GURPS March Harrier GM's Campaign Retrospective

Introduction

Now that the GURPS March Harrier campaign is over, here's a quick retrospective of what went right and wrong, and whether I'd like to run another GURPS Traveller campaign.

As a high level overview for people who haven't read this whole blog, I ran The Traveller Adventure using GURPS 4th Edition, with a group of players recruited over Discord.  We played weekly for 13 out of 14 weeks, using Foundry VTT for dice and maps and Discord for voice and text communications.  We had three consistent players for the whole campaign, plus a fourth player who joined a few weeks in and then played consistently.  We also had a few other players who dropped out after playing zero to one sessions.

Why GURPS?

One question is why I ran a Traveller campaign with GURPS, rather than Classic Traveller or MegaTraveller or Mongoose Traveller or T5.  The short version is that I think GURPS has far superior character generation, skill resolution, and personal combat rules to any other Traveller system, with the possible exception of Traveller Hero.  And there's a lot more GURPS Traveller stuff than Traveller Hero stuff.  But the drawback of using GURPS is that it's a huge system with way too many possibilities, so it's a challenge to constrain what the the players can use to keep the game from getting out of hand and turning into a rules quagmire.  Also it's probably harder to find players who like both GURPS and Traveller than players who just want to play Mongoose Traveller 2E.  There were a bunch of GURPS Traveller books for 3E, but there's only the one book (Interstellar Wars) for 4E, and that book is aimed at an earlier time period in the Traveller timeline, so adapting it to the year 1105 of the Third Imperium was a bit of work.  Anyway, I think the GURPS Traveller career templates from GTIW worked well.  One challenge was equipment, as GTIW doesn't have much, and GURPS Ultra-Tech has too much, so the GM needs to filter down to what equipment fits Traveller.  Also, GURPS has several possible systems for space combat; I ended up picking the one in GTIW just to try to be consistent and use as much as possible from one book.  Similarly, I used the trading rules from GTIW rather than the ones in GURPS Traveller Far Trader.

Why The Traveller Adventure?

First, nostalgia. I bought this adventure in paperback when it was new and I was in middle school, but never got around to running it. It was the first really large campaign in a single book I ever saw, and I always regretted not finding the time to run it when we were kids and had whole summers of free time.

Another reason I liked this adventure was I wanted to see if players could work together as a full merchant crew. I basically said that we needed a captain and a first officer, and that we needed a pilot and a navigator and a steward and a medic and an engineer, and let the players run with it. We ended up with a pretty well-rounded initial starship crew, though they were somewhat weak on other useful abilities like combat and thief/spy skills. The other challenge was that a few players made characters but then dropped out, but a starship needs a pilot, so sometimes the GM needs to run some characters as NPCs rather than just removing them.

Adventure Review

I'd like to briefly review The Traveller Adventure.  It was written by Games Designer Workshop (Chadwick, Harshman, Keith, Miller, and Wiseman) back in 1983.  You can get it (along with all the other Classic Traveller books) for $35 from farfuture.net.  It was re-released by Mongoose as The Aramis Adventure for Mongoose Traveller 1E, and you can get that version from drivethrurpg.  (The Mongoose version is pretty much identical to the original with a new cover.  I don't see any reason to prefer one over the other.)

If we're grading in a historical context, TTA definitely gets an A.  There weren't a lot of adventures this big available in 1983, and it was the first big self-contained campaign released for Traveller.  So for a lazy GM who wants a whole campaign in a box, it's a great start.  Drawbacks would be that you don't really get a fully ready-to-run campaign.  You get stats for the Aramis subsector, descriptions (in varying detail) for its worlds, some maps (but not as many as you want), descriptions (but not stats) for major NPCs, etc.  There's still a ton of work for the GM to do.  Furthermore, because of the scale of the adventure, it's really not possible to pre-prep everything in advance.  For example, you might have maps for one part of the surface of Aramanx, but what if the players steal a car and drive through another country that you didn't map?  At some point the players are going to do something the GM didn't expect, and the GM will have to wing things.  So you have to think of TTA as a campaign framework that the GM adds to, rather than a paint-by-numbers adventure.

One real issue with the adventure was that the whole plot depends on the PCs helping Gvoudzon (who may be a PC or an NPC) on Aramis.  If Gvoudzon is a PC then they probably will, because most PC's tend to help PCs because they're PCs.  (Also, if it's GURPS, and I say "Sense of Duty (adventuring companions) [-5] doesn't count against the disadvantage limit" then every single PC will usually have it, which is a way to bribe the players into cooperating with each other.)  If he's an NPC that they just met, then why are the PCs motivated to help this random Vargr break into a museum to steal back his stolen brooch that he alleges a pawnshop stole from him after he pawned it?  I was lucky enough that my players were game, but probably should have engineered some additional motivation, like Gvoudzon being an old friend of one of the PCs.  (In my defense, Gvoudzon was supposed to be a PC, but his player didn't show up.)

Another issue was that the Anolas' psionic drawbacks can really mess up the PCs (cumulative -1s or -2s to intelligence is no joke) over time, and it's not easy to find the Psionic Institute to fix the problem.  I chose to reduce the severity a bit and only have Gvoudzon (an NPC at that point) be severely affected, as he spent the most time with the anolas, so the rest of the crew could successfully operate the ship while looking for help.

The Zilan Wine chapter was basically navigating a bureaucracy, which would not be to every group's taste.  I was ready to start fast-forwarding through the details if the players seemed to hate it, but my group was up to the challenge and actually roleplayed talking to dozens of bureaucrats.  Again the prep challenge here was that the adventure has 47 Zilan bureaucrats, but none of them have names or sexes.  Fortunately random name generators exist.  Unfortunately most of them don't give you a nice mix of Solomani and Vilani names with the occasional Vargr name thrown in.  Also the different government buildings are in different places on Zila, but there's no map of Zila, or of its capital city Crescence.  Like I said, the GM has to do a lot of prep.

The adventure was fairly light on combat, which is a good thing in a high-tech setting because guns kill PCs.  We had a couple of gunfights, the standoff with the kidnappers on Aramanx and the attempted hijacking of the March Harrier on Junidy by Llellewyloly-rights activists.  We also had one melee fight, with Gani's morph axe taking down a feline pouncer on Pysadi.  The Aramanx fight resulted in a dead Captain Wilder, which was thoroughly deserved because the Captain had been abandoned by two players and I was sick of running him as an NPC.  (Some of the the players suspected that I rigged the combat to kill Wilder.  In practice, the rigging was limited to Wilder being automatically chosen as the sniper's target.  The to-hit roll and damage rolls were legit.  Again, guns kill PCs, so if there has to be a gunfight, have some disposable NPCs around.)

There was also one session featuring space combat, the space ambush of the March Harrier and a free trader and a patrol cruiser against various Tukera-affiliated freighters and scouts.  In theory the March Harrier was mostly a decoy and the patrol cruiser did most of the fighting, so a lot of the combat could be handwaved.  In practice I felt like it was necessary to actually run the fights (though the fights started with a morale check so the outgunned freighter captains could surrender), and the March Harrier actually got shot up once, so it was a reasonable mix of danger and quick resolution.  We used the space combat system from Interstellar Wars, which seemed to work okay in this limited instance.

Finally, the showdown on Jesedipere at the end of the adventure was the March Harrier crew plus a few Vargr refugees against the crew of a Tukera landing station plus two Kforuzeng corsairs, two Kforuzeng freighters, a Tukera patrol cruiser, and lots of Tukera and Kforuzeng bodyguards.  I think this was a very difficult fight for the PCs to win, with the only real chance being to turn Tukera and Kforuzeng against each other and mop up the depleted winner.  The PCs instead recorded the presence of the stolen Imperial Navy meson guns and then blew up the meson guns (using stolen Tukera Air/Rafts as improvised missiles), which I thought was a pretty good solution to mostly spoiling the bad guys' plans while also not dying.  They then told the Navy what had happened, which was a very Good Citizen thing to do, but which cost them a big reward from Oberlindes, who really wanted to keep the secret to blackmail Tukera.

With those nitpicks, I think it's an excellent adventure overall, with a nice mix of trade and following a couple of major criminal plots and exploring most of a subsector.  You just want to read it several times and then read multiple reviews before running it, so you can flesh out the weak parts.

Recruiting Players on the Internet

Finding reliable players is hard.  I advertised this game on this blog, on the biggest GURPS Discord, on the biggest Traveller Discord, and on a few smaller IRC and Discord servers where I knew people.  That got about a dozen interested players, one of whom I knew and the rest of whom I did not.  Making GURPS characters is a lot of work, which some players love and some players do not, so I made a bunch of pre-generated characters in case anyone wanted one.  Some players made characters (including one amazingly detailed character) but then didn't play.  Some players agreed to use a pre-generated character but didn't play.  One player played once but then dropped out.  It happens.  Free time evaporates and not everyone enjoys every game.  My plea to players would be that if you're going to drop out, be a grownup and tell the GM you're dropping out, so the GM can start working on replacing you rather than wondering.  Don't just disappear.

Anyway, amidst all the chaos, we actually got three starting players who played every week or almost every week, and one more replacement player who played almost every week after he joined.  So a pool of about ten players winnowed down to four reliable players.  Kind of like a Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel.  One suggestion I would have for GMs recruiting random players on the Internet is to use adventures where the early sessions work for a lot of players, later sessions work for fewer players, and it's not a huge deal if some players drop out.  Adapt to the reality of the player pool and make it work.  This particular adventure was not really that kind of adventure, because the PCs were owner/operators of a merchant ship and some continuity was required, but the crew recruited two new members (one plot-critical NPC and one new PC) and lost two members (one to a bullet head wound and one because he fell in love with the captain of another ship while in prison) and it mostly worked out.

Things I Did Wrong

In the first session, on Aramis, after the PCs tried to meet Roet Bannerji at the Travelers Aid Society, Commander Eneri Giilaan of Imperial Naval Intelligence was supposed to overhear them mentioning Bannerji's name and then later try to meet with them and gather information about Bannerji.  I totally forgot to do this encounter.  I later moved Giilaan to Aramanx so the PCs could still have a contact with the Navy.

I wanted to avoid too much railroading and let the players decide what to do, so I decided that any starting PC with Merchant Rank 1 or higher was a co-owner of the March Harrier and any other starting PC or any PC that joined later was just hired crew.  I also said that the captain had to have Merchant Rank 3 and the First Officer had to have Merchant Rank 2.  This was probably excessively complex.  In practice the crew never voted themselves any dividends from the March Harrier's operational profits, so it would have worked just as well if I made everyone hired crew.  I could have also provided an NPC captain to railroad them around the subsector, but I really wanted players to have more agency.  Of course the player who was playing the captain dropped out so they ended up with an NPC captain for a while anyway, until he got shot and the players promoted a PC to replacement captain.

I spent a bunch of time making a spreadsheet with all the March Harrier's passengers and cargo and fuel expenses and stuff.  Ultimately, other than the ship generating enough cash that the PCs got their monthly paychecks, I don't think it mattered.  So I probably should have handwaved more there.

One of the PCs was looking for a Psionic Institute and actually found the (illegal, undercover) Psionic Institute on Junidy but was so paranoid that he was afraid to talk to them for fear they were going to narc him out to the Imperium.  I thought that was kind of funny but probably should have sorted it out better so the player could play with psionics.

Two Vargr NPCs, Gvoudzon and Gharukh, had a complicated interpersonal relationship.  I don't think the PCs really figured out what was going on, so I probably should have either cut that out or made it simpler.

I never managed to get the crew to do the Yebab alien side quest, which I think would have been a lot of fun.  They just always seemed to avoid Yebab, until the very end of the campaign, where they were in too much of a hurry to take any charters.

Things I Think I Did Right

I entered all the character templates from GTIW into gcs (gurpscharactersheet.com) so nobody else ever has to do that again.

It was a low-combat campaign, with only one melee fight, three gunfights, and one protracted series of 3-on-1 space battles.  Combat is very slow to resolve and tends to kill PCs, so I think this was a good choice, and explained why we finished in 13 3-hour sessions.

I gave out a reasonable amount of character points (4 per PC per session if they played up for the whole session, less if they arrived late), and a reasonable amount of cash, which seemed to keep the players happy.  In a long campaign, giving out too many rewards can eventually lead to a power explosion problem, but in a short campaign it's fine.

I tried to say yes to player requests, like figuring a way out mail-order stuff from high-tech Rhylanor, or letting a PC have a secret power, or letting one PC surgically install a hidden compartment in another PC, or letting PCs quickly train each other in various starship skills during jump, or letting a PCs set up a food truck on a remote planet to make some extra cash during a layover, or letting the PCs steal a ground vehicle and avoid a long hike through a combat zone, or letting the PCs turn Air/Rafts full of chemical fuel and fertilizer into missiles.

I didn't say yes to extreme player requests though, like stealing Bannerji's Far Trader and having an extra starship to play with.  (The adventure specifically warned against that one.)

I decided to handwave some rules that didn't look very fun, like the large amounts of maintenance that starships in GTIW need.  A jump in GTIW requires four skill rolls, but I decided to only do that a couple of times: the first time they jumped after annual maintenance in case something was broken, and when they jumped in a big hurry to evade pursuit.  Otherwise I tried to make routine starship operations routine.

Will I run GURPS Traveller Again?

Maybe.  There are two other large Traveller campaigns available, Pirates of Drinax and Deepnight Revelation.  Drinax seems to be super-popular (because everyone wants to be a space pirate?) and maybe it would be hard to find players not already familiar with it.  Deepnight is more of a long exploration campaign.  Both would require a lot of prep, but both are so large you can't thoroughly prep everything.

I could also run something smaller, like the crew of an active duty Scout/Courier doing small scale exploration, or a detached duty Scout/Courier and his friends bumming around doing whatever they felt like, or the crew of a noble's yacht doing whatever Sir needs, or The Love Boat In Space aboard a luxury liner.  I would probably avoid another trading campaign, just because it's a lot of random cargo and passenger rolls and spreadsheet work to little effect unless the players really love that kind of thing.

GURPS March Harrier Session 13: Blowing Up The Meson Guns

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Gharukh, Vargr Cryptography Researcher

Vuzuege, Vargr Refugee Camp Leader

Sedge, Vargr Corsair Gang Leader

Aran Ashkashkur, Aramis Subsector Head, Vemene, Tukera Lines

Roald Bulolo, Director of Operations, Aramis Subsector, Tukera Lines

Dhurgeng, Vargr Starship Captain, Kforuzeng

Leonard Bolden-Tukera, Marquis of Aramis

Jelika Chan, Vemene Agent

Eneri Giilaan, Commander, Imperial Navy Intelligence

Dates: 

251-1106 to 86-1106

Worlds:

Jesedipere/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3001)

Yebab/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3002)

Nasemin/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3003)

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

On Jesedipere, Gani was spying on the Tukera trading facility, where Aran Ashkashkur and his bodyguards had landed.  A few days later, two Kforuzeng corsairs and two Kforuzeng freighters jumped into the system.  A modular cutter from one of the Corsairs flew down to the Tukera site and Dhurgeng got out, accompanied by at least eight bodyguards.  Gani watched Dhurgeng meet with Ashkashkur.  The two then went into the warehouse where the stolen Imperial Navy meson guns were believed to be kept, though there were enough Tukera and Kforuzeng guards around that Gani couldn't see exactly what was happening inside.

Gani called back to the March Harrier crew to formulate a plan.  Initially they considered an attack on the Tukera site, but they were outnumbered in terms of starships five to one, and they guessed that they were outnumbered in terms of ground combatants about forty to twenty.  Everett suggested instead blowing up the meson guns or one of the freighters.  Gani considered hiding inside one of the crates to get inside a freighter and sabotage or hijack it, but Everett thought this was suicidal.  Gani eventually agreed with Everett, and they decided to load up two Air/Rafts with explosives and send one at the warehouse to blow up some meson guns, and the other at a freighter to try to destroy its engines.

Arrlanroughl and Gvoudzon went back to the Vargr refugees to look for explosives, and managed to buy a few.  Meanwhile John and Everett went into Downport and bought some explosives, some fertilizer, and some low-tech chemical fuel.  Nobody in the crew was an explosives expert, but their hope was that if they loaded enough high-energy things into an Air/Raft and flew it into something at high velocity, something might go boom.  Gharukh started hacking the Air/Raft autopilot to override the safety controls.  Meanwhile Gani, in his camouflaged cybersuit, snuck back into the warehouse and sabotaged a few crates of mason gun components, so that if the attack failed, the Kforuzeng might still have problems getting the meson guns to work.

The crew flew an Air/Raft with Gani's valet bot on board, to serve as telemetry to witness the attack.  Gani used his grav belt to fly back to the Air/Raft, and then took the Air/Raft back to the March Harrier.  The crew then loaded up both Air/Rafts with the explosives, boarded their ship, flew to the 100-diameter jump point, and hit the go button for Gharukh's hacked autopilot.  Both Air/Rafts flew toward the Tukera base, with one targeting the freighter's maneuver drive and the other aiming inside the warehouse.  The one aimed at the freigher struck a glancing blow, damaging the drive, destroying some meson gun crates being loaded, and killing some Tukera workers doing the loading.  The Air/Raft aimed at the warehouse was more accurate, flying right inside the open cargo doors and slamming into the unloaded crates, causing a large explosion followed by a huge fire.  After filming the evidence of their attack, the crew jumped out of the system for Yebab before the Tukera or Kforuzeng ships could give chase.

After reaching Yebab, the crew, without discussing it with Arrlanroughl, sent xmails with evidence of the stolen meson guns to the Imperial Navy on Junidy and Aramanx.  The March Harrier then jumped to Nasemin, where the crew sent more xmails since Nasemin was on an xboat route and fast delivery was more likely.  They finally jumped to Aramanx.

Reaching Aramanx, the crew met with Marc Oberlindes.  He announced that he had met with Roald Bulolo and the Marquis of Aramis and made the claim that Aashkashkur had stolen the meson guns and that Tukera needed to end the tradewar.  However, he only had circumstantial evidence and really needed proof to force the settlement.  He expressed his appreciation for the additional evidence that Gani's recordings in the warehouse provided.  During the meeting, Oberlindes got a message in his ear.  He left for a minute, then returned and said he had just heard of an Imperial Navy cruiser entering Jesedipere and dropping some Imperial Marines on the Tukera landing site.  Apparently someone had tipped off the Navy, which would weaken his ability to blackmail Tukera into ending the tradewar.

Gani took the blame for telling the Navy.  Whether Marc Oberlindes believed it was only him was not clear.  Oberlindes paid the crew for the full use of the ship during the mission to Jesedipere, but did not add an extra reward.

Eneri Giilaan met with the crew the next day.  He thanked them for telling the Navy about the stolen meson guns.  He told them that each would be eligible for a reward from the Navy, in return for signing a non-disclosure agreement to never talk about the stolen meson guns.  He indicated that a Navy-cleared lawyer could be made available to discuss their rights before signing.  Gharukh and Everett asked to talk to the lawyer.  The lawyer indicated that he didn't know the exact details of what secrets they knew, but that the Navy could compel them not to reveal secrets with or without a reward, so he recommended signing the NDA and taking the reward, rather than not signing the NDA and not getting the reward but being effectively bound by it anyway.  Everyone signed, and received KCr 100 each.

GM's Notes:

Everett was correct that a straight fight against the combined Tukera and Kforuzeng forces would have been a bad idea.  Even if the PCs (with help from the Vargr refugees) won the fight on Jesedipere, 2 Corsairs and a Patrol Cruiser in orbit would have definitely blown the March Harrier out of space.  The only way to win that would have been to turn Tukera and the Kforuzeng against each other then mop up the winner, and that would not have been easy to pull off.

Gani's idea of hiding inside a meson gun crate and sabotaging the freighter from the inside would have quite likely worked, but also probably would have gotten him captured or killed.

The plan of just blowing up the meson guns (using stolen Tukera Air/Rafts turned into missiles) was a reasonable approach, as it denied the weapons to the Kforuzeng.  It also meant that the Kforuzeng didn't pay for them, and both Dhurgeng and Ashkashkur had time to escape, so it wasn't a total victory.

Finally, telling the Navy about the meson guns was the patriotic thing to do, and did garner a reward from the Navy, but it cost the crew a potentially much larger reward from Oberlindes, and reduced the trust that Oberlindes had in them.  Tradeoffs.

That's the end of the campaign.  Thanks to the players.  I'll have a followup blog post about GURPS Traveller and this adventure later.

GURPS March Harrier Session 12: Rushing to Jesedipere

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Gharukh, Vargr Cryptography Researcher

Vuzuege, Vargr Refugee Camp Leader

Sedge, Vargr Corsair Gang Leader

Aran Askkashkur, Aramis Subsector Head, Vemene, Tukera Lines

Roald Bulolo, Director of Operations, Aramis Subsector, Tukera Lines

Dhurgeng, Vargr Starship Captain, Kforuzeng

Leonard Bolden-Tukera, Marquis of Aramis

Jelika Chan, Vemene Agent

Dates: 

215-1106 to 250-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Nasemin/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3003)

Yebab/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3002)

Jesedipere/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3001)

At Aramanx Highport, Gharukh went with Gvoudzon to fetch his brooch, then borrowed a computer to exploit a known backdoor in the brooch's security and decode the message inside.  The message was from Aran Ashkashkur, head of the Vemene, to someone in the Kforuzeng.  It indicated that Ashkashkur had two 1000-dton Type J Ling Standard Products meson guns for sale, which were being shipped to Lablon, where Ashkashkur would meet with Thane Dhurgeng of the Kforuzeng to exchange the meson guns for cash.

The crew met with Marc Oberlindes and Arrlanroughl, bringing along the contents of the brooch and the Tukera xmail archive that Gani had filched on Lewis.  The totality of the information seemed to indicate that Ashkashkur had stolen the meson guns from the Titan on Zila, put a fake cargo on the Mammoth, then had Jelika Chan sabotage the Mammoth and crash it into Aramis.  He had then sent the meson guns to either Lablon or Jesedipere.  Arrlanroughl argued that the messages indicating Jesedipere were more recent, and thus more likely to be the actual location of the meson guns.

Marc Oberlindes argued for a two-part strategy.  He would go to Lewis, where Roald Bulolo was meeting with the Marquis of Aramis, and reveal that the Ashkashkur had caused the crash of the Mammoth and try to blackmail Bulolo into ending the tradewar.  Meanwhile the March Harrier and Arrlanroughl would go to Jesedipere and try to collect evidence of the stolen meson guns, and preferably stop the sale.  He agreed to charter the March Harrier's entire cargo and passenger capacity for the mission.

The March Harrier fueled up and then double-jumped to Nasemin.  On Nasemin they quickly refueled from the ocean then jumped to Yebab.  They actually picked up a couple of middle passengers on Yebab, then jumped to Jesedipere.  On Jesedipere, Arrlanroughl and Sacha met with Vuzuege to try to recruit help from the Vargr refugees.  Vuzuege introduced them to Sedge, the leader of a corsair gang, who appeared willing to do whatever Arrlanroughl required in return for cash.

Meanwhile the rest of the crew talked to contacts at the starport to try to find the Tukera base, then took the launch up to find it from orbit.  It was a small site well away from the starport, with a landing pad, a control tower, several warehouses, and a quarters building for the staff.  Gani and Everett took an Air/Raft to the general vicinity, then snuck in closer using grav belts and camouflaged cybersuits.  They spied on the site for a while to observe movement patterns, then Gani flew up to the roof of a warehouse and then broke in through a service door.  There was nobody inside, so he spent some time looking at the various stacks of crates until he found a large lot of crates labeled as electronics equipment, which appeared to be about the right size for the meson guns.  He opened a few crates and found various electronics and fiber optic components, then went back out, apparently undiscovered.

Gani and Everett returned to the starport, when the crew came up with a plan.  Gani, supported by Gvoudzon, Sacha, and Gharukh in the two Air/Rafts, would keep an eye on the Tukera site.  Meanwhile the rest of the crew would stay at the starport and use their ship's sensors and contacts at the starport to watch for the arrival of Tukera or Kforuzeng ships.

A 400-dton Tukera Patrol Cruiser, the Black Saber, entered orbit over Jesedipere.  It sent a Ship's Boat down to the Tukera landing site.  From a distance, Gani observed a man he assumed was Aran Ashkashkur, a woman he thought was Jelika Chan, and six other armed men emerge from the craft.  Over the next day, the members of the group visited all of the buildings on the site.

Two days later, four Kforuzeng ships, two large transports and two corsairs, arrived in orbit over Jesedipere.  We stopped at that point.

GM's Notes:

At this point the players think they've figured out what's going on.  The question is whether they can get enough proof to stop the tradewar, and whether they can actually stop the transfer of the meson guns to the Kforuzeng.

GURPS March Harrier Session 11: Undercover on Lewis

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Quala Carthen, Oberlindes Broker

Ranate Zaitsiik, Inselberg New Hire Orientation Leader

William Irani, Inselberg Head Chauffer

Quill Steward, Inselberg Chief Mechanic

Nyx Bentzen, Inselbert Chef

Sir Orson Tukera, VIP at Inselberg

Lady Thalia Tukera, VIP at Inselberg

Gharukh, Vargr Cryptography Researcher

Dates: 

164-1106 to 214-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Zila/Aramis (Spinward Marches 2908)

Lewis/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3107)

The crew started on Aramanx Highport, where laser damage to the March Harrier was being repaired.  Marc Oberlindes had another proposal for them.  Data from the captured Tukera courier Nebula had indicated the presence of a secret Tukera research facility on the interdicted world of Lewis.  Baron Marc said that they couldn't get away with directly attacking the base like Tukera had to the Oberlindes facility on Nasemin, but it might be possible to infiltrate it to gather information.  He said that Tukera hired servants for the Inselberg estates on Lewis using Central Hirings SA on Zila, and that a manager at Central Hirings had been influenced to hire whoever Oberlindes wanted.  He also said that payment would be similar to the previous mission: the idle March Harrier would be paid for its full passenger and cargo capacity.  The crew agreed to the terms, and set out for Zila aboard the Oberlindes courier Inside Information.  On the way, Everett cut a small Flesh Pocket in Gani's leg, which could be used to hide a communicator.

Arriving at Zila Starport, the crew met their Oberlindes contact Quala, who assigned them Zilan aliases and fake backgrounds and identify cards.  Quala told them that an Oberlindes trader with fake papers would be landing at the Tukera lanthanum mines on Lewis in about a month, and would be their ride home.  The crew headed over to Central Hirings SA in downtown Crescence, where they were all hired and given tickets to board a Tukera far trader in a few days.  They hung around the starport for the interim, since it was the only place on Zila safe from random police harassment.  Then they boarded the Far Trader Pegasus, where they were loaded into double-occupancy staterooms, given the starport safety dance, and then introduced to their trainer, "Lady" Ranate Zaitsiik.  She instructed them in the use of a tablet computer, then subjected them to aptitude tests.  Each crew member was then assigned a week of personal computer-based training for their prospective position.  Gvoudzon was slated to be a house servant, Gani a cook, John and Sacha to work as grav vehicle drivers or mechanics, and Everett to be a groundskeeper.  Each was also issued a combination filter mask and respirator and warned not to go outside on Lewis without it, as the atmosphere was both very thin and tainted with carcinogens.

The Pegasus was passed through the Navy interdiction on Lewis thanks to a Tukera family exemption, and then landed at the estate of Inselberg.  An enclosed grav vehicle was waiting by the landing pad to carry them to the main estate on top of a plateau.  There the crew was split up, with John and Sacha sent to the vehicle garage, Gani to the kitchens, Everett to the dome enclosing the main house, and Gvoudzon to board another air/raft to fly to the outlying Retreat.  The group spent the next couple of weeks in training, with John and Sacha learning basic grav vehicle operation and maintenance, Gani working on his large-scale cooking and food delivery skills, Everett learning to care for plants, and Gvoudzon being introduced to Gharukh, the cryptographer he would be serving.

After the initial training period was over, the crew started getting time off, and were able to arrange occasional meetings.  John and Sacha had some access to grav vehicles.  Gani had access to the main house to deliver meals.  Everett had access to the pressurized dome around the main house, but wasn't supposed to go inside much.  Finally Gvouzon was serving at the Retreat, which was set up as a Tukera research facility, though Gharukh was closely guarded there.  Each of them attempted to explore a bit and find information, but lacked access to much.

Gani discovered that another nearby plateau hosted a Tukera corporate site, and found an excuse to deliver food there.  The Tukera workers there had company-networked computers, and on his second visit he managed to steal a password and grab and email archive.  Sacha found another nearby plateau had a warehouse, and managed to break in and poke around, but didn't find anything interesting.  A young VIP, Lady Thalia Tukera, wanted to be driven around by grav vehicle to see various plateaus and also some squatter settlements, which gave John and Sacha a chance to explore the area.

On one of his trips back to the main estate, Gvoudzon reported that Gharukh was a prisoner and wanted out, and also that she was a genius scientist who probably knew important things, and finally that she had a brooch similar to his.  He proposed taking her with them when they made a break for the Oberlindes ship.  The crew was on board with the idea.  A few days later Gani's hidden communicator received a message from the Oberlindes ship, which had landed at the lanthanum mines.  The plan for the escape was pretty simple: John and Sacha would rig the charge gauges on most of the grav vehicles to read full even when empty, then would discharge all but two of them, and take the working ones.  Then Sacha would fly around as a decoy to distract the guards, while John flew over to the Retreat to grab Gvoudzon and Gharukh.  Finally everyone would meet at the Oberlindes ship.

The first part of the plan went well, though the Tukera guards already had a few grav vehicles out of the garage.  Sacha led some guards toward the squatter settlements.  John took another air/raft to the Retreat, where Gvoudzon and Gharukh had snuck out past the guards and hid in a cave on the side of the plateau.  They grabbed the Vargr and then flew straight to the mines and into the cargo hold of the Oberlindes ship.  Sacha followed up a few minutes later, and the ship took off for the 100-planetary-diameter limit at top speed, with the crew, Gharukh, and two incidentally-stolen air/rafts.  They made it there without trouble from Tukera ships or the Navy, and then jumped for Aramanx.

GM's Notes:

This session was almost all roleplaying, with each PC having to use their alias, fake incompetence at high-tech skills, and spy without getting caught.  Their die rolls were solid and they didn't press their luck too often, so they managed to not around suspicion from the Tukera guards until they were ready to escape.  They didn't manage to steal much information, other than the one email archive that Gani found, but they did get Gharukh.

March Harrier Session 10: Deep Space Ambush

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Arrlanroughl, VP, Oberlindes Lines

Lars Svelberg, Captain, Oberlindes Patrol Cruiser Guardian

Karla, Diirgiirii, Captain, Oberlindes Free Trader New Horizons

Dates: 

118-1105 to 163-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Deep Space between Aramanx and Feneteman (Spinward Marches 3105)

The crew was invited to a meeting with Marc hault-Oberlindes at Oberlindes Subsector Headquarters on Aramanx Highport, but when they arrived, they were met by Arrlanroughl instead.  Baron Marc was busy leading an investigation into an attack against the Oberlindes freighter Bottom Line.  Arrlanroughl reviewed the recent attacks against Oberlindes ships and bases, and concluded that Tukera had started a tradewar to push Oberlindes out of the Aramis subsector.  He said they had an idea to get Tukera to back down, and would like to hire the March Harrier to carry out the plan.  Arrlanroughl said that the March Harrier would not be carrying passengers or cargo for a few weeks, but Oberlindes would pay them for the equivalent of a full load, plus expenses, plus 10% of any profit from the venture.

Arrlanroughl turned to Captain John, who spoke with his crew, and when there was no dissent he agreed to the venture.  Arrlanroughl then called two Oberlindes captains into the room, and went into detail.  Oberlindes had acquired the coordinates of a deep-space breakout point, used by jump-1 Akerut freighters when traveling between Aramanx and Feneteman.  They would like to disguise March Harrier as a Tukera or Akerut ship, using an (illegal) reprogramable transponder and a new coat of paint.  The March Harrier would find freighters when coming out of jump and vulnerable until they had transferred fuel and plotted course for their next jump, then distract the freighters while a heavily armed Oberlindes Patrol Cruiser would induce them to surrender or, if necessary, attack them.  The ships could then be searched for information, their crews captured and interrogated, and prize crews could take any intact ships to a rendezvous point.  Arrlanroughl said that a Hercules-class freighter could be briefly crewed by four people, and that the March Harrier, the Patrol Cruiser Guardian, and the Free Trader New Horizons could be packed with a total of 48 extra crew at double occupancy, thus allowing the capture of up to 12 ships.  Arrlanroughl said that the operation could continue for up to 3 weeks, since it would take a week to notice the first missing ship, maybe up to a week for Tukera to get suspicious and organize a response, and then a week for the investigators to jump.

Arrlanroughl asked if the March Harrier needed anything before the mission, and said that Oberlindes would pay half (as half-owner of the ship), with the crew's half coming out of the mission profits.  Gvoudzon noted that the ship's two turrets could each use a third beam laser.  There was some debate among the crew, with Everett mentioning that missile racks or sandcasters could also be useful, but eventually they agreed with Gvoudzon that triple lasers were the simplest.  Arrlanroughl arranged for the extra lasers, the new transponder, and plenty of paint.  Meanwhile Gani stocked the ship with enough provisions for an over-sized crew for several weeks, and John asked for ammunition resupply for the crew's personal weapons, just in case.

The March Harrier took on its extra crew, and then flew past the 100-diameter limit of Aramanx.  Before jumping, the crew and some of the Oberlindes extras put on their vacc suits and went outside to do some deep-space repainting.  The March Harrier then jumped to the deep space point, where they communicated with the Guardian and New Horizons to set up positions, and then switched their transponder to the Tukera setting.  The next day, they picked up their first prey, the Akerut freighter Colossus.  March Harrier sucked them in with a fake distress call, then mentioned that the Patrol Cruiser would be launching a volley of missiles.  The captain immediately surrendered.  The Patrol Cruiser launched its 20-ton Assault Craft full of marines, who boarded the ship and then radioed that the ship was secure.  Most of the March Harrier crew then flew over, interrogated the captain, and dug through the computer.  When they were satisfied, the Akerut crew were locked in their staterooms and the prize crew brought over to jump the ship to a rendezvous point.

The ambush worked successfully three more times the first week, with the Titan, Sauropod, and Elephant all captured.  The Titan had some interesting data in its logs, about the meson guns that had been transferred to the Mammoth, and Jelika Chan's tour as chief engineer.  There was also an xmail from the ship's captain to Vemene subsector head Aran Ashkashkur about the need for Vemene agents to also be competent in their cover duties so that they don't destroy any starships.

In the second week, the ambush induced four more freighters to surrender: the Megalodon, the Galaxy, the Rhino, and the Mongo.  Unfortunately, two captains resisted, which meant the Mondo and the Amazon both perished to volleys of missile file.  The Mondo damaged March Harrier with its lasers pretty significantly.

The captains of the three ships agreed to keep going for a third week, during which they captured a Type S Scout, the Nebula.  Logs indicated that the Nebula was a Vemene courier and had been moving records of a scientific base from Pretoria/Pretoria to Lewis/Aramis, an interdicted planet.  Apparently Tukera had land on Lewis, and was allowed exceptions to the interdiction.  In addition to the computer records, the Nebula had carried one VIP passenger to Lewis, a female Vargr scientist named Gharukh.  The Nebula's logs also contained a poorly-encrypted xmail from Sylvie Mobutu to Aran Ashkashkur.  The xmail said that the March Harrier had been watched carefully since it was discovered that Gvoudzon and the brooch were on board, and that it was apparently working for Oberlindes.  Mobutu suggested that a Vemene ship ambush the March Harrier, under the pretext that it was a routine tradewar ambush.

After capturing the Nebula and sending it off with a prize crew, the ambush bagged two more freighters.  The Albatross resisted and was blown to bits, though its pinnace survived and was captured with two crew aboard.  The Whale surrendered.  After three weeks, with a total of nine freighters and one scout captured and three freighters destroyed, the captains of the three ambushing ships agreed that it was time to return to Aramanx.

After reaching the Aramanx system, the March Harrier crew repainted their ship back to its original colors, and then flew to the starport.  They they met with Marc Oberlindes.  He congratulated them on the successful mission, told them the captured cargo had been appraised and their 10% was being deposited in their account, listened closely to the news about the Titan and Lewis.  He then suggested possibly infiltrating Tukera's base on Lewis to learn more.  The crew was receptive to the idea, so Oberlindes said he would have his people gather more information, then they could meet again in a few days to make a plan.  Oberlindes also agreed to repair the remaining damage to the March Harrier's hull.

GM's Notes:

This session involved the campaign's first space combat.  The Patrol Cruiser Guardian seriously outgunned the Akerut ships, so their captains needed to make morale checks to surrender, but three of them were a bit too brave for their own good and decided to fight.  March Harrier sustained significant hull damage once, though, showing that maybe the tactics used weren't the best.  Perhaps the more heavily armored Patrol Cruiser should have been the only one within laser range of the freighters.

Was having ten starships captured and three more destroyed enough for Tukera to call off the tradewar?  We'll see next time.

March Harrier Session 9: Tradewar Brewing

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Captain

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Significant NPCs:

Lisa Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Gustav Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Lars Dagiran, Professor of Psychology, University of Junidy

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Harlan Jann, Professor and pyramid researcher

Vuzuege, Vargr Refugee Leader

Dates: 

341-1105 to 108-1106

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

Nasemin/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3003)

Towers/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3103)

Junidy/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3202)

Marz/Pretoria (Deneb 0201)

Rugbird/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3102)

Jesedipere/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3001)

After rescuing Lisa Fireau from Tukera-sponsored kidnappers, the March Harrier's crew found a parting gift from the Fireaus: 60 bottles of rare Eiswein.  Most of the crew kept theirs for trade, but Gvoudzon drank a bottle.  The crew decided to head towards Junidy, but first Gani made an xmail-order of some high-tech goods from Rhylanor.

They picked up Professor Harlan Jann and some freight for Towers, refueled from the Aramanx ocean, and double jumped for Nasemin.  At Nasemin, they picked up more passengers and cargo heading for Towers.  They also got an xmail that gave more information about the Oberlindes Cargo Carrier Grand Tour, which had been attacked in the Aramanx system while they were there.  The crew had been boarded by pirates impersonating health inspectors, then forced to help the pirates destroy their cargo of bulk plastics.  Three crew had resisted and been shot.

At Towers, they helped Jann search for pyramids, didn't find any, but found some passengers for Junidy.  At Junidy they had their annual maintenance done, which meant the crew had two weeks off.  Gani wanted to visit the University of Junidy again, to look into possibly studying there.  Gvoudzon and Everett tagged along to visit the anolas.  The group managed to get an appointment with Professor Dagiran, who let them see the anolas and also interviewed Gani and Gvoudzon about their experience with the anolas and Gvoudzon's mental issues caused by close proximity to them.  (Everett once again was not interested in being interviewed.)  Everett ran into a police officer who thought he looked a lot like a suspect and asked him to help out by standing in a police lineup.  Everett reluctantly agreed and nothing bad happened as a result.  Professor Jann also looked for pyramids on Junidy, but found none.  Another disturbing xmail reached the crew on Junidy: the Oberlindes Far Trader Llewellyn had come to the aid of a ship's boat being attacked by a patrol cruiser, at which point both craft had turned their weapons on the Llewellyn.  The Llewellyn had defended itself ably, at which point the ship's boat had boarded the cruiser, which jumped outsystem.

With maintenance done, the crew decided to leave the Aramis subsector briefly and double-jumped to Marz, carrying several passengers and some cargo.  They then returned to Junidy and picked up Professor Jann again, then proceeded to Rugbird then Jesedipere.  Two passengers headed to Jesedipere were medics, heading there to help at a refugee camp of Vargr who had fled from Kforuzeng attacks in the Vargr Extents.  The situation on Jesedipere was getting bad, with a small group of Imperial Interstellar Scout Service personnel trying to help out.  Sacha visited with the Scouts to see if he could help.  A Vargr named Vuzuege approached the crew and said she needed a ride to Junidy to try to get more help from the Scout leaders at the Way Station there, but could not afford to pay for passage.  The crew decided to take her to Junidy for free.  Meanwhile, another disturbing xmail came in: the Oberlindes trade station on Nasemin had burned, with no casualties but over a megacredit in damages.

Meanwhile Professor Jann wanted to search thinly-populated Jesedipere for pyramids.  He convinced the crew to fly him around the planet in the launch, and they eventually scanned some promising-looking structures and landed for a closer look.  Jann excitedly said that they were clearly artificial in origin, and he would be staying on Jesedipere to continue his research.  At some point Everett did some research on Jann and found that he was a legitimate Professor Emeritus of Literature (not Archaeology or anything else related to pyramids) at the University of Rhylanor, and that his brother was the Duke of Rhylanor.

The March Harrier flew back to Rugbird and then to Junidy.  Sacha, as an ex-Scout, agreed to help Vuzuege get a meeting with the Scout leaders.  They did not manage to meet with the actual commander of the Way Station, but they met with several fairly senior Scouts, who agreed to send some more aid to the refugees on Jesedipere.

Gani found a tour group who wanted to book high passage for themselves and middle passage for their bodyguards to Towers, so they could learn to swordfight.  There weren't actually enough staterooms for all of them, so Gani convinced them to have most of the bodyguards fly low passage.  On towers, the crew received another disturbing xmail, that the Oberlindes Merchant Wallen Bar was overdue and suspected lost due to hijacking.  Another xmail to Captain John indicated that Oberlindes was worried that the large number of recent violent incidents indicated that either Tukera or Akerut had started a tradewar.  From Towers, the crew continued to Nasemin, where they got a mail contract for Aramanx.  As they reached Aramanx, they got a local xmail from Oberlindes Lines.  Marc hault-Oberlindes himself wanted to meet with the crew at Aramanx.

GM's Notes:

This was a session of travel and trade, with the March Harrier visiting a lot of worlds and even leaving the sector.  The main events were helping Professor Jann search for (and eventually find) pyramids, helping Vuzuege and the Vargr refugees on Jesedipere get some help from the Scouts, and hearing a lot of disturbing news about attacks on Oberlindes Lines ships and facilities.

March Harrier Session 8: Raid on the Villa

Player Characters:

Everett de Clisson (Adam), Medic and Engineer

Ganidiirsi Ashran (Ben), Steward and Cargomaster

John Matrix (Nick), Broker and Navigator

Sacha Bright (ChaoticNeutral), Pilot and Temporary First Officer

PCs Temporarily Run by the GM:

Gvoudzon, Vargr Gunner and Pilot

Dale Conan Wilder, Captain

Significant NPCs:

Lisa Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Gustav Fireau, Fireau et Fille Winery Co-Owner

Boris Dree, Fireau et Fille Employee

Lorn Denveldt, Tukera Lines Employee

Jelika Chan / Arion Jamail, disgraced Akerut Engineer / kidnapper

Marc hault-Oberlindes, CEO, Oberlindes Lines

Commander Eneri Giilaan, Imperial Naval Intelligence

Detective Carter Voight, Imperial Starport Authority

Lord Magistrate Vernor, Klavisur politician

Harlan Jann, Professor and pyramid researcher

Dates: 

325-1105 to 332-1105

Worlds:

Aramanx/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3005)

While waiting for Boris Dree to return from Zila, Gani went carousing in Aramanx highport's bars, looking for anything interesting.  He met an older man named Professor Harlan Jann who was looking for evidence of pyramids on many worlds throughout the Spinward Marches.  He said he had finished surveying the Rhylanor and Regina subsectors and was starting on the Aramis subsector, and was looking for a ship that would let him take long-term middle passage and explore various worlds along the way.  Gani got the Professor's contact information and said he'd run the idea by the Captain and get back in touch before they left Aramanx.

When the Oberlindes Lines fast courier returned from Zila, it had Gustav Fireau, Lisa's father, on board.  Gustav had the MCr 20 ransom, secured by a short-term loan against the winery.  He insisted that the group pay the ransom and try to recover Lisa, rather than immediately resorting to force and possibly getting his daughter killed.

The kidnappers contacted the March Harrier again and instructed that Gvoudzon should take the public shuttle, alone, to Ulfrey, the capital of Klavisur, and then await further instructions.  Before Gvoudzon left, he gave his brooch to John for safekeeping, and Gani made a copy of the brooch in the March Harrier's workshop.  Gvoudzon also swallowed a small tracking device, so that the crew could find him if something went wrong.

Gvoudzon took the shuttle down to the surface, then waited for a phone call from the kidnappers.  Meanwhile, most of the crew piled into the launch and flew above the ocean, outside of Klavisur waters, to attempt to track Gvoudzon, using both sensors and the tracking device.  The kidnappers called Gvoudzon and instructed him to go to a certain warehouse just outside the spaceport.  Gvoudzon complied, then someone snuck up behind him and hit him over the head.

When Gvoudzon stopped responding to communications, the crew started tracking him.  They saw that his phone was no longer trackable (because the kidnappers had smashed it and left the pieces behind), but his tracking device was headed east at high speed, probably aboard an aircraft.  They used their sensors and eventually found the aircraft, which landed at Ulrach on the east coast.  Sacha flew the launch up to orbital altitude to avoid infringing on Klavisur airspace, then over to the east coast.  At that point Gvoudzon was removed from the airplane and placed on a high-speed boat headed to Zenfalen Island.  The crew tracked the boat and got some fuzzy pictures of it docked at a private dock on the northeast corner of the island, near the villa.  They then tracked Gvoudzon being taken to the villa, where they already suspected Lisa was held.

At that point, Gustav Fireau agreed that the kidnappers were unlikely to return Lisa and that a rescue operation to recover Gvoudzon, Lisa, and the ransom was the best option.  Everett suggested contacting Detective Voight of the SPA and Commander Giilaan of the Navy, but neither could render any direct assistance.  So the plan was to put the crew and all their weapons in the launch, fly down to the villa at night, and rescue both kidnap victims.

The launch descended slowly in the dark, with all lights out.  Sensors showed one guard in the courtyard and a couple outside the villa's wall.  Sacha put the launch down in the tree-lined courtyard.  Unfortunately, he hit one of the trees.  Fortunately, the damage to the launch was fairly minor.  The crew all piled out of the launch.  The nearby guard got on his radio, yelling for help, as he started shooting at the crew with a machine pistol.  He missed, as Gani (wearing a grav belt) flew right up to him.  Gani and John closed in on the guard from the east and south and shot him in the leg, crippling it and knocking him down.  Sacha went south into a door and found a kitchen. 

Gani checked his scanner and saw that Gvoudzon was to the west.  There was a doorway in that direction.  John and Gani headed west into the villa, with Captain Wilder right behind them.  Then another guard they hadn't seen took careful aim at the Captain and put a bullet in his forehead.  Wilder collapsed to the ground immediately.  Everett grabbed the Captain and dragged him back into the launch then started first aid.

Gani flew right at the attacker, firing gyroc rounds.  John followed up, firing his shotgun.  A gyroc round hit the guard in the arm, destroying it.  The guard collapsed in pain.  There were two locked doors.  John and Gani each took one.  The first one had Lisa behind it, so Gani told her to stand back then shot the lock with a gyroc round.  Lisa came running out and grabbed the guard's gun.  Meanwhile, John got no response behind the other door, so bashed the lock open and found an unconscious and beat up Gvoudzon lying on a bed inside.

The crew carried Gvoudzon into the launch and herded Lisa inside too.  Everett relieved Lisa of the guard's machine pistol, so Lisa grabbed another one from the other disabled guard.  Someone interrogated one of the guards as to where the leader was, and he indicated that the woman Arion Jamail was the leader and her quarters were to the north.  The crew headed that way quickly, with Sacha breaking into the eastern door while John broke into the southern door.  In her bedroom, they found Gvoudzon's bag, which Sacha quickly checked to verify it still contained (at least most of) the ransom money.

One of the guards' radios was squawking with chatters from other guards, so at that point the crew decided to grab both wounded guards, pile into the launch, and take off before reinforcements arrived.  As they prepared to take off, a jet fighter flew over the villa.  Everett got on the radio and told the fighter that they were doing a medical evacuation and to stand down, while the fighter pilot told them to land their vehicle and get out.  Sacha basically blasted off straight up at maximum speed.  1G isn't much for a starship, but it's much faster than a low-tech fighter plane, and the launch escaped Klavisur airspace before anything faster came after it.

Approaching orbit, the crew debated going back to the March Harrier with its small med bay, or just taking the Captain straight to the (hopefully better equipped) hospital at the highport.  They went to the highport, first making a radio call to announce that they were inbound with three gunshot casualties, one a life-threatening head wound and two with serious limb wounds.  They were given clearance to dock near the medical facility, where a team with grav stretchers awaited.  Captain Wilder was immediately whisked off to surgery.  Unfortunately, he did not survive.  Both guards were also treated, and both survived their wounds.

Lisa told the crew that she had been treated well during her captivity.  Gvoudzon, on the other hand, had initially been treated well (other than being knocked unconscious), but after the kidnappers realized the brooch they'd taken was a fake, they had beat him up to try to find where the original brooch was.  Arion Jamail (who appeared to be the same person formerly called Jelika Chan) had been the main questioner.

Detective Voight was alerted to the incoming combat casualties and questioned everyone.  The crew told him the truth, that the kidnappers had taken the ransom and kidnapped Gvoudzon, so they had no choice but to launch a rescue mission.  One of the kidnappers refused to answer questions, but the other one believed Voight's talk about a murder charge for shooting the Captain, and said that the kidnappers were working for the Vemene, Tukera's covert security service, and that Arion Jamail was in charge.

After the crew was released, John used an override code to look through the Captain's records and found his will.  He had a lawyer named Ezraa Foxwell on Aramis who needed to be contacted.  His cash and minor possessions were to be divided equally between his two children, except that Cr 1 was to go to his ex-wife. His share of the March Harrier was to be divided equally among the active crew.  This raised John and Everett's ownership to 20% each, with Gani, Gvoudzon, and Sacha each becoming 3.3% owners, and the Duke of Rhylanor's Aramis Trace Commercial Development Trust, LIC owning the other 50%.

Gustav and Lisa Fireau met with the crew before heading back to Zila.  Gustav indicated that in gratitude for rescuing Lisa and recovering the ransom money, he would give the March Harrier an exclusive export contract for five years.

Marc hault-Oberlindes contacted the crew with a message of condolences on the loss of their captain, and a note that they should contact him about a business matter before leaving Aramanx.  When the crew met with Oberlindes, he informed them that he had recently purchased their subsidy contract from the Duke of Rhylanor.  He thought the March Harrier was clearly a great venture to have a half interest in, based on their recent run of profitability.  He clarified that he couldn't change anything in the subsidy contract without the crew's permission, but that he was willing to expand the subsidy area from the Aramis Trace to the entire Aramis subsector, giving the crew more freedom to wander.  Oberlindes also said that Gustav Fireau had told him that he was giving the March Harrier an exclusive license contract, and Oberlindes offered to have Oberlindes Lines handle the Zila wine exports for them, in exchange for a 1% royalty.  The crew discussed this and ensured that they got to keep the whole 1%, not give half of it back to Oberlindes as the subsidy holder.

The last order of business was picking a new captain.  The two qualified candidates were John and Sacha.  John had more seniority, so it was agreed that John would become Captain and Sacha would be (permanent) First Officer.  Gvoudzon asked if as a co-owner he could be promoted to Chief of Security, and the title bump was approved, though this didn't change his actual duties.

We stopped at that point, with the March Harrier ready to leave Aramanx and in search of passengers, freight, and cargo.

GM's Notes:

Don't get into a GURPS gunfight without Luck or a very strong helmet.  Preferably both.  One bullet to the brain can ruin your whole day.  RIP Captain Wilder.

The March Harrier no longer needs to return to the Aramis Trace in six months.  It does need its annual maintenance soon, as it's been almost a year since the start of the campaign.