Longshore Crew session 8

Session 8 of the Longshore Crew campaign.

Giraud's little sojurn out of town in the last session was thought suspicious. When challenged about why he had left the hotel just before the busy time after the siesta, he said that he was out photographing a rare species of sea ghoul that he'd heard was around Longshore. But Travar throught that Giraud wasn't telling the whole truth, and Joe didn't think that Giraud was looking for ghouls when he was out. So, while Travar asked Giraud some more questions in the hotel kitchen, Joe slipped Giraud's camera from his coat and took it into the hotel bar. There, Milo downloaded the pictures from the camera (without leaving a record on the camera's gremlin) and traced what other access there had been to the camera recently. He discovered that the pictures had been uploaded to a public CommCore server. Joe then put a bug in the camera and slipped it back into Giraud's coat.

Examining these data, the Crew came to two conclusions. First, Giraud was not looking for a sea ghoul - the pictures didn't contain any pictures where wildlife was the main subject, and they weren't taken in places where sea ghouls would be expected. Instead, Joe and Jamirika thought that the pictures could be used to guide someone up from the Irrawaddy river to a particular point in the treeline overlooking the road form the airport to Longshore. Second, with the picutres now placed on a public server, there was no way of tracking if anyone else had seen them, but it was very likely.

While all this was going on, Maj. Aachen and his people were continuing to prepare their rooms for the arrival of their mysterious guest. Observing them through the hotel's CCTV, Joe got the impression that Karl Aachen wasn't as on the ball as he should be when it came to supervising what his team were doing. This observation was filed for later use. Joe and others also learnt that all this work was being done to prepare for a VIP from Hanover, who was arriving by plane tonight.

Meanwhile, Travar then went on the hunt for other leaders of the Church of Whalesong Theogeny. He was fairly convinced that Maker, the church's Leader, was lying when he said that he hadn't before seen the mysterious disappearing 'fin. Travar managed to talk to Splasher, the church's Recorder. Splasher said a couple of interesting things. First, he confirmed Adjigo's story that the mysterious 'fin had been to the church before, but that Splasher hadn't talked to him, as he mainly spoke to Maker. Splasher thought that the other 'fin came from one of the Native villages nearby. The other thing that Splasher explained was that there were two pods in Longshore, and they included most of the Native human population. The Leap/Echo pod, of which Splasher was a member, was the larger of the two and more influenced by the holistic and pacific interpretion of the Whalesong. The other pod, Glide/Kelp, was far more pragmatic and assertive. Maker was a member of the Glide/Kelp pod, as was Giraud.

The Longshore maincomp was asked to monitor the harbour and shoreline for a 'fin that matched Defender's description, and a few surveillance drones were left around the CWT meeting place.

As things moved towards the evening, the Crew discussed what they'd found with Karl Aachen and his HSS team. They managed to perusade Aachen that there was a real possibility of an attempt by the Blue Water Circle to assassinate whoever was arriving from Lebensraum tonight. They decided to lay a trap for the assassins. Night fell and they moved out.

Joe sneaked his way into a position that overlooked the airport road and the position where they thought the assassin would be hiding. He suspected that the stationary warm patch he saw in is infrared scope was the assassin, already in place. The rest of the Crew and the HSS team drove to the airport. Eventually, a Hanover plane arrived and delivered a rather old man. Gary and Kalina recognized him as Prof. Heinrich Schmidt, a reputable xenobiologist and virologist who had dropped out of major research in the past few years after being promoted. Gary was the closest physical match to Schmidt, so he put on Schmidt's coat and drove back to Longshore with Max, Travar, and an HSS man. Everyone else stayed at the airport with Schmidt.

As the car approached the possible assassination point, the warm blob started to move and Joe shot it. Joe stayed hidden on overwatch while everyone else piled out of the car and took cover. A few shots were fired, but everything was soon quiet. When they got to Joe's warm blob, they discovered that it was a Native with a hunting rifle and a BWC tattoo.

The route safe, the Crew escorted Schmidt to the Rangoon hotel and everyone went to bed.