Seated at the CoffeeRUs after Lt. Pratricia Kern left, our bounty hunters try & decide what to do. Realizing that Katja has a few days lead on them and recognizing that with the OTU and how travel works, if they guess wrong, they have just made an expensive mistake. They decide to utilize their skills and start poking into the port data systems. After some good rolls, they do narrow down the most likely as being the Empress Brooke. This was a chartered A2 Trader, owned by one Captain Juan O'Conner. Because it was charted, the passenger manifest and cargo was not made public. However, in researching it's last few jumps and the dossier provided by the Navy, they did tie together the ship and Katja having several overlapping world trips.
The Empress Brooke has 2 engineers, a medic, a gunner/steward, and the navigator who has been with the ship for as long as Juan, over 20 years. The engineers, James and Anna, have been aboard less than 2 years.
As the Empress Brooke was heading to Oriryu, they board the Fenris (as they have named their ship) and take off for Oriryu. I did the Mongoose skill package a bit and one got Navigate (sorry, I just can't seem to make myself call that astrogation though it is more technically correct!) and the other pilot at level 1, as well as each getting an engineering level 0 skill. They still need an engineer, so I need to generate that character should they continue to play.
The pilot and navigator made good rolls, though the lift off was a bit rough. A week later, after numerous meetings that were often filmed with the Intstellarms weapons on good display, they pop out of jump space and arrive at Oriryu.
At the port they land on pad A6. Again perusing public records, they find that the Empress had landed on pad T3, which is a landing pad with attached warehouse. They also find that a woman and two men had left the ship and headed to the star town. The woman did match Katja's description.
Anastasia had gotten Martha to basically photoshop a picture of her and Katja looking like buddies. Took a bit of work from the mug shot, but as they have TL-C equipment available, pretty certain that AI manipulation for media can do just about anything. She was planning on using that to help track down our fugitive.
Going to the World Police (with a population of 900K, there is not a lot of layers to police) they find Captain Jane Fren. She looks up Katja, but there is only a Cr10,000 award for her here, and when they produce the MCR2.5 reward, she is all ears and wanting to assist. They manage to score an unmarked police vehicle, though none actually have any driving skills, so "Wild Bill" Davidson, our nearly 7' tall cameraman, will drive (and he is very vaguely based on a character from the
The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind series which is a very fun series. But in hindsight will play up more of his characteristics should we continue playing).
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| Captain Jane Fren of the World Police |
They find that she and her thugs have checked into the Hotel D'Orroe, a cheap hotel in star town. Deciding to check it out, Anastasia finds a very disinterested manager watching a wrestling show. And Shintaro goes to the Purple Fountain Club, which is adjacent to the hotel. When a break comes up, Anastasia slips Cr40 to him (and no, she does not have bribery skill and technically I could have rolled for the reaction, but figured moving the story forward as I was thinking we may be able to close off the adventure that night. Spoiler: did not). He said yeah, they had checked in but were at the club next door. Sharing the picture of her & Katja, Anastasia stressed she wanted it to be a secret to surprise her for her birthday. Clicking a credit on the counter, the manager smirks a bit and indicates he'll think about keeping quiet, but after another Cr20, his silence is a given.
Shintaro had been scoping out the club, bit no sign of their target. At the foyer, Anastasia again tells her story, and finds that Katja was on the private meeting room at the back of the club.
And that is where we left things. I hurried through a few things and ignored a few things to move things on to what I was hoping to be the end. However, we talked a bit, and we moved slower. And sadly, I am never as prepared as I wish I were. None of the NPCs really had anything behind them. And I can barely play my own characters, let alone several NPCs. And as mentioned, I felt I was rushing to get something exciting to happen.
Not sure if we have another week of Traveller, or back to the OSE game. So I need to find that out so I can plan for the next session!
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