Jam Session #5: Fearless Reprisal
Outer System Rhapsody Arc Theme Song: “Dawn of the Dead” by Does It Offend You, Yeah? // Session Intro Song: “Hell Broke Luce” by Tom Waits
If you would like a recap of the previous session, check out Jam Session #4: Star-Crossed Serenade Part 2!
The session begins at La Belle Aurore where Sirius Wang, Kuru Toga, and Scruffy the Maintenance Man nurse drinks as they reminisce over the death of their fallen friend and crew member, Cher Pepasi. Sirius, weighed down by his guilt - was he responsible for Cher’s death by recklessly helping Christian and Satine? Kuru alternated between wanted to reach out to Cher’s family and seeking revenge, but when he realized he had really known very little about Cher’s past before joining The Mississippi Queen he settled on vengeance and got to work looking for ways get back at Richard von Baumbach. Scruffy, being Scruffy, distracted himself by inspecting La Belle Aurore and making sure it was up to Janitorial Guild code, much to the chagrin of the nearby patrons. Blues were had all around as melancholy gripped our intrepid spacers.
While Scruffy argued with the bartender about the location of the club’s guild representative, Sirius and Kuru got down to business and started looking into Cher’s past in hopes they could uncover enough information to find his father. Was Mr. Pepasi a famous Go-Go dancer, or had he been an infamous art thief known for his daring heists throughout the System? Whichever it was (if it even was one of those options), the Crew wasn’t getting very far in their investigation. Wherever Cher’s father was, the man would have to wait.
The clock ticked as the trio watched the news and finished their drinks. The incident on New Galveston was being chalked up as a corpo-war between Baumbach Pharmaceuticals and an as-yet undetermined company, with the Fu Syndicate functioning as mercenaries. Word of the Crew’s involvement in the so-called “abduction” of Satine von Baumbach has so far not reached the ears of the public. Sirius excused himself to the bathroom as the news segment wrapped up and the bartender told Scruffy and Kuru to hit the pavement as it was 2 a.m. and La Belle Aurore was closing for the night.
As Sirius rejoined his boys the bouncer, a real mountain-of-a-man, had Scruffy and Kuru held up at the door, warning the maintenance man that the next time he decided to hassle the staff about the Janitorial Guild standards he’d be taking the window exit. Sirius quickly diffused the situation and after a little bit of small talk with the hulking behemoth at the door learned that Courtney was currently between jobs and looking for something a little more lucrative. The back-and-forth continued until Sirius convinced the rest of the Crew that signing on Courtney for a “trial run” of sorts to see how things work out - with Cher gone, having a bit of muscle may not be the worst idea, especially if everyone’s hell bent on vengeance.
Not wanting to spring another surprise on Glenallen, the Crew returned to The Mississippi Queen to run Courtney’s application by the artist and bankroller of the crew. The loading door slowly opened to an empty cargo bay - no sign of Glenallen’s makeshift studio. Scruffy checked Glenallen’s personal quarters as well and found it empty. No personal effects, no art supplies, and no note. The Artist was gone, forging his own path through the stars. Too tired to look further into it, the various members of The Mississippi Queen hit the sack, leaving Courtney to sleep on the too-small couch in the employee lounge. There would be time to track down Glenallen later.
Coffee, cigarettes, and contemplation met the Crew the following morning. Scruffy put the coffee on and got to reading his latest issue of SagaBoy magazine while Courtney slowly rose from his near-primordial slumber on the the overburdened sofa. An errant newspaper sat on the folding table - a welcome distraction from an awkward bit of morning small talk. After perusing the classifieds for a few minutes, Courtney realized that Scruffy was mimicking his posture and movements, although it was impossible to tell if it was intentional or not. Emboldened by this display, Courtney requested a cup of coffee and the two men got to talking, mainly sticking to topics found within their respective reading materials.
Kuru Toga joined them not long after and finally the captain graced his crew with his appearance, taking a moment to add some synthetic French vanilla creamer to his cup of mud before getting down to brass tacks and figuring out which job the Crew would take on next. The heavy industrial tones of “Hell Broke Luce” start playing as Sirius and Kuru take stock of their options - each of them skipping past the messages left by members of their respective pasts. Those lives were behind him, and they’d stay behind them at least for a little while longer.
Two jobs made the most sense to the Crew - repay the debt owed to Chilong and the Fu Syndicate for their assistance in escaping New Galveston or hit a Baumbach Pharmaceuticals warehouse a few hours’ flight north of Lassell City in the corporate town of Canaveral Minor. Scruffy briefly mentioned the scrapper job for the Junker’s Guild, but the recommendation was lost in the chatter. Emotional overruled logic and the Crew decided that the fucker Richard von Baumbach was going to get what he deserved and the Crew got ready to raid the warehouses.
With a job in mind, the Crew got to work looking into how to gather the necessary information - they’d need blueprints, access codes, and a sense of what the most valuable items were for their “smash and grab.” Sirius initially reached out to Ripley the AI, but was unable to get much information from her. While a powerful computational individual, Ripley’s function was managing a Black Gate, not gathering intelligence about corporate holdings. Temporarily defeated, Sirius looked for another lead before remembering Mifune, a fixer and hacker the Crew had worked with in the past. He had Monty reach out to the fixer and within a few minutes Mifune’s avatar popped up on screen with his customary “Konnichiwa, Amigos!” greeting.
The plan was laid out to Mifune, who said it would be a piece of cake to get the information but he wasn’t sure the Crew was up to the task of raiding the warehouse of one of the most powerful megacorporations in the System - even if Baumbach’s attentions were focused on Europa. After realizing he wasn’t going to talk Sirius and the rest down, Mifune agreed to do the work, but he’d want 2 Cred for his troubles. The Crew bargained for a discount, and Mifune backed down. He had, after all, taken a Cred from the Crew for the access codes to Mun Mulgogi, but when the Crew didn’t use them he went and sold them to the Junker’s Guild for a pretty penny. Not wanting to be greedy, he treated the previous Cred as a down payment for this work and told the Crew he’d be have the details in a few hours.
After a bit of downtime, the Crew took off toward Canaveral Minor with Mifune’s information in hand. There were three warehouses, with one of them guarded by one Bastion Sisto, a Baumbach employee known for looking the other way if the pay was good. The warehouse was stocked to the brim with synthetic blood plasmas, but with each bag only coming in at ¥34,770 (Yuan), it would take multiple pallets and a desperate buyer to crack a single Cred on the job. Fortunately, Mifune came through in a big way and also provided a blueprint of the building, complete with the locations of some supervisory offices. If the synth blood wasn’t going to be worth anything, maybe stealing some confidential information would make the trip north worthwhile.
The Mississippi Queen landed just outside the Canaveral Minor’s scanners and the crew geared up in their atmospheric suits. With Triton’s terraforming being incomplete, the air was too thin to support life on its own this far outside of a major settlement like Lassell City. Canaveral Minor itself also lacked a proper “atmo ring” around the city limits, but scanners had picked up on several “atmo pumps” scattered throughout the corpo-shanty town, so the Crew only needed enough O2 to make it into the city. One short hike later and the Crew was camped out on a ridge overlooking the terrible little town. It had all of your basic company town amenities - a Baumbach-owned general store, a few Baumbach-owned bars and clubs, and even several Baumbach-owned laundromats for the locals to wash their corporate-mandated uniforms (which of course the Crew didn’t have).
Realizing that they’d need to get their hands on some suits, Sirius, Scruffy, and Kuru snuck down into the town to try and steal some jumpers. Relying on skills acquired during his street urchin days, Sirius broke into a tenement building and managed to snag a few uniforms while the occupants were busy watching a game of fieldball (a sport somewhere between baseball and lacrosse in form and function) being played between the Tanegashima Titans and the Baumbach Blitzers. After a successful raid, the Crew quickly realized that none of the uniforms would fit the massive frame of their newest companion, and so they decided to delve a little deeper into Canaveral Minor and hit up one of the laundromats, pausing for a moment to regroup with Courtney.
Upon locating one such establishment, Sirius and Kuru quickly took down a pair of employees on a smoke break, broke into the building, and filched a double XL suit with lilac stripes along the sleeves and pant legs. Disguises in hand, the Crew made their way to the warehouse where they fell in line and waited patiently for two hours to be processed, figuring it was better to wait patiently than to raise suspicion. A nosey weasel-of-a-man noticed the atypical colors of some of the Crews stripes - Scruffy and Sirius were wearing the white-striped suits of cleaners while Courtney’s lilac-striped suit indicated that he was a technician - but he was quickly handled with some curt explanations and a polite “fuck off” from a few members of the Crew.
As they neared the front of the line, the Crew spotted their contact, Bastion. Noticing their pilfered suits almost immediately, Bastion pulled the Crew into a nearby office trailer, no doubt in an attempt to get his cut. When the Crew revealed that they had been given Bastion’s information via a fixer, the security guard began to panic, claiming he hadn’t realized that his name had gotten that far out there. Terrified, Bastion demanded that the Crew get him off world, or at the very least out of Canaveral Minor, or he’d rat them out. He didn’t care what they stole or who they were going to sell it to - he just wanted to hitch a ride on their way out. Hoping to quickly placate the guard, Sirius agreed, but he wanted another favor first. Since the goods in the warehouse weren’t worth much on the street, the Crew would need access to the managers’ offices in order to find something work snagging. Bastion quickly agreed and handed over an ID card for Mase Jonett and pointed them in the direction of the lift that would take them to the second floor.
Between the ID card and Sirius’s nimble fingers, the Crew found some valuable information rather quickly. Hidden in a floor safe was a little black book with several meetings, most of which had already happened. However, several future meetings were recorded, all with executives from rival corporations. Was Mase Jonett looking to jump ship, extort the competition, or maybe line his own pockets at the expense of his employer? The four biggest names in the book were:
Rence Flemart, a Shipping Executive with Enron-Gulf, an energy consortium.
Amin Jenker, a Research & Development Manager for Promethean Enterprises, a zaibatsu focused on developing Artificial Intelligences.
Gene Flore, a Supplier for Tanegashima Arms, an advanced personal weapons manufacturer.
Mese Thendav, a Corporate Lawyer for Zemly Agricultural Conglomerate, one of the largest industrial farming companies in the System.
In addition to these names, the Crew found six holotapes and a Cred chip, although they didn’t have time to immediately determine how much money was contained on it. Just as the rest of the team was wrapping up, Courtney uncovered a shipping manifest with many of the synth blood ingredients. It appeared that the next delivery of these ingredients is due for Hili City on Triton, a fair-sized city on the southern hemisphere.
As the Crew finished casing the joint, Kuru noticed a trio of corporate security guards making their way down the hall, stopping at each office door to inspect the goings on within. Thinking fast, the Crew ducked down behind various objects in the room and turned off the lights. Lying in wait, they were able to get the drop on the security guards once their door was opened, with Courtney grabbing the lead guard in a headlock and pressing a knife to the man’s throat. The guards were quickly knocked unconscious and their uniforms stolen before each body was stashed away somewhere in the office.
Without missing a beat, the Crew made their way back to the exit with a brief interruption from an “up-and-coming” salesman that mistook Courtney for a Baumbach technician. Sirius and Scruffy dismissed the salesman, stating they were on “official business” and continued walking as they were cussed out. An uneventful ride down the lift later and the Crew was heading for the gate. Bastian noticed Courtney who, admittedly, is difficult to hide, and tried to make a break for it, but Sirius brought him down with a tranquilizer round and after cuffing the poor bastard dragged him back to The Mississippi Queen and tossed him into the casino drunk tank before taking off.
While the blasted landscape of Triton fell away beneath the ship, Sirius made some calls, first reaching out to Chilong to try and use some of the information they’ve found to square their debt. After a few rounds of phone tag, the captain of the Mississippi Queen managed to not only wipe the Crew’s debt with the Fu Syndicate clean, but also earn a Cred by handing over the information about all four meetings being set up between Mase Jonett and the rival corporations. While the Fu Syndicate “still had to do a lot of legwork,” the information was going to be extremely valuable in their war with Baumbach Pharmaceutical. In the meantime, Monty the AI was tasked with decrypting the first of the six holotapes, a job he wasn’t programmed to do specifically, but was still able to carry out, albeit slowly.
Upon arriving in Lassell City, the Crew looked into finding a nearby broker or fixer, and found one in the form of Sybil Bancroft, a rather odd older woman with cybernetic hands and a hacker rig she could pull over her head like a helmet. She was able to hack into the Cred chip the Crew uncovered in Jonett’s office and after killing an alert-and-trace protocol, Sybil handed the Crew 2 Cred while taking the other 2 for herself. The Crew thanked her for her work before making their way to a street surgeon named Dr. Ezra Lovell to get Scruffy’s long-overdue injuries tended to, as the old man was beginning to… smell (and not in his normal “old man” kind of way).
After returning to the ship the Crew found Monty waiting for them. The AI decoded the first holotape and uncovered the information contained within. After being asked to dumb down the subject matter, Monty revealed that the information on the holotape would essentially make it very easy for the possessor to conduct some insider trading with Neo-Hawker Sydney stock. Initially quite excited, the Crew’s dreams were crushed when Monty explained that the Crew’s meager savings wouldn’t allow them to take advantage of this information, but instead recommended that they sell it off immediately. With five more tapes yet to be decrypted, the Crew hit the hay.
By the time everyone rolled out of bed and made their way to the bridge Monty had decrypted four more of the holotapes, laying bare the corporate secrets within. The sixth tape remained locked, however, as Monty encountered an AI that continued to rewrite the encryption as Monty worked to unlock it. Unable to progress further without risking itself, Monty stopped and recommended that the Crew take it to a proper hacker. Having just met Sybil the day before, Sirius ran the idea of taking the information they’d already uncovered to Sybil to sell off before hiring her on to decrypt the final holotape. The Crew agreed, and dropped off the goods on their way to a local Fu Syndicate backed club, The Lion’s Lips, making a cool 4 Cred off the insider trading information along the way.
Keeping an eye on the clock, Courtney and Scruffy helped an incredibly stoned Sirius Wang back to Sybil’s shop to pick up the unlocked holotape. They found the store’s lights all shut off, but the door itself was unlocked. The rank odor of burning plastic hit them as the Crew stepped into the building, and after a brief struggle to turn on the lights, Scruffy, Sirius, and Courtney found themselves face-to-face with the charred, partially melted corpse of Sybil. The hacking rig was fused to her skull and the needles extruding from her fingertips had melted to the holotape, which remained warm to the touch.
“Well she had a productive evening…” Scruffy quipped as Sirius freed the tape from Sybil’s melted grasp before they reviewed and wiped the security footage. Not wanting to stick around in case Khanate Mardets arrived on the scene, the Crew returned to The Mississippi Queen.
As the opening pipes of “Dawn of the Dead” begin to play we find the Crew lounging around the ship. Scruffy and Courtney read their copies of Saga Boy Gentlemen’s Magazine. Kuru strips and cleans his weapons as Cynthia the cat purrs contentedly at his side. Sirius, ever-vigilant for new job opportunities, picks up a pair of jobs that will take the Crew to Proteus and back. Roll credits, See You Space Cowboys.
You can listen to the full Orbital Blues: The Mississippi Sessions playlist on Spotify.
