The party hunkered down for a haven turn.
Examination of Burns’ information revealed he was actually trying to establish relations with the aliens, but hadn’t made much headway.
Classified caroused for 64k cc. He took some real bad drugs and had a nasty hangover, as well as apparently distributing a bunch of Tijuana bibles featuring The Hangman.
Jeb contacted Ronnina to meet with the worm that lives in her brain. Baht Kabza was able to refer Jeb to his neice Bernice, an insulting little worm who now lives in Jeb’s head.
Washington Crusher spent time with his dogs, getting them properly trained, and spent some time providing grief counseling to people using his memory erasing powers. He is also now a monotheist who worships his future self.
The parties various activities were interrupted when their space station was attacked by an alien vessel. Jeb managed to create a portal from the space station to the attacking ship, and the party rapidly fought their way to the bridge. It was a swift and bloody assault, and they found the aliens weirdly sluggish in their resistance. The party took command of the ship, and learned a number of things:
1. There is a deadly plague spreading among the aliens, and much of their fleet is in quarantine.
2. Rumors abound that the plague began with the crew that had contact with a human vessel. (Session 135)
3. Everyone on this vessel, angry about their iminent death, decided to go out in a blaze of glory by destroying the human space station in revenge.
4. Unrelated, but it seems that the aliens destroyed earth because it’s kinda right in the middle of their territory, and allowing humans to reach spacefaring maturation would have put them in an awkward place within the intergalactic community.
5. Mars is essentially a sort of human nature preserve for them.
The party, with a pretty good idea of where the plague may have originated, suggested that they’re in a good position to potentially develop a cure. The two living aliensare willing to try anything at this point, and so one agreed to accompany the party back home, while the other will return to the quarantine fleet in an escape pod with some excuse, so they can remain in surreptitious contact with the party–but only insofar as the cure is concerned.