Chapter 1
Our heroes have been stranded on the ice world for two weeks now, and we learn that rations are running low.
Talen is trying to hunt a bady ridge-boar. We get a brief reminder of what happened in the last book, before he fails to catch the boar in a net and chases it through the forest. He encounters an adult ridge-boar, and is forced to flee from it.
Talen falls into a hole, hurting his arm, and is unable to climb out. He tries to use the communicator which Fleapit has made for each member of the party to call for help but gets no response.
Chapter 2
Zelia is back at camp, and was worried about Talen going off to hunt alone (although doesn’t appear to have volunteered to go with him).
Zelia thinks to herself that Erasmus got them in to their current difficulties – which is not only not true, but he actually saved their lives more than once in the last book.
Mekki and Fleapit are friends now. They communicate by ’electronic telepathy’.
Zelia and Talen were becoming close, but he is moody because he doesn’t like being told what to do.
Fleapit boosts the comms signal and they make contact with Talen.
Fleapit produces a grapple hook make from a bolt rifle from his ’pocket universe’ containing backpack, and Zelia and Mekki set off to rescue Talen.
When they arrive at the hole they discover that Talen is not there, although his vox unit is. Zelia climbs down into the hole to look for him.
Chapter 3
Talen has been unconscious. He wakes up in a nest of human bones and straw. The monster which knocked him out can be heard sleeping nearby. He starts to sneak away.
Zelia arrives and makes noise and waves around a lume-rod. She identifies the monster as an infant ambul. It is wounded. She wakes it up with her light.
An adult ambul emerges from deeper within the cave and chases them out. Talen and Zelia backtrack to the hole Talen fell into and use the grapple to escape. Talen apparently thinks that having to put his arm around Zelia so that he isn’t killed by the ambul is humiliating.
The illustration on page 45 shows the grapple hooked on the edge of the hole, but the text says that it is attached to a nearby mushroom tree.
Chapter 4
The adult ambul is wounded too. The description says that it has a missing claw, but the illustration on page 45 didn’t show this as being the case.
Zelia Talen and Mekki return to their camp, and Zelia examines Talen’s injured arm. Her omniscope also works as a medi-scanner and a holographic projector.
Talen has dislocated his shoulder. The escape pod’s cogitator has a full medical database in it, which mekki uses to learn how to fix the dislocation.
A storm is closing in.
Chapter 5
Zelia fixes Talen’s shoulder.
All of the lights turn off and Mekki discovers that their power supplies will be dead within a day. He doesn’t know how to fix the problem, so they go to visit Fleapit in his tent.
Out in the storm, Mekki and Talen get into a fight because the plot has decided that Talen will act like a jerk.
They can’t wake Fleapit up. Mekki says that ’He is not dead, but he is not alive either’. The jokaero is in suspended animation. Mekki knew that he was struggling due to the cold weather, but apparently hadn’t thought to tell the others until now.
The children argue because the plot requires them to. Talen notes that Fleapit isn’t a great team player, since he didn’t tell them he was going into hibernation. Mekki says that he can keep the power on, and Talen points out that he just claimed that they needed Fleapit’s help for that. Mekki accuses Talen of wasting their rations to hunt the ridge-boar. Talen counters that he was trying to increase their supplies, and that the others weren’t helping at all. Zelia says that they can fight if they want to because she doesn’t care anymore; and then immediately says that they need to work together.
Talen storms off.
Everyone gets sad.
They have more of an emotional reaction to this argument than they did to the destruction of Targian in the previous book.
Chapter 6
Zelia wakes up from a nightmare about the Necron Deathmark.
Mekki is trying to fix the heater, but he can’t. He doesn’t understand Fleapit’s technology. He knows that Fleapit was trying to build something, but doesn’t know what.
Mekki gets angry and starts shouting in binary and pushes Zelia over before storming off into the storm.
Mekki stumbles about in the storm.
The sonic fence around the camp has failed.
He encounters a four-armed alien. He is being hypnotised when Zelia and Talen arrive. Mekki somehow manages to run away.
Chapter 7
The children hide inside their shelter. The alien starts attacking the door.
Using memory wafers containing a catalogue of everything which they found on their excavations, which Mekki has been carrying around, Zelia identifies the enemy as a genestealer (surprise!), based on a skeleton they once found on a temple ship.
The genestealer tears a hole in the wall.
Mekki realises that Fleapit was building an energy shield because Talen happens to say the word ‘shield’.
Zelia and Talen pull a pipe off the wall and start hitting the genestealer while Mekki and his servo-sprite complete the shield.
The force field activates and cuts off the genestealer’s arm.
They have 40 minutes of power left. The genestealer is stalking around outside. It looks at Talen and hypnotises him.
Chapter 8
Zelia stops the hypnosis by blocking the genestealer’s view to Talen. It attacks the forcefield before leaving.
Talen names the xenos Scarface because it has a scar on its face.
Mekki knows that Fleapit has been finding technology an scrap from an unknown source, but apparently hasn’t questioned it before now. They discover that Fleapit has put a block on the servo-sprite’s memory so that it can’t tell the children where he goes to scavenge.
If they can find the source of the technology they can recharge their power and keep the shield up.
Talen points out that they will need a weapon to face the genestealer, and Zelia concedes the point.
Then Scarface bursts up through the floor.
Chapter 9
They run outside and Mekki reverses the forcefield so that the alien is trapped inside, which doesn’t really make sense. Scarface attacks the forcefield through the hole in the wall rather than returning back along the underground tunnel.
Talen sees that his pouch containing his toy soldier is still inside the shelter. The genestealer notices his reaction and picks up the pouch to offer it to him. Zelia convinces Talen not to go back for it. Scarface gets angry and throws the pouch down.
Chapter 10
They need to wake up Fleapit to find out where the technology is before the power runs out in 20 minutes time.
Apparently Fleapit has a connection to the servo-sprite, so Mekki tries to ’use it to reach him’ (???)He sees the events of the previous book from Fleapit’s perspective. Then Fleapit breaks the connection.
Talen opts to hit fleapit with a wrench. The jokaero wakes up due to a ’defensive function built into his hibernation’.
Fleapit confirms that there is an old spaceship on the other side of the forest. He is too weak to get up, so Zelia and Mekki carry him.
Chapter 11
They find the ship buried in the forest. They lever open a hatch using a length of scrap metal as a crowbar (nice and secure external airlock...)
Scarface is coming.
Fleapit recovers consciousness just in time to climb down the ladder into the ship.
Chapter 12
Zelia closes the hatch just as Scarface reaches her.
Fleapit goes back into hibernation.
Mekki can interface with a cogitator to turn the lights in the ship on. He claims that if they can reach the enginarium they may be able to take off or use the comms to contact the Scriptor. Scarface won’t be able to get in because the hull is made of reinforced ceramite. Why the hull would be made of ceramite isn’t clear.
Zelia explains that the engines will be at the back of the ship, and the refectory will be in the middle. How do they know which way the front and the back of the ship are from their current location? It’s a book for children – who cares?!
They split up and Talen goes off alone to find food. Talen and Mekki make up and are friends again because reasons.
Scarface cuts its way into the ship through the sealed hatch.
Chapter 13
Talen is exploring when Scarface finds him. He outruns the genestealer and locks a door behind him.
Zelia and Mekki find the engines. Mekki plugs into a cogitator and gets the power back online. Easy peasy!
Chapter 14
Talen climbs into a ventilation shaft but Scarface follows him.
The ship is becoming hot already and the ice inside is melting.
Talen drops down into an armoury and finds a grav pistol.
He tries to shoot Scarface twice but nothing happens. Scarface leaps at him. While the xenos is in the air, Talen notices a switch on the gun, flicks it, and fire again. He hits Scarface with a bolt of energy which pins the genestealer to the floor.
The armoury door requires a passcode to exit the room (the absurdity of this is even lampshaded by Talen). The ship can apparently detect unauthorised use of weapons.
The superstructure of the ship is interfering with their vox units. Zelia uses the ship’s comms to contact Talen. Mekki opens the armoury and then locks the genestealer inside once Talen is out.
Chapter 15
Mekki accesses the ships log and learns that there were loads of genestealers aboard, and that’s why it crashed.
Talen stumbles upon a nest of hibernating genestealers encased in ice. And the ice is melting!
Chapter 16
Talen tells Zelia and Mekki to escape the ship without him. He runs from the genestealers, and bumps into Scarface, but it is still affected by the grav beam and he can just run past. The other genestealers charge past, ’mowing it down with their claws’.
Talen outruns the genestealers for a bit before coming to a dead end at a locked door.
The illustration on page 174 shows Talen running with the lume-rod which the text says he has already lost.
Chapter 17
Talen is hypnotised again; but just as he is about to get a facefull of ovipositor Fleapit pulls him up into a vent, takes the pistol, and shoots the genestealers.
Mekki finds a map of the ship in the cogitator. He uploads it to Zelia’s omniscope (somehow?). The resultant holographic map shows their location, Talen, and a path to reach him. The omniscope can also detect nearby lifeforms and adds them to the map.
Zelia and Mekki meet up with Talen and Fleapit. Mekki can use his wrist-screen to add markers to the holographic map projected by Zelia’s omniscope.
They all outrun the genestealers again and get to an airlock which leads to the caves under the forest. The airlock is stuck but Fleapit just pulls it off its hinges. Zelia shoots the roof of the cave as they flee, causing it to collapse behind them.
Chapter 18
They run back to the ambul den, where they meet the adult ambul again. Talen tries to shoot it but the grav gun is out of power.
Then Scarface appears again, blocking the exit.
Scarface and the ambul fight.
Our heroes flee back to the hole which Talen fell into earlier. They can’t climb out, but Fleapit reconfigures the grav pistol so that it projects an anti-grav field (obviously not requiring power..?) which makes the group lighter than air, and they float up out of the hole!
They all jump out of the anti-grav bubble onto a mushroom tree, and the weapon keeps flying upwards, off to have its own adventures.
They are about to start climbing down the tree when a spaceship appears above them. It lands and a figure ([Rogue Trader] Captain Harleen Amity) steps down the access ramp to meet them.
The end.
Originally Posted by Rogue Star
His tattoo is of an alien beast. Like getting a space tiger on his arm or something. The Imperium is fine with that.
*sniff*
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