Pirates of Drinax

174-1107 – Elohai, Blue

The day after speaking to Dr Lira Venn, Anastasia and Lars arrived at the Spark of Life for their tour, with Anastasia showing her years-old journalistic accreditation and just managing to bluff her way past security. They were greeted by the ship’s pilot and astrogator, Sela Marrin, who answered Anastasia’s questions about Dr Nafir: she had been his pilot for many years, having flown the Spark of Life all the way to Deneb and the Spinward Marches and then back down through the Trojan Reach in Nafir’s search for the best scientific talent he could find.

The fact that a science ship was able to land at a starport struck Lars as surprising, but this turned out to be as a result of work in the area of aerodynamics optimisation which Nafir held a patent on: was there no field in which he did not excel?!?

Lars and Anastasia were given a tour of the laboratory areas, noting the name of Dr Kessarin Jaal on the way past: the scientist that Dr Venn had noted seemed rather jaded. Then they met Dr Nafir himself: he was as enthusastic and smooth as the others had found him to be before on Falcon, and happily answered Anastasia’s questions. Her attempts to use psionics on him, however, failed utterly. He was unreadable for some reason.

Dr Nafir’s rise had begun in tragedy: his collaborator – Dr Jans Trask – had died tragically young, and Nafir had sworn to continue their work, bringing their tasks rapidly to a conclusion in the form of the collaborative software that was at the heart of the Spark of Life’s success. Dr Nafir sadly answered questions about Trask’s death, in 1100, seven years before, and how important that Trask’s memory was to him.

On the way out, Anastasia sent a psionic message to Dr Jaal, with a means to contact her, but whether due to suspicion, confusion, an attribution of the message to intrusive thoughts and incipient madness, or the general loathing of psionics which is so general in and around the Imperium, no contact was made.

Anastasia had also attempted to send messages to former members of the raided Psionics Institute on Blue, but if any were on the planet, they were either not in range or were not responsive. A visit to the site of the Institute yielded only a large area of concreted-over land.

In the starport, the party took the time to note the many naval personel present – far too many for such a small population – as well as a couple of sleek, modern vessels in port. They also noted the political officers dotted around, wearing distinctive grey uniforms with red flashes and psi helmets.

On returning to the Shinkiro, the party discovered that Krrsh, having been left aboard yet again – he had hardly been off the ship in months – had killed time through taking control of the ship’s droids (a gunnery robot, an engineering droid and Patrice, the ship’s instance of the Patrickswarm which served on each of the Drinaxians’ ships). These he had provided with scripts for the notoriously high-energy, sprawling and violent epic poem which serves as a foundation myth for Vargr society through the borderline-surreal interactions of their great, mythical heros and gods. Think the Mahabharata crossed with the Chinese tale of the Monkey King. The performance had been underway for several hours, with Krrsh as lead star and director. Patrice in particular was strikingly relieved at the return of the party.

175-1107 – Elohai, Blue

The next morning, the crew of the Shinkiro awoke to find that the Spark of Life had left, late the previous night. Investigations showed that she had filed a flight destination of Clarke, but further investigation revealed that she had taken on cargo due to be delivered to Arunisiir: Nafir’s love of money had betrayed him. So off to Arunisiir it was!

182-1107 – Arunisiir Highport

At Arunisiir highport, the Shinkiro found that the Spark of Life had already left. A repeat of the previous investigations revealed that Nafir had filed a destination of Pandora, but had taken on freight for Acrid. The party pursued, however their investigations each time meant that they were falling further behind, each time.

190-1107 – Acrid Lowport, Kingdom of Drinax

Falling further behind, the Shinkiro’s occupants gambled and had a fuel bladder fitted quickly at the Drinaxian-controlled Lowport. Looking at his route, they deduced that Nafir was heading either for Tech World or for the medically-advanced laboratories of Falcon, not least since he had filed a flight path for Argona. So their next jump was to Inurin.

198-1107 – Inurin high orbit

Arriving in Inurin, the Shinkiro immediately refuelled from her fuel bladder and jumped at once to Tech World. Would this gamble pay off?

205-1107 – Tech World lowport

Arriving at the nanotech marvel which was the Tech World Lowport, the party were greeted by the tailored robot who would act as their guide for their stay. Few sophonts were to be seen, but huge numbers of droids – both realistic and fantastical – swarmed the hangars and corridors.

Soon after their arrival, a mysterious parcel with a worrying accompanying message was delivered to the ship. The parcel contained a beautifully-crafted computer module with an expert system on it, programmed to advise on linguistics, philosophy, psychology and sophontology. The party were understandably cautious about plugging this into the ship’s computer, but decided to use one of their intrusion devices, instead.

The message began positively enough:

“Greetings. Your presence is requested as matters of mutual interest and profitability may be discussed. We offer you this gift as a mark of our respect, in the hopes of future friendship. We hope that the enclosed information will demonstrate that we have no desire to harm you, as we have kept this scrupulously confidential.”

The enclosed information in question detailed a number of matters which nobody outside of the pirates themselves should have known about: the precise location and state of the Martin II, and the secret location of Orpheus Base, as well as discussions amongst various crew members of the pirate fleet regarding the robbery of the Imperium treasure ship on Arunisiir.

The party very quickly surmised that the Patrickswarm, built to order by Tech World to spy upon and report on the crews of each of the ships in their fleet, had in fact been uploading its findings to more than just Patrick.

A few hours later, their Tech World liaison droid asked them to accompany her to a meeting with “interested individuals”. After arriving at the sales office of “Action at a Distance” – a company involved in the forbiddden field of psionomechanical research – they were taken into the city basements, through access tunnels and service shafts, making use of their disguise nets to appear as droids and slip past GeDeCo security guards. Eventually, the crew arrived at the laboratories of Hodal Genotech AG.

There they met Dr Gerret Hodal, a geneticist from Neumann; Dr Jali Astor, a nanotechnologist from Neumann who appeared distracted throughout; and Dr Rex Darke, a roboticist formerly of the university of Regina who had an offputting laugh and a disturbing tendency to rub his hands together when enthusiastic. The three explained that they represented the Founders: the group of around a hundred scientists and entrepreneurs who formed much of the human population of Tech World. They had been invited to the planet by GeDeCo with the promise of unfettered abilities to carry out whatever research they desired, but they had found GeDeCo’s “pettifogging moral scruples” challenging to work within, and they had watched the rise of Drinax with interest.

In return for protection, supplies and the loan of defensive ships until they could build out their own robotic, defensive capabilities, they would join the Kingdom as a member state. One other condition applied, however: they would be allowed unquestioned scientific research freedom without interference or enquiry.

The party promised to take these requests to King Oleb and Princess Rao, but expressed their enthusiasm for the proposal.

In return, the scientists stated that they knew of the party’s interest in Dr Nafir and his ship, and offered to ensure that it would require a lengthy stay for unforeseen technical issues. In addition, the crew of the Shinkiro were offered the best hotel accomodation on Tech World.

205-1107 – Tech World lowport

The next morning, when assembled to discuss the events of the previous day, the party were surprised when Dr Hodal suddenly walked through the apparently solid (but nanotech-constructed) wall of their room, and told them, in distress, that Dr Astor had had a terrible accident. Infected by the Neumann nanobots that she had been experimenting upon, she had stolen the Spark of Life and departed!

Dr Hodal begged the party to help save Dr Astor – if she infected others with the nanobots then the results could be disastrous for the Reach! – and agreed to take the party to the laboratory of Dr Astor to investigate the accident.

161-1107 Orpheus Base (TR 2523)

The crew of the Shinkiro (Anastasia, Lars, Dr Parsifal and Cauldron, with Krrsh in tow) parted company with the Recent Convert (formerly the Deepnight Amundsen), who left for Pandora and the hidden Martin II, accompanied by the Mercifuge.

Leaving the hidden Sindalian base – now reclaimed on behalf of King Oleb, himself the proclaimed successor-in-exile to the Dragon Emperor of Sindal, the Shinkiro jumped to Blue, where the Spark of Life was most recently reported to be. The Spark of Life was the ship of Dr Izikai Nafir, the bitter rival of Dr Parsifal, whose early career was blighted by Nafir’s plagiarism and betrayal.

Parsifal now sought revenge: a revenge made all the more convenient by the demand of Prince Harrick that he be able to provide Clarke with a science vessel capable of performing research and improving the health sector on Clarke before he accepts the role of High Psychopomp. Since this was Clarke’s condition for entering the Kingdom of Drinax, the party had genuine motivation to succeed in acquiring the ship in a way that would not see Harrick, Prince of Drinax, accused of piracy!

170-1107 – Bulhai Base, Blue system

The crew of the Shinkiro chose to jump, first, to Bulhai Station, the independent freeport on a moon of the outer gas giant in the Blue system which they had used before due to the presence of a mercenary supply company. From there they contacted Loren Els, a junior civil servant in Blue’s capital city, Elohai. Els had been recruited the year before by Basemath Mondrane, a colleague from Deanna’s naval career who was now a wandering agent and recruiter for the growing asset of intel sources in Deanna’s employ. Another agent existed on Blue – Fa Roysopp, a petty criminal – but the party chose not to activate her at this time.

While the party were nominally in Blue to pursue the Spark of Life, the growing hostility to Drinax of the Blue government, and the possible links to the government on Lilgan, were impossible to ignore. So the group asked Loren what he could tell them about the attitude of the government of Blue to Drinax. A couple of days later they got a response, detailing how, in the last 20 years or so, Blue had gone from a small backwater, essentially passive in whatever external relations it had, to possessing a virulently anti-Drinaxian media and (in recent years) to building, buying or renovating a far larger, jump-capable fleet than its economy could dream of supporting.

I’ve managed to finish compiling the latest fleet records. Blue’s got more ships than anyone here admits we can pay for — five Edict-class defence boats, five Vigilant-class corvettes, and two Bedrock-class carriers still “under evaluation” at the Highport. The Edicts are supposed to be system-only craft, but I’ve seen the movement schedules — they can be ferried elsewhere by the Bedrocks. Someone’s planning for more than defence.

No one down here in admin knows where the money’s coming from. Every budget line for the fleet ties back to something called “Special Continuity Funds.” When I tried to trace it, I got told (politely) to stop asking questions.

Morale’s good but the officers are nervous — too many inspections, too many “advisors” aboard every ship. None of us know who they actually report to.

I’ll try to find out refit schedules soon.

There’s a new hauler been bought in Empire which will go in for refit later this year: they are calling it the Cornerstone class liner but it’s supposedly a troop carrier, with small ships for ferrying troops to the ground. It should be commissioned in 18 months.

The party asked Loren to give them a summary of the fleet built by Blue. In the meantime, they moved to the surface of Blue itself, relying on disguise nets, a programmable transponder and the adaptable hull of the Shinkiro to avoid being identified as Drinaxians.

173-1107 – Elohai city, Blue

On their way to Blue’s capital city, Elohai, the party researched the Spark of Life and her time on the planet. They discovered excitable stories in the local press about the ship and her cutting-edge computer systems, which not just backed-up each onboard scientist’s work overnight, but somehow multiplied the productivity of each through a multiplicative effect. Aware of the trail of bitter former collaborators alleging IP theft that Nafir possessed – including Parsifal himself – the party viewed this with great suspicion.

They also spotted a news story about the quadrennial interfaith conference, held on a varying rota of planets over the years, which would start on Clarke in two months: it was being hosted by the Psychopomps this time, and the interesting news was the announcement that Prince Harrick of Drinax was slated to attend as guest of honour, while attendees were to include the Psychopomps of Clarke themselves, the Church of the Solar Divinity, the Church of the Starry Wisdom and the Shield Church of Neumann

Much of the press concerned a junior scientist by the name of Lira Venn who was joining Dr Nafir’s incubator aboard the Spark of Life. The party discovered that she was renting out her apartment during her absence and, posing as prospective tenants, visited her. Finding out more about the ship and the fellow scientists (of whom there were two, at least one of them far less positive about Nafir), Anastasia managed to arrange a tour of the ship the next day in her role of journalist.

The players decided to rent Lira’s one-bedroom apartment on Blue since the plan is to get Lars on-board the Spark of Life as a mechanic/engineer, and they supposed that he may need an address for his disguise.

089-1107 – Ergo

Having survived their battle with the two leviathans in the forests of Ergo, the group then engaged in a shooting match with two of the Chain Gang members, before encountering locals, who appeared to possess a culture originally based in some strange half-memory of ancient Persia, and who had been essentially enslaved by the Chain Gang and their higher technology. Discussions with several groups of locals revealed a society divided into inherited societal roles: one family might produce technicians, another soldiers, and another hunters.

The locals had, it transpired, ritually killed the crew of the ship having taken them for gods, and had then placed their own, preserved clan gods (long dead astronauts from another crashed vessel) into the ship, closing it in the belief that they would fly the ship into the heavens and return with great wealth. Now the ship was locked and disguised from scans by piles of scrap, the anomaly in which it sat, and the ship’s own stealthy hull.

Breaking into the ship, the party found the embalmed bodies of the locals’ two gods. Leaving the natives with gifts, including substantial numbers of weapons with which to greet the remaining Chain Gang members on their return, the party then left for Tech World, taking both the Shinkiro and the Deepnight Amundsen.

097-1107 – Tech World

After some basic repairs, the party left in the Deepnight Amundsen to perform a survey of the apparently-empty parsec 2523. For this, we used the surveying rules from the Referee’s Guide of the Deepnight Revelation box set. This took five weeks of surveying, and a second jump, but the party managed to identify (alongside a rogue cometary body, to which they burned over the course of five days to refuel) a dense dust cloud half a light year across, within which they found a brown dwarf, orbited closely by several moons, one of them a tidally-locked moon 50% bigger than Titan which lay inside the fearfully-narrow, habitable belt of the Brown Dwarf. Bookmarking its location, they jumped out to Tech World once more, to rendezvous (a month late) with the crew of the So Much For Subtlety.

153-1107 – Tech World

Leaving the SMFS on Tech World, the Mercifuge, Shinkiro and Deepnight Amundsen then jumped to the moon they had discovered.

And on that moon, they located the Heart of Darkness: the fabled, long-abandoned Sindalian base. The rest of the session was spent investigating this base, and the greatest prizes were two Harrier-class commerce raiders. Each had been stripped for parts, and the ships were in far worse states than the SMFS, which had spent its long exile out in the dark vacuum and constant temperature of Drinax’s Oort Cloud instead of a moist, oxygen-laden atmosphere. But they were, nonetheless, recoverable (for a nine-figure investment of credits).

Satisfied, the crew of the Deepnight Amundsen – Timaeus, Eric, Lars and Penelope – then jumped to Acrid and then Pandora to work out what to do with the treasure-packed Martin II. The Shinkiro departed for Clarke and their long-planned reckoning with Dr Izikai Nafir.

Having heard of the success of the Imperium-Drinaxian fleet at Exe, the Shinkiro and Mercifuge travelled from Pandora to Drinax.

Much of the session was spent in collaboratively designing a pet snake for Erik. The snake in question being a robot and more intelligent than almost any member of the crew. It was to be accompanied by five drone snakes that it could control using Swarm Control software. The snake in question was murderously expensive (2.1MCr!) and clearly designed as murderous in other ways, too: stealthy, armed with a poison bite, capable of moving faster than a human on walls and ceilings… An order was dispatched to Tech World.

112-1107 – Drinax

The crew of the Shinkiro brought news of their successes to Oleb, who was delighted and declared a week’s feasting to celebrate the victory at Exe, and who was persuaded not to mention the Martin II at all.

We then moved onto the question of the (fake) treaty that the party had found on the Martin II, which purported to be an agreement between the Imperium and the Hierate, granting the Aslan full influence and freedom of action in all systems currently within six parsecs of the Aslan border. Discussing this with Princess Rao, the party persuaded her anonymously to circulate news of the treaty throughout the affected systems.

The effect was to drive several systems towards the rising power of Drinax, and to make those systems more receptive to Drinaxian advances as a result, as they sought collective security from any potential attack. The following systems shifted one step towards Drinax: Pourne, Asim, Torpol, Exocet, Marduk, Salif, Acis, Tktk, Tyr, Tech-World, Inurin, Exe.

Although Drinax’s name was not formally linked with the circulated treaty, there was enough circumstantial evidence (cui bono? Drinax bono!) to implicate them (GeDeCo had a very clear idea, but could not risk leaking their own involvement to prove it), and the party’s standing with the Hierate fell by six, while their standing with the Imperium fell by five.

077-1107 – Tech World

The party now turned their attention to the missing Deepnight Amundsen: an advanced survey ship belonging to the Deepnight Corporation which had gone missing while jumping back and forth into the Great Rift along the Voidsedge Cluster, reportedly last appearing above the interdicted world of Ergo. The Drinaxians had decided that an advanced survey ship might be a useful asset in investigating another rumour from the previous year, regarding a forgotten Sindalian base in the empty parsec Trojan Reach 2523.

085-1107 – Ergo

After showing apparent interest in investing in the Ergo Barons’ ambitious plans for rebuilding their economy on their last visit, the party were approached by two of the Barons once more.

The characters were, however, more interested in using the Ergo authorities’ notoriously incurious bureaucracy to change the identity of their ships. The Barons refused to provide the contact used for this – it was a major source of income for them – but the party used tracking equipment and drones to follow their runner, and made a direct approach themselves. The Barons knew nothing about the Deepnight Amundsen’s location.

On questioning the fixer, it turned out that he did have some interesting news regarding the missing survey ship: a group of locally-based pirates – the Chain Gang – had approached him, looking for hacking gear or, failing that, heavy duty cutting gear. He couldn’t provide either, and he believed that they had left for Tech World. His own hacker, who he used for reprogramming ships’ transponders, was paid to hack the Imperium interdiction satellites and this yielded a fix on the missing survey ship.

The party then located the Deepnight Amundsen, located in a magnetic anomaly caused by one of the weapons used in the war that destroyed the world’s civilisation, two centuries before. Approaching the ship through the dense forests within the crater, the party fought two of the vast, armoured beasts that roamed the world: only the presence of the plasma gun taken from Hroal Irontooth saved them from at least two deaths.

Two locals then appeared, communicating in gestures with the party to gain permission to approach the bodies of the dead beasts, then removing something from the head of one of them, before departing once more with warning gestures of something ahead.

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.