The group (Paladin, Shifter, Takeda) continued to plan against the space pirates of the Marauder. Shifter took the appearance of Taveer identifying Paladin as his chief of security. Taveer/Shifter and Paladin acts as a distraction so that Takeda can teleport to the far side of the bridge and begin sneaking around looking for Count Ubudgin and his wife, who are also Xela's parents. Taveer/Shifter wanted proof that his parents were still alive while he talked up how good his security chief was. Captain Richaal said that he could talk to his parents if Paladin could defeat his security officer Tarchoss in battle. Which he (Paladin) did. Richaal had his communication officer call the Pirate Den so that Taveer/Shifter could speak with his father. Xela was on the engineering deck when Richaal made the call. She witnessed Chaikayan (the ship engineer) enter a secret cargo hold (by licking a section of the wall) where some 70 people were being held. They were high value prisoners being ransomed back to their families, including Count Ubudgin and his wife. Meanwhile faced with the fact that his parents were alive Taveer/Shifter agreed to Captain Richaal's demands but asked for some time to play in his yacht's holodeck. Richaal agreed to give him an hour. He sent Chaikayan and 5 robot crewmen with Taveer/Shifter and Paladin to get the yacht ready to be surrendered. When they got back to the yacht Taveer/Shifter attacked the engineer while Paladin began to dispatch the robots. The group captured Chaikayan and Takeda teleported back to the ship with the count and his wife. Richaal called to get an update on the yacht's preparation and got annoyed by something and ordered Chaikayan to completely power down the ship and return with everyone, as per Taveer/Shifter's terms of surrender. Failure to do so would result in the yacht being reduced to space dust (over the objection of Synthre (the emperor's daughter, pirate first mate, and Richaal's girlfriend who wanted to sell the yacht instead of blowing it up). The group tried to get Chaikayan to turn against the captain using Richaal's threat to destroy the yacht if it was not powered down, killing everyone on board including Chaikayan. Chaikayan laughed it off saying that Richaal never abandons or kills his crew. He then reminded the PCs that the Marauder's had a telepath on board and knew exactly what going on. The Count said he could create a bomb powerful enough to disable the Marauder's main engineering section out of the sonic components about the Shamrock. After he built it the team was going to teleport over to engineering and destroy the tractor beam's power source and prevent the ship from being able to pursue them. When the bomb was done Takeda teleported, alone, to the engineering deck of the Marauder and was surrounded by pirate-bots and Synthre. She was quickly incapacitated by the pirates but was basically unharmed as they were only using stun weapons. Synthre then hailed the Shamrock and offered a straight across trade, Chaikayan for Takeda. Paladin didn't trust her, so he asked why they would walk away from the fat bounty they had been offered for killing the Ubudgin family. Her answer was that part of the 'bounty' was a letter of Marque giving the Marauders legal authority to attack and pillage ships within the Empire as long as they were not Imperial ships. Synthre said that would be dull and Richaal was planning on ditching the deal anyway. It would anger her father and that was one of the things she loves about Richaal. She did say that the pirates still wanted the 20 million Imperial credits. Paladin agreed to the trade and said they would space the bag of credits (with a transmitter) after they were at a safe distance. Synthre agreed but she told the Terran that if they did not drop the 20 million Imperial credits the Marauder would come to Earth and destroy every major city from orbit. She told them straight out that the Marauders keep and hold grudges. Paladin dropped the money as promised. Count Ubudgin invited the group to his planet for a celebration (which lasted 2 days). Xela wanted to fly the group back to Earth but the Count wouldn't hear of it. The Earth is still a red zone, even if the Guardians from Oa were not enforcing it at the moment. No one knows when they may reappear. Instead he gave the group a crew of 4 MekBots and an older GA1 Courier ship. It is no where near as fast as the Shamrock, it is unarmed, and does not have any 'cool' tech like a cloaking device but will get them back to Earth. Paladin tells Count Ubudgin that the space cops Kei and Yuri went to Earth to get Taveer and his friends. The count groaned. Paladin suggested that while Taveer was under arrest it wasn't a problem that money could not fix. Ubudgin shook his head, 'Taveer won't be under arrest. He will get home safely but I doubt he will be able to walk for a week afterward.' The count did not explain his comment and Paladin did not pursue it. The session ended with the group trying to figure out where they would store the <unnamed> spaceship when they get it back to Earth. Experience Awards: Paladin 8, Shifter 9, Stalker 3, Takeda 5