To Byrni, and beyond

Tech-World
Finally reunited with the Harriers the travellers spent the rest of the week ensuring that the ships were refueled, that the Harriers had their overdue maintenance, and generally kept a low profile. From time to time they would visit Luddites, the only bar in town with a real person as bartender, and visited the automated shops, but other than that they stayed on their ships and planned what to do next.

Ergo
After the week was up the fleet jumped to Ergo, where a navy fuel dump had been set up. There they quickly and uneventfully refueled before making the jump-2 to Byrni.

Byrni
The ships emerged from jump near the most distant gas giant in the system. The aim was to avoid being detected while opening the vault, extracting what was in there, then refueling and jumping out as quickly as possible. Because arriving at the 100 diameter radius would mean a 17 hour journey just to get to fuel-scooping orbit the party went to the vault to open it.

Using the key and the drugged captain's DNA the party triggered the opening sequence on the door fairly easily. What they did not expect was a 10 minute light show and fanfare that made up the opening ceremony. Intended to be opened with the huge cargo bay clam-shell doors open, the sight and sound show was overwhelming, which meant they did not immediately hear the call from the bridge.

While the vault was being opened the crew on the bridge had detected an Imperial Navy carrier with escort in orbit around the gas giant. Shortly thereafter  the treasure ship had been hailed by the navy ship and welcomed to Byrni. However they were also asked why they had not arrived at the inner planet where the spaceport was and where the people who were expecting them would be.

Lady Nitrane picked up the comms and was quickly advised by First Officer Jagad in what to say. Nitrane said that they had jump difficulties and they and their escorta needed to refuel immediately.
To that the navy ship asked "What escort?" and then "Why not just proceed to the spaceport where you are expected?". Apparently the navy had not detected the Harriers, with their stealth jump and hull coatings preventing them from being picked up.

Nitrane persisted with the line of reasoning that they and the escorts needed refueling, at which point the navy advised that fighters were being sent to provide them with an escort.

Quickly calculating that the fighters would be with them in about six hours the party quickly got to taking everything out of the vault and into the normal cargo bays. They already knew that the ship could not jump with the vault open, so this was vital if they wanted to be able to jump at short notice.

In the vault they found the following:

• Four 5-ton mail drums of secure electronic communications, presumably from the Imperium to the Aslan Hierate. These were known to be incredibly hard to crack, but the contents could be very valuable.
• Various legal and formal documents laid out on presentation shelves under spotlights. These document represented the actual proof of agreements and deals, with seals embedded with chips proving provenance and authenticity. At a glance they were mostly diplomatic with some mercantile ones as well. The contents of these were not closely checked while emptying the vault.
• 40 tons of Luxury Goods, clearly marked with Imperial seals and signs. Apparently these would be used as gifts, reminding people of the wealth of the Imperium.
• 20 tons of Pharmaceuticals, clearly marked with Imperial seals and signs. This more humanitarian cargo would be to appease or curry favour with local worlds.
• 20 tons of Radioactives in heavy protective crates. With a wide range of uses such as medical, research or weaponry their intended use could only be guessed at.
• Two small strongboxes which were locked and looked to be difficult to get into.

Moving these out in to the normal cargo bays took a good two hours but that left the travellers time enough to complete the task.

The decision was made to have the Harriers, which still had not been detected, leave the treasure ship and head at speed to the gas giant to refuel and purify fuel in secret. In the meantime the treasure ship would jump to Sink, the only world within jump-1 that the ship could reach.

After all astrogation calculations were complete the ship jumped, leaving the Harriers to their fate.

Sink

Arriving in Sink the ship immediately headed for the planet to land. Just as last time they were here, the huge cranes and machinery near the starport reminded the crew that this strange outpost of an obscure religion dropped objects into the swamp. Whether as atonement or to appease one or more gods the party had not yet established.

The Senior Brother in Charge of Star Ports welcomed them, but did not seem to recognise them. They asked for their huge ship to be refueled, to which he went white but nodded and quickly gathered together some novices to commence the task of manually refueling the ship.

The crew looked anxiously towards the sky, not expecting to see the Harriers before the sensor operators did, but it seemed to help.

Eventually, 40 hours after the treasure ship arrived, the Harriers radioed in that they had arrived. A slight altercation with some fighters that got too close was brushed off as inconsequential and that any damage was purely superficial.

Two Harriers landed, leaving one in orbit to provide better sensors cover for those on the ground. These were given refueling priority. As soon as one Harrier on the ground was refueled, it went up and took station while the orbiting Harrier landed for its refueling.

A day or so later, after the Harriers had been refueled and the monks resumed fueling the treasure  ship, the orbiting Harrier picked up the arrival jump signature that turned out to be an Imperial Navy escort. Whether this was the same one that they detected around the gas giant they did not know.

The Imperial ship started in towards the planet and the decision was made to immediately launch the treasure ship and Harriers as they would be detected easily once the escort got close.Rather than be fired on from above, the only plan that made sense was to head towards safety.

As the treasure  ship lumbered up out of the atmosphere the Imperial ship got closer. Suddenly it veered off directly towards the orbiting Harrier, and fired two particle cannons. The ship was damaged, and the crew took some radiation damage, but they responded, hitting the escort with their single particle cannon. The damage done was less that the two that hit them, but for whatever reason the radiation damage was much higher, and the escort's crew was clearly affected. No further shots were fired from the escort as it spiraled slowly down to the planet. 

With the damage on the orbiting Harrier causing a little concern the decision was made to land again, leaving a fresh Harrier in orbit once again. On landing the damage was assessed and found to be repairable. Refueling was competed and the ships prepared to take off.

Suddenly the party had a thought. The treasure ship would be a tremendous liability, but what if they sank it in the swamp? After quickly agreeing to this course of action they hired some storage space at the spaceport and offloaded all the Advanced Electronics, Advanced Machine Parts and Pharmaceuticals put them in the storage area. The remaining plunder was split  among the Harriers except the mail drums that were left on board the treasure ship.

Then Sparrow grinned terribly. What if the captain went down with the ship? The rest of the party thought about it and eventually agreed. The captain was drugged into unconsciousness and placed in the captains chair while the treasure ship was put down at a spot agreed with the monks. The party watched it sink below the surface, and the monks cheered.

Quickly boarding the ships they chose Paal as their next destination.

To be continued...