As we started this session, the heroes were still on Nibelheim.  Morgan had wanted to advertise the group's services, so he had Goresh whip up a gridsite to promote them.  Not even a day after the site went online, they were contacted by a Mrs. Alicia Danerhy.  She asked if they could come to  Centauri II for a job.  The group seemed reluctant at first, until they learned that she was willing to pay up to $200,000 for their services.  At which point, the group hit the warp drive and booted it as fast as they could to the Centauri system.

They arrived several days later on Centauri II, an agricultural world with a few dense urban areas and a few academic areas.  Alicia had transferred them her address, which was located on one of the university campuses.  The PCs met with her where she told them that about 3 months ago, her husband Miles had gone missing.  He was a professor at one of the universities, who taught xenobiology, but he had a fascination with xenoarchaeology and had taken that up as his hobby.  She told the group that 3 months ago, Miles received word of a large, possibly alien ruin on a planet in the Buffer, but she didn't know which planet, as Miles left in a hurry.  She told them that he told her he would be back in about a week or two.  He never came back.  She had hired two other groups to track him down, but to no avail.  At this point, the group agreed, but wanted to know how and when they would be paid (specifically, Morgan wanted to know).  Alicia told them that she would pay them if they found Miles.  Morgan wanted a cash advance of at least 5%, but Alicia gave him those sad puppy-dog eyes and eventually he gave in with no down payment.   Also, they were shown pictures of Miles.  He was in his mid-to-late 50s, while Alicia was in her mid-to-late 20s, so the group assumed she was either desparate or he was loaded.  Finally, she gave them a keycard to access his office at work.  They also searched his office at home, but to no avail.

Next, they group went to the university where Miles taught.  They headed to his office but were stopped by a security guard who wouldn't let them in even if they had a keycard, saying he was sick of strangers barging into Dr. Danerhy's office.  Morgan convinced him to call Mrs. Danerhy to get the OK from her, which after a short debate, the guard finally did.  She gave the go-ahead, and the heroes were allowed into Miles' office.  Inside were many alien relics, some of which caught Whooshra's attetion immediately: seshayan tribal holy relics.  While the rest of the group began searching the office, Whooshra began collecting up these relics to take with him, as he was sure they were stolen from his homeworld.  The security guard, who had been watching all of this, immediately started reprimanding Whooshra and they engaged in a little debate.  Meanwhile, Morgan and Dalek were searching through Miles' desk.  After the debate finished, a note was found in the desk with a message saying for Miles to contact "scruffyjoe".  The note was dated only a day before Miles went missing, so the group decided to check out who was scruffyjoe.  They got Goresh to check the Miles' phone records and trace where the call came from.  Goresh found that the call came from the Tyche system, although they still had no idea who scruffyjoe was.  At any rate, they contacted Alicia and told her that they had made progress but would require an advance in payment, as their search took them to another system.  Alicia gave them a $10,000 advance and seemed overjoyed.  The group was off, Morgan was drooling.....

Why was Morgan drooling?  Tyche (named after the Greek goddess of luck) was a casino and gambling pleasure world, modelled after old Las Vegas, Reno, and several t'saian gambling cities.  Even as they prepared to dock, they were allowed to gamble; if they won, the docking fee of $1000 was lifted and they could dock for free, but if they lost, it would go up.  They lost.  Anyways, they landed and, against better judgement, the PCs hit the casinos, going for blackjack.  Eventually, they managed to break even (even Whooshra tried his hand at gambling), all the while having Goresh remain on the ship and search the planet's comm logs for any references to scruffyjoe.  Finally, Goresh called them up and told them that scuffyjoe was a Grid alias used by a t'sa.  The t'sa's name was Mar'eketh, and his address was also found.  The group hired a skycab, as it was in a bad neighborhood.  They got to his place, but noone was home.  Dalek broke the door down and they search his apartment, finding a lot of dissassembled junk, but nothing of any interest.  However, on a passed perception check, Whooshra noticed a large amount of cocktail napkins from some place called the Turnabout.  They quickly found that this was a rough neighborhood bar, and headed over on foot, as it was only a few blocks away.

As they were walking along (while Whooshra was flying overhead), a flying A-eye approached Dalek and Morgan.  While the authorities used things like this to monitor the bad areas of town, this one seemed a bit different....  All too late, they realized it was a trap of some sort as the thing blew up with the force of an incendiary grenade, knocking soe of the stuffing out of the two, but nothing too serious (their armor saved them from worse damage).  However, right after that, two men on a rooftop across the street began firing at them with laser rifles.  Accumulated stun damage quickly overtook Dalek, dropping him to the ground.  Morgan grabbed Dalek and jumped into the nearest building while Whooshra flew overhead and used pyrokinetics on the two gunmen, torching them nicely.  He was able to get off another pyrokinetics before they saw him and began firing at him.  Morgan grabbed Dalek's stun pistol (stutter weapons were the only type allowed legally on the planet) and dashed across the street.  Whooshra continued flaming them, but took some serious damage himself.  Luckily, he was able to finish the last guy off before he lost his last stun point.  Morgan got up to the roof, but too late to do any good.  At any rate, they found a remote device on the men that must've been used to control the flying A-eye.  Also, both of their rifles were bio-locked, meaning only they could fire them; in other words, these guys were not your run-of-the-mill thugs, they were professionals.  The police showed up soon, and took the men and their gear into custody.  Luckily for the heroes, one of the flying A-eyes had captured the entire fight on tape, show the men firing first, and the heroes simply defending themselves.

Now here's were the party split up, as Dalek was being a bit of a wimp :).  Dalek recovered from his stun damage, but had taken a number of wounds, and wanted to go to the hospital.  Although the others told him he'd be ok, Dalek was very insistent.  His reasons became apparent once he got to the hospital.  You see, back at the casinos, to keep Morgan from dipping into the party funds, Dalek offered to hang on to the groups' joint cash cards (the ones accessing the party funds).  Now that Dalek was at the hospital, he transferred himself to a different area.... the cyber surgery area!  He ordered up an ordinary subdermal weapons mount, which was no big deal.  He then put himself down for Amazing quality body plating!! (He also wanted CF SkinWeave but couldn't afford it:)  (Rhys, who plays Dalek, is not known for his discretion).    This reduced the party's funds significantly (although Morgan and Whooshra didn't find out about this for a while).  He then spent a while recovering (Now we know who's body this body guard is guarding: his).  While he was doing this, Morgan and Whooshra headed to the Turnabout.  They entered and asked the bartender for Mar'eketh.  The bar tender pointed him out and the heroes approached.  As they got close, Morgan introduced himself.  He got about as far as "Hello, are you Mar....".  The t'sa screamed his head off, and in one quick fluid motion, went from sitting calmly enjoying a drink to bolting between the two of them at full speed.  They both easily passed dexterity checks and were able to tackle him.  After managing to calm him down, they asked about Dr. Danerhy.  Mar'eketh said he knew him, but wanted them to do him a favor before he would help them out.  Just one little favor.....

It seems that Mar'eketh used to work as a pilot, mechanic and smuggler for a local crime boss; a sadistic fraal named Galthir.  While working for him, he met many people but made few friends.  One of those friends was a dancer named Natasha.  She used to work in the Turnabout.  About two weeks ago, she told Mar'eketh she was going to quit Galthir's group (Mar'eketh left about three years ago).  However, a week ago she vanished.  Mar'eketh thinks she may have been murdered, or if she is alive, Galthir may still have her in his local complex.  What he wishes the heroes to do is either find Natasha and rescue her, or do as much damage to Galthir and his operation as possible.  Morgan (always the mercenary) asks for payment.  Mar'eketh says he has virtually nothing but info on Dr. Danerhy's whereabouts, and a small amount of money that he can use to charter a commercial liner to the Odin system where he, and possibly Natasha, can start a new life.  Morgan says he'll give them a lift to Odin if he gives the heroes the money.  Mar'eketh agrees.

The next day, Morgan and Whooshra head over to Galthir's warehouse complex (at about this time, Dalek is going under the knife and getting himself all armored up).  They try to bluff their way in pretending they are smugglers (Morgan does the talking), but get sent away, told to return in three days.  Three days (and several thousand credits at the casinos) later, Morgan and Whooshra return and are admitted and enter a large warehouse, full of various crates.  After a thorough ID search, Galthir's men seem convinced they are who they say they are (Morgan's criminal record for once doesn't prevent him from getting a job).  They are asked to take a shipment of small assassin droids to the Fenris system, which Morgan agrees to do.  While the transaction is going on, both Morgan and Whooshra are casing the place.  Morgan makes small talk with several warehouse personel and eventually finds out that Natasha is being held in Galthir's private dungeon/torture chamber.  They leave the warehouse and the shipment is loaded onto their vessel.

Morgan and Whooshra concoct a strategy, get Mar'eketh and are about to leave for the warehouse.  They call Dalek at the hospital, where he is recovering from his massive surgery, and tell him to get himself over to the ship and tell Ezekiel to have the engines running.  They also find out about his cybersurgery, which cost in excess of $8000, and vow to take away his access to the party funds.

Mar'eketh has rigged up a poorly made, but effective Detonex bomb.  Morgan and Mar'eketh drive to the warehouse in a rented truck, while Whooshra flies overhead, carrying the bomb.  Morgan bluffs his way into the complex, parking along the perimeter fence.  Meanwhile, Whooshra has landed on the roof of the massive warehouse they had previously been in.  He located and opened a skylight and threw the bomb in, then flew like hell.  Just as they thought, the warehouse had a significant amount of ammunition and weapons in those crates, and went up like a Roman candle.  In the confusion, they heroes and Mar'eketh made their way to Galthir's main warehouse, and began searching the lower levels, quickly coming across the prison area.  Morgan shot all of the locks off, releasing the five prisoners inside the various cells, then shot off the last lock, opening the door to Natasha's cell.  Whooshra moved to her to see if she was ok, and for his trouble got a subdermal mass pistol pointed in his face, as Natasha (who had been beaten severely) was afraid he was there to hurt her some more.  The mass pistol wasn't loaded of course, but it was a good bluff to catch Whooshra off guard.  She then saw Mar'eketh and knew he was there to rescue her.  Running for their collective lives, the group got to their truck and drove to the spaceport.  They made it off planet without further incident.

Once in space, Mar'eketh thanked them again for saving Natasha, and spilled the beans on Dr. Danerhy.  Since he quit Galthir's gang, Mar'eketh hired himself out as a private scout (he had a ship which was recently impounded, as he couldn't keep the payments up).  In one system, 3260-B, his sensors found an unusual formation on the surface, definately not naturally occuring.  He immediately thought of Miles (they knew each other from way back, when Mar'eketh had wanted to study biology of alien lifeforms, and attended the university Miles taught at) and decided to relay this info to him (Mar'eketh had no desire to land on an uncharted world).  Also, instead of paying Morgan the money he promised, he offered to stay on as one of the crew.  Natasha also stayed, as she wanted a bit of security and stability in her life.  Finally, they emptied the crates of assassin droids and dumped their contents into Tyche's orbit, letting them burn up.

So, the group set course for system 3260-B and punched it full speed ahead.  While at warp however, Morgan and Whooshra found a good way to amuse themselves.  Whooshra sedated Dalek, who was still very weak from surgery, and he and Morgan proceeded to put him in one of the crates the assassin droids were in.  They filled it with the foam packing stuff the droids had been in, and cut several airholes in the top of the crate, doing various things such as dumping whipcream on Dalek through the holes, or waiting putting his hand in warm water.  Finally, they sealed him up and didn't let him out for a couple of days (until the stench became too bad).  For most of the time, Dalek was concious, but still very weak and so couldn't break out.  The journey took about eight-and-a-half days, by the end of which Dalek was pretty much back to normal, although still a bit sluggish.  I believe that he has learned his lesson about spending large amounts of the party's money without consent.

The ship entered system 3260-B and proceeded to the second planet, where Mar'eketh had found the oddity.  Sure enough, there it was, but now sensors were also registering a large power source from within.  Atrus informed everyone that he would have to land roughly five miles away, as the energy the thing was emmiting was interfering with the ship's induction engines and mass reactors.  They found a clearing and landed, only five miles of thick jungle separating them from the ruins.  Whooshra flew above, scouting the terrain, while Morgan, Mar'eketh, Natasha and Dalek hacked through the plants.  Nightfall came but they pressed on.  They soon heard laser fire and trees falling.  Whooshra and Morgan were able to see a group of four humans and one weren clearing a path through the jungle.  The PCs decided to follow them, and made much better progress that way.  After some time, the unknown group made it to the ruins and set up temporary camp.  A debate as to whether or not to contact this new group took place among the heroes, but eventually Morgan came out of hiding and began to talk with them.  They seemed friendly enough, and it turned out that they too were looking for Dr. Danerhy.  They told the group that they were attacked by pirates in this system and only managed to escape with their lives, and a severely damaged ship, and that they needed the money Alicia had promised them (same offer; $200,000).  Morgan didn't tell them that the PCs were looking for Miles as well, but just kind of implied that they were simply exploring the area.  Everybody rested for a bit, then headed around the ruins, looking for an enterance.  The ruins themselves were actually a large pentagonal structure made out of an unknown yellowish metal.  They soon found the enterance, along with a rented skycar registered to Dr. Danerhy.  The groups entered the structure, leaving Natasha outside to guard the skycar.

Inside, they went down a large set of small stairs, then made their way to what was thought to be a dead end.  Dalek began searching the dead end and vanished.  The rest soon followed and it was found to be a teleportation device of some kind.  After testing to see if it was a two-way teleporter (it was) they observed their new surroundings.  They were standing on a circular platform roughly 30' in diameter.  The platform was suspended in mid-air in a chamber roughly 90' in diameter.  Over the edge of the platform, one couldn't see the bottom of the chamber, as it was so far down.  Along the far walls ran what could only be power conduits.  There was only one way to go: a bridge that lead to a doorway in the far wall, between two power conduits.  The groups entered the doorway and came into a room roughly 40' in diameter with many alien control consoles in the room.  Also in the room was the elusive Dr. Danerhy (who hadn't noticed them yet), as well as a fairly large amount of rations.  Morgan approached and opened a dialogue with him, while everyone else explored the room.  It seemed that the doctor had found the ruins of a race of dimensional travellers called the Ilija.  From what he could gather, they travelled to alternate realities, seeking their race out to learn how different versions of themselves developed.  When active, this device would shift the entire planet into an alternate dimension.  When asked why he didn't tell Alicia he would be gone so long, he replied that he did tell her.

At this point, the other group told Miles that his wife wanted to speak to him, and set up a holo-projector.  There appeared Alicia's image on the bridge of a starship.  She told Miles that he was a fool, and that if he would've only sold his alien relics, they could've been rich together.  Instead, he had wanted to search for knowledge.  She taunted him telling him that searching for wealth would've been healthier for him, then ordered the other group to kill Miles and the heroes (she didn't have any desire to pay the heroes, she just wanted them to track down a large store of alien relics).  Immediately, Morgan reached for his mass pistol, and fired it, missing the enemies.  Whooshra then tried to use pyrokinetics, but failed.  Dalek, Mar'eketh and Morgan fired their weapons, nailing a couple of the thugs, but at the same time Morgan was knocked out by a couple of solid hits.  One of the thugs, armed with a mass pistol, was able to shoot Whooshra at point blank range, killing him almost instantly (very good roll for the thug, very bad armor roll for Whooshra).  This enraged Dalek, who was about to go into a fighting frenzy, when the entire building started to shake.  Some of the stray shot had ruptured several power conduits and control panels in the room.  The heroes and Dr. Danerhy decided to run like hell, with Mar'eketh grabbing the body of Whooshra, and Dalek dragging Morgan out.  They made their way to the teleporter, and beamed themselves out of there.  The other group had stayed back to grab as many artifacts out of the control room as they could.  They were trapped there as falling debris destroyed the teleporter.  The heroes raced to the skycar and told Natasha to get it running and out of there.  Luckily, although the power of the alien structure interfered with induction engines, it had no effect on fusion powered gravitics.  The heroes made it to their ship in ten minutes and got off world asap.  Mar'eketh placed Whooshra in stasis, but at this point, there appears to be no hope of him living.

Atrus informed them that power levels were growing exponentially and that they should get far away from the planet.  At the same time, a large corvette size ship approached, and hailed them.  A flaming mad Alicia Danerhy screamed at them for ruining her chance to be rich beyond her dreams.  In the background, the captain of the ship told his weapons officer to blow the Phoenix out of the stars.  The group wanted to flee, so I made a check for Ezekiel's piloting skills and got an amazing result.  They zipped away at top speed, getting out of range of the corvette.  Just then Atrus notified the crew that the structure was producing more energy than a small star.  All of a sudden, the power build-up stopped.  A second later, the planet dissappeared, and all non-essential systems on the Phoenix shut down, as they were hit by a massive EMP wave.  Mar'eketh went down to the engine room to see what he could do to get the ship back up and running while the others waited.  Nearly two hours went by and nothing.  Then, clanging noises could be heard from outside.  Someone was grappling onto them!  A few minutes later, laser torches began to cut through the hull of the Phoenix!  Morgan had Atrus depressurize the area of the ship where the boarders were going to enter.  As the torches cut open a hole in the hull, the heroes readied their weapons.

However.... an amoeba-like creature wearing a leathery second membrane (a space suit) came through the hole, followed by two more.of its species.  They cautiously approached the heroes (who were all in e-suits) and tried to initiate communication.  Just then, Mar'eketh managed to get power up and running.  Morgan quickly looked at the sensors.  The planet they had been on had changed.  It used to be a jungle world with a single moon, but now however, it was a water-world with two moons, and multiple power signals on all three bodies!  A high PL5/low PL6 society had evolved here!  Atrus finally was able to begin translating the alien's language once the ship was fully repressurized.  First contact was made, and the heroes finally knew the names of the creatures they had met: the dralasites.