I have not been keeping up this journal, entirely due to laziness. Therefore this entry is just a very basic precis outlining the barest bones of events.
- The crew decided to try to jump their way back to Terran space, preferably avoiding any Perseid Imperial entanglements. They can carry enough fuel for four (?) jumps, and plan to refuel at handy gas giants. The navigation database they've been gifted shows the coordinates of star systems along their route, but not the composition of those systems, so each jump is a bit of a gamble when it comes to refueling. If they don't find a refueling stop after two jumps, they're going to use their third jump to hop to a known inhabited system for refueling, leaving them with fuel for just one more jump.
- Things went okay briefly, but then a series of effectively useless systems meant that they had to take the emergency Perseid-engagement option.
- They jumped successfully to TALAT, a Perseid manufacturing colony fairly near to the imperial border.
- Unlicensed aliens are not very welcome, and allowances are not made for them. There is no legal free refueling available in this system, so they're going to have to find a way to come up with some local money.
Talat
There is one human(oid) habitable planet in the Talat system, very heavily industrialized. There are a multitude of sealed environments on other planets, moons, and asteroids, as well as a fair number of orbital installations, all servicing the central industrial core at Talat Prime.
There is an alert and active Imperial Customs and Police presence in the system. There is also a thriving criminal underworld and black market.
The predominant species are Perseids, but there are also a lot of non-Perseid species present as well, mainly from the CCR, with whom the Perseid Empire maintains fairly friendly relations.
- Our ship was pinged almost immediately on arrival, and on claiming the status of Distressed Mariners, a long, tedious, and intrusive immigration procedure ensued. Both the ship and crew were subject to intensive and detailed scans and tests. The Perseid techs were very very interested in the shiny and seamless navigation and jump controllers gifted the ship by the Dreary Remorse, but were unable to find any way to look inside. So they just took them out (without even asking) and replaced them with standard Perseid modules, jury-rigged to interface with the Terran systems of the ship.
- Once they were allowed to land on the surface, and were given temporary licences as Alien Visitors (spaceport only), Esekain'os made contact with a fairly low-level L'regh criminal family, in the person of a supposed street-food vendor named DAGOG.
- Esekain'os organised doing a job for the Family: delivery of a discreet cargo to one of the asteroid belt factories, accompanied by Dagog's two "sons" (?), MAGOG and AGOG. A successful conclusion will earn the team 10,000 credits (they need 40,000 to refuel fully, plus docking fees).
The L'REGH (of which Eskain'os is one) are humanoid-insectoids, with chitinous skin, compound eyes, and creepy mouth-parts.
- The cargo arrived at the ship, in the form of a number of nondescript crates, along with Agog and Magog.
- The outgoing Customs inspection went suspiciously smoothly. Also, a potential boarding by a patrol ship on the outbound journey was unexpectedly aborted after Agog (or Magog) spoke with them. It appears that Dagog and his family might have more clout than first appeared.
- The ship arrived at its destination and landed without problems, but the unloading party (naturally) turned out to be hijackers. They were fought off with heavy losses, but the cargo bay systems, and all the un-hardened spacesuits therein (Our Heroes) were briefly knocked out by an EMP grenade. Also, Eskain'os had an arm blown off.
- New unloading arrangements were made, and carried out, by Agog and Magog.
- The "discreet cargo" turned out to be small stasis pods, child-sized. Hmmmm.
- Turns out that the ship's AutoDoc isn't programmed for L'regh physiology.
- They made it back to Talat Prime, and got their 10,000 cr. bounty. Also, the Family arranged to have a new arm put on Eskain'os as a courtesy.
- The ship has been moved to a bay in a part of the spaceport controlled by the Family, which makes life a lot cheaper for our gallant Crew.
