118-1106 Pithos Base, Pillidia 6 Moon – Pandora System
The adventure started off with Cauldron, Lars and Timaeus investigating the abandoned Pandora base that they had dubbed “Pithos” in reference to both the name of the moon and the box so foolishly opened by Pandora. The atmosphere of the Sindalian base on Pandora’s moon is a hard vacuum, the air long since vented when the installation was abandoned. With no power to sustain life support, the temperature has dropped to a steady –120°C, cold enough to make steel brittle and leave frost rimming every surface. Most of the complex was stripped bare before abandonment, equipment and fittings ripped out and leaving only scarred walls, cluttered floors and gutted chambers. The vacuum silence is absolute, but through your feet you felt the creak of metal reacting to the warmth of your presence.
The base was largely intact, but airlock seals were perished, some of the machinery scavenged, and fittings ruined.
127-1106 Cordan Highport
After Penelope’s made some glaring mistakes in astrogation, Deanna gave a masterful demonstration of jump engineering to recover and cut a day from the transit from Pandora to Cordan. Cordan was a hubbub of activity, with the sensors operative Anastasia reporting seventeen ships either in transit to and from jump or proceeding to and from the high- and lowports. These included an Astragal class modular megafreighter configured as a cold liner and capable of carrying 57,000 people on the busy Tyokh-Fist run.
Timaeus headed for the bar in Cordan Highport and met the dolphin crew of a 400-ton subsidised trader, the Flying Fish, who were wearing waldos: water-gilled environment suits with vents, robotic manipulators and grav assist.
After leaving, the So Much For Subtlety was told to prepare for boarding by the Cordanian Barony-Class Gunboat, the Baroness Lux. A single crew-member came across, who turned out to be an advisor to the eponymous Baroness Lux herself. He laid out a scheme for provoking the two other Baronies on Cordan into conflict so as to strengthen the position of Baroness Lux before they united against her. Would the crown of Drinax agree? If so, they would receive 60,000 acres (90 square miles) of extra-territorial grant, based around the old half of a defunct barony, and including an old landing strip. If the Imperium was at any point distracted then perhaps more could be achieved? The party were invited to meet Baroness Lux, discretely, on their return to Cordan.
The representative, Minister Arrant Phoil, was distracted momentarily: surely he knew Cauldron from somewhere: a news report, perhaps?
As the So Much For Subtlety was preparing to jump, a superb piece of sensor work by Anastasia spotted a stealthed hauler jumping in, despite a stealthy jump drive. They burned for the surface of the planet beyond the settled area and disappeared to land just beyond the horizon.
134-1106 Exe Highport
The jump from Cordan to Exe was again shorter than normal due to Penelope paying more attention than normal to her calculations, following the near-fatal error in the previous jump. During transit, Timaeus engaged Hteilotorl in conversation, and discovered that he was on his way to Tyokh to his own execution. If he did not make it there in time then other clans would turn on his clan, the Iuwoi, against which alliance his clan would stand no chance. It was therefore his duty to present himself for his own death.
He wanted to visit Sink because he suspected that an old friend of his father – a diplomat and master of spying whom he had known since he was a child and called uncle – had leaked his plans, leading to his defeat at Arunisiir. This would not save his life, but he might at least go to an honourable death with his name cleared.
Hteilotorl explained that his companions at Arunisiir had been fellow members of the Fellowship of the Black Lotus, an Ihatei band sworn to take land together of which he was a leading figure due to his birth. Some had died, some had escaped, others had been imprisoned or ransomed. On being questioned, he recalled that Iuwoi Ihatei expeditions had failed twice before, on Marduk and Inurin, with one success eight years ago. The clan agent (Ehfyohoikoaleai, known as “Koalea”) had been sent to Sink seven years ago.
At Exe station, the party found an isolated, largely automated fuelling station where everyone wanted to drink with them, trade with them, ask them for news and more, in order to break the monotony of their duties. When out drinking in the inevitable Gen Eric Bar and grill, they met Gamaagin Kaashukiin, Master of the Retribution (an 800 ton Broadsword-class mercenary cruiser). She knew their movements in the Voidsedge cluster (until their departure for Pandora) in detail, and also knew a great deal about other ships and events in the Borderland subsector. She was happy to muse over tactics and was keen to know if the party had heard any news of another Mercenary Cruiser, operating out of the Sword Worlds, known as the Excalibur. For any news of her, she would pay handsomely.
Timaeus also heard a rumour, while carousing and asking for rumours of old Sindal, of a supposed dwarf planet base that they had between Arunisiir and Drinax in hex 2523, called Port Raleigh.
142-1106 Falcon Highport
At Falcon, the So Much For Subtlety was asked to investigate a distress beacon from the “Western Fire”: a 400 ton Trader who had allegedly attacked the mercenary cruiser Bayern. They found her with crippled life support, damaged manuevre drives and a dead or injured engineering section. Deanna and Cauldron managed to jury-rig her life support and the Drinaxian ship managed to revive her recently-dead chief engineer and transfer him to Falcon station. Her commander, Captain Gani, was extrenmely grateful and offered any help that he could offer.
At Falcon, news was received from Hilfer of the successful piracy carried on by the Shinkiro and the Grey Area, and of a grievous injury to Ilya Tarkhov. They also received an update on the recruitment efforts of Vi Lon and Tug Wilson.
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