Traveller Session 4

Aside from the bug fight in the cargo hold, it has been a quiet jump.

It is dinnertime on board and Earl has a private dinner with the singer Bhu Ki Hyt, the food is very good and they have a nice conversation, Bhu Ki Hyt is heading to the Lysander School of Operatic & Performance Arts. She is from the planet Miriam and she developed a good reputation there. She is taken aback by the implication that she is an unattached female, and she has received an anonymous note stating "if she is running from Z does she require any help, and if she is working working for Z she is in the wrong business." She received the note around 4 days ago which coincides with the timing of the bug fight. She is asking for our help to investigate this incident. After the meal Earl shares this information with us.

Junebug and Tharbin have been invited to the Captains office for dinner to thank them and us for dealing with the bug problem during the jump. No official reports will be made by us in regards to this matter, which the Captain appreciates. He informs them that he will only be planet side on Watson for a couple of hours for restock and refuelling. They ask about the other passengers on board to see if any of them have used this route/Liner previously, and only Lucan Jorgenson has been on the route several times before, but he will check the passenger manifest for us, and look into Lucans routes/trips as well. They ask when Lucan booked his passage on board the liner but it was not a surprise to the Captain as he regularly books last minute as required for his work and he had been dropped off only two weeks ago.

Name of the Liner:

MV Emperor Cato.

Captain:

Joseph McKinley.

Medic:

Gina.

The rest of us are in the main dining hall and everything is running smoothly until a scream break the silence, the mother of the small family on board watches as her daughter collapses. Cyndariel goes over the assess the situation and tries to help make the girl more comfortable, whilst awaiting the on board medic. She appears to be suffering from extreme altitude sickness and needs oxygen. They get her stabilised and take her away to the Med bay where the oxygen levels are returned to normal for her.

Earl escorts Bhu Ki Hyt back to her stateroom before joining us, and we find out from Cyndariel that the family is from a planet with a thick rich atmosphere, hence the issue with the daughter.

The World map of Walston

The next morning we emerge from the jump which is uneventful and land on Watson. The population here is very sparse in the thousands rather than the millions on most other colonised worlds, and is concentrated on a smallish island in the eastern area of the planet. We are the only group disembarking at Watson, Earl leaves his contact information with Bhu Ki Hyt and Cyndariel has been keeping up on the progress of the young girls recovery, the good news is that she is recovering well. We have only 15 minutes to disembark ans the airlock, so we all grab our gear and prepare to disembark. Before we leave Cyndariel asks Gina if the cargo bay has ever been invaded by anything before and but she responds in the negative but does admit that there have been payouts on damaged cargo due to the staffs complacency. We all equip our breathing masks due to the thin atmosphere, Masuyo heads straight to customs and puts her things in a locker before heading into the scout office inside the Star port. Masuyo makes two reports, the second of which is about the Liner with its negligent crew, bug infestation and long overdue maintenance required. I want to head out ASAP to find the ship so I can assess how bad the damage is and what sort of repairs will be required. Masuyo also inform the scout office that we are here to collect the Vagabonds Hope and can he tell us where to find it? Does he have any idea where we might find the previous crew? He did complain about the previous crew being real jerks that hated everything about Watson, They turned up back at the Space port about two weeks after their ship left in an air/raft and hung around until another liner showed up then they left Watson as soon as they could. No-one else has left the liner since we disembarked and it is now getting ready to take off again, the clerk in the scout office tells us to report tot the Port Authority Office for any more information on the Vagabonds Hope.

A mint condition Air/Raft

We are informed that the air/raft from the Vagabonds Hope came up from the South East ish, but if we want a more detailed flight plan we need to visit the Capital City and get in touch with the Government. We find out the next train is due in the afternoon so we hang around until we can board it, and it takes around an hour to reach Capital City. Masuyo and Tharbin visit the grandly named Palace and head to the government building. The reception desk is unmanned but there is a bell, when they finally get a response to the bell by a bumbling clerk passing by, they explain that they are visiting dignitaries working with the Scout Service and the clerk asks them who they would like to see. They state that they would like to whomever can give them the information regarding jobs given out to the Detached Scouts, and they are shown into a waiting room. Alan Greener comes in from Off-world Affairs, Masuyo explains the reason for our visit and Alan remembers the troublemaking crew and asks for our documents to prove who we are and our purpose. It appears that the previous crew had been given a job by the government and botched it and disabled the ship in the process before they departed the plant. They took the money that was paid but did not complete the job and now Alan is trying to trade us the information we require to complete the job in question. The job itself was reasonably simple, it was a survey carried out by the Vagabonds Hope using seismic charges on Mount Salbarri. Alan assumes that the ship is still somewhere in the region of Mount Salbarri, but as the previous crew were incompetent he is unwilling to offer us any further assistance, we do inform him that if we have time we will try to carry out his survey, but only if we have time. As a concession he will allow Masuyo yo carry her personal weapon with her despite the planets restrictions against it. Most of the land animal population here is relatively small and not considered dangerous due to the thin atmosphere, but apparently the sea creatures are quite large. We head to a hostel/hotel for some food and rest before setting out the next day.

We return to the star port on the train the next day because we need to collect our equipment/ cargo containers for the trip out to Mount Salbarri, we unfortunately have to leave our armour and weapons behind, but I need my tools and laptop. We the travel back to the Capital and then out to Salbarri the nearest town/village to the mountain, where we pick up an ATV and driver to take us up the Mountain. At 1100m the terrain gets much rockier with no vegetation, but there are signs of previous lava flowing down the mountain and showing that the volcano was once active. There are no new signs of volcanic activity, and the pumice is well rounded showing that it is quite old and there a faint permeating smell of rotten eggs but no other overriding scent of sulphur, at this point we have to leave the ATV behind and walk the rest of the way. We get to 1200m and the terrain begins to get very steep with a few extra hazards but we are still making good upward progress. At 1500m cresting the Mountain we see our first view of the crater, it is quite large and a small lake fills the centre with an island with lots of vegetation on it inside the crater. The island has a ship on it and it is surrounded by trash. The airlocks are all closed, but it looks like the previous crew has stripped it of anything valuable and left everything else strewn around. One thing catches our eye as we look through some binoculars is a forlorn metal bowl off on its own with the name Kimbly painted on it. Was it a pet? we make a note to check the ships log and have a look around for it. Masuyo descends into the crater with us following, the lake appears to be reasonably shallow, a deep wade we think, but we will need to test the water to make sure it is safe before we cross.

The view from the lip of the crater