Secrets of the Sensational Singing Steerer

The planet Bernadette lived up to its reputation of having a diverse culture including folks preaching religiosity, cheating gamblers, mobs of adoring opera fans, and slave traders that have no qualms about drugging a person and snatching them right off a crowded street…

Captain Mitch ordered everyone to get off the boat and stretch their legs for a spell.

James and Rook headed off to a local carnival not far from the docks to partake the fascinations inside the Freak Show. As expected, “The Bearded Lady” was nothing more than a long haired man in a dress and pretty floral bonnet. “The Mermaid” was simply a girl wearing sea shells and a wet-suit fish tail. And least impressive of all was “The Wolfman”, a teen-aged boy in a cage snarling at onlookers. The main attraction was the proof of alien life–which Doc identified as a jar containing deformed cow fetus suspended in a liquid.

When they had experienced all that The Wonders of the ‘Verse had to offer, Rook took Doc James to a back ally saloon (and opium den). Doc sat back and smoked a cigarette while Rook managed to take in a sizable haul. As they were leaving, James and Rook shouted back to the dealer, “You really shouldn’t deal from the bottom of the deck. ‘Specially, ’round a testy bunch like this one.” To avoid getting pulled into the ruckus they started, the two made sure to get back to Hera right quick.

The rest of the crew headed off toward the middle of town to see what New Paris had to offer. Twitch seemed a mite twitchier than usual and was obviously trying to cover up so as to not be recognized, but when pressed she wouldn’t go into detail about why. The group got a couple miles away from the ship when the glances of a few passersby turned to stares and finally one girl pointed to Twitch and yelled, “Minuet Chen!”

Before Elaine or Mitch could react, a crowd became excited and pushed in as close as they could around Twitch separating her from the others. All of a sudden she dropped and disappeared from sight. Elaine could just hear Twitch faintly calling the Captain’s name as she was loosing consciousness and being carried away by a pair of men. The spry men had enough of a head start to make it back to their freighter, Blackbeard’s Revenge, and shut the door. Elaine got there in time to catch the markings and a rough description of the slave traders’ ship.

Rook prepared Hera for the Captain’s return, and double checked the engine once they broke atmo. The Captain called in a favor to The Black Fox asking him to help track down the freighter holding his pilot. While waiting for the Cutty Sark to arrive, Mitch looked-up “Minuet Chen” on the Cortex and discovered his pilot was not only a famous opera singer before the war, but she was also a highly decorated Alliance war hero. Mitch goes on to say that she was really a double agent that made sure the Brown Coats always managed to find a way around the Alliance blockades.

Fox sent in a transmission that he had located Blackbeard’s Revenge and tracked it on a path to the rim planet Icarus. Wasting no time, Mitch immediately set in an intercept course at full burn and instructed Fox to rendezvous there. When Hera arrived, they found the Blackbeard’s Revenge had been grappled and boarded by reavers! Cautiously, the crew docked with the slave ship and picked the electronic lock on the airlock door.

Inside they found a gruesome display that was eerily quiet. Blood spattered on the walls and doors of the crew quarters. Body parts laid in pools of blood and evidence that other bodies had been dragged toward the cargo hold. But no screams or sounds of any kind other than the hum of the ship’s grav drive. The group carefully searched the crew quarters in hopes of finding Twitch and dread of finding reavers. They happened upon some rooms filled with guns, tools, new-tech hats, and books. Each one quickly grabbed a couple items that appeared to be useful in the search and decided to investigate later if the situation allowed for it.

The trails of blood on the floor lead down the stairs into the cargo bay. The hold looked like scene in a Quentin Tarantino film from the Earth-That-Was. There was still no sign of Twitch, and no sign of any survivors among the bodies piled up and chained to the walls. The team made their way across the bay to another flight of stairs leading up to the bridge. Inside the bridge there was another room behind a locked door. With the help of the new-tech gloves he picked up from the crew quarters, Rook quickly picked the lock. They open the door to find Twitch covered in blood, her right arm completely shredded, with the bodies of what could have been a dozen reavers surrounding her.

Without even noticing her rescue party, she finished entering the self destruct sequence into the terminal pad she had propped. “The ship will self destruct in 10-9-8”, Mitch tried getting Twitch to cancel the command. “7-6-5”, Rook grabs the pad and madly mashes the buttons with no effect. “4-3-2”, Elaine takes the pad from Rook and figures out the right sequence to delay the self destruct by looking at which buttons Twitch had smeared with blood. “The ship will self destruct in one minute-59-58”, Captain Mitch calmly takes the pad from Elaine and reset the sequence to count down from one hour.

Twitch looked up toward the Captain almost as if she were looking through him and said, “I got ’em all Cap’n.. I got ’em all…”

Elaine picked up the delirious pilot and the group headed back toward Hera. On the way back through the crew quarters, the Mitch and Rook gathered up all of the hats, and as many books and guns as they could carry. Twitch was immediately taken to sickbay while the Captain and Rook searched the ship for any one or anything that could have come over from one of the other ships. They shoved off from Blackbeard’s Revenge to a safe distance and waited to see that it and the reaver ship destroyed.

A course for the border moons was set in and the solemn crew took inventory of their lives as they took inventory of the plunder from the slave ship.
Game recap written by melinate

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This will also be the last serenity game that I will be playing Capt. Mitch Mitchel in. Starting next game, I will be taking over GM duties.