The Altimer
Page 5
By the end of the second week, the 200 trainees have been reduced to only 30, and the rumour going round is that the target number is 18, for three off-world teams of six people in each. You wake up at the beginning of week three with an increased determination to make it into one of those teams, and are feeling full of energy as you have breakfast with your now familiar friendship group of Mel, James and Catalina. You have also been joined by another in the intervening days, a middle-aged Mongolian called Bartu, whose calming presence you all deeply appreciate.
And that appreciation becomes that much deeper that afternoon as the physical elements of the training programme begin, and the five of you are placed in a team with Pauline. She makes no secret about the fact that she feels you are all incompetent, but despite her criticisms of you and your own self-doubt, you find yourself as one of the final 20 candidates, with the promise that only two more will be leaving the process.
If you have the codeword Virgo, turn immediately to 58. If not, turn to 116.
86
You bring yourself close to her body and gently, respectfully see if you can find anything out of the ordinary.
Make a HEART check at difficulty 13. If you are successful, turn to 185. If you fail, turn to 178.
87
The room is clearly split into two parts, so you head towards the area that looks to be filled with rifles, electric lashes, energy grenades and all manner of exotic weaponry.
“Why is this ship so well-stocked with weapons?” you wonder out loud to James.
“Hm?” he responds. “Oh, sorry, this alarm is really doing my head in. Yes, no idea. Maybe the meteorite is actually a covert alien ship filled with assassins?”
You smile and start to look for a weapon that you think will be helpful. Make a MIND check at difficulty 12. If you are successful, turn to 199. If you fail, turn to 127.
88
The corridor continues a few more yards, then turns a corner to the right. You pull yourself to the corner, peek around it, and can’t see anything there apart from the fact that the blood stains continue in this direction. You gain comfort that you are on the trail of someone – or something – and beckon to James to follow. The two of you continue round the corner and down the corridor.
A door presents itself in the left-hand wall before too long. The blood stains continue straight forward. If you would like to go through the door, turn to 20. Otherwise, you can press on down the corridor by turning to 263.
89
You float forwards, allowing yourself to be drawn towards the little device, and suddenly the door behind you slams shut, leaving you in complete darkness. Unable to see where you are travelling to, your limbs flail out, and one of your hands hits hard against either a wall or ceiling. Lose 1 SPIRIT point.
You call out, but no-one responds, and the sound of the alarm is still so loud that you can’t make out any sound either from in here or from outside in the corridor, although in your disorientation you are not sure which direction that is any more.
After several minutes, you get your bearings. The door is firmly shut with no way to open it from the inside, and the device you saw from the doorway seems to be nothing. Turn to 133.
90
You are not sure if the gooey material covering the surrounding shelves can be described as blood from the creature, but its gentle hiss leads you to believe that you should avoid touching it.
It doesn’t take you long to find some power armour, which will allow you to reduce all damage done to you in battle by 2 points.
Leaving the room, do you go through the door opposite if you haven’t already (turn to 9) or turn to the left and follow the corridor (turn to 73).
91
James pulls open the door to allow you to float in, and as soon as you do you feel like you’re going to be sick.
A huge organic mass displaying shades of purple and reaching up to almost the ceiling seems to be growing from the floor and is pulsating like a living ant hill. The creatures you saw in the shuttle bay are duplicated here, with two immediately in front of you and three more emerging from behind the mound. They shuffle forward to attack you.
Your teammates take care of the others, but you must fight the first creature and kill it before you can take on the second as it approaches from behind the mound.
Purple creature
BODY 5
SPIRIT 8
Second purple creature
BODY 4
SPIRIT 7
As the body of the second creature collapses into the air you look across to your teammates and see that the others have met similar fates. Turn to 210.
92
The General takes you to one side and dismisses the rest of the team.
“While it’s hard to not respect your commitment to your cause,” he says in a calm voice, “you have clearly misunderstood the role you took on when the title of captain was pinned to your chest. Your job is to lead your team – that means casting a vision and setting an example of positively receiving instructions from your commanders. It is not to give them an example of cowardice and insubordination.”
He pauses and steps slowly around you. “From now on,” he continues, “you are no longer captain of Team Alpha. As you leave this room, please send Pauline in, as she will be taking your place. I’m sure I can trust you to be a perfectly competent security officer for her. Dismissed.”
Feeling disappointed, nevertheless you get the message and do as instructed. You prepare yourself for a very different relationship with Pauline. Record the codeword Virgo and turn to 276.
93
You continue several yards down the corridor and find its end at a closed door. You’re about to open it when you spot a maintenance hatch to your right, the cover to which is loose; you think you could fit into it, and wonder if Mel or Bartu came this way.
You discuss your options as a team, and the decision is made that you will stick together. The dim lights and unceasing alarm is beginning to make you all wary about what might be lurking around every corner. The door is clearly the most straightforward way to the bridge, but the maintenance hatch might give you access to other parts of the ship that will be more helpful.
Would you like to open the door (turn to 183) or climb into the hatch (turn to 35)?
94
He raises his eyebrow at you, and then a smile creeps into the left corner of his mouth.
“I have just the thing,” he says, and then shuffles away and through a door behind him. Thirty seconds later, he returns and hands you a pair of boots with thick, white soles.
“Extra cushioned boots,” he says, unnecessarily. “Fashionable, comfortable and silent.” You slip them on, and it’s certainly difficult to argue with him on the comfortable side of things.
From now on, if you are required to make a check to see if you sneak past someone, you may ignore it and turn to the section indicated by a successful roll. Now you can talk to the team if you haven’t already (turn to 139) or you can board the ship (turn to 201).
95
Flicking through the book, your eye is quickly drawn to an image of an alien life form that looks like a purple blob, with two circular black eyes and two mouths filled with long, spiny teeth. It mentions that its weak spot is right between its two mouths; a firm punch there will significantly weaken it.
If you come across an alien matching this description and would like to use this advice, you may take a -2 penalty to your roll in order to cripple it, in which case any damage you deal will be done to its BODY score rather than its SPIRIT score. Beware though – any round you choose to do this, you will suffer the same penalty when it attacks you, regardless of whether you did any damage or not!
“Of course,” says James, “a better option would be to avoid meeting it altogether.” You turn to leave the room; turn to 229.
96
You awake feeling groggy to the sound of at least four different voices shouting over one another. “Be on your guard!” one of them
shouts “Watch out for survivors!”
They sound professional and aggressive, and you are not sure whether you should treat them as friend or foe. You are still sitting in the navigator’s chair and cannot see anything of the intruders. Do you stay as still as you can where you are and play dead (turn to 240), shout for help in the hope that they are here to help (turn to 52) or leap up from your seat and attack them (turn to 164)?
97
You float through the door and take in the shuttle bay, which is enormous – much bigger than any area in the ship you’ve been in so far – and filled primarily by two huge shuttles facing towards the wall to your right. Directly opposite the door you entered by on the other side of the hangar is another door, with a sign above it saying “To the bridge”.
The left-hand wall is home to a larger door with two signs above it, saying “Kitchen” and “Garden”, and above these are three large status screens, all displaying the same message:
Navigation system alarm: input required.
Before you can begin to think about what you’d like to do your ears, already ringing with the constant alarm, fill with a hideous wail that seems to fill the highest frequencies, making you clamp your hands over your ears. Your eyes are not prepared for what happens next.
From behind the shuttle nearest to you, five creatures the size of large dogs and resembling purple jellyfish emerge, each with two lidless, round, black eyes and two large mouths filled with spiny teeth. Their six legs kick around awkwardly as they float threateningly towards you and make clacking sounds as they collide with the shuttles and the floor. You have no option than to prepare to do battle.
Pauline growls aggressively, you hear the sound of her energy glove powering up and she launches herself at the largest of the group. James and Catalina follow her lead, moving to attack the nearest creatures to them. You cannot simply hang back so do the same.
First purple creature
BODY 5
SPIRIT 7
If you beat the first creature, you look up and see that the others are still battling and that the final one should be an easier job. You float in its direction and attack.
Second purple creature
BODY 4
SPIRIT 8
If you win, you power down your glove and can now choose what you would like to do. If you would like to search the room, turn to 239. If you would like to get into a shuttle, perhaps to see if you have an option to leave the ship and get a view of whatever’s causing the alarm from the outside, turn to 132. Or if you would like to leave this room, turn to 216.
98
The only other sensible seat to try now is the navigator’s seat, so you head in that direction. You don’t get more than two yards before the ship starts to rumble violently.
“Entering gravitational field” comes the voice of the onboard computer, and suddenly you are thrown to the ceiling; lose 1 SPIRIT point.
With some effort, you manage to make your way around the outskirts of the bridge; the ship is shaking unpredictably and aggressively, and it takes you a painfully long amount of time to reach the chair.
You are just about to position yourself in it, when your consciousness ends without warning.
You do not wake up.
99
If you have the codeword Draco, turn immediately to 238. If not, read on.
You are walking around the centre of New Gaia. Record the codeword Draco. Where would you like to visit? You can go to:
The market (turn to 225)
Your nearest bar (turn to 256)
The extra-terrestrial research facility (turn to 213)
The headquarters of the Martian Navy (turn to 167)
The immigration centre (turn to 56)
The New Gaian Centre for Martian Politics (turn to 122)
100
You take your seat in the cabin and wait patiently for the half-hour it takes the rest of the base to confirm details and take up their positions. The voices in your ear that you know are only there for your information fade into the background as you go over the mission in your head again and again, so the first you are aware that launch time is drawing near is when your chair, along with those of the rest of the team, reclines until you are facing directly upwards. You double-check that your straps are secure and comfortable, and brace yourself for the moment when the chair base is released and you are held in mid-air by the gravity-neutral harness.
The voices continue, beginning to announce the countdown, which you can vaguely hear the echo of through the reinforced walls of the ship.
When the countdown draws near to 30 seconds remaining, your heart is beating quickly, and your chairs all begin to coil into the foetal position. You’ve gone through this so many times over the past few weeks that your muscle memory is enabling you to remain calm, but with every jerky movement you can feel your heart lurching; everything you’ve been preparing for is now happening, and there’s no turning back now.
10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…
Your ears suddenly go numb. You don’t hear the final numbers, but you do feel the intense rumble that terrifies you despite you having prepared so hard for it, and then you are pushed back into your seat so hard that you’re not sure your chest isn’t starting to squash your lungs. The feeling of pressure doesn’t abate for same time, and looking around it looks like the rest of the team is in the same situation.
When you feel that you can take a full breath again, you turn your head properly and lock eyes with Catalina. The two burst into a huge grin, and you both reach to each other to shake hands, an activity that passes around the cabin. You all settle back into your respective seats, observing the instruments and listening to the chatter from earth, which the various screens around you suggest is now some distance back.
“Entering orbit,” intones the voice of the onboard computer. “Prepare for zero gravity.” You sit back, listening to the countdown, and enjoy your first moment of feeling weightless before unstrapping yourself from the chair and floating upwards.
Even Pauline joins in the group hug, and you congratulate yourselves on having left earth. The autopilot has now been activated, so the only other thing that’s needed is to enter the cryogenic chamber at the rear of the ship. You confirm successful launch with mission control on earth and leave the bridge. You have a small meal in the on-board kitchen, and then float through the ship’s corridors to reach the cryogenic chamber, a semi-circular room with six pods, each of which has one of your names and their rank engraved in a plate above it.
You shake hands with one another one more time, and each of you climbs into your pod. Pauline insists on doing a final check before activating the sleep for all of you, so you climb into your pod and watch her as she presses the buttons and your translucent door shuts with a hydraulic hiss.
A friendlier voice than the previous countdown you heard then informs you that you are about to enter sleep.
“Prepare for cryogenic freezing in 5…4…3…2…1…”
Turn to 157.
101
“Ah, the Altimer,” he says, relaxing back in his chair with a wistful expression. “Did you know you were famous? Well, not you specifically, but your ship, back in the day? The Altimer was sent on a mission to intercept a meteorite that was supposedly on a collision course with earth. Of course, there was no real risk from the meteorite itself, but the politics of the time was all about justifying space travel so there was a need to induce mini crises and then solve them.
“The Altimer should have been out and back within a couple of years, but six or seven months in and earth inexplicably lost contact with the ship. It was written off as a technical fault, and efforts were made to contact periodically throughout the mission’s timeline. Unsuccessfully, I might add. There was a mysterious automated ‘mission complete’ message received about a year into the mission, which later turned out to be a fault within ground control, or so they said.
“Anyway, it turns out the Altimer had its course ch
anged. The meteorite missed earth by a long distance obviously, and the Altimer entered into a fuel-free, super-wide orbit of the sun that set it on a collision course with New Gaia earlier this week. What a time to be alive, eh? I read about you guys during my training as the justification for backup comms units on ships, and here you are in my office!”
At that moment, there is a sharp rap on the door and the colonel looks up.
“Oh, sorry,” he says. “Lovely to meet you, but I have to go. Enjoy the city!”
You are politely shown out of the headquarters and return to the city centre. If you have the codeword Cetus, turn to 99. If not, turn to 140.
102
The orange square spins around again, grows to the size of the screen, then changes to a lime green colour, and a message appears:
ACCESS DENIED.
It is then that you notice a small countdown timer in the corner of the screen, which grows into the centre, revealing its title: Estimated time to crash landing.
As you hit the earth’s atmosphere, the ship is rocked violently, and only the cushions on the chair you are in protect you from being flung out and across the floor. You see the ground beckoning you closer as you are forced back into the seat.
Thankfully, the immense gravitational pressure knocks you out, so you are unconscious as you hit the ground and die.
103
“Oh, this city’s changed. For the better, I think, in the main. We’ve still not figured extra-terrestrials out, you know. We build human cities and try to be multi-racial but we just don’t understand them. And, of course, we don’t let them in to help us make decisions, so what can you do?”
She doesn’t seem to want to say anything more than that. Do you ask what she knows about the aliens you saw on the Altimer (turn to 271) or do you ask if she wouldn’t mind telling you about an interesting experiment (turn to 51)?
104
Your wait to meet the prime minister is very long. After an hour of waiting you are not sure if you’re getting any closer to seeing him, but you stick it out and after having waited for almost two hours you are ushered into his office.