Pourne Star

Drinax – 002-1106

Life in the Floating Palace seems to follow a more complex calendar than elsewhere in the Reach, with a multitude of feasts and celebrations. The start of the new year is not an event that a confirmed bon vivant like Oleb is likely to overlook, and with the party knighted on the last day of 1105, their place in the High Hall of Revel is absolutely required.

After a decent interval of recovery, the party investigated the strange emissions that the Greystar Collective – already on excellent terms with the Crown and its representatives, the travellers – had reported coming from one of the worse areas of radioactive and biological devastation.

The normal filter masks and protective suit were not sufficient, here, and the party wore full protective gear, knowing that any mishap – let alone a penetrating wound – may well lead to a lingering and ugly death. Clambering over rubble and through jagged shards of corroded steel in one of the craters left by Aslan nuclear weapons, the party struggled to locate the vault, their sensors affected by the ionising radiation all around. Eventually, however, they located the vault. Here, Cauldron found a weakpoint caused by corrosion and bomb damage, and was able to use a shaped charge to tear open a hole sufficient for Timaeus, first, to clamber into the vault.

There, he found a Sindalian deathbot, still largely functional, which was undamaged by the precise explosion and whirled to attack him, still functional after almost two centuries in the isolated darkness of the vault. Tim slashed at it with his arc sword, while first Eric then Penelope and hauled themselves through the gap, levelling weapons at the murderous droid, which was dispatched amidst slashing energy fields and the slicing, needle-thin laser beams.

In the vault, the travellers found rows of high capacity, holographic data storage devices, as well as a disabled Sindalian Enforcement robot which looked capable of being repaired with a new power battery unit. The travellers also found references in some of the data to a reputed Sindalian emergency bunker somewhere on Oghma, which suggested the presence of an old command ship.

Drinax – 003-1106

Back at the Floating Palace, Timaeus shared a few moments of contemplation in one of the central water gardens with Kasiyl, an Aslan prince who lives in exile in Oleb’s court.

In the meantime Lady Hil, Duchess of Oghma, approached Lady Penelope to offer a few words of advice on dress, etiquette, and the need to choose allies carefully at court, as well as an offer to take Penelope “under her wing”.

There then followed much planning, trading, division of crews amongst ships and other, similar administration. Penelope disposed of her Ship’s Boat, while Timaeus contacted various of the friendly Vespexer tribes to see if they had any qualified personnel available who were willing to join the growing Shadow Fleet of Drinax. Six were found: an astrogator, a pilot, a marine and three gunners.

Then, Vi Lon and Tug Wilson were instructed to start attempting a broader and more methodical recruitment sweep. It seemed too much to hope that many more trained spacers were available, given the lifestyle of the Vespexers, but perhaps trainable candidates might be found?

Spy-Mistress Basemath Mondrane was sent to the Torpol Cluster to acquire intelligence on each of the three worlds in that grouping.

Pourne – 014-1106

The Phlebotomist was stripped of crew and left, along docked alongside the Lady Luck. The Janel Torsk and the Shinkiro were manned as well as could be achieved and sent, still somewhat short of marines, to raid in Hilfer system while the Mercifuge and the So Much for Subtlety, stuffed with speculative cargo, made the single parsec jump to Pourne, next door, a high population, bureaucratic world with a poisonous atmosphere, where everyone lived in domed cities. Each ship was subjected to rigorous inspection, which revealed no contraband and well-maintained systems. The cargo was sold at a substantial profit, while the SMFS was booked into the vast and well-appointed Pourne starport shipyards for extensive rebuilding and repairs, at huge cost in credits.

Pourne – 020-1106

Whilst kicking their heels in Pourne for four weeks, the crew were contacted by Captain Halet Tovrim of the Pourne Bureau of Investigation, who had spotted the semi-official Drinaxian crew and had done some digging into the more public elements of their largely military backgrounds. He was involved in a turf war with another law-enforcement agency, the Starport Security Authority, who were not sharing intel on a vastly alien ship that had been discovered in the Pourne system a few weeks ago, and whose unknown origin was causing near-panic in the press, with rumours that it was a scouting ship for a looming invasion doing the rounds.

The party agreed to help. They analysed security footage of the sealed hangar where the alien craft was being held, and spotted a pattern of behaviour by the station cleaning crew. Having tasked Patrick Steward with duplicating the cleaners’ uniforms, the party trapped them in the lift and, using their disguise meshes, made their way past security and into the hanger bay. There, they broke into the ship and examined its contents, finding them alien indeed. However, inside one of the strange controls they found a tiny bone fragment, missed by the previous investigators. Dr von Edelsburg analysed this and was able to identify it as a fragment of Hiver bone, albeit heavily damaged by irradiation. This news, delivered to Tovrim, was a great relief, given the great distance to the Hiver worlds. Giving the party a grateful branch of the Pournite government, this moved the Drinaxians’ standing in system from Suspicious to Neutral

Reminders to the party:

• For a world with neutral standing, you have a chance to recruit a crew member (on a 9+ on two dice, no skill or stat modifiers). If you have been indulging in piracy, there is a chance of being spied on or even arrested (on a 12+).
• Basemath Mondrane had been recruiting here, a few weeks ago, so you have an agent in the lowport: a loadmaster (in charge of offloading and loading cargoes to and from ships) called Arret Karn. His allegiance code is 2 (rated from zero to 12) but he can be nurtured. AC 2 is, however enough to have him give you the names and cargoes of interesting ships that arrive in or leave the system.
• Karn is immediately able to tell you that he has seen three mercenary, for-hire patrol ships passing rimward towards Paal and Tech World, in the last week. They were moving fast, just stopping long enough for a “splash and dash” refuel.