Duty Roster:

Edrasii “Eddy” Bkar’hen (Ronnke)
Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood (Rigil Kent)
Sam Turner (Winston)
Sae Rraetheg (Ronnke)

Rush Job, Part III

Continued… It was around 08:00 IST and everyone was now awake in the crew’s lounge, sorting out what to do about Eddy’s capture. Buck pulled a radio-source detector out of his tool-pocket and synced it to his comm, and placed a call to Eddy; he could only narrow down his location to a residential quarter of the startown, moving generally toward the starport. Then Ella arrived, rather irritated at having to tear away from her “private business” so suddenly, having been alerted by a missed-call notice on her comm that contained a recording of the conversation with the bounty-hunter. Though his attempt to communicate had been cut off, Eddy had managed to pass on the words “broker” and “meeting”; Jones had been keeping tabs on the TrampNet feed for incoming deliveries (another now arriving) and found that there was a face-to-face meeting scheduled for an hour hence. Resigned to having to rush to this meeting she previously knew nothing about, Ella took a few minutes to put herself together and got under way, taking Abe along in Eddy’s place; there would be just enough time to get through security, navigate the startown, and make the schedule. Buck, Sam and Sae were left to plan Eddy’s rescue, also on an unknown, but believed short, timetable.

Sae took charge of the rescue mission planning. They had the advantage of knowing the bounty-hunter was taking Eddy to the Hellhound, his ship berthed on the other side of the starport; Buck’s comm signal trace gave a rough starting location, giving them a fair idea how long it would probably take for him to reach the ship—depending on how much grief the security personnel would give him at the entry checkpoint. Getting the bounty hunter in legal trouble would be difficult if his paperwork were in order, and they presumed it was. An open assault would give the Crew their own legal problems, aside from the potential difficulties inherent in the combat itself. In the end, they decided to have Buck booby-trap the ship’s access hatch with a simple electrical discharge that would, hopefully, stun the very large man. As backup, Sam and Sae would be at the Crew’s air/raft across the wharf, pretending to work on a smoking engine, with Buck in the open back seat hidden under a tarp, aiming Sae’s gauss shotgun loaded with stinger rounds. Once the bounty-hunter was stunned or unconscious, they could sweep in to “help” and spirit Eddy away in the confusion. They left immediately to see it done; the air/raft was positioned, smoke generated, and tarp readied. (Before leaving, Sae made a quick stop to “check the cargo” at the wharf, and dropped off Abe’s blood sample in the specified drainage grate.) Buck made his way separately along the busy docks to the Hellhound bearing a toolbox and clipboard; he was stopped on the way by a neighboring ship’s crewman, complaining that the repairs he was waiting for were long overdue—Buck promised he’d look into it ASAP. At the target, he made sure nobody was looking, rigged the booby-trap and disabled the remote-opening receiver, and returned to the air/raft the long way around, to take up his sniper’s position. Then, they waited…

Meanwhile, Ella and Abe had to call ahead to the broker to let him know they would be a bit late, as there was a lot of foot traffic at the security checkpoint—he didn’t make a fuss. They arrived around at the small, somewhat disorganized office around 09:30, and were greeted by a middle-aged fellow, the broker, who seemed like he was trying just a little too hard to be “hip,” coming across a little awkward, but otherwise harmless. He said it was customary for him, and company policy, to meet with new clients and shippers directly, to look them in the eye and see what sort of cloth they’re cut from. He offered them both a drink, and made some small talk about their company and its dealings, and cleared up a couple of minor paperwork and licensing questions. Afterward, they all shook hands and parted, satisfied that both sides were trustworthy.

As Ella and Abe were most of the way back through the still-crowded security checkpoint, Ella happened to look back and saw Maaq Mountain in the back of the queue, along with apparently-handcuffed Eddy. They decided to avoid drawing any attention right away, but find a waiting-room seat on the other side of the checkpoint, to observe the bounty-hunter as he passed through—they commed the rescue team to inform them. Eddy was taking every opportunity to cause the bounty-hunter trouble; security personnel were observed ushering them both to a side office to be interviewed. After a long wait, they finally re-emerged, with a more-compliant Eddy, and were ushered through the rest of the checkpoint. On the other side, Eddy spotted Ella and Abe at the waiting room; when Maaq wasn’t looking, he mouthed, “Help me,” as they passed, before the bounty-hunter flagged down a starport tram headed in the direction of his ship.

Maaq Mountain

The rescue team got a second comm from Ella informing them that the bounty-hunter was on his way to the ship, and some fifteen minutes later, they emerged from the terminal and walked over toward the ship. Eddy stopped momentarily to ask the bounty-hunter to check his comm, which was beeping an alert (the bidding on the last freight lot had closed; the Spinward Star had the low bid); Maaq reluctantly obliged, expecting Eddy’s shenanigans to resume at any moment. They then continued to the ship and Maaq triggered the remote, cursing when it failed to respond. Then the rescue team held their collective breath as the bounty-hunter reached for the door handle.

There was a loud electric crack, and the large man collapsed to the ground on top of Eddy.

Sae rushed over to “help” as a crowd began to gather. He checked the fallen giant’s vital signs and declared him to be “just fine” (Sae’s medical training didn’t include Humaniti, exactly). Buck then came over as well, and could find no pulse or respiration at all. Being untrained in medical matters, they called out to the gathering onlookers for skilled assistance; one of the crowd happened to be a medical student, who determined the bounty-hunter had suffered a full cardiac arrest, and started trying to revive him, while waiting for the starport paramedics to arrive. As the crowd was focused on the lifesaving efforts, Buck discreetly removed his booby-trap from the door and made a quick exit from the scene, while Sae collected up Eddy and did the same. Sam piloted the air/raft away with all aboard, leaving the bounty-hunter to his fate, in more-or-less capable hands.

An hour or so later, as the Porozlo suns had set for the first of two times for the day, to be replaced by the gathering clouds, the last of the freight arrived at the wharf, and Customs was called to perform their outbound inspection. The customs official arrived on time, and complained of a bad hangover from a night of partying; he curtly refused Eddy’s “sympathetic” offer of a drink—he really didn’t want any extra paperwork over the scuffed RFID tags on the containers, so he admonished Eddy to keep them sealed, and cleared everything for departure. Haank and Valerie returned around that time as well; Haank had a good day on the course, got some good tips from some famous golfers, and admitted he “may have used Valerie as a distraction”; Valerie seemed to be feeling a bit better as well for it.

Now with nothing remaining to be done, the Crew set about clearing up their business and readying to leave: Sam submitted the flight plan (he didn’t bother Ella, who usually handles this; she had gone immediately to sleep after returning) and he and Buck worked through the pre-flight checks; Haank and Sae got the cargo loaded and secured; Eddy paid the starport “tab,” and at the starport authority office, attempted to delay the departure of the Jesse Belle as payback for their under-bidding on freight—which ended up costing him a large chunk of what little cash he possessed to bribe the officer. Then, as the rain began to fall across the docks, roughly 21 hours after arrival, the Spinward Star lifted off once more, with all souls aboard. As the ship was vectored around the edge of the incoming weather, a bit of turbulence woke Ella, and she immediately commed Truman to apologize for not returning to him before the ship departed as she had promised, but promised instead to find him again sometime.

Forty-four hours later, the Spinward Star reached the outbound jump point and entered jumpspace for Fulacin. Eight days later, she broke out of jumpspace in the Fulacin system, around six hours out from the mainworld. Orbital traffic was light, no significant delays, and she berthed at the highport, a day and a bit before the rush-deadline—the Crew had succeeded. The cargo was unloaded at the wharf, and their respective buyers signed off; the sealed containers (which Haank had no reason to suspect were illegally-obtained) were paid for in cash in full at the wharf. Then the Crew began the cycle anew, bound for their next stop on the way to Regina.

Notes

• I took over as GM for this one-shot run; as a result, Haank was demoted to NPC status and “written out” of the event, while Eddy was “written in” for the regular GM, Ronnke. See my GM’s behind-the-scenes insights on my blog
• Sae’s player couldn’t make this session; Eddy’s player took over Sae for the duration, as Eddy was expected to be “tied up” ( 😉 ) for most of it
• Buck’s tracking device (his use of Gizmo) actually occurred on the previous session, but fit the narrative a little better here
• Eddy’s player specified that Eddy would be making a scene at every opportunity, delaying the bounty-hunter’s progress as much as possible. Once they ended up in the security waiting room, he mostly figured it was over without outside intervention and offered to behave himself from there on in exchange for a bit more understanding—Maaq agreed, “Don’t start none, won’t be none.” Of course, Eddy still intended to contact the rest of the Crew if he could.
• Sae critically failed his First-Aid diagnosis check to decide what was wrong with the bounty-hunter after the booby-trap went off; this usually means “misinformation,” the most logical interpretation and worst potential outcome in this case would be to say, “there’s nothing wrong”
• After the success of the mission, I had Haank take the broker/acquaintance at Rhylanor as a proper Contact, as part of my recent improvement strategy of developing his local networking capabilities. Ella also would end up taking Truman as a Contact, and Eddy a two-sided Reputation as “the one who took down the Mountain.”