Category: Uncharted Worlds

#RustbucketTales   #Part3  

Third session. I’d structured questions to try and create new baggage (around the girl they picked up last session, unwelcome arrivals, and old friends with problems they needed help solving), but most of the responses weren’t used. Instead, the characters went haring off after the unwelcome information gleaned from a failed assessment, before some old baggage came back to haunt them (and gave one of them Debt). But we’re also at a point where we can drop out of continuous play if we wish and open with a new Jump Point next episode.

Previously on Uncharted Worlds…

…Anvil finishes cutting an armoured vault door open, then looks down at a significant (and bulky) looking cargo crate.

…Orcha-37 scans the package with a handheld X-ray scanner, turning it to full power at the precise alignment specified by his HUD to scramble the AI core’s short-term memory.

…Kestrel and Orcha-37 wait nervously in the dark on the bridge of the “Rustbucket” as a pirate cruiser passes nearby.

…Kestrel offers a young woman passage on the Rustbucket; she is obviously nervous

…Orcha tells his contact, Ito Hiroshi, that there is a Nakamoto agent on his tail.

…Kestrel promises Alvin Hassani a share of a cargo – high fluid vegetables, real coffee. Hassani says “if you cross me this time, it will hurt you”.

…Anvil gets into an argument with Wray the backpacker and confines him to quarters.

…Orcha steps out of the shadows behind Hiroshi, slits his throat with a kitchen knife, then places the knife beside him as he gurgles and bleeds out.

Rustbucket touches down on a landing pad on Ghazan. In the background, huge factories pump plumes of smoke into the atmosphere. The air here tastes of sulphur and pollution; everyone wears masks when outdoors.

During the trip the girl, Dev Nekor, had revealed to Kestrel that she was an indentured servant fleeing her contract with Nakamoto Horizons. She wants to go “anywhere far away”, and is willing to work her passage to get there. Since the crew needs a deckhand, they hire her on and give her a comm so she won’t be left behind. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew get to their business: Kestrel and Orcha to try and sell their cargo of Cadmium, and Anvil to look up an old friend.

Anvil’s friend, Daran, needs help: he’s applying for citizenship here, but expects to have some problems with the species declaration. Like Anvil, he’s a synthetic person, made as part of a bulk lot by the Epoch Trust to work on the fringe worlds (in this case, an asteroid belt surrounding a high-G world). Anvil speculates on getting stuff taken out, or replaced with models which can pas a scan. But Daran has a better idea: false documentation. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the contacts to do it – but Anvil does. Anvil gets to work, and makes a connection with someone who can provide the necessary paperwork. He makes the deal and arranges to come back tomorrow to pick everything up.

The cadmium sale is a bust: a strike has paralysed the major buyer, while those bulk cargo haulers have flooded the market. Undeterred, Kestrel and Orcha decide to do some sniffing round in the hope of finding some way to end the strike, or at least leverage for a sale. They split the task, with Kestrel focusing on the union side, while Orcha looks into the company.

Kestrel hits the bars and starts talking to people. The strike is over shift hours, safety, wages – the usual story. Its in its early days, but the workers are committed; it could go on for some time. Still, she identifies the union leadership, and has the outline of a plan on how to sell their cargo. Unfortunately, Orcha screws everything up for her. While assessing the company and its position, Orcha notices his comm has been hacked. A little counter-hacking later, and he’s poking around the inside of a Nakamoto comm system, which includes some details on him, a dossier on Dr Hiroshi, and the case-file for the murder, which identifies Orcha as a person of interest. It appears Nakamoto security have figured out that Hiroshi was killed to silence him, and have pegged Orcha as the likely assassin. They have a team of at least two people here tailing him. But Orcha has penetrated their systems and can follow them as they watch him. He can turn the tails on them.

Orcha heads back to the ship to arm up, and runs into Anvil. After an initial failed attempt to use him as bait by switching their comm signals (resulting in him bricking Anvil’s comm), he instead decides that he will be bait. They go to a bar, then Anvil leaves early so Orcha can lure one of the two-person tail team into an ambush.

Naturally it all goes wrong. Anvil is all set up for the ambush, when a third agent – one they didn’t know about – tries to loop a garotte round his neck. He manages to shake them off, and then the one he was waiting to ambush steps round the corner and hits him with a hand-stunner. He crumples immediately. The Nakamoto agents disarm him and are just working out what to do with him when Orcha appears at the other end of the alley. He drops the one with the garotte immediately with a silenced pistol shot, dodges the return fire (also silenced) from the team leader, before shooting her as well. The third agent dashes away. Picking up the weapons and one of their comms, he drags Anvil to the other end of the alley, then hails a taxi to help him and his “drunk” friend get back to the ship.

And then its time to leave town: two bodies and a likely response from Nakamoto means its no longer safe to remain, whether they’ve sold their cargo or not. Orcha gets on the comm to summon Kestrel and Dev back, while Anvil gets departure clearance and calls to tell Daran where to pick up his documents. As they break orbit, Kestrel checks the sector net to try and find somewhere where they might finally be able to move their cargo, and finds that the market is good on Asherah. They lay in a course and head for the jump-point…