The Plot Thickens

Last week, we left the party in Nosea last time. There was an
abandoned space station in orbit around the inhabited water planet
there.
And a foreign nav beacon in a geo-sync orbit too.

So they refuelled using the water from the planet (ferried from the
surface via several loads using the air-raft), then stole the nav
beacon in their hold and jumped back (two Jump-2s) to Orcrist
via 0925. During those two weeks of jump-space time, they carefully
cut open a panel on the nav beacon, and analyzed it best they could.

For all intents and purposes, this looked very much like Zhodani
technology - right down to the Zhodani insignias on the outside,
through to the Zhodani "electronics" on the inside and the Zhodani
"circuit boards". Zhodani electronics doesn't use copper wired and
printed circuit boards like Imperium tech, they use tubes carrying
fluid, much like arteries carry blood (recall Zhodani are vampires).

Back in Orcrist they reported in to the Scout Service and delivered
the stolen beacon for detailed analysis. Then were ordered to report
to Narsil thence to Darrian via either 0726 or 0728: the
party was to choose. The party chose 0726 which was empty.
When they arrived in Darran, three weeks later, the detailed report
was waiting for them (which had arrived via a Jump-6 X-boat) of the
analysis of the nav beacon. It was Zhodani certainly, and the Zhodani
was assuming an aggressive stance. The Imperium had been told - it
seemed the Zhodani was breaking the Spinward Marches treaty.

The was an Imperium military base on 494-908 (0625) which was a
forbidden zone (any non military ships entering are shot out of the
sky - including Scouts). Nevertheless, the Scout Service (independent
of the military) wanted to check it out, so they ordered the Lollypop
there. So Bobby (Jeff) spent several three hours accelerating at 2G
before engaging the Jump engines. This meant they were travelling at
216km/s when they entered Jump space (normally you are stationary) and
would be travelling at that speed when they arrived in 494-908 a week
later.

The week passed and they appeared in 494-908, travelling at the huge
speed, 25 light-minutes away from the base, and did aggressive
long-range active scanning the moment they appeared, and immediately
started burning fuel for a return jump - it takes an hour to burn the
fuel to power up the Jump capacitors.

Sure enough, the military base around the planet was in pieces and
there were three Zhodani destroyers in the system. There would be a
ten minute window of danger where the Z destroyers could detect them
after 25 mins, and if they did try long-range shots, the effect would
take another 25 minutes to arrive, but the party gambled on any damage
would be minor over that huge range (450 million km), and chances are
that the Zs might not be able to get into attack state in that time,
or would miss.
Sure enough, the party was right, and they jumped out safely.

Back in Darrian a week later, they docked and made the report to the
Scout Service. The cat was out of the bag, and they had confirmation
of the Z's aggressive status.