Ishak 4 Intermezzo
Author: Eric Swanson; 2022-2023Chapter 5 – Intermezzo
Start Frontiers; Ishak4 luxury home – top
Start Frontiers; Ishak4 luxury home – mid
Start Frontiers; Ishak4 luxury home – low
Ishak 4 Intermezzo after-action
So it breaks down like this:
– As mentioned in the virtual mini-pseudo-session Saturday night, you’ve received word from your handler ‘Harry’ (the Vrusk that you report to and have met a couple times) that your FIU-D9 team is being demobilized from Ishak 4 and taken off-planet by shuttle, for transfer to the UPF Malala and transport out of system. It seems a little strange given everything is going totally in the toilet planetside: riots and fires in the shanty towns, a nuclear detonation and escalating provocation by The Blessed Ones, the state police chief declaring himself head of planetary defenses, and the UPF bringing in the strong arm. You’d think it’d be all hands on deck but “I guess it’s bureaucracy”.
– This word comes down at about 0900, and your shuttle off planet leaves in 48 hours. You hatched a few plans around trying to make a big score (or series of scores) in the corrupt, corporate controlled, puppet government ruled, graft ridden, crime hideout that is Ishak 4. This included (in no order and probably not exhaustively): a high value smash and grab, smuggling ‘juicy colonist daughters’ off planet (I’m uncertain where profit comes from there), black market/prohibited software and AI’s, smuggling ‘marginally tested’ pharmaceuticals – specifically things like the ‘meta-psy’ mind expanding stuff Treebu came across.
– This is all going to start with Eliott exploring Ishak 4’s darknet, and with a planet like this one it’s a pretty dark darknet. Like, charcoal. The first skill checks will be around how much risk Eliott wants to take in hacking into the dark corners of the planetary net, then stepping up AIs from ‘just a little illegal, just a little horsepower’ to ‘more banned, more powerful’ to do his exploration and analysis for him. So start thinking about how risky you want to get and what skills you have to bring to bear. Taking risk will speed up the team’s timeline, but could land you in a very dark hole on this dusty rock, for quite a while.
– Eliott’s work will lead to the rest of the opportunities, ideally within a couple hours if things go well. Naturally team members will have ideas wrt accomplishing the further goals. Joonzey and Bleeg are pretty much in the ‘just go in and shoot all those fkkrz’ camp when it comes to procuring the goods; Treebu no doubt will have ideas about tinkering around inside people’s heads to ‘bring their thinking into line’, and Eliott thinks hacking all the robots to do your dirty work sounds great.
Dramatis Personae
Nephthys: Human ‘Lead’ FoV escort, she’s a kidnapped daughter of a wealthy Starplay industries family, forced into the human trafficking world and implanted with a CompCon chip. There is a significant reward for her return (500k – with strings of course).
Real name: A’Lilya Ferro-Nixelle; daughter of a Starplay corporate noble house she was kidnapped by a rival house. The rivalry is extremely bitter, so rather than the expected ransom demand – or possibly outright murder – she was sold to traffickers in sapients. She was implanted with a CompCon chip then body- and gene-modded before being traded to an organized crime group that runs the Flowers of Venus entertainment service on Ishak 4. She was made a lead escort due to education and intelligence. She’s extremely vengeful because of what she’s been put through. Reward for her return is 500,000C. Relevant skills: Vehicles: Cars, Atmo; Finance; Computers: A&O, Program Writing 4; Beam 2; PGS 2.
Peony: Human 2nd escort, with CompCon chip
Belladonna: Human escort, modded to look like an anime elf sort of female; CompCon chipped.
Circe: Human escort, CompCon chipped.
Sgel’dru: Valbergen Syndicate Ifshnit underboss
Paratwa Series 3 #1 Inside the house. Bodyguard and demonstration unit for Valbergens, ‘on sale’ to Wartech. The Valbergen syndicate acquired the tech and have been developing their own branch of Paratwa.
Paratwa Series 3 #2 as above.
‘Springer’ Ch’sool: Humma Wartech buyer. Tends toward the belligerent.
‘Big Dave’: Mercco enforcer, hired bodyguard for Wartech (big, scary, augmented) inside house
Wartech bodyguard #1 patrolling outside.
Wartech bodyguard #2 patrolling outside.
Wartech bodyguard #3 patrolling inside.
Wartech bodyguard #4, stealth/scout, staged inside ready to deploy.
Timeline
Day 0
0900: D9 receives word of demobilization and transit off planet
0930: Members have discussed various ‘scores’ to try before leaving
1000: Elliot starts online work
Day 1
1600: Meet & greet in Chromium
1900: Sunset in Chromium
Day 2
0900 Shuttle departs for orbital station
Added from online play:
Briefly, regarding the previous chapter (adventure): The team was double crossed and left on the ice moon Ishak 5c. Two of the team took a shuttle to the orbital station and radioed for pickup; you were extracted by a UPF marine shuttle and transferred back to Ishak 4 by drop ship (the spaceport is still being cleaned up after the nuclear attack). You were immediately whisked to the newly minted Green Zone for debriefing by Starlaw Intelligence.
In the intervening three days Kid Cisco ran into a coworker – another explorer professional from the contracting agency he works through. IOW Lamont is a human ranger! (err… explorer) The team rates him as ‘A Good Bloke’ and Cisco will vouch for him, having worked together on a few different planetary deployments. [Insert Lamont’s character name] is also cooling his heels in the green zone awaiting deployment or demobilization as civil war simmers.
You received the demobilization orders from your handler ‘Harry’ and last Saturday’s 48-hour adventure began.
Elliot opted for the more expensive and more illegal search A.I. and hasn’t rolled a fumble yet, so that’s good.
Crawling the various light-thru-dark-nets of the planet, Elliot and his AI determine a best-odds target: A small gathering at a luxury home in the hills above Chromium. Search parameters included limited group size, illicit software, controlled substances, advanced weapons, remote location, organized crime suspects, etc.
Elliot also made a ‘little hack’ to insert a training mission into the system and get the team an excuse to go off the reservation for 48 hours, and borrow a Mark II Gremlin Squad Reconnaissance Ship. This thing can make about Mach 2, so you can get to Chromium in around 5 hours; it’s also VTOL so you can land where you please. (Leevon is rated for this kind of aircraft.)
Timeline so far: started at t-minus 48 hours (0900 Sulfur Local Time). You’re scheduled for a shuttle up to the orbital station in 2 days.
t-minus 47 hours, decisions made and research started (1000 SLT)
t-minus 43 hours, search completed, hacks done, transport being prepped. (1400 SLT)
t-minus 42 hours, you can be loaded out (quickly) and on the Gremlin. (1500 SLT)
t-minus 37 hours, arrival at Chromium if no other actions taken. You can do all manner of research or other planning, and potential virtual practice, in flight. Chromium is 3 hours behind Sulfur, so arrival would be 1700 Chromium local (2000) SLT. The target event is estimated to start in about 24 hours (late afternoon or early evening on day 2) so there’s time for other actions, either in Sulfur before departing, en route, or in Chromium.
Your last stated action was to try to dig up more information on deliveries made to the target house. (You can check the Discord general chat channel for the GM’s roll – a full success 11 on the d100.) You get a very good hit on a business called Flowers of Venus that touts itself as a ‘luxury hosting service’; basically they provide everything for your event: food, staff, girls, designer drugs – everything a rich d-bag could need in order to impress and entertain his rich d-bag bros. Two women from the firm have been making trips from Chromium up to the house, probably to get it set up for the party.
It’s easy enough to find the office address for FoV, in an office park on the SE edge of Chromium. You’re also able to get images of the two women making the deliveries, as well as names on the company site, though they’re undoubtedly aliases.
Party is considering grabbing escort(s). This is workable; the party could catch up with them at the FoV office. For the schedule: the afternoon/evening the team arrives, Nephthys and Peony will leave the office around 17:00, stop by their condo for an hour before heading to a night market (near the central waterfront) for about 3 hours (dinner, shopping) before heading back to the condo. As soon as Treebu is within 10m of one, their mentalist attunement will detect something different and ‘synthetic’ with the brain activities of the girls. Up to the party to determine what’s going on there, but Elliot has a near-field scanner available that will detect a brain implant. Treebu may also be able to use skills to sort this out. Results of checks will determine how much they can figure out, from “there’s some kind of implant” up through a full description of the CompCon chip.
Taking a chip offline would alert the controllers. It’s possible to hack the chips but that’ll take time. Time required is 5 hours minus 1 hour per success rank. Thus a full success on the first roll would mean it’s done in 1 hour, or 4 each ¼ success rolls, etc. So timing is of the essence – if the party spends too much time on planning and doesn’t get the hacking done fast enough, they may run out of time.
Once the CompCon is bypassed, the girls are able to describe the situation in writing or typing (Nephthys knows body speak) – if they speak, the bug function of the CompCon chip would relay it. They can only provide a slightly vague sketch of the house layout – their memory of that has been tampered with. The setup is for 10 guests, though they’ve never met anyone. (This was done through a broker.) They can access the house for the setup via DNA encoded locks.
Nephthys/A’Lilya will describe her situation and a probable reward for her return to her family. Because she’s consciously experienced everything since her abduction she’s extremely vengeful and very willing to help the party.
The party will choose their course of action from here. The GM should plan on the following schedule of arrivals:
FoV escorts arriving at 3:00 for final prep and setup.
2 Wartech guards arrive at 4:00 by flyer to sweep the house and give the all-clear.
S’Geldru and 2 VS bodyguards (P-s3), and Springer Ch’Sool and Big Dave arrive in two separate ground cars at 5:00. (Hi performance ‘show-off’ ground cars – not for practicality.)
Loot carried in cars: S’Geldru – CompCon control software, 10 MetaPsi tablets, ChaosMonkey AI; Ch’Sool – 25,000 untraceable credits.
> GM needs to keep track of time to make sure the party can get back in time for departure.
Ki-Shou-Ten-Ketsu
Ki: Elliot’s AI’s determine a strong likelihood of a ‘targetable’ (meet n greet) party going on in Chromium
Shou: He’s able to contact an escort that will be at the party
Ten: At the party will be the Valbergen consigliere. (And a hyper-modded bodyguard and more contraband than expected.)
Ketsu: The party will have to fight, and get info on Valbergen capo, and take whatever they can grab.
What happens first:
Elliot turns loose his best crawler AI on the Ishak 4 darknet, and within 20 minutes has hits on better illicit AIs that will improve search speed and depth pretty dramatically.
Stage II crawler AI: 10,000 credits, slower (10 hours to get the necessary results), criminal offense for using it is lighter (1-5 years plus fine). +1 CS on bypass security.
Stage III crawler AI: 50,000 credits, faster ( hours to get results necessary results), criminal offense for using it is lighter (5-10 years plus fine). +2 CS on bypass security. (Elliot opts for this one; takes 4 hours – thus day 1 @1300)
> If it works, what he’ll find out:
On the evening of Day 1 there’s a 92% chance there’s going to be some sort of meet and greet between OC figures and a buyer from a military corp, apparently to sell technology. This is taking place in or near Chromium
Tags included in this determination included: substance:MetaPsy, tech:weapons, tech:software(illicit), service(illicit):prostitution.
While in transit, things to determine: The highest probability topic is prostitution (99%), which represents the only solid ‘attack surface’ for this. I.e. you can very likely find an actual contact to start from (or try to turn). Elliot can locate one escort, and the AI determines there’s a very high probability she’s under some kind of control, via pain transmitter or something. The team will need to disable or bypass this in order to get information about the gathering from her: where and when.
There is still something like an 8% chance this is just a frat party.
Going to try to get info via deliveries – Elliot has inserted a ‘training mission’ into the logs and gotten a high speed drop ship.
What’s really going on
This is a meeting between a Valbergen Syndicate Ifshnit underboss (Sgel’dru) and a representative from Wartech.
The meeting is taking place at a house in the hills outside Chromium. There are a number of expensive residences in the hills east of the city, overlooking the city and salt sea. This particular house is on the shoulder of a ridge, at the end of a road (cul de sac).
On display will be:
‘CompCon’ chips – Compliance and Control (hostile neural)implants that can be used for soldiers, prisoners, interrogatees, etc. to tune pain reception up or down, force compliance, etc. The 4 ‘escorts’ in attendance have been outfitted with these.
MetaPsy tablets. Used to expand mentalist powers, as well as other experimental uses(?).
‘ChaosMonkey’ attack AI – designed to disrupt networks.
Paratwa series 3 (x2)
Also at the house:
Weapons in downstairs store room:
‘Squealer Mk III’ caseless minigun, 4,000 tungsten carbide rounds in the hopper. Weapon weighs 60kg, hopper with ammo 120kg.
Case of 4 AI-guided ‘missiles. ~10km range.
Case of 12 ‘Little Debbie’ incendiary grenades: Mini size, full damage, NFC fuse programming.
25,000 credits in bullion, in a safe in the home office (if searched).
A memory chip with 25,000 untraced credits on the Wartech rep.
At the meeting:
Sgel-dru (VS consigliere)
2 VS bodyguards: Paratwa Series 3, inside house. Identical small stature humans (165cm, slight); 80 dex/rs
Weapons: particle whip (whip or ‘beam shot’ attack, see below); martial level 8.
This variant of Paratwa comes out of the research into the ‘Blood of God’ material on Ishak 4. A cloned pair (of humans, so far) is inoculated with a cocktail of refined BoG particles. Over the course of several months their minds fuse with the BoG presence and they become a single tripartite consciousness. The one drawback is the inability to use internal nanos or implants, as the BoG disables these.
Wartech buyer, ‘Springer’ Ch’sool: Humma Wartech buyer. Tends toward the belligerent. Carries two M4’s and two M2’s. Beam 4, martial 4.
4 Wartech bodyguards, patrolling inside/outside.
Mercco enforcer ‘Big Dave’, hired bodyguard for Wartech (big, scary, augmented) inside house. 210cm, 150kg with augmentations, 96 stamina.
Defense augmentations: Electro, maser, laser, bolt resistance (½ damage); sonic, inertia, acid, fire resistance (¼ damage); on-demand camo skin tones (shifting or static) causing -1 column shift on attacks.
Offense: prefers 2 sonic swords in CQB (extra attack) at melee level 6; martial level 7; uses a vest rig to carry 2 microgrenade gyrojet pistols (see below) with a total of 10 magazines.
Weapons Detail
Particle whip: A hand-held beam and melee hybrid energy weapon; the body of the weapon is held in the palm with a short ‘muzzle’ projecting between two digits (typically the middle two fingers of a human, as Paratwa are human derived). The device can be aimed and fired as a 32 point beam weapon, or used in a whip-like fashion. In either use the path of the energy looks like a very narrow (~3mm) black stream outlined in thin (~1mm), bright white corona. The device uses 1 SEU per attack and is typically powered by a remote battery of 1 or more 20 SEU powerclips; though a single 10 SEU miniclip can be fitted to make it a hand-held only weapon.
Defense: Proton (synth screen)
Beam shot: Range – 50m, damage – 32
Whip: Range – 15m, damage – 40 with special results as follows:
1) On a ¼ or ½ result the whip does normal (but very painful burn-like) damage of 10 or 20.
2) On a ¾ or full result, a limb/appendage is caught in the whip for 30 or 40 points of damage. Target is effectively grappled at that limb. On the next attack: A miss means the entanglement is lost; ¼ means 10 damage and entanglement lost; ½ means 20 damage and entanglement is lost; ¾ means 30 points and entanglement remains; full means the limb is severed and 40 points of damage.
Gyrojet micro-grenade pistol: 32 damage, no negatives at short range (<20m) like a standard gyrojet, they use a small shaped charge in the nose. Due to increased inertia it does 40 points at long range. Uses 10 round magazines.
Development notes
There are 2 flyers at the villa that could carry everyone.
At the end of this, if the party decides to reveal themselves and take the reward for Nephthys/A’Lilya’s rescue, her family will offer them employment. Essentially they’d be on-retainer “special projects mercenaries”. Unfortunately they’re just another one of those ultra-rich corporate noble houses that views the party as expendable assets. They’ll be very charming and generous, but would sell the PCs out for almost anything.
NPC cheat-sheet
Nephthys: Vehicles: Cars, Atmo; Finance; Computers: A&O, Program Writing 4; Beam 2; PGS 2. (Staged anywhere around as hostess)
STA 50
Peony: Beam 2 (staged in pool)
STA 38
Belladonna: Beam 2 (staged in study with Big Dave unless…)
STA 40
Circe: PGS 2 (staged in pool)
STA 40
Sgel’dru: Val. Syndicate Ifshnit underboss: PGS 4, martial 3 will attempt to flee
.40 cal auto pistol (d32 12 round clip x4, shoulder holster) Facial recog
Paratwa Series 3 #1 (Fanatical; both staged in kitchen)
STA 90
Multi-suit 40
Particle whip: 32 point beam, uses 1 SEU, r 50m
Whip – uses 1 SEU per attack 10 SEU miniclip x10
Defense: Proton (synth screen)
Whip: Range – 15m, damage – 40 with special results as follows:
1) On a ¼ or ½ result the whip does normal (but very painful burn-like) damage of 10 or 20.
2) On a ¾ or full result, a limb/appendage is caught in the whip for 30 or 40 points of damage. Target is effectively grappled at that limb. On the next attack: A miss means the entanglement is lost;
3) ¼ means 10 damage and entanglement lost; ½ means 20 damage and entanglement is lost; ¾ means 30 points and entanglement remains; full means the limb is severed and 40 points of damage.
Gyrojet micro-grenade pistol: 32 damage, no negatives at short range (<20m). Due to increased inertia it does 40 points at long range (20-100m). 10 round mag x4
Paratwa Series 3 #2 as above.
STA 90
Multi-suit 40
‘Springer’ Ch’sool: Humma Wartech buyer: Beam 4, martial 4, melee 4 (Humma knife, kukri d20) 25% battle rage, 75% flee and/or (rightfully) threaten the team with Wartech
STA 75
Ballistic armor: 40
M4 (d40m, spec. 4 clips)
M4 (d40m, spec. 4 clips)
M2 (d32, 10seu clip, 2 per)
M2 (d32, 10seu clip, 2 per)
Wartech bodyguard #1 PGS 4, melee 4, martial 3
STA 65
Multi-suit 30
Hybrid Gyrojet carbine (d36, 10shot x4)
Sonic Sword (d40, 20seu clip x2 [2per])
Wartech bodyguard #2 PGS 4, melee 4, martial 3
STA 65
Multi-suit 30
Hybrid Gyrojet carbine (d36, 10shot x4)
Sonic Sword (d40, 20seu clip x2 [2per])
Wartech bodyguard #3 PGS 4, melee 4, martial 3
STA 65
Multi-suit 30
Hybrid Gyrojet carbine (d36, 10shot x4)
Sonic Sword (d40, 20seu clip x2 [2per])
Wartech bodyguard #4, stealth/scout, staged inside ready to deploy.
STA 60
Camo/multi suit 40
M6 carbine (d40, 10seu mag x4)
PGS pistol (d32, 10shot mag x4)
‘Big Dave’: Melee 6, Martial 7, Beam 4, PGS 5 (fanatical, most likely found in the main level study with a girl unless something changes the situation.)
STA 110
Defense augmentations: Electro, maser, laser, bolt resistance (½ damage); sonic, inertia, acid, fire resistance (¼ damage); on-demand camo skin tones (shifting or static) causing -1 column shift on attacks.
Radiates absorbed energy as heat out the back. If it absorbs 100+ points in any 2 rounds it will overload and “flare out” killing Dave and casuing 20 points of damage to anyone within 2m. (Roll RS for ½ damage.)
2 sonic swords in CQB (extra attack) at melee level 6
(d40, 20seu clip x4 [uses 2 per])
2x Gyrojet micro-grenade pistol (vest rig): 32 damage, no negatives at short range (<20m). Due to increased inertia it does 40 points at long range (20-100m). 10 round mag x4 micro-grenade gyrojet pistols (see below) with a total of 10 magazines.
Debrief
Keeping the adventure debrief as brief as i can: You got into Chromium, made contact with 2 of the escorts from the upcoming party (Nephthys and Peony), and via what amounted to a “Please help us” signal, Elliot determined that they were implanted with an updated slavebot sort of “CompCon” (compliance and control) chip. With some subterfuge you communicated with Nephthys enough to plan breaking them out of their human trafficking situation, and break yourselves into the party house by hiding in their van on the day of the party. Long story short: you sneaked into the house (before any party VIPs arrived), got jumped by what Bleeg and Leevon identified as some sort of Paratwa variant, and ended up killing both of them while the standard merc guards attacked you and radioed for help. You neutralized the other guards, disabled the 4 girls’ CompCon chips (which set off more alarms somewhere), looted a couple things from the house, and Leevon brought in the Gremlin aircraft for air cover and to extract you, a big military crate, and a locked briefcase. At one point during the capture of the security guards, one of them said something to the effect of “You’ve just fucked with Wartech – enjoy the last week of your lives.”
Where it stands now – You’re in-fight back to Sulfur at mach 2 on the Gremlin Squad Reconnaissance Ship carrying: 2 dead Paratwa of some sort (these guys were kind of diminutive human size and not as tough as previous ones); a very locked briefcase; from the big crate, a ‘Squealer Mk III’ caseless minigun, 4,000 tungsten carbide rounds in the hopper (weapon weighs 60kg, hopper with ammo 120kg); also in that crate was 1 case of 12 ‘Little Debbie’ incendiary grenades (mini size, full damage, NFC fuse programming); 3 girls in emotional shock huddling in the back of the troop area (they’ve been traumatized, abused, body modded, and mind controlled for over a year); A’Lilya Ferro-Nixelle aka Nephthys, also victimized by mind control but less so since she was made a lead escort due to her education and skillset. As mentioned she’s from a powerful Starplay family (‘corporate nobility’), and was kidnapped by a rival family. Because the rivalry is particularly vicious, rather than ransom or outright kill her, they sold her into sapient trafficking where she was gene-modded, body-modded, and electronically ‘rewritten’ so that she couldn’t be found. She estimates there’s a 500k credit reward for her rescue (that’s easy to confirm online). Because of the power of the CompCon chip there’s been a lot of memory wiping, but she can recall some names related to the implant and escort service; specifically ‘Valbergen’, which is the crime syndicate you keep running up against. From what you know now, assume the Valbergen syndicate was showing off some of their projects for possible sale to Wartech.