Ledo shakes his head as he relays it to the rest of the crew (and BB).

"This was definitely an ambush, not a random act of piracy. Let's secure the ship and prepare it for tow. BB, you're on guard duty. Silver, you can help Rig and I with the tow."

Ledo will check the bodies for any kind of IDs and begin collecting firearms. If nothing else they would have enough weaponry to create a makeshift armory.

The IDs show that the guy you really wanted to collect wasn't present.  He either jumped ship somehow or he wasn't actually present.

The tow line gets attached and start to pull Down Bitch along.  Thankfully, you don't have far to go.  A naval cruiser intercepts.

Tiamat's Flight, this is the ICI Solemnity.  What is your situation?

Obviously the captain of the Solemnity wants to know why you're towing a ship.

<Orange>Just need to know what you do and don't tell the navy here.

Also, I will need to check the book about what weapons your picked up.  Your point on stocking the armory if valid.  You also picked up basic kitchen supplies (though who would want to eat that stuff if you don't have to)

The Solemnity can issue a letter of bounty that you can redeem at the starport, and they'll take the Down Bitch off your hands.

Depending on what you tell them of couse.</I></Blue>

Ledo considered his options and dismissed most of them. IF this ship was in better condition and IF it hadn't been involved with Siri and IF the Imperials hadn't arrived in a timely manner and IF they weren't obligated to a group of connected passengers to have a speedy flight he might consider claiming the ship as salvage but given their situation it made a lot more sense to come clean and just take the bounty money and let the Imperials deal with the logistics.

"ICI Solemnity this is the captain of the Tiamat's Flight. Situation is green. We came out of a jump to find two pirate ships attacking a third transport. We moved in to assist and disabled one pirate ship and drove off the other.

According to our records this ship has an active bounty on it. If you will issue us a letter of bounty we can turn the ship over to your crew for investigation and processing.

One item to note is that it appears to be part of a group working with a pirate who goes by the nickname Siri and the whole crew killed themselves once captured under his orders.

I don't mean to tell you how to do your jobs but it might be worth noting that this pirate is now preying across multiple systems as we encountered other ships of his Jone and including this one and one that was destroyed that puts him at commanding at least four ships, all armed for piracy. The fact that he can also demand absolute loyalty in the face of capture is also quite impressive. If he isn't a priority I hope this bumps him up a few positions on the wanted lists.

We're transmitting sensor and audio logs as well. We have not conducted any salvage beyond securing various small arms as part of the boarding process."

Ledo slipped in that last line just to cover their bases. If the Imperials were being absolute sticklers they might demand the guns they recovered as evidence however he hoped they would be focused on the ship and the deaths of the crew rather than worry about where a few handguns and rifles disappeared to.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 44):

Just to give you some flexibility, you have 2K in credits you can spend on guns, ammo, or hand to hand weapons.  Everything has to come out of the Core rulebook.  These guys aren't using A list equipment

The captain meets you at the airlock Ledo, his team scouring the ship before taking it over.  "Alright.  Glad to meet someone who's not willing to look the other way out here.

"I've had copies of the bounty letter sent to both your mainframe and the Bowman highport.  if anyone gives you guff about authenticity, the command post at the highport will back you.

"I'll also have the bodies ID'd and if there's any additional bounties that come up I'll send them along."  He considers a moment and then adds, "You probably want to finish up whatever business you have in Bowman quick and get out.  It's not for broadcast but Siri's fleet has been taking over the other outfits in this sector.  We're going to have to do something about him.  Soon.  You catch the drift?"

He shakes your hand.  "You probably don't want to get caught up in that.  Anyway.  I've said too much.  Take it easy Captain."

Add any questions you like.  Moving us on.

---

Bowman high port looks like a centipede.  It's long and lean, with a lot of little docking stations hanging off along the sides.  Port Com directs you to slip O41.

As soon as you pressurize and open the airlock, Tia is dinged with all kinds of messages.  The brokers whose goods you still have to deliver want to get inspectors on board ASAP.  None of them are at all subtle.  They want to give you the stamp, get you refueled, and off dock as soon as possible.  As you recall, after you receive a proof of inspection, Tia still has to deliver the goods to their final destination in the system for payment.

There are also the goods you picked up outside the original manifest.  Some of these brokers may be willing to purchase from you.  They all sound a bit desperate.

When you roll for the sale price on the dairy you picked up, you can add 2 to the result.

OOC: I'll handle sales via OOC as per standard

Assuming the naval captain isn't rushed Ledo will try to chat him up and give out his comm frequency after revealing that he was a retired Naval captain himself.

"If Siri is making moves in this sector I would appreciate anything you would care to pass along. It turns out I've been a bit of a thorn in his side several times now and Siri doesn't seem the sort to let that slip. Any kind of heads up would be appreciated."

---

Once in port Ledo will get refueled and his cargo offloaded as quickly as possible. There was now another reason to get through their route as quickly as possible. Given the situation at Bowman he wasn't likely to pick up any new cargo besides mail bound for Noctocol. Instead any leftover space in his cargo hold was put over towarsds their inflatable fuel tank. After a J2 jump their tank was too empty to use their combat thrusters. Those trusters were a powerful advantage in combat and even being able to use them for a little bit could mean getting the drop or making an escape.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 46):

The Captain gives you searching glance Ledo then shrugs.  "Sure.  If I can.  We gotta lotta little frieghters zipping in and around because of the damn food shortage.  The belter colonies are really getting antsy.  I have a lot of blips on my radar.  But if something comes up and we can, we will.  Just watch your rimward."

---

The inspections, refuel, and the usual refits will take about five hours.

The bounty is being offered by the bank that had the last loan out on the Down Bitch.  Or as it was called at the time, the Small Timer.

Ledo going over to the bank branch for the bounty?  Or do you want to handle via intercom?  Also, anyone going off ship for the few hour break?

Ledo puts a hold on shore leave given their close encounter with Siri. If possible he would prefer to handle things as quickly over the comms as possible.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 48):

The Bank isn't thrilled that the Down Bitch isn't in port.  But the naval letter isn't something they can ignore.  They agree to a partial payment upfront with the rest deposited when their ship actually hits port.

They send you a letter of credit to document the arrangement.  10K in credits hits the ship account at the same time.

The brokers send you inspection reports and coordinates.  You need to drop off the goods at two locations:

A co-op called WesRim at the center of the Bowman belt.  It's basically a minature starport that serves as a clearing house for the local belter communities.

The second stop is at the far end of the belt.  It's a company site for Resting Enterprises.  They own a set a of mines on some ore rich rocks at the fraying end of the belt.

Logistically, it makes more sense to hit WesRim first and then head out to Resting.  You can jump as soon as you clear the Resting end of the belt.  If you hit WesRim last, you would have to haul across the belt to get to a clear jumping off point.

Ledo has loaded up the ship with expensive refined fuel specifically to shave time and get them as far away from Bowman as possible so he sets up the various brokerages and arranges to hit the WesRim co-op first before proceeding to Resting and then making the jump to the ice moon of Nirton for the Black Sun filming.

Navigating asteroid belts is always a nightmare.

If this belt was owned exclusively by a big corporate, then things would be easier.  It's not uncommon in those set ups that the corporation would stabalize some of the larger rocks, forming a sort of steady corridor to aid in navagation.

Bowman doesn't have that.  But they do have a WOFFR.  'Watch Out For Floating Rocks' or WOFFR is a series of tracking stations set up on different asteroids that track the position of all the rocks around it and beam it out as a nav beacon.

The Bowman WOFFR is so streamline there's no problem picking it up Tepha.

Mainframe has a course laid to WesRim based on last WOFFR download Captain Ledo.

No alerts and seems to be a decent level of traffic to the co-op.

So one make me two sensor/int checks please.  Thanks

---

You finally got a decent signal Nero.  And things are not good.

Your hits have gone to the double digits.  The comments pretty much fall along the lines of

Didja go black buddy boy?

Maybe he's sleeping?

Hiding cos he knows I'll find him

Miss U

You also get an incoming from your Dad.  He wants you to confirm that you'll be at Grandma's birthday in seven weeks time.

---

"Excuse me..."

After the third time, you're pretty sure they're talking to you Silver.

Looking back it's that actress.  Calliope Quans.  She looks a little panicked.

"I'm sorry. But something's wrong with Ulie!"

She points at their room.  Peeking in, you can see the business type who's been keeping to herself rolfing in the john.  And it looks like she's throwing up some blood.

Military grade sensors are a hell of a thing. Used to pinpointing incoming projectiles and missiles traveling at fractions of the speed of light, monitoring (relativel) slow moving and large asteroids was like finding a dropped contact lens with a 10,000 lumen flood light.


13:30, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 8 using 2d6+01.  int/sensor #2.
13:30, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 12 using 2d6+01.  int/sensor #1.

Nero finally had something to post that wasn't just him ranting and raving about "the deep state" using media and entertainment to control the masses.

This time he was in a firefight. It had taken some careful exploration but when Ledo had granted BB access to the ship's systems to let her blast the other ship, Ledo had also accidentally granted Nero access to as he had guessed BB's passwords and stuff ages ago.

This let him pull up the external sensor and camera feeds from their brief fight with the pirates and he had spent their entire time into Bowman editing and creating visuals before putting his own commentary on top.

He had recreated the fight via simple open source 3d models but the highlight was the camera footage from BB's armor showing how the pirates had killed themselves rather than be captured.

He hadn't bothered with a lot of the boring stuff and had cut out most of the audio so he could talk over it without any distractions. No reason to put anyone's name in there, for example. Who cared what the Tia's crewmates were called when he could be narrating the action, pointing out the blood on the wall or the holes the pirates had put into their own temples.

While the space fight had been set to action adventure music the interior of the pirate ship had been set to creepy horror music.

All that remained was to put a title to the clip that would really tie the whole thing artistically together: PIRATE DEATH CULT (LEAKED FOOTAGE)

Sure he had made up a lot of the narration, making it seem that these pirates were actually some kind of religious zealots waging a holy war. It didn't matter that it was all bullshit he made up so long as it was captivating and entertaining. The truth was relative, right?

Silver didn't exactly have a "bedside manner" so seeing this she shrugged and just commented.

"Alright, time to get you to the medical doc."

It wasn't a question but a command. If Ullie had become infected with some disease the crew needed to get on it ASAP before they were all vomiting up blood.

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 52):

Maybe you pump your fists in the air Tepha.  Maybe you don't.  But you find a route that through the beacons to WesRim that shaves three hours off the planned flight time.

WesRim is pretty much as podunk as had been described.  It's more a truckstop than a port.  But it is humming with activity.  There's a line for docking rights.

However, notice you are delivering food stuffs gets you bumped to the front of the line.  A few of the other ships curse.  But once they find out you have food, they move right out of the way.

It seems the food shortage is really bad here.

The co-ops quarter master hustles her team to get your crates unloaded.  There is also very tight security surrounding your ship.  The co-op seems to be expecting trouble.

The quarter master brings you a receipt showing delivery.  "Anything we need ta know?"

---

Craaaaap! That shit 4 real?

Damn! They got more holes in them than String Theory!

You will soon look like them

This is some f'd up shit bro.  U OK?

It's only been a few hours since you uploaded the content Nero.  But the comments are already filling up.  You're also back in the triple digit site visit count.  And shoud soon hit four digits.

---

The auto doc finishes poking Ulie and delivers a simple diagnosis.

Auto Doc says she's been poisoned Silver.  It's non-lethal.  But she's going to be incapacitated for a few days.

Analysis indicates it was introduced through her digestive tract.  She ate something spiked with a synthetic.

Calliope seems confused.  "Huh?  Well I don't know everything she ate.  I had breakfast with her.  We ate the same thing."

Did you drink the same thing?

Calliope blinks.  "Well.  I don't drink coffee..."

So you tell me.  Who among the crew had coffee this morning?

The crew basically lived on coffee. Everyone else, including Nero and BB, had drank at least a cup. Only Tepha was spared due to her preferring lighter teas instead.

Silver's eyes went wide as she considered the cup she herself had drank. She hadn't felt anything this morning but how long would a poison take to go through her system?

"Doc start working on an antidote, fast!"

The first one, besides Ulie, to start feeling it is BB.  It starts with a tightness in the gut.  It goes on for a few minutes.  Then the nausea really kicks in.

Ledo and Rig feel it next. It hits Ledo so bad, he almost falls out of his chair.

Silver, you feel slightly flush, but otherwise seem okay.  Nero, you have a raging headache.

The doc spits back a result.

Antitode unavailable.  We would need parkaphin, which isn't in stock. I scanned the Co-op med supplies.  They don't have it either.

Good news is this doesn't seem to be meant to kill.  It causes some violent spasming of the stomach.  I think Ulie is only vomiting blood because she seems overworked.

Doc is calculating that the poison will pass but effects may linger for a couple of days.

Silver, it seems you and Nero have a tolerance.  Or you didn't get enough in your systems.

The coffee was from supplies we picked up at Bowman starport.  Would recommend tossing it.  We may want to sample any other supplies we picked up there.

The shipments should be fine as long as the brokers tested it and the seals seem to be intact.

Silver and Nero made their saving throws!  So there's Teph, Nero, and Silver at full capacity.

BB, Ledo, and Rig:

-First, they are all three out of action for 12 hours.

After twelve hours you can go one of several ways.

Option 1.  Let nature take it's course.  Make an END/Athletics roll at 10+ every 12 hours until your body purges the poison.  All rolls are at -2 (including the END roll) until you make one roll or until three days have passed.  Whichever comes first

Option 2.  You can try to push your systems with stimulants.  It will let you make checks at a faster rate.  You can decide how fast you want the checks to occur at (every hour, every two hours, etc), but 1) you suffer 1 pt STR damage each roll and 2) if you fail three rolls in a row, you remain at -2 until you check into a hospital for a day.

Option 3.  You can check into the co-op clinic.  That will burn two days, but no rolls needed.

Sorry.

Let me know what option you want to go for.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:15, Wed 27 Jan 2021.

As the only one with keys to the medical supply Ledo is loathe to hand out drugs they might need to keep for emergencies. That being said he definitely uses stimulants to push the drugs through his system and by the end of the day he is on the path of recovery.

Got it in 2. Call it 4 hours for a total of 16 hours sick
14:49, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 4 using 2d6+1.  push it to the limit (ha!) roll #1
14:49, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 10 using 2d6+1.  roll #2.
-2 STR

While the crew is laid out sick Tepha carefully plots the course to their next delivery before scanning and purging any potentially infected supplies.

Rig is knocked out for three days although he does improve slightly ahead of the time frame where it would be life threatening, which is always a plus.


14:52, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 10 using 2d6.  recovery roll - 72 hours.

14:52, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 3 using 2d6.  recovery roll - 60 hours.

14:52, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 2 using 2d6.  recovery roll - 48 hours.

14:52, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 6 using 2d6.  recovery roll - 36 hours.

14:52, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 4 using 2d6.  recovery roll - 24 hours.

14:52, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 6 using 2d6.  recovery roll - 12 hours.

BB is knocked out for two days but recovers a full day ahead of Rig.



14:53, Today: BB Nova rolled 13 using 2d6+1.  recovery roll - 48 hours.

14:53, Today: BB Nova rolled 5 using 2d6+1.  recovery roll - 36 hours.

14:53, Today: BB Nova rolled 8 using 2d6+1.  recovery roll - 24 hours.

14:53, Today: BB Nova rolled 8 using 2d6+1.  recovery roll - 12 hours.

Tepha, besides the coffee, they also spiked the spray cheese, the tomato sauce, and-perhaps worst after the coffee-all the boxes of Groat-Os.

Groat-Os!  The groatalicious part of a complete breakfast.  They're GROOOOOOOOAT!

It was like someone targeted the food stuffs that were likely to see the highest rate of consumption.

The co-op has a signal receiver, so you can get all available WOFFR information.

There are three routes to Resting.  Down the middle of the belt, right through the asteroids.  The most direct route at eight hours.

You could peel rimward and exit the belt, then follow it down along it's border.  It would add  some time, so about 12 hours.

You could climb upwards and then follow along the top of the belt, skimming downwards close to Resting.  This seems to be the most popular route used by Resting ships that make it out to the co-op.  It's about an 11 hour trip, but no one knows why the "corpies", as Resting employees are called by the belters, would go this route.  Their ships are good enough they could go right down the middle.

I need to know which path you take and when you leave, relative to when Ledo, BB, and Rig are up and about.  Thanks

Silver, being the only one in command, decides there is strength in numbers and follows the corpie ships. They might be avoiding the asteroid belts for a reason.

She'll also relay back to Bowman port about the spiked supplies.

In reply to Silver (msg # 64):

Bowman Starport shoots back a quick response to you Silver.  Seems a few ships were hit by a similar tactic.  They think it's the pirates, trying to incapacitate crew.

"But the navy has a large number of 'em bottled up trailward side of the belt."

Since Tia would be headed both coreward and spinward, that should put you in the opposite direction.

It also becomes apparent why the corpies head this way:  visibility.  Stray rocks dot the borders of the other sides, giving ambushers several points they could swing out and attack most of the other skim-along routes of the belt.

This one is pretty devoid of such.  Sensors tell the tale why:  there's lots of small debris like someone has been blowing rocks apart.  The corpies made this path clear of those outliers.  You just have to watch your belly.

All hail the corpy highway.

So you are leaving straight out?  BB and Rig will be out of action.  Ledo will be up and about at the tail end of the trip.

Note:  one reason I am asking is because you have perishables and a delivery schedule.
 You can delay for a while, but freezers only get you so far.  Delay too long and you risk getting pay docked.

Tepha pushes foreward. Time to deliver and drop off. They have a schedule to keep after all!