Rescue the Captain part 2
The team made their way to where Tristen was held and quickly dealt with the technicians working on her. Kaltos examined her and not knowing much about the plant growing into her decided to just try and cut it off. In Tristen's alternative reality this was represented as a growing paralysis and the effect of reality pixelising and jumping from scene to scene. Finally Tristen was returned to 'reality' she attempted to strike out at Kaltos but months of immobility had left her too weak to affect him.
At this point the first guards started to arrive on the scene. Tristen managed to persuade the guards that they were on their side and required help to get their injured colleague Tristen out of the area. Kaltos then used some of the drugs lying around to knock out one of the guards while Kane and Disco killed the other two. While unhooking Tristen from the life support system, a second larger group of guards arrived and once again Kaltos managed to persuade them that they were members of the first party and needed to be evacuated. The squad helped take Tristen and the unconscious guard back to the now incinerated Garden area, where there were many other troops and several of the ship's superior officers. Once again the team kept to their cover story and were ordered to take their injured members to the medical bay. On the way. they killed the local troopers with them and decided to try to get to the Brig and free the other special prisoner on the ship.
The brig area was very vell secured with a hardened door and several automated guns protecting it. The team talked their way into the Brig but the guards were suspicious and tried to get confirmation of the orders, however, Kaltos managed to block outgoing signals temporarily. When the guards refused to evacuate their prisoners to the shuttle bay fighting broke out. Disco used his powers to blind the guards temporarily allowing the rest of the team to deal with them quickly but not before on of the guards raised an alarm. The team activated the brigs defences and then investigated the cells themselves: they were locked down, and contained only 8 prisoners. Most were minor criminal from among the ship population who the team decided to kill but one was a multiple murderer and the last was the mayor of the planet below. These they decided to free using EMP grenades to unseal the doors. They planned to use the murderer against the ships crew and the mayor to try and start a rebellion amongst the people of the planet below.
The ships crew started attempt to assault the brig and attacked with Missile launchers which knocked out the guns and started to breach the doors; with assault troops preparing to follow up. Disco used his sniper rifle to pick off one of the missiles in flight which threw the assaulting troops into confusion allowing the team to break out of the brig. The murderess they freed used most of her time attacking the already dead bodies of the assaulting squad and was left behind. The party made a run for the nearest escape pods where Kaltos accidentally activated them before entering leaving them unable to leave the ship. The team, decided to instead make for a shuttle bay. Their they found two gun cutters guarded by a squad of troops. Laying down smoke, the crew made it to the nearest gun cutter and Kaltos got them in. Blowing a hole in the ships hull the ship shot out into the void.
The Jever launched fighters to try and shoot down the gun cutter as it fled towards the planet below. Kane piloted with craft with Tristen acting as co-pilot, Disco on guns, and Kaltos on ECM controls. Kaltos was sent down to the engine room in order to try and got more speed out of the craft, he removed some of the governors which prevented the ship overheating and the craft surged forward into the planets atmosphere still pursued by the fighters. One of the fighters shots into the back of the gun cutter blowing a hole in the engine room and threatening to suck Kaltos out. Kane decided that in order to land safely they would have to deal with the fighters attacking them and attempted to turn the ship around. This proved to much for the overtaxed engines and they shut down leaving the craft upside down and plummeting to the ground. The crew in the bridge quickly shared out the grav-chutes between them and considered jumping but Kaltos soon restarted the engines despite being in free fall and upside down. Disco emptied the missile racks at one of the attacking fighters, destroying it utterly: the second fighter was them destroyed by sustained cannon fire allowing the gun cutter to put down near an outlying ranch which the mayor knew to be loyal to him.
The crew quickly made their way towards the city before their landing site was destroyed by orbital bombardment. From there they got onto the Mechanicus ship which fled the system pursued by the Javer before warping back to its base to meet with the Orpheus. There the team investigated the strange mental connection between some of the crew and linked them to the nanites contracted on Cognars world. They had now matured and were randomly linking crew members minds. For most this lead to a few seconds of linkage per day but for a few individuals they were continually linked, most of these individuals were related or otherwise spent long periods of time together. Examinations showed that several thousand people were infected and the nanites could not be easily removed without damaging their hosts.
The Orpheus decided to leave the area surrounding the Abyss for a few years to allow the crew to rest and the ship to be fully repaired and re-supplied. Thus they spent several years orbiting the planet of Plumsworld, a small hive world in a neighbouring sector while planning to return to investigate Bunker world.