We talk about it all night long
We define our moral ground
But when I crawl into your arms
Everything comes tumbling down
Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down

 

Our heroes find themselves in the engine rooms of the Orun II, an ice hauler that has been overrun by an ancient Djinn. They have rescued the engineer and a deckhand, but the master Stevedore is trapped midships, and they need to make a decision about whether to risk their lives to save the ship itself, which is plunging out of control towards the Eye of Anuba, a cluster of highly active asteroids that will almost certainly tear the ship apart when it reaches them. They have just hours to act.

The roster for this session:

  • Pilot Saqr (pilot)
  • Gunner Oliver Greenstar (Colonist)
  • Engineer Reiko Ando (Deckhand)
  • Sensor Operator Siladan Hatshepsut (Archaeologist)
  • Doctor Bana Delecta (Medicurg)

The gunner Adam, their main soldier, had been badly injured in a battle with one of the Djinn’s ancient bodyguards, so he retreated to the Beast of Burden along with Al Hamra, the captain, who had been traumatized in the battle and was on the edge of breaking. The rest of the group retreated with their leader to their ship, where they upgraded their armour and weapons now that they knew the kind of enemy they faced. The engineer turned off the ship’s graviton projectors, so that the ship would no longer be accelerating towards the Eye of Anuba, buying them perhaps an hour of time, and retreated with them to their ship.

They decided to travel to the workshop in the centre of the ship, rescue the stevedore, then abandon the ship and leave it and its crazed Djinn pilot to die in the Dark Between the Stars. Armed and ready, they set out for the centre of the ship. This could only be reached by an old service elevator that ran down the centre of the ship, so they climbed in and set it running. The elevator was huge, large enough for service vehicles to fit in, but old and rickety, and it almost did not start when they first stepped in. After a moment though it sprung to life with a shudder and began to track through the centre of the ship. The Orgun II is really just three control centres connected by a huge spine of external cargo attachments, so as they traveled along this spine they could look out of the elevator windows and see the huge chunks of ice hanging from the outside of the spine. The distant light of Kua’s sun shone through them, refracting into pale rainbow patterns on the wall so that as the elevator passed along the ship’s cargo it filled alternatively with the faint honeyed glow of the sun itself, and then a rich pattern of dancing rainbows as the sun’s rays were blocked by the ship’s icy cargo. Occasionally the elevator juddered and rocked, and at one point an asteroid struck one of the icebergs as they passed, spraying chunks of ice all over the outside of the elevator. Finally the elevator docked with the central control section of the ship and they were able to enter the workshop area.

They passed through an outer chamber and through a large door into the workshop itself, a huge domed space full of gear, disassembled service vehicles, spare parts and random pieces of shipware. As they entered the room a shot rang out, nearly hitting Reiko Ando and forcing them all into cover. They called out and after a moment were able to convince the shooter that they meant no harm. After a few tense minutes spent confirming they were not possessed or here to kill him, the master stevedore Kolb Zir emerged from his hiding place behind a workbench and agreed to talk to them.

The Syndicate

They were just beginning to talk to Kolb Zir when Siladan received a message from Al Hamra, telling him there were strange signals on the ship’s scanners. Could he patch into the ship’s sensor system and check them? Siladan opened his tabula and patched into the ship’s sensors to check the scans – and saw to his horror the remains of a space battle glittering in the dark a short distance behind their ship. Whatever ship had won that battle was heading towards them, inbound at high speed and running without a transponder. Someone else had been coming to their ship, and someone else had intercepted them, destroyed them, and was now approaching as fast as they could.

The time for negotiation with Kolb Zir was over. They handed him back his gun, jumped into the service elevator, and began the slow, rickety ride back to the engineering section. By the time the elevator had reached its destination the crew of the other vessel had docked, and as the PCs emerged from the engineering section they met the interlopers in the docking area. This new crew were immediately identifiable from the symbols on their combat armour – Syndicate mercenaries, hired killers for the crime gangs on Coriolis. What had they done to deserve this?!

Battle was joined, but it was quick and brutal and in the first moments of the fight they were able to take down the gang’s leader. After a short firefight the team were cut down, and only one man was left alive after he surrendered. He called down the pilot of their small ship, and told them that they had been sent to the Orun II to recover some drugs that were onboard. The Syndicate had been running a smuggling operation using ice haulers and scrap ships from the asteroid belt: they would ship in drugs and other contraband from across the Horizon, hide it in shipments from the asteroid belt and then smuggle it into Coriolis in the freight, with the help of corrupt stevedores on Coriolis. They had been told that on this occasion the Orun II was carrying a quantity of a highly dangerous drug called Black Lotus, that had been strapped to some stasis pods and buried in the ice. When the Orun II went dark and disappeared they had been sent out on a mission to find the drugs. As they approached the Orun II they had seen another ship, a small vessel sent by the Melem Gesurra shipping company that owns the Orun II. Assuming it had been sent to take back control of the ship they had destroyed it and docked to take control of the vessel. They had come ready to deal with raiders or pirates, and had not realized they would meet such stiff opposition.

The party laughed at that, and came up on an idea. They handed the pilot the armour of one of his dead colleagues and told both of them to head forward, get the drugs, and come back with them, and they would let them live. If they did not come back, or did not bring the drugs, they would be abandoned on the ship to die. The Syndicate thugs, having little choice and knowing nothing of the djinn, agreed to this ugly bargain, and set off on the elevator.

As this interrogation happened Saqr had taken the Syndicate ship and docked it within the Beast of Burden’s second hangar. They prepared themselves for the return of the Syndicate thugs: Oliver Greenstar took up a position in the upper gun turret of the Beast of Burden, autocannon aimed at the central elevator shaft; Reiko Ando and Siladan placed themselves at the airlock connecting the Beast of Burden to the Orun II, ready to meet the thugs if they returned; and Bana Delecta waited in the airlock of the Beast of Burden in case anyone needed medical care. They waited.

A Grand Bargain

They had set up both thugs to have an open comms link to the Beast of Burden, but they did not plan for Oliver Greenstar’s personal problem. Oliver had told no-one, but he had been possessed for many years by a creature from the Dark Between the Stars. As he sat at his gunnery station it took control of him and made contact with the Djinn where it sat in the darkened bridge of the Orun II. Alerted to the character’s plans, the Djinn sent its warriors to the entry of the elevator shaft. They killed one of the Syndicate thugs while the Djinn took control of the other, as Oliver Greenstar ran a monologue over the comms system to distract from any small noises the others might have heard[1]. They waited, not realizing what was coming, as the elevator moved smoothly down the shaft, Oliver Greenstar’s possessing spirit ensuring he did not shoot it. After a long, tense wait the thug emerged in the engineering section, but instead of going straight to their ship, he accessed the engineering panels and restored power to the bridge of the Orun II, restarted the engines and gave the Djinn full control of the ice hauler.

The PCs knew none of this was happening, of course, and only realized something was amiss when the lights on the bridge came on and the engines fired up. Moments later one of the Djinn’s palace guards came charging around a corner and attacked Reiko and Siladan with its mercurium sword. They had been betrayed! Confused, they fought back, but as the battle entered full swing a massive asteroid from the outer edge of the Eye of Anuba smashed into the engineering section, breaking it open and causing massive decompression in the whole section[2]. Somehow Reiko Ando was able to struggle against the explosive decompression and haul herself into the docking tunnel, but Siladan was torn away from the door and dragged towards the tear in the hull, the Djinn’s palace guard stalking after him. Meanwhile the Beast of Burden, connected to the decompression zone by the docking tunnel, began to decompress as well, and Reiko was forced to seal the airlock shut, trapping Siladan on the Orun II.

It was then that the Djinn made contact with Oliver Greenstar and offered him a deal: let the ship go free and his palace guard would not kill Siladan. Oliver, still ridden by his own possessive spirit, agreed, and the palace guard retreated, leaving Siladan to the dubious mercy of the Dark Between the Stars. Moments later Siladan was sucked out of the hull and tossed into space, in a suit of armour that had no exo suit functions. The Beast of Burden detached hurriedly and rushed to collect him, somehow managing to line him up with an airlock and drag him inside before the cold of space took his last breath[3].

As Oliver Greenstar’s possessive spirit faded away the Djinn contacted the entire party. It introduced itself to them as Kh’Oudour, told them that it was indebted to them for saving it from 300 years of sleep, and promised them they would meet again. As the Beast of Burden tumbled off into space and the Orun II accelerated away from its previously fatal flight path, Kh’Oudour also gave its thanks to the Green Knight, the beast in possession of Oliver Greenstar. The ships separated, and the Orun II was lost to human reckoning.

For now.

fn1: I made a big GM-ing mistake here, to be fair. I should have run a conversation rich with tension, where the two thugs were attacked and one seemed to survive and flee, and the PCs had to guess whether he was possessed or acting, while Greenstar tried to confuse them, but I completely forgot the thugs were wired up and the players didn’t remind me, so when things went south I didn’t give them any chance to figure out what was going on or to enjoy the rich tension of their two press-ganged servants getting whacked. This was a big GM-ing mistake!

fn2: I had 4 darkness points left and I figured I should use them! Since the campaign started the PCs have become leery about praying to the icons, because they have seen the horrible ways darkness points can be used, and now they would rather fail skill checks than give me free rein top lay with all the environmental hazards that darkness points give me.

fn3: The group has a group talent called “Survivor” which enables them to somehow survive situations exactly like this, and they called on it now. During character creation there had been discussion of which group talent to take, but as soon as they discovered the survivor talent every player who has previously been in my campaigns insisted that the group take that talent. They promised the new members of the group that they would not regret it. Siladan’s player is one of the new members, and he does not regret that choice!