Wolves in the Alleys

Taking stock of the situation on Eleson, the surviving crew of Tukie and Strenek examine the surrounds in greater detail while Veln maintains the ship and takes his chances chewing on the local plant life. The starport itself is well built but abandoned and decaying; a dirt road leads off to the west. The crew takes the opportunity to look at the visitor's center/offices after Veln begins to highlight the specifics of their plight ("We're way off course... The nearest habitable star is a J-3 away... the Barge can only do J-1, we need to find a fuel blatter or make one").

The visitor's center comes to life when the crew enters it. The building itself is in disrepair and covered in a thin yellow dust. After shuffling through some papers detailing an evacuation schedule that occurred within a week 3 months ago and some propaganda against something called "The Heirate", the terminal springs on and attempts to assist the travellers. It is unaware of it's situation and cued to some of the nationalist jingo of the Belguardian government. It recites the regional information available to any tourist, but advises quick departure.
Strenek asks if there is an arms cache nearby. The terminal asks for some identification to which Tukie quickly grabs the dog tags from the deceased Belguardian officer and recites the numbers. The terminal responds with the location of the military offices being west of the city. It even provides the location of the department ATV hidden behind the building. Upon further questioning it reveals the location of the military scrap yard/moth ball fleet to the south.
After briefly checking the hydrogen tanks (10% full, 200t) they mount into the ATV and head down the dirt road to the town. The town itself has been hit repeatedly by near miss nuclear war heads. The city itself is looted and in ruins.
Continuing on to the depot reveals the target of the weapons, a deep crater exists where a previously submerged weapons cache existed. It too has been looted of anything the Travellers could find.

Travelling back to the starship, Veln fuels it up and the crew flies south outside of the habitable band of the planet to the scarp yard. He lands the ship inelegantly a few kilometers outside the walled in scrapyard and the party walks the remaining distance.

The scrapyard itself is owned/operated by a wheel chair bound man scarred from the bombardment named James. He's almost oblivious to the travellers and otherwise interested in having visitors to take some items from his inventory. He introduces the travellers to Paige (formerly Carik) and Sam (formerly LaChuck) who are doing contract work in the yard and currently living in the on site dormitories (of which is obviously male centric- almost resembling a male fraterntiy more so than a traditional office).

Paige is a frail looking man, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and eloquent with his words. A service droid "Mainer" follows and attends to him. Sam is vaguely islander-ish, also in a Hawaiian shirt, who come across as being more of a grease monkey.

James mentions that they need to get off the rock on the next boat out and recites the history of Eleson. There has been frequent colonization/evacuations and a near constant cat and mouse games with the Heirate. They seem to be losing the war. In a desperate gambit the Heirate nuked the colony site to an irradiated cinder a few months ago. The conflict has died down since. He knows this only because rookie crews haven't been crashing through the atmosphere trying to get away from the Heirate raiding parties.

James mentions, after chuckling at the traveller's misfortune, that there is a Seeker mining vessel he needs to get rid of. It was the prize of Kouniko, who had paid for it but did not pick it up. She mentioned coming across something "BIG" before she disappeared a few months ago. James offers it to them for free to get it out of the military lot.

Among the debris of the yard included a few other vessels that James alluded to letting go, including some of Belguardian Lancers among other things. A rather large Cryptic class ground support droid ship towers in the back of the yard.

After some discussion, and at one point Veln recounts the trip to Eleson to Sam angrily, the players decide the best way to go is to trade in the Aspiration class barge for the Seeker. The ship is cleaned up and made ready for service with a 10t fuel blatter in the starboard cargo bay (giving it an effective J-3). An extra day is spent in the yard fitting the turret with a pulse laser and a sand caster with the help of a almost cartoonishly volumptious and ill-ly suited "female" personal droid acting as a cargo hauler.

During the refitting Veln brings up a troubling math. The Seeker can only support 4. The crew then decides to pack on some food (6 tons of military rations from the yard) and some air tanks to fresh the air of the cargo bay. It takes longer than expected to rig it up and another day is spent on Eleson. Veln is less than amused.

The time comes when it is time to leave SUDDENLY! Sam takes to the controls as the rest of the crew holds on for dear life.

The ship successfully jumps to Gollere and descends into the brouhaha of the starport after a quick sensor sweep. After entertaining the locals (at one point a boy offers to sell the crew some "sushi like" items. The ships computer long ago pointed out there is no natural fish... or oceans on Gollere; just a kind of all encompassing foreign lichen), selling the cargo, and fueling up the ship with unrefined fuel for cheap thanks to Sam's incessive bartering, the crew moves into town to spend the day.

Tukie and Paige hear from the kid as well as a bar keep about the legendary captain "Edward the Zephyr" whom was in port and his recent exploit regarding some arms smugglers. The star town is apparently a ghost town when he isn't in port and the locals love him. "You should be able to find him by the train of prostitutes that linger near him... where they are... so is the business"

Sam and Streneck look for the nearest weapons store. It had mostly slug throwers and other TL-7 style weaponry. Wearing nothing but the helmet from the combat armor, Streneck pleads to buy another suit. Though the shop keep refuses initially, a bribe looses his tongue and asks him to meet behind the store later that evening.
Sam barters the hell out of every item he has to earn a few more credits.

Paige learns of the "White Wing" a TAS establishment just down the street and goes there with Tukie. They are greeted within the well crafted and luxuriously appointed hostel by a tall masked alien that referred to herself as one of the X'Thil. After showing the TAS badge, and declining to pay for Tukie on a guest voucher, Paige spends the evening in abject luxury downloading information off the local net.

Ref Note: Anyone catch this Raymond E. Fiest reference? Fun times here.

Later that evening Tukie, Streneck, and Sam visit another individual behind the store. Unable to come to a deal over the primitive, but functional, combat armor that he had Sam realizes that he could get more from him and help the other 2 in their original goal to pickup some black market arms for the K'Kree.

Ref Note: I mentioned a failed streetwise check. This one was it. It was just 1 shy actually.

The shadowy figure agrees to send over a couple of tons of weapons next evening. The next day passes as Veln maintains the ship, Paige lives la vida loca in the White Wing, and the others take in the local sights and sounds. Sam tracks down an alien food bar and gets Veln some K'Kree delicacies... or at least it's as close as he can tell. Veln enjoys it.
The next evening rolls by and the party meets the arms dealer again. After a short exchange, the price of 1.2m is agreed upon for the 6 tons of advanced weapons with the condition that the combat armor is part of the deal. Money is exchanged and the dealer hands over the keys to the flatbed truck they were loaded on and hurries away.

Ref Note: 1t of Advanced Weapons is only worth 150k.

It's not long after driving down the street that the deal appears to have been a setup. The lights along the road shut off and a lone figure, somewhat portly and stuffed into his combat vacc suit stands in the middle of the road escorted by 2 other individuals clad in combat armor. In the dim distance other figures are moving about in the dark.

It's Edward the Zephyr, somewhat irate that someone was shuffling around his merchandise behind his back but otherwise happy to have it returned. He accurately describes the ship they've been using and it's something that he could use. If he could be convenienced to use them for a little operation he's planning then he gives his "honor" to not kill them immediately. It would be a hassle to recrew their ship.
After getting the crew's approval, at gun point, Edward tells of a distress beacon on a reclusive colony on Selshor that is incredibly weak and unanswered. They need to act quickly to, as Edward restated from Sam, "Liberate and redistribute the wealth" before someone does something noble. The trick is, they are dug in and Edward requires the use of the mining equipment on the Seeker class.

Arriving back to the ship, the crew discovers Veln bound and gagged and an hilariously obvious explosive latched to the hydrogen tanks. Unable to diffuse it, they wait till they receive launch orders the next morning. (Edward would later go into detail as to how it worked, it's listening for a radio signal from the Zypher. If it goes more than a week without hearing it, "kablooie").

Jumping cleanly to Selshor with the corsair vessel Zephyr, whose holographic controls and variable geometry keep shifting the ship to appear different, the crew descends down to the remote colony. Picking up the weak signal, Paige is unable to pinpoint where it is. Sam shoves him aside and begins using the sensor/com station where upon in the scuffle the machinery is damaged.
Paige shows him the door to the room and fixes the device (rebooted it). A follow up scan points the signal coming from the north in a small cave. They report the information to Edward sitting high in orbit over the airless world. He's unconcerned about some random distress signal and patiently, as much as he can, ask them to just bring the doors down so that they can get in.

Landing the ship back outside the colony at the star port, of which appears to be perfectly fine albeit not answering any communications. The drones are released and, eventually, control is handled over to the incredibly apt Veln (Remote Ops being a critical field to most K'Kree crewman). The hangar doors are brought down with explosive decompressions after a few hours and the drones are sent in, fighting what appears to be automated armatures.
Tukie, Paige, and Mainer then follow into the gaping holes the drones have been tearing loose, careful to stay outside of the carnage the drones are causing. Veln reports that he can't accurately control the drones anymore at the depth they are at and pulls them back.

Streneck points out "Did anyone just open the doors? You know, push the open buttons?"
Silence fell over the party.

Ref Note: Yes, they were open. Sam mused quite accurately at my DMing style.

Tukie and Paige proceed down the dark unlit corridor to the center of the colony. They pass what appears to be a scanner of sorts. When he does, the corridor springs to life lighting up the passage way to the last door that Veln got to and around the debris of the arm that fought the drone.

Upon getting close, the door slides open allowing entry to the now lit central colony.
Immediately upon stepping into the room, the door slams shut behind them and the colony corridors pressurize. Confetti blows from out of the ceiling and an omnipresent voice booms over the speakers. "Welcome Citizen 3215 and Citizen 3216! Please proceed to the dormitory for assignments. There is much work to be done."

The doors open and floor lights up along the path they are requested to go. Upon arrival to their rooms the voice requests that they wear their assigned jumpsuits. Tukie and Paige refuse. Instead they ask the voice various questions, invariably leading to "Permission Denied, you do not have the required security permissions". Paige presses the issue and requests to know who the voice is; earning the response "You are obviously faulty, please report to reeducation immediately".
Tukie begins enquiring as well and the voice assumes the same as two industrial armatures attempt to apprehend the "faulty citizens". Tukie slings her carbine and fights back. After a short fire fight they begin running back to the front door while being accosted by cleaning droids.
The door slams shut along with another on the north side of the domicile enclosure.

In the distance the grinding noises of the mining drones can be heard cutting down the doors to get to them.

Mainer hot wires the door to open and at once the lights go out and the air leaves the domiciles. The trio slowly walks into the room they were guided through before, a cafeteria. Slowly moving forward with their lights on, they are surprised by a mechanical culinary horror swinging various cutlery at them. The machine misses, Tukie responds with high intensity laser fire.

Paige orders Mainer forward to the next door. Eagerly complying he rushes into the darkness. He twitches for a second, his head lights flailing toward the ceiling, when a mechanical hand lunges for him dragging the droid into the dark where several knives and blades began stabbing at it. Tukie makes a shot at it.
She misses... but then hits Mainer, severing it into several hot glowing pieces that now roll around the floor in the ill lit room. Successive rounds make quick work of the culinary droid that grabbed him.

It's not long before the mining droid takes down the wall thanks to Streneck who took a transceiver down the hall way to assist with drone control. Veln orders it to pick up the pieces of the dismembered droid.

Then Streneck, Tukie, and Paige pickup some of the mining tools and begin to drill out all the cameras within the facility, steadily making their way down the halls. Where resistance is met, they respond with either drilling out the control panel and wedging the door open or sending a drone at it. Despite the vacuum, the speakers vibrate noiselessly with Paige occasionally tapping in to hear the speaker berate the travellers for not complying with citizen codes.

Again, Sam relay's their progress to Edward who is less than pleased that the colony grade fusion reactor and it's atmospheric processors are not already in his hold. Sam tapes a cigar to his helmet and enters the colony.

The party comes across a large store room full of consumables and processed ores. They ferry away 6 tons of basic manufacutured goods.

Coming to the reactor room, they discover the floor has been trapped-electrified to the point of disintegrating anything that might go through it. A drone met an untimely demise this way.

They move on to meet the hydroponics farm where they continue to drill open doors. Streneck just barely dodges the door exploding out from decompression. Sam casually steps out of the way of the cart wheeling door.

Continuing on they come across the server room and open it up. Cautiously they shoot all the cameras in the room and chuck the drill in low-G into the room to test the floor; nothing happens. They notice the room is surrounded on the ceiling by what appears to be exhaust vents.

In the distance a lone terminal is flashing a command prompt. Paige, after becoming sure the room was safe, discusses the proper command to type, walks up to it and sets off the pressure plate in the room. A high strength acid fires from all the exhaust points and dissolves the metal, servers, and everything else in the room.

As he attempts to flee the exhaust covers Paige in the acid-foam, it tears through the suit causing it to decompress suddenly. The foam enters his skin and while he looses consciousness, writhing on the floor of the room. Sam reaches in and pulls him out, his suit singing from the acid but not failing.

Ref Note: It's not failing because it's a high tech no-no. It was made explicit that all equipment purchases at character creation are to be done at the lowest tech level.

His suit is quickly patched and pressurized. Streneck loads his unconscious body on his back and huffs it back the ship (hence forth christianed "El Camino") to give him first aid where upon he quickly stops the bleeding and brings him to a stable, if slightly scarred state.

With the AI dead, the fusion reaction shuts off. Edward is pleased and begins his descent...

Ref Note: Good roleplay all around. I really enjoyed this session.