IW 4 - Hunters

Context

While crossing the asteroid belt at 2000 miles per second, the TCIV CAMEROON was recruited by the UWO Interplanetary Police to engage a corsair. The engagement was brief, and left the ship with a hull breach through the habitat. Lucky for them, the UWO covered the repairs and medical bills of their passengers. The crew is now in Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) while Molly tests the new Jump-2 drive and the UWO shipyard patch the old trader.

Location

TSS Obama is a Class A space station largely employing UWO personnel. It is a hub of interplanetary travel, which leaves the drydocks for jump-capable ships slightly underutilised.


Location: TSS Obama, LEO, Terra system
Terran timestamp: April 15, 2170 AD

The CAMEROON entered a pressurized enclave for large scale repairs. The crew was offered to attempt to obtain a deputy license. The crew was enthusiastic as the insurance coming with the deal was rather attractive. Diane, officially dead to avoid prosecution by the Wheat Board and a messy divorce with her wife, made herself invisible as the UWO inspected the ship. Jane, Molly and Tom got certified while Aeryn failed her attempt at the medical officer placement. Anika and Diane took a pass on the events.

A holomail came in on the 27th from the belters that were saved by their intervention. It turned out that their 100MJ laser fused the corsair’s maneuver drive, breaching the hull. Most of the crew perished before rescue could arrive on the scene. The corsair ship was sold for scrap and the proceeds used to pay the insurance premium of the belter community. As a thank you, the belter recorded a folk song and had it sent to the CAMEROON as a thank-you gift. The crew was the hero of a community of about 20 souls. As if this day had not been good enough, the Sisters of Mercy transferred the passage of the two nuns. One of them suffered a stroke, but the other called from the hospital to thank the crew.

Brethrow: come for the client, stay for the drinks.

Location: TSS Obama, LEO, Terra system
Terran timestamp: April 18, 2170 AD

The CAMEROON loaded up nearly to capacity the holds with packaged good bound to Prometheus. They settled the hunters into the high passage cabins and went on their way. The pre-jump thrust was uneventful. For the first time of their contract, the CAMEROON jumped.

Location

Prometheus is the oldest terran colony. With a jungle-like environment, some 850M terrans are living a colonial life mostly in high tech installations. The population is mostly of the Mormon faith in the centers. Gravity is 0.93G, temperature is around 30C-25C. Control rating is 3 and TL 10.


Location: Prometheus, 100D line, Prometheus system
Terran timestamp: April 25, 2170 AD

Philip was a dentist and Marion owned a 3D printing manufacturing business. They paid good money for the crew to insert them into a corrupt backwater on Prometheus named Brethrow. The terms: no paperwork filed to the highport and 3 dT of mystery cargo. Tom figured out that they were on some poaching kind of trip while Aeryn found them easy to keep happy as passenger. Tom noticed that they were preparing very high-caliber rifles for their trip. 

When the CAMEROON arrived, they made a beeline for Brethrow. The place was more or less an unregulated space. They landed on a Class E strip barely big enough for the Hero-class to land in the jungle. 

The hunters debarked, the crew stopped for a drink and soaked up the 35C, dense and moist atmosphere for an hour. They then departed for the UWO lowport to deliver their cargo and wait for the hunters for their call back home.


Location: Prometheus, Low-port, Prometheus system
Terran timestamp: May 1, 2170 AD

Six days went by at the lowport. Aeryn disappeared into the gym/MMA scene while Tom rounded up a few passages back to Terra. An ex-scout agreed to a medium passage and so did two needy and irritating pompous aristocrats. Diane managed to get the hulls full of jobs while Jane tried in vain to locate speculative cargo. 

The timing was rather good because a message came in, weak, from Marion. The message was garbled, video and audio failed. It fell back to text:

Help!
Philip is dead.
I’m trapped, we’re surrounded.

A set of coordinates then got uploaded. Diane rallied the crew into the bridge to await more details. Twenty-five minutes later, the CAMEROON came in LOS and scanned the coordinates. It was dense jungle, mist and 700km North from Brethrow. Diane found a pond some 400m to the east where the airraft could be inserted as the tree canopy around appeared to be some 60m high. By then, there was only 5 minutes to the entry window.

The crew decided to gear up for an extraction to recover Marion, the sherpas and the corpse of Philip the dentist. Someone pointed out that they never got around to purchase personal weapons other than the dazzlers lasers that Diane got in Douala. The exception was the carbine in the ship’s locker. In the interest of time, they voted against dropping by Brethrow to purchase better weapons.

The CAMEROON approached the coordinates. The 100m low precision became obvious when they realized how difficult the terrain turned out to be. More text streamed in:

()*(*ASDSDHLKSJDHSHAGU kslkjfs raptors sjkldkshlkjhflskjhd wd w9809udsjnl high-powered rifles kjsdjkhlakjdhfd9809adfpahdflandf asfkdj;f ;;;;

Tom and Anika suited up and boarded the air raft as the ship sliced through the jungle mist just before dawn...

Character Cast

• Tom Anders: Retired Marine, gruff, good hearted. Now get off his cargo hold.
• Diane Ayetou: born rich and far less qualified than given credit for. Gets an A for A-fort.
• Jane Calhoun: Business-like business end of things. Reluctant pilot, appreciate spirits and solitude.
• Anika Kaprescu: Recluse. Did some time, killjoy. The ship’s cat.
• Aeryn Lorien: Stumbling steward, athlete and nurse. Gets the ribbon for caring the most.
• Molly Pepper: Engineer and ship’s puppy. Her giggles are wasted on the crew.