Coordination and Investigation

Kovak and Grrr were aboard the Alex Murphy.  Bletherin and Grendel were traveling to Tiscaya on the colonist freighter.

Having hypothesized that there was a mole in the local traffic control bureaucracy feeding flight plans to the pirates, Alex initiated a secure laser communication beam to the away team.  However, since they were limited to light speed, the communication would have to be asynchronous.  The encoded data burst stated that it appeared from surveillance media that freighter was attacked by pirates, there was no video of the attackers, but G’Frar voices were heard demanding surrender.

Alex researched G’Frar technology while Kovac and Grrr explored their cultures. Alex learned that the G’Frar tended toward larger ships and used Ion drives. They used different comm frequencies, which would make them easier to locate.  Kovak discovered that the G’Frar did not trust anyone, used their own language, and refused to use anyone else’s language. They had no relationship with the Collective. As they were not Collective citizens, their activities were clearly piracy. Grrr learned that they were aliens.

Alex hypothesized that the abandoned freighter had been dumped by the black hole to be dispose of it.  It was likely that the G’Frar had a hideout in the Z7474 system, where the black hole was.

On Tiscaya

Bletherin and Grendel left their shuttle on the colonist ferry.  It would be docked for a couple of days.  Grendel, being a non-humanoid, donned an environment suit with a Hawaiian shit and dark sunglasses, but his trunk and tentacles still marked him as alien.  

Most of the inhabitants were Antar and Garlan.  The Promenade was very noisy.  Bletherin sought out dockside lodging for the crew, where the security personnel scanned the local network.  The news featured a scandel involving fallout from a natural disaster that had not been detected in advance.  

Related to the missing ferry, there was local social media speculation about who was responsible.  Some pointed to the G’Frar, but other theories included industrial espionage, trade manipulation, pirates, or governmental conspiracies.  They recorded the database to be analyzed on board the Alex Murphy later.

Bletherin focused the crew on local traffic control personnel searching for unexplained financial gains, recent freight or salvage of G’Frar origin, and searching for G’Frar communications in the logs.  They uncovered that one of the traffic controllers had a gambling problem, and that a junior officer had recently come into a lot of money.

Grendel discovered that most of the trade in the system went through Tiscaya.  The outer planet was actually just a scientific station.  Grendel talked tech stuff with the dockside longshoremen.  He did not insult anyone.  He asked about anything unusual about the ferry that went missing.  They were willing to speak to him because he obviously was not going to talk to their bosses.  One said that he was considering faking illness to miss his next run.  Others complained about their management. There were no interesting ships docked at the moment.

Searching for Signals

Alex was unable to find any G’Frar signals.  Ships were not typically escorted prior to the disappearances, though they were now.  The attacks all occurred a little more than half way between the two colonies.  He hypothesed that the freighter and the in-system ferry were not connected.  The manifest of the freighter indicated that it had been carrying cheese, alcohol, drugs used by Antari, and a rare ore from a couple systems out from there.  The use of the ore was unknown, but appeared to have radiation shielding properties.  It was en route to a university for study.

The ship was also carrying a family of wealthy Garlan and a group of orbital construction worker Harth.  There had been no ransom demands. Compared with the  other passenger manifests, there was no pattern to the people who were missing.  There were about 200 people missing from the five ships, including tourists, scientists, construction workers, and family members.  All were taken over a three month period.  During that period, the two planets were further apart.  The ferries travelled between planets roughly every two weeks, depending on relative orbits, an two between five and ten days.

Alex hypothesized that the timing was based on the further distance between the planets.  All the other missing ships, except the in-system ferry, were outbound inter-system freighters.  

Kovak learned that the system was colonized about 250 years prior due to its location as a jump point.  The outer planet was colonized about 75 years ago.  The system was discovered by a Garlan and Antari expedition.  There had been a space station prior to colonization.  The system itself had no indigenous life account of high levels of radiation.  Alex noted that the stolen ore had alleged radiation shielding properties.

The Station Commander

Bletherin went to see the Station Commander, being careful to show his CEP credentials to as few as possible. He discovered that she was the biggest Garlan he had ever seen.  She was expecting him.  She told him that the ferry disappeared off its route.  Their hypothesis was that something grabbed it an jumped out of the system.  Since then, escort ships were being sent as well.  She was fairly confident that there was an inside being, but they had no likely suspects.  She cleared the wealthy officer, who had just received an inheritance.

Bletherin informed the commander that his team had shuttled in, and that his ship was searching the outer system.  He asked for quiet physical access to their systems.  She said that it would be no problem, but the AI would have to be  deflected or it would pursue them doggedly.  It had not made any hypotheses about the missing ships. He asked for the filed flight plans, but the commander said that the filed plans were dubious and often inaccurate.

Suddenly, he heared high pitched conversation from the commander’s office.  She excused herself to attend to the children.  They coordinated access to the communications dish before he departed.  He returned to the hotel ad charged his team with bugging  the communications dish. 

Grendel suggested expanding their investigation to include the finances of the missing vessels.  He calculated that the freighter’s orbital decay had begun shortly after the ferry went missing.  

Other Investigations

Alex identified that there was one other dark point and one other system that were one jump away.  Grrr obtained the captain’s permission to investigate the other dark point, especially as Bletherin had discovered that the other missing freighters had filed to travel though it.  There was also a freighter leaving imminently for that system.  The Alex Murphy set course to precede it and sneak up on the pirates before the freighter arrived

The ship jumped in below the plane.  There was evidence of planets at one time, but not currently.  Instead it was strewn with debris.  The scans revealed two pirate ships above them that were about the same size at the Alex Murphy,  but the system was dirty, so there may have been more.  Grrr ordered the Alex Murphy to attack after sending an FTL transmission to the station to prevent the freighter’s departure.

Alex maneuvered the ship into position and Grrr opened fire.  Grrr hit the nearer ship squarely in their sub light drive.  The other ship fired back and hit, but there was no damage.  

Grrr fired at the other ship, but their shields deflected the damage.   Kovak scanned for additional opponents.  Alex maneuvered through the debris field.

Alex maneuvered into position.  Grrr fired back and hit the other ship in the jump drive.  Kovak noted a large asteroid that might be big enough to hide behind.  The maneuverable ship fired and hit.  The other ship missed.   Alex dodged the shot around the sun and through debris so the pirates lost sight of them.

Grrr used the advantage to target the maneuverable ship and disabled its sub light engines.  Kovak attempted to jam their communications again.  The hit ship fired back.

Alex maneuvered the ship into position.  Grrr fired at the other’s ship’s star drive and hit just as they were jumping and it exploded, damaging the other ship.  Grrr ordered the other ship to surrender and prepare for boarding.  It did.  Alex attempted to access ther database, but did not get much before it was erased.  The crew was composed of Antari, G’Frar and human, and the G’Frar were not in charge.  There were no hostages, and the crew did not have much of personal belongings.

They held position until the reinforcements arrived.  There were minor injuries among the crew and some minor hull damage to be repaired.

The Aftermath

Bletherin and Grendel were aware that the Alex Murphy had been in combat.  They petitioned the Station Commander to accompany the reinforcements, while the crew remained on planet to bug the communications array.  Since they were on Garlan ships, Grendel was most uncomfortable.  They arrived ready to fire, but the battle was already over.

Alex had recovered the crew manifest and some personal mail, including a fragment of a report to “Alrea” indicating that they were ready to attack.  Grendel uncovered the FTL coordinates that the message was sending to, including the reference point.  They indicated the planet Estra, which was not a Collective world.  Estra was an independent planet and a Sin World where any kind of vice was permitted.  The planet might be the location of a client or merely a relay point.  

Interrogation

Bletherin elected to interrogate the officers with Grrr before handing them over to the locals.  The captain had been wounded in the fight and his arm was in a sling provided by the locals.  House Harusca were the clients.  They wanted humans for some reason.  There were eight other ships.  They were operating out of a moving location.  The ships were all similar. They were going to be told when they had collected enough humans. They were provided with teh ships to hit. and where they would be. 

Bletherin was convinced that he was telling the truth.   He arranged for all of the pirates to be distributed across the far side of the galaxy to conceal their cooperation.  

He next interrogated one of the G’Frar, L’Kar.  He said he was working with the Antar, not for them, because he was getting paid a lot (a mercenary) by a crazy woman (not female), named Alrea, who was interested in human slavery.  She provided the coordinates of the locations they would have rendezvoused at if they had not been caught.

Talking to the Pilot

In the mean time, Kovak and Grendel interrogated the senior pilot.  He had no criminal record.  His last recorded employment was on a free runner out af a colony called New Australia.  There was no background on his mother.  He was a good boy caught in a bad situation.

Kovak was sympathetic. This was his first run with this crew and would have been his last.  He was not happy with slavery. He had been a pirate for a little while, but only for cargo, not beings.  He had had a a falling out with teh captain of the freighter he had been working on.  He was dumped on a Harth station and took the first contact out.  Once on board, he could not get it of it.  

He had seen the crazy woman called Alrea (tall blond, well-endowed…).  They continued until Alex had compiled a good composite.  She was interested in him and would have been attractive if she was not crazy.  She was keeping some of the humans and selling the rest and the non-humans in the slave market on Estra.

He confided that the pirates were only privy to the filed flight plans, not the actual ones.  They usually hunted can in pairs. He had been with the crew before they got contacted for piracy.  The client just needed more people.  House Horusca was the client.  They controlled most of Estra and were into slavery and prostitution.  And they told him that anyone who broke the contact was dead.

They were using a G’Frar base ship as a headquarters.  He said it was bigger than some space stations.  It was not a warship, but it had escorts and was beyond the capabilities of a single cutter.   He hinted that they would not want to destroy it as it had vaults and was being used to process the captives.

He said that there was indeed. a mole in the Merrick traffic control, but did not know what who.  They were scrapping the ships for their own use per G’Frar custom.  They took the ore to study, but it was not a specific target.

Return to Base

Kovak plotted a course back to Capitol to report to Headquarters and facilitate an Intelligence operation into the House Horusca organization.  It took three covert jumps.  They docked and offloaded the prisoners.  They were called to the Commander’s Office.

Bletherin filed his report and left no details out.  The two crewmen and the shuttle were still on Merrick.   The two ships turned out to have been stolen after being decommissioned from an Antar facility.  

Alex ran all the names through the Capitol databases.  He could not find the name Alrea, but the face was linked with piracy stealing cargo coreward of Capitol.  There were no details about the woman other than several years of piracy. She had never been caught.  There were no indications of prior connections to House Horusca.

Alex noted that the woman in the photo was tall and blond, as was the pilot she was trying to seduce, and possibly associated with Avalon, the Neo-Aryan planet.

New Mission

The Alex Murphy and crew were assigned to infiltrate House Horusca undercover.  They were instructed not to repair the superficial damage to look more credible.  The ship received a new paint job and was renamed “Bad Wolf.”

The Bridge Crew

  • Bletherin – Garlan (scaled hexapeds, with the front set of limbs equating to arms with four fingers, and
    the second and third having cloven hooves) Captain of the CEP Alex Murphy
  • Alex – the CEP Alex Murphy AI
  • Grrr (aka Snarl) – atypical Harth (furred mammals that resemble semi-anthropomorphic dogs) Head of Security on the CEP Alex Murphy  
  • Grendel – Heffulump (alien with multiple tactile appendages) Engineer of the CEP Alex Murphy
  • Kovak – Human Pilot of the CEP Alex Murphy