Chapter 3 : Last Stand at TK1075A, Part 2

An asteroid, yesterday

This follows on from Part 1 in which the party arrived at TK1075A, shot up and drove off the interlopers. End result, one gunman killed by a combination of gunfire and vacuum, one shot and wounded and one fled in their spacecraft.

During questioning the survivor claimed that the asteroid was legitimately acquired from the previous owners daughter, his belief in this being confirmed by the party's resident mind reader.

With Dolf Pederson Slodi safely tied up in a spare cabin, the party let the Uergoegz family know that the place is safe and Granzh pilots the craft in.

Once the craft is docked and locked in place, umbilical cables attach and the manoeuvre drive becomes available for minor adjustments in the asteroids position and orientation. The drive, capable of pushing the 30 ton boat along at a tasty 6G, only can provide a tiny 0.005G when pushing the 35,000 ton asteroid about, but it's enough for station keeping and orienting the electromag cannon.

Lower area

The cannon is used for firing 1 ton projectiles of ore towards the asteroid habitat Niflhel Station where they are captured and processed, each projectile is tagged and the proceeds of the sale are automatically credited to the owners account. Now if only the party could access the account directly, they would have access to the money.

As soon as the craft docked, the party noticed the asteroid reorienting itself and they quickly determine that its now pointing at Niflhel, obviously it was oriented elsewhere earlier.

Ansgar, Ragnar and Granzh don vacc suits and make their way to the launch room where they try and find out where the launcher was pointing previously. Unfortunatley their computer skills are not up to the task and they can't locate the target.

Meanwhile as the rest of the Uergoegz family claim the largest cabin for the family, and Sali keeps watch out for more villains, there is an incoming communication. Sali answers and talks to Rorik Gagnison Damsgaard, an independent belter who overheard the fleing gunman making an unencrypted call home telling them that the asteroid had been taken.

Upper Area

He informs Sali that they have run foul of the Slodis, a strong local crime family who has been extorting belters in this area of the belt for some time.

Dolf Pederson's brother Alvar is the guy in charge, although the one to watch out for apparnatly is his mother Bera Viggosdotir, who Rorik says is a dangerous psychotic (or did he say psychic?)

Anyway there's another ship on its way apparently, due to arrive in 2 hours, and with that cheery news Rorik wishes them well and signs off.

The party look through the mining stores for inspiration and find a mining laser which they set up in the Workshop pointing at the internal airlock. To block of the other route from the unpressurised area of the asteroid they cut the power to the iris valve linking the power plant room to the upper level and spot weld the irises together.

The Vargrs Granzh, Sounngi, Ougdzo and Aervoug are packed off to the boat and told to flee if it all goes badly. The two pups Ougdzo and Aervoug are more excited than scared but do as they are told.

The party also find some vacc suits that offer a little more protection than the emergency ones they have been using and change into them. Sali and Ansgar wait in the Workshop while Ragnar keeps a lookout from the observation dome.

They don't have to wait too long as a launch comes into view and stops some 200m out. Two suited figures exit the launch and make their way over to the observation dome and look in. They show themselves to be experience spacers, the lack of gravity not affecting them significantly. They have also come armed for the job, sporting zero-G weapons : a Snub SMG and an Assault Snub Carbine. The carbine is a fearsome weapon with a massive 100 round cassette mounted on the top and is capable of emptying the entire lot in one burst. They are wearing a Hostile Environment Vacc Suit and a Boarding Vacc Suit.

Belest Astorson Slodi on a good day

The two spacers are Belest Astorson and Derek Ormson (both Slodis), Belest is Dolf's uncle, an Aesirist fundamentalist and Derek is one of Dolf's cousins and is itching to let off his carbine at someone.

Belest has a conversation with Ragnar through the glass dome (with the help of radio) which goes along the lines of "Give us back my nephew and clear out", to which the answer is short and to the point.

On a different radio channel the party discuss what to do, and quickly come to the conclusion that all that's stopping the Slodis  simply blowing out the dome is the fact that this would kill Dolf, so they can't give up their hostage. However they tell Belest that they agree to let him go, but say they have no spare vacc suits. Belest agrees to get one from his launch and leave it in the internal airlock.

Derek gets the suit and puts it in the airlock, Sali cycles the airlock while Ansgar covers the entrance. Inside is a emergency vacc suit bag, containing...an emergency vacc suit. After more discussion the party decides to go on the offensive. Ansgar will dress in the emergency vacc suit, hiding his assault rifle in the bag, and pretend to be Dolf. Meanwhile Sali will get into the boat and wait in the boats airlock, Granzh will pilot the boat out and Sali will attack Belest taking advantage of the grav plates in the boats airlock to counteract Belest's greater expertise in zero-G.

Hang on, that's not Dolf!

Ansgar cycles the airlock and pretends to be in distress, as Derek lowers his carbine and comes to assist, he pulls the rifle from the bag and opens up on full automatic wounding Derek. Derek returns fire but rushes the shot and misses, luckily for Ansgar he only fired a short burst rather than emptying the mag. Ansgar fires another burst and puts Derek down hard (or spinning crazily, if you prefer).

Meanwhile, as Ragnar distracts Belest, Sali enters the boat and Granzh prepares to leave, turning off all the running lights and display screens so as not to alarm Belest. Ragnar continues to distract Belest but it becomes clear to him that Derek is not responding to his radio calls and he gets suspicious. By this time the boat is moving out and he sees it out of the corner of his eye. Sali and Belest exchange fire, both hampered by the motion of the boat, but Sali's expertise wins out, along with the local bit of gravity from the airlock grav plates and he wounds Belest with several rounds. Belest is unconscious but his suit is self-sealing so he fairs better than Derek.

Ragnar comes out to assist and makes his way to the Slodi's boat, but they've left someone on board who powers up the boat and shoots off.

Ansgar gives Belest first aid, and ties him up with Dolf. Belest curses as much as Dolf does but his curses are more in keeping with Norse mythology as opposed to Dolf's cruder statements.

Ragnar calls Rorik Gagniso to find out who he's captured and gets an impromptu history and genealogy lesson on the Slodi Clan. As he ends his call he gets an incoming call from Alvar Pederson Slodi who has just been informed of the events by the occupant of the fleeing boat.

The call goes as expected, with both parties disputing the ownership of the rock with threats and intimidations sprinkled liberally throughout.

Ragnar decides to get more weapons and so he and Granzh take the boat and head back to Niflhel Station, where such things are purchasable. The six hour trip nets them 3 shotguns and more ammo for their existing weapons.

Hacking the bank looks more like
playing Countdown than this

Ansgar thinks that the code for the personal bank could be the name of the previous owners daughter and they try it but to no avail. Sali, being an ex-spy and so well versed in such things, suggests it may be an anagram of the daughter's name. Ansgar despairs of the possible combinations of "Una Magnusdotir Hos", until Sali points out that computers can do this sort of thing quite easily, and by using the local equivalent of the internet enters the name into an anagram finder (much as I did when writing this scenario) and got the two words "THOUSAND IGNORAMUS" as a result. Entered into the bank this unlocked the account's level 1 access rights, giving a complete view of the account details as well as limited access to the funds.

...to be continued...