Tepha attempts to cut through the noise and get a sensor lock on their target ship.

OOC: Success! If you allow this to have happened during their "surprise round" then with a boon Silver's shot could probably hit if they don't shake the sensor lock...
10:48, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 11 using 2d6+1.  sensor lock.

Seeing that the ion cannon had did a number on their target, BB swings the turret around and rakes the other pirate ship with beam fire hoping to scare them off.

OOC: 9 to hit at medium range. 2 damage
10:51, Today: BB Nova rolled 9 using 2d6+6.  double beam laser turret @ Ship B.
10:52, Today: BB Nova rolled 2 using 1d6+1.  beam turret damage.

In reply to BB Nova (msg # 18):

I'll give you the sensor lock but you would be medium range at the moment even with the 1 thrust.

A takes another round of ion, moving too slow in reaction to the surprise attack to be able to dodge fast enough.

Going from what's coming in, it looks like they do have some hardened systems, Fritz informs you Tepha and Ledo.  But it doesn't appear to be related to engineering.  I think you've overloaded their nav lines.

In other words, they can't steer.

BB, you rake the side of the other pirate.  It fires back a single shot, but that seems more designed to make Tia give it some room.

It starts to head out.

B was hit by BB (say that four times fast), and is disengaging.

A seems to be frozen at the moment.

3 is also starting to move off

Ledo continues trying to close the gap. Their fuel tanks were pretty dry after that last jump otherwise he would pour on the afterburners.

OOC: Using 1 thrust to continue to close the gap. That should bring them to short range

Even as the pirate ship was going dark Silver continued pumping ion cannon shots into it with the goal of completely frying the pirate ship's electronics.

OOC: 70 more ion damage, if it even matters anymore...
15:04, Today: Silver rolled 10 using 2d6+2.  ion cannon.
15:04, Today: Silver rolled 7 using 2d6.  ion damage x10.

With one pirate ship fried and the other bugging out Tepha scanned comm frequencies again hoping the jamming had been shut off. Her first goal was to get in contact with the "victim" ship to find out what was happening and to formally offer assistance.

"Fritz, if you can cross reference the information about this ships with local bounties or warrants. Let's see if there is a reward for their capture. If not, record local comms and see if we can't get a retroactive reward for pre-emptively eliminating a pirate.

BB smiled to herself as she saw the other ship turning tail. She snapped off a few more shots but at this point wasn't trying to hit. Just a couple wide beams to make sure the pirates were focused entirely on fleeing.

'A' still has life support.  But it's otherwise dead now after your latest pummeling Silver.

'B' takes the hint.  They suddenly do a hard burn, jetting off as fast as possible.

Searching local nets now Tepha.  Target ship is identified as The Red Princess.  Not a local registry.  No outstanding warrants.  Trying to backtrace its registry details.

The ship that just took off B that is is the Plasmatic Spifull. I don't think I got that wrong either.  What's a 'spifull'?  Several outstanding warrants on it.

Ship we're closing on is Down Bitch.  Again, pretty sure I got that right.  It's listed as stolen.  Several warrants.

Oh.  Red Princess is powering up to take off.

They are indeed ignoring any calls you make Tepha.  As Ledo swings the Tia over their head on course to bear down on Down Bitch, Red Princess fires it's engines and starts to go for hard burn.

You know, when I come up with these names, I never think ahead to how they'll look in sentence.

Down Bitch's bounties include a 50K for information leading to it's repossession, 75K for turning over it's current crew, and one special 125K bounty for the capture-alive-of one 'Wilo Stoffings'.

Ledo begins maneuvering for a docking procedure and hits the comms for the crew.

"Everyone gear up. There is a sizeable bounty on this ship if we can get the crew to surrender. Everyone suit up for a boarding operation."

With that Rig, Silver, and Ledo began suiting up into their boarding armor. It had worked out so far well enough so he commed BB again.

"Feel like earning a cool grand? This ship we took down is full of pirates and there there is a sizable bounty. If you can use it, we have a boarding vacc suit with your name on it..."

BB considered the offer and thought about the credits that might be falling into her lap. There was no way Ledo was doing this all for chump change and not knowing what was on the other side meant there was considerable danger involved.

"Cut me in at an even split. 20% of the bounty."

"What about 10%? Without talking to the others this is likely coming out of my share anyway."

BB drummed her fingers on the turret controls and considered it. It wouldn't do her very well if the captain and his crew went off and got killed chasing some bounty and it would mean a bit of excitement after a week of transit.

"Done. Let me get my gear together and let me know where to meet."

"I am granting you crew access to the ship. We will suit up in the medical bay."

Down Bitch is as rough as any ship stolen and converted for pirate work ever gets.  The hull is gouged and nicked, the shielding barely thick enough to be livable in places.  Most of the outer wiring is patchwork at best.  Only the guns and scanning dishes are kept in good shape.  The call lettering has been whitewashed and repainted so many times, it looks like layers of graffiti in some torn down tenament.


To think that Tia once must have looked the same.

Their mainframe is completely offline.  No taking control of it.  It's a corpse.  Fritz sounds oddly cheerful.  Life support and internal power are still online.  Looks like they have a secondary system that's hardcased.  Ion shots aren't going to penetrate it.  And can't hack into it from here.  It's internally sealed.  You would have to interface me directly into one of the system's ports for me to take it over.

Working on pulling up deck plans.  This is an old Savant model cruiser.  They stopped making these 104 years ago.  Looks like it's been patched up with parts from a Far Trader.

Three points of entry.  There's the main air lock.  A secondary air lock topside.  And the cargo doors around back.  None of the locks are responding.  You'll have to trip them manually from the outside.

Ledo maneuvers around for the main airlock and sets the controls over to docking allowing for minute movement and control of his own ship. No point in taking the other ship alive if he's going to crash his own ship in the process.

Working on getting maps uploaded.  Should have some more by tomorrow

There's not effort to interfere with the docking Ledo.  They're at least smart enough to realize they'll need to fight you hallway to hallway.

Once you're inside, look for ports to their internal system, Fritz says. If you lock in one of your hand coms to it, I can slip in that way.

The docking hall locks around the main airlock.  Seal is complete.  It looks like beyond the air lock door, there's a small chamber used for suiting up.  No one appears to be inside it at the moment.  More than likely, they'll wait for someone to walk out into the hallway and then open fire.

The three boarders enter the other ship while Rig covers the airlock and Tepha keeps an eye on sensors and comms.

Assuming that the jamming signal has been shut off she will open communications with the local space authority or navy, whichever appropriate, to relay what situation.

"Control, this is the Tiamat's Fligth informing you about a piracy encounter with ships Down Bitch and Red Princess. These two known pirates were attacking Plasmatic Spifull. We have successfully disabled the Down Bitch and driven away the Red Princess. Right now we are attempting to secure the Bitch and move its crew to our brig before towing the stolen ship back to port. Let us know if you can provide any additional assistance and prepare a port tug as the electronics on the Down Bitch are fried."

As part of this she will also send their sensor data and relevant licenses/permits for weaponry to make sure that Bowman is on their side when they finally bring their prize in.

Ledo, BB, and Silver enter the airlock, locked and loaded. They did their best to find cover as they finally opened up the inner airlock. None of them stuck their heads out at first though. Instead Ledo activated his external speakers, set to maximum volume to try and talk the other crew down.

"Pirates of the Down Bitch, this doesn't have to end in bloodshed. Your ship has been disabled and local authority has been notified. Your buddies have abandoned you so this can go one of three ways.

The first is you start shooting, we shoot back and kill you all and take the ship.

The second is you start shooting and drive us back and we just drag you back to port and it becomes a race between our towing speed and when your life support finally gives out.

The third way is you lay down your arms and surrender and ride back to port in our brig.

You played the game and lost. Cut your losses before things go any further."

OOC:
13:04, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 7 using 2d6-2.  persuade check (+1 SOC, -3 untrained).

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 31):

Just as a note:  The Red Princess was the victim ship and is the one running away without saying thank you.  The Plasmatic Spifull was the other pirate.  I'm assuming Tepha reported it correctly.

Ledo's attempts to be reasonable meet with utter silence.  Doesn't it always?

The air lock pops open.  Silver, BB, and Ledo:  as the three of you start to enter into the changing room, you hear a gunshot.  It isn't close.  It sounds like it came from the aft of the ship and fairly far away.

After that, everything is quiet.

As you come into the changing room, you can see a left to the other decks ahead.  There's also a hall going to your left and right Uploaded Deck 1 Map to Maps

Fritz pops up a deck 1 schematic onto your helmet displays.

This is the standard deck floor plan.  Do not know if they have altered anything.  Working on pulling the second deck plans.  If you can plug me into a port, I should be able to get a better picture.

You don't see a port anywhere around.

Silver and BB look at one another and then nod before they both glance into the corridor. If they don't get shot they'll proceed forward with Ledo directing them towards the bridge.

With the map overlay Ledo does some quick analysis to determine the likely chokepoints that the enemy crew will be defending and whether there were any less obvious paths to reach their objective to circumnavigate the points.


16:00, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 8 using 2d6+2.  military tactics

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 34):

The corridor is empty.  Doesn't seem to be anybody around the lift, at least no one visible.

From what you can tell Ledo, the lift ahead is probably the hottest zone.  There are a few other points where you think ambush could be likely due to hidey holes and nooks and crannies. Marked on map in yellow.  But otherwise, this deck seems fairly straightforward.  The bridge is on this floor Marked with a B on map.

Everything else here seems to be crew quarters, state rooms, and a medbay.  The hold and engineering are below.  If you guys do not want to take the lift down, you can access it by a ladder on the bridge.

Ledo plots them a path the long way through the ship around the choke points leading up to the bridge. His hope was they could get the enemy out of position by the time they actually engaged.

OOC: I'm a little confused by the map as to what is passable corridor but I think I get it. It looks like we can avoid the lift room and go all the way around the outer edge of the ship to reach the bridge by going all the way south, looping back and hitting the south door to the bridge.

If I'm getting that wrong then the goal is to avoid the ambush junctions and reach the bridge.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 36):

Yeah, it's not the best map.  I'll hunt around for better ones next time.  Sorry about that.

We should be able to wrap things up fairly quickly though

As you pass through one intersection, you begin to see the enemy may already be out of position.

At the intersection a woman lays on the ground dead.  Someone put a gun against her head and blew open the other side.

As you get towards the bridge you find two more bodies.  One has his throat cut open.  The other one is laying in the bridge doorway: the auto-door keeps trying to slide close, bounces off the dead guy's arm, and opens back up.

There are two others dead in the bridge.  They are both sitting in chairs.  Your first thought is that they shot each other from where they were sitting.  The way they are slumped, the wounds to their faces (they were both shot in the face from a distance), the blood spray...it all just looks like that.

The ship's computer is still ionized.  But you see a console that is still reading power and seems to be functioning.  It must be a node that Fritz is looking for.

The console seems to be a comm system.  It's locked at the moment.  The screen on it is frozen on a text messge:

DO IT OR I WILL

Silver and BB are silent in surprise. Ledo pushes the shock to the side and focuses on giving orders. He ensures that every body they pass is disarmed and checked to verify they are indeed dead before moving towards the bridge.

Once there he has Silver and BB secure the room while he plugs Fritz into the terminal to figure out just what is going on with the ship and comms back to Rig and Tepha

"Rig, something weird is happening here. Everyone so far is already dead. Tepha keep sensors locked on their reactor in case they're planning to scuttle the ship. Rig, make sure that airlock is sealed until we figure out what is going on."

Fritz's voice comes in over your helmet coms.

Hmm. They got some interesting barriers.  But nothing I can't...handle...just a moment...got it.  I'm in.

Huh.  This sealed system is termed a 'dead man's switch'.

From what I'm seeing, it triggered if the ship became disabled.  It's not a bobby trap or anything.  Instead it took a snap shot of the ship's logs and beamed them to that other ship.  The Plasmatic Spifull.  After that, the system fried out the onboard computer and life support.  Doesn't blow the ship up though.

After that, it beams out a message to all internal comm units.  Basically all the crew got the same message.

After a moment, a man's husky baritone starts to ooze through everyone's comms.

"Okay folks.  Fun time's over.  You're dead now.  You can either take yourself out of the game. Or you can wait until I find you.  And you know what'll happen then, right?"

Silver, you know the voice. You recognize it from the first intake of breath to the last syllable uttered.

Siri. It's Siri.  This ship must have been part of a fleet he's running.

I can't remember if Tepha or the fellas would recognize his voice.  Please assume they do if you think they would.  Thanks.

Fritz continues.  Well.  Wasn't that cheerful?  I can see bits and pieces of the log copy that got beamed out.  You want me to try to download and piece it together?

Ledo starts to nod but then catches himself remembering Fritz isn't right beside him.

"Do what you can, safely. Whoever this is sounds like a right bastard. Forcing the crew to off themselves like this."

"It's Siri. Why is it always fucking Siri?"

The name triggered the memory of the group of pirates that they had encountered on the asteroid base of horrors and he frowned. This would be the second ship that they had taken from Siri's fleet. How many more encounters could they have before Siri decided to hunt them down with whatever composed his armada.

"Alright listen up. Silver and BB, you two go secure the ship. Rig and I will begin the process of setting up a tow line so we can drag this ship into port."

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 40):

There isn't much except bodies.  There are four more in the hold and one more in engineering BB and Silver.  All the same MO.  Suicide.

There isn't much in the way of personal belongings either.  Each crew member had two changes of jumpsuits, a toothbrush, and a cup.  The food stores are just low grade plant protein cereals.  Even the coffee is the cheap synthetic crap.

Fritz pings your comm Ledo.  You note that he isn't pinging anyone else.

I got a partial decode on the ship log they beamed out.  I think you want to read this Captain Ledo.

He scrolls up some comm mail on your helmet screen.

OK. Deposit cleared.  But that just gets you a meet and greet. What coordinates

Beaming now.  Projecting target will exit jump within four parsecs.  Once we pass off funds, you will need to head there directly.

U don't want any of them as slaves?

WTF?  No slaves.  Blow the ship apart.

That will be extra.  We can discuss when we hook up.  Out