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Pete was ill this week, so Quin Feng in a less front-and-centre role; fair enough, she must have been tired after last session!
Discussions on what to do with this information continued; take the hire and turn the hacker over to their quarry, rescue him, ignore it, find and kill him, all were possibilities. Finally, with the thought that a man who could hack the Razors was probably worth making use of, they set out to discover more about the situation.
Carlomin was a corporate asteroid, entirely owned by the Drusek Foods corporation. They specialized in hydroponic foods which were then massively processed to look like real food, and sold at the high end.
What they laughingly called “staff”, who were the next best thing to indentured serfs, lived, worked and died on the asteroid, supplemented by local reproduction and the recruiting of the terminally stupid or desperate.
The worldlet had a population of 25,000 or so, scattered across the surface, through the interior and in glazed domes attached to the surface to catch sunlight. Accommodation and systems were deep inside, and the ‘staff’ were (grudgingly) fed from the raw HP product before it was processed.
A modest spaceport existed, but like everything else it was private to the corporation. It was reputed to have turrets to enforce this.
Local PAN archives showed that on occasion pirates had tried to raid one or more worldlets here; the IISS had intervened to deal with them.
Vespasian had established Manks' habitation location, and his place of work, Development Lab 836c which was in a dome, 20km from the spaceport.
The PCs put a tight beam in to the Scout base, arranging a meeting with its' commander, and took the Mountain Walk over there to attend. After some admin, they met with Scout Commander Valan Ution, and after a little feeling-out proceeded to tell him what they were about. The way his face hardenend when the Blue Razors were mentioned was enough to confirm that they had indeed found an ally.
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He agreed that any overt action by the IISS would simply result in Manks' death, to the relief of the Razors and probably Drusek. However, an idea was hatched involving the regular servicing of the higher-than-local-tech life support systems installed on all the worldlets. What Ution proposed was as follows. The Scouts would advise Drusek that the usual team for the upcoming service of the LS units nearest to the lab was on leave (a holiday the Cats offered to pay for!) and the substitute team was only available this week. The team would go in, but two of the four would be replaced by Wombat and Nevada. The locals were not familiar with this team, so just four new faces. He called in the Scout in charge of these services, Blaze Terrell. He organized some spot training for the pair, although Wombat had run the LS on the Short and Long Walks for a very long time without starving or smothering anyone. He introduced the rest of the team; Targonski was tall, broad-shouldered and blonde without much to say, while his companion diSalvo was short, wiry and swarthy, quick and talkative.
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These took to the plotting with enthusiasm - something more exciting than cleaning food processors and air-vents - and began to improve the plan. "The DSG-29a filter for the main air feed in those plant rooms is a big thing," said diSalvo, "shipping case is nearly 2m by 1 by 1. We could easily fit your tango in there."
Between them they cooked up an unobtrusive data item designed to attract Manks' attention and convey to him that rescue was coming - so that he wouldn't run away from them. This went off, but it was clear that he probably wouldn't risk responding and risking giving himself away.
Wombat prepared a medikit for himself to carry, and they concealed a pistol each in one of the tool boxes, though Nevada was very uneasy about starting a firefight with no armour or 'proper' guns. Wombat reminded him of their skinweave, but he was not comforted.
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With the plan ready, the Scouts sent the messages (and incidentally despatched the delighted original team off for a month's holiday) and in due course a Drusek pinnace arrived to transport the team to Carlomin. The crew appeared disinterested, enough so that they left the team to lug their own gear and supplies into the cargo hold. With the four seated in the cabin, the vessel lifted and headed towards the corporate worldlet.
Arriving at the beginning of the work 'day' the pinnace landed, and the team were checked by Drusek CorpSec guards, their IDs read into a system, and their faces compared. Everything matched - being real Scout IDs, after all - and they were escorted by CorpSec to the plant room, where they were to work. As they walked, they evaluated the environment. The corridors were utilitarian, rather bleak, and to Nevada and Wombat's eyes, rather primitive. Large, obvious surveillance cameras covered each area, with visible wires and lights. The workers they passed looked harried, poorly motivated, and seldom happy.
The plant room itself had a camera above the entrance hatch, but the large machinery blocks inside left plenty of unobserved places. While doing genuine servicing they moved about establishing this, culminating in Wombat 'accidentally' knocking the camera sideways to further restrict the observed area.
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After a while, Nevada and Feng set off to 'work on' the ducts conveying the LS services to nearby areas, including the lab. Arriving there, they went in and began to work around the various systems, attracting some annoyance from the lab supervisor and nearly as much from the resident dustbot. Finally spotting Manks, Nevada managed to fake tripping over the bot and slip him a note before they left.
Back at the plant room, Manks peered around the door. It was the end of his shift, and he'd followed the instructions on the note to get to here. Nevada silently waved him around the room out of sight of the displaced camera, and they persuaded him to shed his clothes, don the skinsuit they'd put in the case, and climb in. He did so, but clung tightly to two items; a hand computer and a data slug. He looked up at Nevada. "You got my fifty mil, then?" he asked intently. "I'm impressed your Syndicate has threads into the Scouts," he continued. They boxed him up and exchanged a glance. Syndicate? Fifty million?
Everything ready, they gathered their gear - including the case with pistols hidden deep inside - and headed to the hatch, planning to make for the pinnace and 'go home'. This was working fine right up until Nevada opened the hatch and stepped out.
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"Stop right there!" called a strident voice, and he looked to his left to see five CorpSec troopers, armed with the same early-model laser carbines as the last lot, approaching down the corridor. He continued, "There's a fugitive loose, the cameras saw him go in there and not come out. We are coming in to search -" and he died.
As the hammer of a submachinegun died away, four other men in Drusek jumpsuits but armed with SMGs rounded the corner into the corridor on the left, opening fire on the CorpSec. Nevada and Wombat ducked back into the plant room as automatic fire and laser bolts filled the corridor. There was no cover to speak of, and cries of pain began almost imediately. Nevada slammed the door, and jammed the manual wheel, quite happy to let them get on with it.
After a few seconds of intense firefight, the door was rattled and the same voice demanded to be let in, as the CorpSec leader discovered he was locked out of the room. Nevada let him in, but not before he was wounded in the arm. With a sheltered firing position, added to the CorpSec's better armour and weapons, he had the advantage, and before long all the other side were down. While one of his men callously went from one to the other finishing them off, the leader and another man started interrogating the 'Scout team'. Another joined them, leaving another wounded but stable on the floor of the passage outside.
As the guards grilled the 'frightened scout techs' (with Nevada actually faking wetting himself so as to add versimilitude), Wombat 'noticed' the leader's wound and offered to help. Digging his hyposprayer out, he lifted it, and the man had an instant to widen his eyes at the sight of tech way beyond what he was used to before the massive anaesthetic dose put him out on his feet. Wombat grabbed him and silently lowered him to the floor.
From this point on, Steve threw some of the most remarkable rolls I've seen in a Traveller game for a very long time. Outrageous ploy after outragous ploy was aced and in the end I had to mentally hold up my hands to fate!
Calling in 'alarm' to the man trying to open the flight case with Manks in it, Wombat told him the other guard had collapsed. Hurrying over, this worthy arrived just in time to receive a similar nighty-night dose and be piled atop the first one. The last one turned to see what was happening, and Nevada, Targonski and diSalvo jumped him and clubbed him into unconsciousness.
All this had happened out of reach of the cameras, and it occurred to them that they could legitimately "head for the exit" like innocents caught up. Pausing only to "aid" the wounded man in the corridor - which coincided with him going to sleep, just fancy that, they headed back the way they had come and told the guards at the 'port that they were done. Amazingly, they managed to blag past them and onto the pinnace and - with guns ready in case the crew found out what was happening and turned back - were ferried back to the scout base.
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Commander Ution was, unsurprisingly, not pleased. While glad the mission had technically succeeded, he pointed out quite firmly that there was now no way to avoid Drusek connecting the IISS to its' events. "It's just a mercy you didn't kill anyone," he muttered. "How long's the sleep dose for?" Everyone looked at Wombat. "Seven hours," he said. "Good. Then I would request," said Ution, with all the authority of a man in charge of a big space base, several cruisers and a couple of thousand men, "that you be out of the system by then. It's going to be embarrassing enough explaining all this as it is. And take him with you."
As the Mountain Walk headed for the Jump point of Nabeth's forsaken mainworld, they had a serious sit-down talk with Keen. His continued strange statements, "I couldn't resist having a poke around while I was hiding," and "I managed to get the message out to you, so where's my fifty mill?" finally boiled down to the fact that he thought Wombat and Nevada were Canedo agents....
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This began to explain the convergence. Not only had his reckless transmission alerted local security to him being there, it had resulted in Canedo agent - or more likely, unfortunate workers on whom they had dirt - being readied to try and pick him up, though not with fine detail on his location. Only when the 'scout team' went in and started doing unusual things did they zero in ... and all turn up at once.
Keen continued to angle for money for the data, until Nevada leaned in dangerously and explained pointedly that at this point, his options were to hand it over and earn safety and a ride somewhere, or to ... lose it and probably other important bodily functions. Keen pondered a moment, then grinned sheepishly. "Shower and a decent dinner?" he said with a grin, extending the crystal.
"Promise to behave while you're on our ship," said Wombat. "Scout's Honour," said Keen with an ironic grin.
As Vespasian dived into the data, checking carefully for nasty surprises, Keen was settling into a chair in the passenger lounge and admiring Feaysen as she prepared him something to eat. Once he'd eaten it, he declared himself in love with her...