Episodes 15-20: Aboard the Empress of the Stars

This entry is a summary of several sessions spent socializing and interacting with the passengers and crew of the Empress of the Stars, an Edison Ether-Propeller interplanetary liner.

Waldmont was subjected to an attempted assassination when his Bhutan Spice tea was spiked with a Martian poison. He survived.

The entire ship is entertained by the events organized by "The Henries", a group of hard-partying middle-aged men who served in the army and saw action in Afghanistan, where they participated in the Battle of Al-Gavidah Pass and saved the day.

Both Waldmont and Wilhelm were subjected to a second assassination attempt when decorative boxes in their staterooms turned out to be clockwork traps containing lethal Martian snakes.

Pirates attempt to take The Empress, but are beaten back and killed to a man by The Henries, aided by Waldmomnt, Wilhelm, Montgomerry (a journalist passenger) and Burke, a contact from the Colonial Office.

One of the passengers is murdered, and a second, a woman, dies as a result of an ill-conceived distration ploy. He turns out to have been a Pinkerton Detective hot on the trail of two suspects involved in a stock swindle that bankrupted one company and cause the near-closure of a bank. He writes a letter to Wilhelm and Waldmont asking them to solve what he assumes will be his murder.

The team does indeed solve the murder, and that of the woman, placing them at the hands of two other passengers beyond any doubt, and recovering a fortune in Bearer Bonds which will go a long way toward repairing the damage done by the stock swindle. They also track down the ghost, who turns out to be a young woman with a weird science device who was working with the Pinkerton Man.

The two swindlers are then ritually killed along with the crewman guarding their staterooms while at the same time another attempt is made on the team, this time with poison gas in Waldmonts stateroom as they plot the best way to take down the most likely suspect in the assassination attempts. The team, now augmented by the newly-acquianted Reverend Fogg, chase the assassin into the baggage compartment where Wilhelm glues him to the floor with his "goober gun".

The assassin bears a Brotherhood tattoo, and commits suicide in mid-histrionic vengeance threat.