Mostly Harmless...

(039/1105, Wurzburg/Glisten)

Digging through the starport landing logs, Lasnus discovered that the Akhashuua had been to Wurzburg three times. The first time was also the last time the crew had bothered to make a monthly payment; they'd filed a flight plan for Bendor. The second and third time they hadn't filed plans. In all three cases, there were no records of tradegoods being passed out of the starport XT zone, meaning that any trading had been done in the port. Lasnus dumped the information to dataslug and left.

Meanwhile, Nose and Gvn were working through the tradehalls and hiring bars normally found in most starports. The primary industry of Wurzburg was pretty obvious; death and destruction. Arms dealers and mercenary units bought and sold their wares and services everywhere.
A couple of men "bumped" Nose, and in the course of "apologizing", sounded him out as a possible buyer for their wares. They turned out to be offering a combat drug for sale, designated Morbex-5, price Cr50,000 for 20 injectors. While he didn't make the trade, Nose took a handout of the drugs' specs for future reference, intending to perhaps sell the stuff on. In his early training he'd been taught how combat drugs work, and he remembered enough to realize that this stuff - if it did what the sheet said - was pretty good.

Elsewhere, the Zho brothers had been using their own special talents to move the mission forwards. Wandering through the tradehall, they drifted from booth to booth, browsing the hardware for sale, and, in the course of conversation, idly dropping the name "Thorbad Dreng". As he did this, Dliiavrnt used his telepathy to observe the surface levels of the subject's mind, looking for a reaction.
On the third try, he got a reaction. The gun dealer's mind flared with a memory association; an image of Dreng's lean, hawklike face looking down at a rifle in his hands as he stood at this very booth. Unable to resist the opportunity of a good lead, Dliiavrnt assembled a full mental probe and launched it into the man's mind, ripping into the memory threads looking for more information on their quarry.
Horrified and outraged at this violation of his mind, the dealer fought back. Though untrained, he mustered all his will power and resisted - successfully. Dliiavrnt was unceremoniously hurled out of his mind, shocked and stunned by the experience, and sagged against the counter.
Stpierb', while not in immediate telepathic contact with his brother, could tell immediately from the shock and pain his mind suddenly radiated what had happened. He was, therefore, ready and prepared when the furious dealer started to draw a weapon from his shoulder rig, and cleared leather with his gausspistol much quicker. His first shot was hasty, and delivered a nasty bellywound; his second was neatly in the chest and the dealer crumpled across his counter before sliding off in a welter of blood and guns.
Pulling himself together with an effort, Dliiavrnt flung himself mentally back into the man's mind, smashing down his remaining defences and draining as much of the information he needed as he could before death's effects took hold. He was rewarded with a much clearer view of Dreng, an image of someone else from his crew - someone not listed in the data they'd receieved - and a word. "Aki". The list of sightings they'd received showed the Akhashuua at Aki on 175/1104; this seemed to indicate that the weapons Dreng had bought here were bound for there. Then the victim's last thoughts drained away like water into sand and he was dead. The two left, pausing only to sweep a few appealing items of equipment into a sack, and for Stpierb' to secure the dealer's hand computer. This turned out to have a wealth of information about the man's business and personal life, and meticulous accounts, including for the large consignment of rather sophisticated weaponry he'd sold to Thorbad Dreng.

Back aboard the Baranduin, Lasnus was hard at work on his idea for flushing their target. His plan was to cook up a spurious lottery win, inheritance or message, tailored to the targets, and insert it into the starport message/pigeonhole system on various worlds, to try and influence their future whereabouts. Despite Wurzburg, with its' anarchic social structure, being a poor place to start such a trail, he left the message.
Midway through this process, the ship's computer's pleasant tones notified him that there was a non-crew-member within the security area under the landed ship. Turning on the security cameras, he saw a tall, lean human, wearing a trenchcoat and a low-pulled hat, skulking around under the ship's hull. Interested, he requested the computer rotate the ventral Y turret 180°. Unsurprisingly, the man turned tail and fled. Lasnus analysed the video footage, attempting to see if he recognized his visitor. He didn't; but he did get a nice clear shot of the man's handgun - and he'd never seen anything like it before. He checked the databases the ship was fitted with, and discovered a record marked "ISS" and plastered with "Classified" stamped all over it. He hastened to flash this information out to the comm units of the rest of the team.

Meanwhile, Fred and Gvn were on their way back, and Fred felt a tiny bump. Before he could react, he found himself watching a skilly street urch making off with his handgun. The lad's miscalculation, of course, was that Nose was carrying his rifle as well. Drawing a bead, he suggested the thief return the pistol.
Having secured a prisoner, and never one to miss a chance, Nose grilled the lad about whether anyone had been asking questions around the 'port. With some heavy leaning provided by a growling Vargr (the poor kid had never seen one before!), they were led to Brian's Bar, and introduced to the manager, Brian. Brian had been visited by Lasnus' stranger earlier, and had been left with a card marked with a name - Brett Lehman - and a commo number. Nose dialled this, taking care to hide himself from the vid pickup, and set up a meeting with the man, who provided a picture of the man he was hunting. It was Lasnus.

Having recovered a bit from the mental shock he'd recieved, Dliiavrnt went cautiously back to the tradehall where he and his brother had so recently committed murder. He put on an act of a disgruntled customer, out of pocket to the deceased dealer, and this must have appeared suspicious, because when he left he was tailed by a suspiciously casual loiterer. After warning Gvn and Lasnus - the nearest backup - on his commo, he ducked into an alley. The thug followed, and Gvn, entering the alley behind him, clubbed him down with a single mighty rifle-butt blow. A search of his pockets revealed an ID from the Korburg Combine (a large conglomerate of arms dealers and part of the de facto "government" of Wurzburg), and a pack of 25 BigEye, a vision-enhancement drug. Stpierb' tried one and was impressed by the results.

Back at the ship, the team discussed the day's events, and decided to show up for the meeting with Brett Lehman. Lasnus arrived hours early, cased the joint, and concealed himself in a shadowy corner. Nose and Gvn showed up, and, when Lehman arrived, haggled with him to try and get information. He intimated that he was a "good guy", a loyal Imperial citizen and an Imperial intelligence agent. In the course of his description of the "criminal" he was after, he described him as "harmless". When pressed on this, he revised it to "mostly harmless". Finally, Lasnus joined the group, curious to see what would happen. Lehman immediately tried to arrest Lasnus, accusing him of being an unlicenced psionic. Lasnus went for his energyblade, but Lehman was too quick and drew his agent's weapon, shooting Lasnus in the chest. This was a fatal mistake, as Lasnus' combat armour kept the bullet out; he sliced the top of Lehman's head off like an egg. Lehman dropped, his weapon skittering across the floor. Nose rounded on Lasnus. "Are you a psionic?" he demanded, hand on pistol. This question, so long feared, brought Lasnus up short; while he hesitated, Gvn quickly picked up the agent's pistol. Chagrined at not securing this prize, Lasnus allayed Nose's suspicions while rifling Lehman's body for his ID (which showed him to be a taxi driver) and four clips of ammo for the weapon, plus his hand computer, turned off and passworded.