Aslan Route 14: Fugitives

"No disassemble Number Five!" - Short Circuit

Jumpspace and Tech-World, 1105 Weeks 45-46

Arriving on Tech-World after an uneventful jump, the crew of the Macavity are assigned an android guide/minder, Sofia, who tells them there are some potential passengers who would like to meet them. Following her into the dank service corridors below the starport, they meet these passengers. They include a human politician or mid-level management type, an early-model butler android with a twitchy arm and a lucky shovel, an aslan interpreter who smells of dust-spice, and two vargr joygirls who immediately begin posing seductively and smiling at Rex.

In exchange for passage, they offer some valuables pilfered from the starport and the co-ordinates of Captain Envai's cavern, in the Exe system, which they have put together from clues overhead by the politician and the vargr hookers over the years. The party is utterly convinced this is all a con, but they're going to Exe anyway, so why not? Money is money, and maybe the base coordinates will be worth something.

It is as Dr Matauranga carries out his usual preflight physical examinations that he discovers the passengers are all androids. They explain that they are scheduled for recycling, and don't want to be recycled, so they are trying to flee Tech-World instead. Sofia asks to go with them, and produces convincing documentation saying Tech-World will let her go. This holds up under all the checks Mazun can make, so he decides honour is satisfied, and if the ruling Council wants to make something of it later, his cover is solid.

Jumpspace, 1105 Week 47

Locking the androids in the passenger section, the crew draw sidearms from the ship's locker and keep an anxious, paranoid watch all week. Dr Matauranga researches Captain Envai, and learns that he was killed some 200 years ago by a convoy escort, but was rumoured to have found - and looted - an old Sindalian installation. So the androids' story is credible.

The android leader asks for a meeting to negotiate who gets what split of whatever they find in the base, which is difficult as nobody actually knows what's in there. However, suitable wording is eventually agreed.

Exe, 1105 Week 48

Refuelling and trading as usual, the Macavity crew notes that the starport officials on Exe are as corrupt a body of sentients as one could wish to meet, and offer them a small donation to their beer fund to ensure the Macavity is not tracked as it leaves the station.

Much to the crew's surprise, the androids are correct; there is an abandoned pirate hideout on an unnamed moon in the outer system. Vila demonstrates an unexpected facility with opening vacuum-welded airlock doors, and manages to start up a field generator to power the base. An inventory of what was left behind reveals several containers of raw materials, useful for repairing the base, and a container of precious metal ingots, stolen from various governments around the region.

Once Vila has finished drooling over the gold and platinum, conversation turns to what to do with the base. Mazun, Vila and Rex can see its utility as a pirate base, and Dr Matauranga covets it as a location for a secret laboratory. However, they decide they are sufficiently invested in the monastery on Sink and Clan Iuwoi that they have no use for the site. The androids say they'll take it for use as a refuge; they will use their share of the loot to pay the Macavity to bring them supplies and 'rescued' androids from Tech-World.

"Fair enough," says Mazun, "But those androids will need exit visas, I can't afford to be banned from Tech-World."

Meanwhile, the androids place an order for repair robots, which are a common enough legal export from Tech-World, to be delivered after the Macavity's next run.

Loading up an appropriate quantity of precious metals, which at least three of the crew know how to fence, the Macavity cautiously picks its way out of the crevasse hiding the old pirate base, and jumps for Cordan.

GM Notes

I started prep for this session by working through the Solo tables, but nothing sang to me. Then I had a look at the various One-Sheets I have from Pinnacle Entertainment and Triple Ace Games; the Last Parsec adventure Unexpected Colony caught my eye; the adventure as presented doesn't fit the current context, but suppose the androids were trying to get off Tech-World? Effectively, we then have a prequel to the adventure as written, and so long as the droids get what they want, they have no reason to initiate hostilities. They also provide a way to inject the next scenario into the storyline; Captain Envai's Cavern is one of the side-quests from the Drinaxian Companion, and could be in almost any system, but Exe serves my purposes nicely.

On meeting the androids, Mazun's player said: "Uh-oh. They look like a bunch of player characters." That set the tone for an evening of unbridled paranoia.

Rex rolled a critical failure on Notice when inspecting the vargr pleasure droids, and thus failed to notice what they actually are; more of that later, perhaps. Paranoia led them to install multiple software and mechanical locks on the entrances to the passenger quarters, but Vila rolled a critical failure to install the mechanical locks, so the androids could have walked out any time. They did consider it, but none of them can operate the ship, and it was already taking them where they wanted to go, so...

The Macavity uses the Hugin deck plans from Moon Toad, and the players spent some time poring over them and deciding who was locked in where at each point during the flight. These are my go-to plans for a small trading vessel; I like the clutter in the cargo bay, the well thought-out design, and the fact that everything fits on one deck.