Pirates of Drinax

At the beginning of the session, the date in Exe (scene of the battle against Hroal Irontooth) is 058-1107, while the party in Pandora (who hijacked the Martin II) have reached 063-1107.

The update for the party before the session, by way of a reminder on their rather complicated current dispositions, was:

• The Shinkiro is in Pandora with Dr Parsifal, Deanna, Anastasia and Cauldron. Krrsh is piloting.
• The Mercifuge is also in Pandora, crewed by Vas Silverfur and Goorp and with a largely robot crew
• The Martin II is in Pandora. You don’t have sufficient crew to work all three ships but I haven’t seen anyone comment on the fact that the Martin II has class 4 docking clamps, allowing her to move ships of up to 2000 tons, albeit at lower jump range.
• The contents of the Martin II’s main hold are stored in the still-derelict Pithos Base
• None of these ships are damaged

In Exe, leaving aside the Imperium ships:

• The Phlebotomist is undamaged
• The Grey Area has taken relatively minor damage
• The So Much For Subtlety has taken some damage, mainly to her hull
• The Never Talk To Strangers has taken severe damage to multiple systems
• The Meatgrinder has taken very substantial damage to numerous systems (heavy damage to her power plant, maneuvre drives, sensors, hull and some turrets)
• The player characters present are Lady P, Timaeus, Rosa and Erik with Sharyl and a great many Vespexers
• You have a very large army and droid contingent crammed aboard your ships

The focus for this session was mainly on the Shinkiro and her crew, out of Pandora. However, we did handle one aspect of the Exe group in the So Much For Subtlety.

Before the session, Timaeus’ player sent this in-character interaction with Sharyl, the party’s favourite NPC:

After the battle with the Meatgrinder was won, Hroal slain, and orders to assist the damaged ships given, Timaeus took a few moments to rest in the So Much For Subtlety’s luxurious conference room. He quietly motioned Sharyl to accompany him.

“A hard-won battle, Sharyl. Erik is a master with the Particle Barbette. Your work leading the boarding party brought terror to the enemy. We shall bring this fine ship into our fleet, although it will take a great deal of work to do it.

Yet it is of a higher matter that I would speak with you. You are aware that soon, in a matter of a few months at most, I will redeem my father’s sword from the Iuwoi-Ko. And have no doubt: I will have it. Hteilotorl is an honourable fellow, and in bringing our strength to gain him a holding in the name of Drinax, I am pleased do my duty to the Kingdom.

You have seen the Reach. You have seen the opportunities. When I asked you if you would stay with us after we defeated Redthane you said you would because we spoke of taking not merely ships but planets; this we have done, and this we will do again.

I will gladly fight beside you to claim the land you are due. If you will do as Hteilotorl did, and pledge fealty to Drinax, then in duty’s name it can be not just myself but all the forces I command for the King to add weight to your blade – and on my word as a knight and noble of a Star Kingdom that shall grow like a wildfire in a dry forest: we shall gain you a greater one than he. Will you have my sword by you, or my fleet behind you? Tell me of your desiring and your planning, my friend, and together we shall make it be glorious.”

During the session, Sharyl replied:

“Timaeus… you speak to the hunger that has lived in my marrow since I was a cub. To be an ihatei and an outcast is to be a half-Aslan. You offer me the chance to finally cast a shadow on my own land.”

“I have seen Ergo. It is a world that has forgotten its strength, but it has not forgotten its beauty. If you lend me a ship to claim it, and the time to visit Kteiroa to win a warband, I will give you a bastion that will never break. I will be the shield of your Kingdom’s rimward flank.”

“But know this: an Aslan does not ‘possess’ land. He becomes it. Those people on Ergo who yield to me… they will be my Pride. Any pirate or smuggler who treats my world as a gutter will answer to my steel. Will I have your sword? Yes. And you and Oleb Drinax-ko shall have my life-debt, for you will have made me an Aslan of standing.”

---

064-1107 – Pandora Kuiper Belt

The Shinkiro and Mercifuge left the powered-down Martin II and her frozen crew and jumped to Lilgan, carrying the vault dongle from the Martin II in her secret, smuggling compartment.

072-1107 – Lilgan Downport

The Drinaxian ships barely had more than two hours on Lilgan before a customs inspection of their ships was ordered. Consisting of Lilgan Border Force guards lead by a significantly hostile officer wearing psi-shielding, this discovered multiple heavily-armoured combat androids in the hold of the two ships. Fortunately, the hidden compartment holding the Martin II’s illicit, vault-monitoring dongle was not found. The ships were impounded and the droids were seized, with the party told that the court actions should take no more than a few months before they got their ships back.

Strong investigation work by the party found them a good lawyer – advocate Assilia Ferox – who in turn was able to gain a brief hold on the summary judgement, which she assured them was highly illegal, but she warned the group that there was extraordinary hostility towards Drinax and that another excuse to further detain them would undoubtedly be found, so they took their droids back and jumped out, without a cargo, for Exocet.

083-1107 – Exocet Highport

Exocet is hardly populated, but its GeDeCo-run Highport is a major transhipment point on the Imperium-Florian trade route with a population in the tens of thousands. The party were able to buy sufficient cargo to fill the holds of the Shinkiro and the Mercifuge before jumping to Blue.

094-1107 – Blue system: Bulhai Freeport

Almost as soon as they were detected by the downport at Blue, the Drinaxian ships were denied permission to land. This was academic, since they had jumped to Bulhai Station. They discarded the idea of contacting their two agents on Blue itself, traded at Bulhai, and headed on to Clarke.

101-1107 – Clarke

On Clarke, the party contacted Psychopomp Malos – formerly Keeper Malos – whose ascent to higher rank had been aided by his interactions with the party over the Redthane incident.

Malos once more briefed them on the situation that they had discussed on their last visit, months previously: the Progressives want to name Prince Harrick the “High Psychopomp” because he represents the fulfillment of their prophecy – a man who died and was resurrected by technology (during the Asim war).

However, the Conservative faction, led by the dour High Psychopomp Ksar, argued that Harrick was an off-worlder and his “resurrection” via the Scholar’s Tower was an abomination, not a miracle.

Malos has a lead. A lower-caste family recently petitioned to move their “sleeping” grandfather to a more expensive strata of the pyramid. Ksar personally intervened to stop the transfer, claiming the body was in a “delicate state of preservation.” Malos suspects Ksar is hiding something regarding the Lower Catacombs, where the poorer citizens are interred, and for which he has responsibility.

Using administrative and hacking skills, the party investigated the bank accounts and records of Ksar and the Conservatives. The TL8 encryption of the Clarkian systems could not stand up to the TL15 equipment of Deanna, with her finding that vast sums – almost a billion credits per year – were apparently being allocated to carbon-foam preservation fluid but not spent: a shortfall of fourteen percent for the required amount! Further, Ksar turned out to have two families living in luxury on nearby Torpol, a planet he often visited for “missionary purposes.”

Using drones, the party infiltrated the lower catacombs, run by the Conservatives, and found that around two hundred bodies per day were not being preserved, but were in fact being incinerated. The Travellers filmed bodies being diverted, and thus found the hidden incinerator disguised as a heating unit, along with a ledger of “failed preservations” signed by Ksar. Because preserved monoliths were used in construction – particularly in the necro-temple, any that were not quickly upgraded were inaccessible until the ultimate resurrection of all the dead, hiding the evidence in all but a tiny handful of cases.

Malos, when shown the evidence, was both furious and devastated: this was the ultimate sacrilege, leading to the final and total destruction, with no hope of revival, of those incinerated for profit. Ksar was sentenced to the Long Sleep: immediate preservation until all the faithful preserved had been revived at the End of Times. The huge corruption at the heart of Clarke’s appallingly inefficient (Efficiency -3 on TravellerMap) economy was revealed.

The Conservative faction were fatally weakened by the ensuing scandal, and the party saw rioting occurring around the quarters of the Conservative priesthood. The way was now open for Harrick, to whom the formal invitation to rule as Head Psychopomp was extended, and negotiations with Drinax over entry to the Kingdom were invited. The party traded, then departed for Drinax.

049-1107 – Acrid Highport

We now go back in time by ten days or so, to Acrid the day before the Shinkiro and Mercifuge jumped to Pandora. In his rooms at the GeDeCo-run Acrid highport, Torsa held a conference of the senior officers of the Imperium and Drinaxian naval officers. This was not by Captain Torsa’s choice: although he was commodore of the small, Imperium flotilla, he wished to press on with his journey to Tyokh uninterrupted. However, Captains Burghof and James, of the two Gazelle-class craft, had prevailed.

Torsa, his left eyelid spasming repeatedly, stressed his duty to deliver the contents of the Martin II to its Aslan recipients. Captain Burghof insisted that an opportunity – perhaps not to be repeated – offered itself to rid the Reach of one of its three most notorious pirate leaders – Hroal Irontooth – who might still be waiting in Exe at a remote location that was known precisely, thanks to the work of Rosa Perre.

Torsa stressed that two close escorts, a barely-repair ship, a freighter and a “rabble of near-piratical Drinaxian auxiliaries” was no math for the Meatgrinder and Sasquatch: some 2000 tons of ships with a pair of 50-ton bay particle beams at their disposal. Burghof and James each leapt to their feet to protest this statement, but were waved away by the senior captain.

Timaeus, his air of noblesse oblige allowing him to shrug off the intolerable slight, flattered Torsa, subtly pointing out the career advantages of leading a flotilla in victory against the odds. Between them, the assembled flotilla would have around a hundred marines, and five particle barbettes: they just had to get under the guns of the Meatgrinder and board her. Torsa, both eyelids now twitching furiously, gave in.

The highly capable Commander Mari Jagad was able to brief those present on the weaponry of each side, warning the Drinaxians that the Meatgrinder had redundant, advanced sensor systems and that she was likely to detect the So Much For Subtlety as soon as she moved, if not before. The assembled leaders decided that attrition was unlikely to succeed in the face of the Meatgrinder’s dozen turrets and bays, and so they decided to distribute the marines across several ships and go straight at the Meatgrinder, hoping to force a boarding.

050-1107 – Acrid High Orbital Space

The next day, the Drinaxian marines, soldiers and droids loaded aboard the fleet, the flotilla jumped to Exe. As secretly planned by the Drinaxians, however, the Martin II jumped to Pandora, instead. This meant that the joint Imperium-Drinaxian fleet was some 2,000 tons – and 14 turrets – lighter than the Imperium officers had counted on. The fleet jumped out with a common jump solution.

058-1107 – Near Exe System’s Inner Gas Giant

After a long, isolated week in which each ship was alone in its jump-space bubble, the warning klaxons for imminent jump emergence sounded aboard each ship, as normal, around four hours before they were expected to come out of jump-space. On this occasion, they were fairly accurate due to a correction by one of the So Much For Subtlety’s robots to the jump drive programming.

Thus, when the flotilla emerged simultaneously, they were at action stations and prepared for the fight. Finding themselves scattered between 1,500 and 50,000km from the Meatgrinder, they immediately engaged.

On one side was the 1,200 ton Meatgrinder pocket warship and her 800-ton companion, the Sasquatch. On the other were the Gazelle-Class Arshad and Komodo (each 400 tons); the 400-ton repair ship the Henry T. Ford; the Drinaxian flagship the So Much For Subtlety (240 tons); the Phlebotomist (a 300 ton Jump Cutter); The Never Talk To Strangers(260 tons) and the Grey Area (200 tons), each pirates converted from traders.

On paper, it was an almost perfect match, but the pirate ship had vastly heavier firepower, as she would rapidly demonstrate. Her sleek, massive sides bristled with guns The Sasquatch seemed to possess the bulk of a skyscraper.

With surprise on their side, the flotilla attacked at once, particle beams lancing out from the Arshad, Komodo and So Much For Subtlety, the latter meaning that she was instantly detected. The vulnerable Phlebotomist began to withdraw; the Grey Area advanced cautiously and the rest of the ships dove straight for the Meatgrinder, which suffered hits to her weapons and hull.

After a few minutes, the Meatgrinder and Sasquatch reached action stations, and began to reply. Although the Meatgrinder took further hits – particularly from Erik’s accurate work on the particle accelerator – stripping away her armour with a devastating series of hits, in return the Grey Area only survived a hit from a 50-ton bay at the cost of losing all of her deflector shields in a single blow. Her amour softened the remaining energy but she still lot about 10% of her hull from the remaining explosions, and saw some of her cargo of droid marines explode in a hit on her cargo bay. The Henry T Ford was instantly crippled, left a drifting hulk by blows from the other particle bay.

The So Much For Subtlety, which had landed at medium range, took beam laser hits as she cautiously advanced towards the pirate warship, and only Penelope’ evasive action saved them from being crippled by further fire. At this point, the first salvos of missiles leapt from each side. The Komodo was targetted by a volley of eighteen missiles from the Meatgrinder, and despite ECM from her own and the SMFS’s systems, several got through to heavily damage her computer and maneuvre drives, while the Never Talk To Strangers was pounded by one of the Meatgrinder’s particle bays, suffering heavy damage to her power plant, maneuvre drives and jump drive and taking her out of the fight. The pirates’ laser turrets were distracted by point defence duties against the return missile fire from the joint task force.

By now, the Meatgrinder had been stripped of her armour, several of her turrets, some manuevre capabilities, and her main sensors. The Sasquatch, sensing which way the fight was going, started to spool up her drives for an emergency jump. Hroal Irontooth, seeing this, reacted furiously, launching a full volley of eighteen missiles against her, many of which hit just before she disappeared into jump space.

He also fired upon the flotilla, destroying the Komodo and narrowly failing to destroy the SMFS, managing to inflict hull damage upon her. With three ships out of the fight, one crippled and one out of range, only the Komodo and the So Much For Subtlety remained. Things looked like they were going the way of Hroal Irontooth, but the SMFS was now in called-shot range, and took out his remaining sensors and his power plant. Although he retained emergency power, his hull was now heavily damaged by multiple heavy, critical hits, and the runaway effect of this shot almost lead to the pirate ship being destroyed.

At last, she was unable to inflict damage on her attackers, and the SMFS boarded her, launching not just half a dozen marines but also some forty droids into the charnel house which was the burning Meatgrinder. The pirates had taken crew losses, and were outnumbered and out-equipped by the heavily-armed Drinaxian troops, and most of the ship was taken within a few minutes, leading to a confrontation between Hroal – wielding a plasma gun – and Timaeus on the bridge, with the latter dispatching the pirate leader with a blow from his arc-field sword.

The day was theirs, and the Drinaxian-Imperium fleet was able to launch emergency repairs and tend to their many wounded aboard their heavily damaged ships, and attempt rescues from the shattered hulks of the Henry T Ford and the Komodo. One of Hroal’s iron teeth was removed, to be sent to Petyr Baelish on Theev.

Happily, Hroal and his crew had heavy bounties on their heads after years of piracy, and some 28 million credits of cash would, at least, make a dent in the expensive repairs faced by the Drinaxians.

In addition, while the disappearance of the martin II – a ship the Drinaxians had been working on – caused some suspicion and a two-point drop in their standings with the Imperium, the joint battle against Hroal caused their Imperium standing to rise to 25; their Aslan standings to 20, an even a single point increase in their Florian standings (to 8).

047-1107 – Acrid Downport

While the Martin II, the Komodo and the Arshad resupplied at GeDeCo’s Class A highport in Acrid, the crews of the Shinkiro and the So Much For Subtlety hurried to make last minute preparations for their two, very different tasks. On board the Shinkiro were Dr Parsifal, Deanna, Anastasia and Cauldron, with Krrsh piloting. The Mercifuge had the uplifted gorilla Vas Silverfur at her helm, with Goorp (an uplifted chimpanzee) as engineer and a set of shipmate droids rounding out her crew.

The party had intentionally kept sophonts to a minimum for this secret element of their mission: even the marines were a set of six Marine droids bought on Tech-World.

The Mercifuge was hurriedly fitted with Jump Nets, to allow her to carry vastly more cargo, albeit at the price of cutting her jump range in half, to a single parsec. With that done, she and the Shinkiro jumped to Pandora, to await the arrival of the Martin II.

056-1107 – Pandora Outer System

Luckily, Lady Penelope’s astrogation – and the jump drive programming performed by Deanna – had worked well, and the Martin II arrived in Pandora only two hours later than expected. The sensors of the Shinkiro easily detected her jump flash, and the stealthy smuggler crept closer, scanning the huge, Swiftsure-class treasure ship carefully as she did so. The freighter’s systems seemed to be working normally, but the sensors were not active and no turrets acquired the sleek Drinaxian ship as she approached.

After docking, the party sent their robot marines ahead, but no resistance was met at first. Wearing full combat armour, the party observed that the knockout gas had worked well, and set about gathering up the crew and loading them into cold berths. Deanna set about infiltrating the ship’s computer, and did so masterfully despite the highly advanced security software running on the Imperium treasure ship [Target difficulty 18, with a roll of 2D6 allowing her to surpass this with ease]. In fact, she now had complete control of the Martin II’s computers.

At this point, the presence of Hroal Irontooth’s screamer beacon was remembered, and turned off. Anastasia and Deanna secured the fake Imperium-Aslan treaty from Vaughn’s safe, and Anastasia found the dead body of one of the ship’s marines, in full battle dress, with no obvious cause of death apparent.

While the sleeping crew were being gathered, Dr Parsifal spotted motion out of the corner of his eye: an immense, bulky figure moving with impossible speed shot him with a high-powered laser rifle, and only his combat armour stopped him being badly wounded. The figure immediately dropped down the ladder to the lower deck.

Dr Parsifal immediately ordered the two nearest marine droids to give chase, and followed as quickly as he could. However, he could not move as quickly as an Imperium marine with a head-start and wearing battle dress. He signalled for Deanna to shut the door into the cargo bay that the marine had gone through. Unfortunately for one of the robot marines, it was fast enough to get through the door before it slammed shut: there was a short sound of combat followed by silence.

Searching the rest of the ship, the Travellers found the bodies of two of Hroal Ironooth’s conspirators: Mechanic Talis and the launch pilot, Henshaw. Confirming from ship’s cameras that the Marine in the cargo bay was Salvesdes, the party came to the conclusion that he believed that the ship had arrived in Exe and was cleaning house on the conspiracy.

The party were aware that Salvesdes was not the master of his own actions, having been subjected to some sort of psionic manipulation. They considered having Anastasia simply assault the unprotected mind of the marine, with potentially fatal consequences, but instead they attempted to negotiate. The first attempt to use Telempathy to make Salvesdes inclined to trust Parsifal failed, and Deanna could see Salvesdes searching the cargo for anything useful in defending his position. But Anastasia tried again, first taking psi drug and then soothing the shattered mind of Salvesdes and persuading him – through the psionic power of Suggestion – that everyone was dead, and that he should now go to the cold berths and enter sleep. The marine, his subconscious sick of the betrayal and killing – gladly submitted.

The party attempted to break into the vaults, but found that cracking the code needed to persuade the ship that it was already in Tyokh was impossible. They seized the dongle that Osha had attached to the vault, and which had been monitoring its interrogation of the ship sensors, and decided to try and take it to Drinax ot crack the code in the TL15 supercomputer of the Tower of Learning.

Next, they moved to see what the Imperium had been shipping to give to the Ko of an Aslan clan. They found a huge, 350-ton DeeSix, self-assembling downport (JTAS 18), as well as a variety of exotic, TL15 robots, a range of luxury goods (paintings, tapestries, sculpture, expensive vehicles and the like) and a huge amount of high-quality dustspice which the Aslan hugely value. All in all, hundreds of millions of credits, if buyers could be found.

059-1107 – Pithos Base, Pandora

The Martin II was piloted to the (still non-functioning) Drinaxian secret hideout in Pandora system: Pithos Base. There, much of her cargo was offloaded into the base itself, although the DeeSix Downport was left aboard, since she was the only ship in the pirates’ possession capable of carrying it.

063-1107 – Pandora Outer System

Finally, with her transponder disabled and her crew all in cold sleep, the Martin II was flown out to the Kuiper Belt of Pandora system, where she was left, inconspicuous amongst the asteroids and cometary material. The original plan had been to jump her next door and have the Imperium find her but, now that they possessed the three-quarters-of-a-billion-credits ship, and with her vaults still unopened, the crew of the Shinkiro found it strangely hard to let her go.

The first part of the Drinaxian plan was successfully completed.

037-1107 – Arunisiir Starport

On the morning of the seventh day after arriving at Arunisiir, Anastasia, Deanna, Parsifal and Cauldron headed for the Martin II to continue their work.

On her way to the stricken Imperium ship, Deanna was approached by Aparo with a strange offer: he would give the group three million credits if they could acquire 20ml of Captain Torsa’s blood. He refused to give an explanation, saying only that his employer worried that Torsa was endangering his ship. Importantly, this sample had to be provided by the next morning (038-1107) at 9am local time. Deanna was non-committal.

Encouraged by Parsifal, Cauldron checked the work that the civilian contractor had been performing on the hull: it seemed to be quite valid.

Once inside the ship, the party set about enacting their plans in advance of the theft of the Martin II. First, Deanna and Lady Penelope worked on hacking the ship’s jump control software, so that if she was in Acrid, and a jump was initiated, the jump solution used was to be one that Penelope provided for Pandora, instead of whatever was entered by the ship’s crew. The routine would then delete itself.

Next, Cauldron (himself a former terrorist and used to setting bombs) set the device containing debilitating neurotoxins in the ship’s ventilation system, near the disabled sensor that would have enabled filtration by the ship’s life-support systems. This was set to go off if the ship’s sensors reported her being in Pandora.

Parsifal summoned Osha to the medical suite: the Dolbergian astrogator arrived, panicking that Parsifal had bad news about her genetic condition. Anastasia used her psionic abilities to engender trust in Parsifal, after which the doctor attempted to gain more information from Osha about her plans on Tech World, and to have her work for the Travellers, instead. This did not go terribly well, however, and Osha left, confused and suspicious.

Continuing the party’s travails, Commander Jagad then approached Deanna, and quickly manuevred the engineer into saying that the ship should wait for the arrival of the Imperium rescue fleet, with its specialised repair ship, before proceeding. This promised to be disastrous, as they would surely find the software and hardware changes that the party had made to the ship. So when Captain Torsa came to get Deanna’s opinion directly, annoyed at the delay that this promised, Deanna eventually changed her recommendations and said that the ship was fit for the journey, especially with Torsa’s planned use of a Jump-2 route instead of a Jump-3 one.

037-1107 Evening – Tarenii City, Arunisiir

That evening, Caldron and Lars saw various of the Martin II’s crew heading for the city. Desperate to avoid talking to anyone, they initially attempted to send spy drones, but they were repeated unable to control these. They then headed for the nearest bar to the starport, around a mile away in Tarenii City, followed thereafter by Anastasia and Penelope.

Eric did manage to bug the table with ship’s marine Jen Laral, two of her fellow marines, and Second Mechanic Polo. They seemed close to mutiny, complaining that Tora’s plan would make the journey to Tyokh and back take months longer. Polo in p[aryticular launched into a diatribe about how the treasure ship was cursed: “Look at all the things that have gone wrong: the astrogator gets sick and has to be replaced; our assigned marine squad’s shuttle goes down on Fist, and so they have to be replaced at the last minute; the jump drive explodes and you folks say that Felmar was screwing with the jump solution manually. I tell you: it’s cursed. We should just wait for the repair fleet and go home, but Torsa is mad set on killing us all by pushing on. On a ship this unlucky, it’ll be the death of us all.”

Penelope charmed the mildly-lascivious welder “Clamps” Hargrove, who confided that he had found a “screamer” on the hull of the Martin II: a beacon utilised by pirates on their prey and which broadcasted on a specific, tight frequency that would activate when a ship entered a certain system. He had not informed anyone in the Navy crew because he thought it was funny.

Deanna approached Salvesdes, the broody, violent marine who was sitting alone and drinking fast, gripping the handle of his pint like it was the edge of a ledge. She took him a drink, but he rebuffed her: “”You see them over there? If I wanted company I’d be with them. Instead, I’m over here. What does that tell you?”

038-1107 – Arunisiir Starport

The next day, the Gazelle-class Imperium ship Komodo – sister of the Amosho – landed at the starport. As soon as she arrived in system, the Fafnir departed the starport.

The Komodo brought the news that the repair ship Henry T. Ford would arrive in a few days, but Torsa was keen to depart the next day.

Deanna bought food to return to Acrid with, to ensure that the new Drinaxian colony was adequately supplied.

039-1107 – Arunisiir

The Shinkiro departed for Pandora. The So Much For Subtlety, along with the Martin II, the Amosho and the Komodo, departed for Acrid.

047-1107 – Acrid

The Martin II and her escorts docked at Acrid highport – a GeDeCo facility – in Acrid. In the meantime, the So Much For Subtlety docked at Acrid’s lowport, where she was able to inspect the repairs that had been ongoing on the Never Talk To Strangers (formerly the Hellspawn/Jazzhands), as well as ordering some rapid enhancements to the Mercifuge.

Other Places, Other Times

Elsewhere, the Lady Luck and the Slightly Bent arrived and then departed Tech-World on their way to Drinax with Tug Wilson. The Mercifuge, Never Talk To Strangers and the Grey Area (formerly the Janel Torsk) had arrived at Acrid from Tanith on 037-1107. Vi Lon, on Drinax, finished her first month’s recruiting since her various surgeries on 043-1107, while Basemath Mondrane, recruiting an intelligence network on Argona, finished her first month on the task on 033-1107 and started a second month on 036-1107.

035-1107 Arunisiir Surface

Arriving at the Martin II to continue working on its jump drives and ruined engineering section, the Travellers (Anastasia, Cauldron, Deanna and Dr Parsifal) saw the civilian welder already working on repairing the damages hull and armour plates. They also spotted Purser Vaughn overseeing the daily unloading of supplies from a low-tech van: fresh food, cleaning supplies, lubricants etc. The van was from a local ship supply business: Aboukir’s General Products.

Anastasia was keen to speak to the popular marine Jen Laral: finding her near the vaults and (as usual) talking to fellow crewmates (who slip away when she is approached), Anastasia makes fairly open suggestions that, should Laral find herself out of the service, she should come to Drinax.

Vaughn came to Parsifal for a checkup, as invited. Anastasia, lingering outside, used her psionic ability to engender a sense of great trust in Parsifal, who then asked Vaughn to order a set of precursor drugs, off the books, which the party intended to use, later, to drug the ship occupants.

Later, Parsifal and Anastasia then visited Purser Vaughn in his office. Having taken psionic drugs to boost her ability, and rested since the previous engagement, Anastasia was successful in implanting the suggestion in Vaughn that he could trust Parsifal implicitly, and that he could talk to Parsifal about the GeDeCo conspiracy. Parsifal, pretending to be a GeDeCo agent with the codename “Wolf” who had been sent to check that the treaty was still intact, and that Vaughn was behaving as required.

Vaughn, who knew that at least one other GeDeCo agent was on the ship, but who had suspected Osha, was persuaded, and was eager to show that he was still holding up his side of the bargain.

Parsifal then persuaded the purser to show him what he now knew to be a fake treaty, noting his pin number when it was entered into the purser’s safe. Inspecting the treaty, it was a deeply convincing, high technology replica of a genuine Imperium Treaty, on the same (allegedly unforgeable) material and with the genetic-seal of the Emperor himself, as well as the signatures of the leading, trans-Rift, Aslan clans. It purported to yield all systems in the Trojan Reach more than six parsecs from the Imperium border to the Hierate for expansion, declaring them an Aslan sphere of interest.

That evening, the party spend a great deal of time trying to work out their plans, and whether they can achieve all of their goals: steal the contents of the Martin II; steal the contents of its secure vault; steal the ship; purloin the treaty; aid the Imperium ships in defeating the Irontooth and even seize that or another of Irontooth’s flotilla for themselves.

As they talk, Patrick Steward makes a rare intervention: “It is not my place to pass judgement on the profligate expenditure on ships, marines and soldiers which so regularly threatens the liquidity of your concern, despite the worry that I see engraved upon the face of Mistress Penelope at the end of each month. However, since you insist on maintaining such outgoings, it does seem a convenient source of ways to even any given fight, so to speak.”

The party then check and spot that they will, within days, have four ships next door in Acrid: the Mercifuge; the Never Talk To Strangers; the Phlebotomist; and the Grey Area, as well as excess crew, crew droids, marines, marine droids, and almost 150 soldiers.

The So Much For Subtlety spots that the Imperium ship Arshad has left her High Guard station and is burning fast away from the planet. Timaeus contacts Burghof, discovering that Captain Torsa, as senior officer, has ordered him to intercept an 800-ton tender linked to Hroal Irontooth that has jumped into the system. Without expressing his disapproval of this offer directly, Burghof asks the SMFS to replace him in the High Guard position, leading to the situation where the pirates are guarding the ship they wish to steal.

Sure enough, a Fast Armoured Scout ship, the Dancing Spider – also a member of Irontooth’s fleet – appears, burning in fast towards the planet. It sends a tight burst transmission to the starport, but since the So Much For Subtlety is burning from the starport at the time, they are able to intercept both it and the return message, which they hoped to decode soon.

The players then engaged the Dancing Spider, and despite her thick armour and high speed, Erik wrecked her manuevre drives with a single, lucky shot from the particle accelerator as soon as she entered long range [critical hit level three: manuevre drives; accumulated damage critical hit – manuevre drive; uncontrolled plummet to the ground]. The players were cheered that a total bounty of 400KCr could be claimed on the ship and her occupants.

036-1107 Arunisiir Surface

The next day, Parsifal found that the precursor chemicals had arrived for the neurotoxin that would hopefully knock out the crew of the Martin II when the time came. Anastasia had worked out the chemical sensors to disable on the filtration system, and Deanna had located the correct place to set the device. All that remained was for Cauldron to build and set the device, with the correct programming from Deanna on the conditions for it to be set off.

Sharyl, the Aslan marine, later tells the party that he was approached by Shinahei, eldest son of Lord Ekaft, a local Aslan baron amd a member of the Shino’hake clan. His father sees the position of the Aslan on Arunisiir as pathetic, and believes that his clan will send hundreds, or even thousands, of clan members to support him in a war to take full control of Arunisiir as part of the Hierate. The party have their own plans for Arunisiir involving Prince Hteilotorl. Deanna promises to send the message as requested, despite having no intention to do so.

Krrsh, listening to the party’s plotting, makes his own suggestion: “We can play the old rip-and-return scam. We can sell the ship to Oghman raiders or Theev pirates or whatever. Anyway, we sell it to some patsy and watch them get the blame. Then we steal it back. Claim the reward, no doubt.”

The party invited Captain Torsa to the SMFS for dinner, and he gladly attended, proving easily flattered, once more. “Captain Burghof tells me of reports from Exe that the filthy Aslan blackguard Irontooth has been seen lingering there in recent weeks. Damn’ee, sir, how I wish we could have at him. That’s my style, sir. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, sir. But duty calls upon me to deliver the cargo safely, so I must obey. Commander Jagad demands that we support the Arshad, but it won’t do, sir. I have me duty, sir. She wants me ship, I can tell it, sir. But I have friends at court at Tobia and she does not, so she can whistle for it.”

From Torsa also informs the party that Mari Jagad disapproves of wider ship’s access they have been granted and has lodged a formal objection in the ship’s log.

Finally, he shares the news that he intends to protect the damaged jump drive of the Martin II but restricting it to Jump-2 for the journey to Tyokh, travelling via Acrid, Exe and Tech World.