Sand Pit - Part 1

 

While the rest of the Skylark’s crew sleep back at the starport, halfway around the world Kipenzi and Fig find a secret pirate base and capture a ship.

This note is from our September 11th 2016 session and was mostly written by Carl and Kay with additional material provided by myself. Since we are now scattered around the country, we used Roll20’s virtual tabletop to connect with each other.

Continued from: ANNIC NOVA, Part 3

Date: 134-1106 Imperial.

Location: The planet Keng in the Regina Subsector.

As our scene opens, Kipenzi and Fig are at the entry of a starship hanger hidden behind a hologram in the side of a canyon wall. They are looking in at a 400-ton ship and some cargo containers, and can see an opening at the back of the area, well lighted and big enough to drive a truck through.

They took a quick inventory of the items they looted from the pirates they’d killed earlier.

Things grabbed:

• All of the pirate’s ID.
• Four communicators - we will each monitor one to assess the reinforcement arrival speed.
• A taser (one for him).
• A multi-tool.
• One gold Vargr coin.
• One key card.
• A mechanical lock key
• Someone’s air car license.

We got pictures of their faces on our button cams, to compare to the ID.

Each of them had a shotgun, I took one and the shells as well as the sword in case there's anyone on board the ship and silent killing is required.

We both were carrying our laser rifles, so we brought those with us to check out the fallen pirates. Kipenzi ALWAYS carries her gauss pistol unless local laws indicate that someone was going to search her.

We also brought our grav belts, helping us carry big stuff as needed.

As we approached the ship, one of the pirate comm units vibrated. There was a message: “SHOEUL: Did you find anything yet?”

We typed back: "Not yet, still looking".

We figured there was at least one person still in the cave/hangar, checking with the search team.

Another message: “SHOEUL: Be back in 20 Min, Will be sending out an all hands and recalling the crew. May have to chase them down with the ship.”

Kipenzi typed back: “OK”

Fig extended his bugout time to 18 minutes from receiving that call.

Going around the ship we noticed a sliding door that would close off that truck-wide space and a small truck is parked near it.

We went over and looked at the sliding door. It is standing open that has a lock that was burned through with a torch and rust on the door. So we can't close it to prevent any one from coming at us from the tunnel at least not without loud sounds.

Looking through the door, there's a long tunnel with lighting fixtures that are dark, and newer installed lights providing the illumination. The tunnel goes 200+ meters in to a side opening, and a ways beyond that, maybe 1/4 mile. This looks like it was possibly an old installation that was repurposed.

Using the cargo containers as cover, we checked out the ship’s exterior. It is painted mostly red and grey and looks to be about 400 tons. It appears to be well armed with four triple laser turrets. The large cargo bay doors at the rear of the ship are closed and there are four hatches, one on each side and two on the bottom.

Kipenzi and Fig go to the probable crew access on the ship where a ladder leads up to an iris valve the hatch is not locked and they go inside. There is some power thing running, maybe some kind of machinery, but they could not identify it.

Once the inside airlock door is open they find the sound is music. Very loud and obscene. ARGH.

Fig entered a hall that had a crew common area to the right. One crew member was sitting at the table with his feet up. Total surprise that Fig showed up.

Fig shot him, he went down. Kipenzi and Fig continued clearing the ship, leaving the music on for background cover. Inattentive pirate with crappy music got what he deserved...

The cargo hold was empty. They find another person at gunnery console off the hallway to the cargo hold.

He went for his gun but Kipenzi shot first.

The console is hot, ready to fire. Kipenzi and Fig were lucky he didn't see them walking around outside.

Kipenzi powers down the console, just to be safe.

A person came out of the engine room that Fig had looked at earlier, but hadn’t searched. Fig had his back turned to watch for folks coming from uncleared areas when the door opened behind him.

Seeing the expression on Kipenzi’s face as she brought her gun to bear, Fig ducked down behind a big table, as Kipenzi shot the pirate right through the left, note left, eyeball.

Checking more doors, and now FULLY clearing the rooms...

“When we came onto the ship at the level of the iris hatch and crew common room, we went to the rear of the ship first and cleared the rooms from the cargo hold back to the common room. When we got back to that point, Fig locked the air locks so no one could come aboard behind us.” - Kipenzi

Many doors were locked, they checked out all possible in a reasonable time. Time was ticking...

The nameplate on the door across from the ship’s bridge said “Captain Jaspar Shoeul”.

Opening the door to the bridge, we see someone dressed kinda captain-y. Dead in two shots, Kipenzi and Fig grabbed his ID and more key cards.

Hevvekii is the ship’s name.

Looked quickly around the bridge (log, flight records, crew list). Hoping to call the Skylark or send out a distress call for Keng system defense.

Good news on crew list, the Hevvekii apparently has a 10-person crew, and we've already shot and killed eight, including the Captain, so only 2 left and they are out somewhere, according to the text message from Shoeul.

The bad news is this ship doesn't have an air/raft we could borrow.

Kipenzi gets on general planet comm net, calling the Skylark first.

Sam, who is on the early morning watch, comes online to say “hi, whassup?”

Kipenzi briefs him on our situation.

We ask Sam to check with a local rent-a-lawyer and see what the ramifications are.

On a high law world like this one we probably want to not get involved in any legal stuff. Shooting a bunch of pirates with illegal weapons would fall into that category.

Kipenzi said, “I am pretty sure any investigations into this mess would keep us here for a year or longer when we need to be somewhere else.”

We also asked him to find out where Keng system defense ships are (hopefully it wasn't them that shot at us) .

Maybe the retired scout fellow would be better than calling directly to system defense.

Found the ship's log.

Checking internal sensors shows no one else on the ship.

We checked the other doors on the ship, using the access cards, to see what is what, and check for ID in crew cabins.

We turn off the blasted music. Thankfully...

Looked at the comm logs, it looks like the ground radar detected the air raft and shot at us with ground based turrets. So there are NOT two other ships out there. We still don't know who is controlling the ground turrets, though. And it's now clear that this hanger is part of a larger installation, that includes a second hanger, but no other ship is mentioned as being in the base at this time.

The Comm Center controlled the turrets that shot at us. They told this ship that an air/raft was coming and the ship shot us down through the hologram. The log mentioned that the base belongs to “The Black Comet” organization. Definitely not the Imperial Keng Navy.

The logs show indications that they have some captives held at this time. It also indicates that there are quite a few ground personnel at the base.

We inform Sam of all of this and he's going to wake up Leon & Medicus now - only about 10 minutes before breakfast anyway.

Continued in Sand Pit - Part 2.

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, The Bloodwell and ANNIC NOVA