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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ao the Overkitty" data-source="post: 2982257" data-attributes="member: 9758">“Episode 9 – Laying Low” - Second SessionSynopsis of 7/24/06 session - subtitled A Different Definition of Laying LowAsta finally realized that Jenny was living in her med bay, so she decided to move jenny into Kenny’s old room.  Jenny was more than happy with her new accommodations, since they were slightly more spacious than the passenger dorm she had been living in before it got smashed, and much more spacious and comfy than a med bay table.Mort had several jobs during the next two weeks.  He worked on the name plate changer, cutting a large hole in the ship to do it.  He worked with Asta to get the transponder connected to it and programmed to change when the name plate changed.  Mort traded his services to the junkyard once again in exchange for some sheet metal and other parts for the passenger dorms.  Asta and Mort, with some help from Take, also worked on repairing the passenger dorms, combining two former rooms into one.  They decided to leave the upper dorms alone for now, since they didn’t feel they’d need them.  They discussed for a while about whether or not to label the Brig as something like biohazard waste.  Take vetoed the decision to do so.Campan got to sit out in front of the ship in a lawn chair with a beer to attract passengers.  He asked whomever walked by if they wanted a ride.  This got him several strange looks and the bartender of the bar telling Campan that he wasn’t his type.Eventually a miner actually walked up to Campan.Dirty Miner: Where ya goin?Campan: Uhh….  Off this rock.Dirty Miner: You don’t know where you’re goin?Campan: Where do you need to go?Dirty Miner: Jiangyin.Campan: I’m betting we can do that.  Let me check with, uh, the people that actually run the ship.Dirty Miner: What are you charging for passage?Campan: <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ed if I know.Dirty Miner: You’re not very good at this, are you?Campan: I never said I was.  They just put me out here with beer.  You want a beer?Dirty Miner: Yeah!Campan: Okay. Follow me.Campan led him up to the galley and gave him a beer.Campan: (over comm.) We got a potential passenger here.  I’m giving him beer.  I don’t know what all to tell him, so I offered him booze.Mort: (over comm.) Make sure he pays for it.Campan: (to the Miner with his hand still on the intercom) If Mort asks, tell him you paid for that beer.Dirty Miner: Which one’s Mort?Campan: (to the Miner with his hand still on the intercom) You’ll know.Daniel: (over comm.) Campan.  You’re supposed to take your hand off the intercom switch before you say that.Daniel wandered on down to the galley from the cockpit.Dirty Miner: Mort?Campan: No. Daniel.Dirty Miner: Should I tell him I paid for the beer?Campan: No.Daniel sized the man up.  He looked like a miner, with shabby clothes and unwashed.  He did, however, look less dirty than the other miners he’d seen around and his clothes looked a little nicer, so Daniel surmised that this man was a foreman.  So Daniel figured the man might have the money to get off this rock.Daniel: Sunday best?Dirty Miner: No. Just work clothes.The miner relayed where he wanted to go and Daniel confirmed that that was close to one of the possible ‘safe’ routes they could take to Leyla.  Daniel assessed that, if they were using regular shipping lanes, Jiangyin would take them a week to a week and a half off their course.  So he decided the price of the fare was four hundred and fifty platinum for the trip.  The miner’s eyes bugged a little and then he looked dismayed.  He told Daniel that he didn’t have that much money.  Of course, Daniel already knew this and used it to try and get the guy to drum up more passengers to lower costs.  The guy said he’d try to drum up another passenger, but he wasn’t hopeful they’d have that kind of cash either.  He looked a little disheartened as he left the ship.Campan escorted the guy out and offered him another beer.  He found out that the guy was two hundred short of Daniel’s price.  Campan said he could probably squeeze up half of that, since he had an interest in going in that direction.  The guy thanked him and said the help would probably be needed.After the guy had left, Daniel mentioned to Campan not to lead potential passengers into the galley and offer them beer.The miner came back a couple of days later.Campan: (over comm.) Sir, he actually came back.  You didn’t manage to scare him off. Want to try again?Mort offered to do the scaring, but Daniel declined.The miner let Daniel know that he had found a second passenger.  Daniel stood around doing math in his head for a little bit.Daniel: Aww hell.  You would know this.  You’re on a mining asteroid.  What is the current price out there on fuel?The miner went bug-eyed for a few seconds.Daniel: Never mind.Daniel et him know that the cost of passage would be 225 platinum a piece.  He asked the miner if they were in any kind of trouble.Dirty Miner: Nope.Daniel: You telling the truth?Dirty Miner: Nope. I’m lying.Gabe: I meant is he telling the truth.After Daniel had determined that the guy was telling the truth, he let him know when they were shipping out.  The miner let them know that was payday.Daniel went to Campan and told him to clean up Kenny’s room so that they could put the other passenger in there.Campan: Uh, sir.  Jenny is in there.Daniel: I thought she was living in the Medbay.Campan: Asta moved her in there.  She’s been in there for most of the week, sir.Daniel: I thought she was living in the Medbay.Daniel told Take that they had another passenger besides the miners and asked about putting her in Kenny’s room.  Take said Jenny had kind of been living in there.Daniel: You didn’t do anything about this?Take shrugged.Daniel: She was perfectly happy in that Medbay.Take: Yeah, but apparently Asta wasn’t perfectly happy with her in there.  And you know…Daniel: Maybe we could put Asta in the Medbay.Take: That’s probably not a good idea.  It is for the best if no one sleeps in the Medbay. (pause)   Unless they’re full of holes.Daniel called Asta up to the bridge.  He let her know that they had three passengers and he had been planning on putting on in Kenny’s old room.  But, since that wasn’t an option, since Jenny was in there, they needed a third passenger dorm.  She let Mort know that they needed another dorm room.  He grumbled.Daniel went on into Jenny’s room and let her know that while she was okay in there for now, should they be taking on another crew member, she’d be vacating back to the passenger dorms.Jenny: More crew?Daniel ignored her question and left.A bit later, Mort got a hold of Daniel while they were alone.Mort: You ever figure out where that new passenger was familiar from?Daniel: Yes.Mort: Anything we need to worry about?Daniel: No.  I got the feeling she’s in trouble somewhere but it isn’t anything we need to worry about.Mort: Not related to Jasp, is she?Daniel: Not at all.A couple of days later, Take brought up that they it would be helpful if they could acquire some more space suits.  Daniel went about trying to figure out how they could acquire them discretely.  He figured the best possible way would be to pay someone off, but he was unsure of whom he should pay.  Mort took it upon himself to hatch a plan to steal the suits.  Mort cased the offices, deciding that was the most likely place they’d have good, fairly new and unused suits.  The offices had minor security, but enough that they’d need a key in to not be noticed.On the day they were scheduled to leave, he and Campan went to the bar to hang out.  They made sure they were covered in filth so that they wouldn’t stand out.  The place was hopping with all the miners spending their money on payday beer.  They looked around for a office types, but couldn’t find any.  Mort then looked around for janitors.  He found a rather old looking man of around eighty-three years old.  He had a wrinkled, kindly face topped by well kept white hair.  He sat at a table nursing a beer with his janitor cart parked next to him.  The cart looked well maintained to Mort.  It had all the usual janitor equipment stashed in side and a large sign on it that read Frank’s Cart.Campan wandered over to the table.Campan: How ya doin, old timer?Frank the Janitor: Hi!  I’m doing good, how bout you?Campan engaged the man in conversation.  Mort came over and inspected the cart.  He found a wobbly wheel and fixed it.  While he was down there one noticed Frank had a ring of keys attached to his belt.  Frank thanked Mort for fixing his cart as Mort sat down.Campan felt this conversation required beer, so he waved at the bartender to come over.  The bartender kind of glared at him, slumped, and walked around the bar and out to the table.Bartender: (unmasked annoyance in his voice) Yes?Campan: Payday beer?The bartender walked back to the bar, leant over it and filled a mug.Mort: (to Campan) I think you walk up to the bar in this establishment.The bartender walked back and clunked the beer on the table a bit messily.Bartender: (unmasked annoyance in his voice) Would you like anything else?Campan: No. I’m good. Thanks.The bartender walked back to the bar muttering and shaking his head.Ryan: We already can’t come back here.  We’ve pissed off the bartender.Talking with Frank, they found out that Frank couldn’t afford payday beer anymore.  Mort grabbed Campan’s beer before he could drink it and handed it to Frank.  Campan was rather shocked by this action, not sure what to say.  Frank thanked Mort for the beer and began drinking.  Campan took Frank’s partially drank beer and finished it off.  Amazingly enough, the watered down beer wasn’t very tasty.  While they sat there, Mort stealthily stole Frank’s keys and left.Frank the Janitor: Thanks for the beer!Campan: (fake enthusiasm) Yeah.  Thanks for the beer… (to Frank) Who was that?Frank the Janitor: I don’t know.Campan: You get a lot of weird people like that around here?Frank the Janitor: Ehh.  They’re usually mechanics.  Too much grease.Campan left shortly after and caught up to Mort and they went into handkerchief’d mode.  They entered the office building by a back door using the keys.  They quickly found a closet marked For Emergency Only – Alarm Will Sound.  Mort used his tools to keep the alarm from going off while Campan went into the room.  Inside he found a lot of nifty emergency stuff inside, including some space suits hung up on the wall.  He grabbed two suits off the wall and plunked them on the floor outside the room.  He then plunk the other two off the wall and dragged them out so Mort could shut the door.  Walking around carrying two very bulky suits was far from easy.  They dragged the suits back out the back entrance where Mort and Campan both noticed a little, red alarm light above the door was flashing.Take parked the mule near the offices discretely.  While watching the front of the office building, he noticed a guard run to the front door from the inside, opening it up to look around outside.  He held a walkie-talkie up to his face and started talking into it.Take: (over comm.) Yeah guys.  It doesn’t look good.  Might want to be ready to high-tail it, Daniel.Mort and Campan got to the mule and stashed the suits on it under a tarp, telling Take to take off.  Take drove back to the ship, avoiding a group of guards heading for the office building.  Once there he stashed the suits in the secret compartment.Mort and Campan then went back to the bar and stashed the handkerchiefs and keys on some drunks in the alley.  After returning to the ship, Mort closed up the airlocks.Mort: Time to leave.Daniel checked to make sure all the passengers were on board before they took off.Once back in the black, Campan and Mort washed off all the grim from posing as miners before working on modifying the space suits.  Campan painted the suits a different color to hide the Property of Corone Mining Consortium markings.  Mort selected one of the suits to be his and fixed Mad Michael’s bullet-proof vest to the outside of the suit.  Asta took the remains of Mort’s old suit and made a suit for Maxx.After having painted the suits, Campan went and got two beers, bringing one to Ezmerelda.Campan: You’re sane, right?Ezmerelda: Yes.  I’m probably the most sane person you’ll ever meet.Campan: Good.Over the next few weeks of travel, Daniel spent a lot more time in the galley than usual.  The crew just assumed he was changing his lunch schedule.  He occasionally asked Ezmerelda questions about her home planet and her family, Disa.  He explained to her that he had spent some time on her planet a long time ago and wanted to know what had changed.  She said she was from a farm, that wasn’t near anything big, except the Asterix mountains.  Daniel was rather evasive to her questions about his interest beyond his previous statement.About two weeks into the trip, Campan received a wave from a muscular man in his mid thirties in a wheelchair.  Take figured this wasn’t one of Campan’s sick grandmothers, so he let Campan know someone wanted to talk to him.  The crew proceeded to take up their usual monitoring positions with Mort in the engine room, Take on the bridge, Daniel in his bunk and Campan in his own bunk.Turning on his screen, Campan immediately recognized the guy as Logan, the holder of one of his big loans.Campan: (nervously chipper voice) Hi Logan! How are you?Logan: Ah. Hello Campan.Campan: I’d offer you a beer, but…Logan: That’s quite alright.  I figured I would have a chat with you, since you have a payment due in a couple of days.Campan: Oh.  I seem to have lost track of time.  I swear I just sent you a payment.Logan: Yes. That was two months ago.Campan: I’ll have to scrape some things together.  Doing legal work and all.Logan wheeled back from his desk and around it to get closer to the camera.Logan: Well, if you are having problems scraping together your payment, I do have a job you may be interested in, but it is not exactly an easy one.Campan: I can definitely bring it up with those who make the decisions around here, but I can’t say whether or not we’d take it without talking to them.  We like work so long as we don’t get out pictures on the cortex.Logan: Well, how low profile you do this job is entirely up to you.  I know of a large sum of cash being delivered out into the area.  It is going to a depository on ReginaCampan: Are we talking Alliance credits here or…?Logan: I am unsure of the type of currency beyond it being physical money, but it is being shipped from an Alliance bank.Campan: This is going for what purpose? Logan: The money is being set up to be picked up by a specific individual from the Core.  It is being funded by some big time gambler that comes out here.  Apparently he feels he needs more money to spread around.Campan: Is it anyone we’d know?Logan: No.  He is rich enough to avoid needing to borrow money.Campan: I just don’t want to be stepping on any toes.  You’re not the only sick grandmother I have.  So, if it isn’t anyone we know, what’s the gambler’s name?Logan: Jack Leland.Campan: Are we going to swoop in and try and take the armored car or try to get it once it gets there?Logan: I would suggest actually taking it from the depository as opposed to taking it from the armored car.  I seem to have heard something about that going bad for your crew recently.Campan: Well, not all jobs go as expected, you know?Logan: You might fair better on hard ground.Campan: Yes, um, we can get shot there too.Logan: The take is about seventy thousand platinum.Campan: What is your cut?Logan: I’d like twenty of that.Campan: I like those numbers.  Let me pass this on and I’ll get back to you.  Anything else I should know?Logan: Just where you can drop off my payment within two days time. Campan: Ah. Yes. Of course.  Uh, how much time do we have on this? Logan: You have a couple months.  I just caught wind of it being shipped out.Campan: Then I’ll make sure you get your payment and I’ll get back to you.Having completed the wave, Campan left his room and headed up to the galley to see if Daniel was there, but he only found Jenny.  Daniel called an officer’s meeting through their screens and headed up to the bridge.  While sitting in the galley, Campan watched Mort walk past him and head up to the bridge, closing the door behind him.Daniel, Take and Mort discussed Campan’s wave for a few minutes before calling Campan to the bridge.Campan: Is this what an officer’s meeting is usually like?Mort: Usually there is beer.Campan: Really?Take: Yeah, but usually you’re not here.Campan asked them if they had been watching.  They evaded the question.  Mort asked Campan how much he owed this person.  Campan said somewhere in the high teens.  When asked what it was spent on, Campan replied that it was used to fund the parts needed for the ship when they bought the Orasca.  Mort was thrilled by that revelation, but hardly shocked.Daniel: So, the wave.Campan: The wave was A, to make sure I paid my payment on time and B, that he had a job we might be interested in.Campan then proceeded to explain the job in a rather confusing manner.  Lucky for them, they had heard the information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.Campan: Anyway, apparently this place should be stocked to the gills with money.Take: Ah. Money.  We need some of that.Campan: Yes.  I believe he said something around seventy thousand platinum.  He said he wanted twenty.Daniel: Twenty percent or twenty thousand?Campan: He didn’t say.  I’m assuming he meant percent.Daniel: Is there any chance he might be out to catch us in a trap with this?Campan: Doubtful.  There is the fact that I owe him a lot of money and, well, he’s not going to get that money posthumourously.  He knows he’s not the only one with a number over my head and will probably anger a number of people if he pulls something.Mort: So your big value is that you owe other people money?Campan: Yeah.  Frankly, I don’t want to piss off Pearl Parker.  I don’t want to be in the same <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ing room as her.Mort: She wasn’t that scary!Campan: She’s Mort level scary.Mort: She didn’t seem that bad!Campan: Did you owe her any money?Mort: No.Campan: Did you anger her at any point? Mort: No.Campan: Then you didn’t see her scary face. I was a day late.Mort: Is she the reason you’re missing your leg?Campan: No.  Oh, and he mentioned something about knowing about our last job.  Just saying, someone might be talking.Take: Maybe.  It could also be because of our faces on the Cortex. Daniel: From what I remember of Regina, it is a whole bunch of mining towns that the Alliance don’t care too much about protecting, just the ore.  There are still some holes in this plan.  We’re lacking a lot of information.Campan: Well, I’m guessing he just gave us a taste and is holding back information to see if we actually take the job.They then discussed how this would affect their current plans.  The conclusion was greatly.Campan: I know this is an officer’s meeting and all, but one of us has a very marketable skill that she can do without getting shot at.  I don’t think we should point that out, cause she might not come back.Daniel: I see.Mort: See, the problem is she doesn’t ask for payment as often as she should, so it’s not as profitable.  She needs someone to go around behind her and ask for the payment.Mort wasn’t thrilled about running into the high likelihood of getting shot again.Mort: I’ve almost gotten shot more times taking jobs here then I did during the war.  And I got shot a lot during the war.Campan: Well. I know there’s money.  At the depository.  It’s all for one person. It’s all for gambling.  I imagine it isn’t going to be missed too much.Mort: Is he going to go pick it up?Campan: They’re bringing it to him.Mort: Crap.  There goes one of us impersonating him.Campan: I’m betting, if he’s receiving this money, he’s got a private holding ship of his own.  And they aren’t going to have a little popgun that pushes on your ass.*Group Breaks Out in Laughter*Ryan: You know. The Alliance had those force guns.  Watch the <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ing show!Take: We’re taking the job.Daniel: You know, what the hell.  Long as you’re not too offended to go there and find out we can’t do it, I say we take this job and sweep the Alliance of this good and bad so we can get back on our feet without spending a year of our lives working odd jobs and get out there in the galaxy again.Campan: So, what you’re saying is Yee-Ha?Daniel: Pretty much.  We’re going to take a look at this facility and go from there.  Make sure we’re not about to get Mort shot full of holes.  Well, shot full of more holes.Mort: I think that’s inevitable, sir.  Anyway.  Fifty thousand split five ways is still only ten thousand a piece.Take: Still enough to get good fake Ident cards.Fade to Black</blockquote>

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