The Steel Grid

A chance encounter with Gerry Atoz (and his would-be killers) at the Steel Grid sends the crew on a hunt for Abigail, a runner he met in a hidden gridscape while poking around at TransTechnic. Learning of its recent acquisition by VoidCorp, the gloves are off.

Teaming up with Demon and Gilbren, an incursion into TT’s mainframe reveals that the gridscape was created for Joseph Enrikesson, a sales executive liquidated during the merger. And that the unallocated memory in which it resides is being slowly overwritten. Abigail’s connection is traced back to The Tombs, an installation located beneath TransTechnic Tower on Lower Tier.

Deciding on the direct approach, Conque, Conrad, and Gus pass themselves off as Clear Data maintenance employees to gain access to The Tombs. Wayne stays behind to safeguard Gerry. The trio discover that Abigail is actually an AI running on dedicated hardware. They abscond with this unit, offering Gerry an escape route off-world aboard the Sparrow.

Kat visits the docks to see them off. The majority of those involved in the power outages were rounded up during the subsequent two blackouts and a raid on the scrapyard. The one who put the hit on Gerry Atoz was Michael Redmond, a VoidCorp employee at TransTechnic. Conrad asks her to investigate Joseph Enrikesson.

A trio of armed Concord scouts escorts the convoy to system’s outskirts. This unfortunately thwarts Wayne’s desire to go ghost hunting on Mindara Station.

Working Overtime in Oberon

“I can be nostalgic without actually missing the place, right?” – Cassie

Due to Gilbren’s presence, the convoy is allowed in through the front door, landing in the loading docks, rather than being forced to stay in orbit. Conrad and Gus head into Tribon proper while the others split up to take care of their own agendas.

After stopping to aid a t’sa pharmacist named P’zu (or just Sue), the duo approach Concord with information from their encounter with the externals. Ambassador Cynthia Veil confirms the new species, called the kroath, have been encountered before. She instructs them to deliver the recovered info/tech to Deputy Ambassador Naar al-Haq, who resides on Sirensea in the Diandes Archipelago on Bluefall.

The pair also locate Malcom Sneed, the financier of the mining expedition in Black Widow Canyon. Upon being told of the venture’s fate, he makes plans to take an immediate vacation off-world.

An encounter with Conrad’s “niece”, Sonya, causes them to ask a favour of Marshall Vavaroutsos. Kat later provides them with the genetic records of Manfred Kier (deceased).

Among headlines about a new street drug called Sciseed, a fraal allegedly healing assault victims by laying on hands, and a documentary about the ghosts on Mindara Station, reports of an increase in power outages catch their attention. Deciding to investigate, they get a lead from Sonya on a street gang called the Hand. This brings them into contact with Alfreido, a tech at one of the Middle Tier power stations. After tracking a few of the members back to their scrapyard base, they hand the case over to Kat.

Nest (the finale)

Hopes are not high that any survivors are left to rescue by this point but it’s decided to make one last incursion. Yala does her best to get Conrad and Gus back on their feet. Wayne decides to sit (or lie) this one out. Cinque has a bad feeling about things. Gilbren hesitantly offers to tag along due to his previous experience with klicks (which largely involved running away to live another day).

Mayhem and Gilbren are assigned to watch the lower entrance, which they note has been boobytrapped. Conrad, Cinque, and Gus find the middle tier likewise trapped. After setting it off, they override the inner airlock door. A single one of the green suits attacks them with its claws, while the klick shoots from cover. Conrad demonstrates once again that frag grenades really are a GI’s best friend. A heavily injured Cinque tags in Gilbren and Mayhem. Once the suit goes down, the klick withdraws. Mayhem and Gilbren attempt to follow but it detonates another set of explosives, partially collapsing the ceiling (mostly on Gilbren). A final firefight ensues, eventually taking down the klick.

Once the literal dust has settled, and wounds are staunched, they explore the seemingly lifeless facility. Miraculously, two young children, Melanie & Jacque Saville, are recovered from a store room where they had been imprisoned. Cinque’s bad feelings are confirmed regarding the fate of Ty, the older child whose distress call Gus had picked up.

Half a day later, Momotaro and Sparrow make planetfall at Tavira on Corazón de Fuega. Gilbren introduces them to a past acquaintance, Beth “Knockout” Hubbell. The authorities release an official report saying raiders were responsible, with the convoy legitimately dispensing frontier justice when likewise attacked. People split up to variously complete trades, undergo major surgery, restock supplies, and visit the local zoo. At a memorial service for the lost miners, the crew are sombrely thanked as heroes. Relatives from Algeciras take the Saville children home.

Wanting to wrap up some loose ends, another trip is made to Black Widow Canyon. Cinque restores the fusion generator to full power, allowing Gus to download messages buffered in the comms system. Other hardware is collected for return to the Vieronites. Cinque investigates the growth chambers, taking one for analysis; the other is destroyed. The shuttle, the Rana Toro, is astoundingly found to be largely intact. It is towed back to Corazón de Fuega and handed over along with the other recovered (non-external) hardware. Everyone settles down for a day of R&R while repairs to the Seishimi are completed.

Nest (continued… again…)

Heading down for a second attempt, the crew manage to open the shuttle’s door, which rewards them with an explosion. Undaunted, they head into the lower tunnel, which rewards them with a trio of the “green suits”, one armed with a black laser SMG. The tunnel also contains the antiquated fusion reactor powering the outpost, which unexpectedly does not explode during (or after) the firefight.

Pressing forward, they follow a tunnel upwards, back to the middle tier. A protracted battle ensues, with casualties on both sides, but the appearance of a klick forces another withdrawal.

Nest (continued…)

Near Black Widow Canyon, the crew find a pair of impact craters seemingly caused by an “uncontrolled landing” followed by an explosion. Only minute fragments of the suspected ship are found, but analysis suggests it is semi-organic in nature. Once again, the klicks immediately spring to mind.

Atop the cliff overlooking the canyon, a section of ground has been demolished. Rubble litters the canyon floor below. A single beaten-up shuttle sits outside the lowest of three entrances into the canyon wall. Investigation of the upper passage reveals the mine works, while entering the middle one quickly leads to a hostile encounter with a pair of humanoids in some kind of organic exo-suits.

Superior numbers do not give as much advantage as expected. When another two of the beings cut off the exit, and the party discover that downed ones stand back up unreasonably quickly, things begin to look at bit worrisome. Fortunately, Conrad had kept comms open and Mayhem and Ark show up to lend a hand. With Conrad playing whack-a-mole with the first two, and everyone else focusing on the two outside, the tide slowly turns, allowing a hasty withdrawal.

Back aboard the Sparrow, wounds are tended, plans are hatched, and guns are reloaded…

Ark discovers there may be a common origin between life on K3 and K1. Conrad wonders if there is any relation between the newly encountered Underdwellers and the extinct Scournge. He also worries whether Ark’s father may be a figure from his past but has not yet asked for a name. The Convoy travels from Spiderhole to Polytroika. Gus makes a friend on the Momotaro (sort of) en route.

Delivery to 2253

The Deadlock is leaving the system just as the convoy arrives. Captain Victoria Harwood declines to share any scans from their just completed survey until she delivers her report to the Concord Survey Service. The convoy’s crews share a fresh meal with Aya Betsui and the system’s handful of other inhabitants on The Sister’s Jewel. A crashed shuttle on Jewel’s moon leads to an abandoned mining site in The Cloud; information which is shared with the outpost’s small mining team. Leaving on good terms with everyone, the convoy suffers the worst possible recharge times between jumps, starrising in Vieron 25 days later on 2499-07-01.

Nest

Shortly after crossing the orbit of one of Vieron’s distant gas giants, the convoy is attacked by a small spherical craft. It’s semi-organic nature immediately leads to comparisons with klick technology. A coordinated response destroys the attacker, though not before the Seishimi takes significant damage. The Sparrow goes to investigate a brief distress signal from the moon the vessel appeared to come from. The Momotaro, which suffered some minor hull damage, stands by in orbit. The Seishimi proceeds to Corazón de Fuega, where it will make planetfall at Tavira, which hosts the system’s only spaceport.

Preparations complete, the Sparrow and Momotaro dock with the Lighthouse to hitch a ride to Hammer’s Star. The majority of both crews choose to spend the 5 days in drive space aboard the more spacious city-ship. Megan has been reassigned temporarily as the cultural attaché to the Insight ambassador. Lodging is secured and various amounts of currency are spent or gambled. Conrad purchases a guitar from Reggie at The Corner. Moments before starfall, Gus receives a coded message from Doc P.

En route, Anthony Darrokin, Professor of Justice Ethics, announces plans for Refuge, an enclosed city on Fides, one of Spes’ two airless moons. The voyage is otherwise uneventful and starrise occurs exactly on the stroke of midnight as May 3rd begins – the 10th anniversary of the destruction of Silver Bell and the devastation of Spes. The convoy picks up its third member, the light freighter Seishimi, captained by Marcus Corge. Some undisclosed cargo for Concord is loaded and all three vessels starfall.

The Lost Civilisation

The Sparrow is tasked with completing the Momotaro’s previously aborted survey of Spiderhole. This progresses smoothly until they encounter an unknown sentient species in the depths of the second planet. Yala’s abilities save the day, and the life of one of the creatures, opening the way for Concord to initiate a controlled first-contact.

After helping the injured to the resort’s medical facility, many questions were asked that night and the following day.

There turned out to be two very different types of smuggling operation…

The first was the sort they expected – contraband being distributed by Hank, the staffer in charge of the Diving for Doubloons event. After extracting an admission that he had been solicited by the Free Trade Guild, and securing a list of names and some physical evidence, they handed him over to Alan. The REC would organise a sting to apprehend as many of those involved as possible.

So’ledrei, while tangentially involved in the Free Trade Guild’s scheme, was working for a more altruistic cause. He was channeling funds from Ayla Vych-Taron to an underground railroad transporting sesheyans from the Stellar Ring to the Verge. The investigators decided to omit this from official reports.

All they could uncover about whatever Michael Taron found before his apparent assassination was that it had something to do with VoidCorp. (Rule of thumb: It always has something to do with VoidCorp.) Ayla failed to come through with a contact for his secretary. As she and her parents are now out of reach of both the Thuldans and the party, due to a deal brokered by Insight to maintain the status quo, this generated another dead end. It’s still not clear how the Nariac cyber-mariner fit into things, or why the Thuldan sweeper operation was triggered. Still, Cinque got a new aqua-laser to play with, so it all ended well.

Until Mayhem informed them that he’d added a few extras to the refit and signed them up to a convoy to cover the cost. Preparations began for what would undoubtedly be a long, strange trip.

Cinque and Conrad manage to sober Wayne up overnight. A quiet day out at sea with Alan and Megan lasts until another boat, Alder’s Pride, impacts one of the resort’s proximity buoys and explodes. Twice. Through the smoke, Wayne sees a heavily cybered individual searching, who jumps overboard when spotted. Also, there are sharks. With frickin’ lasers.

After the survivors are rescued, Agent Donald Gettys arrives on scene to take credit charge. He leads them north to an island he knows has a medical facility. The Thuldans working there are the friendly sort, so only fire one warning missile at the approaching grav-cruisers.

The team apparently arrive at a bad time, as a kill squad show up shortly after to purge all evidence of the illicit experiments taking place there. Dr Artemus Vych is at a loss to explain what could have triggered a security breach. Jeremy Garond and his team make a valiant stand in Vych Manor against the Thuldan warlions, allowing the others to run away evacuate the non-combatants.

Things are not a whole lot better down below in Nereid Outpost, where Thuldan saboteurs have killed all the techs and are preparing demolition charges. Fortunately, the cyber-mariner from Alder’s Pride has already killed several of them. Unfortunately, he seems to want to kill all the Thuldans, including the evacuees, which the team politely object to. Gus hangs back a few moments to “tie her shoelaces” next to the mainframe in the research lab.

One cyborg kill-switch EMP later, everyone flees aboard the mini-sub kindly provided by the Thuldan saboteurs. (There may also have been something about Conrad exploding a satchel charge in the elevator shaft behind two approaching warlions.) The outpost explodes as the sub exits the undersea tunnel. A small group of deepfallen approach, communicate briefly with Megan, then swim onward into the tunnel, looking for “one who was lost”. The surface-dwellers head back to the resort.

With the Sparrow still grounded, the crew decide to hit the beach. Except for Wayne, who hits the bottle. Gus and Megan accept a mission from Alloy to investigate a smuggling operation, bringing Conrad and Cinque (and Wayne) along.

Conrad meets one of their fellow guests, Alan Quinn, whom he introduces to Megan. While initially claiming to work for security, after a few drinks he says he’s with REC (Regency Enforcement Command; essentially the police, though technically military).

Mixing pleasure with business, the crew surreptitiously interview staff members. There is hardly any hacking of resort servers or breaking and entering other guest cabins.

After 2 days of investigation produce indeterminate results, they accept Alan’s invitation to spend the next day out on a grav-cruiser. Conrad has made plans for the day after that, so clearly nothing can possibly go wrong…