Jam Session #12: Jailbreak Rock
Tango with the Past Arc Theme Song: “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” by Muddy Waters // Session Into Song: “Jailbreak Blues” by The Heavies
The session opens up with Kuru Toga - still pretending to be “Steve the Guard” - in the middle of a sweep of Facility Zeta’s manufacturing floor with a guard named Hawke Vangelos. He had been separated from Courtney when the facility sergeant paired off his men at random and quickly found his new “partner” to be infuriating. The sweep is relatively uneventful with the duo getting ready to leave when Kuru catches some movement in the corner of his eye. He gives chase, running up to the catwalks crisscrossing the ceiling and chasing down his quarry.
The target in question is one Joe Shi, a known rat in Facility Zeta who probably would have been knifed long ago if not for his role as Giovanni’s messenger and general sneak. Shi claims he got mixed up during the alarm and by the time he figured out what was happening the factory was already empty. Hawke, not buying a single word, decides to rough up Shi a bit and Kuru, not wanting to blow his cover (while also trying to blow off a little steam) joins in for a few minutes before they cuff him to a nearby pole and try to figure out what to do with him.
Meanwhile, Courtney is paired with a guard named Wagner Dewitt make their way back to the bunks where Wagner says that everyone is going to be suspicious of him and “Greg” since two guards are dead and no one knows who those two are. Courtney and Wagner have an argument that leads to Wagner getting decked in the face by another guard. Not wanting to stick around the angry puncher, Courtney makes his way to his bunk and meets a man named Quinn Vasser, who was a former inmate “promoted” to guard for a combination of good behavior and having “creative problem solving methods.”
Finally, Scruffy ducks out of the maintenance office to meet with Giovanni Koklinski, who sends him to find Joe Shi, who was last seen in the manufacturing wing. The janitor makes his way to the factory where he finds not only Joe, but Kuru Toga. Scruffy collects the weaselly little fellow and heads back to Cell Block 23, but makes a quick detour to chat with Courtney (who quickly hides the cuppa he was having with Quinn behind his back) where he learns that Quinn has taken an interest in escape as well and is willing to do what it takes to get a sweet taste of freedom.
Scruffy heads down to the factory floor and finds Kuru Toga. He collects Joe Shi, meets with Courtney, and then drops off Joe with Giovanni. Scruffy decides to cash in his favor with Giovanni, asking for the mobster to find someone they can pin the murders of the two guards on so that lockdown is lifted. Giovanni agrees, but he’s going to need a few things: all of the identifying items that Courtney and Kuru Toga took off the dead guards and for Hawke Vangelos to be eliminated, but only after he has his meeting with the facility sergeant. Hawke may notice that Kuru Toga’s gone missing and they can’t have any loose ends. Giovanni lets Scruffy know it’s gonna be another 24 hours to get all this done, so the boys are going to need a place to lay low for a few days.
***
Back at the Xihe Station Sirius pushes The Mississippi Queen to its limits as he races to the Skip Gate. Narrowly avoiding a collision, Sirius squeezes past a freighter vessel and enters the Gate, having no idea where it will be taking him. He breathes a sigh of relief for just a moment, but it turns to ash in his mouth when he realizes three Imperial Khanate fighters managed to get into the Gate behind him, still in hot pursuit.
Monty does some quick calculations and determines that the Skip Gate was connected to the Maven Gate orbiting Mars - a long way off from Sirius’s destination. Unsure of what to do regarding his travel plans, Sirius focuses on the fighters on his six, trading blows and even destroying one of the fighters as The Mississippi Queen hurtles across the Solar System faster than the eye can see. One of the Khanate fighters, a larger two-seat model, begins charging up an ion cannon, forcing Sirius to resort to the most desperate of measures: exiting Skip Space without a Gate.
It’s a move that, while technically possible, is incredibly dangerous. The sudden deceleration will tear more ships apart panel by panel. Unfortunately the alternative for Sirius is to have an ion blast do pretty much the same thing. He orders Monty to shut down The Mississippi Queen’s Skip Drive, severing its connection to the Gates and Skip Space around them. The vessel shudders and the streaking lights of Skip Space fade as the awful din of tearing metal fills the air. Sirius blacks out for an unknown period of time, but when he comes too he’s drifting in space somewhere between Saturn and Jupiter.
Monty lets him know the ship has suffered massive damage and atmosphere is being vented into space. The bridge remained intact, but that’s about it. Sirius dons a spacesuit, grabs his gun, and explores the rest of the ship. He finds Roscoe floating just above his chair, the straps keeping the corpse from bouncing around the corridor. If the poor guy wasn’t dead before, he was now.
In the brig Sirius finds a surprise: Clark Weithoff managed to grab an oxygen mask through the bars of his cell and is still clinging to life. Sirius, gun trained, helps Clark get into a space suit and brings him back to the bridge. The two work out a deal: Clark will help Sirius get back to Saturn - the closer of the two planets - where he can get the ship repaired before traveling to the Jovian System. In exchange Clark gets Roscoe’s body to turn over to his Khanate handlers. The two shake on it and begin the long, sublight journey back to Saturn…
***
In Cyllene, Scruffy meets with his supervisor Cydni and submits an official complaint about Hawke Vangelos, hoping to move some of the heat off his friends and over to the asshole guard. Meanwhile, Courtney and Kuru Toga (now wearing stolen prisoner jumpsuits) lounge around in their new cell, courtesy of Giovanni. A pair of legitimate guards come in and question Giovanni about any new faces or strangers in the cell block, as the Zeta sergeant noticed that two extra guards haven’t been accounted for since the emergency meeting. Giovanni plays it cool and swears up and down that he hasn’t seen anyone new - “You know I’d tell you, I hate when shit around here threatens my status quo!”
After dealing with the guards, Giovanni tells his newest friends that they’re going to need to get a move on - things are getting a little too hot, too fast.
***
Sirius speaks with Tom Sawyer who tells him he’s gonna drop the rest of the Crew off at Catapult Station at the edge of the Jovian System. With the creation of the Odessa Station, Catapult has become less prominent of a station, making it easy for folks to move in and out unnoticed by the Imperial Khanet Mardet Corp. With the drop off confirmed, Sirius works with Monty to figure out the best course of action before deciding to fly back to Phoebe, which should take about 3 days.
Clark agrees to this and hands Sirius a Credit chip he found on Roscoe’s person, which contains 8 Cred. Sirius tries to convince Clark to hang around and talk to Kuru Toga, but Clark flat out tells Sirius that unless he’s getting his guns back he isn’t sticking around to get shot by “Rose.” Sirius accepts this and the two begin preparations to fly The Mississippi Queen to Phoebe.
***
Meanwhile Kuru decides he’s going to assassinate Marco with an exploding cigar made from four cigarettes and the battery from the carbon cutter. Kuru hands out cigarettes and prison cigars while Giovanni gives a farewell speech. The explosive cigar is surreptitiously given to Marco, who lights it up in celebration. The boys decide to beat feet and gather their things. Scruffy, unable to take his cleaning supplies through the air vents, packs all of his items in the spare cell Giovanni had let him use and wordlessly removes his name badge, leaving the Janitorial Guild behind him. Without further delay, the boys climb through the air vents after Joe Shi, popping out just as Scruffy hears a dull, explosion-like thud in the background, which he and Kuru brush off as “HVAC sounds.”
They arrive at the facility’s loading bay and spot two guards: Quinn Vasser and Hawke Vangelos. Taking advantage of the element of surprise, Kuru Toga opens fire on Hawke and is pleasantly surprised when Quinn (who he hasn’t officially met yet) also shoots Hawke, killing the guard before the man can do anything. Quinn spots Courtney and lets the man know there was an explosion in Giovanni’s cell block, which the Cremisi capo assumes was meant to be an attempt on his life.
The train arrives just as guards from the Zeta Facility arrive at the platform, firing at the Crew as they climb aboard. Scruffy and Quinn make their way to the front of the train, followed by the rest of the Crew, Gio, and Joe Shi (who Giovanni brought along) and incapacitate the robotic engineer. Unfortunately this triggers a deadman’s switch, forcing Scruffy to hotwire the train and begin driving it himself. Unfortunately he gets a little too enthusiastic about the speed and the train starts to rock on its tracks - never a good sign.
***
Back on The Mississippi Queen II Sirius tries to get the jump on Clark as the two sit on the bridge, but the savvy hitman-turned-bounty hunter doesn’t let his guard down. Sirius grumbles about how he wishes Clark would have tried to sneak on board and kidnap Roscoe so they wouldn’t be in this mess, to which Clark points out that he tried to pay off Sirius, who turned him down - commending him for his loyalty, but condemning him for his short-sightedness. Sirius continues to grumble and leaves the bridge to return to his room where he spends some time hiding a tracking device in one of Clark’s plasma revolvers before finally taking a look at Glenallen Mixon III’s message.
The former crew member’s message opens with an awkward, rambling apology before mentioning that he was trying to get back to Mars but ran out of money at Catapult Station. He uncovered an opportunity to make a some money, but needs some extra help and didn’t know who else to turn to. Sirius takes a moment to reflect as he reads a message from Mifune asking if the Crew was ready to meet up with Miss Wonderly. Figuring he could kill three birds on one station, Sirius tells Mifune to have Miss Wonderly meet them at Catapult Station and sends a message back to Glenallen letting him know the Crew will help him out.
***
Back on Cyllene a transport VTOL and two VTOL gunships begin pursuing the train. Giovanni is confident they won’t do any real damage to the train or tracks as that would bring the manufacturing of goods to a grinding halt, but warns the Crew to prepare for riot commandos to board the train. The mobster had seen the Riot Corps deployed only once in his decades-long sentence at Cyllene - years ago - but the carnage still woke him up at night.
With only minutes to spare, Courtney and Quinn raced to the rear car, which the former guard mentioned contained an armory. They managed to nab a shotgun, light machine gun, a rocket launcher, a few grenades, and a few pieces of armor and shields. Meanwhile Kuru Toga worked with Scruffy (who had swapped places at the helm with Joe Shi) and Giovanni to build a makeshift barricade out of the benches in the train car. Then, just as Court and Quinn arrived with the weapons the Riot Commandos began boarding the ship. Thinking fast, Scruffy ordered Joe to quickly brake and then accelerate, causing a few of the commandos to miss their breach points and buying the Crew more time to prepare as their enemy had to take the time to regroup and pull their comrades into the train.
Kuru, giddy with childlike glee, loaded the rocket launcher and sent a shot down the train at the advancing Commandos, wiping out four and nearly blasting the back half of the train off the rails. A heated gunfight ensued with the Crew managing to keep the Commandos back until finally Scruffy finished them off with a well-placed grenade. However, with the damage already done to the train, the gunships were now authorized to use deadly force and wipe out the Crew without concern for collateral damage. Courtney and Scruffy laid down covering fire while Kuru Toga climbed on to the roof before bringing down the gunships with an almost machine-like precision.
The immediate threats handled, the Crew turned their attention to exiting the train. Not wanting to make it super clear where they were heading, the Crew decided to let the train keep rolling down the tracks while they jumped off near the loading dock where Kuru and Courtney had first arrived. Thanks to some more quick thinking (and an eye for detail) from Scruffy, the Crew was able to rewire the hastily-done hotwiring of the train so that they didn’t have to keep someone at the controls. With the loading station quickly coming up on the horizon the boys readied to jump.
The landing wasn’t soft, but not one suffered serious injuries. Quinn led the Crew to a sewer grate (unknowingly helping his new friend Courtney check off a bucket list item) and they snuck through a maintenance shaft toward a crater that the prison has long used as a dumping ground for all manner of waste. The smell was unbearable, but fortunately steel catwalks and concrete platforms along the sides of the pipeline allowed the Crew to stay dry and unsludged. After moving a few miles they bunked down for a couple hours, opting to stay in the relative shelter of the fetid pipeline rather than exposing themselves to search patrols on the surface. Once everyone was rested up they continued their trek, leaving the sewers and making their way across the moon’s desert toward the agreed upon landing coordinates of one "Tom Sawyer."
As they approach the Crew notices a strange light in the Cyllene sky - not the usual arcs of electricity between the moon’s thousands of satellites - but a streak almost reminiscent of a shooting star. Scruffy identifies it as an object entering orbit and he is quickly validated by the appearance of an older model Neo-Hawker Sidney Marlin-Class hybrid fighter-bomber named The Black Cat. They race to the ship just as the cockpit opens and a man climbs out. The pilots introduces himself as Tom Sawyer and quickly gets them loaded into the bomb bay, which had been converted into something of a cramped storage and/or living space. After a quick explanation that didn’t really explain anything at all, Tom Sawyer flash froze the crew with the cryo jets in the storage space before plotting a course with The Black Cat and taking off before flooding his own cockpit with cryo gas.
The Crew, groggy from their sudden freezing and thawing, awakens two hours later. Tom Sawyer offers them some rations, bad coffee, and worse beer and lets them know it’ll be a few hours before they get to Catapult Station. Confused, the Crew asks about the change in destination, forcing Tom Sawyer to explain what he knew about Sirius's situation - namely that The Mississippi Queen II had taken considerable damage in a Skipspace accident and that Sirius had to go to Phoebe, Saturn to get the ship repaired. Tom Sawyer also mentioned that there was apparently some kind of job waiting for them at the Catapult Station, but he didn’t have further details.
After filling up on what nominally passed as grub, Scruffy climbed up into the cockpit where he found a picture of a younger Tom Sawyer with a man that looked startlingly similar to Glenallen. Tom Sawyer explained that it was his friend and former co-pilot Darryl Onsen Mixon, or “Dio” for short, although he was pretty sure Dio had a younger brother. However, the smuggler wouldn’t go into further detail, only letting Scruffy know that Dio had died more than ten years ago in a ship crash.
The rest of the flight remains uneventful, with Tom Sawyer offloading the Crew at the Catapult Station and grabbing a beer with everyone before heading out. Giovanni and Joe Shi parted ways as well, meeting up with some contacts they had on the Station to get back to NoBo to meet up with Aurelio Lupo. The Crew checked out some room at the Great Abyss Hotel, periodically sending someone to the docks to look for their ship and captain.
***
While his crew has a relatively enjoyable flight to Catapult Station, Sirius and Clark are forced to limp their way to Phoebe where the two finally part ways. Clark, true to his word, gives Sirius the bounty money and leaves with his guns and Boscoe’s body, but not before telling Sirius that the Crew should get out of Khanate Space and lay low in the Belt or maybe Mars. Sirius considers the man’s words before having Monty schedule a repair from the Junker’s Guild’s automated drones, paying a premium price to get The Mississippi Queen II back in flying shape in 24 hours. With the ship repaired and a fat stack of Cred in his pocket, Sirius departs the shipyards orbiting Phoebe and makes his way to the Catapult Station to reunite with his Crew and an old friend…
You can listen to the full Orbital Blues: The Mississippi Sessions playlist on Spotify.
