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.

IW 4 - Hunters

Context

While crossing the asteroid belt at 2000 miles per second, the TCIV CAMEROON was recruited by the UWO Interplanetary Police to engage a corsair. The engagement was brief, and left the ship with a hull breach through the habitat. Lucky for them, the UWO covered the repairs and medical bills of their passengers. The crew is now in Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) while Molly tests the new Jump-2 drive and the UWO shipyard patch the old trader.

Location

TSS Obama is a Class A space station largely employing UWO personnel. It is a hub of interplanetary travel, which leaves the drydocks for jump-capable ships slightly underutilised.


Location: TSS Obama, LEO, Terra system
Terran timestamp: April 15, 2170 AD

The CAMEROON entered a pressurized enclave for large scale repairs. The crew was offered to attempt to obtain a deputy license. The crew was enthusiastic as the insurance coming with the deal was rather attractive. Diane, officially dead to avoid prosecution by the Wheat Board and a messy divorce with her wife, made herself invisible as the UWO inspected the ship. Jane, Molly and Tom got certified while Aeryn failed her attempt at the medical officer placement. Anika and Diane took a pass on the events.

A holomail came in on the 27th from the belters that were saved by their intervention. It turned out that their 100MJ laser fused the corsair’s maneuver drive, breaching the hull. Most of the crew perished before rescue could arrive on the scene. The corsair ship was sold for scrap and the proceeds used to pay the insurance premium of the belter community. As a thank you, the belter recorded a folk song and had it sent to the CAMEROON as a thank-you gift. The crew was the hero of a community of about 20 souls. As if this day had not been good enough, the Sisters of Mercy transferred the passage of the two nuns. One of them suffered a stroke, but the other called from the hospital to thank the crew.

Brethrow: come for the client, stay for the drinks.

Location: TSS Obama, LEO, Terra system
Terran timestamp: April 18, 2170 AD

The CAMEROON loaded up nearly to capacity the holds with packaged good bound to Prometheus. They settled the hunters into the high passage cabins and went on their way. The pre-jump thrust was uneventful. For the first time of their contract, the CAMEROON jumped.

Location

Prometheus is the oldest terran colony. With a jungle-like environment, some 850M terrans are living a colonial life mostly in high tech installations. The population is mostly of the Mormon faith in the centers. Gravity is 0.93G, temperature is around 30C-25C. Control rating is 3 and TL 10.


Location: Prometheus, 100D line, Prometheus system
Terran timestamp: April 25, 2170 AD

Philip was a dentist and Marion owned a 3D printing manufacturing business. They paid good money for the crew to insert them into a corrupt backwater on Prometheus named Brethrow. The terms: no paperwork filed to the highport and 3 dT of mystery cargo. Tom figured out that they were on some poaching kind of trip while Aeryn found them easy to keep happy as passenger. Tom noticed that they were preparing very high-caliber rifles for their trip. 

When the CAMEROON arrived, they made a beeline for Brethrow. The place was more or less an unregulated space. They landed on a Class E strip barely big enough for the Hero-class to land in the jungle. 

The hunters debarked, the crew stopped for a drink and soaked up the 35C, dense and moist atmosphere for an hour. They then departed for the UWO lowport to deliver their cargo and wait for the hunters for their call back home.


Location: Prometheus, Low-port, Prometheus system
Terran timestamp: May 1, 2170 AD

Six days went by at the lowport. Aeryn disappeared into the gym/MMA scene while Tom rounded up a few passages back to Terra. An ex-scout agreed to a medium passage and so did two needy and irritating pompous aristocrats. Diane managed to get the hulls full of jobs while Jane tried in vain to locate speculative cargo. 

The timing was rather good because a message came in, weak, from Marion. The message was garbled, video and audio failed. It fell back to text:

Help!
Philip is dead.
I’m trapped, we’re surrounded.

A set of coordinates then got uploaded. Diane rallied the crew into the bridge to await more details. Twenty-five minutes later, the CAMEROON came in LOS and scanned the coordinates. It was dense jungle, mist and 700km North from Brethrow. Diane found a pond some 400m to the east where the airraft could be inserted as the tree canopy around appeared to be some 60m high. By then, there was only 5 minutes to the entry window.

The crew decided to gear up for an extraction to recover Marion, the sherpas and the corpse of Philip the dentist. Someone pointed out that they never got around to purchase personal weapons other than the dazzlers lasers that Diane got in Douala. The exception was the carbine in the ship’s locker. In the interest of time, they voted against dropping by Brethrow to purchase better weapons.

The CAMEROON approached the coordinates. The 100m low precision became obvious when they realized how difficult the terrain turned out to be. More text streamed in:

()*(*ASDSDHLKSJDHSHAGU kslkjfs raptors sjkldkshlkjhflskjhd wd w9809udsjnl high-powered rifles kjsdjkhlakjdhfd9809adfpahdflandf asfkdj;f ;;;;

Tom and Anika suited up and boarded the air raft as the ship sliced through the jungle mist just before dawn...

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.

IW 2 - King Saud's ice paradise

Context

The licensees of Charter 22 are about to launch TCIV CAMEROON to Callisto. There, they expect to find a second hand Jump-2 drive to replace the old and tired one on board.

Shatah: Saudi colony on the fringes.

Callisto

The Saudi royal family founded a colony on Callisto some 50 years ago. The colony’s main economic activity is intercept refueling for starship transiting through the Terran system without stopping at the main world. Callisto is a 100km-thick layer of ice (water and carbon dioxide) over a 10-20km deep subsurface ocean. Some 45K people, mainly arabic-speaker live there.   

Location: Terra, Escape trajectory, Terra system

Terran timestamp: March 11, 2170 AD

A stream of swears in Anglic, Chinese and Vilani float in space from the ship’s bridge as Jane realizes that she made a data entry error and cause the escape burn to be off course by 15 degrees. “Sorry folks”, she broadcast on the intercom, “our new ETA is now March 17th”. Two days will be lost using partial thrust to compensate or else the CAMEROON will become an Oort cloud artifact.

Location: Outbound thrust, 2.7 AU from the Sun, Terra system

Terran timestamp: March 14, 2170 AD

The ship smelled like disinfectant as if a platoon of neurotic crewmates went on a spring clean for the last two days. Tom looked upon the hold, rubbing the tip of his nose and dreaming of having a lift directly on board. He tried to know better Anika, but she showed little interest in interpersonal relations. Instead, she seemed single-minded on lifting the dirt on Rashid, their sole paying passenger, without success. Rashid, an underwear model for department store online catalog, was treated to tasty home-cooking by Aeryn. Aeryn, assuming the role of the steward, mainly improvised from what she knew about the job from sitcoms.

Diane was something else: she built personnel files and asked for everyone’s mugshot. Aeryn provided her medical assessments for everyone as it seemed to make sense. Molly, when she was not fretting about the maneuver drive and predicting its impending failure, was trying to make friends. She initiated games of cards, engaged unwilling others into light talks. Jane’s cabin was filled with three cases of assorted liquor. When she wasn’t working, she keept to herself, a tumbler in hand.

While the ship was tearing at peak speed, the asteroid belt required regular course adjustments. There seemed to be many unmapped objects still in this corner of the belt. In a day or so, the CAMEROON should be back into clear space.

Location: Shatah-2, Callisto, Terra system

Terran timestamp: March 17, 2170 AD

The underground Rouhabiah scrapyard was a dreary and dank place. An old man was shouting at two teens as unsecured material was gently tumbling in the 0.4G environment. Jane tried to look suave, but bounced too hard and would have impaled herself on a titanium rod had her nanoweave undergarment not been worn. Mammoud Rouhabiah was a pleasant man with a thickly accented Anglic.  Molly ran a few diagnostic tests on the crated jumpdrive and gave the thumb up. Mammoud eyes flicked on into haggling mode. He first refused to converse in Anglic anymore, forcing Jane to be the sole interlocutor. Jane and Diane played off each other, coordinating in Vilani when needed. Many times, Mammoud threatened to kick them out of his office, but it became clear that the old man was better at making small talk than playing hardball. The crew traded a defective drive and 750KCr for a better one. Given the 1MCr capital funds for this from Douala LLC, a lot of money ended up in their pockets out of this tangled mess of arabic shouts.

Location: Shatah-1, Callisto, Terra system

Terran timestamp: March 17, 2170 AD

After delivering the aluminium cargo and cashing in the pay, Tom, Anika and Aeryn took the mag elevator through 85km of ice to Shatah-1. Temperature and moisture control down here was much better. The place felt like a small town/diffuse space station. Signage was mainly in arabic and the crew clearly stood out. Aeryn lead them to a MMA gym to meet Hassan: an acquaintance. It was clear to Anika that the place was a front for some other, shadier business.

Hassan was friendly and helpful. He suggested a good hostel and advised to stay out of the way of law enforcement officers as much as possible. The place was loosely run by a Saudi King delegate named Abn Al-Bagdadhi.  Up there, Molly had damaged the jumpdrive brackets and informed the crew that the new refit estimate was 8 days.

Anika went for a walk and found two christian Nuns desperately looking for passage back to Terra. She roped them in right away and got Diane to draft the contracts. Anika poked people at the gym, looking for trade lots, and eventually got in touch with a shady russian bodybuilder bemoaing that he couldn’t move a 30 dT of military-grade polymer pellets. Aeryn passed along the opportunity to others, but the restriction that it may only be sold to UWO approved armed forces was a deterrent. They decided to take a pass.

Aeryn and Tom decided to take a room down on Shatah-1 for the next week or so while Chipper-Molly was fitting the new jumpdrive onboard. Anika opted for the quietness of her cabin back up the shaft. She scrounged for a handgun but got frustrated by uncommon they happen to be. Her only lead was to attempt to buy one from a dirty cop: and she also decided to take a pass.

Location: Shatah-1, Callisto, Terra system

Terran timestamp: March 28, 2170 AD

While the jumpdrive was finally secured onboard on the 25th, Diane decided to hang-on until the 30th to catch another freight job to subsidize the thrust back to Terra. They decided to wire the jumpdrive back on Terra so Molly spent 5 days embarrassing herself in various entertainment establishments. Diane decided to have some "me-time" and shopping therapy, Jane kept on looking for speculative lots while Tom and Aeryn planned to make the most out of the gym, maybe organizing a for-money fight on the 29th.

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.

IW1 - Advertising faux-pas

We had a very brief session. But we are sorting out how we want to play this game.

Douala’s Tramp freighter market, March 10th 2170AD 

The meeting with Pierrot ended by early afternoon. The contract for charter 22 was signed, but the CAMEROON was still in low-earth orbit at TSS Merkel. Molly, Aeryn and Anika bought a shuttle ticket and caught the burn upward just as the gate was closing. Some two hours later, they keyed in the passcode and entered the tramp freighter. Molly ran a few diagnostic, Aeryn . Aeryn checked life support then the kitchen. Anika looked in vain in the ship’s locker for armament, then established contact with orbital control to obtain the permission for a reentry to Douala regional spaceport. The last crew were smokers and the ship felt filthy. With minimal system’s running, Molly made the first of many burn and plunged into Terra’s atmosphere.

Diane and Jane installed their copies of the best trading assistant that money could buy on their shiny new tablets. Their next stop would be Callisto: in most way a backwater in the Terra system. The soundness of this next move resided in the availability of a second hand Jump-2 drive for them to acquire. While Jane started a search for speculative cargo, Diane engaged with the tramp freight bidding process. It was a slow day, with a small 17 dT shipment of paletted aluminum trusses. No less than three other tramp freighters were interested in going to Callisto on that day. Diane had to go as low as 10.3 KCr to get the contract. Nothing else was coming in the pipe for now. She shook her head in disbelief and went across town to pick up a nursebot that she scored from the surplus of an NGO.

Douala in the mid-day sun. Circa 2170AD.

Tom headed for the bar to score the place for passengers. There was a lot of people, but most were waiting for their chartered liner. A single man was desperately looking for a passage. His name was Rashid Meer, a department store catalog model trying to head back home in a pinch. Tom signed him up and sent him to Jane to sign the contract and close the deal. Jane got the deal signed and probed him for information on what would sell well on Callisto. He smiled blankly and replied that the most valuable thing on Callisto would be soon be a pair of underwear with himself in them.

Diane, concerned about running the Cameroon at a loss, dictated a snappy advertisement for passages of all kinds. Unfortunately, she figured out only much later that instead of sounding funny, the ad had a threatening tone. Shockingly, no one followed up on the disturbing offer.

Tom was eating a packaged sandwich in the heat of midday as Molly was testing the interior grav fields. The plan was to get going to Callisto, procure the Jump-2 drive and outfit the CAMEROON with it. This will cost the ship about 3-4 weeks of valuable time. Hopefully, Jane can score something worth selling on the remote ice cube. At the ship's console, a couple of people inquire about a shipment of ATVs that she has put a feeler for. Chatting with people 33 light-minutes away can be annoying. Diane wants to go and Tom groans at the thought of unloading all that aluminum crap to make place for second-hand 4-wheelers.

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):

---

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.

---

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.

Diane Ayatou

Diane Ayatou

152 points

female, 31 y.o. Cameroonian
ST 10 [0]; DX 10 [0]; IQ 10 [0]; HT 10 [0].
HP 10 [0]; Will 12 [10]; Per 10 [0]; FP 10 [0].
Basic Speed 5.00 [0]; Basic Move 5 [0].

Social Background

TL: 10 [0].
CF: Terra [0].
Languages: Anglic (Accented) [4]; French (Native) [0]; Portuguese (Broken) [2]; Low Vilani (Broken) [2].

Advantages

Academic Rank 2 [10]; Charisma 1 [5]; Fitlhy Rich [50]; Free Trader Rank 1 [5]; Status 4 [15].

Disadvantages

Debt 2 [-2]; Obsession (market a pop culture fad) (12) [-10]; Odious Personal Habit (Incessant Optimism) [-5]; Overweight [-1]; Secret (Faked my own death) [-10]; Unfit [-5]; Xenophilia (12) [-10].
Quirks: Distractible [-1]; Dreamer [-1].

Skills

Administration (A) IQ+1 [4]-11*; Area Knowledge (Terra) (A) IQ+2 [8]-12; Area Knowledge (Prometheus) (A) IQ+2 [8]-12; Area Knowledge (Junction) (A) IQ+2 [8]-12; Area Knowledge (Lagash) (A) IQ+2 [8]-12; Computer Operation (E) IQ [1]-10; Cryptography (H) IQ+1 [8]-11; Economics (H) IQ-2 [1]-8*; Electronics Operation (Comms) (A) IQ+1 [4]-11; Electronics Operation (Sensors) (A) IQ+1 [4]-11; Finance (H) IQ [4]-10*; Freight Handling (A) IQ-1 [1]-9; Intelligence Analysis (H) IQ+1 [8]-11; Market Analysis (H) IQ+2 [12]-12*; Merchant (A) IQ+1 [4]-11*; Propaganda (A) IQ [2]-10*; Research (A) IQ+1 [4]-11; Savoir-Faire (Business) (E) IQ [1]-10; Writing (A) IQ+1 [4]-11.

Equipment

• Small, Fast, Hardened, Rugged computer with integrated datapad. Complexity 6, $8,016, 1.68 lbs., 2B/18 hr. LC4.
• Stylish Nanoweave undersuit [Torso, Groin, Arms, and Legs]. DR 12/4*. $2,320, 3.87 lbs. LC4.
• Stylish Nanoweave cape [Torso]. Covers back only. DR12/4*. $400, 0.67 lb. LC4.
• Rugged Tiny radio communicator earpiece [Ear]. Basic encryption. 2-mile range. $100, 0.06 lb. each. 2A/10 hr. LC4.
• Rugged mini laser flashlight. Can Dazzle targets (Blindness for 1 minute x MoF) in a 1-yard cone (p. B413). HT-5 aff, Acc 6, Range 170/500, Shots 3600(3), Bulk -1. $20, 0.3 lb. B/3600 shots. LC4.
• TL10 Nursebot. Non-volitional AI. Sculpted body. Fast Personal computer. Complexity 8 (IQ10). Skills (Diagnosis-12, Electronics Operation (Medical)-12, First Aid-12, Pharmacy-12, Physician-12, Surgery-12). $504,000, 150 lbs. 2D/24 hr. LC3 (Licenses).
• Crash Kit. +2 to First Aid, improvised equipment for Surgery. $200, 10 lbs. LC4.
• Medical Supplies. 500 man-days. $5,000, 50 lbs.
• Rugged Pocket Medic. Automatically bandages a wound and treats shock with First Aid-13. $2,400, 2.4 lbs. (each). B/10 hr. LC4.
• Good Software Tools for Finance, Market Analysis, Merchant, Propaganda for me and Jane. $8,000.
• Fine Software Tools for Finance, Market Analysis, Merchant, Propaganda. $20,000.

Background

Diane was born into a very wealthy Cameroonian family of mixed European and African descent. While pursuing her MBA, she met and fell in love with an Industrial Designer from Spain name Rosa, and the two married soon after graduation.

Early in her business career, Diane made some questionable deals that resulted in a few units of He3 being redirected away from a spaceport in Ecuador to a research lab in Peru in which Diane had invested. This drew the attention of the IAEA, who spent the next several years hounding her and her ventures across the Terran system.

Her feud with the IAEA put a terrible strain on Diane's marriage. In the end, to avoid a drawn-out divorce and further government interference, Diane paid a mercenary group to stage her death in a shuttle accident. She then signed on with the TCIV Cameroon, looking to get out of the system for a while and seek her fortune among the stars.