Beck’s World

The Crew of the Skylark 2 makes a deal with a despotic bureaucracy, investigates an uncommunicative industrial site and finds something unexpected.

This note is from our April 3, 2016 session and was mostly written by Carl and Kay with additional material provided by myself.

Continued from: The Bloodwell - Part 2

Date: 098-1106 Imperial.

Location: On the Planet Dentus in the Regina Subsector.

Getting set to head out for Beck's World, we learned a little more about it. Though we had passed through before, it was just en-route to Regina, a gas and go. Most of the world is a cold desert. About 1.15 gravity and gray, dull and grim. The spaceport at the equator is hot and muggy, with huge nearby salt flats on coast of the worlds single sea. High cliffs, mostly empty ocean basins. The atmosphere is dense, especially in the lowlands where the starport is located.

Rumor is they don’t make anything worth buying and don’t even think of smuggling here: they have high tech surveillance satellites and an Imperial Navy ship carved out of an asteroid. The system has a gas giant. BTW, the Imperial Navy ship is in orbit over Beck’s World to protect the Ancient Site which is approximately 200 km from the port. Popular belief is that this world had extensive oceans which boiled off in the Ancient Wars, and that the Ancients terraformed it back to having some water here afterwards.

Beck's is a high law world (paramilitary), with little trade other than between ships. Our main reason was to follow/track/interview Harry Liimiri, our main suspect/person of interest in the Bloodwell Incident.

099-1106
Jump out for Beck's World.

106-1106
Early morning we popped out into the Beck's World System.

Planetary control contacted us soon after that. They said a UFO had been in our area last month and to keep an eye out for it. They sent a picture, and it looked like one reported earlier in our travels (on Dentus actually and may have been involved in the piracy possibility on the Bloodwell, but not enough info to determine), but nothing showed up on our sensors. Into the planet we went.

The Lusty Wench had passed through about 3 months ago but we were able to determine that only one passenger, Ajax Spindoline, had gotten off. Lusty Wench jumped to Keng on 009-1106, while we were still on Regina. The trail had no gone completely cold so we planned a quick stop. Trade, refuel and speak to Ajax and the researchers about the sensor used to detect ancient artifacts - then off to Keng.

Turned out that in this high law place you cannot just talk to a resident - you have to apply. Hmmm.

We put in paperwork for Ajax and the Archaeologists, and hit the starport bars. Found nothing at the bars except liquor and drinkers.

108-1106
Planetary management called us, or at least the secretary for the Minister of the Exterior. We set up an appointment for 2:00 PM. Medicus and Kipenzi went to the meeting.

The Government Minister, Bilem Lenruli said he could help us (or hinder us) but needed some help from us. A mining station on a moon of the system’s gas giant had lost contact a few days earlier and we were the first ship that might help. The government wanted to hire us.

The mining station is operated by Stearnmetal Horizons and the government gets a percentage of the mining profits. Sternmetal’s ship, the Stearnmetal McDonald, was at Kinorb getting its annual maintenance done. They offered a carrot and a stick. They offered a refund on our port fees (a whopping 1 credit/day), free unrefined fuel (a bigger expense- that we could afford), 5 million Becks-world bucks (equivalent to 500 Imperial credits) and bonus if we can get it operating, 10 km of land (cold, hard, salt flat, desert land). The stick was that we had submitted paperwork to talk to the Lusty Wench’s passenger and the Ancient site archeologist, and it could be “lost”. Kip’s negotiating skills got: we’ll take the job, keep the land, and expedite our paperwork to talk to the two people.

He asked that we go out and see what was what, fix it if possible. The station, being owned by Sternmetal, not high on our list of favorites, but talking to folks was important so...

Kipenzi & Medicus spoke to Sternmetal and got a layout for the facility plus the access and security codes, and an offer of 10,000 credits, Imperial, for looking at it, plus 20K if we could get the plant up and running. If the gov’t had offered us any land, they’d pay us for it and take it off our hands. Too late for that.

It would be a 28 hour travel time to the mining station on the moon, Atash, of the gas giant Ugkada. The mining operation consisted of mining sulfur compounds from the atmosphere, which has a 3000-mile diameter and is volcanic (it’s an orange gas ball).

After offloading the unsold cargo for Sam to continue working, ably assisted by Medicus, "The Away Team" (Leon, Kipenzi and Fig) took the Skylark off toward Atash.

109-1106
Offload of cargo completed. Medicus and Sam booked a hotel where they could stay at while the Skylark 2 investigated the mining station . With a full fuel tank, off we went.

110-1106
About midday we approached the moon. Nothing on sensors from the facility, and visually the whole area looked foggy or some such.

Later, when Medicus saw the picture of Atash, he said "It looks like a giant cheese ball".

We picked up a transponder signal for the Steel Bit, a 100-ton in-system ship. It appeared to be about 5 Km from the mining place. Still facing Beck's (for another day or so, given the rotation rate) we made a burst transmission to Sternmetal - figured they should know about it.

Steel Bit didn't respond to our hails, but we saw an ATV heading back toward Steel Bit from the Mining complex. They finally responded, telling us the place was open and help ourselves. When we replied with, “Thanks, uh, what happened here?” They changed from friendly to suspicious, as if they thought we were someone they knew or expected.

Another burst to Sternmetal, and we landed – at about the time the ATV got back to the Steel Bit. Positioning the Skylark so that there could be defensive fire toward the ATV if it returned and toward the facility if the "mini-away team" needed to beat a hasty retreat, Fig kept a sensor and visual lookout while Leon and Kipenzi went to see what was inside.

It was pretty clear as we descended that there had been something on the order of a volcanic eruption, and ash or some powder covered the entire place, at least a meter deep. The ambient temperature was about 45 degrees C. We tasked our little buddy robot repair droid with clearing the coverage off the antenna, at least to get communications back.

Kipenzi and Leon went inside (with ballistic cloth and hardened vacc suits, just in case), using the access codes Sternmetal had provided. They found some storage areas and then an industrial room. On the other side they heard movement. A security robot came around a corner, asking for identification.

The security bot approaches.

They gave the security codes, but the robot didn't process them. The Robot showed some blunt force trauma, likely caused when the Steel Bit people visited.

Getting closer, it said "last chance" and raised its weapon. After a couple exchanges of fire, the robot was dis-armed, and Kipenzi was bleeding from a leg wound (which would have been fatal without the armor and hardened vacc suits. Reminder to self (Kip) get new ballistic cloth and hardened vacc suits. These have holes in them – Kip).

First aid didn't do any good, but they patched her suit up well enough to continue.

With the antenna cleared some, the basics of communication were re-established. It would take a lot of work to get things corrected and the station back on line. We had agreed to do what we could. What we could do was head back at that point.

Fig got the auto-doc to do its thing for Kipenzi, and she came out almost as good as new, plus one more souvenir scar. The Steel Bit took off about 2 hours later and asks us “Are you with Sternmetal?” We answered “no,” and they respond with “help yourselves” and with a pithy expletive that tells us they don’t like Sternmetal much. Back to Beck's we went.

112-1106
Back on Beck's World, after topping off our gas tank after the trip to Atash, we were doing the last of the cargo thing when some officials brought a clearly frightened Ajax to be interviewed. High Law or High-handed?

Assuring him that there was no problem, and giving him 500 credits (Imperial, not Beck’s bucks) for the stress, we talked some.

He and Harry were the only passengers on Lusty Wench. Harry was a pretty bland guy, easy to overlook. Kept to himself and seemed preoccupied but not scared. Fig said "Hmmm, almost screams Vemene, doesn't it. Frakking Tukera... I knew it."

113-1106
We got a call from the Ancient Research archaeologist, Chet Ducote. He initially was just offering us a few minutes on the comm, but the promise of video in not one but two Ancient (or likely) sites had him at our hotel in very short order.

We gave him copies of what we hard recorded at the Fulacin and Yorbund sites, and he told us what he knew about the A-Band device. It can detect radiation from some (perhaps lots) of Ancient artifacts. He was unsure of the detection range.

The device was designed by Prof Ujinka, of the University of Regina. For technology reasons, it is manufactured at Rhylanor, and difficult to get. Licensing and control issues likely put it beyond our reach, but strange things do happen. “The more immediate importance of the information is that the customs inspectors who used it to break up the smuggling ring at Regina L2 high-port complex had the detectors because Prof. Ujinka of U. of Regina was there and involved. We’ve been through Regina highport with customs officials in our cargo bay several times and the Fulacin grav-lifts never got tagged. So they probably don’t give off this radiation (or at least not when switched off). Our actually having one of these detectors to use in our travels would be nice, but we can probably wait till we’re back at Regina to see if we can buy one for our own use.”- Kipenzi

114-1106
Final loading complete, $20K and thanks from Sternmetal, we headed out to jump. What we know about the Keng system: tainted atmosphere, 800 million population, frontier starport, 10% water covered (desert world) and low tech.

121-1106
Into the Keng system, Sam detected a sorta nearby ship, 600 tons, no transponder, not moving. From what we could determine, it could very well be the UFO from the pictures (Beck's) and other sightings (Dentus).

We paused to consider what best to do. Because now it seemed to be following our flight plan, and our flight plan is following Harry Liimiri. Coincidence? And, damn, Kip’s vacc suit and ballistic cloth still have holes in them.

Continued in ANNIC NOVA, Part 1

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, First Call at Zilla, Trade War, The Bloodwell.