Duty Roster:

Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus (Gigermann)
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood (Rigil Kent)
Sam Turner (Winston)
Sae Rraetheg (CommJunkee)

Boat House

…Continued. As the Crew sped across the wetlands on Arden’s air/raft, armed only with their sidearms, they kept a sharp eye to the horizon for trouble, and they spotted another air/raft trailing them a couple of miles back; with his image-enhanced glasses, Haank was able to make out four rifle-armed men, likely the same ones that Arden’s wife shooed away earlier. The Crew arrived at Lighthouse Point and disembarked, and started looking for a way in. Haank took the path leading about a hundred yards further up the point to the lighthouse, intending to climb up and keep lookout for their shadows; he commed back that the door was locked, and Sae quickly followed to pick the lock, before he rejoined the others. The others had slipped into the boathouse under the boat-door, and found the place in a strange state: it was deserted, the doors obviously having been kicked in but replaced (barely), and otherwise looked like the place had been “tossed” but cleaned up afterward; the Torelles’ boat was also still present, and as they searched it also, found it in a similar state. Haank soon alerted the others to his having spotted the yokels a few hundred yards back, their air/raft stashed in the tall-grass out of the way, creeping up on foot through the marsh, rifles at the ready.

Sae left the boat-house and hid himself in ambush nearby. Buck also tried to sneak in a wide circle around the yokels’ approach to steal their air/raft, but Haank alerted him that one of the enemy had heard him pass, and had split off from the group to close with him; Buck briefly braced himself for a fight, but instead decided to walk back to the house, daring his pursuer to act. As such, the local fellow sprang out from the tall grass, rifle pointed at Buck, and demanded his surrender; Buck declared the Crew’s honest intentions, but the man was determined to expel the intruders on his supposed territory. As his would-be captor called out to his fellows, Buck made “finger guns” with both hands, and mimed a trigger-pull—Haank had been taking careful aim with his ETC slug-pistol from 150 yards distance atop the lighthouse, and at that signal, he fired, ruining the man’s gauss rifle. Buck then drew his own pistol and took the now-disarmed yokel into his custody and returned with him to the boathouse. The other three yokels, having heard the gunshot, picked up their pace toward the boathouse.

The Crew still inside the boathouse questioned their prisoner, who, after confirming his unbroken kneecaps were not preventing him from speaking freely, confessed that they were hired by Colby Dowe to discourage the Crew’s curiosity, though he claimed they only meant to scare them off—which was not believed. The interrogation was interrupted by automatic gauss fire on the lighthouse, and Haank’s calm-but-urgent information that a couple of the yokels had broken off and passed up the boathouse. With Sae also reporting another was sneaking around to the boathouse door, Buck forced their prisoner to call out to his fellows to encourage them to abandon their mission—the one near the door responded that they would not. Sae came out of hiding and shot the one at the door dead with his magnum, and continued on to the lighthouse, where he shot another as he entered the lighthouse—the third was already inside, making his way up the stairs to Haank. In the boathouse, the prisoner took advantage of the momentary ruckus to flee to the water, but Buck gunned him down without hesitation, to Ella’s later irritation; meanwhile, Sam climbed atop the boat and hotwired it, revved the engines, and beckoned the others to board. The last of the yokels traded quips with Haank from either side of the partition below the lighthouse windows, shooting out the glass to rain shards down on Haank; he brashly popped up with his rifle over the low wall, but Haank reacted more quickly, and put three rounds through the yokel’s chest, killing him. Sam was just easing the boat out of the dock when the all-clear was called.

No longer in immediate danger, the Crew moved on to search the residence adjoining the boathouse, and again, found it ransacked-but-cleaned-up; however, Abe noticed some small spots of dried blood, which according to his analysis, were perhaps a couple of weeks old—not enough there to indicate a murder, but perhaps a struggle. They all agreed that, most likely, the Torelles had been kidnapped by this Colby Dowe. As the Crew had already gone beyond the call of duty in their investigation, they did briefly discuss the idea of leaving the matter undone. Instead they decided that the surviving gunman should be taken to the town’s hospital—Ella and Abe would accompany the wounded in Arden’s air/raft, and Arden would safely part ways with the Crew there—while the rest would make their way on foot to Colby’s estate to spy him out, and see if there might be sign of the Torelles there.

Colby Dowe

At the town hospital, the wounded man was seen to by the available physicians, who, as expected, reported the shooting-injury to the local police. Ella took Abe aside and told him to leave her and rejoin the others before the police arrived; he attempted to refuse, but Ella would have none of it. The sheriff arrived some minutes later and took Ella and Arden back to the station to record their official statements; they told the truth, though perhaps not all of it. While taking Ella’s statement, the sheriff was interrupted by a well-dressed and exceptionally angry man, complaining loudly about one of his men who wound up in the hospital, while three others were missing—the sheriff called him Mr. Dowe, and was visibly cowed by him. Some time later, Arden was released, as was Ella, though her Imperial identification card was taken; she was instructed not to leave town until the matter of the shooting had been resolved, and to gather up the rest of her crew as well. As Ella left the station to go about her business in town, unsurprisingly, she spotted one of the deputies attempting to look like he wasn’t following her. To be continued…

Notes

• There were some exceptional rolls to spot things early on, including a Critical Success by Haank to get the details on the air/raft that was following them
• There was a bit of map-related confusion regarding the position of the lighthouse in relation to the boathouse; the players were under the impression it was a handful of yards away, but when the shooting started, it turned out to be more like 100—the GM did say so, we just didn’t quite register it
• The finger-guns, in our heads, at least—turned out fairly similar in the end 😛
• Sae’s ETC Magnum Pistol was shown to be the monster it truly was here; he took one of the men down to -5×HT in one shot to the Vitals
• Ella’s player knew she was going to be absent for the next session, so she intentionally isolated herself from the others, to make it a little easier next time