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T’Kai doesn’t recognize the creatures.
Goose hops over to the lifeless figures of their foes. "They put up one heck of a fight." he offers to nobody in particular.
Glancing at the claw marks and bruises on his teammates, Goose winces. "You guys okay?" asks Goose to Ivok, Antoine and Big Jim. "That looks like it really hurts."
Moving over to T'Kai and the others examining the bodies, Goose nods his head as they make their discoveries. He offers to help as well. As they consider the removal of the recoil stabilizer, Goose ponders on the cultural implications.
Regarding the engineering check, Goose offers to boost the signal to the ship on his own instead of assisting.
You are far enough out in the Vast that there is no uniform law. Within the Pact Worlds you would be within your rights to salvage any equipment off the bodies including augmentations.
That said, it is considered polite to return the bodies and anything that might be an item of personal value. This is somewhat complicated by the Xinya’s suspected connections to the Golden League, but you would still say just returning the bodies would be acceptable.
——
When Goose goes over the beacon, he notices something interesting. The beacon has been modified to send out a minor data packet through the Drift once it is activated. Removing this modification is very difficult and failure would immediately activate the beacon causing both transmissions to begin.
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"Hoy mates. I say we take the augmentation as payment for returning these lost souls to their families. What's the price of closure, eh?" offers Goose to the others. He waits to hear from them before performing the procedure to remove it.
Goose then shares the tidbit about the Trojan Horse subroutine built into the download from the beacon. "Shall we disable it?"
Mon is able to jigger the system to disable the second transmission. He can’t recover the data packet. Given the dead bodies, plans for the beacon, and everything else you have seen you suspect the message was intended for someone in the Xinya family.
Having successfully prevented the piggy back transmission, Mon indicates there is no reason to stay.
You quickly pack up the bodies and put them in Big Jim’s truck. Getting in, you head back to your own ship.
The ship is still where you left it and in good shape. You can launch anytime you want.
A few of you do take time to rest and recover.
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As Ivok helps move the bodies to the van Ivok gives a shake of his head to the bodies.
"We can wait to do it later. I'm not going to say that we should do it to shake the last few credsticks out of their pockets, but given who they work for, I rather not hand over combat stuff like this over to them."
With the bodies properly stowed he attempts to shake off the dreariness of the matter with a bit of a grin and a flex of the arm.
"Now if it was a prosthetic for weight training, sparring or other sports I would admire that and would say we should leave it be. Not many sports feature automatic weapons though. Aside from on Eox."
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Once back aboard the Pathfinder vessel Compucast settles into the science station, doing a scan of the nearby area, and nearby space.
"I'm still curious about what is out there. I think we have a day or low in low orbit getting the data, so we should have plenty of time to rest up. But lets get transmissions underway as soon as we can."
You launch your ship and fly into a low orbit. As you are initiating the download, you receive an alert from the scanners detecting an incoming starship. It is hostile and looks to be of the same type that attacked the Bliss of Pursuit. In order to maintain the download, you must stay in the system. Entering Drift would cut off the connection and risk data corruption.
The other ship hails you.
“This is Captain Inzevra of the Congregation of Perpetual Agonies. Identify yourselves and your purpose in this system!”
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Compucast settles into the science officers seat, sending an aggressive set of scans at the approaching ship.
"Checking their configuration now, captain.."
I'm not sure which version of the drake we have, but have included +2 as that is the bonus at tier 6+.
For every 5 by which I exceed the DC, I learn another unknown piece of information. Subsequent checks reveal new pieces of information, continuing down this list.
1. Basic Information: Living crew complement and ship classification, size, speed, and maneuverability.
2. Defenses: AC, TL, total and current Hull Points, total and current Shield Points in each quadrant, and core PCU value.
3. Weapon: Information about one weapon, including its firing arc and the damage it deals, starting with the weapon that uses the most PCU. Repeat this entry until all the starship’s weapons are revealed.
4. Load: Information about how the starship’s expansion bays are allocated and any cargo the starship might be carrying.
5. Other: Any remaining ship statistics.
E.g if it is tier 10 with no counter measures, then I would get the first two bits of information. If it is tier 6 with one point of countermeasures, I would get the first three.
As soon as Compucast activates you’re scanners, the captain of the other ship orders their people “Fire at will! Let’s lead them to their second lives!”
They attempt to divert power to weapons.
Their pilot moves closer to your ship while performing evasive maneuvers. Their science officer attempts to scan your ship.
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Goose hops into the pilots chair and preps his role as the Sky Jockey on this ship. He flexes his fingers and orients himself to his station.
"Strap in mates, this could get dicey." he hollars as he begins his preparations to enter they fray.
Once everyone is prepared and the captain gives the nod, Goose punches the trusters into an evasive maneuver.
The ship moves up to its speed and can turn as normal, and it gains a +2 circumstance bonus to its AC and TL until the start of the next round.
"We're at range eight, forward arc folks! Let 'em have it mates!" shouts the excited ysoki!
Mon pushes the engines and gets the ship into firing position.
This turns actions:
Big Jim:
Antoine:
Compucast: Science Officer (Scan)
Ivok: Captain (Encourage Gunnery antimatter missile launcher)
Mon: Pilot (Evade)
T’Kai:
——
Ivok gives the gunner some good advice for gunnery.
Compucast completes analysis of the data from his scan of the enemy ship.
Congregation of Perpetual Agonies TIer 7
Basic Information:
Complement 20 (minimum 6, maximum 20)
Large Destroyer
Speed 6; Maneuverability average (turn 2); Drift 1
Defenses:
AC 21; TL 19
HP 170/170
Shields medium 100 (forward 30, port 25, starboard 25, aft 20)
Power Core Arcus Maximum (200 PCU)
Weapons:
Attack (Forward) plasma cannon (5d12)
There is more information that can be scanned.
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Big Jim waits patiently at the engineering station. As the fight begins, there is little to do. Realizing an opportunity exists, Big Jim decides to launch one of the weapons at the last second.
"This should shake things up, amiright?
[Spoiler=Fire tactical nuke, bot]
[ooc] 20 total damage plus irradiation low to ship.
Sensors
Weapons array
Starboard
Your weapons all hit the enemy ship!
They try to fire back, but miss!
——
Round 2
Their engineer attempts to patch the weapons.
Success
Their Pilot attempts to Evade.
Failure
Their ship is coming right for you!
——
Your turn to act.
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Ivok glances at the reading and gives a rousing cheer. "It looks like they are already running ragged just into our bout!"
"Great shot each of you! Your training is shining clearly here." Ivok moves over to T'kai to offer focused support. "You got a perfect shot before now you just need to keep the lock on. I know it is exhausting but you need to push and keep that focus on them and not let up. Keep pressing the attack until the end!"
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"This pilot is a bold one mates! He wants to play (chicken*)! Well, he's in for a rude awakening, because I have no intention of sitting idle and letting them pound us from point-blank range. Hang tight mates, we might scrape some paint on this one."" shouts Goose as he pushes the Drake with the boosted engines directly at the enemy!
Attempting Flyby maneuver as we move through their space. Piloting check (DC = 15 + 1–1/2 × the tier of the enemy starship). 15+(1.5x 8) = 15+12 = 27. I will elect to use one of the +3 boosts from the ship since we only have 2 gunners this round.
The ship moves as normal. It moves through 1 hex occupied by an enemy starship without provoking a free attack. We will use our forward arc to target their forward arc for firing this round.
I moved 12 spaces since we are boosted by the Engineering check to increase speed by 2.
Goose flies straight at the enemy and then does a dodgy dodge at the last second, scraping hulls as he does a flyby maneuver. This gives the gunners a closeup shot of their forward arc as they glide by.
success
Big Jim adjusts the engines so that they will perform just slightly past their rated limits.
Mon manages to fly just to make me side of the enemy ship. You all get a good look at the corpse fleet vessel.
Having already scanned it once, Compucast comes back with more scan data:
Congregation of Perpetual Agonies TIer 7
Defenses:
AC 21; TL 19
HP 99/170
Shields medium 75 (forward 30, port 12, starboard 25, aft 8)
Weapons:
Attack (Forward) plasma cannon (5d12), Heavy Laser Net (5d6)
Attack (Port) gyrolaser (1d8)
Attack (Starboard) gyrolaser (1d8)
There is more information that can be scanned, and you have the wrong DC on scanning.
You got the information from after their Science Officer did the rebalance because you won initiative.
——
Big Jim: Engineering (Divert Power to Engines)
Mon: Pilot (Flyby), used computer node
Compucast: Science Officer (Scan)
Ivok: Captain (Encourage gunnery Forward Particle Beam)
Antoine: Fire Missile, used computer node
T’Kai:
Will give gunnery results once T’Kai has taken their shot.
Antoine fires a missile as you pass into their port side. It strikes the ship, doing quite a bit of hull damage.
T’Kai misses with the particle beam, but the coil gun hits! That broke some bones!
Sensors
They fire their port side Gyrolaser at you. It hits your forward shield. You barely notice.
——
They move first.
The captain of their ship demands the engineer put power to the engines.
The engineer does their best to comply.
Success
The Pilot tries to evade any attacks as they fly away. They turn so that starboard shields are facing you.
Meanwhile the Science Officer tries to shift shields.
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Goose elects to pursue the enemy vessel without any fancy tricks this time. The close call was a bit too close with the flyby and he wishes to keep things tipped in their favor. He does juke and dodge a bit to make it tougher for the enemy to lock on.
Evade: The ship moves up to its speed and can turn as normal, but it gains a +2 circumstance bonus to its AC and TL until the start of the next round. To perform this stunt, you must succeed at a Piloting check (DC = 10 + 1 – 1/2 × your Starship’s tier).
"Light 'em up mates!" shouts the ysoki as he maneuvers their ship to the aft arc of the enemy vessel.
Compucast gets back the following from their scan:
Congregation of Perpetual Agonies TIer 7
Basic Information:
Complement 20 (minimum 6, maximum 20)
Large Destroyer
Speed 6; Maneuverability average (turn 2); Drift 1
Defenses:
AC 21; TL 19
HP 48/170
Shields medium 55 (forward 10, port 0, starboard 25, aft 20)
Power Core Arcus Maximum (200 PCU)
Weapons:
Attack (Forward) plasma cannon (5d12), Heavy Laser Net (5d6)
Attack (Port) gyrolaser (1d8)
Attack (Starboard) gyrolaser (1d8)
Attack (Turret) light EMP cannon (special)
There is more information that could be scanned, but you doubt there will be an opportunity to do so.
Some of you may wonder what sort of starship designer puts EMP as the only weapons in the turret! Perhaps it was a Sarcesian agent?
Big Jim has no problems repairing the minor amount of damage that was done to your shields.
Ivok gives T’Kai some firing solutions for the Particle Beam.
Antoine launches another missile, but it fails to lock on and hit the target.
The enemy pilot is barely able to evade T’Kai’s shot with the Coilgun, but that just set them up to get hit by the particle beam!
They would fire at you with the EMP if it weren’t for your shields. Since nothing is fired at you, you strongly suspect they have no weapons in the rear arc.
Weapons array, will roll for position later if it matters.
——
You move first!
Their engineer once again diverts power to engines.
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Ivok gives another cheer when the particle beam connects, but he still focuses on the destroyer's array of weapons from the readouts. "Their ship is heavily built to take on other heavyweights. We might be doing well now, but one shot might be all they need to tear us down. Keep moving and finish them one a one-two shot!"