The Story So Far: Part One

Stars Without Number: Obavar Sector

Webber, Jinx, & Fuoco

Session 1:

• Back in Chromera at a busy spaceport bar, Jinx overhears talk between two slightly sodden PTS (Phadrelian Trade Syndicate) agents about some old tech they're hiring mooks to go salvage from the Volrade system - despite having lost several ground crews in the attempt already. After some remote hacking, she manages to lift the last 200 text messages from one of the agents' compads, in which are the coordinates to the coveted site. Not having her own ship, she contacts her most recently contracted pilot, the ex-PTS agent Fuoco. Fuoco has recently ditched his role in the PTS for the relatively unregulated freedom of of working for a small freelance scrapper fleet (and to get out from the shadow of his morally dubious father, who is a high ranking PTS exec) - which happens to be the same salvage company that Webber works for. (Webber, the mysterious telekinetic scrapper, has not yet shared his secret origin story with his crewmates).
• Not having their own ship yet, they are transported to Volrade aboard a company ship, a patched and re-patched free merchant piloted by a big black bearded scrapper named Captain Cromwell. Cromwell reveals to his copilot Fuoco that the 'higher-ups' have asked him to put the rookie to the test, and hands the spike drive controls over, and Fuoco handles his first foray out of the central corridor with ease.
• Given the choice of rappelling into the dense canopy of the jungle where the coordinates lead (on the rocky moon Cymodec) OR landing on a clear outcropping of rock amid low lying lichen and thin towering fungi some 12 miles away, they opt for the latter.
• Jinx spots a tentacly thing moving in the trees, and they all see a dead body with the torn vac suit lying face down in the lichen.
• Jinx sets up her rifle at the best lookout point while the others go check out the dead body, and as they stand for more than half a minute in the same spot, suit crawlers start emerging from the folds of lichen. After a bit of running around and shaking them off, they book it towards the jungle - but as they are doing so they spot a PTS free merchant approaching from afar. Jinx remotely 'bumps' their coodinates over enough to delay their approach so PCs can arrive at old alien outpost/hive first. Evidence of grisly deaths and bodies dragged into entrance.
• They enter, find room with crystal power pedestal and spot a beach ball sized bundle of tentacles rapidly moving into the shadow and trying to hide. They call out to it, but when their light hits it it retreats again up a hallway. They follow, passing multiple egg nests, until they enter a room with the mother - a 20ft span of powerful writhing tentacles, which start rapidly grabbing at the players - lucky for them, its first four or so attempts are to get ahold of Webber, the teleporting psychic who keeps popping out of its grip.They are able to retreat to the pedestal room taking shots the whole while. In the midst of this, Jinx overhears voices from the entrance and realizes the PTS mercs have arrived.
• Moments later, Pinkie Magraw and Griz brace themselves against cover within view of the skirmish, and order their 2 mooks to hold their fire as they assess the situation. End of session.

Session 2:

• Fouco gets knocked upside the head by a tentacle and is laid out in the hallway (until colin joins back in)
• PTS mercs warn PCs to retreat as they are trespassing on a sovereign claim of the PTS
• Jinx calls out that they ARE with the PTS. Pinkie sends mook forward to check credentials which Jink lighting hacks from the PTS texts she lifted earlier. "Uh... Looks legit boss!"
• Pinkie is pissed he wasnt informed of another crew. "those fucking beurocrats coulda got both our teams killed", but agrees to team up
• They find the cube with some more tough hacking checks
• While hauling it off, Jinks sets off brain scrambling audio defense system, mental saves to use your action start of every round (could have been an annoying mechanic but i think it turned out pretty fun, and funny). Everyone dropping the cube as they try to get it down the hallway, people runnin up and draggin it, others clutching heir skulls.
• Once they have the cube up on the power crystals, Webber very cleverly surmised that is is a map - before the full clues about the harmomnizing vectors were even given!
• Pinkie is pissed they lifted it onto the crytals intead of just getting it the f out. (he was distracted by brain scramble) Orders everyone to stop fing around and get the asset out. In the midst of this the alien does a 'drive by' melee strike at jinx, but then isn't seen again (while in the hive)
• PCs decide to fuck the mercs up and take the prize before they get out of the hive. Good surprise attack, but these guys are not pushovers, and a good firefight ensues.
• When Pinkie drops from Jinx's sniper rifle, one of the mooks fails morale check and flees. When Griz drops, the other one flees. Both get away.
• PCs disable alarm, make a digital map based of the sound map, then 'bury' the cube back in its storage by short circuiting the electronics board that would open it back (in order to prevent anyone else getting the map)
• Fouco comes to..."what happened...did I miss anything?
• They head back to ship, decide to high tail it and not f with the tenacled thing (it lives...), and make it back to the ship unhindered
• Start heading to the outer ss, but are being followed by the pts ship, who eventually orders they perpare to be boarded. they let them, but jinx and webber hide behind false inner hull walls. Once the 2 armed guards are aboard, they surprise gank them.
• after a short but intense firefight, 2 PTS soldiers and Jinx are down. The mercs who were waiting on the soldiers orders freaked out and started shouting at the pilots "they've killed your guys!! close the hatch! close the hatch!!"
• Pilot take heed and release the electromagnetic lock on the PCs ship, but with a combined dex pilot check, fouco engages their own electromagnetic docking lock and hold the ship to theirs. After a lazarus patch and an hour of rest Jinx is able to muster a Complete Database Acquisition (dc 12) of the ship and shut off life support. With their VI warning them of imminent suffocartion the PTS pilots surrender.
• The PCs commandeer the PTS ship, tie up the pilots and mooks, and tell cromwell they'll take his lead to Demos - but actually plan to fake a drill nav mishap so they can go exploring farther from the corridor (at least until they get their stolen ship properly un-IDable)
• Rookie pilot allllmost fucks up the drill to Magnus Ventani (dc 9), but pulls through at the last minute (failed check and reroll, then got the one chance at reroll on the mishap table and rolled 11)
• Detect bioshpere and technological activity on the planet Lokao Extana and plot a course. Jinx attempts to hack into the heavily encrypted comm signals, but is vexed by the uncommonly advanced layers of security. End of session.

Session 3:

• Approach Lokao Extana and get swarmed by defense drones. Decide not to F with them and follow their lead to a landing site at a highly fortified bunker.
• Greeted by RAOL (Robotic Assistant and Operations Liason) who leads them to a sparse, crisp room where they meet Chief MacArthur and Agent Vencroy, who insist on knowing what a tiny PTS crew is doing pursuing potentially dangerous thieves on their own way out of their jusrisdiction. They are able to convince them that they are a specialized, hand picked team built just for this purpose, and that they are bound by contract to keep the nature of the Asset confidential.
• The notion of a specialized strike team piques the Chief's interest, and he explains that they are currently...willing...to take outside assistance, as they are dealing with an internal issue that has their staff pressed to the wall.
• MacArthur reveals that this is indeed the remnants of the Perimeter Agency of old, maintaining their mission to seek out and contain malware threats in the sector, but that the fundamental sustainability of their purpose is now threatened by the betrayal of their erstwhile Director, Commander Sevrinsky.
• -He, along with several agents who have followed his charismatic lead, has taken control of the research compound, as well as nearly 30% of the agency's defense drones. Not only that, but on his crew of mutineers is the alleged 'best hacker in the sector', Agent Ava Tolchek.
• They normally have an extensive vetting process for even one-time hires, but they are willing to shortcut this process - somewhat. They offer the PCs a deal - they can pay them handsomely if they are able to help turn their current situation with Sevrinsky around, as well as devoting some resources to tracking the thieves the PCs are (supposedly) after, but before they can involve them in such high security matters, the PCs must complete at least one 'entry level' mission for them. By taking on the mission, they will be demonstrating a willingness to take risk on the agency's behalf, and by actually completing the mission they will demonstrate a degree of competence and reliability.
• The two jobs offered: Investigate rumors of a maltech cache stashed on the space station Prospero's Dream in the Ultio Uxori system OR investigate reports of heavy activity of the terrorist group Bethel A-D8 in the Dromide system - and find out the fate of their agent, who went to investigate a month and a half ago and never reported back.
• The party unanimously agrees to head for Dromide (much to the GM's surprise), and the agency agrees to supply them with all the fuel their bunkers can hold (4 jumps worth).
• After a bit of metadimensional turbulence, Fuoco uses his expertise to stabilize the ship and bring it into the outer gravitational well of the star Katsigian, they slingshot towards Dromide - but this time Fuoco is in over his head. The unpredictability and instability of the 2 year old drill rudder supplied by the Perimeter agency proves too much for his nascent skills to handle, and the ship hits a catastrophic metadimensional energy incursion and is flung halfway across the sector with all systems down - BRICKED.
• One roll is given each to the comms officer (Jinx) and the engineer (Webber) to mitigate some of the damage of the catastrophe. They both perform their duties with great skill - Jinx's manages to reign in their velocity, preventing them from ending up in either Demos (where scrappers are expecting them) or Phadrel (PTS home base), and Webber manages to keep some semblance of functionality to the life support and comm systems.
• they hail an SOS, and are responded to onscreen by the not-as-famous-as-he-thinks-he-is Hobbes the bounty hunter. He is followed by several EnCon media ships, mounted with multiple cameras to film a reality/documentary series called "Beyond the Corridor: Life in the Outer Sector", which, this season, is following around Hobbes and his crew as they go after such dangerous criminals as tax evaders, draft dodgers, and copyright infringers.
• After Hobbes agrees to tow them back to Aerides 11, they are hailed onscreen by the show's director, Mitch DeMaurier, who, after talking them up about this great opportunitiy to 'be famous', asks if they'd sign a standard issue waiver for them to use their voices and faces on their show. Fuoco and Webber say hell no, but Jinx pretends to be a fan girl and says she'll do it if she can board the bounty hunter's ship and meet the famous Hobbes. Hobbes is of course only too happy to have his ego stroked, so she retina-signs her waiver and boards the ship.
• As she oos and aws over the great Hobbes, she asks if she can touch the ship, and starts fondling the various parts of the interior until she reached the comms keyboard. Pepper says hey hey, hands off of my console, but Jinx pretends to be oblivious and wonderstruck and clicking on the keys, pretending that she's goofily playing pretend, but is actually banging out a rapid line of code to cause a minor glitch in their system (hack+dex), which she just barely manages to do before Pepper swats her hands away.
• Having scoped the inside of Hobbes' ship and its crew, Jinx returns to the others and they begin to hatch a new plan. Eventually, they decide they need to be bold to get the whole crew aboard Hobbes' ship without signing waivers (because they are using aliases which will be blown by the retina scans, except Jinx who has a permanent false ID). They come up with the subtle and prudent plan of hacking a hole into their own hull with an arc welder, stuffing a grenade into the hole, and pulling the string as they simultaneously un-fix their own life support system - thereby creating a genuine emergency for Hobbes to rescue them from. Now, in my mind that, while this was preposterously audacious, it was also pretty likely to work - the cameras were all rolling, and it would be a great cinematic moment of low risk heroism for Hobbes to swoop in and save their lives. BUT, at the last minute they added a flourish, and Jinx threw in some comm signals to make it appear as if the systems were being blown by a Bethel A-D8 cyber-attack. At the instant he believes there is a genuine terrorist threat in the region, Hobbes has his pilot drop the lock on the PCs' ship and book it the f outta there at maximum velocity.
• In the momentary delay before the Encon ships follow suit to stay on him, Fuoco hails out and makes a case for at least one of them hanging back to help - besides the human decency of not leaving people to die and the business sense assisting a Phadrelian Trade Syndicate ship, if helped the PCs won't send any comms out about the true nature of EnCon's 'fearless' star. Fuoco is able to convince them to leave one of their smaller shuttles behind and let them board, and for the 2k they were going to pay Hobbes, tow their busted PTS ship back to Aerides 11 .
• On the way, Jinx attempts to covertly access an onboard terminal, but finds herself watched too carefully in any areas where that would be possible, but Webber is able to circumvent this issue with a discreetly placed shunt for remote infiltration. Despite an extremely high difficulty, Jinx manages to acquire the entire ship database.
• Level up (lvl 2). End of session

#starswithoutnumber