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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy" data-source="post: 9566419" data-attributes="member: 1412">Venice and Thainer were useful cover at New Rome as we offered to escort them to the University. Naturally, we wanted to pay Popel a visit and we wanted to interview Jaspin Mectol, Tarim Pinoir’s roommate, if we could. We dropped off the mother and daughter and found Tarim’s room on campus easily enough. As it was the summer break no one was home but we found contact details for Jaspin. He lived in a luxury apartment in the ‘burbs. We had a moment of disquiet when we got there. His door had a hole punched in it and we expected the worst. Entering we found the place in disarray. Fox, who had spent more time partying than the rest of us (although I’m not sure if that is true of Tristan, you know medical students) realised that the place hadn’t been searched, it was just the aftermath of a student party. We found Jaspin alive and well in the swimming pool.Jaspin was shocked to hear that Tarim was dead. I don’t think they were close but they did live together and it was sudden. He had secretly filmed the whole interview process when he had applied to be in the study and Fox got a lot of usable footage showing Drassor and Popel. We realised that they had chosen people who wouldn't be missed - Jaspin had parents, Tarim no family. The bastards intended to kill them from the start. We then talked Jaspin into driving us to Popel’s place, out of town. And that’s when everything got completely out of hand, although I have to say, my people handled themselves like pros.We found Popel’s house easily enough. It was a two story detached building surrounded by a garden with a gentle hill behind and a vacant lot to one side, while another house stood on the other. An armed drone was hovering above the roof and was saw at least one merc. patrolling the grounds. At this point were weren’t certain whose side Popel was on. We had seen him being pushed onto a ship by the goons on the mining platform where the kids had been experimented on and died. Was he as much a victim as the kids? We didn’t really believe that but we couldn’t ignore the possibility either. As we stood debating it we saw a delivery van drive up to the house next door and made our decision. We ran through the empty lot and hide behind the Popel’s. We guessed correctly and as the delivery van turned into Popel’s driveway we moved. We ran to the backdoor, entered via a utility room and came across the open plan ground floor. Looking out of the window facing the front of the house was a guard. Various furniture littered the room and a workstation occupied what would have been one corner if the room wasn’t round. The dominating feature was the wide spiral staircase in the centre of the space. I whispered to my team to concentrate fire on the guard - we could assume they were wearing armour and that meant even the most accurate shot with a stunner was unlikely to take him down in one. Tristan was close to panic but was holding it together - he had asked us to not put him in a situation like this again after the fight on Nút but I needed everyone in my team to perform.Noah and I opened up on the guard who fell with a cry. I sprinted to the staircase and took up a portion there. Noah ran towards the fallen guard, Fox remained at the archway between the utility room and the open space and Tristan took cover behind a couch. I hear a muffled voice upstairs and then the command “hit them”. Laser fire bisected the room and shattered glass flew through the air. Noah ditched his stunner in favour of his hip-cannon and opened up with armour piecing rounds on the mercenary who appeared to be running to enter via the utilities room which we had used. I gave the order for the team to focus on bringing him down and we score some glancing hits. Fox dropped a smoke grenade and we put out infra-red goggles to good use. I heard the tell-tale sound of a grenade bouncing down the stairs, yelled “fire in the hold” and ran to take cover by the outer wall, behind some furniture. Fortunately, the mercs. had thrown a smoke grenade as well! We all had breathers on and - although we didn’t realise until later - we had the advantage due to coming equipped with IR tech. Fox took down the guy who entered the utilities room and Noah and I stormed up stairs. I took the lead having moved first. It was filled with smoke but I could see the heat signature of a body to my left and an open hatch in the roof. I moved towards the hatch but had to dive out of the way of a laser carbine shot. Noah caught up with me and, having re-loaded with incendiary round started putting some suppressing fire into the hatch. The dull metal of a hover tank came into view and Noah plugged away at it to put them off firing the carbine at us again. I got to the body. It was Popel and he had a hole right through the centre of his body so I could see the carpet beneath him. I began emergency first aid and called for Tristan to bring his first aid kit. Popel had a silvery circlet on his head, which appeared somewhat incongruous, but we ignored it as Noah fired his gun and Tristan and I worked to keep Popel alive. Shortly, Popel opened his eyes and lips perfectly still, I heard his voice in my head saying “They set a bomb in the utilities room, get out”. Getting over my shock in having been telepathically communicated with I barked an order to my team to get out as there is a bomb. The words “This is a prototype, be careful with it” appeared in my head followed by “It’s too late for me, go”. I snatched the circlet, which had a strange box of circuitry on the back and ran. I paused to grab some data chips from the desktop in the living room and sprinted out of the front door, my team hot on my heels. Noah and I dived over a line of shrubs as light filled the world behind me. Tristan and Fox were blown off their feet and the house disappeared. I gave them a quick once-over - minor concussions both - and looked round for any remaining mercenaries. I found one body outside, took his laser pistol and called Miskom: “Get over here and pick us up, things have gone pear-shaped”. Noah checked the garage. It had one side smashed as they had driven the tank straight through it in their haste. Inside he found a car wand a data stick with what turned out to be an audio recording by the late Dr. Popel.The Helena appeared shortly after and we set off in pursuit of the grav-tank. Miskom forced it down by ramming it - were weren’t about to launch missiles in the atmosphere of an imperial planet! They crashed heavily and one survivor crawled out. It turned out that Bronin, the mercenary leader, was still alive. At gun point he admitted Drassor was behind it and insisted “It was just a job.” naughty word mercenaries. Fox and Noah found some mobile devices and set a charge to blow the black box of the grav-tank. They dragged the corpse of the driver out of the tank and left it so at least the police would find a body with traces of the explosive that blew up Popel’s house (and so their family would have someone to bury). Miskom gunned it almost vertically.I moved quickly. I gave Fox and Tristan another once-over, changed my clothes to some which weren’t dust covered, calmed myself and checked on the passengers. Rock hadn’t noticed the impact of ramming the tank but his agent had. She was easily convinced that it was the normal difficulties of take off when the air-traffic control kept rescinding orders abruptly. The monks had watched our actions on the ground after the tank was knocked down but didn’t share their thoughts. I took the pilot seat as we left the atmosphere and Fox plotted our jump to Glisten. Then things really got interesting.A couple of days into the jump, as we all worked on going throught the data that we had got from Popel’s and the grav-tank and Fox worked on her “documentary” Miskom casually leaned over to me, sitting by his side as I was, and mentioned that the monks, who didn’t even have personal mobile devices, were using unusual amounts of power at night. Too much for it to just be for charging Brother Herric’s grav-chair. “Check it out” was the last he said on it. During the next meal time I slipped in to their room and ran my EM probe over pretty much everything. In their locker something was giving off an electromagnetic signature but it didn’t look like a weapon or bomb. My interest was piqued. Noah set a “bug” to watch their door and later set one inside their room. Thinking of Fox and her holographic disguise it occurred to us that the energy use might be charging up similar devices - the object in the locker could be spare hologram emitters.Returning to his room Noah picked up a conversation coming from the monk’s room. Two voices, two voices when only one of the occupants were meant to be able to speak. The new voice was distinctive. When Noah told us we looked up some old DataNet footage of Jekki Kelerin, the recently escaped gangster and the voices matched. He had a very distinct intonation and we guessed that this was why he was not speaking in public. The words overhead by Noah included “you’ve been talking me to death for seven years…” so we assumed that we had two of the escapees: Jekki and Marin Parvolen, the infamous ringleader responsible for the Holex Atrocity 20+ years ago. 8,000 people had died when he and his gang had attempted to rob a bank but ended up compromising the dome over the town. We were correct.We decided to confront them. Noah felt that his conversations with Jekki and Marin about their Brotherhood had been sincere so we wanted to know what was going on. We thought about the reward money for handing them, which was in the millions. But if they had genuinely found a new way to live then we might not want to trade a reputaion for reliability for one of being snitches as we were starting our career as traders. When they saw us all crowding around their cabin door they realised that the game was up and took off their holo-disguises. The story came out. Marin told us about the Atrocity. Bracero was the one who got away with the money, and the one who had introduced a worm into the software they used to get into the dome at Holex. This caused the failure of the dome killing 8,000 people including 6 of the gang one of whom was Marin’s wife. Recently, as gang members came to the end of their prison sentences the 12 of the gang who had survived the incident and were incarcerated were turning up dead. Bracero didn’t want any loose ends. So Marin and his cell mate Jekki had made contact with the terrorist Rolva Mayteriss who had useful links with the Ine Gvar to escape. Marin wanted his money and to make sure Bracero got what he deserved. Fox sat down and started recording Marin for the documentary. She’s going to be a star, that one.</blockquote>

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