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--- game_systems:traveller:insearchoftheancients:adventure_journal [2026/08/16 17:03] – [Messages and Messages] Bryan Stephens
+++ game_systems:traveller:insearchoftheancients:adventure_journal [2026/08/22 13:32] (current) – [“The entire battle lasted only a few minutes.”] Bryan Stephens
@@ Line 2725: / Line 2725: @@
+=== Assassins ===
+|Game Date|8/13/26, 8/20/26|
+Marie moves first.
+She leaps up and takes Ujinka to the floor.
+Glass explodes over her head as a gauss shot cuts through where her head was a moment ago.
+David falls from the couch, feeling the shock of his cybernetic systems failing.
+Vincent stands and pulls his revolver.
+//”This will still work.”//
+Maria shouts //”Room without windows now!”//
+Lucas says, //”Down the hall on the left!”//
+As Maria carries the startled professor back, David recovers and stand. He hands his gauss pistol to Lucas.
+//”Can you reactivate it?”// Lucas shrugs and goes to work as they move.
+//”Vincent how good are you with that thing?”// Vincent looks at the gun in his hand and then back at David.
+//”Here”// is all he says handing it to David. Then he starts to work on his gauss gun as well. Unlike Lucas, it takes his far longer and while the others act, he struggles with the gun.
+As Maria gets the processor into the other room she tells her //”Lay on the floor. Keep down and here. We have this”//
+Professor Ujinka looks into the eyes of Maria. The calm, casual woman of moments before is gone. The eyes looking back at her are deep and cold.
+No fury. No fear.
+Just eyes of a mechanic looking to fix a problem.
+//I guess I really am back// Maria thinks as she pushes her mind out with //sense life//
+...and the world suddenly becomes crowded.
+Not visually. Not as shapes or faces. As life.
+Maria reaches outward with Sense Life...
+...and the world suddenly becomes crowded.
+Not visually. Not as shapes or faces. As life.
+Every living thing around Professor Ujinka’s home registers at once, layered by size, complexity, motion, and proximity. Maria does not have to search for anything. With an effect this strong, the entire area simply unfolds before her.
+The professor is there, a bright human presence nearby. The others around her are just as distinct.
+Beyond them, smaller lives are everywhere.
+Birds perch in trees and flit between branches. Insects move through grass, soil, and air in numbers too great to count individually, becoming an almost shimmering background of tiny living sparks. Small animals shelter beneath bushes and buildings. Something rodent-sized moves beneath the edge of the house. Fish drift beneath the water near the dock. Aquatic life clusters along the shoreline. A larger fish moves slowly through deeper water.
+And among all of it...
+two human beings are moving toward the property.
+One approaches the front door: Human. Adult. Walking deliberately. His movement is too direct to be someone simply passing nearby. Maria can follow him continuously as he closes on the house.
+The second is approaching from the water side, moving toward the boathouse: Another adult human. Separate from the first. Deliberate movement. He is not wandering the shoreline. He is coming in.
+Farther away, beyond anything Maria could normally see from the house, are two more human lives.
+They are stationary, sitting close together inside something that itself gives no life-sign at all. A vehicle. Maria cannot see the car, cannot make out who they are, and has no way to know that they are Imperial agents.But she knows they are there.
+Two people. Waiting at a distance. Watching from somewhere beyond the immediate property.
+Maria does not see weapons through Sense Life. She does not know their names, their intentions, or what they are thinking. But there is absolutely no chance they surprised her.
+Then, with a flick of thought, Maria passes what she senses to the others.
+Every morning, almost without thinking about it anymore, the crew establishes the telepathic link through their Ancient necklaces. Years ago, those strange artifacts were objects some of them regarded with suspicion. Now they are something no one takes off.
+Maria pushes the pattern through the link.
+For an instant, everyone experiences the world the way she does. The house. The professor. The living clutter of birds, insects, fish, and animals.
+Then Maria narrows it for her friends, stripping away everything irrelevant until what remains is something almost absurdly familiar...
+A psionic minimap, like something out of a video game.
+The house is the center point. Around it, living presences become simple contacts. Most fade into the background. Four remain highlighted.
+One approaching the front door. One moving toward the boathouse.
+And, farther away, two more stationary contacts sitting together beyond normal visual range.
+No faces. No names. No weapons. Just position, movement, and distance... updated continuously in all of their minds. And everyone linked to Maria knows exactly where the incoming threats are.
+The man coming from the boathouse stagers as a Maria strikes him with a telekinetic punch. She can feel he is wearing armor.
+The other man comes up the stairs and Daivd fired to slow his movement.
+The stunned man in the boathouse hears the shooting, but he has no idea what is going on. That is his last thought as Maria simply assaults his mind. In a scream of pain, the man drops. Blood starts to flow from his ears and nose.
+Lucas faces breaks into the feral grin that has been on his face more and more. He fires through the wall at the figure he can see in his mind. The gauss round slams into the man. David fires again.
+The man staggers, but his body armor has kept him standing.
+Maria strides out towards him psi-blade in hand. Glowing with the blue-white energy, the startled man stands there as this woman moves towards him. In this moment, Maria does not look human. She looks like a cold killing machine.
+Without passion her blade swings. The energized blade passes through armor, flesh, and bone.
+The man’s head is separated from his body.
+She watches him fall, apparently oblivious to the spray of blood.
+She turns to the others and says,
+//”That is all there is. I am going to probe the other one.”// Maria says flatly. Like it is a statement on where she will have lunch.
+The man left alive is Galus Labre. Maria knows everything about him.
+  * Worked for Ven Yasha irregularly for **15 years**, usually as a guard or legbreaker.
+    * He has **never met Ven Yasha directly**.
+    * Jobs always came through Ven Yasha’s aide, **Harlen**.
+  * Several weeks ago, Harlen contacted **Kinson and Labre**.
+    * They were ordered to keep an eye on a Traveller named **Backett**.
+    * Their job was to watch over him and make sure he was **not being followed**.
+  * On the night Backett was murdered:
+    * Kinson and Labre accompanied Harlen to the **TAS Hostel**.
+    * They met Backett there.
+    * Backett and Harlen appeared to know each other quite well.
+    * Kinson and Labre stood guard outside while Harlen spoke with Backett.
+  * During the meeting, Kinson was sent out to buy a considerable quantity of **tusal**.
+    * He has no idea why.
+    * Harlen did not normally use the drug.
+    * Kinson knew a dealer named **Darrian Jak** and bought the tusal from him.
+  * Soon after Kinson returned:
+    * He resumed standing guard outside.
+    * Harlen **shot Backett**.
+    * There had been **no obvious argument beforehand**.
+    * Harlen, Kinson, and Labre fled the scene.
+  * Harlen stole two items from Backett’s room:
+    * A **statuette**.
+    * A **datatape**.
+  * During their escape, they used a device that suppressed nearby electronic systems.
+    * They simply called it **"the gadget."**
+    * Kinson does not know where it came from.
+    * He does not know how it works.
+    * It was one of Harlen’s most prized possessions.
+  * They also used **the gadget** during the attempt to assassinate **Professor Ujinka**.
+  * Kinson does not know why they were ordered to kill Ujinka.
+    * They were told to make the death **look like an accident**.
+    * They were also ordered to **steal whatever they could from the house**.
+  * Kinson does not know:
+    * Where Harlen is based.
+    * Where the statuette is now.
+    * Where the datatape is now.
+  * Kinson contacted Harlen through a contact in **Startown**:
+    * A Llellewyoly named **Exceedingly Discreet**.
+    * Exceedingly Discreet operates out of a brokerage called **Winter Shipping**.
+    * The password for gaining access is **"17 tons of flax."**
+    * Mentioning the phrase at Winter Shipping will get someone admitted to see Exceedingly Discreet.
+Then they decide what to do with Labre.
+Maria simply raises her sword.
+Vincent speaks.
+//“Now are we just going to kill him? Shouldn’t we turn him over to someone?”//
+For the first time, Maria’s face shows something other than cold detachment: incredulity.
+//“Turn him over to whom? Imperial Intelligence, who is following us?”//
+Vincent looks to David and Lucas. Their minds are still connected. They do not need to say anything. They are siding with Maria. Vincent sighs. His shoulders fall.
+Another head gets removed.
+Then it is back to normal. The bodies go into the incinerator, less two gauss pistols. And the “gadget”.
+//”We take the Professor to my parents.”// Vincent says as if it is already decided, because of course it is.
+//”The agents will want to follow us and they will wonder.”// David notes.
+//”No. They won’t.”// Maria notes.
+In the past, before Twilight’s Peak, they would have had to guess with Maria was using her telepathy. Not now. Now they could since it. Maria was adjusting the mind of one of the agents. They would not ask any questions.
+//”Let’s go.”// The flat voice was back//
+They easily get back to air car territory and fly the Professor to the Weiss estate. Alexandria understands without any explanations required.
+Then they head to The //Wandering Providence//. Safety. Home. Maria goes to recharge her psi-battery crystals and sleep. Anson comes up with David. They spend the night here.
+Tomorrow will be time for scouring the streets of Startown for more answers. They have leads:
+  *Winter Shipping in Startown
+  *The Station someplace amid sloughed off cargo in orbit
+  *Vlenn’s Body.
+What next?

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