Lay Down Your Burdens

Posted on Thu Jan 28th, 2021 @ 2:01am by Client The Narrator

Mission: Ticket To Rhea
Location: Industrial Six, Rhea, Saturnian Confederacy Freeport
Timeline: After

In time problems were solved.

The Albatross made Rhea orbit, docking at the United Nations Navy station. It did so alongside the UNS Alan Turing, a ship that outplaced the little courier ship by a goodly margin. Dark as ice, with oversized reaction control thrusters, the civilian crew didn't get a good look at the UN stealth ship. For as soon as it came into its docking slip, an extendable thermal blanket was unfurled from the station to shroud the stealth ship from prying eyes.

A 'sub pen' someone had called it. Whatever a 'sub' was.

The sleepers in the hold were removed one by one. The operation was overseen by UNN medics and Marines in light shipboard armour plate. Seven souls and an empty casket were removed, leaving the little ship and all its woes bereft of worth in the eyes of any who looked upon it. But Captain Goldcrest, the master and commander of the UNN stealth ship, was a man of his word and not inconsiderable clout.

But the United Nations Navy did have rules that had to be followed.

So the Albatross was fitted to a fleet tug, an oversized tea kettle that pretended really hard to be a ship, and deorbited. Usually, a shi that did this without power to its engines did so rapidly and only once, suffering what engineers call a 'rapid disassembly event'. The fleet tug, with its massive engine nacelles, was able to carry the entire courier ship down the gravity well to the Industrial Six complex on Rhea, to the civilian docks. It was an inglorious way to finish the adventure.

But it was over.

Done.

Except it wasn't. There were sworn statements to make, evidence to collect, flight recorder data showing the pantomime of a search by the SCN customs team. And that was just from the UNN side of things, who were quite eager to find out just how corrupt the puppet government of the Confederacy was.

When the Albatross's locks connected and cycled, alongside the UNN lawyers there were two very nice people from the Martian Congressional Republic Consulate. Apparently, they'd been on Titan, but considering a gaggle of sleeping Martian Marines had been found, they'd taken a fast ship across the lunar system to Rhea.

They wanted to 'talk', perhaps even with a capital T.

But for the most part it was over and done with. And not a lot had changed. The Tross was still in legal limbo, and whilst the UNN was covering the cost of repairs and fuel, they were not springing for extras. All they'd succeeded to do was move a little further along the board, without loosing to many pieces and without folding and going home.

So...they'd gone to Mars broke and desperate, and been sold a bill of goods.
And now, they were on Rhea, broke and somewhat desperate.

So.

Let's try this...again