The station rolled across the forward display, eight hundred meters of dead metal turning against the stars, and Gray accelerated straight at it.

Konrad watched the supply dock sweep past once, then return, faster than anything that size ought to move. His predictive model painted vectors over the image. Gray glanced at one screen, shook his head, and twisted the Serendipity—the Celestial Princess beneath a thousand-credit false transponder—into the station’s tumble.

The stars wheeled. The dock stopped moving.

At the airlock, Jun waited until Gray’s voice confirmed the lock.

“We’re in.”

Something vast and alien waited behind Jun’s eyes with greater patience.

Its name or title came through as Berd That Sings Through Stone, though the translation felt like a hand closing around water. Its first command had been clearer.

Remove the trespassers.

Three salvage operations had cut ODXI 8847 into competing claims. Berd’s sensors were disabled while its intelligence endured the incursions through failing systems, unable to locate the intruders. It wanted some captured for a purpose Jun’s mind rendered as farming.

The crew made no promise of captives. Understanding that word would require cultural exchange. They did offer to begin removing the trespassers if Berd admitted them.

In return, it gave them identification-transmitter specifications and instructions for restoring its sensors in the hub.

Gray remained aboard with the two active clones, who had spent the past months learning their duties and developing preferences of their own. Jun entered the station with the others, all of them tethered to the ship and burdened with vac suits, weapons, tools, spare air, rope, and a pressure tent.

The alien airlock recognized their transmitters. It cycled without admitting atmosphere, its mechanisms communicating through vibrations in their boots.

The inner doors opened on a cargo bay full of green eggs.

They were containers, probably. Heavy ovoids remained fixed in racks or drifted where broken restraints had released them. Their slow movement made them look harmless until one struck a bulkhead with enough momentum to shudder through the structure.

Controls stood high on the walls without walkways beneath them. Whoever had worked there had crossed surfaces humans would have called ceilings, or moved without surfaces at all.

Jun caught a drifting ovoid with telekinesis and pressed it aside. The effort tightened behind his eyes. While he controlled the worst hazards, the others plotted a route between the racks.

Konrad mistimed one crossing. Jun was already arresting another container when Konrad seized a moving piece of debris, matched its rotation, and kicked free an instant before it swept into the shelving. The maneuver was practiced, desperate, and successful.

No one was crushed. They left the green ovoids unopened.

Farther into the bay, unpowered cryogenic units held the remains of large winged insectoids. Iridescent shells gleamed beneath Jun’s suit lamps, but little remained inside them except empty exoskeleton.

He knew the shape.

“They resemble the Seijaru,” he said.

The admission tasted like old metal. The Seijaru were tied to the origin of his psionic abilities, a history he had shared only in pieces.

Jun asked Berd about them.

The station mind did not recognize the name. Instead it offered a concept that arrived through the psychic link as peace in feeding.

Jun carried the phrase into the living quarters.

Octagonal corridors were lined with gripping bars on several surfaces. The chambers were too cramped for the winged Seijaru. Then Jun’s light found a preserved body with multiple long, jointed legs and a crablike mouth. More floated in adjoining rooms, caught wherever the ancient disaster had reached them.

They had not run. They had not prepared to run.

Modern meal wrappers drifted among the dead. A secure door had been cut from its frame, the slab and spent fuel canisters left floating nearby. The salvagers had passed through without much concern for what they damaged.

The station map showed the hub ahead, along with a separate high-security wedge inside Drobic Gnar’s claimed section. That region had one reinforced entrance and a blacked-out interior. Berd’s physical presence was in the hub, not there. Whatever lay behind that lock was something the station protected apart from itself.

Near the hub bulkhead, fragmented human voices pierced the radio jamming.

Jarek advised announcing themselves. Armed people trapped for two days would be dangerous enough without a surprise.

Jun opened a channel. “This is Jun Minh of the Serendipity. We’re on a routine delivery for Drobic Gnar. We found a route out.”

The Knot answered from behind a bulkhead their cutters could not penetrate. They were nominally a security company, though their reputation ran closer to mercenaries and pirates. Jun said E-20 could solve the problem.

To make the lie credible, the crew erected the pressure tent and waited half an hour. They removed a panel as evidence of technical work. Behind it they found fluid sacs wrapped around a crystal where human machinery would have used wiring. Examination confirmed that the system was partly biological.

Then Jun brought an identification transmitter near the bulkhead, and Berd opened it.

Eight mercenaries emerged with rifles raised. Their leader introduced himself as Iros and demanded to know how E-20 had accomplished in thirty minutes what his people had failed to do in two days.

“Proprietary knowledge,” the crew told him.

Iros remained suspicious, but another Knot squad was trapped deeper in the hub. Jun persuaded him that the Serendipity crew still needed passage toward Drobic Gnar’s section. Iros assigned three escorts and ordered them to have E-20 open the far bulkhead.

Inside, the Knot had marked routes with plastic indicators and filled crates with alien salvage. Beneath those crude signs, Jun perceived psychic impressions directing him toward Berd’s physical presence. The mercenaries passed them without a glance.

Fifty meters behind the group, the first bulkhead sealed.

The escorts swore. Iros ordered the deeper squad evacuated, and soon eleven armed mercenaries were retracing their route through the hub with the crew positioned among them.

The plan passed through the psychic link. Cassian understood it. Jarek agreed.

At the next door, a gloved hand struck the alien control with convincing carelessness. The bulkhead slammed shut.

Six mercenaries vanished behind it. Five remained alongside Jun and the others.

The door divided the Knot, but it also destroyed the rescue story. The survivors had radios. Iros still commanded soldiers elsewhere, and the hub’s main corridor was not its only route.

Jarek accepted the cost before the mercenaries understood the choice.

His fist shattered one soldier’s helmet. He caught the collapsing body and swung it into another man, then killed two more with a second rush of strikes.

E-20 fired, but combat armor swallowed the laser. Another shot missed.

The two survivors opened fire with mag rifles. One burst tore past Jarek. The other gunman tried to move around the dead. His boot caught beneath the corpse Jarek had swung across the corridor, and he fell, firing wide.

Daniil reached a doorway, braced his laser pistol, and burned one mercenary down.

Cassian’s invisible telekinetic bolt failed to land squarely, but its off-center force punched through the last soldier’s armor. Surrounded by bodies, the man released his rifle and ran.

Jarek caught him. He tore away the mercenary’s helmet and hurled it down the corridor. The man clawed once at the vacuum, lost consciousness, and died.

Twenty seconds had passed. None of the crew was hurt.

The asphyxiated mercenary’s armor might be recoverable, but six Knot soldiers remained beyond the sealed door, with Iros and others elsewhere in the hub. Their radio traffic might already have exposed the ambush.

Jun looked toward the psychic signs leading deeper into the station. Berd had asked them to remove the trespassers.

They had begun.

The discarded helmet drifted toward the bulkhead, turning slowly, while somewhere beyond it the Knot might already be searching for another way around.

Session Notes

Terms with the Station Mind

  • The party paid 1,000 credits for a fake transponder and illicit entry into Ascendancy space, avoiding the official registration that would identify their ship whenever it attacked an Ascendancy location. The Celestial Princess now operates under the false identity Serendipity.
  • After several months of modestly profitable trading, the party learned that the Ascendancy is a potentially fragile bargain among military and economic factions spread across vast distances. House Solthane and the other old noble houses retain wealth and influence, but Solthane has declined since the war and the Ascendancy’s rise roughly a century ago.
  • The party’s two active clones learned their duties, behaved well, and began developing distinct preferences and personalities after initially acting alike. Three additional non-imprinted clones remained in stasis.
  • The party arrived at derelict station ODXI 8847 on a covert job from Renko Salovast. Their official task was delivering supplies to the Drobic Gnar salvage company; their real opportunity was to steal alien relics for Salovast.
  • Three salvage operations had divided the station between them: the state-supported Alphan salvage operation, the privately backed Drobic Gnar, and the Knot, a security company with a mercenary-and-pirate reputation. Personnel from all three operations were caught aboard during the latest lockdown, although Nico remained aboard the Cheap Date.
  • The party had already learned that the station retained limited power, lacked enough power to operate all of its weapons simultaneously, and was jamming ordinary communications. Nico reported that the trapped personnel had been aboard for about two days.
  • Jun Minh established psychic contact with the alien intelligence controlling the station. It commanded the party to “remove the trespassers” and asked whether some could be captured for a purpose Jun’s mind could only translate approximately as “farming.”
  • The party did not promise to provide captives. They said that understanding “farming” would require cultural exchange, but offered to begin removing the intruders if the station granted them access.
  • The station’s disabled sensors prevented it from locating the salvage crews, but it offered instructions for restoring sensor functionality in the hub and transmitted a static map. The alien protocol initially defeated the ship’s systems, but psychic translation substantially assisted the party’s successful decoding effort.
  • The map revealed an approximately 800-meter toroidal station. Notable areas included the Index, apparently a knowledge repository; engineering and power-generation areas; living quarters; the hub, which contained the station intelligence’s physical presence; and a heavily reinforced high-security wedge with a single locked entrance and an otherwise blacked-out interior.
  • The intelligence’s body was in the hub rather than the high-security zone, suggesting that something else important was secured there. The hub lay within the Knot’s section, while the high-security region lay within the Drobic Gnar section.
  • The station had two original interior docks: one near the high-security lock and one serving the living-quarters supply area. The party chose the supply dock so they could approach the hub and restore the sensors before investigating high security.
  • The station intelligence said psychic transmission was its primary means of communication. It understood the party’s written language, but regarded speaking it as archaic.
  • The intelligence identified itself with a name or title Jun understood approximately as “Berd That Sings Through Stone,” though the title’s precise translated meaning remained unclear.
  • The station transmitted specifications for small identification transmitters. The party fabricated several so the station would recognize them and open locked doors.
  • Nico reported that the station was depressurized, that gravity fluctuated by section, and that functional gravity would be slightly above Earth-normal. The station’s tumble made movement difficult.
  • The party equipped themselves with vac suits, weapons, tools, extra air, rope, a pressure tent, and other expedition gear. Prior zero-gravity training conducted during their months aboard meant they could use their vac suits without the normal movement penalty.
  • Grald “Gray” Camrin remained aboard with the clones while the rest of the party entered. The active clones were explicitly ordered to stay on the ship.
  • Konrad Paxt built predictive models of the station’s tumble and gave Grald a piloting bonus. Grald then achieved an exceptional docking approach, matching the station’s rotation and locking the Serendipity beside the alien supply dock.

Green Eggs in Zero Gravity

  • The station recognized the party’s transmitter and opened its unfamiliar, cargo-sized airlock. The chamber cycled without pressurizing, and the party entered while leaving a tether to the ship.
  • Beyond the airlock was a vast zero-gravity cargo bay filled with drifting debris and large green ovoid containers. Some remained fastened to racks, while broken restraints had left others moving with dangerous momentum.
  • The room’s controls and storage racks suggested inhabitants roughly human-sized or somewhat larger. Controls placed high on walls without corresponding walkways suggested that the station’s occupants could navigate surfaces or move freely through the air.
  • The party decided not to establish its pressure-tent camp beneath the drifting containers. They also deferred opening or moving an alien “egg” aboard the ship until they knew what it contained.
  • Jun Minh used telekinesis to control dangerous containers while the party plotted a sheltered route through the racks. His successful psionic control granted everyone an advantage while crossing.
  • One party member initially failed the zero-gravity crossing but invoked exceptional experience as a spacer, matching momentum with a moving object and kicking clear before being crushed. Everyone ultimately crossed without injury.
  • Deeper in the cargo bay, the party found unpowered freezer or cryogenic units. Inside were only the exoskeletal remains of large winged insectoid creatures with iridescent shells.
  • The remains resembled the Seijaru, the alien species connected to the origin of Jun Minh’s psionic abilities. Jun disclosed that resemblance to the party.
  • When Jun asked the station intelligence about the Seijaru, it did not recognize the name. A translated concept associated with the creatures came through approximately as “peace in feeding,” but its meaning remained unclear.

Through the Dead Quarters

  • The party passed into living and recreational quarters. Octagonal corridors had gripping bars on several surfaces, far more than humans would need for ordinary zero-gravity travel.
  • The architecture did not clearly match the winged Seijaru remains. The confined quarters appeared poorly suited to flight, and there was no evidence that the Seijaru had lived there.
  • The party found the first preserved corpse of an original station occupant: an octopoid or crablike being with multiple long, jointed legs and a crablike mouth. More bodies soon appeared, indicating that the station’s inhabitants had been killed before they could react.
  • The cause of the station’s uncontrolled tumble remained uncertain. The party considered a comet or debris strike and a gravitational slingshot during a close encounter with a massive body.
  • Floating meal wrappers and other modern refuse showed that salvage crews had passed through the area, though no living salvagers were immediately visible.
  • The party’s identification transmitters opened multiple secure doors, each resealing behind them. They also found one doorway that salvagers had physically cut apart, with the removed door and spent fuel canisters left floating nearby.
  • Communications remained jammed beyond short range. Suit radios were clear within roughly 30 meters and degraded severely around 50–60 meters.
  • Near the heavy bulkhead leading into the hub, the party intercepted fragments of several human radio transmissions. They concluded that members of the Knot were trapped on the far side.
  • Jarek Thorn advised contacting the mercenaries rather than surprising armed and nervous personnel inside the hub. The party agreed to conceal its alliance and psychic communication with the station.
  • Jun Minh hailed the Knot as a representative of the Serendipity, claiming the party had arrived on a routine Drobic Gnar delivery and had found a route out of the lockdown.
  • The trapped team said its cutters could not penetrate the primary bulkhead. The party claimed E-20 could engineer a solution and asked the mercenaries to give them time.
  • To make the effortless access appear legitimate, the party erected the pressure tent and waited about thirty minutes. They also removed a nearby panel as staged evidence of technical work.
  • Behind the panel they found fluid sacs and a crystal rather than familiar wiring. Examination confirmed that the system contained a biological component.
  • The party then presented an identification transmitter, and the station opened the bulkhead.

The Knot in the Hub

  • Eight armored Knot mercenaries emerged with rifles raised defensively. Their leader introduced himself as Iros and demanded to know how the party had opened a door his team had failed to breach for two days.
  • The party implied that E-20 had opened it using proprietary technical knowledge. The Knot remained suspicious but accepted the immediate rescue.
  • Iros reported that another Knot squad was deeper inside the hub and outside reliable radio range. The mercenaries had been salvaging the station for months and had endured four lockdowns, including the current one.
  • When Iros ordered the party out of the Knot’s claimed section, Jun persuaded him that the party still needed passage toward the Drobic Gnar section. Iros assigned three soldiers to escort them through the hub and have E-20 open the far bulkhead.
  • The Knot had marked routes through the station with plastic indicators. Crates and bins in the hub showed that its crews had been gathering salvage for removal before the lockdown.
  • Psychic signage visible to Jun pointed toward the physical location of the station mind. Non-psychics would not have recognized the signs without a psychic employee or equivalent aid.
  • Once the party and its three escorts moved about fifty meters away, the bulkhead behind them resealed. The escorts angrily realized the party could open doors only briefly rather than leave them unlocked.
  • Iros ordered the second squad evacuated so the Knot could regroup and reconsider the bulkheads. The party and escorts reached the far squad, bringing the number of nearby mercenaries to eleven.
  • The far squad accepted the immediate need to evacuate. The combined group began retracing its route through the hub toward the original bulkhead, with mercenaries positioned both ahead of and behind the party.
  • While returning, the party considered using the station’s resealing doors to divide the Knot force. Cassian Vrye participated in the psychic discussion of the plan, and Jarek agreed to the ambush.
  • A party member convincingly pretended to trigger a door accidentally. It sealed with six mercenaries on one side and five alongside the party.
  • Jarek immediately attacked before the five could react. He killed one mercenary with a devastating punch and swung the body into another.
  • Jarek won initiative and continued his assault, killing two more soldiers in rapid succession with another strike and his follow-through.
  • E-20 fired a laser weapon, but the shot was absorbed by the target’s armor. Another party shot missed.
  • The two remaining mercenaries fired mag rifles at Jarek. Both attacks missed; one soldier stumbled over a corpse and fell.
  • Daniil moved into cover and fired his laser pistol. A natural 20 guaranteed the hit, and his laser fire and fray damage killed one of the remaining soldiers.
  • A telekinetic attack missed directly, but its fray effect punched through the last soldier’s armor. Terrified by the deaths around him, the survivor dropped his rifle and attempted to flee.
  • Jarek chased the fleeing mercenary, tore off his helmet, and threw it away. The soldier lost communications, passed out in vacuum, and died.
  • The party killed all five isolated mercenaries in roughly twenty seconds without suffering injuries. Six members of the divided eleven-person group remained beyond the sealed door, while Iros and the unassigned members of his original squad survived elsewhere.
  • The killed soldiers’ radio traffic may have alerted their comrades, and the sealed corridor was not the only route through the hub. The surviving Knot personnel could attempt to reopen the door or flank the party.
  • At least one suit of combat armor—the suit belonging to the asphyxiated soldier—appeared potentially salvageable. The condition and recoverability of the other armor remained unresolved.