Session 13: Sea Hunt - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

The team is back in the office suite at TreeHouse. Kat and Kira are sleeping in, and Moopsie and Kniffin are out playing tourist.

Calder recaps: they have three leads:

1. Choudhary | Llewellyn Marine Labs, a sinking arcology built around an island chain far out at sea. Apparently Zhukov bought up an old shell company that financed its equipment. And if you’ve got a solid habitat that’s already sinking, well, easy start on an undersea lair. The Marine Labs is about 1200km out: that’s an overnight trip on a TreeHouse sub, but also no problem. That’s way too far for Flipper to recon, and they don’t have facilities out that far. So they’ll need to send a sub, and you all might as well be aboard for that, as there won’t be any going back and forth to something that far out, especially if it is a hot lead.

2. Okushiri Ridge Logistics Hub received several shipments of alloy and power cabling from the contracts they got from Deadman. It was a BADI facility, but supposedly abandoned in the corporate collapse. It’s 100 km off the coast. Flipper went to investigate, and got there around sunrise. He called in to report it’s not completely abandoned: looks like some sea nomads are using it as a chop shop and transit hub of their own. Looks like about 15 people, no heavy weapons. He’s hanging out monitoring the situation. TreeHouse doesn’t have anything armed that could get out there and count on assaulting a fixed position, but they could contract for a ConBrands Hydroponic Farms Quality Assessment Group – an amphibious strike team that takes out bootleg algae farmers – to hit the Hub and clean the nomads out.

3. The location where Zhukov’s plane went down is 500km from The Drift, so pretty much halfway between the two. Makes sense. They dropped sensor buoys, but lost the plane as it descended out of range. Either the lair is deep, or Zhukov’s really throwing people off the scent. You could try following the vector before they lost contact.

Florian Bathory comes in to meet with you: he’s the new Chief of Security, who got the job because he successfully cleaned out the Zhukov agents in Avant Security Services based on Lane’s lead. He’s here to see this through.

Rina notes that Bathory smells of clove cigarettes, Aqua Velva, and determination – definitely a cat person. Jiefan thinks he seems competent, but she’s going to keep a close eye on him. Rina wants to take another crack at the data: any orders that go a place then mysteriously disappear. She needs to get to the Hub.

Bathory declares that while he’s fine with taking the entourage, everyone has to get dive certified, checked out on spearguns, and checked out on the firing range. No exceptions. Well, except for Flipper: the firing range is a bit much, even if he does have cyber-hands. And he can already use a dorsal-mounted speargun.

And yes, Dr Madison needs to go to the firing range: if you’ve got hands and can lie flat, you can be a sniper.

He’ll prep a sub, and call in favors for the ConBrands strike on the logistics hub for just before sunrise tomorrow. The sub will leave at sunrise, and get there after ConBrands is done mopping up. In the meantime, get your team certified.

Kira was not okay with Kat coming along, or scuba diving, or harpooning things. Kira wasn’t going to stay back in the resort while everyone else risks their lives to kill her thankfully-not-fiancé. They worked out a compromise: Kat will do the training, but stay on the sub.

After the Kat/Kira negotiations, Rina says that Kat should get certified on sub piloting: that’ll keep her on the sub and start giving her life skills. She’s here for expanding the horizons of other Cats.

Kniffin is a crack shot with a pistol. Kira shot herself in the foot with her speargun. The shot startled Madison, and she whipped around, catching Kira in the eye with her harpoon. Kira was rushed to the hospital – but she said she’d wanted to get her eyes done anyway, to be a better bodyguard. She seems to not be too chuffed about the whole thing, and should be back in a couple hours. Rina puts in a word for the excellence of cat eyes!

Scuba training went much better overall: Moopise needs next to no oxygen and has internal buoyancy control: she’s practically her own submarine. Kniffin killed it too: she’s discovering her Danger Girl side. Everybody else did fine.

Lane is a mad thing with a harpoon! She leaned into Kodiak’s shooting training for composure. Lane got a special harpoon outfit that inspired her: a holographic wetsuit with glitter. Madison helped pick it out, and get her in and out of it: it’s got a mermaid tail. Rina had an edge from having claws, and Rook did fine.

Lane used up all her skills on the harpoon, and tanked the firing range: time for some remedial training with Kodiak.

Rina sends a message to Nymphie. She asks if Rina’s heard from Moopise. “Once she gets her brain fixed and pulls Zhukov’s legs off, I’ll buy her a new clinic.”

“You’ve got that kind of money??!”

“Lane says yes! We’re working with Tiffany! And we kidnapped a Princess and a Duchess! They kidnapped themselves, we just helped.” Rina purrs at her over the comm. “Nymphie is not crazier,” she says.

Rina goes off to hunt fish. Lane calls Dr. Madison for a shopping date, and showing her her “new skills.” Rook just lays out on the beach. Kat and Kira disappear into their suite: they’re still Coming Out. Moopsie and Kniffin go out dancing.

At 4 AM, a bus with blacked-out windows arrives at the Emerald Blossom to collect you all. Bathory, who is starting to seem like someone who does not delegate, is aboard. He informs you that the ConBrands assault is under way, and Flipper is monitoring from nearby. You can see multiple streams of data flashing across his Virtuality glasses.

It’s about a 15 minute drive to the TreeHouse docks, where you pile into the Trumpetfish. Dr. Madison is already aboard, in a half-full tank in the sensor room.

The captain, Nikos Croyle, gives everyone a thorough check-out tour. The sub is generally used for inspection of undersea construction, and transfer of staff to construction sites. It’s got excellent sensors, waldo arms, undersea and aerial drones. It’s not armed aside from a pair of Growlers, designed for driving off kraken. There are powered hardsuits aft, for outside work at depth or evacuation. Additionally, he checks Rina out on the Net architecture for the drones and Growlers. Moopsie will be on sensors. Rook will be on the manipulator arms as needed.

The sub un-docks, the hum of engines coming on. Clear of the harbor, it dives smoothly and proceeds out to the Okushiri Ridge Logistics Hub. The journey is just an hour, just long enough to get comfortable with their stations, take a nap, or whatever.

Rook is not great with the manipulator arms: she was too busy sassing Bathory to pay attention, but Rina takes readily to the drone network, and plays around with the network architecture. She sniffs Croyle: he smells of fish, and she approves. Croyle keeps working with Kat on sub driving, and she’s starting to get the hang of it. She’s never piloted a non-living thing before!

About 20 minutes in, Bathory reports that the ConBrands forces have left, claiming mission accomplished. Flipper confirms they’re gone, and there’s no lifesigns on the Hub platforms.

At the hour mark, the sub docks with the Hub. Bathory has a moment of flail, trying to decide whether to stay to protect the noncombatants on the sub or guard you on the platform, but heads up with you. He takes rear guard while Jiefan takes point: she won the rock-paper-scissors.

Madison gives Lane a scanner to compare any cargo against items on the contracts Deadman obtained.

The cargo elevator is loud and shaky, but gets everyone to the main deck. They’ve got two goals here: get into their records and see what they can correlate against the contracts and the potential locations of Zhukov’s base, and check any cargo against the contracts.

The place looks deserted: maybe it’d be OK to split up, Rina on the computers with a guard and Lane and Rook in the cargo bays? It’s agreed.

In Central Records, Rina bounces off the login password a couple times. She takes a break to chat with Bathory. He’s actually curious about her background. She explains she is actually a cat, though she was adopted, and lives with the cats. She knows some young cats who would love a roommate. He’s interested. She gets a pretty strong cattish vibe off of him.

Returning to work, she gets past the password. She looks for snacks, but apparently somebody took a flamethrower to the fridge. Breaking into the desk, though, she finds the programmer’s kibble stash. That boost does the trick, and she gets in. She takes out a couple rounds of defense, then jacks back out again. Rina triggers an alarm, and hears a fwoomp from the server room. That’s probably not good.

In the cargo hold, Lane readily discovers that crates have manifest PADDs on each of them: detailed information on contents and received shipper: ship or helo registry, authorized signatures from the shipper and the cargo crew. The outbound information, though, is just an alphanumeric string.

Working with what they know, however, they deduce what the code is for shipments to Zhukov.Rook finds a contract, and suggests they could hide and maybe ambush Zhukov’s forces when they come to pick it up. But Lane knows Zhukov’s on alert, and there’s a bunch of dead bodies on the Hub. Last time they went up against Zhukov’s forces, they almost got wiped out. Rook suggests maybe bringing in a fake crew. But Lane’s worried they’ll show up first. Rook thinks they could put a tracker on the shipment and then hide.

Suddenly alarms go off! Red emergency lighting comes on, and the floor zaps Jiefan and Rook! Lane is safe: she was standing atop a crate to examine the next one up the stack. Jiefan tries to grab for Rook and misses wildly, having flashbacks to falling off the roof. Rook closes in, grabs her hand, and pulls herself clear of the ground. They’re safe, and well within range of the door frame. Lane, however, is in a container in the middle of the cargo bay.

Rook comms Rina to turn off the murder floor. “Working on that!” But she can’t jack back in, which is weird. But she heard that noise from the server room… She has Bathory go check it out. The only thing in the room is a dilated iris in the floor: looks like the server got dropped into the ocean.

Rina and Bathory head to the server room. The breakers are unlabelled. She turns everything off. She comms to ask if the floor is off: yes, but it’s pitch black. But Rina finds the right combination right off! Lights are on and the defenses are down.

They all return to the sub. First up: recovering the server off the ocean floor. Croyle readily maneuvers the sub into position: now it’s up to Rook on the manipulator arms. She picks it up and brings it aboard – just as Moopsie, on sensors, spots something huge and slow incoming!

Croyle recognizes it as another sub, headed for the Hub! That’s an Anglerfish-class deep submersible, specifically the Yokozuna by registry markings.

They were manufactured by Allers Nautical Engineering, a Lavigne Engineering subsidiary: the same parent as Lavigne Aerospace, makers of the spaceplane, that was taken out with the destruction of the Lavigne Arcology during the war.

The Anglerfish-class was designed for deep sea cargo transport and construction, way deeper than TreeHouse operates. There were only a few made, because aside from extremely paranoid smuggling, the only real market was - NovaKuro Deep.

That was a project that went belly up even before the war and the Lavigne zaibatsu’s destruction: NovaKuro planned on building a massive urban and industrial complex at the edge of the continental shelf. They went epically bankrupt before anything was completed except – the geothermal tap. Nobody knows if they ever brought it online, because there was nothing to power, and there’s no reason for anybody to go there.

There’s no registered transfer of the Yokozuna: no sightings have been reported since the war.

But if the NovaKuro tap was online, you know what they might need? Replacement neodymium binary-cycle heat exchangers.

And yes, Zhukov’s plane diving where it did would be well in range of NovaKuro Deep.

But they’ve got more pressing problems: they can’t run for it: speed means cavitation, which means detection. What they can do is lie on the bottom under the platform, and hope the sub doesn’t scan down.

Silent running! Shut down all power! Don’t move! With all power off, it’s pitch dark and getting cold fast.

It works! Except.. on departure the Yokozuna turns on active sensors and pings them -but keeps going.

Flipper follows the sub, undetected. He confirms it’s headed for NovoKuro.

They return to TreeHouse without incident. Rook thanks Croyle for such a fine job keeping them alive!

The team considers their next move: the TreeHouse sub was scanned and presumably ID’d. The Zhukov cargo handlers knew that the Hub was raided – the day after his spaceplane was stolen. The team is going to have to sneak their way into a fortress that’s on alert. Rina points out they need to know Yuri’s travel schedule: what’s the point of raiding the lair without pulling off multiple legs? Lane wonders if they can somehow encourage Yuri to come in, and then sneak in when Zhukov lowers security to let him in.