Prison Pit
- Characters
- Prison Library
- Logs 1
- Logs 2
- Jailbreak
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Spaceport, Shelnat Island, Inversar, 14:08 local time 156/1106
 DM Note: Derek couldn't make it, which with Gripper in a coma was kind of serendipitous. |
If Lieutenant Barker hadn't been wearing his armour, the bullet would have burst his head like a bubble. As it was, it tore through, was deflected away from his brain to smash his jaw and exited through the faceplate. Stunned, Barker staggered to his knees as the trooper next to him turned to stare.
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The remote turret mounted on the roof of the Viator lander suddenly moved, spinning and elevating to line up with the incoming craft. It fired twice, two eye-gougingly bright fusion bolts tearing into the sky. One of the four incoming landers was squarely struck and exploded mid-air; another was clipped and spiralled sharply down to an emergency landing in a trail of smoke. Martha siezed the opportunity to spin and run for the hanger, where Manx had already started trying to push the doors shut. Once inside Martha threw her shoulder against it to help him and the heavy metal door rolled reassuringly shut between them and the battle. A burst of gauss bullets hammered against the thick steel, nearly deafening them but failing to drill through.
| DM Note: Danger Space: The danger space of a FGMP is 4.5m, roughly what I guessed at the table. Vehicle weapons don't have one listed but the damage for a RFY-14 is around double that of a FGMP so 10m or so - again about what we ended up with! Tactics Pool: Before a combat session begins, total the Tactics skill levels from among the participants on each side. This total the is tactical points pool. Tactical points form a special Roving DM on any combat task roll. An individual must specify the number of tactical points he intends to use as a DM before he proceeds with making the roll. Once a tactical point is expended, it is used up for the combat round. Any number of available tactical points may be used on a given roll. The tactical point pool is received anew each combat round. Any unused tactical points at the end of the combat round are lost and may not be carried over to the next round. |
Both flinched involuntarily as the two remaining Astrin dropships opened up with their fusion guns in reply. A bright flash appeared for an instant around the edges of the door, accompanied by a deafening explosion, the rattle of debris on the outside of the door and a nasty stench of burned plastic, metal and flesh. The Viator lander, its' crew, the two troopers aboard and the two using it as cover had been blown to bits, leaving a ten-metre blast circle.
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One of the surviving Viator troopers had happened to be looking at Barker when the bullet hit him. A gauss rifle makes almost no sound when fired, but when a shot man falls over in one direction an experienced soldier looks in the other for the cause. He turned, and walked cautiously towards that hanger Alice was sheltering in. Alice had rather planned to keep her head down until all this was over; she sighed, flicked her rifle to Full Auto and fired a burst. The man went down instantly, so she swung her aim and put the rest of the burst into the back of the Viator unit's support gunner, who was just preparing to fire at the incoming Astrin with his FGMP-14. The bullets tore through his armour, sending him tumbling - but also unfortunately through the power pack for his weapon mounted on his back. The controlled plasma reaction maintained and balanced within the unit went suddenly and enthusiastically out of control and a second massive energy blast vaporized him, his weapon, and two more men in his vicinity.
Martha and Manx were just sliding the hanger door shut when the explosion rocked the ground beneath their feet. Martha tapped the channel for the Tallis force and gasped, "Friendly forces in the hangars!", thinking that the explosion was further bombardment.
In fact, both surviving Astrins were down and Tallis corptroopers were spreading out, engaging the Viator men with the advantage of superior numbers. Across the pad, Lieutenant Barker was staggering to his feet, gurgling orders with the remnants of his mouth, unaware that his radio was smashed, when a Tallis trooper recognized his insignia and put him out of his misery. Deprived of his leadership and that of his sergeant - vaporized with the lander - his men reacted individually rather than as a unit. It became rapidly apparent that the battle was lost, and a few moments later Viator rifles were clattering to the concrete.
| DM Note: Martha has Looks 12 Charm 6, so as long as she didn't open her mouth and speak this was pretty much bound to work.... |
Martha broadcast on the Tallis channel. "Friendly forces in the hangers, we are coming out." A voice responded, "The area is secure, go ahead." Doors opened at both ends of the pad and the cons emerged cautiously, Manx even managing to persuade Anil Signhvi to accompany him. Martha marcheddeterminedly past the Tallis troops nearest the hangerto where the Viator trooper who'd shot at the doors lay, flat on his face. A Tallis trooper had a foot on his back and a rifle to his neck and looked up curiously as Martha approached. Pulling off her helmet, she shook out her hair and smiledalluringly, fluttering her eyelashes at the man to distract him until she was up nice and close - then slipped her finger swiftly through his trigger guard and fired his weapon. The man yelped as he danced back to avoid the bullets that whanged and zipped off the concrete, but the majority went straight into the Viator man's head and he died instantly. "That's for shooting at me!" said Martha with grim satisfaction. A voice rang across the pad; the Tallis officer. "Please put up your weapons, civilian, and be rescued!" She hoisted a single finger at him. "I don't care how rude you are to me, madam," he responded levelly, "as long as you don't kill anyone else!"
While this was happening, Alice had located Barker's body and searched it, retrieving the faked dataslug of the Terbium process as well as the cashcard containing the other half of the KCr100 payment, and pocketed them.
Three people and five robots emerged from the nearest Astrin, heading towards the cons.
The first was a stocky man in a suit topped with a flak jacket; he was talking to the others and Martha recognized Frank Stubbins' voice. The next, heeled by a small admin robot, was a sharp grey man in a sharp grey suit; Alan Crow, planetary head of Tallis' Legal Department. Behind him was a middle-aged woman in a white coat with a bun of grey hair and pebble glasses. Dr Olivia Cromwell had brought four nursing robots and at a word from her they scattered to start work on the fallen.
The surviving troops from the third Astrin arrived, and Force Commander Stevens told off ten of them to comandeer a grav truck from the carpark and deliver the portable fusion generator they'd brought to the island's power station. While this was happening the wounded had been loaded into the APC and the troopers were boarding.
"We want to go back to the hotel; our equipment's still there," said Alice. "That's one of our stops," said Stubbins, "we'll be picking up the people." Martha shook her head. "Looks a bit crowded in there," she said, "we'll take the speeder instead."
Paradise Hotel, Shelnat Island, Inversar, 15:42 local time 156/1106
The troopers were already loading the survivors into one of the APCs by the time the cons arrived. A few cheers greeted their arrival, though Dr Blake shot Alice a glower from where he and Dr Cromwell were deep in conversation. Manx' blonde, Arbelle, was waiting for him and was soon wrapped around him like a pair of sunglasses. Zugh the Vargr, who'd taken over the defences after the command crew left, Burkins, Scarrow and Benkin, were also there and pleased to be reunited with their crewmates.
As they stood in the forecourt, Rosalie Wallis was stretchered past. She was awake, and as she passed she called out; "Look after these people, Frank! If it wasn't for them, we'd all have been breakfast."
Central Complex, Shelnat Island, Inversar, 17:38 local time 156/1106
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By the time the cons reached the island's central complex, the power had been restored and the medical Astrin had lifted for the mainland. Some urgent questioning by Alice had established that the hospital they were heading for was a Tallis facility, not a local planetary one. Both Burkins and Gripper had gone with it; the nursebots had refused to accept that the dire state of the General's optical prosthetics was anything other than a medical situation.
The troopers had collected the unwounded survivors and (separately) the Viator prisoners, and politely but firmly disarmed them. Well looked-after, they were being interviewed methodically by Crow the laywer while his stolid little BG-L robot took full notes. Alice cornered him in a corridor between interviews, and suggested that this was far too early; "These people need sleep and a good meal, not interrogation," she said pointedly. Crow looked coolly at her. "The local authorities will be setting up their own investigation; things have happened here we can't hide," he said in his quiet, emotionless voice, "we have to start putting our ... facts ... together as fast as possible, and deciding who we can't afford to have them talk to." Martha looked at him in distaste, remembering the last time she'd seen a lawyer - at her own trial. "Why didn't you just nuke the island?" she asked sarcastically. There was complete sincerity in Crow's voice as he answered. "We considered it. But there is too much salvageable IP here." He turned away, leaving them reassessing their view of Tallis.
Central Complex, Shelnat Island, Inversar, 15:57 local time 158/1106
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Manx was no-where to be found. Using his unmatched ability to persuade people to do things, he hung on to Arba when the rest of the survivors were quarantined, snagged some bottles of liquor and half-decent food, and retreated to one of the upstairs rooms. The pair didn't reappear for two days, but despite this they showed little sign of having had much rest...
During this time, Martha and Alice had amused themselves by sitting as near Crow as they could get at a table decorated with a bottle of whiskey and a gauss pistol, furiously scribbling notes of their own and stage-whispering things like; "How do you spell damages?", "Is it Liability or Lieability?", "How many zeroes in a billion?" to try and annoy him.
The heavily-armed and armoured Tallis troops had tracked down the surviving Model Bo 'saur (which had taken refuge from the second Gilasaur in the lake) and the Gilasaur itself (which was lurking around the lake trying to get at the Bo). The Gilasaur they'd had to kill, but the Bo had been captured and returned to Lab Three. Two Vr's were still at large somewhere.
Wallis had returned to the island, her wounds healed by a stint in the regrowth tank. She and Stubbins had called a meeting with the cons, and the three remaining command crew sauntered into the conference room wondering what was afoot.
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Wallis had the slightly shaky air of the recently Regrown, but chaired the meeting anyway.
"Ladies and gentlemen, your assistance in the containment of the recent product malfunction is greatly - and personally! - appreciated. You have already recieved considerable renumeration from the sale of the Terbium Process, but as a thank-you for your actions at this time, all expenses for the procurement and licensing of the military grade battledress and its' accessories you requested will be covered by ourselves. Representatives of Instellarms are due in around a week." "We did discuss previously the idea of you taking on additional commissions from the company. One such has come up, and it has the advantage of hiding you very successfully from any agents of Maximillian Industries who may be seeking you. It's a simple covert pickup job with no danger or opposition, paying KCr100 each for up to 5 operatives. Interested?"
The cons glanced at each other and made cautious gestures of continued interest.
Wallis explained. "Eight months ago, a company belter named Harn Stensen working the Tirrya system stumbled across a jump torp. It was completely powered down and had drifted to a slightly magnetized ferrous asteroid which had masked its mass. Stensen only found it by blind chance, almost literally by falling over it. He hauled it back to his ship meaning to sell it but out of curiosity powered it up to find out what message it carried. The connectors were all non-standard and the data badly corrupted by time and radiation but some of the message was retrievable."
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"It turned out to be a distress signal from a misjumped merchant vessel, giving its location as somewhere in 1214 and its' cargo as 'grade one bioweapons material'. The details of the misjump were missing, but there were dates on the entries, though Stensen couldn't make hide nor hair of them. Not a surprise; 'AD 2523' is a Rule of Man date from the Second Imperium. The torp was more than three thousand years old. He brought it to us and was handsomly paid for it." Alice raised a mental eyebrow, thinking of Crow, but said nothing.
"No records show any ship passing through that location in space - reasonably enough, there's nothing there. No records show the recovery of any such cargo. We are reasonably certain that the remains of the Snow Goose are right where the torp says they are. We need someone to go in and get whatever is aboard without tipping off the Imperial authorities; it's quite possible that whatever is aboard is a High Justice crime to possess so this needs to be kept quiet."
"What we need you to do is Jump into the region the vessel is recorded as occupying, locate and recover the bioweapons material and/or any information about it, and Jump back to the nearest star system before bringing it back to us here."
There was a pause, and then the questions began.
The group asked for some time to consider, and Stubbins laughed. "Of course!" he said affably. "Your injured companions won't be back for several days and your ship and armour are yet to arrive," he said, "we wouldn't want you to go anywhere before that. The Snow Goose has waited three thousand years for you; another month won't kill anyone."
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| DM Note: With the advent of the iPad and similar, the Traveller Hand Computer is no longer science fiction, and pictures of them either look silly or like iPads.... |
Once back in their own quarters, Martha called up a PAN connection, and hooked Minion into the datanet, instructing it to search for anything relating to the Snow Goose or similar ships. Then she turned her attention to the dataslugs Dexter had been carrying. Perhaps unwisely, she simply jacked them into the room's terminal of the Tallis base computer. The results were immediate - and terrifying. Like an uncoiling whip, the Black IC virus trap set on the data slugs unpacked itself and slashed into the terminal session Martha was running. Only her natural paranoia which had led her to firewall the session prevented the entire computer from being affected; as it was, the session she was using was completely bollixed and she had no choice but to unplug the key and scram the whole session.
As things returned to normal, it occurred to her that she had Dexter's hand computer available. Once Alice dug it out, she jacked the slug into that. Instead of the chaos unleashed the first time, a simple red screen appeared:
ENTER PASSWORD TO DISABLE COUNTERMEASURES
Alice pondered... and then her mind turned to Dexter's double identities. His real name had been Dario Gabon. Shrugging, Martha tapped in GABON and the screen went green. Chuckling, Martha scrolled through the contents. Access codes for Viator systems, one for the Tallis systems on this island, mission information past and future. All possibly very useful....
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A little later, Alice found Rosalie Wallis walking in a corridor and fell in next to her. "Off the record," she said, "and just between us, we feel considerable animosity towards Viator - I imagine you do too?" Wallis nodded without saying anything. "How would you like us to fzck them, were we - for example - able to lay hands on security codes that would lay them wide open?" Wallis looked at her, and then nodded slowly. "That sounds... appealing," she said. "It sounds like revenge, baby!" said Alice.
Tallis Private Hospital, Beidness, Inversar, 21:23 local time 157/1106
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Dr Olivia Cromwell gazed down at the patient. He'd asked for the metal - his type always did, despite the social stigma of cyborging - and the operations seemed to have gone well. His registered Tallis credit rating had covered everything he'd asked for, surprisingly. The gleaming articulated arm and hand lay at his side, identical in shape and size to his natural one, ready for the synthetic skin to be layered over the outside, the tiny tell-tale lights blinking green to indicate a good strong neural feed. There was no reason for her to be worried. And yet, something in the way it had gone together had seemed odd... unusual. She couldn't put a finger on it, but it troubled her. Shrugging, she left his room to go check on the old boy with the new eyes. Whatever it was, she was gloomily sure he'd get himself killed before it gave him any trouble anyway.
Session Date: 24th August 2011 (x/-2507 Imperial) |
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