Inevitable

Our PCs have made contact with an illicit Skavarra smuggler called Mr Ting, and after a vicious battle made some progress towards their goal. They are hiding a Skavara with mystic powers, which someone attempted to smuggle on their spaceship, and are now trying to find out who the Skavarra was being smuggled to and why. To this end, after ambushing Mr Ting they learnt that they need to speak to a man called Thrall, who works directly for whoever ultimately purchased the Skavarra. Thrall will return to Algebar station in 11 days, so they have time to kill while they wait for his arrival. They have taken Mr Ting’s million birr – which he was supposed to pay to the Skavarra smugglers – but left him alive in a moment of mercy. They have also learned that Mr Ting has a powerful ally somewhere in the station heirarchy, but due to various deceptions it is unlikely that they can be identified easily as the people who stole Mr Ting’s money, except by Ting himself, and Ting has been cowed.

The roster for today’s adventure:

 

  • Adam, gunner and acting captain
  • Reiko Ando, deckhand
  • Siladan Hatshepsut, archaeologist and data djinn
  • Saqr, pilot and mystic
  • Dr Banu Delecta, medic

Ship modifications

Using the million birr they stole from Mr Ting, the PCs decided to go on a spending spree. The station at Algebar 3 is large and full of opportunities, so they used the money to make two quick upgrades to their ship: they purchased the Supersensors and Supercharged reactor features, both of which are relatively fast to add to the ship and do not require much engineering. They wanted to buy extra modules, but this will require months of work, so they settled for these simpler features. They also spent some time hunting the Souks of the lower, inner decks for weapons licenses, as they had become increasingly aware of the dangers of engaging in battle in metropolis stations like Algebar 3 without the limited protection even sidearms and light armour offered.

These purchases and upgrades took 7 days, and on the evening of the 7th day they received a visitor, a slick young man called Sarcuptra who had heard they were purchasing weapons licenses and was interested in selling them some advanced weaponry. He might, he intimated, even have access to rocket launchers. They interviewed him in the Beast of Burden‘s Arboretum, and after a short conversation – during which he seemed completely unfazed by their increasingly rumbunctious and menacing menagerie – they decided to do business with him. He told them he would send them a location and bade them farewell, taking with him a list of weapons they wanted.

The ambush

Adam was sure it was an ambush, but they went anyway. Sarcuptra told them to meet him two days later at a park on a lower, inner level. He assured them he had a method to get the weapons to their ship without any trouble with the law, and although they doubted the weapons were going to arrive they played along with his plan. The park was a small grassy zone with windows offering views of the space stations inner underside, a disused door in one corner, and a couple of children’s play spots in the middle. The central object was a slide in the shape of a strange grey animal that was fat with short legs, very large ears and a long nose that curled down from its dumb-looking head to the ground. This was the slide, and its fat grey body could form good cover if they needed it. Adam, Delecta and Siladan gathered here while Reiko took position at a place behind cover on the far side of the garden, and Saqr went to investigate the door, which turned out to be an emergency airlock – common installations throughout the space station. They waited, Adam nervously eying the buildings across the road from the park.

After a few minutes Adam’s tabula registered a call, which he answered. Mr Ting’s face emerged on a grainy video, and they realized that yes indeed, it was an ambush. He told them that they had a choice: exit through the emergency airlock to a waiting shuttle, which would take them to a passenger ship called the Selenium Dream, which they would ride back to Coriolis, leaving their ship and all their belongings and money here; or die. He gave them one minute to decide. The call ended.

Of course they weren’t going to do what he wanted. Saqr came running back to the weird grey animal, and they talked about what to do. After 20 seconds the doors of the buildings across the road opened and four men emerged, carrying vulcan carbines and wearing light armour. A window upstairs opened too. Siladan ran forward to a flower bed near the front of the garden to take cover, ready to charge into combat. In the upper floor window someone propped a rocket launcher on the windowsill. They opened fire.

They fought viciously in a dizzying haze of bullets and blood. Siladan and Reiko charged into melee, splitting the four men into two groups of two, but two more men emerged from the emergency airlock, opening fire on the group hidden behind the strange animal and forcing Delecta into remarkable feats of athleticism to avoid being gunned down. The man with the rocket launcher was gunned down by Adam and Delecta but managed to stagger to his feet long enough to fire a rocket at the stupid grey animal, eliminating their cover but doing no serious damage against any of them. Siladan and Reiko did a professional job of murdering all four of the armed men in close combat (except one who fled), and finally as Adam and Delecta mopped up the two men by the emergency airlock Reiko was able to run upstairs and take the man with the rocket launcher hostage. They dragged him downstairs and through the airlock onto the small shuttle that was docked there. The entrance area of the shuttle was covered in plastic and strewn with the necessary tools to disappear bodies – there had obviously never been any intention that they would be flown alive to the Selenium Dream. With all their soldiers dead and their leader captive the flight crew of the shuttle surrendered, and they tied everyone into the shuttle’s few passenger seats. They loaded everyone’s weapons in and flew back to the Beast of Burden in the shuttle.

Mr Ting’s grisly end

At the Beast of Burden their assailant proved himself to be a very reasonable captive. His name was Jazir and he had been hired by Ting to do the job. He was very angry with Mr Ting for telling him that the PCs would be an easy target, and when told he would be released if he revealed Ting’s location he offered to go one better – give him back his guns and he would kill Ting himself, then share the loot with them. They agreed with this plan and let him loose.

A day later they received a video call from Jazir in Ting’s safe house. Against a backdrop of blood and gore he assured them he had done the job, and they should come down to gather up the loot and get Ting’s secured tabula. They took the tube and walked down to the location he sent them, and found him and a few of his friends standing in a room with five bodies. It was a messy, small room, one of Ting’s safe houses, and it was sheeted with blood and damage. He assured them he would clean up the mess, and showed them Ting’s secured tabula and a slew of weapons. They split birr, guns and armour, and then Jazir set about dismembering the bodies. He flipped them a casual salute as they left, and they parted on “no hard feelings” terms.

Tracking Thrall

Back at the Beast of Burden they hacked the tabula and learned a little more about Thrall. They discovered that a few days after his visit a supply ship would arrive, to pick up cargo to take to whatever location he was based in. Rather than confront Thrall directly they decided to use this information to track him. They found the cargo that the supply ship would be loading, and placed a small image of one of the Icons inside one of the crates. Ten days after the ship left Algebar 3 station Saqr used his mystic power of tracking, and located it in a part of the system’s asteroid field. They had a location for their Skavarra trafficker. It was time to go and kill him – and find out who exactly was behind this strange plan, so they could kill them too.