345-1106 Acrid Surface
Following the successful revolution on Acrid, the Travellers decided not to wait for PRQ’s response, fearing that it may be overwhelming. Knowing that they were fighting a vast corporation, they suspected that the best approach was to convince Pax Rulin Quartermasters that retaking Acrid was an unprofitable concern. At a conference of the captains of their fleet in Acrid City, they suspected that PRQ, whose fleet was mainly capable of a 2 parsec jump, would not have fleet tankers on hand, but that they would not jump in without the ability to ensure that they could exit again if necessary.
Thus, the commodore’s conference came to the conclusion that PRQ would jump, first, to Cordan. Looking at the time it would take news of the revolution to reach Argona, and working out how long it would take PRQ to assemble the mercenary forces they would need for reconquest, the party decided they had at least four weeks in hand. They pondered an attempted ambush at Acrid, but with three possible refuelling sites, this risked being outflanked.
Instead, they decided to take an aggressive approach. Rather than waiting for PRQ’s response, they would take the fight to Argona.
The Acrid shipyard was able to supply fuel bladders and two additional modules for the Phlebotomist, which would act as a tanker. The Mercifuge, maintaining her disguise as the Steelgrinder, a ship reported as taking part in the revolution on Acrid, was further loaded up with fuel in bladders in her large cargo bay, and her spare berths were filled with marines. The So Much For Subtlety, too, carried a mixture of extra fuel, marines and droid marines. Finally, the Mercifuge was fitted with an UNREP system to enable her to refuel the SMFS for the return journey. They had allowed for the loss of fuel in the fight, so were confident that they would have enough if they could rendezvous back with the Phlebotomist.
348-1106 Deep Space
The three ships performed a synchronised jump to deep space in TR2822, one parsec from Argona. However, disaster struck! The astrogator, with the combined complexity of a deep space jump and synchronisation, miscalculated the plot, and the three ships emerged in the deep space of TR2723, a parsec further away from Argona than planned! Now, fuel was critical: they only had 17 tons to spare from the 350 or so tons they had assembled.
Thoughts of abandoning the mission were put aside, refuelling was completed, and the Mercifuge and the So Much For Subtlety jumped on towards their destination: Argona itself.
The astrogator rolled a double-one on their skill check, then rolled for distance and direction. While this was potentially disastrous for the operation, they made a misjump on the edge of the Great Rift and not only survived but it happened the one time they had overtanked with fuel, to the extent of having a tanker along!
362-1106 Argona Orbital Space
The two ships jumped to 100 diameters above Argona’s lowport, and the Mercifuge, with Krrsh at her helm and her transponder proclaiming her to be the Steelgrinder, started creating as flamboyant a display as the Vargr could achieve, which turned out to be quite flamboyant indeed, attempting to burn towards the highport at rather less than her maximum 1G.
Sure enough, in no time the Defiant – a PRQ-flagged, D-Class System Defence Boat mounting a 50-ton particle bay perfectly capable of shredding the unamoured Mercifuge in a couple of hits – started burning out from the planet, accompanied by two 35-ton, G-Class fighters. Krrsh pretended not to notice, before turning back and heading for the jump point, his engineer told to overload the engines to achieve 1.7G: not too fast: he didn’t want to actually escape!
The So Much For Subtlety, in the meantime, with her advanced stealth and her stealth-jump-capable jump drives, was lying stationary between the Defiant and the Mercifuge and using only her passive sensors. The two fighters burned past the SMFS at 12G without any chance of spotting her, while the Defiant lagged behind them at “only” 6G. When she came within less than a hundred miles of the SMFS, Timaeus ordered the crew to come to full power: Lars on the helm rotated the ship to unmask her weapons, aiding the gunners with their called shots; while Timaeus moved from one gunnery station to the other, helping them aim, Eric, manning the beam lasers, aimed a called-shot at the sensor radome at the front of the Defiant, immediately disabling their sensors: the Defiant was blind, but she could still move at 6G. Now Dr Parsifal unleashed the power of the particle barbette in a called-shot on the Defiant’s M-Drive. The barbette is a less accurate weapon, but a deadly one, and his called shot also connected resulting in the thrust of the Defiant being cut in half, while her pilot could barely control the remaining acceleration.
In game terms, the Subtlety has advanced stealth (-6 to detection) and the PRQ ships were TL12 (-3 to detect a TL15 ship). This meant that, even with a skill modifier of +2 and military sensors, the PRQ ships needed 15 on 2D6: impossible!
Krrsh returned to normal power in the Mercifuge, and the four pulse laser batteries of the big salvager engaged the two remaining fighters, while Lars took the SMFS in close to the Defiant to force a docking. The Mercifuge and the Subtlety’s particle beam picked off first one, then the other of the fighters, whose pilots were taken by surprise by the new threat behind them.
Using the TL15 forced-docking facility on the Subtlety, the Sindalian commerce raider soon grappled the crippled SDB, and a quick and bloody skirmish followed: the air of the Subtlety was evacuated, both airlock doors were opened, and no fewer than 16 Vespexers and boarding droids cut open the airlock doors of the Defiant, boarding behind boarding shields. The sixteen marines and combat droids took damage in the boarding, but the five marines on the SDB were outnumbered,less armoured, and under inferior officers, and the fight was over rapidly. The Defiant had been taken, cut out from the jaws of Argona itself in the greatest tradition of the navy!
A prize crew was rapidly put aboard the Defiant, the hulks of the two fighters were destroyed to deny them to PRQ, and all three ships made for their jump point, while PRQ dispatched three more ships – one of them a 1200-ton planetoid frigate! – from low orbit. But the Mercifuge – a salvage hauler with a docking clamp able of carrying ships up to 300 tons in size – was able to secure the Defiant and all three ships jumped out the one parsec to Exe, constrained by the Mercifuge’s reduced jump capability at 600 tons, including her new cargo. At Exe, they refuelled and made their way home: the SMFS directly in case Argona’s counter-attack was about to land, while the Mercifuge and her prize – still reduced to Jump-1, went via the deep space rendezvous with the Phlebotomist.
012-1107 Acrid
On arriving at Acrid, the party received a message from their spy-mistress Basemath, sent the day before the Argona battle:
“PRQ have hired a mixture of 5 ships in the 400 to 800-ton range, including one logistics ship and one mercenary assault craft. These are currently docked at the lowport and are undergoing preparations. Their fleet is J2-capable and they intend to jump to a neighbouring system, refuel and then jump into Acrid, leaving them fuel to extract if outgunned in the orbital fight.
Furthermore, PRQ have retained two units from Tanith, which they will rendezvous with before jumping in:
- Resolute Environmental Logistics – small platoon-sized unit of mainly ex-marine Vacc troopers
- One battalion of Veilpoint Asset Control troops
They know about the SDBs, the So Much For Subtlety and the Janel Torsk. They believe you have the Steelgrinder on your side. They believe that you possess one other ship, but do not know their identity.
Furthermore, they are deploying one of their Free Trade class Armed Merchantmen to Cordan then Arunisiir to intercept, capture, burn or destroy the Acrid supply hauler Texel.
Suggestions made that they may be hiring an Captutian changer assassin.”
015-1107 Acrid Highport
Three days after the So Much For Subtlety and her crew returned to Acrid, they received a message from the Highport at Acrid: PRQ had sent a negotiating crew directly from Argona ten days after the battle there, and they wished to talk to the representatives of Drinax. They refused to speak to anyone from the Acrid government.
With GeDeCo warning both parties not to attempt any attacks during negotations, the party travelled to the highport to begin negotiations. The PRQ representatives were clearly vastly wealthy, with much restorative surgery and anagathics use evident in their youthful faces, except for one of them, Dimiti Volkov, who turned out to be a Vespexer. Three were wearing dark glasses, a current fashion in Reach business circles which shows that they are important enough to have data and updates prepared for them and projected onto the rear of the glasses. They introduced themselves as:
Dmitri Volkov – Senior VP of Security – Vespexer
Maris Kade – Director of Legal Services
Harlan Beckett – COO for PRQ Argona
Anika Voss – Senior Vice President, Stakeholder Alignment
Rafe Calderón – Executive Vice President, Asset Risk & Recovery
Their initial offer was unappetising:
PRQ would take back over Acrid. There would be an amnesty for all involved workers. A new management team would be in place, with a Workers Consultation Comittee set up to agree compensation and working practices. They demanded the return of all seized SDBs.
The Travellers declined the offer scornfully, and mentioned the illegality of indentured servitude and murder-for-hire for an Imperium-registered corporation. Many hours of debate later, the two sides broke up.
Overnight, Lars and Anastasia worked on building a tiny repeater that would sniff the frequencies used by the PRQ team’s dataglasses and allow the TL15 sensor and ECM suite on the harrier to jam them.
[Note: after each day’s negotiation we made opposed diplomacy checks between the PRQ team and Timaeus haut-Roth, which the latter won handily each time. Depending on the results various clauses would be added or removed.]
016-1107 Acrid Highport
The next day, negotiations resumed. The PRQ representatives assured the Drinaxians that the previous management team had been fired, and that cases would be raised against them for several hundred megacredits for malfeasance and for the loss of reputation for PRQ for their misdeeds. Their new position was:
PRQ take over and Drinax withdraw. PRQ to set up mineral extraction facilities employing not less than five hundred employees each on Drinax or within Drinax planetary system. Forgiveness of all worker debts and mandatory free passage offworld for those involved in acts of violence as organisers or participants. Ex-gratia consulting and negotiation payment to each player of 10 million credits. Binding agreement not to visit Acrid or Argona nor to engage with any employees of PRQ for a period of not less than five years. Return of all records illegally seized from PRQ Argona and a ten year NDA signed by all parties.
Recognising that the PRQ offers on Drinax were careful Trojan Horsery from the corporation, the party played hardball, reminding PRQ of the results of the previous two battles – a billion credits’ worth of ships taken or destroyed – and informing them that the Tobia Commerce Guild corporation had announced their intention to set up subsidised trade routes for food from Arunisiir and Cordan. There was a marked flicker of interest on the cash offer, but less cupidinous heads prevailed.
At this, Dmitri Volkov lost his temper and added “sign and we agree not to hire professionals to ensure the permanent and messy retirement of any offworld individuals involved in organising this incident…”
017-1107 Acrid Highport
The final day saw the PRQ team turn up without dark glasses, and Rafe Calderón took over leading the negotiations from their side. Their new position was based entirely on the records of slavery and murder not coming to light.
PRQ would announce the sale of Acrid operation to a Drinaxian shell corporation. There would be a 20-year leaseback agreement for a nominal fee of 1Cr per annum for all machinery and equipment. The price was to remain confidential in perpetuity. There would be a two year NDA on any records found in the illegally-accessed archives of PRQ Acrid. In return PRQ would formally recognise the political change and would agree not to pursue legal recompense in Imperium court system. Hundreds of megacredits in penalty clauses for breaking of the agreement by either party.
The Supreme Soviet of Acrid overuled Elisabet Zhong, who wanted to reveal everything PRQ had done more than she wanted peace. The party decided to sign and the Acrid Revolution was complete.
Epilogue:
076-1107 Tobia
After years of disappointing returns on its investment, PRQ has decided to divest itself of the PRQ Acrid operation in order to concentrate on its more profitable Argona operation. PRQ’s Head of Sector Operations, Sir Volan haut-Teizil, announced the withdrawal from Acrid – known for its famously challenging environmental conditions – after a recent attempt to turn around the failing operation failed to yield the hoped-for dividends. “We are excited to announce that the Drinaxian Investment Trust, the sovereign wealth fund of the Drinaxian Royal Family, has bought a 100% stake in Acrid, as well as signing twenty-year deal to lease in-place capital equipment from our subsidiary, PRQ Equipment Services. This frees up capital for us to invest in exciting new ventures in the region. We wish DIT all the best in their attempts to operate in this challenging environment.”
PRQ shares finished the day up 1.8% in local trading on the news.
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