Freelance Traveller

by Joseph Paul

Years after a sensational military action a team of scouts/surveyors/construction team is performing survey work. Their instruments are being affected by battle field debris and the debris gets marked as a consequence. Someone notices that the debris doesn't correspond to the description of the battle given in a well-known and supposedly authoritative reference.

Possible directions to take this scenario:

1. The actual evidence points to a massacre of innocents. This can be either a mass killing or the stalking of non-combatants through the streets.
   1. The Imperial unit was framed; your evidence will clear the last few that are still sitting in jail.
   2. The Imperial unit did do it but the "victims" were insurgents bent on making up an atrocity and filming it. Nearly everything known about the battle comes from their taped record. Unfortunately the action came at a Politically Bad Time and the unit was punished.
   3. The Imperial unit did it, covered it up, and surviving members have a stake in keeping it that way.
2. The reported massacre of an Imperial unit cannot be supported by the evidence. In fact it looks like the unit retreated to shelter in good order and then were besieged, losing all hands. The blame for the 'massacre' actually lies either with the extraction force that failed to pick them up, or with the command that wrote them off.
3. The unit lost in this engagement has borne the stigma of cowardice for two centuries. In actuality, they were committed with insufficient equipment and reserves against an unknown foe. They fought bravely and died hard to the last man attempting to gain their objective. The general staff covered up their own failures by blaming the unit. Its name and colors were dishonored and struck and its officers stripped of hereditary titles (which were later granted to members of the general staff). The battlefield evidence you have will clear the names of these men. It might also upset the current holders of the titles to have their ancestors reputations shown for what they really were.
4. The private enforcer unit lost has been hailed for two centuries as heroes and founders of a colony. In fact, they were brutal thugs that were intent on destroying peaceful settlers so that The Powers That Be can Get Their Land. They finally were lured into an ambush, mauled and then stalked through the night until they were eliminated. It was spun as "Brave Peacekeepers Slain By Dissident Faction". Unfortunately for the settlers this was accounted as provocation enough for Imperial involvement and they were soon added to the Imperium. You have found the remains of the unit's interrogation room and "Party House". Evidence indicates that the unit was involved in "unprofessional conduct in regards to the interrogation of prisoners". (To increase the disgust factor, the evidence can point to a large fraction of the prisoners being children.) Your evidence could be embarrassing to the current leadership which has espoused strong ties to the spirit of these first enforcers whose sacrifice brought law to this settlement.