How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ihatei?

So at the end of last session King Oleb tasked the PCs with dealing with the Ihatei issue on Kteiroa, but my players were somewhat torn on the best way to go about it.


After some debate and a review of the nearby systems which might be potential targets, it was decided that they would avoid Kteiroa itself for now and instead cruise antispinwards along the local main (via Hilfer and Ergo) towards Tech World.

This was to get some direct intel on some potential diversionary targets which might prove to be a useful asset when they finally talk to the Ihatei on Kteiroa; but also to follow up on some chatter they had sifted from the cache of mail they stole in Torpol. This indicated that Paal system had underwritten a mercenary ticket to bulk up their system defences and had secured a sweetheart structured finance deal from GeDeCo to help fund this military build up (several squadrons of SDBs and their associated jump-tenders being a big ticket item, even for a prosperous agricultural system such as Paal). With Vorito already an imperial client state under GeDeCo supervision, this increased presence on Paal looked like the beginning of a move to threaten Tyokh - so perhaps it would present the sort of challenge that the Aslan could not ignore.

While all this strategising was going on, Val decided to look up her old flame Kasiyl - she wanted to show off her newly acquired cyberclaw of course and share a bottle of Fire-Opal she had picked up on Khusai, but the topic turned to the ihatei and how to approach them. Kasiyl had some useful info for her on the topic:

• Ihatei occupy a liminal position in Aslan society; they teeter on the edge of becoming outcasts, but are honored as potential founders of new clans. 
• Most ihatei are poor wanderers. Their main hope of advancement is to join the retinue of a successful princeling whose career as an ihatei is being underwritten by his rich clan. It is these ihatei lords who will determine which systems will come under attack.
• The ihatei depend upon outside technical support, including from humans; so 'tinkers' are a common sight in ihatei camps. You can blend into the scenery if posing as tinkers.
• Watch out for agents from the clans - the Hierate can't tell the Ihatei where to go, but they certainly observe their deliberations and subtly steer the conversation.

Kasiyl volunteered to accompany the PCs on their voyage and, when this offer was accepted, he revealed that he had a ship of his own (Longclaw, a 200 dT Ktiyhui-class courier) that was cached in the planetoid belt out beyond Rhizol. Semi flew Kasiyl out to his ship in the Small Mercy and they both transferred to Longclaw then met up with the rest of the players (in Who's On Comms?) for the jump to Hilfer¹. 

On arrival at Hilfer Longclaw precipitated out at the 100d limit of Hilfer Prime² rather than the planet itself. This meant that Who's On Comms? reached Hilfer downport nearly a standard day ahead of Longclaw and were well positioned to observe the rather nervous treatment that Longclaw's crew received from the starport authorities (directed to an isolated landing pad, a couple of APCs scrambled to provide overwatch for the service crew). Semi enjoyed playing the role of 'supercillious majordomo for my noble Aslan captain' and parlayed the starport's paranoia about offending the violent alien carnivore into several sides of beef for Kasiyl's freezer.

The Longclaw only stayed long enough to refuel and resupply before lifting off for the jump to Ergo, while Who's On Comms? tarried at the downport long enough to not be obviously flying in company with the scary Aslan starship before making their own jump.

Arriving in Ergo (at the 100d limit of the primary rather than the planet) both starships monitored the automated warning transmissions from the interdiction satellites in orbit over the planet, then plotted courses that kept them well away from the interdiction zone and steered towards a large gas giant in the outer system where they could skim for fuel. Just as Longclaw was finishing his³ final skimming run, Val detected a jump-precipitation signature at the 100d limit of the gas-giant - another ship was using this gas giant as a refuelling point.

Hastily positioning Longclaw behind a shepherd moon orbiting inside the inner perimter of the planet's ring system, the Who's On Comms? lurked in ambush and monitored the new arrival as it spent the next few hours transitting to a low, skimming, orbit from 8 million km out. It was clearly not behaving like a military vessel and was boosting at 2G which suggested that it wouldn't have the legs to outrun either of the player's vessels. Luckily for the PCs the stranger had plotted a course that would place it between Longclaw and Who's On Comms? as it made its orbital insertion, so a plan was quickly formulated - Longclaw would emerge from behind the shepherd moon at the crucial moment, initiating a stern chase and driving the prize towards the stealthed Who's On Comms? who would deliver a shot across the bows from ambush and, hopefully, force a surrender.

This is pretty much how things worked out, although the prize had a bit more fight in her than their earlier victim in Torpol system and took some minor damage during the chase. The sudden revelation of a second pirate ahead of them and armed with a particle cannon broke their morale. They cut thrust and heaved to for boarding - the Kiishermi’s Fancy, a 400 ton fast trader flagged out of Tobia and registered to the PRQ Corporation, was theirs.

Concerned about crowd control, Torquil insisted that only one crew member from the prize be in the reception committee with the rest sequestered in the launch. Longclaw docked to the for'ard airlock and the appearance of Kasiyl in a boarding vacc suit wielding an implausibly long firearm was suitably intimidating to the nervous 4th Officer who was waiting for them. After confirming that the crew were safely locked up as ordered, a quick inventory of the cargo was taken (70 dT of luxuries, 50 dT of basic ores, 10 dT of memory diamond and 10 dT of grav cars). By then Torquil and Veil had transferred onto the prize and they were ready to question the crew.

Starting with the captain and working their way down the rank hierarchy, each crewman was removed from the launch in turn, interviewed by Veil about the ship, the cargo and their planned route and finally offered the chance to turn pirate (you might think that Veil was psionically nudging them towards being receptive to this pitch, Veil couldn't possibly comment). 

Predictably the captain and XO were uncooperative and refused to provide any but the most obvious answers, but Veil struck gold with the 2nd Officer, Kadiki Adushka, who was happy to provide chapter and verse about the ship. Clearly she was extremely unhappy with her bosses at the shipping company and didn't need much persuasion to volunteer for the piratical life. Indeed she offered to try and persuade the other crewmen for an extra share. Veil agreed to this, provided that she convinced at least four others to turn their coats. In the event it seemed that Kiishermi’s Fancy was an unhappy ship and she ended up bringing the 4th Officer and six of the crewmen across with her; the other officers and one of the engine snipes refused the offer and were promptly put into low berths for the remainder of the voyage.

After a few hours skimming fuel for their new ship, the flotilla boosted out of the gravity well of the gas giant at a leisurely 2G and jumped for Tech-World.


[1] This means that the Small Mercy remains at Kasiyl's starship cache rather than in Drinax Highport getting a new jump-drive installed. Oops.
[2] I was referring to hardcopy 1e rules for the jump operations task chain during the game, where any result below 8 is an inaccurate jump. I have now read up on the tweaks they've made to jump tasks in the 2e rules and will be using those from now on - this should make inaccurate jumps less common.
[3] Aslan warships are referred to as male. Because of course they are.


Backstage
I was expecting that this session would be focused upon the ihatei on Kteiroa rather than a pirate cruise into the Borderland subsector, but this is a sandbox so I let the players come up with a plan and then improvised events from various starship encounter and reaction rolls.

Having the players go off piste is a reminder that I need to pull together capsule descriptions of all the nearby star systems along with some suitable scenario seeds. The other idea that's occurred to me is to work up some starship encounters ahead of time so I have something ready to go whenever they decide to that they need to do some piracy.