Faux Pas

The Xboats had been sent out and the cat was out of the bag.
The Scout Service has sworn the group to secrecy because they didn't
want the local populace, nor even the Darrian Empire, to be alarmed,
yet.

However, Bad Pitt (Shane) took it upon himself to tell the local
media. He downloaded everything the party had discovered, including
all the video and radio interceptions, onto a thumb-drive and sent it,
anonymously, to all the TV stations and newspaper-equivalents. So that
night, on the News the story ran on every channel.

And mass hysteria erupted.

The Scout Service was pissed beyond belief and they verified from the
watermarks on the broadcast data that it was from the Lollipop, so
sent some agents over and arrested Bad. He was hauled to the Scout
Service offices and thoroughly questioned.

Bad was given a choice to be pressed into Scout Service service, or
sent to a Scout Service penal colony. And warned that he would
probably be on the Imperium Navy's top Wanted list (part of the
broadcast, of course, was the location of that secret, now destroyed,
494-908 military base (0625) that no one was supposed to know about).
The Navy only had a recruiting base in Darrian, but no agents
"otherwise Bad would be dead now" (as per agreement of the
Imperium-Zhodani treaty*). Bad chose scout service, so they signed him
up.

The group was ordered to stay in their ship until new orders arrived.
Towards the end of the week, they did arrive, but they were told that
these orders are pre-media-release, so the next bunch (from Narsil
(bottom right)) will be more relevant. "But go to Rorre (0526) any
way, and the Narsil orders will meet you there."

As they were leaving, another scout ship took off and followed them to
the 100 diameter point, and saw them jump**.

A week passed.

Then, sure enough, when the party arrived in Rorre, an hour and a bit
later, the other ship arrived too, actively pinging.

The party docked in the small D class port of Rorre. This was a space
station in orbit over a 1850s world below. The ships docked with
umbilicals and have air-bridges between. The other "scout" ship docked
too. Out stepped two Zhodani women.

Orders were waiting here: They were mostly full of invective and
abuse. Bad Pitt now had a 50,000 credit reward in his head by the
military; the Imperium was incensed. But the orders were "Go to Laberv
(0325)". The group wanted to shake off the Zhodani tail, so they
noticed that the Zs were refuelling with their air-raft from the
surface water below (the party had used the last of the Rorre
station's fuel stocks), so when the raft descended for the second trip
(round trip 1 hour), the Lollipop disembarked and flew behind an
asteroid, then jumped ...

Week passed

... straight back to Rorre, a few light-hours out from the starport.

The only message from the Scout Service station in Rorre this time was
"Continue to Laberv (0325). Lemon". So the Lollipop jumped to Laberv.

Week passed. They pondered on the word "lemon" during this trip.

When they arrived in Laberv, a way out, they could hear lots of
traffic, both on Terran frequencies and Zhodani frequencies. They
didn't want to risk doing an active ping, so went silent and headed
towards the station to get in visual range, 100,000 km. Sure enough,
there were a group of Zhodani destroyers and frigates docked there.
They were almost immediately pinged and then hailed "Unidentified
ship, proceed to dock. Do not attempt to head to Jump Distance"

They briefly contemplated running, but calculated that in the 1.8
hours it would take them to get to jump distance (5000km x 100), any
military ship that could do 4G (or a 6G missile) could easily catch
them. So they docked and disembarked. The class B space station was
running almost as normal, except that there were Zhodani girls in
every important spot "just watching". The Zs soon realized who the
Lollipop was, so they sent two soldiers to collect Bad Pitt. He was
taken to the main destroyer, and taken to Captain Nuriev (Salma
Hayak). She gave him tea and thanked him for helping the Zhodani cause
by broadcasting all that informaion about the Treaty-breaking Imperium
base on 0625. She brought out a star chart and asked him heaps of
questions all about the various points. He told all and hid nothing
and told no lies.
She thanked him kindly and wished him well, then two soldiers took him
to another room raped him with probes, beat him to a bloody-pulp, and
eventually unconscious. He was dumped on the steps of the Lollipop.

Ernest Worthington (Chris Whelan), with medical-3, fixed him up.

We stopped for the night.

* = After the Zhodani-Imperium wars of 120 years ago, a Peace treaty
was signed. The whole of the area between Imperium space and Zhodani
space was declared a demilitarized zone, with no military of either
side allowed there. The Scout Service is a Corporate employed by the
Imperium to scout, so they are allowed in this space as per terms of
the Treaty. The Scout Service has branches in Zhodani territory too.