249

You instruct CAIN to turn on the Variac Drive to shift you into null-space and to re-engage the Drive as soon as you have finished inputting the navigational co-ordinates for the Timehole on Earth, 2700 AD. Your scalp tingles slightly as the Time Machine moves out of phase, and everything around you seems grey and insubstantial. You know that should you turn on the outside camera the screen would remain blank, not even blackness exists in null-space. You cast your thoughts into the void and, using your Psychic Awareness, locate the Timehole of Earth 2700 AD. When you have translated this location into co- ordinates for CAIN, the Variac Drive engages once more. The process of re-emerging in real time is immediate, but seems to take about an hour for you. You may spend this time in the Autodoc, if you wish and gain up to 12 Endurance points.

Your external camera pivots, showing a large Starport loading hangar which appears to be completely automated. An Andromeda class Star Freighter of the series commissioned in 2692 AD, to supply the outer colonies, rests nearby, its immense cargo doors open for the robot cranes and packers. A line of the robot packers is quite close to Falcon's Wing which is disguised by hologram to resemble a large cold store. CAIN tells you that you are in the Calgary Starport and that the Star Freighter is the Earth Federation ship Frank Whittle, named after the inventor of the jet engine used in aeroplanes of the 20th century. It is being loaded with supplies for the new colony world of Ascension, in particular the serum which will save almost the entire population from the deadly viral infection which broke out about ten days ago and is ravaging the colony. You can see no sign of Speke or his machine, but it could easily be beyond the Freighter. You decide to check the hangar with your holo- detector and CAIN prepares the uniform of a maintenance technician of 2700 AD in the Molecular Converter. You put on the boiler suit with its markings proclaiming you a grade 3 Robotech, attached, to Calgary Starport. You are walking towards the Freighter, when with a hiss and a screech the boom of a packing robot descends upon you as if you were a piece of cargo. Its huge grab opens - evidently it intends to pack you!

Make an Evasion Roll.