The Ganoltir Project Forum

"Works for me," Cass responds. "I don't think Bao will mind if they brought their ride over, either. Not like anyone else is watching it that we know of."

"Yeah, sure," Hikaru says, nodding along with Tess's suggestion. "We'd have to stop there again anyways to pick up the rest of our stuff. Might as well do it in one trip." Plus I'll get a chance to try out that dye. I hope Marko likes it.

"That's fine with me," Marko says answering Cass.

"Same," Martine adds, with Pia simply giving an affirmative nod.

Tess

[SHOW]

You hear the compad ring a few times before Bao picks up.

"I wasn't expecting to hear from your four quite so soon. You find a ship already?" He asks with a laugh.

"We did, actually," Tess responds to the man. "And a group insiders to help us snag it and get it running. Trouble is, it's in one of the old surface ports the Diktat has now taken over. We were wondering if you might have some insight into their layouts and security measures. I'm assuming you used those for your operations before, yeah?" If he doesn't know anything then I'm not sure where to look next. Not like we can go to a public records office and ask to look at the plans for various ports without rousing suspicion.

While Tess talks to Bao, Creed will head back towards the bar they had just come from.

ooc

[SHOW]

Is fuel something we should be worried about? Should I be making a detour to fill up the gravcar?
Jake: gravcars are electric and charge off of the road.

"Deal," Tess responds, not having any desire to enter a discussion with the others mid phone call. We did one job for him and he seems good for it, no harm in doing another later. At least he is more honorable than the Harlequins.

As Tess' call appears to be wrapping up, Creed pulls the car up to the bar once more. "We'll follow you I guess," Pia says as her and Martine start climbing out of the car - the extra space in the back a merciful relief for those left inside.

"I'll stay here," Marko says as he shifts into the middle seat, giving his original seat to Hikaru. Pia shrugs and begins walking towards one of the other gravcars parked outside the bar with Martine close behind.

Tess

[SHOW]

"Good to hear. Give me some time to see what I can dig up," Bao replies before abruptly hanging up.

"Stay close," Cass warns Pia and Martine as they hop out of the packed gravcar. "Here's my contact in case we get split up." He flicks forward on his compad, sending his tag to both of the ex-navy women.

With Marko remaining in the gravcar for now, Cass gives him a curious once-over. Seems he's really digging on Glitter there. Guess that's good for us. Judging him to be trustworthy for now, he sighs and clears his throat.

"So, Tess, what'd we just agree on?" he asks in a nonchalant tone that betrays his paranoid mind.

Tess quickly takes her new spot near the door once the two women exit the vehicle, glad to no longer be restricted to a lap. She's cute, but wow was that uncomfortable. Might have been more bearably if we had some puppy love going on like Hikaru, but so glad that is over.

She opens her mouth to respond, only to be hung up on. She rolls her eyes and sets her compad in her lap, before turning to face towards Cass. "He said he will get back to us with the details on one of the ports shortly. Said he'd help us for one more job, sometime down the line. He was good for it the first time, so I figure it's worth it."

Hikaru smiles as Marko elects to stay with him, taking hold of his hand again as the man scoots to the middle seat. He waves to Pia and Martine as they exit, though he knows they'll be right behind the car.

The pop singer listens to what Tess explains and shrugs. "I guess that's a fair price for information. He doesn't seem the type to screw us after what we did for him."

You head back to the warehouse, with Pia and Martine following you, arriving uneventfully. You spend a couple of hours waiting until Bao finally gets back to you. You each receive the same text from him, a simple list of facts about the port with an attached plan.

Text to All

[SHOW]

Medus Landing is built into a cliff with ten landing pads outside, along with the fuel depot and generators for the port infrastructure. I don't have any records of what ships are currently there though. Most of the security for the port is actually 4km away in the city where the tunnel starts. I would expect only a handful of security in addition to the other operations and mechanical staff. There is a defense battery which you may have to deal with somehow before leaving on a ship. - Bao

Medus Landing Map

[SHOW]

"Not too happy being under his thumb again," Cass admits as they drive back to the warehouse. "But it definitely beats staying on this rock. Nice work, Tess." He gives her a smile.

* * * * *

During the downtime, Cass polishes his rifle and laser pistol, staying mostly to himself. He checks over his gear and equipment twice, making sure that everything is in working order and ready to be hauled away.

He pulls his compad out once all of theirs beep, reading the intel from Bao with care.

"Four clicks away? Fuck," Cass says, sighing. "If we go through the front door and things go to shit, that's a lifetime for the crew at Medus to suit up against us before we even get there proper."

He bites his cheek, thinking. "I'm still thinking our best bet is to get to the landing pads from topside, if that's even possible."

Tess returns Cass' smile as he praises her on her idea. Now let's just hope whatever future job he asks of us, we don't end up in even more shit than we did after the first.

* * *

Taking a page from Cass' playbook, Tess goes over her weapons - especially the two new ones - and makes sure they are loaded and in perfect working order, not wanting to be caught off guard by a malfunctioning weapon in a dire situation. Once she finishes with that, she lays on her cot for a bit and chats casually with whoever is willing to join her.

"Is it possible?" Tess asks their new ex-navy companions, sitting up and turning to face them after Cass asks his question. "That does certainly sound safest, if most of their defense is planted at the tunnel entrance." I can't imagine it would be easy if they don't think it a possibility worth defending against, though. Let's see what these three have to say.

Marko shrugs in reply to Tess' question. "There's emergency exits dotted all around the city that lead up to the surface. That or we could see about using another ship from one of the other ports like Cass suggested earlier," he says.

"It'd be tough going trekking over the surface but in Vacc Suits we at least wouldn't have to worry about the cold and the air," Martine adds.

With downtime to spare before finally receiving the text from Bao, Hikaru spends a few short minutes in the bathroom, emerging with freshly-dyed dirty blonde hair. He eyes Tess and Marko, hoping they both like the look. He spends the rest of the time getting to know Marko a bit more. Guess we'll be spending a lot of time together from now on. How's this for a first real date?

He looks to his compad as it goes over, glancing over Bao's response quickly. "Yeah, going from the surface seems worth the trouble to bypass whatever security's there," Hikaru says with a shrug. He turns towards Marko and raises an eyebrow. "Are there any of those exits close enough to Medus Landing? I don't think we wanna spend longer than necessary on the surface."

"Never had to use one," Cass says, finally looking up from his compad. "Hey, your hair. It's a good look, Glitter."

Dunno if I could pull off a dye-job like him. I'd probably look like some urbworld academy dropout.

"Maybe there's a map of the emergency exits," he wonders aloud. "I know this rock is — well, was — unincorporated for the most part, but even old Idarete had to have some sort of public safety bullshit on the intraweb."

OOC

[SHOW]

Should I roll something to look?

Creed spent the downtime also polishing his new weapon, smirking at it. At the ping of the text, he studies it and thinks. He walks over to the others and rubs his chin. "I don't know if I'll be much help getting inside, but once we're in there I should be able to find us a functional ship, and functional's all we need to get off this rock. We can worry about looks later." He says, looking away from the map temporarily.

"Oh! Yes it is," Tess says, at Cass' mention of her friend's new dye job. Hope Marko is a fan of blonds, she thinks, smiling to herself as she does.

"There must be some way to find them, otherwise it doesn't seem like they'd be very useful," she continues, now in response to Cass' inquiry about the emergency exit locations. "Can't really exit them in an emergency if no one knows where they are. I think the real question is, where are we going to find ourselves 7 vacc suits at such short notice?"

"I'd be pretty damn surprised if the city doesn't have a few suits in public spaces for emergencies, but I don't imagine they'd hold up well to much."

He shrugs, thinking about their current leads. "Worst case scenario, we can make a call to our friend. They won't be cheap, but consider it an investment that will pay off if we can nab a tub and run."

Hikaru beams widely as both Tess and Cass compliment his new hair. He runs his hand through it quickly, flashing an idolesque pose immediately after. He laughs a bit at himself before plopping down next to Marko. "Would be a pretty shitty emergency exit if it didn't have a few suits available. But who knows what's happened to them after the Diktat showed up."

"The closest ones are probably still a few clicks away, as they'll be in the city," Marko replies to Hikaru's initial question.

Cass

[SHOW]

You quickly manage to pull up a map of the city with the emergancy exits highlighted. You work out the closest one to Medus Landing would leave you with about a 5km walk across the surface.

"Five clicks, yeah," Cass confirms, already looking at the map point of the closest emergency exit to Medus. "Kind of a shitty walk on ice, but it's the best we can do without hiring an actual lift up on the surface."

Creed stopped to think about it, mulling it over. "I've flown a lot of things in my time, but I've never walked on ice. Anything I should know?"

"It sounds dangerous," Tess responds, thinking over the man's words. "Ice is one thing, but isn't the surface meant to be pretty bad apart from that? Would we have enough oxygen in the Vacc suits to walk that far in whatever harsh conditions we face?"

"Depends on the vacc suit, depends on the terrain," Cass explains. "Five clicks on flat, even ground takes at most an hour. But if we're crawling over ice, against any wind, or other hazards, it could take double, triple that — maybe more. Never been myself though so I'm not sure."

He turns to the Idarete ex-navymen. "You guys ever do any surface training? What kind of conditions are we looking at?"

Marko shakes his head. "No there wasn't much point. It's definitely no fun up there though. It's pretty much a constant storm up there as far as I'm aware. It'd probably take a couple of hours at least," he elaborates.

"It makes sense that they don't expect anyone to come from the surface then," Pia says. "The weather would help cover our approach too, she offers up with a shrug.

Hikaru frowns as the ex-Navy of their group describe the treacherous conditions on the surface. "That sounds risky, but I guess it could be worth the reward if we manage to get a ship." He shrugs and sighs, leaning back and resting his head against the couch's cushion. "If we run into problems, we're fucked up there. But they definitely wouldn't expect it."

"It is risky," Cass agrees with the popstar, an uneasy feeling coming over him as he considers testing fate once more. Who's to say we wouldn't just die of exposure up there? Fuck. I don't like it.

"I don't know. We sure there isn't another way? I'm thinking it'd be safer to try and get a ride on the surface, even if it meant jacking one. Shit, some sort of crawler or even a small transport glider would be perfect."

"Does anyone know any services like that on the surface? That'd be a good start." He thought about it. "Maybe we can hire someone here to do it, but it might be risky. I don't want to rely on Bao again."

"Do we know how defended the tunnels are?" Tess asks. "I know going at the Diktat head on is also risky, but if there are only a few soldiers it might be less of a risk than the surface." She stands from her bed and steps over to the rifle she recently purchased, which is leaning against one of the lockers. "I could get at least one before they even know we are there depending on the layout."

"No idea," Cass shrugs. "I didn't know shit about Medus Landing until today. Dying on ice... getting fragged by some overzealous gate-guards, pick your poison, I guess." He eyes the others before turning back to Tess. "We did just pick up some new ordinance. Not sure how many more bodies we want to leave getting off this rock, but a direct way in is always an option."

Hikaru lets out an exaggerated sigh. "I think finding someone brave enough to give us a lift from another landing could be the safest bet," the singer says, not wanting to end up dead before they even manage to get a ship. "We've got some credits, hopefully enough. There's gotta be some ballsy smuggler who wants to stick it to the Diktat."

Creed pauses to think for a moment longer.

Mechanics

[SHOW]

Piloting/charisma: ~~(First Roll) 8(3d6) = 8~~ (Expert Skill Reroll) Second Roll: 11(3d6) = 11 (9 total).

"No idea," Marko replies to Tess, the other two shake their heads in the negative as well. "We can always drive by and check it out if that's our best option," Pia suggests.

Creed

[SHOW]

You are fairly friendly with a man named Rica Daaray. He owns a shuttle craft with a system drive and operates out of the surface port Dystra Falls which is on the other side of the city to Medus Landing. It's a port you are familiar with, being the one you flew in and out of most often - which is also how you know Daaray. It is about three times the size of Medus Landing and sits at the foot of an enormous waterfall which has been frozen for millennia.

You know Daaray often smuggles goods between the surface ports but also is often chartered for survey missions by resource extraction companies.

"Couldn't hurt," Cass says, shrugging in agreement with Pia's suggestion. "Just to scope it out and all. It may be on the ass-end of Idarete, but I bet a lot of dumbass gravcar drivers get routed there on accident every day."

He looks to the others. "Wanna try that first? I'm losing focus just sitting and theorizing while those spooks keep running intel."

"Pure pazaak." He says under his breath. "H-hey, I think I k-know a guy who can help us." He says a little louder. "Rica Daaray, he operates out of one of the larger ports. He does smuggling trips to the surface." He nods slowly as it starts to come together in his head. "He's a good guy, we can trust him."

"No shit?" Cass perks up at Creed's lead. "Think we could get him to fly us to a remote location, maybe a klick outside Medus? If he's as good a guy as you say he is, we should already have the cred to drop on making that happen."

"Huh," Hikaru says, thinking over Creed's words carefully to make sure he heard it right. Maybe he's not useless after all. Hope this doesn't fall flat.

"If he can pull that off for us, this'll be way easier. Can you get a hold of him? Maybe see what he'd charge for that sorta thing?" the pop star says with a curious tone. Hopefully cheap enough that Bao's pay covers it.

"Or if he'd be willing to do it for free? That would be nice too," Tess responds with a smirk. This guy has connections, of course. The perks of being a local, I suppose. Let's hope this one pans out. "If he can't do it for us, we always have those other options to fall back on. Though this one sounds almost too good to be true, so let's hope that isn't the case."

Creed nodded quickly, looking down at his phone, and thinking for a moment longer. "Yeah, I can do something I think." Eridas scrolls through his contacts list to find Rica Daaray.

Text to Rica

[SHOW]

"Hey, Rica. It's Creed. I want to catch up, but I also have a job proposition for you. When/where can we meet up?"

Rica

[SHOW]

Eridas read the text a few times, memorizing it. "Right, the falls. Thanks again Rica, it'll be good to see you again." He sent back before turning off the phone for now.

"We've got a drop, friends. Or... at least a meeting. It's an hour away if we drive. Who wants to get some fresh air?" He says as he looks back at everyone.

"Of course," Tess responds to the man, eager to finally have a lead. "Is he planning to take us to the landing now, or are we just meeting to make arrangements? Don't want to leave any of our stuff behind if it is the former."

"Is any of the air even fresh in this place?" Hikaru says slight annoyance, his arms crossed. I'm getting tired of living like some kind of mole person. The sun's gonna feel so good back in Strocho. He shrugs, tossing on a hoodie and getting up from the couch, helping Marko to his feet after. "Let's get to it, yeah?"

"Nope. Get used to it if we're going to be living on a ship," Cass says to Hikaru, only half-joking.

Turning to Creed, he joins in on Tess' question. "I got my tools and gear I'll need help hauling. We leaving for good?"

"For now this is just to make plans. I don't know if we'll be hauling it all today." Creed looked back at his phone. "I don't have much, so I'll be bringing my rifle with us in case something happens."

"We should plan for anything, then, I suppose. Let's load what we can in the trunk, we can always unload it again if we return," Tess says, stepping over towards her Rifle and slinging it over her shoulder. She then makes her way to Cass, saying, "I can help, what do you need carried?"

OOC

[SHOW]

Tess has 2 spare encumbrance to help carry Cass' things. Is that enough?

"That's the right call," Cass says to Tess. He turns toward her, studying her for a moment. Surprised she's willing to help lug my shit. Guess it shouldn't, though. She's tough. Probably tougher than me based on what she's been through back on Strocho.

"Just my toolkit. I think it will fit into my new backpack, though, so we should be good." He tries it, finding the higher-tech storage much more useful and better balanced in the straps. "Yeah, I'm good."

"The rest of you ready? Let's get going."

OOC

[SHOW]

Nevermind, I can haul everything but am at full encumbrance. Just take any loot we'd need going forward

"Yeah, better to bring it all now than to get fucked over by not," Hikaru says, picking up his meager belongings. I guess this is really all I have, huh. Oh well, that'll change when we're back in Strocho. He stretches for a moment before walking towards the door and leaning against the wall near it. "I'm ready when you all are. The sooner we're outta here, the better."