The story continues on Theev, but moves to the Vume system.
The party have just docked on the Skull on the trail of Miria Silverhand's ship, called The Mercifuge. Within that ship's computer they hope to find the whereabouts of Ferrik Redthane.
With no time to lose, the party head into the station. It is large and busy but they find a terminal and do a quick search for The Mercifuge. All they can uncover at this time is that it is in the Orange sector, which is some distance away. They pedestrian transit across to that sector and search again. This time they enter the ships codes and locate it in a hanger 500 meters further along.
Quickly entering the codes the party enters the hangar. There is The Mercifuge resting on supports to keep it upright. Ramps lead to the cargo doors on the side, and to the main airlock at the front of the vessel. Sizing up the situation the party leave Pilot Sparrow outside and make their way in using the security codes obtained from Miria's computer.
They immediately find themselves on the bridge, with a number of iris valve doors, and one normal internal door, leading out. Concerned that there may be crew on board the first action is to set up guards to cover the doors, and Sparrow is brought inside to assist.
Needing to power up the computers, Captain Slaid attempts to power up in a hurry, but by skipping through power up routines he misjudges and in the end takes slightly longer than the normal powering up would take. Next he attempts to change the security codes for the ship, which would give the party the edge in the ability to open and close doors, but this is unsuccessful. Considering that there may be cameras throughout the ship Slaid brings these up and the party are astonished to find that while there are personal possessions throughout the ship there are no crew onboard.
Heaving a sigh of relief Captain Slaid prepares to leave port with the ship. Silent Unter mans the comms and requests clearance to depart. He also makes contact with the Phoenix and Krrsh responds that they too will leave. A rendezvous point of the 100 diameter limit is agreed.
As the ship leaves Lady Nitrane checks the cargo bay. On the cameras a number of crates and other cargo canisters are noticed. Checking through the manifest and visually checking the crates Nitrane determines that there are 25 tons of jump drive, crated up and seemingly brand new. Also located in the cargo bay are numerous tons of spare parts, hundreds of days of rations, tools, a modular habitat, and more. It seems that whoever picked this cargo had in mind to repair a ship somewhere away from a port.
Meeting with the Phoenix the Captain decides how to jump to Vume. The Mercifuge could grasp the Phoenix and jump. This would leave The Mercifuge low on fuel, but the Phoenix would still be fully fuelled. In the end though it is decided that both ships will jump independently, and upon arrival may dock to present Ferrik with the appearance that The Mercifuge has brought more salvage.
The Phoenix arrives only one hour ahead of The Mercifuge and when the latter arrives Krrsh, with the better sensors, initiates primitive signalling comms using lasers rather than radio communications. This approach means that should any other ships be nearby they would not be alerted by sudden bursts of static.
With the two ships at close range it is communicated that the salvager will grasp the harrier and approach the icy moon where the planetary sensors on The Mercifuge are about to start a sweep of the planet to see if they can find any sign of Ferrik.
To be continued.
The party have just docked on the Skull on the trail of Miria Silverhand's ship, called The Mercifuge. Within that ship's computer they hope to find the whereabouts of Ferrik Redthane.
With no time to lose, the party head into the station. It is large and busy but they find a terminal and do a quick search for The Mercifuge. All they can uncover at this time is that it is in the Orange sector, which is some distance away. They pedestrian transit across to that sector and search again. This time they enter the ships codes and locate it in a hanger 500 meters further along.
Quickly entering the codes the party enters the hangar. There is The Mercifuge resting on supports to keep it upright. Ramps lead to the cargo doors on the side, and to the main airlock at the front of the vessel. Sizing up the situation the party leave Pilot Sparrow outside and make their way in using the security codes obtained from Miria's computer.
They immediately find themselves on the bridge, with a number of iris valve doors, and one normal internal door, leading out. Concerned that there may be crew on board the first action is to set up guards to cover the doors, and Sparrow is brought inside to assist.
Needing to power up the computers, Captain Slaid attempts to power up in a hurry, but by skipping through power up routines he misjudges and in the end takes slightly longer than the normal powering up would take. Next he attempts to change the security codes for the ship, which would give the party the edge in the ability to open and close doors, but this is unsuccessful. Considering that there may be cameras throughout the ship Slaid brings these up and the party are astonished to find that while there are personal possessions throughout the ship there are no crew onboard.
Heaving a sigh of relief Captain Slaid prepares to leave port with the ship. Silent Unter mans the comms and requests clearance to depart. He also makes contact with the Phoenix and Krrsh responds that they too will leave. A rendezvous point of the 100 diameter limit is agreed.
As the ship leaves Lady Nitrane checks the cargo bay. On the cameras a number of crates and other cargo canisters are noticed. Checking through the manifest and visually checking the crates Nitrane determines that there are 25 tons of jump drive, crated up and seemingly brand new. Also located in the cargo bay are numerous tons of spare parts, hundreds of days of rations, tools, a modular habitat, and more. It seems that whoever picked this cargo had in mind to repair a ship somewhere away from a port.
Meeting with the Phoenix the Captain decides how to jump to Vume. The Mercifuge could grasp the Phoenix and jump. This would leave The Mercifuge low on fuel, but the Phoenix would still be fully fuelled. In the end though it is decided that both ships will jump independently, and upon arrival may dock to present Ferrik with the appearance that The Mercifuge has brought more salvage.
The Phoenix arrives only one hour ahead of The Mercifuge and when the latter arrives Krrsh, with the better sensors, initiates primitive signalling comms using lasers rather than radio communications. This approach means that should any other ships be nearby they would not be alerted by sudden bursts of static.
With the two ships at close range it is communicated that the salvager will grasp the harrier and approach the icy moon where the planetary sensors on The Mercifuge are about to start a sweep of the planet to see if they can find any sign of Ferrik.
To be continued.
No comments:
Post a Comment