The Meeting

The Scout Leader sat uncomfortably in the lounge. The luxurious appointments in the cutter module bespoke an inhabitant of extremely high station. The bulkheads were of the finest supercompressed wood. The upholstery of the rarest sofset leather. The huscarles who had shone him in had worn a dark uniform devoid of crest or unit patch.

The Lady descended first, followed by the Aslan. The scout leader stood, he knew nobility when he saw it. The woman’s face was indistinct, as though seen through mist. Some kind of holo projector, he thought. She wore an expensive knockoff of an IISS Court Dress Uniform with stylized Senior Scout Leader rank markings.

“Sit,” The male said. “I am Baron Black. The Duchess Esmareld welcomes you.”

“Scout Leader,” the woman said in a voice heavy with the inflection of court Anglic. “We trust you realize the sensitivity of this matter.”

“Yes, My Lady.”

“There must be no mistakes. Our intelligence sources from inside the Consulate claim that they have penetrated much farther into the core region than we thought possible. We must have verification.”

“Our ability to place our own agents in the Zhodani government is quite limited,” the baron added. 

“We must send a deep reconnaissance mission through the Consulate and into the area beyond. We need a courier to travel to the frontier and organize the expeditions. This is too important to be sent by XBoat traffic or diplomatic pouch."

Leviathan Class Scout Cruiser

This adventure is for a group of retired or active duty scouts. The Beyond Zhodane title is a nod to the classic Traveller adventure Expedition to Zhodane from Adventure Book 6. The purpose of the adventure is to investigate the Zhodani expeditions to the coreward area beyond the Consulate, for the Imperial government.
HUMIT (Human Intelligence) sources have reported a level of activity that, quite frankly, Imperial Naval Intelligence (INI) analysts discount as unbelievable. The Iridium Throne, through other intelligence gathering methods, has come to believe that the Imperial Naval Intelligence analysis is wrong. It has been decided that another method of verification must be used.
The Imperial Interstellar Scout Service (IISS) has been directed to send several expeditions through the Consulate to attempt to discover the extent of the exploration that has occurred. All of the expeditions are based on stealth, in one form or another. This expedition will use the IISS Nicolas de Nicolay, a Leviathan-class Merchant Cruiser vessel assigned to the Imperial Grand Survey Branch.

Future posts will describe the briefing details of the expedition.. They will also describe the Nicolas de Nicolay in detail, along with an array of equipment used by the IISS.