LogOnyx Reach-Jason-5

Game log for the 2026/09/13 session of Starforged - The Onyx Reach, as taken by Jason

The hunt for Big Jim Slade has taken us to The Sietch, the orbital habitat at Quartos. Johannes has just convinced the local authorities that the radiation accident that just contaminated their docks was a result of battle damage that the ship suffered fighting pirates. Heroically fighting pirates, to be specific.

JP is using the stolen station data core to look for traces of BJS. He passed through the Sietch six weeks ago, left, came back through a week later, stayed for a while, and left two weeks ago, on a shuttle. He's planetside, unless he got a lift from the planet to some other ship or station. There's an ecological research firm called Biovax working on the planet, and they own the shuttle that Big Jim took to the surface. They have two different stations, one terrestrial, one a seagoing research vessel, and we don't know which one he went to. Biovax handles most of their own transport needs, ferrying supplies and personnel down, bringing data and personnel back up. However, they are expanding the station, and have an RFP out for people to land their new habitat modules. Johannes bids on it at a price that will break even for us, and it's going to look like a new operator trying to get a foot in the door.

We begin figuring out how we're going to deliver the module, since it's too big for us to carry internally. Baxton suggests we need to build a shroud to streamline the module. Dex manages to find some winches we can use to secure the module to the ship and then lower it down, but they're going to force us to attach it in a place where it will alter the Terminus Clipper's center of mass.

Baxton is the only member of the crew who seems to be spending a lot of time stationside. He's looking for scientists to meet and talk about ecology with, and also a break from the crew making jokes about his missing leg. A woman walks up to him and says, "Hey, we match!" She has a fake leg. She's also tall and almost impossibly thin, obviously a zero-G dweller named Emory Whelan. He talks about his interests, and she asks if he's curious, or if he's a seeker. He answers that it's a little of both. She shows him what looks to be a scan result, a live feed from something, a neural interface for a prosthetic, but there's some other material in the interface. They're using local mycelium to spur neural regrowth. Lee's first thought is that she's obviously nuts, but the problem is, everything she's saying makes sense. Lee asks about the seeker thing, and she explains that other strains of fungus can have profound hallucinogenic effects. Lee tells her that he's trying to use his leg trauma as a way to separate his current self from the guy who had the family, and he doesn't want to entangle that emotional work with hallucinogens. She tells him that the experience offered by the fungus might be just what he needs to put him on the next leg of his journey. It takes him a few seconds to get the alleged joke. Then he gets up and walks away.

Geneva spots a help wanted ad for a lab job she might be very well qualified to handle. (She'd be overqualified if she was a real doctor.) She doesn't quite get the expected scores on their job assessment, and so the researcher she'd be working for has some questions. She'd be looking at DNA samples to look for radiation damage - seems like someone released a lot of radiation at the docks recently, and there are a lot of insurance claims going on. Doctor Bart Coolidge comes to talk to her and says that she knows more than ordinary lab tech should, and she's bossier than an ordinary lab tech, so what's her story? She explains she did well in med school and ran a lab for a while, so yeah, she's pretty much got this. He asks how much triage experience she has, and she tells him she does all the triage on her ship. He asks her come find him when her shift is over, because he has more to talk to her about.

She uses the computer to find out more about the doctor before going to talk to him. He's known to be working on checking out these radiation claims. He seems to be prescribing antibiotics for a lot of people, and there's no logical reason for it. He seems to hate his current job and does not like that health care is gated behind insurance. She decides to take the meeting.

When she finds him after her shift, he hands his work off, and the two of them leave the lab. They make small talk as he walks her to the interior part of the station. He opens some code-locked doors and leads her into what seems to be an improvised infirmary. He's running a secret medical care system for refugees without guild representation or financial resources. He can't pay as much for this sort of work, but she can do more good. She expresses concern that she might have to leave on short notice, but he points out that there's no commitment required because this isn't an official job. She points out she isn't allowed to practice on station. He explicitly doesn't care about that. The patients need help. He doesn't care about the rest. He'll pay her as a lab tech and list her as working off-site. He tells her she starts tomorrow.

This all goes great for about four days, then she meets a patient, 14 male-presenting, with a serious condition that seems to be declining. She doesn't have the equipment to deal with him here, but the ship's lab might. She decides that she isn't going to risk moving him, though she'd take samples aboard. She escalates the case to Doc Coolidge instead. He tells her they can't save them all, and this is probably going to be a case requiring palliative care. Eventually she can't bring herself to watch him die, and tries to get him to the lab on the Terminus Clipper. She "unoficially acquires" a repulsor lift and a Pelican case.

The ill lad is not super excited about climbing into a freight case, but Geneva tells him it's the only way she can do anything to try to save his life. She brings him back to the Clipper. Johannes asks what she has there, and she says, "I'm going to the lab, don't even start with me." Johannes looks at Leehau and JP. Leehau says, "That was the starting gun I heard, right?" They all go to the lab. JP says something about taking the kid's foot, and Baxton hastens to reassure the youth that nobody is going to take his foot. Geneva uses the lab instruments to determine that he has massive liver damage that's preventing from processing some necessary enzymes. He needs gene therapy, and in the meantime, he need enzymes. She synthesizes him a good supply and writes him some paperwork documenting his condition, so he can seek future treatment.

Geneva goes back to the clinic to tell Doc Coolidge she's moving on. He asks what happened to Nigel. She tells him that she diagnosed him and told him to come back to the clinic if she needs something else. He asks how she possibly came up with that diagnosis, and she brushes him off with, "I've seen some things." He's impressed and under the bizarre impression that she's a good doctor.

Baxton uses the planetary weather scanners to help plot the descent, Dex uses the winches to manage the load, and Johannes is so totally in the zone that he doesn't need the help anyway. The Terminus Clipper disconnects from the module, moves off, and lands to into the research site.

JP asks the research crew for a tour, explaining that the work to land the module got him curious to see for what the module will be used. Kyle Singh, the facility director, seems unused to visitors. It takes less than two minutes for him to ask if the ship has any food with spice that we might sell. The planetside crew work six months on, six weeks off, and they get very sick of seeing, doing, and eating the same thing day in and day out for so long. He then starts talking about an employee who showed up a couple weeks ago and then vanished. Johannes offers to use the ship to search for him, which makes Kyle happy, and so McInnes asks to see a photo of the missing man. It's absolutely Big Jim Slade.

We take off, using the ship's sensors, and find some thermal and chemical anomalies around a cave system some fair ways from the habitat, maybe 30 clicks, near the coast, maybe 150m above sea level, maybe 50m from the tops of the cliffs. There's nowhere nearby to land. Johannes decides to fly into the valley and just sort of hover near the cave entrance, and then people can just jump off the ship into the caves.