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 (Winston)

Pirate Activity

While Abe rendered medical aid to the three wounded pirates, the one that had surrendered was taken to the hold, and Eddy continued questioning him regarding his former company. The ex-pirate continued to be forthcoming, and Eddy offered him food and drink as he told his tale. He revealed the pirate company was 10-15 strong at the moment, based out of a partly-hidden hangar; their other ship/crew left a little over a week ago to do some trading in a neighboring system, and would not be expected to return for another few days at the very earliest; there were regular patrols of the surface near the base, with a few men at most, currently traveling back and forth to the scientists dig site to loot their supplies; captives were being held in a captured ship in the hangar, and were being readied for sale as slaves within the week; the base had a sensor suite that would be able to spot approaching craft. Meanwhile, Sam tried to narrow down the source of the ground-based comm signal he had picked up during the fighting, and to get a better view of the topography around the area, the details of which were corroborated by the surrendered ex-pirate, who also supplied a rough map of the hangar indicating likely encounters with its occupants. The planet was airless, .66 G, but inside the base would be normalized.

The Crew then gathered in the lounge to make their rescue plans. They studied the intel, and determined base’s sensors would be masked by the ridge the base was hidden under. They decided to go in fast, in a nap-of-the-earth approach in the sensors’ blind spot; the idea of using the launch or the safari ship as a distraction was discussed, but they decided against putting their crew in any further peril—speed and stealth should be enough. They geared up for a hard fight; for non-lethal options, they took along some tangler grenades they had purchased from Salla at Fulacin.

The approach went smoothly; no sign of detection. As they descended below the cloud of volcanic ash, they were able to pick up clearly the pirates’ comm signal; there was a bit of casual chatter between the base and a patrol at the research camp, and some wondering regarding the ambush team’s status. The Spinward Star swept up to the side of the ridge opposite the base, and barely touched down to let the assault team disembark, before backing off a safe distance to provide overwatch. The assault team scaled down the ridge-face to the half-buried hangar, and split into two teams, each stacking up on a different airlock. Access to the base was unlocked, but would make some noise as the locks cycled—their entrance would not go unnoticed—so they would be going in loud, vigilant for potential civilian bystanders.

• The “A” team of Ella, Sae and Abe entered through the forward airlock, and as it cycled, they spotted a couple of pirates within the control room on the other side of the inner viewport, who reacted to their appearance by attempting to sound an alarm. Sae pressed in first and shot the operators down, killing one instantly. Abe followed behind and did what he could to keep the other alive, while Ella and Sae turned their attention to the airlock’s side exit, and a couple of pirates they had spotted taking up cover positions on the other side of the hangar, near the back of the Empress Marava-class far-trader therein. They took cover beside the opening airlock door and began to exchange long-range fire with the pirates. The pirate taking cover at the aft corner of the ship retreated out of sight, presumably to circle around, while his comrade remained behind cover and kept up pressure on the airlock.
• The “B” team of Haank, Buck and Eddy entered through the side-tunnel airlock, and as it cycled, they spotted a couple of pirates in a barracks-room on the other side of the inner viewport, playing cards on one of the bunks. The team rushed in immediately as the door opened and surprised the guards, who couldn’t arm themselves quickly enough to put up a proper fight, and indicated their surrender. As Eddy approached to secure one of them, he caught his vacc-suit on a nearby wall-locker and pulled it down on top of himself, at which point one of the pirates attempted to seize the opportunity to attack Haank from behind, but was shot down. Eddy remained behind to secure the prisoners while Haank and Buck emerged through the secondary airlock exit into the hangar.
• The pirate that had been exchanging fire with Ella and Sae walled them inside the airlock with a barrage of tangler grenades from an under-barrel launcher. Sae fell back into the control room, where Abe was still performing first aid, and began attempting to shoot through the thick glass with his magnum pistol, but failed to connect with his target beyond. The pirate changed to a fresh magazine of high-explosive grenades and fired on the airlock, which did little more than clear out the webbing, and decided instead to fall back behind the ship, pursued soon after by Ella, then Sae.
• Haank and Buck rounded the corner to head for the ship’s lowered port cargo ramp when Haank was jumped by a cutlass-wielding pirate; Haank ducked out of the way, leaving his attacker open for a long burst from Buck’s gauss rifle. As Haank approached the ramp, someone inside tossed a grenade out, and Haank quickly kicked it back inside before it detonated, and then ducked under the ramp to crawl across to the other side, while Buck took cover at the airlock corner and exchanged fire with the pirates inside the ship. Haank reached the other side of the ramp and sneaked his gauss rifle low around the corner, viewing through the scope video link, sighted in on the heavily-armored pirate leader, and with a lucky “perfect” shot, fired a single APHD that blew a hole straight through his heart and out the other side of his armor. It so shocked the remaining couple of pirates nearby (the ones Ella and Sae were after, having just entered through the open starboard ramp) that they threw down their arms and surrendered, lest they suffer a similar fate.

Meanwhile, outside the base, the Spinward Star had been loitering, and had eventually picked up a heat-signature inbound from the research dig-site—the patrol, in a wheeled-vehicle. Sam maneuvered the ship to intercept, with Jones manning the laser-turret, and secured their surrender as well.

Notes

• Commjunkee took over as GM for a one-shot run, of which this session was the second part; Eddy, the regular GM’s PC, continued with the Crew, while Sae was taken over by Sam’s player for the combat portion
• This session was taken up almost entirely by a combination of mission-planning and executing a moderately-sized combat, the total of which took us far overtime for the night
• With the barrage of tangler grenades fired at Team A’s airlock, we found ourselves needing to know what the DR of a “wall of goop” was, and what visibility, and the possibility of firing through open spots in said wall would be. We just improvised at the time; I’m not sure that information had been specified anywhere in the rules—we didn’t find it, at any rate
• I don’t quite remember the specifics, but Haank was “forced” to resort to using his under-barrel gauss shotgun—I think it was just late, and we needed to end the fight quickly—which he had loaded (per SOP) with APHD rounds, which we discovered some time back can blow holes in ships (literally), 6d×3 (5) imp; the damage total rolled was 66. The leader of the pirates currently present was wearing space armor (DR100). I rolled a “1” on a d6 for the extra hit-location (MA137, “Torso”)—Vitals. Needless to say, it was insta-death. As Buck’s player said afterward: “You can’t just read a newspaper through that hole. You can deliver one”
• Due to…circumstances, I took far too long to get around to writing up this report; as a result, my memory of the events is less than complete, and I had to abbreviate things a little more than I normally would have liked