Worlds Beyond Number - Flight of the Icaron: Episode 5 - Full Send

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

In the dark of orbit, the crew of the Icaron makes its last stand. A desperate plan unfolds across steel corridors and open vacuum as the ship is pushed beyond its limits and an armada bears down. This is the final assault.   We are: Brennan Lee Mulligan Erika Ishii Aabria Iyengar Lou Wilson   Flight of the Icaron was produced by Fortunate Horse and Worlds Beyond Number Edit and Sound Design by Brian Flaherty from Many Sided Media https://www.manysidedmedia.com/ Score by Will Savino https://wsavino.com/ Sound Effect library courtesy of artlist.io   Director of Operations: Melanie Bowman Social Media Manager: Shannon H Lorekeeper and Transcriptionist: Jack Morgan E.F. Lavandowska  Special Thanks to: Amanda Freberg at Big Giant Head and the team at Laservision Character Art Alecia Doyley https://tallnquirky.carrd.co/ Ship Art by Britt Anderson https://brittajj26.com/ Graphics by Lu Tomkiewicz https://www.lumadethis.com/   You can find transcripts of all our episodes on our Patreon. Just navigate to the post for the episode and the transcript will be attached.

A half-hung banner reading Go-Servils. Hangs over the slideball court. Now, the facto headquarter of our heroes as they prepare to save the Icaron. The hollow table is illuminated. The schematics of the Icaron existing in three-dimensional space. Standing next to it, Nate Sharp, now fully dressed for battle. Rifle slung at his side around him, Kiki Davis. Vogue and Vald Vlostroff prepared to assault the command bridge to distract and take on attention.

In front of them, fish cakes, surrounded by five children strapped with packs of coolant, ready to climb through the vents. Nate taps the communicator collar that he is wearing and goes, Andre, you got me? I got you loud than clear on Nate. In the TRC, Andre Dalca, tubes, Lewis, and Arjun, as well as a group of other officers of the ship prepare to overcharge its central engine, the thermoplastic reactor core. Nate stands addressing the group with his caller communicator open

so that everyone on the channel are able to hear. All right, everybody, we got one shot at this. so let's make it count Andre you got everything you need to overcharge the tourists set everything up so we can knock it down we're gonna be in here juicing this battery up as fast as we can

okay but listen it's got to be all on the same watch so everybody stay chatting on the comm 100% fish cakes you and the kids know the seven places on the ship you're planning the coolant to make sure that the life support systems and other main factors are able to maintain

I've been waiting for miss my entire life. And just to double check again, fish cakes, these kids are down. As a commander, I'm not 100% comfortable sending children into a dangerous area. I look over at the kids. You guys know we'll die anyway if we don't do this correctly, right? Um, yeah. Okay.

We're good. Okay. Kiki, we're... I'm gonna walk over to Kiki and fish sticks. Cakes. Fish cakes. Uh, cakes. I'm gonna walk over.

All right, fish sticks, listen up. Yeah. Four episodes deep. Five. Yeah, it's true. Fully just dad named. Like, what's my kids' friends' name? Yeah, yeah.

Fish, things come here. All right. We are so beautiful. I'm going to walk over and go, fish cakes, geeky. These are for you. And I'm going to hand each of you a small little virtual pet. that I have from a bag. What?

What's this? This is a little virtual pet. My daughters like them when they are young. You are both younger than me. You have them. Also, they have a secret map to the installation. So if you any, you lose it, they have a backup here. And I'm going to give each of you a potent aptitude die.

Just a D4, which is basically a part of inspiration. You can carry around with you. When handed this, what is a little virtual pet, fish cakes looks a little skeptical, but then lights up when you say that it is of service in this mission and looks up at you with big, watery eyes and goes to hug you. Andre will look surprised at first, return the embrace. Hey, we all got to make it, so we all going to make it. You're right.

mind if I get a little weird for the group? Yeah. Nate, come over here. Yeah, sure. No, never mind. It's up to three. Just go away. All right.

Okay. Just slide on back. I'm not going to, I won't take any offense to that. And Kiki, like, in that moment, you two are embracing, and she's looking down at her virtual pet, and she's actually way more excited about the virtual pet part. The map is fine. I'm going to go break hallways. I think you all feel that same strange, like, gravity is pulling in different directions on you,

like you guys are the center of it. And I'm going to cast force barrier. So for the next eight hours, your hit point max and current hit points increased by five. Incredible. Oh. Are you guys done? What?

We were trying to have a moment. No, I'm not. We're dying. Hey, you called me over. God, you're right. And then asked me to go away. Come on. Let's go kill some stuff.

And this is the biggest gun you could find. You see that he points at the kind of magnetic rifle he's given you. I mean, that's what we got down here. You don't make bigger guns than this. And you thought you were going to win a war against the Martians. I wasn't planning to win a war against the Martians. All right. I'll do what I can with this pea shooter.

And this gun is half. Like, you can't see most of Kiki's torso behind this. I want to be like you when I grow up. Eat your fish dicks and you will. Yes, ma'am. You see, Nays. laughs. Are you comfortable outside?

Yeah. Great. I think we're going to hit him at fabrication. Then I think we bust out the airlock and climb. Sweet. Then I'm going to take out my little, like, knife that I had earlier. And you just see her, like, turn and slit the bottom of her boots to, like, split the soul so she can, like, she moves a little quieter and it's just a little more dexterity.

Like, new boots, new dress. Okay. Just like home. Let's go. That's one hell of a home you're from. You, Nate, and his two aides move toward the central lift that you're going to take up to fabrication, where you will begin your offensive. Andre, you head back to the TRC up the service stairs from the Naderab. Their tubes already has his kind of climbing gloves up and is ready.

And it's like, fish cakes, the kids look at you. This is going to be fun, right? It's going to be so much. Fun. You're going to have the best time of your lives. And honestly, when you're crawling around in the vents, you are king there. King, king, king, king, king. You all have been outfitted with similar equipment to what Andre has, so you will have no problem climbing vertically through the vents as you move to the seven points in the ship where you need to place the coolant. We will now begin the final assault. during this time. Now that's what I call

Pod Racing. No. As Earth emerges far, far distant on the horizon from the Vizhab at the bottom, our final assault begins. Each of you has different tasks

that you are hoping to achieve, but with the goal of them all sinking up to create the chain reaction necessary for the ideal outcome. Andre, you will be rolling to generate energy within Boris the Taurus to overpower the engine with electromagnetic energy that will then be facilitated out through the ship. You will need to generate 10 successes.

At any point after generating those 10 successes, you will be able to unleash the electromagnetic energy deeply affecting the Martian fleet. However, you will also be tasked with maintaining that energy should other elements of the plan not have occurred in time. Fishcakes, your goal is to move through the ship silently and safely with these kids depositing coolant along the different service lines to protect the life support systems within the ship. Your task is the slowest and will take the longest. So Andre's goal is to maintain that energy until the coolant can be placed and you all can

escape from the service vents into a safe location. Kiki, your job is to make noise. And the more successful that you are at making noise, the easier fish kicks job will be, and thus the longer Andre will have to maintain energy within the tourists. I need everyone to roll initiative. 19. Love that. A nine.

That's good for me. I got a natural one. Oh, boy. First roll. Fish kicks, you will go first. You begin to climb up through service vents above the Ndir ham. Your first placement is right around the electrical conduit for the Habitat's life support systems. Go ahead and give us our first stealth check.

You hear footsteps in the hallway outside of the vent. This is your first attempt to place one of the coolant fixtures so that it is in place and also can receive the electrical shock. It will need to explode at the exact moment that you are. placing it. 24. 24. Incredible.

That is one success. You are able to take the coolant off of Timo's back. Take a fishkinks. I look at him, point to my eyes with two fingers, move my hands like in a rolling gesture, and point with my mouth slightly open. He uses the climbing gear that he got from Andre to actually flip upside down so that you can easily. using the way, bring the coolant into place, do some light electrical work. One of the coolants is placed. That brings us to Andra in the Taurus. How many coolants are you trying to place,

fish gates? Seven. Seven. Okay, gotcha. Great. One of seven placed. Yes, Andre. You see a fleet of of officers and tubes, Lewis and Arjun, all in place starting to facilitate energy. You are on a console. I need that first check to begin to generate an overwhelming amount of electromagnetic energy in the Taurus. Hell yeah. Is it also cool just for flavor if I cast countermeasures walking up to the console?

Of course you may. All right, good. Cloaking all activity from the largest. So I just want it to look like everything coming out of the TRC right now is a autonomic, supposed to happen procedure. 100%.

On the command bridge, systems nominal. I'm going to look over to tubes as I crack my knuckles, go up to the console, look over and say, com's not scanable by the security. We're not supposed to have these tubes.

Nothing, nothing. Oh, come on. Got a unionize some way. And that's going to be seven plus a nine on the diet. It's going to be 16. 16. One success. You feel the energy course in here.

Normally things in here are quite balanced. And the plasma kind of gives off a very specific kind of heat and vibration. However, you can tell as you are beginning to warp, the nature of what the torus is generating, you feel hairs on the back of your neck begin to stand up. Kiki, you feel this central lift rise up towards the fabrication level of the station. Nate looks over you and goes, so you're comfortable in a fight. No, this is my first time. Yes, obviously.

I wouldn't have been the one that was like, let's go shoot stuff. I don't know. I'm not big like you. You're not G-sick, but I haven't died yet. I mean, respect. The doors open. Martians already port. fire on me.

As the door begins to open, I think there's that little, like, you get that, like, little bit of hairs on the back of your neck of, like, it's about to start. And I think I just lean into my collar and go, you're going to want to turn it down. It's about to get loud. A squad of Martian troopers prepared to fire on you. Let's go. Let's see. Trying to get all three of you.

That is a Nat 20. Huh. Well, hot start. A 12, and aiming at you. an 11. Does the 11 hit? The 11 does not hit. You see Nate gets hit for seven points of two. Ah!

Falls back as Vogue and Bad fall in in front of him. Bad takes seven points of damage and you dodge falling into the side of the central lift. That is your turn. Yeah, let's get some shots off. As we were coming up, I think I wasn't even making eye contact

with Nate. I was kind of just playing with the weapon and just tweaking little things. So I think This as it spins up just sounds a little dirty and broken already, but I like playing with my stuff. So we're just going to get a shot off. 17 to hit? 17 hits. Amazing.

This weapon is a D10 dice. Can I add some of my particular brand of nasty to this? Very much so. Great, because I'm also using the ability wound. So I think the bullets coming, or the, like, is this a... Magnetic weapon, so it's discharging, like, like, it's shooting bullets. It's just without combustion. Yeah.

The ordinance coming off of this is just a little weird and dirty, so it's going to be an additional 2D8 necrotic damage. Jesus. And I need a Constitution saving throw from the guy I'm hitting. Okay. However, I'm going to burn an extra. I have a version of sorcery points. I have force points.

I'm going to use pinpoint power. So I'm going to spend one more force point, 16. Hits. For 19 points of damage, and he's poisoned. Holy shit. Yeah. Woo. We're actually, I'm using a stat block for a squad.

Yeah. So you, Foofoo, bring one person down. Foo-Foo-Foo! You see as these bits of ordinance that have brought on your intensity hit, guys, you actually see the squad move from a tight formation until something a little bit more disjointed and spread out, which will use to kind of the impact their effectiveness in the same way as the poison condition would.

And I think over the comms, If you guys have heard what, like, gunfire sounds like, for whatever reason, this sounds very low and distorted coming, like, over the radio. These people are gone. I'm getting, like, gray space weird. Yes. So they'll have disadvantage on attacks against you as... Foof, foo, foo!

As this low, distorted stown rings out, the squad kind of moves from its uniform formation. It is something more disjointed, as they will now make their attacks with disadvantage. Just till the end of my next turn. Until the end of your next turn. Fishkakes, you hear the sound. of gunfire, not just over the comms, but also around you, as you hear footsteps rush towards kind of up and towards fabrication.

Can I hear how many people, how many footsteps there are? Feels like between six and ten, you feel like maybe some patrol that was looking for stragglers, has now been tasked to move up to fabrication. Kiki, six to ten, moving onto your location. Good to know. You good? Oh, yeah, we're good. Because of Kiki's effectiveness, your DC has now been lowered by six because of the squadrons now moving away from your location to deal with Kiki.

That's a natural 20, baby. Let's go. Holy shit. I think there is a genuine sense of excitement. As you guys kind of have your first success, get your first coolant, you see the kids get anxious to like, I want to help. You see that they are moving faster. and more eagerly, they are not disjointed or unsure. They want to do this.

They want to help you fish cakes. They look to you as being like, what do you need fish cakes? We move quietly, almost silently, and instead of whispering, oftentimes, we'll use hand gestures and communications that we've come up with just in quiet moments at the orphanage. And I direct them into two little teams, one of the teams carrying with the backpack,

and the other one helping to assist pull the backpack off the other so they're sort of chained up in a little circle helping each other's backpacks. Kira and Zady are able to do exactly what you thought maybe you would be having to do every single time. These kids have been watching from you, have been learning from you, really see you as their leader and their helper. And you see that Zadie goes to make the connection and then looks, points at it, points at you. I get thumbs up. You see that she does a quiet, cheer as you succeed in placing two more coolants and continue to move through the ship. I feel something, a sense of, there's something.

Everything has been about trying to live a moment to moment and survive and eat. I don't, this is nice. You have so much going on, so many questions still about who you are and where you come from, but I think in this moment you know that these kids love you. They have a hard time expressing it. but they're in this with you together. Back to the TRC. Andre, things are moving along.

You hear that two more coolants have been placed. These kids are more effective than maybe even you plan for. It's okay. I thought I was going to have to slow down. Hey, Arjun, we're going to need to speed up. Louis. Get on it. Okay, okay. Okay, we're going to roll again.

And it's DC-15 is one. DC-20 is two. 25 is three. Yes. Oh, 19 on the dive for a 20, 26. Let's go. Incredible. You see that Arjun and Lewis get on it.

Arjun has a hollow in one hand where he is flicking through pages of the manual as he affixes things to reroute the energy from the vaults holding electromagnetic energy directly into the torus. You feel this thing supercharged in a moment as you are now at four successes. Oh, boy, Boris getting full. Hang on, Boris. Yes, you start to see your hair lifting off your head as the energy in here becomes palpable. I'm going to go ahead and pull a little, there's like a little sort of vinyl tab, like my black snap-clipped harness.

I'm going to pull on a red tab, and my boots suction to the floor and keeping me standing in front of there. As I start to rise, I'm like, ah, going to have my fillings rip out, and I'm going to sit. second. Okay, keep going, boy! You feel your teeth in your jaw as you conduct this mighty orchestra. Kiki, again, against the door, bullets raining in. Four attacks

coming your way, each with disadvantage. Let's go. That is a two on the dice. That is a miss. Second attack coming your way for a total of 14. Does that hit? 14 hits. 14 hits.

And then two more attacks on your companion. That's a three and a six, which I think will miss. Let's go. You take three damage as a shot from one of their rifles, clips your arm as you're firefighting. Nate looks up. Fish kicks at six more on the way. Six to ten.

Six to ten. All right. We're good to stay here for a second, but we're going to need to push. Okay. We want them chasing us. Okay. Can you move? Yeah.

You got hit hard early. Yeah. Oh, you don't think I can take one? Well, come on. He charges out. Yeah. On your initiative, which is his, he moves out into the fabrication space, firing, suppressive fire. As he waves behind him, go, go.

Perfect. Then on my turn, I'm going to spray my fire. I know we're getting six to ten more in this hallway. Can I shoot to put out the lights? Very much so. Great. Then I'm going to spray to knock out the lighting and put us in as much. darkness as I can.

And again, everyone else is gone and no one knows what grace face is like. I'm going to use shadow side of myself and give myself dark vision. Hell yes. And take point in this. Go ahead and give me that attack on the lights. Does a 12 kill the lights? A 12 kills the lights. Thank God.

You, p'pah, papa, the lights in here go dark. Nate goes, what the hell? And then it's looking to you to lead them. Yeah. Because he does not have shadow sight. I think it's one of those things where it's like, you're close enough to me that you can hear my footsteps. But Kiki stops talking at this point.

If you fall behind, you get left behind. Let's fucking go, boys. The boys fall in. The boys are going to take some attacks in the dark. Oh, and then bonus action. I'm also going to use phase shift, which just lets me move five feet. So once we hit that, like,

main knot of the first group that was there, I'm going to use phase shift because it doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. Got it. Describe for me both these abilities. What does it look like as your ability that the dark comes on? And then also this moment of face shifting through this kind of crowd of surprise and dismayed soldiers. Even if you're like, I want to put the lights out here, there's so many like redundant systems built in that the best dark is just that like slow cycling of like low red light that would like alert people. So it like goes dark.

It's like a very slow dark red. strobe. When Kiki looks over her shoulders to make sure her three dudes are still following her, her eyes are giving that like cat retina reflection in like a weird purple glow. And then during one of the

like edges of like as the red phases out into a strobe, suddenly Kiki is just five feet farther along without making any sound and is on the other side moving forward. As these emergency red lights become the only lights in the room, once

spin, you're standing where you were standing, looking back at them purple reflections of your eyes glowing. Next spin of these red lights, you are five feet further. Nate's eyes go wide as he prepares shots at the crowd of Martians as you guys move through. Two hits from your compatriots. Let's go, boys. For a total of 10 points of damage, which will lower fish cakes next DC by three. You got this big dog? As you guys move through, you hear Nate going, airlock, airlock. As you guys move through, foo f f f fom, continuing to move through. Back around to fish cakes, your little family crawling through the fence up and up and up. That's an 18 on the die, so plus nine is 27.

Fucking incredible. I've been knocking the Martian engineering, but I'll tell you what. They build him good, that's why they wanted him back. Fish cakes, as you are climbing, you guys are moving at an incredibly well-timed cliff. The kids are exactly in line. Their steps, reflect your steps. Looking at your little virtual reality pet with schematics of the ship, you are at the top

of the thermoplastic routing core. So you are now affixing coolants. You have kind of a cross event that crosses from one side to the other. You need to affix these coolant vessels here to protect some of the major energy kind of throngs for powering kind of the upper half of the ship.

You see because of the effectiveness that your team now has, You see Timo look at you. Thumbs up, points at Nilo. Gestures with me, and the two of them climb across the other side of the top of the thermoplastic routing core and affix a coolant on the other side, double thumbs up and point. So they will now climb separately of you to the next kind of placement area. I send back a double thumbs up and I open my bottom lid to show my bottom teeth in what I believe to be an encouraging smile.

Timo puts his palm up, kind of waves it to one side or the other, understanding your meaning, though perhaps not as effective as you'd hope, as you all continue to climb up. These kids are exceptional, Andre. In my head, I'm going, what's going to happen if they get to seven successes and we're a mile away from ten successes? Go ahead and give me investigation. Okay.

That's going to be a 16. It's not ideal. There is a chance that the coolant could prematurely, explode, but it is unlikely. They were meant to be the most difficult part. I think even in the plan that you created, the five children carrying the coolant was the thing you thought might not work out. That was our real Achilles heel turned out to be Achilles spear, the part you got to worry about.

So I'm going to, how many successes have you accumulated it thus far? Five. Five. Five successes. So I'm going to look, and it's possible for you to get two successes at once, or that only happens. That is very possible. I'm going to look and say, Fishcakes, hold on, hold on last installment for one second

until I give you go ahead, okay? All right, holding. And I hold up a fist in the air. Nilo, who is about to follow Timo, grabs his ankle and pulls him back down, points at you, thumbs up. Thumbs up. I'm going to go for another one here.

Ooh, that's an interesting one. Andre does some quick math in his head. He has a 19. I have Defiant, which I only get to use once in this entire encounter, which would make more. sense to use at a big climactic moment. But Andre is not in hero mode. He's an engineer mode. And because I am one away from an extra success, which would bump me to a two success category, this is actually the best possible time to use Defiant because Defiant only goes to a four,

which means that there is no difference between getting one or getting four. That kind of raw, calculated optimization is exactly the mind state that Andre is in. He's going to defiant to get a DC-Twent. Let's go. Huge. Never tell him the odds. Always tell me the odds. You, hard at work, six successes. You are four away from hitting the threshold of energy you need. And again, you do this in absolute secret.

Whoever or whatever is on the bridge that could move to stop you or affect you has no idea what you're doing. That is going to be the Martians, who are now firing at you Kiki with disadvantage for a different reason. Okay, that does not hit. That also does not hit. They are putting all of their fire on this strange woman with this strange gun who is making this combat incredibly difficult for them.

I think Kiki's screaming at them and her voice sounds like it's coming through a distorted 1920s radio. She's just getting as weird as possible. Try to get them to throw up as many, like, be worried about. She's trying to be noisy by getting as weird and trying to draw as much agro as possible. What do you say in this insane, distorted voice, as you become like a true gray space fighter, where the gravity is weird, the tech is unregulated, and the things people are allowed to do to their bodies and their weapons is completely out of control? I think she's full, like, Delphic Oracle right now.

You can't understand she's speaking in the lingua franca here, but it sounds like ancient Greek being piped through an old, old speaker. It's not meant to be intelligible. It's meant to touch something inside of you that fears deep space. She's the thing that you become when you stay in the areas you're not supposed to stay in for more than a couple years. She's like the object lesson in why you don't stay in gray space. Hell, yes.

All the attacks of this squadron are. are aimed at you as you see the eight Martians that you were warned about enter this space as well. That's going to be one hit out of four attacks. Kiki, you take eight points of damage as through the dark these red lasers hit your body as you continue this strange, dissonant call. That is going to be your turn. Nate is gesturing toward a docking space that has an airlock available for exit to the outside of the ship and a fully like sealable door behind you.

You see, that is where he is pointing as you guys crumption. as you guys cross the fabrication floor of the ship. I'm using my full movement, but for my action, because I'm way of endurance as a consular, I'm going to use upheld by the force. So for the next minute, I've got resistance to kinetic and energy damage. So I'm going to stay behind and be the last one to move through.

So now the smallest one in the group is body blocking. And I think the one, like, eight-point damage that hit her, like, winged and knocked enough of her clothing off so that you would see the, like, full. wound and as she cast that, I think the blood starts to, like it stops flowing as much and begins to drift up like she's already out of Atmo. Yes, your own personal gravitational field, the gravity eliciting off of you lets the droplets of blood from your wound hang suspended in the air around you.

As you see that Nate, Vogue, and Vad move past you into the space, getting things ready for your departure out into, uh, into, into, um, into space. Yeah, bonus action. I'm going to spend one more force point to quicken an at-will spell. I'm just casting turbulence. Don't really care about the damage. I'm just trying to break this hallway as we leave just to make it a little harder for them to follow us. Hell yes. What does that look like as you cast turbulence? I think we just get that a little bit of like the camera would push in and you have that like quiet, soft moment of seeing the blood begin to drift as if everything's gotten slow and is in-atmo. And then suddenly like the red pulsing tunnel.

It just shakes. Yeah, I think it's Kiki's eyes still reflecting that purple, like, shimmer along with it, and then she turns and runs and follows everyone out. Hell, yes. You see Martians trip stumble as they get up clambering over one another to pursue you. Enjoy one point of force damage. I roll like I roll. You see their heads slam against the wall as they take a single point of force damage.

In my head, I'm doing two successes away. I'm four successes away. Do I feel that two successes away is more... In my head, I'm going, is it more dangerous for me to hold the energy or is it more dangerous for the coolant to just sit there? Undeniably more dangerous for you to wait. I'll go to Fishcase and say...

Okay, we're right behind you. Keep moving. My hand goes from a fist to pointing two fingers in the direction. Nilo, Timo, nod, and begin to climb. Go ahead and give me your next placement checks. nine plus ice 18 18 one success one success neilo and timo are able to affix one and are climbing back over towards you zady who is behind you gets their foot stuck in some courting and kind of gestures for your help all right i clamor i clamber over there and i'm going to use uh fast and agile to you both move and as a bonus action uh try and help her hell yes you climb down are able to use your fast and agile you're

able to work your arm into the straps that carry the little coolant vessels and are able to kind of help bear that weight, which allows her to focus on getting her foot unstuck, and the two of you are able to continue climbing. One coolant placement away from having your job complete. Six down one to go. Stortion on the radio, you all right? There's just nothing coming through that isn't static and reaches some deep, like, animal fear. the center of your heart. God damn. Okay, we got to move to four.

Move to four. Yep, you see everyone in your click to a different channel. Fish cakes, we are four. There's just something a little seething about it all. And I'm going to go for this. I'm going to go for another check. I know I'm still chasing them because they can get it done in the next one. I can't get it done on this one.

They also need to get out of the vent. So there's two things you have to wait for, which is one, their last success, and then two, their ability to escape out of the kind of danger zone. Okay, maybe we're right on time. All right, come on, Arjun, Louis, tubes. 18 on the die, plus seven is 25 for three successes. Hell yes. Which I believe brings me to nine.

Nine successes. You are one away from having the power necessary. Andre, you do feel the fillings in your mouth. as you realize that your earlier use of your tech abilities to kind of fix yourself is very necessary. You see bits of equipment, clipboards, anything with a piece of metal on it, start to kind of get caught in the turbulence that is now coursing around Boris the Taurus. I look at it. I shout reflexively, no pens in the TRC! Pans outside! You see out of Arjun's like little coat pocket, two pens fly.

No, no, no. You see that he grabs those two pens, is holding onto them with one hand while still trying to affix the conversion vaults with the other. The tops of my little harness suits suspenders are digging into my shoulders as gravity is just moving me up.

It's like my boots are zipped to my pants which have the overall suspenders, and that is now the hammock that is holding my body as my face goes bright red as blood rushes to it, and one of my teeth is just yanking against my jaw. I'm like,

Arrottish homesteady. Zoom, boom, boom. The energy generating in here is insane. This is so dangerous, Andre. Yes. We now have another platoon of Martians.

We're going to fire at you Kiki on their last set of turns before you exit. Oh, Nat 1 and a 2. Amazing. a nine and another Nat 1. It is upsetting in the club. Can it be that they're hitting and it's just not doing damage? I like the idea that they're not missing. Well, you also have resistance too.

So at this point, they are hitting and you watch as the kind of gravity around you, swirls, kinetic bullets, hitting you are then pinged up and around. Their shots are hitting. Yeah. You are just too strange. Wow, we're really in it. As you turn, Nate grabs you by the forearm and pulls you in to the room. As you slam the door behind you, you see that there are two of these squat kind of four-wheeled vehicles with a wide stance,

blunt nose, matte black composite, crossed hatch with scuffs. These are duckies. These are, you would be very familiar with these. These are used to kind of move around. the exterior of the ship. You see that he hands you a helmet. We got to go. Yeah.

Again, I think she's laughing and enthusiastic about this. And like every sound out of hers is just, she's just full weird. So helmet on, following a lead. Vulcan Vad already have their helmets affixed as he smacks a button. You see the door from which he came goes airtight to the other wall. You hear the fire of lasers against it as. Airlock, you hop on the back. Nate is driving as these two duckeys with great force.

You can feel that like the torque on these things sane as they again silent in the void. Yeah. But you feel the vibrations as you guys move out from this hatch onto the exterior of the arc line and they begin to maneuver you up towards the command bridge. Is there any world, like we're not getting followed out. from this, right?

No. And just looking out now that it's like open space all around, are we anywhere in the area where the Martian Armada is gathering? Go ahead and give me a perception check. 12. Hey, a 10 will do it. As you move out, you see that there are coffins moving up the arc line towards you. Does it look like they see us or they're just moving in formation?

No, they are moving in pursuit of you. Oh, great. Sweet. Not that it will help very much, but again with her like weird dark vision, she's going to immediately like crash the light inside of her helmet so her helmet's dark and she's just looking up and if I don't have to focus on driving I'm just trying to disable things with my weapon just spraying it very much so you want to take a shot at one of these coffins please go ahead snowflakes chance in hell but why not oh shit 19 on the die hits oh my god I want to shoot a

plane out of the sky this is just a random spraying pray so crazy that it hit one point of damage You connect with one of the two coffins in pursuit of you. Of course, not enough damage to affect it. But you do see you make contact in the silence of the void as you hear your own breathing and the vibrations of the ducky through your bones as you move up the arc line toward the command bridge. I think the one cool thing I could take from that is the moment she's like, if she's just sort of spraying, the moment she sees the one connect,

you just see her whole body snap back like a turret locking in. Like she's just going to keep shooting exactly like that. Here we go. Fish cakes, one last coolant to place. Having had the go-ahead from Mr. Dalka, I signal to some of the other team, the rest of my team. 23. A fixed. All of the coolant is set.

The only thing left for you to do is to take another turn to get out of the vents. I can use, oh, I guess just cunning action where I use dash disengaging. dash, disengager, hide as bonus action. Right now we're past fabrication. You've just past fabrication. You're going to come out at the top of Central IT just below the command deck.

I'm going to allow you to use cunning action, so you are able to pop a vent and kind of get out into a, like an ante chamber outside of the command bridge, but not immediately outside. Kind of, like, you're not like inherently in danger. This is a safe space

for you and the kids to be. That's, you know, separated by a number of rooms from the command bridge. I'm going to roll dice to see if the kids are able to keep up with you. We'll say that a 10 does it. None of those are tens. The children, as coordinated and competent as you all have been working together, they'll never be as fast and agile as you are. So as you are able to pop the vent, get up into this safe area,

You look down and you see that all of them are climbing as fast as they can to get there. So they will need to get to your next turn to clear the vents. Pitch cakes, you clear! I am clear. There are still rabbits in the warren. I repeat, rabbits in the warren. All right, little bunnies run. My question for you is, if I fail to accumulate a success, what happens?

Do I stay at where I'm at or do I lose a success? At this point, you will stay at where you're at. The Taurus is generating energy. but your fears and calculations suggest that there's no worry of the tortoise losing energy. It's just once it has surpassed it, the ability to maintain is very difficult. Okay, understood. In that case, I am going to, hearing that we're not clear yet and knowing that we're at nine out of ten successes, I do some quick math in my head.

My head is pounding with blood rushing into it. I'm in a lot of physical pain, and I think I'm sitting there looking at it, And I am going to take my hands off the console, and I have been getting the help action from Arjun and Lewis. If they're being the help action, could I ask them to take actions that I know would give me disadvantage on this role? You can. What? Because the rabbits are not out of the war in yet. So I would like to go over and say,

Ah, God. Arjun, you want to take a crack at this one? What? Go for it. I believe in you. And I'm going to take a leatherman out of my back set of pliers and pull my fucking tooth out of my head. Because it's making me go insane with pain. I'd like to roll with disadvantage.

Knowing that we don't lose levels from failure. No. I would like to roll with disadvantage, knowing that we're only one success away. Pull your tooth out of your head. Yes, to nail the one success. Because if you do get more successes than 20, maintaining stabilization becomes much more difficult.

In other words, if I were to actually break past 10 successes, even this round, that's a problem. That makes maintenance really hard. Gotcha. Okay. So, yeah, I'm going to basically stand back and be like, it's been a full court press to get here, and now we're throwing the e-break on this moving train

to try to just slide into the exact correct. You see that Archie goes, me, you want me to do it? They go, you're going to save the earth. Go for it. I got to get these fucking. You see that he is scrolling through his hollow. That's not in the manual as he is going to attempt to do his best as you roll this with disadvantage. That's so funny.

Oh, my God. What if this man rolls a natural one? That would have been a 16, which would have been more successes than we want. And 8 plus 7 is exactly 15, which is one success. Boom. You feel Arjun doing his best, which is, is just enough. You feel the energy in here is peak right where you want it.

Releasing this the next turn is ideal. If you have to hold it any longer, we will have problems. I'd like to offer that because I cast force barrier on you. You pull that tooth out, but for whatever reason it's not bleeding. Ooh, I'm going to pull that out. Disturbing. Now you're part of it. Just let go of the tooth and have it just fly into the fucking core.

I think it shoots through the entirety of the ship and kills a coffin. Yes, on the exterior of the coffin, you see just a perfect sniper shot as a moul of it floats off into space. Kiki, you are riding along the exterior of the arcline, climbing the ship toward the command bridge. These coffins are going to take shots on you. Yeah. One hits. As, you do not hear it because you're in space. Yay.

But you feel the impacts as lasers lash the ground around you. One, making contact with the back of your ducky, jostling you. Do you still have resistance? It should be for one minute. One minute. Okay, you do that. As you take 10 points of damage half to five as these lasers impact the ground around you. Hiki is bloody.

Yeah, I mean, you're an intense, intimidating presence. You are sadly still human. You hear Nate come over the comms as he's riding this ducky up the side of the ship. Doc, are we good? Kiki, that is your turn. As you guys are greening up, you probably got another turns worth of driving to do before you reach the maintenance access point that your plan was to aim for. Cool.

About how far away would I say the two coffins are pursuing us? Coffins have now made like a strafing run on you. So they are now just about, I'd say, 30 feet, 10 feet up, 20 feet more forward, as they have now shot at you and then are continuing to climb up the arc line before they come back around. I'm still going to bank up and shoot and use wound this time again, but I think I'm going to spend my little extra bit to get a force whisper in. You're going to die here. No one will remember that you died for this.

And go ahead and take my stupid little shots. Is it 18 hit? 18 hits. And then we're going to wound him, so we're adding to. 2D8, 15 points of force damage. Two shots from your rifle hit. You hear that one of the coffins pulls up, the other one continues to drive,

crashing into the command bridge, exploded. I think, like, even in the burst of that, like Kiki stays, like, up and locked in again, like a turret, and the moment, like, the flash of it goes away, she's slumping down. Like, she's starting to slow down now. This is a lot of blood loss, and she doesn't have a lot left. You hear Nate Sharp come over.

Kiki, what a shot. You single? She is over Combs Crockland. She is unattached, yes. X. Coming back around, fish cakes, you see the kids climbing up, out of the vent. I pull them out, and I'm flinging them out

into the hallway here. They love it because you are able to successfully throw them almost five feet as they, and fall back, skid, sliding back with your surprising strength. The kids are out of the vent. Everything slows down. No blood in my mouth.

Look over at Arjun, who I can see has taken the long way to complete the final code programming. Boris is at max capacity and not a single watt over. I look down, I hit a button to record a message that will publish to the ship's comm,

the moment I release this energy, alerting the Martians on the bridge to our presence, in the nanosecond before the entire ship gets fried. This is Chief Engineer Andre Dalka of the Icaron. Our vessel was seized in close orbit of our solar system's lone star by Martian military forces in a preamble to an invasion of Earth. That Martian Armada that sought to hang the pride of Earth's engineering over you as hostage and trophy of their inevitable victory, that Armada is currently disabled. GSEC, you have mere minutes to act before they are operational once more.

There are living hostages aboard the Icaran. life support is active, armaments are disabled. The Martian fleet is at your mercy, but only for a moment. We are proud to have fought for Earth. This ship was made by Dr. Imani Cortez, who believed that space held the promise of a brighter future. We have done our part to pave the way and honor that is all we can ask.

And I hit sand and release Poros the Doris. Across the Icaran. The ship shudders. Pressure dropping across the entire structure. A sharp track somewhere deep in the core. Then everything shifts, lights flicker. Air gets cold fast. Immediately, Andre, fish kicks.

You can see your breath as everything gets ice cold, sharp in your lungs. A metallic twang hits your nose, coolant, ozone, burnt plastic. Kiki, from the outside of the ship, you see the coffin that was raising up to come back into a straving run. Mid-turn stops and floats lazily through space. Fish cakes. As you and the kids stand there in the cold, you hear bodies. Boom, boom. The thuds as servos lock, their limbs unable to move, their bodies unable to carry the weight of their armor.

fall across the ship. The bridge holds the Icaron hole. Kiki, back outside. You feel your ducky slow. Yeah. As the vehicles themselves are impacted by this pulse that radiates out from the ship, give me a perception check. And Andre, give me a persuasion check with advantage.

21. That'll be a 22. Oh! Your message is right. received as a fleet of Earth StarCrap fall in crashing through this failing armada. It is a brilliant technicolor explosion of ships and scrap as this armada, this threat to Earth, is torn asunder. Andre opens the viewing bridge from the base station of the TRC.

Arjun Lewis tubes nearby looking out. realizing that the entire fate of his family and Earth depends on that message having gotten through, all of this having worked exactly on time, and like is just shaking with nausea. And the second he sees one of those Taryn, one of those Earth ships start to tear through the lazing Martian vessels before they can reboot, he just starts crying so hard, jumping up and down, going, yes, yes, brought to Dubai spacers like you! That's public funding! You fucking Martian, cunts!

As that cheering is happening and watching the fleet get destroyed in real time, I'm going to tap Nate on the shoulder in front of me. And I think I have to use force whisper because I still sound insane. So it's just a mental conversation. It sounds like Kiki's voice again to be like, I think I'm free later now.

Are you in my head? Yeah. That a problem? Freaky. You like it. I do. Oh, watch your head. Scrap floats overhead.

Fishcakes and the kids are already crawling over where the bridge is and pulling out cortex spines. You immediately, yes, are able to make your way. Fallen Martian soldiers are down. You see red lights brinking arms and ligaments jittering as their armor components and body mechanics. Struggle to continue to function. And yes, you immediately show. the kids how to remove. Once you sever the connections, they might still be twitching a little bit,

but that's only natural. That's kind of fun. Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah. Kings. Don't make this wholesome. You see that Tubes walks over to you, Andre, amongst your cheering, and goes,

I think we still need to go get your daughter. That's right. Let's go do it. And I'll turn to the viewing window one last time and just look. at the Martian ships, this was supposed to be a symbol of peace and discovery. And looking at the Earthling ships, terror, through the Martian armada, I think Andre thinks of conversations he had with Amani and just goes, I wish there aren't so many that tried to stop us from believing in a free galaxy.

Your dream was through, Amani. I wish you were here to see it and put a hand up on the window. and turn to go get Stella. You take the long way up a series of service corridors and staircases, and after about 15, 20 minutes arrive on the command bridge, you see the body of a Martian general fizzing his face, kind of a fixture of confusion and surprise and terror, that you can only assume was his reaction to hearing your message over the loudspeaker.

and the many members of the executive council, including your daughter, hands tied, blindfolded, as they hear your footsteps. Hello? It's all right. Stella. And I'm going to go over to my daughter and release the bonds on her. You see that she embraces you in a tight hug. It's all right. It's all right.

Everything going to be okay. And I'm going to look around is Nisha here. As you begin to unbind, Stella, Nisha and Sophie. arrive. You guys are able to come through the maintenance. We were stuck out there for so long. Yeah, exactly. You guys had to pry it open. We're able to finally get inside. You and the kids,

kids are carrying armloads of servos from different Martian corpuses. Bogos like, what's you got there, kid? Oh, God! As everyone kind of convenes here, Nisha walks up to you. What happened? I'm just going to give her a huge hug

and pull in the daughters for a big family embrace. And go, and I'll look up at her and say, they try to take something that belonged to everybody. Same old story. She nods solemnly and embraces you. Call Troy, I'm dying. You see Nate goes, all right, well, yeah, we'll get on the horn.

Kiki, you see kind of mingling about hands ringing, kind of looking around is Vice Counselor Everett Quill. Thank you. As he goes, has everybody all? All right. The moment Nate goes off to go find Troy, I'll never call anybody, anyone but they're like little given name. Dr. Calder, but sure.

Sure. Yeah, everyone's fine. Are you okay? Did anything happen? Oh, oh, it was terrifying. The Martians, so large, so violent. The moment he gets close enough, it's just my hand around his neck and I'm going to choke him to death with my little Martian, like, prosthetics.

You see that the other. Executive Counselors go, stop! And you see Nate goes, relax. Wow, I really like you. As you extinguished this man's light on the command bridge of this ship.

Space justice. Yeah, you let the body drop and it like hard focus to fish kicks behind you, like clapping a little bit. I think it's the like choked up to death but the little Martian pinky like buried itself

in his throat and I rip it off my hands because I don't want any more Martian Tech on. I just see those little foil emergency blankets and ambulances in the scene and it's clearly being shot in Magic Hour which means law is suspended. Whatever the heroes do in this quality of light you get 20 minutes during the blue hour

to do as much crime as you need to for the sake of catharsis. And with that, we pull out through the transparent alloy of the command bridge to the Icaron silhouetted against the blue marble of Earth and its moon surrounded by the scrap of the Martian fleet.

Our heroes, successful, the flight of the Icaron. At an end. That was Erica Ishii as Vera Fishcake's Lamb, Abria Aingar as Kiki Davis, Brennan Lee Mulligan as André Dalca, and me, Lou Wilson, as everyone, and everything else.

Flight of the Icaron is produced by fortunate horse and worlds beyond number, edit and sound designed by Brian Flaherty of many-sided media, and score by Will Savino. For even more stories like this, join us on our Patreon. We'll see you there.

A movie, let's go. Fucking incredible.