RECAP: Aboard the Gin & Tonic, Traveller, 1-26-20
After dropping out of jumpspace halfway to Greenpernt, the G&T received three subspace messages:
- A message to Cap. Black from Walk Into Light at Mirabilis, saying bring our scientist back;
- A message to Kui Xing, lining up time and place for delivery of the kidnapped scientist; and
- A message to Weber Jixx from his friend Palmer, saying to meet at his vacation asteroid in Remulak to talk about guns, etc.
The crew of the G&T decided to go on ahead to Greenpernt, if only to unload the 17 tons of definitely-not-ewok pelts, but also perhaps to put the grab on a kidnapper or two, to bring back to Walk Into Light (and Spofulam Corp, to whom the frosty scientist belongs) along with the kidnappee, and thereby ingratiate themselves better to Spofulam than if they just brought back a now-very-much-deceased Kui Xing. At a trade station in geosync above Greenpernt 4, they unloaded the pelts, faked a Kui Xing hotel stay, dined and dashed on the kidnapper tab, and grav’d the cryo chamber a click and a half down to the secure storage area to meet the buyers.
The buyers turned out to be three humans and an Ursae, one of a race of bear-like aliens from Kulkukan system. The G&T’ers enacted their incredibly well thought out plan (to wit: Tamm yelling “Get them!”) and a brouhaha ensued. Despite a modest amount of shots fired (mostly on the part of the kidnappers, who couldn’t hit jack squat), the crew managed to disable all but one kidnapper (a tech, who bolted) and crate up two of the kidnappers (they left the Ursae) for transport back to Mirabilis. Everyone is now a kidnapper in this game.
Jiix came through with a clutch nat 12 to fool the local gendarmes, who had been alerted to the tussle by a ShotSpotter alarm, and was rewarded later by his fellow crewman telling the same cops that Jiix was a drunken maniac whom they planned to abandon on station. In the meantime, they cut discounts with the shippers they’d contacted for return cargo, and got the hold loaded in hours as opposed to a couple days. Once the hold was full, they sealed up and headed for jump distance, while Dr. Wagner fixed one kidnapper’s abdominal bullet wound (courtesy of Jiix) and sedated the other.
But as the G&T scooted out toward the nearest the jump-point, they were hailed by Greenpernt traffic control and ordered back to GP4 for a fresh inspection, ostensibly on the grounds that (a) the bear had squealed to police, (b) the tech had squealed to police, and (c) scans for biologicals on the G&T indicated they’d arrived in-system with five humans but were leaving with seven, so could you pretty-please turn around so we can have a word? Nothing doing, says Cap. Black, who ordered Tamm to step on it. Tamm, sadly, failed to adequately step on it, and two Greenpernt interceptors caught up with the G&T before they reached minimum safe jump distance from the local gravity wells.
Video is up!
