Traveller: Life in the Marches - A ship of our own

Fourier

Both Seneca and Evan notice that the only weapons they have are energy pistols.

Fourier

jasonb wrote: »

"Good to meet you all. Were it not for the makeshift sail, we'd be rather stuck here, and are in need of getting a working M-Drive. Are you able to tow us back to Blue? We are aware of a Pirate ship that responded to our distress call, but haven't seen it on our sensors for a while, have you seen anything?"

"No we cannot, our ship is but a far trader essentially, it would put colossal strain on it to tow you.

You must come aboard our ship.

It is also our duty to deal with these pirates, perhaps your superior mind might help. Our ship has a pulse laser, two nukes and ten conventional missiles, we assume the pirates do not outstrip that."

Banjo

Evan steps between the rescuers and Glenn.

"Woah - woah -WOAH! Come aboard your ship? Look, you seem like a very small handful of very nice people, but the guys we jumped here to escape seemed like nice people too. They came aboard, just like you did. They offered to help, then they tried to take Glenn here away from us, to degrade him, to experiment on him. It was all we could do to get away from them. We lost a dear comrade and a beautiful manoeuvre drive in that fight. We... we can't take that chance again.

But.... maybe...

no it's crazy....

Maybe you could give Glenn command authorisation over the ship and the overrides so he can feel safe, just till we get to Blue? "

Professor Moriarty

Seneca sidles up to Milt and whispers "A suggestion. We could send a distress signal from this ship to the pirates, take their ship and leave them here as bait for the pirates."

Fourier

Banjo wrote: »

Maybe you could give Glenn command authorisation over the ship and the overrides so he can feel safe, just till we get to Blue? "

"Anything for a Lord of the Universe"

He types a few commands into his wrist device.

"There, the ship is his."

Banjo

Evan whispers back "All this whispering looks mighty suspicious. I'm beginning to not trust us, we might be up to something."

OOC : Crew eyes only

It's a far trader. That's a decent, well armed ship with J-2 and no history of having committed a warcrime. Nestor was the most gung-ho about hijacking the ship. And she has 2 drones now to set up an ambush or just take off with the Grandfather's Hammer without us if that's what she wants. If we're going to do this we need to disable the comms on our ship, cut the sail loose and just set the distress signal pinging. Otherwise they'll rat us out.
Also.... if we're going to be pirates, lets be ****ing pirates. Back off, let the pirates come to the disabled ship, when they dock we take their ship to using Glennaportation and the 10 drones - close the iris to trap their boarding party, kill the remaining crew, nuke the Vainglorious. If there are command issues, we have the Scout OS available to format and reinstall their ship.
I have a terrible feeling that fourier can see this even though I'm whispering.

Professor Moriarty

Seneca whispers "If they're of no use or they'll squeal, let's just eliminate them?"

Banjo

OOC : We may need to hang on for a bit for Old Goat and Conor2222 - Hopefully Nestor took the hint and is confirming their ship has no nasty surprises, and the Drones that aren't romantically entangled with Evan may be more motivated to listen to Alex's commands and therefore less motivated to murder us all.

OldGoat

Nestor eyes the drones suspiciously. "Will you stop spying on me!"
She heads to meet the newcomers.
"Greeting rescuers, welcome. I see the rest of out crew have forgotten manners in their excitement at being rescued. Please sit, have some refreshments with us and tell us of your world. I'm intrigued by your respect for the Droyan even though it seems to embarrass Glenn a little."

Comm to Evan: "Lets get the pirate ship instead. Bound to have more booty for us and then we can check out the planet as heros. When we get the lay of the land we can, if necessary take our choice of ships to abscond with."

jasonb

Glenn nods at Nestor, having 'heard' her message to Evan, showing he likes her plan. Then he addresses the crew from the Rescue Ship...

"Yes, we can use your ship to defeat the Pirates, and use our crippled ship as bait. Help us take everything we need from our ship onto yours and then we can send another distress signal from ours to lure them, while we run silent from a distance..."

Banjo

"agreed, our best chance of beating them is if they attach to the Vainglorious and commit men to boarding, then if we surprise them they'll have a greatly reduced manoeuvring capability at least at the start of the engagement. Maybe longer if we can rig up something to prevent their airlock disengaging.

Gospis, do you have any intelligence on pirates at large in the system, individual specifics, demographics - I mean if they're Zhodani we can forget about sneaking onboard we'll need to be a little more direct, if they're rogue aslans we're better off destroying their ship than trying to take them hand to hand, if they're K'kree we could desecrate up the ship a little with synthmeat to drive them nuts when they board it, Vargr... Well if we can find a big enough stick we could keep the whole crew distracted for as long as we need to."

Evan calls up whatever data they have on the ship they scanned earlier in case it helps with identifying who's on board and how big the crew might be, but also what type of ship it is, whether its point of origin might suggest that a rescue team from Blue would have equipment and/or codes suitable for over-riding it's computer authorizations, how it's likely to secure the Vainglorious for boarding and pillaging.

Fourier

OOC: To anybody else, the Zhodani are a race of humans who are all psychic and live in a communist, in a sense, society. They're the joint most powerful human race with the Vilani.

Banjo wrote: »

Gospis, do you have any intelligence on pirates at large in the system, individual specifics, demographics - I mean if they're Zhodani we can forget about sneaking onboard we'll need to be a little more direct, if they're rogue aslans we're better off destroying their ship than trying to take them hand to hand, if they're K'kree we could desecrate up the ship a little with synthmeat to drive them nuts when they board it, Vargr... Well if we can find a big enough stick we could keep the whole crew distracted for as long as we need to."

Gospis speaks to Evan as his crew help the Vainglorious's move equipment between the ships.

"The consulate is over a year away by jump, even with a ship with a good jump rating. I've never even heard of a Zhodani being seen in our whole subsector, let alone Blue system.

Pirates around here are all natives of this region of space, the former Kingdom of Drinax. When the kingdom collapsed a series of Pirate Lords set up base on Theev, a planet almost two months from here by jump. They raid the entire former area of the kingdom and occasionally even the Aslan Hierate, though they know not to push the Aslan.

We recently had an platoon of Imperial destroyers pass through here to clear them out. Blue specifically, can you believe it, none of our sister systems were as lucky. The Imperium really wants us to join them."

Banjo wrote: »

Evan calls up whatever data they have on the ship they scanned earlier in case it helps with identifying who's on board and how big the crew might be, but also what type of ship it is, whether its point of origin might suggest that a rescue team from Blue would have equipment and/or codes suitable for over-riding it's computer authorizations, how it's likely to secure the Vainglorious for boarding and pillaging.

Like many Pirate vessels, it's a modified far trader. Modified to cut on luxury and stock up on weapons. The ship OS was most likely properly installed on Theev by the Pirate Lords, meaning Blue starport and its teams would be unable to hack it easily.

Fourier

The transfer between the two ships is complete. Hardest was moving Verne, who was still deep in a meditative state. Aslan ethics prohibits waking him.*

*OOC: This is actually canonically true, some Aslan meditate like this through intense danger.

Banjo

In the common room of the Grandfather's Hammer the crew assess their options.
"So we fake a power failure on the Vainglorious, maybe sever a couple of times on the sail, start broadcasting the distress beacon. That should bring the pirates in.
We can head-on assault them, hope for the best.
We can try to Glennaport onto their ship and take them aggressively from behind."
He winks at Dhinor.
"We could leave the drones on the VG to create a kill box when they board. We have options.

Tuspis and I have been working on an electromagnetic clamp to stop them disengaging when they dock. But if they board via spacewalk that's no good. So... What does everyone else think?"

Baggly

'Sounds good.

Will they be able to scan the ship before they attack? Do we need to fake our life signs?'

Fourier

Gospis turns to Dhinor.

"Equipment to scan for life is very expensive in this area of space. Only Drinax's government would have it, or the Imperial representatives there. The Pirate Lords of Theev wouldn't shell out for one of their minor ships to get it."

Professor Moriarty

"We don't need to leave the drones? Just set a booby trap bomb"

Banjo

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

"We don't need to leave the drones? Just set a booby trap bomb"

True. But then we potentially lose 2 ships instead of gaining 3. I mean 2 ha ha ha" he throws an unthreatening arm around his fellow Bluvian engineer.

Professor Moriarty

"Okay, whatever you say." Seneca begins to gather the ingredients for a large bomb.

OldGoat

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

"Just set a booby trap..."

Nestor rolls her eyes at the anticipated sniggers. "Pft, men."

Banjo

"if we're going with a pectoral problemator" he gives Nestor a nod, "what's our goal? Destroy the ship? Kill the pirates? Just create chaos so we can take advantage of it? I'm thinking a few shaped charges with some choice shrapnel, ideally positioned so it hits them in the back after they board, causing death, injury and vac suit damage but preserving the ship itself. Might need to leave Barrymore on board to trigger it. The electromags latch on to their ship so they can't disengage and can't easily turn around, then we attack their ship, Glenn warps Dhinor and some drones on. We murder all of them - maybe keep one to transfer command auth to us. And boom, we're heroes! What could possibly go wrong?"

OldGoat

Banjo wrote: »

"if we're going with a pectoral problemator" he gives Nestor a nod, "what's our goal? Destroy the ship? Kill the pirates? Just create chaos so we can take advantage of it? I'm thinking a few shaped charges with some choice shrapnel, ideally positioned so it hits them in the back after they board, causing death, injury and vac suit damage but preserving the ship itself. Might need to leave Barrymore on board to trigger it. The electromags latch on to their ship so they can't disengage and can't easily turn around, then we attack their ship, Glenn warps Dhinor and some drones on. We murder all of them - maybe keep one to transfer command auth to us. And boom, we're heroes! What could possibly go wrong?"

"Well, we really should be trying to capture rather than murder but apart from that...
If all goes well we have some prisoners, a good quality ship with a missing drive, a slightly damaged pirate ship full of drives, nukes and lovely lovely treasure and last but not least our new friends on Blue who want to honour our crewmate the Hero pirate vanquisher.
I might write an opera about this day."

Baggly

Banjo wrote:

"if we're going with a pectoral problemator" he gives Nestor a nod, "what's our goal? Destroy the ship? Kill the pirates? Just create chaos so we can take advantage of it? I'm thinking a few shaped charges with some choice shrapnel, ideally positioned so it hits them in the back after they board, causing death, injury and vac suit damage but preserving the ship itself. Might need to leave Barrymore on board to trigger it. The electromags latch on to their ship so they can't disengage and can't easily turn around, then we attack their ship, Glenn warps Dhinor and some drones on. We murder all of them - maybe keep one to transfer command auth to us. And boom, we're heroes! What could possibly go wrong?"

'first time you have made sense this whole journey'

jasonb

"All sounds good to me, assuming the Pirates are actually out there, we haven't seen any sign of them in days. Let's configure a different drone to stay on the ship, issue the distress call etc., Barrymore is too well programmed to lose him that easily!"

sullivlo

Mod

Non-player posts deleted. Do not post in this thread unless you are playing. Any questions PM a mod. Any further posts will result in bans.

First and final warning.

Banjo

"Soooooo..... anyone know anything about explosives?"

Evan starts breaking down non-essential furniture on the Vainglorious to make shrapnel.

OOC : Given that the Drones are not properly programmed yet, can we continue to try or is it a one-and-done roll?

Fourier

OOC: Retry allowed due to presence of Grandfather's Hammer Crew.
Electronic(Remote Ops)[Education], Difficulty: +2

Banjo

OOC: Rolled 6, 5. Total score : 15 - is this right? Electronic(Remote Ops)[Education], Difficulty: +2, My Education is +2, I have no Electronics skill (so -4), but have Engineer (Electronics)1 so treating that as Electronics (0)? If not it's 11 with the -4 penalty for unskilled labour.

While I'm here, I based my Engineer split (Power, Electronics) on a manual for an earlier revision of the game - are they still valid specialisations?

Fourier

OOC: Updated your sheet for you, in line with edition conflict.

This time, when Evan boots up the robots, they comply perfectly with his commands. Further more they are ready to enact with force and accuracy any tactics Alex delivers to them.

Even better, Evan removed modules not necessary for the current task (language databases, small sections of TAS library of planets) to expand and enhance their tactical cogitators and lengthen their gun barrels. Their combat performance has been significantly improved.

Baggly

Dhinor spends his time searching the ship for parts so that he can make another sword like the one he already has.

If he finds them, he tries to build the sword.