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Part I: Punching the Clock
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Pact Worlds Date: 321-07-14 AG
Location: The Planet Castrovel
Ship Ident: COM-EJCORP03-FS-BD514
Current Mission: Produce Delivery
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Rain pours down on the small freighter, BD514, as it moves over the dark ocean toward the city of Qabarat, which grows rapidly on the horizon. Though known as the Jewel of the Western Sea, little of the city sparkles in this weather. Qabarat lines the mouth of the Yaro River, which stretches past the city, into the foothills of the Stormshield Mountains beyond. Navigation beacons and the city’s traffic control AI direct BD514 to a landing pad at Ship’s End, the city’s bustling starport.
Your crew received a transmission from your dispatcher recently tasking you to pick up 50 tons of Yaro berries from a local establishment called Prat’s Produce and transport them to Hivemarket on Akiton — where such a delicacy can go for 10 credits a bowl. Yaro berries are a tangy fruit that grows only on the banks of the Yaro River. This seasonal, sizable purple berry is relatively commonplace in the markets of Qabarat, but it’s considered a delicacy on other worlds.
However, the fruit must be delivered before it spoils which gives you 6 days. If the cargo is delivered early, you'll likely earn a bonus.
Kez stands just behind the pilot's chair, watching out the window at the rain. She wants to look at the ground and the surrounding scenery but the rain prevents that. Despite her having absolutely no piloting skills she still offers advice. "Look out for the...Don't hit the other...Yipes! How can you see!? Did you remember to flip the switch for the landing gear?" All the while she is pointing at various flashing and blinking lights on the console, making sure that everyone close by knows that they are flashing and blinking.
"Chill out, Kez! Boots has got this!" Chase declares from the engineering station on the bridge. The burly woman has her feet up on console, reclining with her hands behind her head.
A burst of thunder shakes the ship, and she spares a glance at the pilot. "You do got this, right Boots?"
She taps a button with her toe to divert a little more power to the engines, just in case.
"Yeah sure, she's got this but what if the storm gots her? I am way to young to die. Besides I just got my 'do done just perfect and I don't want it smeared all over the pad" She doesn't relax, but she does back up a little and only points at newly flashing lights, not the ones that already were.
Katherine walks into the engineering station, partly distracted analysing something closely on a set of data she's clutching.
"Mind flying this thing a little smoother Boots? I have some mixes going back there and if you jolt them I'm going to have to start all over." She says in her usual exasperated tone, as if this is all some purposeful interference to her work.
Captain Daxos, or just Ben to his crew, simply sits in his chair on the ship's cramped bridge - even more cramped now with most of the crew up there. The picture of calm, he continues tapping occasionally at his datapad and glancing out of the cockpit.
"Back off Kez. Boots knows what she's doing." His deep voice fills the small space. "She won't do it better with you crowding her."
"What if she needs to press three buttons at once?" She says sullenly. "You'd be real happy to have me up here then." But she does back off by several feet and, to distract herself from what is going on she mentally breaks down a gun, her hands going through the motions even though they are empty.
"If you hurry up and land..." Penny was walking crisply into the bridge to hurry things along so their timetable could be kept. She stops in the door since the entire crew is already there "Don't some of you have preparations to make for when we actually land." she says with a slight snap. To Ben "Captain, I remind you we have a limited amount of leeway in the schedule if we want to collect the bonus."
"Quite right Penny." Ben says, looking up and clapping his hands. "Anyone who doesn't have a job to do up here needs to be down in the cargo hold, ready to get our cargo. No shore leave here. Let's get the cargo, deliver it and then have some time off then to spend our bonus."
He looks around at his crew with a grin. "That means you too Katherine - unless Boots needs you here you're coming down to the hold with the rest of us."
Chase rolls her eyes, then throws a mock salute to Ben. "Aye aye, cap'n," she says. She stands, stretches, scratches her butt, then moves towards the cargo hold.
Penny waits until the captain is ready to depart and then slips into step beside him "I sent a detailed plan to you about loading order for optimized storage. I believe it will leave us open for a few more crates if we could scrap together enough funds. On that note, after an stealth inventory, I noticed our engineer has an abundance of spare parts for something called the..." she refers to her datapad "... Phase Quadrate Filtering System. Which sounds expensive and IS it seems, since I priced the parts on the market already.. While it is company property they could be 'used' to maintain the ship over the next few travels without a raised eyebrow." her eyes take in the man walking next to her to gauge his response.
Ben raises an eyebrow at Penny, as his lips twitch. "My dear Quartermistress, are you suggesting that we misappropriate the valuable resources of EJ Corp?" He holds out a few more paces before allowing his smile to spread. "Good work but I have to account for everything whenever we return to HQ. So let's avoid using them unless there is a genuine need. Once we have a reason, well..." He winks.
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The voice of the Legally Obligated Working Operating System (LOWOS) comes alive. "Please be aware that failure to achieve a safe and successful landing will result in financial penalties applied to your ongoing Evgeniya-Jaimisson contract. And your death," she announces.
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"Look out for the...Don't hit the other...Yipes! How can you see!? Did you remember to flip the switch for the landing gear?"[/b
Focused on her tasks, she doesn't look away but says quietly [b]"...Kez..."
"You do got this, right Boots?"
"What's a matter back there? Am I knocking too many tools off the wall?"
"Yeah sure, she's got this but what if the storm gots her? I am way to young to die. Besides I just got my 'do done just perfect and I don't want it smeared all over the pad"
"...Kez... Please." she mutters through a mouthful of hair she's chewing on.
Katherine walks into the engineering station, partly distracted analysing something closely on a set of data she's clutching.
"Mind flying this thing a little smoother Boots? I have some mixes going back there and if you jolt them I'm going to have to start all over."
"What if she needs to press three buttons at once?"
Having had enough, she spits out her hair from her mouth and shouts
"If you hurry up and land...""That means you too Katherine - unless Boots needs you here you're coming down to the hold with the rest of us."
Growing exasperated with her crew, she shakes her head NO at the captain as she says "Oh-for-the-love-of-" and reaches down and grabs a pair of earphones and presses a button to start the music. Loud electronic music sounds start blaring through the device as she slaps them over her ears to drown her crew out.
She can still hear the ship's AI through her headset and she groans, "Not you too..."
While likely distracting to most, the pilot is able to focus and calm herself through the music as the chatter of the crew fades away. With a practiced hand, she sets the ship down exactly where it needs to be, safely.
Once touched down, she rises and takes her headset off and presses a button her comms to speak to the crew over the intercom "Thank you all for riding the Boots express. I take tips. " She leans back in her chair and kicks up her feet. "Welcome to Castrovel, ladies and gentlemen."
Punching a few buttons, she brings up a display and begins to read it out over the coms to everyone. "Castrovel is a warm, verdant world with intense storms, powerful tides, and sprawling jungles and swamplands in which a tremendous variety of life roams freely."
"Lucky for us, we get to experience one of these storms firsthand! It's wet out there, please dress appropriately or be forced to sit though one of Katherine's exams afterwards."
She closes the comm and hops up, heading to the cargo bay.
Chase looks down at her bare belly and laughs. ”Boots, when do I ever dress ‘appropriately?’” she says into the comm.
Nodding to Ben, she didn't expect a different answer at this point, knowing their finances are not what anyone of them wants.
At the cargo bay, Penny doesn't look at the bare belly being talked about but "Swamps and jungles have bugs." she points out simply. Her own flesh is covered in the nearly pressed sharp almost uniform she always wears. Pulling on her form fitting cap, and pushing her hair into the sides. "I've transferred the loading specs for the cargo." she says to the engineer. "As long as they followed them on their end, everything should fit with room to spare." her tone makes it clear she does not think they will be so precise on their end.
Katherine looks cautiously around the cargo bay as everyone starts the preparations. "What exactly do you want me to do here? I really need to get back before my mixes go off you know, they need my attention." She asks before watching Chase start working with a grimy crowbar to open up a few larger holding crates.
"Chase, do you realise that the crowbar currently in your hands has a 87.2% likelihood of passing on a bacterial infection? I hope you plan on washing your hands before doing anything else."
Even though Katherine asked how to help, there is no possibility she will actually muck in and get her hands dirty. Ben has had to talk to her many times on how to appear a polite member of the team, even if it was not her goal in any given situation.
"Penny, what proportion of our load capacity will be full? Is it at a sufficient level to slow down our journey back? We wouldn't want to lose out on our pay of course. Not when we could be using it to invest in our science lab more sufficiently." She says, matter of factly.
Penny looks over at the doctor with a light smile "We will be quite full, but within operating parameters. As long as we don't have engine problems we should be able to get our bonus without worry." she leaves out her thoughts on what the money should be spent on Other than the science lab.
”Hey, you’re right, Katie!” Chase says, knowing the scientist hates the nickname. ”Here, you hold it. I’ve got a spare.” She offers the crowbar with a grin.
Talah skips into the room and pats the loader with the palm of her hand twice. "Engine problems? You gonna talk bad about Chase like that right in front of her, are you Penns? Tsk. Tsk. You oughta know that she's gonna be purring like those creatures that purr."
Hopping up into the seat, she flops her legs over the steering wheel and laces her hands behind her head as she leans back. "Ain't that right, Chase?"
Kez snorts. "Science lab. What we really need is some big boom-booms." She says just loud enough to be heard but still quietly enough to claim that she was talking to herself.
Talah pulls her hands back and sits up quickly, clapping her hands together loudly before pointing to Kez "That's what I'm talking about right there. Chase. When you gonna hook us up some boom-booms to the ole Beedy?"
"Gods knows one day we might need to shoot something instead of spreading out legs and says 'Sure. We have no defenses. Why don't you come board us and take all of our cargo.'"
Petal's light smile turns down just a lightly, more due to the nickname than the comment. "I meant no disrespect to Ms. Reisora's skills, quite the opposite. The only thing keeping this ship from being stranded in the black while we all are reduced to cannibalism or worse, is her extraordinary abilities to make the subpar... Purrr as you put it, Miss Lehdos"
Her attention is peeked at the notion of high explosive devices, every ship needs the ability to take on Prey... she means Predators.
After a relatively smooth landling - considering the conditions - and the appropriate navigation through the local port bureaucracy, you unload your cargo rig for the quick trip to Prat's Produce.
The cargo rig included with the BD514 is manufactured by EJ corp and is designed to transport cargo to and from your ship. The cab seats four and is decorated with the EJ Corp logo and slogan: "Take it to the EJ!" The cargo rig also includes a couple of hover trailers that each fold into the size of a briefcase. Each can be unfolded by a single crewmember in about 10 minutes and then be attached to the rear of the cargo rig. A single hover trailer can carry up to 50 tons, but any cargo must be carefully secured, as the trailer has no roof or walls and provides no cover.
You have the location for Prat's Produce which is a few miles from the starport, on Sprik Street. Reaching the establishment, you can see that it caters to individual sales as well as bulk. The inside of the grocery exudes a cleanliness that is minimalistic, but not sterile. Rows of shelves and friendly aisle displays present a wide variety of well-organized foodstuffs for purchase. Dozens of people — mostly lashuntas — go about their daily errands, selecting food and making (sometimes telepathic) conversation. Small, bright screens scattered about the store use flashy ads to announce the day’s best deals and upcoming specials. To the right of the entrance, automated check-out lines supervised by a middle-aged lashunta woman, tally up customer purchases. Quick directions from the woman send you to the office in back.
An older, stocky lashunta wearing blue coveralls sits behind a wooden desk covered in papers. He taps furiously on a datapad while grumbling to himself. His most notable feature is a missing left antenna and a thin scar that begins at his forehead and zigzags back along his scalp. He looks up, tosses the tablet aside, and asks in a polite but agitated voice, "What can I do for you?"
”As soon as good old EJ Corp actually gives us authorization to weaponize the old girl, you can bet your ass I’m gonna strap on the biggest boom-booms we got!” Chase says, accentuating her statement with a punch to the air. She shoves Boots’s boots off the wheel and starts up the cargo rig.
***
Once at the produce store, she says, ”We’re here for the yaro berries. Load ‘em up!”
"As my companion says" the quartermaster smiles politely at the scarred man, careful to keep her emotions free and clear of irritation and eager greed. "The request IS accompanied with all the proper paperwork." she looks to the captain before shows the authorizations from her datapad.
"Oh, you're from EJ?" the old man questions and then seems to grow slightly less agitated. "I'd verify who you are," he says picking up his table again and turning it to show the login screen. "but this damn thing doesn't seem to want to work today." He tosses it back onto the desk. "In any case it’s good you’re here. You’d better hurry, though. There’s a lot to move, and those Yaro berries will spoil before too long. You’ve no idea how much this shipment means to me. I’m retiring after this. Thirty years running this place. Now it’s Needa’s turn. This shipment is my retirement plan, so please, be careful, okay?"
Picking up the tablet he rises from his desk and leads you out of the office and down a hall to the warehouse portion of the establishment where you see stacks and stacks of 50 lb crates of the purple berries.
"As soon as I can figure out what's wrong with this stupid thing, you can sign off on the shipment and start loading them up," he says, indicating the crates. "I don't get paid until you complete the sale on Akiton, so this needs to go as smooth as possible. Once that happens, my daughter can take over and I can retire."
Prat looks again at his tablet and once more attempts to sign in with his thumbprint and password and once again the device *blurps* in the negative. In frustration, he bangs the slim computer against a nearby rack a few times before trying again with similar results.
Talah looks over at the cargo and nods, "Alright. Best we get loadin' then, eh?"
She heads off to start sizing up their cargo and figuring out the best way to get it loaded.
”Hey, you’re right, Katie!” Chase says, knowing the scientist hates the nickname. ”Here, you hold it. I’ve got a spare.” She offers the crowbar with a grin.
Katherine's face darkens and her left eye twitches at the use of her nickname. "No, thank you. I just told you exactly where that has been."
Katherine makes sure she gets a dry and comfortable seat inside the transport before they set off to meet their contact.
---
Her nose twitching in annoyance at the incessant rain, Katherine eyes the cargo and then eyes Ben, knowing exactly what he is going to say. Instead of helping out with the hauling, she heads over to the old man before holding out her hand expectantly. "Let me look at that tablet."
Muttering to herself as she works, she eventually calls out to those doing some manual labour. "Does anyone have a hacking kit? It's an easy fix, but I don't have the gear. Last time I asked, Penny said no." Her sulking is almost child-like, as if she had been refused a new toy.
"I SAID it was a personal expense so you would be responsible for it, instead of lumping it into the basic needs budget like you were suggesting." Penny corrects, from where she is helping organize the loading.
Talah rolls her eyes as she oversees loading another crate "That's being a nitpicky, Penns. If she needs it, it should be in the budget, eh? Like those Stays I asked ya to add."
"The budget is finite. Adding something means taking something away. We COULD go back to protein paste and deodorant sprays, so she can have her hacking rig and you can have your stay awake drugs."
"You must see how we need a hacking rig now Penny? If you insist, I will pay now and then happily fill out the paperwork on return to be reimbursed. But we still need to make sure we find something else to cut back on. We are not living off protein paste." She nods as if its a done deal before heading off to locate one.
Arriving back, thoroughly soaked an hour later, she continues to look at the tablet to avoid getting involved in the manual labour.
Ben sighs. "I'll be back soon." He says following Katherine off into the rain. When they return about an hour later he hands over a small bag to Katherine with a smile, and rejoins the rest of the crew in lugging the crates around.
Katherine spends a few minutes with the tablet and her new hacking kit and manages to bypass the initial login. Searching through recent activity she can see that someone has been here before her and installed software to ensure that Runo's password wouldn't reset. The software installed utilizes classic space goblin coding techniques. A few minutes later and she's cleared out the hacker's software and reset Runo's password.
"Gods, thanks," Runo says, once he can access the tablet again and has you sign off on the cargo. "Keep your eye out on your way back to Ship’s End," he tells
you. "I’d heard some people talk of goblins out there, but I didn’t think much of it. If you’re right, and they’re the ones who hacked my files, well, I don’t know what they’re up to, but it’s criminal, that’s for sure." He then heads back inside as you proceed to load up the cargo.
Chase busies herself with the heavy labor. A chick doesn’t keep such a chiseled physique by shying away from hard work, after all! She puts her muscles to good use!
"Hey Chase! Wanna see which of us cries 'Uncle' first? " Kez calls out in good natured but serious fun.
”Ha! You’re on, Kez!” Chase redoubles her efforts, hoping to show up the soldier by outlasting her!
"Speed is commendable, encouraged, happily bowed to in deference to your superior physical prowess." Penny pauses having to catch her breath. "But please be careful as well, every broken fruit comes out of our paychecks. Company policy." the last two words having enough acid to burn through a bulkhead.
She's right, but Ben knows better than to intervene too directly. "Ladies, you have five minutes - no tools apart from your own bodies. Most crates stacked by the end of the time wins. Anyone dropping, throwing or otherwise being careless with the crates loses by default."
He pauses for a moment to make sure both Kez and Chase have acknowledged the rules...
"Begin!"
Chase takes a moment to flex to the crowd before throwing herself into the competition!
Kez flexes and stretches and you can hear every joint in her arms pop. Then she smiles as the competition begins. Smiling and laughing the whole time, at the end of the five minutes, she gives Chase a hug and offers to help with her training.
At the end of five minutes Kesred's stack of crates is significantly higher than Chase's. Although the latter's tendency to pause periodically to flex for the watching crowd might have had something to do with it as well.
With the cargo finally loaded and secured on the trailer, you load back into the cab of the cargo hauler and head back towards Ship's End. With Chase and Kesred standing on the back of the vehicle and watching over the cab, you move through the evening and light traffic back to where your ship is docked.
The city is a constant buzz. Spacecraft hum in nearby docking facilities and zoom overhead while merchants and crowds of tourists chatter; the rumbling engine of the cargo rig below merges seamlessly into the urban symphony. As the spaceport comes back into view, up ahead, an old woman pushing a cart across the street yelps in alarm as her cart tips over and rusty tanks of petrol tumble out, scattering in every direction. Traffic stops and drivers in nearby vehicles shout, but the old woman ignores them. Instead, she walks slowly to one of the rolling tanks, picks it up, and carefully cradles it in her arms as she returns to the fallen cart. She then turns and begins plodding towards another wayward tank.
"CCCCommmmeon!" Talah shouts, hooting and hollering for both of them. While standing on a crate, she sticks her fingers in her mouth and whistles loudly.
Penny takes the opportunity to slip her rump onto a nice stable unmoving crate, and rests as the two brawniest do the work of four. She does applaud when it is over and the victor announced. "Impressive work Kesred." she says getting back to hauling.
Chase laughs too and pats Kez on the back. "You caught me on an off day. I'll beat you next time!"
***
On the way back, the mechanic points to the Old Woman. "Ih, you guys see that? Looks like a bunch of junk bots! Bet it's those space goblins!"
Penny was eyeing the 'old woman' as well "We have a massive load of expensive fruit, and now a convenient roadblock." she looks back at their cargo to make sure it is all there.
Ben frowns. "You're probably right Penny. Everyone arm up, just in case. Chase, Kez, feel like going to give the 'old lady' a hand?"
He suits actions to words by removing the ornamental strip from the back of his long coat. The glammer disappears and reveals Elisa, his trust laser rifle.
”I’ll give her two hands,” Chase says with a smirk, strapping on her Fistigons and powering them up. Pistons whir as the metallic fingers flex and form into massive fists. Chase clangs them together and moves to confront the ‘woman.’
Kez jumps off the back of the rig and smiles at Chase and her fistigons "Damn! She loves those things." Truth be told so does Kez but they aren't for her. Checking to make sure that she has her weapons conveniently nearby she goes over to "help the old lady". "That's what we're calling beating up on Space Goblins these days."