After giving our attacking ships the slip (with liberal use of the new foam torpedos to disable their thrusters), we proceed towards the previous coordinates we’d found from the Crocodile, intent on figuring out what caused its fate. With most of the crew in medbay, it was a quiet overnight flight further into the darker parts of the belt, with Froon left alone to play with the new torpedo fabrication systems, restocking our foam payloads.

Approaching the new coordinates, we find at least 2 ship’s debris fields, seemingly originating from a common point when they were very close, possibly from a collision. One large piece seems to be a third of the other ship, seemingly still pressurized. We perform a makeshift docking, nice hiss, and proceed to check doors and corners. Its the remains of a Martian combat ship, and right as we’re about to check a terminal to find out what happened to it, we run into a pair of martian soldiers wearing the ship’s vacsuits. They’re friendly enough and relieved to see rescuers, which we decide we totally are sure. Turns out there were 7 of them, but they didn’t have many details to offer us, insisting that (as good military soldiers unfortunately respecting info compartmentalization) they weren’t priviledged to know much more besides that a Corp ship attacked them suddenly while they were giving assistance to the Crocodile. They didn’t want us poking through their military ship’s terminals, so we couldn’t corroborate this, but it did seem plausible. We agreed to bring them back to Martian space (hopefully for a reward), so long as they stow all their weapons.

Just as they were coming aboard, 2 new ECorp ships show up and immediately launch 4 torpedos at our poor wittle ship. We beat a frantic escape, blowing up the remaining ship chunk behind us to create more debris field, and burning hard away. One torpedo got through our PDC’s, roughing up every system but the coffee machine, but we somehow lost them.

Picturing the Martians trying to pry open the newly padlocked door to the bridge: “I can’t get er open captain, they musta put a chain on it!!!”

We decided, after re-analyzing the trajectory of the Crocodile pre-attack, to continue persuing its course all the way to Titan, moon of Saturn, to a small refuelling station registered to ECorp. The Martians had been growing increasingly impatient at our roundabout ‘course home’, but we told them it was essential to avoid persuit, which was half-true, but ultimately hard to sell once we proceeded to dock at the ECorp station. It hadn’t responded on any comms, and as we boarded we saw why: corpses, shot with conventional bullets (“so that’s a relief at least”). Upon reaching the station’s control room, knocking over a soda can alerted what appears to be an entire flock of shambling folk, with brown ichor dripping from their eyes…

Dramatis Personae

• B - Froon Blagmare, Belter-weeb, intrepid pilot, and definitely “captain”
• R - Sam Bankman, jacked quartermaster turned “captain”
• M - Eva, “spy” but not the hacking or sneaking type
• M - Roger Roger, Military-weeb
• S - Lana, thin wrenchmaster (but sleeping this one out in Medbay)