Module 8: Naval Counter Intelligence

Naval Counter Intelligence, or NCI as it is actually called, is responsible for security and counter-espionage within the Imperial borders. This includes counter-terrorist work and occasional simple police tasks; where crime is of a scale too large for individual worlds to combat effectively, yet too small in scope to attract the attention of the Inspectorate, it falls to NCI to track down and apprehend ifs perpetrators. In practice, this usually means piracy and smuggling fall into NCI's province.

NCI is a great rival of the CSB, and the two agencies will do anything short of actual violence to damage each other's operations and reputations. In this case, while tracking down large-scale hyperdexamine smuggling in the Fodor subsector, NCI have come across clues to CSB involvement. Nothing that will stand up in court; but the higher level agents in each organisation know how each other's 'handwriting' - subtle differences in the tradecraft, ways of doing things peculiar to certain agents - and are suspicions; they have recognised typical CSB techniques in the smuggling. The exact world which is the source of the ‘yag’ and the method of transferring it to Fodor are unknown, but they have a rough idea of which areas to search. Hence the potential for encountering them.

NCI agents are all naval officers who have been assigned to Intelligence School. Any naval officer character is usable in this rote if the referee has any at hand; in the case that they have not actually been assigned to Intelligence School at any stage, the referee should roll 1d6 for each of the following skills: Forgery, Bribery, Streetwise, Gun Combat, Interrogation, with 1-2 signifying one level of expertise in the skill, 3-4 two levels and 5-6 no expertise. Interrogation skill is defined in Books 4 and 5; if these are not available, use the following simplification to represent their use. Once each week, the character interrogated rolls two dice and the interrogators add the sum of their skill levels to the result; a score greater than the victim's intelligence shows: that he has 'broken' and revealed his knowledge. Victims with Interrogation skill may use ifs level as a DM in their favour, subtracting it from the roll.

Gun combat skills will most likely be in Auto Pistol or Body Pistol, but other weapons are possible. In a firefight a typical NCI tactic is for one agent to feign a serious wound or death at an early stage, and lie doggo until such time as his sudden recovery may help his comrades, for example by attacking the players from the rear alter they have passed by him carrying back a report if all the others are slain, and so on. To use this tactic, NCI men must outnumber their opponents and there must be at least three of them to start with.

NCI who find that the players are (a) CSB men and (b) in possession of yag will offer amnesty and rewards to those who will betray their organisation in this affair.

The NCI in general is a fairly efficient and gentlemanly organisation, and the players have little to fear in terms of torture or doublecross.

There is a chance (roll 10+ on 2d6) that a patrol vessel carrying an NCI team will find the Snowbird while the players are aboard. Subsequent events must be adjudicated by the referee using Modules