This is part 2 of a fictionalized version of my solo game of Mongoose Traveller (2022), which I wanted to share with you all.
The only thing to recommend the club was the view; one wall of the club was a massive window overlooking Chava... and when you didn't look to close, it was a beautiful world.
Although it wasn't the planet she'd spent the most time watching, it was a Medical Scout docked nearby. She'd only seen a couple of them when she was in the service, and this one had to be at least 50 years old...
She laughed a little at herself as she toyed with the straw in her soda. She always did like starships more than planets. What did that say about her? Probably nothing good.
"Lise Soft?"
The man who approached her was bearded, middle-aged, and plain, but well-dressed.
"That's me."
She stood and offered him a hand in a very formal, business-like way. Or, at least what she thought was one. She couldn't help but be painfully aware of her total lack of business acumen. It created a pt of anxiety in her gut.
"James Peren. I saw you admiring my ship." He gestured to the old medical ship. She beckoned for him to sit down.
"I was. Yes. I was in the Scout Service for eleven years. I've seen models and diagrams of them, but I rarely got as good a view as this. She's an older model, and..." Talk about people, not things, idiot, she reminded herself" How did you come by her?"
 |
| The St. Bernard uses the Medical Scout starship statistics form the Adventure-Class Ships Sourcebook for Mongoose Traveller. |
"My father. He was in the service for 32 years flying medivac' and disaster relief. When he mustered out, they gave him the St. Bernard, so long as he responded if they gave him an emergency call. He spent years using her as a travelling clinic along the Rift. I grew up on her. I took up the family trade, and practised with him until he died. rather than taking the ship back, the Scouts figured that I could do some good with her, Especially as I answered more than a few calls along with Dad. But I am talking way too much."
"Not at all. I'm a big ship nerd. And your father sounded like a good man. That's how I got ahold of the 'Arrow, too. But I am confused, is it doctor Peren? If you have a ship, why do you need me?"
"It's Jim. I don't need the ship so much as her Captain, Ms. Soft. I need a Scout."
"Lise. And I'm intrigued, Jim."
"It's like this. I'm running medicine to Ambin. I'm sure you've heard about the plague that's hit the whole Ambiri Combine. I have 8 tons of Delta-Acyclovir that needs to get there as soon as I possible."
"So what's the catch?"
Jim exhaled slowly, his cheerful expression melted away.
"For some reason, Spaceport Security has me locked down for an extended inspection. Something about random checks for smugglers. Even though I passed a customs inspection. So I talked to customs. The first guy I talked to, Agent Bewt, wasn't helpful at all, but Agent Stover, he was immediately worried and started to look into things for me."
"Holden's a good man."
"I think so, too. After looking at the names of the people involved, he made some calls and did some footwork. When he got back, he told me that I was being held up by some of the most corrupt agents on the Station. Guys with criminal connections. And they know exactly what I have on board. He thinks that they are planning on stealing the medicine to resell on the black market."
It was perverse, she reflected, that suddenly now that this isn't a standard business deal that the slug of anxiety melted away. This was way more he speed than dealing with freight brokers.
"I've heard the Starport Security guys are in big with the local Vory," she said. Her voice suddenly much more relaxed, lower, easier. that seemed to relax Jim at least a little, too.
"The Scout Service has given me a hell of a budget to pick up the medicine in Chava and get it to Ambin as fast as the Bernard can get me there. I could afford to replace the medicine, but it could take days to get more. I've practically taken a month of the planet's surplus Delt-Acyclo' as it is. I need to figure out a way that we can keep it safe, and I can't afford to trust local security firms. That's when Agent Stover mentioned you. He told me you were a Scout, and great at improvising."
"When is the inspection scheduled to happen? I don't think they will steal it during the inspection, but I am willing to bet that they will hack or sabotage your ship so they can get in to steal it between the time they complete the inspection and when you are cleared to go. But we need it gone before, just in case."
"Well. that's my saving grace, I suppose. There's a big Naval ship coming in, and so they are swamped making preparations for it. So I have about 12 hours."
"That's not a lot of time"
"I know, and I'm sorry. I really need your help. I am willing to pay you the price of the medicine. That's 75,000 credits."
Lise had to fight not to choke on her soda. That was a hell of a stipend! It could keep the Arrow flying for months.
"I don't know how I am going to do it, but I'm in."
🪐
Lise looked out the window of the 'Arrow' and cursed freight dealers and anyone who ever had anything to do with them. No one could supply her with cheap freight she could use as a decoy. That was Plan C. Plan A and B long scrapped. While she had never heard a clock that actually ticked in her life, she could image the sound of one drumming in her skull. The last one had threatened to blackball after she lost her temper... She'd managed to smooth it over - mostly - but the Cachalot was due to be docking soon, and after that she had, what? hours?
She considered another ration of coffee, but she was starting to feel jittery.
She would need to come up with Plan D on her own. Plan D... Plan D... she wandered the hall of the 'Arrow for a few minutes. Stopping at the spacesuit locker near the airlock.
What the hell was Plan D?
She checked her reflection in the visor of her scout-issue spacesuit, expecting to see a haggard wreck of herself in it.
As she met her own tired blue eyes, though she saw it.
Plan D.
She commed Holden. "Babe, what time does Tyran Bewt get off of work?"
"My shift is up in about 60 minutes. Why?"
"I've figured out how I am going to help Dr. Strom. I may need you in the 'Arrow as soon as you get off shift. I've already keyed the lock to the day you took me to the aquarium. Solomani style dating. Local year. I might not be here when you arrive."
"Are you going to clue me in?"
"Probably better if I don't tell you. It is going to be stupid and dangerous. And the encryption on this channel is really shitty."
"It isn't going to be illegal is it?"
"Not since I got Dr. Strom to give me his passcodes. But it is..."
"Stupid and dangerous?"
"Yes."
"Please be careful."
"Don't worry, I will be Corps Careful."
"That would be a lot more comforting if I didn't know the mortality rate for the Scouts."
"Will you be here?"
"I wouldn't be anywhere else."
🪐
As always Lise focused on the dull thunk of her magnetic boots as she her halting strides along the outer surface of the space station. The weird mechanical rhythm of walking along the metal hull helped keep her heart rate down. It was at least something to focus on rather than the black hungry void all around her.
Ancients, she hated space walking.
But then, as the instructors back at the 'Coprs once told her, you would have to be crazy to like space walking.
The route was long, a twisting, turning pattern along the outer hull spherical station mapped out in holograms across her visor. It had taken her a half hour to plan a route to avoid portholes and sensor arrays. Rings marked in red on her HUD warned her of areas where one wrong step would let whole station know that there was someone outside. And that was according to the 'Arrow's sensors and publicly available schematics from the station's manufacturer. Both of which could be wrong.
She laughed at herself as she caught herself holding her breath while treading a 5 m wide path between two of the detection zones she had plotted out.
Hypoxia is not going to make the job easier, Lise.
At the 36 minute mark, the side of the station went dark, the light from Chava below blotted out by the immense bulk of the Cachalot: a 1,400 ton mass of steel and titanium bristling with weaponry that could pulverize a moon. Pockmarks, burns, ugly particle beam scars on her belly told the dark and bloody story that Lise wished she had the time to read.
As it was, she whispered a traditional thanks to the military and her prayers to the Ancients... a ship that big would take hours to get properly docked and squared away by station security. She still had time.
By the time she reached the St. Bernard, her timer told her she had used up 47 minutes of oxygen. Even with over 5 hours left, she felt her chest tighten. She imagined space gnawing at the suit. The memory of the freezing... burning sensation of being exposed to open vacuum... The sensation of the fluids being pulled from her body as she tried desperately to grab for a helmet, her eyes shut tight to avoid them being sucked from her head...
Her heart monitor beeped a warding, and she forced herself to let it go. There was a job to do.
There was no avoiding windows here. She could see the flashing lights of the Horizon VCub flickering through a nearby window. On this final approach she simply had to look like belonged, and hoped that the dancers and drinkers inside we're too busy preening and ogling one another to take any notice of someone crawling along the surface of a spaceship outside. Out in the cold and black...
At least once she was on the surface of the St. Bernard she had a distraction in taking in the details of the vintage medical scout. She was beautiful in a broken down, lived in kind of way. The contours, the nuances of design, the old repairs drew her her mind away from the icy airless death all around her.
She punched in the code on the external cargo hold lock and waited patiently for the air to cycle, musing on the old-fashioned keyboard.. a battered seam... a proudly incongruous antenna array... A slow pulsing light telling her the story of the ships cycles. Yellow, it was sealing the hatches in the cargo bay. Red, it was sucking the atmosphere out. Flashing blue, the space was airless. She punched in an additional code. Violet, gravity was now off inside. Finally, she entered the passcode to open the hatch reading it from an email displayed on the visor in her peripheral vision.
She glanced briefly up at the nightclub window, strobing lights and moving bodies, no sign that anyone inside was pausing by the window to watch.
Just keep at your ridiculous mating rituals.
And then the hatch was open and she stepped inside, and finally relaxed for a moment.
The Delta-Acyclovir was netted down to a small AG cargo pallet near the hatchway in sealed, climate-controlled containers. Just as Dr. Strom had said, the pallet had omni-directional thrusters. She pulled the controller off of the edge of the pallet and tried to understand the controls. They were low on fuel, but there should be enough to fly them ballistically most of the way... She pressed a button and the magnetic clamps on the bottom of the pallet released, causing it to rise slowly off the floor. Occasional jets of gas hissing from the small thruster arrays to stabilize it relative to the floor.
With a few tentative movements of the sticks on the pallet, Lise found that she could gently thread it past the other cargo stacks slowly towards the entrance. She called up a comm channel.
"Holden, are you there?"
"Just in the Arrow's airlock now. What's your status?"
"I have the package, just about to start the return journey."
"I'll be on standby in your hold in five minutes."
"No rush, it will probably take me 40 to get back. When I get there, I..."
A shift in light caught Lise's attention. A light on a panel on the inner bulkhead was flashing.
"Shit. Someone's on the 'Bernard. They are trying to get into the cargo hold."
"They're early. The Cachalot isn't done docking yet."
"I guess they decided to play hooky. I should be fine unless they have a decent hacker with them. They are going to have to override my override."
Lise cursed as the cargo bay shutters began to groan to life, and pressurization warnings began to flash on on wall monitors.
No comments:
Post a Comment