The PCs sat in The Beach for a bit longer after Western Territory's secession was announced. They established that Vanderdecker's ship was still in orbit and that so was the Vega ship they came to Cebalrai on, the Geleji. Cassandra sent them an email:
Dear Leigh, Things are going very wrong here. I haven't been entirely honest with you until now, as you have probably guessed, but now I have to trust you. Angelos and his cellmate were supposedly going to be broken out of jail by a group of people I have been working with. Vanderdecker wants something Gates has, and he found about it through Angelos and me. I didn't think Vanderdecker would ever actually carry it through, because Leslie wasn't very keen on the idea. We had another job, which paid, and after that we would have to lie very low for a while, and Leslie wouldn't let getting Gates and Angelos interfere with that. She kept saying they weren't going anywhere. I didn't think she'd ever let the others get him out. We did the other job and that went well. I kept on looking for ways to prove Angelos was framed without Leslie finding out. Then when I was in the police station the others carried out the breakout plan without telling me. When I heard, I went to Nishyoika, because that was the original plan. I got to Nishyoika OK but they have only just turned up, and they haven't got Angelos, Leslie, or Henta with them. Vanderdecker and Ard went straight out with Gates. Kuczynski says that Leslie wants that thing of yours that Angelos stole. Van just said that Rayearth Group have put out a contract on him and so he's not to come anywhere near the thing we're doing right now and I can see him afterwards, but I don't believe him. You're looking for him too. I need your help to find out where Leslie's put him. I can't leave here without making them suspicious. Can you get to Nishyoika? CassandraThe PCs decided that they had to go to Nishyoika, which is in Western Territory, and that the best way to do this would be to talk Vega into letting them go along on trade talks with the Western government. They called Renee and persuaded her to get them onto Vega' planned delegation as pharamceutical consultants. Renee told them that Richard Rosie, another member of the Vega delegation, had also asked to be taken along and was he anything to do with PCs?
The Ocherland news announced that the police were searching for two men (bad photofits of Bo and Kyle) in connection with an assault on Kerry Caddell.
The PCs tacked Richard Rosie at the hotel. He initially told them he couldn't discuss his mission with them, but on Bo's suggesting they pooled information and the PCs' telling him about Angelos, he informed them that he was there to evaluate them. The PCs didn't believe this. He also bored them about the relative shortage of titanium on Cebalrai, thus proving he knew more about economics than they had thought he would. The PCs asked him about Angelos's calling Padding's private number. Rosie showed no sign of recognising the number but noted it down for future reference.
The PCs got to Burgers, the capital of Western Territory. They then headed to Nishyoika and met Cassandra in a library. She seemed nervous and reacted rather badly to Bo's suggestion that she let the PCs talk to Vanderdecker and Leslie. Cassandra was of the opinion that Vanderdecker would not be at all pleased if he found out she was in touch with them. She did give them email addresses for both Vanderdecker and Leslie, and took away the data from the memory stick. Leigh asked her to find out who else was reading Leigh's email.
Cassandra also told the PCs that the reason Vanderdecker and the gang were in Nishyoika was to dig up a huge cache of titanium Tucana record sheets that Gates had discovered as a postdoc because Vanderdecker needed titanium for an experimental hyperdrive he was working on. She said that the Europa's hyperdrive was currently out of service.
Cassandra speedily decoded the memory stick. It proved to contain two documents: a set of instructions to Marina Lindbergh saying that she would be given a rendezvous when on Cebalrai and that she should hand over the second document to the person at the rendezvous. The second document was a proposal from Vega address to Zeb Nabarro, the finance minister of Western Territory, suggesting that Vega and Western Territory could make huge profits out of the situation where only West Territory had a working teleporter. Strangely the PCs seemed more concerned about Vanderdecker's plan to destroy an archeological site than their employer's sponsorship of terrorism.
Clibe Saxl confirmed that rayearth group had put out a contract on Angelos as soon as the jail break had hit ther news, and that it was a substantial one.
Some time later, Cassandra told Leigh that Richard Rosie was reading Leigh's mail, and that he had all of their personnel files in his Vega account. She said they were interesting, except for Larzuc's which was heavily encrypted and she hadn't managed to crack yet. She also sent Leigh a copy of Rosie's draft report on the PCs. It mentioned disappointment that Larzuc hadn't used his 'special ability' yet. Leigh edited this bit out before showing the report to the others.
After much discussion, the PCs decided to try to make a deal with Vanderdecker and sent him the following:
Dear Mr Vanderdecker, It may have come to your attention that Vega Corporation have recently sent a delegation to the Western Territory. This delegation is a cover for their attempt to acquire an asset- a particular valuable titanium archeological asset that is in your possession. Since it is my understanding that you desire to keep possession of this asset, we would appreciate meeting you and discussing a trade involving some information you possess in return for overlooking this matter. Looking forward to your hasty communication, Ewan Leigh, Vega CorporationVanderdecker replied:
Bite me.
Shortly after this, Cassandra turned up at the PCs' hotel, in hysterics, claiming that Vanderdecker had lost his rag on getting the message and tried to kill her.