No game last weekend, which gave me time to think about the campaign situation and how it might logically develop...
As per the Captain's proposals, the Macavity now travels to Tech-World to replenish its missile stock, then spends some months trading around the Sink and Tyokh systems under charter to Clan Iuwoi. The bulk of this work is helping build up the Prince’s new landhold; transferring people and cargo back and forth, installing and calibrating warning buoys and antiship defences to make it clear that Sink is under the Prince’s protection.
The Macavity then undergoes its annual overhaul at Tyokh highport under the auspices of Clan Iuwoi. During this time, three potential lines of inquiry emerge:
Ghosts of Tyokh
While docked at Tyokh Highport, Dr Matauranga notices a young woman who shows up as… special… on the Third Most Valuable Thing’s scarlet lens. She turns to look directly at him in sudden shock, then turns and vanishes into the crowd.
This is me bringing into play a situation which has been lurking in the background of the campaign since the beginning, but which so far the party has had little chance to notice. Of course, they could still ignore it, but that's their call.
Ruins of Drinax
Clan Ahroay’if, which the party delegated handling the Fury to in 1106 Week 11, is taking no chances and has finished the job they started 200 years ago on Drinax, wiping out its fleet and carpet-bombing it from orbit, as well as anything else in the system that looked suspicious. They have also bombed Torpol’s south polar starport to take out the Fury installation there, and are aggressively patrolling the region in search of other facilities. The Fury is broken, at least for now.
Mazun’s handler, Kenneth Prasad, sends him a coded message from Cordan. Torpol is valuable as a strategic location on the Florian Route; it cannot be left in the hands of such a large starfaring clan as the Ahroay’if, but nor can it be left entirely under human control, in case the Fury re-emerges later. Prasad suggests a smaller clan over which the IISS has some covert influence – the Iuwoi – would serve better as a garrison and tasks Mazun with implementing that. This will require the Macavity's crew to persuade the planetary government of Torpol as well as Clans Iuwoi and Ahroay'if that this is a good idea, then transport the initial cadre of Iuwoi warriors there and help them settle in.
(The crew knows the Eye and the Hand of the Ahroay’ifko, and are boon companions of the heir apparent to one of their vassal clans. They could easily arrange a meeting with them.)
Trade Pioneers
Clan Aftei wishes to expand its offworld trade routes and simultaneously give Elehasei's sister Troisei a chance to prove her worth, before they place her in control of a goodly part of the clan's wealth. Troisei has naturally agreed, but on one condition: She wants the clan to charter the Macavity to carry her around, as they are experienced free traders who know the region; they are boon companions of Prince Hteleitoirl, the heir apparent to Clan Iuwoi, allied to the Aftei by marriage; and they also rescued her from the Rea’a Hrilkhir (or, as the Macavity's crew calls it, the Unpronounceable Mafia).
(Quick reminder of Troisei: She's a huge fan of gladiatorial combat, persuasive, reasonable, rigidly honourable, and a stickler for the aslan code; she's also a close friend of a fteirko on Tyokh, a guru of the code who rules on its finer points.)
These missions are neither time-critical nor mutually exclusive, and the campaign thus restarts towards the end of 1106.
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