Leedor on Aramis, Conclusion

 

The Travellers clean up some loose ends, prepare to leave Aramis and find themselves lost in hyperspace.

This note is from the May 4, 2014 session and was mostly written by Carl with additions from Kay and I. I did the warehouse rendering using Sketchup and Kerkythea. The map is from travellermap.com.

Continued from: Leedor on Aramis, Part 2.

Location: In the City of Leedor on the planet Aramis in the Aramis Subsector.

Imperial Date: 125-1104.

With a second brooch that has a compartment for additional recorder/locator/transmitter, the basic plan at that time was to jump to Junidy as efficiently as possible and get it turned in to Tukera, and see what happens.

We had long and long discussions on the overall intent, balancing several things:

1. The fact that the only time before we found a hidden message we took it directly to the Navy.
2. Our overall wish to not be in the spotlight.
3. We want to get the information to the people who need it.
4. Gvoudzon wants to keep the brooch, and since he was critical to Kipenzi’s survival some years ago, we want that too.
5. We haven’t forgotten the completely unprecedented crash of the Mammoth, a Hercules class ship which had two huge weapons on board.
   

Medicus obtained the flight path of the Mammoth (at least we thought so at that time) from point of origin at Regina, with arrival and departure dates at the systems en-route. In the process of discussing and research we learned that the weapons were transferred from the Titan (ship that came from Regina originally) to the Mammoth at Zila, only three jumps away from Aramis.

Kipenzi and Gvoudzon had served on Hercules class ships and knew that the Jump-1 ship would have needed interim refueling in the dead spaces. They remembered similar instances of company refueling points at super secret locations. With that in mind, the timing of the jumps made good sense, with little unaccounted for.

We were all baffled at what might have happened other than sabotage, and we theorized that the dictatorship on Pysadi was a possible source, but needed more actual information. Kipenzi got in touch with one of her friends from the freighter days, Annice Kasavubu. They spoke at some length, and learned that the Mammoth crew were doing OK. The Navy, Tukera, and a lot of lawyers were all "investigating", and she felt that Jelika Chan - the Mammoth's chief engineer - was going to be blamed for the whole thing.

Annice suggested they go and talk with some of the actual crew, recommending Brendan Kivlochan. He was the XO on the Mammoth on her last flight.

She also suggested staying away from the museum area because of an intrusion into the area's life support. Oh, my, that was faster than we were hoping for..... She says they haven’t made it public yet. (Whew - Kipenzi)

Speaking with Brendan, they got a slightly different story. He felt that Jelika Chan was incompetent, and likely was a cause factor in the accident. She was new to the crew, having just gotten on at Zila when the Mammoth's regular chief engineer was mugged and beaten badly. She was transferred by company orders from the Titan.

Kipenzi and Medicus learned that the weapons were originally shipped from Regina on the Titan, with Jelika Chan as the chief engineer. The Titan had some engine maintenance issues coming into Zila.

The shipment was warehoused for a little while on Zila and the Mammoth conscripted to carry on the delivery. Jelika Chan was transferred to the Mammoth to replace the injured chief engineer. We checked that the meson guns were crated up at Regina and had an armed escort from the navy while in transit. And the Titan’s maintenance would take longer than the company, Tukera, was willing to wait for.

When Kipenzi and Medicus returned to the Skylark, we revised our speculations. This was beginning to sound like a long and well established plan to divert - and possibly steal - the Meson Guns. For two Hercules ships to coincidentally have engine troubles is strange enough. With the same chief engineer it was NOT likely to be a coincidence.

With multiple millions of credits of weaponry aboard, [400 Million credits per gun - Kipenzi] it was falling into the category of "enemy action". While it has always been easy for us to vilify the Zhodani, we realized that the Vargr pirates were also possible recipients in the event of a theft.

Sam confirmed for us that the weapons would not have been shipped in the final assembly, but instead in several containers, nothing larger than 150 tons. We theorized that the Vargr trading station at Zila could have taken the real cargo and swapped in some other boxes.

Theft, sales or sabotage, we felt that someone fairly high up in Tukera's management chain must be involved, and Chan definitely was. Sympathy for a poor engineer being railroaded was rapidly drying up.

Kipenzi: This leads to speculation that the Vargr trading station can be smuggling the guns piecemeal out of Zila. If the pirates have them, they can ransom them back to the Navy for a lot of credits or, sell/ransom one and use the money to build their own ship for the other meson gun. They are mercs first and pirates when they can’t get other jobs. With a fully functioning warship, they can get jobs. Especially if the Zhodani happen to be needing soldiers for a war that’s heating up. The Vargr Extents border the Zhodani Consulate space and Imperial space. And the Vargr tend to follow a bold leader, this move would have them joining the pirate band in droves.

While Medicus and Kipenzi were out learning all that information, Fig had worked up a facial database of all the people we had encountered since arrival on Aramis, and set up a small data file of the pictures for everyone's personal computers. With the purchase of facial recognition software, we were hoping that we might identify someone in the future. We particularly wanted to have the time to "talk" with the people who mugged Gvoudzon.

We had intended to jump to Junidy as quickly as possible, delivering the brooch copy (with the tracker/recorder) to Tukera, but the information about the Mammoth and Titan gave us cause to reconsider. We decided to go to Zila and see if we could learn anything about the weapons or perhaps encounter the Wolblutn again. That "odd sock" still caused some itching in the backs of our minds

126-1104
Fresh news in the morning: an Xboat came in with the announcement that the Imperial Ambassador to Chronor was assassinated on New Year's Day, on her way to a state dinner.

Chronor is the Zhodani Consulate capital world in the Spinward Marches. It seemed very unlikely to us that an assassin could have snuck past their psionic awareness. The Zhodani have pre-cogs, so if the Zhodani government didn’t order it themselves, they let the assassins get away, or someone has anti-psionic hardware that’s really good. Querion, Fulacin... We continued to hope that our path since forming our band is not heading toward another Frontier War.

Sam went out to finish the cargo purchases, and had his own close encounter of the ARGH kind. As he scanned for likely profit-making things, he passed an open container that had the look of a large cage. 

The warning sign on the side made it look quite dangerous. Sam wisely climbed up onto the top of the container and called for port security. Security arrived shortly and actually had to kill the escaped animal, a large predator that had broken out of its cage.

127-1104
Medicus and Fig had by that time gotten the best possible replica of the magnetic information contained on the original brooch (the one that we recovered from the museum). We set up a delivery to Naval Intelligence for a couple days after that, giving us plenty of time to be someplace else. The identification "Red Baron" was attached to it in case we ever wanted to claim the credit.

Another Xboat came in with the updated news. Norris, Duke of Regina, was sending the 500,000-Ton Panthress (Tigress class) to recover the Ambassador's body.

Tigress Class Dreadnought

Although some older Battleships of greater displacement remain in service, the Tigress class Dreadnought is the largest line-of-battle vessel currently in service with the Imperial Navy in the Spinward Marches Sector.

Armament:

· Factor-T Meson Spinal Mount

· 430 50-ton Missile Bays

· 100 Triple Beam Laser Turrets organized into 10 Batteries

· 100 Dual Fusion Gun Turrets organized into 50 Batteries

· 100 Particle Accelerator Turrets organized into 10 Batteries

Each ship carries thirty squadrons of heavy fighters

The ship will have its guns ceremonially sealed for the trip into Zhodani space as a gesture of respect. Someone made the comment of the seals being made out of ceremonial tissue paper. - Kipenzi

In the evening of 127-1104 we headed out of port, ready to jump to Zila. On the way out to our jump point, Sam spotted a cargo container. We paused to check it out, and Kipenzi's EVA showed it to be abandoned/lost boxes of industrial diamonds. They were not worth dumping any of our current cargo, so we notified the authorities of the navigational hazard and headed on. Kipenzi kept a small box of them for souvenir i.e. personal use.

128-1104 0001
We entered jump space for Zila.

* * * * * * BANG * * * * * *

As we entered the jump, a panel blew off one of the jump engines. Leon was on duty in the engineering compartment and quickly got the fire under control, and patched up the hydrogen leak. Good thing, because now we had a bubble of hydrogen gas around the ship and if it had ignited, it could have been worse. - Kipenzi

We spent the next week getting patched as best we could, but at that point we knew we had a major problem. The damage put us at only Jump 1, and the part was not one we had or could fabricate. Shades of Chamax!! We had already used up most our fuel in the jump itself. When we come out of jump we will have only enough to maneuver to a planet / rock / refueling station.

Everyone spent the time much as we had coming out of Fulacin. Check, double check, triple check. Sleep. Repeat. The only addition was a betting pool of where we would end up, because the instruments told us clearly we had misjumped.

...and mis-jump means: it can bring us out at up to 30-36 spaces away, in any direction, i.e. Twilight’s Peak scenario. Just FYI, Kipenzi looked at the map and counted 30 spaces away in the direction we were headed, and it lands us exactly on the space that has Chronor… in Zhodani space…where the Pantheress is heading…. Chamax is a verb…. Kipenzi

Kipenzi’s list of places to jump into (for the betting pool):

1. Chronor - in the middle of a shooting war.
2. An empty space with no fuel source.
3. An empty space with a secret Tukera refueling station.
4. An empty space with Vargr pirates building a new ship with a meson gun spinal mount.
5. An empty space being used by Zhodani warships as a staging area for a new war.
6. Zila (original destination – OK law of averages).
7. Pysadi – ruthless religious dictatorship.
8. An empty space.
9. The Abyss Rift.
10. Fulacin – where the last ships to mis-jump landed, it’s a frakin’ magnet.

Continued in: Natoko and Patinir Belt.

See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, Prison Planet.