Chapter 01 Session 12 Wrap Up

Narrative Recap

The Albatross tore out of hyperspace at the edge of the Katha system, and the blind jump had done more than put the crew in the right place. When the ship’s sensors swept the dark, they found suspicious vessels loitering at the gate that led back to Peric, waiting for something to come through. Had the crew taken the ordinary route, they would have flown straight into them. Nobody wanted to find out whether those ships were looking for them, so the crew steered carefully inward under Ronin Sanchez’s steady hands.

Shackleton, known as Shack, took the communications console and listened to the system’s broadcasts. Most of the chatter was a stock-ticker crawl about the price of bioluminescent jellyfish rights, until a military alert cut through it. The Federal Republic had locked down the entire Katha system. Nothing was to enter or leave for forty-eight hours, and no reason was given. Six was drawn to the broadcasts for a different reason. Hearing about the glowing jellyfish of Katha V, he started searching for the warm places in the system.

The cargo in the hold was almost nothing but space meth, which made a military lockdown a poor time to be flying around. The crew decided to lie low rather than head straight for the mining platform. They turned the Albatross toward the frozen world of Katha V, where the planet’s extreme tilt sends a thawing line crawling across the ice. The capital, Furosuto Supaia, sat along that line. Shack answered the starport’s hail with a cheerful story about sightseeing and jellyfish. The ship’s transponder was still on, so the port knew exactly who they were. Ronin brought the Albatross down to landing station twelve through the cold and the ice without a scratch.

Beyond the landing pad lay a gritty industrial scene. Great cranes hauled baskets of glowing goo out of fishing ships and dropped them into steaming pits. Stacks belched smoke and steam across the tundra, and domed hydroponic gardens glowed warm nearby. A luxury cruise liner’s transport, the Odysseus, was linked to the terminal by a boarding tunnel. Next to the Albatross sat a heavily modified starfighter with extra tanks bolted to its hull. Docking fees came to seventy-five credits. Six went to Shack for another hundred and twenty so he could see his jellyfish, and he took the money without a word of thanks. Shack, who was left with two hundred and eighty, grumbled about it.

Six invited Marlo Petrak, the probationary crewman, along on the adventure, and Marlo happily agreed. The two left through the airlock, properly this time. Shack went to the terminal to find out what the lockdown was about, and Rock Lavey stayed aboard to keep an eye on things with Ronin, who stood by the heater rubbing all four hands in front of it. The terminal was full of delays, long lines, and exasperated clerks. After a couple of hours of wandering, Shack had picked up three rumors. One said a terrorist threat had triggered the lockdown. Another said someone of great importance was being hunted. The third said smugglers were the target. He also noticed a group of forty or fifty tourists in shorts and t-shirts badgering a worn-out butler from the Odysseus. When Shack sat down next to the man at the bar, the butler told him his captain wanted the clients kept planetside to save resources. Federal marshals had asked for his ship’s manifest and seemed to be searching for a particular person.

At the security gate, Six declared his beam pistol and his stun pistol, but he insisted his vibro-axe was a tool and not a weapon. That meant a five-credit import tax. Six refused to pay it and walked on through. The alarms shrieked, turrets rotated out of the ceiling, and the guard warned him he would be fired upon. Marlo stood frozen, looking at Six as though he were insane. Six stopped, turned, and calmly told the guard that shooting him would be a mistake. Then he came back and paid the five credits. Satisfied that he had made his point, he led Marlo to the tram that ran down into the warm underground city.

Meanwhile, Rock watched from the ship as a figure climbed down from the modified starfighter. The man wore patchwork armor decorated with sugar skulls on the shoulder plates and walked with the precise gait of someone with army training. He crossed to the Good Fortune Company, which dealt in precision hydroponics and nutrient supplements. There he slipped something to a worker and then climbed into one of the company’s four-wheel-drive vehicles. It drove out across the tundra. Later that night, Shack’s sensors picked up trucks creeping through the snowstorm toward the same building. Near one in the morning, station security swept the landing field with tripod scanners that slid along a track the length of each hull, finishing with the Albatross. Shack sent his nanobots after the team, but they followed the security officers into a restricted area and he lost them.

Six and Marlo found Big Willie’s Jellyfish Adventure on the docks. The old woman behind the counter, Bertha, gave them a forty-credit discount because they had their own survival gear. They took the overnight excursion. With a couple of hours to spare, Marlo asked Bertha where to eat. She sent them to her cousin’s place on Dock 37, Captain Krusty’s. It was a counter with six chairs and a line that never ended. Along the wharf, enormous pipes pumped glowing blue and green fluid. The smell was a mix of ocean and animal guts, and Six was gawking like a tourist. The special cost four credits, and Marlo, who had been paying for everything, covered most of it. Six ate the warm, tentacled stew as if it were his last meal. Because it was not a frozen ration bar, he announced loudly to the whole shop that he was enjoying himself.

Back at the dock, there were safety drills to get through. Bertha ran eighteen tourists through the suit-donning and swimming tests. Six sailed through his and then lost patience with the slow ones, barking at them until Bertha begged him to stop and reminded him that these were her paying customers. She cut corners on several of their certifications anyway. Big Willie finally arrived in a golf cart, weaving and bumping his way along the dock. He was only five foot four and unsteady on land. As soon as he stepped aboard, his gait straightened and he climbed to the pilot house to take command. Two rough old crewmen loaded supplies and big blocks of ice with flesh frozen inside. Six threw a tourist couple’s overflowing luggage out of the bunk they shared. Bertha had to calm the angry man, and in the end the couple moved elsewhere and two teenagers took their places. The boat sailed out into the Arctic waters.

At five in the morning, Six was already on deck taking pictures and enjoying the sea breeze, while seasick tourists leaned over the railings. At the back, the two crewmen fed the ice blocks into a grinder and shoveled the slurry into the sea. Six, who was not used to working with others, convinced them to let him help. He lifted and shoveled with tremendous enthusiasm and kept having to be told to slow down and spread the chum out. The crew explained that they were feeding the jellyfish the remains of their own friends to draw them up. The giant ones were omnivores, and on other boats they had eaten tourists, which was why the fence and netting stood on this one. Six privately wondered whether pushing over a few fat tourists would spoil Big Willie’s clean record.

Back at the starport, Rock and Shack were being boarded. Hasib Eberhardt, the local director and Federal Republic marshal, called ahead and demanded to search the Albatross. His associate searched while Rock prepared knockout syringes and waited. The crew’s smuggling skills held up, and the cargo went unfound. Eberhardt showed them a holographic image of a missing entertainment star, wanted by her investors for skipping concerts. He mentioned a substantial reward for her return. Neither man recognized her, but Shack remembered the news reports, and Eberhardt noted that Six and Marlo were off on a hunting cruise.

As darkness fell, the jellyfish rose around the excursion boat in blues, reds, greens, and purples, some as small as a hand and some as big as vehicles. Six recorded everything and sent clips and selfies to the crew until he got emojis back. He took his turn at the crane and, with no help, hauled a decent-sized jellyfish out of the water for a photo. He then volunteered to take pictures for every tourist on board and sent those to the crew as well. At last Big Willie hauled up one of the giants and lined everyone up in front of it. Six stood at the front with a fixed smile and two thumbs up, a hastily bought Big Willie’s Jellyfish Adventure t-shirt stretched over his combat armor and ripping at the seams.

Back on the Albatross, Rock spotted a woman in the group photo who was clearly trying to hide her face. She resembled the missing star, Adelina Feliciano. Rock recalled that she was famous for her travel videos and concerts, and that her investors had every legal right to haul her back to fulfill her contract. Rock and Shack talked it over and could not safely tell Six, since any message could be intercepted. They weighed what they might gain, from a future favor to a reputation as people who turned others in. They also weighed the media frenzy that could crack open their own pasts. In the end they decided an anonymous tip was worth trying. Shack called station security and immediately gave his name and ship, then asked whether the call was recorded. A sergeant came to the Albatross, and Shack showed him the picture. The sergeant promised to look into it, but he warned that his report would need names. The crew insisted they be left out, and Shack said he might collect on a favor later.

Six came back loaded with souvenirs. He had spent every last credit on a jellyfish plushie for Shack, a tea towel for Rock, a kid’s t-shirt with holes for Ronin, and jellyfish liquor with two tentacles in the bottle. He had also bought a bumper sticker for the ship and a fuzzy jellyfish to replace the fuzzy dice on the console. At the dock, security guards were scanning faces. Six hung back and held Marlo with him. They watched a woman in a hood tap her face, and something shimmered. Her hair, eye color, and features changed, and she walked through the scan unnoticed. Six passed through, handed Marlo the bag, and told him to take it to the ship. He activated his chameleon circuit and followed the woman and a man who had stepped out of the shadows holding something against her side. The man wore sugar skulls on his elbows. He steered her out the door, cuffed her hands to the handle of a jeep, and drove off. Six decided it was not his business and returned to Marlo.

At the Albatross, Rock and Shack watched the same jeep, now marked with the Good Fortune Company logo, pull up. The armored man led a hooded woman toward his starfighter, and it lifted off. Soon after, the security sergeant stormed aboard, furious. The excursion boat search had turned up nothing, his director blamed him, and he needed the name of whoever had given him the tip. Rock pointed out the starfighter that had just left with the woman, and the sergeant ran off swearing. Shortly afterward the Republic lifted the travel blockade but added a mandatory search of every ship leaving the system.

The Albatross lifted off for Chae-gul 147 and the mining station, which was prospecting its volcanic world rather than mining it. They docked at bay seven, where chief supply officer Blaise Fabian hurried them. He told them to dump everything onto the conveyor belt before security came. Six and Marlo moved crates quickly, and Marlo took over when Rock slowed them down. Eliise Hawkins, the station’s security chief, arrived just as they finished. She was furious that nothing had waited for her inspection. When she asked why they hadn’t waited, Six blurted out, “Blaise told us to move it all before security showed up,” completely blowing the operation. Furious, Hawkins arrested Fabian and marched him down to the warehouse, ordering the crew to stay put. Shack realized they had maybe half an hour before she found the black ice and came for them.

Nobody had been paid. Six went out into the vacuum with his vibro-axe, cut the two docking locks free, and came back inside while the station spammed the ship with communication requests. Ronin pulled the Albatross away. Shack’s sensors then caught a stealth beacon latching onto the hull. Six went back out and stabbed its electronics. Interceptors began to trail them, six hours behind. After debating where to go, the crew picked the Dinon system, three days away by gate and four by jump. They plotted a blind jump to the outer edge of the system and made it by a single point. On the way, Six practiced decapitating dummies and decorated his bunk with printed pictures of tropical beaches. Shack kept studying the alien technology but needed an engineer or a physicist, and the nearest was at Startbase Tosell. Rock spent time befriending Marlo and tending the medbay.

When the crew checked the news, they found a five-hundred-credit warrant for the damage to the docking bay. There was no mention of smuggling, which suggested the company wanted to keep its illegal operation quiet. The five thousand credits they had been promised were gone. The syndicate that hired them had probably been purged, and nobody who owed them money would be able to pay. Other fallout loomed too: debt collectors who might impound the ship, and syndicate members who might want revenge. They were low on food and money, but Six was looking forward to a beach.

Memorable Moments

Six argues with a starport security guard that his vibro-axe is a ‘tool,’ refuses to pay a five-credit tax, walks away, triggers station alarms and ceiling turrets, then calmly pays the five credits.

Six’s stubborn refusal to pay a trivial tax nearly got him shot by automated turrets in front of a bewildered Marlo

“That would be a mistake.” — Six

Calmly threatening armed station security after triggering alarms and having ceiling turrets lock onto him over a five-credit import tax

“I am enjoying this food, Six announces loudly to everybody in his shop.” — Six

Six, unaccustomed to on-planet experiences, loudly proclaims his delight at a bowl of boiled tentacles at a tiny dockside workers’ eatery

Six stretches a Big Willie’s Jellyfish Adventure souvenir t-shirt over his full space combat armor, tearing it at the edges, and poses with two thumbs up for the group jellyfish photo.

Six fully committing to the tourist experience despite being a vat-grown killing machine in combat armor

Six exits the Albatross into the vacuum of space and uses his vibro-axe to manually sever the docking locks holding the ship to Chae-gul 147, freeing the crew for a desperate escape.

The crew had minutes before station security returned to arrest them for smuggling black ice

Shack calls station security to make an ‘anonymous tip,’ immediately identifies himself as Shackleton Magellan from the Albatross, then asks if the call is being recorded.

The crew’s attempt at anonymity collapsed instantly when Shack gave his full name before asking about confidentiality

Rock identifies a woman in Six’s tourist group photo as the missing entertainment star Adelina Feliciano, who had been hiding her face throughout the excursion.

Six had been unknowingly photographing a high-profile fugitive all night and sending the pictures to the crew

Six watches from the shadows using his chameleon circuit as the armored bounty hunter intercepts Adelina Feliciano at the docks, handcuffs her to a vehicle, and drives away — and decides it is not his problem.

Six had the skills and proximity to intervene but chose not to, as nobody had told him to get involved

Six returns to the Albatross having spent every last credit on jellyfish souvenirs for the crew: a plushie for Shack, a tea towel for Rock, jellyfish liquor for Ronin, and a fuzzy jellyfish to replace the ship’s fuzzy dice.

Six, a vat-grown combat replicant, spent his entire budget on tourist gifts while the crew was nearly arrested for smuggling