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.