GURPS Psi-Wars #6: “A Political Collision”

by mshrm

A visit to Great-Aunt Mothra and some unexpected advice. Heightening tensions on Sirocco. A pleasant interlude, with lessons. “‘Infamous’ is like ‘famous’, but better!” Playing the Baron. A trip to the deep desert, lessons on the ecology of the gheap, and a reunion. Surprise appearances. Fly by night.

Who’s Who

• Davin Phoenix, former Imperial Kill Squad Trooper, now seeker after truth
• David Harket, ultimate keytar player and master of disguise
• Helena Nerio Van Helsing Von Frankenstein, “Lenny”, Maradonian space knight and smuggler
• Ka Soh, “The Hangman”, Scirocco-native bounty hunter
• Keif Lakota, Scirocco star marshal and rubber-forehead alien
• Noin Dal, alien space pirate turned freedom fighter
• Suzal, unique alien and weird Shinjurai ninja

What Happened

When we left our heroes last time, they were fleeing Balor IV. But, first, what about Lenny and Ka Soh?

Rewinding nearly a week, we find Lenny returning from a mission to help out some friends in another star system. She received a subspace message indicating that her Great-Aunt Mothra had heard about the proposal from House Harrow and was eager to discuss the details. Dutifully, Lenny turned her starship towards the planet of her House, where Mothra lived in semi-retirement in a personal space station. Great-Aunt Mothra had once run the House, after a youthful stint as a space pirate. She had lived an active life, and out-lived an uncounted number of husbands. Rumor claimed she would do away with them once she got bored with them. She had lived for an unnaturally long time, through means unknown.

Lenny outlined the offer of matrimony from House Harrow. When she heard the name of the other House, Mothra made a face, but when Lenny mentioned the extra offer of some mysterious thing left in the care of House Harrow by Great-Aunt Dixie, Mothra perked up. She surprisingly encouraged Lenny to take the offer, even hinting that she would assist with getting rid of any unwanted husbands after the match was made. She pointed towards the obvious advantage of House Harrow wealth, and also expressed curiosity towards the mysterious package. “It just goes to show that some arguments are never over,” she cryptically observed.

Ka Soh had been taking it easy, drifting from bar to saloon to drinking establishment, while everybody had been gone. He wasn’t a follower of the news, but he did pick up gossip about a series of daring terrorist attacks by the extremist Westerly tribes. One day, he heard his own name on the holo-news and forced himself to listen. The story was garbled, but the long and the short of it was that the Empire had announced the capture of the infamous Alliance bounty hunter, Ka Soh, and the notorious deserter, Davin Phoenix, before being forced to admit their near-immediate escape in a daring manner. Ka Soh pondered for a moment, shrugged, and said, “Sounds like the kind of thing I would do.” And he thought no more of it, aside from accepting drinks from new fans.

Meanwhile, back at Captain Dal’s ship, First Mate Revalis’ rushed jump into hyperspace had put them in orbit around a lush deserted planet. They landed to stretch their legs and to check the outside of the ship for tampering or sabotage. Revalis checked on the crew and returned to say that some of them had had enough of daring adventure, having not planned on teasing the Empire itself, and hoped to leave the crew at the next port.

Taking advantage of the lull, Lakota sat outside in the sunlight and had his deputy-bot perform maintenance on his cybernetic parts. The Baroness, one of the rescued prisoners, a fellow cyborg who never spoke, came and watched. Realizing that she had probably not been able to get regular maintenance while in prison, Lakota offered the services of his robot, which she eagerly agreed to.

Led by Uncle Bob, Tora came out to enjoy the heat of the sun, even if he couldn’t see its light. Harket and Davin sat down to listen as Tora discussed the philosophy of Communion. Davin, in particular, seemed to find great meaning in his words. The message of community over self, especially, appealed to him as an alternative to the failed promise of the Valorian Empire.

After a lot of discussion of alternatives, it was established that the former prisoners really had no place to go, and would be just as happy to go start a new life on Sirocco. Once Revalis and the crew declared the ship clear of any tampering, everyone got back onboard, and they calculated a jump out of Empire space, back to the Rogue Stars. Once again, Captain Dal’s phenomenal navigation skills were up to the challenge, and after another ten days or so in hyperspace, they returned to Sirocco.

Meanwhile, Lenny also returned to Sirocco, and went to tell Baron Harrow of her decision to go forward with the engagement. To her surprise, the Baron expressed his regrets that the marriage could not currently proceed, as the prospective groom was unavailable. When questioned, he refused to provide further details, saying only that he hoped for a diplomatic resolution in the near future. Lenny pointed out that this was just a delay, and while House Harrow worked out its troubles, it would be best to give Lenny her mysterious dowery as a sign of good faith. She gently pointed out the potential for embarrassment if word got around about the Baron’s back-room deal with House Tai-Shan, and how it would be best for all concerned if they continued on a course of mutual cooperation. Seeing the sense of her words, Baron Harrow handed over a data chip bearing the location of the treasure: a safety deposit box on Bellatrix.

Upon the former pirate ship’s return to normal space, everyone’s email updated. The others were surprised by Suzal having a loud panic attack, having finally received the results of their latest organization-required physical. “My organs are gone?!?” they shouted. Apparently, during their last checkup, scans had indicated that their internal organs were just… gone. Not there. The physician in charge of their checkup had been forced to undergo psychiatric treatment after seeing the scans. Suzal would be required to undergo another physical, later on, provided by a different team.

Suzal (after taking some time to recover) and Harket logged in to the Stratagem massively-multiplayer game to check on their holdings. Suzal’s armies had weathered the weeks of neglect without damage. Being more of a casual player, Harket’s meager resources had not done so well.

While in the game, Suzal noticed a message from Etienne that was several days old. The message said that Etienne couldn’t wait any longer to be smuggled off-world. Thanks, he said, but he would find an alternative plan. Saddened that they hadn’t been able to help their friend, they continued reviewing their messages, eventually coming to a much newer message from Etienne. The newer message said that Etienne had been successful with his backup plan, and while he couldn’t say much, he would break opsec enough to say this: if Suzal wanted to come join him, they could go to thus-and-so coordinates and mention that they were Etienne’s friend.

Suzal brought this information to the group. They decided that Suzal should go to check on their friend, and the rest of the group should go along for safety’s sake. The coordinates were on the very edge of the deep desert, hundreds of miles away, so Captain Dal flew the ship most of the way. In the face of high winds and blown sand, she landed safely, some distance away from their destination. They left the ship behind and finished their approach on hoverbikes and horseback.

At the appointed place, they found a huge herd of grazing short-haired gheap, the kind that are particularly adapted to high heat and low moisture. A lone cloaked shepherd was sitting on a rock, watching over the gheap, playing a flute, with his back turned towards them.

Suzal went to approach the man, but before they could speak, Harket unslung his keytar and began playing along with the man’s tune. He turned to look, raising an eyebrow, but didn’t stop his playing. The two played together for several minutes, tossing the song back and forth between them, before it came to a natural end.

With a smile and a nod for Harket, the man stood, introduced himself as “Hull”, and asked them their business. He was wearing a worn environmental suit under his cloak. Clearly, Hull was one of the deep desert Westerly. Suzal stepped forward to explain that they were friends of Etienne.

“Friends of Etienne?” Hull said. “A true friend of Etienne must be a fighter. Are you a fighter?”

Suzal agreed, they were. Hull asked for a demonstration. Dragging his foot in the dust, he marked out a rough circle on the ground. He invited Suzal to join him in the ring, and took up a wrestling stance.

Suzal entered the ring, while the others spread themselves out around the ring to watch. Suzal and Hull approached each other and engaged in a mutual grapple. Davin called out advice to Suzal while Harket, perversely, did the same for Hull.

To begin with, despite the big alien’s advantages of size and strength, Hull seemed to have the advantage. Clearly an experience grappler, he wrapped his arms around Suzal’s waist and refused to be dislodged. The two struggled for some time, until finally Suzal’s greater strength proved decisive. They threw Hull back, breaking his grip. Hull came at them again, aiming to grab their leg in a ploy to bring them to the ground. However, Suzal was too quick – they reached down and grabbed Hull around the waist, picking him up in an inverted position. Rather than take the threatened piledriver, Hull tapped out. “You truly are a friend of Etienne,” he panted, after Suzal gently righted him.

With Hull’s endorsement, several other Westerly came out from their hiding places among the gheap, and started to set out a meal. “First we eat, then we drink, then we ride,” Hull explained. As they ate a lunch of roasted gheap meat and hard-boiled gheap eggs (and Lakota had a small glass of semi-spoiled gheap milk, just to loosen up), Hull told them that the trip they had to make, into the desert, could only be undertaken with the hardiest of mounts, the semi-wild gheap. A domesticated gheap, he insisted, couldn’t survive for long in the deep desert, but the semi-wild gheap was a hardy survivor. (Of course, no gheap is entirely wild, as the species was engineered to be a useful domesticated beast.)

In due course, Hull and our heroes selected gheap mounts. Lenny, having an aura that unsettles animals, had a hard time finding one that would accept her. She eventually found one that seemed to like her: a runt with derpy eyes, floppy ears, and a scar across its furry forehead. Hull leaned over to Suzal, pointed, and whispered, “That one was dropped on its head when it was a foal.”

Our heroes and the Westerly set out into the desert, riding single file to hide their numbers. Sirocco’s geography is such that the only place habitable for humans, generally speaking, is the high chapparal. At lower elevations, temperatures rise. The deep desert is almost too hot and dry for humans to survive without environmental suits. The few oceans of Sirocco lie in the center of the deep deserts: hot and thick with dissolved minerals, more like hot springs than true oceans. As they travelled, Hull kept up a constant stream of information about the environment and, especially, the gheaps: “The gheap is very strong, and can carry hundreds of pounds up to 25 miles in a day. Its dung in an excellent fuel source. Its wool can be felted and treated to be used as a substitute for plastic sheeting,” and so forth.

By the time the sun was going down, our heroes came to a low place between four dunes, where the Westerly had pitched sand-tents and released glow-globes. Handing off the gheap to Westerly attendants, Hull led our heroes inside the biggest tent. They found the inside much larger than the outside implied, as it extended under one of the dunes. The first chamber was crowded with Westerly fighters, all in environmental suits. They gave our heroes a sharp look, especially Lenny, in her clearly-Maradonian fashions, until Hull gestured at them to stand down.

“I must warn you,” Hull said, “technically, Etienne is our prisoner.”

Hull led them towards a rear chamber which was much less crowded. There, they saw a group of perhaps a dozen Westerly surrounding a desk with a holo-map displayed on it. And behind the desk: Etienne! He came around to hug Suzal, who was making the best of things, duck-walking with their knees around where their ears would be, if they had ears, trying to keep under human-scale ceilings.

“Behold!” Etienne said, stepping back from Suzal and holding his arms out, as if on display. “I stand before you, in defiance of my uncle’s will!”

“Oh, no,” Lakota said, putting two and two together. “You’re Etienne Harrow. You’re the guy Baron Harrow has been trying to marry off to Lenny.”

“The same!” Etienne agreed. He explained that he had been opposed to his uncle, the Baron’s, proposal to wed him to Lenny, chiefly because he was in love with another. Also due to “other ancient outrages, of which we will not speak further.” The proposed wedding being the last straw, he had decided to surrender himself to the Westerly “terrorists”… or, “freedom fighters”, depending on one’s point of view.

Hull added commentary from the Westerly fighters’ point of view: First, Etienne had been trained by the finest Maradonian instructors in the art of strategy; while the Westerly mastery of tactics was legendary, strategy was not their strong point, and his input had provided them several successful raids recently. Second, he understood everything about their House Harrow enemies, from the specifications of their equipment to their names of their officers; the Westerly men had nicknamed him “Hafez, the Memorizer”, for his extensive knowledge of the Harrow war machine. Third, his beloved was a warrior woman in her own right.

“And her name,” Lakota said, suddenly seeing the pattern snap into focus, “is Lady Palia Wudang.”

“That’s exactly right,” a voice purred, as the barrel of a blaster nestled itself in his right ear. The woman wielding the blaster came into focus, having been invisible until that point.

“Beg pardon,” Ka Soh muttered, putting the edge of his vibro-knife to her throat, having foreseen the possibility of an ambush by an invisible foe. (Yes, he’s that good.) “Looks like we have ourselves a Space Mexican standoff.”

Harket stepped in to calm everyone down, quickly convincing Lady Palia to lower her weapon, causing Ka Soh to stand down.

With everyone’s tensions eased, our heroes, Etienne, Palia, and Hull discussed their mutual next moves. Etienne wanted to offer Suzal a place in the rebellion against House Harrow. His plan was to rebel against Baron Harrow, take the planet from him, marry Lady Palia, and present Count Harrow with a fait accompli. Our heroes presented many other options. Simply marrying Lady Palia was not enough, as Baron Harrow would, no doubt, have her assassinated in short order. The long-standing feud between House Wudang and House Harrow was an impediment for any sort of peaceful solution. To ensure peace and safety, Etienne argued, he had to wrestle control of Sirocco from his uncle and become the new Baron Harrow.

Finally, Lenny outlined a plan. What if she arranged for a veiled wedding ceremony, where Baron Harrow thought Etienne was marrying Lenny, but he was really marrying Lady Palia? And then, while the Baron was lulled into a false sense of security, what if… they killed him?

While Keif Lakota had objections to this plan, it did sound interesting to Etienne and his advisors. They agreed to consider the option in private. While they did so, our heroes could relax in another chamber.

In the other chamber, our heroes discussed their situation. Ka Soh declared himself 100% okay with assassinating the Baron to usher in a new era of “fully automated gay space communism” – his people have been colonized and it’s time to strike back, damn House Harrow! Lakota was uncomfortable with cold-blooded, pre-planned murder, being a follower of The Law. Suzal, Shinjurai space ninja and experience assassin, pointed out that they were entirely comfortable with murder, if it came to it: “These hands have been dirty before. They can be dirty again.”

The moral debate was interrupted by a Westerly man passing through their chamber in a rush, turning off glow-globes as he went. He shushed them, then vanished into the next chamber before anyone could ask any questions. All around them, across the sand tent, lights turned off and people whispered to one another.

In the darkness, Suzal vanished, ninja-style, appearing outside the tent. They saw sentries digging themselves into the sand. “Air surveillance!” the Westerly hissed, “Get down!” Suzal quickly took cover, following the Westerly example and throwing sand over themself to break up their outline. They could see the lights of an approaching aircraft, presumably a House Harrow search plane. They quickly keyed their wrist comm and let the others know.

Inside the sand tent, our heroes realized their peril: a single bomb could wipe out everyone in the sand test, and even if the tent itself went unnoticed, Captain Dal’s starship was parked only a few miles away. Dal activated her wrist comm, calling Revalis. She instructed him to launch the ship and flee the scene. Outside, Suzal saw the ship launch in the distance, rapidly followed by the House Harrow search craft.

Without Captain Dal’s ship, our heroes were forced to join the Westerly freedom fighters as they broke camp and mounted their gheaps to relocate to another site.

To be continued…

GM Notes

Those of our heroes who were involved with the prison break were given the option of picking up a good Reputation in the Alliance plus a bad Reputation in the Empire, after their exploits were widely broadcast. Harket was the exception, since he appeared only in the guise of Ka Soh and two random guards during the entire exploit.

Lenny is nobody’s negotiator. She was able to deftly handle Baron Harrow through a combination of good roleplay and Impulse Buy points.

Davin is starting to come to the realization that other Imperial troopers tend to have specialties, while Davin himself is more of an all-around generalist, making him wonder: Could it be that he was on track for command, which is why Captain Dene, his former CO, is so bitterly angry with him? Perhaps Davin had been Dene’s “golden boy” all along, until his desertion threw his inheritance back in his mentor’s face?

House Wudang’s psionic power is Photokinesis. Lady Palia can wrap light around herself to make herself invisible.

Keif Lakota has started to become something of a conspiracy expert.

Suzal has begun to form the belief that they are not in the universe they should be in.

Experience

Standard award was 3 points. Cool Point went to Suzal, for the professional wrestling style comeback during their content with Hull.