Between Planets 3.3

Brass Jester

Rune Priest
Previously

‘Drop ship pilot at Tau Ceti, three tours. That was my lucky suit; I never washed the blood off it. But you decided to do it for me. f**k off and leave me alone.’

‘Captain! We have contacted the Commercial Envoy.’ Bobrikov pulled a party popper at his station, Captain Agbaje brushed away the confetti and glared at the sensor operator.

‘Captain – It’s Cook. Something’s gone wrong with the nav computer. I can’t read it.’

2226 – 08.23, Nevermind

Becker* returned to the terminal building, somewhat despondent. The spaceport was a Class D with some basic repair and refuelling, plus it had extensive loading facilities; but nowhere could she find a replacement OW 854 navigation module. She was nursing a Red Dragon beer when someone approached her table. He was tall, lean built and muscular, wearing cold weather clothing. Under this he wore a grey business suit as if it didn’t fit him. He slid into the seat opposite her.

‘I’ll come straight to the point. You came in on the ship that is being unloaded as we speak – correct? My … employer would very much to be on that ship when it leaves here. We have access to funds.’

‘I can’t speak for the captain,’ said Becker. ‘I can talk to him, but we are not a passenger ship.’

The man smiled; Becker then noticed the ugly wide scar that ran down from his right temple to below his neckline. He slid a PASS card across the table. ‘It is open, no key. $5000 says you will get us a place on this ship. I’ll meet you here in twenty-four hours.’

He rose and left; his coat fell open and Becker saw the gun at his waist. She picked up the PASS.

2226 – 08.23

‘No, no,’ said Agbaje. ‘The contract was delivery to the spaceport on Nevermind; 1600 tons of power generation equipment.’

Anders Mucins leaned back in his chair and smiled. ‘It seems, Captain Agbaje, you did not read your contract correctly. Cheban is the main spaceport, true, but there is a secondary port at the Burlaka mines complex. That is where your delivery should be. I will have to invoke the penalty clause – you know the rules. But – I will be generous. You have two days to make delivery to Burlaka.’

2226 – 08.24

The crew spent the night at the Konventa Hotel, the info that Cook had supplied was right. The Konventa was built of solid frames of timber, obviously imported because nothing like this grew on Nevermind. They stuck to the advertised menu; no-one braved tasting the Hakari.

Night

In the middle of the “night” ** the Konventa’s fire alarms went off. Bobrikov was inside Vasili Mekhrev’s room; the window was smashed, and the room was freezing cold. Vasili was in advanced hypothermia.

‘Do you have an autodoc?’ demanded Chandradatti of the receptionist.

‘No, we don’t have one here. The hospital is about half a mile away and they are fully equipped.’

‘What happened?’ Agbaje and the crew were in the restaurant. Chandradatti had gone with Mekhrev to the hospital.

Bobrikov shrugged. ‘I heard a noise and went to investigate. There was a cold draught from Mekhrev’s room, I knocked and got no answer, so I forced the door. The room was freezing cold, and the window was broken. I sounded the alarm as it was the quickest way to get help.’

‘Captain – sir.’ Tetsushi raised his hand. ‘Exactly who is Mekhrev and why is he acting as a steward on this ship? He has no stewarding skills.’

Agbaje shook his head, sighed, and made the decision to be open with his crew.

‘Vasili Mekhrev is the son of the owner of this ship and our employer. He is aboard as a steward by the wish of his father. I repeat, his father is our employer. He intends that serving as a crewman will toughen him up and face the realities of life.’

‘So, someone has tried to kill him. Is it because he is the son of the owner?’

Agbaje shook his head. ‘I don’t know. He did upset some of our passengers en-route, but that was resolved.’

‘Perhaps I could look after him – be his bodyguard?’ Bobrikov looked determined.

There was a general air of surprise around the table.

‘I found him. I heard the noise. I should have responded faster – I think it’s my duty to look after him.’

2226 – 08.25

The “day” dawned crisp and bright twilight, Him dominated the horizon, the mean temperature was -20c.

Agbaje, Tetsushi and Masefield scouted out transport to get the power equipment to Burlaka, but it was a no-go. The Seonwu tractors could tow trailers carrying 100 tons, meaning 16 loads. The distance to Burlaka via the roads (that follow the power lines) is 4200 km; the tractors average 100 kph on the roads so a round journey (including unloading and unloading) is 86 hours with two drivers per load. There was only one tractor/ trailer rig available for hire at $30 per hour.

‘There’s no other option. We’ll have to fly it in.’

The port at Burlaka was a Class E with no facilities other than an ILS beacon. Peshkova was dismissive of this.

‘I’ve landed ships at worse places than this.’

‘Ok, let’s go. Chandra is still with Mekhrev at the hospital, but this should be routine.’

Cheban spaceport

The “Macao Champion” had an armed guard waiting as they disembarked the tractor. There were three Law Enforcers carrying weapons and a uniformed official. She stepped forward.

‘I am Customs Inspector Inora. I have reason to believe that you are smuggling arms to the Sodality Union. Your ship is grounded whilst my team make a full search of your cargo.’

‘I have a detailed cargo manifest,’ protested Agbaje.

‘Yes. I will need to see that. Meanwhile, captain, please allow access to your ship. Your crew may board but may be questioned by my team. If everything is in order, then you should be cleared by tomorrow.’

Agbaje felt a swelling surge of anger at this further, pointless delay; he started to argue but then shook his head and led the way on board.

222 – 08.26

Peshkova brought the ship in expertly towards the landing site.

‘ILS shows green, in the pipe five by five. Engaging lifters in …. f**k!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Agbaje scanned his command readouts and saw nothing untoward.

Peshkova stabbed a finger at a ground view screen. ‘Those cretins are blocking the landing site. It’s a good job I had this screen on.’

The screen showed several Roadmaster 20 trucks parked on the landing field.

‘Burlaka Ground, this is the Macao Champion, inbound with your delivery. Get that shit moved off the landing field now – we’re on final approach. And then later, my boss will want to talk with your boss.’

Cook glanced at Bobrikov on hearing this – this wasn’t his usual manner and style. She looked at Agbaje, who didn’t appear to have heard it; then decided to follow it up later. She felt a bit on edge herself – “it must be this place,” she thought.

The landing wasn’t as slick as Peshkova’s usual ones, the “MC” side-slipped into the field and came down heavily – the rear landing struts touched first, and the front struts slammed down. With the AG off everyone was jolted around; Becker faceplanted a control panel and had to be patched up by Masefield.

Tetsushi stayed aboard to supervise the unloading, with the “MC”’s integral cranes and the gear at the mine the whole operation should take sixteen hours. The crew gathered in the mess at the mine central complex. Agbaje requested the use of a comms to report to Mucins that the cargo had been delivered. He returned to the crew mess to find a full-blown argument raging – Becker and Cook were face to face screaming at each other about Becker’s failure to find a nav module. The next event happened before anyone could react – Cook swung a punch at Becker, who ducked back, grabbed a fork off the table and buried it in Cook’s left shoulder. Cook screamed and fell backwards over a table, Becker dived on her, stabbing with the fork. Bobrikov grabbed Becker and literally threw her across the room, where she collapsed sobbing.

Peshkova half-carried Cook back to the “MC” to get her into an autodoc. Agbaje and Masefield confronted Becker.

‘I don’t remember … it’s just a blur. We were arguing over that stupid fucking nav module when she swung a punch. It just … felt really good to pick up the fork and stick it in her.’

‘Stay with her,’ said Agbaje to Masefield. ‘I’m going to see how the unloading’s going.’

The unloading was well underway, Tetsushi was doing a good job. He looked in the med bay, Cook was in an autodoc. Peshkova was nowhere to be seen, he was on the bridge when the comms sounded. It was Peshkova.

‘Captain. Can you come down to cargo 1? I’ve got something to show you.’

When Agbaje stepped out of the elevator into the cavernous cargo deck 1 only the emergency lighting was on. From cargo 2 came the sound of the unloading.

‘Pesh? Peshkova? Where are you?’

‘Here Captain. I’m here. But call me Catarina. After all, I am the XO aren’t I?’

Peshkova stepped out of the shadows, stark naked. Agbaje swallowed and backed away. He was no stranger to nudity – there’s no modesty in space when you’re stripping down for hypersleep – but this was different. Peshkova had a curious, almost feral look on her face.

‘I am the XO, right. And you do prefer me to Cook don’t you? Despite that little mistake you made on Hiroshima, but you won’t be able to do that again will you?’

Suddenly Agbaje felt a surge of anger go through him. Groping behind at a workbench, he picked up a heavy pipe wrench and started to raise it. Suddenly, Peshkova’s words sank in and he dropped the wrench.

‘Pesh. What did you program the autodoc to do?’ Peshkova looked confused and the look on her face faded to puzzlement.

‘I … I don’t know. I just stabbed at the control panel.’

‘Get dressed and meet me in the med bay. And yes, you are the XO.’

In the med bay, Cook was sleeping in the autodoc. Agbaje looked at the readouts.

‘It looks like you programmed it to do electro cardiac stimulation, but the machine was clever enough to realise that Cook didn’t need it and it could have harmed her.’

Peshkova just stood, shaking her head slowly.

‘Pesh. Get to the bridge and start prepping for take-off.’ Agbaje opened the ship intercom. ‘Tetsushi. Stop the unloading and secure for lift-off.’ He then pulled his comm unit and spoke to Masefield. ‘All of you, get back to the ship – stat. There is something badly wrong here and it’s affecting us all. We are lifting out of here.’

‘Captain,’ it was Masefield. ‘There are a crowd of angry miners between us, and the ship and they don’t want us to leave.’

To be continued …

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GM Notes

Okay, I had real fun with this because it is on Nevermind – the planet that features in my two published scenarios Prelude to Freedom and The Price of Freedom. There are no spoilers here – what is happening is what I envisaged a group of PCs would experience. Having said that, I did use Hostile: Solo and Mythic 2nd Ed to guide things.

Shameless plug here – If you really want to find out what’s going on then go get the scenarios – they are on DrivethruRPG and you’ll keep an old man very happy!

* Due to later events, I upgraded Becker to a PC and gave her full stats. I used Mythic to create a backstory which turned out to be quite revealing.

** Nevermind is tide-locked to Him and is in a state of perpetual twilight.

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