Hunting on Dust

This weeks story was a bit more 'lower decks' than previously. The Orpheus arrived back at Dust after a months journey and put into dock for repairs and recruitment. Cain decided that the decks effected by the Warp were to badly tainted to be able to purify and ordered that section of the ship to be cut out. Kaltos and his crews then laboured to rebuild that section of the ship.

While that was occurring much of the crew was given shore leave. Rumours started to spread that an unusually large number of low ranking crewmen were suffering 'accidents' while of shore leave with an increased number of bar fights and in some cases down right assassinations occurring. One of the crewmen, Hygiene specialist 3rd Class Jak Conner decided to keep his eyes and ears open while on the planet. While he and his team were enjoying themselves is a bar called 'the Pit' a drunken brawl broke out between crewmen from the Orpheus and the other ship in orbit over the honour of the two ships. The fight quickly escalated and deaths started to occur.

Jak noticed a group of locals in long coats which seemed to be guarding the doors and preventing people leaving and following them when they did. He remembered these individuals talking to crew from the other ship before the fight started. Jak talked to one of these figures and was invited outside to talk. Once outside the man draw a large gun and attempted to kill Jak but Jak was quicker avoiding the ship disarming the man and drawing his own weapon. The man quickly surrendered and revealed that he was a bounty hunter and that a 100 thrones bounty had been placed on each of the crew of the Orpheus.

With the arrival of the local police the fight in the bar stopped and Jak and his team managed to smuggle the bounty hunter back to the Orpheus where he was interrogated further. Jak's story was quickly spread up the ranks and he soon found himself being questioned by Kaltos himself. Jak was given a significant promotion and sent back to the planet with a small team to investigate the matter further.

Jak, along with an assassin and a security guard decided to pose as bounty hunters to get more information on who had placed the bounties on the crew. The cased the bounty hunter guild house and handed in a substantial number of crew rank badges to prove their credentials. They then arranged a meeting with one of the higher ups in the guild a man called Alexander Jurgenson.

They originally planned to overpower Jurgenson in his office and obtain more information but decided that the defences of the guildhouse were too substantial for this approach and decided to play along with Jurgenson for the time being. They arranged a higher bounty for higher ranking crewmen and called Jurgenson several days later to arrange a meeting at the Drunken Grox.

Jurgenson and his guards attended the meeting and the party attempted to get him drunk without much success. They arranged another meeting a few days later. Shortly before the meeting there was an explosion at the Pit which killed about 50 crewman with signs indicating a bounty hunter had gotten to enthusiastic. The fire spread to several other buildings and the planetary governor was forced to step in and officially cease the bounty hunters activities. Jurgenson arrived late to the meeting due to the upheaval and was more talkative this time, revealing that imperial officials of some sort had ordered the hits and were paying well to kill as much of the crew as possible.

The superior officers of the Orpheus decided that the crew required blood as revenge of the death of their colleagues on the planet and a large group of crewmen were given leave to attack the bounty hunters. While the general crew rioted at the back of the guild a strike squad led by Cain attacked the front.

The strike squad quickly broke into the building and suppressed any defenders. They gained access to the hunters records and found details of the location of the group which had ordered the hit.

Jax's team ensured that they had a meeting with Jurgenson while the fighting was taking place and broke the news to him of their true nature and their attack on this employers. Jurgenson, seeing which way the wind was blowing quickly offered him services to them. He revealed that the individual which had ordered the hit was an officer of the imperial strike cruiser the Javer. He was holed up in a large mansion in a high class part of the city with a squad of naval stormtroopers, any attempt to attack them would likely be costly and the troops would probably attempt to destroy any records if it looked like they would be defeated. The officer also seemed to be in regular astropathic communication with his superiors.

The officers of the Orpheus decided that any attack would be to costly at this point and decided to leave orbit without any further incident. The Orpheus left Dust and headed off to attempt to locate Grimm's homeworld.