Session 6 of my Traveller RPG campaign. In the last session they were on deceleration approach to the Gas Giant at Tureded (Lanth C565540–9) When they were ambushed by a 200ton Far Trader. Though they assumed it was a pirate, the ship issued no surrender orders and was jamming the player's comm systems. A running battle ensued as Luxley dove their scout into the upper atmosphere of the gas giant, hoping to elude their attackers. Dax was in the turret, but the Marine turned spacer had little experience with such heavy weapons. Still, his return fire and deployment of sand made it possible for them to get into the giant's atmosphere. Meanwhile Miguel was trying to do damage control, trying to patch their existing hull breach. No sooner had he done so than the Far Trader's beam laser sliced deep into their ship's hull, not meters from where Miguel was working.
Luxley dodged and jinked their ship, aided by their defensive programs, but the enemy ship was not giving up. It seemed it's sole purpose was to destroy the players and their scout ship. Laser fire ignited the hydrogen atmosphere with each shots, sending ribbons of flame and great arcing sheets of fire all about them. Suddenly ahead of them were massive columns of fire erupting radomnly across the sky. A massive storm was ahead and bolts of lightning several meters across were hellishly lighting up the sky. Luxley made a gamble and dove at full burn into the storm. A bolt of lightning hit the pursuing freighter, destroying it's laser turret. Thrown off balance it made an easier target and Dax hit solidly with their pulse laser, punching through their hull and into their computer bay. Flaming atmosphere followed doing further damage. The freighter was barely in control when a massive bolt struck both ships. The player's scout suffered further hull damage, but nothing more critical. The attacking freighter, however went dark as it's power plant overloaded and it spun out of control down into the depths of the Gas Giant's atmosphere to meet it's doom.
Miguel took over piloting and let Luxley reprise her role as engineer and made sure their systems where in order as they left the atmosphere and attained orbit once more. There they did damage control on the hull ruptures well enough to complete their refueling and Jump to Quopist (Lanth B551679-A). There they released the first of the spy satellites they were tasked to deploy and made landfall to effect proper repairs on their ship. Once done they made their way to their next stop of Rhise (Lanth C100576-A) There they deployed the next satellite at the deep space coordinates required and made their way to refuel. There they found a 2000ton tanker in orbit taking advantage of the Amber Zone and civil unrest planet side. They had both refined and unrefined fuel, but at double the rate. For those not wanting to take the risk of getting mixed up in a civil war, it was worth the price. The players went this route and got refined fuel. Their next satellite location is Ruie (Regina C776977-7) which is six jumps away. The satellite as before is counting down and it seems they have about two weeks buffer to get there. In the meantime their next destination is Vreibefger (Lanth E581542-3), home of the mysterious Research Station Epsilon....
