Tim joins us for the Punisher, but pleads that he has crushing piles of useful work that must be done and evaporates before gaming begins. The rest of us soldier on under the trusted leadership of Chuck, who has indicated that this will be the final Prodigal Suns game. The rest of our loyal group consists of Billy (Mister Yong), Ernest (Liz Blessing), Chris (Caleb Kagan), Bruce (Goat Gulgusskun) and Paul (Bob the Saurk).
The curtain rises upon our heroes cowering in the Blue Lady, keenly aware that they have just murdered an Anzani agent in public. Even worse, every news outlet that cares to carry the story seems to be claiming that "some diplomat" was killed by a disgruntled former employee who was quiet and kept to himself, spending most of his time polishing his huge collection of firearms.
Bob the Saurk asks the others, "Are we going to do the sane thing: hijack a truck, load up with our biggest guns, and attack the Anzani head-on?" Liz Blessing tells him, "You forget that we're in the biggest airport terminal in the universe. There are no vehicles here."
The characters discuss the practicalities of an assault on the Anzani Trade Legation. Both Liz Blessing and Mister Yong mention the obvious problem: any amount of man-portable explosive the characters could bring along wouldn't be enough to do more than cosmetic damage to the Anzani while inflicting massive collateral damage on innocent bystanders.
The characters eventually decide that they should try a quieter approach, possibly including picking locks and working silently. And then Liz Blessing remembers that the Dante trade representative is scheduled to have a meeting with the Anzani Legate. Everyone has already concluded that the guy is going to be replaced at his meeting. After great trial and tribulation the characters decide to watch him until his meeting, and then have Goat Gulgusskun determine if he's still human.
Bob the Saurk and Goat Gulgusskun stay behind to watch the Blue Lady and wait for their cue. Everyone else heads out to follow the Trade Representative. Bob demands blood samples from everyone, just to make sure that they're all still human.
Mister Yong gets impatient and tells the others, "Enough of stories of Gaulden cuisine, let's go do this thing."
Caleb Kagan, Liz Blessing and Mister Yong hang out at a Taco of the Sea stand and watch the Dante Trade Representative go about his riveting daily routine. He eats, he sleeps, he does paperwork. Caleb takes a bite out of his Lemon Sockeye and Artichoke Burrito and tells Liz, "You know, I'm not sure the imitation hollandaise sauce really improves this." Liz groans and responds, "If you don't like those things, then stop ordering them!" Mister Yong has fun telekinetically juggling the saltshakers.
Bob the Saurk calls up to Goat Gulgusskun, "Hey Goat! You gotta look at this! I got four guys trying to sneak up on our security cameras! I bet the one that's trying to open the airlock thinks he's doing a really good job." They decide to let the infiltrators get into the airlock, then set off the concealed stun grenades. Bob the Saurk can walk in afterwards and clean up. Bob asks Goat, "There are stun grenades in the airlock? Wouldn't that be obvious?" Goat is a bit confused, "You installed them! Don't you remember? You concealed them as light fixtures and wired them to this control here!" Bob muses, "So that's what that control is for. It's a good thing I didn't try pressing it randomly to find out what it did. All that insomnia really plays merry hob with the memory."
The grenades go off. The erstwhile attackers are all stunned. Bob opens up the airlock, drags the bodies into the cargo bay and zip-ties them. Along the way, he takes blood samples from the blood trickling out of their ears. He also deduces that it will be difficult to conceal the effects of the grenade on the ship's exterior paint job. He does a bit of a touch-up job with the Windex.
Goat is able to determine that all four victims are humans. Bob takes a look at their wallets and concludes that they're all licensed bounty hunters. Goat picks out the one with the soul-patch beard and engages in a trivial use of his dark powers to bring the guy back awake.
Bob bares his tusks at the bounty hunter. The bounty hunter rolls his eyes and moans, "Uh oh. Look like it's ruttin' season." Then the questioning begins.
At this point, Goat starts using his freaky mind powers while Bob continues asking questions. They find out that there is an electronic bulletin board frequented by the less-reputable bounty hunters. Recently, bounties have appeared for all the characters on this board. Bob is very excited by this discovery, "It's like the eBay of bounty hunting! I've gotta post some bounties! I'm gonna put a Cr 50 bounty on this waitress who was rude to me, and Cr 60 on the chef at the Gilded Truffle because my meal was cold. And you don't even need to put a high bounty out: there's always some low bidder out there who will be willing to off someone for fifty credits."
Bob and Goat finally get over their excitement long enough to inform the other character. Bob tells Liz, "Okay, Liz, I'm gonna read this bounty description to you. Does this sound like your ex-boyfriend?" Liz replies, "Um, no." Mister Yong points out that the bounty posts don't mention that the group includes two psychics and a combat-trained saurk, and that they have previously whacked several black ops teams.
The characters figure out that the original poster was local, and that the post is no more than a couple of hours old. Bob the Saurk responds to the job posting to say that he has the package and needs to set up a meet. Liz looks around and finds a nice disused storage zone (number 24) for the meeting.
The setup has three of the bounty hunters, Bob and Mister Yong "tied up" as prisoners. Caleb Kagan and Liz Blessing stand off in the sniper role. Mick, the fourth bounty hunter and the only one who is conscious, gets to do the talking. Everyone warns him that if he says anything out of line he gets shot.
One guy in a bad polyester suit shows up, rapidly followed by a minitruck that drives through one of the roll-up doors in response to a cell-phone call. Polyester suit tells the characters, "Here's your money. Load them up." Bob kills him. Mister Yong tosses a neuro-shock grenade into the minitruck cab. The two guys inside are stunned. Caleb takes one of their phones, and figures out that the owner was in fact calling the Anzani Legation. Liz takes the Cr 250,000 in the suitcase, then lets Mick pick through it for poisonous snakes. She tosses him one lump of bills. Goat is unable to read any other info from the survivors: Bob whacked the brains of the operation.
The characters decide that now that they have a minitruck, the only remaining option is to drive over to the Anzani Legation, use the truck to get access, and then waste everyone in sight. On the driver over, Liz tells the others, "Don't kill the receptionist! She was nice!"
The characters make it into the loading dock to find five goons guarding the place. Caleb executes a cursory bluff attempt: "We're bounty hunters! We captured those guys you were looking for! Blam! Blam! Blam!" Goat blasts one. He notices that the so-called defenders are basically unarmored. Caleb cuts down another one. Mister Yong picks up the minitruck and moves it up at a walking pace. Then Bob, who had been unwilling to take the first move for some reason, charges the two survivors, who don't survive for long. Liz notices that only one of the guards is left alive, if rather badly wounded. She turns up the radio in the van. Then Mister Yong backs the guy into a corner and Goat deeply wounds him. Liz takes his gun away. She grins at him, "Surprised to see us, aren't ya?" The guard, who appears to have woken up this morning with the idea that this would be a beautiful day, stammers, "Uhh... who the hell are you?"
The characters toss the place. They don't find anything of real interest.
Mister Yong suddenly says, "I feel something in my brain!" Caleb asks, "Is it metallic?" Liz asks a more practical question: "Which way?" Mister Yong points towards a wall. He reaches out with his freaky psychic powers and tears it down. Fortunately it was a nonstructural interior wall. The Anzani behind the wall is deeply surprised to see his wall vanish, Akira-style. Bob sees a terrified Anzani. He rushes forward with the idea of making him bloody and terrified. He divides the Anzani in two. He turns to Mister Yong and asks, "Was that the one?" Mister Yong reports, "He's the only one in here." Caleb looks over the remains of the Anzani and tells the others, "At least we know what buttons to push with Bob. 'I feel someone touching my mind!' 'Bleah!'"
Goat Gulgusskun does a mental search of the area. He comes up with three more Anzani. He provides quick directions to the others, then yells, "Sweep and clear! Sweep and clear!" Mister Yong dryly comments, "I remember that one of our old plans was to kill everyone by pushing the Anzani into bug-bombing the station. I think we're doing really well at this now." Liz asks the others, "So, are we just trying to kill everyone, or are we actually looking for information?" Goat comments, "I think we're going for 'kill.'" Liz looks over at Bob the Saurk and asks, "Say, Bob, why don't you try and aim for the legs next time?" Bob rather dismissively replies, "Do you realize how hard that is in this game?"
The characters push down a corridor. Caleb spots three Anzani hiding in doors along the hallway. He yells, "They're in front of us!" An inaccurate fusillade of gunfire follows his cry. Bob screams and rushes. The nearest Anzani falls, fatally wounded. Goat and Mister Yong take cover. Liz tags one, then Bob finishes him off. Caleb wounds the last. The Anzani rather desperately throws off a mind attack from Goat and makes an ineffective attack on Bob. And then Mister Yong lands a grenade in him. Boom!
Caleb and Bob make their way into the computer room and do a quick job of hacking their way into the Anzani net. They download piles of information, though they don't have much chance to analyze it. They do manage to learn that there are only a dozen Anzani shapechangers in the entirety of human space. They also find out that Representative Joshua Cabal is presenting evidence in favor of impeaching President Krieger in the ICPA Senate chambers on Alpha Centauri. The characters drop everything and head towards Alpha Centauri.
Council Towers, Alpha Centauri. President Kreiger has countered the ongoing impeachment proceedings by declaring martial law. Which went badly, except that he was met with widespread insubordination by the military. The Anzani have offered to help under the terms of the Mutual Defense Treaty.
The characters contact Representative Joshua Cabal and provide their information to him. And then ask him what he wants us to do next. Liz asks him, "Have we struck a blow for freedom, sir?" Representative Cabal grumbles, "Yes." Mister Yong asks, "Have you all seen the look of surprise on an Anzani's face when you rip down the wall in front of him? I have pictures!" In an effort to distract Mister Yong from yet another of his disturbing home movie presentations, Representative Cabal tells the characters that there have been some significant news items that haven't made the NewsNets. In particular, the fighting around the various secessionist worlds has long been much heavier than reported. Reports of things like the Anzani bug weapons showing up on Earth have been suppressed. Significantly, there have been no reports yet of the same thing on New Israel.
The characters head out into deep space to find the BreeKhanAr. Bob fights against the BreeKhanAr champion. He burns Genre points and emergency dice as though this were the last session and finally manages to win a BreeKhanAr honor blade. And the BreeKhanAr agree to send their forces in to the battle.
The conduct of the war is handled as a high-level simulation. The four forces in the conflict are:
Every "round" of the conflict the force that rolls lowest loses one die from its total. When a force has lost all of its dice, it is defeated and out of the war. A losing force has the option of retreating for a round and not rolling.
| Round | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Anzani lose a die. They retreat for a round to regain a die. |
| 2 | The ICPA Regulars crush the rebels. |
| 3 | ICPA Regulars lose a die. "We were foolish to garrison Hamsterville!" |
| 4 | The Rebels lose a die. |
| 5 | Rebels get pounded again. |
| 6 | And again. |
| 7 | And again. |
| 8 | The Anzani suffer some setbacks and lose a few Hive ships. |
| 9 | The Rebels get blasted out of space. |
| 10 | The ICPA Regulars lose. |
| 11 | The Anzani fleet is finally destroyed, leaving the BreeKhanAr facing down the ICPA Regulars. |
| 12 | BreeKhanAr lose. |
| 13 | ICPA Regulars lose. |
| 14 | The ICPA Regular fleet is driven from space. The BreeKhanAr win as the final standing combatants. "We demand tribute to be paid annually. Plus five thousand attractive female telepaths every year and forty metric tons of hamsters and small rodents biweekly." |