The Search for the HighnDry: Session 2

The second and final session of our search for the lost scout ship HighnDry.

As an interesting side note, during character creation, one of the players randomly rolled a Psion of significant strength. While I know this as a player, Gabe remains completely unaware that one of his friends possesses such exceptional abilities. Since I’m chronicling these adventures from Gabe’s perspective, there’s no mention of who among the team is the Psion.

I often wonder how Gabe will react when he eventually finds out.

205 – 1102 Cont…

Started the morning cleaning up the trash Kimberly scattered across the island. The others worked on getting the airlock open. Sun gave me a chance to dry off after the swim.

Made it onto the ship. Place was wrecked—looked like the old crew stripped it for anything worth selling. Helped Zem and Mitch load crates while Max worked on bringing the power back online.

Spent most of the day inside, fixing up the electrical systems. Replaced some panels the scavengers left behind. Took longer than I’d hoped.

Caught Mitch asleep on a cot when he was supposed to be sorting gear and clearing trash. Typical. While cleanin’ up, we stumbled on a crate of seismic charges—those’ll come in handy for the survey.

Ended the day working with Coop and Zem on the drive system. Wrapped up just after sunset. I rigged up a fire pit and some benches. Figured we’d earned a quiet night under the stars.

206-1102

Coop and Zem stayed on ship duty. Mitch and I spent the day plantin’ seismic charges for the survey.

Mornin’ was calm—lake like glass, air crisp. Mitch said it was peaceful. Surprised me. Didn’t think he was the type to notice, but maybe I misjudged him.

I mapped out the charge placements across the island. Took all day. Mitch knows his way around explosives—showed me a few tricks that kept my hands attached.

We dropped a couple sensors down some lava tubes. Dry, quiet, and warm compared to the surface.

By the time we swam back, sun was long down. Coop and Zem were wrappin’ up diagnostics. OS is loaded now, which means the clock’s ticking. Ship’s gotta be Scout-ready soon.

207-1102

Woke early and ran the survey. Mitch handled the charges while I monitored from the bridge. Everything was smooth at first—good data, fast results. Then the mountain started to shake. Minor anomaly, plume of gas from the southwest. Zem lifted the HighnDry just in case.

Flying over the crater, I noticed the lake bubblin’. I figured it for a bad sign, and sure enough, the water level dropped. I had Mitch radio Allen—looked like the mountain was wakin’ up.

Survey wrapped up and confirmed what we feared: volcanic activity risin’. Small eruption expected within months, mostly harmless. Gas and ash might drift west, but no major threat. Still, the model was runnin’ on a limited map—needed more data.

Allen called in as we were liftin’ off, and right then, the alarms lit up. Mountain was fixin’ to blow in six minutes. Lava started spewin’, ash cloud risin’. I relayed updates to Allen while Zem got us to a safe distance. We started sharing data with the town Salbarii and anyone else we could get on the coms.

Allen asked for a live feed of the eruption. We agreed. I set it up, and Zem kept us steady. By then, lava was flowin’, and part of the southwest slope collapsed. It was heading straight for the town Barvinn. We raised the alert and a ship named the Ocean’s Bounty radioed in—en route to evacuate.

Durin’ the call, Dictator Masterton cut in. He said he was comin’ to oversee the evacuation personally and asked us to track the lava flow. We did. Flow showed Barvinn would be hit in two hours—just enough time for evac.

To get better readings, we planted more seismic sensors. Mitch handled placement while Zem moved the ship. New data came in—lava slowed, but only because a plug had formed. Pressure was building. Fast. Readings showed a deadly pyroclastic surge was imminent. We sent out an open broadcast. Anyone left in Barvinn wouldn’t survive.

Barvinn claimed they were evacuated—then we got a distress call. A family had just arrived in town. Masterton asked us to get them out. At the same time, we heard about a stranded farm couple. No time for both. We chose Barvinn.

On approach, we picked up a grav car on radar—Walston 1. Woman said she was rescuing her parents. We reached Barvinn and Zem landed hard, crushin’ a pickup. Mitch and Coop helped the family aboard. Panic everywhere. The mountain erupted mid-evac, but we got them all.

Right after lift-off, Walston 1 called a mayday. They was damaged and driftin’ out to sea. We only had a minute or two before the ash cloud hit ‘um. Zem pushed the engines and brought us in close. They fired flares. Three Varger came running, one badly wounded. We got them in and took off fast.

Zem made a call—fly through the ash cloud. It was our best shot. The hit was brutal. If I hadn’t been strapped in, I’d have been tossed like a ragdoll. We lost power. Coop saved our asses in engineering, got systems back online. Zem regained control and tried to level us out, but we slammed hard into the ocean.

As soon as we stopped, I ran from the bridge, grabbed Zem’s med kit, and headed to the hangar. The civilians were wrecked—broken bones, concussions, panic. I did what I could—splints, pressure wraps. Found Coop barely conscious. He wasn’t strapped in and took a beating. I patched him up and got him to his quarters.

Zem must’ve submerged the ship to ride out the worst. Once it passed, he brought us up and flew to Walston. Ambulances were waiting at the pad. Coop and Mitch went to the hospital. Even Kimberly got checked out.

Masterton thanked us in person. Allen set us up in a nice place to recover while the crew healed. We made the news. Got some recognition. Even got help repairin’ the ship.

Hell of a day.

208 thru 221-1102

We spent two weeks there while the team recovered and we made repairs to the HighnDry. They even topped off our fuel tanks and stocked us with good food—enough to last a solid two weeks in the black.

230-1102

We arrive at Bowman and land at the Scout station. Bowman was an asteroid base with not much memorable. They resupply us and refuel. We depart the same day and head for Asteltine.

238-1102

We touched down at the starport on Asteltine—easily the nicest port I’ve seen since Flammarion. Clean, organized, and well-run. We took the chance to resupply again while we had access to good stuff.

247-1102

We landed at Flammarion and were greeted by a maintenance crew that looked none too happy with the state of our ship. Can’t blame them—it’s beat to hell. We tried to explain, but we got called to report to Anders Casarii and didn’t have time to chat.

Coop gave Anders the short version—what went down and why the HighnDry looked like it had been through a war zone. Anders didn’t seem too bothered. In fact, he seemed pleased with how things turned out and paid us 1,000 credits each. Then he hit us with another job. He wants us to fly the ship to Mille Falcs for deep repairs. Promised us priority status for a new ship if we made the delivery.

I almost said no. I had mustered out, was planning to head home and settle into somethin’ quiet. Figured I was done washin’ blood off my hands and stitching up broken teammates. But when Anders asked, I caught myself noddin’ right along with the rest of the fellas.

Guess I’m not ready to hang it all up just yet.