Kidnapping Passengers
Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:
1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective
2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor
3. Stephen Tihor -- Ell Thorndyke, maiden aunt, psychic screamer, and member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Retired Scouts
Recently, a few passenger liners had gone missing. Jealousy's sister, the artist Rae Jones, had been on one of them. Jealousy was not pleased. Neither was her mother, a woman of some rank within the Federation, nor were the aliens who regularly commissioned art from Rae.
Ell learned from her contacts in Space Scouts that it was possible that someone was kidnapping people to start an illegal colony. Marius was incredulous, but was assured by his grandfather and his older brother that this had been tried, unsuccessfully, in the past. Kidnapping was sometimes combined with unscrupulous use of psychic power, either from a human psy or from a machine.
Marius talked to his contacts in Psychology, asking if they actively wanted or actively did not want him to help Jealousy. His contacts explained that they were nervous about the idea of Marius, a projective empath, being taken over by a hostile psychic or machine. If he wished to help Jealousy, they would permit this, but they would insist that he allow them to install a mental self destruct switch in his mind. He agreed, and asked if this also applied to Jealousy or to his brother.
His contacts explained that they were not as worried about a null/anti-psy or a receptive telepath getting taken over, as either would be far less useful than a projective empath. If requested, they would give Marius' brother and / or Jealousy a mental self destruct switch, but they wouldn't insist on it, and they would charge. Marius' switch was free.
Marius, Ell, and Jealousy worked with various Federation agencies and located the planet to which the people on Rae's liner had been moved. I forget most of the details of their attack / infiltration. I do remember Ell discussing various types of small, stealthy ships she might use, and I remember Jealousy declaring a private war on the corporation involved, and Ell acquiring a subdivision of that corporation. I also remember Marius wondering if anyone had declared a private war on him, and learning that one drug dealer had actually done so.
As it turned out, no psychics were involved, and no one was trying to start a colony. Instead, there was some process draining the life force of the passengers of the hijacked ships so that about ten people could get some kind of rejuvenation treatment. It was tricky to figure out who these were, as they were posing as prisoners, but detective work identified eight in time to apprehend them, matching up voices to voice coded authorization. The other two escaped and changed their appearance.
Rae was a little weak, but quickly recovered, as did most of the other kidnapped passengers. Some of the very old passengers did need medical attention, and this was supplied.
Marius confirmed that Psychology would be just as happy if he kept the mental self destruct switch. He agreed to do this, but he keeps it off unless he has reason to do otherwise.
