Pirates of Drinax

190-1106 Jump Space

The action opened with the So Much For Subtlety in jump space, on her way to the ancient Sindalian space station known as The World. In one cabin, Timaeus was honing his rhetoric, using his skills in writing and persuasion to write a speech, laying out how Hteilotorl had been cruelly betrayed by his father’s old servant and friend, Koaleia. Knowing that the Aslan had little time for legalistic arguments and lengthy proofs, he was focusing on appeals to emotion and to references to what the epic sagas of the Aslan people said about heroes of old who had been betrayed and who suffered unjust deaths.

Deanna helped, with references to Aslan history. Dr Parsifal, in the meantime, continued his studies in cybernetics, longing for vengeance against Dr Nazif, his old enemy and one who had, in the past betrayed him, too.

Timaeus delivered a practice version of his speech on the ship: Sharyl roared his approval, righteous indignation flowing through him despite his disdain for the Hierate and its ways; Krrsh pulled at his fur in frustration and demanded that they return at once to Sink to strike down the betrayer, then launch a jihad of holy vengeance across the stars against all those linked to the treasonous acts on Arunisiir.

One night, the party awoke to the sounds of violent roaring and crashing sounds from Hteilotorl’s cabin. They found him tearing open the metal of his own cargo container with his monofilament-coated claws, unable to speak with frustration and rage. When calmed, he eventually offered an apology to the crew: “I apologise for my outburst. Spending even two of my last hours in the company of that treasonous worm was too much to bear. I do you and your house dishonour by my response, when you have only been kind and honourable towards me: far more than your duty dictates.”

196-1106 The World

On arriving at The World, the travellers found it a ramshackle, crumbling affair, thousands of years old, patched and re-patched and with only two of its hangars still functional. Emerging from the ship, they met two friends of Hteilotorl who were acting as security guards: his friends were reduced to taking jobs on this backwater in order to make ends meet. Regardless, they were delighted to see their old leader, and terribly saddened to see him going to his death. Soon, the Docking Controller emerged: Eleahasei, the betrothed of Hteilotorl. Their joy soon turned to her tears and his sorrow as he explained where he was going, and why.

Nonetheless, Hteilotorl’s friends insisted on honouring him with a last dinner together, and he insisted that his companions – the crew of the Subtlety, joined him. As they strode through the arrivals hall of The World, they were attacked by assassins who, knowing that Hteilotorl had friends at this last stop before Tyokh, had gambled on him paying them one last visit to bid farewell. Caring little about the bystanders, they hurled a small assassin droid filled with explosives at the group, and opened fire on Hteilotorl.

Luckily, the party had gleefully noted the low law level of The World and were armed and armoured to excess, encouraged in doing so by Patrick, who had offered his usual artorial advice and reminded them that Aslan were more impressed by military garb than sharp suits. The party advanced under partial smoke cover, despatched the assassin droid quickly and then took only flesh wounds as they dealt with the would-be assassins.

The dinner was a sombre affair, full of emotional speeches and memories of past glories together as children and as adults. However, the travellers were able to converse on less sombre matters with polite fellow guests. Eleahasei in particular approached Eric: he had fought alongside Hteilotorl. Could he not turn the Prince aside from his mission and persuade him to seek out a new life outside the Hierate? All of his friends would join him, to an Aslan. Eric promised to attempt this, but stated his scepticism.

During the speeches, Timaeus rose and delivered his own practised speech on what they had found on Sink, and about the betrayal of Hteilotorl by the Aslan he had known since he was a child. This was delivered in Trokh with such aplomb and eloquence that the listeners were roused near to violence, and swore vengeance on Koaleia [double sixes were rolled]. Timaeus took a recording of the speech for later use.

197-1106 – The World

The next day, the crew of the So Much For Subtlety departed The World in sombre mood for the final jump of their journey.

206-1106 – Tyokh

Arriving at Tyokh, they were told that there was a two day delay for docking at the lowport, but when their mission was discovered they were quickly sent to the Iuwoi clan’s private lowport. Before landing, they sent the information they had seized on Sink ahead to the clan, including the recording of Timaeus’ speech.

Informed by Patrick that military garb and ostentatious uniforms with every honour and medal visible were the way to impress their hosts, and reminded by Sharyl not to pettifog or plead like a lawyer, the party were announced by Hteilotorl as his companions of honour before he descended to the surface of his planet for the last time. Bound to silence until he met his executioner, he lead Timaeus, Lars, Parsifal and Eric to the great hall of the Iuwoi-ko, leader of the clan and his father.

The Iuwoi-ko spoke to his aide, who demanded that the party announce who they were and by what right humans stood by the son of a Clan-Lord of the Aslan, and each did so in turn, telling of their fights alongside the Prince. Then the aide asked if they had any final statements to make on the case before the verdict of the Clan-Lord upon his son was carried out. With this, Timaeus once more made his speech, put off a little by the rising anger of the surrounding crowds of Aslan. Nonetheless, by now he knew exactly what to say, when to pause to allow the Aslan anger to rise, and what to say to further fuel the indignation against the dishonour portrayed.

When he finished, the minister of the Iuwoi-ko turned to the ambassador of the Tykhisto clan and demanded to know if this was true? The ambassador replied cooly that it was, and that if the Iuwoi could not ensure the loyalty of their oldest servants then it was not for others to stand aside. With that, he left with his retainers.

This was a signal that the Tykhisto no longer enforced their full bargain, but Hteilotorl was still under sentence of death, by order of the Iuwoi-ko. The Clan Lord turned to the companions of honour of his son: would any take his place before the executioner?

There was a lengthy silence, before Timaeus spoke out in Trokh: he would die in Hteilotorl’s place. He asked only to use the sword of his ancestors. There was a murmur of awe and astonishment from the crowd.

The aide spoke once more to the Iuwoi-ko, who then announced that, should one stand in Hteilotorl’s place, they would not be bound by honour to lose the fight. If he could defeat the executioner, he could win. But if he lost, both he and Hteilotorl would die

Timaeus was taken to an antechamber to await the fight, while others went to bring his sword from the ship. Sharyl gave them advice to pass on to Timaeus: the first minutes of the fight would be an opportunity for each of the duellists to display his prowess, and honour called for neither to strike a deadly blow until each had done so.

As the fight begun, Timaeus challenged the executioner to strike first if he wished both an innocent Aslan and an innocent man to die. The executioner was taken aback but clearly frustrated. If Timaeus would not fight, he said, then he would die and so would the one whose champion he now was.

Fuelled by his frustration at this injustice, Timaeus struck first. He was not quite as skilled nor nearly as strong as the great Aslan before him, but he was nimbler and quicker on his feet, especially with neither wearing armour. He lunged quickly and cut the huge Aslan deep with his first attack, before the fight devolved into a rapid series of cut and parry, attack and riposte, with neither side seemingly able to get past the other’s guard.

The crowd were silent as they watched the mismatched pair each defend against the skillful attacks of the other. Then the executioner over-committed to an attack, lunging past Timaeus who was able to use his momentum to counter-strike. Somehow, the mighty Aslan warrior slipped – Timaeus was certain that he had not done enough to put him on his knees – but the executioner was on his knees, Timaeus’s blade at his neck. The crowd waited for the final blow, but Timaeus stepped back and gestured the Aslan to rise and continue, to the amazement and applause of the crowd.

With that, the executioner stood, bowed, and placed his blade on the ground in a sign of submission. As Timaeus accepted his surrender, the Aslan leant forward and whispered to him, insistently: “remember, you defeated me. There can be no doubt over this one thing: that you defeated me.”

The great hall of judgement erupted in roars of delight, and Timaeus was brought before the Iwuoi-ko, who finally deigned to speak to him himself. “You were willing to sacrifice yourself for my son and your honour has saved him. You may ask any boon.”

Timaeus replied: “The boon I ask is to help your son gain what was denied him by treachery. I place in trust my family blade as a pledge of success. I ask that you hold it in honour to return it to me when you deem that pledge has been fulfilled.” The Iwuoi-ko, touched, accepted his pledge. Prince Hteilotorl, perhaps overcome by the emotion of the moment, in turn pledged that he would take his land on Arunisiir and hold it in fealty not to the Hierate but to the Drinax-ko, Oleb, whose house had saved him from dishonourable death.

155-1106 – Ergo Surface

The session opened with the damaged So Much For Subtlety still atop the brutalist hideout of the Black Arrow gang, loading the seized cargo into her hold. With that done, they looked out one last time over the darkened city that surrounded them, the crater from the nuclear exchange just visible in the fading light, and the light from two or three distant fires the only signs that any intelligent life survives on the verdant planet of Ergo.

The work done with the aid of the cargo loader droid they seized the previous year from the Cicendai, the party departed, a horrifying creaking sound echoing through the ship as the crippled landing gear complained about the shifting weight.

The astrogator, Lady Penelope, laid a course for Falcon, and Deanna configured the jump drives for the return to the asteroid highport they had left only twenty days earlier. Timaeus consoled himself with the thought that this would surely baffle any hunting ships.

164 to 167-1106 – Falcon Highport

167 to 174-1106 – Jumpspace

174 to 176-1106 – Yiys Gas Giant, Ergo System

After three days in Falcon, most of them spent aboard the So Much For Subtlety in order to avoid detection, the damage to the underside of the hull caused by the Black Arrow gang’s booby trap was repaired, and the crew jumped out to Ergo’s inner gas giant, Yiys. There, the So Much For Subtlety saw a distant mercenary cruiser – the Lamprey – patrolling the refuelling point, but there was no interaction by the time the Drinaxian Harrier refuelled, purified the scooped gas, and jumped back out on her way to Sink for the first of Hteilotorl’s final requested stops.

184-1106 – Sink Surface

Arriving at the surface of Sink at what passed for its starport, the crew of the SMFS found a radio-frequency navigation beacon and an old temporary construction unit fitted out as an office. Its occupant was a genial old-timer with a cheroot and a practised line in poor jokes, Jacob Custer with the official title of “Station Master”.

Jacob directed the party first to Brother Singer, a monk at the nearby monastery, who Jacob said always wanted to speak to the crews of visiting starships, so the party headed there before their planned visit to Hteilotorl’s uncle.

Having navigated the tiny hamlet that huddlet beside the monastery, they entered the open and unguarded complex – unsurprising on a planet with a population of only a few hundred – they met Brother Singer. He was an imposing but avuncular monk who, after some conversation to ascertain the reason for their visit, requested that they bring him one or all of some singular items: he would pay 1.2MCr for 1,340 GenTech Cosmos 7 Plus mobile phones from Sperle; 927 G27b Lookout fire alarms from Paal would fetch 200,000Cr; and 27 “Girls! Girls! Girls!” Neon signs from Byrni’s Jihandir Bros. Trading Co. were worth 500,000Cr. The party and Brother Singer discussed the local entertainments available in the village, which turned out to be mainly provided by one Bawdy Meg.

As the party left their audience with Brother Singer, they saw an extremely thin, ill-looking woman passing one of the doorways in the monastery.

Next, Timaeus, Deanna, Cauldron, Lady Penelope and Sharyl accompanied Hteilotorl to the estate of Koalei, the Aslan whom Prince Hteilotorl suspected of betraying him. The estate was grand: almost as extensive as the village and monastery combined, elegantly designed and opulently laid-out. Hteilotorl informed the party that the design would largely have been that of his uncle, as such architectural taste was expected of a senior Aslan male.

Entering through the main doors, the party were greeted by servants, and soon encountered the master of the estate himself. Hteilotorl asked him for a tour of the grounds, to be accompanied by Sharyl, and Koalei, taking this as Hteilotorl seeking to escape the boorish company of humans with whom he had spent so long, deigned to agree.

With Hteilotorl and Sharyl gone, the party were shown out by servants. They then immediately returned to the front door, to be intercepted at once and told to return by servants who, working as they did for a spymaster, were trained in not falling for obvious tricks.

Crossing the estate by the elevated walkway, the party then returned by another route, wading through the ornamental pond to access another room. This turned out to be Koalei’s office and, once the actual desk and computer had been identified amongst the extremely tasteful furnishings, Deanna made short work of the anti-intrusion software on the computer of an Aslan male whose ability to log into his own computer was fairly limited.

On hearing an approaching tread, the successful spies fled, leaving behind them watery footprints on the floor.

The crew returned to the So Much For Subtlety, followed shortly by an amused Sharyl and by Hteilotorl, who was visibly grinding his impressive incisors. Hteilotorl excused himself and retired to his cabin, while Sharyl recounted Hteilotorl’s stumbling attempts to subtly interrogate his uncle, in which he succeeded only in provoking his suspicion, so that Koalei made an excuse about an urgent message to dispatch with the ship to Tyokh, and swiftly returned.

185-1106 – The Battle of Sink Low Orbit

Leaving Sink, the So Much For Subtlety was ambushed by the Lamprey and the Seskehalen. As they would discover, the Seskehalen had tipped off the Lamprey’s captain and offered him a split of the bounty in return for help seizing the Drinaxian ship. The Lamprey had eventually tired of the wait after a week or so, and had jumped to Ergo instead, but had seen the Harrier refuelling – her 6G acceleration making her more obvious on sensors – and jumped back to Sink herself, joining forces with the Seskehalen to attack the SMFS as she clawed her way out of the gravity well.

Robbed of her advantages of range and stealth, the SMFS attempted to stretch her legs, outrunning missile salvos for as long as possible while trading shots with the Lamprey, who also sported a barbette. Each ship did terrible damage to the other, but in the end the Lamprey was close to destruction, her fuel tanks leaking, weapons damaged and manuevre drives all but destroyed, so the mercenary corvette surrendered, leaving the Seskehalen no choice but to do so as well.

Forcing the crews of their prizes into low berths, the party left the shattered Lamprey and untouched Seskehalen powered down on the surface of a planetoid in Sink’s primary belt, and departed for The World in the So Much For Subtlety, which also sported gouges in her armour, damaged thrusters and a barely-patched fuel leak.

154-1106 Planning

While the So Much For Subtlety fuel processors did their work, the party took a few hours to plan their assault on Rye Olson’s Black Arrow gang. Options to attack from the ground up were discarded, and a classic, spec-ops roof assault was decided upon. Prince Hteilotorl was invited to join the assault, and gratefully accepted the offer.

155-1106 – Ergo

A quick fly-by was used for recon, from more than 100km away, allowing the ship sensors to identify that life forms were present, but that no ships were hidden in or near the building.

Lady Penelope decided to come in hard and fast – so much for subtlety, indeed – approaching at hypersonic speed, flaring late and arriving on the rooftop less than a second after the ship’s massive sonic boom.

Since the SMFS had not provided the correct codes on approach, a set of booby traps went off on the landing pad, adding a ring of concussive explosions to the effect of the combat landing. While spectacular, this also did five points of damage to the ship’s hull and crippled the left-side landing gear, causing the ship to lurch down to the left as the assault party disembarked.

Cauldron quickly used a breaching charge on one of the two rooftop buildings and the party pushed on into the building, finding a large space with a lift service area and many full and empty cargo crates. Two combat robots and a flying gun emerged from a doorway on the other side of the large, multi-storey space, and combat ensued, with the three droids badly injuring Parsifal and Krrsh, while lasers worked poorly on the flying gun’s reflective armour. The drones were swiftly dispatched, however, and the party moved on along the corridor at the far side of the room to push into the next room, with Krrsh instructed to protect Parsifal: an instruction he at least seemed to take very seriously indeed.

The far door was opened enough to allow two tiny surveillance bots to enter what turned out to be a large, abandoned reception area for the floor, with an ancient, dry fountain and old duraplast desks. With the help of the drones, the attackers quickly identified an armed individual, in combat armour above and behind the door, on a walkway.

Fixated on this threat, the Travellers and their team moved into the huge space, with the two Aslan launching smoke and fragmentation grenades up onto the walkway behind the doors while others laid down suppressive fire. The grenades worked to an extent, but the defender the group had spotted shrugged off most of the frag grenade’s effects due to his armour, and he sprayed shots into the smoke. Moreover, two more defenders were in the room, one behind a mobile strongpoint droid, and they poured more fire into the entranceway. Five labour droids were used ruthlessly to draw fire from the party, although they were swiftly overcome by concentrated fire.

The assault seemed to have bogged down, with a wicked crossfire pinning the party in the doorway, but Krrsh recklessly sprinted across the twenty metre width of the room to cover on the far wall, successfully dodging gunfire as he went. Parsifal tried to follow, but lacked Krrsh’s agility and found himself stranded and attacked in no-man’s-land, taking heavy damage.

With Krrsh’s bold move unlocking one flank, Prince Hteilotorl pushed on the other flank, followed by Sharyl. The battle began to swing the party’s way. Demonstrating the hyper-aggression common to his people, what turned out to be a Tezcat jumped down from the balcony, wielding a TL15 chainsaw-sword at close quarters and parrying Timaeus’ arc-sword before being dispatched by Cauldron and Lars.

With the two Aslan pushing up one flank, Cauldron climbed onto the opposite walkway while Lars and Timaeus advanced quickly from cover to cover up the centre, and the party gradually pinned, outflanked and dispatched the remaining two gang members. Without orders, the floating strongpoint deactivated.

Having mopped up resistance, the party located the lanthanum, as well as seizing several tons of other high-value contraband. Parsifal in particular had taken a great deal of damage, but the Black Arrow gang’s hideout was taken. A radio message was sent to Ergo spaceport, where a representative of the Lords’ Council seemed less than delighted at the destruction inflicted.

142 to 145-1106 Falcon Highport

With four days to pass in the hollow planetoid which is Falcon highport, the crew of the So Much For Subtlety decided that heir priorities were, in no particular order, to shop, carouse and perform some fairly-overdue maintenance before jump calculations became as reliable as taking life advice from a tarot reading.

Following the encounter with a heavily-armoured, Troll-class robot in the Pandora system, the priority for shopping (at least on a TL-12 installation) turned out to be prismatic grenades and lasers with armour-piercing capabilities.

Much of the rest of the Travellers’ time over the following days was spent in the Chasm Bar, in the Highport concourse: a haunt of crews from many of the substantial number of ships that made use of GeDeCo’s headquarters in the Borderland sector. There, Dr Parsifal met his old rival, Dr Izikai Nafir, who had stolen his work when they were at university, together, and turns out to have taken a similar line on other occasions, since. Dr Nafir was keen to stress the riches that his patented discoveries had brought him, and mentioned that his laboratory ship – The Spark of Life – was docked here on its way to Tech World, where he had vital discussions to have on further collaborations. Dr Parsifal painted a smile onto his face, while silently grinding the top layer of enamel off of his teeth.

Timaeus fell into conversation with GeDeCo security admin Arabella Payne. Asked about events on Arunisiir, she asserted that “everyone knows” that Hteilotorl left Inurin almost three weeks ago (in fact, it was now six weeks) and that the bulk of the mercenary ships involved in the search for him were now patrolling in the Drinaxian Chain: the Hallion and the Bayern in Hilfer (the latter, she asserted, because Hilfer lacked any real patrol capability, so corsairing was more possible). God’s Raptor as in Byrni, she knew, while others had gambled on the smugglers taking Hteilotorl through the main trade route at Paal: these included the Lambent Flame, the Aslan heavy corvette Syoirru and others. “God help them if they bump into the Lambent Flame,” she said, pointing out that it sported a 50-ton particle beam bay.

Talk was all of the dramatic search for the Aslan war criminal: Lars Berg spoke to a ship’s engineer on a Subsidized Merchant running the Voidsedge Cluster route. She claimed to know that Admiral Darokyn had sent two of his fleet to the area, hoping to cash in on the substantial pay on offer for successful capture of Hteilotorl. Interestingly, she also claimed that Petyr Vallis, sworn enemy of the Aslan, had refused to get involved, saying that “if the Aslan rulers of Arunisiir and their Uncle Tom human lackeys want this Aslan dead, then he’s the one Aslan I’d spit on to put out a fire.”

Dr Parsifal talked to a marine who was serving on convoy duty on a Tobias Commerce Guild ship running the Fist-to-Tyokh route. The man said that, since TCG had settled with the Florian-Aslan Trade Consortium, the latter had been getting more aggressive in their dealings with Pax Rulin Quartermasters and GeDeCo in attempting to force them to join their attempt to form a monopoly on trade on the Aslan route. If things got worse, he said, he could see a proper Limited Trade War breaking out, with corporate letters of marque issued by each side. if so, he planned to leave his ship and sign up with a mercenary ship, as there was good money to be made in such an event.

The Travellers fell in with another crew, of the Free Trader Seskehalen, who were full of talk of the Aslan fugitive. They told horrifying stories of the official version of events on Arunisiir, heavily (but entertainingly) embellished. Watching carefully, Lars noticed that when one each of the crew of the So Much For Subtlety first answered their questions, the Seskehalen’s astrogator would pay particularly close attention to them.

The night before the Harrier-class ship was due in the shipyard to have a fuel bladder fitted, Cauldron was approached by Sigismund Valter, a representative of Borderlines Shipping. He had heard of the reputation of the So Much For Subtlety for “measured and successful resolution of situations,” and wondered if they might be interested in dealing with a group of raiders who had hit a Borderlines trader and stolen five tons of high-grade lanthanum ore, worth several million credits to the right buyer.

If the party could hit this raider group, “deal with them in the most final sense,” then he would provide them with paperwork transferring the ownership of the ore shipment to them: it would be legally theirs and therefore it could be disposed of at full price. The party agreed to change their flight plans accordingly.

Anastasia spent the next day wandering the highport concourses, searching for Zira Loft, the astrogator for the Seskehalen. Spotting her without being seen herself, she attempted to read her surface thoughts and discovered that Loft was also a psion. How much had she read from the minds of the crew of the So Much For Subtlety, and when had she done so? What did she know of their cargo and plans?

146 to 152-1106 Jumpspace

The So Much For Subtlety, their opinions of Ergo as a destination radically altered, set a course for the interdicted planet. The tone of the journey was altered somewhat, with a serious air on the ship. Dr Parsifal closeted himself away with a stack of papers authoered by Dr Nafir, looking for signs of plagiarism and possible errors, as well as reading all he could find on the legal case that Dr Nafir had dismissively mentioned.

In a somewhat downbeat conversation in the sumptuous common area of the Sindalian ship, members of the crew spoke with Prince Hteilotorl of why he wanted to speak to Ehfyohoikoaleai (“Koaleai”) on Sink. Hteilotorl responded that, although he was condemned to death – something he asserted was unavoidable – he would die content if his honour was reclaimed in the knowledge that Koaleai had, indeed, betrayed Hteilotorl and the Iuwoi clan. He would not be a fool who squandered the forces placed at his disposal by his and other clans: he would be a doomed warrior, who fought bravely in an unwinnable fight.

Hteilotorl explained that, the second that he stepped onto his clan’s territory on Tyokh, he was bound to silence, unable to speak to anyone on any subject unless asked directly by the clan ‘Ko, his father, before sentence was carried out in a formal duel.

Timaeus felt that there had to be a way to persuade others of Hteilotorl’s betrayal at the hands of Koaleai, and spent the journey practising his Trokh and in legal and oratorical analysis of the events.

Meanwhile, Anastasia was researching news stories on Dr Nafir.

153-1106 Ergo Surface

Arriving at Ergo, the So Much For Subtlety used her advanced stealth capability and high-tech sensor suite to evade detection by the interdiction satellites in orbit around the forbidden planet. As they burned towards the surface, Anastasia on sensor duty noticed a jump flash from the direction of the system’s gas giant. When the transponder signal from the arrival eventually reached the SMFS it turned out to be the Far Trader Seskahalen! What did they know?

Arriving on the surface of Ergo at what passed for a downport (some cracked concrete, access to a nearby lake and a crumbling city backdrop) the crew of the So Much For Subtlety were invited to a meeting with no less than the Lords of Ergo themselves! Attending, they were treated to a Powerpoint presentation on the advantages of re-registering ships at Ergo. Benefits: a reasonable price and extremely flexible ship’s name and history. The presentation then went on to lay out the exciting possibilities for incredible wealth represented by an investment of only a few hundred million credits into Ergo spaceport, allowing ti to act as the gateway to Villane and Browne in the Reft to rimward: a vast market of 90 billion: almost as many humans as the rest of the Trojan Reach put together!

Delivered with an air of hopeful desperation, the presentation was received with an air of polite deferral. The party promised to speak to Oleb about such a trivial expenditure, but in the meantime offered five tons of high quality medical supplies from Falcon, as a gesture of goodwill from Drinax.

Next, the party would turn their thoughts to the raid on the corsair hideout, four hundred miles to the west.