IW 6 - Human trafficking

Context

The CAMEROON has rescued one of its client, and three "targets". They are now trying to find a way to maximize profit amid a legally and ethically dark grey area while remaining on the high ground.

The air is thick enough to make soup with it.

Location

Prometheus is the oldest Terran colony. Brethrow is a distant developing nation where little laws are in effect. The air is thick, the temperature an uncomfortable 35C(95F). The topography is made of mountains covered by a dense jungles. The hunting ground is located 700km North of Brethrow. The environment is best described as somewhere between a mangrove and a jungle.

The insertion spot (purple), the creek (orange), the cave entrance and exit (blue).

   

Location: Hovering over the jungle canopy, mainworld, Prometheus system
Terran timestamp: May 1, 2170 AD

Marion's mangled body is hoisted on the sickbay's table as Aeryn, Molly and Flo are planning the surgery. While Tom jumps in the shower, Diane and Jane are most interested in the three "targets". One of the target, Porfirio, seems to be a man of higher stature. He explains that the hunters purchased 11 prisoners to act as raptor bait for a life-sized capture the "flags" adventure. He shares the location of the base camp, where the game master probably is.
The two other targets, who look more like tough cookies, reveal gladly that after Philip's death, they decided to use Marion as a bait to give a few of them a chance to escape. The plan went badly and only one of them had seemingly escaped.
Porfirio then reveals that the mayor/dictator in Brethrow, Hijo Stamellas,  had sold their lives against a large-scale water purification system. Porfirio offered a good sum to take his revenge on Stamellas.
The crew members were more interested in recovering Philip's body from the cave so that a claim on his life insurance be made. Anika and Tom decided to head back down shortly after Tom managed to put the 10mm Gauss railgun (dinosaur gun) together.


Location: Jungle floor, mainworld, Prometheus system
Terran timestamp: May 1, 2170 AD

Diane used the sensor array to identify movement under the canopy. She guessed that these were 2-3 raptors circling around the cave entrance. As Tom and Anika geared to descend in the air raft, she engaged with a sustained fire downward to burn the foliage to the ground. Amid the wood cracking in the steam and smouldering foliage, Tom struggled with the raft. They landed on the floor more or less blinded by steam, smoke and the impenetrable green of the jungle. With them, Rey, a psychopathic-looking target whom they equipped with the ship's shotgun.

Hey, Anika, you smell like lunch.

The advance in the foliage was slow and noisy. It got interrupted when they reached the pile of bodies and a raptor ambushed them out of the blue. Tom snapped a few 10mm shot and tore the raptor's left leg with the overpowered gun. The beast struggled, but soon the bodies of the three dead targets were on board. Anika, shaken from the ambush, trader her Gauss pistol for Tom's rifle. She had no intention to head down into the tunnel. Tom jumped in, shortly followed by Rey. 

Anika never saw the second ambusher until its fangs had penetrated her nanoweave suit and punctured her lung. In the struggle, the raptor nearly cleaned the flesh from her left arm's bone, severing the main artery and vein.

As her eyesight blurred by the fountain of blood, she could see Flo rapelling from above and the shots of Rey's shotgun felling the beast.



Location: Brethrow, mainworld, Prometheus system
Terran timestamp: May 1, 2170 AD

The medbot "Flo" saved the lungs but admitted defeat with the arm. Anika, an exceptionally strong woman, had survived the shock and the hemorrhage, but her arm was still more or less detached from her body. The CAMEROON flew to Brethrow after contacting a surgeon there. They rushed Anika to his practice. There, Aeryn, Flo and Molly spent the next three hours assisting the surgeon on a very difficult procedure to save Anika's arm.

In the ship, the guest became reckless. Porfirio demanded to be released so that he could get his men to bring him to a safe place. The two other targets showed no interest in returning to Brethrow where they were convicted criminals. After some tough negotiations,  Porfirio transferred 5KCr and waited for the night to exit the ship.

Anika returned late in the evening, stable but still in a critical conditions (-20HP). The CAMEROON left Prometheus and dropped the last two targets in a low-orbit transit station. As the ship sped to the 100D line for a return jump to Terra. They agreed with Marion that he would pay 25KCr for his safe return home. The crew wanted more, but the threat to turn him over for human trafficking rang hollow as they would have gotten no money out of following this option.


Location: Jumpspace, Terra-bound
Terran timestamp: May 2, 2170 AD

The crew decided to look into the business opportunity granted by the presence of farmed raptors on Prometheus. No one really knew how to capitalize this, but it smelled like a high-profit venture.  The all settled for the quiet drone of the jumpdrive for the next 7 days.

Character Cast

• Tom Anders: Retired Marine, gruff, good hearted. Now get off his cargo hold.
• Diane Ayetou: born rich and far less qualified than given credit for. Gets an A for A-fort.
• Jane Calhoun: Business-like business end of things. Reluctant pilot, appreciate spirits and solitude.
• Anika Kaprescu: Recluse. Did some time, killjoy. The ship’s cat.
• Aeryn Lorien: Stumbling steward, athlete and nurse. Gets the ribbon for caring the most.
• Molly Pepper: Engineer and ship’s puppy. Her giggles are wasted on the crew.

IW0 - Inception

Doualé, Cameroon, Terra; March 10 2170 AD -- Life had been cramping Diane Ayatou's style like a dead bird hanging over the porch. Her dreams of the next big thing, of unfettered pop explosion seemed dead in the water for years. However, that stalled ship had sailed: she read once more her obituary and giggled. Of course, her wife will take a while to heal, but this is the cost of loving someone like her. Most importantly, the gremlins from the Atomic Energy Board were certain to get off her tail for as long as she was no longer a player in Western Africa.

The coffee shop was in an affluent neighbourhood of Doualé, the capital city of Cameroon. She met with Pierrot Ekangaki, a slippery business acquaintance that had made a career from harvesting money from small investors. He was sincere, at the very least. But dressed like a bore. Diane told him that she wanted to get the license for his Hero-class free trader because it was good time for her to literally get off the face of Terra. Pierrot was hesitant, but promised her the license if she could secure a competent slate of operators.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Terra; March 12 2170 AD -- Anika and Jane left the UWO low-security compound of the Rio campus as free women. Mistake were made and crimes atoned for. It was high time to feel the tingle of gravitic fields once more. With a credit account full from her work in the penal system, they caught a flight bound to Cameroon. Their objective: meet with an airhead looking to assemble "a bunch of sparkling assholes" to crew an old Hero-class.

Doualé, Cameroon, Terra; March 13 2170 AD -- The meeting took place in a coffee shop where the sun shines bright and the coffee price ignores the laws of supply and demand. When Diane arrived, two ex-marines were already there. Tom Anders and Aeryn Lorien we're exactly material for the next cardboard band: quiet and reasonable. Tom boasted his freight handling credentials as if the 3rd Interstellar war was still on. Aeryn had served as a nurse onboard a medical relief ship for the last two years. To the merry crew, a pair of ex-convict joined shortly later. Anika may have never smiled in the last ten years and seemed to struggle with words a bit as she spoke. Jaiying, or Jane, rapidly took over the agenda of the meeting. "Who can do what here? Or will I have to do everything by myself?" They found common ground and determined that they could be working together in a cramped space for 16 months.

Diane ran a search for an engineer on the usual right spots. Within the next day, they had Molly Pepper on video conference. She was just what they were looking for: a versatile engineer and a pleasant personality to work with. Conscious of their fixed cost, they offered her a partnership rather than a contract position.

Doualé, Cameroon, Terra; March 16 2170 AD -- The bunch of merry gals (and Tom) finally met with Ekangaki to get the paperwork sorted out. Ekangaki took a lot more care examining each operator's credentials, often interupting the meeting to look things up online. It even looked like someone at the other ends was performing some kind of fact checking.

Ekangaki explained that the ship and the capital was an important investment strategy for up to 2000 middle-class investors. He impressed on them how important the venture of Charter 22 was not only for them, but for hundreds of college kids, pensioners and single mothers.

The contract read as follow (exerpt only):

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The chairman of the DOUALE CONSORTIUM has approved Charter 22 under the following terms. In this document, the signatory of Charter 22 are referred to as OPERATORS. All OPERATORS are equally liable and legally bound by the terms of Charter 22. DOUALE CONSORTIUM entrusts the operations of the following assets:

1. ASSETS

1.1 - TCIV CAMEROON, hero-class private merchant, Registration TER-F454AC-6.
1.2 - Operating Fund: 1.1 MCr
1.3 - 100T of hydrogen fuel
1.4 - Capital investment funds: 1.0 MCr

2. DURATION AND CONDITIONS
The OPERATOR are granted full operational control of TCIV CAMEROON from MAR.15.2170 to AUG.15.2171. Possession is to be taken and returned at TSS MERKEL, terran staging yard. The ship must be returned with the same level of readiness as when checked out (including a fully operational Jump-2 drive). Operations are granted under the following conditions:

2.1 - No warrant be issued against any of the OPERATORS of TCIV CAMEROON.
2.2 - Inventory and operating fund doesn’t get under 0.65 MCr upon reporting.
2.3 - Quarterly dividend meets (0.2 MCr). Exception can be granted for single quarter reporting.
2.4 - the Jump MkII drive renewal project isn't complete after 100 days.

Upon violation of these terms, the OPERATORS are legally required to return the ship to berth in the best possible times.

3. JUMP DRIVE RENEWAL PROJECT
The OPERATORS are to acquire a Jump drive MkII with the special capital fund, install and bring to operational status within the first 100 days of Charter 22. A MKII was located at the AHMED LLC scrapyard on Calisto as candidate replacement part.

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It was agreed that the crew would set out ASAP for Calisto to purchase the new MKII Jumpdrive. The crew broke after the meeting to make last minute preparation and plan the first haul for Charter 22 of the venerable TCIV CAMEROON. Aeryn fetched her biotech gears, Tom went for another beer. Anika looked up deck plans for the Hero-class, Jane started to troll the tramp freight future market while Diane took a picture of her biscuit, but fell short of sharing with her friends since dead people usually don't do that kind of stuff.