Outback - Part 1

The Travellers meet an old shipmate of Medicus at Lunion Highport and he accompanies the crew as they continue on to Rhylanor.

This chapter is based on Carl and Kay‘s notes from our May 5, 2019 session. Since we are now scattered around the country, we used Discord for voice communications and the Roll20 online virtual tabletop to connect with each other.

Continued from: Mission to Mithril - Conclusion.

Location: Lunion Highport over the planet Lunion in the Lunion Subsector

Imperial Date: 005-1108.

 

1900
While Sam was out hanging out at the broker bars looking for cargoes, Medicus, Kipenzi and Fig went out to check out the local scene for some relaxation and revelry. It was Leon’s turn to look after the ship, so he stayed with the Skylark 2.

Early in the evening they found themselves at the Gas and Jump, a nice place across a corridor from a fancy restaurant. As the evening wore on, they were approached by a threadbare old spacehand who exclaimed “Medicus is that you? I thought you were dead!”

After a few seconds, Medicus realized the spacehand was none other than Jason Henrickson. Jason and Medicus had been shipmates on the Bella Luna before Medicus joined the Skylark’s crew. Fig thought, “Was that the piracy old days?”, but wasn’t going to ask.

On small ships, most of the crew works at more than one job. Medicus was a pilot/medic on the Bella Luna like he is on the Skylark and Jason was a mechanic/gunner.

The Bella Luna was a smuggler that jumped around the Sword Worlds and rimward part of Vilis Subsector. One day their luck ran out at Vilis and Medicus had been the only one to get away ... or so he thought. It turns out that everyone had gone a different direction and everyone had got away except for Captain Candor who was killed in the raid. When they got back together, no one could find Medicus and they assumed that he was killed with the Captain.

“Let’s have a drink and tell me about it”, says Medicus.

Over drinks they caught up on the last eight years, with Medicus sharing some of our adventures and Jason telling us how he came to be in a bar in Lunion after all of these years.

Jason explained that after the raid, Pelham Haden, the exec/engineer and now the new Captain, got everyone else out along with a stack of cash. They bought a new ship, the Leopold, and went back to work rimward of the Sword Worlds, mostly hauling cargo between Glisten and Trin’s Veil sectors.

In 1105 things took a turn for the worse.

“We was on a routine trading voyage, through the belt and out to Trin’s Veil, nothing major, just hauling parts, scrap and some trinkets, we figured we could put down on Caledonia on the way out and offload some shiny tech on the primitives. Didn’t happen, those damn dustboys shot us down fore’ we could even put down, said we was breaching their airspace, sent up some damn antique fighters to shoot us up some, damn things should have been in a museum, still, they was good enough to do fer’ us”.

Henrickson claims he survived the crash and spent six months living wild, raiding farmsteads for food and sleeping rough, he eventually reached the starport and was lifted off world by a passing freighter.

For the last three years he has been doing odd jobs and working his way coreward looking for someone to help him get back and retrieve the computer files off the ship.

He is currently looking for a job and getting low on cash.

Medicus told him “I’ll see what I can do”.

We got his contact information and returned to the Skylark to talk it over.

Medicus asks about the value of salvage parts, they should be worth something. But would the ship even be still there after all of these years?

“We could hire him on.”

The ship lies on somewhere in a desert on Caledonia. Caledonia is in the opposite direction of Rhylanor, which is where we are headed.

Sam and Kipenzi were not wild about it - hostile planet, wrong direction, past the Sword Worlds, ship might not even be there...

Medicus got on the station network and checked on Jason's available background history. He came in on a freighter about three weeks ago and has had no problems or issues since arrival.

Sam wanted to do an Extensive Background Investigation (and probably interrogation). Jason had some paperwork and recommendations from previous ships that looked stable and OK.

Jason has computer, mechanic, gunnery and vacc suit skills so he wouldn’t be dead weight. We talk to him and offer him passage as far as Rhylanor.

He thinks Rhylanor is perfect place to find patrons to front him money to get back to Caledonia.

We check in at the Oberlindes office and they didn’t have anything for us to carry or tasks on a heading towards Rhylanor.

013-1108
By late afternoon, the rest of our cargo is loaded and we schedule an early evening departure with plans to jump for Resten at midnight.

Jason boarded and would be sharing a cabin with Sam. He had a gauss pistol that we stored in our armory.

After dinner, we celebrated Fig’s 37th birthday. No hard partying, since we would be undocking in a couple of hours.

014-1108 0001
Jump for Resten.

During our week in jump Jason shadowed Leon in engineering. He seemed eager to please and even had his own tool kit. Leon kept him busy most of the time and found that he was a competent spacer and wasn’t just BS’ing us about his skills.

While he was busy, the always cautious Sam took the opportunity to check his luggage and make sure he wasn’t carrying anything he wasn’t supposed to. After all, Jason had a history as a smuggler.

He finds nothing inappropriate and the rest of jump was uneventful.

019-1108 2150
Out of jump in Resten and we docked a couple hours later at Port Resten.

The planet below was unpopulated. It was a small, dry, dusty world with a trace atmosphere. The world’s primary importance is as an X-boat link to the Mora Subsector. There was not much in the way of cargo, we were the only merchant ship in port and just about everyone else there worked for the Scout Service. They said that traffic was way down due to the war.

There were a couple of bars and hotels, but they were mostly empty.

We got some news:

 

With no one to buy cargo, we decide not to stay. We loaded our tanks with refined fuel and leave.

020-1108 0000

Jump for Skull at midnight.

027-1108 2010
Out of jump into the Skull system.

We pick up some news of the war on our way in towards the planet:

Landing goes well.

Since we expect to be here about a week we load our tanks with unrefined fuel and start the refining process with our on-board fuel refiner.

028-1108
While Sam sells cargo, the rest of us take a break and hit the bars. Jason seems to be good at carousing and has an ear for rumors.

The latest news from Vilis is the Sword Worlders are still fighting in-system but have not been able to capture it.

We get some news from Lanth:

Jason looked for a patron for his ship recovery mission while Medicus listened in unobtrusively.

The rest of the week was quiet and uneventful.

034-1108
We jump from Skull toward Equus.

041-1108
Arrive in Equus.

Traffic is light, just a couple of X-boats and scout ships.

Docked at Equus High Port at 0430.

We get more news of the war, no major battles right now, mostly raids and skirmishes.

Jason confides to Medicus that the Leopold’s safe was full of cash when they were shot down and with luck it is all still there.

048-1108
With a full cargo bay, we headed out to the 100 planetary diameter jump limit. Very little commercial traffic, just the usual X-Boats and scout ships patrolling like we saw in Resten.

It is like the whole of space is nervous. No one has any real relevant or interesting news or rumors.

054-1108 2100
Out of jump into the Rhylanor system.

In contrast to Equus there are a lot of Navy ships as well as other traffic. In addition to its own 212th Fleet, Rhylanor is a staging point for reinforcements coming in from Corridor Sector.

We decided to head for Rhylanor Down instead of docking at one of Rhylanor’s orbital ports. The queue for docking space was long on the surface but shorter than the wait for a space at one of the Orbital Stations. Some ships were even being routed to the Old Station.

There was a long queue to get docked and Sam had a long conversation with the broker of the Far Future, another 200-Ton free trader who was also waiting in line.

They had just come in from Porozlo and had some news about the war, it was getting ugly in Regina. The Joes had tried to land on the main world and failed, but were blocking all commercial traffic. The big fleets were dancing around each other looking for an advantage.

The Zhodani had not advanced past Regina on that front, but the Vargr have captured the coreward half of the subsector.

055-1108 1000
Finally docked at B3B, Rhylanor Down.

We picked up our TAS memberships and Kipenzi headed to the bank to make a large withdrawal. Having 9 MCr is not much use if you can’t get to it.

The Oberlindes office was our next visit, but they came up empty. Looks like the war has just cut down on the need for small smuggler ships and crew. Or maybe just not today.

Jason went out to find a patron.

We talked about hanging around Rhylanor for a while and taking classes, the ship and Medicus’s and Fig’s prosthetic arms were both due for an annual maintenance in a couple of months.

We talked about going to Mora, away from the front but with decent systems between us. It also put us within striking distance of the ship salvage that Jason had talked about, and Mora is high tech, so Medicus and Fig could get their annual maintenance done. The Skylark would be due by that time as well.

Glisten is also high tech with an A-class starport, and could do the arms too. Both would put us in range of Caledonia.

We did some research on Caledonia. What sort of world would shoot down Jason’s ship?

A binary system with a red dwarf orbiting a red giant. Nine worlds and an asteroid belt, no gas giant. The red giant is a type M4-III, over 21 days to reach Caledonia from the star’s 100 Stellar limit at 1G, no wonder they don’t see much traffic. It would take the Skylark a whole week to get from jump point to the planet.

Caledonia is a fairly small world, gravity is 0.57G. Thin but breathable atmosphere tainted with potent allergens. People wear masks outside since 20% get a fatal reaction if they breathe the unfiltered air.

Planet is mostly desert, only 10% covered with water, has small ice caps that melt completely over the course of its decade-long local Summer.

About 9 million people live there and their Government is a Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy, law is high and obtrusive. No weapons in private hands except shotguns and even those are illegal in the capital.

The tech level is 5, industrial age and dirty. They import all of their electronics and anything high tech as well as some luxury food items. Life on Caledonia is hard, farmers barely eke out enough food each year to feed the populace. They don’t export anything since nothing they make is worth hauling out to the 100 stellar diameter of the red giant that the planet orbits. The trade codes list it as Non-Industrial and Poor.

A backwater away from the X-Boat routes. They regard the Imperium as a necessary evil, to be treated with when necessary but otherwise ignored, Travellers are discouraged and seldom visit, and the Imperium itself is content to leave the world alone for the most part.

Their isolation has allowed them to develop a moderately distinct culture. They are proud of their self-sufficiency.

This is what is commonly known as a “Hell World”.

It would be unusual for them to shoot down an incoming ship. At that tech level, they shouldn’t even be able to target it.

They get a only little more traffic than Mithril, why would they shoot down an incoming ship?

Jason explained that they were shot at coming into land at a small settlement outside of the official starport. Yep, they were smuggling.

Sam doesn’t trust Jason and was still adamant as to NOT keep Jason on board as part of our regular crew.

We needed more information about the ship he was on, how it was shot down, whether there is any chance it is still there or not by now, etc. etc.

Some parts of Jason’s story don’t quite add up. He wants something on the Leopold’s computer and he says he is looking for flight data, but we are thinking it is more than that.

We stay a week and eventually decide to head for Mora and take Jason with us, maybe drop him off in the vicinity of Caledonia. At Mora we could get our annual work done, maybe take some classes while the ship is in the shop.

062-1108 Midnight
Heading out for Gitosy.

Our planned route would be to Gitosy, Somem, Nadrin and Mora.

Jason has been working with Leon as a mechanic. He is good, we really could have used him back on Mithril.

070-1108 0020
Into the Gitosy system.

Right after we started to accelerate towards the planet we had to dodge a fast moving cargo pod. That sucker was a long way from any cargo hold...

It took us about 10 minutes to chase it down and Kipenzi went out to check it out. It would fit into our cargo lock, but we wanted to check it for traps or whatever before we loaded it on the ship. It was a hazard to navigation in any event.

It was Cold, no radiation, scraped and scorched on one side. Looks like it might have been blown out rather than dropped or ejected. Scan showed the container may contain frozen liquid. Manifest chip indicated it was squarefruit juice.

070-1108 0130
We loaded it up and headed toward Gitosy Main and were docked by 0300.

Continued in: Outback, Part 2.

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, ANNIC NOVA, The Kinunir, Kesser's Return, Justice and Mission to Mithril.