Scooby Trap

The Crew were at the crew-lounge table discussing their next moves when the bug they found in the hold activated, then went dark again. They knew, then, that the spy knew they had found it, so after some deliberation, one of them smashed it. Studying the pieces, Buck decided there was something strange about it, at which point Haank examined it as well, and pointed out that it did not appear to have any sort of radio receiver—it was likely psionically controlled. This suggested Zhodani involvement—sensible, as they were the other party in the War—or potentially some covert psi agency; either way, it meant they had a psi-agent aboard, and would have to assume that their thoughts had been, or would be read—no secrets. However, there was really nothing more to be done except to wait for the spy to make its next move. Sam continued to study the data on the OSD, and found a number of interesting coordinates in the near-empty Gileden system, that did not correspond to any astronomical feature he could determine; as far as Haank could recall, Gileden had no real significance in the War—on record, at least. Copies were made, as insurance.

On the last night before exiting jump-space, on Buck’s watch, he felt a strange, disorienting sensation wash over him. He concluded the psi-spy was making his move, and turned to leave the cockpit to rouse the others, but was met at the open hatch by a baklava-wearing, black-clad intruder. The assailant tried to grab for Buck’s sidearm and put him in a hold, showing some martial skill, but dinged his—no, her—arm on the door-frame, such that it fell useless. Yelling an alarm for the others, Buck continued to backpedal into the lounge as the intruder tried to grapple (one-handed), and sweep at his feet, to no avail, as Buck had some martial arts training as well. A heartbeat later the entire Crew was in the lounge with pistols leveled at the spy; she surrendered, and was bound with duct-tape. Removing her mask, they discovered her to be, not Eleanor, but the courier, Katelyn.

Ella deferred to Haank for the questioning of their captive. Haank attempted to convince her to give up her handlers; he asked her name in the Zhodani language, which, although she didn’t answer as such, did elicit a reaction that indicated she understood it; he also played at not knowing what it was she was looking for, but she didn’t fall for it. She refused to name the organization she worked for, but would only say that the information the Crew now had in their possession put them in danger, and that their safest action would be to let her walk off the ship with the OSD, and forget about it. She informed them that handing over the data to either the Imperial Navy or the Zhodani would be a grave mistake, as would be handing her over to either. Resigned to not getting anything more from her, they decided to put her in a low-berth stasis for the remainder of the trip—one of the low-berth passengers would get an upgraded ticket, taking over her cabin. As Buck looked on, Abe settled her into her sleep-pod; at Buck’s last-second encouragement, she offered to give up some helpful details in exchange for a safe exit, but she wasn’t buying Buck’s disingenuous “agreement” to her condition, and so said nothing more before entering hypersleep.

The Crew was left with little more than speculation: she appeared to be working for some unknown third-party to the War, and had not indicated what was so important about the data in any way. They brought her things down from her cabin to rummage through for clues; she had a datapad that contained a contact list, including some Navy and Zhodani contacts. A few of those contacts were on Porozlo, so they decided to keep her on ice after arrival, until they could look into those contacts and determine what the danger of letting her and/or the information go might be.

The Spinward Star emerged from jump-space near Porozlo II, and some hours later, landed at their assigned pad at the spaceport, where the cargo and passengers—minus the courier/spy—were offloaded.

Notes

• In the end, all the Players are suspecting the Psionic Institute is involved, but it’s not commonly known to exist, so the Characters don’t share that suspicion (yet)
• After a roll, the GM gave Haank a recollection about Zhodani Jump-Commandos; during the session, we never tried to figure out how the spy got out without us knowing it, but that recollection suggests she might’ve teleported—will probably try to confirm that later
• Herodian encountered, to his benefit this time, the “Crit Success on defense causes Crit Fail on the attacker” issue, resulting in his attacker’s temporarily crippled arm—he still doesn’t like that rule
• Rigil was unavailable this week, due to work, so Abe mostly acted in the background; had he been present, he would have undoubtedly been involved in the questioning process—might’ve gone better