As we all put on our gear, I ask a question for which I think I know the answer, “So… are you up to date on the situation?”

  “We had hours to talk,” Charlene comments, “the only thing we don't properly know is how you got out of it… Mom.”

  “Ugh, not you too.”

  “Broad strokes of how you got away is pretty obvious,” Brenna barges in, “given the dirt and rocks outside of the windows,” She pauses pregnantly, “Mom.”

  The radio cackles to life, saving me the embarrassment of needing to answer, “Fine. Starve to death for all I care… restock this pce with another Marooned one from your own corpse. I was just taking a tech of opportunity… no fur off my hide if I don't bring your mech back to the overlords… but I have a schedule to keep. Enjoy a slow, painful death, moron!”

  “Finally,” Alice grins, “We can leave.”

  “Not yet,” I shake my head, “That could easily be a ruse to draw me out.”

  “We should wait another day or two…” Brenna considers.

  “We still have the invisibility on all of the little mechs,” Charlene comments, “plus the burrowing option.”

  “And if only one of us goes,” I consider, “they see what they expect if they're still here and have figured out a way to penetrate the cloak.”

  “Also, now we KNOW the immortality thing works so only one of us isn't a serious risk,” Alice smiles, “...Mom.”

  I take a breath and ignore the jab; it will hopefully cool down faster that way, “so of course, I should do the scouting,” also lets me see how they like it if I kick it, “in case they do get through, it's best to match up as closely as possible with what they expect.”

  “We have a pn, then,” Brenna nods as she signs, “Mom scouts, and if they're out there, she comes back and we wait longer. If they're not, she radios us all to let us know.”

  “What if they kill Mama?” Ugh, Charlene, really?

  I roll my eyes, “Then my granddaughter lets you know what's up after you rest up.” I shrug, “Not my first choice, but if they fully believe there's nothing here for them, they'll leave.”

  “Is it weird to anyone else that dying is a strategy now?” Alice shakes her head.

  “A VALID strategy, even,” Charlene chuckles, “Yes. Very.”

  “Great, well…” I shrug, “Worst case scenario, I see you all tomorrow. Let's split up… again….” Everyone ughs at that (Except Brenna… she sps her legs and cps) as we get on our chairs and pull the switch.

  The mech switching around doesn't take too long; our seats shift a bit, clear walls shuffle up from the floor, we spread out, and we're in four mechs where once there was one.

  I'm scheduled to be on the pointy end for now, so I enable invisibility and head for the surface, targeting a section of the wilting forest for my exit point from the ground. After a few minutes, I emerge among the dying trees, and run a scan using the mech's sensors (in part because we selected that option)... and I see exactly one ship: Our employer's, leaving us behind. Hmm… where's ours? I keep scanning, making a point to run it over and over for two full minutes, making sure I don't miss a single thing within range… because that's how taking twenty works. Now, I'm using Computers checks to scan, and I'm pretty good with those: I put my high roll in Intelligence, I picked up a Personal Upgrade for Intelligence (just a mark I at this point, but still…), I have max ranks in the skill, it's a css skill, I've got a scaling bonus (just a plus one at level two, but that will grow), and the mech's reconnaissance array gives me a nice fat five point bonus, so I'm rolling at a sixteen point bonus… which the game doesn't really expect until about level five… but this isn't a game: Reality doesn't respect CR guidelines… the undead one-shooting Charlene made that clear enough.

  I don't see anything of note, that's good. I do the same with my eyes; the mech helps there, too, but not as well… and while Perception is a css skill and I have full ranks, my Wisdom isn't nearly as high as my intelligence. So I take a flight around the bubble, maintaining invisibility, making sure everything is clear… and watch the big ship fly away.

  I give it an hour to get entirely out of range, run my scans again, then radio my friends, “All clear,” along with some references for my location as I finally give the stealth circuitry a rest.

  “Finally,” Alice returns over the channel, “It's so boring being buried alive.”

  “You should be fine then,” Charlene comments, “considering you're not technically alive.”

  I receive a text from Brenna, “I am starting to regret the oath of silence, but am wishing more of us took it.”

  I can't help but chuckle at that.

  Everyone reaches me in not too terribly long: The Auger legs we all have give a decent burrow speed, and a mile only takes fifteen minutes when one has a “walking pace” of forty feet per round.

  I ask the obvious question, “Okay, so where's the ship?”

  Alice ughs and pulls out a car clicker, “The rules of Starfinder include, and I quote: ‘In general, any minor piece of equipment with a real-world equivalent (arm clock, camera, digital keys for vehicles you own, timer, watch, and so on) can be purchased with GM approval, costs 5 credits and has light bulk,’ so we all have car clickers for the ship, although they're a little heavier than they should be. Let's find it….”

  She presses a button on her clicker, and I hear a chime. My mech suit has no trouble tracking the source of the noise, and I head there in time to watch the ship drop the stealth field, going from seemingly empty air in an open field to a ninety foot long high tech metal marvel.

  …and it's just a tier-2 shuttle.

  We're currently focused on not getting killed, so we won't have anything bigger until the point where it's viable to have an HQ for squadron combat, which will save us points on the Unification Matrix… but isn't even slightly viable until about tier five or six. If the discount worked with Launch Tubes we could maybe do it sooner, but… eh, oh well. Even at that we might want to hold off for a while so we can fit everything we'll want in there… maybe ninth level or so, assuming we live that long.

  Musings aside, I pilot my mech to the cargo bay door, and wait as the others open it up (I'll need to make my own clicker… good thing I have some spare UPBs). We go inside, park the mechs, power them down, get out, and boriously strap them down with cargo ties… I am SO looking forward to having a proper mech bay, that will hopefully make this much simpler. Until then, maximizing the cloak takes priority.

  When we're done, we head to the bridge to figure out what to do next. The ship has definitely changed… once out of the cargo bay, we now have plush carpets rather than bare metal flooring, there's four new side doors (each with one of our names), and the walls and ceilings are apparently high resolution TV screens showing the outside now. It's nice, but… “What did you guys do with the ship?”

  “Oh, do you like it?” Alice perks up, “We're not putting weapons on the merged ship, and basic shields are fine when we take pains to avoid anyone seeing us to shoot us in the first pce, so we spared the points on luxury quarters… I like how it turned out, myself.”

  “We were all tired of the communal bathing setup,” Brenna signs, “so now we each have our own bedroom and such.”

  “And of course, we just split the ship if we need to fight,” Charlene grins, “at which point all of this goes away and we're back to basics with the two fighters.”

  That makes me frown, “Hey Ferdinand….”

  Our resident ghost appears, walking alongside us, “What can I do for you, David?”

  I frown, “Where do the mechs and cargo go when we split the ship?”

  The dead man in a suit frowns, “Hold a bit…” he does that silent talking thing again, listens, and speaks, “The mechs just dissolve and reform, they're part of the same underlying energies, so it's no problem. For other items, anything not part of the deal ends up dumped in space if the components do not have a comparable pce for them. The four of you will always end up in one of the ships, but without enough crew quarters, cargo bays, passenger seating, or simir in the component ships… you're going to lose anything fully real to the void.”

  Alice nods, “So no cargo missions for now. Got it.”

  Brett smiles as she signs, “You’re not concerned about guests?”

  Charlene chuckles, “We don't have quarters for them anyway.”

  “We can get seating trivially, good for short hops,” Brenna signs, “but that's not even slightly viable if we expect trouble, given this.”

  “Tossing everyone into space as soon as someone shoots across our bow would be bad, yes,” I shake my head as we reach the bridge, “I am SO gd I asked.”

  “All the more reason to get the HQ set up when we can,” Alice shrugs.

  We sit down and re-engage the cloak, and I ask, “So… where to next?”

  “Back to Absalom Station?” Brenna signs.

  “Eh,” Alice considers, “I'm not sure that's wise… if the apparent agents that hired us left friends behind who were in the know…”

  “Then we need to be careful,” Charlene smiles, “when collecting the bags of experience points they're going to throw at us.”

  That makes me ugh, “Maybe, but they won't all be simple thugs.” I consider, “We are immortal… as long as one of us stays behind, we could maybe join the games at Eox…”

  “Those are the Halls of the Living,” Charlene shakes her head, “we don't bleed.”

  “What about the Chromium Coliseum on Amran?” Brenna suggests.

  “I don't really like the idea of dying for a living, honestly,” Alice shakes her head, “I want something a little less public and a little less inherently dangerous.”

  “Because escorting scientists worked out so well,” Charlene rolls her eyes, “we kind of need the danger, and it's difficult to avoid anyway.”

  “Point, but I still don't like the idea of dying on screen for everyone to see,” Alice considers, “maybe a nice pnetary survey mission? We have all the skills in the group… I have most of them personally, even.”

  “You want something boring, huh?” I consider, “I can't say as I bme you. We can hunt local predators when we nd to examine the pnet, I suppose,” and yes, we have to nd to examine a pnet: Starship sensors are built for a vacuum, and do very poorly in an atmosphere. We can get observation sensors which rgely fix that and give us a good ten mile view, but we're still rather short on starship build points right now.

  “Still, all this is just idle specution until we actually find work,” Brenna points out… somewhat literally, as she's using her hands, “We still need to go somewhere to get gigs. Maybe Diastrega?”

  Alice thinks a moment, “On Amran?” Brenna nods, and Alice continues, “I could get work as a Private Investigator… and UPBs are needed everywhere, so we could all make those when other work is light.”

  “And it has a high crime rate and x government,” Charlene smiles, “which lets the rest of us hire out as private security… or just collect criminal corpses.”

  Brenna considers, “Sounds fair.”

  I consider as well, “That works for me. Alice….”

  “Already on the course,” she replies as she opens her workstation.

  We let her at her task, checking ship's systems to make sure everything is in order, and soon enough we're unching and heading to a new destination… under cloak, hopefully avoiding the wrath of the Spectra.