Monday 28 May 2018

Back in home for tea?

Goff turned his attention away from the green scenery on the screens and asked the party what they wanted to see him for.

Lady Nitrane passed him plans to the space station, and pictures, and explained what the party had found. He considered the plans, asking some basic questions before noting that there was an unusual aspect to the station. Why, for example, did it have such a large amount of space set aside for laboratories, and also why so much manufacturing capability.

After the party made their case for Goff to help them with their genuine Sindalian Empire station, Goff pondered the opportunity and in short order said that he would help them. Of course he'd have to see it for himself, and he had four conditions:

1. A reserved docking bay for his use only.
2. 1000 tons of cargo space, near the docking bay, for his use only.
3. The freedom to pick his section heads, from people he knows and trusts
4. 10% of the manufacturing capacity for one year, to do with as he pleases.

The party agreed to these terms, while asking if any of the people he wanted to hire were on the way to the station. No, they were not.

Goff led the party back to the elevator and down to the vehicle, where he advised that the trip back would be a long one, and promptly fell asleep.

On arriving back at the lounge Goff told Bran and the others that he was going on a holiday. Their faces fell.

Back and the docking bays, Goff advised that his should would be able to follow along with the party ships and so he could be on the Harrier to get to know the party better. His ship, he explained, was quite automated.

Leaving The World the party headed to Paal, and then to Pourne and Clarke.

On Clarke the party met with Keeper Malos, the dour sullen gentlemen the party had worked with previously. He was glad to see them, in his own way, and said that he had some news that might interest them.

Apparently an Imperial Treasure Ship had experienced an explosion and was to be found on Arunisiir, a world only 2 jumps from Clarke. If the party were quick they might be able to take advantage of the situation. He had also acquired the ship specs in case they were interested.

A quick decision was made to follow the lead, although to Goff the change of plans was couched in terms of helping the Imperium, to which Goff replied that the Imperium were no friends of his.

Goff left his ship on Clarke, and the Harriers went via the gas giant in the Blue system on to Arunisiir.

TO BE CONTINUED

Monday 21 May 2018

Getting Goff

The travellers arrived in the The World system near a gas giant, on the scanners was the huge space station that they had been told the legendary engineer Goff could be found on.

The station was enormous, about 50 kilometres in diameter and 10 km high. On opposite sides of the station were cubic protuberances about 3km on a side. This thing was huge, and the robotic voice that answered them when they hailed the station directed them to one of the side cubes. "Follow green" they were told.



Getting closer the party could see tiny dots darting around which the sensors identified as fighters. Closer still the opening that they were being directed to came into view. It was a full half a kilometre across and seemed to pass through to the other side of the cube. Green lights were visible.



Entering the enormous docking bay the travellers saw dozens of docking stations, four of which were already occupied (by a refuelling barge, a large savager, a system defense boat of some kind, and a far trader). Three green lights highlighted the docking ports that the Harriers could connect to. These were in a line, and when the party emerged from the ships they could see that they were along a single corridor. A person was waiting for them, grimy overall and an air of someone who works hard..

He introduced himself as Teppic, and asked them what they were doing at the station. Lady Nitrane told him that they were from Drinax and were flying the flag so to speak. They were also interested in talking to someone called Goff who they had been told was interested in old Sindalian ships. Teppic was vaguely interested,  but kept walking as he took them to the common lounge area.







Emerging into a large common area the party could see tables and booths, a bar and various games machines. Through an open hatch a food preparation area could be seen. The five or six people already there were interested in the arrival, but in a half-hearted way, as if they were used to strangers arriving.

Teppic offered the party a drink, but really only had beer so that's what the party ordered. The rest of the crew of the Harriers were filing in now too, and Sparrow was tasked with keeping them in order.

The party were approached by another person, this time an older man with white beard, but with similarly greasy and worn overalls. He introduced himself as Bran. He said he'd heard that they wanted to talk to Goff. He wasn't expected back for a few days, he said, but it might be possible to take the party to him if it were urgent. Upon deciding that they might take him up on the offer he said his brother would be awake in about an hour and that he would take them.

Eventually Bran's brother Garn woke up and groggily came to see the party. He offered to take them to Goff, which meant putting on overalls with black pants and red shirt so that the robots that patrolled the engineering levels did not catch them and take them to the holding cells.


The trip involved taking a flat transportation pod, a bit like a mining cart, through the depths of the station to the dark levels. For the first hour Garn was quiet and didn't say much, but as he woke up he got more talkative.




Eventually reaching their destination, Garn and the travellers disembarked and put on torch headbands to light the way. Garn explained that the dark levels were so named because the lighting rigs had been salvaged centuries before.

After some time Lady Nitrane saw a light ahead which turned out to be Goff himself.


Goff was poking about under a large cylinder which had a panel removed. He grunted when the party got near but did not look up. "You!" he pointed at Lady Nitrane. "Hold this!". To Unter he said, "Get that wrench. No! Not that one, the heavy one! Now hit this as hard as you can just here." Luckily Unter hit true, and Lady Nitrane's arms only tingle for a bit.

He checked that the panel was on correctly and started packing up. When Lady Nitrane started talking he cut her off. "Plenty of time for that when we get there.". With that he led the party (telling Garn to make his own way back) to a small vehicle, into which he dumped his gear.

When everyone was aboard he adjusted some instruments and laid back. The vehicle started driving and Goff had a nap. Some time later they arrived at an elevator shaft and Goff got everyone out and into the lift, then pushed the up button. The lift arose for quite some time before stopping and opening up into a large dark room. Goff exited the lift and started waving his hands around until sensors detected him and turned on the lights.

(ignore what's on these screens)

The room had a wall of screens which seemed to be showing countryside. He hopped up on a chair, still staring at the screens and sighed. "Lovely isn't it" he said.


TO BE CONTINUED




Friday 18 May 2018

Best Paals

Paal starport control guided the party ship into a bay on a very large expanse of concrete. Paal sees a lot of trade convoys, and is itself a rich agricultural world, exporting a lot of grain and basic goods.

On approach, the party looked for and found the Harriers, but very strangely they were in a triangle or star formation and all had bright colours showing on their hulls. Slayed worked it out first, they were displaying a moving image of the Drinax flag. Very showy and not at all subtle.

On landing the party made their way to the starport building and made contact with Krrsh. He was delighted to hear that they were on the planet, and arranged to meet with them as soon as possible.

In a private lounge, Krrsh and some of the more long-serving crew met up with the party with huge grins on their faces. Not only were they happy to see the party after many months, but it turns out that Paal has tremendous respect and some envy for Drinax. As soon as the local government found out that they were from Drinax they offered free accommodation, free landing rights and cargo facilities, free maintenance, and so on.

This seemed to calm a slightly annoyed Slayed and the party down. It seems that Krrsh had determined the best course of action, which was to literally fly the flag for Drinax.

Shortly thereafter the party received an invitation from a starport official for later in the day. The purpose of the meeting was unclear, but the party decided to dress up in some of their more fine clothes for the meeting.

This, it transpired, was the correct decision as the purpose was to find out who the travellers were, and what their relationship with the Drinax delegation was. Upon finding out that the party were in fact the owners of the ships, and were Drinaxian nobility, the locals almost wet themselves in excitement. Of course the same offer benefits would be made to the party, and of course they were welcome to stay as long as they wanted for free.

A second meeting was arranged for the next day. More senior officials had been brought to the starport and the tone was one of barely suppressed excitement on the part of the Paal delegation.

The Paal representatives were keen to know if Drinax was open to creating a new relationship with Paal, and would people from Drinax be visiting more often in an official capacity now. The travellers assured them that this was very likely to be the case. Also, the Paal people were very glowing in their terms to describe Drinax goods. The travellers it turned out had some small number of goods that they would graciously gift to the Paal people as a gesture of good will. It was a close call, but none of the Paal representatives actually fainted.

Following the meeting some of the cargo in the Harrier's cargo bays was given to the Paal people.

The decision was made that Dr Astor would proceed to Palindrone to start working with Lady Yemar to bring her back to health. Krrsh would take him there in the Far Scout, with a good crew and some marines. There was a suggestion from Lady Nitrane that Lady Yemar might conceivably take some form of revenge on the scientist, so Krrsh and the others would be responsible for his safety while on Palindrome. Brooke went with them as she would be able to find her way back to Theev from Palindrome.

The party and the remaining crew then boarded the Harriers and with some fanfare departed for The World where they hoped to find Goff.

TO BE CONTINUED


Thursday 17 May 2018

Calming things down, and then getting people excited again

The next morning the scientist and his daughter took the party in the hut, which was equipped with a slow gravitic drive, to a remote location where, it was promised, an explanation of the situation on the planet would be forthcoming.

The journey took about an hour, taking the party over lush green woods and grassland. The scientist explained that the plants on this planet are similar to those found on many worlds but are different in important ways. No seeds from earth-like worlds will grow in the soil on this planet but there are many plants that have the same function. A husk of a large seed can be ground down to flour for bread, and there are leafy vegetables and tubers that can be eaten by all intelligent races.

He surmised that the reason that the planet has been more or less ignored is that the people who wish to take advantage of lush green planets want to do so to grow their crops to make them money, not to have alien crops that are not commercially viable.

Upon arriving at the destination, some of the party noticed a crashed space ship, mostly covered in mosses and creeping plants. This, Dr Astor explained, was the slave ship that the founding members of the colony arrived in. What happened is not clear, but the Aslan crew were dead and a large number of slaves emerged from their low berths to start a colony on this new world.

The slaves had been bred by the Aslan to be physically strong and attractive, but mentally quite slow. A ratio of 1 male to 10 females was also bred into the slave stock as this reduced the amount of testosterone and therefore the anger and violence decreased. The founding fathers did know enough to spread out and start taking advantage of the benevolent planet they found themselves on. This was just over 100 years ago. Since then, the population has grown but has been more or less centred on this crash site.

Taking the party back to the settlement Dr Astor told that from time to time a particularly clever person would be born. These originally were killed, in case the Aslan returned, but more recently they have been given more and more elevated positions in society. Dr Astor's wife was one such person. And when she died he and his daughter swore to rectify the genetic imbalance on the people of this planet.

Talk turned to whether the scientist would help Lady Yemar. Dr Astor agreed that he would do what he could, coming with the party to see her. He was concerned that in his absence shortages might arise that would impact his daughter's work. Also there would be nobody overseeing the inhabitants and advising them. The party undertook to deliver goods to Fantasy from time to time, and to ensure that all was well.

Arriving back at the settlement the party decided to take the ship that the scientist arrived in and return to the starport. How to approach the angry Aslan and the crew of the second ship was discussed but Dr Astor was adamant that no lies be told, and that come what may the two other ships should leave the planet and its inhabitants alone.

Arriving at the starport Slayed spoke to the second crew, admitting that the scientist was with them but that they had their ship back and would be given a sum of money by Dr Astor to compensate them for their trouble and their time.

At that point Klowaaar arrived and stormed up to the hatch and roared for justice. Slayed stood there and shouted back NO!!!. To everyone's astonishment (including Klowaaar) he immediately stopped, cowed down and acquiesced.

In the three days that everyone would need to refine the fuel, the party talked to the second crew. They were just adventuring around this region of space and had no other work. Slayed suggested that they might take on some work from the party, namely delivering goods to Fantasy and other locations, and be based out of Drinax. Rachando, Slayed's good friend the merchant, would be able to manage their activities.

So with the scientist on board, and everyone ready to go, the party jumped to Paal.

TO BE CONTINUED


Finding Astor

With the ship landing quite close the party jumped in the air/raft and headed directly there. They found the ship in a small open area amongst some small ponds and with footprints leading away from it back towards the settlement.

Deciding that they were under-armed, the travellers entered the ship looking for weapons and found a laser pistol and two slug rifles. These were taken and they headed out to follow the tracks, which lead directly to the high tech hut. Its door was slightly ajar and a voice cried out as they arrived.
"Go away! Leave him alone! He doesn't work for you any more! GO AWAY!"
The party jumped out of their vehicle and the door slammed shut. A few people were seen running into other buildings.

"We're here to protect you from the Aslan that you stole the ship from"
"Go away and leave us alone. I mean me, He's not here."
"And we're here to help protect you from the party which was gassed and from whom you stole the second ship"
"Leave now, please. You came from Tobia. He doesn't work for you any more.".
"OK. Actually we have need of assistance with a medical situation."
"He's just trying to help the people here. Go away."
"We have some records that we can show you. Um, the're on our ship. We'll be back in two hours."

At that, Lady Nitrane and Sparrow returned to the ship while Slayed and Unter stood outside the hut. Unter, with a wide experience of putting down insurgencies and other unrests realised that standing in the middle of the town square with guns out was unlikely to be well received, so he holstered his weapon and Slayed did the same. Sitting down - still on alert - the time passed.

After a while a figure emerged from a house and offered water and bread to the two sitting in the middle of town, which was received with thanks. A short time later Lady Nitrane and Sparrow arrived back with the medical records.

Lady Nitrane placed the records at the door of the hut and stood there waiting. The voice came from inside...
"Please stand away from the door."
Lady Nitrane declined.
"Please, I just want you to step back." This time with a hint of desperation.
Still no movement from Lady Nitrane, although the rest of the party walked away a little bit to give some room.
Pleading: "I just want you to move back a little." 
At last Lady Nitrane realised that everyone else had stepped back and did the same. The package was retrieved and not long after a male voice asked about Lady Yemar.

The scientist it turned out was sympathetic and his worried daughter was put at ease when an agreement was reached for everyone to have a meal and talk.

SESSION END










Wednesday 2 May 2018

Welcome to Fan........tasy

Fantasy turned out to be very nice. The atmosphere perhaps a little on the dense side, but temperate and wet and lush and green.

Locating the coordinates found on the pad in Dr Astor's lab, the party's scout ship did a scan of the area and, unusual for a TL3 planet, detected a source of energy near a small settlement. The starport (such as it was) was about 300 km from this location.

The landing pad was more a patch of dirt that had been cleared, and the port authority a small hut with a youngster poking their head out. The refuelling facilities were a small pond from which the ship's refuelling hose could be used to suck up water (but mind the frogs).

Asking about other facilities the youth in charge of the starport suggested that he could get some breads, cheeses and dried meat which were what people usually asked for. The party agreed that they sounded fine but to hold off getting any just yet.

The party took the air raft to near the settlement at the found coordinates. There Sparrow was left with the air/raft while the other three proceeded on foot. Aware that Slayed and Unter had better stealth Lady Nitrane stopped a little way short of the settlement to let the others scout to either side of the settled area.

Slayed found a high tech level building, a prefabricated construction of moderate size and integrated into the village. There were stacks of wood to one side and a small cart leaning against another wall. Unter came around the other side and eventually noticed the building also. Meeting up with Nitrane again they returned to the air/raft.

As they were deciding how to approach the situation they heard the unmistakable sounds of a space ship landing, just the other side of the settlement.




Peter Vallis has a point

The trip to Sink was terrible. Klowaaar demanded that he be given the best stateroom and kept up whinging, growling and whining about it until he was satisfied that he was in it. Then he started up about not being fed the right food, given the right drink, not being waited on hand and foot to quite the desired level, and so on and so forth.

Eventually Lady Nitrane persuaded him that all was in order and he settled down, just as the party arrived at Sink.

Sink is a plant with only one inhabited settlement - a monastery of monks who sink things into the swamp that makes up the landmass of the planet. For religious reasons.

Approaching the designated landing place the party observed a number of stepped pyramidal buildings and a lot of heavy lifting equipment. It appeared that lots of heavy things were dropped into the swamp, leading Unter to comment that there might be some interesting things down there.


As they landed they suddenly noticed the Aslan's ship just two landing pads away. Klowaaar noticed as well and started to rant and rave about the pain he would inflict on the ship thief. Lady Nitraane exited and talked to a small monk in an orange robe (who turned out to be the Senior Brother in Charge of Star Ports) to arrange for fuel but not for anything to be sunk into the swamp. He clapped his hands and had the novices fetch the carts of fuel to hand pump into the ship.

At this point Klowaaar escaped the grasp of the party and ran across the concrete to his ship, whereupon he started banging on the hatch in anger. The party started up to follow him at around the time that Klowaaar remembered that he had the codes to enter the ship and he proceeded to open the hatch and disappear inside.

Slayed was moments behind Klowaaar, and then the rest of the party followed in to see the Aslan on the bridge shouting at four bodies lying on the floor. Slayed had been so close behind that there was no way this was done by Klowaaar so the bodies were a mystery.

The bodies were dressed in normal ship-board attire. Checking them for marks none were found, and it was seen that they were lying in a row, as if put there. A quick medical scan showed them to all be alive. By this time Klowaaar had been persuaded to calm down as none were the ship-thief.

Unter and Slayed looked through the ship and found that only one stateroom had been used recently, and that by the captains chair on the bridge were ration bar wrappers for about one person's consumption. Checking the computer, Sparrow found that everything had been wiped recently but that in the active memory was some audio of muffled voices talking normally, then they got heated, then there was a small hiss followed by four thumps. After that a voice can be heard saying 'I'm sorry' over and over.

Telling the Senior Brother in Charge of Star Ports about their find the party helped take them in to the infirmary. They then asked the brother if another ship had been here recently, to which he said that one had left only a few hours ago. The party then asked that their ship be refuelled as fast as possible as they had to follow the ship. Klowaaar asked where they were going, and reluctantly they told him it was Fantasy.

Just as they were about to leave word reached the travellers that one of the four crew found on Klowaaars ship had come around. Lady Nitrane went to see him and ask some questions. The crewman answered them, possibly under the impression that Nitrane was Drinax Police or similar and corroborated the theory that Astor was the perp, and that he'd gassed them once they refused to swap ships with him. Theirs was already refuelled and ready to go.

Taking off the party headed to Fantasy.




Trouble on Tech-World

Tech-World
Arriving in system the travellers made contact with the starport and requested permission to land. They are given instructions and follow the virtual path provided. From orbit, Tech-World looks like a rusty wasteland. As the travellers got closer they saw the starport - a huge matt black dome, and around it the city which looked like a circuit board.

The landing instructions drew the ship towards the dome whereupon a platform formed out of the trillions of nanobots that make up the starport, and it extended out for the ship to land on. Upon landing the platform retracted, drawing the ship into a hangar sized just right for the ship. Normal robots approached the ship preparing to refuel, repair or unload the ship as required.

A female figure of steel and brass approached and waited patiently at the hatch. When Sparrow approached she introduced herself as Sophia, who could be the guide and aide for their stay on Tech-World.

Meeting new friends
With customs formalities taken care of, the party asked Sophia for information about robots. Lady Nitrane remembered that the party will need robots for the space station. Slayd asked about weapons, but the planet only makes weapons that will be used by robots.

As the party were travelling to a robot showroom, Sophia suddenly turned to Slayd and said "Admiral, do not ask questions. Behave normally. My masters wish to speak with you. Follow me.".The party followed. Leading through passages long unused, Sophia led the party to an exit that overlooked the dirt surface of the planet. Visible were two GeDeCo guards but the party nonchalantly passed by and reached the indicated building. Inside were three people.
  • Dr Gerret Hodal, an elderly statesman and head of the council. Old and wrinkled, white-haired, and with a twinkle in his eye. Dr Hodal introduced himself as the head of the council.
  • Archon Dreek, of middle years with a more thoughtful demeanour. He appeared more administrator than scientist, and the party did not learn of his position.
  • Dr Rex Darke, dark haired and with a smile that was not entirely believable. He had a habit of rubbing his hands together and occasionally laughing maniacally. He was introduced as a roboticist formerly from the University or Regina.
Once introductions were completed, the scientists explained why they had asked to meet with the party. It turned out that Slayd's credentials were flagged for follow up as the customs formalities were being undertaken. When the considerable computing power of the Tech-World science community had performed some pattern matching it was determined what his real identity was and who he was working for.

When a representative of Drinax was known to be on the planet, and one with a good standing (through Peter Vallis' contacts) a decision was made to approach Slayd and put forward a proposition.

The Tech-World starport is owned and controlled by GeDeCo, whereas the rest of the planet is under the control of the scientific council. Because everything goes through the starport that means GeDeCo have an impressive control over the planet. The council want to stop that.

In exchange for joining with Drinax in the new Drinaxian Empire, including access to the technology and facilities that Tech-World has to offer, all they wanted was:
  • Regular shipments of cheap Basic Consumables, Basic Raw Materials, Biochemicals, Petrochemicals, Radioactives and Uncommon Raw Materials.
  • At least four System Defence Boats or equivalent, massing at least 300 tons each.
  • Protection from any reprisals from GeDeCo.
  • A contract that ensures Tech-World will be free to carry out any sort of scientific research without restrictions, even in sensitive fields like psionics or artificial intelligence.
Dr Hodal clarified that the planet has the resources to provide most of their own needs, including making robot-controlled System Defence Boats, but doing so would take many months and that in the meantime the planet would be vulnerable to GeDeCo reprisals or from pirate attack. 

Slayed agreed that while he was not currently in a position to sign anything that guaranteed these things, the terms sounded fair and reasonable. The King would be approached to ratify these conditions and thus bring Tech-World into the Empire.

It's all about Astor
Lady Nitrane asked about Dr Jali Astor, explaining that they were looking for the scientist to help with a medical situation that only he could help with. Dr Hodal checked and found that Dr Astor was indeed on the planet but that he was not currently available, being in a Do Not Disturb state (common when scientists as in the middle of research).

Meeting concluded, the party were offered accommodation for the night. This was accepted and Sofia lead them to a building where the nanobot technology rearranged the rooms to suit. Settling in and helping themselves to fine processed food, the party were interrupted by Dr Hodal who told them something terrible had happened and that they should follow him.

Arriving a short distance away the party saw a laboratory partly in flames with two or three lab technicians milling about outside. It was explained that this was Dr Astor's lab and that something had caused an explosion, and furthermore the lab would shortly immolate and cleanse itself before returning to a laboratory configuration. This approach apparently being required to ensure that any chemicals or biological agents did not escape.

Suiting up the party decided to enter the lab to see if there was anything to be recovered or that might provide a clue. They found a pad with the word "fantasy" written on it, with some numbers. They also noticed and retrieved a video recording device commonly used by scientists to record their thoughts and their activities. And finally they retrieved some of the memory core of the crucible in which Dr Astor was performing his experiments.

Exiting the lab just in time the party established that the planet Fantasy was important enough to write down and the numbers were interpreted as a location on the planetary surface. The recording device had only some vision available after being damaged but showed Dr Astor receiving a comms call, suddenly looking panicked, and then throwing chemicals and equipment into the crucible causing it to short and burst into flames, whereupon he grabbed something and left the lab. Lastly the crucible memory showed that the experiment was genetic in nature and that the fire was caused by certain volatile chemicals being thrown into it.

Where to next?
The party asked if it was known where Dr Astor had gone and Dr Hodal checked his wrist computer and advised that he had gone to the starport, so the party headed there at high speed.

Looking around for some information the party noticed the bemused Aslan male that they saw before. On a hunch Lady Niitrane asked him what was wrong. He growled somewhat reluctantly that he was looking for his ship. Being a male he was unused and unwilling to talk to robots but on Tech-World that's more or less all there is at the starport. He added that someone had offered to help not long ago bur that they had gone missing too.

Showing him a picture of Dr Astor caused the Aslan, who was called Klowaaar, to snarl and admit that it was Astor who had offered to help. Checking the computers it was apparent now that Astor had fled with Klowaaar's ship.

Returning to their ship the party got the robots to stop the maintenance activities and complete the refuelling. They them left with Klowaaar to the planet Sink, which was the stated destination of the Aslan's ship.










So we're going to Tech-World now?

New Moscow
The party emerged from jump and quickly established that they had not misjumped, and were in fact near a gas giant in the New Moscow system.

The decision to refuel from the gas giant meant a tense couple of days while the fuel was refined. Ships kept popping into the system and the party carefully and without drawing attention to themselves slid around the gas giant in the other direction. Eventually the fuel was on board and they jumped to a gas giant in the Tanith system.



(Segue #1: Navy characters face a situation on Magen where they arrive in system before the main fleet and are challenged. A stand off ensues).



Tanith
The refuelling in Tanith was much the same as at New Moscow - more or less uneventful. The next system was Tech-World.



(Segue #2: Krrsh and the Harriers encounter another pirate, called Zhuekvi, who hands him a message to give to Admiral Slayd).



(Segue #3: Krrsh finds a prey ship on which to test the capabilities of the fully repaired Harriers).