Present:
- Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
- Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
- MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
- Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
- Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
- Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
- NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
- NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion
by Richard
We make our way toward the penitentiary on one of the islands on the Olha Island chain to deliver cantina 6 to Anya Monoslava, a Zhodani guard.
With a further hour to go on our trip a radio signal comes in.
"Air-raft, identify yourself – this is Olha Penitentiary"
"This is air-raft 24601 of x-boat corporation – we are approaching to deliver a cantina to Anya Monoslava." replied Riley.
"Very well" comes the static-filled reply. "Land on Heli-pad four – that's the one with a 4 painted on it"
"Roger" replied Riley – smiling.
As we approached we could see a number of small islands with a large one at the far end of the chain, with a cross shaped building on it. It was surrounded in high meshed-fencing and outside of that was a landing spot with a "4" painted on it and near that an old run-down shed. The landing pad appeared to be made of concrete but it was cracked and uneven and with weeds growing through it.
"Ah – control tower – number 4 looks a little unused and unsafe" radioed Riley. "Permission to use 1,2 or 3"
"Negative air-raft – land at 4"
 |
| Helipad 4 |
The landing on helipad 4 was a little rough [ Riley had to use 2 luck ].
Anton and Gnostic exit the air-raft and there is a Zhodani woman there to greet them, who introduces herself as Anya.
She motions them into the nearby old corrugated-iron shed, where the cantina was opened by Anton and inspected.
"All seems in order" thanked Anya before removing the contents and striding off toward the perimeter fence.
Anton and Gnostic re-enter the x-boat.
"Not much we can do here" said Gnostic. "The perimeter is well secured and they are armed to the eye balls – we aren’t."
"Yeah let's go" replied Riley and with that they launch back toward Kingston.
Speculation now runs rife and the intellects of the group debate the geo-political ramifications of the suspected spider trafficking and whether we (the royal we) should take a stand and try and resolve this issue – if indeed it is an issue at all.
The more balanced of us – Stasi, Riley and Split – remind everyone who our employer is and that we are here to earn a dollar and explore and not try and solve potential geo-political concerns.
Anton, who is thoroughly enjoying his new status within x-boat and of course the uniform, bless his simple soul, only wants to do what Sydney Walsh wants.
The debate continues as we arrive at Kingston.
We debrief to Sydney but advise him that there are no living things in the cantina. He seems satisfied that there is no more investigation to do.
Of course, we feel there is and hire a laboratory adjacent to x-boat central, to undertake some tests on the web sample that we have captured.
Gnostic and Belle head off to the lab to undertake the tests. Emerse is checking out the various addresses for linkages while Stasi and Riley go out drinking and find a fight club to entertain themselves. Anton, Spanner and Split wait patiently.
The testing shows that there are four eggs and that the DNA indicates terrestrial spiders, weasel and something else but unknown. The spider DNA is the same as they have identified before.
Emerse has no luck finding connections.
Stasi and Riley win fight night and return battered, bruised, drunk and happy.
The new DNA findings opens the debate again. We largely focus on whether we should interfere in geo-political and local planetary affairs and what our ethical and legal obligations are. This of course leads us nowhere.
"Why don’t we tell Sydney that we in fact think that there were living creatures in the cantina's, show him the evidence and then see what he wants us to do" suggests Anton still happily wearing his x-boat uniform.
Anton may not be the smartest man but that sure was the best recommendation so far.
"Ah, how do we tell him we lied" asks Gnostic
"Let's just tell him we didn’t want to raise any concerns until we knew" added Spanner and with that we find Sydney and fully brief him on our findings.
"Well that paints a different picture" responds Sydney to our news. "You must investigate further – go to Rogue Island (where the lighthouse is) and find out what is going on. Oh, and don’t tell the authorities – this is an x-boat problem."
"Ahh, we need some weapons" asks Riley.
"We can't go with plan A" stutter's Emerse. "they are well-guarded".
"Why don’t we message them on that frequency they gave me" says Riley. "Then we can do a job for them and deliver whatever they want. That way we can build their trust, earn some money on the side and maybe learn what's going on?"
We agree that is the best course of action and Riley messages them.
"Lighthouse on Rogue – available for work – any deliveries required?"
Moments later: "Acknowledged – travel to Torment. Use frequency 7.235 GHz to seek further orders from them - over."
"Roger – what will payment be?"
"$100,000 imperial credits – over"
"$150,000?"
"No $100,000 – first job – over and out"
"Well that’s good pay," says Riley. "This way we can have multiple jobs at once – lets just make sure our ethics don’t get in the way," he says looking at Emerse.
So, Torment it is. This happens to be Emerse's home system and a military system owned by the Daryens as a buffer to the militaristic Sword-Worlders and now, the Zhodani.
We advise Sydney we need to travel to Torment to follow a lead and with his permission.
Gnostic sets the coordinates and we jump.
A week's uneventful travel (except for Belle's constant vomiting) and we materialize.
"Roger – The Lost Crown representing X-Boat Corporation delivering a mochila to Torment – X-boat identification 24601"
"Thank you, x-boat, – dock at space pad 432 and await inspection"
"Roger – out"
We proceed to the space dock await inspection. As we open the ship's airlock, four large Daryen soldiers come on board.
"Tell the Zhodani bitch to kneel on the floor," they demand when they see Stasi
She reluctantly obeys.
But Stasi can't help herself and she back-talks to the storm troopers. They use the butt of their rifles to knock her to the ground, cuff her and two of them drag her out.
 |
| Stasi and the Daryen stormtroopers |
"Bugger off – she's Zhodani and they aren’t well-liked here"
"She's part of our crew, you ugly bastard."
The guard whacks Riley across the face and there is a drawing of breath across the crew. Riley smiles and for the second time in the night decides discretion is the better part of valour as he watches Stasi being dragged away.
The remaining two guards undertake inspection and then advise the mochila needs to undergo Targeted Alpha Purging (also known as TAP) before it can be delivered to the x-boat distribution centre.
Anton retrieves the air-trolley and uplifts the mochila and goes with the guards.
Emerse had family on Torment, so he, Spanner and Anton travelled down to the surface on the orbital freight elevator.
In their absence, Riley messages frequency 7.235 GHz.
"Awaiting orders"
"Uplift package from coordinates d45d0a0b-ca4f-44df-8adb-67fd721fc8d0 – over"
"Roger"
Gnostic quickly looks up the coordinates, smugly thinking to himself what a wonderful navigator he is. That’s way out in space, behind this asteroid he points out.
After thirty or so minutes, Stasi is dragged back in, unconscious. She had had a good Daryen beating. Belle immediately took her to the sick bay, and administers initially First-aid and then then applied her medical skills.
Anton returns in another thirty minutes.
"Ready to go" says Spanner
"You talk to them Split" says Emerse, "you are better with words than Riley and Gnostic"
"Space station….. permission to jump from coordinates 0721-d45d0a0b-ca4f-44df-8adb-67fd721fc8d0."
"Ahh why?"
"This ship can be a little unstable on jump and we need plenty of room" Split advises "please." [ Split had the best Persuade skill. ]
Clearly politeness worked and we were given permission to go to the new coordinates. On arrival we saw the package we were due to pick up – a large wooden box, floating in space.
"They will just be testing us," volunteered Gnostic.
Riley manoeuvred the Lost Crown into position, opened the hold doors, and delicately and successfully backed the ship onto the package, allowing it to float effortlessly into the hold, where Spanner and Anton, in vacc-suits, landed and secured the crate.
Riley was very pleased with himself – everything was going swimmingly – what could go wrong?.
With package secured and everyone ready, Gnostic worked his navigational miracles and punched in the coordinates into the hex pad on the jump computer. Riley as usual watched him carefully
0720-efd9b459-ea0f-4366-9e5a-1ba9b3ff50ac declared Gnostic as he punched in the coordinates in.
We were off.
"You punched in the wrong numbers" a worried Riley stated.
"No, I didn't" argued Gnostic.
Riley has eidetic memory as his talent.
"You said it ended with 3ff50ac and you punched 7ff50ac – your fingers slipped"
"No, they didn’t" a defensive Gnostic retorted.
"Yes, you did" responded a worried Riley "I think we are mis-jumping"
"Well, the Hamming-Shannon checksum will have corrected it, anyway. Those 128 bit coordinate guids have heaps of error bits."
[ To misjump, you need to fumble (20) a Navigation roll. Jamie has a 16 on his Navigation skill and his talent gives him two rolls (take the best), but he rolled two 20s – a 1 in 400 chance of a fumble. We have mis-jumped and know it.
In the game-world, characters do not know that they have mis-jumped. For all intents and purposes, all is normal: the fuel burns to charge the jump capacitors, the jump engines power up, the capacitors discharge, the ship slides into jump-space and coasts as normal, and the trip still takes a week (usually). It is only when the ship emerges back in Normal space that the dreadful situation is revealed. ]
Where will we land? – inside an asteroid like the last x-boat? – we will need to wait and see.
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