Tim is off in Corpus this week, so our core group is reduced to Chris (Peter Sangaree), Chuck (Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat) and Paul (Sean Punch). As an added bonus, we are joined by Barry (Razorhands Madge), who we last encountered as a sociopathic windling in Earthdawn.
Barry brings the moderately stable Razorhands Madge to the group. She is a Muster guildswoman specializing in zero-g cargo handling. When the characters find her, she is unemployed at Prince Cassius Field. They hire her as an expert to teach them enough Free Fall and Vacc Suit skill to permit them to survive their trip to Mystery Death Planet X.
The characters board the Jayjay and head out to the Mystery Death Planet X, expecting to spend four weeks en route. Cheevo introduces everyone to Vukjuk, his Ur-Ukar First Officer. Cheevo makes a point of assuring everyone that Vukjuk, "Is top Number One First Officer! Nobody better!" The characters take this endorsement under advisement, particularly after Vukjuk tells them that their quarters are going to be prefab inflatables set up in the cargo deck. Vukjuk is quite forthright about explaining that he wants to limit contact between them and the crew. Cheevo further enhances everyone's trust by requesting that the characters not carry their weapons around the ship. Peter Sangaree offers a unilateral compromise, arguing that the characters will only carry blades and (sometimes) sidearms, and will refrain from bringing heavy weapons into crew areas.
In the moments prior to their departure, the characters realize that they have forgotten one last important item of equipment. They run out and purchase three imagers at a cost of 50 FB each so they will be able to bring back some video of their trip. Sean Punch declines the offer of an imager for himself, explaining that he already carries that sort of equipment internally.
The characters take a look around the ship that will be their home for the next ten weeks or so, with a keen eye towards future emergency needs. Jayjay proves to be a small escort with an outsized cargo deck. It is obvious from the weld marks visible on the hull and the decks that the original internal design of the ship was substantially different from what Cheevo current has. Most of the modifications look like they happened years ago, possibly before Cheevo became the ship's master.
The characters also notice that the ship is comparatively undergunned, carrying two medium blaster cannons in gundeck mounts and a single light laser cannon in a dorsal turret mount. They conclude that Cheevo's intent is to mount just enough guns to win the fights he is likely to pick, but not enough to make him look like an actual pirate when he docks at respectable ports.
The ship's crew consists of a dozen men, including Cheevo (the owner and Captain), Vukjuk (the Ur-Ukar First Officer), Lindry (the chromehead Navigator and Sysadmin) and Bob (the constantly-armed Cargo Master). Several of the remaining crew look like they were chosen first as goons and only second as starship crew.
The characters spend most of their time down on the cargo deck in their prefab quarters, eating bland preprocessed food that comes in a variety of bright, primary colors. Sean Punch spends a lot of time watching clown porn in his head.
Razorhands Madge gives the characters' lives a touch of discipline with her regular free fall operations classes. Thanks to her drilling, each character gains a free point towards Free Fall skill, and may put an additional three points towards it if they so desire. Madge gains a free point towards the Teaching skill.
Three weeks into the journey, Vukjuk calls down into the cargo area to ask the characters to strap down into acceleration couches. Quickly thereafter, the Jayjay's engines light up and the ship engages in a series of rather complicated maneuvers. The characters become concerned, especially given that a significant part of their flight plan involved traveling dark to avoid detection.
Cheevo provides an explanation to the situation a while later. He personally walks down onto the cargo deck to talk to the characters. He tells them that the ship has been intercepted by the Powell, a small escort ship from the Far Squadron of the Gwynneth Fleet. He suspects that one of the asteroid mining facilities he bribed to provide the Jayjay with a false itinerary has sold him out, as the Powell wants to board him. Cheevo asks that the characters come up into the bridge, as they have some interest in the outcome of the discussions, but he claims some confidence that he can resolve the situation without too much trouble: he knows that the Powell is captained by Commander Thomas, a Hawkwood officer with a reputation for flexible morals.
The characters join Cheevo and his crew on the bridge, but they are not nearly as certain that simply bribing the man will solve the problem. They suggest that even if he accepts the bribe, he and his crew will still know that the Jayjay was out on the fringes of the Gwynneth system, and might be able to guess why. Cheevo promises to stall the Hawkwoods while the characters debate their options.
The characters finally come to the conclusion that the only reasonable choice is to lure the Powell in and then take it in a boarding action. Vukjuk and Cheevo agree (Vukjuk instantly, Cheevo with some reluctance). It takes little time for Cheevo to manipulate Commander Thomas into pulling the Powell to within 300 meters of the Jayjay and sending over a boarding party.
Vukjuk gives the orders for a force composed of Jayjay crew to meet the Hawkwoods at the airlock, then asks the characters if they would volunteer to mount the raid against the Powell itself. The characters reluctantly agree, with the exception of Sean Punch (who is too much of a pacifist to go on a mission like this). Vukjuk assigns one of the Jayjay's crew to accompany the characters, and tells the man to find them some maneuvering packs and breaching charges. When the crewman returns, Vukjuk offers the group some instruction in how the charges work: the whole thing looks like a large disk. One side is flat, and adheres to the target. The other side has a red arming button. When the red button is pressed, the charge is armed (and will clamp down onto the target). The arming key can then be removed and used as a remote detonator. Vukjuk mentions that it is also possible to set the charges for timed detonation, but he doesn't bother to explain how. He gives one charge to each character, and one more to the crewman, explaining that they'll look awfully foolish if they bring only one charge and then lose it somehow.
The characters turn on their air necklaces, and then leave the Jayjay through the far airlock to await the arrival of the Hawkwoods. They wait until they hear Vukjuk bang upon the hull (the agreed signal), then use their newly-learned Free Fall skills to make their way over to the Powell without too much trouble.
It is at the Powell that the original plan starts to diverge. Instead of setting only one breaching charge, the characters decide to set them all, mining everything from the escort's cargo lock to it's gun turrets and the hull section above the starboard gundeck. With all the charges set, the characters take refuge near the aft ventral quarter of the Powell and hit the detonators, but not after some argument between Peter Sangaree and Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat over just how "directed" the breaching charge explosions are going to be. Sir Caine claims that it is fairly safe to stand practically on top of an exploding charge, provided it is directed away from you, while Peter complains that he doesn't want to be hurled into space by "only" 4 dice of damage. Sir Caine finally gives in to Peter's complaints and agrees that a refuge out of line of sight from all the charges is probably best.
The Powell shudders like a stricken beast as the breaching charges tear huge sections away from her hull. The characters move to the ruined hull section above the cargo lock and peer inside to see one frozen corpse and two Hawkwood crew in vacc suits in the chamber. The two Hawkwoods move up, brandishing boarding axes. Peter Sangaree disposes of one of them by readying a grenade, pretending to pull the pin, and throwing it into the chamber. The second is not dissuaded, and attempts to attack Peter with the axe. His assault is short-lived, as Razorhands Madge and Peter both stab at him with their blades, perforating his suit. Sir Caine slips past him into the chamber and grabs his safety rope, yanking him into a wall as the unfortunate fellow desperately tries to place a patch upon one of the holes in his vacc suit. It takes a distressingly small number of seconds for his struggles to cease.
At this point, Sir Caine notices that one of the Powell's turrets is still functional, and is turning to try and bear on the characters. He breaks comm silence to as Sean Punch how things are going on the Jayjay, and to request some help. Sean Punch tells him that there has been a bit of trouble, but that things are back under control. One of Cheevo's crewmen set off a breaching charge pointing straight at the Hawkwood group, killing them all and himself into the bargain. Collateral damage from the man's actions included the starboard airlock, which was blown clean out. The loss of pressure struck down another of Cheevo's crew who was caught on the wrong side of the pressure barrier when it turned on. Sean Punch claims that he can see the Powell (and the offending gun turret) directly through the hole left by the airlock, with nothing more than a pressure barrier to keep him from the vacuum.
Sean Punch agrees with Sir Caine's request to do something about the turret, and asks Vukjuk to destroy it with the Jayjay's guns. Vukjuk complies with vigor, walking volley after volley of blaster fire down the Powell's already-riddled hull until Sean Punch and Cheevo (who is worried that there will be nothing left for him to salvage) force him to stop.
The assault team over on the Powell pick themselves up once they are suitably reassured that the laser fire has stopped and prepare to storm the rest of the ship. They quickly discover that several Hawkwoods are covering the hatchway out of the breached cargo deck with automatic weapons, as Peter Sangaree takes several bullets upon his air necklace field.
The characters' first demand for surrender is met with a surprising amount of resistance from Commander Thomas, who asserts that he and his men will fight to the death. Their second demand is answered rather more querulously by a nervous Ensign Lewis, who explains that the Commander has been incapacitated. The surviving Hawkwood crew quickly surrender.
The characters find themselves with ten prisoners: three rather young Ensigns (including Lewis, the eldest at 17 years of age), and seven hard-bitten crewmen. The leader of the crew is a grizzled 38-year-old named Box who claims to have been a farmer on Malignatus until he was pressed into the Decados navy some 20 years ago. Since then, he has gone from navy to navy, changing hands as the ships he has crewed have been captured or destroyed, serving both the Al-Malik and the Hawkwoods. He says that the last time he was on a planet was almost 17 years ago. The other crew are of similar age, and have similar histories. They include several of Box's old crewmates from an Al-Malik frigate and one former Vuldrok raider. The characters quickly gather that Box was the one who was responsible for hitting Commander Lewis in the head with a boarding axe.
The characters instantly conclude that these are their kind of people, and make arrangements to hold them in the cargo deck until they can come up with something better.
By the time the Jayjay has reached distant orbit around the Mystery Planet, the characters already know something about the fate of the missing Hawkwood ships. Vukjuk reports that the ship's sensors are able to detect three ships in orbit around the planet. The man-o-war Stabbing Sphinx drifts alone, while the transport City of Industry and the corvette Marigold are locked together. None of them show signs of life, and the cyborg Lindry reports the dismal news that he can detect spectrographic traces of oxygen around all of the hulls, indicating that none of them remain vacuum-tight.
The characters consult among themselves, then elect to ask Cheevo to bring the Jayjay in closer. They move in to a polar orbit and spend several hours mapping the surface of Naauthivirc.
The orbital map reveals a number of interesting terrain features. In particular, it solves the mystery of at least one of the remaining Hawkwood ships: a recent crash site is visible near the equator. Sadly, there isn't enough debris left to allow Cheevo's crew to identify the original vessel from orbit. The world also features three obvious city sites, of possible Annunaki origin. The three are linked by a geometrically-straight "roadway" that appears to be made of all known elements, in random concentration. Though Sean Punch is briefly convinced that the characters have discovered an incredible new alloy, he eventually come3s around to the majority view that whatever the road is made of, the ship's sensors are useless for analyzing it.
Having convinced themselves that the world below isn't going to become immediately hostile, the characters tell Cheevo to bring the Jayjay into an orbit a few kilometers away from the hulk of the Stabbing Sphinx. The character borrow an orbital transfer sled (basically a large tinkertoy with a couple of engines attached) from Cheevo and prepare to travel across to the wreck. They bring along one of their captive Hawkwood Ensigns (a luckless lad who claims to have served aboard a man-o-war in the past) and one of Cheevo's crew.
Their journey proves to be rather short. Even as the sled approaches the hulk, the characters are able to see that the outer hull has been melted through in dozens of places. The characters leave Cheevo's crewman to watch the sled (moored several meters away from the ship) while they look around inside. They get no more than a few meters into the riddled hull before they conclude that they're not going to find anything of non-hazardous interest: the entire interior of the hull is little more than a gutted, frozen shell.
Then the walls come to life. The characters find themselves faced with a steadily-growing crowd of shadowy, hulking shapes. Electing to deal with the creatures at a distance or not at all, everyone heads back to the sled. Along the way, they are intercepted by two of the Grabbers. Sean Punch and Sir Caine discover that the things are practically unbeatable in melee combat, and are quickly overwhelmed. Sean Punch rather fortunately makes the follow-up discovery that laser rifles do work against the creatures, while only meters away Sir Caine only learns that his own ribs make incredibly alarming crunching sounds when reduced to half their normal diameter. The rest of the group rescues Sir Caine through the expedient of massive laser fire at the Grabber's head, guided by their battle cry: "The Pancreator wants us to live this way!".
With their foes at arm's length, the characters make their way back to the sled. The unfortunate Ensign attempts to take the direct route, jumping straight for it across the void. He is intercepted by two of the creatures, horrible Grabbers each with six ropy, muscular arms and a terrible, lipless mouth. The other characters watch as the boy is crushed to death.
Leaving the Ensign's body to the questionable mercies of the horrific Grabbers, the characters board their sled and head back towards the Jayjay. Behind them, they see a group of Grabbers assemble themselves into a long, rotating chain. Two massive creatures with torsos stretched out like armored drums grab hold of the ends, and are flung out in pursuit of the sled. The characters watch as the things pulse and oscillate, initially with maudlin curiosity and then with outright disgust as one of them spits out a globule of fluid that hits a rear support strut on the sled and eats through it. Nobody questions Sean Punch's decision to use all available engine power to get the sled away from the things.
No sooner have the characters brought the sled around to the Jayjay when Vukjuk radios to inform them that he's detected missiles launched from the planet surface, heading towards the ship. He doesn't seem too concerned about it: he explains that he used the ship's guns to intercept the lead missiles, and was quite happy to see that they just fell apart with great ease. The characters are likewise cheered by this revelation until Peter Sangaree thinks about what the missiles are probably made of. He recognizes that Grabbers and Droolers are probably clinging to the missiles' hulls, and that the passengers on board the lead missiles (the ones that Vukjuk "intercepted") are probably still on their way up to the Jayjay. His response is immediate: "Hit the engines and get the ship out of here!"
The characters board Jayjay in some desperation and accelerate away from Naauthivirc. They cross their fingers and hope that they got away from the place clean, then accept that their hopes are dashed when they hear the first of the thumping sounds against the hull.
The characters' fears, at least their ropy, grayish, alien ones, are quickly realized. The Jayjay shudders and a desperate crewman struggles into the bridge, reporting that the creatures have burned their way into the cargo deck. The crewman also claims that Cargo Master Bob was grappled by one of the creatures and crushed. The characters observe a moment of silence in Cargo Master Bob's memory, then turn to monster-hunting. They enter the cargo bay in full tunnel-rat regalia, grateful for their air necklaces, their unspeakably powerful flashlights, their blisteringly damaging laser rifles, and their extensive collections of clown products (to keep their minds off the situation). It doesn't take them long to flush out their prey. Once again, both Sean Punch and Sir Caine find themselves grappled and on the verge of being crushed, though once again their comrades rush to their aid. Sir Caine rather glumly concludes that Grabbers must be really fond of his aftershave.
Several tense moments after their initial encounter with the aliens, the characters determine that they have cleared the ship of boarders. To their relief, they find that many of the Hawkwood prisoners they had left in the cargo hold survived the Grabber onslaught, insulated from the vacuum by a pressure barrier that remained intact. They call up to Cheevo and tell him to get the ship back to Gwynneth. Neither Cheevo nor Vukjuk needs to be told twice.
The characters spend the next two weeks rather edgily waiting for Jayjay to return to the inner system and comparative safety. Their wait is interrupted when Sean Punch happens to glance out one of the portholes and realizes that while the navigational software claims that he should be able to see Gwynneth's primary quite easily, it's nowhere to be seen. In fact, the view out of the port is completely different from what he had expected.
After some consultation with the other characters and with Vukjuk, he comes to the conclusion that there is something desperately wrong with the navigational software. It claims that Jayjay is on course, and in fact deep within the inner system, while in reality the ship is clearly somewhere lost in the void. The characters talk to Lindry, who gives Sean access to the ship's navigational think machines and reassures him that the problem is probably easily correctible, particularly because the Jayjay has triple-redundant navigational think machines.
Sean opens up the source code for Jayjay's navigational software and starts to examine it. Things start out looking quite normal, but after a couple of screens of code flash by he realizes that he is seeing characters on the screen that don't belong to any normal font set. At the same time, he feels a strange pulling upon his mind that convinces him the best thing to do is to look away from the monitor, quickly. Careful to avoid alerting the ship's crew, he warns the other characters that Qlippolithic influences have contaminated the ship's think machines. He also offhandedly comments that he felt a similar tug on his mind the last time he was working on the Big Thinker back in Fennen Marsh, a comment that fills Peter Sangaree's face with dread and mind with horror. Peter keeps his suspicions about the Big Thinker to himself, but does comment that the mystery of the final missing Hawkwood ship has probably been solved.
The characters alert Vukjuk to the problem and start to investigate the extent of the disaster. It doesn't take Sean Punch long to determine that all three of the Jayjay's think machines are contaminated. Remembering the effect that Vinjogoguladjz could have upon hardware, Peter Sangaree opens up the cases of each machine very carefully, inspecting the circuit boards and other components for any sign of respiration. He finds nothing, though he isn't particularly relieved.
Vukjuk explains that the ship carries a complete set of backup software, held in the ship's vault. He thinks that it should be possible to simply remove the memory crystals from the contaminated machines and replace them with the backup set. The entire group, escorted by the cyborg Lindry, head to the vault to retrieve the backups. On the way, Lindry asks to stop by his quarter so he can pick up his sidearm. He explains that he doesn't feel safe aboard the ship without it. The characters refuse, saying that he can get the weapon after they get the backup crystals. Lindry becomes steadily more agitated by their refusal, until he finally suffers a seizure. He falls to the ground, speaking nonsense words in an unnaturally low voice and an even more unnaturally high speed. The characters are able to discern only the phrase, "I am the Eater of Doors!" among his gibberish. They immediately discern that something is wrong, and suspect that whatever Lindry wanted to get from his quarters, it wasn't just a sidearm.
Sean Punch and Sir Caine are dispatched to check out Lindry's quarters while Peter Sangaree watches over Lindry himself. The two of them are escorted by Box, who appears likely to accept a position upon Cheevo's crew. Box is obviously not interested in taking any chances, and arms himself with a rugged-looking boarding axe.
The two characters quickly discover that Lindry had some unique ideas on interior décor. His room is a marvel of advanced technology: a think machine bolted underneath the desk drives two large holographic displays that dominate the far wall. Sean Punch observes that the displays are projecting Qlippolithic text very rapidly, in a manner that makes his head swim and his morals collapse. He elects to withdraw from the room before he finds himself in the same position as Lindry.
Sir Caine, upon hearing Sean's description of the room, calls up to Vukjuk to get the electrical power shut down. Vukjuk complies quite rapidly, but another quick glance inside reveals that it didn't have any particular effect.
Sean Punch and Sir Caine consult on what to do for a while, then realize that the holographic displays probably can't operate down into the infrared, while Sean's artificial eye can. He inches back into the room, his natural eye tightly shut and his cybereye set to detect infrared only. He is blessedly unable to see the hypnotic dance of the holographic displays, but is rather disconcerted to note that in place of the normal holographic projection he is now able to make out a horrific alien face in the center of each display. He deals with the situation by shutting everything in sight off.
It is at this point that the characters notice Lindry's collection of breaching charges. He had a half-dozen of the things stacked upon his desk, rather like dishes (or circular playing cards). The arming control for another charge lies next to the stack, causing mild consternation until the characters find the actual charge set on a shelf, angled to hit the door. This last discovery causes the characters' concern to increase rather a lot.
Peter notices that Cheevo is displaying an unusual amount of concern for Lindry's well-being. He quickly determines that Cheevo's concern is not so much for Lindry himself as for all the expensive hardware that Cheevo purchased to augment the man. Peter finds himself hard-pressed to empathize with the rotund Charioteer, no matter how much Lindry's equipment might have cost.
With Lindry incapacitated and his think machines turned off, the characters discuss their options with Vukjuk. Cheevo does his best to contribute to the conversation, but his steadily increasing panic only annoys the others. The characters finally decide that the safest plan is to collect all of the ship's think machines, plus everything in Lindry's room (including the breaching charges), and Lindry himself, and throw them all out the airlock. Cheevo is deeply upset by this plan, given the amount of money that all this hardware cost him, but he is unable to sway the characters from their course.
The characters then address the problem of navigating the Jayjay back home. Vukjuk proposes using star-sights, pen and paper for the job, but nobody is very happy with this notion. The characters finally take the backup memory crystals up to the sickbay and download them into Sir Brindal Karth's internal think machine. They are forced to delete most of the clown products from his storage bank in order to give the Jayjay's navigational software enough space to run, but they manage to use him to plot a course back into the Gwynneth system. For most of the rest of the journey, the characters have a keyboard, mouse and display plugged into Brindal Karth's head. It is perhaps fortunate that Sir Brindal Karth is too ill to object.
Three weeks after Lindry got himself dumped out of the airlock, the Jayjay is able to raise up the Yuwet Heavenly Mining Concern's Close Navigational Beacon. Amid the celebration, Cheevo lies up a storm and explains to Yuwet Traffic Control that the Jayjay is disabled and needs immediate landing permission for repairs.
The session ends with the Jayjay safely docked alongside the Great Tower at the Yuwet Heavenly Mining Concern. Each character gains four experience points, plus an additional free point in the skill Area Knowledge: Qlippolithic Monstrosities (M/A). In addition, each character who was able to participate in Free Fall training with Razorhands Madge gained one point in the Free Fall skill (with the option of spending up to three additional previously-earned experience points upon the skill as well).
The characters have two prisoners, youthful Ensigns in the Hawkwood Navy. Box and the other ship crew rescued from the Powell are all offered positions on the Jayjay's crew, and will accept if the characters don't offer otherwise.