Date: 213-1105
Location: Theev
The session opened with two members of the Vallis gang that had been attempting to break into the Harrier dragging away their stunned hacker. The party were reluctant to let them get away with this and drew down on them. They opened fire on the would-be shipjackers with stunners, dropping one, while Tim drew his sword (which was not his newly-acquired, absolutely clearly not a light sabre for reasons of copyright) and threatened the remaining gang member. Unfortunately for all concerned on both sides, the gang had a fourth member on overwatch and he moved from cover behind some cargo crates, firing an automatic rifle from the party’s flank as he did so.
The realisation of just what this meant panicked the remaining, conscious member of the Vallis gang who made a break for it, but First one, then rapidly two more Widows entered the hangar, disarming both party and gang and ordering everyone to remain for “discovery and arbitration” while they reviewed security footage from the scene.
When it was clear that the party had used non-lethal weaponry to defend their ship and that the gang had used lethal weaponry to respond, the Widows lined up the gang members, forced the conscious pair to kneel, and rapidly executed each of them.
On turning back to the ship, they saw a gleeful Krrsh and a shell-shocked Sharyl preparing to emerge as the cargo bay doors opened. It turned out that Krrsh had discovered a new release from interstellar mega-star Tiznee Zazzle was available – “Look at You Now” – and he had played it non-stop on the ship sound system for the seven hours of the party’s absence, despite the threats and pleading of Sharyl. Krrsh confessed to being a huge Zazzlie, and said he had just hoped to explain the brilliance of the lyrics to Sharyl, who he was sure would love it.
The party then received a message from Admiral Darokyn, via his fleet member Ensign Fitzgerald, for the captain of the spaceship Capital Gains Tax – the nom de piracy of the So Much For Subtlety. After much pointing at each other, Tim was elected captain as the possessor of the highest Tactics(Naval), and took the call with the confidence of his new office. The message was an invitation to dine with the Admiral at 8pm the next day, at the Rose Pavilion restaurant.
Patrick Steward was on his home ground, here, and had firm opinions:
“Is one to understand that you intend to visit the Rose Pavilion dressed thusly, sir? I see.”
“The restaurant is rated in the top five in the Trojan Reach on PortAdvisor, and reviews do frequently mention the strict dress code.”
“Might one make so bold as to suggest a trip to Hapley & Son in the northern Upper City, perhaps?”
The party then made their way to Hapley and Son, a bespoke tailoring family firm in the Upper City where they were measured, advised and fitted for suits/dresses (2000Cr for the two men, and 3000Cr for the lady present including accessories). Tim and Deanna went for fairly conservative tailoring and fabrics, while Eric went for a well-cut but flamboyant Chris Rock in the Fifth Element look. The clothes would be delivered to the SS SMFS later.
The party then went to the Lower City and were approached by a heavily-augmented Vargr, who told them that Petyr Vallis would like to apologise for the actions of his subordinates and wanted to talk to them at his base a few streets away, in a red flag zone of the lower city.
Vallis turned out to be a charismatic and intelligent pirate motivated less by commercial gain – handy as that was – and more by a deep loathing for the Aslan, who were to blame for the death of his family and his own maiming as they tried to escape from slavery at the hands of The Glorious Empire, an Aslan off-shoot of the Hierate. Initially shocking the party with his openly species-ist views, as he discussed the reality of the future of the Trojan Reach if the expansionist Aslan went unchecked it all seemed to make a certain sense. Vallis offered them the opportunity to join his gang, in return for a 20% cut of their takings. They would then be flying in a larger fleet and concentrating mainly on hitting Aslan targets.
The party then returned to a bar next to where they had been investigating Miria’s location, and split up to work the crowd.
Tim approached a man talking to, or at, his two droids. The man explained at uninterruptable length what a good listener he was, and interminably recounted his entire journey from the Outrim Void to Theev, and the many rude people who simply wouldn’t let him get a word in edgeways throughout his journey. Two interesting pieces of information about the Borderland region did come up:
- “I’d keep away from Inurin. Bunch of Vargr running things now, based out of Gibraltar Station. They don’t like questions. I hate them dogs.”
- “Word is something big went down at Arunisiir. An ex-shipmate of mine saw a whole merc crew offload there… The weird thing is, they were the sort that specialise in dealing with Aslan raids and invasions, but Arunisiir is an Aslan-ruled world. Well, sort of.”
Deanna approached an uplifted gorilla and uplifted chimpanzee who were drinking together at another table. They turned out to be Vas Silverfur and Goorp, respectively.
They were arguing about what to do next: Vas (leader, pilot and captain) wanted something less deadly than what turned out to have been pirating, while Goorp (a ship’s engineer) was bored and wanted excitement.
Knowing promising crew when she saw them, Deanna suggested they sign up with the party, and that they were prepared to pay them to come along as “we’ll get another ship soon.” The confidence with which she asserted that they’d amass multiple hundred-million-credit assets was enough to convince Goorp, who in turn persuaded Vas.
Eric was approached by Vi Lon, a 20-something PA who had been a high-flying member of a Union delegation from Acrid who had been on Theev seeking mercenaries for hire. Within days of arrival, the rest of her team had been assassinated: she had only escaped by the pure luck of having been returning from the bathroom just in time to see the hit go down. She had survived for several weeks on Theev but was now out of money, out of luck, covered in dirt and with torn, stinking clothes so had no chance of getting any work that she wanted.
The three members of a prostitution racket who were pressuring Vi to work for them then approached Eric and demanded that he leave “their property.” The leader told Eric to get lost, and made her point by extending a set of monofilament blade implants from the back of each hand. Another pulled a knife and lunged for Eric. Both Eric and Deanna used stunners to take down one of the attackers and virtually knock out another, while Tim sliced off three of the leader’s bladed implants with his arc-field sword. Goorp (the uplifted chimp) barreled in at high speed, seeing this fight as an exciting opportunity for dopamine rewards, taking the almost-stunned attacker off his feet. At this, the pimp gang retreated, swearing vengeance for the party stealing their property.
Next, the group headed back to the SMFS, leaving Vi Lon in the capable manipulator attachments of a clucking Patrick Steward, who just loves a project. Vas and Goorp went to get their belongings to load them onto the ship. The rest of the party then decided that they had earned some luxury, and, taking their valet robot Patrick with them, took a three-person suite at the finest hotel in Blacksand City: the Royal Hotel. There, they made use of the two-storey windows looking out over the fashionable side of the city, and into the wastelands beyond; diverted themselves with the high-end holosuite, and had Patrick draw them baths before sleeping in the undeniably most comfortable beds they had ever experienced, with complimetary room service. Well worth 5000Cr.
Date: 213-1105
Location: Theev
At breakfast, the travellers were diverted by a singular scene: two Widows entered the dining area, cut a hole in the exterior environmental shielding (causing a rush of atmosphere out into the thin air of the planet), stepped out, assembled a sniper rifle, shot someone out of site on the street below, returned and sealed the breach, before leaving.
Staff approached the party before almost anyone else in the room, reflecting their prestigious suite. They apologised for the disruption and informed them that a 20% discount would be applied to their room costs, naturally. This reduced the costs to a very reasonable 4000Cr for the night.
Checking new sources later, Deanna spotted an account of reputed Vallis gang members executed the night before, then a story about a member of a Florian League delegation executed after implication in two murders in the Upper City.
Using the new hardware and the administrative skills of Vi Lon, the party then tried once more to locate Miria Silverhand. The intrusion software and the improved series of tasks worked superbly, and Deanna was able to locate an image of Miria (confirmed by Krrsh), which she then used to match footage from other security cameras to zero in on Miria’s travels around the lower city, tracing her to an abandoned A2-class Free Trader in the scrapyard at the east of the city.
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