??/??/2013 - Journey to Endregaad (2)
The First Freight Run
The crew do more research into the situation on Endregaad. It is a struggling frontier planet that was being terraformed by Federation backed corporations when the Federation collapsed in this Sector. The terraforming project was axed and the terraforming stations have begun to fail due to lack of funding. As a result the planet is reverting to an arid atmosphere. There are still a number of people who moved there due to the lucrative mining opportunities, who have since found themselves stranded.
The plague, known as Desert Fever, struck recently and has quickly spread across the planet as it thrives in an arid atmosphere. The plague causes dehydration and medical spice is one of the best ways to tackle it.
A Final Meeting
A few hours later, Grant gets a video communication from one of Zonnos’s thugs, telling him his employer wants to meet him at the Slutty Bitch (a hooker’s bar) in two hours and he should be there. Grant tells Cyrus, who agrees to go along but is suspicious. They decide to keep this quiet from Ben. They tell Sloane they are going to a “business negotiation”.
At the Slutty Bitch, Grant and Cyrus are surprised to meet Zonnos. He tells them that they are heading into a dangerous situation on Endregaad. He would fully understand if they do not try to rescue Mika but just drop off the spice and leave. In order to help their mission, Zonnos offers two of his men as additional crew. Grant turns down his offer and Zonnos becomes upset. He had hoped they were smarter than this and abruptly leaves.
Getting back to the ship, Grant and Cyrus see that the medical pallets have arrived. Sloane has begun loading them on board and he is getting on well with the Varl, who enjoys sharing his whisky. Varl then hands over a legal pad to Grant and asks him to sign the legal agreement. Grant skim reads it through briefly, relying on his legal training and signs it. Varl wishes them well and leaves.
Jump to Carmel
With the ship loaded up with medical spice, they are now ready to depart. Grant obtains permission from Space Traffic Control to leave the space dock and head out of orbit to 100 radius distance from the planet. This will take about an hour. The Red Queen only has Jump-4 engines so cannot jump the 7 parsecs to the Ghatsokie system. They will have to make it a two-jump journey. The first jump will be to the Carmel system, three Parsecs away and from there make a further four-parsec jump to the Ghatsokie system and its planet, Endregaad.
They activate the jump engines and the jump succeeds but only just. The power drain causes life support to cut out. When power comes back - life support does not come back up. Ben quickly heads to engineering to deal with the problem, restoring the life-support system in 10 mins. They spend three days in hyperspace during the jump to Carmel, in which the crew mostly entertain themselves.
The ship falls out of hyperspace early, as they are too close to the star, Carmel. The ship is in danger of being trapped in the gravity field of the sun, a very dangerous situation. Fortunately, Sloane is able to pull them out of the sun’s orbit and sets course for the planet Carmel Prime, which will now take several hours. When they reach Carmel Prime, they dock at the space port and refuel, then prepare to jump again.
Passengers
Grant does some Brokering, looking for possible business opportunities between here and Endregaad. He finds three charity workers looking for passage to Endregaad and arranges to interview them in the departure lounge with Sloane and Cyrus.
When they arrive, they are a punk guy, Sam, his girlfriend Jasmine and a smart young man called Merlin. They are all medical students going to help the relief effort. They agree to a total cost of 5000 credits for passage for three to Endregaad. A quick search of their equipment shows nothing unusual. The crew eat and drink while the ship is re-fuelled.
Jump on to Endregaad
They activate the jump drive and it succeeds, but the power drain causes life support to cut out - again. When power comes back, life support does not come back up - again. Ben is on repair restoring the system in 20 mins.
They spend four more day in hyperspace for the jump to the Ghatsokie system. The ship falls out of hyperspace far out from the system, a precaution after the previous fiasco. Sloane sets the Manoeuvre Drive to maximum travelling towards Endregaad. The Comms system registers an automated Interdiction - Plague Warning.
Pirate Attack
After an hour travelling towards Endregaad, a voice comes over the Comms: “Surrender your cargo or be destroyed”. A pulse laser beam hits the ship, disabling the sensor. Cyrus goes to Engineering and sends probe outside to repair the external damage.
Sloane pilots the ship away from direction of the laser fire and throats the drive to maximum, while Grant signals an SOS to the Sector Authority ship that is still far away. The pirates demand they power down their Manoeuvre drive or they will be destroyed. Lasers are again fired at the ship but miss this time. The decision is made to power down the MD and stop as the pirates have the edge over them in weaponry. The Red Queen can’t detect the pirates due to the detector malfunction. When the pirates come closer they can be detected and they will be in range of the Red Queen’s missiles.
It becomes apparent the pirate ship must still be far away from them as it is taking its time arriving. Cyrus concludes there must be a transponder on the ship giving away their location - which allowed the pirates to locate and fire at them so far away.