Session 2 — Dead Man's Bounty

State Check

Free Play — The Wake

Vess wakes the crew at 0300. Double-voice, louder than before: "It's awake. The one in the water. It sent something."

Sable attuning — Roll: 1-3. Vision: deep ocean, cold black, pressure. A light pulsing in a pattern she almost recognizes. She pulls back shaking. The node fragment in the wall is hot to the touch for the first time. Level 1 harm: "Way-Shaken" (−1d on attune rolls until next downtime).

Cult Ritual Completion ticks: ██░░░░ (2/6). The Mem awakening is a Cult event whether the Cult engineered it or not.

Ashek calls. The Vess bounty is on the public board.

Planning & Engagement

Plan: Infiltration. Detail: Approach the Cove through the Ashtari Cloud using the Stardancer's dark hyperspace lane maps. Inside before anyone knows they're looking.

Engagement modifiers:

Dark hyperspace lane maps (crew upgrade) +1d
Rack's Ace Pilot makes Cloud navigation controlled position, not risky +1d
The Cove's residents are Tier II professionals −1d
Final pool: 3d. Roll: 6 — Controlled position.

The Job

Scene 1 — Intelligence

Controlled position = time to ask questions before anyone gets defensive.

Cutter consorts with Praxis Ivanov (the tattooed xeno merchant). Buys him a drink. Talks about nothing for twenty minutes. Then asks about Vess.

Consort: critical.

Sable scouts to find Vess without being spotted. Skulk: 4/5. Finds Vess in the hydroponics ring — sitting completely still, eyes tracking things that aren't there. Also finds two watchers: a woman near the exit, a man at the irrigation rigs. Neither is Maelstrom crew.

Scene 2 — First Contact

Juno leads the approach to Vess. Welcome Anywhere (+1d on consort when offering medical care).

Juno pushes herself (I'm a Doctor, Not A...) to roll doctor for the observation. Roll: 6.

Juno marks XP — addressed a challenge with insight or compassion.

Scene 3 — The Complication

The two Cult watchers move. Sera Vael's operatives — trying to extract Vess before any bounty hunters can.

Racing clocks open:

Cult Extraction — 4 segments
Crew Gets Vess Out — 4 segments

Round 1:

Rack — rig: 4/5 to dump irrigation controls into emergency flood mode. It works, but Cult operatives don't scatter. Cult: █░░░. Irrigation man is through the door.
Cutter — scramble: 6. Grabs Vess, reaches the exit corridor. Crew: █░░░.
Sable — sway: 4/5 to the woman with the stunner: "We're not taking Vess anywhere they don't want to go." She hesitates. Cult clock holds.
Juno — command: 6 to give Vess agency: "Do you want to come with us? We're not Hegemony." Vess chooses to move with the crew. Crew: ██░░.

Round 2:

The woman fires a stunner bolt at Cutter.
Cutter resists with resolve: 4. Takes 2 stress, harm reduced to level 1 "Rattled" (not "Stunned"). 6 stress − 4 result = 2 stress.
Sable pushes herself (2 stress) — invokes Kinetics to throw irrigation equipment between crew and Cult operatives. Attune: 6. Corridor impassable. Window open.
Crew clock: ████ (complete). On the ship.

The Fallout

Vess sits in the cargo compartment and doesn't touch anything. The node fragment — still in the wall — hums once. Goes silent. Vess looks at the wall. "That's one of them. You have one of them."

Nobody asks what they mean yet.

Downtime

Payoff: Vess not delivered. No payoff. Upkeep due: 4 cred. Paid from reserves. Cred: 0. Tight.

Heat — CORRECTED: Loud disturbance at the Cove (+4), plus Vess is a high-profile active Hegemony warrant target (+1). 5 heat in Rin. Tracker: █████░░░

Hegemony faction status: −1. Warrant undelivered. Vagrant Star is now the last vessel logged on Warrant 7741-B.

New tug-of-war clock — "Warrant 7741-B": 8 segments, midpoint. Left = Cold Case. Right = Active Pursuit. Fills right on Hegemony fortune rolls. Fills left on crew actions that hide Vess.

Entanglement roll (Wanted 0, but Hegemony is −1): Reprisals is now live. GM triggers it as the more fictionally appropriate result: An enemy faction moves against you. Hegemony is Tier V — 5 cred to buy off. Crew has 0 cred. The Hegemony's reprisal is procedural: the Vagrant Star's fake transponder signature is watch-listed across all Rin ports. Pending entanglement — manifests next session when they try to dock on Warren.

Downtime activities:

Rack — Maelstrom cargo run (the Banshee's favor request, accepted to gain +1 Maelstrom status). Helm: 6. Clean. +1 cred from Side Job ability.
Sable — continues node fragment project. Attune: 6 + gambit (The Way). 5 segments on 8-clock. The fragment responds to Ur writing. When she traces the carved symbols, they glow.
Juno — talks to Vess. Doctor: 4/5. Vess is stable but the relay function intensifies. "It's like being a phone. Someone keeps calling." Juno marks XP.
Cutter — recovery from "Rattled." Recovery: 4/5. 2 segments on healing clock.

Maelstrom status: 0 → +1.