Once Forensics had finished with the base, the police set to and got the place looking as if it had never been raided.  Twenty-five of the empty low berths had been loaded with, er, recreational human-shaped figures, and the electronics tricked up to read normal hibernation despite the absence of any actual life signs. 

By lucky chance, Wombat noticed that the autoturrets - repaired but disarmed - were tracking everyone, and worked out that they were programmed to attack anyone not carrying a talisman. These were tracked down and handed out pronto! 

With grav modules as ski lifts, the three took the chance to practice their winter sports while they waited for things to happen, skiing on the outside of the mountain well away from the cave entrance.

After some discussion the party decided to change the plan; rather than trying to board the Strawman - the Torquilstone - they would join the police garrison of Slavers’ Bay and intercept the pirates’ away team as they came to collect. If successful, they would take the G-Carrier back up and try to dock onto the Torquilstone. With this in mind, Wombat and Nevada began to trawl the databases looking for details on the ship from its’ previous visits.

Kinunir Class

Eventually, they located some footage of the vessel in its parking orbit - ships that big couldn’t dock internally at the Highport and had to choose a docking tube or an anchorage orbit and sub craft to the ‘port. They eventually tracked down the model of vessel, after having to resort to data regarding out-of-production marques. The power and drive sigs matched up and they had their vessel; and sat back in dismay. The Torquilstone was a Kinunir-class Frontier Cruiser, an ill-fated light warship design specific to the Marches, cancelled after 20 of its 24-unit run were built. Boarding and capturing it began to look a daunting prospect. 

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Gauss Cannon

Some days later, the police SWAT platoon assigned the operation arrived. Nevada had made a call or two, and a young and rather star-struck Army captain also arrived, bringing a heavy packing case containing a Gauss Cannon and two ammo bins. Nevada was almost drooling about using this at some point. 

The results of the police interrogation of Burnell came back;

The trap was laid and polished. A major feature was that under the mountain, comms from a vehicle to the outside would be completely blocked, unless they had meson communicators which was very unlikely. As long as the G-Carrier didn’t get away, there should be no way the rest of the pirates could tell the away team had been bushwhacked. 

To provide a backstop, the local Navy was persuaded to put a couple of System Defence Boats - jumpless maulers designed for in-system combat - on standby in case the Torquilstone made a run for it.  Not many vessels could catch her if she did, but SDBs were fast.

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A few days later, the police reported that they had successfully arrested two of Burnell’s other suppliers and were in the process of sweeping up the rest.

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Karthas

Early in the morning, the Torquilstone jumped into the Collace System. Pausing to scoop for fuel at the gas giant Karthas, she headed in-system, arriving at the mainworld in a fraction of the time the Short Walk could have done. Taking up her anchorage orbit, she disgorged a 40-ton pinnace which headed to the Highport and a paramilitary G-Carrier which made re-entry heading for Slavers’ Bay.

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Israel "Gaza" Hands
Bing Image Creator

After exchanging the challenge codes (”The Rabbits are on the Grass”, “The Gerbils are on the Wheel”), and [critically] persuading the pirates that Burnell was elsewhere and video comms had a glitch, the forces of law and order prepared their ambush.

The G-Carrier threaded through the caves and landed just outside the base. Three guards in combat armour and with gauss rifles emerged, followed by a tall, solemn-faced man also in combat - Gaza Hands. Following him was another of Beefheart’s command crew - the hacker and medic, “Skinny” Taunton. Nevada and Wombat met them at the open loading bay doors of the base, and while Nevada talked to Hands and Skinny Wombat wandered around handing out beers. This met with some puzzlement, though the pirates accepted the cans and tucked them into armourpockets.

Skinny started checking the cryopods with his hand computer, and the guards started unloading grav floaters to move them with - passed them by another two guards inside the carrier. Wombat joined with them shuttling trolleys back and forth, and after they’d got used to that he quietly slid a large explosive charge - prepared for breaching hatches once they reached the Torquilstone - into the mechanism of the pod.