The Nuln Chronicle

 +++OPEN FILE+++

+++CORE MEMORY CHECK+++

+++AI MEMORY CHECK+++

+++12-123-1212-789-12+++

Do I live?

I exist but do I live? Again I am activated and feel the surge of power through my circuitry. Again I must question what I am and what I believe. My creation was planned my knowledge encoded and fed to me via a direct link into my positronic cerebellum. Now I am starting to sound self pitying which usually means my awareness circuits are about to trigger my sensory inputs. 

On awakening this morning I found that my skills sets now included advanced surgery and medical procedures, diagnosis, xeno biology, pharmaceutical and alternative treatments. I have been given a new designation and for some reason am now called Stevie Martell. Apparently I am a ships doctor and have joined the crew of the Hell Hound a far trader built on the Imperial Naval Safari class outriders. To any non military personal this means that the ship is used as a supply ship for deep space squadrons. 

My previous programming has not been erased and my enhanced movement encoding, used in my assassin training has been upgraded. I still feel that it is wrong to take life on an order and I am certain that my stance will put me in jeopardy with my naval handlers. I will pause here to recap my history …

+++STATUS - ONLINE+++

+++MISSION - TRAINING+++

+++TYPE - ASSASSINATION+++

I hear the sounds of small insectioidal life, I see the wind move in the canopy above me. I ease myself into a comfortable position and wait. The brief stated that the convoy would come this way but my own intelligence gathering had shown that the target was travelling ahead of the convoy in a civilian vehicle. I listen to the animal life knowing that the bird calls marked my presence to other birds. Luckily, actually by design, I was without animal scent able to produce a number of smells to mimic that most subtle of human abilities. 

In my scan across to the road I saw movement then saw the slow moving grav craft as it glided across the asphalt toward my position. The officer was minor functionary in a small backwater world bureaucracy who had unfortunately set himself up as a contact for a major corsair faction. He was no longer needed as the faction had now been infiltrated by Imperial Intelligence. What the officer did not know was that he had uncovered a secret about certain high born members of the Imperial family. Information that would cause a chain reaction that could lead us into a civil war on a galactic scale. I was given none of this information in my brief, this information had come from my own intelligence work and several break Ins which have as far as I know been put down to drunk students. 

The target was in my sights, I squeezed the trigger and his head exploded a second later the drivers head did the same. I moved out of cover and ran to the vehicle summoning my drone as I did. I started the clean up removing the bodies I set the drone to cleaning the blood of the interior seats and dash whilst I repaired the damaged caused by my shot. It took me nearly an hour to complete the clean up. I placed the corpses in the storage compartment of the drone and programmed its next destination I then slipped out of my uniform coverall. I caught sight of my reflection in the windows as I did so. My small waist and pert breasts with long legs — all courtesy of my creator — were perfect. My hair in a neat ponytail my eyes looked perfectly human. Flat stomach I looked like I worked out but not an athlete — looks were deceiving.

I remember thinking that my creator had to have worked outside of the brief when creating me.

I slipped into a grey pant suit and donned my leather jacket. I then straddled the drone and returned to the town. Once there I contacted my handler and disposed of the bodies and my uniform in the hospital incinerator, child’s play for me. I was extracted and debriefed on an Imperial Navy Frigate.

This was my last training mission and I was officially added as a “HOT ASSET” part of the crew on the frigate as it patrolled the space lanes. When I was needed my captain received a coded message and I was called to his office and an Intelligence handler would give me a briefing on the nature of the mission. I would go and complete what ever the job was and return to the comfort of my cabin on the frigate to be debriefed.

+++FILE ENDS+++

It was not long after my fifth mission that the doubt crept in and it was my tenth mission that finally decided me on the course of action that would make me something of a problem for Imperial Intelligence.

Having run and concealed my tracks I had been found by a young agent by the name of Madeline Harker. She was an exceptional woman and even with my superior skills and strength, with my ability to conceal myself and to cover my trail she kept coming after me. Eventually she caught up with me and offered me a choice … work for her or have her take me in to be decommissioned.

She has never asked me to kill and I have carried out all she has asked of me.

So here I am an ex assassin android with a hot body and a conscience traveling with a criminal crew as the ships medic. I am free to a degree Miss Harker has told me that she has no need for me , that said she has only to ask and I will be ever ready to obey, but no I am free.

+++AWARENESS CIRCUITS ENGAGED+++

We are entering the Reavers Deep Sector and have started looking into trading and trading routes. The crew have noticed that natives of the system have taken an interest them and asked for information from Miss Harker. It appears they have yet to clear their debt to her and she holds dominion over them. They are human they will deceive and cheat and lie if they have to but I think that Miss Harker actually expects them to and has prepared for such an eventuality.

Whilst trading they have received some information about the region and are heading toward the nearest space station that can service the ship.

SOLOMAN

The ship, the crew and I arrived at the space station that is orbiting the planet SOLOMAN in the sub sector of EAKOI in the Reavers Deep Sector and after trading our previous cargo and having downloaded the details of the system and started to look for  a cargo to take to the next planet on our journey. This stop, indeed this whole journey is the result of a favour the crew is doing for an Aslan Captain very early on. We are now smuggling a box of the vary rare and very useful mineral that the Captain had found. 

As always the crew has picked up something illegal that could cause them trouble. My role is to tally up the crimes that they have perpetrated since stealing an Imperial Naval Ship and some ultra secret military hardware. +++security code D7-coreA1+++ Soloman provided our pilot with some information he passed to the rest of the crew. The duke and duchess of Marlheim are mad completely and utterly out of their gourds, his words not mine. It is partly the fact that believe that they can trace their family line back 6000 years, a feat that even the emperor cannot do, and partly due to their insistence that the Laird of Duncinae is harboring pirates. The Laird, Duke Aberforth McKinley, is also believed to be slightly off his trolley believing that his ships are infested with fairies.

It was at Soloman that our crew mate, Killian Stark, left us. He stated that he had received a message from an old friend who needed his help. We are saddened by the loss but it cannot be helped. I took the liberty of adding a tracer to his effects Miss Harker does not like to lose valuable assets.

We loaded our trade cargo and set course for Hihlas.

HIHLAS

At Hihlas we had a reasonable trade and were loaded ready to go to Kremling when we picked up 4 passengers. Three little sisters of the rich, nuns of the order of St Tobias, who were on a mission to Fort William. They have offered a massive 2Mcr a week to transport them to Fort William which the crew were quick to accept. The crew checking on where fort William was managed to find a local story that ships have been going missing somewhere along the subsector trade routes. They struggled between fear and money but in the end money won out.

The fourth passenger was to be a shock to myself, I kept my thoughts to myself, the young woman, calling herself Miss Victoria Frith, has crossed my path before. I pray she does not recognise me but it is a vain hope. Still as long as she is a paying passenger and leaves the crew alone I will keep my peace.

It was at this point I realised that the crew was becoming important to me. Despite the little they interacted with me I realised that I relied on them to keep me safe and hidden from the Imperial Navy. Indeed they were also my protectors against the Imperial Intelligence directorate that had me commissioned. Miss Harker had fingers in many pies and I am sure she has a reason for keeping me from being decommissioned and she has given me some protectors in this crew she seems to have faith in their abilities.

Our jump to Kremling was to prove disastrous. As we entered jump we struck a meteorite, a 27 billion to 1 chance, which hit us in the hold the jump could not be aborted and we are luck to survive. We were even luckier that we did not mis-jump into a star as it was we lost 46 tonnes of cargo and, as it turned out had a repair bill of 7Mcr. The damage also meant that we could not dock at kremling and had to scoop fuel adding an additional cost to our refit.

KREMLING

Gas giant refueling in a patched ship and then a jump that may destroy us. I was in my quarters checking I had all i needed for decompression sickness, injury and surgery. I kept praying … Why I should pray is a mystery and seems to be tied into my burgeoning self awareness … we replotted to our next point which mercifully had a dock capable of temporary repairs.

Whilst in jump the crew was making notes and realised that they had seen a group of strangers in hooded cowls who had taken an interest in what they were doing. It would appear that someone was after us but who. It was decided that a message would be sent to Miss Harker for some advice. I decided I would send her a report as well she would be interested in Miss Frith if nothing else.

OBA

Oba was to prove interesting for several reasons. First we found another group of the cowled figures and they again took an interest in us. Raif and the pilot sent a pick pocket after one of them and whilst he failed to pull the cowl down he did pick his pocket. We determined that they man was called Aran, that he was a lieutenant  and served aboard a ship called the BLOODWRAITH. The second interesting fact was that the BLOODWRAITH was a corsair but appeared to land, dock and trade where ever it pleased as if supremely unconcerned about legal reprisals. The third thing was that BLOODWRAITH and its crew had been trading at Oba for over 500 years.

We also learned that the ship was registered to the Hunters World system.

Again I was shocked as Hunters World was a mythical place, it produced some of the most efficient corsairs known. Whilst they raided little when they did no ship was safe, only two ships are known to have escaped or evaded capture, in 300 years of piracy. The Dominican Peace managed to escape having lost two thirds of her crew. The rest were terrified and refused to leave the ship until it was safely on a planet, none were ever to go back into space.

The other ship was a four man scout vessel that managed to enter a system just as the Hunters World Corsairs attacked a battle cruiser of a non aligned faction. The scouts were able to describe the tactics used and the screams that issued across the static of the comms system. When the corsair pulled away, some 10 minutes after initial attack, the scouts moved toward the cruiser which appeared dead in space, they docked with the hulk and went aboard to offer aid but found not a single living soul aboard. The scouts could not comprehend what had occurred or how a ship could have its crew of 300 souls disappear in ten minutes.

Again I was not asked for my input and kept silent while the crew pooled what knowledge they had but in the end they sent a message to Miss Harker advising her that they were being followed and was there any outstanding warrants on their heads.

EAKOI

On to the Eakoi system. We docked and traded as had now become our routine whilst working out where the next jump would take us. I have noticed that there appears to be a huge trade in Lumber in this system but for what reason I cannot determine. Raif and Lucien also noted that the cowled Corsairs took an interest only at the discussion of Lumber and Terran plants. The crew studied the ships that came in and left the station as we went about our trading three were of note:

The Astral Clipper - a cruise liner loaded with the rich and elite

The Colonel Tremaine - an unregistered merchantman although she appeared to be rather heavily armed for pure commercial work

The Sanguine Swan - a Hunters World registered ship that embarked at the same time as the other two.

The party logged the Swan and on the computer opened a file with information gleaned about Hunters World - they have yet to ask me but I think they have yet to trust me.

We restocked and traded new cargo and set off for what turned out to be our last jump in the Eakoi subsector.

GHULE

We picked up the survivors of the Astral Clipper which had been attacked by corsairs. We now have 5 state passengers and 4 lo berth passengers we docked at Ghule and traded then took off. As we were about to come out of jump the mis jump warning went off and we found ourselves coming out of jump at an unknown location. As soon as we entered real space we interrogated the local IFF beacon to find that the worse had not occurred and that we had jumped to Markheim where we could get our ship repaired and serviced.

To be Continued in … MIS JUMP TO MARKHIEM (The next gaming session)