Harrowed Halls

Crew (PCs)

• Pilot Trigger (Owen – Serran)
• Science Officer and acting Commandor of JC701 Emo (Steve – Deader)
• Medical Officer Ssanjan “Sam” (Ben – Saurian)
• Engineer Nolan Brilliant (Alex – Human)
• Acting Security Officer Ferris (Mike B – Serran)

Others (NPCs)

• Colonel Jaeger (Kalian), Charter Head for Space Station JC701
• Tovrin Cable (Human), President of the Omicron Colonies
• Dr. Steven Ward (Human), JC701 Chief Medical Officer
• Zhi Fang (Tazanian), Head of JC701 Merchants Association, Owner of Fangtasia
• Dominic Newland (Serran), Prophet of the Techno-God
• Martain Capella (Rigellian), Ambassador of the Rigellian Empire
• Tennor Blackfinch (Saurian), Oneiades Pirate and Spaceport Owner

The explosion ripped through JC701 station, catching Emo, Ferris and the Rigellian ambassador full on. Thanks to the quick work of Dr. Ward and Nurse Sam, there was only one casualty…the suicide bomber himself. Martain Capella warns Emo that the only way to prevent the collapse of the treaty and war with Rigellia is to identify and bring to justice those responsible. “You have two weeks, then, war!”

Acting quickly, the crew begins their investigation. They determine the imposter security officer was actually a member of JumpCorp. After searching his quarters they find evidence that the Oneiades pirates provided the explosives. Trigger suspects President Cable of being involved and finds the financial records for the Omicron Colonies but can’t make heads or tails of them. Ferris reaches out to Zhi Fang, hoping to get some insight into the Oneiades pirates and how to track down the culprits. Ferris makes a great persuasion roll and agrees to do a favor for Zhi if he’ll point them in the right direction and also review the financial documents. Zhi agrees in return for a favor of his own and Ferris agrees.  

Zhi tells him that the Oneiades pirates have a spaceport in the neutral zone between Omicron and Rigellian space. Any answers to questions about the pirates can be found there. In addition he tells them the owner of that spaceport is Tennor Blackfinch. Tennor has a crate that Ferris agreed to pick up, store on JC701, and make available for a ship to pick up. 

Meanwhile, Sam is on the Fangtasia dance floor attempting to charm the JumpCorp and Omicron patrons into telling him where he can find work smuggling illicit cargo while dancing “the Dinosaur” as the craze has now been called. Of course no one could help him.

Emo gathers his key team and Sam and heads out to the Oneiades spaceport. Once there, the key team head off to find Tennor. They find him in the cargo hold next to where their ship is docked. The team begins their discussion with Tennor, trying to figure out how best to get the information they need and the cargo Zhi asked them to pick up.

Meanwhile, Sam sneaks off to the maintenance area and once again tries his persuasion skills. He attempts to convince the pirate maintenance people that he’s interested in some illicit work to raise money for better medical equipment for the station. Of course, learning that he is a JumpCorp employee sets off some alarms. And also, subsequently gets him identified as the Lizard that the Kellan Oneiades has a capture on sight order out on. He’s quickly incarcerated in a shipping container in the middle of the spaceport.

The key team then tries to work out a deal where they get Sam back and get information out of Tennor about the explosives. They are quite successful on the latter, not so much on the former. Tennor tells them he was hired to deliver the explosives to the soon to be suicide bomber, but does not tell them by whom. He also says Sam is worth a lot of money if he is delivered to Kellan, and Tennor will be suitably punished if Sam is not delivered. Negotiations broke down after that. In the resulting melee, Tennor was captured  and his second took over. His second turned out to care less about Tennor’s safety than they had hoped.

Meanwhile, Sam is hiding in the shipping container when one of the pirates opens the door. Thinking quickly Sam throws a smoke grenade out the door to give him cover for an escape. Inexplicably Sam stays in the container rather than leaving when he has the chance. The pirate, confused by the smoke, leaves shutting the door behind him. Sam is speechless. A welcome change.

The key team fights their way to their ship, but the second is not interested in letting them escape. Thinking quickly the GM reminds the key team that they have Tennor unconcious and he can be revived to help them escape. Tennor orders his crew to let the key team go and on Emo’s orders they escape!

Except for Sam. Hiding in the shipping container.

Crew (PCs)

• Pilot Trigger (Owen – Serran)
• Science Officer Emo (Steve – Deader)
• Medical Officer Ssanjan “Sam” (Ben – Saurian)
• Engineer Nolan Brilliant (Alex – Human)
• Psionicist Ferris (Mike B – Serran)

Others (NPCs)

• Colonel Jaeger (Kalian), Charter Head for Space Station JC701
• Tovrin Cable (Human), President of the Omicron Colonies
• Dr. Steven Ward (Human), JC701 Chief Medical Officer
• Zhi Fang (Tazanian), Head of JC701 Merchants Association, Owner of Fangtasia
• Dominic Newland (Serran), Prophet of the Techno-God
• Martain Capella (Rigellian), Ambassador of the Rigellian Empire

It took Nolan 60 hours of work to get the ship back in operating order. During that time, Colonel Jaeger filled the crew in on the history of JC701 and gave them a heads up of what to expect when they get to the station. 

The original JumpCorp charter was to mine resources from the dozen or so planets and moons in the Omicron system. JumpCorp hired miners to do most of the day to do work, while Colonel Jaeger managed the JumpCorp marines who protected the whole enterprise from the Rigellian Empire who was also expanding into the Omicron System. 

Eventually enough miners arrived that boomtowns formed and actual colonists showed up to start ancillary enterprises. After ten years of expansion, JumpCorp signed a treaty with the Rigellian empire and peace came to the Omicron System. The colonists soon formed their own representation and purchased the system from JumpCorp and signed the treaty with the Rigellian Empire as well. The relationship was beneficial to both sides as JumpCorp purchases the resources mined by the Omicron colonies and the colonies hire JumpCorp to provide additional support as needed. 

Now, JumpCorp is mostly administrative and based entirely on the space station know as JC701. Colonel Jaeger explained that the peace with the Rigellian is tentative at best, as the Rigellian Empire does not have complete control of all the slavers, some of which are still attacking Omicron settlements for slave labor. Naturally any legitimate Rigellian business or activity is at best considered suspicious and at worse, is attacked by colonists with little or no provocation.

At this point Colonel Jaeger shared her files on key personnel. The colonies elected Tovrin Cable as their President. Tovrin lives on the primary colonized planet Omicron I. He is a self serving politician keenly aware that his approval rating is linked to the Colonists deep seeded fear of the Rigellians. On top of that, there are some 100+ colonists that have disappeared in the last 10 years that is a constant topic of political discussions. As the appointed second in command, Emo will have to spend a lot of time with Tovrin. 

On the station, Dr. Ward is the Chief Medical Officer and Sam will report to him. Dr. Ward is not the best JumpCorp has to offer. His horrific battle history has left him self medicating and everyone hopes they don’t wind up under his care when he is under the influence. Luckily for the Colonel, Sam was paying attention when Dr. Ward was treating her and was able to ensure no mistakes were made. The bad news is, the Colonel is in no shape to manage the station for the next several weeks.

Next up is Zhi Fang, a Tazanian who runs the only night club/bar on the station called Fangtasia.  Zhi has a large network of criminal enterprises, but mostly stays on the right side of the law, or at least far enough away from actual criminal activities to not be charged. Ferris graciously agreed to take over as Chief os Security and has a compliment of three JumpCorp and three colonial deputees, that’s about twenty too few to keep Zhi’s activities under control.

Finally, there is Dominic Newland, a prophet of the mysterious Techno-God. He’s an irritating holier than though type with a twist. His God is technology and he considers anyone that not interested in the latest microprocessors a savage barbarian.

 Colonel Jaeger then warns the team, the most important thing they need to do in the next few weeks is to ensure the Rigellian Ambassodor, Martain Capella, who is due to arrive on the station as a permanent residence in the next few days, is satisfied that JumpCorp and the Omicron Colonies are committed to a lasting peace. The last thing we need is to give the Rigellians a reason to declare war.

So the crew begin their assignments. Ferris finds out from Zhi that an explosive is likely to be detonated somewhere based on the word in the criminal underground. Nolan is unable to find anything concrete about the explosive used on their ship. Ferris also has no information tying the Rigellian slavers that held her back to the Empire. Sam does a medical history scan to identify potential terrorists on board the station. And he definitely finds the guy, a former military soldier named Kurt! (Critical fail on investigation roll.) Ferris arrests him in advance of the Ambassador’s arrival. They also find the explosive device on the docking port being used for the Ambassador’s ship.  They successfully deactivate it and monitor the remote signal to ttrace back, but it never comes.

The Ambassador is met on the docking ring by Emo and President Cable, the former delivering an eloquent welcome in the Rigellian language (no mean feat!) and the latter scoffing and harumphing the whole time. The Ambassador is duely impressed by Emo and responds to Cable by saying to Emo, “We have a lot of work to keep all of our extremists under control.” 

Ferris has ensured that only JumpCorp personnel are in charge of the Ambassador’s security, but unfortunately as they are about to enter the Ambassador’s quarters Ferris fails her Danger Sense roll to realize that the guard is someone else in a JumpCorp uniform. The guard is a suicide bomber and he charges at the Ambassador while detonating an explosive!  We’ll have to see next episode if Ferris, Emo, and/or the Ambassador survives!