28/08/2019 - Tracking Harlan (3)

Ancient Artefacts

The “Gadget” that disabled all the electronics in the house also affected their equipment including robotic arms and legs. It also seems to have been able to remove recent surveillance information, suggesting an advanced intelligence behind it. Affected devices are able to reboot eventually though.

Del explores the house and finds the Professor’s workshop, finding two items that look like Ancient artefacts. One is spherical and the other pointed. They are remarkably light. He decides to take them, along with the slug Rifle that Mort was carrying.

The Detective Calls

They wait for Detective Oday to arrive and then bring him up to speed. He initially thinks the Travellers had allowed themselves to be followed despite his warnings, but Del clarifies that the assassins were clearly after the Professor. Oday then interrogates Mort himself, pretty much extracting the same information that Del had already obtained.

Oday is happy because they are getting closer to Ven Yasha. They should investigate Winter Shipping and see if they can get to Harlen via Exceedingly Discreet.

He then goes to leave, first stopping to tell them he has seen another party operating on the moon. Off-Worlders of unknown origin poking their noses in very professionally and discreetly, but he has noticed them. Del asks if they are the Federation, which frightens Oday as that had crossed his mind too. However, the Federation is not supposed to be here. Oday then leaves.

Arrested

Grant then calls in the POC, who arrive fairly quickly by flyer. The Travellers are all arrested and detained. The POC confiscate the rifle that belonged to Mort, but do not recognise the Ancient artefacts and Del is allowed to keep them.

The Police take them back to the POC offices in Credo City, where they are held for a few days and questioned. Grant spends 10,000 Credits on a decent lawyer to speed up the process. Cyrus tries to contact his daughter’s law firm, but they don’t have an office in the system, so they just use a local firm.

Cyrus tells long stories during his interrogation, about what he used to do when he was a Sheriff. The POC officers look bored but listen out of professional courtesy.

Inspector Norrim talks with Grant, noting from the surveillance footage at the Professor's house that they have been talking with Detective Oday. Norrim tells him that Oday is on Administrative Suspension, though he does not say why. As Oday is no longer an active Officer of the POC, they should not have any further dealings with him.

Mort gets his own lawyer, but he is the primary suspect and after a few days the Travellers are released. They return to their hotel in Credo City and discuss what to do next.

Weapons!

They need some weapons as Winter Shipping could be a dangerous place. Drent communicates with Orac on the Liberator using his Comms implant, asking for weapons. Orac tells him that is a waste of his time. Drent is finally able to persuade Orac to help them after he suggests the supercomputer may not have the processing power to help them. He finds that he has a message from a local mining retailer, confirming the hand mining laser that he ordered is available for collection.

They go to the shop, which is in Credo City and pick up the laser. Despite their efforts, they are unable to obtain any others. Cyrus puts the laser in his tool bag.

Winter Shipping

Winter Shipping has two offices, one in Startown and another in Highport. Del checks and they are on either side of the customs fence and realises they must be secretly passing goods back and forth while avoiding customs.

The Starport offices of Winter Shipping are not in great condition, with a glitching hologram advertising the company name. The Travellers pull up nearby and have a long discussion in their hire car about what they want from this place.

One possible strategy is using the artefacts they have to get them in and then Del suggests they take over or kill Harlan, but Drent is reluctant, he wants them to be arrested.

Del suggests that Ven Yasha is after an Ancient artefact detector and he has probably already headed off to get the device from Beck’s World, which is about a week away by normal jumping. Liberator could get them there in a few hours. Juni could be offered a place on the Liberator as motivation to join them and use her Ancient site detector.

Bluffing It Out

The decision is made to bluff it out in Winter Shipping. Cyrus will wait in the car listening to their conversation using Drent’s Comms implant, while the others go in. If they say “Bojangles” Cyrus will come in shooting.

Grant, Drent and Del enter the reception and use the special phrase. The receptionist presses a button and a section of the floor opens, revealing stairs going down. They go down into a dirty old underground tunnel with old pipe work, back up some stairs at the other end and emerge in a large warehouse. There is a big built human and a cyborg in there.

Exceedingly Discreet

The cyborg, Exceedingly Discreet, invites them into his office to discuss business opportunities. He speaks with an electronic voice and calls them by their titles.

Del talks about them wanting to sell Ancient artefacts and want to speak to Harlen. He is careful not to have the artefacts on him and just shows the cyborg pictures. Exceedingly Discreet is reluctant to give the information over and suggests he can act as a broker for the artefacts.

Discreet appears to believe that Harlen is no longer focused sufficiently on monetary gain, which is disappointing. After a while, the cyborg offers to give them Harlen’s location in return for 12,000 Credits, which Grant pays. They are given some co-ordinates and told to leave.

They follow the tunnel back to the Startown side and head to the car where Cyrus is waiting. The co-ordinates appear to be a lagrange point in orbit between Regina and the Gas Giant, a large Cargo Container Park in the null gravity zone.

Planning the Job

Returning to their hotel, they check out and return their hire car. Then they get a taxi Shuttle back up to Highport and to the Liberator shuttle. There they extract the cyrotube of Vlen Kennedy from left luggage and use the shuttle to return to the Liberator and recover.

A discussion is held over what to do with these co-ordinates. They consider how to bring Liberator closer without getting close enough it will get detected in the space lanes. While they are asking Zen for possibilities, they learn that Liberator is capable of Warp travel, but such a short journey would have to precisely planned. Del obtains a long technical explanation from Zen about how Warp travel works.

The final plan is to move Liberator closer to the Space lanes but still an hours thrust away. They then take a Shuttle the rest of the way to the co-ordinates. Dirk stays on board.

Secret Base

When they arrive at the Cargo Container Park, they realise the containers are enormous 5,000 tons size and there are thousands of them. Careful piloting from Drent and sensor sweeps from Cyrus allow them to get to approximately the right location, but they only find the right place with visual confirmation of three cargo containers connected together. The middle container appears to have a power source.

Drent flies closer and a hidden hatch opens, revealing a docking area in the left hand container. He flies in and docks, passing a hidden laser turret and bumping the shuttle into the docking arms slightly. There are a number of cargo robots around and this docking area has no gravity or atmosphere.

Vacc suits are in order, so they suit up, while Del dons his combat armour, which Cyrus has had his repair robot fix. They leave the shuttle and speak to the dock workers, who want to know what they are unloading. Del tells them they are here to make a deal with Harlen and a dis-interested worker escorts them from the docking area into the crew area, which is pressurised, so they have to pass through an airlock. There is still no gravity in the crew area though, requiring magnetic boots to be used to move around.

Harlen

Harlen’s office is at the edge of the first Cargo Container, probably in the connecting point to the next one. Harlen asks what they want via an intercom. Del tells them he has Ancient artefacts to trade and a detector, which sufficiently interests Harlen that he allows them entrance to his office.

Inside, the “office” is more of a technology workshop, with lots of pieces of mostly computer tech lying around in various states of repair. Harlen is sat at a work bench examining computer chips closely, looking very much like a scientist, though with a Gauss Pistol in a shoulder holster. He stares at them down his special glasses and ask what they have to offer.

Grant begins to discuss sale of Ancient artefacts in return for Credits. Del shows him the spherical artefact he has, which after a few minutes Harlen confirms as genuine. It’s rare but not an unknown Ancient artefact. He offers 40,000 Credits which they scoff at as it’s likely worth 120,000 Credits or more. However, despite Federation policy mostly being overturned, trade in Ancient Artefacts is illegal in most civilised systems, including this one.

Revealing the Truth

Harlen seems unimpressed though and preceives this is not their real agenda. Why have they really come here? They say they want to contact Ven Yasha, but Harlen makes it clear that he is not in the system and only makes contact when he wants to. Del’s hints that Ven is on his way to collect the artefact detector from Beck’s World, but Harlen appears to not know what he is talking about.

Finally, Grant reveals that they are here because they know Harlen killed Vlen Kennedy and that they have exposed Harlen’s operation here. Harlen appears disappointed yet accepting of this. “This is sub-optimal,” says Harlen.

They tell him his operation is easily shut down, which Harlen says can happen sooner than they think. He then concentrates and manipulates an implant in his head. Suddenly red lights start to flash, an alarm sounds and an electronic voice advises immediate evacuation.

Count Down to Self-Destruct

Cyrus shoots and wounds Harlen with his revolver. Harlen shoots back with his Gauss Pistol, but he has been wounded and misses Cyrus narrowly. Del shoots him through the head. The red lights and alarms continue to blare and they realise they need to get out of here. They grab some of the technology lying around and get out.

One of the workers opens fire at them as they leave, but misses and they kill him.

The airlocks suddenly open as they reach the exit of the crew area. They are forced to grab hold to avoid being sucked out as the crew area depressurises. Grant fails get a hold of anything and is sent spinning out of the airlock. He flies into the docking area, tumbling slowly towards open space, propelled by the momentum of depressurisation.

Escape

The others head back to the shuttle just as the first explosion goes off. They get on board and Drent pilots the shuttle carefully over to Grant’s spinning body, riding out another closer explosion thanks to his ace skill at piloting.

They are able to recover Grant and leave the Cargo Container just as the final set of explosions destroys all three of the containers. They signal Dirk to bring in the Liberator at normal speed so they can rendezvous and get away as fast as possible.

End of Episode Three