The crew has one destination and two small problems. They have a private jet waiting for them at the airport, but the car is too smashed up to go unnoticed and Gem is in the back seat, completely paralyzed. Quinn decides this calls for some booze.
Quinn pulls into the private area of the airport and confronts security while an honestly drunken Tony staggers with his "girlfriend" toward the plane. Lu stands in as a very believable bodyguard. Quinn's ID checks out, and this isn't the first time the guard has had to give a pass to some rich, drunken playboy so he lets them go without too many questions.
The flight to Quito, Ecuador in SoAm takes about 12 hours. Tony passes out and Lu catches a little sleep after he makes sure Gem is safe and stable. By the time Prometheus is in sight the poison is wearing off and Gem is aware and grateful for all they did to bust her out of Nexus City.
A few hours later they clear customs at Halo Station and head into the black. Quinn is relieved to be back in zero-g. He finally gets some answers about who his passengers are and why a bounty hunter was trying to kill them. Quinn admits he's only in Santoro's pocket until his debt is paid. They talk about where they might go after Luna and everyone agrees on Saturn. Quinn has racing connections there, Tony has never been and is thrilled to be out of The Well and into the void. Gem just wants to be as far from Mars as possible, and the lawlessness of the Corsairs is appealing. Where they go, Lutrin will follow.
A few hours later they land at Port Royal on the far side of the moon. Quinn knows the are and chose it as one of the least secure places to land on Luna. It's a good place to slip in and slip away. After they pass through a brief medical scan and weapons checkpoint, they enter the port proper. No one is around.
One woman in her late twenties comes out to meet them, a small and belated welcome committee. She recognizes Quinn and admits she's a huge fan who followed his racing career. After a few selfies with Quinn and his friends, she introduces herself as Heidi Bosch, head project manager for Century Real Estate. She welcomes them all to Luna and proudly points out the crews of robots and EVA workers she manages, now out assembling a long rail-gun on the lunar mare. Beside it, a completed rail-gun fires 2-ton steel slugs past escape velocity, one every 30 seconds.
Gem is in pain from the venom-spitter shot she took in the gut. Lu did what he could to remove the flachettes, but some small pieces remain and are getting infected. They ask Heidi to get them to a doctor ASAP.
Doctor Demi Selene treats Gem, removes the remaining tiny fragments and fixes her up with a pain-killer and powerful antibiotic. The doctor is a demi-spacer, descended from some of Earth's first astronauts, who were genetically engineered to be half normal size. In the days when launch-mass was everything, a 10kg astronaut allowed for longer missions or more crew. It's clear Gem was shot with a shredder, but the doctor doesn't pry. She just cautions the group to stay out of trouble on Luna.
Heidi gives Quinn her number and asks him to call if he needs anything. She heads back to work. Quinn takes the crew to The Escape Pod, a dive bar catering to local teamsters. They unwind a little and grab some food. They are ravenous after the events of the last two days.
Lu is on the lookout for trouble and spots a skeevy guy in business attire looking them over. The man gets a drink at the bar and glances over a few times, checking out Gem even though he's 20 years her senior. Tony looks for the stranger in the PDN registry and finds a match: Cam Rossi, a local broker. Finally the guy send over a drink and Lu has had enough. He confronts Rossi and asks what he wants. Rossi is surprised and says he's glad to see they made it here safely, Mr. Santoro will be glad to hear it. They are still skeptical, but Rossi tells them to swing by his office if they want a job and a quiet passage off-world.
Tony sends a message to Santoro to check out Rossi's claim. Quinn decides to ask Heidi out to dinner, if only to ask her about getting a passage to Saturn somehow. Meanwhile Lu combs the want ads to see if any crew openings are available. He finds a security opening on a freighter bound for the Belt, but its not clear if the others could get passage.
Quinn takes Heidi to dinner. She dresses to kill and lets Quinn spin stories about his glory days on the Zero-G Rally Circuit. She tells him about her project, an ambitious 5-year plan to build Paradise Beta, a 1000 square km orbital hab housing 2 million people in a low density eco-paradise to rival Mars. The new rail-gun should shave at least a year off construction, and when it's done her company stands to make hundreds of billions of credits selling shares in the colony. Quinn gets around to asking her about passage to Saturn and she promises to find him some options. Sorry to hear he's leaving so soon, Heidi invites him back to her place and Quinn spends the night.
The next day Tony hears back from Santoro that Rossi can be trusted. He rounds up Quinn and they go to Rossi's office. Lu stays with Gem and they keep out of sight in a low-rent hotel room.
Rossi offers them 5000 credits each and passage on a freighter heading for The Belt in exchange for a simple job needing their skills. Tony dares to haggle with the fixer and gets him to double their fee. They take the job.
A certain pile of cargo is in a secure holding area near the docks. Rossi wants them to break in, locate 5 specific crates, then change the markings and labels and move the crates to a loading area. Honest teamsters will load the re-marked crates onto the heavy freighter Black Orpheus and Bob's your uncle. Tony needs to manage cameras and access and scrub any logs. Once the job is done and they are paid, they can rendevous with the freighter in the Wilma Deering.
It's only after they agree to take the job and leave that Quinn realizes the crates contain critical components for Heidi's rail-gun.
@greymorn, thanks for the debrief. I really appreciate your ship names. Very cool.
Scribe of the Adventure System
