M3.231.640

At a Glance

Narrative

I. The Pub

Orin got there first, which was deliberate. He had worked with both of them and they had never met each other, and there is an art to that introduction that he did not trust to chance.

He nodded across the room, crossed it without hurrying, and put a hand on Kadiri's shoulder on the way past — not the theatrical backhand of a man making a point, just contact, and then he kept walking to the booth so the other two had to follow.

"Kadiri, Bek. Bek, Kadiri." He dropped into the seat with a thud. "Bek and I have worked several jobs together."

Bek looked at Kadiri for slightly too long. "So how do you two know each other?"

There was a pause, and in the pause Kadiri decided how much of it to tell. "We met on a job," he said. "It got hairy. We got through it." He could have stopped there. He almost did. "We were stealing a loader. Turned out to be dangerous, because the ship carrying it had already come down."

That is the whole of session one, compressed to fit across a table, and it is more or less what happened.

II. The Work

TerraMech, on Mars — the same people who paid them to pull a loader mech out of a ravine one job ago, and who still owe them a favour for it. A data theft — not cargo, not a body, just the contents of a hard drive, taken by a device the fixer supplied that ran its own small mind and knew what it was looking for. Plug it in, walk away, and it does the rest.

The way in was a maintenance shuttle whose actual crew had been persuaded to be elsewhere, and badges good enough to survive a bored guard's glance. Kadiri had used this contact before and said so. Bek asked whether the badges had been tested, which is the kind of question a man asks once and then never has to explain.

The pay was worth three ordinary jobs. Silence was worth another fifty percent on top, and that number did more to shape the plan than anything the fixer said.

So they shopped for quiet. Bek came back with light armour and a bolt gun, chosen because it makes no noise. Kadiri asked whether the vacuum rifle could be brought down to something that did not announce itself, and settled for a submachine gun that would fit under a coverall. Orin, who had taken a concussion grenade launcher off the Obsidian Shield contractor who tried to kill him a job ago, brought that.

Then a month of nothing. That is how the Sphere works. You buy the ticket and you wait.

III. The Pilot

The shuttle came brokered, and so did the man flying it, in the sense that the law does not think he is a man.

He is Instanced. He looks like anyone, talks like anyone, is by every measure a person, and is legally something closer to the ship than to the crew. Nobody aboard treated him that way, which is worth recording, because when the shooting started somebody suggested putting him in front of it and Orin said the obvious thing out loud: he is a sentient being. You would have to convince him. He might say no.

IV. Two Letters

A day out from Mars, the mail caught up with them — the way mail does out here, in a burst, on a schedule somebody else set.

Orin's had no sender and one word. Sorry.

Kadiri's had no words at all. A music clef. A chord, inverted, which is a thing that means something specific to people who read music and something else entirely to him. Four notes.

D. E. A. D.

It was not from Obsidian Shield. Obsidian Shield is where he went. This was from where he came from, and he did not explain that to anybody, and nobody had time to make him.

V. The Song

Navigation went first. Then half the external cameras, which is not a failure any system has a reason to produce on its own.

Then four impacts along the hull, spaced like punctuation.

The pilot flipped through settings with the particular calm of someone who already knows none of them will help. Mars sat in the window, enormous and red and completely useless without guidance. Something was blinking on the comms board.

Kadiri pressed it.

A chorus came through every speaker on the ship at once — full-throated, joyful, in harmony, the sound of men who are enjoying their afternoon. It did not stop. It did not resolve into a demand. It simply continued, everywhere, in every compartment, while the crew looked at each other and understood that this was not a distress call and not a hail. It was an announcement.

Bek ripped a speaker out of the wall by hand. The pilot watched him do it, horrified. The singing continued from the other twenty-four.

VI. What Was Outside

The explosion took the cargo bay door and did not vent the ship, which told Orin everything he needed: whatever was out there had sealed itself to the hull before it cut.

Bek suited up, tethered off, and put his head out of the forward airlock to look.

It was beautiful. Larger than theirs, finer than theirs, and certainly faster — and every surface of it worked in an intricate knotted pattern that ran the length of the hull. No registry. No corporate mark. Nothing that told you who owned it, because the point of the decoration was that everyone already knew.

He was still looking at it when a gun swung out of the dark and found him. He got a hand on the airlock frame as the cannon opened his suit and most of the way through him, and dragged himself inside bleeding. He would say afterwards that he should have used his escape training and did not think of it in time.

Then a voice came over the comms, and the chorus fell away behind it.

"Where are you, my friend? We haven't heard your song in quite some time."

VII. The Corridor

They did not fight in the cargo bay. Orin said a wide-open bay was indefensible, which was true, and Bek welded the main door shut, which took a length of quick-weld he had not thought to write down and a moment of arguing about whether he had it.

They killed the lights. They put on goggles. Bek, in the dark, watching his own drone crawl the corridor: any advantage we can get.

And when the boarders came around the corner, they came into a passageway held by three people who could see and could not be flanked, and it went about as well as that ever goes. Bek blew his own drone up behind them as a distraction and put a knife into a man's back while he was turning towards the noise. Orin, out of ideas and full of spite, shot a wastewater pipe running above their heads, and the entire boarding party's aim went to pieces for the duration.

Two of them went down.

There were five.

VIII. Out of Tune

The comms opened again, and the singing had stopped, and the voice sounded genuinely disappointed.

"My boyo. Aren't you causing us to be out of tune today?"

Three of them are still aboard. The pilot has not answered in some time, and will not — he went out through the breach behind them while they were sealing doors, and nobody has been forward to find him. He was the only other person on the ship. Nobody ever asked his name. The cockpit door is sealed with a breach behind it, and the plan on the table — Orin's plan, agreed and not yet attempted — is to stop defending a rented shuttle and go take the beautiful ship instead.

Mars is still out the window. Nobody has looked at it in an hour.

Summary

• The three met and took the job. Orin introduced Bek and Kadiri to each other in a pub — he has worked with both, and they had never met. The work: get into TerraMech's hard drives on Mars using a maintenance-shuttle cover, forged badges, and a fire-and-forget device that runs its own AI and takes what it needs. Pay is worth three ordinary jobs, plus fifty percent if nobody notices they were there.
• They are robbing their last client. TerraMech is the corporation that hired this crew to recover the X-43 at M3.231.445, and that still owes them a favour for it. Nobody at the table remarked on it.
• They kitted for silence. Bek bought light armour and a bolt gun because it is soundless, and kept a small drone. Kadiri asked to have the vacuum rifle quieted and settled for a submachine gun that could be hidden. Orin brought the concussion grenade launcher he took off Obsidian Shield on the last job.
• A month of transit, on a shuttle flown by an Instanced. The pilot is a person the law calls property. Nobody at the table treated him as furniture, which turned out to matter later when the crew discussed putting him in the line of fire and Orin objected that he is a sentient being who would have to be asked.
• Two emails arrived a day out from Mars. Orin's was from an unknown sender and said only sorry. Kadiri's had no words at all — a music clef, an inverted chord, the notes D, E, A, D — and it came from the outfit he belonged to before Obsidian Shield.
• Then the ship went deaf and blind. Navigation dead, half the external cameras dead, and four heavy impacts along the hull. When the comms opened, the entire ship filled with a chorus singing. Bek tore a speaker out of the wall; there were twenty-four more.
• Something cut its way in. An explosion took the cargo bay door without venting the atmosphere — whatever was out there had already sealed itself to the hull. Through the airlock Kadiri saw it: far larger, far finer, ornately decorated in a Celtic pattern, and carrying no corporate marking of any kind.
• A man called for him by name. "Where are you, my friend? We haven't heard your song in quite some time."
• They fought in the corridor rather than the bay. Bek quick-welded the main cargo door shut, they killed the lights and went to night vision. Bek had already taken a cannon round through his suit on the way back inside — a major wound, untreatable without hours they do not have.
• Kadiri paid for his own damage. His push implant buys an extra attack and costs him a moderate wound each time; by the end he was carrying four, on top of what the boarders put into him.
• Three rounds, two boarders down, and the singing did not stop. The session ended on the comms: "My boyo, aren't you causing us to be out of tune today?"

Decisions Made

• They sealed the cargo bay and fought the corridor. Orin argued a wide bay was indefensible; Bek welded the main door. It bought them the fight they wanted and cost them the cargo bay entirely.
• They killed the lights and went to night vision. Bought with experience, spent for a real advantage, and it shaped every exchange after.
• Orin proposed counter-boarding. "Right now we're behaving like prey." Rather than defend a rented shuttle, take the enemy ship. The crew agreed and never got to try it — the boarders reached them first. It is still the plan.
• Bek blew up his own drone as a distraction rather than keep it. It worked.
• Kadiri did not explain himself. Asked directly who his previous employer was, he answered "we're about to meet him" and left it there. Orin knows how Kadiri was recruited and now knows there was something before that.

NPCs Encountered

• The Instanced pilot — a synthetic person flying the crew's brokered shuttle. Stopped answering partway through the boarding. He is dead — vented with the atmosphere when the cockpit breached.
• The singer — the voice on the comms. Calls Kadiri friend and boyo, sings continuously, and speaks as though Kadiri is the one who has done something rude. Has not been seen.
• The Apothecary — the fixer who routed this job, supplied the badges, glasses and siphon device, and set the fifty-percent bonus for silence.
• A chrome shop contact who handled the physical handover. Unnamed.

Factions Encountered

• TerraMech Industries — the mark. An industrial facility on Mars, rotating newer staff through it because nobody expects a break-in. The same corporation the crew worked for one job ago, and which still owes them a favour. Standing: about to be stolen from, and does not know it.

• Obsidian Shield — named as what Kadiri left most recently, explicitly not the outfit that came for him.

• Grimshaw Risk Partners — the crew's own employer.

New Worldbuilding

• Comms are broadcast and the delay is real. Radio is public unless encrypted; directed laser is private but needs line of sight. Seven minutes for light from the sun. Established at the table, consistent with Communications.
• Kadiri's defensive cybernetic is a heart pump — the GM ruled it canon on the spot when the player proposed it. It pairs with his push implant, which buys an extra attack at the cost of a moderate wound.
• Transit to Mars from the Inner Sphere is about a month, stated twice. This is now the anchor the whole travel table is calibrated from.
• The Instanced entered the story properly — second-class persons, not machines, varying as much as humans do. The crew met one as a colleague before they met the legal category.

Continuity State

Characters

Transcribed from the GM tracking sheet — gm-tracking-M3.231.640.pdf. The paper is the record.

                 MIGHT    SPEED    INTELLECT   WOUNDS         XP HELD
Orin Solren      14/14    12/12    10/10       none           3
Bekele "Bek"     14/14     8/10    11/12       1 MAJOR        3
Kadiri Vance     13/13     9/13     8/10       4 MODERATE     0

All three LOCKED to CTR-8EKN-Y2W2, aboard the shuttle, one month out from Mars.
Bek's major wound is untreated and needs hours and rest they do not have.
Bek's drone is expended. Orin carries an Obsidian Shield concussion grenade launcher.

Orin came through untouched — full pools, no wounds, and he spent one XP all session. Bek and Kadiri absorbed the entire boarding between them.

The world's next move

• Three boarders are still aboard, and the singer is not among them — he has not left the other ship.
• The Instanced pilot is dead, vented when the cockpit breached. Nobody aboard knows yet.
• TerraMech does not know any of this happened. The job is not blown; it is not even late yet.
• The fifty percent silence bonus is intact, which Kadiri pointed out and which is either funny or the most mercenary thing in the session.

Open threads

• Who is the singer, and what does he think Kadiri owes him? He speaks like a friend and arrived with a cannon.
• What was Orin's sorry email? Unknown sender, one word, arrived the same hour as Kadiri's death notice. Nobody has connected them out loud.
• Does the crew take the enemy ship? The plan exists and the session ended before it could be tried.
• What does Bek do with what he now knows? He watched a stranger call his new colleague by name and ask why he had stopped singing.
• Nobody knows the pilot is dead. When they find out, does a crew that discussed putting him in the line of fire feel anything about it — and does the broker who rented them a person want compensating?

Related

• M3.231.445 — the previous session
• The Board — contracts and projects
• Characters — the pool