Much a-coup about nothing

Coup at the Palace
The travellers decided to land the ship at the main docks as instructed. They could see plumes of smoke as they approached the landing platform and there were people below running and taking cover. The palace seemed to have gone mad. Lady Nitrane tried to get hold of Lord Wrax on the comms but was unsuccessful. It seemed that so much was happening that they would need to fend for themselves.

Emerging from the ship they noticed Kasiyl and Rachando, the latter with some bodyguards, exchanging fire with a group of Prince Harrick supporters. As they watched two of the bodyguards  went down and the others ducked for cover. Gunfire and shouting could be heard coming from deeper inside the palace.

The party were wearing heavy armour and were armed with powerful weapons, but instead of attacking they shouted out that the Harrick supporters were dangerously close to committing acts of treason and that the King was alive and in the party's care. It took a little time but the Harrick supporters stopped and rallied behind the travellers.

Elsewhere in the palace Harrick supporters were converging on the throne room and on the life support section. They hoped that by taking these areas the might be in a position to negotiate a successful victory. Rao's supporters had other ideas and converged on the throne room. A pitched battle broke out and there were many casualties on both sides.

The travellers moved into the life support section where Harrick supporters had entrenched themselves behind barricades. Lady Nitrane, wielding her sword, led the charge. Under heavy fire more Rao supporters fell but the party started to overwhelm the Harrick defences. Just as they thought they might carry the day a group of androids arrived to bolster the defenders and the battle broke out again.

In the Throne Room sufficient Rao supporters arrived to persuade the Harrick supporters to drop their weapons or to join with Rao. The outcome was now a foregone conclusion and the last of the androids in Life Support were destroyed to finish the coup.

Aftermath
Lady Nitrane immediately went to the starport docks and patched into the palace-wide communications channel. She broadcast the video that she had taken on King Oleb as he was close to death down on the surface. The entire palace heard how he promised whoever found his medical kit would be made an archduke. The whole palace also however heard that the King thought the Scholar's tower were vampires for what they did to Prince Harrick, and that the King wanted to die instead.

The King was also heard saying that the floating palace was a joke, and that the party had been given a Letter of Marque and that he had instructed the party to go pirating. If they could, through piracy, bring back the kingdom they would be forgiven. Lastly he said that Prince Harrick was not the right person to be King after Oleb, which meant that it would be Queen Rao, but not without saying that she was too scheming and tool political and that she should be told to stop.

The people of the palace were shocked. Lord Wrax almost certainly smiled. Ambassador Polx of the Imperium could be heard exploding in anger. Lady Nitrane shrugged at the enormity of the thing she had done, saying "they all knew anyway".

The hunt for Rao
Neither Price Harrick not Princess Rao were to be found. Asking around they found that Princess Rao had been seen entering Prince Harrick's yacht and was not pleased about going. There were no guns pointed at her, and she was not tied up, but the observer got the feeling it was more a kidnapping than a cooperative act. That was one and a half days ago. People in the startport control told the party that the Prince had gone to Asim. The party decided to follow.

Putting the King on the hands of the Hawk Warriors seemed best, and they were instructed to have the king looked after in the Scholar;s tower and to not let anyone harm him. Lady Nitrane also instructed Lord Wrax to stay neutral but he just dismissed her.

The Harrier took off and arranged with the other two Harriers to jump to Asim. The yacht would come to pick up Kaisyl to take him to his scout, hidden in the outer reaches of the system, before he and the freighter headed to the space station. Rachando came with the party on the Harrier. His two ships were on trading missions but he just wanted to get out of Drinax.

Dull and brown
Arriving at Asim the party were reminded how brown the place was. Dull too. They scanned for any signs of the yacht but were not surprised to find no trace of it given it's lead. As they headed down to the spaceport the other two Harriers arrived and were told to stay in orbit to scan for ships leaving or arriving.

Coming in to land the party looked for a yacht but saw none. The Asim spaceport was an immense expanse of flat ferrocrete and it would be impossible to hide a ship given there were no enclosed hangars. They checked at the spaceport nevertheless but were told that no records would be given to them. The animosity of the Asim people to Drinax was strong.

Rather than go incognito they decided to contact Governor Telwax, the most senior Drinax official on the planet. She would be delighted to see the party in three hours at the Governor's Palace. The travellers had no choice it seemed but to wait.

The governor
Arriving at the palace at the appointed time they were taken in to meet the governor, her wife, and her child. Pleasantries were exchanged before they moved into the governor's office to talk about more serious matters.

Nitrane opened with a statement that the King was still alive and that the coup was over. The governor was clearly shaken at the news, although suspicious were aroused when she was interested more in why they were here rather than more news about a coup and the near-death of the King.

Nitrane and Slayed convinced the Governor that her best course of action was to put aside any misgivings and just tell them where Prince Harrick could be found, and she relented and told them he was at the Dragon Fortress in the mountains.

Dragon Fortress
After Drinax took control of Asim, primarily due to the huge technology level advantage they Drinax had, they created a fortress in the mountains that would be all but impossible for the locals to penetrate. It consisted of a large flattened area for ships to land, and a number of hundreds of metres deep vertical tubes leading down to a maze of kill zones and passages. To anyone with a grav belt it was simplicity itself to just waft downwards.

Unter and Slayed knew roughly where to look and almost immediately the landing area was spotted, along with a flight of Hawk Warriors flying protectively above. Deciding to approach as if they were permitted to be there they landed without being challenged.

Emerging from the ship, Lady Nitrane in ceramic armour and the rest in battle dress, they started towards the nearest vertical tube when three Hawk Warriors emerged upwards out of it. The warriors landed near the edge and one opened its helmet. A woman with somewhat familiar features curled her lip and looked distastefully at Lady Nitrane.

"Hello mother!" she snarled. "Hello dear" Lady Nitrane replied cheerfully.

The daughter of Lady Nitrane and Lord Wrax, Colonel Sedelti didn't have Lady Nitrane's attractive appearance and looked more like her father. Nitrane looked to be eighteen whereas Sedelti, without the benefit of anagathics, looked to be approaching middle age.

Sedelti shouted for her guards to arrest the party, but Nitrane shouted forcibly that they should not. They were representing the King, she said, and that any move against them would be clear treason. The guards faltered, and Sedelti, if possible, looked even more aggrieved.

Nitrane demanded to be taken to Price Harrick and, with little choice, and perhaps even hoping that the Prince would put Nitrane in her place, Sedelti ordered a grav-sled be raised for the party to be taken down.

Their highnesses
Led into an antechamber the party could see into the next room - a huge open space - and in there were Prince Harrick and Princess Rao, the latter sitting grumpily with her arms crossed. They appeared to be having an argument when the party arrived.

Looking up the Prince and Princess gave 'so what do you want' looks at the party. Nitrans told them that their father had gone missing but had been found and was still alive, and that there had been a coup and that it had been won my Princess Rao's forces with the help of the party.

Initially both stunned, the Princess recovered first and looked a lot more cheerful. She started telling her brother that his concerns were groundless. She told him that they should go and see the Zhodani envoy to put his mind at rest.

The party were nonplussed. It seemed that the princess had been seeing Zhodani agents for months and that the Prince had gotten wind and was concerned for the safety of the princess and for Drinax. The Princess on the other hand was entirely certain that the Zhodani could be trusted.

The travellers started arguing that the royal siblings should come immediately to Drinax but Princess Rao dismissed the idea. It would take a week to get back but this rendezvous with the Zhodani would take only a day or two as they were already in the system waiting. Perhaps King Oleb, unhinged as he is, had a point about his daughter.

As the Prince and Princess started walking out of the chambers and back towards the surface Nitrane tried again to persuade them to return immediately to Drinax, but was yet again dismissed.

Not knowing what to do, she looked to the other travellers for help.

To be continued.

Grand High Tum-ti-tump of the Outrim Void

Theev to Salif

Admiral Slayed and the travellers arrived at Salif with their jump-3 and -4 capable ships. There they refueled and met with Tiznee Zazzle to tell her about the liberation of the captured pirates and the seized ships. She was delighted that they were safe and that they had been successful.

Salif to Space Station

Jumping next to the space station they found it as it had been left - powered down and running silent. There were no signs that anyone had been there since they left. However, as soon as they reached the cargo bay that held the two dozen planet-buster and bio-weapon torpedoes they were shocked to find them all gone, and the word "Thanks!" painted on one of the walls. 

With all power off there were no cameras or other clues as to who had taken them. A quick check confirmed that nothing else had been taken, and there was no damage other than the forced opening of the door to the cargo hold. Nitrane, Unter and Sparrow were philosophical. They had wanted to be rid of them from the start. Slayed on the other hand was worried. Where were they, who had them, and why did they want them?

Planning Repairs
There was nothing they could do so they got to work powering up the systems that had previously been brought to the station. The longer term plan was to bring the megafreighter to the station and use its enormous power plant to run the station until the one on the station could be repaired. In the meantime they would  use what power they had to start repairs anticipating the later power that would be available.

The party spent two weeks working through the plans with Goff. The power plant from the freighter would mean that they could power the smelter and refinery and start preparing raw materials for the manufacturing plant by using the ores collected by the mining drones. The priority therefore was to get as much manufacturing, smelting and refinery machinery repaired as possible.

Space Station to Theev

After setting things in motion the party took the Sorrowful Maiden and most of the crew back to Theev. There they met up with the trading crew who had made a decent profit, and with Jaggad who reported that she had been successful with hiring new crew.

With nothing else left to do they all boarded the megafreighter and headed to Drinax.

Theev to Drinax

The trip to Drinax was uneventful. The first stop was in deep space and they transferred the fuel from the bladder to the fuel tanks with no problems. Then to Torpol where they happened to meet a local system defense boat in orbit around the gas giant and with their highly regarded reputation it stayed for the week to protect them while all tanks were filled.

Arriving in Drinax near a distant gas giant the freighter started refueling while the three Harriers and the yacht, which was to be a gift to King Oleb, headed to the main planet. The Harrier with Slayed, Sparrow, Nitrane and Unter went on ahead and as they opened up the thrusters to top speed they opened comms and were asked whether then wanted the highport, lowport or palace. The lowport was new, but they asked for permission to land at the palace, which was granted.

Man Missing

As they were on approach to the palace a new voice came over the comms. It was Lady Hil, a close friend of the party. She sounded distressed, but trying to hide it, and asked if instead of landing they could help locate a missing person. In fact it was the King, who had just gone down with a broken grav belt. Various questions that the party had were answered - Lady Hil sometimes having to ask others near here - but in very little time the ship was over one of the old bombed cities of Drinax.

The pillars of the destroyed city resembled the fingers of a blackened corpse, reaching towards the skies above. There were thousands of them, rising from the wreckage below at random angles. The metal of the pillars made the place a huge field of lightning rods, and as the bolts jumped between the pillars it made scanning nearly impossible. It was apparent now why the Hawk Warriors who accompanied the King were having difficulty finding him.

The head of Olebs guard, Brie Tollar, was coordinating the search. With the party having seniority and in a ship that would be better equipped to find the King, she flew to the ship and boarded to assist them.

Nitrane did a sensor sweep and detected nothing. The size of the city and the atmospheric conditions made it too difficult. Sparrow considered the information they had - Oleb's path, the downward trajectory that he was last seen on, and other factors, and calculated that the King was most likely in a small area a few hundred metres long that he carefully piloted the ship into.

Being much closer to the surface - and with Sparrow constantly having to adjust and trim the Harrier in he winds - meant that Nitrane finally got a reading. A small beacon that belonged to the King.

Oleb's Alive!
Landing very carefully, Sparrow put the travelers as close to the detected position as he dared. The party suited up and left the ship to search on foot. Soon they found the king, impaled on metal spikes in a small hollow. Hit breathing was laboured and Nitrane immediately knelt next to him and stabilised him as best she could with a medical kit.

‘Starcursed grav belt gave up on me,’ he muttered, ‘and I fell. I dropped my emergency medical supplies out there somewhere. Go fetch them, and I’ll make you a bloody Archduke of somewhere.’

The emergency medical pack turned out to contain a bottle of red wine.

‘Gah. I’m dying. That’s boring,’ muttered the king. ‘Listen, don’t let those vampires from the Scholar’s Tower get their claws into my carcass. I saw what they did to my boy Harrick. I don’t want to end up like the Duke of Albe, pulled out of stasis once a century to sign a form and take a dump. No, let me die. You, come up with some really good last worlds. I appoint thee Court Poet Extraordinary of Drinax, Bard of Sindal, and Grand High Tum-ti-tump of the Outrim Void.’ Oleb coughed up what appeared to be most of a lung. ‘Want to be Space Pope too, and absolve me of all my sins?’

As the wine – and the painkillers – took hold, he became less lucid, although it was hard to tell given Oleb’s usual sense of reality.

‘We can’t stay here. The Floating Palace... it’s a joke. A cage. A... stupid thing. We were dragons once. We will rule the stars again. I gave you a Letter of Marque when we started this campaign... of piracy. It’s still good. Bring back the Kingdom, and all will be forgiven.

‘Listen, listen lads, listen. Tell. Prince Harrick...no... he’s not right for it. Rao... she’ll be Queen, but she needs someone to... warn her... there’s too much of the Sindalian in her... warn her... no more...’

With that, Oleb lapsed into unconsciousness, and started to snore.

The party carefully took him into the ship and plugged him into the medical bay, which started injecting drugs and spraying his wounds with chemicals to disinfect and seal them.

To the palace
Taking off Sparrow headed the ship towards the palace, but as they got closer a flight of atmospheric flyers intercepted them and a voice came over the comms channel telling them to divert course to the main starport dock instead of the royal docks. The voice was Lord Wrax. He sounded worried. And there was gunfire audible in the background.

A coup had started.

To be continued.