The Crew of the Pretio in This Week's Episode:
Ne'vets Aharo - an exotic animal broker, both legal and otherwise, majority owner in the Pretio.Duk'k - Sipsk'ud Bounty Hunter, recently rescued by the crew. Offering his services in order to get off this barely existing hunk of mud. His warning shots are dead center mass kill shots.
After presenting their crew as member of a sales team, Ne'vets Aharo had his team in a cozy hotel under intense surveillance for the night. The following morning, bedecked in sky blue Lisani Corporation gear, an escorting a personal beverage droid (F1-ZZ), they were driven in a decommissioned imperial troop carrier to the Supreme Palace.
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| F1-ZZ |
"We need to work up the chain of command as high as possible, so we can bring up the prison as part of the negotiations. Don't communicate with these folks unless
After two hours, a military attaché came into the room and advised them the Royal Council would meet with them now.
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| Neevlethorn Intelligence Officer |
Passing through a set of double doors, the hallway changed from concrete floors and walls to marble. Very few decorations, like pictures and painting adorned the walls. Another turn of the corner and the group came into a very utilitarian looking conference room.
They were left alone in the room and Duk'k took his fake role as IT support with relish, setting up the presentation. Unfortunately, he forgot a number of adapters so he had trouble hooking things up to the wall podium display. With the help of Sid, and a series of damaged spanners, they were able to pry a A/V panel on the wall and hard-wired the tech into the system and a holo-vid generated with a spinning Lisani Corp logo.
Duk'k was relieved. "Okay, I can run the presentation if Sid can hid behind the podium and slice the data we're looking for."
Sid sat on the ground successfully logged onto the Neevlethorn network, but was forced to pop back up when another Neevlethorn officer appeared and announced, "The Elden Royal Family!"
Six individuals dressed in military styled uniforms. Four individuals looked related, even beyond the exaggerated mutton chops on their face. Two individuals without mutton chops appeared to be military leaders or advisors.
Ne'vets bounced from royal family member to member, to cover mining technology, advanced firearms, and even the purchase price for an Imperial Star Destroyer. "Used is fine... Anything to destroy our hated enemies."
A delicate line was toed balancing infrastructure upgrades and educational advancements, while another family member stopped him mid-sentence.
"What... is... that...???"
He was pointing at F1-ZZ.
"Is it a weapon? Are you trying to sneak weapons."
"No-no-no, it's a just a it's a beverage dispensary droid. I mean, there is storage area where lesser civilized races might have placed explosiv...."
As he pressed a button for open the little doors for the storage compartment, Ne'vets felt the presence of a doze slug-throwers pointed right at him.
"One of the generals interrupted, that's not what he meant, your graces. Perhaps a demonstration of the droid's beverage capacity is needed at this time. Glasses for everyone!"
Drinks were distributed and small talk conducted as data pads with contracts were pulled out.
The same general who suggested drinks wandered behind the podium to find Sid sitting on the floor.
"So you're the one that makes the magic happen?"
"Someone has to make the others look good, sir," Sid deadpanned. That seemed enough to satisfy the general and he wandered off to discuss contracts.
Outside a series of outrageous demands to ridiculous bonuses... and the acquisition of F1-ZZ, the Neevlethorn Royal Family agreed to the contract. As the contracts were being approved, Sid was finally able to access the Neevlethorn network and pulled up rosters of government workers, but there were no personnel files to be found.
The crew were allowed to return to their hotel, and plans for a "Great feast to celebrate our new relationship with the Planet Lisani."
The next day, the crew were detained in the hotel until the feast, but spent their morning handling repeated com calls from the Royal Family inquiring about tech specs for all the equipment listed in the complimentary copy of Lisani's catalog.
Tiring of these calls, Ne'vets asked one of the family members is the crew could have a formal tour of the city and all its greatness. They agreed and the group was escorted to a grav-train for a tour. The tour guide provided a rather canned and jingoistic presentation, but the most memorable moment was the grav-train breaking down.
Duk'k looked over to Ne'vets, "I think we could have offered them a Star Destroyer. This grav-train is brand new tech from TDX and they've failed to maintain something that almost requires zero maintenance."
While techs attempted to repair the train, the group was offered lunch at one of the finest eateries in all the land, which appeared to be a dated steak house. The food was surprisingly spectacular, most of the dishes a planetary variant of the reptilian Bush Runner, accompanied with a curry-like dish.
The guide informed them that they would use traditional speeders for the rest of the tour, and were given a tour of government buildings, the outlines of mining operations, and finished in a local market for souvenirs. Outside of discovering a hibachi with a dolphin race as chefs, they picked up a few touristy items,
With the tour completed, they returned to the hotel, where they were met with a small army of Neevlethorn legal advisors, and a host of pedantic and non-impactful revisions. Realizing that the the limited tech of Neevlethorn wasn't giving them the data they needed about the prison, the crew decided to swing for the fences. They approved all the Neevlethorn changes, but added their own redundant boilerplate text, hiding within it partial clauses that Neevlethorn would release all Galactic Empire citizens who were prisoners inside their boundaries.
The grand festivities of the official state dinner were fare calmer and dignified compared to the negotiations. Food and drink was delicious.
General Therrand, the more reasonable military officer during the negotiations, pulled Ne'vets to the side. "Mister Aharo, I've had everyone review your updates, and we should be able to initiate things immediately... once I'm compensated for reviewing all the extra line-items you added this afternoon."
"How would you like one of your own personal beverage droids?"
"You're kriffing kidding me right?"
"We can fill the storage compartment with plenty of Imperial credits...."
The crew was allowed to leave the next day, and once in orbit, immediately transmitted the contract, data, and a request for another beverage droid, to the Lisani Corporation.
It took a week for the contracts to be finalized on the Lisani side, but documentation and beverage droid arrived in the system. Ne'vets personal deliver the documentation to the various bureaus and delivered the beverage droid to General Therrand, who personally searched the storage compartment for bombs. Finding the storage full of Imperial credits, he pulled the droid into his office and shut the doors.
Flying from the capital to the prison to await Sergei's release, Duk'k questioned Ne'vets, "I really don't think we needed to wait for that beverage droid to deliver the bribe to the general. I have the sense he would have take the money and released Sergei a week ago."
"True, but it's better cover, plus now we have confirmation the slicing Side did to the first beverage droid is working. It's already accessed the network and is providing Lisani with a ton of information."
Duk'k corrected him, "Unitl they fail to properly maintain the droid and it falls apart."
"Not my problem for once, even with their poor data transmission rates, Lisani should soon be in permanent financial advantage dealing with Neeevlethron and TDX."
The Pretio landed outside the prison fences, 200-300 meters away the facility. Within the hour, the blast doors for one bunk finally opened. Three dozen prison guards emerged, followed by a lone male in an orange jumpsuit, definitely NOT Sergei. A few moments later, a Hammerhead came out, followed by a human female, then another human male, then a group of prisoners.
The last person to come out was a tall, curly haired man.
"That's him!"
Duk'k came down the ramp to greet Sergei. The young man was quite confused as he tried to follow the other folks released from the prison. Once he caught sight of the Sipsk'ud, Sergei walked over and questioned him, "What's going on?"
"You're going home, kid!"
"Going home? No, no, no... I'm okay staying here."
The young man pleaded to Duk'k to stay. He rushed back to a prison guard to try and grab a weapon, but the guard knocked them down. "You're free! Go away!"
"But I can't leave without her! You have to understand, she's still here. I can't leave her."
"If she's not an Imperial citizen, there's nothing we can do today. Let's get you home to your Dad and we can go after her right after."
"Promise?"
"I promise..."
Sergei dejectedly tramped up the ramp of the Pretio and Duk'k walked over the guards.
"We'll take them from here, but do you guys have a list of who you released. I do want to take them home, but I need to cross-reference the weirdos and actual murderers. The guards obliged, then Duk'k herded the other released prisoners. He reached out to the Pretio, "Hey guys, warm up some Space Salisbury Steak dinners, we've got two dozen new guests to take to the Inner Rim"
GM Notes: The adventure, Rescue on Ruie, can be found in Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society (JTAS) #1. The concept of infiltrating a hermit kingdom, and remote jail to rescue an industrialist's son has different connotations in Traveller than it does in Star Wars. But playing a Mercantile Star Wars campaign set a few years before the full-blown Rebellion takes place, has advantages that Traveller does not afford.
As I continue to plunder the Challenge Challenge, things had transitioned form the intermittent articles in Challenge, to back track into JTAS and their all-Traveller. I'm effectively done with Challenge 25-29, and four out the nine specific articles in JTAS 1-3.
Next: #78 - Delivering the Boy
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