Nilan nods along with Glitch.
Yeah. And Silvy sends us down here why?
"Slivy is tomorrow, someplace else. Ask Jink." Glitch waves at the question as if it were an annoying fly. "This here belong sto the camera in Shurami's apartment. But there's no one here and no connection to find to anything." he states frustrated.
Glitch has an idea and starts to dictate a message. "To Longshot. Found out what killed our show producer. And someone waited there. Seems she was part of something bigger and got killed for being an information leak. How about you tell our multi-armed camera monster to hand over all video material that he has and do some AI search of it for interesting scenes with our dead ex boss. Maybe we find some contacts. As a reference take the pics from the news about the dead pointy ear guy that 'fell' out of her apartment or the crew of the dwarf from the last shoot in the desert."
Longshot takes a little while to respond, but...
Doing a cross-reference on the video data we got here against previous Peacemakers broadcasts and the news footage available on the infosphere. We'll let you know if anything leaps out.
I can pull the dwarf from the footage we have too, but there's nothing on the news about any pointy-eared guy... I'll try to get into some back-channel chatter, but no footage to work with here.
Then he checks the computers again. For anything special about the hardware, cabling from and to, power, network, cooling, unusual chips, superficial hardware that wouldn't belong there normally, drives that are of different size on the os than what the hardware reads, processes that don't belong to the os, like special scanners, keyloggers, programs that phone home, whereever that is, crypto chips, inaccessible areas in the file system, files with unknown filetype for proprietary applications, ...
Glitch begins to do a deep scrub of the computers, and does find a partitioned drive on the second computer that seems to have been airgapped. Within the drive is just a single video, showing a stoic vesk, sitting in a bare room. A voice, unseen on the camera, begins speaking in soft, clinical tones.
”Recording has begun. Now tell me of the griggorim.”
”The griggorim are a species of psychically-linked organisms following the directives of a matriarch,” the vesk says, as though repeating knowledge that he has had drilled into him. ”They contain a variety of specialized forms, the most common of which are their drones and their humanoid foot-soldiers. I will be working with the war leaders, until such time as my own powers develop to lead a warband myself.”
”To what purpose will you be embedded within the griggorim?”
”Nothing less than the absolute destruction of the zaneen,” the vesk replies simply.
”Why must all the zaneen be destroyed?,” the quiet voice says again.
”They alone know of the griggorim beyond our inner circle, and they have adapted to fight them. They cannot be allowed to threaten the completion of the Bridge and the arrival of the Dark Mother.”
”No, they cannot,” the quiet voice says, sounding pleased. ”You sound prepared.”
”Yes sir.”
The video recording cuts off.
"The griggorim are known from a text from one of the old cults on Aucturn. It isn't much, but I would have to say that anything to do with those cults is... bad. Real bad."
"I'm not sure about this word... 'Zaneen.' Whoever they are, they might be potential allies."
Zhor then mutters a short incantation, and his eyes begin to glow blue. He looks around the room, and then looks over the documents again.
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Glitch raises a brow as Zhor shares his knowledge about griggorim. As Longshot's message comes in, Glitch goes through the footage Kitty recorded of the meeting at the appartment and sends the relevant part to the halfling.
[dice=Mysticism Take 10 (do I know what 'Zaneen' are?)]10+8
Zhor then mutters a short incantation, and his eyes begin to glow blue. He looks around the room, and then looks over the documents again.
Zhor doesn't know what the zaneen are, but the scans of whatever tome do look familiar - Zhor recognizes some of the images, specifically the strange machinery and the star maps, are related to a supposed hoax called The Heldret Schematics, an 'undecipherable codex' that has been circulating in pseudo-mystical groups for years. To Zhor's knowledge, no independent researchers have been able to discover the origins or even find the original manuscript - the images were discovered by Sauk Heldret, a Starfinder of some small fame, in the years post-Gap. Spells such as comprehend languages have revealed it to be an actual language of unknown origins. The pages seem to be instructions for building the machines pictured, but the scans discovered are missing pages and not enough to explain some of the stranger elements of the drawings or what their purpose was. This looks like a more complete scan of the codex - the picture of the thing you met in the desert, for instance, is not in the scans currently circulated - so this is either a more complete copy, or a scan of the actual tome itself.
All that said - the images on the screen do not detect as magic, and nothing in the area detect as magic either.
Glitch raises a brow as Zhor shares his knowledge about griggorim. As Longshot's message comes in, Glitch goes through the footage Kitty recorded of the meeting at the appartment and sends the relevant part to the halfling.
Perfect - I'll see what I can find here. Longshot is presumably now running cross-references with the imagery in order to determine anything she can uncover about the elf.
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Huh. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side. Nilan says, patting his own pistol.
Nilan thinks about what the others have been saying, maybe in his travels he's heard a thing or two about these...
This non technical mumbo-jumbo isn't exactly Glitch's area of expertise.
"All of that is pretty thin. Do we have anything more helpful? What are those griggorim? Fish? Birds? Cavedwellers? Are they the monsters in the dark that haunt this planet if you believe the rumors?" Glitch inquires.
He then turns on what he knows and searches for that Heldret on the infosphere to see what is behind and who dealt with his works.
Huh. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side. Nilan says, patting his own pistol.
Nilan thinks about what the others have been saying, maybe in his travels he's heard a thing or two about these...
Something clicks in Nilan's head. Tomaska - that's the real name of "Thumb," the kasatha that runs Rotgut and Rotgut Accessories, the bar you all met at. While some of you knew he was passing information, it looks like he's providing material aid as well. Who knows what else he's been working on with them.
"All of that is pretty thin. Do we have anything more helpful? What are those griggorim? Fish? Birds? Cavedwellers? Are they the monsters in the dark that haunt this planet if you believe the rumors?" Glitch inquires.
He then turns on what he knows and searches for that Heldret on the infosphere to see what is behind and who dealt with his works.
Huh, that's weird - while infospheres are always a little sparser on new planets as they build infrastructure and import information, Starfinder Society data tends to be a pretty early upload, as it serves as foundational information. There's no record of Heldret or his discoveries at all on here, though.
The party wraps up their investigation of the tiny office in the massive cave and departs back the way they came, quiet and thoughtful with the giant pile of information that the cave’s computers had hidden. You navigate through the empty neighborhood, Longshot occasionally rerouting you down alleys and side streets to avoid Peacemaker drones doing regular rounds through the area.
You descend through a service grate and are greeted again by Stamper, that shorter, bulkier robot. Upon detecting you, it again pivots, shining the way with the spotlight fused to the stump of it’s missing arm, clanging all the way through the tunnels to Longshot’s lair.
Longshot is eager to ask you about what happened, questions coming rapid-fire, often interrupting one retellling as another fact grabs her attention. Scrambles listens quietly, his manic attitude seemingly snuffed out as he listens to the gory details of what happened in Shurami’s apartment. He only chimes in at one point - as you recount the messages on the computers. It’s strange to hear the normally energetic skittermander sounding so tired and haggard. ”’Leak?’ That’s rich. If that ditzy airhead uncovered anything, it was by accident and she had no idea what she was doing.” The bitterness in his voice is palpable.
Longshot also shows off a development she’s been working on - ”Got us some low-level clearance to access Aspis supply requisitioning. They’ve got all kindsa things here - tools, supplies, weapons - but they’ve got some sorta layered encryptions, so I’m just accessing the sorts of things that they got for the bottom rungs of the ladder. If there’s something you need, I can put in an order and have one of our drones deliver it.”
Nilan would like to order a Tactical Rotating Pistol
Best we get Slivvy’s job outta the way before we focus on the bigger issues.
He heads back and listens to the “clearance” provided and begins to think about what will suit him best.
"Send me some list what's on sale." Glitch tells Longshot and once he receives it he starts looking for nice additions to his drone, or an MK4 ground to air rocket launcher.
Having made too many bad experiences on this job Glitch decides to go for a defrex hide. The look of it is a bit... special, but once your fur got burned badly that doesn't seem that important any more.
After a few hours, one of Longshot's hacked bots comes in with the requested goods, swaying slightly under the weight of the assorted weaponry and gear.
The night passes uneventfully - Longshot has enough back doors into enough systems that the party can entertain themselves as they see fit. She even has Stamper move rubble to form a makeshift shooting range, suspending broken bits of Aspis robot chassis in order to form targets. Scrambles spends the evening there, emptying battery after battery of an azimuth laser pistol into spare parts.
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The next day, you are free to head to the dock to meet Slivvy's ship. It's certainly not built for joy rides, and it's a little hard to tell from first glance what parts are rusty, what parts are dusty, and what parts are just painted an uninspiring utilitarian brown, but it's one of those models that you can fly until you crash them. A pair of androids in combat armor stand to either side of the ship's airlock to deter uninvited guests, though they give Blask and the rest of you a respectful nod as you board.
Glitch enjoys another meal out of the nutrition machine and watches Scrabbler unloading his frustration on robot parts. He also grabs a few of the batteries that seem to be served like popcorn here.
"You ever thought about adding some more comfort here? Like sky simulation ceiling, some carpet, and a lounge?" Glitch asks Longshot. Maybe she lives in the matrix and doesn't care about the real environs. he thinks.
Nilan would make a decent Pilot, or failing that, a gunner.
"I quite like it here." Jink chimes to Glitch
"There are worse places for sure. But as Longshot doesn't seem to be short on resources, it's rather plain here." Glitch tells. [b]"Maybe some oath of contentment?
"Well... yes..." Tink says looking around. "But plain isn't bad."
Back at Longshot's base...
The halfling takes off her omnipresent goggles and looks about the place at Glitch's question. "I mean, I probably got the parts around if you feel like trying to make something like that yourself - gotta say I never noticed it. There's so much interesting stuff you can find digitally that the analog never bothers me much." She gives a shrug.
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Jink fires up the engines and follows the automated instructions from the Portmaster system running the spaceport here. The ship's identification is accepted without any problems, and within a few minutes you are able to watch Prosperity fade into the surrounding desert from the visual scanners, and the stars begin to emerge.
Slivvy's instructions give you coordinates to meet up with your delivery, and you fly for a minute or two before your sensors begin to ping: though instead of the one freighter that you were expecting, you're getting multiple smaller energy signals. An incoming transmission, audio-only, comes through the comms unit. "Attention - this ship is found in violation of the laws of the Pact Worlds and is thus subject to search and boarding. Prepare for docking."
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"Ok - we need to be quick here. Jink, you need to negotiate some extra credits from Slivy, for pest control. We can either get paid serious coins, or we watch here while his ship is taken to the cleaners." Glitch tells after taking a quick look over the data coming in.
"Zhor, you're good about tactics? What does our ship have in firepower? Do we have what it takes to let the air out of those ships?"
"Oh and for those wondering. The jurisdiction of the stewards as written in annex 37 to the Absalom Pact ends at the current boundaries of the Pact World as defined in annex 4 updated the the last time around 250AG which is so far away from here, that I don't know what unit of measurement to use to describe it."
"So, either we are fetching a weapon able to wipe out entire civilizations from that ship, or those are simple space pirates. the stewards won't come here to give you a speeding ticket."
"And their sent ID is fake." Glitch adds to mail his argument down.
After a moment he adds "It's the obvious things to do right?" Just in case someone wanted to disagree with his analysis.
"Zhor, you're good about tactics?..."
"I am? I mean, uh, yeah! I am! Uh..."
Zhor looks at the displays, trying to make sense of them.
"Well, our main gun is a particle cannon up front which packs a decent punch. But in the turret there's a chaingun. Heh heh... it's only short range but if you can drop the enemy's shields first it can really shred them."
"This ship is pretty nimble, but little ships like those can probably outrun us. We should scan them to see how tough they are. If they look too hot for us, we can always let their guys board and then jump them when they come aboard."
Nilan punches his comm and sends a message to 5-AM Hey buddy. No worms here. Best get moving along.
Nilan calls to the others Yeah this is a shakedown. I met the guy what hailed us. He's a local merc.
Nilan rushes towards the chaingun turret. Someone grab the particle cannon, I got this baby.
Nilan's comms ping back with a message from 5-AM:
This ain't a good look for you, Milarne. What do you know about what you're doing right now?
Caloo calls out from the science station. "They're locking on weapons!"
Nilan sends back A favor for a "friend".And you? This ain't honest work.
Glitch starts fiddling with the power and redirects some more to the particle cannon.
Nilan sends back A favor for a "friend".And you? This ain't honest work.
Right, so you don't know what you're doing, and you certainly don't know what I'm doing. Thought you were keeping yourself out of trouble?
As Glitch begins to divert power to the weapons, the four fighters scramble and split away from each other. Caloo begins to scan them for information.
"They're just fighters!" yells the bantrid from the science console. "Just one-person ships, they're as fast and maneuverable as we are!"
All the fighters hone in on the Starhopper, but Jink knows how the ship reacts - he out-maneuvers the fighters, but with there being four of them, it's close.
Blask, once he hears all the commotion heads to the primary gun. He takes aim at one of the fighters and lets a shot go.
Jink guns the ship towards the "Steward's" kill-zone before darting to the side.
You can see a look of stern determination on Jink's face, with a hint of rapture at being able to put a ship through its paces again.
"That was the one talking to us right?" Jink asks. As you all watch out your respective gun-ports and port-holes the ship blasts past the first of the fighting fighters, and turns towards Early Bird
Jink's paws dance over the controls and a moment later everyone is thrown quite forcefully into their seats as Jink kills the main engines, vents the maneuvering thrusters on the prow of the ship, and then slams them into reverse to counter the rotation. The ship groans in protest as it spins.
As the ships rotation slows, everyone gets a nice look down the exhaust of Early Bird's fighter.
As the main cannon and lets a shot straight into the engines of the lead fighter Jink guns the maneuvering thrusters again and spins the ship back onto the path of it's forward movement.
Yeah, no idea. Like I said, it's a favor. Tell ya what, I'll try not to blow you up.
Nilan sends to 5-AM
Yeah. I think so. He's a merc, no gang affiliation that I know of.
Nilan fires at the ship as Jink executes his fly by
Jinks' masterful display of shipboard aerodynamics rockets them right past Early Birds' ship and gives Blask a wonderfully clear shot at the androids' aft, which the vesk takes with devastating aim.
It could be a lot worse, but you can see that even that glancing shot damage was enough to damage part of Early Bird's ship.
Also, it appears that only one of the fighters is in position to fire on the Starhopper. A missle snakes towards your ship's starboard bow.
Thankfully, it veers wide and explodes harmlessly in the distance... but that is not a small explosion.
Caloo continues to scan Early Bird's ship for more information.
Having nothing better to do yet, Glitch keeps the weapons loaded to the max.
Caloo's scans reveal quite a lot of information!
AC 16; TL 15
HP 27/35
Shields basic 20 (forward 10/10, port 4/4, starboard 4/4, aft 0/2)
Micron Ultra Power Core (80 PCU)
Attack (Forward) light particle beam (3d6), light plasma torpedo launcher (3d8)
Attack (Aft) coilgun (4d4)
Glitch sets the entire ship humming as the weapons receive the diverted power.
One of the ships eagerly tries to outflank Jink, but the others are more cautious, trailing the ysoki, waiting for his reaction.
"He doesn't have much for shields, especially in the aft, but I don't like the look of those weapons!" Caloo calls out from his post.
Knowing that Early Bird was going to be able to fly out of any advantageous shot Jink managed to line up, the ysoki pilot insteads opts to swing behind the over-eager pilot and line up a clear shot up the aft, taking care to minimize the ship's profile to the other pilots.
Early Bird and the two latecomers line themselves up in a striker formation, and each of them pops off a missle. Meanwhile, the ship you're tailing opens fire out of the aft guns.
Two of the missiles collide with the Starhopper, bathing the Starboard side with plasma.
Blask lets out a Vesk battlecry as the ship jolts from the incoming attack. He lines up a shot of his own, and lets it rip.
Nilan swings the turret around and fires
Glitch equals out the shields.
"Maybe we can find out if he's carrying anything," Caloo mumbles to himself as he scans Early Bird again.
Blask's shot rips through the aft shields and begins tearing into the hull of the ship in front of them, but Nilan is once again spending more time swinging the turret than hitting with bullets.
Glitch then boosts the shields, restoring 7 shield points to Starboard.
The fighter Blask just lit up flips over, setting itself to be facing dead on at you, while the other two fighters peel away from each other trying to catch the Starhopper in a pincer movement. You lose Early Bird in the chaos, as he hangs back to react to what Jink does.
Jink decides he doesn't like being in the middle of four ships, and so decides not to be in the middle of them anymore.
He pushes the ship to full speed, before swinging to point directly at Early Bird again. The ship races towards the small fighter.
At the last minute Jink kills the main engines, slams on the starboard manouvering thrusters and shunts the ship to port, quickly throttling the front port thruster to spin as the ship slides through the void behind Early Bird. Once again there is a moment where all guns are pointed straight down Early Bird's exhausts.
That moment passes in a flash though as Jink floors the front port thruster to spin them through a full rotation before correcting for spin and darting away. Knowing that he is likely to take some return fire, he protects the weak side and shows port instead.
"Anybody know much about the Android Abolitionist Front? The encryption they're running on their communication with each other seems to match what the AAF typically uses!"
They're anti-slavers. Shit. Nilan calls out, now understanding the predicament he's in.
We aren't the slagging good guys here. I bet that bumhole Slivvy is getting us to pick up illegally made Android slaves.
Nilan sends to 5-AM.
What's the cargo. Is is Androids?