Month: November 2022

The crew partake in some well-earned R&R on Starstation Aurora. A small convoy of Inseer vessels arrive carrying personnel, resources, and an experimental micro-drivesat relay. The Sparrow departs Walin and returns to Aegis.

They deliver some recovered n’sss tech to Concord. Deputy Ambassador Naar al-Haq briefs them on what was already known of the n’sss and their “shadowy and amorphous” ships from previous encounters at Zin Point in 2436 and Coulomb just last year (2499). Alloy fills Gus in on Insight’s efforts to patch V0RL’s breaches into the AeGrid. Conrad collects his newest toy.

After having been diverted many times, the crew finally make the long trek out to Vethril to investigate a lead they picked up from a drunken Rigunmor spacer on Highport in Lucullus. There they find a Class 5 Sleeper called the Arkadia, a Thuldan-designed colony ship incorporating t’sa cryo-sleep tech. The vessel appears to have been partially scuttled and hundreds of the cryo-pods are missing.

Shifting focus to the planet, a pirate labour camp is mistaken for a colony outpost. The crew disembark, exchange a few words, and become embroiled in a firefight while Mayhem and Yala fly the Sparrow away from the Blockade Runner, a better armed but less manoeuvrable courier ship. Little mercy is shown by either side, but the crew eventually put down the pirate leader, his second, and the madder of the two scientists.

After completing pilot training, Cinque spends the next week ignoring people, shopping for spare parts, and tinkering with tech.

Conrad re-renames his yacht the Vagabond and takes Kat for a joyride. Once off-planet, they discuss the TransTechnic execs that went missing after VoidCorp’s takeover.

Gus sets up a company to deal with the government security contract she inadvertently secured. She then hires a bunch of random mechalus hackers to do the coding while she’s away.

Wayne spends quality bounty hunter time making contacts in various bars. Unfortunately, after he sobers up, he can’t recall any of their names.

Mayhem puts together a deal for 2 cargo units of rhodium. This allows him to finally stop dwelling on the excessive bill for repairing the Sparrow’s airlock, which he damaged trying to show Conrad how to dock at Mindara Station.

Yala assists Ambassador Veil assessing the situation with the Greater Minshore Crystals on Leen. She spends her remaining free time offering aid to help the less fortunate in Tribon.

Samantha stays on Lison. The crew set her up with a clerical position in the Concord embassy. Conrad puts her and his niece in touch.

Sonya informs Conrad that the dealer who caused trouble last time got arrested after someone tipped the goldies off to one of his meets. Just before the Sparrow leaves, she messages to say she’s gotten a job but doesn’t reply when questioned about it.

Lakota Sharpe contacts them. The renowned exobiologist, Angelika Minshore, has arrived and is partnering with her to study the Greater Minshore Crystals. To say she is ecstatic is an understatement.

Eventually, Veil gathers them for an update. She has an uneasy feeling that the enemy’s tech may be more advanced than previously thought. One of her techs has has some success reverse engineering the klick bio-tech from Mindara Station. She hands over a prototype interface gauntlet, along with full schematics. (Cinque later manages to duplicate the device, after sending several thousand Concord’s worth of hardware to Silicon Heaven.) They agree to ferry her aide, Tapo’al Ifuurl, to Bluefall so he can report to Deputy Ambassador Naar al-Haq on Sirensea.

Escorted by a pair of Concord scouts, the Sparrow leaves Oberon with the Illumination, which carries the contents of the Gallagher vault, as well as Hadley, Joseph’s cryo pod, and Gemini McCarthy. They starrise in Aegis on New Year’s Eve.

Gus learns of some unsettling repercussions from uncovering V0RL’s existence. Conrad buys himself a New Year’s present. Mayhem clears a profit. Hadley gives the crew a cut of the sale, per Joseph’s instructions.

At Alloy’s request, they take a small delivery to Walin. Wayne thinks he picks up something at the edge of sensor range but is unable to pinpoint it. A few hours after docking at StarStation Aurora, three unidentified ships suddenly appear nearby. Breaching two airlocks and the shuttle bay, each delivers a group of five unknown aliens in environment suits who immediately attack anyone in sight. The crew of the Sparrow deals with one group, Kurch leads the few veteran Inseer security personnel to the shuttle bay, and the trainee recruits plus the remaining security bots tackle the third group. The invaders are described as “things of nightmares”.

Although the defenders take heavy casualties, all three battle groups are defeated. Shortly before the last attacker goes down, the three ships detach from the station and simply vanish. SALAI confirms their disappearance looked like the sensor anomalies Wayne detected earlier. Mayhem becomes hysterical when he sees one of the fallen intruders, eventually calming enough to explain that they are monsters of legend who appeared from the skies and attacked the t’sa many centuries ago — the n’sss.

Back at the Sparrow, the crew learn that a sesheyan and three humans were asking questions of the ground crew of the Victores, a Solar military vessel grounded nearby. Coincidentally, on the way to the caves with Lakota, Wayne spots a sesheyan heading in the same direction with a few humans.

Lakota finds the entrance, hidden by a holographic image as suspected. Just as Conrad is about to step through it, the sesheyan opens fire from the forest, soon joined by the 3 humans. After the crew take down the sesheyan, the others attempt to flee; two are successful. The downed bodies have tattoos of a ghost.

Investigating the caves, the crew find the equipment Lakota’s team left behind, discover the bodies of two colonists, and make first contact with fully sentient Greater Minshore Crystals. Yala is able to communicate to some degree with the Minshore’s Elder. At the Minshores’ request, Cinque fixes the locator beacon that Ysala left with the treasure; they seem to benefit somehow from the “music” it emits. In return, the Minshore guide Cinque to the contents of the vault.

It turns out Ysala has also returned with her crew to reclaim the treasure. A running firefight ensues. Conrad tells Mayhem to broadcast a message about the Mindaran Ghost being sighted, in the hopes that Thomas Kind might be listening. Taking heavy losses, the pirates retreat from Conrad’s and Wayne’s formidable arsenals. Ysala makes it back to the Ghost and uses its weapons to collapse the northern entrance. Mayhem follows her into orbit, noting three other incoming ships before returning to the surface.

Lakota returns to Mahatay with the two dead colonists. The crew enlist the assistance of the Illumination, a freighter the Sparrow had landed near, to transport the treasure back to Lison. Interference from Kerri Lansing prompts Conrad to call in a favour from Ambassador Veil. After thwarting her scheme, he sends her a message telling her not to overreach.

After confirming there will be enough for Joseph’s needs, Hadley begins to make arrangements. Once the rhodium ore is processed, the Illumination will haul everything to Aegis, accompanied by the Sparrow.

Veil invites the crew to meet her and fills in some details, including the destruction of a klick ship near Mindara Station and her suspicion that there is likely at least one more in the system. People split up to take care of various personal tasks.

TJ invites the crew out to celebrate his promotion to Master Sergeant, along with the half dozen remaining Concord marines on Lison. The rest are split between searching for any trace of klicks on Bauble and safeguarding the techs refitting Mindara Station.

Concord techs provide a partial reconstruction of the data from the 3D fragments, confirming the corsair Ysala looted the Gallagher vault. They learn she moved its contents to Leen and marked it with a locator beacon.

Samantha gets command pins commissioned for the crew in the shape of sparrows – gold for Mayhem as captain, and silver for the others, except Conrad’s one has gold trim as de facto first officer.

People finally discover Hadley is mute, as opposed to merely not talkative. Fortunately, Sam knows sign language. It later turns out that she also speaks Aleerin. No one thinks to enquire about this.

Conrad gets a call to say his “niece” has been arrested. He and Cinque go to bail Sonya out. She took the fall for Mags, a friend of hers caught up with a dealer pushing Sciseed, known locally as Red. Conrad fills her in on his contingency plans and they find out she lives in a small 2-bed apartment in one of the dodgier areas of Upper Tier. It’s relatively well kept, given she’s a teen living alone. She offers them the main bedroom if they need somewhere to crash; it’s been unoccupied since her mother’s death.

Cinque makes some headway on his pilot training, but takes a break to go treasure hunting on Leen with the others. They are able to track the locator beacon to the Solar colony of Mahatay before Ysala contacts them with a threat to desist and kills the signal. When sensor scans reveal little more of use, they land at the settlement, claiming they are setting down to fix a botched repair.

A customs inspector named Armando Fuentes gives the ship a once-over, tells them not to bring any serious firepower into the town, then gives them a lift to the dome. He is a mine of information, but only while booking rooms at La Siesta do they discover that a terraforming team recently discovered a treasure in underground caves. The team brought back a few bars of rhodium as proof, but were unable to locate it again when they returned with heavy-lift equipment. Now, hundreds of colonists are spending their downtime treasure hunting.

Conrad and Cinque go to speak with the team’s scout, Lakota Sharpe. They confirm the rhodium forge-bar she found came from the Gallagher vault. She has been researching the local wildlife and thinks Minshore Crystals have camouflaged the cave entrance. They warn her that pirates stole the treasure and may be about to reclaim it. She proposes working together to prove her theory; they can keep the treasure in exchange for her making contact with the Minshore. With all in agreement, clandestine preparations are hastily made.