As the ships pass into the magnetic storm that is thrashing Io, sensors on the various controls light up, indicating a massive spike in radiation. The levels are so high in fact, that a vacc suit alone will not protect the crew from the deadly radiation; one would need both a vacc suit and a dose of Anti-Rad in order to venture outside of their ships (skinsuits with Anti-Rad won’t cut it this time).
Additionally, sweeping torrents of rain begin to buffet the ships as soon as they enter Io’s thin, un-terraformed, and highly toxic atmosphere. Again, alarm indicators light up – it’s not water in the rain, but pure sulfuric acid, thought the acid won’t harm the ships or those outside protected by vacc suits (once again, skinsuits are a no go).
As Gilbert, Jacob, and Crystal come down behind the Desperado, they spot one of the domed mining colonies through the sulfuric rain and chaotic lightshow of the magnetic storm. The closer the Desperado can land the ship to the domed colony the better. Unfortunately, when they try to radio that information to the each other, the comms are completely useless.
Butch, Samuel, and Montoya meanwhile, manage to use the Desperado’s engine igniters and the Raven’s thrusters to strategically slow the Desperado’s breakneck speed and establish a proper angle of descent that helps to reduce the impact of the emergency landing – at least to the point that everyone is still alive and able to walk away from it when the dust finally settles.
Even so, the impact and subsequent careening across the jagged and abrasive landscape does tear up the hull of the Desperado pretty badly, reducing the bottom of the ship to a chewed up tangle of shredded metal, before it finally comes to a stop a few hundred yards from the domed mining colony that some of the crew saw when coming down. The ship itself has taken 100 points of Damage and depressurized the cargo bays, while the Montoya and his dog each take only 2 Damage inside (thanks to those five-point belt harnesses they installed before leaving Europa).
Samuel and Butch manage to detach the Raven moments before impact and the tractor ship and freighter-cars take no damage and are able to be set down nearby.
The three other smaller ships are violently buffeted about by chaotic and powerful gusts of wind and acid rain – Butch’s ship (piloted by Crystal) actually being struck by lightning and going completely dead right before Crystal can land it!
It falls about two hundred feet out of the air, but miraculously, Crystal re-ignites the engines in time (2 Luck) and slows down enough before impact to simply land hard – snapping off a landing strut. The same landing strut incidentally, that Jacob accidently blew off in the fight with the Syndicate goons a while back.
Aboard the Desperado, Montoya remotely opens the hanger doors from the Bridge, so Gilbert and Jacob can land inside.
Crystal manages to get the Plan C? back into the air long enough to bring it in as well.
And, after realizing that they have no way to communicate with the others, Samuel and Butch separate the tractor ship from the freighter-cars and head into the Desperado too.
Once everyone is in, Montoya closes the hanger doors again, which shields everyone from the radiation outside. He also discovers, quite pleased with himself in-fact, that he still has comms inside the ship through the PA system.
Outside however, the environment is a hostile mix of unbreathable atmosphere, acid rain, supercharged radiation, sharp lightning, and colorful ionic disturbance.
Visibility, through the sheets of sulfuric acid pouring down and the scintillating auroras of color that dance across the landscape, is less than a few hundred feet. The “air” itself is charged with energy that makes one’s hairs stand on end, while lightning arcs across the sky in a nonstop display of the storm’s savage fury.
Even the surface of Io is a hazard; its rocky and jagged exterior is pockmarked with ruts and fissures – most overflowing with sulfuric acid, as rivulets running through the rust-like soil continuously feed them with the down-pouring rain.
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Topic: Did Somebody Say Zombies?!? (Read 231664 times)