***
“You won’t be able to repair it without a new phasing coil, even if our onboard printer had the resolution we don’t have the materials for it,” Whilem said to Estra as he watched her working on his Blaster, which currently sat disassembled on a cleaning cloth in front of Estra.
Estra studied the phasing coil from multiple angles. At one stage it consisted of thousands of nano-scale superconductive wires wrapped around and connecting to a charge capacitor. The coil rather than being bright copper in colour had warped and discoloured from heat damage, and there was no disguising the ballooning sections of the charge capacitor, even if Estra was able to somehow un-fuse all of the nano-scale wiring, Whilem knew he would not feel comfortable firing an energy weapon with a charge capacitor on the verge of a spectacular failure.
They stood over a bench in the Hand of Fortune’s small machine and repair shop. While it was within spec for repairing starship components their reserve of spare parts for non-starship systems was small to non-existent.
“It is a unitised component, designed to be replaced after about five thousand shots. I don’t know where Dask purchased all of these small arms, but I believe that weapon has been used without maintenance well beyond its projected service life,” Whilem said.
“And we have no budget for this kind of maintenance, unless we pay for it out of our own wages?” Estra said with a frustrated tone.
“No,” Whilem said as he tested the weld on his boarding sabre that he had been attempting to mend. Almost immediately the simple join began to bend and give way.
Whilem sighed as well and put the weapon aside.
“Without proper materials and access to a grade three machine shop I wouldn’t trust any fix on this. Let’s go and see the captain.” Whilem grumbled.
“What are we going to say?” Estra asked.
“Let me handle it, we need to make it clear that we’ll need to pay for non-ship related expenses, especially if he drags us into more hot jobs like the last couple.” Whilem replied.
Whillem and Estra attempted to repair equipment, but both failed.
***
Dask and P’Hol found a new Patron Mission
Dask took a deep breath and sat down in the lounge on board the Hand of Fortune; he was alone, for the moment. The large couch that had been fitted by default still bore the livery of a long defunct passenger cruise line, and despite a decade in service the fit out crew had done an admirable job of restoring it. Dask let himself sink in the couch and closed his eyes.
The initial meeting with ETU had been productive and for his trouble Dask now had a new job for his crew. ETU, despite its name, was not the largest terraforming company in Unified Space, let alone Harlen’s World. They are a small player in a competitive market as every magnate in the core with money to spend was more than happy to burn it on moonshot terraforming investments in case they happen to pay back a century later with land rights to the next hottest tourist destination for the galaxy’s wealthy elite.
Harlen’s World had its own long history. It had endured being on the frontlines on multiple galactic wars, and during the last major Converter invasion, Harlen’s World had been subjected to a nuclear bombardment from both Unity and Converter warships, and the vicious on the ground fighting caused even more devastation. The population had fallen by almost three quarters, either dead, missing, or fled. Centuries later, the planet’s biosphere had mostly recovered, but the original settled population hadn’t bounced back. In the hinterlands there were massive abandoned towns and cities, either overgrown or fallen to ruins, and those ruins weren’t always unoccupied, which was the main thrust of ETU’s work.
The job was a simple one. ETU had deployed some remote weather monitoring stations some months back in an area that had been settled by a survivalist collective. ETU had decided that they would rather risk the lives of freelancers than their own employees to retrieve the weather station data. The problem was that the site was not easily accessible by air, so they would have to hike in through the survivalist’s territory first, and their leader had a bounty on their head for robbing outlying homesteads and towns.
Patron Job
Objective: Move Through
Notable Sights: Priority Targets
Opponents: Criminal Elements - Gunslingers
Dask heard the sound of footsteps coming from the machine shop and into the lounge. Dask opened his eyes and sat up as Whillem and Estra entered the lounge.
“Captain, we have a request,” Whillem said as he faced down Dask.
“Go on,” Dask said.
“We’re going to need a budget for equipment repairs,” Whilem declared.
“Okay, I’ll consider it after the payment from the next job comes through, but for now draw something from the armoury.” Dask replied.
Estra was about to speak up, but Whilem reached out and gently touched her wrist. As he did Estra closed her mouth and looked up at Whilem with an expression of petulant impatience.
“Estra, did you have something you want to say?” Dask asked.
“No, it’s not important,” Estra said with a sigh.
“Well, don’t go far. Once Shoutheri get’s back we’ve got an appointment at ETU’s office to go over the details of the next job this evening.” Dask said.
“Yes, sir,” Estra replied and sulked off.
Whilem shook his head, then headed towards the ship’s galley.
Dask didn’t have to wait long, he heard the sound of Shoutheri’s footsteps coming up the entry ramp. As Shoutheri strode into the lounge Dask nodded to Shoutheri.
“Shoutheri,” Dask said.
“Donovan,” Shoutheri replied, then strode off to his cabin.
Shoutheri Action - Explore - Found Trainer
Ten minutes later the crew had assembled and they set off towards ETU’s office for the briefing for the upcoming job.
The sun had set and the city lights of Calhoun City were winking to existence. The route to the ETU offices was through a low traffic industrial area. The area was a hell of rusting gantries and catwalks, most of it was old cargo handling and refining infrastructure that had long since been abandoned and left to rust. Few lived here except for the homeless, and others that didn’t want to be found.
“Hello friendos,” a voice called out from somewhere ahead of Dask and his party.
Dask and the party halted in their tracks as they spotted figures moving ahead of them.
“Good evening,” Dask replied and gestured for everyone to fan out, he then drew his gun and held it at the low ready by his side.
“Dask Donovan, my man. You are difficult to find. We’ve got a message from your brother,” the voice replied.
“Dask?” P’Hol asked as she dropped into a low crouch.
“We’ve got trouble,” Dask replied.
Rival Ambush
Deployment Condition: Gloomy
Notable Sights: Loot Cache
Rival Attack Roll - Brought Friends
Enemy Type: Criminal Elements - Gangers 7 opponents, 2 specialists
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