Opening Gambit
You are presently involved in a trade run in the Glisten subsector, aboard your Zhodani Yetsabl
Class Courier (which someone should name straightaway) taking a shipment of medicinal plants from Glisten to Centry in order, hopefully, to arrest the progress of an epidemic that is ravaging the Trotherias** [this is both the singular and the plural], the very tasty crab-like beasts of Centry that are about the size of a medium-sized dog. They are very domesticated and raised on mid-sized ranches. (They're also quite ugly, but when you crack open their carapace the morsels inside are truly awe-inspiring in their gustatory potential.) The question of whether this disease can infect other species, like vilani/solomani, vargr, or zhodani, remains unanswered at this time.
Your cargo of medicinal plants is quite small, but highly valuable. It takes up 10 Tons of your hold (which left you with a single ton unused for this trip), but you variously estimate that you should be able to obtain somewhere in the range of 1.5 - 3.0 MCr.
You have already made a stop in the Inthe system to refuel and grab a quick bite before heading off to Centry. Having topped off your tanks with food and fuel, you've proceeded to Centry, and are almost ready to come out of JumpSpace and begin your final approach to the "infected" planet. You have obtained, at Doc Hannigan's insistence, protective clothing and respirator-filter masks before taking on this cargo. Doc thinks that these should protect you well enough, if this is the worst threat of infection that you must face. It is the only epidemic that has been reported on this world, as far as you've been able to determine. You have also seen reports that the populace has grown a bit desperate because of the threat to one of their main sources of income, and some small riots have broken out near the cities where ranchers take their Trotherias to market.
At last report, there was a region around the planetary capital and the Starport [Class I only*] that had not seen any rioting activity, but your last news was before you entered jump, so it's at least a week out of date now, likely two or three weeks or more, and you still have a considerable distance to cross via maneuver drive before your ready to make actual planetfall, so you've probably got another few days to go.
You've just come out of JumpSpace in the Centry system. Here we go, then....
* See OOC thread post #94 for a Description of a Class I StarPort
** See? Plural and Singular: "Dude sold me 18 head of infected Trotherias!" "Oh yeah? Well, your mama is an infected Trotherias!"
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