Chapter Six

Campaign: Have Starship Will Travel

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(Into theme song: Purple Sun, Cannons)

The Shrimp Who Knew Too Much

Characters

Game Sessions

2024-02-26

The Radiant Black is contacted by Assistant Undersecretary Colleen Rydell (Kim Cattrall) of the New Commonwealth Diplomatic Services. She requests that the Radiant Black bring Dr. Went and a passenger from the Planetary Union to Asa Nebari as soon as possible. A secret treaty is being negotiated between the New Commonwealth, the Planetary Union, and the Infinite Dominion of His Divine Shadow. One of the Dominion representatives has been murdered.

The Radiant Black picks up the passenger at a Planetary Union star port. His name is V'sli Pl'tescu, and he's a recovery agent for the Ran (Recovery and Apprehension Network, an aggressively neutral organization of bounty hunters).

On arrival at Asa Nebari, they learn that the victim, Coadjudicator Dmitry Ivanovich, is a Malacostracan, a species superficially similar to a two-meter long mantis shrimp. He was also one of the advisors to His Divine Shadow, and one of the Dominion's representatives at the treaty negotiation. This despite the Dominion's well known prejudice against non-humanoid species.

As it happens, Dr. Went is one of the galaxy's preeminent non-Malacostracan experts in Malacostracan forensic medicine. The three parties to the negotiations agreed that he was an acceptable person to perform the autopsy.

They also agreed on a three-person team to perform the inquiry into the murder. Each investigator would represent their respective government, but was selected for their lack of significant political ties. Each investigator must be near Asa Nebari, as well.

  • Rikard Hightower (Guy Ritchie) is the Captain of a refurbished Old Commonwealth starship. However, for the past few years he has been working under the aegis of Propaedia, which is neutral. He is Human. All parties agreed he was acceptable.
  • V'sli Pl'tescu is an experienced recovery agent for the Recovery and Apprehension Network, a neutral organization. He has executed warrants in all three of the parties' territories, without significant incident. He is Siobhan. All parties agreed he was acceptable. He is assigned a warrant for "the apprehension or termination of the person responsible for the death of Coadjudicator Dmitry Ivanovich". The sponsor of the warrant is marked "Private": an expensive but not uncommon extra service.
  • Tatyana Tregulova is an Inspector from the Office Of Ecclesiastical Hygiene. She has a solid but unexceptional liturgical record. Like Hightower and Pl'tescu, she was within a few days' travel of the station. She is Human. All parties agreed she was acceptable.

The negotiations are being held in the recently refurbished Asa Nebari Station, a small orbital space station dating from the days of the Old Commonwealth. The station was uninhabited until recently, when it was gutted and refurbished as part of an unsuccessful attempt to make Asa Nebaria a corporate world.

The station is technologically up to date and structurally sound, with twelve habitable levels. The three "executive" levels are roomy and are tastefully decorated; the remaining levels make efficient and utilitarian use of space.

The Dominion, Commonwealth, and Planetary Union delegations each occupy an executive level, and the negotiations are held in the meeting rooms on each level in rotation.

The next level down is occupied by the delegation from Propaedia. Propaedia will not be a party to the treaty, but they facilitated the dialog between the regimes, and they have organized this summit.

The remaining levels are occupied by the station staff and any visitors, such as the crew of the Radiant Black (although your ship cabin is much larger and much nicer).

When the Radiant Black arrives, they are accosted by members of the various delegations, and they eventually learn the basics of the situation and their role in it.

When Inspector Tregulova (Elizabeth Olsen) appears, she is a severe-looking Human woman with the unhealthy pallor of someone who spends too much time in substandard starship lighting. Her dark grey uniform is crisp and her hat is impressive.

However, when she is alone with the crew, she reveals that she is actually Razaphine Nyx. She claims to know no more than they do about the current situation, and she expresses a fervent desire to wrap up the investigation as expediently as possible and leave.

No one believes her.

Other persons of note:

  • Demimandrite Ivan Krylov (Jon Favreau), Human, Dominion delegation
  • Archcardinal Kasimir Malkevich (Oliver Platt), Human, Dominion delegation
  • Assistant Director Kramer (Judy Dench), Human, New Commonwealth delegation

Shortly after arrival, Hightower is summoned to the office of Assistant Director Kramer of the New Commonwealth Diplomatic Services. She informs Hightower that her top priority, and therefore his top priority, is to get this treaty signed. Therefore, he will find the person who is guilty of this crime, and that person will have no connection to any of the delegates or their regimes, and they will in no way sabotage these talks.

She made it clear that it wasn't a request.

Meanwhile, V'sli Pl'tescu is escorted to the office of Archcardinal Kasimir Malkevich by Demimandrite Ivan Krylov. The Archcardinal attempts to intimidate Pl'tescu, demanding that Pl'tescu inform the Archcardinal of everything that the investigator finds. It is, after all, a Dominion representative who has been killed.

It isn't anything that V'sli hasn't heard before.

Back in the ad-hoc morgue (the Dominion and Planetary Union delegations object to the body being taken to the Radiant Black), Dr. Went declares that the Coadjudicator was a Malacostracan in fine health, up until he was stabbed in the heart from behind.

Some highlights from Dr. Went's report:

  • The weapon had the distinctive shape of a Siobhan ceremonial knife.
  • The attacker was familiar enough with Malacostracan anatomy to strike at the heart through the flexible chitin of the Coadjudicator's exoskeleton.
  • Malacostracans have an open circulatory system, so for him the experience more like being painfully suffocated. It took him four or five minutes to die.
  • The Coadjudicator received a secondary injury, probably with the same weapon, after the initial wound but while the Coadjudicator was experiencing his last few excruciating minutes. His spinal cord was cut, rendering him immobile.
  • The angle of the second wound and the subcutaneous bruising of the thorax are consistent with a humanoid assailant between 60 and 120 kilograms kneeling on the Coadjudicator's left side with their left knee, while cutting in, then cutting down, using a weapon in the assailant's right hand.
  • Approximately eleven and one-half hours passed between the time the Coadjudicator was first stabbed and the time his body was found by a cleaning crew.
  • The Coadjudicator's ganglia show the distinctive indications of possible telepathic ability. The correlation is approximately 78%.
  • Approximately 1 in 17,000 Malacostracans have some level of telepathic ability.

Other noteworthy details:

  • The last time the Coadjudicator's assistants or anyone else in the Dominion delegation saw him was less than an hour before he was stabbed.
  • He was found in the main conference room on the Planetary Union delegation's level. He was not killed there.
  • Prior the arrival of the delegates, the video surveillance on the executive levels was disabled, and the station security system was set to not track the movement of individuals: only the operation of station systems (doors, lifts, lights, etc.) is logged. All parties agreed this was essential.
  • It is a commonly repeated rumor on the hypernet that the Coadjudicator was telepathic.

2024-03-04

Late afternoon is becoming early evening aboard Asa Nebari Station. The crew of the Radiant Black has been on the station for around ten hours.

Each delegation was limited to 30 people, including all staff and support positions. Each executive level could comfortably fit 90, but none of the parties was willing to allow the other two parties to bring that many people. Each delegation is limited to three representatives who participate in the negotiations, while everyone else observes.

Councilor Besch (Giancarlo Esposito) is an aide to the Siobhan Minister of Arts and Culture, and is part of the Planetary Union delegation. Besch summons V'sli Pl'tescu to convey two items of interest.

First, Besch wants facts and proof. He has no particular interest in the treaty. What concerns him is the murder. Whatever conclusion the investigation team arrives at must be unassailable.

Second, Besch informs V'sli that he has been activated as an informant for Siobhan Imperial Intelligence for the duration of the investigation. He is to place a data card (provided by Besch) in a command console somewhere on the ship. He will be contacted afterward for further instructions.

The New Commonwealth Deputy Minister of Cetacean Affairs, Dr. Dorothea Park (Michell Yeoh) invites Professor "Rosie" Linnaeus and up to eight guests to dinner on one of the New Commonwealth's diplomatic ships. Dress is formal: Deputy Minister Parker offers Rosie and her guests the use of the wardrobe replicators on the Minister's ship. Rosie suggests that Dr. Park send over updated formal wear patterns, since the Radiant Black has excellent wardrobe fabricators, and Dr. Park does so.

Meanwhile, Rikard Hightower is privately given an invitation to an audience with His Divine Shadow, who is secretly on the Dominion ship. Rikard is asked, not told, to keep the invitation and the meeting confidential. The invitation is delivered by the highest ranking member of the Dominion delegation, the Archcardinal. The Archcardinal is angry, confused, and envious. But mostly envious.

There is a feeling that one gets when standing next to the ocean. The awareness that you are not merely insignificant: you are nothing next to it: no more than a grain of sand.

Being in the presence of His Divine Shadow is like that. The effect is almost overwhelming for Rikard. Almost.

His Divine Shadow reveals to Rikard that the treaty is essential to His Divine Shadow's plan to spread His Infinite Dominion to thousands of habitable worlds through an aggressive multigenerational colonization program. The treaty will ensure that His worlds will not be contested. Rikard is convinced that His Divine Shadow is sincere in His support for the treaty.

His Divine Shadow does not dare interfere personally, or even make it known that He is nearby, and risk scaring off the other representatives. Also, He is not sure He can trust everyone in His delegation. The Coadjudicator had warned Him of a heretic, in his final report. He does not reveal these facts to Rikard.

By this time, Sherwood has used drones to search the public areas of Asa Nabari Station, as well as a number of private areas. There is no sign of the murder weapon, and the site of the murder has yet to be found.

Meanwhile, the Radiant Black has been the target of four hacking attempts: three from the Planetary Union delegation's ships and one from a ship in the New Commonwealth delegation. No systems were breached.

V'sli reveals the data card he was given by Councilor Besch. Shay Cho examines it and finds that it is a pretty potent malware package. If successful, it would shut down ship's power and lock the command functions. She is able to quarantine it and reverse engineer it to harden the ship's systems against it if Siobhan Imperial Intelligence should try that again.

To help mislead the Siobhans and keep V'sli out of trouble, Shay simulates a partial system failure, as if the ship was affected briefly by the attack before countering it.

Meanwhile, V'sili forwards his recording of that Siobhan document to the Ran's Jurisdiction Negotiation department. V'sli believes that the Imperial edict compromises his ability to complete the directive of the warrant in an impartial manner. He receives an automated response that he should expect a response in 48 hours.

At dinner that evening, Inspector Tregulova is polite, terse, and vaguely unpleasant, but she doesn't offend anyone. This was a pleasant surprise to many of the guests.

Later, back on the station, Nyx aka Inspector Tregulova finds an unexpected piece of evidence in her temporary office on the Propaedia level: a bloody Siobhan ceremonial knife and a note printed on a filmy. The note reads, "A Siobhan killed the Coadjudicator".

A conversation ensues. They have many theories, and little proof for any of them.

"It's all possible, as far as I'm concerned," was Visli's opinion at the end of it.

2024-03-11

The next morning, Rikard asks Sherwood to investigate the station's records of the Coadjudicator's communications. The Coadjudicator's encryption is the best the Dominion has, but Sherwood is better. They discover that the Coadjudicator is investigating the Archcardinal for financial misconduct.

Nyx aka Inspector Tregulova (Elizabeth Olsen) invites the other team members to one of the auxiliary meeting rooms on the Propaedia level. She had it converted overnight for the investigation team's use. She got the idea from the Archcardinal, who did the same thing on the Dominion level. Glum-looking workers from the Dominion ship are performing the installation.

Nyx aka Inspector Tregulova provides the "classified" personal histories of everyone in the Dominion delegation, along with their itineraries for the past twelve months. She also includes the complete file for Inspector Tregulova, because she thought they might find that useful to know, if she ever decides to use this identity again.

There are gaps in the information. She couldn't find out much more about the Coadjudicator's history than they already knew, for example. He was an advisor to His Divine Shadow, and so on. She is certain that there is more to be found in his calendar, correspondence, and files, which are on the Dominion ship, but she wasn't willing to risk getting caught prying into them.

She was cornered this morning by the Vice Chair of the Council on Defiler Relations (Kevin Spacey), who insists that a guilty party be found promptly so that the negotiations can proceed. He says that he will be taking the Coadjudicator's vacant seat at the negotiating table.

"'Defiler' -- that's people like you, darling."

Which is interesting, because when she met with the Archcardinal (in his original office) late last night, he also said that he intends to take the Coadjudicator's seat at the negotiating table.

The Archcardinal wanted to know every detail of the investigation so far. She got the distinct impression that if she needed to kill one or both of the other investigators in order to prove that someone in the other delegations was the guilty party, that would be just fine.

Rikard suggests that Nyx aka Inspector Tregulova go back to the Dominion ship and try to use her official powers to get access to what the Coadjudicator did while on the Dominion ship. "Legally?" That hadn't occurred to her. She leaves to do that.

Meanwhile, Sherwood had fabricated some remotes more suited to crime scene investigation during the night, and she spends the morning looking for the scene of the Coadjudicator's murder. She tracks it to a recently-remodeled auxiliary meeting room on the Dominion level. Any evidence that was here is gone.

However, it isn't far away. The Dominion installers and the station maintenance staff disagree on whose responsibility it is to dispose of the removed carpet and furnishings, all of which is now smashed and torn. For the moment, there is a large pile of debris heaped against one wall of the nearby elevator lobby.

Rikard, Rosie, Sherwood, V'sli, and Doctor Went sift through the pile. Everything that Sherwood's remotes identify as evidence is sealed and taken to Doctor Went's ad-hoc morgue for closer examination.

A crowd gathers in the passageway outside the morgue as word spreads though the station. The three station security officers somehow keep them from pushing their way in.

Two people are waved in by the investigators: Nyx aka Inspector Tregulova (gaunt Elizabeth Olsen), who has returned with information, and the Vice Chair of the Council on Defiler Relations (Kevin Spacey).

Between Nyx's new information and the forensic evidence, a timeline emerges.

  • Six months ago, the Coadjudicator begins investigating the Archcardinal.
  • At approximately 2335, the Coadjudicator was murdered in auxiliary meeting room 2 on the Dominion level.
  • At 2341, the Archcardinal issued an order to have auxiliary meeting room 2 on the Dominion level remodeled as his personal office.
  • At some time between approximately 2340 and 0100, the body of the Coadjudicator was wrapped in a plastic sheet and dragged to auxiliary meeting room 4 on the Planetary Union level.
  • At 1113, the Coadjudicator's body was found by the maintenance staff in auxiliary meeting room 4 on the Planetary Union level.

Everyone agrees that this is enough to arrest and question the Archcardinal, including the Vice Chair of the Council on Defiler Relations. Nyx aka Inspector Tregulova suggests that it would be prudent to obtain direct evidence of the Archcardinal's malfeasance, and she asks for the Vice Chair's permission to access the Archcardinal's personal financial data. The Vice Chair agrees, and grants the approval.

Nyx aka Inspector Tregulova heads back to the Dominion ship. Everyone else follows V'sli Pl'tescu to the Dominion level to confront the Archcardinal in his new office.

The confrontation ends with the Archcardinal being dragged away by large, eerily similar-looking Dominion "aides". V'sli escorts them to a secure room on the station, where the unrepentant Archcardinal is kept until V'sli hears back from the Ran.

Elsewhere, Doctor Went's equipment is returned to the ship in a surprisingly prompt fashion, with help from "aides" from the three delegations. The gear is deposited in the hold of the Radiant Black, under Rikard's close supervision, and kept there until it can be thoroughly scanned. Sherwood dedicates a few remotes to monitor the equipment until then.

V'sli Pl'tescu hears back from the Ran in a couple of hours. The sponsor of the warrant is Siobhan Imperial Intelligence. As if on que, Councilor Besch (Giancarlo Esposito) and his "aides" appear. The official transfer of possession is certified, and releases the Archcardinal into Besch's custody.

V'sli departs as the Vice Chair of the Council on Defiler Relations arrives to dispute the custody of the Archcardinal. V'sli joins the rest of the crew of the Radiant Black. After one last check to make sure that Razaphine Nyx hasn't somehow snuck aboard, the ship departs.

Numerous messages of thanks and commendation flood the message queues of everyone on the ship, but fortunately Sherwood helps them filter it into something manageable.

V'sli receives his final bounty payment (maybe), which adds a decimal place to his credit balance. He also receives his certification as a permanent Member Agent of the Ran, which has a couple of strings and a lot of well-earned benefits.

A few days later, Rikard receives a text-only message from "Nazaphrine Rixx".

The biography I gave you might not be useful, after all. I hear that she's wanted in the Dominion for embezzlement.

I look forward to seeing you again, darlings.

Rikard places this message with the file on Inspector Tregulova, and adds an indexed compilation of everything that the crew has learned about Razaphine Nyx. Video, audio, transcripts, information about relevant third parties, etc.

He intends to blackmail Razaphine Nyx with it.

Epilogue

After V'sli has settled in, Carl, the current Tactical Officer, offers to help him manage his investments. Carl has set up a number of funds that are indexed to various corporate markets. Carl isn't pushy: he just makes V'sli the offer, and provides a few prospectuses from the funds he's currently managing.

"But you know, it's just, like, an option, man."

The crew of the Radiant Black will return!

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