S14 Riding Shotgun
Steve couldn’t make this week, but Ric could, so Wombat faded back and Jesse Wales became more prominent!
Shadira Highport, Collace/District 268/Spinward, 265/1105
With the profits from their trips, Nevada continued his upgrading of the ship’s fighting abilities, adding a second laser and a sandcaster to each turret, courtesy of Daven’s Second Hand Ship Parts. It occurred to them that they’d not tested any of this, and they resolved to shoot some asteroids next trip to Tarsus.
The brand manager for Nob Boost, Floyd D’Angalo, came along with the delivery this time, to renew the relationship with the ship after the change of management. Feng plied him with refreshments and tried to negotiate a better price. Floyd was rather taken with Feaysen but could only compromise on a 2% discount if they were to ship 20 tons a time. Nevada chipped in that they couldn’t yet afford 20 ton shipments, so the discussion was shelved.
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Granville Pena was a young rancher approaching 30 who had been sent by his ranch to explore new markets for their particular specialty, Nobble Kidneys. Wide-eyed and innocent, endlessly amazed by space, starships, Collace, aliens, everything, he was travelling back to report only minimal success. He could only afford Basic, and didn’t really want to travel Low again after the last time, but was persuaded into the freezers; the PCs prefer High and Low to Mid and Basic. It occurred to Feng to connect Granville and Floyd, maybe there was some biochemical use for Nobble Kidneys, or an additive to increase the kidney size of a Nobble?
During the Jump, Feng tried talking to Nita to find out more about her expedition.. She revealed that she was to head into the little-known Mountains of Dreams in the middle of the great desert Sulani An, but was resoloutely stumn on why she was going there, mentioning some kind of nondisclosure agreement..
Outer System/Tarsus/District 268/Spinward, 272/1105
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Wales took another shot at a different rock - and the sensors lit up; a scatter of radioactive ore was uncovered. There was far less of this, and the crew decided it was worth the effort. Down in the hold there was an empty radiation-proof cargo crate, and with a degree of hard work they did an EVA and loaded a ton of the ore into the crate. It wasn’t going to make much here - but back at Collace it ws going to be well worth selling. Ironic congratulations from the Happy Holidays led Feng to add a small back of solid waste to the remaining ore as a fingers-up to the freeloaders.
Newland Down Starport/Tarsus/District 268/Spinward, 278/1105
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One of his delivery drivers was attacked in the wilds on the way to one of the more out of the way ranches by what he assumes were some kind of bandits. Scattered communities of “wilders” live off the grid on the edges of civilized Tarsus and these have been known to stoop to banditry. Laser shots were fired, damaging the vehicle, and the driver only barely managed to keep it moving long enough to get to safety. The local authorities went and had a look but didn’t find anything; Poole had the impression that they weren’t particularly bothered.
He wanted to hire some combatants to ride along with the driver with a view to damaging these bandits enough to prevent them troubling his delivery runs again. He offered to pay Cr10,000 per person, bumped to Cr20,000 if any shots were fired in anger and Cr25,000 if the bandits were eliminated. The ranch was two days’ drive away.
Tarsus/District 268/Spinward, 280/1105
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They bounced through the rocky approach to the spot, and Dave huddled down, but nothing happened. As they emerged, he cheered up to the point of being giddy. “Just the cut to Bryce Ravine, over the bridge and we’re there,” he crowed. As they entered “the cut” all three of the PCs’ tactical senses started to scream; a flat-bottomed dell with steep sides topped with thick vegetation. Sure enough, a few seconds later, laser bolts began to rip through the car. Dave cried out and slumped over his wheel and a moment later the car smacked into a rock. Two more bolts went through the drive compartment and another into the cargo hold, incinerating the carefully-stowed box of Nob Boost.
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A deadly firefight ensued, with Nevada’s gauss rifle, Feng’s laser rifle and Wales’ chatty pistol and unpredictable baseball grenades wreaking havoc. The attackers’ morale crumbled after a while, and several attempted to flee. One made it over the ridge opposite where the crew were, and Nevada sprinted after him, grabbing his sniper rifle as he went. As he ran he heard a vehicle start up.
Feng’s savage instincts emerged to their full, and after lobbing a grenade over a boulder to take out one attacker she hacked his head off, and charged what turned out to be the last on their side of the valley just as his courage deserted him. She hurled the head directly into his face and the man collapsed into a foetal ball with a desolate wail. To her right, she heard the slam of Wales’ pistol dispatching a wounded bandit.
The unfortunate bandit had just rolled Snake Eyes with heavy negatives on his morale check when Pete had Feng throw the head straight in his face. It seemed time to use a Sanity Check (though I don’t usually use SAN in Traveller) and the poor boob’s mind disintegrated.
At the top of the south ridge, Nevada saw a car rather like their own bouncing across the plain as it strove to gather speed. Lining it up carefully, he put a heavy gauss round through the cabin. The car veered, tipped and rolled three times before coming to a dead halt.
Half an hour later, the bandit’s car was righted and the mess of its’ last driver scraped out. Feng’s prisoner was utterly unresponsive, despite her taunts. Dave the driver, when it occurred to them to check him, was alive but battered and with a laserburn through his left arm. The Nob Boost was a write off and so was the car; fortunately the bandits’ car was still drivable. Thinking about its’ range, they interrogated its navigation system to see where it had come from...
Session Date 20th June 2023