Enjoying drinks, laughable wagers, and some holovid micro-G cricket on a dull night at the Dead End, the crew was surprised when a human woman clutching her gut and bleeding profusely entered the bar. She stumbled toward Tor and he sidestepped her advance as she brushed past. As she collapsed Silas approached to help. In her dying breath she whispered, “Don’t let them know…” and gave up the ghost. The bartender, Koarthis, sighed heavily and mumble, “Not again.” and headed to the back room.
Checking the corpse, Silas found a credchip with around 20 credits on it and an ID naming the woman as Laya Bogana. A deft search of the hyperweb by Tor revealed her Spacebook page listing her residence as Mars in the Sol system, but her MySpace page was sorely lacking. Kavita drooled at the possibility of fresh brains for cloning seeing as they wouldn’t be able to read her memories. Then, almost instinctively, iZac checked the street outside just in time to spot a ki’tik, slilan, and four gobbans rounding the corner and making for the Dead End’s front door. iZac ducked back inside to warn the others.
Not knowing what sort of trouble or not was approaching them, Silas and Kit-Kaat set up a quick ambush at the door. The others moved the body out of sight and Tor took cover behind the bar. The slilan stepped into the bar and iZac approached and greeted him in a friendly manner just as Kavita drew her pistol. Then Silas sucker punched him and Kit-Kaat dropped him with blunt bash of the side of his heavy mnemonic axe. Chaos ensued as the ki’tik and gobbans entered the fray. Tor nailed the ki’tik with a bolt to the armor as the gobbans swarmed Kavita. The ki’tik tried to shoot Tor with his stunner and missed. Kit-Kaat intervened and murdered one gobban. The remaining gobbans fled and the ki’tik began to back out speaking into the cuff of its armor. Silas blocked his escape grabbing him. In the end, both the ki’tik and slilan were incapacitated. Emerging from the back, Koarthis was not happy and promptly told the crew to get the hell out of his bar.
Checking the ki’tik’s cuff, Silas found a PHIN-like device. A quick hack by Tor showed it to be broadcasting on a Ares Marshals signal. Uh oh, the crew just beat up Johnny Merc. Gathering the corpses and the not-so-corpses, the party made for the street and a side alley. Kavita promptly went to work on the grisly task of removing Laya Bogana’s head and stowing it in a cooler she found behind the bar. That’s when Tor found a small holoprojector device in his pocket. Bogana must have slipped it in there as she fell. As he activated the device, he realized that it was displaying coordinates in deep space of an orbital trajectory for a long polar orbit around Finally’s star. There was no indicator what this information was pointing to and before they had time to dig deeper Kavita heard sirens and spotted flashing lights reflecting off of buildings. She warned the crew and they made a break for it as the law approached.
When they were sure they were clear of the Ares Marshals mercs and local law, they made their way back to the hovel they’ve been squatting in to contemplate the mysterious navchip data and the dead woman’s head.