Harrowed Halls

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!