Chapter 1: First day on the job

[pringerbeam]

4:00 AM Confederation Standard Time
     The ship's intercom crackles to life and the captain's voice pipes into your quarters, interrupting your sleep.  "Rise and shine everybody!  We're an hour from dropping out of FTL so make preparations for docking.  Get your grub on and get to work."  With a sudden increase in the background humming noises the lights in your room flick on to full power from the low nighttime levels.  You hear the metallic banging of doors opening and closing, groans from others whose sleep was suddenly ended, and chatter of the early risers all comming from the other side of your cabin's door.  You are on The Brown Tide: a free merchant vessel that you chartered to your destination.  Your one and a half week long journey was comming to an end today.  Outside the window of your cramped cabin stars streak by, or at least that is what it looked like.  You remember someone in highschool saying it was actually exotic particles interacting with the FTL drive but that didn't dim the glimmer of those streaking "stars".
     Your cabin is small, the best you can afford with the travel expenses dispensed to you for the journey and little more than a bed and a side table with an overhead compartment for essential clothes and gear.  The rest of your possessions are in the cargohold.  You don't have any duties to perfom on the ship as a passenger and can spend the time to arrival as you see fit.  The clamour outside seems to have died down as the crew has moved on to breakfast and their duties.

[Mysticsage]

Trevor grabbed his bags whistling a tune as he went from some cheesy space cartoon that he used to watch as a child. Moving to the galley he grabbed a tray and sat down to eat quickly from the prefabricated human safe food while trying to roll the kinks out of his neck. Standing above six feet did not help with cramped space travel, but little could cramp his style this morning so close to his new life out of the academy. He was excited to get things started and see what name he could make for himself leaving virtually no ties behind on his home waiting to hear from him. Outside of the Academy, his entire life lay in front of him and he was looking forward to what his fortunes might bring it helped too that a portion of his class including Drake his roommate was being put on this station to bring in some new blood. This was really the beginning of Trevor's story.

[pringerbeam]

     The galley is crowded with the crew eating their breakfast when you get there.  "Breakfast" being synthesized protein ration packs and a bag of synthetic coffee.  On the tail end of this leg of the ship's journey, the only packs left are an oatmeal flavored paste with the accomanying flavor additives having been snatched up by more experienced crew members that knew the last day before port was always rough on the palate.  Shortly after you start digging into your paste the captain enters the galley and comes over to sit next to you.  As old and salty a sailor as you could imagine, the captain was a gregarious man that had been keen to talk to you throughout the trip.  "Well, guess its the day we part ways greenhorn.  After we drop out of FTL its only about a half hour to docking.  If you want, you can come onto the bridge to watch the approach."  He stretched his arms out and straightened the old greatcoat he wore.  "If you're interested, feel free to come to the bridge.  I was just comming down here TO MAKE SURE THOSE LAZY CREW MEMBERS WERE GETTING TO THEIR DUTIES."  He shouts as he looks around before giving you a grin.  The crew members still in the galley groan and begin to hurry about finishing up their meals, dumping their trays into the dish washer receptacle on their way out of the galley.

[Mysticsage]

Trevor nodded, "Absolutely Captain, it's probably one of the few times I'll be able to see what it feels like to live in one of those space recruitment ads." Seeing his home from the outside within the vast picturesque vacuum was still a new experience in his mind this being his first or second time actually in space. He had looked up images of the station he was to make his home but to see it like this in person was a rare opportunity that he might not ever see again.

[pringerbeam]

     "Ha!  Yeah, 'Join the Confederation Police Service, the shield that protects all!'"  The captain recited the standard recruitment tag that finished off all the ads the Confederation Police airs.  "Well, I can't promise an exciting starship pursuit but I have always liked the view of the approach to Bluelight.  Probably 30 minutes before anything intersting happens on the bridge so drop by around then.  I need to go and make the rounds to keep the grunts in line and make sure everything is ready for docking."  The captain stands up and grabs a bag of synthetic coffee from the bin.  "Feel free to come along if you are bored for time."  He breaks the seal and unplugs mouth of the bag with his teeth before sucking down some of the now lukewarm liquid.  "Ah, nothing wakes you up quite like that taste."  He says as he purses his lips.

[Mysticsage]

"Sure, I honestly have nothing better to do at the moment." He said while standing one final spoonful of nutrient oatmeal left in his mouth ready to follow. He did not mind eating things like this but he wondered how Drake his roommate, had faired on the last few days on his journey to this station. He would probably have thrown a fit if he had to have nothing but synthesized meat for days on end. He did personify certain stereotypes about his race at times making him like a moppy dog.

[pringerbeam]

     "Alright then, off we go."  The captain turns and heads out to the main corridor and heads towards the front of the ship to a small cramped room filled with displays of different astronavigation charts.  There the ships navigator, a human like the rest of the crew, sat looking at the various charts and making notes on a datapad.  "Jeffry, how's the course plotting going?  We're only going to be docked long enough to fuel up.  We have to be at Jerrus 5 in four days."  Jeffry looks up from his datapad.  "Working on it boss, word is it's ion storm season through the Bohbin Expanse.  We might need to route around it if we don't want to risk the ship."  The captain chews on the tip of the coffee bag a bit, a frown on his face.  "What kind of options do we have?  We need to  drop off our cargo at the colony on time and we also need to meet up with the snake about a replacement fuel conduit but he won't hang around forever."
[info]You may make an astronavigation check if you wish.[/info]

[Mysticsage]

Astronav check
[info]Log + Astronav
[blockquote]Rolled 8d6 : 6, 4, 1, 6, 3, 1, 6, 3, total 30[/blockquote]
[/info]

[pringerbeam]

[info]You notice on one of the charts pulled up on one of the screens that there is a possible route through a region called The Tentacles of T'Nash which looks like it could provide a route around the Bohbin Expanse in a more roundabout fashion.  The route looks like it will take a rougly equivalent amount of time to the current route you see plotted on the various charts.[/info]

[Mysticsage]

Glancing over the shoulder of the captain at the astrological charts Trevor noticed a route that Jeff had yet to highlight. "Why not head through the Tentacles of T'Nash? It will be about the same amount of travel time while avoiding the Bhodin Expanse. I'm sure with some smart flying you could make it without much trouble." He was not one to one up others at their jobs but these people had been more than kind to him and if he had a way of paying them back even a little he was more than happy to do so,

[pringerbeam]

     "Hmmm, through the tentacles eh?  We could try for it.  That's Red Dragon territory but I think..."  Jeffry looked at the charts for a moment before scrolling through his datapad.  "Ah, there we go, Peacekeepers have a checkpoint set up on the main route through.  Red Dragons wouldn't risk anything if we keep to the well traveled routes. and it will only cost us a few minutes at the checkpoint."  The captain sucks down the remainder of his bag of coffee and finishes with an overexagerated smack of his lips.  "Ah! There you go greenhorn.  It's a shame you decided to sign up with the cops.  Could always use a good crewmember."  He turned back to Jeffry.  "Tentacles it is."  The captian wheels around and heads down the hallway towards the back of the ship. Stopping at a ladder which descends down through the deck, he sticks his head down the descent and yells.  "RILEY! HOW ARE WE DOING ON FUEL?"  You hear the somewhat muffled response.  "Just about dry.  We are gonna need a full tank of gas.  Also, the reactor's gonna need a good cleaning out in the next couple of weeks.  We should do that while we are in the Jerrus system."  The captain frowns again before shouting back down.  "ALRIGHT, WE'LL SEE.  We can see how much that runs us and maybe get it handeled with the fuel conduit installation at the same time.  I swear sometimes running this baby costs more than I make."

[Mysticsage]

[info]Rolling Industrial mech or Knowledge bureaucracy to see if I know a way for them to get more out of their systems or a better deal/speeder deal through the proper channels whatever makes more sense same  dice pool regardless 

Log + Industrial mech/ know bureau
[blockquote]Rolled 8d6 : 2, 5, 3, 6, 2, 5, 6, 5, total 34[/blockquote]
[/info]

[pringerbeam]

[info]Reactor maintenece is a common enough procedure and necessary.  It requires the ship to be completely shut down so that the reactor core can be accessed.  Doing so is best done in the safety of a shipyard where there are services available to power the ship in the event power stores can't sustain the ships's systems for the duration of the maintenence.[/info]

[Mysticsage]

Tech like this always had been a topic of interest for Trevor he listened thinking about just how expensive it was to keep a ship like this running. He did a quick tally in his head attempting to figure out the costs only to decide that the numbers were too numerous to simply figure out in his head. He could only imagine the numbers floating around the Captian's head at any given moment not to mention watching his crew and cutting deals. The power of commerce was something to be truly feared and respected or else be swallowed whole by it.

Commerce worked on a much larger order of magnitude and yet it was up to people like him to be the watch dogs and bet their own lives as the hounds of sheep. Well if he was honest he did have to say he did not dislike the idea of being able to play on that kind of stage. Being able to help and protect others was by far a worthwhile reward for it too considering the pay of a civil servant was less than ideal. Like this crew and their run-down ship it was less about the money and more about being able to live the life they wanted as they wanted for the sake of themselves and their loved ones he could respect that. " So Captain, you've got me curious what's your next port of call at Jerrus 5 in just four days? Considering you are thinking of going through the Tentacles I imagine you have a nice paycheck coming up." He asked as they kept moving.

[pringerbeam]

     The captain finished sucking up the remainder of his coffee and let the bag hang from his mouth for a moment before taking it away with one of his hands.  "Nothing too extravagent.  Mostly moving a couple shipements of small arms, some alloys, pharmaceuticals... You know, nothing too crazy.  Smaller ships like ours mostly make our money by taking on the small remainders that need to get around a bit faster than one of those bulk freighters.  We also need to get to Jerrus 5 to visit the shipyards.  Have a deal with a parts dealer but they are in a similar situation to ours and have places to be so theyh won't wait up if we can't make the connection.  Might need to take the time to do some reactor maintenence I guess.  The old saying that time is money is doubly true for cargo ships.  Time not going from one place to the next is time wasted."