5-April-2019

4 XP awarded

Session Notes:

The session began just after the Dog jumped in-system. Their inbound eta to Berertovsk colony was 4 hours. En route, they used passive scanners to search for the Raven. Mr. Misu's skill with sensors enabled them to not only spot the Raven, but also to note that its auxiliary craft had launched. Shortly after that launch, the boat disappeared, apparently after activating some sort of cloak.

 

After about an hour, the Raven docked with Berertovsk Highport. They decided to follow the Raven into the station. A vessel like the Dog has little legitimate business in a corporate owned system such as this. They chose resupply as their ostensible purpose.

 

Once docked, Mr. Misu was able to use his superlative hacking skills to obtain security feed of the Raven's docking bay. Station security prevented most weapons and armor, which included placing a “blocker” in the cell-port of Hallgrim's plasma weapon. Irving had more luck smuggling in a couple of minor weapons along with a slew of drugs.

 

Once inside, they tracked one member of the Raven's crew who had left the vessel. They identified her as Kae Akaki, the ship's engineer. She went to an odd place called Kenjak's Ladel, which server many types of soup as well as liquor. Ms. Akaki went to the bar and began drinking.

 

The party took turns watching her from the inside, while the rest lurked in an indoor park which provided a decent view of the entrance to Kenjak's Ladel. After 3 hours, Halgrimm decided to approach her.

 

Halgrimm tried a series of terrible pick-up lines which seemed somehow increasingly endearing to her. They shared a couple of drinks, and a handful of even worse lines, before she asked Halgrimm back to her ship. As a show of being tough, he removed the “blocker” on his cell-port and replaced the cell once they had passed through security.

 

Halgrimm then endured what he considered to be somewhat unpleasant sex; Kae seemed satisfied, however. Afterward she fell asleep. He drugged her to ensure she remained that way. He then scoped out what appeared to be the main living area, where he found a room with 4 nano-stasis chambers. He dragged Kae to one and put her into stasis.

 

He then found a trio of doors. The center, he reasoned, was the access port to the bridge. After trying the single button without success, he decided to blast a hole in it. Very shortly thereafter, a bot came to repair the damages.

 

Meanwhile, the crew of the Dog headed to the Raven. They breezed through security and decided to take the ship. After a brief battle – in which they disabled two heavy combat robots and removing the ship's AI physically – they had the ship. Without hesitation, they took off.

 

As they debated whether or not to go after the crew, the aux craft hailed them – it was returning from “a successful mission.”

That is where the session ended.

22-March-2019

5 XP awarded

Session Notes:

Still in the office, they decided that their best chance of figuring out where the Raven went would be to determine the nature of the cargo they took on. Naturally, there was no record of the type or nature of the cargo, merely how much duty had been collected. Their brilliant hacker was able to find the customs officer (Harvey Weewax) who collected port duties as well as the foreman (Marina Oginoya) of the crew which loaded the cargo. Even better: they managed to get the addresses for both. They decided to pursue Mr. Weewax first.

They spent some time scoping out his apartment building before talking to the robot doorman. They found out that Harvey spends a fair amount of time at a local dive bar called the Roxy Dumpling. They then proceeded to insult the bot, who somewhat impolitely asked them to leave and never come back.

At the Roxy Dumpling, they found Harvey, and approached him boldly. He proved to be quite helpful – for a price. He told them that the cargo had been guided missiles and mortars. The warheads carried nanoweapons of some kind.

Their next stop was to find an arms dealer who might know something about their cargo as well as who the buyer might be. The arms dealer was a dead end, so they called it quits for the day.

Wracking their brains, they came up with a few possible destinations for the nanoweapons. The candidate they thought the most likely was Berertovsk. It's owned by Mittelsohn, but there's a group of dissidents who have undertaken a few terrorist attacks against Mittelsohn facilities. It was a good possibility, but they wanted to be sure – going to the wrong system meant losing the trail entirely.

The days on Limossos are 14 hours, their respite brief. In the morning, they tracked down the freight loader foreman. They caught her as she was heading to work, and insisted that she speak with them. Marina approached the situation shrewdly. She took them to a coffee house and gave them until she finished the coffee they had bought for her. She managed to get more than a few dollars out of them. She, too, was a dead end.

Mostly.

The one piece of valuable intelligence she had was the name of the ground crewman who hooked up data and power to the ship. For just a few dollars more – making the day of the nameless, faceless mook of a technician – they were able to confirm that the Grandaughter Raven was, in fact, heading for Berertovsk.

Without delay, they returned to their aircar, returned to Paphos, where some comedy ensued over its return – they had violated the rental agreement by going to the Bazaar – then departed for Berertovsk.

The session ended just as they entered the Berertovsk system.

Notes: Merchants & Mauraders Session 2

8-March-2019

5 XP awarded

Session Notes:

After landing in an aircar parking garage, the party was confronted by a group of would-be aircarjackers. In a handful of seconds, all but one of the thugs were very dead. The lone survivor was aggressively interrogated.

The carjackers worked for a minor boss by the name of Jimmy deGrassi. It turned out that their relationship with deGrassi required them to kick 10% of their take up to him. Not wishing to deal with the carnage, the party moved the aircar.

They parked it in their hotel parking garage, which offered much better security. They rented two rooms, then set out for the spaceport. They decided to proceed as a group, recognizing that the Bazaar is a dangerous place and they don’t know the locals’ rules.

At the spaceport, they went to the administrative office. With a bit of social engineering, they were able to get the hacker into position to do what he’s best at. He found out that the port received $350,000 in duties (they usually take a 10% cut) and left the previous day after 4 days at the Bazaar.

The party is still in the starport admin office.

Note:

I apologize for the disjointed nature of the session. With my dad in the hospital ICU, it couldn't be helped. The only other choice was to not have a session, and I really wanted to give everyone the chance to test their characters in a gratuitous combat.

Notes: Merchants & Mauraders Session 1

22-Feb-19

5 xp awarded

Session notes:

Mr. Kord put together the team, making them partners in a mercenary startup. Their assets included military surplus and a small operational fund. They are charged with reclaiming the Granddaughter Raven and her crew. The Raven is a blockade runner, fast, well armed, and possessing a decent cargo capacity.

    The targets were part of a mercenary company under Mr. Kord’s patronage. They went rogue, and Mr. Kord wants have a discussion with them. Naturally he’s reclaiming their ship. The reward for recovering the ship is an straightforward exchange of the The Three Legged Dog of Norway (see below) for the Granddaughter Raven. In addition, there are bounties for the crew.

    After taking inventory of their available gear, the party set out for Limossos, a desert world belonging to Colm. Limossos is home to three settlements: Paphos, The Bazaar, and the Kibbutzem. Paphos is the Colm colony, sitting on the shore of one of the few lakes on Limossos.

    1000 miles away lie the Bazaar and the Kibbutzem, also located near water sources. The Bazaar is an unsanctioned pirate colony with shifting leadership and no real law. It is a place to find just about anything – for a price. It is thought that the Bazaar is a good place to start the search for the Granddaughter Raven and her crew.

    The Kibbutzem (plural of Kibbutz) lie 50 miles away from the Bazaar. It is actually a federation of several small, well defended colonies founded by a militant Jewish sect. They are the breadbasket of the Bazaar; in exchange, they get goods that they could not produce themselves.

    The company opted to land in Paphos and travel to the Bazaar via a rented aircar. The rental agency understandably forbids travel to the Bazaar. The party disabled the gps system and flew to the Bazaar. Parking in a structure, they disembarked, only to discover some would-be thieves heading their way...

The ship:

The ship the company was given is named The Three Legged Dog of Norway, registered on Colm.

It’s a Bronco class scout / picket, common with mercenary companies and smaller system defense fleets. The Dog, as it is often called as a shorthand for its much longer full name, is 37 years old. It has seen service in the both the Colm Navy and Colm Defense Fleet before being acquired by Mr. Kord.

    Toward the end of the war, the Navy and many system defense fleets divested themselves of their Broncos; prior to the war, 317 were constructed. The vast majority were commissioned for the Colm Navy, though 27 went to Colm’s system defense fleet and 38 were sold to other systems. Their intended role was long range patrol missions, especially picketing for capital ships.

    At the time, the largest warship in the Colm Navy was a light cruiser, which, together with 3 destroyers and 2 frigates, comprised the Navy’s fleet. The Broncos seemed ideal for this small peacetime fleet. The realities of war quickly rendered the Broncos obsolete.

    The initial battle of the war wiped out Colm’s fleet. 43 of the Broncos were destroyed in that engagement; the remainder saw action in a few skirmishes, but proved too vulnerable to fighters. Another 32 were lost before they were relegated to system defense fleets. The Navy retained a mere 12 for use as long range scouts.

    While Broncos are designed for long range missions, they’re not built for comfort. Their cramped bunkroom is designed for 9; it can be hot-bunked for up to 3 additional crew if necessary. Its 5 ton cargo bay can carry up to 2500 man/days of food, giving it a maximum independent operating duration of approximately 275 days.

    In practice, crews were rotated every 20 – 45 days, depending on the mission. Even 20 day rotations were hard on crews. A 45 day cruise was considered the maximum practical duration due to degraded operational efficiency. This proved convenient: 1 ton of food is sufficient for 55 days, leaving room in the cargo bay, which was often used for morale boosting recreational purposes.