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The members of SAFCO spend some time doing various things as they wait for parts for the Rambler-II. Barney and Fardt have done all they can without the expensive drive components, and they have at least five weeks until the parts arrive.
They meet at the Happy Gluck that evening to discuss next moves. Barney has been interested in the Pachyderms of Uetonah for a while. As a former bureaucrat working in the diplomatic corps on the border of the Kresk Directorate, Caliban has some knowledge of such issues, and knows that the Imperial Office of Sophont Relations has at least a sub-office on each Subsector capital. Mylor’s subsector, of course, is not fully explored and the imperial presence is undeveloped. The nearest office would be the Prometheus subsector office, on planet Prometheus, one subsector rimward.
They see a man going from table to table chatting people up. He’s wearing a green velvet jack, black pants, and black boots. He’s about 5′ tall, heavy set, with gray goate. He approaches the table. Caliban notes that he’s wearing an antique wrist watch.
The man introduces himself as Silvonius Janks – Interstellar Commodities Trader. He has just landed his Far Trader, the Fortunate Son, and is in need of a crew. He tells him that his pilot, navigator, and engineer have been hired away by some guys doing recruiting.
He explains that he has a load of 1)polymer components he thinks he can sell on Overon, and that 2)he has crates of military fatigues made of cloth armor fabric he’s heard he might sell to Samson Mining, on Uetonah.
He offers the Scouts all standard crew contracts based on their skill levels, and offers Flint a position as Gunner for one of the craft’s two turrets. Lucky gets a bonus for serving not only as navigator but as gunner. Caliban negotiates a contract to represent Janks in upcoming business transactions, for a 5% commission on net sales. They find out that his previous crew lacked a steward, so Fardt is able to take that position, insuring that they’ll not be eating rations of garblag haggis for the next few week. Janks informs them that he want to leave for Uetonah in two morning.
SAFCO spends day doing the following…
Barney and Fardt go out to purchase supplies. They see see the recruiters from Samson Mining working a booth in the market. Barney has Fardt go use his streetwise smarts (Streetwise-1) to approach the booth and listen, acting like he want to join up. They don’t take Fardt seriously, but he makes his Streetwise roll and overhears them telling the possible recruits that rebel kooks on Uetonah have come close to shutting down mining operations. He then instructs Fardt to talk to his underworld contacts and start a rumor that Samson is signing people up for a death mission — to a planet where everything will kill and eat you. Guaranteed death. Fardt again rolls and makes Streetwise check. Rolling 1d6, we determine that recruiting efforts will be delayed by four weeks.
Flint and Roger visit Alro Rupalian who agrees to have 2 goons guard the Rambler-II while they are gone, simply out of goodwill.
Caliban makes friends with doc workers – they will help watch the ship. Finds out they are union. They will send him the name of union leader for future representation for contracts. He gives them some drink vouchers to the Happy Gluck.
Janks takes onboard one more lot of product – spices – to sell on spec.
SAFCO boards the Fortunate Son and heads for Overon, 2 parsecs away. One week in Jump Space.
Caliban assists in selling the polymers there for a nice profit. He sells the spices as well, also for a good profit. Flint visits the head of RCMP on the plant, Robert Tilton. He tells him about a possible post-scrubbing claim on Chamax, should there be anything good there.
There are no available cargo lots that Janks can currently afford.
They jump to Uetonah, and are boarded for inspection by a system defense boat. It is clear to Roger that the FS would be no match for it in a fight, and says “we’d better play nice.” They are allowed to land at the Samson spaceport.
Caliban trades the cloth armor fatigues for 200% of their original cost ($100,000 total). Sadly there is no cargo to ship out at this point. Perhaps when they are ready to leave.
They talk around the spaceport and city. Flint and Roger in the city – lots more posters now than on their previous visit. Barney chats up a dock worker, finding out that rebels have mostly shut down mining operations, but that will soon be fixed. Samson has brought in military weapons, and will soon have a private army to wield them. They will wipe out the environmentalist kooks. Lucky explores the city, and sees more pro-rebel graffiti and flyers around. “Free the Pachyderms” and “All Sophont Lives Matter”. Caliban does a casual, informal intelligence test on a pachyderm, and gets confusing results.
Man in spaceport bumps into Barney, and whispers to him to meet him at Irma’s Imported Mooch Imporium at 7pm.
End of session
IY6026.344
Elapsed time: 452 game days (1 year, 78 days)
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