TEXT: 1
  Written By Gareth Hanrahan
  TRAVELLER
  TRAVELLER
  THE PIRATES OF DRINAX
  ADVENTURE 1
  ADVENTURE 1
  HONOUR AMONG THIEVES
  HONOUR AMONG THIEVES
  ‘This is the free trader Beowulf, calling anyone... Mayday, 
  mayday, we are under attack...’
  The raiders didn’t bother stopping to loot the free trader. They 
  had bigger prey in mind. Three ships shot past the crippled 
  Beowulf, ﬂ ipping over as they did so. Their grav-plates bloomed 
  with energy, slowing their headlong ﬂ ight towards the looming 
  planet ahead. As the ghostly tendrils of the outer atmosphere 
  began to heat their hulls, two of the ships turned again to dive 
  into the planet’s gravity well. The third ship aerobraked and 
  moved itself to an overwatch orbit, its turret-mounted weapons 
  ready to defend its cronies as they landed to loot the planet 
  below. 
  ‘Mayday... losing cabin pressure... calling anyone... please 
  help.’
  There was no answer. The radio bands were empty except for 
  the coded screeches of the pirates, and the endless hiss of the 
  void.
  And soon, there was only the void.
  Honour Among Thieves is the ﬁ rst adventure in the Pirates of 
  Drinax campaign. If you are a player in this campaign, STOP 
  READING NOW! If you’re a Referee, then you should ﬁ rst read 
  The Pirates of Drinax Campaign document to get an overview 
  of the campaign.
  This adventure takes place in the Tliowaha and Sindal subsectors 
  of the Trojan Reaches. The year is assumed to be 1105. The 
  assumed starting point is Drinax, but the characters can begin 
  the adventure in any system where rumours can reach them.
  ADVENTURE SYNOPSIS
  Two worlds near Drinax – Torpol and Clarke were recently 
  attacked by raiders. While both these planets are on the Florian 
  Trade route, and so see a lot of piracy, these attacks were not 
  piratical attacks on shipping. They were raids on the planets 
  themselves. The governments of both worlds are furious, and 
  are offering rewards for information leading to the capture of 
  these raiders.
  Both Torpol and Clarke were once part of the Kingdom of 
  Drinax, and King Oleg’s daughter Rao believes that if Drinaxian 
  heroes were to bring these raiders to justice, it would help move 
  both worlds closer to an alliance with their old rulers. The player 
  characters are contacted by agents of Drinax and sent to visit 
  Torpol and Clarke. 
  The characters ﬁ nd that some of the ships involved in the attack 
  could only make Jump-2, limiting the number of systems they 
  could have reached to only a handful. The characters quickly 
  determine that the raiders ﬂ ed to Borite. 
  Searching that system, the characters discover that one of the 
  raiders was abandoned by his former compatriots and exiled 
  to a barely-habitable moon. After rescuing the raider, a Vargr 
  called Krrsh, he reveals who the raiders were, and guides the 
  characters to the pirate world of Theev. The raiders were under 
  the command of an upstart named Ferrik Redthan, who is trying 
  to form an alliance with one of the pirate gangs of Theev. 
  On Theev, the characters must negotiate a truce or alliance 
  with the gangs if they are to capture Ferrik. Ferrik’s right-hand 
  woman, Miria Silver, is negotiating on his behalf on Theev, 
  and through her the characters need to engineer a situation 
  where they can ambush Ferrik’s ship and capture him – dead 
  or alive...
   
  
  2
  1. THE TOUCH OF THE KING 
  The characters are contacted by Princess Rao in person if 
  they are on Drinax; otherwise, she sends them a holographic 
  message via Sal Dancet, who tracks the characters down 
  wherever they are. Her message is brief and to the point if 
  delivered by holo, but if the princess speaks to the characters 
  directly, she is more conspiratorial and presents the scheme as 
  a clever way to manipulate the politics of the subsector instead 
  of an order from the king. 
  Rao explains that two nearby worlds, Torpol and Clarke, were 
  both hit by the same raiding party. The raiders initially landed 
  on Clarke, then headed to Torpol. They then jumped out and 
  have not been seen since. Both governments want to punish 
  the raiders, and have put a price on their heads. 
  The provost merchant-princes of Torpol are moderately friendly 
  towards Drinax; the insular Psychopomps of Clarke are much 
  less trusting, but have lately made overtures towards King 
  Oleb’s court. Rao believes that if the player characters capture 
  the pirates and turn them over in the name of King Oleb, it 
  would tip the balance towards Drinax. She urges the characters 
  to head to Clarke and Torpol with all speed. 
  Rumours and Secrets
  Checking with contacts and allies, sleuthing around starport 
  bars with Streetwise and Carouse, or simple past experience 
  gets the characters some possibly relevant rumours:
  • 
  Virtually all the pirates in this region of space are either 
  based at or regularly visit the 'pirate world' of Theev.
  • 
  However, getting to Theev is tricky. Those who land there 
  without permission from the Lords of Blacksand City end 
  up dead. To visit Theev safely, you need a pirate's code, 
  and none of the characters have such a code.
  • 
  Raiding a planet with such a small force is unusual for 
  pirates. Either they were looking for something in particular, 
  or they were trying to make a name for themselves.
  The Bounties
  The bounties on the pirates posted by both worlds are slowly 
  ﬁ ltering out into the wider Reach; there is no Xboat network 
  outside the Imperial subsectors, so news travels only as fast 
  as tramp ships carry it. The Clarke bounty is 0.5 Mcr, while the 
  Torpol bounty is 2MCr for the pirates, dead or alive, although 
  proof must be provided that these are indeed the raiders who 
  attacked both worlds. 
  2. THE PSYCHOPOMPS OF CLARKE
  Clarke (see page 17) is not a welcoming world. The characters 
  approach the starport through a grey rainstorm, and ﬂ y over a 
  million-strong cemetery before they reach a landing pad. The 
  political power on this grey world is held by the Psychopomps, 
  the death-worshipping priests. The starport is neutral ground and 
  controlled directly by the Psychopomps. The port is moderately 
  busy, but few ships spend very long here. Most land, refuel and 
  depart again without trading. Clarke is a stop on the Florian 
  Trade route, but not a popular one. Most ships head for Torpol 
  or the Dustbelt worlds (Oghma, Marduk and so on) as soon as 
  they can, before the mortuary mood of Clarke seeps into their 
  souls.
  There is a necrotemple atop the starport, and the characters 
  are directed there if they ask about the recent attacks. The 
  necrotemple is a black pyramid, built from thousands of black 
  monolithic slabs. On close examination, the characters realise 
  that these black slabs are carbon grave markers and each one 
  contains a corpse. The corpses features peer out of one face 
  of the monolith like a bas-relief. They are surrounded by the 
  dead.
  Keeper Malos
  The starport administrator is also a priest of the death cult, and 
  he attends to his commercial duties with as much zeal as his 
  religious ones. Malos wears black robes, and on his back is 
  a ceremonial freezer-tank that contains the carbon-foam spray 
  used to preserve the dead. He is never without this pack; the 
  ﬁ rst and foremost role of the Psychopomp is to catch those 
  who would otherwise ‘pass into true death’. Malos is cheery 
  and personable as Psychopomps go, although that just means 
  he’s slightly less glum and dour when standing next to another 
  priest.
  Like the other inhabitants of Clarke, Malos sees offworlds as 
  ‘ephemerals’, who will die once and be forgotten instead of 
  receiving the carbon-foam blessing of preservation. As such, 
  he tried to get through any conversation with ephemerals as 
  quickly as he can – why bother squandering time on foolish 
  people who have embraced their temporary nature, who will be 
  gone in an eyeblink? 
  If asked about the raiders, Malos becomes visibly angry. The 
  raiders killed many people before they could be preserved 
  – deliberate killing is the highest sin in the Psychopomp faith. 
  Those murdered by the raiders will never be resurrected on 
  the day of healing. He shows the characters the location of the 
  attack using his computer terminal. 
  
  3
  The Relic-quarry 
  The raiders attacked a ‘relic-quarry’ – an archaeological dig at 
  the edge of the ruins of Hiewad City, where explorers look for 
  high-tech items and materials that survived the bombardment. 
  The explorers remind the characters of the Vespexers of Drinax, 
  who practice a similar form of scavenging. 
  The traces of the attack are obvious – blast marks on the ground 
  from weapons ﬁ re, imprints in the mud where ships landed, and 
  the remains of the warehouse that once contained relics from 
  the ruined city. The warehouse was blasted with a ship-mounted 
  pulse laser.
  An Intelligence + Investigate check (Average +0, 1-6 hours) 
  lets the characters reconstruct what happened here. Their 
  ﬁ ndings depend on the Effect of the check. Optionally, the 
  characters can use Sensors or Recon as part of a Task Chain 
  to improve their chances.
  Keeper Malos
  Age 42, 6 terms
  STR 5 
  DEX 6 
  END 8 
  INT 9 
  EDU 8 
  SOC 8
  Admin 3, Computers 0, Comms 1, Diplomat 2, Medic 2, 
  Perform (preach) 2, Persuade 1, Social Science (theology) 3
  Playing Malos:
  • 
  Make lots of morbid jokes. Talk about the rewards 
  the PCs will get if they survive, about how dead 
  comes to everyone, about how ﬂ eeting life is.
  • 
  Smile with the saddest face you can manage.
  • 
  Clasp your hands and bow your head like a monk.
  Effect
  Finding
  0
  Two pirate ships landed here and attacked. They killed everyone present before blasting the door off the warehouse 
  and looting the place. From the warehouse records, they stole primarily recovered computer parts; these parts could be 
  salvaged by a TL14+ culture. Any character with Broker 2+ or an appropriate Trade skill knows that the Florian Empire 
  buys such scrap for recycling. 
  1 to 2
  The pirate ships consisted of a Type-S Scout and a Far Trader, both reﬁ tted with extra weapons. Not exactly a terrifying 
  ﬁ ghting force – if these are the same ships that attacked Torpol, then there must have been a third ship, one with a lot 
  more ﬁ repower.
  3 to 4
  The Psychopomps of Clarke have already visited the attack site, and there are a half-dozen fresh carbon-foam monoliths 
  preserving the dead who might be saved. Examining these monoliths reveals that one of the victims could be revived 
  with high-tech medical equipment. Reviving the victim requires a Very Hard (-4) Education + Medic check; if successful, 
  the victim tells the characters that the pirates were led by a young man in what looked like an Imperial naval uniform. 
  She also mentions that the scout ship ﬁ lled its hold ﬁ rst and departed several hours ahead of the free trader. If the 
  characters fail to revive the woman, the Psychopomps are furious – in their eyes, the characters have interfered with 
  the sacred monolith. The characters are no longer welcome outside Clarke’s starport. 
  5 or 
  more
  The characters discover that the scavenger’s radio system recorded several messages broadcast by the pirates. The 
  messages are encrypted (Difﬁ cult (-2) Intelligence + Comms to decrypt), but if cracked, reveal that the pirate leader 
  was named Ferrik; there was also a woman called Miria commanding a ship that remained in orbit, and a third captain 
  called Krrsh. 
  No other clues are available on this benighted system. The trail 
  leads to Torpol.
  3. THE PROVOSTS OF TORPOL
  Torpol has both a HighPort and a DownPort; the HighPort is really 
  just for refuelling, so the characters are directed to the southern 
  polar port where they are to meet by the Provost Martial, Haddo 
  Farx. The public sections of the polar port emphasise Torpol’s 
  carefully maintained reputation as a watery paradise that’s both 
  a safe place to refuel and a wild party planet, with holograms of 
  tropical beaches and sun-kissed seascapes blocking the view of 
  the howling polar blizzards outside. The characters are escorted 
  behind into the grey corridors of the private starport to meet with 
  Provost Farx who ﬁ lls the crew in on what happened.
  The Attack
  Torpol’s lack of stable land means that many of its industrial 
  facilities are in orbit. The target of the pirate attack was one 
  of these orbital factories, an automated chemical reﬁ nery. The 
  factory’s onboard cameras transmitted images of the attack 
  just before they were destroyed. The images show two ships 
  approaching from the orbital refuelling dock. A barrage of deadly 
  accurate laser ﬁ re severs the reﬁ nery’s cargo module, and one 
  of the ships swoops in to capture it. The other vessel moves to 
  provide cover, then departs. One of the ships was a Far Trader, 
  the other was a 400-ton Vulture-class salvage hauler. 
  Falx conﬁ rms that both ships refuelled at the orbital dock. They 
  conducted their business electronically, and gave false names, 
  claiming to Argo 1 and Argo 2. The ships just bought fuel and 
  departed; none of their crews left the ships. 
  
  4
  Investigation
  Using Sensors (Intelligence + Sensors, Difﬁ cult (-2), 1-6 
  minutes) to enhance the video images gives the characters 
  more information about their targets. The 200-ton Far Trader 
  has two double turrets, both equipped with twin pulse lasers. The 
  400-ton salvage hauler has two single and two double turrets, 
  and is armed with two pulse lasers, two sandcasters, and two 
  missile launchers. The salvage hauler was recently repainted, 
  but using computer analysis the characters can discern a logo 
  and a registry beneath the paint – the salvage hauler bears the 
  starburst-and-starship of the Imperial Navy! She is actually the 
  Imperial Navy ship Mercifuge.
  Checking the records with Admin or Computers, or asking 
  around the starport bar with Carouse gets the characters some 
  details on the hauler. According to ofﬁ cial bulletins, the Mercifuge 
  was part of a ﬂ otilla that ﬂ ed the Imperium under the command 
  of renegade ‘Admiral’ Darokyn some thirty years ago. The 
  Mercifuge is listed as stolen. According to pirate lore, Darokyn 
  is based on the mysterious world of Theev, which most charts 
  place at being somewhere in Sindal subsector. Characters with 
  naval experience or contacts have heard of Darokyn; see the 
  Library Data.
  Accessing communications logs with Comms (Intelligence 
  + Comms, Very Difﬁ cult (-4), 10-60 minutes) reveals that 
  the putative Argo 1 – the Far Trader – made a single radio 
  transmission while docked at the refuelling station. It broadcast 
  an encrypted greeting to another ship, a reﬁ tted scout, that was 
  landed at the Torpol DownPort. If the characters follow this lead, 
  they learn about the Sarcomond incident. Alternatively, if they 
  already know there was a third pirate ship, a scout, at Clarke, 
  then investigating that ship (Social Standing + Investigation, 
  Average (+0), 10-60 minutes) leads them to the Sarcomond. 
  The scoutship, the Misery’s Company, landed at Torpol a day 
  before the two Argos arrived. There, the scoutship’s captain, 
  a Vargr called Krrrsh, sold computer scrap material to another 
  trader called Holmer. The characters can easily determine 
  that this scrap was the same material looted from Clarke. The 
  Misery’s Company refuelled and departed. Near the jump limit, 
  it was involved in an incident with another ship, the Sarcomond, 
  but no-one other than the Sarcomond’s crew know exactly what 
  happened.
  The Sarcomond Incident
  The Sarcomond is a 200-ton Far Trader captained by an Asiman 
  named Danel Vlaw. It is an old and battered trader, built in the 
  heyday of the Kingdom of Drinax, but she’s still ﬂ ying. She is 
  currently docked at the Torpol DownPort, undergoing repairs 
  after she was attacked by a scoutship. The characters can easily 
  track down Captain Vlaw in the downport bar, but convincing 
  him to talk is a harder proposition. Vlaw ﬂ ed Asim when it was 
  conquered by the Drinaxians twenty years ago, and despises 
  Provost Falx
  The Starport Administrator is one of the Provosts, an order 
  of administrators and facilitators who engineer society on 
  Torpol. Falx dresses in bright orange robes and has a tiny 
  golden fez with a scale model of the starport on top of it. He 
  is young and ambitious, and has his eye on the role of Grand 
  High Provost within ten years.
  Age 34, 4 terms
  STR 6 DEX 4 
  END 6 INT 10 EDU 11 SOC 9
  Admin 2, Carouse 2, Computers 3, Comms 2, Diplomat 2, 
  Streetwise 2, Persuade 3
  Playing Falx:
  • 
  Everyone's your friend. Be friendly and open. Make 
  them like you.
  • 
  Finding these pirates could make your career. Drive the 
  investigation; push the player characters to succeed
  • 
  Always have a drink in hand, and make sure the 
  players have drinks too.
  the nobles of the Floating Palace. Getting him to talk requires 
  either Persuade, Carouse or Deception + Intelligence; it is 
  Routine (+2) if he does not know they are from Drinax, and Very 
  Difﬁ cult (-4) if he thinks they are working for the conquerors. 
  Vlaw is initially unwilling to discuss what happened between 
  his ship and the Misery’s Company; he is a hard-nosed, 
  independent trader who has had his own share of shady dealings 
  and opportunistic piracy. If the characters win his conﬁ dence, 
  or reveal that the scoutship was involved in a murderous raid 
  on Clarke, then he gives them an account of what happened. 
  As the Sarcomond approached Torpol, a scoutship approached 
  on a suspiciously tight course. When she came within range, 
  she ﬂ ipped over, matched velocity with the Sarcomond, and 
  demanded that the Far Trader hand over her cargo.
  Vlaw smiles at this point. “My ship, she has surprises. Two 
  pop-up turrets, you see. Bad news for pirates. I burn the pirate 
  amidships, here and here” - he pokes one of the PCs in the 
  stomach and chest, for emphasis – “and she is very, very 
  scared. Over the radio, I hear them calling for the jump. Their 
  captain is Vargr, I think. He orders them to jump for Borite.”
  Tracking The Raiders
  Vlaw’s account sends the characters straight to Borite; if the 
  characters fail to track down Vlaw, then a quick check of star 
  charts presents a limited number of systems where the pirates 
  could have gone. Jump-2 from Torpol puts them in range of 
  Clarke, Blue, Drinax, Asim, Oghma, Marduk and Borite. Three 
  of these systems can be eliminated immediately – they know 
  the pirates did not return to Clarke, and the characters have 
  heard no work of pirate attacks on Drinax or Asim.
  
  5
  Daniel Vlaw
  Age 50, 8 terms
  STR 6 
  DEX 6 END 7 INT 6 
  EDU 7 SOC 5
  Admin 1, Broker 2, Astrogation 3, Carouse 1, Comms 2, 
  Computers 0, Engineer (jump) 2, Engineer (power plant) 
  1, Gunner (turret) 2, Mechanic 4, Melee (brawl) 1, Pilot 
  (spacecraft) 3, Survival 2, Vacc Suit 2
  Armour: Vacc Suit (6)
  Weapons: Autopistol (3d6-3, Auto 3)
  Playing Vlaw:
  • 
  Don't trust anyone. The whole universe is out to screw 
  you over.
  • 
  Talk in a gravelly, throaty voice.
  • 
  Emphasise everything you do with gestures. Make 
  everything physical. 
  If the characters visit the other systems, see the Worlds of the 
  Reach section on page 17. The trail continues at Borite with 
  The Castaway.
  4. THE CASTAWAY
  Scanning the Borite system picks up something interesting 
  – a very weak distress call emanating from the gas giant. On 
  approach, the characters detect an ancient space station in 
  orbit. The station is more than two thousand years old, and 
  dates back to the old Empire of Sindal. It was once a High Guard 
  outpost of the Sindalian ﬂ eet, protecting ships as they refuelled 
  from the hydrogen-rich world below. Now, it is an abandoned 
  antique, crumbling and punctured by thousands of micro-
  meteorites. It is slowly drifting down into the atmosphere, and 
  will burn up in another ﬁ ve hundred years or so. A successful 
  Education + Sensors roll (Average (+0), 10-60 minutes) in 
  the vicinity of the station picks up several interesting facts.
  • 
  The station shows signs of being repaired within the last 
  century, probably by pirates using it as a base, but there 
  is no sign of any present occupancy. 
  • 
  The distress call is a low-powered automated beacon, 
  consistent with the sort built into a good-quality vacc 
  suit. Someone must have boosted the signal for the 
  characters to detect it. A close examination shows that 
  the suit's communications system has been removed and 
  wired into the station's transmitter dish – the suit wearer 
  now has no way of communicating with the outside work 
  unless he goes back to the communications unit. 
  • 
  There is some debris ﬂ oating near the space station; 
  analysis shows it to be hull plating and rivets from a 
  small ship, probably the Misery’s Company. There is not 
  enough debris for the ship to have broken up; more likely, 
  they docked here to make repairs after being pummelled 
  by the Sarcomond.
  • 
  Thermal imaging of the station shows at least one heat 
  source on board. From the trace, it is a humanoid, probably 
  a Vargr, in poor health and in a vacc suit.
  Attempting to hail the Vargr brings no response.
  Docking with the station is tricky (Dexterity + Pilot, Difﬁ cult (-2), 
  1-6 minutes) due to the extreme age and fragility of the station. 
  Doing anything like ramming it, cutting through the hull or ﬁ ring 
  ship-mounted weapons is likely to cause parts of the station to 
  break off. 
  The Slumbering Horror 
  The old Sindalian station was indeed used by pirates as a refuge 
  and refuelling station for many years, until His Grace showed 
  up. His Grace was a pirate who claimed to be the illegitimate 
  son of the Duke of Tobia, and amused his crewmates with his 
  lordly airs and graces. In keeping with his noble heritage, he 
  was a collector of art and curiosities from across Known Space. 
  One of his most prized acquisitions was a sculpture that he 
  believed to be a petriﬁ ed Hiver specimen (and when he found 
  out that Hivers look nothing like folded-up tarantulas, he began 
  to claim it came from a semi-mythical ‘Hiver Queen’). In fact, the 
  sculpture came from Foreven Sector.
  Every traveller knows what happens when you bring a 
  mysterious alien artefact onto an isolated space station, 
  especially if the merchant you bought it from swears that it is 
  completely dormant and harmless.
  His ‘sculpture’ awoke, drawn by the heat of human bodies and 
  the psionic trace of their emotions. It unfolded, insectoid limbs 
  stretching out obscenely like chitinous origami. Deposits of 
  petriﬁ ed acid ﬂ aked off, revealing razor-sharp mandibles. The 
  Chamax Hunter’s ﬁ rst victim was His Grace. It stalked the rest 
  of the crew through the space station, killing them one by one 
  until the last survivors escaped. Deprived of fresh prey, the 
  Chamax returned to its slumber.
  Since then, the space station has been almost completely 
  abandoned except for a few pirate crews who use it as a means 
  of ceremonial execution. If the crew decide that one of their 
  number has failed or betrayed them, they bring the unfortunate 
  victim to the Borite system and abandon him on board the 
  nameless station.
  It happen immediately, or it may take several hours, but the 
  presence of heat and life awakens the Chamax...
  
  6
  Chamax Hunter
  A Chamax is a hostile xenomorph from a world deep in Foreven sector. It resembles a tarantula the size of huge dog, 
  and possesses the ability to secrete a powerful molecular acid from its jaws. On their native world, the creatures are an 
  unstoppable marauding horde that sweeps across the planet, devouring everything in their path. Fortunately, this particular 
  specimen is a sterile Hunter, not a fecund Maternal Chamax that could produce thousands of offspring. 
  Hunter Chamax
  Pouncer Omnivore 
  Any Habitat
  STR 10 DEX 14 END 15 INT 2 
  INS 10 PAC 0  PSI 8
  Recon 3, Stealth 4, Melee (bite) 3, Gun Combat (acid spray) 0, Survival 4, Telepathy 3 
  Armour 3; any damage dice rolled against the chamax that do not roll a 6 are ignored, as the creature is composed mainly 
  of undifferentiated tissue and has few vital organs.
  Bite: 2d6+2 damage
  Acid: The chamax may spit or vomit acid on its victims. An acid spray inﬂ icts 3d6 damage; furthermore, permanently reduce 
  the protection of the victim’s armour by 1 for each die that rolls a 6.
  Life Sense: The chamax is telepathic, but is only smart enough to use the Life Detection form of the talent.
  Radio Sense: The chamax can hear and speak in the radio spectrum.
  The Prisoner
  The Vargr on the station is Krrsh, former captain of Misery’s Company. His crewmates abandoned him here after he 
  impetuously ordered the attack on the Sarcomond. He knows that being cast away on this station is a death sentence, and 
  has heard legends that the monster is drawn to radio signals. By wiring his suit communicator to the station’s transmitter dish, 
  he has managed to boost the chances of his distress call being detected and also lure the monster away from him. The one 
  downside is that his rescuers are walking into a trap...
  When the characters rescue Krrsh, see page 9 for Krrsh’s Tale.
  Krrsh the Vargr
  Age 34 – 4 terms Pirate 
  STR 6 
  DEX 8 END 7 INT 4 
  EDU 5 SOC 3 CHA 10
  Astrogation 1, Comms 1, Computers 0, Deception 0, Engineer (jump) 1, Gun Combat (slug pistol) 1, Gunner (turret) 2, 
  Mechanic 1, Melee (blade) 1, Persuade 2, Pilot (spacecraft) 2, Recon 1, Sensors 0, Space Science 0, Stealth 1, Streetwise 
  2, Vacc Suit 1
  Vacc Suit (4)
  Cutlass: 2d6+4
  Playing Krrsh:
  • 
  You're really not that bright, but you are used to barking orders and getting your way.
  • 
  The loss of your ship humiliated you. You feel broken and defeated, so you're looking for a strong leader to take charge 
  of you.
  • 
  Bow your head, hunch your shoulders, whine like a whipped dog.
  
  7
  The Station 
  Most of the ancient station is completely non-functional. No light, no gravity, no air, no heat, no functioning computer system, no 
  automatic doors or airlocks – the characters have to use vacc suits and operate all the doors manually to move through the station. 
  A few areas have light, heat and thin air, powered by nuclear batteries. 
  
  8
  The station is divided into several zones, as shown on the map. 
  Assume it takes one minute to move through a zone, and ten 
  minutes to search a zone with Intelligence + Recon. Most of 
  the zones are just stretches of empty corridor and abandoned 
  rooms, but some have locations of interest.
  1. Manual Airlocks: On the far side of these airlocks are the 
  few parts of the station that are still inhabitable. The Chamax 
  can survive in vacuum for brief periods, but prefers the relative 
  warmth and comfort of pressure.  It is intelligent enough to work 
  the airlocks in a fumbling way.
  2. Deranged Ravings: One of the previous castaways 
  scrawled messages into the wall here with a shard of metal. The 
  messages speak of ‘the ghost’ and ‘the voice on the radio’, but 
  mostly just repeats ‘it’s coming’ over and over again. Nearby, 
  the characters ﬁ nd the acid-scorched remains of a vacc suit 
  – something melted through the chest and devoured everything 
  within. A successful Animals, Life Science or Medic roll suggests 
  that the occupant of the space suit was partially dissolved and 
  then sucked out. The suit was ﬁ tted for a Human, not a Vargr 
  – this clearly isn’t a fresh kill.
  3. Painting of the Emperor: The wall here is decorated with 
  an ancient painting, preserved by the vacuum. It depicts some 
  long-dead Emperor of Sindal, wearing the traditional crown 
  jewels of the Sindalian Empire – the lanthanum-alloy crown, the 
  Thalassan Pearl, the diamond-encrusted rings of Kether and 
  the fabled Eagle of Sol.
  4. Communications Dish: The communications system 
  from Krrsh’s suit is here, wired into the dish and endlessly 
  broadcasting its distress call.
  5. The Chamax’s Lair: The Chamax slumbers in this air vent 
  when not hunting. The vent is covered with resinous secretions 
  to make it a comfortable nest for the horror. Digging through 
  the nest turns up a few indigestible remains of victims, like 
  cybernetic implants or artiﬁ cial teeth.
  6. Krrsh’s Hiding Place: The Vargr is hiding here until he runs 
  out of oxygen. When his supplies run low, he heads back to the 
  nearest airlock to reﬁ ll his suit. 
  Bug Hunt
  The Chamax hunts using three different senses – it can detect 
  heat, it can psionically sense the presence of life, and it has an 
  internal organ that ‘sees’ and ‘speaks’ in the radio spectrum. It 
  uses all three of these sensors to pick its targets. The life sense 
  awakens it when prey arrives at the station; the heat traces allow 
  it to detect weapons and movement, and the radio-spectrum 
  organ allows it to determine which of the targets is the most 
  dominant. It can also transmit its own radio transmissions; it can 
  use this to create bursts of static that jam communications, or 
  it can mimic the frequency of a distress call. It is not intelligent 
  enough to mimic human voices.
  The bug is fast and agile enough to cross two zones in the time 
  it takes the player characters to move through one. It can only 
  spend a maximum of six minutes in vacuum; if kept in vacuum 
  beyond this time limit, it takes 1d6 damage per round. It tries 
  to target player characters who are alone and unarmed. In 
  vacuum, it may use its acid to breach their vacc suits and then 
  drag their corpses back into the habitable zones. 
  • 
  Hearing the bug: Intelligence + Recon, Impossible (-8) in 
  vacuum or Very Hard (-4) in atmosphere, 1-6 seconds.
  • 
  Detecting the bug: Needs suitable equipment such as a 
  motion tracker. Intelligence + Sensors, Difﬁ cult (-2), 10-60 
  seconds.
  • 
  Tracking the bug: Intelligence + Survival, Very Hard (-4), 
  1-6 seconds
  • 
  Fighting the bug: Any explosions or projectile weapons 
  may damage the fragile space station. If any attack 
  misses the Chamax and inﬂ icts 10 or more damage, then 
  the station takes a hit. In the pressurised section, a hit 
  causes part of the station to decompress; in the vacuum 
  sections, damage to the station causes a hull breach and 
  can even cause a part of the station to break off from the 
  rest. 
  The Chamax’s primary aim is to kill as many player characters 
  as possible; in an ideal world, it would also escape on the player 
  character’s ship afterwards, but it does not have the intelligence 
  to plan towards this eventuality.
  The Vargr Krrsh has 10 minutes of air in his suit when the 
  characters arrive. He heads to the nearest habitable section 
  when his air runs low, and stays there while reﬁ lling his suit (one 
  minute in the habitable area gives him another ﬁ ve minutes of 
  air). 
   
  
  9
  Krrsh’s Tale
  The Vargr is pathetically grateful for the rescue, and confesses 
  everything over a bowl of food and a bottle of rum or four. 
  His account is rambling and slightly confused, but covers the 
  following major points:
  • 
  He was the captain of Misery’s Company, and part of the 
  retinue of a human pirate called Ferrik Redthane.
  • 
  His crew abandoned him at the station. They turned on 
  him after he ordered an attack on a freighter that turned 
  out to have more guns than expected. One of his crew 
  was killed in the attack.
  • 
  He was also part of the raiding party that hit Clarke.
  • 
  Ferrik Redthane was formerly part of the pirate gang 
  commanded by Admiral Darokyn, one of the pirate lords of 
  Theev. Krrsh does not know what happened, but Ferrik and 
  Darokyn quarrelled, and Ferrik now has a price on his head. 
  • 
  Ferrik needs the protection of one of the other pirate 
  gangs. He launched the raids on Torpol and Clarke to 
  show how dangerous and competent he is.
  • 
  As Ferrik dare not set foot on Theev, he's probably sent 
  his trusted lieutenant Miria Silverhand to negotiate with 
  the other gangs on his behalf. Krrsh and Miria hate each 
  other, and Krrsh does not know which gangs she will 
  approach or where she is on Theev. 
  • 
  If the characters give him passage to a safe world, or offer 
  him a place on their crew, he swears to serve them loyally.
  • 
  He knows the secret routes to Theev, and will gladly hand 
  them over. Not only does he know a safe landing code, he 
  also knows the location of a refuelling station in an empty 
  region of space approximately one parsec from Theev. 
  This station means the characters can use the jump-2 to 
  get to Theev.
  Refuelling Dump
  So, after trusting their astronavigation to a drunken, traitorously 
  incompetent Vargr pirate, the characters jump into empty 
  space. Jumps like this are always nerve-wracking – if the jump 
  is inaccurate, the characters will end up in deep space, with 
  many years of sub-light travel ahead of them if they ever hope 
  to see civilisation again. A bad jump here would be disastrous. 
  On arrival, a successful Sensors or Comms check immediately 
  detects a weak beacon signal (if the check fails, make the players 
  sweat for several hours of game time while they scan). The fuel 
  dump – assembled at great cost over many years – is almost 
  invisible, as it is the same temperature as the space around it 
  and there is no light except distant starlight to illuminate it. The 
  dump consists of hundreds of 4-dton hydrogen drums linked 
  by pipes. Krrsh tells the characters that some of the drums 
  are booby-trapped with ‘poisoned’ hydrogen – ﬂ oating in the 
  hydrogen are heavy compounds that damage the interior of 
  a jump drive or automatically cause misjump. He advises the 
  characters to always use fuel puriﬁ ers on hydrogen from such 
  a fuel dump, even though it might seem to already be reﬁ ned 
  fuel. 
  Once the characters have refuelled, they can make another 
  jump to the Theev system.
  5. BLACKSAND CITY
  Using Krrsh’s code, the characters can pass the watchful eyes 
  of the Skull and land at the Theev DownPort. The port looks like 
  a swarm of titanic black scarabs from above – every landing 
  has huge bay doors that close overhead when a ship is docked 
  there, to conceal the visitor from watchful eyes and protect them 
  from the dust. The city itself consists of hundreds of skyscrapers 
  that rise from a network of canyons. The skyscrapers are linked 
  by covered walkways.
  On arrival at the starport, the characters are met by a young 
  woman who introduces herself as a Widow. She has clearly 
  beneﬁ ted from genetic and cybernetic augmentation, and may 
  even be a clone. She wears loose black robes that could conceal 
  any number of weapons. The Widow explains the simple laws 
  of Blacksand City. Here, in the starport, or the Upper City, or any 
  building marked by red ﬂ ags, the Law of the Lords holds sway. 
  The Law of Lords is no murder, no weapons ﬁ re, nothing that 
  offends the calm and tranquility of the city. Anywhere else on 
  the planet surface, anywhere in the canyons below, anywhere 
  not marked by red ﬂ ags, there another law holds sway – the 
  Law of the Street. The only restriction is a ban on any weapon 
  that might breach the city’s environmental containment. The 
  punishment for breaking either law is the same – death. 
  The red ﬂ ag zones move, so some buildings in the Lower City 
  are protected on one day, and left open to the Law of the Streets 
  the next. 
  The Upper City
  The ‘safe’ parts of Blacksand feel like a corporate enclave 
  or a high-quality hotel. Pristine corridors lead to comfortable 
  meeting rooms and entertainment suites where businessmen 
  and diplomats can meet and discuss matters of importance. 
  Everyone in the upper city speaks in circumlocutions, as if 
  embarrassed to admit they are discussing piracy and murder. 
  
  10
  Upper City Locations
  • 
  The Grand Hotel: Rising like the Sword of Damocles over 
  the city, the Grand Hotel is the biggest and best hotel on 
  Theev. It caters primarily to visitors from the Imperium; 
  there are other hotels owned by the same consortium for 
  pirates and thieves.
  • 
  Cliff District: The corporations based in this area specialise 
  in illegal weapons, mercenary forces, banned technologies 
  and other... questionable activities. It’s a one-stop shop 
  for revolutionaries and war criminals. ‘Going off the cliff’ is 
  Blacksand slang for resorting to illegal methods.
  • 
  Kallos Shipyards: The front company for the Skull’s 
  shipyards. They supply weapons and  ships to pirate 
  gangs, and recycle stolen ships for scrap. 
  • 
  The Rose Pavilion: An expensive and exclusive restaurant 
  with many private booths for private discussions and deals.
  • 
  Murghen Consortium: A mercenary group based on 
  Theev; the Murghen Consortium has its own ships and 
  nearly a thousand trained soldiers. It is commanded by 
  Johanna Murghen.
  • 
  Asharden Camp: There are people who arrive on Theev 
  without the money to pay the extortionate prices of the 
  Upper City, and without the grit and ﬁ ghting skills to survive 
  below. The lucky ones end up in the Asharden Camp, a 
  refugee camp on the edge of the upper city. Many of the 
  denizens end up in virtual slavery in the lower city. 
  The Widows of Blacksand
  The Widows are the law enforcement of this lawless 
  world. No-one is sure how many there are – black-robed, 
  hooded ﬁ gures can be seen on every street, but are all of 
  them genetically augmented assassins? The Widows are 
  all linked by cybernetic implants; it is debatable whether 
  they are individuals or a single entity that occupies multiple 
  bodies. They enforce the Laws with perfect lethality.
  Blacksand Widow 
  Age 16 – 4 terms (vatgrown)
  STR 10 DEX 14 END 12 INT 7 
  EDU 10 SOC 9
  Athletics (co-ordination) 2, Comms 1, Computers 0, 
  Deception 1, Diplomat 0, Flyer (grav) 2, Gun Combat (energy 
  pistol) 3, Gun Combat (slug riﬂ e) 3, Investigate 2, Medic 1, 
  Melee (brawl) 3, Persuade 1, Steward 1, Streetwise 2
  Neural Comm, Subdermal Armour (3), Enhanced Vision
  Lightweight Polycarapace Armour (12)
  Stunner (3d6), Laser Pistol (3d6+3), Gauss Riﬂ e (4d6)
  Playing the Widows:
  • 
  Never say a word; just smile like light glinting off a 
  razor-edged knife.
  Blacksand Justice
  Of course, the Widows are not the only danger on Blacksand. 
  The streets enforce their own justice. If the players start 
  causing trouble, then the pirate gangs push back, and there 
  are lots of them and they have lots of guns. Causing trouble 
  on Theev gets you killed unless you are part of a pirate gang 
  or have allies there. That is why Ferrik Redthane dares not 
  return to Theev after being banished from Admiral Darokyn’s 
  following – he needs allies, or he’ll end up with his throat cut 
  in some Lower City alleyway. 
  Upper City Encounters 
  • 
  This is an excellent place to meet patrons like Varik Nirgal 
  (see page 19).
  • 
  A trio of Widows burst in and barge through wherever the 
  players are. They cut a hole in the window, and one of them 
  steps through while the other two seal the environmental 
  breach. Outside, the third Widow – showing no signs of 
  discomfort in the thin atmosphere – assembles a sniper 
  riﬂ e and shoots someone on the streets far below.
  • 
  A spy named Gesh questions the players about their 
  association with Drinax. 
  • 
  The characters are invited to dine with Admiral Darokyn 
  (see page 16) at the Rose Pavilion. He has heard about 
  their inquiries in town, and wishes to discuss the matter of 
  Ferrik Redthane. 
  The Lower City
  The unﬂ agged ﬂ ag zones of the Lower City are exceedingly 
  dangerous; they are dark, ﬁ lthy and crammed with all sorts 
  of depravity.  On street level, it is a tangled mess of bars, 
  brothels, ﬂ op-houses and cheap entertainments for those on 
  shore leave. Behind the cheap stalls, there are more exotic and 
  expensive pleasures – alien drugs, strange churches, illegal 
  technologies. 
  The Lower City is in a canyon; with a breather mask, you can 
  step outdoors here, as long as you don’t stay outside too long.
  Lower City Locations
  • 
  The Scrapheap: A massive junkyard of stolen goods and 
  wrecked ships at the edge of the city. Some people even 
  live in the burnt-out hulks of old ships.
  • 
  Brain Dimming: The name is a reference to the old 
  practice of ‘jump dimming’, where the lights on a ship are 
  temporarily lowered to divert power to the jump engines. 
  At Brain Dimming, you can buy any drug you can name, 
  as well as lots more you never heard of, still more you 
  can’t pronounce, and even some you can’t metabolise. 
  The den caters for addicts of all species and tastes.
  
  11
  • 
  Church of the Traveller: This cult has many adherents on 
  Theev, especially in the Lower City. The cult believes that 
  God is travelling the universe incognito in human form, 
  spying on Humaniti in order to judge the species. Some 
  believers practice charity and kindness, in the hopes that 
  one of their beneﬁ ciaries will be God in disguise; others 
  believe that serial murder is literally the best way to ﬁ nd 
  God.
  • 
  'Tuk's: One of the better – or at least safer – bars in the 
  city, the owner ‘Tuk is a K’Kree bartender from the far 
  side of the Imperium. Some of the toughest pirates have 
  turned vegetarian after months of eating at ‘Tuks. The bar 
  has only one bouncer – ‘Tuk herself.
  • 
  The House Without Questions: A cryptic establishment, 
  the House Without Questions is said to be older than 
  Theev. It is a place of last resort for travellers. One may 
  go to the House if you have nowhere else to go, and they 
  will take you in, clothe you, feed you and protect you, no 
  questions asked. You may also go to the House and hire 
  them to perform a task. If it is possible, they will quote 
  a price, and if you pay the price, they will somehow 
  accomplish your desired goal – again, no questions asked 
  on either side. In effect, it is halfway between a charity and 
  an assassin’s guild. 
  • 
  Blood Pit: A bloodsports arena, where sophonts ﬁ ght 
  to the death against monsters or each other. Gladiators, 
  prisoners ﬁ ghting alien predators, steel cage matches 
  against killer robots, running gun battles – anything goes 
  in the Blood Pit. 
  Lower City Encounters
  • 
  The characters are attacked by one of the many roving 
  'Blood Gangs' – scavengers who attack and murder 
  visitors to the city, and survive by selling stolen goods and 
  organs. The Blood Gang may ﬂ ee if the characters show 
  sufﬁ cient ﬁ repower.
  • 
  A refugee called Vii Lon begs the characters for passage 
  offworld. She came to Theev as part of a corporate 
  team from Tobia subsector to hire mercenaries, but her 
  employers were killed by assassins in the Lower City, and 
  she’s now penniless and homeless on the streets.
  • 
  A band of pirates spotted the players’ ship landing at the 
  Theev starport, and intend to steal it. As most starships 
  have high-tech security systems, their approach to theft 
  is a simple and direct one – kidnap one of the crew, then 
  chop bits off him until he hands over the codes.
  • 
  The players run into one of their contacts, who is in need 
  of help – he is being harassed by thugs, threatened by 
  pirates, or has a mission that needs doing.
  Investigations in Blacksand
  Asking direct questions in Blacksand City gets you stabbed – 
  unless you look tough enough to be the one doing the stabbing. 
  There are several ways to ﬁ nd information in the city; the amount 
  of information gained depends on the Effect of the check:
  • 
  Threats & Intimidation: Strength + Persuade, Difﬁ cult (-
  2), 1-6 hours. If successful, the characters ﬁ nd an informant 
  who tells them what they need to know. If unsuccessful, 
  the characters make more trouble for themselves.
  • 
  Gossip & Rumours: Intelligence + Carouse or Streetwise, 
  Difﬁ cult (-2), 1-6 days. Slow, but pretty safe.
  • 
  Bribery: Social Standing + Broker, Average (+0), 1-6 
  hours. You could buy someone’s grandmother for ﬁ ve 
  credits; buying information is pricier, averaging at Cr. 
  5,000. Fail, and they rip you off.
  • 
  Krrsh's Contacts: The pirate Krrsh knows the gangs on 
  Blacksand – mainly because he’s annoyed most of them 
  in the past. He can point the characters towards Admiral 
  Darokyn. He also knows about Miria Silverhand.
  • 
  Encounters: If the characters wander around Blacksand 
  for long enough in the Upper City, Darokyn will contact 
  them.
  Thugs
  A few generic thugs to throw at your players.
  Big Bruiser
  STR 10 DEX 4 END 10 INT 4 
  EDU 4 SOC 3
  Athletics (strength) 2, Melee (brawl) 1, Melee (bludgeon) 1 
  Persuade 1, Streetwise 1
  Jack (Armour 2)
  Heavy Cudgel (2d6)
  Mack The Knife
  STR 7 
  DEX 9 END 5 INT 5 
  EDU 4 SOC 3
  Melee (small blade) 2, Recon 1, Streetwise 1
  Jack (Armour 2)
  Monoﬁ lament Knife (1d6+2, ignores half armour)
  Gunman in a Trenchcoat
  STR 6 
  DEX 6 END 7 INT 5 
  EDU 4 SOC 3
  Gun Combat (slug pistol) 2, Stealth 1, Recon 1
  Jack (Armour 2)
  Body Pistol (3d6-3)
  Alley Kat 
  STR 5 
  DEX 5 END 7 INT 4 
  EDU 4 SOC 3
  Melee (brawl) 1, Melee (bludgeon) 0, Stealth 1, Streetwise 
  2
  Jack (Armour 2)
  Small Cudgel (2d6)
  
  12
  6. THE GIRL & THE GANGS
  While there are dozens of pirate crews and gangs on Theev, 
  four in particular are important to this adventure. One we have 
  already encountered – the small band of pirates working for 
  Ferrik Redthane who attacked Torpol and Clarke. The second 
  is one of the most powerful, and certainly the best organised, 
  groups – the retinue of the pirate Admiral Darokyn. Up until 
  recently, Ferrik was one of Darokyn’s followers, but now Darokyn 
  wants Ferrik dead (see page 15 for the details on why!).
  The other two gangs are almost as powerful as Darokyn’s, and 
  both are hungry and eager to recruit new blood. One gang is 
  led by Petyr Vallis, a raider with a grudge against the Aslan and 
  a habit of attacking planets. The second is commanded by an 
  Aslan named Hroal Irontooth, a fearsome pirate. Ferrik needs 
  to convince one of these two gangs that he is worth protecting 
  from Darokyn.
  Without protection, Ferrik cannot come to Theev. He is hiding 
  out in another system, and the characters will never ﬁ nd him... 
  unless they can lure him out, or convince someone to tell them 
  where he is.
  The Girl: Miria Silverhand is Ferrik’s lieutenant and emissary. 
  She arrives on Theev a few hours after the players. She heads 
  into the Lower City and makes her hiding place in part of the 
  Scrapheap. Through her spies and contacts, she approaches 
  Hroal Irontooth and Petyr Vallis and makes Ferrik’s case to 
  them. Miria knows the city very well – the players have next 
  to no chance of ﬁ nding her on their own. She rarely leaves 
  the Scrapheap. Instead, she pays beggar-boys and penniless 
  pirates to run errands for her and bring her messages to Hroal 
  and Petyr.
  Finding Ferrik
  There are several ways for the players to track down Redthane, 
  and they all go through Miria:
  • 
  Admiral Darokyn can tell the characters where Miria is, if 
  he feels they are trustworthy.
  • 
  So can either of the two other gangs, but the players will 
  have to pay dearly for that information.
  • 
  If the characters inﬁ ltrate or spy on the gangs, they can 
  identify Miria's messengers and follow them back to her 
  hiding place.
  • 
  The players could pretend to be a new gang that is willing to 
  ally with Ferrik, and lure Miria into making contact with them. 
  Once the players have located Miria, there are three ways they 
  can handle the situation:
  • 
  Travel to the Scrapheap, capture her and force her to talk 
  (see page 14)
  • 
  Travel to the Scrapheap and search her room there for the 
  location of Ferrik's ship (see page 14)
  • 
  Meet her in the Lower City in a red ﬂ ag zone and convince 
  her that she should betray her current employer
  • 
  Meet her in the Lower City in a red ﬂ ag zone and trick her 
  into telling them Ferrik's location
  • 
  Sneak onto Miria's ship, which currently docked at the 
  Skull – she ﬂ ies the 400-ton armed salvager Mercifuge. 
  See page 14.
  If the players do not act, then Miria negotiates a place in Petyr 
  Vallis’ organisation for herself, Ferrik and their two ships. With 
  Vallis’ backing, Ferrik has the protection of a powerful gang and 
  a ﬂ eet of nearly a dozen ships. Vallis leads them off to raid Aslan 
  planets in the spinward parts of Tliowaha, Goertal and Nora’a 
  subsectors, beyond the characters’ reach.
  Admiral Darokyn
  A former Imperial ofﬁ cer (see the Campaign Overview, page 15), 
  Darokyn is a cultured, reﬁ ned gentleman. He is in his late sixties, 
  though judicious use of anagathics has kept him in ﬁ ghting trim. 
  He wears a crisp naval uniform without any insignias other than 
  a silver skull-and-crossbones and a golden D. He may be a 
  pirate, but he acts like a model naval ofﬁ cer. 
  Playing Darokyn: 
  • 
  Be charming, urbane, cultured. You're better than everyone 
  around you. Talk like you are at a dinner thrown by the 
  Emperor in your honour, not a pirate in a den of thieves.
  • 
  Keep your posture ramrod-straight.
  • 
  Never admit directly that you want Ferrik killed – above all 
  else, conceal why Ferrik ﬂ ed your employ (see page 15).
  Meeting Place: Darokyn meets the players at his preferred 
  table at the Rose Pavilion restaurant in the Upper City. 
  The Organisation: Darokyn’s gang is clearly divided between 
  his trusted lieutenants, many of whom are also ex-Imperial navy 
  ofﬁ cers and crew, and his pirate hangers-on. The pirates try to 
  mimic the naval discipline of their fellows, but usually fall short. 
  The organisation is extremely efﬁ cient and well trained for a 
  pirate group, and has a reputation for getting the job done with 
  minimal loss of life.
  
  13
  The Fleet: Darokyn commands a ﬂ otilla of nearly thirty ships, 
  more than half of which he took with him from the Imperial 
  navy when he ﬂ ed. None of the stolen ships were more than 
  a thousand dtons, and were primarily small interceptors and 
  support craft, but it was still a major blow to Imperial pride. 
  Negotiations: Dealing with Admiral Darokyn requires a Difﬁ cult 
  (-2) Social Standing + Diplomat check to impress him, or a 
  Social Standing of 10+. If he decides to trust the players, then 
  he explains that Ferrik was once part of his retinue, but after 
  a... difference of opinion, they parted company. He would not 
  weep if Ferrik were to perish. He hints that he could ﬁ nd out 
  where Miria is, if the players promise to ensure that Ferrik dies 
  quietly and thoroughly, and that they do not return to Theev 
  within the next year – long enough for the city to forget that 
  Ferrik Redthane ever existed.
  Petyr Vallis
  The ﬁ rst thing the players notice when they meet Petyr Vallis 
  is his eyes, pale blue and colder than the deepest space. His 
  face and hands are marked with a lattice of tiny faded scars. He 
  moves like a cat, balancing on the balls of his feet, always in 
  motion. He has a strangely compelling, charismatic personality, 
  but any character with Social Science (psychology) or a high 
  Intelligence can tell that Petyr is a borderline psychopath.
  Petyr hates the Aslan pirate Hroal Irontooth, and would do 
  almost anything to see him brought down.
  Playing Petry: 
  • 
  Smile at all the wrong times. 
  • 
  Peytr suffered horrible injuries at the hands of Aslan 
  slavers from the Glorious Empire, and his wife and child 
  were killed by them. He is determined to wreak bloody 
  vengeance upon all Aslan. Let your absolute hatred of the 
  Aslan seep into every sentence.
  • 
  Don't let anyone push you around. You have built your 
  criminal empire from nothing using only your willingness 
  to hurt others and never give up. 
  Meeting Place: Petyr’s base is in the lower stories of a tower. 
  It is a red-ﬂ agged zone, and even a crazy psychopath like Petyr 
  won’t cross the Widows. If he has to kill a player, he invites 
  them to step outside onto the balcony – which isn’t covered by 
  the red ﬂ ags. 
  The Organisation: Petyr has recruited a band of motivated cut-
  throats. They all want money, but they prefer to take it from 
  the Aslan Hierate. Some are just pirates who are willing to ﬁ ght 
  against the Hierate, but most have grudges or other reasons to 
  ﬁ ght back. Like their leader, they are all extremely violent and 
  quick to use force. The organisation is unstable, and will likely 
  collapse in a few years when revenge becomes a tired lure and 
  some of the members decide they want money instead, but right 
  now, the Vallis gang is a knife aimed at the Hierate colonies.
  The Fleet: Petyr and his followers prefer fast, heavily armed 
  raiders. In fact, the Harrier represents their ideal sort of ship. He 
  has only eight ships, but they include two Fiery-class 400-ton 
  gunship and two 600-ton corsairs.
  Negotiations: Dealing with Petyr is simple. If the players are 
  willing to give him support against the hated Aslan, then he is 
  willing to deal on fair terms. Otherwise, he wants money – lots 
  of money. If the players are unwilling to meet either of these 
  demands, then he has no time for them.
  For Miria’s location, he wants either 50,000 Credits or a promise 
  that he can use any Havens that the players have relationships 
  with as launching platforms for his war with the Aslan.
  For his help apprehending Fezzik, he wants Mcr. 1, or the 
  promise that the players join his war against the Aslan.
  Allying with Fezzik reduces the players standing with the Aslan 
  Hierate by 1D.
  Hroal Irontooth 
  The Aslan Irontooth is the most conventional of the three pirates 
  – he’s in this for the loot. He left the Hierate in search of power, 
  glory and wealth, but now misses home. He refuses to admit 
  this to anyone, and sublimates his instinctive desire for territory 
  into violence and savagery.
  Playing Hroal Irontooth:
  • 
  Don't talk. Roar.
  • 
  Don't negotiate. Demand.
  • 
  Be all the pirate you can be. Your Aslan blood cries out for 
  territory, but your human followers would never understand 
  your desire for dirt. 
  Meeting Place: Hroal holds court in a low-down dive called the 
  Bilge Pump. 
  The Organisation: Hroal commands a gang of some ﬁ fty blood-
  thirsty bastards. It is a mix of species – Human, Aslan, a few 
  Vargr, a pair of Yonts and even an uplifted ape named Blackfur. 
  They target Imperial shipping along Borderlands subsector.
  The Fleet: The jewel of Hroal’s ﬂ eet is his ﬂ agship, a 1,200 
  ton Aslan pocket battleship. His other ships are a motley mix 
  of converted freighters, armed scouts, and salvage-patched 
  monstrosities.
  Negotiations: The players need to impress Hroal with their 
  determination and strength; this is a Difﬁ cult (-2) Strength + 
  Persuade check. He will give them Miria’s location or even 
  help them hunt down Ferrik if they give him what he secretly 
  wants – land. He will never ask for this directly, but if the players 
  promise to convince King Oleb to give the Aslan territory when 
  
  14
  the kingdom of Drinax is restored, then Hroal will help them. 
  Otherwise, the players can win his aid in ﬁ nding Miria if they 
  offer him something of value worth at least 50,000 Credits. 
  Heading Into The Scrapheap
  If the players cannot lure Miria out, then they must ﬁ nd her in the 
  Scrapheap. Picking their way across the landscape of shattered 
  ships and the hills of rust and trash leads the characters to a 
  small complex of wrecked hulls that have been welded together. 
  A dozen scrapped ships make up this bizarre structure – Miria’s 
  somewhere inside that maze of corridors, staterooms and 
  cavernous hulls. 
  Red ﬂ ags ﬂ utter at the entrance, but a close examination shows 
  these are fake ﬂ ags – the poor denizens of the Scrapheap use 
  these ﬂ ags to scare off thugs from the Lower City.
  If the players sneak into the Scrapheap, they can make their 
  way to Miria in disguise; however, if they arrive openly, she 
  knows they are coming and may set up an ambush if she has 
  reason to believe they are coming to attack her.
  Miria’s lair is on the upper deck of a downed Fat Trader. The 
  lower cargo deck is ﬂ ooded with a toxic swamp of chemical 
  waste and heavy metals, but the upper deck is still liveable. The 
  wreck connects to the rest of the Scrapyard via the aft ceiling 
  iris valve. Miria is waiting in the bridge with an Advanced Light 
  Autocannon (see Central Supply Catalogue, page 105) resting 
  on the captain’s chair in the middle of the bridge. The doors 
  down the main corridor of the deck are rusted open, giving her 
  an uninterrupted ﬁ eld of ﬁ re. 
  If severely injured, Miria activates a self-destruct suicide bomb 
  built into her cybernetic arm; this blast does the same damage 
  as a frag grenade and has a one-round countdown.
  The location of Ferrik Redthane’s hiding place can be found 
  among Miria’s personal possessions. 
  Miria Silverhand
  Miria started out as a steward on board an Imperial 
  passenger liner, on the proﬁ table Floriani route, taking care 
  of rich aristocrats on the Spinward end of the Grand Tour. 
  The Ancient ruins on Floria attract many visitors. Her ship 
  was attacked, and the rest of the crew murdered by pirates. 
  Miria was captured by the raiders, and proved to have 
  previously unknown determination and ruthlessness. Within 
  a year, she went from slave to lieutenant; within four, she 
  had her own ship. 
  Her right arm was crippled in the attack; she had it replaced 
  with a cybernetic limb.
  Age 30 – 3 terms
  STR 6 (18) DEX 9  END 8 INT 8 
  EDU 8 SOC 6
  Admin 0, Astrogation 2, Carouse 0, Comms 1, Computers 
  2, Deception 1, Engineer (power plant) 1, Flyer 1, Gambler 
  1, Gun Combat (slug pistols) 1, Gunner (turret) 1, Heavy 
  Weapons (light autocannon) 1, Leadership 2, Melee 
  (brawling) 1, Persuade 0, Pilot (spacecraft) 2, Sensors 1, 
  Steward 1, Stealth 0, Vacc Suit 1, Zero-G 1
  Improved Boarding Vacc Suit (Armour 12)
  Light Autocannon (6d6+4, Super Armour-Piercing) or Gauss 
  Pistol (4d6)
  Cyberarm: Miria’s cyberarm has armour 14 and gives her 
  Strength 18
  Sneaking Onto The Skull
  Alternatively, the characters can travel up to the HighPort and 
  locate Miria’s ship, the Mercifuge. Security in the Skull is not 
  especially tight (an Average (+0) Dexterity + Stealth check 
  gets the players to the ship without being seen), but the whole 
  asteroid is a red ﬂ ag zone under the protection of the Widows.
  Three of the ﬁ ve crewmembers are on the ship, doing 
  maintenance and repairs. The ship is locked down and 
  needs Miria’s access codes. It can be hacked, but doing so is 
  Formidable (-6) using Computers + Intelligence. Getting access 
  to the navigation logs is trivially easy, though.
  The Jump Location: However the characters get the location, 
  it leads them to Ferrik’s hiding place. He is a single jump away, 
  in the Palindrome system, hiding on the fourth moon of the 
  system’s gas giant.
  Miria’s Crew 
  STR 5 
  DEX 7 END 5 INT 7 
  EDU 6  SOC 5
  Comms 0, Computers 1, Engineer 0, Gun Combat 
  (slug pistol) 1, Gun Combat (turret) 1, Mechanic 1, Pilot 
  (spacecraft) 1, Sensors 1, Stealth 0, Recon 1
  Vacc Suit (Armour 4)
  Body Pistol (3d6-3) 
  
  15
  7. AMBUSH!
  The ﬁ nal part of this mission the capture of Ferrik Redthane, alive 
  or dead. He pilots a 200-ton Far Trader, the Janal Torsk. She 
  has two double turrets, each equipped with twin pulse lasers, 
  and carries a full crew of ten – ﬁ ve crewmen, four marines, and 
  Ferrik himself. 
  The Janal Torsk is currently landed in the icy methane wastes of 
  the fourth moon, a nameless rock tagged as 540PD-5/4. If any 
  ship approaches, the pirates wait in the hope they go unseen; if 
  the ship then conducts a sensor scan of the moon, the pirates 
  assume they have been detected and either attack or try to ﬂ ee, 
  depending on how well armed the players are.
  Killing Redthane
  Killing Redthane is easy – just keep ﬁ ring at the Janal Torsk until 
  she breaks apart. The pirate ship is moderately well armed, but 
  the Harrier outguns it, and if the players have brought help from 
  Theev, then Redthane is even more outmatched. If the Janal 
  Torsk’s hull is breached, then Redthane makes one desperate 
  plea for clemency – see the sidebar on Darokyn’s Secret. If 
  the characters keep ﬁ ring, then the ship is destroyed and 
  Redthane’s corpse can be scooped out of space afterwards.
  Capturing Redthane
  Taking the pirate alive is trickier. The best option is to trick him 
  into surrendering; they could lure him into an ambush if they 
  have captured or deceived Miria Silverhand, or pretend to be a 
  damaged ship that misjumped into the system and let the pirate 
  come to them. Otherwise, they could land on the ice moon, 
  travel across country, and then storm the Janal Torsk while it is 
  landed, or cripple the pirate ship and board it.
  Wrapping Up
  Bringing Redthane back to Torpol and Clarke gets the players 
  the Mcr. 2.5 bounty. It also moves both planets two steps 
  towards Haven status. 
  If the players bring Redthane back for justice, then the two 
  worlds agree on a compromise sentence. Redthane is frozen 
  in a Clarke-style carbon tomb, then placed in orbit of Torpol as 
  an eternal warning to other pirates who dare offend against the 
  unwritten law of the Trojan Reach.
  Ferrik Redthane
  Ferrik comes originally from Belgard, a world halfway across 
  the Reach where spacefarers are worshipped as heroes. 
  He dreamed of going into space, and took his chance when 
  a pirate ship landed for repairs. He ran away from home at 
  the age of 12, and has been a pirate ever since. He is a wild 
  young pilot, famed for his daring and willingness to push the 
  boundaries of sanity and safety.
  Playing Ferrik: 
  • 
  Laugh wildly. Everything, even your imminent death, is 
  funny on some level.
  • 
  Keep a knife in your hand. Flip it and toy with it.
  • 
  Speak fast, think fast, die hard.
  Age 38 – 5 terms
  STR 6 
  DEX 10 END 8 INT 8 
  EDU 4  SOC 6
  Athletics (co-ordination) 1, Astrogation 1, Broker 2, Carouse 
  1, Comms 1, Computers 2, Engineer 0, Gunner (turret) 3, 
  Gun Combat (slug pistol) 2, Mechanic 2, Melee (brawl) 1, 
  Leadership 2, Tactics (naval) 1, Sensors 1, Stealth 1
  Boarding Vacc Suit (Armour 12)
  Gauss Pistol (3d6, Auto 4)
  Redthane’s Crew
  STR 5 
  DEX 7 END 5 INT 7 
  EDU 6  SOC 5
  Comms 0, Computers 1, Engineer 0, Gun Combat 
  (slug pistol) 1, Gun Combat (turret) 1, Mechanic 1, Pilot 
  (spacecraft) 1, Sensors 1, Stealth 0, Recon 1
  Vacc Suit (Armour 4)
  Body Pistol (3d6-3)
  Redthane’s Marines
  STR 9 
  DEX 6 END 9 INT 5 
  EDU 6  SOC 5
  Gun Combat (slug riﬂ e) 1, Gun Combat (turret) 0, Melee 
  (large blade) 1, Mechanic 0, Stealth 0, Recon 1, Vacc Suit 
  2, Zero-G 2
  Boarding Vacc Suit (Armour 12)
  Cutlass (2d6+4)
  ACR (3d6 Auto 3)
  Darokyn’s Secret
  If Redthane believes he is in danger of being captured or killed, he contacts the players with a last-ditch offer. He was kicked 
  out of Darokyn’s gang because he uncovered Darokyn’s secret. He’ll sell that secret to the players in exchange for his life. The 
  secret is useless without proof, and he’ll tell the players how to get that proof if they spare him.
  Redthane discovered that Darokyn is still in contact with Imperial Intelligence. They are secretly supporting his pirate gang, and 
  use the Admiral as their spy and agent in the wilder sections of the Trojan Reach. Redthane managed to obtain proof of this, by 
  intercepting and recording some of Darokyn’s communications from the Imperium, but these intercepted ﬁ les are stored on a 
  secure computer onboard Darokyn’s ﬂ agship. If the players can get these ﬁ les, they can either blackmail Darokyn or bring his 
  whole organisation down from within. The ﬁ les might also give them clues about Imperial anti-piracy operations in the sector. 
  
  16
  LIBRARY DATA 
  LIBRARY DATA 
  Admiral Darokyn: Infamous pirate captain; formerly an Imperial ofﬁ cer, he was found to involved in a smuggling ring. He ﬂ ed the 
  naval base at Tobia with several other members of this ring, and set himself up as a pirate. The Imperium has not, to date, placed 
  a bounty on his head; the Duke of Tobia said that the matter was one to be resolved by the Imperial Navy and they would punish 
  their own traitors.
  Chamax Plague: The alien Chamax overran their home world when the native sophonts eradicated the only predator that kept 
  the Chamax in check. The swarm’s population exploded and the Chamax devoured the entire biosphere in a 
  matter of months. 
  Deep Space Refuelling: It is possible, albeit extremely costly and time-consuming, to 
  build up a cache of hydrogen fuel in interstellar space. A ship jumps in with its cargo 
  holds full of hydrogen, adds most of its hydrogen to the cache, then refuels 
  and jumps out again. These caches are used primarily by the military. 
  Finding a cache without knowing its exact location is almost 
  impossible. 
  Lords of Blacksand: The mysterious rulers of Theev. It 
  is generally believed that the ‘pirate planet’ is ruled by a 
  consortium of pirate gang leaders, possibly together with 
  representatives of the corporations who proﬁ t from the 
  planet’s illegal activities. There is no known way to 
  contact the lords; they contact you. 
  Red Flag Zone: A region protected by the mysterious 
  Widows of Blacksand. 
  
  17
  WORLDS OF THE REACH 
  Additional tasks and jobs the players can take on dur-
  ing this adventure and after.
  Oghma
  Oghma is an iceworld, but retains enough of an industrial base 
  to build jump-capable starships. The rulers of Oghma intend 
  to conquer their neighbouring worlds along the Dustbelt by 
  weakening their industrial and technological bases. Over the 
  course of generations, the Oghman raiders have targeted 
  scientists, teachers, engineers and craftsmen in their slaver 
  raids. The Oghmans are savage xenophobes ruled by tribal 
  warrior-kings, where a warrior’s worth is determined by how 
  many jump-capable ships he ‘rides’ and how many soldiers he 
  commands. Oghman Raiders are a common threat in Sindal 
  subsector; they are despised by all civilised worlds. 
  The starport is run by GeDeCo, and is comparatively safe – the 
  Raiders know better than to attack interstellar shipping, and 
  instead prey on weak backworlds.
  Patron: Chieftain Hannigan
  Reward: Oghma moves three steps towards ‘Haven’
  Mission: Most arms dealers refuse to deal with the Oghman 
  Clans – even weapons merchants don’t want to hand advanced 
  weapons to crazed, xenophobic barbarian slavers. Hannigan 
  wants the players to smuggle him and two dozen of his best 
  warriors to Theev where they can buy weapons. His trade 
  goods consist of several crates of platinum, worth MCr. 5; the 
  crates are booby-trapped with poison gas.
  Torpol
  Torpol is a water world, with no surface land. The limited 
  population lives on the ice caps at the north and south poles of 
  the planet, or on huge stilt-supported platforms built in shallow 
  water. The planet’s primary industry is, unsurprisingly, ﬁ shing and 
  producing hydrogen fuel for the trade convoys that dock here. 
  Despite Torpol’s lack of natural resources, the provosts who rule 
  the planet have proved themselves canny merchants, buying 
  and selling goods along the Florian trade route. The eccentric 
  Florian League is a difﬁ cult trading partners, as guessing what 
  the Floriani will decide to invest in next is something of an art, 
  and the provosts have studied the demands of the distant 
  League in order to predict which goods will sell to the League 
  in coming years. 
  Torpol has also made its name as a planet for shore leave, by 
  establishing a string of ‘pleasure ports’ along the tropics. Torpol’s 
  high Law Level is a reﬂ ection of the provosts’ need to keep the 
  planet’s reputation as a safe place to relax. The pleasure ports 
  may feel wild, erotic and untamed, but they are actually the 
  safest place on the planet.
  Patron: Provost Shala
  Reward: Torpol moves one category towards ‘Haven’.
  Mission: There is another waterworld in the Trojan Reach 
  – Thalassa (0803 Dpres) – where the inhabitants have built 
  huge cities that ﬂ oat on rafts made of woven organic matter. 
  The plants used to build these rafts were genetically engineered 
  from the native ﬂ ora of Thalassa, and the Thalassans guard 
  their secrets closely. Provost Shala wants the players to travel 
  to Thalassa, break into one of the Thalassan bio-research 
  facilities, and recover samples of the plant seeds along with 
  data on how to cultivate these plants. Ideally, she also wants 
  them to kidnap the famous Thalassan geneticist, Dr. Thorkan. 
  Clarke
  Formerly a garden world, Clarke was bombed by the Star Guard 
  during the last years of the Kingdom of Drinax. Hundreds of 
  thousands died when the old capital, Hiewad, was destroyed, 
  and millions more starved in the years that followed as the 
  dust clouds caused several years without a summer. Clarke’s 
  technology base was similarly crippled; the planet was at TL14, 
  but virtually all the high-technology facilities and services were 
  concentrated at Hieward. Deprived of the high-tech medical 
  facilities they remembered that could heal the sick and dying, 
  the people of Clarke chose to preserve their mortally wounded 
  in the hopes that when they rebuilt, they could be healed. This 
  practice of freezing the dead quickly evolved into a religion that 
  worshipped the dead. Today, everyone who dies on Clarke is 
  immediately placed into a carbon-weave monolith and stored 
  until the day of healing that will one day arrive. The Psychopomp 
  priests who control the preservation technology rule the planet. 
  The reconstruction of Clarke’s technological base has slowed 
  to a crawl; the priests know that if they recover the technology 
  to heal those who were preserved in the monoliths, they would 
  lose their position of authority in Clarke society. Therefore, the 
  planet becomes ever more insular, ever more death-obsessed. 
  Today, the frozen dead on Clarke massively outnumber the 
  living. The dead are everywhere, as the black monoliths are 
  used as building materials in the dark, oppressive cities. 
  Patron: High Psychopomp Boone
  Reward: Clarke moves two categories towards ‘Haven’.
  Mission: Prince Harrick of Drinax was mortally wounded many 
  years ago, and was preserved using similar technology to that 
  of the Psychopomps until the scientists of the Floating Palace 
  could revive him. Harrick therefore represents the fulﬁ lment 
  of the Psychopomps’ promise; he was resurrected from the 
  black slab of death. If Harrick were to publicly join the faith and 
  make it the state religion of a revived Kingdom of Drinax, then 
  Boone would step down and name Harrick his successor as 
  High Psychopomp. Boone knows that it will be centuries before 
  Clarke has the technological infrastructure to resurrect the 
  millions of faithful dead (and even then, fulﬁ lling all the promises 
  of the Psychopomps would require anagathics for everyone), 
  but making Harrick the new leader of the faith would cement the 
  church’s power for generations to come. 
  
  18
  Blue
  Blue was once a rich world, one of the jewels of the Old 
  Empire. Over the course of several centuries, the planet was 
  systematically denuded of all its accessible resources. Today, it 
  is a quiet backwater. The people of Blue are insular and rarely 
  travel, preferring to spend their times in contemplation of religion 
  and art. Rumours insist that there is a secret Psionic Institute 
  somewhere on Blue. 
  Patron: Metholde Vong
  Reward: Blue moves one step towards Haven, Cr. 20,000. 
  Mission: Vong’s daughter Kasah stowed away on board a ship 
  that called at Blue; he wants the players to ﬁ nd her. The ship 
  was a trader, the Ginnea, but the characters discover that the 
  ship was attacked by pirates somewhere in Sindal subsector; 
  Kasah was discovered and sold into slavery in the Glorious 
  Empire. 
  Borite
  Some systems were named by their inhabitants, or to 
  commemorate the circumstances of their discovery. Others 
  were named after legends or heroes or myths.
  Borite was named for the high concentration of boron-heavy 
  compounds in its surface. That is the most interesting thing 
  about this system. From orbit, it looks like a yellow-brown stain 
  of a planet, and it doesn’t even live up to this ﬁ rst impression. 
  The planet is inhabited by several million unfortunate colonists 
  who mine the borite or try to scrape a living out of the soil; it is 
  ruled by the Borite Continuity Authority, a decaying remnant of 
  the old Drinaxian bureaucracy. The BCA control all trade and 
  travel on and off-world – not that many people come here. The 
  planet’s Class-E starport sees only a handful of ships every 
  year, mostly traders trying to dodge pirate attacks on the Florian 
  route. 
  Like Marduk, Borite is often attacked by the Oghman Clans, 
  who target scientists and scholars. Writing is therefore forbidden 
  on Borite except for the few heavily-guarded members of the 
  BCA. 
  Patron: BCA Administrator Ura
  Reward: Cr. 5,000 and Borite moves one step towards Haven.
  Mission: One of the atmosphere pumps in the mine has broken 
  down, and none of the planet’s surviving engineers has the 
  technical know-how to ﬁ x it. The pump can easily be repaired by 
  any competent technician, but it is being watched by spies for 
  Oghman slavers. If the players take the mission, their technician 
  will be targeted by the slavers.
  Marduk
  This small, Earthlike world has no surviving cities outside the 
  starport shanty-town. The civilisation on Marduk has collapsed 
  due to repeated raids from Oghma and other worlds. The planet’s 
  population has broken into several dozen clans, each of which 
  fears all outsiders. The clans all have their own languages and 
  wildly divergent cultures. The starport is operated by GeDeCo 
  and is on an artiﬁ cial island far away from any of the native-held 
  archipelagoes. 
  Patron: Anthropologist Maris Enar
  Reward: Cr. 10,000 and Marduk moves one step closer to 
  Haven.
  Mission: Enar is researching the natives of Marduk, and has 
  come to believe that native beliefs about ‘sea gods’ have 
  some basis in reality. She suspects there are previously 
  undocumented sea creatures living in the depths of Marduk’s 
  oceans, possibly even intelligent ones. According to native 
  legends, these creatures are huge squid-like creatures that 
  dwell in the uttermost depths. Enar has a submarine, but needs 
  a crew to pilot it on a search for these sea gods.
  
  19
  Palindrome
  Palindrome’s only settlement is the domed town of Astrogo, 
  and everyone on Astrogo works for Lady Yemar. She is a 
  former pirate who set up this little colony with her ill-gotten 
  gains. Palindrome is a clearing house for stolen goods and a 
  waystation for travellers. Yemar uses the proﬁ ts to pay for her 
  astoundingly expensive life-support needs; she was severely 
  wounded in a raid and exposed to an experimental bioweapon. 
  All of her organs except her brain have been replaced multiple 
  times, and even her brain requires constant maintenance and 
  augmentation. She travels to Theev several times a year for 
  medical treatments.
  Patron: Lady Yemar
  Reward: Palindrome becomes a Haven.
  Mission: Yemar needs a cure for her disease. She believes 
  that only an Ancient device could save her, but it is also possible 
  that the weapons researcher who created the bioweapon could 
  create an antidote. The researcher now works for an Imperial 
  megacorporation on Tobia. 
  Theev
  Theev is a dusty, arid, Mars-like world. The only settlement in 
  the system is Blacksand City, a high-tech city that rises from the 
  sands of the desert like an impossible mirage. The starport – a 
  hollowed-out moonlet – is in geostationary orbit over Blacksand, 
  and is referred to as the Skull, as the empty crates resemble 
  bony eye-sockets. The Skull’s shipyards are capable of building 
  ships up to 2,000 tons, and here is where many of the corsairs 
  and other pirate ships were made. The Skull’s craters also 
  conceal hundreds of missile launchers and gun emplacements 
  – any ship approaching Blacksand City without permission will 
  be blasted out of the sky.
  Theev is an infamously lawless and dangerous port. There is 
  no ‘legitimate’ government or business here – this is a port run 
  by thieves and pirates, for thieves and pirates. The markets of 
  Theev deal in stolen goods, in illegal weapons, in drugs and 
  contraband and slaves from across the Sector. Not everyone 
  who comes to Theev is a pirate, but they are all here for criminal 
  reasons. They might be Imperial nobles, here to sample the 
  illegal delights of the ﬂ esh-pits of Blacksand, or arms dealers 
  hawking their wares, or mercenaries looking to hire on in some 
  petty brush war, or merchants hoping to buy stolen goods on 
  the cheap, or even spies, but everyone here has the same 
  sordid stain that comes from spending time in Blacksand. It is 
  impossible to visit Theev and not be soiled by the atmosphere 
  of the place, which is more insidious than the ﬁ nest dust from 
  the desert.
  Theev’s survival is a mystery – how can a world run by criminals 
  survive and even prosper to such a degree. Theev has cutting-
  edge technology beyond even that available on most Imperial 
  worlds, and can produce TL15 ships, weapons and equipment in 
  its factories. Many suspect that some other great power, possibly 
  the Zhodani Consulate, is behind the Lords of Blacksand...
  In fact, the secret power behind Theev is not the Consulate 
  – it is something closer to home. Blacksand City is funded 
  by the General Development Company, a sector-wide 
  megacorporation. For more on GeDeCo, see Alien Module 1: 
  Aslan, page 223, and Pirates of Drinax Adventure 7: The Vorito 
  Gambit.
  Theev starts the campaign as Friendly towards the player 
  characters. Theev can never become a Haven, but can move 
  towards Hostile if the characters cross the Lords of Blacksand.
  Patron: Varuk Nirgal
  Reward: Cr. 10,000/player
  Nirgal is a weapons merchant and information broker based in 
  Blacksand City. Rumour has it that he is actually one of the 
  secretive Lords of the City, but the old man just smiles at such 
  allegations. He looks like a kindly grandfather with twinkling 
  eyes, and his ofﬁ ce is staffed by pretty young girls he refers 
  to as his nieces. He is a valuable source of information about 
  potential heists and jobs throughout the Trojan Reach. 
  To win him as a Contact, the players have to prove themselves 
  trustworthy with a simple little  mission. A magnistrate on Dolberg 
  ordered a collection of Aslan artefacts from a trader on Salif. 
  Nirgal knows that the goods are being transferred at Vume to 
  another ship, and then being carried onto Dolberg. Nirgal wants 
  the players to plant a high-tech spying device on one of the 
  artefacts. They can accomplish this heist however they wish 
  – ambushing the ship, blufﬁ ng their way into the brokerage on 
  Vume, travelling to Dolberg and planting the bug on the cargo 
  in the spaceport, or even breaking into the Dolberg House of 
  Justice.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Traveller/08 - Mongoose Traveller/Third Party Materials/Adventures/The Pirates of Drinax - Adventure/Pirates of Drinax 1 - Honour Among Thieves.pdf