182-1103 – Colchis Surface
The Perfect Stranger landed at Colchis Lowport, on the shores of Lake Yokohama, with a day to spare before their supply drop would be made. They had brought some equipment that seemed appropriate for a group of holidaymakers, but their weapons, sonar and the like would be arriving the next day.
The Customs Hall
The group had, however, decided to wear layered cloth and body armour, which inevitably made them stand out in a civilian starport – even one on the edge of a rebellious province. On attempting to pass through customs – located in a sweltering concrete box with broken fans – they encountered Officer Guntram: overweight, sweating through a khaki uniform that was two sizes too small, and with a stamp that he wielded like a judge’s gavel.
He moved with agonizing slowness. He picked up every piece of the Travellers’ luggage, inspected it, smelled it, and then sighed deeply each time.
“Your armour,” he said, tapping a finger on the table. “It is not on the approved import list for Class 4 civilian goods. It requires a formidable amount of paperwork. Form 88-B. It could take weeks to process.” He cleaned his fingernails with a matchstick. “Unless, of course, you wish to pay the ‘Expedited Processing Tariff’ strictly in cash. For the… administrative overtime.”
The bribe was paid. Anson muttered on the way out: “I’ve seen rock crushers with more subtlety than that crook.”
Doing Their Bit
As the Travellers left the starport and headed for the station, they were blocked by a cheerful, immaculately dressed government official flanked by a floating media drone. He insisted that before they could depart, they had to participate in the “Daily Plebiscite.”
Cautiously, the party agreed, and were asked: “Should the Starport atrium lighting be changed from ‘Soft Morning Peach’ to ‘Industrial Cool White’?” To which their response was firmly in favour of retaining the current lighting. The second question – “Should the tax on imported off-world cheese be raised by 0.04%?” – saw them come out equally strongly in favour of the status quo.
The official beamed, handed them a “I Did My Duty” sticker, and the Colchis bureaucracy ignored the result anyway, since the Colchis government uses constant polling to make the population feel involved while ignoring the results.
New Okayama
The city of New Okayama, once a flourishing tourist destination, had not flourished on the edges of a long-running civil war. There were posters proclaiming the medical aid provided by Amondiage, with posyters showing Amondiage doctors vaccinating Colchis babies. And, from the train, the party saw a housing estate being cleaned up methodically and to a high standard by smart, happy, uniformed teenagers. A banner at the estate entrance proclaims them to be the Neubayernjugend: a youth organisation based on Neubayern itself.
But on emerging from the train station, the sense of decay everywhere around them was obvious. The party hired a taxi after Taz Orsel, its driver, approached them when they emerged from the station. Luckily, he knew the perfect hotel, which his cousin ran: the Marina Grand. He would take them there at once!
Luckily, the Marina Grand was less derelict than most of its neighbours, and Taz was hired for the rest of the day by way, so he waited outside until they emerged for food. Blessed good fortune: his uncle ran a superb restaurant! So they went to Dudie’s for kebabs, where the walls were lined with photographs of the owners with people of local fame on Colchis. On discovering that Dr Bilal had twice won prestigious Imperium awards for scientific achievement, and had published several books, Dudie insisted on having his picture taken by a waiter wielding an ancient film camera with a flash that could signal nearby spaceships.
Yacht Party
Next, the party needed to find a boat. Against all the odds, Taz had another cousin who might have just the thing for them… So he took them to a dilapidated marina on the edge of New Okayama, where the water smelled of diesel and rotting vegetation. The sign above the office read “Luxury Lake Tours – Closed for Season.”
Kaspar Vane, the owner seemed to be melting in the heat, dressed in a linen suit that was white ten years ago and was now the colour of old parchment. He constantly wiped his neck with a handkerchief and sipped a drink that looks like motor oil.
“Gentlemen, Ladies! I understand you wish to enjoy the scenic vistas of our beautiful lake. A fishing trip, perhaps? You are in luck. The war has been terrible for tourism, which means it is excellent for the buyer. I have the crown jewel of the fleet available.”
He leads them past several half-sunken wrecks to the end of a creaking pier to see “The Painted Lady”, a 40-foot fiberglass pleasure cruiser. Faded, pinkish-biege painton a hull covered in algae. The rear deck had a hot tub that had been converted into a storage bin for rusty chains. Inside, once-plush velvet seating now smelled of mildew and a cockpit that featured a mini-bar (empty) within reach of the steering wheel.
Kaspar smiled broadly. “She is a beauty, no? Fast, discreet. Perfect for… unobserved movement. I will be distressed to let her go. I am considering keeping her for myself. I can see my family enjoying her so much.”
At this point, the party asked for a demonstration. He turned the key.
CLUNK. WHEEZE. BANG. A cloud of thick, black smoke erupted from the exhaust port, and the engine shuddered violently before dying with a metallic cough.
Kaspar didn’t blink. “Ah. She is just… resting. A little cold, perhaps. The mechanic, he is away at the front, but for people of your technical skills? A minor adjustment!”
Travis inspected the engine and saw the problem immediately. The fuel injectors were fouled with low-grade local sludge, and the intake manifold was clogged with bird’s nest debris: a 2-hour fix with the right tools. The engine block itself was surprisingly solid.
Kaspar wanted 20,000 Credits to buy it outright (claiming it was a collector’s item) or 2,000 Credits per day to rent. Ferrik, the crew’s broker, talked Kaspar down to 5,000 Credits to buy it outright.
Anson was sceptical: “Look at the absolute state of her. She looks like a floating brothel. And listen to that engine. It sounds like a smoker with emphysema climbing a flight of stairs. Tell you what, sunshine, we’ll take it off your hands so you don’t have to pay to scuttle it.”
The Mechanic
While Travis and Anson went to work repairing the engine, Dr Bilal took a stroll along the water’s edge. He heard swearing and saw an oil-smeared mechanic throw a wrench onto the deck with a clang. She shouted “Garbage! Expensive, over-engineered garbage!”
Dr Bilal asked if he could help, and what was the matter? They then chatted for a time: her name was Jhenn, and she gestured to a sleek, metallic sensor housing she had just removed from the boat. It looked far too high-tech for the rust-bucket vessel it was attached to.
“Look at this,” she spits. “New targeting sensor. Government says it’s ‘top of the line.’ Sure, if you’re in a vacuum. It’s got Serendip Belt manufacturing stamps all over the purity seals. It’s built for asteroid mining drones, not a muddy lake on a humid rock like Colchis. One splash of pond water and the fancy Serendip electronics short out.”
She then kicked the hull of the boat, pointing to a cluster of jagged, heavy-impact holes that shredded the plating.
“And you know what did that? That’s not local iron. Those are high-velocity kinetic penetrators. I dug a slug out of the bilge this morning. It’s got a Neubayern arsenal mark on the base. That’s military-grade alloy.”
She lit a cigarette, looking out over the foggy lake. “You see what’s happening, don’t you? The Government boats are running Serendip tech they can’t maintain, getting chewed up by bloody rebels shooting Neubayern guns they couldn’t afford on their own. We aren’t fighting a civil war anymore. We’re just the battlefield.”
Dr Bilal felt a real connection was forming between them, and asked if Jhenn cared to have a drink, later. She declined, gracefully.
Feeling Lucky?
Walking back to the Marina Grand, the party passed “Le Palais du Lac,” a casino with peeling stucco paint and a neon sign that buzzed and flickered (reading: “Le P la s u Lac”). As the party walked past, Alfonse practically leapt into their path, bowing low. He spotted their off-world clothes immediately. “Sir! Madam! Please, come inside! The air conditioning is… mostly functional! We have legitimate whiskey, not the local swill! The roulette wheel is spinning! We have baccarat!”
As the Travellers looked past him through the glass doors, the casino was empty save for two elderly locals playing cards for matchsticks and a boredom-struck bartender. Alfonse whispered, desperate: “I can offer you a private room. High stakes? Please. The owner says if we don’t get a whale in tonight, he’s turning the place into a barracks for the reserves.”
The travellers, however, did go in and question the natives about the disappearance of the ship they sought for Sternmetal, and the barman was able to give them a name and a date. They used this to go and search the local newspaper archives, finding a photograph taken as the ship – The Mary Lou – finally slipped beneath the waves. They were then able to geolocate the rough area of the sinking.
184-1103 Air Drop
The next day, the party hired an ATV truck from yet another of Taz’s many alleged cousins, and headed to pick up the airdrop delivery. On their way, they were stopped at a roadblock, where Anson bribed a weary sergeant with off-world cigarettes while an edgy young pirate accused the party of being terrorist bombers.
The airdrop was kicked out of the back of a Free Trader on one-shot, anti-grav palettes. Just in time, Bilal helped the crew to hide the vehicle and deliveries before two Colchis government fighters overflew the area, trying to find the smugglers.
185-1103 Boat Trip
The deliveries were taken back to the Painted Lady, and the party headed out onto the lake. It was dark before they reached the area of the sinking, and the next morning the party started slowly searching the floor of the lake with sonar, while Zhana and Bilal spoofed their GPS to appear to be elsewhere. After a few hours, the wreck was located, and Dr Bilal, Travis and Anson fived to her while Rosa, Ferrik and Zhana stayed on the boat, pretending to party.
The party underwater managed to effect entry and to locate the remains and the equipment. Meanwhile, rebels approached the Painted Lady on a converted speedboat. When they were about to board, Rosa, Ferrik and Zhana – who had kept their weapons concealed just out of sight, drew their guns and shot the rebels with laser and suppressed automatic fire: in a few seconds, the rebels were dead or dying.
The divers were retrieved, the grisly cargo stowed in sealed body bags and the signal sent for the pickup. This occurred the next day, and by 187-1103 the party departed Colchis, considerably richer and with a highly satisfied patron in Sternmetal Holdings.
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