Our PCs have defeated another attempt on Rockhome 3 by Samina’s Corsairs. But these efforts have brought them attention, and they began to feel that it might be wise to make themselves scarce from Coriolis station for a while, especially since the data core they paid a hacker to open has been reported to have exploded, killing the hacker and drawing more police attention to their activities. After they defeated the kill squad sent by Samina’s corsairs to get them in Coriolis, they learnt of a hacker employed by the Corsairs, who lives somewhere in the Dabaran system and is able to launder the transponders of ships to assign them to new ownership, and they began to think that a trip to Dabaran might solve a lot of their problems: they could escape from the increasingly cloying atmosphere on Coriolis for a while, and take the stolen ship The Grace of the Icons 7132 to this hacker to have him rebrand it in their name, so that they could legally sell it. They might also be able to press this hacker for some information about Samina’s Corsairs, in particular for information on their strength. They had by now killed some 40 of the corsairs’ number and taken several of their ships but they had no idea if this had made a big dent in their force of arms, or simply made them angry.

So they decided to head to Dabaran. But this system is some distance from Coriolis on the Dabaran Circle, and the first system on the closest path would be Hamura – the home range of Samina’s Corsairs. So, they decided to travel the long way, through Caph and Dabik and out to the slow, empty, rimward side of the Circle. Of course it is possible to travel rapidly between systems of the Third Horizon if you really want, by entering a portal and immediately jumping to the next system when you emerge, but to do this to Dabaran would require that they enter and exit stasis 7 times, and to do this in any short time period would be madness, so they guessed instead that their journey would be long – perhaps two months. They decided to take the Grace of the Icons 7132 with them, and to use it as a transport ship on the way; so, they looked for work that could pay their journey around the rim.

The Mercy Graves Mission

They soon found work. A venerable and well-respected archaeologist called Sorabad Min approached them and requested their help in lifting a large dig to Caph B1, known colloquially as The Mercy Graves, and remain present for about a week as the dig was set up. The Mercy Graves was a small, inhospitable planet, cold and with a thin atmosphere, with historically no settlements. Recently someone had uncovered evidence of a buried Firstcome fleet, known as the Hydra Flotilla because of the characteristic shape of its largest ship, and a settlement had been set up to dig into the fleet. This settlement was a mixture of Nomad Federation, Order of the Pariah, and Consortium expeditions, and they were not getting along. In the lawless environment of the planet Sorabad wanted a decent escort until he could establish a solid claim, which would take about a week, and after which he felt he would be safe from marauders. He would need a large ship to transport his dig workers and equipment though, so the Beast of Burden and the Grace of the Icons 7132 would be a perfect expeditionary fleet for him. Since he was paying well and had good bona fides with a reputation for careful and thorough preparation, the PCs agreed to his deal, and within a few days they set off for Caph B1.

Grace of the Icons 7132 at Caph B1

Sabotage at Caph

They divided the staff for the mission between the two ships, with Reiko Ando as pilot on the Grace of the Icons 7132 and the rest of the group on the Beast of Burden. Sorabad Min took a suite on the Beast of Burden, leaving much of his crew and his chef de mission, Angelique el Said, on the Grace of the Icons 7132. The PCs also hired an engineer for the Grace of the Icons 7132, since they only had one, and they set off for Caph B1.

They passed through the portals uneventfully, arriving in the Caph system with a three day journey to Caph B1. On the second day, however, something went wrong: someone jammed the docking station, and killed the engineer when he went to investigate. Reiko Ando, sensing something was up, followed the saboteur, but not before the saboteur was able to set the reactor to go critical[1], and evacuate all the escape pods. With just minutes to save the ship, Reiko had to rush to the engineering section to try and avert the shutdown while Saqr guided the Beast of Burden in to dock with the ship. With the docking station door system disabled, Adam was forced to use a breaching charge to enter the ship, and hurriedly gather all the passengers for evacuation in case Reiko failed to stop the self destruct cycle. They managed to evacuate with just seconds to spare, and sat in space hopelessly waiting to see if Reiko would be blown apart with the ship, until they received her message: she had aborted the cycle at the last moment. The Grace of the Icons 7132 – and their mission – was saved, though they had lost the ship’s escape pods, an engineer had been killed, and someone in the dig crew had been revealed to be a saboteur.  Whatever Sorabad Min hoped to achieve, it appeared powerful forces were out to stop him.

Attack on the dig

They landed at the small settlement on the Mercy Graves and set out for the dig site immediately, drawing their crawlers into a bowl-shaped depression after several hours’ travel. The PCs, expecting trouble, set up fire positions on some of the heights around the camp, with Siladan and Dr. Delecta remaining in the camp itself, and waited for trouble.

Trouble was not long in coming: an attack by squads of armed assailants coming from three sides of the camp within hours of laying out their supplies and equipment, when the place was still in chaos but too fully unpacked to allow anyone to flee. Fortunately the PCs saw the teams creeping in and were able to open fire from their positions, raising the warning and giving Siladan and Dr. Delecta time to take defensive positions. The battle was joined, with the PCs exchanging fire from the heights while Siladan entered melee with those who came too close to the camp, and Dr. Delecta stalked the attack squad through the piles of crates and gear that had been laid around the perimeter of the camp.

Unfortunately, no one saw the machine gun nest on the only unguarded ridge. It opened fire on Siladan and Delecta as they fought, and drove everyone into cover, giving the attackers the chance to fight back and consolidate cover. Fortunately Adam was left unmarked on a ridge, and was able to charge up to the machine gun nest and attack, hitting the gunner with his knife and tearing him away from the gun. Their melee was short and harsh, and when it was done Adam had control of the machine gun. He opened fire on the incoming strike teams, and the battle was soon finished.

In the aftermath, as Delecta provided medical care to injured archaeologists and team members, Adam and the uninjured members of the group searched the dead, revealing quickly what they had suspected from the beginning: their attackers were from the Order of the Pariah. They dumped the corpses in the snow and turned their faces back towards the settlement. Should they confront the Order, or persist with the dig?

And would they get danger money if they did…?

fn1: For some reason every reactor on every ship is required to be designed with an easily accessible critical explosion setting that has a very short fuse.