Duty Roster:

Edrasii “Eddy” Bkar’hen (Ronnke)
Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus (Gigermann)
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood (Rigil Kent)
Sam Turner (Winston)
Sae Rraetheg

Trojan Horse

As the two containers were being hauled away, the Crew of the Spinward Star observed a neighboring ship, a Type R2 Class Subsidized Merchant, the lcarus in Decline, with her jump drive pulled out for service. As they began searching for outbound delivery opportunities, they found a number of freight lots and passengers held up on account of her situation. Almost immediately, the Crew was approached by a tall, thin man, a university professor by the name of Zinfield Well, who required insystem transport to Fulacin IV as soon as possible, to meet another charter in orbit there; he referred back to a gaggle of bored and frustrated young college students, wearing vacc suits, seated on their luggage and science gear on the wharf, saying he and a few of his astrogeology students were on a university-sponsored research trip. Eddy took the professor aside and presented the company’s “best offer” (without consulting the company)—double the going rate—and convinced him that he had no viable alternative. The exorbitant charge was reluctantly agreed to, though the professor could only pay a fraction up-front; the remainder would be covered by a bank-note on the university’s behalf. Abe decided to hang out with the science students and talk shop, to learn what they might know about botany, and be generally sociable; he brought Valerie along, who eventually seemed more at ease around others of similar age and background.

Meanwhile, Ella was approached at the ramp by a well-dressed man, who introduced himself as Salla Altunizian, captain of the lcarus in Decline. He revealed that Sae (who wasn’t in the area at the time) had been a trusted crewman aboard his vessel in the past. He then explained that his ship was stranded waiting for jump drive parts to be delivered, and he had a rush-shipment in his hold that he was unable to deliver on time as a result; he would be willing to sell off some or all of it at a much-reduced price—small arms and military equipment, obtained legally—to recover some of his loss. Ella discussed the offer with the other partners; together they decided it was a good opportunity—they had the funds, and could probably sell off whatever they purchased at Yori or Treece, on the way to Regina, for a decent profit.

Ella contacted Salla and informed him that she would be sending someone to inspect the cargo. Haank took Buck and Sae with him to the lcarus’ berth, scanners in hand, and were welcomed by Sae’s old crew-mates, who showed them the cargo and associated manifests. Sections of the ship were kept strictly off-limits to prying eyes—Buck tried to get a look, saying he was wondering how he might help with their jump-drive issue. They took their time and went over everything thoroughly, and no shenanigans were discovered. Haank cleared it with Ella, and purchased 5 tons, which were loaded aboard the Spinward Star within the hour. They would be keeping a case or two of tangler munitions, as they’d been discussing the need for some non-lethal combat options. Afterward, Salla contacted Ella and invited the Crew to dinner; she accepted. The whole Crew attended, as did Salla’s; the dress was casual, and the food and drink excellent, and they wrapped up their business with a toast to good fortune. They might have stayed longer into the evening, but they didn’t want to keep their passengers waiting much longer, so they made their farewells and returned to their berth to ready the ship for departure and get all aboard.

It was a 9 day, 8 hour trip to Fulacin IV, in which nothing much occurred. Abe spent most of his time keeping company with the science students; their discussions eventually drifted into his research into the anti-freeze plant samples—he showed them his research, and held nothing back, not thinking about patents, or any sort of “business” concerns. After a week-plus in the black, on schedule, they made contact with the 200-ton Safari ship, Learned Lady, in orbit around the rockball planet, and Sam docked the Spinward Star belly-up at her ventral airlock. Her launch was gone; as the passengers disembarked and the Crew was allowed to look around and talk to their counterparts aboard the Lady, they were told that the launch was at the research site, dirtside, and was expected to return shortly. Some time later, the launch was picked up on sensors on a routing intercept vector, though it would not respond to comms; the crew of the Learned Lady thought little of it, but the Crew of the Spinward Star were immediately suspicious. The launch continued its approach, and docked, as if nothing were amiss. The captain went to the airlock to meet the returning team, and as the port opened, he was immediately shot dead.

• Haank, Sam, Sae and Jones were still aboard the Spinward Star, and at the sound of gauss fire, they scrambled to repel boarders. While fetching his rifle from the ship’s weapons locker, Haank directed Sam to cut the gravity and lock down the cockpit, while Sae and Jones bolted for the turrets. Then Haank floated gracefully through the hatches “down” to the other ship, followed shortly by Sam, after he had attempted to find the pirates’ comm frequency and failed, due to some kind of interference caused by volcanic activity on the ground.
• Ella and Buck were in the common area adjacent to the launch airlock, and took cover behind some local furniture and exchanged fire with the pirates as they pressed in from the launch. A couple of pirates quickly entered, while another, guessed to be their team-leader, remained behind cover in the airlock—one of the pirates who entered was killed; the other returned ineffectual fire from cover behind other nearby furniture.
• Eddy helped clear the civilians out of the line of fire to starboard and up to the level “above.” He heard some movement on the other side of a nearby iris, and being unarmed, grabbed a nearby trophy and readied it to strike.
• As Haank and Sam passed through the Learned Lady’s cockpit area, Sam remained behind to help them get the gravity shut off and try to lock down the launch so it couldn’t leave, while Haank made for the nearby hatch to the upper deck to join the others.
• Abe was in a lab room across from the airlock where he had been socializing with the research students. As the shooting started, he closed the door, and set the students about gathering some materials to improvise a smoke-bomb. When completed, and the students had taken cover within the lab, he opened the door and threw the device to the launch’s airlock, though it deflected when the gravity unexpectedly cut out. The area around the launch airlock was quickly filled with obscuring smoke.
• Another pair of boarders entered through Eddy’s door, but his “weapon” broke up mid-swing, and he was forced to use bare hands. He fled “down” through the hatch and brawled with the pirates as they attempted to follow and get a clear shot at him. He managed to knock one’s weapon away before kicking him unconscious, and pursued the other as he attempted to flee back to the launch.
• The living pirate still inside the ship surrendered, flanked by Abe, who had managed to grab the other’s lost weapon as it floated by, around the same time Haank floated down from the level above. The pirate-leader closed the airlock and retreated back into the launch; it sounded like he was trying to spin up and break it free, to escape. Ella and Buck rushed the airlock door, and tried to force the lock, but the ship’s safeties prevented it from opening.
• Eddy swung from the ceiling hatch and booted the remaining boarder through the door into a far wall, and beat him unconscious, just as Haank caught up to him. The two followed around to the launch’s starboard cargo portal, and managed to force it open just before it was locked down. They entered cautiously through the airlock leading into the passenger/cockpit compartment—knowing the pirate will have heard it cycle and would be prepared—and Haank put his rifle around the low-corner of the now-open iris, and fired a quick burst at the enemy, dropping him before he could react.

The (literal) smoke cleared. The launch was shut down, the dead placed in low-berth, and the prisoners secured. The surrendered pirate was questioned; he had been forced by circumstance into the pirates’ service, and told all he knew of their operation—the science team below had been captured and would be sold into slavery. Though Sam had been unable to pinpoint the source of the comm signal below, they had a pretty good idea where the pirate base would be, and would have to move quickly before the rest of the pirates began to suspect their ambush had gone awry. To be continued…

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Notes

• Commjunkee took over as GM for a one-shot run; Sae was therefore demoted to NPC status and generally kept clear of the action, while Eddy, the regular GM’s PC, continued with the Crew
• The guest-GM took advantage of the opportunity to introduce Salla, Sae’s “arms-dealer” Contact, an old shipmate and captain of his, who had not made an appearance in the campaign as yet
• Abe’s as yet unnamed “anti-freeze plant” goes back to the Crew’s shore-leave on La’Belle in Session 2.5, and has become a sort of side-goal for that character to turn it into something marketable, though the character, himself, is not so business-savvy to capitalize on the discovery. As a budding scientist, he was very proud of himself for having “scienced the shit out of” the pirate action, as were the students for their participation in repelling boarders
• With the pirate’s attempt to flee with the launch, we found ourselves having to answer the question of how such a thing is secured to the mother-ship when so docked; we didn’t find any sort of reference at the time, though we presumed there should be some sort of safety measure to prevent the inner doors from being open when the launch was away, and that having the ability to programmatically prevent its leaving (by the ship’s computer) would be problematic in an emergency situation, and so disallowed