Session 11 Summary
The Dire Straits traveled in to Zerzi Station to acquire more pheromone substrates for Chris from their contact with Dohpaz Vito’s organization. Along with the substrate package, they picked up a new job, a pallet of 16 crates to discreetly deliver to a Sonada Jani’s business in the city of Alodon on Seed, the sole habitable planet in Golden Seed system.
During the transit across Zerzi system, Jithal examined the crates on the palette, determined that they appeared to be 12 plasma rifles in each one. Research on the tatternet determined that Golden Seed was inhabited almost exclusively by humans, and that while they were generally aware that non-human species existed, most of the population would be very much aware of the strangeness (to the) of Jithal. Also, the planet did not have general access to the tatternet; only the wealthiest citizens of the planet could access it, and they kept their private tatternet nodes tightly locked down.
The landing field was a literal field in the middle of a cluster of brick warehouses. From tatterpedia maps they had downloaded of the city, the location of Sonada Jani’s business was halfway across the city, near the river. Fortunately, there was a crew of stevedores unloading some wagons into one of the nearby warehouses. Steve and Delano went over to hire a wagon pulled by two ox, and a driver, Borb, to help get the palette of crates across town. Chris stayed on the ship, while Jithal, wearing a burkha to cover his non-human form, played it safe and pulled himself up into the wagon and under the tarp covering the palette.
Soon after they entered the slums, they were accosted by a gang of thugs who blocked their path both forward and back with stacks of furniture, and demanded a toll. Delano Mack, who was riding shotgun next to the driver of the wagon, paid over the last of their local cash, with the threat of his blaster to make sure their toll was enough, and that they wouldn’t have to give up any of their cargo.
The wagon continued into the entertainment district, full of bars, pawn shops, music halls, and bordellos. Their driver pulled up short when a well-dressed woman stumbled out of a bordello and into the path of the oxen pulling the wagon. She was followed by 4 of her security guards.
The woman identified Delano and Steve as from off-planet, and drunkenly demanded to see what off-planet goods they were moving, as she was Lady Ariana Zanetti and was always interested in something new.
Delano insisted they had nothing she was interested in, just machine parts, but she insisted that her head of security jump up on the wagon and see what they had under the tarp. Her head of security moved towards the back of the wagon to look under the tarp.
Delano, thinking fast, tried to distract her by revealing that he had saved the survivors of the Siouxiana and maybe they could get together to talk about it after they delivered their machine parts.
Satisfied with that, she called off her security, gave Delano her card, and arranged a meeting for later that night.
The wagon continued towards the River District… both Jithal and Steve Irwin noticed that one of the Zanetti guards for Lady Ariana was still following them a few blocks back. Steve Irwin slipped off the wagon and ducked into an alley as the wagon continued on to its next turn.
As the guard reached Steve Irwin’s position, he stepped out in front of the guard, stopping his progress.
Steve loomed in front of the guard and said, “You lost us in the crowd. Nice and easy. Just turn around and say you lost us in the crowd.”
There was a moment as the guard considered, muttered something that sound like “... this chicken outfit,” turned around and disappeared into the crowd.
Sonada Jani’s shop was a fancy dress store for offworld fashions. They had Borb drive the wagon around the back where a man opened a rollup door into the shop’s storage room, that was filled with undressed manikins, reams of fabric, and rolling clothes rack with dresses hanging from them.
The crew unloaded the palette on the floating palette jack and rolled it into the storage room and the man pointed to an empty corner away from the rollup door. After they positioned it there, he moved a few clothes racks to cover up the palette then closed the rollup door. He said Sonada would be here soon to settle up.
Sonada came through the door from the front of the shop, looked at the crew, then said, “Let’s see what you’ve brought me,” and nods to the man. He pulls a crate down off the palette, pries the lid off, revealing the top layer of 4 plasma rifles. He pulls one out, professionally examines it, turns it on, turns it off, and checks another one from the second layer and does the same thing.
“Seems legit” he says.
Sonada nods and turns back to the crew. She pulled out a datapad, and swiped a key over to the teams’ own pads, “So you can get access via my private node.”
She then sends a message offplanet, and a few minutes later gets a response. The teams’ pads beep indicating that Dohpaz Vito had been good to his word and paid them the second half of their payment.
They returned to Borb waiting in the alley, and made their way back to the landing field… except for Delano Mack, who slipped off the wagon at some point and made his way to a rendezvous with Lady Ariana Vanetti. He had arranged with Steve and Jithal to undock the Jitterbug at the field, and he would meet them before they shot the strait to Dragongull’s Cry.