We have just returned from the Malthar station with a load of L6 robot brains. We have guards hired and they're watching the cargo. 2 of our robots are also helping guard the brains. We're going to a small Wind base to try and get someone to interrogate. Did Beadle set us up? The Winds are mercs, are they being employed to attack us? As we're wandering around the labyrinth, the people notice us but do nothing out of the ordinary. We go to the building across the street from the Winds base and set up to do some distraction attacks and take out a few. As we're setting up, 5 guys in space suits come down the street and enter the building, throwing off our attack. We change plans and we're going to try to capture the leader of the spacesuited guys. Eusyl fires a smoke grenade at the building, but it doesn't go in. The round sticks in the wall and it's raining smoke down the front of the building. Eusyl sets up a doze grenade round to fire at the guys who are coming out of the building, behind the Mr. Spacesuit and his guards. The doze knocks out 4 of the winds behind the guy. Kyle fires at one guy, but only wings him. Rod takes a couple shots, vaporizing the guy with a lucky shot. The other 3 guards bolt, leaving the guy in the lurch. Balthasax takes chase and attacks with his electric sword. He hits and totally stuns him...and his failsafe goes off. He has 6 blocks of TD-19 that go boom. By the skin of his teeth, Bal leaps out of the brunt of the blast. We grab 2 of the stunned Winds and haul them back to the base. Eusyl escorts Bal to Galilea to be healed. Questioning the prisoners, they don't have much info, as they're grunts. We do hear about a guy, a human, who was wearing red contacts. He bought several of the programmed attack slaves. They know nothing about the camera electrostunners. Kyle grabs 2 doses of Staydose, claiming it's Sathar poison. The Dralasite makes his save, but he's convinced he's going to die. The Yazirian goes down from the shot. They had no information to give. We drag them back to the Winds base and plop them outside. The people around the area make a big hole for us to pass. When we get back, the Winds are scared shitless of us. When we demand the boss, he won't come out. When we tell them to throw him out here, he blows the supports and collapses the building. Several Winds escape and run off at Rodworth's threats. We hire some mining bots to dig out the building, finding a sealed chamber where the boss, Hurayiehie, is hiding, asleep. He appears to be drugged. We take him to the clinic, Galilea says he's staydosed and she wakes him up for us. We take him back to the base and get him inside. We start questioning him about the guys who attacked us. We can't pin him down on a name of who would have sent these guys to us, as he sells his control drugs to lots of people. We start discussing the differing pirate captains who might happen to have a grudge. Hurayiehie smarts off and Bal backhands him upside the head, which doesn't slow him down. He keeps hitting on Eusyl, hoping to get some goodies. Rodworth says he'll let him go, if he'll give us the info if he hears anything about who is attacking us. He's also spread the word not to F with us. We decide to head over to Scooney's to eat, drink and chat. He hooks us up with the Cheese, a local mafia boss. We're meeting with him tomorrow for dinner. Rod calls Artemis and warns her about what's happening and she says she also got an invitation to the Malthar party. She's going to fly up in our ship. We head back to the base to rest and plan on what we're going to do tomorrow. In the morning, we get a call from Officer Mumba, asking us to come up to the station to chat. He'd like as many of us who are available to come up. We head off to meet the Cheese. He asks about our family, offers services for our political campaigns and hints on the Malthar. We chat, but we don't hit it off swimmingly. He offers general help and if we can help, he'll ask. We ask about the drug mercs, but he doesn't know specifics. He says the pirates use them as spies and eyes. Kyle asks about disguised weapons and he gives us some contacts. We leave and jet off to Pinnacle Station. Upon arrival, we are escorted to meet with Mumba. He's a well-dressed, business-looking type. He wants us to piss off the Malthar enough that he'll do something illegal, so the UPF can take over his base and arrest him. He thinks that the Malthar has a base in the Far Reach. Ships disappear, but pirates come back. Rod plays back a message about a message with some coordinates that he thinks are the where that base could be. They turn out to be a secret location of some computer files. He freaks out and calls off the Malthar mission and wants us to find the guy who spoke them. We wrap up here for the night.
