Session One : King Oleb Demands

Summoned To Court

The Travellers were taking a break from renovating and pre-flight tests of the commerce raider, The Harrier, when they were surprised by a neon wimpled page blasting a long trumpet to their backs. After stepping from behind the various alien fauna in the Garden of Fashionable Promenades on the floating  Kingdom of Drinax, they were alerted that King Oleb demanded their presence.

The page lead them through the maze-like gaps and propped passages that cut through the art, antiquities and relics of the glory days of the Empire of Sindal and as they entered the King's Court and saw the crowds of dignitaries and courtiers awaiting them in the throne room it became apparent that this was a state occasion.

Finding the king was difficult. Current fashion at court is for the ladies to dress in pink and yellow spherical taffeta dresses and glide at various heights based upon perceived social status and for gentleman to wear drab outfits with incredibly high stove hats that also served as landing pads for drones they used to maintain contact with their partners as they wheeled and pirouetted around the room. After some searching the Travellers were successful in finding the Oleb half-listening politely to some courtier or other making a case for something or other. They gained the king's attention who, after pushing the courtier over the ledge of the balcony to the radioactive wastes of the surface of Drinax, took his seat on the throne in the mouth of a mechanical dragon that jutted from a holographical grotto.

The Travellers were formally announced to the court and Letters of Marque were formally handed over. The King explained his mission. Wage havoc on the shipping lanes and ports of the Trojan Reach and turn the planets that were part of his rightful Empire of Sindal to his fold. With enough noise and disruption to the trade plied between the Third Imperium and the Aslan Heirate he would demand recognition from them both and be recognised as the Emperor of Sindal. At that point the Letters of Marque would be produced, crimes would be forgiven retrospectively, and each would be granted a Duchy. One lucky Traveller would also marry his daughter the Princess Rao.

Princess Rao

It became very apparent that the Princess was the actual brains of the royal outfit. She stated that she had been monitoring system wide news and that the nearby planets of Clarke and Torpol had both suffered raider attacks. They had independently posted bounties of 0.5 and 1.0 MCr for whoever dealt with the incursions. If done in the king's name then it might draw the Psychopomps of Clarke and the ruling Provost-Merchants of Torpol back to the court.

Out of Drinax

The commerce raider, The Harrier, loaned by the King Oleb, is a ship of immense beauty and the only jump-capable ship of her tonnage that Drinax possesses. The tradition is that nobles attend a ships launch, and as nearly everyone is descended from royalty - from courtier to plumber - that meant nearly the entire populace crowded to watch the take off. The Harrier is also venerable, damaged, and made from exotic high-tech materials rarely available any more and so the Captain now wearing the official Bridge Cape and cutlass took charge of what would be very standard manoeuvres.

Lift-off went surprisingly gracefully and The Harrier's escorts - the system boats and fighters - liaised with the Captain in establishing expected return dates, protocols, and potential return chase scenarios. The boat commander introduced herself with callsign Resplendent Dragon and would be responsible for future escorts.

The Travellers chained their jump tasks successfully and The Harrier slipped the surly bonds of this universe and glided to Clarke.

Clarke

The Psychopomps run Clarke. The data site Jump Advisor has categorised the planet as Stay On Ship and no facility at the star port has received more than a single star. It is a planet obsessed with death - or more accurately - preserving the near dead in carbon foam so that they can be healed at some future date and enter eternal paradise alive. It took the mass-bombing of its surface during the fall of the Empire of Sindal rather badly, but its pragmatic solution to near extinction events has some sidereal benefits.

In to Clarke

A week of JumpSpace The Harrier slid elegantly back in to RealSpace. The maiden jump had been a great success and she slid in to one of the minor sweeping approaches to the planet. System traffic indicated a score of in-bound flights, but mostly navigating through the One Hundred Diameter Zone to the more popular routes away from Drinax.

More careful analysis of the system traffic noticed an anomaly ahead. A Type-A Far Trader with transponder Sawnenson's Pride was coasting towards Clarke. M-drives were firing periodically and predictably before firing down. It didn't have the look of careful and considerate control you would have "On The Down" and amongst other ships.

Hails were un-met and the Captain decided that an investigation was merited.

At close range it was identified that the ship was structurally sound, the life supported systems were working and loaded enough to indicate people on board, and that without intervention Sawnenson's Pride would burn up high in Clarke's atmosphere.

Sawnenson's Pride

A final hail was met as they drew adjacent. Bryn Sawnenson, rudely noted that the Travellers had taken their time and that Big Jango would be hearing about their tardiness. The M-Drives were malfunctioning, the engineer Claverdon was running amok on board, and he was minded to space him and accept the burn-up above the world of the Psychopomps.

Confused as to who Capt. Sawnenson thought they were and what he expected the Travellers decided to use this situation as an exercise in friendly boarding and to take control of the situation. They used The Harriers boarding tube to dock with the Far Trader and were piped aboard.

The Deal with Capt. Bryn Sawnenson

Armed with various weapons from the Harriers ship locker the crew met with Sawnenson and it was established that he thought they were lackey's sent by Big Jango to repair the Pride before she crashed in to Clarke. In a bluff and gruff manner he admitted his error and said he would pay the Travellers fuel-costs, repair-costs and standard call-out costs if they helped him out of his present dilemma. As Big Jango was a local pirate and knew how to get to the highly secretive Pirate Planet of Theev, the Travellers reckoned a good word with Big Jango might be a better reward than the credits.

Sawnenson said that Claverdon had been acting more irrationally recently and had taken to running around the pride screaming "I am The Queen of The Jungle! Where have you put my Ape Man". He had taken the contents of the ship locker and everyone had confined themselves to quarters terrified to take on a man running around with a cutlass, side-arms and an antique grenade Sawnenson's kept there for sentimental values.

Jinna The Navigator Reveals Secrets

The Travellers took their usual wise and trusted strategy of finding and talking to the sensible adults in the room. Holed up in her quarters they found Jinna and, after some much needed persuasion as to the good nature and trustworthiness of the Travellers, she explained that Capt. Sawnenson was smuggling Crazywine at the behest of Big Jango. This highly addictive and hallucinogenic brew was new and in vogue with the crazy and decadent. Claverdon, who struggled with the boredom of Jumpspace had found the stash and his occasional mid-morning and late-evening swig had turned into a bottle a day habit. The problems on with their M-Drive was he was unfit to do his job due to a full psychotic Crazywine fuelled jamboree a few days back.

Hunting Claverdon / The Queen of The Jungle

Using recon, tactics and stealth the Travellers followed the hoots in the aft of the ship and the sticky purple footprints through to the engineering section. Silence descended as the tracks terminated in a gloopy skid just outside the Low Berth Chamber. The chilled and cold room was packed with transparent sarcophagi limed with internal hoarfrost. Worried that Sawnenson was trafficking and convinced no-one would travel in such numbers, the Travellers did some investigation and established the individuals were travelling to Clarke in their final days and as a charitable endeavour the Psychopomps were paying for passage to envelope them in carbon foam in accordance with their religion.

One single Low Berth at the far end of the room was only just starting its cooling cycle. The Travellers tactically stalked their prey and as they approached Claverdon burst from his hiding place!

Wild-eyed, naked, and coated from head to toe in sticky Crazywine, Claverdon waved a machete like cutlass eager to fuck up the Travellers good. More danger was quickly spotted when they realised that the engineer was using the grenade as a means of hiding his modesty with a make-shift string attaching it to his REDACTED. With said grenade swinging wildly about and held only against gravity by its pin, combat ensued, close and physical and skin-to-skin contact as the Travellers aimed to pin Claverdon against the wall and restrict his use of the machete while the Capt. of The Harrier took charge of the critical and delicate task of removing the grenade.

Opportunities Fixing the M-Drive 

After administering a sedative to Claverdon and safely ensconcing him in his quarters for the world's worst hangover, the Travellers confronted Capt. Sawnenson about his smuggling. They had realised that smugglers don't generally go to the authorities about robberies by pirates. He had the upper-hand though as he knew where the Crazywine was and they didn't. After some pointed haggling it was negotiated that The Harrier would take half of the remaining booty - some 30 bottles according to Sawnenson - each worth 500Cr if sold at Theev.

Fixing the M-Drive took minutes - The Harrier's engineer having the advantage of not being drunk on psychoactive alcohol - and the cunning Traveller's turned their attention to why Claverdon had discovered the stash and not another crew member. Careful searching revealed the smuggler's hides-hole beneath the tool trolleys in the M-Drive room.

The Final Bargaining and Farewells

On Sawneson's return the captain of The Harrier got him to admit he had tried to stiff them in the deal. After some hard bargaining and Sawnenson starting to realise these were his and, more importantly, Big Jango's kind of business folk, they agreed half of the Crazywine was a good deal. Sawnenson offered to put in a good word with his boss - who would look at the loss as an investment in future deals with the Travellers and the Travellers demanded some legitimate cargo that could be written off to the Insurance Corps as remedy to this misunderstanding.

4 tons of Advanced Components was selected as these would be useful in bringing The Harrier back up to her full glory. All agreed to meet at Blacksand in Theev at some near future date for introductions to Big Jango and his pirate crew.

Fade Out

The Harrier began her final descent in to the global rainstorm that forms a canopy above drizzle-soaked Clarke to begin negotiating with the Psychopomps about their raider problem.