Episode 8: Contractually Yours: Scapegoats, Forever
The crew finally meets Dr. Voss and discovers her true motives. They take to the stars with broken contracts, but a new friend (or two).
Meet the Crew:
Jeff as Star Master (Game Master)
Brian as Captain Thorn
Stephanie as the warrior Haley
Doja as the wildcard pilot Robert
Scott as the transhuman hacker Felix
Support on Patreon
Special thanks to Brad and Holly, our first Scapegoat Syndicate members on Patreon!
They're keeping the lights on and the airlocks sealed.
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Episode 8
Star Master Jeff: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Dark Star Adventure Cast, where the stars are cold. The void is endless and dangers lurk in every shadow out here. Trust is a gamble and survival is never guaranteed.
Felix: On tonight's adventure cast, let's just say. I have no interest in ending up in an omnitech prison.
Robert Ross: I didn't think these corporate has beens could stoop any lower.
Haleyy: Yeah. But there I'll find the people that killed my sister
Felix: Knowledge, information technology. That's what I'm after.
Star Master Jeff: So sit back and enjoy. This is the Dark Star adventure cast.
Chaos: Woo. Yeah.
Star Master Jeff: Been a minute. How are we feeling about the death of Victor strike? Well, how do we feel about Felix killing Victor strike in cold blood and then Robert [00:01:00] dumping his body out of the scapegoat?
Felix: Is it cold blood? If I was high under the influence while it happened, is that still cold blood or is that like,
Star Master Jeff: what would make it not cold blood in that instance to you, if he was warm?
Star Master Jeff: Does that somehow make it better?
Felix: Yeah, it wasn't cold and calculated. It was just, you know, that was vibing. It was a vibe kill.
Star Master Jeff: You weren't cold or calculated. You were running hut and very spontaneous. Yep.
Felix: But I mean, and now, now his brother, I guess is gonna be after us. Oh yeah. Right. He seemed pretty chill.
Felix: We killed his brother though. Yeah. That didn't really give any chase.
Robert Ross: Yeah. That's definitely not gonna come up in the future. Anything.
Star Master Jeff: No way. I also, before we really get started, I wanted to highlight that I think. Haley had the most genius plan last episode that has happened in this campaign so far.
Haleyy: Shocking. I know.
Star Master Jeff: She's like, what if we'd like the purple flowers on fire and then no more ideas. Everyone was like, good idea. Hey, that settles it. When
Robert Ross: you hit a a banger, you just, everybody goes with it [00:02:00] until somebody's like, and then we roll down the windows, and I was like, oh, if Hailey
Felix: comes up with more ideas to get Felix High, I am all on board with that.
Felix: Yeah.
Star Master Jeff: I don't think anyone thought Felix was gonna get high. I don't, everyone forgot he was like super into drugs when they went with no entire, forgot that. No, none. I forgot it. And then he did. You did not. He
Haleyy: did not forget and he huffed it and I was like,
Star Master Jeff: oh no,
Felix: I just can't wait to get off off pizza.
Felix: Like I am tired of being on the smelly ass planet.
Robert Ross: 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
Star Master Jeff: you were cheering on two different things, neither of which seemed to have happened.
Star Master Jeff: One blowing up the car, no one knew why, but blowing up the car and two. Froggy becoming the voice of a revolution that you were trying to start, but the way you tried to start it was getting froggy, [00:03:00] getting froggy to get back on the radio. It
Felix: was you. As soon as you said the word plutonium, everyone was like, Hmm, hmm.
Felix: Wait a minute. What else could we use this car for?
Star Master Jeff: It just reminds me of Robert rubbing his hair all over things and being like, plan accomplished.
Felix: Master of disguise.
Star Master Jeff: 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 then took off to go retrieve Dr.
Star Master Jeff: Voss 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 save her.
Felix: Yeah. Something tells me the same guys that came to find us might have paid her a visit as well. So all we have to do is get back to her lab, right. We can finally ditch this place, hopefully with our lives and our fancy car.
Star Master Jeff: So that seems like a good place as I need to start. So why don't we get into it?
Star Master Jeff: It's late afternoon as you fly low over the city of Waa, [00:04:00] making your way back towards the southern part of the city. Back to Dr. Larvas, you spent all this time trying to just convince her to come with you, that now that you've finally done the deed that she. You to accomplish and retrieved your ship. Now she is in peril and everything you've worked for is about to become undone.
Star Master Jeff: There is a spot nearby where you could park the ship. So Robert, you touched down gently in the scapegoat and the crew disembarks and begins to make its way Wly towards msra four, where Dr is hopefully still waiting for you.
Haleyy: I really hope we don't lose the ship again.
Star Master Jeff: Tell me about it. Let's make this quick.
Star Master Jeff: When you're about a block away, you can see that there is smoke rising from the front of Radda four. And as you draw closer, you can see that the door has been breached, scorch marks all around the edges. Smoke rising from the hole that was made in the wall in front of you is simply a dark void. There doesn't seem to be any power inside [00:05:00] the station.
Star Master Jeff: Gazing inside with only the sunlight to help you. You cannot see much.
Felix: I pull out the radio doc, you still there? Yes.
Dr. Voss: I can't talk right now.
Felix: I think I don't even answer that because I feel like that means that, uh, if I say anything, it's compromising. So I just look at the others and I say, seems like the good doctor is in need of a rescue.
Haleyy: Let's get it done guys.
Felix: Okay.
Star Master Jeff: And you make your way into the research station.
Star Master Jeff: The air is very cold in here. It actually feels like the environmental systems have maybe gone a little bit of haywire and are just pumping out air conditioned air constantly, regardless of the temperature outside. It's quite frankly. Getting close to freezing in here. The lights are all off. There are flickering LEDs on various control panels and electronics throughout this hallway, but there are no doors.
Star Master Jeff: It's a very [00:06:00] short hallway. 10 feet opens up into a slightly larger area. In here is a living room area. Appears to have been the subject of a massive explosion, but not anytime recently. The combat experts amongst you, Robert, and Hailey, don't smell any smoke and don't detect any recent like fire or explosions or anything like that.
Star Master Jeff: So whatever happened to 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 that leads to a bathroom.
Robert Ross: Well, yeah. Where do you think Elara is? I mean, we might as well check the bathroom here real quick.
Haleyy: Yeah. Uh, I'm gonna go check the, check the bathroom.
Haleyy: Someone can back me up.
Robert Ross: Yeah, no, I'm right behind you. Grab your shoulder. Have have you leave through. And I'm on Overwatch behind you.
Felix: Should somebody like keep an eye on the scapegoat perhaps?
Robert Ross: What are they gonna do? Steal it again.
Star Master Jeff: So Hailey, you and Robert make your way over to the bathroom. Mm-hmm. It's a multi [00:07:00] stall affair.
Star Master Jeff: So as you peak with your rifle at the ready, you see there are multiple stalls and multiple sinks, 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.
Haleyy: What the hell? There's something real off here, you guys.
Robert Ross: Um, this is the, the low temperature, the lack of people around here.
Robert Ross: Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm getting a real bad feeling about this
Felix: at this point. I feel like I have no option but to radio the doctor again.
Haleyy: Yeah. I, I think we, yeah.
Felix: So I, I just pull the radio back out and I radio as quietly as possible. Hopefully she can turn down the volume on her end, but I just say through the radio ler at the research station, where are you?
Star Master Jeff: You hear a loud electronic noise. And everyone's eyes snap up to the corner to see a camera aggressively swing towards you. It's red light blinking. And over the radio, you hear [00:08:00]
Dr. Voss: there are three of them in here. Go to your right, go down the hallway and fucking kill them and get me out of here.
Felix: Oh, you hurt the cranky doctor.
Dr. Voss: I'm not cranky. I'm not cranky.
Felix: I, I, oops. And then I like switch hits. 'cause I did not mean for
Felix: think of that part. I get Thorn. I know Cranky. She's cranky. That's cranky.
Robert Ross: Plastic,
Robert Ross: cranky.
Dr. Voss: I'm not cranky.
Haleyy: We know. You're just very stressed out. Ma'am.
Dr. Voss: You don't even have to press the button. I can hear you when you're in my station.
Dr. Voss: I can hear. I can see you and I can see how. Goddamn slow. You're going kill these guys. I need to get outta here soon.
Felix: Well, you heard the clearly not cranky doctor.
Star Master Jeff: You see a flashlight play out over the wall of the hallway on the right side, like that doorway that you're supposed to be going through, and you hear two whispered voices and you swear.
Star Master Jeff: You hear a man say. Yeah, over here some sort of radio or something.
Felix: I look up at everybody like Uhoh here. Here's our [00:09:00] company. I look for cover, like whatever nearest cover I can find and duck behind it.
Robert Ross: I hit the deck. Find cover.
Star Master Jeff: There is a overturned couch that is overturned into a corner because of some blast.
Star Master Jeff: Same thing with a larger coffee table that's probably five feet long and there's also an entertainment center that's fallen over onto the ground.
Felix: Yeah, I get behind that couch. Yeah. I give Haley the universal but silent signal for, Hey, gimme that gun back.
Haleyy: I, I hand, I, I give him the gun back
Felix: and then I take it and I.
Felix: Make for the cover since I, I didn't realize you were so much specked for punching.
Star Master Jeff: So, Robert Ross hit the deck. Felix is hiding behind a couch. Thorn is hiding. Hailey, what are you doing?
Haleyy: Yeah, can I sneak by to the other side of the entrance to wait for them to enter the room and get behind them?
Star Master Jeff: Yeah.
Star Master Jeff: The old, the old storage container. Yeah. Yeah. The same thing. The last part, last time. At the power station, we definitely have an mo I,
Haleyy: I, I, uh, rush over there, crouched down, not rush, but like I sneak over there, crouched down. Down and [00:10:00] stand over by the doors to wait for them to come into the room.
Star Master Jeff: Okay, so the first guy you see his flash, like you see the, the tip of his gun poked through the door and is a flashlight attached to the top of it, and it looks like a, a laser rifle just like the 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.
Omnitek Soldier: Hello.
Robert Ross: Hey, good looking what you got Cooking.
Star Master Jeff: And the guy takes a step into the room and says, put your hands on your head.
Robert Ross: Only if you paint me like one of your French girls.
Haleyy: I punch 'em in the face.
Star Master Jeff: Do you have a warrior yell when you do that?
Haleyy: Nope. No yell or
Thorne: Not...not like
Thorne: some sort of Xena style ululation.
Haleyy: Nope. I just go rah just to like get the noise out. Just go rah and like punch the guy in the face. I will work on the yell, the combat yell. I'm still working to find my identity on the [00:11:00] blackout one crew.
Felix: Apparently that's not us anymore.
Felix: Apparently we're the Elara Voss crew.
Haleyy: True. Oh my God.
Robert Ross: They have no respect for blackout one or strike team six.
Thorne: Yeah, right.
Haleyy: But either way, I just went after this guy. I'm gonna save you guys. I go right and I grab his gun out of his hand so I can throw it to the ground and then I grab him by the back of his head and shove it into my knee and throw his body down to the ground as well.
Star Master Jeff: He is instantly unconscious from the knee maneuver and his friend snaps his gun up.
Star Master Jeff: Flashlight directly at your face. Now's a good time for Thorn to go who is readied with his rifle.
Felix: That is perfect. 'cause 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.
Felix: And when I see this guy train his gun on Haley, I take that as my opportunity. I rolled a 13 [00:12:00] to hit him. 13 hit. And it deals nine points of damage. Oh my,
Haleyy: oh my God.
Felix: The bullet just pierces right through his neck. He was, he was ready to pull the trigger, but he was a split second. Too late.
Star Master Jeff: He gargles on his own blood as he slumps against the wall in a parody of what happened to froggy and slumps down to the floor dead.
Felix: I know how to Hailey.
Haleyy: Thanks Thorn.
Felix: Well, we better hurry. These guys were armed, right? Yes. They
Star Master Jeff: both
Felix: had laser rifles. I grab another one of the rifles and I just thrust it towards Felix, even though he's not much of a shooter. I just wanna make sure everybody leaves this situation heavily armed. Thanks boss.
Felix: I joined the
Felix: group
Felix: out
Felix: from behind the couch.
Felix: Make our way down the, uh, the
Star Master Jeff: hallway. So the hallway's not very long. There is a door to your left. Shortly after traversing down part of the hallway, this is the kitchen area. Further along there is a. Closed door, big metal door with a viewing window in it that has metal mesh built into the [00:13:00] window so that it's shatterproof.
Star Master Jeff: 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 him from all angles.
Felix: I waited for the,
Star Master Jeff: the heavies
Felix: to, to
Star Master Jeff: take '
Felix: em out.
Haleyy: Robert, do you wanna take this one or,
Robert Ross: yeah, I think I
Star Master Jeff: might, uh, might give her a whirl. So, as you say that over the radio, a Lara says,
Dr. Voss: don't shoot your guns in that room.
Star Master Jeff: And you hear the whir of a camera up above your head once again. Why not?
Felix: We'll leave it.
Felix: We're leaving anyway. Who cares about all that equipment?
Dr. Voss: It's incredibly important equipment.
Felix: I mean, it does look nice. We would like to play with it a little
Dr. Voss: bit. Years of research I've spent here. Do not shoot your gun in that room.
Haleyy: Fine. Not fine. I, I totally understand. I've been in this situation before.
Haleyy: Okay.
Felix: Unfortunately, poor Hailey's gonna have to close line a motherfucker again.
Haleyy: Yeah. Let's describe this. [00:14:00] Situation Again, just to make sure I position myself correctly,
Star Master Jeff: there is a metal door in front of you with a small viewing window that you can see through, and then inside there is a square room with the walls completely all four walls, completely crowded by electronics and monitors.
Star Master Jeff: There is a man typing onto a e-board at a terminal with his back to you on the far wall.
Haleyy: The sky's gonna know as soon as we open the door. Well, we can't shoot anything.
Star Master Jeff: I might be able to help with that.
Haleyy: Ooh, what? What do you got from me?
Star Master Jeff: All of a sudden you hear a heavy, deep base coming from the room in front of you, thorn.
Star Master Jeff: You instantly recognize the riff of red reverie coming through his speakers. This is
Felix: amazing, a classic.
Star Master Jeff: So the guy inside looks up in frustration and you just hear him pointing his gun at all the monitors. And just screaming and yelling his head off. Clearly super pissed off at the music coming out of the
Haleyy: speakers.
Haleyy: I used this opportunity to run in.
Star Master Jeff: Okay, you throw open the door, I'll shoot you the shit. What the fuck? He turns around just as you're upon him. Yep.
Haleyy: I am leapfrogging over [00:15:00] desks. I am jumping and. I'm coming down on him with my fist and it connects a left hook for the ages, and he just very much spins a bit and plops down back into his chair.
Star Master Jeff: 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 this mammoth iron fist crashing into him. Red River returns down, and Dr. Laura VA says,
Dr. Voss: great. Great. That's all of them. Thank you. Thank you. Was that so hard?
Haleyy: No, ma'am.
Haleyy: It was. All right. We're here to get you.
Felix: It was harder than I would've liked, but let's get outta here. Yeah, let's get, well, the getting's good.
Star Master Jeff: I guess. I didn't really think about this part.
Dr. Voss: Okay. Don't freak out.
Haleyy: Is Elara a robot? You're a program, aren't you?
Dr. Voss: I'm not a robot or a program. I'm a person.
Haleyy: When were you a, when are you a, when have [00:16:00] you been a person?
Star Master Jeff: I was a person up until about two years ago. I'm still a person. Yep. But I currently live in a machine
Star Master Jeff: from deep within the machinery before you. A blue steel orb crisscrossed with strange hieroglyphics begins to glow with a cold white light. A celestial harmony rings through the air as red revelry fades the or pulsates in time with Dr. Voss voice, which comes from speakers all around you.
Chaos: It's sort of a long.
Chaos: Story.
Felix: Well, hot damn doc. You're just full of surprises.
Chaos: I'm still a Zeno linguist.
Felix: Yeah, you're, I mean, no, you're so much more than that. Look at this.
Felix: Look at you. Oh. All right, Felix. Calm. Calm down. Beautiful. Keep it in your pants.
Star Master Jeff: I'm not comfortable with this. Just leave me here. Just leave me here.
Robert Ross: Yeah. I think you're coming with, or, or, or we can burn it and burn it with fire.
Star Master Jeff: I think we've burned enough today. How do we transport you, doctor? The glass encasement that surrounds her [00:17:00] SNS and slides into the machinery. Once you disconnect me, I won't be able to talk anymore.
Felix: Do we have speakers in the, uh, scape code? Dr. Va? Will we get you back to the ship? How do I reconnect you
Star Master Jeff: when you bring me to the ship?
Star Master Jeff: Just put me near your communication station.
Felix: All right. We can do that.
Robert Ross: Felix, is it gonna be safe? She's gonna hack into the ship op. I'm, she's, she's clearly a, a program cyborg. Robert. Robert, we have,
Felix: I'm not a cyborg, I'm a human. We have so much to learn from her. We don't have time have for this right now.
Felix: It's time to go. We really, really don't. Let's go.
Robert Ross: Tam with people. I'm, I'm gonna tell you. I told you so, but yeah, let's, let's do it. Let's do
Felix: it. So I reach in and I disconnect Dr. Voss from her system. Okay.
Star Master Jeff: Her light is still on, but she's no longer able to communicate, not home.
Felix: I think she's, I think she's aware, she's can communicate.
Felix: I was thinking the same thing. Yeah. I'm picking up what you're putting down,
Felix: so I will cradle her gently and gesture the team that it's time to go.
Star Master Jeff: Okay. Everyone makes their way back to the scapegoat, which this time [00:18:00] has not been stolen. Thank God. Board the scapegoat with Dr. Olavo In your
Felix: arms, Felix, and what would you like to do?
Felix: Set her down next to the communication station while you get the ship ready for takeoff,
Star Master Jeff: 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. The communication station seems to respond in kind. She rolls over slightly, almost as if responding to a gravity shift before catching on something.
Star Master Jeff: On the communications panel, a spark erupts and she sinks into the LCD panel. From outta the speakers of the scapegoat, you hear Dr. Larvas say, I didn't mean to ruin the panel, but I had to connect somehow.
Felix: No worries. Panels can be replaced. Yeah. Felix
Felix: will get right on that.
Star Master Jeff: So I guess I have some explaining to do.
Felix: I actually have a lot of questions for you. Plenty of time for that once we're safely off world.
Haleyy: Yeah. It it's [00:19:00] gotten kind of messy here.
Robert Ross: Yeah. I feel like we need to, uh, make tracks people. Let's get outta here.
Star Master Jeff: Okay. So you guys kind of silence her for a minute and you're gonna wait till you're safely up in orbit.
Star Master Jeff: You warm up the engines and you take off from Wolffia, 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 a. The coordinates of the mysterious signal that supposedly Omnitech gave you, but it's looking increasingly like they never gave you that mission at all.
Felix: Alright. Somebody here has some explaining to do.
Star Master Jeff: Right? Okay. It's not complicated. And then she proceeds to tell you an incredibly complicated thing. Of course. Okay. There is some truth to be told. I am a Xeno linguist. My name is Dr. Lar Voss. I am human. I was with a team on Wolffia. Our. Mission was to discover alien [00:20:00] artifacts, which we were quite successful at.
Star Master Jeff: Wolffia has quite a few of them. And to study them, research them, and then ship them off world. This was after the troubled times after Wolffia 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. All the more painful, we found this orb.
Star Master Jeff: Well, Tom found this orb and uh, it was nasty. Like all the other items we found. We ran through the tests, but when we introduced it to electrical current, it reacted poorly. The explosion killed us all.
Star Master Jeff: I remember dying, but I woke up 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.
Felix: Wait, what was it? The artifact?
Star Master Jeff: Yes. Whatever this artifact is it transferred or. Copied my intelligence into itself. I'm not an artificial [00:21:00] intelligence.
Star Master Jeff: I'm something more, something human ENT trapped.
Felix: But only you, not any of your comrades.
Star Master Jeff: No, I was, I was performing the experiment. I was in direct contact with the artifact when it happened. That's all I can imagine is the reason why I survived. If you can call it a survival that explains who I am, but it doesn't explain what I've done.
Star Master Jeff: Once my team died, well, I didn't want omnitech that. Know exactly what I was, I wanted help, but I didn't want the type of help that Omnitech would bring to me as a scientist with Omnitech, I know that I would just be researched and prodded. So I began looking into everything I could in the computer system, including everything off world that I could access.
Star Master Jeff: I ran outta things to look at.
Felix: Well, the Xnet only has so much on offer.
Star Master Jeff: I started digging into my own past. I started looking back at my own planet, you know, see how people are doing, and that's. That's when everything changed for me. [00:22:00] I discovered the truth. The truth of Verad Dine Industries, when I was a girl, Verad Dine purchased my settlement.
Star Master Jeff: They employed everyone there, made it into a corporate town.
Felix: Sounds familiar to me.
Star Master Jeff: We were in poverty. It was a backwater, po dunk planet, and we were barely scraping by, but Dyne gave everyone opportunity. People like me, intelligent, capable. We were given jobs mostly off world. Working for Raddy or Raddy subsidiaries.
Star Master Jeff: Like Omnitech, things did not work out so well for the people that stayed on world. Raddy experimented on them. Terrible, terrible genetics experiments put on by their other subsidiary company, Promethean. I couldn't let that lie. I couldn't let that stand. I quickly fabricated an illusion around this research station.
Star Master Jeff: The explosion that killed me and my teammates never happened. Covered it up. I. Fabricated reports. They went out on a schedule. Omnitech [00:23:00] thought we were still operational, discovering and researching alien artifacts. Everything was well. And then I bent my new powers to take down Raddy Labs, and this is where you come in.
Robert Ross: Really? Now this better be good. Definitely don't trust your metal.
Star Master Jeff: A long range hauler had to go fairly far afield to avoid a cosmic storm near the outer limits of the sector out there. He detected something. On a serious signal, but he didn't know what he was looking at. He thought it was just simple background radiation, so he ignored it.
Star Master Jeff: But when he docked on Sybil, all of his transit logs were uploaded to the Space Transit Authority. I have thousands of notifications waiting for just such an event, and one of them was raised. I downloaded the signal, I looked through the logs, and although it was garbled, I immediately recognized the telltale signature markings of a Promethean technology signal, the very corporation.
Star Master Jeff: That experimented on and effectively destroyed [00:24:00] my home world,
Felix: those
Star Master Jeff: bastards. So I hatched a plan. What can I say? I'm vengeful. First, I would need a ship, and then I would need a crew to pilot it. I don't have access to everything, but one thing I do have access to is omnitech systems. I called up a list of candidates that I could call to active duty.
Star Master Jeff: I filtered that list again and again. People that were not currently on active duty, people relegated to desk work, prisoners contracted with omnitech that nobody would miss. People that work in the shadows, people that are obscure. 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.
Star Master Jeff: And lastly, a respectable businessman. To be my voice, they would need a ship. One that wouldn't be missed. I found a practically derelict omnitech merchant class rotting away on Camira four. I fabricated a mission detail. I scheduled you, the crew. I gathered you to the space station. And I let my prerecorded briefing play out, [00:25:00] get the ship, come collect me from Mafia, and let's go figure out what that mysterious signal is.
Star Master Jeff: Of course, I already know what it is. It's a secret Promethean base. Raddy is incredibly protective over where Prometheans headquarters is. So once the ship is within range of this mysterious signal, the virus that I've been writing would be uploaded from Raytheon's Airlocks Way open. Their environmental systems would crash, and all of their data would.
Star Master Jeff: Be erased. Lastly, the reactor would explode,
Star Master Jeff: truly turning to dust, any hopes of recovering the valuable data stored on that godforsaken base.
Haleyy: Haley brushes to the window and is just like, oh my God. Please, please let nothing be exploding for real, and it just VA's sound effects.
Star Master Jeff: Foss pauses for a second and everyone kind of looks at you, Hailey, and then she continues, but.
Star Master Jeff: Things didn't exactly go to plan before you got here. My [00:26:00] gas main was switched off, forcing me to go onto reserve power. I couldn't access the exome net anymore. I had pause development of my virus. So when you got here, I had to send you to turn the power back on. And while that happened, the guardians of the work stole your ship.
Robert Ross: And luckily we got my baby back.
Star Master Jeff: I didn't wanna have to tell you any of this. I was hoping to leave you out of it. But now, Raddy, omnitech, and Promethean, and hell, probably half of the other corporations. Raddy has under its umbrella, are probably aware of you and worst of all, Victor Strike, who everyone knows about the top risk assessment officer at Raddy
Felix: and everyone knows him,
Star Master Jeff: is assigned to this case.
Star Master Jeff: Everyone knows Victor. His record is spotless and I guarantee he will not let us be the black spot On that record, I've collected some information. I can see through your ship's, cameras, the looks on some of your faces. Why should we help her? She tricked us. Why would we ever wanna help? Per, before you make a decision about whether to simply dump [00:27:00] me out the airlock or actually take me to that Promethean base, let me show you a couple things.
Star Master Jeff: Is that okay?
Felix: Yeah. But to, to be honest, I, I'm totally on board with helping you. I just, I, this is really cool tech and I just wanna get my hands on it longer.
Star Master Jeff: This is my, this is my body
Felix: though. Yeah, but you can't feel this, can you? I knock on it. No, I can't, but I
Star Master Jeff: don't like it. Still
Felix: Felix, don't put your hands on the doctor's body.
Star Master Jeff: Alright, I'll ask first. I'm sorry. Felix Learns boundaries, episode eight of the Adventure Cast. All right, what do you got for us, Haley and Robert? A video comes up on the communications screen. It's a some sort of black ops mission, some infiltration. It's a body cam by a soldier on that mission. Aw, she narrates over it.
Star Master Jeff: This is strike four six on their final mission. Robert, you were there, Hailey, your older sister was in command. It didn't go exactly how Omni Tech told you it went. And on screen you could see Hailey as shown from Robert's cam on his chest boarding [00:28:00] into a helicopter and taking off. As a ton of gorilla fighters are swarming the jungles below.
Star Master Jeff: In the distance you see a mech, towering stories high, the fires, the missiles. Striking the helicopter
Chaos: a glitch in the video,
Star Master Jeff: and then Robert's crawling across the ground and you see Hailey under a bush dead.
Robert Ross: I don't know why you're showing us this. I was there and I never, never wanted to see that again.
Star Master Jeff: Several documents come up on screen. This is proof of Vene and omni text's Compency. In Hailey's death. You thought you were sent there to liberate a colony assist in [00:29:00] the red rice wars. What you didn't know is that you yourself were an experiment.
Star Master Jeff: Your squad Robert sent into. Save. Haley. Haley sent before you to help the colony and everything that transpired there. It was a test, a test that you failed. Would they go forward with the type of experiments and training that produced someone like you, Robert? Would they go a different way?
Robert Ross: And that's all we're worth.
Robert Ross: Just an experiment. Just ones and zeros, just, just a number in the file and that. That was why Haley was taken from us. God, I didn't think these corporate has beens could stoop any lower. Now, LAR, I wanna believe you, but some emails, some paperwork. You, you are a air quotes person. How do I know you didn't just fabricate any of [00:30:00] this here?
Star Master Jeff: You don't. But you are the enemy of Omnitech now, and you know what we do to our enemies, Robert,
Robert Ross: because of you.
Star Master Jeff: Well, you're in it now and I've seen your history. I, and what's more I can pay you.
Robert Ross: I have done what I have been ordered to do now. Am I proud of it? No. Done What my higher ups have made me. I will take all sorts of shit from, from any person.
Robert Ross: It's what they've, what they've trained me to do. I'm just some grunt, but I don't like to be lied to. Not by them. Not by you. That said, I heard you say something about Muddy.
Star Master Jeff: Yes. I. I haven't been able to spend much money in the last two years on account of being a virtual intelligence. So all of my pay has just been accumulating in my account.
Star Master Jeff: I'm happy to give it all to all of you once the mission is complete. 20,000 credits,
Felix: 20,000, I'm gonna have to reach out to about financial advisor. Thorn Thorn's, eyes have turned into dollar cents. That's a lot of [00:31:00] credits and it would certainly go a long way to helping us complete the mission if it was available upfront.
Felix: Let's just say,
Haleyy: so Elara, if we. Do this and go through this mission. 'cause it sounds pretty crazy with our, you know, you admitted our pretty UNK ship to be going into a secret location to let out a secret virus, to take down a secret organization. Pretty wild.
Felix: One that knows we're coming now.
Haleyy: Yeah. But there, I'll find the people that killed my sister.
Star Master Jeff: Yes. You and I are looking for the same thing, Hailey Vengeance. And we have the same target. And I have the means to destroy them. All I need is your brawn.
Haleyy: Well, it's just about the only skill I have left, so if I get to use it here, then let's do it.
Star Master Jeff: Thorn. I thought the 20,000 credits might raise your eyebrows a bit, but I went digging in your past.
Star Master Jeff: Hang on,
Felix: let me interrupt you there. If you're about to tell me that these Vera dying fools are doing something to the people of [00:32:00] Zephyrus three, you better not show me any horrifying video because I don't think I could take it.
Star Master Jeff: No, no, nothing. Quite so macab is what happened to Robert and Haley. No. I feel like all I need to tell you is that Raddy owns Promethean and Promethean owns Nexus trading the corporation that stole and gutted your family's business.
Felix: Yes. I am quite familiar, even just hearing your story, I could sense the similarity between what Promethean did and what Nexus did to me. Even not considering the monetary reward, I was already considering helping, let's just say I have no. Interest in ending up in an omnitech prison, but there are wrongs that need to be righted.
Felix: 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. Excellent.
Star Master Jeff: And yes, honesty from here on out, so that makes revenge [00:33:00] for myself, Robert Haley and Thorn. Felix, I don't know what I can offer you except for Act.
Star Master Jeff: To technology and Promethean that is likely beyond your wildest dreams
Felix: that that's more than enough doc knowledge, information, technology. That's what I'm after.
Star Master Jeff: Great. It'll take us 10 months to get there. Along the way, we'll be passing through the borders of several different corporations. We'll have to make our way through their space safely, hopefully quietly, to eventually reach Promethean.
Star Master Jeff: When we get there, we'll have to somehow get close enough to upload the virus. Once that's done, I don't care what you. You with their station. I don't care what you do with me at that point, my mission will be done. In the meantime, I'll stay connected to your communication station. I can operate it for you, but the one thing I can't do is take actual action on your ship.
Star Master Jeff: I have access to all of your sensors, but I don't feel right trying to access navigational controls or anything like that. I know I wouldn't know what I'm [00:34:00] doing.
Felix: It's read only access.
Star Master Jeff: 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 gonna be able to give you.
Star Master Jeff: Tech support, keep the column on you and I'll help that way.
Felix: And what about, you know, they have our faces, our names, our ship's identification. How are we gonna even get anywhere like this?
Star Master Jeff: They don't have as much as you think they know. They're looking for a merchant class ship. But if you recall right when you left Kami four, I had set the scapegoat.
Star Master Jeff: Not named that at the time to ask you to register it.
Felix: Yeah.
Star Master Jeff: They're not aware of that registration. You should be able to move fairly quiet. Across the sector, not bad. The only reason they were able to trace you is because of my hack job to actually schedule the damn thing. I was trying to prevent them from finding me.
Star Master Jeff: When the gas main went off and I lost most of my electrical power 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. Now that I'm on your [00:35:00] ship with your reactor, as long as it doesn't go down, I should hopefully be able to keep us invisible to them.
Star Master Jeff: Just don't do anything too loud.
Felix: Well, all I want to do is keep the. Mission funded and maybe line our pockets along the way. I could do it quietly. Robert, set the course. Everybody get to your stations. Let's keep following that signal.
Star Master Jeff: And with that, you set a course for what was once the mysterious signal and is now the secret Promethean base.
Star Master Jeff: And that will be for another time, first big milestone. Complete. Everyone is gonna level up and I want everyone to do their diary entries now.
Felix: Well, I can't believe it. That doctor we were talking to is actually just a consciousness inside an alien artifact. Some people, well, turns out that story is pretty sad one, and it, it's pretty close to home. I only wonder what kind of horrible things could be happening back home on phy. Now that I know that Nexus [00:36:00] is part of this Promethean, it worries me.
Felix: I hope that after all this I can get back home and maybe ma and the others are still there working hard. Here's hoping
Felix: I cannot believe my luck. I mean, there is a literal alien artifact with a consciousness inside of it on my fip. Holy shit. And we get to spend 10 months with this and I get to figure it out and learn about it and oh man, there's a promise of more technology and more information.
Felix: This mission has became a whole lot more interesting. I, I mean, right now I'm just glad to be back on the scapegoat. We had a, we had, honestly, the team came together really well today and I'm looking forward to tomorrow,
Haleyy: Haley here. So I knew that working and you know, ever since I left my home planet, really that working for a corp was gonna bring a lot of.
Haleyy: Conflicting feelings with it. 'cause sometimes you get missions that you just don't, you know, you're always gonna get missions. You just don't necessarily agree, but you just gotta do 'cause it's your job. But knowing that this [00:37:00] is what happened to my sister, that's like seeing that video and seeing, you know, what she went through, what Robert went through, I'm going to, I gotta do everything I can to to make that right again somehow, not just for.
Haleyy: You know me, or 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 wanna call it, but like, Hey, at least 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.
Haleyy: 'cause it's gonna be. It's solid 10 months.
Robert Ross: Well, Robert Ross thinks that it was a crazy time. Just when everything's going right, we run into some random, all Laura Voss AI and an alien dude, dad what? McCall it. And she lied to me. She, she broke the circle of trust. I, I'm, I'm, I, I don't know if I'm ever gonna be really, [00:38:00] truly able to trust her again.
Robert Ross: I will take her money. But I ain't gonna trust her. Sold out by Omnitech. I always knew there was something wrong with that mission. And having to watch Haley with one wife, of course, die again in front of me. Oh, I know. I shouldn't blame her. But right now, Laura Voss is just the easiest person to lay this paint on.
Star Master Jeff: Everyone having recorded their logs, you tuck yourselves in at night, each through your own individual bunks. A singular hallway runs like a spine down the middle of the scapegoat with all of your bunks off of this hallway, you hear the hiss of a pneumatic door, probably just one of your fellow shipmates coming.
Star Master Jeff: Out to use the restroom, but then you hear a voice you completely forgot about,
Haleyy: hello. Oh my God, I forgot about Rocky.
Star Master Jeff: Am I in [00:39:00] space? You've had a long day, so you simply roll over and go back to sleep. Come on guys. This
Chaos: isn't funny. It's cold in space.
Chaos: Every day a dark star adventure cast employee
Star Master Jeff: is forced to clean out the scapegoat septic tank. The worst job imaginable. Pu this stinks. But thanks to generous patrons like Brad and Holly, our septic has never looked cleaner for just pennies a day, you can help keep the ship as clean as a drift rat's bee hole, and relieve the suffering of a hapless crewmate who's just trying to record a.
Star Master Jeff: Podcast, but is being forced to clean the septic for totally plot related reasons. So don't be a dirty drift rat. Be like Brad and Holly. Keep the scapegoat clean at patreon.com/darkstar Adventure cast.
Felix: [00:40:00] Wow, much better. Thanks, kind stranger.
