Play date: June 10, 2016
In-game date: March 16, EY219
Location: Colt military base, orbiting Beck in the Providence system
Previous events: An attempted assassination or two
There's more news about the assassins' actions: Lieutenant Commander Lawrence didn't just kill Vice Admiral Egan, he also destroyed all the copies of the slide point modifications. There were three copies: Egan had one and brought it to the meeting, where Lawrence burned it after killing her. He had a copy of his own, which he apparently destroyed, There was a copy in the base's archives as well, but he signed that out and it's likely also lost.
The navy here will get a list of who has been involved in military exchanges with Juche in the last seven years (since the Leary entered the cluster, which is likely when the D'vor came) and Jillian requests that the list get sent to the Steel Hummingbird when it's compiled. It might take a while; there are a lot of file cabinets to go through!
Now that Juche is on the radar everyone realizes that they don't know much about it. It's in the Aiscapo cluster and is a notoriously closed society, so that's not surprising, but it would still help to have more information. Sheema's a political animal and very good journalist, so she's more up to date on this than everyone else in the room but even then she doesn't know all that much. It was originally settled as a mining planet with the idea that the volcanic activity would lead to lots of rich ores being in easy reach. While true, its volcanic activity was stronger than assumed and is a constant danger. That led to a very tight-knit and self-reliant society. On paper the governor of the planet is Ji-hun Cho but over the past decade he's been increasingly sidelined by a former foreman in the mines, Rhee Ha-Neul. Not much is known about him at all. More prosaically, the planet has a population of about 50,000, a gravity of 0.9g, two moons, and two space stations. Although the air is breathable it has a distinct sulphurous smell.
The two moons are both inhabited. Jageun, the smaller one, has a gravity of 0.1g and a small, substandard civilian port with the usual refuelling, repair, and shuttle to the surface services. The Steel Hummingbird came here a while ago to loot a gunrunning ship that Volkova heard about while in jail. One of Maurice Clegman's Clegships is also to be found here, though that's not public knowledge either.
Keun, the larger moon, still only has a gravity of 0.2g but has a much larger port, this one military. The base has 8,000 crew and Admiral Wu Jo is in charge here. It has a naval presence roughly equivalent to Daebak, the capital planet of the system: two cruisers, three destroyers, three frigates, six corvettes, and two submarines. The reason for the heavy military presence is the pirates who operate from Ungnyeo, the gas giant that's the next planet in the system and the fuel source for the system, and the jump gate that's between Juche and Ungnyeo. The base itself also has the usual host of small combat craft and gun emplacements.
The two space stations, Sabi and Hwando, are small for space stations and both run by the military. They have guns, ships, and docking facilities.
Rear Admiral Miller knows a Rear Admiral in Asicapo's capital of Daebak, Ha-Eun Choi, and will write up a letter of introduction and summary of the situation. She'll also get a forged note purporting to be from Noah Lawrence to make it seem that he's changed his mind and decided to let the Steel Hummingbird take the package to Aiscapo instead of the Cheap Bastard.
The Steel Hummingbird requests some weaponry from the navy, and gets it. Azar's currently only got her small pistol and upgrades to an assault rifle, submachine gun, pistol, and handful of grenades. Malcolm gets a bayonet for his assault rifle and medium submachine gun. Sheema reluctantly takes a pistol as well -- she's not happy about taking a firearm but she knows how to use one and things have gotten dangerous enough that she accepts that it's necessary. Volkova goes for the heavy stuff: a bazooka and "variety pack" of grenades for her launcher. There's a lot of ammo for all of this and all of the weapons are designed to be fired in space as well as in atmosphere.
Once fully equipped the Steel Hummingbird flies off to the surface of Beck. Their friends on the Resplendent Dragon are MIA and they're worried. There's no really sneaky route to the airfield so they focus on Malcolm turning off lights and running the atmospheric engines at low power, gliding as much as possible. Everyone is at battle stations. The frequency of the airport in Skousen only carries a repeating message that the airport is closed and that flights should reroute to Mechanicville. There's a lot of chatter on walkie-talkies and the local radio about repairs, but not much that's useful.
It's the middle of the night but the airport is lit up and there is construction equipment working on repairs to various parts of the airport, including the control tower. As they approach Jillian sees the Dragon, shot up rather badly, holes all through her. Her front landing gear has collapsed and her nose is crumpled on the ground. The massive cannon is twisted and hanging off the ship at an awkward angle. It's not certain that she'll ever fly again but at least she didn't explode. There are lots of pockmarks and scorched patches on the tarmac around her: cannon and missile fire, most likely. There are lots of people milling around in the glare of portable spotlights. A few are poking at the ship but most aren't doing anything obviously useful.
Malcolm flies into the wind and lands the ship quietly, her approach covered by noisy construction equipment and glare of the lights. Once on the ground, he flicks on the lights and announces over the loudspeakers that they're there to render assistance. The conversation with whomever is in charge takes place over the walkie-talkie's frequency. All the people on the ground know is that a navy aircraft attacked the Dragon and was shot down. None of the crew of the Dragon were killed, though they were injured, and they're currently at Skousen General Hospital. Malcolm thanks them and immediately flies off.
The Hummingbird lands at the hospital. Actually, she practically lands on the hospital: Malcolm ignores the mostly empty but slightly more distant parking lot and crams her into a green space right next to the emergency ward, flattening some cacti. Azar stays on the ship while everyone else heads on in. There's a large sign at the entrance noting that longarms like rifles aren't allowed (a rifle icon has a big red "X" through it), but pistols are fine (a pistol icon has a large green checkmark through it). No one's brought their heavy weapons, so they're ok. Jillian asks the receptionist about the crew of the Resplendent Dragon. The receptionist doesn't want to let non-relatives through after visiting hours but Jillian bullshits her way past and gets the room number, on the third floor. Exiting from the elevator they encounter a nurse who spots them and also tries to stop them, but Bishop engages her in conversation and charms her into letting them past.
Neet is sitting on a chair by the Dragon's room, uninjured and reading the latest copy of "Flying Aces" magazine. He's happy to see the crew of the Hummingbird and eagerly lets them into the room where his crewmates are recovering.
The room has four beds and Olivia, Sabine, and Xao occupy three of them. The fourth contains an elderly man listening to a transistor radio. He seems to be hard of hearing; despite its loud volume he's got it right up to his ear and is eagerly listening to "The Chesterfield Supper Club". Over the noise everyone greets each other and takes in the injuries that the Dragon's crew sustained. Neet managed to come out of the event completely unscathed, Olivia has bandages all over her and is very happy to be on painkillers, Sabine has a broken nose to go along with the arm she broke coming through the slide point, and Xao's got what looks to be a nasty head wound. Bishop doesn't mention anything but he's horrified at the treatment that everyone's receiving. It's all so impersonal. Sabine's arm is in a plaster cast, like one of Jillian's papier mâché art projects!
Xao recounts what happened: Everyone was on the Dragon when without any warning a naval gunship strafed the Dragon, the missiles being ripple-fired and tearing the cannon pretty much off of the ship while the gunship's cannon raked the air engines with fire. While everyone scrambled to their action stations the gunship came by and finished off the atmospheric engines. This was pretty definitely directed fire, aimed at making the ship unable to fight or run while the gunship destroyed it at its leisure. Neet and Xao weren't able to do much with the ship in the state it was at, but Olivia desperately tried to get the cannon working while Sabine did her best to keep the ship from exploding.
The gunship came around again and tore up the Dragon in a general sense, strafing her with more rockets and cannonfire. Exposed while working on the cannon, Olivia caught a fair amount of shrapnel. Olivia managed to get the cannon working -- through some bizarre superhuman effort -- and tried to shoot the gunship down but missed due to her injuries and the general state of the ship. On the gunship's next pass she managed to tag it. It was barely a hit, but the Dragon's cannon doesn't inflict flesh wounds. Damaged, the gunship's rockets and cannon missed their target.
On the next pass Olivia managed to line up a decent shot and blow the gunship in two, its parts crashing to the ground. Everyone but Neet was injured, but luckily no one on the Dragon was killed. Xao calls the reinforced crew positions the best money he'd ever invested. With all the cannons and rockets firing at full auto there was a moderate amount of collateral damage to the airport, including the control tower; Olivia seems to have tagged it by accident. Once the smoke cleared rescue crews showed up and the Dragons were taken to the hospital.
The Steel Hummingbird's crew is pretty paranoid after the two obviously coordinated attacks. Bishop and Volkova leave to wander the hospital and try to sense any D'vor activity. Malcolm goes to the Hummingbird to contact Rear Admiral Miller and fill her in on what happened here. Jillian and Sheema stay in the hospital room to tell Xao and company what happened on Colt.
Malcolm is in the middle of describing the attack over the radio when out of the corner of his eye he notices several people in civilian dress, maybe half a dozen, stalking into the emergency room, several carrying longarms. Although one gives the aircraft sitting on the grass a quizzical look they keep going. They're walking with definite purpose and he sees the worst in this. Shouting to Azar to get the submachine guns and join him at the ship's exit, Malcolm calls his crew on the walkie-talkies that they're all carrying to tell them trouble's incoming. Then he and Azar sprint to the emergency room entrance.
Inside the hospital, Volkova hears the call and also runs towards the stairs by the entrance, leaving Bishop behind. She rounds a corner and sees two men with shotguns waiting for the elevator. They menacingly gesture with their weapons at her to warn her away; they don't seem to recognize her. She backs off out of their sight, then sprints off to find another set of stairs.
When Azar and Malcolm get into the hospital they see a shaken receptionist who points them towards the stairs. Malcolm yells at her to get security up to the third floor and they start up the stairs as fast as they can, hearing boots farther up the stairwell.
In the hospital room on the third floor Jillian locks the door and starts to overturn furniture to block and door and provide a small amount of cover. She hands her pistol over to Neet: uninjured, possessing two eyes, and relatively skilled, he's probably the best person in the room to have it. She grabs a small fire extinguisher off the wall as a makeshift weapon. The old man with the radio loudly complains about the mess.
Volkova gets to the third floor elevator doors just as they're opening. She leaps through the air and uses a grabbed chair's legs to jam the door's opening, leaving the gunmen inside with only a thin slit to see through. She bounces off the corner of the recessed doorway for the elevator as she completes her leap, banging up her sternum. That'll hurt in the morning. Other things might hurt earlier, though: she hears the door to the stairs open and six men and women with a variety of firearms, many not allowed in the hospital, enter the hallway very close to her.
Before the goons can shoot Volkova Malcolm comes barreling out of the same doorway that they did and quickly opens up with his submachine gun on full auto, hoping to shoot them dead before they shoot him dead. By dint of fancy shooting he manages to hit a few of them, taking one out of the fight, while not accepting any bullet wounds in return. They also don't hit Volkova, who uses her might to move faster than they can swing their guns around.
Malcolm keeps up the gunfire and Azar shows up a minute later to add to the chaos and noise. The thugs are armed with semi-automatic pistols, rifles, and shotguns: they may outnumber their foes but the volume of fire is withering. Volkova sidles up a wall where her friends' bullets aren't flying and brings Khnuta down on a pistolwoman's arm, breaking it, then grabs a man with a shotgun and uses him as a human shield: he obligingly absorbs a few bullets for her.
It's only been several seconds but five of the six gunsels in the hallway are dead and the last one drops her weapon from bloodied hands, begging Malcolm not to kill her. The two still stuck in the elevator also quickly surrender: they haven't been able to see anything from their vantage point but it's obvious that they lost.
At this point the hospital's security guards show up. They don't seem to have been in too much of a hurry; one of them is still finishing a sandwich! The guards explain that they were on break and given the situation they graciously offer to not hold Malcolm and Azar for bringing in heavier weapons than allowed. They'll even pass on giving the Hummingbird a fine for landing... well, anywhere on hospital grounds. Non-hospital aircraft are strictly forbidden, you see. The bullets that went flying also luckily managed to not hit any of the patients or staff.
Jillian has Volkova haul the three surviving goons into an empty room and interrogates them after Bishop finds out that they're not full of D'vor music. She makes sure that Sheema is far away from this, not wanting her lover to see this side of her. The goons are the type of people who think they're really tough until they lose; they give in pretty easily and tell Jillian all she wants. They were hired by a woman in the Desperado bar in town, told that the Resplendent Dragon's crew had done her and her family wrong, and were in league with the Varnsens, who seem to be hated around here. The goons didn't care too much about her story but dislike the Varnsens and liked the amount of money the woman paid them, and decided to take the job. They were waiting at the airport when the Dragon was attacked by the gunship, with orders to kill anyone who made it out of the ship. When the cannon shot the gunship out of the sky they all agreed that with a functioning cannon it was too intimidating to deal with and with security coming decided to come after their targets in the hospital. There's no way a ship could get shot up that badly and not have crew in need of serious medical aid.
This mysterious woman who hired them gave them an address to go to when it was all done. They were to ring a particular apartment and give a code phrase to indicate that their targets were all dead; she'd then let them in and they'd get paid the second half of the money.
Azar is left to guard the Dragon's crew and Bishop guards the ship while everyone else goes to the woman's apartment. Once there they split up: Jillian takes her trusty shotgun and heads into the back alley in case the woman makes it out the back. Sheema, armed with a pistol, hangs out front in case the woman makes it out the front door. Malcolm and Volkova, dressed in the shabby clothing of their attackers, ring the apartment buzzer and wait for the woman to answer. But she doesn't. They ring again and wait awkwardly.
In the alleyway, Jillian sees the back door of the building open and a woman exits with a determined stride. Jillian quickly radios what's going on and suddenly the woman, walking directly towards her, opens fire with a pistol! She's obviously been made. It's dark in the alleyway and the pistol and shotgun don't manage to find their targets.
Malcolm and Volkova force their way through the front door of the building and sprint down the hallway to the back entrance, following the "exit" signs. They run into the alleyway and Volkova barrels at the woman, hoping to take her alive. Malcolm's not so committed to this and shoots the woman, who grunts in pain and then is grappled from behind by Volkova. The woman struggles, but there's no chance that she can break Volkova's grip. Now they have one of the D'vor-converted people alive!
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 22)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 3)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 13)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 6)