Jam Session #3 - Starcrossed Serenade, Pt. 1
New Galveston Beat Arc Theme Song: “Getting Down” by The Kills // Session Intro Song: “Romeo and Juliet” by The Killers
If you would like a recap of the previous session, check out Jam Session #2: Raceway Bossa Nova!
The session opens up with Sirius Wang jotting down the details of a job he found - a young man named Christian and his girlfriend are stranded on New Galveston and need to leave immediately. They’re offering 8 Cred to be taken off the moon. Curious, but cautious - 8 Cred doesn’t come without a catch, after all - Sirius takes the job to the rest of the Crew, who are hanging out in the galley. As he walks in, Kuru Toga rushes by, stricken by a terrible bout of food poisoning (the player was unable to make the session), and locks himself away in the privy for an indeterminate amount of time.
Sirius presents the two decent-paying jobs to the crew: this escort job for the mysterious Christian and a salvage run on the Mun Mulgolgi. Both pay well, but the latter doesn’t have an immediate payout as the Crew would be responsible for offloading anything they find and that could takes weeks or even months. Cher Pepasi voices hesitation about taking on the escort mission, and Glenallen Mixon III backs him up, mentioning that no one who is “doing fine” offers that kind of money to be taken off world. Something is clearly up about this job, and not everyone on The Mississippi Queen is keen on risking their necks this early on in their career. The conversation goes back and forth over breakfast until ultimately Glenallen recommends that Sirius go and meet with Christian and learn more before making the final decision. Cher and Scruffy decide to tag along while Glenallen stays behind to do some research on their mysterious benefactor.
Glenallen’s research unfortunately doesn’t amount to much, so he decides to put on a little inspirational music, prepare himself a margarita, and get to work on his latest artist endeavor. Kuru Toga, unfortunately, remains indisposed and in dire need of a antacid.
An uneventful Auto-Taxi ride gets Sirius, Cher, and Scruffy back into downtown New Galveston on a busy Saturday afternoon. Folks of all types walk the cobblestone and brick streets as music fills the air. They navigate through the crowd, making their way to Train to Neo Edo where Christian said he’d meet the Crew. After quickly scanning the area for any signs of imminent danger, Sirius leads the trio inside and quickly spots Christian and a mysterious woman sitting in the corner. After a quick greeting to Mei - bored thanks to a surprising lull in business - the Crew sits down and starts talking details.
Christian and Satine are slow to share all of the details, but after some coaxing from the Crew, they reveal that Satine is the daughter of Richard von Baumbach, the owner of Baumbach Pharmaceuticals, a megacorporation based on Mars. She met and fell in love with Christian a few years ago and they’d been forced to keep their relationship a secret. Several months back they decided to run away when Satine learned she was expected to be married off to one of her father’s friends or a friend’s son - notably not Christian, who lived the life of a poor playwright and would, in Richard’s eyes, amount to nothing.
They had made it to New Galveston before a bounty hunter or one of von Baumbach’s men caught up with them and shot down their ship. They crashed into the ocean and barely managed to make it ashore in an escape pod. After laying low for a few days, Christian dared reach out to some Crews via the Boards, eventually finding “Fearless” (Sirius’s primary alias) and offering him Credits for a way out of New Galveston and passage to Lassell City, Triton (Neptune System). Christian offers up all 8 Cred to Sirius and the Crew immediately, begging them to get him and Satine out of New Galveston. Cher, reflecting on his own strained relationship with his father, gains a Blues as Sirius takes the Cred and accepts the job.
Before further action could be taken, a crew of bounty hunters kicked in the door to the Train to Neo Edo, demanding to know where Christian is. Turned out, not every crew and gang that the young lovers reached out to were as noble as our own Crew. Thinking fast, Sirius drew his tranq-pistol and fired off a shot at the bounty hunter doing all the talking. Meanwhile Cher moved Satine below the table and prepared to use his body as a shield if needed. Before anyone else could act, however, Mei whipped out a sawed-off shotgun and blasted away one of the bounty hunters. A firefight ensued with a few members of the Crew taking some minor flesh wounds and the entire squad of hunters wiped out. Christian, realizing he was out of his depth, gave Sirius the plasma pistol he had stolen when he and Satine ran away, figuring the captain of The Mississippi Queen would be a better wielder.
Unfortunately the Madet Corps arrived, forcing the Crew to think fast. Mei offered to buy them time by dealing with the police, but not before Sirius asked her out to dinner sometime. Despite the rather… intense situation she agreed, and also mentioned that she’d send the Crew the cleaner’s bill for the corpses. The Crew escaped through the noodle shop’s back door and wound their way through the labyrinth of alleys and back streets until they found themselves in the warehouse district of New Galveston. After taking a moment to catch their breath, Cher and Scruffy decided to take some nearby ladders and climb up to the top of one of the warehouses to scope out the area and make sure they hadn’t been followed. Meanwhile Sirius called Glenallen and had him start up the ship and be ready to fly. Glenallen - ever the bigger man - decided not to “I told you so” Sirius in the moment.
The camera cut away from the Crew for a moment to focus on a mysterious figure lining up a shot on Scruffy.
Back on The Mississippi Queen Glenallen and Monty the AI began preparing the ship for flight. While he wasn’t much of a pilot, with the AI’s help Glenallen was able to get everything ready faster than anticipated and awaited Sirius’s next call.
On the rooftops, Cher spotted the glint of the scope and told Scruffy to warn the others and he started running toward the sniper, nimbly climbing scaffolding and leaping between buildings. He reflexively ducked as the report of the sniper’s rifle filled the air, but continued running toward the shooter in hopes that he could disarm or disable their assailant. Meanwhile, Scruffy - the sniper’s first target - fell from the ladder as a bullet ripped through him, barely missing vital organs. He managed to mutter a warning to Sirius (“Sniper…”) and pointed in the general direction Cher had run off in as the captain began climbing the ladder to follow his companion.
The sniper managed to get off a second shot, grazing Cher’s left buttock and the young man leapt from one building to finally land on the rooftop where the sniper had made a nest. He drew his batons and demanded that the assailant back down, but wasn’t surprised when the sniper refused. She revealed that she was after “the young lovers,” and was more than happy to let Cher and the rest of the Crew go if they’d hand over the couple. Cher refused and the woman drew a knife before charging. Cher fought valiantly, but he was outmatched by the assassin and before long his femoral artery had been slashed open.
As Sirius reached the top of the ladder, he and Cher locked eyes from a distance. The young man, knowing he didn’t have much time left, tackled the sniper, wrapping his arms around her waist and throwing both of them off the side of the building in an attempt to buy his companions the time they needed to escape New Galveston. As his swansong played, Cher’s last thoughts were of his father and the hope that his old man might hear about this and know that his son went down fighting.
Shaken, Sirius returned to Scruffy and the couple and led them through the streets and alleyways once more. They encountered a few members of the Rainbow Gang again and quickly took down two members - one with a well-placed tranquilizer and the other with a .44 magnum bullet. Thinking fast, Sirius and Scruffy tied up the sedated member - who they believed might have been the leader based on their previous violent encounter - and finally made it to an Auto-Taxi station. They simultaneously hailed a cab and called Glenallen to fill him in - the job had gone south quickly and they lost Cher.
Taken aback, Glenallen decided to fly The Mississippi Queen to the Crew, and they settled on a spot just outside New Galveston’s restricted airspace. The drive was somehow uneventful, but as the Crew and the young couple in their care boarded the ship another group of bounty hunters closed in on them, opening fire on the ship as it pulled away from the shores. However, before The Mississippi Queen could make it to the Gate and escape to Triton a massive ship bearing the logo of Baumbach Pharmaceuticals arrived, hovering over the docking tower and blocking access to the Gate.
To be continued…
You can listen to the full Orbital Blues: The Mississippi Sessions playlist on Spotify.
