npurth were fond of hunting. They were given only cursory inspections from their entrances and none of the party entered any of these rooms. The other two rooms were swimming pools, one small and the other much larger. Again, they were only given cursory inspections but it was clear that unknown aquatic creatures occupied both pools.

Alien Base Sub Level 4
Descending to Sub Level 4, the lowest level of the base, the elevator opened onto a square room with a single door in each of its four walls. The door to the north led to a huge room that was filled with a number of blank, seemingly useless walls, arranged in four columns and five rows. It was Johan who recognised them as accumulators and that this room controlled all the power for the base. Controls at the base of each wall could be adjusted but the party decided not to tamper with them.
In the north-east corner of the room was a narrow access tunnel that led to a circular room. They sent Smiley in to investigate. She was assailed with an almost intolerable heat that came from a deep shaft filled with a yellow glow in the centre of the floor. Pipes ran down (or up) but it was impossible to see how far down they went. This was an "earth-tap" and the shaft went through the planet's crust into its mantle. The working fluid was boiled by this heat just as in a conventional reactor.

To the east of the elevator was a large room divided into many cubicles arranged side by side in four rows of twenty cubicles. This was were the Npurth barracked but now it was completely empty. Each cubicle was two yards square and contained a soft, silky mattress and a small locker at the back.

The door to the west of the elevator led to a long corridor bristling with gun turrets, forcefields and sliding doors. Clearly, it led to somewhere special. A room, twelve yards square, with a heavy blast door in the centre of its north wall lay open to them. It was full of equipment, all of it operating. A number of screens were visible, some of which were biological displays, others tactical, and one that was unmistakably showing The Ace of Spades' orbital track. That one had cross-hairs on it. In actual fact, that screen meant little, since the weaponry it required was in the submarine pen on one of the cargo modules. Some analysis of the equipment quickly revealed turret and robot overrides, as well as identifying all programmed clone tanks, which were located south of the elevator room.
The blast door opened easily to the main computer room. This room was filled with one yard diameter tubes rising from floor to ceiling. A small bank of controls was located in the centre of the room. The room was quite dark. Lynda discovered that the control panel could entirely override the main computer and, through it, everything in the base. This put her in complete control and ensured that they would have no more problems in the base and that their escape was assured.
Interrogating the computer, Lynda learned the location of the Npurth homeworld, which was in uncharted space. The computer knew that the homeworld was under attack, but did not know by whom or why. The computer's tentative track of the menace indicated that it would pass very near, or even through, human occupied space. Finally, the computer had a distress message from the last Npurth ship to leave this planet. It reported that it was being attacked by a totally alien ship. It did not have a description of the aliens manning the ship nor did it know if they were in any way connected to the trouble at home.

They completed their exploration without any complications and with considerable ease. South of the elevator room were the clone tanks, containing many clones of the humans from the DSX Timothy, Pnarms like Chembles, as well as eggs for clones of the insectoid-like Npurth. They also found three adult Npurth being held in stasis fields. They decided to take all three back with them so that they could be examined by UFP xenobiologists and research staff. Naturally, they did not bring them out of stasis.
They also found a couple of rooms used for storing personality crystals. These little crystals were about an inch in diameter. Human crystals were a dull red, and Pnarm crystals were canary yellow. The crystal was actually crystallised protein and if placed under the skin (not eaten, as digestive juices simply broke it up) would dissolve and leave the personality in the brain fully functional. Normally, they were used to give a blank clone a complete education prior to the insertion of the Npurth larva. The crystals were not especially pretty and had no intrinsic value, but the party gathered all that they could find to take back with them.
At this point, the explorers returned to the submarine and departed the base. Once back on the surface of the planet, Storm contacted Kimberley to inform her that they were ready to leave and that their mission was a complete success.