01. Welcome To The CompanyThe Travellers in their never-ending search for gainful employment (or a fast credit) found themselves in the Sonares system. A backwater system with little to no contact with the
Imperium, had two major in habited planets and a large asteroid
field - the Schaeffer Belt . They joined the Lothrain Free
Company (LFC) - one of the smaller belter companies
operating mining and transport services across the system. The
LFC was based on the Vinen Habitat on one of the larger asteroids
in the Schaeffer belt. One day they were summoned to the LFC offices and after a brief interview with some of the senior executives (including Haro Lothrain the CEO) they were assigned to a special mission. They were to fill the last remaining slots on the crew roster of the Master of Enterprise. The ship was being sent by the LFC to survey an old asteroid mining platform - The Factory - which the LFC was in the process of purchasing from the Maas Corporation. They were primarily assigned as leads for the survey mission but would also fill crew slots on Master of Enterprise. The ship had been equipped with engineering sensors, repair equipment and supplies for a 5-week mission. Full schematics of the platform had been supplied by the Maas Corporation and the rest of the crew had already been briefed. Clarissa, Aaron and Enrico spent some time researching the station and the general political situation in the Schaeffer Belt. Bartholomew meanwhile checked himself into the best hotel on the habitat, enjoying his last tast of luxury prior to setting out on the arduous mission. Next morning, the survey expedition set out on the Master of Enterprise. While Clarissa took the controls for the launch, which proved smooth and uneventful, the others slotted into their allocated positions in the crew. Under M-drive it took about a week to get to the sector of the Schaeffer Belt the mining platform was located. The trip was relatively uneventful, save for one or two mishaps from Bartholomew as he manned the ship's comms station. As the newest members of the LFC, the Travellers spent the time getting used to their role in the survey team and in getting to know the other members of the crew. As the Master of Enterprise approached the desolate platform, Aaron and Enrico ran a series of sensor sweeps as the ship orbited the asteroid the platform was moored to. On the third pass, Aaron identified an anomalous reading - there appeared to be an active power-source down there, which since the platform had been abandoned 4 years ago, was curious to say the least! 02. Have Spacesuit Will TravelClarissa manoeuvred the Master of Enterprise as close as she dared to the open hangar doors of the Factory and Aaron began suiting-up to do a survey of the hangar bay to ensure that it was safe to bring the ship in. Helped by Kemphit, he after a false start or two, he began negotiating the void, Kemphit playing out a tether-line from within the airlock. While this delicate, and somewhat lengthy, transfer was underway, Bartholomew decided to catch a quick nap, and was relieved at the communications station by Anna. As Aaron cautiously manoeuvred his way into the vast icy darkness of the hangar bay using a thrusters unit, he lost line-on sight to Kemphit and his uplink to the Master of Enterprise! In eerie silence punctuated only by the clank of his magnetic boots on the frost-rimed bulkhead, Aaron made his way cautiously up to a walkway that spanned the perimeter of the huge hanger. While the others waited anxiously aboard the ship, Aaron completed a quick inspection, confirming there was no power at all in the main body of the Factory. Returning to the floor of the hangar, and after briefly making contact with [Keith], he undertook a quick survey of the hangar bay, confirming that it would be save to bring the Master of Enterprise in. An hour later, the survey completed, Aaron began the dangerous ascent back up to the ship. Once aboard, and Bartholomew was woken up – along with the other shift, Clarissa began the delicate manoeuvres to dock the Master of Enterprise in the hangar. Once safely docked, wasting no time, they all began suiting-up to start the survey work on the station. Anna, advised that there should be a UPS they could boot up that would let them shut the hangar bay doors. Bartholomew was the one who finally found the UPS and in short order Anna had it booted up and the external doors closed. The UPS also powered some emergency lighting in the hangar bay which helped enormously rather than have them relying on their helmet lights. Once the hanger bay was relatively secured they set out on a quick survey round the immediate area, before returning to the Master of Enterprise for a well-earned night’s rest. Next morning they suited up again and headed off into the depths of the station looking to try and get some power flowing into the platform. Clambering down through some iris valve locks on the floor, they made their way down to the command deck. They had just located the Power Room when suddenly Kemphit found himself having difficulty breathing – no one had noticed a loose connection on his air-hose and he was running dry, he started a panicked rush back to the Master of Enterprise , when Aaron calmly called him back and drew out an emergency supply which he quickly snapped into place. Anna began a thorough survey of the Power Plant, after a brief while she though she could get some emergency power working, but in order to get full operation the systems would require thorough overhaul which could take weeks – and parts they didn’t have. 03. Battle of the Docking-bayWhile Anna struggled with the station's main power plant, trying to get some emergency power running, the others continued their survey of the Command Deck. Their attempts to get to Main Mission were thwarted when they discovered the manual controls for the hatchway to the command area were frozen shut – moisture in the atmosphere when the station was decompressed having frozen the doors mechanisms. Aaron, Clarissa and Enrico, spent some time puzzling over how to melt the ice in the freezing cold of a vacuum. Various ideas were considered and then discarded. They were about to begin a long trek back to the Master of Enterprise to get an oxy-acetylene torch, when someone suggested looking for an alternate route. Fanning out through the level, they began the search, which was complicated by the fact that as soon as they went out of line-of-sight with one another, their helmet radios lost the comms link. Clarissa eventually managed to find a route down to the lower level in the storage vault, where a gangway led down to the crew deck. Enrico, meanwhile, got the shock of his life when searching the kitchens, a frozen corpse fell out of one of the refrigerators. Close examination of the corpse showed the cause of death to be a single bullet to the back of the head. Aaron went to retrieve Anna from the Power Room, who had just managed to get a trickle of power running from the emergency generators, and they began making their way down through the lower level. The trip was uneventful – save there was one dodgy moment when a section of flooring collapsed beneath Anna. The jagged and broken flooring had trapped the leg of her suit. Attempting to draw her leg out threatened ripping the fabric of the suit, but the others quickly rallied round and begun the delicate exercise of extricating her without puncturing the suit! Eventually freeing her leg, they made their way to the processing area and up through one of the iris valves in the ceiling. Once back on the Command Deck - they made their way to the Main Mission. With the trickle of power Ann had managed to feed through from the power plant, they managed to get the emergency life support and some of the other key systems booted-up. Unfortunately, as Maas hadn't supplied the correct access codes they couldn’t get into anything other than basic life-support systems. After some makeshift re-wiring work Aaron thought he could manage to route some power - and more importantly heat and air - to some limited areas of the platform. Anna finally managed to get
the communications system online
– as she shifted the frequency to the one used
by the LFC, she suddenly heard Bartholomew’s voice recalling them urgently to
the Master of Enterprise – the ship was somehow
under attack! Popping his head up, Aaron could see two space-suited figures in the corridor firing into the hangar bay where the Master of Enterprise was docked. Retreating back, he quickly hatched a plan with the others. Clarissa and Anna would go to the other end of the corridor and enter through the iris valve there, while he and Enrico would come in through the one he’d just surveyed - as they would still have line-of site they could co-ordinate the attack perfectly. The attack worked like a dream, popping up of the valves they opened up on the pirates, taking them completely by surprise. As the first two space-suited figures crumpled, leaking air from their suits. The battle was swift and furious, as they deployed into the hangar deck. Fortunately Aaron and the others had the benefit of total surprise, taking the pirates by surprise. It also helped that they were better armed than their opponents with a preponderance of laser weapons against the pirate’s slug-throwers. Once the pirates were disposed of they discovered part of the small hangar, which they’d been unable to get into had been partially converted to rough living quarters, with a small generator – the source of the anomalous power readings) and an air regenerating system. There were also crates of supplies stored in the area – but no sign of a ship. Once the threat from the pirates had been neutralised, the survey of the platform got underway in earnest. Over the next three weeks the team managed to successfully complete the assessment. Along the way, as well as the usual maintenance and makeshift repair work, they also discovered a data-stick that contained reports dubious-sounding experiments on the platform. The aim of the experiments appeared to be to increase productivity of the miners by using stamina enhancing drugs on the miners. According to the information of the data-stick, the experiments had ended in tragedy, with several miners dying. The station administrater, someone called Rogan, had the shut down the experiments and hushed the whole thing up - passing off the fatalities as due to a mining accident. Their survey completed, Master of Enterprise returned to the Vinen Habitat to report back to Lothrain. As well as collecting their back-pay, he gave each of them a bonus of 1000 credits for the information about the experiments, he suggested they keep quiet about the information they'd discoverd as they had no real proof and it without that it might jeapodise the negotiations with the Maas Corporation.A couple of days later the team was even more surprised as another chit for 10,000 credits was issued to them from the authorities as bounty on the pirates. |
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