Pelican Tracks -- Entry 7
Sep. 7th, 2014 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaWell, after our recent adventures in hijacking pirate ships, plural, our trip to a warzone to make a delivery has been positively relaxing.
We made a long, slow, roundabout circuit into Nortrig to try and put most of the war on the far side. We ran low to the cloud deck and kept a sharp eye out for any trouble. A few days out, a courier zipped up alongside of us and we had a short chat. I was wary about giving out any details of our destination on the off chance that this guy was working for the other side (or even for Nortrig, frankly) so we made polite conversation and then parted ways. Turns out, the courier was on a run to Nortrig, but I didn’t feel too bad about it one way or the other.
Although the Pelican can run on a skeleton crew, it still requires an active crew at all times. Again, our recent hires have made it possible for us to get shuteye while the ship continues on. Apparently, while I was sleeping, Brendan spotted some disturbances out in the night -- flashes of light that were the telltale signs of some sort of battle. Brendan alerted Wrench who got Sanna up and they decided to push on ahead. I would’ve been more of a “let’s go around them” kind of guy but I didn’t get asked and by the time I woke up to advocate for my more circumspect approach it was really too late so we just doubled down and kept heading in towards Nortrig.
Since we were now only a few hours out from the island, I went up to the observation deck to keep a sharp eye out for the approaching landmass. Yes, a very sharp eye, ever vigilant, always facing forward. Thus it was only the shadow creeping up over me that clued me in to the customs ship that had swooped in behind us. [Ed. Note -- I rolled a 2]
Luckily, it was a Nortrig customs ship and that was kind of who we wanted to see. They boarded us, asked a lot of pesky questions and I simply showed them the manifest that said we were carrying stuff for their war effort. Having legitimate paperwork on hand is a refreshing change of pace.
Still, they were very keen to search for contraband. I, of course, did not believe we had any such material, but if there was an official list of contraband that I could examine, I’d be happy to declare any problematic articles so long as we could delivery this important war materiel to their country. Apparently the chief officer was new to the job or unused to people trying to be so helpful. He hemmed and hawed and then sent out for a list.
Meanwhile, one of the custom agents got a little too curious about the strange aroma that lingers in our cockpit. He couldn’t quite place it, but it was surely going to come back to him. I was faced with a dilemma -- on the one hand, it didn’t seem as though we could conceal Sanna’s weed from the agents and I was pretty sure it would be listed as contraband but on the other hand, I’ve seen Sanna kill a man like you’d swat a fly and getting her stash cleared out didn’t seem conducive to my long-term health.
In the end, since it really was the only thing of questionable legality we had on the ship, I decided to play dumb and innocent. By this time, I’d gotten the official contraband list and was going over it. Among a lot of strange items (including several types of alcohol) I finally came across the weed. At this point I put on a big show. Ah, yes, we do have some weed. It’d been prescribed to our pilot by a doctor on a far off island where this sort of thing was ok to treat her PTSD. She was always sober on duty of course, but it had really worked wonders for her. We don’t want any trouble so here is all of it that we have. Well, yes it’s quite a lot, but it’s hard to find and we were on a long flight so we stocked up.
We were either, painfully naive and innocent or quite simply the dumbest drug smugglers in the world. They turned over the ship, failed to find anything else and the officer stewed in his own confusion for a few minutes. Finally, he came back and told us we could keep the weed although it couldn’t be consumed on the island and that we should go to Custom Station 27 where we’d get clearance for entry into Nortrig. They pulled away, I begged Sanna for her forgiveness which she gave and we set off for the station.
Apparently, there’s a ring of Custom Stations on the outside of the island checking incoming traffic. We headed that way and just as the station came into view, we saw several sleek fighters burst up out of the cloud deck and start firing on it. Since the Pelican is in no shape to fend off a squadron of fighters, we quickly angled off and traveled up the side Nortrig’s caldera. As we hit the peak we spotted the tower of another Custom Station and frantically flashed a message about the attack. As we came down into Nortrig, we saw a small fleet of ships rush back the way we came.
Now flying over Nortrig, we signal a nearby landing field and get some directions. We put down and meet with the local airfield official who berates us for not having the proper tax stamps from a Custom Station. We point out that the Station we were directed to came under attack and while we weren’t able to get the stamps there, we were able to alert people to the problem and perhaps we could get the stamps here? There followed a little haggling, but it’s the kind of administrative wrangling I’m particularly good at. We got our tax stamps and a quality map of the island, which we allowed ourselves to get gouged a bit on in exchange for some goodwill and then flew off to our destination.
This turned out to be a major manufacturing plant. We landed and quickly had the goods unloaded and a fat stack of local currency in our pocket. I’m not sure how spendable Nortrig rubles are. They are backed by the full faith and promise of a country currently at war. I had some ideas around buying up a lot of the very fine (and tremendously potent) liquor they make here and shipping it out to a mining consortium where we might be able to sell it for some harder currency (and possibly load up on something they need hauled back to our end of civilization.
As we were leaving however, we were stopped by one of the factory’s employees. He was a very excitable young fellow who was worried about his brother and his brother’s family. Apparently, this brother is a professor of history and something of a pacifist. It would be best if he could get out of Nortrig and perhaps we could help?
So on the one hand, the Pelican is particularly good at spiriting people away from danger. On the other hand, this guy, if he’s genuine has the worst sense of discretion I have ever seen in someone concerned for the safety of a family member. At any rate, we made a supper date with his brother and we’ll see what comes of it. Hopefully not a long stint in jail.
* * *
A short but sweet session. We might be switching off to another game soon, people are pitching their ideas. Best bit from the evening:
Wrench (from engine room) to Brendan (who’s piloting the ship): Throttle the engine back.
Brendan: Uh...OK…Throttle the engine back
Wrench: Throttling back...wait.
later
Tom
We made a long, slow, roundabout circuit into Nortrig to try and put most of the war on the far side. We ran low to the cloud deck and kept a sharp eye out for any trouble. A few days out, a courier zipped up alongside of us and we had a short chat. I was wary about giving out any details of our destination on the off chance that this guy was working for the other side (or even for Nortrig, frankly) so we made polite conversation and then parted ways. Turns out, the courier was on a run to Nortrig, but I didn’t feel too bad about it one way or the other.
Although the Pelican can run on a skeleton crew, it still requires an active crew at all times. Again, our recent hires have made it possible for us to get shuteye while the ship continues on. Apparently, while I was sleeping, Brendan spotted some disturbances out in the night -- flashes of light that were the telltale signs of some sort of battle. Brendan alerted Wrench who got Sanna up and they decided to push on ahead. I would’ve been more of a “let’s go around them” kind of guy but I didn’t get asked and by the time I woke up to advocate for my more circumspect approach it was really too late so we just doubled down and kept heading in towards Nortrig.
Since we were now only a few hours out from the island, I went up to the observation deck to keep a sharp eye out for the approaching landmass. Yes, a very sharp eye, ever vigilant, always facing forward. Thus it was only the shadow creeping up over me that clued me in to the customs ship that had swooped in behind us. [Ed. Note -- I rolled a 2]
Luckily, it was a Nortrig customs ship and that was kind of who we wanted to see. They boarded us, asked a lot of pesky questions and I simply showed them the manifest that said we were carrying stuff for their war effort. Having legitimate paperwork on hand is a refreshing change of pace.
Still, they were very keen to search for contraband. I, of course, did not believe we had any such material, but if there was an official list of contraband that I could examine, I’d be happy to declare any problematic articles so long as we could delivery this important war materiel to their country. Apparently the chief officer was new to the job or unused to people trying to be so helpful. He hemmed and hawed and then sent out for a list.
Meanwhile, one of the custom agents got a little too curious about the strange aroma that lingers in our cockpit. He couldn’t quite place it, but it was surely going to come back to him. I was faced with a dilemma -- on the one hand, it didn’t seem as though we could conceal Sanna’s weed from the agents and I was pretty sure it would be listed as contraband but on the other hand, I’ve seen Sanna kill a man like you’d swat a fly and getting her stash cleared out didn’t seem conducive to my long-term health.
In the end, since it really was the only thing of questionable legality we had on the ship, I decided to play dumb and innocent. By this time, I’d gotten the official contraband list and was going over it. Among a lot of strange items (including several types of alcohol) I finally came across the weed. At this point I put on a big show. Ah, yes, we do have some weed. It’d been prescribed to our pilot by a doctor on a far off island where this sort of thing was ok to treat her PTSD. She was always sober on duty of course, but it had really worked wonders for her. We don’t want any trouble so here is all of it that we have. Well, yes it’s quite a lot, but it’s hard to find and we were on a long flight so we stocked up.
We were either, painfully naive and innocent or quite simply the dumbest drug smugglers in the world. They turned over the ship, failed to find anything else and the officer stewed in his own confusion for a few minutes. Finally, he came back and told us we could keep the weed although it couldn’t be consumed on the island and that we should go to Custom Station 27 where we’d get clearance for entry into Nortrig. They pulled away, I begged Sanna for her forgiveness which she gave and we set off for the station.
Apparently, there’s a ring of Custom Stations on the outside of the island checking incoming traffic. We headed that way and just as the station came into view, we saw several sleek fighters burst up out of the cloud deck and start firing on it. Since the Pelican is in no shape to fend off a squadron of fighters, we quickly angled off and traveled up the side Nortrig’s caldera. As we hit the peak we spotted the tower of another Custom Station and frantically flashed a message about the attack. As we came down into Nortrig, we saw a small fleet of ships rush back the way we came.
Now flying over Nortrig, we signal a nearby landing field and get some directions. We put down and meet with the local airfield official who berates us for not having the proper tax stamps from a Custom Station. We point out that the Station we were directed to came under attack and while we weren’t able to get the stamps there, we were able to alert people to the problem and perhaps we could get the stamps here? There followed a little haggling, but it’s the kind of administrative wrangling I’m particularly good at. We got our tax stamps and a quality map of the island, which we allowed ourselves to get gouged a bit on in exchange for some goodwill and then flew off to our destination.
This turned out to be a major manufacturing plant. We landed and quickly had the goods unloaded and a fat stack of local currency in our pocket. I’m not sure how spendable Nortrig rubles are. They are backed by the full faith and promise of a country currently at war. I had some ideas around buying up a lot of the very fine (and tremendously potent) liquor they make here and shipping it out to a mining consortium where we might be able to sell it for some harder currency (and possibly load up on something they need hauled back to our end of civilization.
As we were leaving however, we were stopped by one of the factory’s employees. He was a very excitable young fellow who was worried about his brother and his brother’s family. Apparently, this brother is a professor of history and something of a pacifist. It would be best if he could get out of Nortrig and perhaps we could help?
So on the one hand, the Pelican is particularly good at spiriting people away from danger. On the other hand, this guy, if he’s genuine has the worst sense of discretion I have ever seen in someone concerned for the safety of a family member. At any rate, we made a supper date with his brother and we’ll see what comes of it. Hopefully not a long stint in jail.
A short but sweet session. We might be switching off to another game soon, people are pitching their ideas. Best bit from the evening:
Wrench (from engine room) to Brendan (who’s piloting the ship): Throttle the engine back.
Brendan: Uh...OK…Throttle the engine back
Wrench: Throttling back...wait.
later
Tom
