023-1107 Acrid
Having spent the several days that had passed since the arrival of Princess Rao’s message in speculation about the situation of the downed treasure ship in neighbouring Arunisiir, the party made preparations for their departure from the now-peaceful People’s Soviet of Acrid.
The Lady Luck was dispatched on a trading mission back to Drinax, with the corvette Slightly Bent – affianced to Admiral Wrax – accompanying her and Tug Wilson aboard. The Mercifuge was sent to Tanith to retrieve the newly rechristened Hellspawn: now known as the Never Talk to Strangers. Since the vengeful Black Arrow gang were rumoured to be searching the Wildeman Cluster for the Drinaxians, the Mercifuge was accompanied by the Grey Area, formerly the Janel Torsk – Ferrik Redthane’s old flagship.
The Phlebotomist and the party’s 1st Company of troops were left at Acrid in the meantime: si vis pacem, praeparet bellum.
031-1107 Arunisiir
Arriving in orbit at Arunisiir, the party sees the Arshad – a four hundred ton, Gazelle Class Imperium escort corvette – in high guard orbit above Arunisiir. During their descent, the party were impressed by the verdant – albeit very wet-looking – planet’s surface, and they declared that they could see why Hteilotorl had fallen for its charms.
Descending directly to the lowport on Arunisiir itself, the So Much For Subtlety and the Shinkiro arrive together and see the massive bulk of the upgraded Swiftsure-class freighter which is the Imperium treasure ship Martin II. She dominates one of the landing pads, her damaed engineering section supported by grav lifters.
Lady Penelope, pilot of the SMFS, hailed the Martin II and asked to speak to her Captain. This went poorly: Captain Torsa expected more respect, and was highly dubious regarding the relevance – or even existence – of a “Drinaxian Navy”. When Penelope asked him to “put her through” to the engineering section, Torsa exploded with rage at being asked to behave as a receptionist and ended the call.
After securing their ships – with the Shinkiro’s adaptive hull and transponder disguising her – Timaeus (in disguise), Penelope and Deanna (as themselves) made for town, trudging down the muddy dirt track to the nearby town of Tarenii in a sudden downpour and making for the first bar – The Drowned Rat – that they found, which was, due to its proximity, also the bar used by most crew at the starport.
In there, Penelope talked to O’Leary and Ilin, two hard-partying crewmen from the Martin II who explained how Commander Jagad had saved the Martin II by venting the engineering section after an explosion above Arunisiir, but expressed their hatred for her nonetheless, due to the deaths of almost every engineer as a result. They also mentioned how they detested the captain and his intention to continue to Tyokh with the crippled ship: Torsa despised them, too, and they knew he would abandon them in a port en route as soon as he could.
Timaeus spoke to Jen Laral, a clearly-popular young marine drinking with several other crewmates. She, too, thought that proceeding to Tyokh was foolish of Torsa and that he was doing it through pride and stupidity because he wanted a better command. She had considered leading a deputation to demand a return to the Imperium but knew the likely results.
Deanna spoke to a well-armed couple in their sixties – Hral and Gila Zafnen – who turned out to be the joint owners of the far trader Fafnir. Gila had heard of the Drinaxians already and was under no illusions what brought them to Arunisiir. She confided that the vault on the treasure ship was impervious to anything short of a starship weapon, and that not much would survive inside it if that was used to peel it open. Later, Deanna researched the pair on the ship’s bounty software and found that they had four expired notices in twenty-five years for suspicion of piracy but no actual bounties.
Before leaving, all three of the Travellers spoke to Yan (a human scout) and Bucket (his long-suffering robot sidekick). Yan was very drunk, having been playing up his self-proclaimed role of “saviour of the Martin II”. He had taken the news partway to the Imperium, meeting a patrol cruiser in Umemii (an odd location for a jump-2 ship going from Arunisiir to Fist, in the silently-but-clearly-expressed opinion of Bucket.
On their way back to the ship, the party encountered Hahehake: one of the planet’s Aslan oligarchs, being drawn by human servants on a gold-plated panquin (but essentially a wooden cart). His human seneschal spoke for him: “His Lordship Hahehake, Lord of the Pride Asiaf of the Clan Tykhisto and the Conqueror of the Wet Wilds, demands to know why you are not bowing. Also, he wishes to possess your gun. It looks… amusingly primitive.” Perhaps still influenced by the dignity and glory of the Iuwoi clan on Tyokh, the party bowed and Deanna duly handed over her cheap stunner as a gift.
032-1107 Arunisiir
The next morning, Deanna approached Second Engineer Polo of the Martin II, who was working outside the ship and looked out of his depth. It turned out that O’Leary and Ilin’s tip, the previous night, was correct: Polo was desperately looking for anyone who had experience of engineering or starship mechanics, and he also revealed that the ship’s medic had been killed after she entered the engineering compartment before it was vented. When Deanna, Parsifal, Cauldron and Anastasia presented their bona fides (and for all but Anastasia, their proof of Imperium service), they were quickly hired.
As the new ship’s medic, Parsifal had to treat several people, some nursing injuries from the explosion. As an ex-Imperium interrogator – Inquisitor-Adjunct for Biological and Cognitive Methodology – Parsifal is gifted in persuading people to talk. One of his patients, Mechanic Talis, was so won over that she broke down and confessed that she had been having an affair with Felmar, the engineer whose actions had triggered the explosion in which he died. He had been talking about a new start for them, she said, outside the navy, with new lives and with wealth. She also claimed that he had been speaking to Marine Salvesdes and to Launch Pilot Henshaw a lot before his death, but wouldn’t discuss what they talked about.
Marine Commander Harc visited to get his cranial jack realigned: for years, this had needed done after every jump and it caused him blinding headaches that last until the ship’s medic performed the procedure each time. Doctor Parsifal von Edelsburg,luckily for Harc, is not just a surgeon but also a cyberneticist, and he quickly diagnosed the issue. An offer to fix it once and for all was accepted and Parsifal deftly resolved the issue, leading to a pathetically grateful officer of marines.
Meanwhile, Deanna (a former Imperium Navy engineering officer who retired with the rank of captain) set about diagnosing another patient: the ship’s jump drives. She was able to see that somebody had disabled the safety interlocks that prevent the jump solution being changed. This had not been done with a pre-installed override value: someone – presumably Felmar – had tried desperately to reprogram the drive on the fly. In her opinion, the ship was very lucky not to have been destroyed in a jump transition failure. She reported this to Commander Jagad, the ship’s imposing Executive Officer, who still bore scars on her face from the explosion. Asked to provide an estimate for how long it would take to get the drive jury-rigged to functionality again, Deanna padded her estimate substantially, giving a figure of 8-10 days.
Later, the party checked the jump coordinates that Felmar had attempted to set: they were for a remote location in Exe, a day’s flight from the gas giant and tens of millions of kilometres away from the refuelling station.
Anastasia, who was just about capable of holding a wrench convincingly, spoke to Marine Salvesdes as he passed through engineering. Questioning him on what had happened, she used her psionic ability to read surface thoughts. This yielded a tumultuous wave of feedback: Salvesdes was borderline schizophrenic, and seemed to already be the subject of psionic manipulation. He was also thinking, very clearly, “if it wasn’t for Irontooth I could just kill her, kill everyone else in here, then kill myself and be done.”
At lunch, Parsifal spoke to Launch Pilot Henshaw, one of those named by Talis as speaking furtively with Felmar. Henshaw was extremely upset about something, even beyond the fact that she had watched Felmar die from her launch station. She wasn’t willing to talk in the galley, but Parsifal suggested she come for counselling. Only on being assured that he was duty-bound not to discuss what she said with anyone did she consider it.
The party also spoke to Assistant Steward Lyra Vane, who confessed that she was terrified that the Martin II was on a secret Imperium mission to start a war: she had glimpsed a treaty in Vaughn’s quarters when cleaning: it seemed to suggest giving up entire systems on the Hierate border!
That evening, the party returned to the Drowned Rat in Tarenii,this time taking the canal ferry like others did. Suddenly, a blinding spotlight hit them. A sleek, heavily armed patrol boat, The Justice of Kinddur, roared out from the treeline, sirens wailing. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker: “Heave to! Hands where we can see them! Prepare to be boarded!”
As soon as the Travellers variously reached for their weapons or assessed the situation, the siren cut out abruptly. A human director in a headset leant over the railing of the patrol boat and yells, “Cut! Cut! No, no, no! The lighting is all wrong. And you,” he pointed at Timaeus. “You look bored. We need ‘desperate smugglers caught in the act,’ not ‘tourists looking for a bathroom.’ Let’s reset to mark one.”
The “Patrol” was actually a film crew for the hit show CanPals – specifically for the spin-off show “Offworld Rookies”. The “Officers” were barely trained actors or off-world neophytes who were more concerned with their hair than the law.
The party decided that their situation as pirates and would-be treasure thieves would not be improved by appearing on a vid-show, and left.
In the Drowned Rat, Deanna spoke to Osha, the astrogator for the Martin II who was very inquisitive as to whether the ship would be able to reach Tech World, which was en route to Tyokh. She was delighted to hear that it probably would.
Timaeus spoke to Jace, a fortune-teller sitting in a quiet corner of the bar who declined a drink then gave a fairly accurate cold-read of the ex-noble’s motivations.
Finally, Parsifal was approached by Aparo, who explained that he was a starship parts salesman out of Tech World who had arrived on the Fafnir. He was reading a datapad before approaching Parsifal and enquiring if the Martin II needed any spare parts, and whether she could still make her originally-planned trip via Tech World to Tyokh? He seemed very persistent on whether the ship would make it to Tech World in particular.
As he left, Deanna got Parsifal to swiftly slip a bug onto Aparo, in the collar of his coat. Listening to this, they heard Aparo make a quick call after leaving: “Vaughn? [It’s] Aparo. Looks like we are on for Tech World. You know what you have to do.”
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