LogYuriRT1-2010/10/15-Jason-1

Game log for the 2010/10/15 session of Rogue Trader: After the Gold Rush, as taken by Jason

Your faithful correspondent arrived late and unpacked his laptop just in time to hear people discussing intruders on the Solo Drakban. Anastasia Xanatov shoots at someone with a bolt pistol, but misses. She then takes the opportunity to use her micro-bead to alert the rest of the bridge crew of armed intruders on deck 19. The watch lieutenant sounds condition one throughout the ship. Anastasia then attempts to flee but catches a lasgun round.

Bors Tovon and Victrus Karellius come as quickly as they can and catch hostile servitors in a crossfire. Bors' freshly suspensor-mounted heavy bolter lays down four hits in his first burst, which one might reasonably suppose would hurt. Righteous Fury ensues and Bors empties his entire magazine, which more or less deletes the entire enemy contingent. In the interests of not spending all night giggling, we decide not to describe each critical hit in detail. Victrus never saw Bors so happy. He'll also be stone deaf for five hours, due to the incredible amount of closs-quarters noise. Even Anastasia, somewhat further away, will be deaf for a while.

Amazingly, one of the boarders survived. He gets taken to the medicae room.

Opiter Castus finds a different firefight to involve himself in. These boarders came without a servitor, and both sides of the fight wear Machariel livery. Luckily, Opiter knows his people on sight, so he can pick out the boarders easily. One of the poor bastards he shoots is carrying demo charges, which detonate. Suffice to say that nothing good happens to the bad guys at this juncture.

Livienne Corvus receives reports of conflict in one corridor of the ship, only to discover that her security cameras have been compromised. Seneschal rage ensues.

Lucius Holt goes to the brig to rape the prisoner's brain. Turns out he's part of a criminal crew which was hired by a different criminal crew to infiltrate the ship. They were waiting for us - they knew we were coming to Port Wander and they set up a wee trap for us. The raid has been in the planning stages for ten days. We docked four days ago. They had good intel. The prisoner's own group were about twenty strong, and then we don't know how many different gangs the prime contractor might have hired- the prisoner knows of one other gang, also about twenty strong, but he has no knowledge of the greater scheme. This prisoner came aboard two days ago, and they spent that time acting like normal crewmen, infiltrating the ship, taking advantage of our extremely low crew size and our desperate need to recruit more crew. They were sent to steal weapons from Solo and drop them at a warehouse, which location Lucius notes.

Jotham Lentillus, leading a party of armsmen toward a reported incursion, sees a party of ghost armsmen walk through some bulkheads. After a brief reflection, he decides that trying to exorcise the ghost of some voidman's grandfather must not take priority over defeating the borders. When he finally locates an enemy group, he finds himself 50 meters away, carrying a weapon with a 20 meter range. That's just bad planning right there. The boarders throw flashbangs, but due to luck and fanaticism, friendly forces remain unaffected. The hostile servitor begins to close on our position. Somehow the hulking brute miraculously avoids flamer fire the first time, eats it the second time, and then ends up in melee combat. After a few inconclusive exhanges, Jotham severs the servitor's arm and bisects his torso, filling the hallway with burning intestinal gore. Meanwhile, the armsmen laying down suppressive fire for Jotham, inspired by the Emperor's grace, fell the remaining bad guys with lasgun fire. Two of the armsmen were killed, surely acceptable losses for wiping out an entire enemy squad.

Livienne and Lord Captain Machariel work together to route our security parties toward the threats or ideal interception vectors. One team was sent to poison our water supply, but fortunately they were forstalled. We end up with four additional prisoners, who immediately suffer the unfriendly attentions of the ship's astropath. Yon astropath cuts through their brains like a multimelta through a jello mold - and discovers that we took an enemy leader prisoner. With Livienne's help, he discovers that a broker hired the infiltrators, and of course he gets the broker's identity. Their mission was to cause confusion and damage on the ship, although other bosses may have had more specific missions. This broker often hands them jobs from the Imperial Navy. Hrmrmrmrmmmmm.

We decide to get ourselves together and go looking for the broker. At Jahazer's suggestion, Livienne complains to the dockyard about explosions aboard and possible substandard work, hoping to make it look like we don't really know what happened. Meanwhile, Marneus lines up the crew with the intention of executing everyone without the exact right uniform. Everyone shows up in the right uniform and nobody gets shot. Jotham preaches to the ship's crew about how a lack of uniform doctrine can give rise to heresy. Beware anything that is different! Victrus finds a few people on liberty who don't belong to the ship - presumably infiltrators who bailed on the job. He also scans lockers and generally goes over the ship with a fine-toothed comb.

We (Marneus, Bors, Victrus, Jotham, Lucius, and Jahazer) go to see the broker. Just a little social call, nothing big. The roll over to the Chamber of Gold and find our guy's office, in a building where a bunch of other brokers also have offices. The broker's secretary asks if we have an appointment. Marneus assumes a slightly sneering tone and asks if we need one. Apparently some goons are in line ahead of us. Jahazer hits those cold-eyed fighting men with the Lidless Stare. Neither one seems bothered overmuch. Marneus offers them Thrones to take a walk for an hour, and they take that deal. Then the whole scheme falls slack as the secretary explains that the boss isn't in. Sure enough, maybe 15 minutes later he arrives to find his lobby full of Rogue Trader entourage. He's an older guy, clearly successful, confident, used to dealing with important people, and gives no sign of surprise at our presence. He invites Marneus into the office, and Marneus enters, accompanied by his two psykers. The broker, one Malachai Jord by name, says the information we want is privileged. Marneus claims not to care about such things. Jahazer explains that the information will be needed for legal purposes. Malachai says he'll give it up if the legal procedures are followed, but we'll need a Litigant. Marneus fails to push him around using ordinary verbal threats, so he turns to Lucius and says, "Do what you need to do."