See You, Space Cowboy - Carbon 2185, Part 4

**See You, Space Cowboy** is the fourth episode in the side quest adventure of *Another Bad Side Quest*. The Dead Stars race to escape the Anti-Matter facility and understand what their mission really means in the conclusion of the *Carbon 2185* side quest.

## See You, Space Cowby - Carbon 2185, Part 4

### **Synopsis**

**Pre-Show Shenanigans**

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### **Part One**

*"The last we left the Dead Stars, they had managed to obtain the EMP required to break into the Anti-Matter Facility (the cast plays patty-cake with Mak while he tries to get his camera to refocus), but as they had to make a quick run in the death of Cairo off into space, a transmission was gained which took them to the aforementioned Space Sweden, where the Khostov brothers met their father again, Vivian. A giant man at 9'2" with rippling muscles, he joined the crew and then they went to do their job. Some shopping was done, some reconnaissance, and then the Dead Stars took their attack on the Anti-Matter Facility. They boarded in the darkness in a downed hold, climbing fast up the stairs, hearing noises, seeing dead bodies, they were confronted by something that was made inside, cyborg, human, disgustingly a little bit of both. The two of them there were and that they managed to take them down in a long effort. The successful echo drive was found containing the 333 trillion Wonlong, requested by Rajesh. But the echo drive was recieved, locked in, the facility turned back on as the lights hummed and the power regained itself."*

As the lights turned on Connors, Finn and Hans saw the amount of blood in the office from the dead businessman. An alarm began to sound throughout the building around them with red flashes of light. Connors took in the office around him and debated whether to take an entire computer with him, but being integrated within the desks, decided trying to take one apart to find the source of information would cost them too much time. Sven, Vivian, Shae and D0C all came upstairs in the office to find the others as Scarlett let them know over the comms that with the alarm activated, the Dubai Space Co. would arrive within 20 minutes (Connors, at this point, remembered that Scarlett was installed as the Decryptor's onboard A.I.).

Everyone decided they needed to leave, but Sven stayed behind with Hans and Hans and told Connors he had an idea to give them more time. Sven used used one of his exploits to hack into one of the computers computer to ask a question, while those running heard the laughter and thumps of D0C falling down the stairs. Sven attempted to open all the facility doors for an easier escape and got a few above the first floor, but with the system alarm going was quickly stopped by a firewall. As he ran, Connors told Sven over the comms to figure out what Project Elysium might be and also told Hans to grab one of the dead cyborgs on his way down as well. As he hacked into it, Sven discovered the project was not called Elysium, recalling the individual they fought was called Elysium-09, but called Project Nexus, which was aimed to make soldiers by attaching cybernetic bodies from the neck down that felt no pain, to partially lobotomized human heads that couldn't be hacked, in an effort to make dummy armies that could keep fighting, or send individuals to take down organizations on their own.

Sven, assuming there had to be more of them, checked to see if there were more of these project prototypes in hopes he could set them all to be released on a 15 minute timer for when the Dubai Space Co. arrived at the facility, as well as releasing them mentally as well, and found not only more experiments in facilities scattered across the planet, but that the main held in the Anti-Matter Facility were in the shipping containers in the cargo deck they entered. With the prototypes timed to release in 15 minutes, the twins and their father make for the exit, with Hans picking up the less damaged dead cyborg without the mask or shotgun hole through the chest, while Sven took a fall down the stairs. Connors, Finn, Shae and D0C already attempted to use the stolen ID badges to open it and found, although the scanner flashed green, the doors remain closed. Finn offered up a crowbar and handed it off to one of her stronger teammates to use, while Shae checked on the door that had been blocked by the dead doctor they had found, but found the door had now shut, leaving only the bottom half of the doctor inside. Connors attempted to push on the crowbar and managed to wedge the door open by a bit, but not enough to press through. Shae returned back and wondered aloud about a possible manual override to the lockdown, but realizes it would require working with the computers in the lab.

As the Khostov family met up with the others, Vivian and Hans took over from Connors on the crowbar, as Scarlett chimed in that the Dubai Space Co. would be there in 10 minutes, and managed to get the doors to open wider, but the crowbar bent in the process. Sven rushed into the lab, returned holding an entire desk, and as the rest of the crew stepped aside, rushed forward and rammed the desk into the open space between the doors, managing to wedge it between, but also got himself stuck in the process. Finn didn't waste time and scrambled to climb over Sven, while D0C traveled under the desk, with Shae and Connors following soon after, but Hans and Vivian were unable to squeeze through due to their size. Hans gave one more attempt to push the door open with his hands and managed to get Sven unstuck, causing the desk to slide more securely in place and allowed the Khostovs to make it through the opening. With everyone now in the cargo hold together and aware of the Nexus prototypes timed to release soon, the Dead Stars raced for their boat.

As they moved, they all heard a door open from behind them, but most of the crew chose to ignore it in favor of moving faster and loaded up onto their boat. They heard more noises from behind them, but Connors focused on turning on the boat and drove it away from the facility, with Finn hovering over his shoulder to "help" his driving skills as a backseat driver. As Connors sped them away, the crew looked behind them, saw the doors to the cargo bay blew open with a large explosion and saw a large shadow appear in the smoke. Coming out of the smoke they saw the 10-12" mechanized creature drop into the water and Hans saw a shadow in the water started to give chase. As Finn and D0C move to the engine, with Finn opening the engine hatch, D0C slashed a few wires with his vibroknife, then reached into Finn's bag, pulled out a random concoction, dumped it into the fuel source and as Finn lamented the possible damage to the gears, while Connors asked if D0C was insane and noting he obviously was, but the boat took on considerably more speed. As Connors worked to maintain control on the boat, he saw Scarlett in the distance, as well as another ship coming towards them that he could safely assume was the Dubai Space Co. checking the facilities' alarm.

Shae took the Echo Drive from Connors while he drove and placed it into her concealable holster, in case something happened, while Sven helped heal his brother who took a decent bit of damage in their last fight. D0C and Finn tried adding more drugs to the engine, but seemed to overwhelm the system causing the boat to sputter. Finn, calling on her mechanical experience in her past career and deciding drugs wouldn't cut it today, instead used traditional mechanical knowledge to bring the boat back to it's regular speed. D0C and Shae noticed the crest of water that had indicated the mechanical creature following them has disappeared, just before the boat was nearly flipped over by a push from the creature and knocked Finn and Hans out of the boat. Vivian, seeing his son fall in, leapt from the boat after Hans, while Hans and D0C each tried to help Finn, as she had previously noted she couldn't swim, but neither could quite get her and D0C was pulled in for his attempt. Sven, exasperated with it all, dived in as well leaving leaving Connors and Shae in the boat. As Shae scrambled to find life preservers or anything to help, Connors set the boat to autopilot and dived in, leaving Shae to scream out from multiple emotions unsure what to do.

Hans soon felt something in the water move past him, like a pressure of water, that bobbed past him and Finn before he saw Finn get grabbed and yanked under the water. Hans dived down after Finn, propelling himself through the water and managed to pull her out of the mechanized creatures grip, but soon became aware he hadn't taken in enough air before he went down causing his lungs to burn with the effort. Hans pushed her up through the water to help her reach the surface, while Shae still in the boat headed towards Scarlett and demanded to be brought up as quickly as possible. . Sven dived into the water with a big breath of air towards his brother, along with Vivian, while Connors lit his phase sword and just managed to see the shadow of the creature circling below them all. When the boat arrived to the ship, Scarlett asked Shae where the others were and as Shae replied they were dying, Scarlett dropped a platform that Shae jumped for as the boat sped away still on autopilot and told Shae to get to the cockpit.

The others managed to gather themselves together above the water, and Hans quickly told Finn to hang on to his back, which she happily did attaching herself like a koala, while everyone looked in the water. With Finn still under the vision enhancing effects of *Tiger,* and D0C's headlamp that he turned on, helped to see the creature, which was a third of the size of a whale, a form that looked like a cross between a lizard and a shark and had a mouth big enough that it could eat Vivian, which was circling them and getting closer with every passing second. Vivian asked the group who had explosives, and was soon given a total of four frag grenades and one flash bang from Finn and Connors. Vivian turned to his sons, told them they had made him a very proud papa, then dived beneath the surface, swam for the creature and aimed for its mouth as he took the grenades with him. Hans gave a reluctant, but powerful push to help him, while Sven helped Connors to keep him above water. Meanwhile, Shae used her disguise ability to replicate Connors' clothes in an attempt to bolster herself, as she took control of the ship and flew it towards her crew. Though the ship took some damage from the strain of improper flight, it flew close enough to lower a platform down to the crew, while Vivian dived down towards the creature. The creature reached up, grabbed hold of Vivian with one of its pincher-like claws, which set off all the grenades in his possession, doing a lot of damage to Vivian, but the EMP grenade also stalled the creature out just long enough for the crew to haul up onto their ship's platform.

The twins shared a look before they tossed Finn, Connors and D0C onto the platform and, despite Connors vehement protests, dove back into the water after their father. Connors called for Shae to get out of the cockpit over comms, while the platform was lifted back into the ship as the Decryptor was unable to handle staying in place to wait for the twins and Vivian. Hans lit his phase sword and tried to look for Vivian's body and saw only a red mist about the water, as the creature surged up towards them, attacking Sven and causing him to fall unconscious. Shae quickly asked Connors if the ship had any offensive capabilities or a claw to grab their crew out of the water with, and Scarlett replied that they had a magnet, assault rifles and the anti-matter rifle, leading to the idea of possibly plucking either their crewmates or the creature out of the water with it. She noted they couldn't currently see them under the surface of the water, but Finn suggested to hack into the twins' comms, guided Connors flying to there location and found only Hans' comms. Connors magnetized the bottom of the ship and the Khostovs were soon pulled out of the water quickly and attached to the bottom of the ship.

Hans immediately called comms and told them to turn it off as he saw the mechanized creature start to be pulled up as well. Connors, instead flew the ship forward as fast as it would go in hopes of pulling the magnetic field out of range of the creature and successfully dropped it back into the water. As they flew forward, they saw the creature burst completely from the water and took off after them as it seemed to have flight abilities as well. Connors kept moving them forward, while Shae ran toward the gunner's seat for the Decryptor's anti-matter rifle which could turn turn on a 360 degree turret.

### **Break!**

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### **Part Two**

As Connors flew the Decryptor through the air, the mechanized creature blasted forward to keep up and as it came into range, a large assault rifle appeared out of its shoulder, but missed as the bullets go wide. Connors worked the ship to move in ways to help dodge whatever the creature tries to use next, while also preparing the ship's missiles to be launched on their next round, while also trying to set Shae up for a shot with the anti-matter rifle but flubbed the maneuver. Shae used her *Nose for Trouble* feature to assess it's weaknesses or blindspots and determined it was weak to acid, but no particular blindspots and relayed this information through comms. Connors immediately looked to Finn, while Shae took a shot with the anti-matter rifle but the black orb formed between the three pronged rifle barrel shot passed it. Finn remembering she had about 10 liters of various acids rolling around in her lab, hurried off with D0C and used the crew's action to gather the acid, and barely managed to keep the lids on the containers as Connors took them through a corkscrew turn.

The creature during all this used it's full speed to clear the distance and keep pace with them. Connors pondered on using the torpedoes, but remembering they were proximity and using them from close range would not be good for them, told Finn she had 10 seconds to strap the acid to the torpedoes, then used his *Rogueish Action* to disengage from the creature by letting the Decryptor stall in midair, dropped below it and then dashed to get out of range. Shae attempted to fire the anti-matter rifle again, but from the distance the creature was able to dodges out of the way once more. Finn works to attach the acid to the torpedoes, which she wasn't satisfied with and asked for more time and asked Connors for more time, who then replied he'd see what he could do. At the same time Hans called over the comms for help getting his family inside the ship and in response D0C ran to grab rope and rushed to the hatch.

The creature uses its action to keep up with them but seemingly was all it could do at that moment. When Connors asked if it didn't have long range weapons, she replied it fired at them before a shoulder mounted weapon, but also seemed to have a railgun and flamethrower and was trying to get in range to use them. Connors continued to move the ship at a more comfortable distance from the creature, while also swinging around to give Shae a better shot, then flipped the ship 180 degrees so those still attached to the magnet had a better chance of making it to the hatch to get inside. D0C at the ready popped out of the hatch, threw the end of the rope to Hans, who grabbed it leaving D0C as he hanged out of the hatch with his feet hooked on a ladder. Shae took another shot with the anti-matter rifle and blasted the black orb through the creature's shoulder and rocketed out the other side of it, causing the creature to fall through the air momentarily before it rose back up to continue the chase. On the underside of the ship, D0C tied the rope to the ladder he was standing on, while Hans, who noticed his father's body was limp and obviously lifeless, tied the rope to Vivian, and though Hans recommended not to try and pull it in as it might end poorly for him, D0C started to try and inch the body into the ship. Finn at the same time made another attempt at securing the acid to the torpedoes, and far more satisfied this time around, let Connors know he was free to fire.

The creature pulled back, stopped in mid air and fired its railgun on the Decryptor, hitting for a decent bit of damage, but lost some distance in the process. Connors used the distance created to fire the torpedoes, which impacted causing flames and odd colors to appear as the acid burned across the mechanized creature, then flew the Decryptor up into the clouds and flipped it fully on its back to help the people on the magnet in an attempt to keep out of sight. Shae took one last shot, while she could still see from the turret, and the blast left the creature barely able to keep itself in the air as it plummeted toward the ocean before it caught itself just a few yards off the surface of the water. Hans, knowing his new armor was too heavy to try and carry that and his brother, stripped his armor off, worked together with D0C to pull him and Sven towards the hatch, but to again very little success, until they heard a voice over the comms say

*"The brothers need no assistance"*

as Sven grabbed Hans shoulder and Vivian's body, and together dragged Vivian's body back into the ship, where they all gathered together and closed the hatch to the ship.

The creature started to sputter as it's chest lit up once again but missed with it's attack as it into the clouds just past the ship. Connors asked Scarlett to open a channel to the mechanized creature, and when it connected, told it to stand down or be sent into the ocean. The creature responded in a garbled mess of an attempt at communication and Connors assumed whatever communications unit it had was heavily damaged. Connors simply stated no witnesses, turned around to shoot the creature down but missed. Shae takes one more attack with the anti-matter rifle and gave the final blow as the creature exploded and fell as chunks into the ocean.

In the cargo hold with the others, Finn ran into the room, spotted the downed Vivian, knelt beside the man and dumped every drug concoction she had available into him to no effect, shrugging off the twins when they tole her it was hopeless. While D0C healed Sven up, he announced his survival over the comms and Connors admitted his worry of losing him, calling him his friend, and immediately vehemently denied using the word friend. Eventually the twins kneeled down beside their father and Finn, having depleted everything she had and stepped back to give them space, while Connors watched over the camera. Sven dabbled with the idea of decapitating Vivian and making him like the cyborg prototypes they saw in the Anti-Matter facility, but was talked down and reminded those people were in immense pain. D0C, no smile or laughter coming from him, pulled Hans and Sven into a hug and apologized over and over, while Finn disappeared and headed for the cockpit. In the cockpit, Shae pulled the Echo Drive out of her concealed holster and asked what Connors thought Rajesh really wanted with the drive and if it was worth it, then asked what the hell happened to his eyepatch. Connors shrugged, picked it up off the ground and admitted he never needed it. Connors then asked Scarlett to make a 3D rendering of the creature they fought and Scarlett said if given a couple of minutes from the surveillance footage she could. She also added it would take five minutes and suggested they go to hide out in their regular spot in the asteroid belt. Connors declined going to anywhere usual and said they would find a new spot. Sven came to the cockpit with Hans and Vivian's body, and suggested Space Sweden and with approval from Connors, Scarlett plotted the course to there.

As they flew, Hans took time to repair the Decryptor as much as he could from the inside, while Sven started to fix the software. Finn's dose of *Tiger* wore off soon after and succumbed to the negative effects of the drug, resulting in her unable to see beyond 20 feet when she didn't actively using the drug. Finn retired to her lab and started the process of replenish her experimental drugs, while D0C went to his own room, took notes of all his stockpiled organs. Shae sat in the turret and stared at the echo drive and thought about everything that had happened, while Connors spent his time digging deeper into Rajesh, to predict why he sent them on this mission and ascertain if the mechanized creature was his. Connors and Shae went over what they knew, and with help from Scarlett to calculate probabilities, they could safely assume Rajesh would kill them when they returned the drive and he likely had something to do with the Dubai Space Co. and that mechanized creature, that wasn't the rivalry he had told to sell them on when he explained the mission.

Connors gathered everyone and told what they had learned. Sven tried to say he believed Rajesh would have bigger problems than them now. Connors noted on the contrary, but they were one step ahead for the moment. Sven restated that he would Rajesh would have a lot more to concentrate on, and subtly hinted to his releasing of the cyborgs at the other facilities, and while Connors stated he didn't want to know what he did, he did love it. The crew discussed how reasonable Space Sweden would be as a hideout and noting that it was a tourist attraction and low tech, so it would be hard to track and Finn added they could just retire with the money they had from the Echo Drive. Connors attempted to push the crew away, insisting he wasn't safe to be around, but Finn and Shae refused to let him take the responsibility of losing their people fall on only him. The crew decided to stick together and would take some time in Space Sweden before they decided their next move. Hans asked for a sabbatical for him and his brother to tend to matters on Space Sweden, while Finn asked for medical insurance to get glasses as well. before the Decryptor landed.

While there and taking time off, the crew partook in a few activates -

* Shae spent her time with the hottest people in Space Sweden and got as much attention as she wanted
	+ As a bonus fact we learn that Vivian was the genetic root of Space Sweden and all the current inhabitants were clones of him
* Finn kept an eye on the back channels and did more hacking to look out for anything related to Rajesh and Dubai Space Co.
* Connors called his son and told him to visit him in Space Sweden, managing to keep him away from his nosey crew
* D0C finished his documenting of the gathered organs and sent them off to the locations they needed to be sent
* Sven played tour guide for the first bit, showed everyone the saunas and introduced Finn to new types of drugs for her experiments, as well as helping with her recent *Tiger* addiction
* Sven and Hans went to the commune of their cloned brothers and sisters to tear down the fountain at the entrance of Space Sweden and built a statue in honor of Vivian, and on the base a scratched in message "In memory of Cairo"
* Shae helped Finn dig up dirt on Rajesh and got a tattoo of a mechanical squirrel on her shoulder

Through their searching, Finn and Shae discovered that Rajesh and Nightingale Exploration had made under the table deals with research and development companies to get ahead in the augmentation game. After three weeks had been spent in Space Sweden, they all got wind of several places where mechs had been released and attacked nearby cities, as well as the project Nexus protoypes all across the entire planet, which were taken down, but resulted in companies like Nightingale Exploration, Tusk Interplanetary, Dubai Space Co. and Detroit Industries being placed under heavy surveillance. After another half week had passed, for three and a half weeks total, Scarlett came in over their comms and requested everyone return back to the ship as they were needed.

The twins abandoned their run for prime minister to go back to the ship. Shae and Finn arrived next, with Shea wondering if Rajesh had found them and Finn wearing thick new glasses. D0C close behind with the best snack Space Sweden had to offer. Connors arrived last and the crew could just barely over hear Connors say "good-bye" and "love you too" before he boarded. Finn immediately asked if he had been cheating on Scarlett and Connors denied it, but Hans was the only one to notice Connors was hiding something. Scarlett interrupted the crew to tell them the ship had been receiving transmissions from Rajesh for the past week and a half that she had been ignoring. Connors asked for the contents and Scarlett explained he had been asking whether or not they had the drive. Scarlett also mentioned that she had noticed a small radio wave transmitter attached to the drive, connected to outside their current solar system and another to outside their galaxy . Connors asked for the first that came from out of the galaxy, and after checking, Scarlett said it was a loop recording and played it -

"*Hello. Please help. My name is Cassandra Tusk, daughter of the CEO of Tusk Interplanetary. We need your help, we have been attacked near Alpha-Casis Majoris."*

Scarlett told Connors the original transmission date, accounting for intergalactic travel, was six days ago. Scarlett also offered up that she was purchased from Tusk Interplanetary, a fact previously unknown to Connors. Scarlett also admitted to having a worm drive that she hadn't told Connors about, which upset Connors to learn of the secrets and asked if there was anything else she'd been keeping from him. Scarlet told him there were many things he could learn but never asked about, while Finn told Connors if he and Scarlett got divorce she would choose Scarlett. Hans asked if the rest of them should leave the room, but Connors waves him off and clarified some things about the transmission. Connors asked what she wanted them to do and Scarlett admitted she thought hanging around in one place with Rajesh after them was a bad idea, but noted she hadn't activated her worm drive in 18 years. Connors asked for what the crew wished to do, with Sven replying what ever he wished and Finn piping in that retirement was boring, which the rest of the crew agreed with, wanting to get back to work. Finn asked Connors if this meant he was leaving behind his "mistress", the person he said "love you" to and Connors tried to deflect, but Hans came over the private comms to encourage him to at least say good-bye to whoever he had been talking to. Connors told Scarlett to plot a course and work on her upgrades, while he went down the ramp and soon came back with a teenage boy.

Connors introduced the crew to his son, Sam, who had sandy blond hair and glasses. The crew had various reactions, starting with D0C handing the kid a snack, followed by Finn who took off her new helmet, placed it on the boy's head with concern and walked away. The ship disengaged from the landing pad as Hans and Sven noted the boy's smaller stature, and stated he had potential to be big like them if they train him. Connors told Sam he could either stick with them or see him pilot the ship and Sam replied that he wanted to see the ship flown. As Connors took him to the cockpit, Scarlett announced the worm drive would be activated in two minutes. With Connors and Sam at the cockpit, Hans settled into Sven's lap, leaving an extra spot near them for their father's ghost, D0C in his lab, Finn buckled in front of her experiments and Shae rolling her eyes at the twins, the Decryptor pulsed with energy and as Scarlett said

*"Ignition in five seconds. Everybody hold on, and as an old friend would say, yippee kay-yay, motherfucker"*

as the ship took off into worm drive.

The cast gave their good-byes to the mini-series and their characters, with Darrin ending with the possibility of one day coming back to the Dead Stars. Until then, *see you, space cowboy*.

1. ↑ Zac got so excited with the rolls he was making (he was told to make three different rolls to make this work) that he blew out his mic and had to reset it
2. ↑ It's in this round of combat that Vivian fails his last saving throw. Ian now holds two records in ABSQ - 1st Character Death and Most Character Deaths
3. ↑ Zac, after two fails and two successes, rolled a Nat 20 on his last death save and was brought back to consciousness with 1 HP
4. ↑ Jon told the cast over break he had been purposefully placing it on either of his eyes at random and had made point to say that both eyes work in game but no one had actually picked up on it