Arion 1-17: Escape from Hollis

Previously, on the Arioniad: Karagoz and Major Sheng are on the run after surviving an assassination attempt, and Cori has apparently been recruited by a Zhodani agent and left with her. Arion and Mr Osheen are heading back from a meeting with that agent, having been betrayed by Officer Muhammed, who is working with the gangers who run Hollis Highport docks. They are nearly back at the ship when their way is blocked by a group of gangers. Now read on...

Hollis Highport, 106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Arion sees a group of gangers ahead of him with wrenches and knives, and manages to squeeze off a pistol shot before Mr Osheen barrels into them, laying about him with his fists. One goes down, but Osheen is in real trouble and badly bludgeoned and cut up before Major Sheng hits the gangers from behind, and demonstrates just how good she is in hand-to-hand combat, taking out three of them with the advantages of surprise and trained, focused viciousness. She and Arion take one of Osheen's arms each, and lug him away.

By the time the three of them have disentangled themselves from the brawl, Karagoz is already at the Dolphin, having sneaked past the whole affair in the shadows and keyed in an access code Arion didn't think he had to open the airlock and extend the ramp.

Everyone piles inside, and Karagoz breaks cover, using his Intelligence credentials to expedite an emergency undocking. The Dolphin runs for the jump point before anyone else gets involved.

"That," Karagoz muses, "Is not going to look good on any of our permanent records."

But everyone else is too busy to rise to the bait; Sheng is tending to Osheen's multiple stab wounds, and Arion is hastily plotting a jump.

Jumpspace, 106 Week 02

"The one thing we know for sure," Karagoz says, "Is that Cori won't turn up on Hollis."

Privately, Arion is unsure, but says: "Educate me. Why is that?"

"Zhodani culture is as uniformly honest and law-abiding as humanity gets. If you do something antisocial, they read your mind, figure out why, and rehabilitate you, if necessary by editing your mind. They see the Imperium as a dangerous place where thieves and liars are allowed to run loose. So, the number of agents they have who can function effectively in our space is very small; it's a very rare mindset for them. They already have an agent on Hollis, and Cori is already blown there; I think living in the Consulate proper long-term would be too much of a culture shock for her. So, I'd say they'll send her back to spy on the Imperium."

"Okay, I can see that. She can get back to Jewell before we can, because she can go through Consulate space and we can't, really. So she could tell her version of the story before we can tell ours. Do you have a plan for that?"

"Send our version back by the fastest available courier. And be very careful when we go back to the Imperium, because who knows what they'll think we've been up to. For all I know, our mission was a fake, designed to get her close to the Zho agent on Hollis."

There doesn't seem to be much Arion can do about any of that, so he changes topic.

"When were you going to tell me Cori is psionic?"

"Probably never."

"Did you even know?"

"I suspected. She was just too good at reading people, at knowing exactly what arguments to make, to be anything else."

"So the Imperium - where psionics are utterly illegal - has psionics in its intelligence service." Karagoz shrugs.

"They're too useful not to. Any agency has thieves, liars, and murderers working for it already, why not psions as well?"

Arion doesn't have a good answer to that.

"I'll go check on Mr Osheen," he says. "See if he needs more soup to regenerate."

Meanwhile, Sheng is quiet. She has just realised that with Cori apparently running off into Consulate space, and Muhammed having both betrayed them and been left behind, she has a clear run at Arion now. She made her pitch when they first arrived in the Hollis system, but perhaps a gentle reminder would be in order?

But supposing he agrees, how will she get them both out from under Karagoz's thumb?

GM Notes

Here, I'm starting to put some reversible distance between Arion and the Official Traveller Universe; the change of date is inspired by the old Italian habit of leaving off the first digit of the year; you don't see that much any more, but letters from (say) the 1940s are often dated something like "16 Aprile 946".

I was feeling lazy, so ran the actual combat as a Dangerous Quick Encounter; Mr Osheen and Major Sheng used Fighting (rolling 1 and 6 respectively), Arion used Shooting (rolled a 10), and Karagoz used Stealth (11) 'cos he's a sneaky S.O.B. That means Arion and Karagoz escape unscathed, Sheng has Bumps & Bruises, and Mr Osheen takes a Wound. Mr Osheen succeeds on his Vigour roll, but has an injury which reduces his Strength one die type until he heals, which takes five days.

A Dangerous Quick Encounter is worth 2 VP under Interstellar Rebels, so that takes Arion to 10 VP and victory, as the enemy has only 2 VP. I suppose we do know what's going on locally, and the mission could well have been a distraction while Cori infiltrates the Consulate. It's entirely credible to me that while I as a player know Arion has won, he himself is unaware of it - that fits the SF espionage genre.

I'm feeling somewhat burned out on the Arioniad, and dramatically this is a good place to end a season. So, next time, a retrospective, and then let's try something different for a while.