Scum & Villainy Solo - Spitfire - Part 5

Time for a jail break! Let’s look at the job tables for this to understand what we’re doing.

Job Setup

We’ll start with the very basics.

• Client: Civilian - shop or business owner
• Complication: On a dangerous gang’s turf
• Connected to: PC rival

We already know where it is (Isotropa Max Secure in the Brekk system), and we can assume that the prisoner is someone with some particular expertise. So let’s look at relevant factions:

• Janus Syndicate is a likely candidate (and conveniently located in Brekk)
• Cobalt Syndicate has a tie to our fixer friend Jezri

Who’s Cobalt again?

Organized labor union dabbling in a little crime to fund their demands for a better life. Usually display a blue stripe somewhere on their clothes.

I like them already.

Rivals for our PCs include Len, a black market dealer connected to Cosmo, and Meris, a scoundrel / mercenary tied to Snaps. We’ll use Meris here.

Has the prisoner gotten away from Isotropa already? For this fortune roll, we’ll say that a mixed result would mean they’re still in space nearby. 1d => 4, guess that’s the thing.

Score

So we’re going to go rescue a prisoner who’s gotten away from prison but hasn’t gotten to a safe location yet.

Engagement

Do we have a location for them? Snaps will study results of the long-range scanner: 1d => 1, no, we just know they’re still in orbit. The Syndicate doesn’t even know the ship type.

We need some more clarity, so we’ll roll on Starforged oracles as we’ve been doing in this campaign.

• Action: Reduce
• Theme: Fellowship

The faction has some infighting going on, and they’re split whether they should try for a rescue.

I just went with the Janus Syndicate, but is this sponsored by the Cobalt Syndicate instead? 1d => 5, yes, but they have limited resources and so the payout won’t be much. Fine; we’ll see if we can find an opportunity for secondary income out there.

We’ll call this an Infiltration plan then, as we need to get to them without being detected by the marshals. A dark hyperspace lane would work, but we need a map for that. Fortunately, we have a crew ability called On the Trail that gives us an extra downtime activity for just this sort of thing. We need to acquire an asset to track our bounty, and I estimate it should be at least quality 1. We roll crew quality (0), plus a bonus die for cooperating with smugglers (it’s their member after all) and an extra die for having used these sorts of maps before: 2d => 3 which means quality 0 for us. We’ll spend an extra cred from the ship to upgrade to quality 1, then.

• Positive: Luck, Snatch & Grab, Bold Plan, Friend (Jezri)
• Negative: Rival Interference, Higher Tier

That takes us to 2d => 2, Desperate.

Action

To determine the complication that has us in a Desperate position, we’ll go back to Starforged.

• Complication: Enemy reveals true nature or agenda

Meris shows up - and turns out to be a bounty hunter working for Isotropa. So we imagine that we’re out scanning when her ship shows up. But how do we know it’s her?

• Descriptor: Destroyed
• Focus: Storm

Bright Wind is a nearby large gas cloud ejected from the star. We get a warning from the Echo Wave Riders who use it as their racing clouds. Apparently Snaps knows them (something to keep in mind for the future).

But Meris is tailing us now, putting our whole operation in jeopardy. Our ship AI can’t really help us here; we’re going to have to try some fancy flying. As noted, we’re in a Desperate position, and we’ll start with Standard effect. Snaps’ Ace Pilot ability pushes that up to Great, and he’ll Exceed Specs to damage the engines for an extra die. We’ll also take a Devil’s Bargain, starting a long-term clock “Meris catches up” at 1/6. Finally, Cosmo will assist by monitoring and tuning the engines as we go, so 5d => 6, we lose her (for now).

Where is our target? We’ll use the long range scanner again now that we’re somewhere in the general vicinity of the prison. This is a Helm roll for Snaps in Risky position (the marshals could find us or the target could be in a bad situation) with Standard effect. Cosmo will assist in analyzing scanner data, taking us to 3d => 3. We’ll start a 6-clock “Target out of air” and put 2 ticks on it. And we still don’t know where they are.

Cosmo will try an alternate method, hacking the encryption on the comms used by the Isotropa task force. We remain in a Risky position at Standard effect, plus we’ll spend a gambit for an extra die and use her Fine Hacking Rig for effect (now at Great). Snaps will assist by flying the ship closer to get better signal reception, which means 2d => 6,6, critical! Not only do we have a fix, but we have a faster route than the cops and information on them that we can try to sell on the black market later.

As we pull into hailing range, let’s check on their state (e.g. whether they were injured during the escape) with a fortune roll: 1d => 4, they’re not in immediate danger but the ship itself is disabled. We need to get into position quickly. Snaps can helm the ship and use the Grappling Hooks (going from Limited to Standard effect), but this remains Risky at best. We’ll take a Devil’s Bargain to put another tick on the target’s air clock, and Cosmo will assist by viewing from a different part of the ship to help guide the grappling hooks. That’s a pretty good pool, so we’ll roll 4d => 5, we do it but the marshals show up just as we get into position. Cosmos protects against this consequence by seeing them coming on the long-range scanner. They’re still coming but we see them from a distance, so we’ll instead start a 4-clock with 3 ticks on it. She’ll get an extra die from the AI helping, 2d => 5 - 6 = 1 stress for this resist roll.

We grab the other ship. What’s the target like?

• First Look: Sickly
• Disposition: Wanting
• Call sign: Whisper
• Gender: Ambiguous / NB

This means they weren’t injured in the escape (previously-established fiction) but were treated poorly in prison. And we need to get Whisper out of here. So far we haven’t incurred any Heat, and we have two slots open in Brekk. Thus we can afford a Devil’s Bargain of +1 Heat for our Desperate roll. As before, we’re at Great effect because of Snaps’ ability, plus some help from Cosmo at copilot, 4d => 6 and we’re out of here.

But where are we headed? Cobalt is based in Rin; that’s a long way to travel with a fugitive! Snaps will need to make another Helm roll for interstellar evasion. If we get caught, that’s really bad, so we’re in a Desperate position with Limited effect (it will take a while to get there). But once again, Ace Pilot increases our potency and so we’re at Standard effect. Cosmo continues to sit in the copilot seat, and we’ll take a Devil’s Bargain of +1 Heat in Rin. With 4d => 6, we arrive safely.

Payoff, etc

Cobalt has limited resources for this and only pays us 4 cred. But the Isotropa communications info is worth another 2 cred on the black market. We’ll take our usual split: 1 to upkeep, 1 to the ship, 2 each to the crew.

In terms of heat, the baseline will be 0 because the marshals never actually got to us… but wait, having a well-connected target gives us +1, meaning we fill the track in Brekk and pick up a Wanted level.

So our Entanglement is on the Wanted 1 table, 1d => 5, Reprisals. This has to be about Snaps’ family. We’ll have to think about the fiction here, but it feels like something bad is going to happen.

Downtime

I should’ve fixed the ship (Cosmo gets a free downtime to do this) but I forgot.

Snaps

He can’t indulge: his family’s been taken into custody on trumped-up charges. But since he doesn’t have any trauma yet, that doesn’t create extra stress. He’ll consort here in Rin to find the Lost Legion, 0d => 3 for 1 tick on that long-term project clock. Finally, he will Lay Low from Iota by commanding some Conclave bots to confuse the trail, 1d => 5 and 2 ticks come off that Heat track.

Cosmo

She’ll indulge and commune with the Way, 1d => 2 stress cleared. It feels different here in a new system. But instead of building her newly-designed drone, her Obsessed trauma drives her to keep going, 1d => 6 more stress cleared - which is an overindulgence. We took a chance and it didn’t work out. She’ll be lost for a bit; Snaps will be on his own next time.

XP and Looking Ahead

Snaps takes a dot in Resolve (Consort), and Cosmo takes a dot in Prowess (Helm).

And in the next session, Snaps will need to go check on his parents and deal with whatever the cops are throwing at them.