The Acrid stench of success

The next day in Acrid's spaceport began with Slayed performing his usual morning inspection walkabout of the treasure ship. This time he was looking in particular to see the mood of the crew, and keeping an eye open for Launch Pilot Henshaw and Marine Salvesdes.

The mood on the ship was darker than normal. Many crew seemed upset that the captain had not turned the ship around and gone back to the Imperium for proper repairs. Others were grumbling about the fact that the journey ahead of them would take many weeks longer than first planned, not to mention the many weeks spend waiting on Arunisiir for repairs.

On the other hand, some were pleased that they were off Arunisiir at last, and away from that Aslan noble who kept pestering them for fees for landing on his land, and in a spaceport with proper amenities at last.

With the inspection complete Slayed returned to the Harriers and the party established a series of tasks for the crew and travellers to do.

• Slayed would stay near the Harriers and coordinate the efforts.
• The crew of the Harriers were tasked with talking to the crew of the treasure ship to find out more information.
• Unter was tasked with finding a secluded location where the suspects amongst the treasure ship crew could be interrogated.
• Sparrow was tasked with the most important job of finding either Launch Pilot Henshaw or Marine Salvesdes alone. The idea being to lure (or force) them to the interrogation spot.
• Nitrane decided that another party might be a suitable distraction and so went about finding somewhere to host it.

These missions were met with mixed success:

• Unter found the perfect spot - a short term hire commercial office in a secluded part of the spaceport.
• The crew found out that the treasure ship apparently has a self destruct mechanism, but could not determine how it worked, and also that there are a large number of gemstones in the vault, although it's not clear how that came to be common knowledge.
• Nitrane unfortunately was not immediately able to find a suitable location so decided to leave it for a few days.
• And Sparrow found Henshaw, alone, in a dirty dingy space bar. Lady Nitrane decided that it should be her that approached Henshaw. 

The Launch Pilot was alone in a very dirty dingy bar - the sort frequented by dirty mechanics, people who spilled beer on the floor, and bartenders who spat in their glasses before cleaning them with an oily rag, and who didn't clean the floor. There were two other treasure ship crew in the bar but they were not with Henshaw. Lady Nitrane went to the bar and realised that while Henshaw was alone, it would be clear that Nitrane would not normally frequent such an establishment, and that if she were to be seen talking to Henshaw that it would be very obvious. She aborted the attempt.

That evening Nitrane and Slayed were required, with the officers of the treasure ship, to attend the Captain's table for dinner. In port the captain had taken up residence in a large suite in the best hotel and entertained the officers in his dining room.

With everyone sitting around a large round table, Nitrane found herself sitting between First Officer Jagad and Assistant Astrogator Ven Laffit, a young man who turned out to be a firm believer in the superiority of the Imperium and was a total bore. Slayed sat between the Captain and Purser Vaughan, a terribly boring man more interested in accounting and number crunching. Nitrane tried to start up a conversation with Vaughan but he was not at all interested, dismissed her attempt and polite enquiry, and ignored her for the rest of the evening.

The dinner ended quickly and everyone made their excuses to leave - nobody seemed interested in staying behind to talk to the captain. Slayed and Nitrane made their way back to the Harriers. There the discussion turned to what they might do with the treasure ship.

It was noted by Unter that if they wanted to get rid of most of the crew then taking the ship while in port would do that for them - most crew were on shore leave at any one time. What that meant though was they needed some way of opening the hangar doors and making an escape in the dangerous acrid atmosphere of the planet.

The next day the tasks were reassigned. The crew continued with their casual interrogation of the treasure ship crew, Sparrow was tasked with finding someone who might be persuaded or bribed to let the ships leave when the party want then to. The rest of the party would look for the two suspects.

First though Slayed took Unter on his daily inspection of the treasure ship. Unter knew a few people from Arunisiir but the visit was really to give him an idea of the layout of the ship. Salvesdes was on board but they had no opportunity to speak with him.

Meanwhile Sparrow was using his investigate skills to find the right person to ask. Eventually he tracked down an official who was authorised to open the doors and control the weather systems, and who was also rumoured to be very easy to do business with. A preliminary agreement was reached.

As Sparrow was returning from finding the spaceport official he noticed Henshaw shopping in the commercial district. He immediately called the other travellers and Lady Nitrane jumped into action. Nitrane joined the other woman at the shopping district and casually joined her looking for clothes. Henshaw seemed to be taking advantage of the facilities on Acrid after a lack of opportunities on Arunisiir. Eventually Nitrane suggested that she knew an out of the way place to shop and persuaded Henshaw to accompany her.

Henshaw and Nitrane are about to enter the party's hired space, where the rest of the party await, and  where they intended to interrogate the suspects.

To be continued.