Aslan Route 22: Limpets

“When your least worst option is sneaking up on a pirate ship in SCUBA gear with improvised limpet mines you know it’s bad.” – Captain Mazun Ashran

Sink, 1106 Week 29

Sink D665220-5 Lo Ga Lt GG

The PCs know they have only a few hours before the Meatgrinder surfaces to recover its shore parties, and after much discussion they decide they have three viable options:

1. Hide the Macavity nearby, wait for the pirate ship to emerge, then blast it with everything they have and hope for the best. The Meatgrinder is bigger, tougher, and more heavily armed, so this is not likely to go well.
2. Pretend that Rex has captured the rest of the crew and wants to hand them over in exchange for a chance to join the Meatgrinder’s crew. Once aboard the ship, Rex guns everyone down with his lasers. The Meatgrinder’s crew, even with shore parties missing, will outnumber them two to one and they are mostly male aslan. Also, given how Rex cut down his old shipmate earlier, they’re not convinced he wouldn't go through with the deal.
3. Improvise SCUBA gear from their spacesuits and limpet mines from their missile loadout, swim down to the Meatgrinder, stick the mines to it, swim away and set them all off at once. Given how tough the pirate ship is, they’re not too confident about this one either, but it looks like the best option of the bunch. Even Vila prefers it to the other approaches.

It’s tempting to involve the Prince, but he is a stickler for honour, and none of these options is entirely honourable from an aslan viewpoint, so they decide against that.

Dr Matauranga wonders whether the Abbot can provide any assistance; the Macavity is currently at the starport, close to the monastery, so the others decide they have nothing to lose by letting the Doctor talk to the Abbot and send him off to do that while Vila works on unshipping and converting missile warheads.

Unknown to the rest of them, thanks to the Third Most Valuable Thing, Dr Matauranga can now see Things Man Was Not Meant To Know and it is disturbingly enthusiastic about him talking to the Abbot. Dr Matauranga has worked out that the Things in the Swamp should be able to possess living humans – after all, they do it with the Abbot – and is curious about what that would feel like. He briefs the Abbot and asks for help, noting that he is willing to be possessed on a temporary basis. The Abbot allows that a “consultant” could be provided from the swamp, and enquires what skillset would be most appropriate? Dr Matauranga naturally wants an expert on Ancient technology, but on reflection decides he can always come back for one of those later, and a tactician is probably more helpful right now. And so the deal is made with the swamp and its avatar in the monastery.

Shortly, the good Doctor returns. He seems to be having trouble walking, and is bobbing his head around like a chicken. He starts saying something strange, but catches himself.

Mazun opines that clearly the Abbot has provided a consultant who will give advice over the Doctor’s new headset, which is obviously some sort of communication device. Matauranga doesn’t contradict him.

With tactical advice from the Doctor’s skullmate and Vila spoofing the pirate’s sensors, Mazun flies the Macavity nap-of-Earth to the shoreline and everyone piles out in their improvised SCUBA gear, carrying hastily-dismounted high explosive warheads into the surf. What could possibly go wrong?

Much to everyone’s surprise, nothing. The mines are delivered safely, emplaced stealthily, and triggered remotely without mishap. The Meatgrinder shrugs off five of the six explosions, but the last one does serious damage to the drives, and rather than risk losing his ship, Irontooth lifts for orbit and jumps out as soon as he can. Not exactly the most honourable response, but then he is an outcast and a pirate.

The crew are discussing their next move when Dr Matauranga jerks his head suddenly and asks: “Who is senior here? Who will brief me?”

GM Notes

This would gave been a good place to end the campaign; the party has saved the Prince's life and honour, ensured his wedding went off without a scandal, and helped him set up the landhold and defend it against threats both overt and sneaky. We could keep on doing that, but I think it would get boring quite quickly, so I asked the players what they want to do, and they want to press on with the campaign as they're invested in their characters.

Mazun's player suggested that the Macavity should fast forward through a few months of uneventful trading before exploring either the periphery of the situation around Drinax, or the Third Most Valuable Thing, and both of those sound reasonable; there were no objections. Rex's player suggested that given my planned movements over the next few years - spending the summer in Italy, and the winter in the UK - it would be more practical for us to switch campaigns in October rather than January, and that also sounds like a good idea. It pushes back the planned start date for the proposed Savage Dune campaign, Fall of the Imperium; but there's no particular reason that has to start next January, or indeed at all; and I'm sure I could think of a way to transfer the Macavity and her crew to Islands in the Rift rather than start a new party for that. Anyway, the consensus is to stick with this campaign as long as we all enjoy it. 

There's no game next week, which gives me a little time to figure out the details. My first instinct was to log in to DriveThruRPG and look for suitable adventures, but running the last couple of sessions using the Mythic GM Emulator has been just as much fun with less prep time, so let's see how far we can push that.