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Starring: 💳 Ciarán, 🧟‍♂️ Louis, 📎 John, 🗽 Quinn
Guest Starring: Asano Fukiyatsu, Ira Lieberman, Arthur Austin, Alondra Wells, Glenda Gray, Franko Yegorovna
Challenge: Dealing with a leaking engine; suckered into killing Arthur Austin
Location: Juno Station
Date Played: 16 June 2022

Stowaway and chthonic radiation

🗽 Quinn Apparently, one of the passengers that were waved off didn't stay waved off and instead hitched a ride in the cargo area. One minute we're kind of sailing through the deep dark smoothly and the next there is a knock from the cargo bay door. We work out who it is, and they tell us our engine is going bonkers. Our resident zombie engineer goes to check it out, and sure enough it is the next best thing to FUBAR. After some wrangling of resources (read, rats), Louis gets the engine sorted out (I hope).

We get kind of stuck in the process, though, as our premium ground control lapses and we get put into a queue. We then spend a while figuring out a way around the queue, and it is by combining calling my people (Moon Base Liberty) and having someone other than me (Ciaran) talk to them. A few harrowing hours of flying without our ground control safety net, and we arrive at Juno Station.

🧟‍♂️ Louis: I would like to state for the record that my procedures for corpse disposal were entirely in line with best practices at the time. It's only in retrospect that we can determine that it upset the cthonic balances and awakened an egregore that wanted flesh. Which was easy to provide- we had plenty of rats. Everyone seems to be hung up on the "the engine nearly exploded and condemned us to an eternity of suffering in the void between worlds" and not "what an easy fix it was".

💳 Ciarán: We departed with a passenger. We couldn't get rid of all of them. And what a shit passenger we ended up with, one Ira Lieberman. Whiney about everything. Worse than the CGO [Chief Growth Officer] of Kellogg's when we told him people didn't want cereal in space. We (politely) shut him up and lock him up in his coffin. THEN there's a pounding on the door to the rear of the ship. No one expects anything good, so Quinn and Louis check it out.

It's Asano Fukiyatsu. One of the passengers I got off the ship back on Escort. A little bit of showing him all the CHads reading on the sinometer (why the Catholics were allowed to name it, I have no idea...) makes him realize he fucked up and yes, we really were not fit for passengers. Louis rushes toward the engines, looking like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar and then Ira starts pounding on his coffin. And then BURSTS through it, hurting Quinn and then bursts out of it entirely.

We manage to subdue Ira (while Louis was asking about spacerats for some reason) but it's a pretty gnarly wound.

Juno Station

🗽 Quinn Now, listen. I know what you're going to say. "Come on, Quinn. Juno Station is run by a US corp, so it's the next best thing to being bloody Arkansas, or something. Use a different passport." Nah, if I have to walk among the denizens of imperial America, then I'm gonna thumb my nose at them.

I use my Moon Base Liberty ID, and end up getting a pair of jumped up rent-a-cops attached to my six o'clock. I run them through some lazy routines to see what their reach is and if they get squeamish, and turns out they are pretty good. I'd have to actually try in order to lose them.

Instead, I just keep them busy, go in a few places that cause them to lose direct sight of me for a while. Hopefully cause enough havoc to garner a few extra resources to keep my companions clear.

🧟‍♂️ Louis: "I'm" expected, or at least Ham is. And then there's some very specific offers coming from some very specific quadrants. There's a lot going on at Juno station, and frankly, it's the worst kind of office politics. The kind that makes me long for two hemispheres of plutonium and a screwdriver.

💳 Ciarán: After eventually being allowed to dock because we have a medical emergency on board, and unloading our medical emergency, we learn that the station is in disarray. It's been under constant renovation since Raytheon bought the White Elephant, and the scientists that call it home do not get along with their new stationlords. There are protests...

Cigars with Arthur Austin

🗽 Quinn Ciaran pulls me into the op right after it has apparently gone sideways, and our contact is dead. Apparently our Zombie has some friends who would like to take advantage of this, and our spook ("John") has their arch frenemy in the room too. Things are looking great.

💳 Ciarán: