The Bloodwell - Part 2

The Crew of the Skylark 2 continues their investigation of the destruction of a ship, its passengers and crew.

This note is from our March 2016 session and was mostly written by Carl and Kay with additional material provided by myself.

Continued from: The Bloodwell - Part 1.

Date: 086-1106 Imperial.

Location: The Planet Dentus in the Regina Subsector

After investigating the wreckage of the Bloodwell, we headed down to the starport.

Things that we knew needed further information and investigation:

1. The passengers, all of whom were in an extended family – were they the target?
2. There was a shipping crate from which someone/something had broken out – Labeling indicated it was owned/shipped by Enterprise Brokers. Who are they?
3. Single point of failure for the communications and transponder – WTF?
4. Nuking a ship just to stop it – can that possibly be the normal response?

The Imperial Scout Service runs the starport on Dentus, and we hoped that they were not as lame as the folks on Jesedipere had been, although a little bit of our thinking leaned toward bribery if they were.

Landing normally, and updating the news reports and local/system information as we always do, we read a news release from 044-1106:

TNS – The Regina Port Authority and Regina Public Order Commission jointly announced today that they had broken up an Ancient artifact smuggling ring. The ring operated out of a warehouse in the Regina High Port L2 Complex where they stored unregistered Ancient artifacts awaiting transfer to ships heading outsystem.

According to the announcement, authorities claim the operation led to the recovery of at least 90 artifacts with a value in the hundreds MCr and charges for 22 people, three of whom still remain at large.

Port inspectors were led to the warehouse after detecting a distinctive radiation signature. According to Inspector Mazun Urkenim, most Ancient artifacts are either naturally inert or have long since succumbed to the effects of time. On the other hand, a small fraction of them are still active and while we have no idea how their power supply works, we can detect its radiation signature with a specially designed scanner.

The Imperium has strict laws controlling traffic in artifacts. Artifacts are property of the Imperium and cannot be legally sold unless licensed and registered.

According to Professor Iaros Ujinka with the University of Regina, “The process of registration allows the Imperial authorities to analyze each item, possibly learning new technologies that benefit the Imperium on the whole, not just some rich collector."

We knew it is verboten to have any Ancient Artifacts, but seeing it in print jogged our collective memory that “oh yeah, we got some lifter platforms on Fulacin – maybe we should check them out...” DOH !

We decided at this point to seriously investigate those things as soon as Sam got the cargo hold cleared and we had space to work.

As usual for our first evening in a new place, we went bar hopping in the local startown. One place we checked out was a bar named the Kinunir, apparently named after the ship class. As we stepped into the bar, it got real quiet and everyone looked at us. The bartender said “This is a Navy bar, Trader”. We pushed Leon, who is ex-navy to the front of our group so he could show off his tattoos.

There were some of the Adamdun crew here at the bar. A drunk marine says that the Adamdun was tipped off that there was a pirate ship in the neighborhood. As there was the Bloodwell at the point they were looking for one, and there have been Vargr corsairs spotted in the area.- well. Two plus two equaled “shoot first”. The Navy is blaming the Scout Service; everyone else is blaming the Navy.

This report, combined with the transponder and communications failure of the Bloodwell seems to have been the main reason the ship was nuked.

Apparently there’s been very bad blood locally over this incident. The family onboard was well known and liked. A newspaper headline from the time screamed “NAVY SCREWUP KILLS 3 GENERATIONS”; and the Bloodwell came through Dentus every 2 months, so the crew was known as well.

The Navy people, however, did admit that the Scout Service here was normally pretty good and reliable.

However, the consensus (overwhelming) from the people we talked with/listened to was that the crew, and Captain Natalya Scofield were diligent and good performers. No grumbling from anyone about them.

The Scout Service was doing an investigation of the source of the report in addition to the Navy’s investigation into the incident. Just one more thing we needed to track down as best possible.

087-1106
We learned that the passengers were all headed to Efate, apparently the father got a new job with Ling Standard Products, he was a rising star and he wanted to take all of his family with him. We also learned the location of the warehouse in which the cargo and materials from the Bloodwell were housed.

We got the address of Enterprise Brokers, but when Kipenzi and Leon tried to visit, they were closed and apparently abandoned.

Asking around the area, they learned that Enterprise Brokers closed shortly after the Bloodwell incident, and cleared out using a local moving company – The Removal Guys.

Visiting the movers, Kipenzi and Leon learned where the Enterprise Brokers materials were taken, a warehouse near where the Bloodwell salvage was located. Makes sense, the warehouse district. Kipenzi: “Also, the Scout Service rents a block of warehouses here and they patrol the area in air rafts.”

At the Enterprise Brokers warehouse, Kipenzi and Leon found it closed up with no sign of occupation. People nearby said it had been weeks since anyone saw activity around it.

The Scout Service has regular patrols, including airborne. Between the two on the ground and the sensors on the Skylark, we got a pretty good idea of their route, and their sensor identification… just in case… not that midnight madness crossed our minds…. No siree, not us.

088-1106
We received a blind CC email, from the local Oberlindes office. It was a report that stated that all systems on the Bloodwell were operating normally until shortly before the Navy challenge and attack.

Looking closely at the footage we recorded on the Bloodwell, the incident looked more and more like tampering. Still don’t know why, but we persevered.

Sam, doing his broker thing, learned that Enterprise Brokers did little trading and very little advertising. This made us even more suspicious, and determined to get to the bottom of that mystery at the very least.

089-1106
Experimenting with the Fulacin lifters, we were unable to detect any emissions from them but did learn that

THEY TELEPORT THINGS

Well, that was a surprise… Loading one into the air raft, we determined that they have a range of about 60 miles/100 km, decreasing sharply as any altitude difference between them is applied. Leon came up with the idea that it’s affected by the gravity well and we should try it out in space to see if it becomes a sphere.

Further testing was needed but Medicus put some bacteria in a petri dish through the process, and nothing was visibly damaged.

Another BCC came in from Oberlindes – the Bloodwell voice recorder was normal from takeoff until shortly before the Navy intercept. It then went to nothing but static.

090-1106
Checking the cargo manifest, and Bloodwell’s history, we found that Lanthanum ore was a normal part of their comings and goings. Piracy was still on the table.

The families on board, DeCosta and extended, were enroute to Efate for a new job as an executive of some kind with Ling Standard Products. Kipenzi: “They are heavy into mining, electronics and other suspiciously related activities.”

Looking into Enterprise Brokers a little more, Leon learned that the company was set up about 6 months earlier by Harry Liimiri. He put down 100K Credits and took out a 10 year lease. Sounds like he was serious for the long term, or at least wanted to appear so. At initial formation of the company, he had TWO high tech admin robots.

Kipenzi: “He arrived from Aramis, possibly a real Vemene/Tukera connection but tenuous.”

091-1106
Leon, Medicus and Sam went out for… wait for it… Midnight Madness.

Air rafting over to near the Enterprise Brokers’ warehouse, and grav belting to the roof, they accessed the place via a skylight. Before entering they checked the place over and the place seemed deserted.

In fact, it was empty, with a pile of mail at the delivery chute. One noteworthy piece was a delivery receipt from Delta Tech LLC – for several tons of locally produced electronics. The receipt predated the Bloodwell departure.

The Scout warehouse holding the Bloodwell cargo was alarmed, and wisely the three did not try to intrude. They were able to look through the skylights and count the crates of ore – it looked like none was missing. That didn’t eliminate piracy as the motive, but did put it on a back burner.

The ship’s boat and air raft were present, making the robot as a perpetrator seem more likely than a person. People rarely dissolve in a puddle of various metals.

092-1106
Fig and Medicus made some rounds of the Scouts, the spaceport, and many private security services or companies with video cameras. Mentioning that we were looking into the incident, and hoping to at least get an idea of who may have been responsible – along with a liberal amount of cash outlay – got us some good video. One of them was a clear picture of Harry Liimiri boarding a departing ship. He had only ONE of the high tech robots that Enterprise Brokers had brought in to start their ‘work’. Meaning that the other robot was – missing - and probably the puddle of metal in the Bloodwell’s cargo hold.

He took off for Beck’s World. Interestingly enough, Beck’s has an Ancient Site… If we chose to try and follow Harry, we considered asking the Ancient researchers about anything they know about the ‘detect ability’ of Ancient thingies…

Liimiri’s face goes into our ‘look at this daily, DO NOT FAIL TO RECOGNIZE’ file.

Our report to Oberlindes was not as satisfying as we had hoped. We cannot say whether the incident was targeting the people or the ship (Fig, of course, KNOWS it was Tukera at the heart of the issue).

We tentatively ruled out piracy, since going dead communications that early would have been silly on their part, and no evidence of any people getting off the ship had been found.

However, says Kip, it may be that it was intended piracy and the original plan would have been to cut the communications before having the robot take over the ship prior to the pirates meeting it in space and unloading the lanthanum ore (580 tons), but the Navy had been tipped off to pirates in the area, and hit the wrong ship instead. If this scenario was true, then the robot had a second backup plan that involved cutting the comm when it was hailed by the Navy and self-destructing. We did learn that the anonymous tip was phoned in by a male in the warehouse district near EB, and that he had a slight accent “trailing accent” i.e. Deneb or Corridor Sector.

The other possible scenarios were: 1) the new Ling executive and/or his family were targets (no motive known), 2) the ship’s crew were targeted (no motive known).

The loading document said that EB had shipped high tech consumer electronics, but it was just the locally produced stuff.

Kipenzi: “Actually the suspicious thing was that the manifest said high tech products being shipped to Efate for repairs, but we found locally produced electronic equipment, new.”

We are pretty sure Harry (probably as accurate a name as Jellica Chan was) was instrumental in the disaster, for whatever underlying reason. Especially the timing: Enterprise Brokers arrived 6 months ago, 2 months before the Bloodwell incident, with several tons of office equipment and two admin robots. Then leaves one week after the Bloodwell incident with several tons of office equipment and one robot. His shipment on the Bloodwell said high tech equipment being sent to Efate for repairs but the actual shipment he bought was local tech, new.

Overall, we were disappointed at not finding out more information. Pursuing Harry, in the absence of any better idea, seems like the best thing to do. Learning more about Ancient sites and stuff would not hurt us even a little bit, as well. We determined he took off in the Lusty Wench, no doubt of Sword Worlds registry, headed for Beck’s World and then on to Shionthy (red zone, antimatter asteroid belt from the Ancient War) and then to Keng. The Lusty Wench was at Kinorb when we were (Fig keeps updating our database on other ships’ transits), a 200 ton, 3-jump ship.

Continued in Beck’s World.

See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, Prison Planet, Leedor on Aramis, First Call at Zilla, Trade War.