348-1106 – Acrid
This session began with discussions between the Travellers and Elizabeth Zhong in her new role of Chief Secretary of the new Acrid Politburo. When would Acrid send an admiral to command the system defence boat fleet that protected Acrid? And how would the ships be crewed? Many of the crew were permanent employees of PRQ, and most were leaving rather than serving the new government. Some were contractors, many of whom were willing to stay, while a few spacers were to be found amongst the planetside workers. But they still lacked a couple of dozen crew.
In the short term, the players stripped almost all of their non-combat fleet of crew, and placed them into the SDBs in order to bolster Acrid’s defences ahead of PRQ’s expected counter-strike. They also deployed the Shipmate crew droids they had bought on Tech World. But this was not a long-term solution. They needed to find more crew.
Zhong also stressed the need for trade: would the Drinaxians send out the word that Acrid was open for business? The government had nationalised the PRQ hauler Texel, which had been in port during the seizure. But the planet needed vast freighters to visit and to ship the valuable ore and condensates Acrid’s mines and wells produced to markets, while the survival of both inhabitants and industry depended on the arrival of food and supplies.
The Lady Luck, with a skeleton crew of three, was sent to Tech World with a shopping list of droids and other high-tech items to acquire.
The Travellers also started to investigate what PRQ might have on their books: a mixture of attention from expert torturer investigator Dr Parsifal and budding psionicist Anastasia yielded the PRQ Acrid Branch CEO’s password fairly quickly, and with that, Deanna started to search for evidence of misdeeds. Millions of emails, invoices and requisitions meant that only the most targeted searches would work for now, but along with some interviews of workers the Travellers found evidence that:
- PRQ had indeed had Vi Lon’s union colleagues on Theev assassinated
- This was one of four targeted assassinations of labour organisers from Argona or Acrid
- There had been extensive use of borderline slavery and indentiture on Acrid
- GeDeCo had at the very least been compliant in this practise, returning indebted workers to Acrid surface for PRQ if they made it to the highport
356-1106 – Tanith System
Next, Lady P, Anastasia, Cauldron and Lars took the Shinkiro to Pylkoe City on Tanith: a location well known for its operations as a clearing-house for mercenary forces in the rimward subsectors of the Trojan Reach. The Shinkiro has an adaptive hull, and the crew had set this to appear like a hauler. Jumping in at 100 diameters from the Pylkoe gas giant – a long journey – the party decided not to indulge in piracy and ignored the down-at-heel Fat Trader – its transponder announced its name as the Jazz Hands – that was dragging itself out of the gravity well on its way to the jump point.
However, this fat trader, when it got within range of its modified, long-range beam lasers, accelerated at 3G, launched five missiles from a barbette, and raked the Shinkiro with its lasers. The Jazz Hands was, in fact, the Hellspawn, and she was an upgraded extended trader with some retro-fitted armour attached to her hull, and she had mistaken the disguised Shinkiro for harmless prey!
The Hellspawn had the element of surprise, but after that the fight swung against her: the Shinkiro was able to pull just far enough away to avoid being hit immediately by the first volley of missiles, and Anastasia was able to use the ship’s ECM to make them miss. This was the story throughout the fight: the Shinkiro was hit by lasers twice, but each volley of missiles and most of the laser attacks were negated by Penelope’s evasive piloting or Anastasia’s electronic warfare. Meanwhile, Sharyl’s use of the screens absorbed one laser attack that landed while Deanna and the shipmate droid worked over the pirates, who stubbornly refused to yield despite having their manuevre drives destroyed, their fuel tanks damaged, their hull repeatedly pierced and 60% of their cargo destroyed (much to the immiseration of the Travellers). Demands for the Hellspawn to surrender were met with more volleys of missiles.
Eventually, keen to have some sort of prize left to take, Lady P took the Shinkiro in to dock with the crippled pirates. Leaving only a droid on the bridge, the undermanned crew of the Shinkiro prepared to force the airlock. Anastasia (the psion) used clairvoyance to discover what awaited them – five defenders in cover with weapons – and then the airlock was blown. Advancing behind Lady P’s boarding shield, Denna threw a grenade then Sharyl stepped out, shrugging off laser fire to slice one of the defenders clean in two with his blade. Deanna shot a second which was then finished-off by Lady P, who eschewed the boarding shield to advance with a blade. After Sharyl eviscerated a third defender, the surviving defenders surrendered and lead the Travellers to the bridge, where the captain yielded his ship with complaints and an ill grace.
The crew found a little high-value cargo had survived in the ship’s hold, and they also found that the pirates had taken three hostages: a Llellewyloly (more easily known to humans as Dandelions or Dandies) called Pleasantly Complex and a big man called Billy Garret whose bulk and smooth movement screamed cyberware.
There was also a girl of about ten, who turned out to be Sara Garret, known to her father as Tinsel, much to her embarrassment. Garret, it transpired, had been a debt enforcer for what sounded very much like a criminal organisation on Attee who had been wiped out by an opposing crew. This lead to the need for Garret – who stressed that this journey only confirmed his hatred of spaceflight – to make a sharp exit. He was now looking for a good school for Tinsel.
Billy (blessed with an antipodean accent) was politely grateful for his liberation, but asked “do you mind if I have a private word with that feller there? It’ll only take a few minutes.”
He pointed at a surviving crewmember of Hellspawn. The Travellers were somewhat sceptical and asked why.
“Ah, mate, you know, he was pretty aggressive towards Tinsel {“Daaad!”} there and I just want to have a talk to him about how to treat other people with a bit of respect, y’know?”
With this, he was granted permission and a stateroom out of sight of his daughter for a swift interview with the boorish pirate, who he freed from his zip ties (“give the feller a fair crack, you know?”) before taking him away, before returning dragging the offender’s unconscious body a few minutes later.
“Thanks fellers. Much obliged: I appreciate it.”
Pleasantly Complex turned out to have been the Minister of Finance on Lilgan before a sudden change of political alignment on the world had introduced a new government who were avowedly racist about non-human species. They had given him a substantial payment to retire early so, after years of solid and reliable achievement, Pleasantly Complex decided to travel the Reach in order to see sights and experience something more exciting.
After three months of travel seeing the vast trenches of Umemii, the glittering ice caves of Argona and the rolling, wooded hills of northern Cordan he was on a ship attacked by these pirates and taken hostage for ransom. He observed that he had set out for excitement and had, indeed, found it. Very blunt and somewhat pedantic, Pleasantly Complex observed that he was delighted to find that the pirates had had their ship seized by what he was sure were in fact more pirates, explaining his reasoning clearly.
The party jury-rigged and lashed together the immobilised ship and their own in order to make 0.25 for the long journey of several days into Pylkoe City.
359-1106 – Pylkoe City, Tanith System
Pylkoe turned out to be somewhat like a more tasteful version of the Las Vegas Strip: high end casinos, conference centres and hotels dominated the enclosed city, which was on a moon in the outsystem of Tanith.
There, the Travellers collected the bounty on the crew of the Hellspawn, and set about hiring a mercenary cruiser to help defend Acrid from PRQ, being delighted to find that the Retribution was in port and was available for contract. Three months at 2 million credits per month was the agreed price, and a contract was signed.
360-1106 – Pylkoe City, Tanith System
Basemath sent word from Argona to say that she had found out that PRQ were cautious about leaving Argona undefended, so they were not going to use a carrier to redeploy their SDBs. Those will remain at Argona. They have one patrol corvette and have sent out messages to hire mercenary cruisers. They also have at least one PRQ-registered merchant cruiser.
Lady P met Pharos Etimos, under-minister for defence for Tanith. He was on Pylkoe to negotiate a contract for a battalion from Veilpoint Asset Control or, failing that, from Abelard Technical (who used droids). The intent was to use them for a big push against encroaching Ihatei on some of Tanith’s more remote islands.
Leave a Reply