S02 The Butler Did It

ILS Calendula, in orbit over Arcolin, 15:32 14/1105

After checking two more staterooms, the group reached Quadrant 1 and the Aux Lab. The bomb had made a real mess of the place, though Wombat could tell it wasn’t placed by anyone competent. He found a rack of tubes of one of the combat drugs being worked on, and took them.

Pent Stavro

At the back they found a heap of mattresses and bedding, and behind it a hole crudely lasered through the floor into the fuel tanks that ran round the outside of the ring. Feng - the smallest - crawled in, clutching Wombat’s stunner and crawled along the tank. Following a musical humming, she discovered the Engineer Pent Stavro huddled and confused. She claimed to be hiding from the other survivors who she accused of cannibalism. Her own nails were lined in blood, though, and as Nevada said, “she hasn’t starved”. Avoiding pointing a light at her, Feng tempted the survivor to the hole with an energy bar, but something triggered her to her enhanced state and she attacked. Feng tranqed her.

In the upper level of drive pod 2, they found Stavro’s lair. Nevada’s alertness spotted the tripwire before he went up and he was able to disarm the crude spike thrower.

Another dead crew turned up in a stateroom, horribly nibbled by rats, and another yielded a loaded autopistol, clearly ignored by the crazed survivors. The next had another hole into the tanks, and Feng went in once more, nervously noting bigger scratch marks in the metal. Rats? She borrowed Wombat’s laser pistol.

Growling and whimpering led her to a shadowy form in the tunnel; not rats, a Vargr, but a Vargr behaving more “doggy” than she’d ever seen, a sad comedown for Jan Vartha, the lead scientist of the vessel. As she approached, her radio blared as Hahsh called from the surface for an update. The Vargr snarled and began crawling towards her. Again decoying with an energy bar, she swapped guns and stunned him down. Dragging him out, they added him to their collection of zip-stripped loonies in cupboards. Nevada gave Hahsh a very brief report, telling him things were bad without going into details and dropping the call.

The main lab was far less mashed, and Wombat managed to get control of a small standalone computer, reading off experimental data on the five drugs being worked on. This was interesting and Nevada unplugged the system unit and took it along. They also found a Life Sciences kit that allowed them to ID crew and staff with a blood test.

One of the hardpoints contained a body, dead of a stab wound, not crew or staff according to the computer. Her jumpsuit had “Willow Dawn” on the back. This was the kidnapped test subject from the cryo pod. Going back and checking the berth system logs, they saw her frozen as a low passenger and thawed, and learned her name, Ina Giorgi. This led them to return to the library and read more of the wafers to discover:

Effects and detailed reports about the five combat drugs being tested.
Video recordings of clinical trials on animals.
Video recordings of illegal sophont testing. In the videos, the subjects are bound to tables and shouting they do not know where they are or what is going on. Once injected, most early subjects experience seizures, haemorrhaging veins and a painful death as scientists in laboratory coats - including the two “rescued” - calmly watch and record their findings. Subjects that manage to break their bonds once the drugs have taken effect are subdued with stunsticks. Ina Giorgi is recognizable in the footage.
The two merc companies that sent representatives to the Calendula were Diamond Security (Lt Saul Davies) and Newport Military (Sgt Jack ‘Ripper Jack’ Scratchard)

Finally, they located the Astrogator and Butler spy Haris Slocombe in the upper level of Drive Pod 1. Trapped, he tried to bluster but Nevada lobbed Wombat’s stun grenade neatly through the hatch above him which put him out like a light.

DM Comment: Each of the survivors was stunned to exactly their END worth of damage; in Slocombe's case, Allan rolled boxcars and bounced the grenade off his forehead

Haris Slocombe

They returned to the library and collected all the data wafers.

With the ship cleared and the four survivors secured the PCs considered what to do. They had several options:

Return and report back, playing simple grunts unaware of any of the undercurrents, and collect their pay.
Return and report back, revealing Slocombe’s role and connection to Butler Chemicals, and collect their pay.
Return and roast the frog (leaving them right where they were but with a murder rap)
Return and blackmail Lysani for more money or lots more money with the evidence they had collected - suit cams, photos, data, physical evidence.
Return and report back, playing simple grunts unaware of any of the undercurrents, and collect their pay, then blackmail Butler later.
Return and report back, playing simple grunts unaware of any of the undercurrents, and collect their pay, then report Lysani to the Imperial authorities.

In the end they chose to go with option 2, with the modification of setting the ship so the attitude jets would quietly nudge it out of orbit to plunge into atmosphere within a couple of days, destroying the evidence. Hahsh was horrified at what they related but also realized that in Slocombe he had a ready-made scapegoat for his superiors to try and preserve his own corporate skin. Although when the ship died it would be a significant Credit loss, it would also mean evidence that could cost Lysani far more was permanently destroyed.

Their payment was more than enough to pay off their debts to the company store, and they were able to resign from Viator with relief.

Four days later, the party shipped out on the Free Trader Belinda, having picked Collace/District 268 as a nice populous place to spend their money and sink out of sight.

Three days after that, the Calendula dropped into atmosphere, burned away 75% of its’ mass and crashed into the scorched earth of Arcolin’s sunside.

Nobody really fancied spending their Lysani Luncheon Vouchers any more.

Session Date Feb 14th, 2023