T20 Traveller - The Kursis Charter (complete Aug 8th 2005)

[Morte]

Act VI: Adukgin - Library Data

Adukgin 0722 B434431-A Ni 704 I A1 V

Adukgin orbits a very hot, white, main sequence star along with four gas giants and several other rockballs. It’s not a particularly attractive world – it’s dry, with desert covering most of the surface and air that’s too thin to breathe without a compressor mask. Temperatures swing between tolerable at the poles and “way too hot” everywhere else. Most inhabitants live somewhere near the south pole, which is surrounded by an ocean belt containing most of Adukgin’s water.

The Adukgin system is the cluster’s connection point for J2 traffic to spinward, so the starport sees a fair volume of traffic. It has a minor orbital component, mostly for shuttle transfers, but most of the action is at the downport near the south pole. The downport startown of 40,000 is also world capital, and home to more than half the 70,000 population. The remainder mostly live in communities of a few hundred spread around the south. The only other major population centre is Grand Mine, a highly automated mineral extraction facility with 3,000 residents.

Politically, the world is run by a committee of managers from various institutions who co-opt new members of their own choosing. Whilst there is a certain bias to family and friends, appointments are mostly meritocratic and so government has been efficient. The inhabitants lead a fairly pleasant TL10 lifestyle.

The world did merit a small naval presence thanks to its strategic location, but this has been dispatched elsewhere since the Solomani Rim War began. There are no armed forces as such, but the customs authority runs a few cutters.

From a spacefarer’s point of view, Adukgin’s star wildlife is a small, scaly, burrowing creature known as the Graddin. These like to burrow their way into settlements or sneak aboard starships before chewing cables (a Graddin delicacy) and laying eggs in awkward places. The Graddin's bite is toxic to humans.

 

[Morte]

Act VI Adukgin: Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am

Date: 208-993 Imperial.
Location: Adukgin (0722).

“Right”, said Fish, “we want barbed wire and minefields all round the cargo hatch to keep the little buggers out. Shotguns all round. I don’t want those blasted things in my cables.”

“Perhaps I could arrange a few claymore mines…” Maelcum drawled. He steepled his fingers, innocently.

Silea rolled her eyes and put in “If you’re that worried, we can park the ship at the highport and take the shuttle down.”

The Avaricious had considered not trading at Adukgin at all, since there just weren’t many people to do business with. In a place like this, there was a good chance that a regular free trader would make less in a week than they’d pay on the mortgage. But Sir David’s part ownership and special finance cut their overheads, so they went for it.

Besides, them starport records could be slippery varmints and you never knew how long you’d be on planet hunting them down. Might as well use that time to hunt cargo.

…

It took about 10 minutes of comm calls from orbit to locate the starport records and get them shipped up to Avarice Rewarded. They were waiting on the highport when the ship docked.

It took 2 hours to unload 45 dtons of bulk freight from Kerin’s Tyr, most of it food.

It took about 3 days to sell the fancy hand-carved wooden furniture Luan had bought in the Confederation of City States on Kerin’s Tyr. All that time on the train had brought the local woodwork to her attention. It fetched a good price on this fairly rich, semi-desert world; but she was glad they hadn’t brought a hold full of the stuff because it would probably have taken weeks to sell.

Luan kept an eye on the starport commodity trading board to see if anything local was offered for sale. In the week they spent in system, the only offers were 80 dtons of old rope and 150 dtons of bulk plastic. Neither looked more profitable than freight, and neither lot would fit in the hold anyhow.

But they did pick up a pretty full hold of freight bound for Sentry, most of it split off from larger ships headed elsewhere. And they got some passengers, two for the low berths and two fresh victims for Sir David’s cooking.

…

Fish sat in the engine room on the run out to jump, throwing darts at a picture of a Graddin and looking smug.

 

[TDRandall]

I keep trying to think of something witty (or at least obnoxious) about "80 dtons of old rope and 150 dtons of bulk plastic". There's got to be something good that you could do with that much twine and plastic but I guess I'm just tapped out.

Thanks for an update, Morte. Gotta keep the universe spinning!

 

[Shadowdancer]

Yeah! A "Kursis Charter" update! We are living in Blessed Times.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Ooo! As always, thank you, Morte, for your hard work.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Morte, I hate you.

You made me go out and buy the Traveller book.

You and your annoyingly good story. If only I could describe hard sci-fi.

 

[Morte]

Act VII: The Pay Off - Sentry

Sentry 0921 B5A8ACB-D 410 I M4 V

With 40 billion sophonts, Sentry is the economic and administrative heart of the Shanape Linkworlds Cluster. Marquis Hallentein, the local arbiter of interstellar affairs, dwells in a subterranean city on the small moon Luramii. The Marquis owns the moon outright and uses it as an administrative centre as well as a base for his small trading fleet.

Sentry has a powerful military presence, with both Imperial and planetary forces.

Sentry’s starport is huge, with a vast amount of traffic passing through. The orbital component also acts as a home to the Scout Service station maintaining the X-boat link. The downport sits on an island just off the main landmass, surrounded by a startown of five million sophonts. The starport proper has the customary low level of 3, whilst the surrounding island startown operates as a level 9 “interface zone” to the planet’s strict level 11 regulation.

Tukera Lines also have their own highport 180 degrees around the planet, which acts as their regional headquarters and a private shipping/repair hub.

Sentry is a small, cold world that’s 90% covered in water. The high level of nitrogen in the atmosphere has stopped much life evolving. The available land is largely covered by high-tech sealed cities that collectively house around four billion people. The other 90% of the population live in huge ocean floor arcologies, each home to a billion or more sophonts. Most citizens have no great need to leave their home arcology. When they do, they usually travel by submersible.

Strict laws govern Sentry’s highly ordered society. A system of guilds and professional bodies represent the populace’s interests to a World Senate, which answers to hereditary “Adjudicators”. The government has worked quite well, on the whole.

Although it’s not particularly focussed on production industries, Sentry’s sheer size and its technology level make it an industrial powerhouse exporting over several sectors. The university is a major research and teaching centre, particularly for aquatic engineering.

The rest of the solar system is heavily developed, with a naval base on one of Sentry’s moons and an industrial complex dominating another. Private outfits exploit the belt.

 

[TDRandall]

>>The Marquis owns the moon outright

I want my own moon! Now THERE is power and wealth!

This looks to be an excellent site if you want a Seaquest-like campaign. Hmmmm - not much life has evolved -- but mayhaps those that did are all supersized kraken and narwhales to face-off against your "average" Nautilus submersible (besides all the situation headaches that 40 billion different opinions can generate)?

With 40 billion people, even if only a small percentage actually go anywhere I'd think there'd still be plenty of reasons to build a platform (perhaps several) for landing air/space/starships floating above each arcology, with umbilical-like elevator tubes to get people and cargo up and down. I guess the thought of easy access by rowdy extraterrestrials to their pristine bubble cities is just not acceptable for them. The snobs!

 

[Morte]

Act VII: The Pay Off - Charter Complete

Date: 217-993 to 219-993 Imperial.
Location: Sentry System (0921).

“Welcome to Sentry, Avarice Rewarded. Please proceed on transit vector sent via channel 237.”

“Roger Sentry, channel 237” Silea sent back.

“Look at all the blips. There are hundreds of them.” Luan gestured at the ship’s main situation map.

“We’re zoomed out, most of those are non-local. Sentry’s fancy, they’re relaying their overall traffic plot via the outer system buoys. Normally we’d be on our own sensors and we’d only see a fraction of that. Still, it’s a lot more ships than we’ve seen lately.”

Five minutes later, a great big pulsating blue blip appeared near the middle of the screen, pulsing with highlights, as event flags fired on a couple of other console displays. “That’s not small,” said Sir David, reaching for the telescope controls, “and it’s not far either.”

“One of the Marquis’s freightliners” Silea read from the transponder details. “Watch them rearrange the traffic for it. It’ll go in to his moon at one gee and everybody will divert around it. We’ll probably be running in front of it for a while, like a little fish fleeing an Orca.”

“Would you look at that. Ten thousand dee-tons. You could fit us in the cargo hold about thirty times over. You can actually see it.” Sir David got a lit pixel on the video feed from the 60cm telescope.

…

Avarice Rewarded proceeded towards orbital insertion at 2g, leaving the great freighter behind. They made turnover, listening to occasional comm chatter as ships within their sensor range groused about traffic control being all over the place today. After about twelve hours and a couple of watch changes, they got close enough to see shipping around Sentry on their own sensors as well as system traffic control relay.

Traffic control sent a matching orbit to bring the ship onto downport approach as their landing slot cleared, and they made de-orbit after a three-quarter circle of the planet.

Soon, they were sat on the plascrete waiting for customs. As the passengers disembarked up a docking tube, they were treated to a flyby from four SDBs on their way back from a long tour in the belt. They flew over the port slow and low, letting the watchers pick out hull details, then stood on their tails and headed for the navy base on the moon Yrech at 6g.

…

News of Cochrane’s Burden had preceded them. The unresisting ship’s destruction at the hands of the navy, with around fifteen civilian casualties, had been quite a story a month before and Luan’s impromptu news interview was well known.

The naval vessel responsible was long gone, off to the Solomani Rim at J4 to serve in the war. An official investigation order was headed after it. Sir David made some discrete enquiries, and got the word that the navy was taking it seriously. Luan decided she didn’t want to talk to the many reporters who obviously wanted to talk to her and stayed abroad. Sir David gave a brief interview, saying that he was sure the navy would investigate properly and do the right thing.

…

The ship got one last free refuelling courtesy of Kursis Mail LIC of Shanape, their employers on the charter mission to collect starport records from around the cluster.

The last of the records went into the high jump mail system, and Sir David took the receipts to the Hortalez et Cie office complex. Hortalez were local acting factors for Kursis. They were to make the final payoff for the starport records job, in the shape of a voucher paying for Avarice Rewarded’s refit at Fonneien Orbital. They were also, as it happened, the Shetland family’s bankers.

Sir David got his refit voucher without trouble. Then he went over the road for his second appointment, with the merchant bank.

…

“You’ve traded profitably on the slim pickings in the Linkworlds since our last loan, Sir David. What makes you want a second against this Jorjiak Miilaki’s lands?” The banker looked up from Avarice Rewarded’s accounts, which looked pretty good alongside the business plan from some months before.

“Two things. First I want to fit a fuel purifier, which will greatly improve our profitability. So far we’ve had free fuel courtesy of Kursis, but from now on buying unrefined will save us about sixteen thousands credits per jump. Secondly, I want to stake a speculative mission in the cluster. If it succeeds, it should be quite lucrative. If it fails… Well, you’ve seen that I have the profitability to pay off the second loan.”

“And this speculative mission is…”

“Confidential” Sir David confirmed.

“Well, confidential usually costs about four percent extra. Since we know you, and since it’s secured, we might shave a little. The next loans committee meeting is this afternoon, we should have an offer for you by sixteen hundred. I take it you want an early repayment option?”

“Yes, indeed.”

Sir David headed back to the ship. On his way back he stopped at the Spacers’ Guild office, then at a milliner’s shop.

…

In the end they got their loan at four percent, three over base and two over commercial, a little cheaper than a standard ship mortgage.

“So it’s on, then?” said Fish as they heard the news over dinner.

“Yes, we’re going for it. Time to go flying around in gas giants again. Oh, and speaking of flying around…” Sir David reached under his seat and brought out a flat square box, wrapped in deep blue silk. He handed it across the table to a surprised looking Silea. Fish deftly lifted her bowl away so she could set it down and open it, then mimed eating the (non-existent) remains of her dessert once she was so engaged. Off came the silk, then the lid, then the tissue, and out came… a hat, blue and white, with a peak and a certain amount of gold braid.

“Congratulations, First Officer Crossflow” said Sir David in a “public occasion” sort of voice. “I sorted you out with the Spacers’ Guild this morning. There’s a fancy certificate too.”

“Make sure he gives you a pay rise” said Fish, gesturing with his spoon for emphasis.

…

The next morning, they jumped for 069-526 to refit at Fonnein Orbital.

 

[Morte]

Act VII: The Pay Off - Fitting Out

Date: 227-993 to 258-993 Imperial.
Location: 069-526 System (0721).

They reached the shipyard at Fonnein Orbital about eleven days late, mostly thanks to the runaround and delays at Kerin’s Tyr, and missed their booking. “I guess we shouldn’t have traded at Adukgin after all”, Luan shrugged.

But the yard cleared a slot after a few days, and work got started. The ship sat in the berth for an overhaul and systems check on Kursis’s ticket. Sir David paid for a small (2 dton) fuel purifier that could turn assorted gloop into a full load of liquid hydrogen in about sixteen hours. And the phased array radar under the bow got a second set of transducers and a processor upgrade, for better discrimination in visible-opaque gas.

The Avaricious bought drinks for a few miners from the Sternmetal operation at the rockball world Estoril, learning the best places to shop for environment suits. They bought one more used suit to add to the two they’d taken off Malfeasant’s dead crew, and had all of them adjusted and checked over.

They also picked up a couple of shock rods, like the ones Malfeasant had had ready. Nobody was quite sure what they were for, but they were cheap and Malfeasant had obviously thought they were important.

On the morning of 258-993 Avarice Rewarded came back from her test cruise around local space, and berthed in the yard for final checks. The SPA inspector gave her a clean bill of health. Stores and unrefined fuel came aboard. The fuel purifier ran a top up, and Sir David declared the ship ready for space in the log. First Officer Silea Crossflow concurred.

“Right, let’s do it”.

They headed out for jump to Kleister Beta, the far system’s binary companion, and their planned rendezvous with the abandoned ship Vraidercalt.