Briefing

Delivered by Commander Seo-Hyun Park

• Pirates have been raiding ships making the 13-month journey to Calvary, stealing supplies and almost certainly killing the crews
• Civilian cargo ships make the journey via a steady gradual 1g acceleration followed by a deceleration at the far end
• The attacks come at the edge of the Cornucopia system and the pirates are extremely cautious, never engaging escorted shipping
• You are to act as bait for a pirate attack
• Your squad and a 20-man squad of Union Marines are to board the Ethereal Wind and repel any pirate attack
• When the pirates get close and initiate boarding, military grade jammers installed on the ship will be activated to prevent them from communicating with their home base
• You are to repel the attack, board the enemy vessel and seize control
• Use the vessel to identify the location of the pirate base and travel to it
• Infiltrate or assault the base in preparation for assault by the UNS Thermopylae

Mission

• Inside the cold, airless main cargo hold of the Ethereal Wind, a 500m long interstellar cargo vessel currently on route to the small colony of Calvary from Cornucopia
• The cargo hold stretches most of the length of the ship and is currently empty
• The only gravity is that provided by the acceleration from the engines
• It’s like being inside a 500m tall empty skyscraper
• But there is no cargo
• Just 5 large humanoid mechs crouched on the racks like gargoyles in the dark

• The Ethereal Wind has been underway for a month now, steadily accelerating towards near-light speeds as it leaves Cornucopia towards the Calvary System
• 24 hours ago, the ship was hit by powerful jamming signals preventing communications and overwhelming the sensor systems
• Comms from the bridge that they’ve got visual on an incoming vessel
• Spent 5 hours in mechs waiting in airless cargo hold
• There is a loud thunk from the hull, followed by more banging
• An explosion ripped a hole into the cargo hold
• Two hulking mechs charge in, backed up by infantry
• Look like they’ve been cobbled together from parts
• Covered in spikes

Cargo Hold Encounter

• Team successfully defeated the pirate boarding party
• The pirate vessel is much smaller than the cargo ship, looks like its been made from parts of several ships strapped to a big engine

Skill Challenge to EVA Over to the Ship

• Squad boards the enemy vessel and takes the crew prisoner
• All prisoners except the captain are sent over to the cargo ship
• Use the pirate ship to head towards their base

• Huginn interrogated the captain:
• The base is actually an old capital ship, 2 km in length
• Left over from the second Cornucopian Civil War
• Huge debris field surrounds the base
• Has activated weaponry, enough to pose a serious risk to the Thermopylae
• Blending in will be hard, everyone is likely to know one another
• Est. 100 pirates on the base

• Arrived at the pirate base and successfully bluffed their way inside
• Person on comms mentions an impending delivery to Cornucopia
• Mule goes off to cell blocks (despite orders not to), noisily takes out a guard, finds cells of prisoners
• Most are dead but some are alive
• Many are afflicted with blistered skin and have coughed up blood
• Huginn-9 scouts the main hanger, inside is a properly built non-pirate looking ship
• It is being loaded with canisters
• Pirates arrive down a different corridor and Highwire takes out one, but the other sounds the alarm
• Huginn sees the pirates in the main hangar be alerted and a large flamethrower mech emerges
• Whiskey Company assaults the hangar

Hangar Bay Encounter

• Squad is victorious, although Gethin’s mech took significant damage

• As the battle ends the ship which was being loaded with canisters starts to take off
• Hangar door is opened
• Mule and Mirbana get sucked out of the base into space
• Huginn gets onto the fleeing ship and dispatches both pilots preventing their escape and bringing the ship back to the hangar
• Basco and Gethin secure the gun battery, blow up one fleeing pirate ship and forcing the rest to surrender
• The Thermopylae is called in

Debrief

• Eggheads have gone through computer systems and prisoners have been interrogated
• Prisoners had been infected by a programmable nano-virus, to which the pirates had been given an antidote
• Antidotes have been delivered an antidote and most will survive
• Virus was targetable against particular chemicals, i.e. virus ignores people with certain compounds, or against specific genetic groups
• Some worry that the virus was supplied by Aunic Ascendancy to target Aunic Ecumene, based on Union targets within Boundary Garden
• Source was a smuggling syndicate in Borea system
• Borean government are not capable of investigating, therefore Thermopylae is heading on a 6 month journey, 18 days subjective
• At the instruction of Lorenzo Cornucopia’s NHP

Downtime

During the journey to Borea.

Mule

• Gathers Information
• Researches Borea
• Old colony, 1000yrs
• Somewhat backward
• Population is around 600,000 people, vast majority of which are subsistence farmers
• Mostly unexplored
• Central continent spans temperature sections, but is not close enough to sun to have deserts
• Ruled by a hereditary council of nobles in single city of Dalen
• Mule picks up some supplies that lets him overcome the thick, wet environs that he expects on the planet
• Discovers that Basco is from Borea
• Triggers an alert in his investigations for messing around in his colleagues personal files

Basco

• Gets a Damn Drink
• Stir-crazy leads him to experiment with stims etc as he heads back towards his homeworld
• Ends up in ‘tonight we dine in’ Hell, the ships canteen
• Somehow makes some contacts in the process and gets something of a reputation… for being somewhat addicted to UNC stims

Gethin

• Personal Training
• Decides that people need to stay tired and fit for combat
• Drags team down to the hangers to starts laps
• Gains trigger

Aeric

• No-One Expects the NLC inquisition (Gets Organised)
• Attempts to form a political network
• Certainly wants to keep it quiet, should the top brass hear…
• Opens a NLC debate group
• Certain someone is keeping an eye on them

Mirbana

• Mechanical Preparations (Gets Connected)
• Talks to flyboys (Anna Huang, flygirl repairer) in an attempt to scrounge additional gear
• Directed towards some basic old parts from scrapped old transport vehicle
• Gear gets immunity to being slowed by wading water and mud but prone to busting