The King was dressed in water polo costume with a protective hat tied under his chin. It became clear that with the opening up of relations with Torpol again the King had been made aware of Torpolian water polo, and fallen in love with the game. So much so that he was building a water polo pool on the under-plinth of the floating palace.
The princess turned talk to more serious matters. The king had been invited to attend the opening of the space port at Vorito. This was to be the General Development Corporation's pride and joy in the sector, opening up Vorito's industrial might after the previous space station was blown up a decade ago. The most powerful people in the sector were being invited to the grand opening but it coincided with the opening of King Oleb's water polo pool so he would not be going.
To work out who should go as the Drinax delegate, the king asked Lady Nitrane to choose from Princess Rao, Prince Harrick, Lady Sil and Lord Wrax. The king was also delighted with the gift of the two strongboxes. As they were not yet opened he ordered that someone from the scholar's tower be sent for who might be able to get into them.
After the king left, Nitrqane turned to Princess Rao and asked her who she thought should go. The princess immediately said that she herself should naturally go.
Following the audience with Princess Rao, the travellers, minus Sparrow who returned to the ships, went to visit Rachando.
Upon entering the offices of Rachando the party noticed two people entering before them, so sat in the waiting area to wait their turn. Moments later they heard gunfire and jumped up to see what was happening.
Turning the corner from the waiting area into Rachando's large sprawling office, they saw the two people they had seen earlier with gauss rifles aiming down at a place behind the main desk. Slayed spring into action and fired off a shot to distract them, he then moved closer, taking up a position behind a conference table. The shot hit, but did minimal or no damage as the two gunmen seemed to have some kind of armour.
Next up Unter took aim with his slug pistol and fired off two shots at the other. He too moved into a closer position but his shot too seemed to barely scratch the armour of the assailants. Then it was Lady Nitrane's turn. She was without a ranged weapon so decided on the spur of the moment to run up to one of the attackers but had no time to attack with her blade.
Then the assailants fired. One fired at something on the ground behind the desk, the other at Nitrane. Nitrane was hit and badly wounded but could continue.
Slayed fired again but didn't damage his target. It seemed as if he would have to draw his own blade to be effective in the fight. Under, without his huge unwieldy axe, was reduced to hoping his shots might at least distract his target.
Then Nitrane ignited her blade and took a swing at her target. The arc-field weapon cut through the armour as if it was not there, doing terrible damage to the surprised assassin. In response however the target swung the gauss rifle around and pulled the trigger, dropping Nitrane like a sack of potatoes.
The other assassin, having taken no damage to speak of, fired again at the floor, spraying their target with gauss rounds. If that was Rachando back there then he was almost certainly dead.
Slayed unsheathed his monofilament blade and jumped to the attacker and swung, doing damage. The blade cut through the armour in a most satisfying way. Unter fired too, but it was clear he would not be contributing much in this fight.
The attackers now decided to flee, one fired off another burst at the floor while the other fired at Slayed, missing him only because he swing his blade at the rifle to parry it.
Slayed got a swing in on the assassin passing by him and dropped him while Unter fired at the other one who had a clearer run to the door. A brief chase ensued but Slayed finally got a swing in as the assassin turned the corner to the waiting room dropping the last assailant.
They immediately turned their attention to Rachando and Nitrane. Miraculously they were both alive - just. Slayed knew where Rachando kept some trauma packs and both of the wounded were stabilised sufficiently to get to the Harrier which was not far from the office. There they underwent surgery by the automed in the sick bay and the palace guard were summoned.
After some medical care the two still remain confined to bed, with Rachando refusing to tell what he knows with other people present.
