There is a pause. "What? Where? You know what? Wait right there."
The comms cut off. What's everyone doing?
Daneel considers whether there is any way he could quickly create a coolant leak (or the appearance of one).
Jerry hurries out to join his companions, also trying to act like a cleaner. He moves close to the ship and, after glancing around for observers and cameras, unzips his coveralls and urinates to create a puddle on the floor.
Daneel: Short of Jerry's method, you can't think of a way to get to the coolant tanks or lines, but you -could- spoof the ship into thinking there was a coolant leak if you could access its maintenance panel.
Luckily, the station is already plugged into the maintenance panel and there is a station terminal nearby.
Jerry, your noble mother would be horrified! But you get a puddle of liquid near Mercifuge before the crew arrives. It does so in the form of a big bruiser with a crew cut, a sleeveless shirt and a big pistol on his hip. He frowns at you. "What's going on? We didn't call for any maintenance and you ain't the fuel crew. So whaddya want?"
Well hello big and muscly. Sorry to bother you, but I thought you might want to deal with this spill before the port authority saw it and charged you for the clean-up. It is right over here... "
Deception:
Byron sees the man come out and starts moving closer to the ship in case things get ugly.
Daneel moves toward the maintenance terminal. "I'm gonna check the air filters and see if they're showing a spike in contaminants. Don't want any alarms to get triggered."
When he gets to the terminal he tries to access Mercifuge.
Jerry points to the liquid on the deck as Jhoolz speaks to the crewman.
"Smells kind of funky, too. Might be a biohazard and you know how the port authority feels about that. Right?," Jerry adds after Jhoolz speaks.
He is also ready to accost the man.
As Daneel jacks into the maintenance system, Jhoolz assaults a Mercifuge crew member. Jerry moves in to block the action from view.
[ooc]Jhoolz, give me a STR+Athletics roll.[ooc]
Str+Athletics:
or
Melee(Unarmed)+Str:
The sailor buckles to his knees, but isn't out. "What...?" he says groggily, and tries to reach for something in his pocket.
Fist-fighting is too ... common ... for Jerry's taste, so he steps close to the man.
"Give it up! Miria has sold you out and you don't want to die for Redthane!," he says while holding a fist in his pocket as if he has a hidden weapon.
Daneel continues to work on his infiltration attempt.
Byron takes his broom and starts walking as if he is going past the ship.
The crewman doesn't quite surrender, but he stops fighting. "You don't know who you're felking with, chappie!" he says. "You are out of your league here."
You can't access Mercifuge's computers directly. But you may not need to.
You can see that the ship's security officer has wisely stopped the ship from routinely broadcasting her identification (few pirates last long by broadcasting their location), but he or she appears to have forgotten or missed one little detail. Starport maintenance systems routinely query the navigational logs of passing ships to understand what parts might be called for in any maintenance job. It's innocuous, useful and generally unnoticed by most ship's crews.
What this means is that you know where Mercifuge has been ever since the ship was stolen from Admiral Darrokyn. One place stands out: a single jump away in the Palindrome system, on the fourth moon of that system's gas giant.
Byron, you spot a Redsand Widow walking purposefully in your direction!
Daneel switches his comm to broadcast to the whole crew, "I've got what we need. Let's get out of here." He reboots the maintenance terminal, picks up his tools, and makes his way back to Nemesis.
Jhoolz steps forward and strikes the fellow while he is down.
Melee(Unarmed)+Str:
"Keep your filthy paw off me you gorilla!", she calls as she steps back from the pirate.
She turns to the others, a look of relief on her face.
"Thanks for the backup fellas, but I can take care of myself!"
Deception+INT:
Jerry stands back, raising his hands.
"I never doubted it! Let's just get out of here."
He turns to walk away, trying to act casual.
Jhoolz kicks the Mercifuge crewman hard and he passes out.
As you walk "casually" away, the Widow casually checks the man's pulse and then keeps walking. He must be alive, because she pays you no further mind and heads in another direction.
You get all the way to the hangar door when Mercifuge's door opens and a trio of armed thugs step out. Looking around, they spot their downed shipmate.
"Oi! Hey you! Hey!" shouts one. He starts running towards you. A moment later, the other two follow.
Jerry quickly checks whether the Widow is still in sight.
When the men get closer, Jerry speaks to them. "Go look after your friend. Turn around and get scarce before things go south for anyone close to Miria. You're outnumbered and outgunned. There's only one way this will go down."
Daneel moves next to Jerry. He crosses his arms and glowers at the thugs. He focuses on the one who appears to be the leader, and tries to trigger his flight reflex.
Telempathy also allows the emotions and feelings of others to be read by the Traveller.
Other telepaths will always recognize when someone is using Telempathy to bend their emotions, but non-telepaths will not. The change in mood may be dramatic and inexplicable, but most will simply ascribe it to the mercurial nature of emotions.
Check: Routine (6+) Telepathy (1D x 10 seconds, PSI)
Reach: Long
PSI Cost: 1
The Widow has stopped and is turning back towards the confrontation. At the moment, she is engaged in a leisurely stroll and will take a minute or two to arrive, but you have seen such women move with superhuman speed in the past. The Mercifuge crewmen haven't spotted her.
Their hands freeze halfway to their weapons. They eye Jerry, Byron, Jhoolz and Daneel. So far as they know, you just cold-cocked their friend and robbed him.
"I'm gonna remember you, you hear me? Don't sleep alone, fancy man! One night you're going to wake up and find me standing over you, you hear me?"
The thugs nonetheless back down and slink back towards the ship. The Widow smiles blandly at them as they pass.
"And now is a good time to return to your own vessel," she advises as she approaches you.
"We will take your advice," replies Jerry.
He ignores the threat from the Mercifuge crewman since they will be leaving as soon as they can get the ship ready.
"Let's go," he says to his companions as he turns and walks to return to the ship. "Nothing more to be gained here."
Jhoolz gives a little wave goodbye to the crewmen and follows the others back to their ship...but she also makes sure that they are not followed by any of the crewmen.
Recon:
Jhoolz observes the crewmen following at a distance and taking holos of you and Nemesis, but the ship's holographic hull means that they have no idea what the harrier actually looks like.
Safe aboard your commerce raider, with the information in hand, what do you do now?
"Lets get out of here and make for that gas giant." Byron says as he starts plotting a course.
Course is calculated and laid in! All hands report ready to depart.
Jerry sits in the command chair, listening to the reports indicating that the ship is ready to depart.
"Let's get underway, pick up some fuel and then find Redthane. Make speed like a fast courier ... we want to get there first, but don't show what the ship can do."
"Aye, Captain. Optimizing power and M-drive for thrust 3"
Fully fueled, Nemesis departs The Skull and transits to the edge of the 100-diameter limit, then jumps for Palindrome.
A week goes by while you transit through J-Space.
During the week in J-Space, Jhoolz gets to know the crew and the ship. Not being well versed in space travel and the like, she tries to stay out of the crew's way as they go about the various tasks needing doing as the ship travels to its destination.
Having seen Daneel's skill on the computer, Jhoolz decides she should expand her knowledge in this field.
"Come on Dan-O! Show me a bit of your cyber mojo...tell you what if you show me yours...I'll show you mine!!
She smiles seductively then grabs him in an arm lock and pushes him up against the ship's bulkhead.
"Now wouldn't you just love to know how to do this...and so many other things to protect yourself?? Hmmmm??"
Byron makes some brownies with something exotic that he was assured would be great for humans and leaves them out for others to try with a note calling them "exotic brownies".
Jerry strolls into the mess and sees the desserts and note left by Byron. Without thinking too much about, Jerry takes one of the desserts after getting a hot drink from the robotic beverage station. He slowly munches upon it as he returns to his stateroom.
It's several days later before anyone sees Jerry again ...
Daneel blushes at how easily Jhoolz is able to put him in an awkward position - he wasn't expecting to be assaulted, though.
Voice half muffled by the bulkhead, he says, "If you can give me some pointers, that would be great. I've actually been working on hand to hand with the marines - Misty says I'm hopeless though."
Once Jhoolz releases him, he continues, "I'm happy to help you with your computer skills. Where do you want to start?"
In the following days, Jerry can sometimes be found standing and simply staring at a bulkhead.
Jerry jerks and then resumes walking to the mess, as if he had not been staring at the bulkhead for some time. He enters the mess and begins making a pot of tea.
When Byron enters, Jerry remarks, "You know, when you really look, something solid isn't really solid. It's bits of things that are bound to one another and appear solid but there's so much space between. And, as you look, that repeats as you look smaller and smaller. Until you think that you can't go smaller, but maybe you can. I almost failed chemistry in school, but I think I might now understand what the tutor was trying to teach me."
On the seventh day, the Jump Alarm sounds and everyone is at their battle stations. The lanthanum grid heats up, shining an eerie silver as the endless expanse of J-Space begins to collapse around Nemesis. With a nauseating sense of transition, the ship drops into normal space in the Palindrome system.
is a binary system with one bright orange K9 V star and one dim red M1 V companion. The system has a single rocky world and two gas giants although the system has many small moons. Available data on the residents of the Mainworld is scanty, merely noting a single small settlement, the domed town of Astrogo. Despite this, the system is noted for an excellent if small Class-B starport sometimes used by long-range ships taking a direct route from the Tobia subsector to the Sindalian Main.
Sensors detect four starships in-system, all near the mainworld and starport. Three are mid-sized long-range transports between 1,000 and 5,000 tons. One is a huge 20,000-ton armed frontier merchant from the Aslan Hierate.
None of this is what brought you, though. You're here for Ferrik Redthane. According to Mercifuge's records, he's hiding on the fourth moon of one Palindrome's gas giants, a nameless rock tagged as 540PD-5/4. Nemesis spots and catalogs the moon about twenty minutes after leaving J-Space.
"Should we head to the main planet, gas up and see what we can find out. Or go right in?" Byron asks Jerry wondering if the small space gave him some grand insight.
"Well I don't know much about starships, but I would suggest we have our getaway planned before we enter into the lion's den...if you get my meaning!"
"We have Mira's codes, so let's act as if we were carrying Mira to rendezvous with Redthane. Configure the ship to mimic Mira's ship ... we saw it and should be able to duplicate it," says Jerry to his companions.
"The only question is whether Mira would refuel in order to be able to jump right away. My guess is that she would play it safe and fuel. What do the rest of you think?"
"And, second question is where she would fuel. Daneel, did you get enough information to learn whether her ship was capable of fueling from the gas giant or would she be obligated to get refined fuel?"