Starfinder Fly Free or Die Solo Campaign

Game Master Clebsch73

Shasta and Emersohn moved from the loading dock into a room filled with supplies, most of them mundane chemicals used in the necroforge. However, Emersohn noted one that contained a chemical he recognized as a powerful thermal solvent.

"This stuff would have caused the damage we saw on the drift engine," he explained to Shasta in a whisper. They took pictures of the container and moved into the next room.

This had a bank of lockers that would normally only hold a few corpses. When Shasta opened one, however, it contained a system of shelves that could be shifted up and down. It went underground and using null-space technology easily contained enough corpses for many tons of black hearts.

Emersohn accessed the index and scanned the names and images of the corpses. They were all from the Harlequin’s Prayer. He pointed to one to draw Shasta's attention. It identified a corpse Tremeshkan Carva. This was not listed as a passenger on the starliner.

"Didn't we hear that name when we were talking to dock workers?" Emersohn asked.

Shasta did not remember, but she checked the Infosphere and quickly ascertained the name was the same as an infamous pirate, Tremeshkan “the Razor” Carva, believed to be the pirate responsible for the attack on the starliner. Emersohn brought up the unit containing Carva and opened it to find a shirren. The markings matched the images or Carva on the infosphere.

"The evidence is piling up," Emersohn whispered as he took a picture of the pirate's corpse. "It's still circumstantial. We need proof he did this. There's a computer control room we can get to through here."

The two moved through a narrow hall and entered a small triangular room next to the necroforge.

It had a window that looked out to the necroforge. The lights were out in the room, however, so Emersohn and Shasta slipped in, keeping low and began to look at the computer. It was tougher to hack, but Emersohn bypassed the access codes and began to poke into files. It had Rygan's personal accounts and correspondence. It didn't take long to find the decrypted messages sent to Carva giving them the coordinates of the starliner's next voyage, curtesy of the ship's owner. It also had payments sent to Carva and more money sent to a band of assassins to infiltrate the pirate's crew and eliminate them after the attack. There were transactions with Rishae Tulvauran before the ship was lost proving Rygan and RIshae had advance knowledge of the ship's demise.

Emersohn made copies of all the data and sent a message to Scherzo. <All items on to-do list completed.> He appended a list of what they found that implicated Rygan.

Scherzo interupted Rygan waxing eloquent about the virtues of undeath to show him her comm unit. "Time to talk business. We need 50 tons of black hearts. You've got the materials to produce them here and if you don't make them for us, the stewards will get all the evidence showing how you sabotaged the star liner to explode, allowing you to obtain the corpses for cheap, that is, after you eliminated the pirate you hired to attack them."

Rygan sputtered and tried to act innocent until Scherzo began reciting text from his transmissions to Rishae planning the acquisition of the corpses before the ship had exploded.

He sullenly ordered his assistants to begin full production of the nectrograft materials, telling Scherzo they would be ready in 2 days.

Scherzo remains along with Benny and Zeph to supervise and make sure Rygan does not try anything foolish. She sends Orion, Shasta, and Emersohn back to the space goblins to help them get the drift engine repaired and installed in the Butterfly.

After working with the space goblins on the drift engines, the crew decided they would save their resources and accept Goog's offer to pay for the work by transporting the goblins to see new places and hope they would find a place to start fresh. She assigned Benny and Zeph the job of keeping an eye on them at all times, giving them some space in the cargo hold during the drift journey.

Tarika sent them the coordinates of the buyer, an island called Kilti on Vesk-2. They navigated away from the station and moved into the Drift. The journey took 5 days, the time cut significantly by the drift boosters. They took turns keeping the goblins busy, as they were constantly trying to get into trouble, wanting to tinker with systems, invent new gadgets, and generally bouncing around from one thing to another. They liked the music they heard when the musicians practiced and Benny got along will with them.

Shasta and Emersohn avoided them when they could, enjoying the VR recreation module. Finally, they prepared for the rentry into normal space near Vesk-2, wondering if they had beaten the merchants on the Wintermourn

Benny put his head closer to the bridge window and cooed, "Ooooh! Pyrozoa! Their creatin' and ventin' plasma, they are! Looks like we have to fly through 'em to ge' to the planet." Indeed, Vesk-2 loomed close just on the other side of the swarm.

Zeph stared at the glowing creatures, transfixed for a moment. "I've never seen them before. They're beautiful."

Then she remembered she had to scan the area before the pilot could advance to the planet. She concentrated and a moment later had the scan data. "No sign of any other ships in the area. Either the Wintermourn beat us here or they're still in the ..."

Her screen indicated passive scanners detected something worth investigating. "Hold on. Something. Son of a spark! Their just arriving too."

After a few moments, the Wintermourn attempted to establish video comms with the Butterfly. Zeph accepted the hail, and a moment later, Niva, Dizzy, and Nemelith could be seen sitting aboard the bridge, with the starship’s pilot, Jinx at the controls. Jinx was a male verthani, who, as it happened, had a connection to Emersohn.

The Wintermourn's captain, Niva, addressed the crew of the Black Butterfly, "Can’t say I’m surprised to see y’all again. Had a feelin’ you were on the same job we are. I’m impressed you managed to beat us here, though. What say we settle it with a race? First one through this cluster of fire jellies and on planet is first in line to talk to the buyer. Deal?"

Without waiting for an answer, the Wintermourn ignited its thrusters and surged toward Vesk-2, weaving deftly between the pyrozoa.

As Shasta was engaging the Black Butterfly's thrusters, Niva radioed to taunt, "Ya might want ta take yer time. Yer not gonna beat Jinx, the only pilot ta make it through the Bleak Blockade! Hah!"

She referred to a necrotic minefield in the diaspora. If true, it would be an impressive item on any pilot's resume.

Scherzo laughed at Niva's taunt. "I'm happy to bet our success on Shasta. I doubt these pyrozoa will give your guy a break based on his resume. We'll try not to beat you too badly. Wouldn't want you to lose face with other wannabe shippers."

She turned off her mic and said to Shasta, "Don't make me eat my words."

Shasta nodded and scanned the clot of strangely glowing creatures. Scherzo was expecting her to skirt around the swarm to avoid the heaviest concentration of creatures, but Shasta headed straight in. She was not going full speed, but she was hoping that by taking the shortest route, she could make better time than going around the swarm.

She did masterfully, avoiding contact and making steady progress.

Shasta's route took the ship into the heart of the swarm where the creatures had ejected plasma, which floated in nearly invisible patches. Every time the ship passed through one of these patches, it lit up with arcs of electricity that was attracted to the ship's hull, swirling around until it was neutralized.

After hitting several such patches, the ship's performance began to falter, slowing and becoming less responsive to the helm commands. Monitors began to flicker as did the lighting.

Emersohn began frantically working his console, using stored electrical charge to neutralize the charge outside the ship and to keep the core from losing its finely tuned alignment.

He managed to keep the ship functioning and neutralized the problems with the helm. But he had to keep at it. As soon as he had things fixed, another zone of plasma would set him working all over again.

Scherzo called out to her science officer, "Zeph! Find a way to warn Shasta where those plasma fields are!"

"Aye, captain," Zeph said.

A casual observer would not think she was doing anything by watching her monitor, but she was programming the sensors using her data jack. She made occasional grunts as she hit problems. Eventually, she said, "I can't do it! The plasma keeps affecting the sensors and forces me to reset. Every time I do that, it means I have to reprogram the sensors."

Shasta had to change routes to get out of the center of the swarm to compensate and the Wintermourn caught up.

A few times, when Shasta could not avoid flying particularly close to a pyrozoa, it would grab onto the hull. The plasma emissions and the interaction between the creature and the plasma fields began to slow the ship down.

Emersohn diverted his attention from dealing with the plasma to see if he could flush the beasts off the hull. He tried using the shields to send pulses of force at the locations where the slimy creatures lurked, but it wasn't working well. Emersohn made a sound no one had heard him make up to this point, a snarl that hinted at his lupine ancestry.

Scherzo charged Benny to try to boost the ship's speed with magic. Benny cheerfully complied, moving quickly to the engine room where he began to concentrate and utilize mystic energy fields to boost the power to the thrusters. The effect worked and Shasta was able to surge ahead of the competition. "Thruster fuel is enriched for a bi'. Give 'er all ya go', mate!"

Scherzo called Benny back to the bridge. "What is that?! Sensors show nothing there."

Out in front of the ship appeared to be a chaotic swirl of light. It crackled as if with large amounts of charge, which ought to show up on sensors. Then large chunks of matter appeared and just as quickly vanished, also not showing up on sensors.

"Please tell me that's an illusion. It'll put us back if we have to steer around it!" Shasta yelled. Keeping on course toward the swirl while Benny sensitized his eyes to pick up magical auras.

The swirl grew nerve-rackingly close as Benny stared at it as if trying to will it to vanish. Finally, he said, "Oy! That's 'armless. Punch through it. It's witchwarper magic, that is."

Shasta held her breath and piloted the ship through the light show. It seemed it was sure to smash itself to bits on the asteroid sized chunks of rock or get fried by the arcs of lightning, but they vanished just before the ship passed through them.

"Nice try, mate!" Benny said over the radio to Nemelith.

Scherzo opened a radio channel to the other ship and said, "It's only fair to warn you that the goods we're shipping are technically evidence of a serious crime conducted by the creator of the black hearts, Rygan Vuul. He sabotaged the starliner and orchestrated the pirate attack and so it would explode. Then he appropriated the corpses with the help of the lucandrian Rishae Tulvauran. Since you stole the black hearts from her, she could implicate you in the crime. I have the evidence the stewards need to start an investigation. If you win this race, I might be motivated to get revenge by sending that evidence to Absalom Station authorities, making it risky for you to go back there."

Niva did not reply. There was no immediate change in the race, but Scherzo hoped the information would bear fruit before they got to the planet.

The Wintermourn flew suddenly close to Black Butterfly and blasted the ship with a pulse from a magnetic rake. This changed the Butterfly's course and threatened to take a hit from an enormous pyrozoa spewing lots of plasma into the ship's path.

Shasta did not bat an eye. She piloted the ship right at a zone of plasma, but she did so knowing the plasma was in motion. Just as it seemed the ship would be bathed in the stuff, the plasma swirled past and Shasta powered away, unslowed.

"Turnabout is fair play," Scherzo said. "Can anyone figure out a way to slow them down?"

Emersohn leaned closer to his console and began voicing commands. "Let's see if we can't use this plasma to our advantage," he muttered. "Create a field to contain plasma. Use shield buffers to store it. All right, Shasta, pilot near the Wintergreen and get just ahead of it."

Shasta complied, saying, "I'll try, but that stuff is slowing us down."

When the ships were aligned, Emersohn jettisoned the plasma directly into the path of the Wintermourn creating a cascade of complications for the pilot. Shasta surged ahead.

"Booh Ya!" Emersohn barked.

"OH COME ON!" Shasta yelled as the maneuver she just finished put her on a course toward a virtual wall of pyrozoa so wide that it would cost significant time to go around it.

"Orion," she called to the uplifted bear currently stationed in the gunnery turret. "Can you blast a place in that mess I could pass through?"

"I can try, but I wouldn't bank on it working," Orion replied.

"OK," Shasta sighed. "Hold on! This could get bumpy!"

She picked a spot that showed a very small gap in the mass of pyrozoa and steered toward it. Everyone held his or her collective breaths as the ship neared what could be a horrendous collision if she did not steer with precision. She reacted at the last moment to a shift in the pyrozoa and wove through the creatures to break through to the other side.

Emersohn switched places with Zeph when he saw the obstacles ahead facing Shasta. "I have an idea. Let me work the computers."

Zeph acquiesced and kept an eye on what he was doing from the engineering console.

Emersohn linked the sensors to an program that he had written to track obstacles and project onto the helm controls an HUD that highlighted the mostly like clear path based on movement rates observed. He added a quick subroutine to factor in an uncertainty due to the propulsion of the creatures. He set the program running and within seconds Shasta could see the display.

"Green is good," Emersohn explained hastily, and then watched over Shasta's shoulder to make sure she was understanding the output.

The program did the trick and Shasta made her way out of the swarm well ahead of the Wintermourn.

The planet was mostly covered in shallow seas with many low islands. Its native inhabitants were a squidlike species called the ijtakri. Shasta, who grew up on a different planet in the system, explained that the planet was mostly a peaceful place, except for some ruins which the Vesk wanted to explore but the locals did not. It turned out, the region they were approaching was one such site.

The region was called the Ghost Mire, after the fear of the natives--the Vesk would say the superstition--that the region was haunted. Shasta flew low over the area of the ruins, clearly visible from above as flat paved areas dotted with foundation remnants. Scattered among these were excavation equipment with the Veskarium emblem on them. Most of these were damaged, apparently intentionally so. No one was seen in the area.

Nearby was a major city of the ijtakri. The region lay in the rain shadow of a line of mountains on the west side of the relatively large island. There was little in the way of large vegetation, so it was easy to spot zone that was nearest the ruins made mostly of tents. That was where the coordinates given the crew by Tarika directed them. Finding an open area away from the tents, Shasta set the ship down and put systems on stand-by, in case a quick exit was called for. After the problems in the past deliveries, Scherzo was worried.

She set out with Orion, Benny, and Zeph, Scherzo moved toward the tent city. Disturbing sights alarmed the visitors: ijtakri languishing and apparently suffering from strange symptoms, mass graves partly full of the local creatures, medical tents almost everywhere.

Scherzo radioed the ship and requested Emersohn, the crewmember with the most medical knowledge, to join them. They waited while he made his way to them. His preliminary opinion was that the locals were suffering from necrotic diseases and radiation exposure.

After asking some locals for directions to someone who would have the authority to order their cargo, they were directed to a surgical tent.

As they were making for this tent, they observed the Wintermourn circle and land. They did not wait for any communications but entered the tent. They were greeted by a skittermander with lime-green fur, wearing surgical scrubs, and smoking a cigar, while perusing a data tablet.

The skittermander introduced herself as Shazarad Quomp. She told the story of the Vesk trying to excavate the ruins but the vesk began to suffer strange afflictions and withdrew their team. This gave the locals the opportunity to damage their equipment to delay further attempts. She explained that the locals believe, based on ancient religious texts, that it is the site where the ancients imprisoned something terribly evil. Their concerns were perhaps being vindicated as they had begun to be afflicted with a variety of diseases and radiation burns. She hoped the black hearts would provide some protections so she was performing the grafts on all who volunteered for them.

I admire the ijtikris," Shazarad said, gazing out the tent at the protesters beyond. "Standing up for what they believe in! But this place is gonna kill ’em. So, I figured I’d help! Necrografts may be a little squishy, but they’re perfect for this situation. Why, with a black heart inside ’em, my friends outside won’t even notice the radiation. Or the poisonous air. And, uh, maybe they won’t notice the fact they’re dead inside. I don’t know! But, I’m helping, and that’s what matters."

She bought the cargo as promised for the promised price. They exited the tent and began the process of offloading the cargo. Niva and her crew were waiting sullenly outside and began negotiating to offload their cargo and perhaps make something from the deal, although knowing they had stolen the cargo in the first place meant they were not going to lose much if they could not make a sale. Scherzo ignored them until they were finished setting out the cargo for the locals to transport to Shazarad.

Once clear of the planet, Scherzo sent a transmission back to Tarika at Absalom Station notifying her of the successful completion of the delivery. She also instructed her to forward the evidence she had bundled into a data folder showing who plotted the sabotage of the Harlequin's Prayer and how they tried to cover up their crime. Scherzo never intended to let either Rygun or Rishae get away with such a horrible deed.

Then they traveled to Vesk-6, or Pulonis, Shasta's homeworld. Shasta paid visit to some of her family and friends while Scherzo oversaw some improvements to the ship, wanting to use up some of their investments to make the ship better and avoid unexpected issues with their savings should the Company or Sinjin decide to try to get back at them through their finances.

The Space Goblins got to see a second world, which was fun for them and they began to consider where they might like to settle.

The team spent several days working with shipwrights in the Starlance shipbuilding facilities high above the dangerous magnetosphere of Vesk-6. They upgraded their armor, defensive systems, sensors, and computers. Then they swapped out the chain cannon that was installed in the ship's gun turret for a rail launcher upgraded to have hybrid controls to make it more effective when the gunner was familiar with the mystic arts (i.e. Benny).

They put the missile launcher that had been installed on the fore weapon mount to the port, put a light buster cannon on the fore weapon mount, to try to wear down an enemy ship's shields. They added a flack thrower on the aft weapon mount to provide an extra layer of defense against missiles. This turned the relatively lightly armed transport into one much better able to defend itself from space pirates and perhaps an irate mega-corp or a pissed off organized crime boss.

The upgrades used up all the capital they had amassed from their severance packages plus their profits from the successful delivery of the black hearts to Vesk-2. The goblins were entranced by the relative luxury of the city of Starlance, which was a cosmopolitan hub on an otherwise rather technologically challenged planet. The goblins had a little money they had saved to use as starting capital on whatever crazy inventions or money making ventures they could stop squabbling long enough to agree on.

Once the upgrades were done, the crew took a short break and booked some gigs at some of the less prestigious night clubs, hoping to earn a little extra money and expand their musical repertoire. They radioed Tarika to let her know they were available for another job.