To Catch a Destroyer

The mission was to try to find the culprits of who destroyed the star-base in Retinae. The two likely suspects were the two Imperium destroyers Hyperion and Impetous, last seen in Faisal and Dekalb. The party needed to get some evidence of weapons signatures of the guns of both destroyers. The easiest way was suggeste: scrape the lining off the muzzles of beam gun tubes. That, or steal a missile.



After refuelling in Bael, the Sosok jumped out.

Week of morris dancing

And arrived in Faisal. No sign of the Imperium destroyers.

Jump to Thanber. A week of rollerball disco.

In Thanber, sure enough, the two Imperium ships were here. Impetus was docked at the class-B star-port while the Hyperion was out at the 10-diametre jump point. There were a handful of merchants as well. The Sosok docked too.

The group reconnoitred about and established that doing anything to the Impetus was next to impossible. It was bathed in flood-lights all the time and someone in a vacc-suit going anywhere near the gun barrels  would stick out like a sore thumb.

So they retired to their ship and had a good think.

A few hours later they took off and reported to the star-port flight control that they were going to do some prospecting out in the asteroid belt. A few days of travel, they got to the belt. Bobby skillfully manoeuvred the ship to capture a couch-sized asteroid into the cargo bay, then he navigated to a spot and released the rock such that its's elliptical path would hit the star-port in twelve days' time - at about 6km/s. After releasing the asteroid, the Sosok quickly headed off behind the asteroid belt, and then took a separate path back to the star-port.

Sure enough, a few days later alarms started to go off. Medium range scan had identified the asteroid and its imminent collision with the star-port. A rock that size travelling at that speed would all but destroy the star-port.

Both Imperium destroyers headed to the 10 diametre point and started long-range firing their beam weapons at the asteroid. It was smashed into little pieces - a cloud of debris - but still headed for the port.

When the cloud was two days' out, the Hyperion launched a missle and detonated it in the middle of the cloud. This made a neat hole, so that by the time the debris field passed the star-port, travelling at 6km/s, it was a huge ring. Crisis averted.

The Sosok waited some more days, and then went and scooped some bits of the debris field, all neaty tainted with weapons signatures from both Imperium destroyers, and even a missile signature too.

They jumped out to Faisal. This week was Learn a Language week.

In Faisal, a Zhodani laboratory ship was docked. It analyzed the bits of rubble and confirmed that the weapons signatures on the remains from the Retinae destroyed star-port did indeed match the weapons from these two Imperium ships. This information was sent to the main fleet.

A surprise was waiting in Faisal too. Cara, from the Entrope fleet, had used her furlong time to visit. She was waiting for Dick when the Sosok arrived.

Retinae Destruction

Leaving Major-General Seskia's Zhodani fleet in Entrope (requested to stop here as part of the "Ship Return" movements as per terms of the Cease Fire), the Sosok headed for Thanber with orders to then jump  to the nearest Zhodani system Querion.



The week's activity was Carolling.

In Thanber, they were surprised to spot two Imperium destroyers.

"Report to the starport now!" demanded one of the destroyers over the radio.

The Sosok, now with enough fuel for only a jump two, turned on her jump engines again. A desolatory torpedo was launched, but it had no chance of getting to the Sosok with the hour.

Another week of travel; Morris dancing was the activity this week.

Unable to get to Querion (without a refuel), they arrived in Faisal. There was a Zhodani destroyer here docked at the D class star port, so the Sosok headed in to dock; a four hour trip. After about half-way in, lo and behold, one of the Imperium destroyers from Thanber arrived. The air-waves were suddenly inundated with traffic.

"Imperium destroyer, you are violating the cease fire by moving illegally!" screamed the Zhodani destroyer.

"We are following Zhodani military vessel Sosok to arrest it on charges of violating the Cease Fire," replied the Imperium destroyer.

"We are but a scout ship with no military capability," replied Aida, speaking for the Sosok and the party.

"You are still military"

"No we arent"

"Oh yes you are"

"Ohhh no we arent"

This pantomime accusation and denial carried on for a while until the captain of the Zhodani destroyer Suka suggested to discuss terms in at the star-port.  The Sosok and the Hyperion (the Imperium destroyer) docked at the star-port, while the Suka stayed out a bit.

The Imperium flooded the star-port with marines, while the three captains (of Hyperion, Suka and Sosok) met in the tiny star-port cafe. Sanity prevailed and Captain Red of the Hyperion agreed not to pursue Sosk and agreed to return to Thanber. In return, Captain Malenkaya (of the Suka) agreed not to press the alledged violation of the Cease Fire by the Hyperion.

The Hyperion went out to safe jump distance and vanished.

Aida farewelled Malenkaya and the Sosok and party jumped out.

This week the activity was Party-Party-Partay.

The group arrived in Retinae. There was supposed to be a star-port here, but there was no radio traffic and the star-port was in pieces. Beam weapon and missile damage to the pieces. And bits of Zhodani flesh floating in orbit. They gathered up samples and Aida did not want to wait the time to collect water from the planet's oceans to refuel, instead wanted to jump out to Bael.

Another week.

They arrived in Bael, and were surprised to see a huge Zhodani fleet here: Five carriers, ten battle ships, 14 cruisers, and hundreds of other lesser war vessels and support craft.

"This all very secret," said Aida. "No camera, no recordings. But Retinae star-port damage too important for us not to tell High Commander about. And too important that we must trust you five to keep secret"

The party solemnly nodded in ascent. Even Dick.

Aida left the group in the Sosok while she took a shuttle to one of the battleships.

Dick busied himself with Interweb mail that had arrived. It was a letter from Cara wanting to meet up.

The next day Aida returned from the battleship.

"We have new orders. No longer go to Querion. We must get evidence of who destroyed Retinae. We suspect it is Hyperion or the other vessel with it in Thanbar, the Impetus."

"How do we get evidence?" quipped Doctor Worthington.

"All beam weapons leave unique signature on wreckage, which can be traced back to individual gun. We will get close to Hyperion or Hydrabad and get them to fire, or try to inch close to get sample from the turret beam gun muzzles. Or we sneak inside and steal torpedo."

Faces dropped.

"Oh," said Dick, weakly.

Changing sides

We left the party in Tizon.

They had done their job and delivered the Imperium's reply. The cease fire would start from now. No military ships would move without permission from the other side. The Imperium would abandon the three illegal military bases. The cease fire would remain in place for as long as it took High Command to meet on both sides. With the large size of the Zhodani Empire and the Imperium, this could take a while.

So the party was discharged, having completed the deliveries.

Aida then offered them a small job.

A rogue element of Zhodani had mutinied and taken two frigates. (Apparently, this happened quite a bit, on both sides, and in peace times too. Long communications lines often meant lone ships would be out of comms for months on end.) The rebels were docked in a temporary star-port in Torment. The main battle fleet could not attempt to engage them as they would just Jump out. However, if an innocent scout ship was to deliver a small package to them - a package of explosives, disguised as a whisky crate, say - then that might provide a good outcome.

So the group jumped in to Torment.



The Zhodani rebels allowed the Scout ship Lollipop to dock and sent two soldiers on board to do a cursory search. Aida hid herself away during this time.

Torment's temporary star-port had three wings. One had the two rogue frigates docked, one wing was for the Lollipop, and the other wing was still under construction (construction having recently ceased). They had been told that the blast radius of the whisky bomb was 100m, so decided the safest spot to place it would be in the empty wing; that would more than cover the frigates in the blast.


Aida would dress up as one of the rebel Zhodanis and she would wheel the crate over to the half-built wing. To provide a diversion, Dick (Shane) and Worthington (Chris) would perform a burlesque show for the Zhodani rebels.

Note that burlesque was one of the Jump-time activities, to wile away the week of the jump, so the party had had some practice. In fact, that very trip, burlesque was the randomly selected activity - Aida had performed too. Having a female participant, emphasized by the macromasia of the Zhodani, had spurred the party's motivation ten-fold.  What was formerly a despised activity, was now something to be looked forward to.

The Dick and Worthington burlesque show went ahead, the diversion worked, and the crate was delivered. All that need be said is that the name of the system "Torment" aptly described the feelings suffered by the hapless Zhodani rebels who endured the show, and that when the bomb detonated some time later, it would have put an end to their suffering.

A week later, they arrived back in Tizon.

With the misson accomplished, Major-General Seskia offered the party new employment. They would work for the Zhodani military as Zhodani forward recon (not for the Scout Service) and travel in the Zhodani scout ship Sosok under "Captain" Aida. It was a 1G 3-jump ship. Belter did not want to lose his rights to his scout ship, so agreed to surrepticiously provide the Scout Service information on Zhodani acitivities at every port when he could. In return, the Scout Service would house and maintain the Lollipop.

Aida told the group about the Zhodani equivalent of burlesque called Tolshok Zoh. It was performed on a pole and involved disrobing and gyrating. Dead-eye Dick was fascinated, so Aida invited him and the rest of the party to one of the performances on board the Battleship Ogromnia Moloka. The stage was down the centre of a bar and psycho-tropic blood was provided through communal teats that adorned either side. The Zhodani girls were already excited and a bit spaced-out when the show began. But much to Dick's disappointment, the performers were well-oiled Zhodani males, scrawny but with well-cut muscles, with enormous members. They did their stuff on the poles amid screaming Zhodanis.

One of the Zhodani ensigns at the show took a liking to Dick. She introduced herself as Cara and hauled him back to her cabin for the night.

When Dick stumbled back to the Sosok the next morning, he'd lost his front teeth, he had two ribs broken, he was covered in bruises and raked with fingernail clawings. Doctor Worthington spent the morning repairing Dick's wounds. The amused Aida explained to Dick that he was lucky that Cara didn't give him "hard loving", or else they would be officially betrothed. Zhodani marriage is "until death do us part" - usually death of the male.

"How would I know what 'hard-loving' would be?" asked Dick, now worried.

"Oh, you wouldn't be able to walk."

Orders arrived. The plan was for the Zhodani fleet to leave the Sword Worlds and jump to Entrope. But they had to wait another week for the official clearance to arrive from Margesi.
In the mean time, the Sosok was ordered to jump to Zeta 2 (using its jump-3 capability) and then jump to Entrope to meet up with the fleet (which would arrive at the same time). The Sosok was to make sure that the Imperium had left Zeta 2.

During the week from Tizon to Zeta 2 the activity was golf.

"Strip Golf" proclaimed Dick. Having never played golf before, it took Aida half a game to realize that she didn't have a 2 handicap while the rest of the players had a 36. But by that time she was naked and Dick was snapping away photos like there was no tomorrow.

"You will destroy those,"  Aida warned Dick. "Else your encounters with Cara will seem mild".

He hastily agreed.

Arriving in Zeta 2, they were greeted to an abandoned system and no space-port. There was some civilian activity on the surface. So they jumped out back to Entrope.

The activity this week was Drug Week. Aida offered up her psycho-tropic blood based drinks, and Worthington a collection of morphine-based injectables.

They arrived in Entrope and the main Zhodani fleet was there.

After docking at the class E star-port, a package was delivered for Dick. It was a brass knuckle-duster and a note "See you tonight, my toshi lubovnika. Cara." Dick asked Aida the significance of the knuckle-duster.

"Is lover's gift. She will use it to heighten enjoyment"

"Not for 'hard loving'?" he whimpered.

"No no. Side-cutters, or brace and bit."

With a bit of trepidation, Dick went off to the Ogromnia Moloka for his date with Cara.

The next morning, Dick crawled back to the Sosok coughing blood, with a broken jaw and more ribs, holding several teeth in his hand. Doctor Worthington had him patched up in no time, but it still hurt like hell.

.