Natoko and Patinir Belt

 

The Travellers find their way back to normal space, repair their ship and resume their journey toward Junidy.

This note is from our July 20th, 2014 session and was mostly written by Carl. I provided additional information, editing and created the Skylark at Natoko rendering.

Continued from: Leedor on Aramis, Conclusion.

Approximate Date: 135-1104 Imperial.

Location: Somewhere in Jumpspace.

The Skylark 2 hangs motionless in the center of its own universe... a universe filled with hydrogen and only a few meters larger than the ship itself. This universe is a bubble moving within the higher-dimensional jumpspace and could continue on forever, but probably won't, the bubble's lifetime has a half-life of about 20 parsecs and it will drop the ship back into normal space once it decays or hits something... and there appears to be something it its path.

Going through the tense week of "Well, wonder where we will come out?" had us guessing. Thoughts ranged from Chronor (36 sectors in the direction we were going, about the common limit of mis-jumps) to the same distance in the far rimward direction. Most of our time was spent with lots of double, triple check, "OK that looks good", "CHECK IT AGAIN!" of the ship and equipment.

Gvouzdon integrated into the mess well, and will sit in one of the console positions, in case we need to fire the weapons (he is probably the best shot on the ship). Kipenzi programmed the control panel in the air raft to act as an additional duty station and was handling communications from there. We suited up, as customary, for exiting jump space.

About 2 hours after our nominal expected exit from jump space, we exited into space that at first glance appeared empty. Further sensor activity helped refine the location to the Natoko System, on day 135-1104 at 0400 ship time

Ahead of our trajectory was an object about 250 km X 375 km, significant enough to avoid. Not on a collision course, we would miss it by about 1200 km in about 45 minutes. Comm was quiet, and Leon confirmed that the Skylark looked pretty good, in the circumstances. Further analysis of the object showed it to be a comet. Ignoring that, we headed for the system's main world.

Six days later we were in comm range of the starport, and heard a fair amount of traffic about laws, restrictions and possible punishments. "...anyone caught in the act of sabotage will be subject to summary execution" was the most extreme.

It sounded like the Tukera and Oberlindes crews were not getting along well, with each side given a proscribed list of places, probably so they would not encounter each other.

Time pulse from the station showed us that our ship clock was off a fair amount, and we reset it. We landed at Natoko port on 143-1104, a lot later than we intended, but glad to be there.

Many and many large (1000 to 5000 ton) ships filled the starport. The system was overloaded and bogged down. There had been a huge influx of Tukera and Akerut ships lately, all coming in for annual maintenance. Buying and selling cargo would be a challenge.

With all we had experienced and learned on Aramis, we had to wonder: what is Tukera thinking? Why all these ships now? Were the two Mammoth class with problems indicative of problems fleetwide? Maybe our initial suspicions were unfounded. Or not.

Kipenzi went with Medicus to some of the bars that were set aside for Tukera, to get the local talk/gossip/rumors. Fig, having once worked for Oberlindes, went with Leon to the Oberlindes-allowed bars.

Sam scratched his head and muttered something like "*(#)) crikey, this will be a #)%*) to sell our load". He also went on a search for someone who might have the part we need, and a maintenance team to do the repairs on our ship. We hoped this would not be a repeat of Raschev, where we had a 6+ week waiting period to get the part to repair our ship.

The Tukera bars were pretty friendly. The consensus among the line crew was "someone just doesn't know what they are doing, getting all the ships in at one time". They learned that the ship arrivals had been going on for a couple of months.

This set aside our speculation that this was a reaction to two big problems, and re-ignited our suspicions of Tukera. Naturally, the Tukera crews blamed the Oberlindes crews for any problems in port bars and shops. While there had been no major accidents, a lot of things were "getting broken". After a bit more questioning, the Tukera crews seemed to become suspicious of Kipenzi and Medicus - "Are you an investigator from corporate?" and they pretty much got cold-shouldered out.

In the Oberlindes bars, the story was similar - Tukera was taking over servicing slots, out of order and with no regard to who had scheduled. "They are trying to ruin us smaller carriers". Naturally, all the in-town troubles were because of the unreasonable Tukera crew members.

Asking around about ship parts, Fig got a lead on a possible supplier. Ulrich Baseru was a broker who had a large stock of parts left behind by someone who had rented one of his warehouses, and we might find what we needed there. Calling back to the ship and talking with Sam put him on the trail.

Most of the free traders in and out of port in recent weeks have just gassed up and left. They did not bother to try for cargo sell/buy. We should not have any trouble finding a repair crew with equipment for smaller ships. Sam had, as it happened, already found a team by the time the bar-hoppers returned to the ship.

After learning what they could at Oberlindes bars, Leon took the lead and he and Fig went to some Navy bars to listen and learn. The Navy was sitting back and staying out of things unless some shooting started. "Stay out of dark alleys" "Don't wear either Tukera or Oberlindes clothing" were their best advice. We also learned that the Vargr border has been quiet for quite a while.

146-1104

Ulrich Baseru called the ship to say that he might have the part we needed. Sam spoke some and went with Leon to look at the part. Ulrich just wanted the parts cleared out of his warehouse and would sell what we needed for the price of the outstanding storage fees (18, 500 Cr). Considering that the part could go as high as a few million, that seemed like a really good deal. After confirming that the part we needed was in fact there, and in good condition, it was a deal.

Part of the deal included carrying a load of supplies up into the Patinir belt. A mining area, many of the workers needed supplies badly. Another week spent, but spent in a good way, and there was no guarantee that we would learn anything useful at Zila, so we agreed to transport the supplies.

That evening, Kipenzi and Medicus went to the Tukera senior crew lounges, to get a different perspective from the line folks. The staff view had similar grousing about management.

Captains and chief engineers don't know why all the "fuss and bother of doing it months early". Tukera has rerouted a lot of ships here for maintenance over the last few months. The orders came "from on high at Junidy".

One theory that came to Kipenzi, and later to the rest of us: they are trying to cut Oberlindes out of trade as completely as possible.

As well as dealing with the cargo and the repairs, Sam had put out feelers for someone skilled in decryption. We still had the brooch, and still wondered what it contained. Most likely whatever message was in it was long and long outdated or changed after the brooch went missing, but still..... any bit of information would be one more bit. No one surfaced.

153-1104
We launched out for a departure to the Patinir belt. About midnight, as our customary departure time, we jumped uneventfully (but with fingers crossed) into jump space.

160-1104
Out of jump into the Patinir belt. An asteroid belt, with a large gas giant and a few small planets. Space colonies were set up at two Trojan points for smelting and mining. About half of the population is out in the asteroid belt.

Ghan Severns was our contact point there, and we delivered our cargo to him in short order.

His small office, in a rundown warehouse area, was plenty big enough for what he told was a real slowdown in shipping. For political and military construction reasons, the price for locally mined Lanthanum was frozen at a fairly low level.

This had resulted in a slowdown of mining that and other ores that were often recovered along with it, so mineral finds were down in general.

In order to avoid drying up foreign sources, the price of imported lanthanum from the Vargr extent was not being controlled. This prompted savvy Sam to comment "boy, you could make a killing buying it here and claiming you got it there..." Thoughts of all those ore carriers undergoing maintenance at Natoko flitted through our minds.

161-1104
Ghan asked us to transport a load of supplies out to a mining station, and to look around for the ship that went out a few days ago. It was missing, and had not made its delivery. We loaded up 40 tons, and with 2 days out and 2 days back he would have enough time to try and arrange us a cargo.

163-1104
We offloaded our cargo and plotted our course back to go through the area of space that the shuttle would have used when it came out. On our way back we picked up a weak distress signal, and homed in on it.

The ship was extensively damaged, apparently battle damage, and was radioactive. The fuel tanks were ruptured and the bridge and drives were fragmented. Medicus scanned and found one life sign, in the cargo area. This was clearly a job for

ta da da da da da da DAH.......

The Away Team

Kipenzi, Fig and Leon got prophylactic anti-radiation shots from Medicus. They suited up for a short space walk over. Medicus figured we could loiter for a little while, but to keep it under an hour.

Coming into the ship carefully (mindful that we have encountered traps before) the team found one survivor nearly dead from radiation and low on oxygen. They plugged a new oxygen bottle in for him. While Leon got him back to the Skylark, Kipenzi and Fig searched for the "black box" or any log that might shed some light, but came up empty.

Medicus got the survivor into the auto-doc, and we returned to port.

Coming out and enroute to stationside medical care, he muttered one word: "Wolblutn".

Hmmmmmm, where have we heard that before??

The local legal system thought there was no chance of using his word in any legal sense. We decided to be even more wary and suspicious of Bannerji, the captain of the Wolblutn, if ever we encounter him again.

It took about a day to sort out interviews and statements and to pass the video footage and sensor readings we had taken of the shuttle.

Checking with the dispatch office, we found the Wolblutn had filed a plan from here:

Aramis - Pysadi - Zila - Carsten - Pavanne - Nasemin - Jesedipere - Vargr Extents, and to return into Junidy some time later.

If you were going to bring Lanthanum in, that is a good route. If you were picking up some of the stolen weapons crates, it is still a good route. (not likely, since the time frame is way past when they all should have been re-shipped) . We planned to check into what ships left, and where they were bound (plus cargo information) when we finally got to Zila.

Ghan Severns offered us a cargo to take to Pysadi, but our initial thoughts were to pass on it and just jump to Zila. Perhaps with the time delays Wolblutn will be taking in two jumps, we could catch up to it on Zila by going in only one. More likely we would not, but we knew we would keep on pursuing these (now one more, with the possible smuggling going on) puzzlements.

Continued in First Call at Zila

See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, Prison Planet, Leedor on Aramis.