S17 Belting, Baal, and Boom

Shadira Downport, Collace/District 268/Spinward, 298/1105
Hamish Carrington (Bing AI Creator)
Arriving at Collace, the party dropped their passengers on the planet - except the one High passenger, who after making a killing on Feng’s first casino wanted to go to the Highport - and traded their cargo to their usual broker, Hamish Carrington. He was quite interested in their radioactive find from the Tarsus belt, and gave them a good price on that plus a discount on some more rad-proof storage boxes in exchange for a promise to trade their further finds through him; he had contacts with RamCo Minerals to whom he could shift them. 

Dave had pointed out that as a professional he would use mining drones for extracting goodies from asteroids. A new drone rig was an expensive and  - worse - bulky item, so Dave asked Hamish for a good supplier of Belter equipment, and Hamish directed him to Vanhooris Supplies at the High port. 

A quick trip to the Highport was needed anyway as their last passenger wanted delivering, so they piled into the grav taxi and headed back up into orbit, leaving Feaysen, Sturnn and Wales with the ship.

Shadira Highport, Collace/District 268/Spinward, 298/1105
Belt Mining
Vanhooris turned out to be another dockside unit, containing a mixture of brand-new gear and battered stuff with ten previous owners. The equipment Dave was after had come from a J that had had an unfortunate encounter with a high-velocity asteroid. The remains of the ship were parked at the edge of the station, a narrow wedge with a huge jagged hole through the centre. Dave winced; the crew were unlikely to have survived that.

The unlucky ship’s drone array had been largely crushed, but two of the five drones remained functional, and Vanhooris was prepared to let them and their rig go second hand. With a mix of belter knowledge and very skilled bargaining, Dave knocked him down to a bargain price  - and got him to throw in the rest of the wrecked drone unit, which he plundered for spares before Nevada sold the remains for scrap. 
Nix Pulser (Bing AI Image Creator)
Feng meanwhile had discovered a message from one Nix Pulser, guitarist and manager of the Blastoliths, the metal band she’d sent “Joeys” to.  He was a worried young headbanger. Val, Valsi and Garo have all had really implausible accidents; Val ran himself over with a ground car and has 2 broken legs, Valsi was electrocuted and remains in a coma and Garo overdosed on Ultra Slams – despite being entirely clean and sober his entire life – and may have irreversible brain damage. It had occurred to Nix that his troubles started almost exactly the same time that the band appeared on stage in the now-trendy Joeys. Feng passed the lead to Gutter Santiago to investigate - and suggested he not wear his shirt out for the moment.

Shadira Downport, Collace/District 268/Spinward, 300/1105, 19:00 local

Over the next few days, they traded and restocked and visited bars and eateries as usual, until on the evening of 300 it dawned on them that they’d not seen Feaysen since 10 that morning. Tracking her handcomp they located it near one of her regular suppliers, Billy’s Mart. It wasn’t moving or responding so they headed down there, finding it in a trash bin with spots of blood on it. 

The players were already deep into planning how to hack into the city CCTV and data records when it occurred to them again that they are not only legal here but have strong contacts with and favours owed them by the police....

While Wombat put his Lisani blood analyser to work confirming that it was indeed Feaysen’s blood and Feng and Nevada turned off her access to the ship and her cashcard, Dave went into the shop to talk to the assistant. The girl was very taken with the rugged driver and all too keen to help, locating footage of Feaysen being abducted from outside the shop and bundled into a ground car. Bending the rules, she copied him the relevant clips.

Nevada had called DI Namkad, their contact at the Highport from the Bluey operation, and he directed them to a planetary policeman on the Shadira force named Bertram Reddish, with a recommendation that theses people were owed a favour. Reddish showed up and took notes, observing critically that the abduction car was breaking the law with no tax or ID plate. He went off to investigate. 

Feng called the bar Feaysen had worked at and spoke to her ex-colleagues. The young steward had stayed in touch but nothing special and hadn’t visited this trip.

They reviewed the footage of the ship’s external cameras, and noticed a man who’d watched the ship land before walking away. With some effort, they identified him and got an address; one Reginald Fink - who preferred “RF”.

Scorzin District, Shadira Arcology, Collace/District 268/Spinward, 300/1105, 22:00 local
Reginald Fink (Bing AI Image Creator)
Reaching his location in a hired ground car, they sent the drone they’d used to scout Sandoval up to the window of RF’s third floor flat. Inside was a very peculiar scene; a skinny, grubby young man sitting in a circular design painted on the floor chanting. It was the right man, so Wombat and Nevada used their grav to float up to the window and crash through while Dave and Feng went in through the building door to make sure he didn’t break for it. 

With Nevada standing on his chest and a laser rifle up his nose, he was very co-operative, telling them “some bloke” his brother-in-law had met in a pub had hired him to watch the port and make a call when the ship landed.  They took the PAN code and the money he’d been paid. “Was he religious? Wearing a scarf?” RF blinked. “What, a Whovian? Nah.”

Feng leaned forward and held up her handcomp, playing her new favourite video - her camera footage of her beheading of the McClure in the forest. A wet stain spread across the floor from under RF, ruining his carefully drawn circle.

“What were you doing here?” asked Nevada. “Trying to summon Baal,” said RF, half embarrassed and half proud. Dave glared at him. “I’m here; what did you want?” he growled. “You... you’re not Baal,” stuttered RF, half afraid and half disbelieving. “I’m in disguise,” said Dave, quietly setting his armour’s chaemeleon surface to dark red. Wombat stunned him, then anesthetised him for a good 24 hour sleep.

Shadira Downport, Collace/District 268/Spinward, 301/1105, 02:00 local

Six hours after the abduction, a vid message for Feng was received from a ‘burner’ address.  Feaysen could be clearly seen, tied up and very battered under a banner covered in Vilani writing taken from a very obscure and debatable gospel. A voice-over announced – ranted, really:

“This Imperial Running Dog has been captured by the Holy Warriors of the Scarlet Jihad in the name of Collace’s freedom from the rapacious devils of the Evil Empire! We’d prefer to kill her,” someone bundled up in camos and a jellabiya steps into shot and cuffs Feaysen, “but our Cause needs money. Bring two million of your dog Credits to the Corbyn Machine Tool factory in sector three, no guns, no cops, no traps, and we’ll release her. Any sign of police, Scouts, Army, backup, weapons or foul Imperial trickery and you die, she dies, everybody dies.”

Dave and Feng were already sharpening blades and Nevada was loading magazines before the recording had even ended.

Research showed the factory to be around 50km away, the texts to be ones appropriated and misused by no end of nutters and religious whackjobs. The Scarlet Jihad appeared nowhere at all. 

Corbyn Machine Tool Factory, Industrial Area Callow, Shadira Arcology, Collace/District 268/Spinward, 301/1105, 04:00 local

The factory was closed and clearly abandoned, with blocked windows and one door. As they watched, two men in the Jihad outfits came out for a smoke and went back in. Heat traces showed several human-sized objects inside near the walls.

Dave and Feng went in through the plant room on the roof,  while Wombat and Nevada floated across to the main door. On spec, Wombat tried simply pulling the door - and it crashed open with enough noise to wake the dead.

All stealth blown, the crew stormed in, encountering a handful of fanatic but amateur cultists with cheap local assault rifles. Fighting through these, Feng took a dash for the main factory room of the abandoned facility. Rounding the corner, she discovered she’d run into the scene from the vid; Feaysen tied to a chair and five Jihadi with rifles scattered around. She had a moment of worry as she’d run into the middle of them before she realized that she’d heard a small bleep as she’d crossed the threshold - and that no-one in the room had reacted to her. 

Guessing some of what was afoot, she hurled herself forward to shield Feaysen - and plunged through her holographic body as the bomb went off. Only the quality of her combat armour protected her from being blown to bits as the building was gutted by the blast. The others were knocked off their feet, and Nevada gazed at Wombat suspiciously, believing the latter’s breaching charge had been too big.

The place was a loss, and with Dave dragging the one badly-wounded survivor, they scrambled out of the still-collapsing ruin. Pondering the question - what was the idea? Clearly not a ransom. A trap? Sacrificing eight men? 

Session Date: Jul 18, 2023