Session 6: Exodus

The final session began with the group consisting of the marines Zmijewski, Dante, and Carvalho, accompanied by Marshal James Hyram and recently-rescued UPP soldier Li Xiu Ling. They had been sent by a UPP major to clear out the Fort Nebraska sublevels. Carvalho had been downed by an alien that escaped into the maintenance tunnels. The powered-up space elevator, with the promise of escape, beckoned to the group.

The marshal and Li patched up Carvalho and his melted foot. Then the group made their way into the elevator. They checked that the cargo area of the climber was clear. The marshal radioed the major with a tale of needing to move the elevator to enter sublevel 3. Then they removed the restraining elevator clamps and blast shield and sent the climber car hurtling off towards the orbital platform. 

As the elevator was rising, Zmijewski heard movement coming from the officers' lounge. The door opened to reveal Colonel Myers. The base CO had come to the climber to use the radio during the bombardment. When the power was cut, he was trapped inside. 

The colonel and the group spent some time sizing each other up and seeking answers. Colonel Meyers tried to pull rank and assert his authority without much success. He tried to justify his actions and stressed the vital importance of Project Life Force and it's implications to the USCM. 

Carvalho checked the external cameras on the elevator and found that the surviving alien from the base had hitched a ride on the bottom of the car. 

The marshal used the calling card taken from Iona's corpse to contact the mystery ship offering an extraction. He promised that they had "the package." The ship's captain said they would pick them up and advised them to exit through the cargo deck. 

The UPP frigate Trakhni Menya radioed the elevator and threatened to fire on them. Li was able to convince them she was alone and fleeing chaos in the base. 

As the climber approached the orbital platform, there was a silent flash from the planet's surface as the rigged nuclear weapons detonated in the fort below.

After several tense conversations with members of the group, the colonel approached Dante alone. He stressed to her that nothing from Project Life Force - not samples, not infected marines, not even him - could fall into corporate or UPP hands. Dante could be a hero for delivering it to the USCM. But if the time came where someone or something might be controlled by the wrong people, then it needed to be destroyed. Dante took his message to heart. And she decided that the time was now for Colonel Myers. Dante drew her pistol and executed the colonel. 

The elevator car arrived at the orbital platform. As the group gathered in the cargo bay, Dante pulled Zmijewski aside. She explained the colonel's final message and they made a pact to stick together regardless of what awaited them on the other side of the doors. 

The cargo bay doors slid open. The group was blinded by floodlights pointed into the elevator. They could make out the corpse of a UPP soldier lying next to one of the lights. They saw the silhouette of a bishop-series synth, named Rook, but couldn't see beyond him.

Rook asked them if they had the black oil substance as expected. The marshal explained that it was inside some of them. Rook took a look at the black bile dripping from Carvalho's eyes and guts and accepted the answer. He motioned for them to follow him to a nearby maintenance tunnel. Three heavily-armed corporate mercenaries emerged from the darkness.

Hyram assisted Carvalho and left with Li to follow the synth. Zmijewski and Dante remained in the cargo bay. They didn't want the mercs behind them. After a brief stand-off, the mercenaries closed the doors to the elevator cargo bay and rushed after the rest. Dante and Zmijewski opened the doors again and hurried to follow.

At the end of the maintenance tunnel, they could see an external airlock hatch. The maintenance hatch was open and connected to an umbilical leading into a starship airlock. The group rushed towards the waiting spaceship with escape tantalizingly close. And then the alien attacked.

Pouncing from a connecting shaft of the tunnel, the xenomorph grabbed the last of the trailing mercenaries and dragged her around the corner. Zmijewski ran up to the intersection and fired his incinerator. The flaming monster grabbed and slashed at Zmijewski. Dante ran up and fired her pulse rifle at the raging xenomorph, but it kept fighting. Dante watched as it's claws tore open Zmijewski's neck. 

Further down the tunnel, the others kept running for the spaceship airlock. Dante watched Zmijewski stumble back with blood streaming from his neck. She turned and saw the corporate kill squad escorting the others into the waiting ship. Dante made her decision. She dropped her pulse rifle, raised the M5 rocket launcher, and fired the explosive rocket into the crowded airlock of the waiting spaceship.

Li was rocked by the explosion, but still on her feet. She lept to the airlock controls to close the outer door and reel in the umbilical. 

Zmijewski knew his injury would be fatal but was determined to fight as long as he could. He blasted the alien again with the incinerator and watched as it melted under the flame. Then he stumbled back next to Dante, lifted up his pulse rifle, and fired a grenade past the closing outer door into the airlock of the fleeing ship.

Air rushed from the maintenance shaft as the spaceship uncoupled from the open hatch and began to drift away from the station. Zmijewski collapsed, struggling to draw his final breaths. Dante loaded the rocket launcher again and rode with the escaping oxygen. She lept towards to ship across the vacuum and fired her rocket at the outer airlock door. The explosion tore a hole in the door and sent Dante's body bouncing off the side of the station and drifting off into space. 

Inside the spaceship airlock, everyone had been battered and bloodied by twin explosions. Their problems were compounded by the hole and rapidly escaping oxygen. Hyram's armor had shielded him from the worst of the explosions. He and the battered synth were the only ones standing. Li was bleeding from a horrific pelvic wound. But she managed to rise up and throw one of the mercenary bodies against the hole to bock the outrush of air. 

The others looked on in surprise and some horror as Carvalho was able to, once again, push through his injuries and inexplicably climbed to his feet. The four of them were able to get the damaged inner door open and push past it into the safe interior of the ship. 

Hyram and Li both staggered through the empty ship. They reached the bridge and pointed their weapons at the startled pilot to claim the ship. He agreed it was theirs. 

While the others were bandaging themselves, the pilot gave the ship some momentum with a quiet burn, before bringing the power back down. He wanted to run dark to avoid the UPP Frigate that was surely hunting them. 

They had escaped. They stopped and took stock of who was left on the ship: A corporate black-ops pilot, an old colonial marshal, an infected USC marine with black bile streaming from every orifice, a UPP soldier with a chestburster growing insider her, and a Weyland-Yutani synth. 

Now they just needed to decide where they wanted to go and who was or wasn't going into cryo. 

The end. 

Session 6 run 5/13/2021