Getting to the starport via the moving pavements is fairly straightforward, though the crowds are so thick in places that Ortance is forced to stand rather than walk along them. Security at the extrality barrier is noticeably lax, and she breezes past the checkpoint without being stopped. [She needed to roll over the Law Level (9+) to avoid customs; DMs +1 for festival, +Streetwise : 2D+2=12, OK]
Everything Ortance now owns in the world is in her shoulder bag, or as she now thinks of it, her stowaway kit. There's an assortment of tools comprising a makeshift electronics toolkit, a roll of bin liners (comprising, eew, a makeshift loo), a few extra layers of clothing, diet pills, and some protein wafers. She buys some more packaged food and a quantity of bottled water at some starport shops. She stares disapprovingly at the thin stack of Imperial Credit banknotes she has remaining, counting but [2d6x10=] cr80.
[With medical-1, I assume she has correctly calculated how much food and water she'll need for an 8 day trip to avoid serious starvation and dehydration. And I'd asked the Oracle:
Q: Does Amlaani have a spare respirator mask she can part with? 50/50 (4+): O4 C2 - yes, and... an extremely makeshift toolkit (DM -2, but better than nothing if needed)
Starport encounter: 1D=2 peasants
Q: What do they want? Travel / Rumour]
Most of the starport crowd is oblivious to the festival, save the skeleton crew of workers who couldn't get the day off. But the chaos and delays it's causing means that, for the most part, Ortance can get around without impediment. She is briefly approached by some very obvious offworlders, migrant labourers by the look of things, asking if she knows about any passenger liners that have docked. She takes them over to one of the arrival/departure boards to check, and finds that the ship they want isn't due to leave for [1d6=] four days yet.
[I also rolled a Startown Liberty encounter check (9+) 2D=12]
Ortance wanders through some of the starport bars, looking for inspiration. In one she espies a trio of offworlders wearing identical crew jackets, getting quietly pissed in a corner table. She takes a place at the bar, orders a pint (-cr5), and does her best to get them to notice her, but they are steadfastly ignoring her. She can't quite make out anything they're saying, but she at least notes the name of their ship emblazoned on their jackets: the Issaries.
[6+ to overhear a rumour: 2D=4, no
Q: Can she figure out what ship they're from? likely (3+): O3 C1 - yes, and...]
She finishes her pint and leaves the crew to their next round. She looks up the ship's name on a terminal and finds learns [per Solo's Available Starship Table, 2D=] it's a 400t Type-R Subsidised Merchant, and due to ship out in [1d6=] one day. The destination is also listed, but the name means nothing to her; it's not in this system, so that's all that matters. Ortance intends to immediately reconnoitre the docking bay. After she pops to the loo.
[Q: On a scale of 1-6, how well guarded is the ship? d6=1, not well at all.]
The docking bay is one of the cheaper surface berths. Ortance is thankful Amlaani packed her off with a respirator mask. With so many stevedores off at the festival, it's a trivial matter to exit the pressurised passenger loading terminal and wander across the restricted area and right onto the Issaries' landing pad. The two dockhands are paying more attention to the festive celebrity gravball match on a portable viewer than they are to the robots loading freight.
[Roll under DEX (DEX 9, so 8-) to sneak aboard: 2d=7, success]
Ortance sneaks right past them up the cargo bay ramp. She finds a maintenance hatch at the back behind a stack of standard cargo containers already in place, and uses her little toolkit to get it open and climb inside. Then she crawls through the ducts until she's out of sight completely, a looks for a particularly inviting looking bit of ductwork to bunk in. Then she prepares for some crushing boredom.
Ortance finds the thuds resounding through the ship as the robots load the cargo oddly reassuring, but it stops after six hours or so. She's too exhausted to sleep, and her mind won't stop turning over her predicament in excruciating detail. She lays awake and numb in the dusty vent until at last she feels the air pressure change and the ship's engines fire up.
[Since our heroine isn't choosy about destinations just yet, I hadn't rolled for it. The ship is only Jump-1, so there are but 3 possibilities; d3=Whanga.
I thought I should also roll for freight & passengers, in case anything came up on the voyage. The difference in Tech Levels between the two worlds (13 vs. 7) meant the ship was travelling light.
0 high passage
0 middle
1 low
50, 40, 10t major cargoes
25, 15t minor
+10t copper (for speculation) -- only 150t cargo (out of 200)
There were no malfunctions or important encounters on the way to the jump point, and there was no misjump.]
Ortance collapses into sleep for about four and a half hours as the freighter travels out to a safe jump distance. The prickly sensation as the jump field engulfs the ship wakes her from a nightmare, and she feels waves of nausea and exhilaration commingled as the ship passes into jumpspace.
She spends the next few days napping as much as she can to conserve energy. She eats a little to keep her stomach sated (the diet pills help immensely) and monitors her liquid intake. Now that she's well outside the reach of Uakye's planetary network signals, she finally feels safe in turning on her hand computer -- though she makes doubly sure it won't try to ping the ship's computer. She's got nothing but time on her hands -- it's the best possible opportunity to read one of those classic novels she's downloaded and has been putting off starting for ages, or maybe have another go at the anthology of Vilani Poetry of the First Imperium before she forgets all the Vilani she'd learnt at school.
And speaking of school, that was the last time she'd ever seen an hour tick by so slowly. The hand computer's clock -- still set to Uakye's civil 24-hour clock -- is constant reminder of how much longer this jump is going to take.
[I've never gotten a chance to use the stowaway rules before. I remembered they were there, but that's about it.
So, according to the book, the basic throw for a stowaway to be caught is 4+ per day. DMs are allowed for "various elaborate schemes", so :
-2 hidden in ductwork/maintenance crawlspace
-1 brought water & food & appetite suppressants
-2 won't need to sneak out to use the loo...
If she lasts more than 4 days without discovery, I'll roll for a shipboard event. Otherwise, the discovery counts as the event. A random event might impose more DMs depending on what happens.
day 1: 2D-5=1
day 2: 7-5=2
day 3: 5-5=0
day 4: 3-5=-2
She's been lucky so far! Ship event (Solo): The ship computer is acting oddly. Why? Is it malfunctioning? Has it been reprogrammed?
That's good for another -1 DM as the crew think any anomalous readings are probably the computer playing up.
day 5: 11-6=5... discovered anyway.]The next few days pass in a haze of tedium and nerves as Ortance becomes settled into her routine -- until a sharp pain in her foot wakes her. A bright light is shining in her face, and she can just about make out the silhouette of a mop of curly hair and narrow shoulders behind it. She can also see the glint of the heavy spanner which was responsible for her sudden awakening, and its wavering tells her it might just like to strike again. And above the hum of the pipes and machinery she hears a dusky voice which is currently demanding to know just who the fuck she is.
"Oh, Er, um, hi. I'm Ortance."
"You going to follow me out, or are we going to have to turn off the oxygen on this deck?"
"Um, the former, please."
The woman turns and Ortance crawls after her. As they are moving noisily forward through the twisting, confined space, Ortance sees her activate a commo and mumble something into it. The only words she can make out are 'bloody stowaway'.
[Per the rulebook, a reaction roll needs to made be for the captain. The stowaway will be spaced on a result of 6 or less.]
They emerge from a hatch in the cargo bay. The lights have been turned up, and though the grey walls and low work lights in the grotty bay are anything but bright, Ortance's eyesight takes some time to adjust to the (relatively) dazzling brilliance. Five crew members in addition to her discoverer are surrounding her in a semi circle, and in her blind panic she fears to look any of them in the eye. But she sees with perfect clarity that two of them hold pistols, and a third has a small rifle slung on one shoulder [it's a carbine, but Ortance isn't the sort of person who would be aware of such distinctions].
"Well, this is unexpected," says an older man, probably the captain, with a trace of a Rhylanese accent. "Adpl, hal Ushsh, why don't the two of you lock the stowaway in one of the empty staterooms whilst I decide whether or not to throw her out the airlock."
"Why not do it now?" asks one of the women.
"Because," says the woman who found Ortance, "it might fuck up the jump field. The arrays have been misaligned ever since we added that poxy turret."
At a nod from the captain, the short woman with the pistol motions for Ortance to start walking, which she does without complaint. But as they are showing her into her cell, she finds she can't take the silence any more.
"Excuse me. May... may I ask a question?"
"What?" She isn't amused.
"How long do you think it will be until we exit jumpspace?"
"About 40 hours."
"Then would you mind, awfully, if I used the fresher? Only I'd rather not go to my death smelling like an open sewer."
next post... is going to be very short if I don't roll 7 or higher for the captain's reaction roll!
This is good! Down and out in Spinward Marches. If the reaction roll is good, let's see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteDown and out in the Marches is fine. As long as she doesn't end up down and out the airlock!
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