Session 4 (21 April 2023)

Location: Merant (Far Home 1427), a low-tech garden planet with balkanized government.

Date: 072-5600

Time: 1800

Travellers: Ada Windsor (bitter, one-armed former sailor and flyer), Griff Kodiak (cigar-chomping former marine), and Jacobe Kyman (affable but unlucky former scout, marine, and drifter)

NPCs: Tyrella Watanabe, Braxton Kader

Flush with their success in securing a potentially lucrative job, Kyman, Kodiak, and Jax return to the Dejah Thoris to report. Captain Jarumi approves the project. Hecker, having boned up on current affairs on Merant, provides a splash of sobering cold water on your plans: it seems the location to which you are to deliver the 15 kg crate happens to be in a mountainous region of the neighbouring state of Vhenja that is the stronghold of a separatist movement dubbed the Timerckian Liberation Collective. The TLC has taken up arms against Vhenja's authoritarian regime for a slew of reasons, but chief amongst them is the government's imposition of a rigid and uncompromising atheism as the official state ideology. Recent news stories relate the Vhenjan government's determination to root out the separatists with violence and describe the slow advance of military columns into the mountains where the TLC maintains armed camps. The place is obviously a powder keg.

Primitive TL 5 aircraft.

Undeterred by these developments, you make preparations for your mission. Tyrella Watanabe seems to have assumed that you would travel by ground car, representing yourselves as offworld hunters eager to sample the pleasures of bagging game in the remote forested terrain of Vhenja's eastern mountains and thereby, with luck, escaping undue attention from border guards. But you decide instead to fly, capitalizing on Windsor's experience with fixed-wing aircraft. Seeing as the region is dotted with myriad mountain lakes, you secure rental of an airplane capable of landing on water. Maps are prepared, gear is selected.

In the middle of the night, you climb into the Dejah Thoris's air/raft — its use permissible on this low-tech world as long as you operate it as a ground car and obey all applicable traffic regulations — and make your way to the rendezvous point in the alley behind Lantho's Place. As you slowly drive down the main street toward the bar, empty and deserted at this late hour, you spot movement on the rooftop opposite the alley: someone is hiding up there! Opting for discretion, you reverse course and loop around the block to approach the alley from the other end. It's another quiet street, but a lone grocery delivery van parked near the alley entrance arouses your suspicions. A plan is quickly hatched. Alighting from the air/raft a good distance away, Kodiak and Windsor approach the van posing as a pair of drunks staggering home. With the slurred speech and raised voices of the heavily inebriated, you announce your intention to take a nap in this conveniently situated van. The rear doors are locked but, as luck would have it, the passenger side door to the cab is not! Clambering inside, you hear hushed voices from the back, one of which bids you to be off using harsh language. Feigning misunderstanding, you  brush off the warning. Kodiak slides behind the wheel and begins hot-wiring the ignition. The van's rear door slams open and a man in black with bushy eyebrows and a handlebar moustache emerges. He approaches Ada, a blackjack held menacingly in one hand. She backs away, still feigning drunkenness. The man's companion, a bald fellow (also in black), rushes to intervene and prevent violence, pushing Ada away with firmness. The men turn to deal with the remaining “drunk” — just as the van's engine roars to life!

Accelerating away from the curb, Kodiak flashes a triumphant grin at the astonished spies. Windsor runs alongside and leaps for the open passenger door, barely catching it and swinging herself into the cab as Kodiak races away. The angry curses and threats of baldy and bushy-brows are soon left behind. In the immediate aftermath, Windsor does not notice that her personal communicator was dropped in all the commotion ....[1]

While all this is unfolding, Kyman moves stealthily into the darkened alley and knocks quietly at the alley door of Lantho's Place. Tyrella Watanabe appears and ushers you inside. She gives the final instructions: you are to deliver the crate to Braxton Kader in Muuna, a village nestled in the mountains of eastern Vhenja. Payment will be made upon delivery. Hustling back to the air/raft, Kyman drives to a previously agree-upon location where Windsor and Kodiak, basking in the success of their ruse, climb in. It's now close to 0400. 

A few hours later you find yourselves at a small airstrip in central Kherty where you had arranged to pick up the rented seaplane. Credentials are produced, contracts and waivers are signed, cash is proffered. You are soon airborne and navigating expertly to your destination: Lake Muuna. On this low-tech world, crossing international borders by air is easily done, especially given the relative remoteness of this heavily forested region. Windsor manages a smooth landing on the lake, heartening her companions who might still recall her awkward handling of the Dejah Thoris a few weeks back.

Taxiing to the shore of this quiet mountain lake, another stroke of good fortune awaits: you come upon an unoccupied hunting lodge with a fine dock extending into the water. Mooring the plane, you quickly get your bearings and locate a trail leading to the village of Muuna, several kilometers distant. Even better, a primitive two-wheeled conveyance — a "bicycle" — is stored on the porch!

Leaving Windsor to guard the plane, Kodiak mounts the bike and, with Kyman perched on the handlebars, pedals to the village. It's now mid morning and the villagers are going about their affairs. They recognize you as offworlders and receive you with the polite reserve habitually offered to tourist hunters. You make your way to the local coffeehouse and sip your drinks quietly while sussing out the place. Nothing seems awry, but the conversations you overhear reflect the locals' anxiety about the military operations underway nearby and the threat posed to their homes and lives. Finally, you decide to bite the bullet and ask a server about Braxton Kader. "Ah, Braxton! — he lives just down the street," replies the man, pointing out the direction. He seems to assume that you will be seeking Kader's services as hunting guide, an occupation in which the man has achieved a glowing reputation.

Braxton Kader, hunting guide and separatist.

Braxton Kader answers your knock at his door. You come quickly to the business at hand, revealing that you are delivering the package from Tyrella Watanabe. He explains that once he has the package in his hands, he will place a phone call authorizing the transfer of funds. "Where is the crate?" he asks anxiously. You explain that you have it sequestered at a lodge on the nearby lake. "There's no time to lose," he says as he hustles you into a rickety old-model truck. Soon you are lurching down the crude roads, back toward your landing place.

Windsor hears the noisy vehicle approach and is relieved to see Kodiak and Kyman in the company of their contact. The crate is brought forth from the belly of the seaplane. Wielding a crowbar, Braxton pries off the lid with Kodiak's help. (Windsor and Kyman, uncertain as to the real contents, choose the path of discretion and stand far back.) Inside is a smooth plastic-metal case which Braxton opens by thumbing a tab, revealing row upon row of high-tech medical stimpacks. Braxton explains that these contain a fast-acting antidote to a nerve gas that the Vhenjan government forces, in direct contravention of Merant international law, have been using in their attacks on separatist strongholds. He thanks you for your help. "With these, we have a fighting chance." He will now return to Muuna and place the phone call that will release the Cr30,000 owed to you.

As he turns with the case in his arms, the sounds of exploding mortars and small arms fire puncuate the still morning air. The Vhenjan government attack is underway nearby!

Date: 073-5600

Time: 1100

Post-credits scene:

In a dimly-lit backroom filled with electronic devices of all kinds, a gangly bespectacled technician hunches over Windsor's personal communicator, fiddling with cables, connectors, and circuitry. He appears nervous, and no wonder: peering over his shoulder are two frowning men clad in black, one bald, the other with a formidable moustache: the men from the van. Streams of data run across nearby displays. "Wait, I've got it!" exclaims the technician. "It belongs to... Ada Windsor." Clattering erupts as the technician's fingers fly over a keyboard.  "Looks like she's crew on the Dejah Thoris, docked at the starport. Captain is..." — more clattering — "Nika Jarumi."

Baldy and Moustache trade glances, their faces grim. "Very good," says Moustache. "We will teach these offworlders not to meddle in the affairs of Vhenja."

[1] Windsor's player's die roll was one less than required and the referee offered to trade that failure for "success with a complication." The offer was accepted.