Date 1105-168 – Drinax
On arrival at Drinax, the party are greeted by High Dockmaster Baumgartner, who flutters around nervously inspecting the Harrier for damage and asking about her performance.
He was overjoyed at the return of the So Much For Subtlety, stressed about the (mostly superficial) damage from the fight, and begs them to be careful with her. The Harrier’s monthly maintenance is due, which the limited, single dockyard of Drinax will carry out free, of course, and Baumgartner is instructed that the party wish to use most of the spare spaceship parts that they scavenged to repair the erratic manuevre drive problems that occasionally afflict the SMFS.
Lord Wrax buttonholes Lady Penelope, complaining of “reckless opportunism… checked logs… gambling with the lifeblood of the kingdom… injured bird…” and more, his anguish, frustration and anger plainly obvious on his face. Eventually, Prince Harrick appears and leads Wrax away with soothing words.
The bounty software that the party invested in, amongst the usual flow of bounty notices for nearby systems, flags up a small bounty for information leading to the identification, capture or arrest of the party themselves and their ship, described as an “unidentified, Sindalian-style ship”. So far, there is very little identifiable information since the target ship did not have hallway cameras and the external monitor systems of the Vulture class hauler did not yield identifiable images.
The party received a message from Margaret Blaine, who gave them a recommendation for a reliable and effective fence in the Arunisiir system that they could use if ever there: Lenard Stoyer.
Princess Rao approached Roth, and took him to see the Fabricator Hall, a glorious temple to production where nine great Fabricators, each the size of the So Much For Subtlety, stand.
She explained that there are nine, but that one failed 30 years ago, and another failed two years ago. Now, they barely have sufficient fab capacity for their own requirements, and they can no longer export.
If another goes, they will have to decide between hydroponics, grav lift, propulsion and the supplies such as hostile environment suits that they send to the Vespexers to keep them alive. She also mentioned that Kteiroa, right on the Aslan border, had started seeing annual gatherings of Aslan Ihatei – landless adventurers looking for a target world to invade – with their numbers increasing each year. If they attack Drinax or Asim now, then they will be defenceless and Drinax will be destroyed. The party represent a last, wild gamble by the royal line of Drinax: a belief that these carefully assessed and selected individuals will be able to win over worlds to the Drinaxian cause in time to build a military establishment able to avert the destruction of 200,000 people.
Prince Harrick, however, spoke to Erik, explaining his view that Drinax is already beyond saving, and that abandoning the world, evacuating the city and the Vespexers to Asim, and starting anew offered the only sustainable hope of survival, and that his father and sister were endangering that with grandiose plans.
Surely, he said, Erik could see this, detached as he was from the pomp and grandeur of Drinax’s history. Harrick pointed out that he died for Asim: surely it was right to use it as their new world?
Armstrong approached the leader of his people, Chieftain Gralx, to ask her if she had anyone who might be able to act as crew for the SMFS. She cautiously said that she might, and asked him to give her a day.In the end, she was able to suggest three: Ilya Tarko, Volodmyr Patraev and Phoebe Cross. The first two were exiles due to the population pressures that limit the number of Vespexers who can be supported on Drinax, and had been expelled by their clans. Phoebe, however, left of her own accord, like Louis, and had even spent a year as a pirate in the Coreward Trojan Reach.
When the Harrier was refitted, and with a cargohold full of Vespexer-scavenged high-tech robotics and vehicles, the newly enlarged crew
of eight humans, one Aslan and two robots left for Clarke, to investigate the recent pirate attacks for which a substantial bounty was on offer.
Date 1105-176 – Clarke
On Clarke, having flown in over millions of black carbon sarcophagi and having landed in front of the pyramidical Necrotemple built of vast numbers of carbon-encased bodies, the party enquired about the attacks and were pointed in the direction of the station administrator, Keeper Malos.
Accompanied by his eery and silent ritual Preserver, he turned out to be the jolliest man on this death-obsessed planet, regularly making gentle jibes about the party’s fleeting existence and their ephemeral nature. He told them a quarry some distance from the city had been attacked, where scavengers had been retreiving computer parts and TL 15 office machinery (Space Photocopiers) from the area near the old, heavily-bombed capital city.
Having gone drinking in a spartan and depressing spaceport bar, Armstrong and Roth spoke to some other off-duty crews who informed them that pirates in this are of the Reach are often based out of Theev, but that getting there without codes is tricky: it is a jump three route and if you don’t have the correct clearance codes to land at the downport then you’ll be shot down for even trying.
It was, they said, unusual for surface raiding with such a small force. Either the pirates were looking for something specific, or were trying to cut a dash and make a name for themselves.
Flying out and investigating, the party found out a number of clues:
- Two pirate ships had landed, identified from their landing gear marks as a Type-S Scout and a Far Trader, two of the most common ship types in the Reach.
- They raided a warehouse, blowing the doors off with laser fire and killing several. They stole TL14 computer parts, which are particularly in dmand in the Florian Empire.
- Armstrong spotted a carbon-encased victim who he was sure could in fact be saved. They took the sarcophagus to the SMFS and used the higher-tech medical equipment there to revive her. She told them that the pirates were lead by a young man in an Imperial naval uniform and that the scout ship left first, several hours ahead of the Free Trader. From her comms device they downloaded (and decrypted, with Electronics (Computers) skill) comms from between the two ships, revealing that the pirate leader was called Ferrik, that the captain of the Scout ship was called Krrsh and that another ship remained in orbit, flown by a woman called Miria
- A task chain of Deanna’s Electronics (Computers) and Penelope’s admin lead to the uncovering of the location of other attacks by “Ferrik Redthane”, who seemed to be their candidate
Date 1105-185 – Torpol
At Torpol, the party partied with Provost Falx, starport administrator of the starport and party resort of Torpol B, aka Euphoria City. Given a 5,000Cr tab for the night, they set out with the intent to unwind in phenomenal luxury, but first they looked at logs and footage from the Torpol attack.
The video of the attack on an orbital refinery was blurry, but was easily upscaled using Electronics (Computers) skills again by Deanna. This revealed that the attack was carried out by the Far Trader, armed with two double pulse laser turrets, and a Vulture class hauler like the one they fought before, but this time armed with four turrets (two single and two double, for a total of two pulse lasers, two sandcasters and two missile launchers). The hauler had been repainted, but imperial naval markings were still slightly visible.
Yet more computer use revealed that she was the Mercifuge, which fled imperial space as part of a flotilla under renegade Admiral Darokyn and is listed as stolen. Darokyn is rumoured to be based at Theev, and just happens to have been used as part of a false identity by the crew of the SMFS during their recent pirating.
The two ships, before the attack, had docked at the orbital refuelling facility under the names Argo 1 and Argo 2.
Finally, speaking to their fence contact in Torpol gave them the information that a type S Scout had docked at the Euphoria City downport, made some transactions, and had then been involved in an incident with the Sarcomond, currently docked two bays from the Travellers for repairs while its captain drinks to forget. He points out that said captain, Daniel Vlaw, is a native Asiman who fled his planet after the Drinaxian invasion 20 years ago and hates Drinaxians with a passion.
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