Session 1: Investigating the MSV Leslie

Our story begins, as so many like it, with a job.  On the planet of Megiddo, agents representing a mid-level corporate executive approach the characters offering a fair sum of money for a simple recovery job.  It seems that their boss had sent for his children to join him and had arranged passage for them on a small but reputable independent transport; the MSV Leslie.

Now it seems that something is wrong.  The transport is ten days overdue and no word as to why.  Seeing the opportunity for an easy paycheck, the characters agree to the job with only minor haggling.  Once they divide the advance and take on supplies and new equipment, they jump into their ship and begin tracking the course of the Leslie.

Captain Saul's experience commanding a frigate in the Orion Navy serves them well and he is able to trace the target to a small, uninhabited star system using a combination of deductive reasoning, intelligence analysis, and quantum emissions tracking.  Once the ship is in view Colonel Strong orders a full scan with all available instruments.  This reveals a derelict, adrift in space.  It appears that there are only minimal power readings, enough to maintain life support and some ancillary systems, but not for propulsion.  Making a full sweep the party also notices that one of the two main cargo hatches is unsecured, meaning that at least part of the cargo bay is open to space.

This promotional capture shows an unnamed sister ship of the Leslie,
These hybrid transport ships were a common sight in human space.

Wanting more information, Colonel Strong tasks Hetzer with attempting to interface with the transports computer system.  Using their communications suite to establish a connection, Hetzer begins searching for relevant information.  The first thing that is determined is that the Leslie was the victim of some form of piracy.  The ships internal security system is active and armed, and the computer is in lock down.  After several failed attempts to break the encryption on the official ships logs, Mr. Forrester suggestions attempting to subvert one of the security drones and using it for remote reconnaissance.

Stein easily broke the simple security protocols on the drones and assumed control of one. Viewing the interior of the ship confirmed that their had been some kind of attack. The interior showed signs of gunfire damage and there were still a few bodies in the open, including one wearing cobbled-together body armor.  Looking closer at the pirate, the party noticed a few things; he was wearing cheap gear that could be had anywhere but it was marked with some kind of insignia, a red circle and slash symbol, the injuries that killed him were not inflicted by modern weapons but instead looked like the aftermath of an animal attack, and finally, there was no blood on or around the body despite the fact that there was severe lacerations and tissue trauma to the body.

While the players were digesting these facts, the security drones aural sensors detected activity in one of the nearby passenger areas.  Hetzer moved the drone to investigate but as soon as he maneuvered it through the hatch something hit the drone and knocked it out. 

The players looked at the empty screen in apprehension, but they knew that they needed to go investigate, if they couldn't rescue the children at least they could find out if they were alive or dead.  Colonel Strong ordered Captain Saul to move in close to the open cargo hatch and the boarding party would do an EVA jump across.


Once aboard the derelict transport, the party gathered in the number six cargo hold to discuss their search plans when they came under fire.  Responding quickly the players immediately scattered and dove for cover.  Quickly assessing the situation, they realized the fire was coming from the front of the bay near the access hatch leading deeper into the ships interior.  Hetzer and most of the group set up a base of fire while Mr. Forrester positioned himself to provide rear security and Colonel Strong climbed up over some shipping crates to flank the attacker.  Once up above the Colonel power jumped over the barricade and saw the shooter, another one of the ships drones that had been damaged in the previous attack.  Not wanting to waste time Strong used his suits enhanced strength to disable the drone in short order.



Recovered video from the ships security log shows that the
drones were hopelessly outgunned by the boarders.

The immediate danger having passed, the group decided to split up.  Mr Forrester, ship's medic Merrill, and Fang, the Ganjuko scout, decided to move up through the auxiliary passages into the passenger areas, while Colonel Strong, the cyborg infiltrator Tobey, and Hetzer moved up the ships main corridor towards the bridge. 

Strong's group had an easy time making progress through the ships broad main corridor, this was a common feature on transport ships as it allowed easy transfer of cargo from bay to bay or to different loading points.  The three moved cautiously forward, knowing that their might be more security drones or other threats.  As they approached the last set of hatches leading up into the crew spaces, they found out what had knocked out their re-purposed drones.  Several unknown beings leapt from concealment and attacked, they were approximately the size of a very large dog, with four powerful legs.  They did not appear to have discernable necks but their massive jaws were built right into their torso.  Short, thick eye stalks gave them an unimpeded field of vision and their overdeveloped musculature propelled them towards the three men at alarming speed. 

Hetzer immediately opened fire with his submachinegun, but the weapons small-caliber rounds had little effect on the rampaging alien creatures.  Tobey took up a stable position and drew a bead on one of the rapidly advancing creatures.  He cleared his mind of the stress and noise around him, breathed in slowly and very gently depressed the trigger.  The powerful electromagnets in his massive rifle accelerated a slug of dense ferrous metal to a speed best expressed as a percentage of light in an instant. The round impacted the snarling alien in the torso, just behind the front leg and expended almost all of its energy instantly.  The front two-thirds of the creature simply ceased to exist and the remaining kinetic energy was enough to throw the rest of the carcass back five full meters.

Meanwhile Col. Strong set his feet and brought his assault cannon to bear, unfortunately this time almost too much time and he only managed to fire at his target as it pounced on him.  He had loaded non-lethal tangler rounds in case they had needed to take prisoners, the high-tech adhesive slurry burst on the chest of the creature but could not arrest it's forward motion, it slammed into his armored chest plate with the force of a freight hauler, man and beast went down in a heap. 

The tangler rounds worked as advertised and the alien was immobilized, but it was stuck to the front of the colonel's armor! Unable to reach up and snap its massive jaws on the man, the alien opened its mouth and a squirt of thick, ropey fluid shot out, splashing against the Col.'s faceplate, which immediately begin to bubble and smoke.  The tough synthetic material was sloughing out at an alarming rate and the Col. felt a twinge of fear.  Knowing he couldn't use his main weapon in such close-quarters, he dropped the heavy weapons, closed his arms tight around the creature and began to squeeze.  The man, with his exo-enhanced muscles managed to crush the life from the beast before it was able to critically damage his suit.  Looking around he saw that his two companions had managed to deal with the other two by working as a team.  The immediate danger over, he reached down to his web gear for the spray can of solvent, the lifeless body of the ferocious alien still dangling from his chest plate.

In the meantime, the other three characters were crawling through the auxiliary shafts.  Fang had his mask off and was cautiously sniffing the air.  He was confused by the scents he was picking up, their was the normal ships smells of lubricant, metal, and gym socks, plus a layer of human fire and gun smoke, but there was also something else.  A sickly-sweet rancid smell that he had never encountered before but nevertheless caused his hackles to raise.

As they proceeded through the tunnels, the smell grew stronger, so much so that even the humans began to notice it.  Growing increasingly nervous, they switched on their hyper spectral vision systems to scan for possible threats.  As they came around a corner they were confronted with a sight they were unprepared for.  The source of the overwhelming smell was a thick layer of bloody tissue laying on the ground.  The entire floor of the tunnel was covered by the thick greasy mat of flesh. Recognizing the opportunity, Doc' Merrill took a sample for later analysis, but warnings from their millimeter-band radar systems indicated that their was movement in the ducts ahead.  The three prudently decided to go back and follow the other team down the main corridor.  After contacting them by radio, the party decided to regroup near the personnel hatches near the front of the ship.

Reunited again, the party moved slowly into the inhabited portion of the ship, as they did they saw signs of the evidence of the pirate attack firsthand.  Moving immediately towards the bridge area, they were stopped by a large security hatch.  Hetzer's hacking skills came in handy again as he deftly bypassed the lockout and opened the portal.  It was at this time that the boarding party received a transmission from Captain Saul back on their ship.

"Go ahead Captain." said Col. Strong.

"Sir, we've got a contact inbound.  headed straight for us, no mistaking the trajectory,"

"How long 'til intercept?"

"Less than an hour, we were lucky to spot them at all, their under tight Em Con and their coming in with the sun at their back."

"Understood, we'll be back aboard in ten minutes. Don't let on that you've seen them yet, let's try to keep them guessing."

"Roger that, Saul out."

"Ok people, we've got ten minutes to get what we need and get out, there's another ship inbound, could be the pirates coming back for more."

The bridge of an independent star ship is first and foremost designed to be
functional, that being the case they are often cramped and uncomfortable.



The party stepped into the bridge area, it was empty save for a single human body seated at the master's console.  Col. Strong and Hetzer moved to the captains station and began extracting what data they could.  Meanwhile the Tobey and Mr Forrester moved down the angled walkway into the crew quarters.  A ship this size needed a crew of about ten, half of them engineering and maintenance, but since The Leslie had passengers they needed a much larger crew to handle their needs and clean up after them. The chief engineer and his ratings would bunk down abaft, near the engine spaces, but the rest of the crew, including the Captain and watch-standing officers would live in the five compartments attached to the command section.  They opened the door to begin searching the Captains cabin.

Up on the bridge, Strong and Stein had found a video feed of the last moments of the attack from the bridge cam.  They say a group of pirates breach the hatch and incapacitate the crew.  The Captain managed to get in a lucky shot and take out one of the attackers.  After the firing was over, the pirate leader brutally interrogated the Captain regarding any money or valuables stored aboard.  Whatever had happened, it seemed that the attack was not specifically targeted against the children, but was a simple snatch and grab by desperate raiders.

Down below, Mr. Forrester had found an encrypted copy of the ship's manifest.  He noticed a strange detail that caught his eye and gnawed at the back of his mind.  He soon realized that there were half a dozen crates in number four hold labelled as carrying fragile biological cargo held in stasis.  From what they had already gathered about the attack, a brief interruption in the power grid had occurred, this might have allowed whatever was being held to escape into the ship.  The thing that worried Forrester was that he recognized the invoice code of the originator of the cargo; Bio-Pharm.

Having finished cleaning out the master's console, Hetzer brought up a complete passenger manifest, from which they learned that two children matching the descriptions of their targets had been travelling with a chaperon in on of the aft most cabins.  They moved out immediately.

On the way aft, they passed the body of the pirate, examining the insignia up close they realized they had seen it before, on Megiddo there was a man named Josys Danel who operated as a sort of fence and coordinator for smugglers and pirates, this was one of the crews that he worked with.

A radio call interrupted the revelation.

"Go ahead Captain." said Col. Strong.

"Sir, we're in trouble, I think they're on to us."

"Explain."

"They lit off their drives and their coming in full bore, they won't be able to stop in time to make rendezvous, but they will be able to make a close pass in eleven minutes."

"Shit, we're almost out.  Time to engagement range?"

"We're in standard envelope now sir, but I moved us behind the transport when they sped up."

"Good job Captain, we're on the move."

"Ok people, situation's changed, we need to pick up what we can and get out ASAP."

The party sprinted down the corridor to the section where the children had stayed, when they entered the cabin all they found was a dead man.  They quickly tossed the room but found nothing to indicate the fate of the children.  Fang stepped in to examine the dead man, he smelled strange, artificial somehow. 

"This one is enhanced.  He has many changes." he said in his guttural accent.

Tobey leaned over to check, "he's right, I see extensive modifications.  Looks like a bodyguard package, high-end stuff too."

"Does that include optics?" asked Forrester.

"Yeah, usually."

"Bring him, we might be able to recover some of his sensory memory if his cortex implant is intact."

The Tobey and Hetzer hoisted the body up and carried it out the door between them.

Col. Strong called out to the ship; "Captain, we're exiting the ship now at the number eight passenger lock, can we reach you from there?"

"Yes Col., you'll have a straight jump across, I'll have the airlock open for you.  But we still have won't be able to make a break for it without exposing ourselves to fire."

"Don't worry, I think I've got a plan."

Once the party returned to their ship they deposited the body in the hold and Hetzer rushed to the closest console.  He quickly re-established his connection to the transports computer and ordered it to engage it's drives, feeding it the course information he was given by Captain Saul.  Once the transport was underway they engaged their own engines in a mad dash for for the the outer system so they could FTL out.

Their was an endless moment of tension, if the calculations were correct, then the pursuing ship would need to break off and chase down the transport, otherwise it would fall into the systems primary and burn up.  As the seconds counted off the party began to fear the worst, but then the exultant call from the bridge came through, the other ship had altered course to intercept the transport, leaving them free to escape.

Col' Strong ordered Captain Saul and his people to gather whatever information they could about the other ship to see if they could identify it, meanwhile the players set about extracting what information they could from the dead cyborg. 

Not having to worry about damage to the host, they were able to find the mans stored implant memory and get a playback of his last moments of life.  There on the screen they saw the children they were after, huddled together in fear.  Suddenly the door burst open and there was a brief exchange of gunfire.  The chaperon was hit, his firing arm shattered,  but he'd taken down two of the raiders.  The largest of the pirates stepped forward, a cruel grin on his face.

"Don't do this, you have no idea who you're messing with." said the chaperon, his teeth clenched in agony.

"Do what mate, this is just a payday." replied the pirate, as he placed the barrel of his weapon at the man's neck and killed him in cold blood.



The last thing the chaperon ever saw.

"No idea who you think you were, but your kids are gonna be worth a mint back on Catalan."