The Characters

Relena Horvath and her crew were hired for a simple courier mission. They received a package and a downpayment of 1,000Cr with instructions to take it to a particular set of coordinates. The coordinates led to an area of deep space, near a large nebula known as the Acropolis. There was nothing listed at that location on any of the standard charts. They were told to give the package only to Melis Lymer.

It took only a few days to skirt the Acropolis, and at the provided coordinates they found a barren planetoid - a rogue that orbited no star. Scans indicated lifesigns, but only minimal power signatures. There were no landing lights, and no response to any attempts at communication.

They were able to land the Mystic Shark, and Relena, Kelda and Unity all donned spacesuits for the 50-60m walk to the airlock, which opened easily. The three of them entered the foyer of the building, which was empty. The place was operating on emergency lighting, but there was still a breathable atmosphere. Behind the security desk they made their first grisly discovery - the mangled and dismembered corpse of the security guard. It looked like it had been torn apart by some hellish beast. They were barely digesting this information when a small black spider-like creature scuttled out, leapt, and attached itself to the back of Relena's head. Kelda was ready for it though, and with a remarkable display of accuracy, blasted it off with her pulse laser rifle.

At the Captain's request, Lance and Noumalia came out of the ship to join them. Lance programmed the ship to return to a geostationary orbit until it received a signal, to protect it against possible alien infiltration.

A brief examination of the creature that attacked Relena showed that the creature had a spiny proboscis that it had tried to insert into Relena's spinal column. However, it did not appear to have injected anything, so after a quick patch-up, they moved on into the offices.

They found a lot more dead bodies in the rooms and corridors, and decided to search for their target, Melis Lymer. Along the way they were attacked by three additional spiderlike creatures. This was a more difficult fight, and Relena actually went down with one of the insectoid horrors attached to the back of her skull. The other two tried unsuccessfully to attach themselves to Lance and Kelda, but each time they tried, they were dislodged, and eventually all three were killed.

The group located the residential areas - where they were attacked again, this time by a bipedal, four-armed alien with chitinous armour. Unity bravely took it on, parrying all of its blows, until it got a claw in and gravely wounded him. The others distracted it while Relena quickly applied a few slap packs, bringing him back to health. The beast was eventually killed by Lance's autocannon, after a long and drawn-out fight in which it was repeatedly knocked to the ground by Noumalia psionically zapping its motor neurons.

Beyond, they discovered a set of double doors, which had been broken down from the inside. Beyond was the main laboratory of the facility - they had now figured out that this was a top secret biological research facility - which was clearly where these creatures had been held in stasis, before they somehow broke free. They were attacked by an Anthropos, who had one of the spiderlike things firmly attached to the back of his head. They tried unsuccessfully to detach it, but in the end were forced to kill him. The lab held a total of eleven stasis containers - five quite small, five medium-sized, and one very large. They determined that they had killed four of the five small spiderlike beings, and one of the medium-sized ones, and they really didn't want to find out what had been in the large one. They found a report which led them to Melis Lymer's office, where they found the corpse of their target. They removed his security pass as proof that they had located at least his body, and hightailed it out of the building before they were attacked again. There was one of the medium-sized aliens lurking around the outside of the building, but Noumalia used her psionic trip again and they were able to avoid it until they boarded the Mystic Shark and took off immediately.

They had not successfully delivered their package, so they tried to open it. It resisted all attempts. They resolved to return to their employer with the bad news. At least they had the lab report on the spiderlike beings.

They were referred to in the report as mindspiders. They inject their proboscis into the spinal column of their victim. Through a direct neural link, they could control the musculature of their host, essentially turning them into a meat puppet.

Someome had to be interested in this!

What happened when they tried to leave the system?