New Amsterdam
The Sutton Hoo Exploration and Salvage Company, now reunited on Alphanor, took possession of the ship which Fenella had wheedled out of the senescent Admiral Gölblädhr on Earth and had freighted home at vast expense.
Our beloved band of rascals blew almost every penny they owned getting their nice new (crappy old) ship spaceworthy. Sutton Hoo groaned and complained about being stuffed into such an uncool piece of junk with no eyes to speak of and shields so pathetic they probably wouldn't even keep the rain off, while Captain Joe's main concern was the lack of any Galaxy Shaking Weaponry Of Doom. Or any weaponry at all.
Through Captain Joe's contact, Staff Sergeant McGruder, they managed to get hold of a pair of Class IV jump-drives at about half price. The food dispensers were filled with raw nutrient slush, but appeared to be incapable of producing anything except warm nutrient slush, nutrient patties, and nutrient broth. The air recyclers produced some extremely interesting smells, until somebody discovered that the lines had been spliced into the waste reclamation plant. The elderly reaction engines required quite a bit of work to bring them back on line, but eventually sufficed to lift them off-planet, which they did. Sutton maintained a dignified demeanour in the face of some very cruel and cutting remarks from some of his AI colleagues on other, more modern ships.
The major problem facing SHESC was, of course, where to get some Money. Fenella had received another quarterly allowance by the time the repairs were complete, but after paying the household expenses she was only left with about 3,500svu, which doesn't go far when you have a spaceship to feed. Since they couldn't afford to buy and sell, all that left was to sell. Which meant, finding Free Stuff which they could pick up for nothing. Sutton wanted better sensors, and lots of them, and suggested the possibility of looting hulks left floating around after a space battle. A fine idea as far as it goes, except that nobody had any idea where they might find such a thing. The Captain suggested heading off to his old stomping grounds on New Amsterdam; there's always some sort of unpleasantness going on out there.
Precis:
- Got to New Amsterdam; approx 50ly in 2ly jumps.
- Landed in Altsbög Neutral Enclave. Unable to contact McGruder, who is in hospital having a new liver fitted
- No money + port fees = Bad Situation. Sutton made enquiries about any space battles in the recent past; only thing of interest a freighter convoy/pirate contact in asteroid belt.
- Shelled out last few pennies on port fees and fuel and blasted for asteroids belt in the hope of finding something to make their fortunes
- Began search of the belt with Sutton's crappy wee sensor array. Chances of finding anything before fuel runs out, approx. 216 to 1.
- A miracle occurs — they make sensor contact with unidentified metallic mass. Closer investigation shows it to be the derelict hull of a freighter. Thoroughly trashed, and radioactive as hell. Sutton sends Martin (floating drinks tray drone) over to investigate; bodies everywhere, all systems down. Martin succumbs to rad poisoning while investigating the bridge and loses contact with Sutton core.
- Captain Joe dons scout suit and heads over. External scan by Sutton has identified a pair of meson cannon which may be salvageable; they get them back to the ship and find that apart from the fried electronics, they're in pretty good order. Joe's rad levels are pretty high by this time, so he doesn't have time to figure out how to detach the cargo modules.
- Joe heads back to the ship, and they expend their one and only dispenser of "Radz-B-Gon" to decontaminate him. They head back in to New Amsterdam to sell the cannon, hopefully for enough to equip themselves properly for extended work in a high-rad environment
- Land back at Altsbög Neutral Enclave. Eventually make contact with two potential buyers: Abdul Hassan MacLeibowitz (Crazy Abdul's, Everything must go, Our prices are so low you'll think we're CRAZY!) and the Cortisone brothers. Joe goes to see Sonny Cortisone, Fenella and Talya visit Crazy Abdul.
- Joe has no joy at Mr. Cortisone's office; kept waiting for half an hour. Mr Cortisone sends out some refreshments, but Joe storms off in a huff anyway. On his way back to the starport through mysteriously deserted streets, his nice new Hardy DeVissen gets its front suspensor array blown away. He wrestles it to a more-or-less controlled stop and immediately goes for cover in a nearby alley. The drone is sent out to reconnoiter, and is immediately shot to pieces. Joe makes a break for it, under fire from several guys with gauss rifles. He makes it into one of the buildings he's being shot at from, and immediately comes into contact with a guy with a gun and flak jacket who hoses him down nicely. Sutton is hearing all of this over Joe's comm-link, and alerts the others who are at Crazy Abdul's place with Mister Bendy, the other (hominid) drone. They come running, just in time to find Joe being loaded into a vehicle. Everybody opens fire on everybody else, but the Good Guys win and the driver of the vehicles scoots off as fast as his suspensors will carry him. Joe is in a very bad way, bleeding badly from many wounds. He's also managed to cut himself nastily by struggling in his monowire bindings.
- Our intrepid team steal (sorry, "borrow") an elderly sedan to get Joe back to the ship, where he can have his injuries tended by Eve. They make it back in time, and Eve is able to stabilize Joe before he pegs out. Joe swears never to ever go out in public ever again without wearing his combat armour.
- The team become suspicious of Abdul, who is offering 25 grand for the two cannon — a suspiciously good price for hardware with fragged electronics. They decide to go back to Mr. Cortisone, ignoring the howls of outrage from Crazy Abdul. Cortisone sends his factor who inspects the weapons and offers 13,500svu for them on the spot. They take it.
- Meanwhile, the police have become involved. Joe called them to report his involvement in the unfortunate events of the previous day, and was immediately called on by a pair of detectives who grilled him thoroughly and warned everybody that they weren't to leave the city. Joe asked for the remains of his skybike back, and was told that it was material evidence and he couldn't have it back until they were finished with it. They also said that there may be charges laid in respect to the stolen sedan. The next day, Fenella scoots off down to the station to work her Bureaucratics magic, and after a long and turgid lecture from the Commissioner about how they didn't appreciate heavily armed hooligans coming in and disrupting the peace of their fair community, told her that there would be no charges laid in this instance. Even the matter of the sedan was dropped, possibly because Sutton had spent two days working on it and returned it to its owner running beautifully and gleaming with a new coat of paint.
- They spent their money on extra rad shielding and a proper zero-gee maneuvering harness for Joe's suit, and a couple more "Radz-B-Gon" dispensers. They paid their port fees and took off back to their treasure trove.
- With a certain degree of travail, Joe managed to get the cargo modules detached and they loaded them into Sutton's tiny cargo bay one at a time for inspection. Only two of them contained anything of worth, most of them being filled with radioactive foodstuffs, radioactive clothing, and radioactive machine parts. One of them, however, was packed with small arms — mostly assault blasters, and a few support weapons. Their electronics were pooted, and they'd need decontamination, but even so they estimated that the load would still be worth about a million svu. Jackpot!
- The other interesting thing consisted of a metallic module about the size and shape of a Volkswagen, with a com port and telltales showing on the shell. There was no label to be found, no packing slip, in fact nothing to tell them what was in the module. Sutton plugged in to the com port and was immediately attacked by a moderately dangerous defensive program. He bludgeoned his way past it, and found a secure area inside which he was unable to penetrate. One interesting thing: the configuration of the secure area indicates that it is designed to keep something in, as well as keeping people out.