Due to spending last week narrowboating, this week's session was done with absolutely zero preparation, barring a scribbled description of the Blue Razor computer data, and some other very brief notes about something that didn't happen. It could have gone worse!
With the prisoners and materiel turned over, and their payment made, the Cats found themselves at a bit of a pause. Col Dorsey and her mercenaries were now fully occupied in their secondary objective - cadre to train the locals an armed force - and had no tasks to offer. The government was beginning to run short of actual cash; they'd already partially paid the Cats with an uninhabited island, immediately christened Pipsqueak Island, in lieu of dosh.
This island was rather nice, despite Kaldamar's thin atmosphere, and had a variety of useful-looking plants of which Feng took samples. The Long Walk landed, and offloaded a few hab pods and other amenities for next time they came through.
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Nevada's hacking computer had finally prised open Calico Jack's Blue Razor hand computer, and the Cats gathered around to investigate what was stored on it.
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Calico Jack had used the secure computer to keep his personal journal, obviously feeling that it was the safest place for it. The majority of it was made up of accounts of his successes, phrased in terms that gloated cruelly over the suffering of the "weak" and "gulliable" upon whom the pirates preyed.
Of more interest was his account of being selected for training and taken to a Blue Razor base, where he received training and indoctrination. Despite significant measures to prevent the trainees knowing where they were, Rackham had managed to obtain the location of the secret supply caches the Blue Razors kept in deep space between the Spinward Marches and the Trojan Reach. Finally, he was deposited on a world which he managed to identify as 985-373, an undeveloped world deep in Egryn subsector.
The astrographic Library Data described 985-373 as the hopelessly radioactive ruins of a civilized garden world of around Tech Level 10, utterly devastated by nuclear war to the point that even its' original name was lost.
The truth, it seemed, was far otherwise.
The world had evidently been cleansed at some point, and was completely controlled by the Blue Razor pirate syndicate as a regional base, referred to locally as Tortuga. Rackham spent two years here learning advanced techniques, many of them distinctly unpleasant, and meeting and sharing knowledge with pirates, corsairs, privateers, raiders, thugs, muggers and buggerers from all over the sector.
He recorded being disappointed to be returned to Kaldamar, but was advised to "Stick it out; better things are coming."
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Rumours he had picked up about the Razors included the fact that they had fingers in pies all across the Reach - and maybe further - including governmental pies. The organization, he noted, was said to be led - ruled - by a personage referred to as "herself". Said to be dazzlingly beautiful, diabolically persuasive and horrifyingly ruthless. It was also said that those who had actually met her would not speak of her.
"Huh," said Nevada, "Sounds like a psionic to me."
While this may have been so, the idea of going to Tortuga didn't even cross their minds, and they turned their attention to local issues.
The Kaldamar government had two reactions to the information derived from the computer. They were very happy to hire Cats with Guns to locate the nearer of the two deep-space caches and destroy it; and they offered a combined hire to the Speargrinders and the Cats to ambush and destroy the corsair due in system in early 1108. Both measures were going to earn the Kaldamarans something they desperately needed - time.
Emptying their cargo bay, the Cats installed collapsible fuel tanks, allowing them to escape if they jumped into the co-ordinates from Rackham's diary and found nothing there. Loaded for trouble, they jumped into nowhere.
Emergence saw them in deep space, with no sun in anywhere near proximity. What they did find was a tiny planetoid, bearing a four-lobed base. No starships were to be seen, and a cautious approach brought a challenge rather like those described in the diary. "Gilgamesh; Samson; Moses; Tuesday; 13:15". Wombat shrugged and tried a guess; "Cain, Abel, Wednesday?" he transmitted. The response suggested they had not passed the test; "Sodom; Arrarat; Jehosophat; Monday; 18:15".
The planetoid was defende by six missile turrets, spaced evenly around the circunference. The Long Walk approached from the base side, and dealt with the turret with a very uneven bombardment duel. Approaching cautiously in their APC, they gained entry through an airlock on one of the 'arms' and began to investigate.
One was simply an enormous fuel tank, filled with refined hydrogen fuel; the next two were warehouses full of equipment including small arms - nothing impressive on the Cats' normal scale, but they guessed (correctly) that the Kaldamarans would be ready to buy some for local security.
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The last was joined to the central hub by large doors and turned out to be a store and workshop for starship repairs. A good selection of standardized spare part containers were stockpiled here. The central hub contained a lift which could lower a corsair down to the workshop for repairs and resupply. There was also a magazine of starship-grade missiles for the turrets; being increasingly aware of the cost of starship combat, the Cats gleefully loaded these into the Long Walk.
There was far more of this materiel than their hold could carry. Over the next eight weeks, they travelled back and forth to the cache, transporting everything salvageable back to Kaldamar. On the final trip, they mined the fuel tank and watched the base disintegrate with smug pleasure. The next corsair that jumped there was going to have a nasty and slowly fatal surprise.