Introduction

If you wondered at all as to whether the scenario went the way I  intended, which is as per the story line, then yes it did. Whilst it may have been a combat encounter, it was designed primarily as a negotiate, then intimidate the hell out of the GA scenario. In a lot of ways Kieken is a bit like Six, he believes in doing the right thing, except he's not been screwed over by the GA, and thus doesn't believe they're as corrupt as hell.. He's also really, really smart.

To a degree parts of next weeks scenario rely on 'character knowledge' which you as players don't really have, such as how to engage a shielded vessel and stop it jumping to FTL, and the fact you can't board a vessel that has it's shields up. You'll just have to 'run' with that bit..

I was going to add something here in relation to the next but one scenaraio, we've just finished episode 5, and are about to embark on episode 6, so this relates to episode 7. I thought it relied on something from much earlier in the campaign sort of the bit between the log for session 3 and "the not a log" for session 5, but it doesn't. I also didn't get around to writing more than the introduction for session 4 which is why there is no log under that title, and there were several actual sessions between session 3 and the nominal session 5 including a whole chunk of secret squirrel stuff. So the only thing I will say about Episode 7 is that it's another "Five" episode,and you get to meet an old friend.

The MegaCorp Connection

After a short recap of where we were, as James wasn't here last week and didn't quite appreaciate he'd been left guarding Corso, with instructions to club him unconscious if he came to,  whilst the rest move to intercept the GA before they can return to their Transports and rescue Ryo. As I noted Varrik wouldn't actually do this, using a stunner is far more practical.

The landscape for the ambush isn't great, semi equivalent to regrown coppiced deciduous woodland in winter. The trees provide more and obstical to movement than they do decent cover. The ambush location has the party at the bottom of a slight incline with the GA forces coming down the slope. They align themselves in a tight group (despite the layout potentially giving them the option of  being able to fire from partial cover on 3 sides) at the edge of the lower tree line. The GA forces will have to cross the 200ft of 'open' terrain between the two groups of trees.

The party, Portia, Boone, Nyx, and Bradic, wait until the GA are about 60ft from them before Portia steps out of hiding and tells them "That's far enough, hand over our crewman".

Kierken, although he doesn't tell them his name, and the only person who knows that's his name at this point is Ryo, responds with "That's not going to happen.", followed by "I suggest you all lay down your weapons and surrender."
Portia (I think, might have been Boone) asks "Why do you think that's going to happen." to whic Kierken responds with "Because we have superior numbers and fire power" [GM Note: technically correct, 8 of them with Assault rifles + Kierken who only had a pistol vs 2 of you with Assualt rifles, 1 sniper, and Boone with a pair of pistols. They were also in Flak armour, whilst I'm not sure any of your were.. you didn't say so, and you've lost your Volkov-Russi armour as you had it in your rooms as opposed to the vault.]

A mexican standoff develops. Boone correctly assess that intimidation might work and calls Varrik to bring up the Marauder. After a GM prompt that actually this was the right call the make at this point, yes it potentially alerts the GA cruiser to the Marauder's position, but the fire power of the Marauder is more than enough to intimidate Kieken into releasing Ryo, given he seems reluctant to start a fire fight if he can avoid it. Varrik fires up the Marauder and makes an appearance with guns deployed in firing position. Kierken orders his men to lower their weapons and moves to uncuff Ryo.

After Ryo asks for his weapons back, there is a brief exchnage between Kieken and him out of ear shot to the others.

Kierken: "I wasn't taking you back to have you executed by a death squad. I had your extradition to Zairon quashed."
Ryo "I wouldn't have lasted a week in custody so your taking any of us back is completely pointless."
Kierken "But you would be under GA protection."
Ryo "The GA is worse than the Corporations. They want us dead. They've already tried once and failed whilst we were in prison"

The party baord the Marauder and head back to the Razza. Lisa is in the process of firing up the Razza as they dock. Two suggests "They get the hell out of there". Lisa obliges.

One the far side of the sun, masked by its EM radiation and magnetic fields, they consider what's next or more specifically what to do with Corso who they toss into an airlock whilst they wait for him to recover consciousness.

When he does so he is as beligerent as ever. He's not going to divulge who actually killed Moss's wife, because he knows that's the cast iron bargining chip he has for staying alive, and given that Portia has gone soft, something which he's going to inform everyone of once they release him, completely destroying their reputation as Mercenaries [GM Note: Remember Traufett made a similar comment before she gave them the Traugott Research Heist job so they could prove their worth].

Boone wants to apply a large blunt object to various parts of Corso's anatomy over three days to get him to talk. Portia doesn't think it would work, neither do several other people. As no cohesive solution appears to be forthcoming, tensions rise amongst the crew and arguments break out over how best to try and resolve the situation. Keeping Corso alive is at odds with the promise to Danny Bones, but peopel question whether they should keep their word to him at all, to a degree forgetting that without their word 'honour amongst theives' their reputation would take a massive nose dive and people would stop trusting them, in so far as they ever did or currently do, at all. As the impass continues, Lisa overrides the outer airlock security protocols and opens the outer airlock doors, ejecting Corso into space.  When asked why she simply says "He was a threat, and his continued presence was disrupting the cohesiveness and effectiness of the crew. He was bad for morale" [GM Note: Whilst Lisa may have her blackmarket software upgrade that allows her to pass as human, she still functions primarily on Logic, thus from a pure logic perspective her actions are completely correct.]

With the Corso problem effectively resolved attention returns to what next. Portia suggests that they need some sort of heist or job as they're running short of cash.

Nyx says she might have something. Before her arrest she scouted a frieghter in prep for a job. High value easily transported carge, and the freighter has a regular route.  When asked what the carge is she says "Protase-130" (nobody recognised it despite it being discussed a few weeks ago and is in the logs). Emily does recognise it, its street name is "Shadow".

Lisa interupts discussions at this point by asking Portia to come to the bridge.  She explains that after Arax made the attempt to steal the keycard from Emily, and before they left the space station, she took the liberty of acquiring the station's communications and security surveilance logs. Having had a chance to analyse the data it appears he had been talking to and met this woman...

Two asks who she is.
Lisa "Her name is Aliesha Reynard"[GM note: pronounced Renaux]"She is Corporate Elite, and is on the board of at least half a dozen MegaCorps, and has major share holdings in dozens more. By all accounts here headquarters is something of a fortress. It's also approximately 173Ly from out current location"

After some further discussion with Lisa, Portia decides to inform the rest of the crew. When she displays the picture, Emily recognises it immediately, its the same woman as it the last picture on her phone. The picture was taken 30 days before everyone awoke from stasis. It would be consistent with the events that caused her and her notional boyfriend to flee the space station where the picture was taken, after she stole the keycard, and as a result found all her friends/compatriots dead and her boyfriend injured, having been shot.

The logical conclusion is that if she is willing to kill to get the keycard back is that she knows exactly what it does.

The problem is that their lack of current funds means that for the time being getting to her is out of the question. Boone is of the opinion that they should go after Calcheck as payback for all the missions he set them up with that went wrong, forgetting that it was Calcheck who organised the Miners Extermination contact with Ferrous which they screwed up by not killing the Miners as Ferrous wanted but organised the deal with Mikei which screwed Ferrous over big time. He also suggested going after Aleysha Tanasygaran the fixer who arranged, as requested by the crew of the Razza at the time, the hiring of additional personel for the Miners Extermination Job, vis Jace Corso, Griffen Jones, and Mishlav Braddick. That hire would have been based purely on their reputations and suitability for the job. Corso was a cold blooded murderer who would assissinate his own mother if the price was right, Griffen Jones was wanted by the GA in connection with the destruction of Hyadum-12 and the murder of 15,000 people [GM note: Varrik also knows he was wanted at this time by the leadership of the Procyon Insurrection after he killed the whole team after the bombing, which means that Aleysha Tanasygaran would also have know this], and Mishlav Braddick was wanted by both the GA and Volkov-Russi in connection with the attempted assassination of one of their commanders, the destruction of one of their facilities, and the murder of approximately 200 people.

One thing that Matt has forgotten, which he won't find in the logs because it was secret squirrel, is that when Corso captured him, before he stole the crates, Corso told him that 20 hours before he was due to join the Razza, the GA raided his hideout forcing him to go to ground, and that he never did find out who tipped them off. Now you all know now that the person everyone thought was Corso was infact Derek Moss, and Moss's own files indicated that he boarded the Razza with the intent of killing Boone for killing his wife, something he worked out wasn't the case, and of course you all now know to be true.

Given that Reynard is currently out of reach attention returns to Nyx's freighter. The first order of the day is to verify if it's still around. They make the 37.3Ly jump to Zelechi-4 where they make enquiries to determine if the freighter is still making its routine stops and when it was last here. Having determined that it does indeed still appear to following the same route, they make the 12.2ly jump to Kougawa-7, where the freighter should have been 8 days ago if it was keeping to its schedule. Enquiries confirm it was here in the expected time frame. They then make the 7ly jump to Ullore-11 where it should be a few hours after they arrive in system.

House Keeping - Dates and Fuel

	Event	Date	FTL Jump Distance	Fuel	Fuel Remaining	Water Remaining
	Depart Kroinnoth-3	2672.312.13	Intra-System	3,000l	1,163,000	76,080(26,000)
	Depart Kroinnoth for Zelechi-4	2672.312.15	37.3ly	74,600l	1,163,000	76,080(26,000)
	Arrive Zelechi-4	2672.322.1.5	N/A	N/A	1,088,400	61,9810(26,000)
	Depart Zelechi-4 for Kougawa-7	2672.323.0	12.2ly	24,400l	1,088,400	61,9810(26,000)
	Arrive Kougawa-7	2672.326.2	N/A	N/A	1,054,000	55,818(26,000)
	Depart Kougawa-7 for Ullor-11	2672.327.0	6.25ly	12,500	1,054,000	55,818(26,000)
	Arrive Ullore-11	2672.328.15	N/A	N/A	1,041,500	51,734(26,000)
	Jump to Attack Freighter	2672.328.18	Intra-System	2000l	1,039,500

Incidental Expenses (Bribes/Inducements/Payoffs) : $17,300

Docking Fees: $19,220

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