宁静的龙 (Níngjìng de lóng) - Session 1 - Microgravity caper

宁静的龙

The Níngjìng de lóng (Serene Dragon) is a Mudlark-class Utility Space Vehicle (USV) registered in Duncan Silas as an independent tramp freighter. It is a really just a tube: the seams on the hull are rough and unfinished, a smell of faux-flesh vats never quite washed off from the cargo hold. The deceleration push stutters every now and then and sends a rattle along its spine. The moisture level is a bit high and it mainly bothers Pradesh's pride as a life support engineer. Pradesh scours the ship as a Tech-spider but has more or less given up on fixing the moisture problem. The Ningjing is in need of maintenance but the crew has had a laisser-faire since they have learned that a gearhead was joining them upon their arrival on Deimos.

宁静的龙, or Níngjìng de lóng. A no-frill general purpose USV.

Horatio's life in the last two years

After the adventures in New-Shangai two years ago, Horatio escaped the clutches of the martian triad and was repurposed to a system engineer's position in a German/EU colony some 6 hours away from the metropolis. During this time, he was treated with deference. Eventually, the Germans packed him into a cooler and sent him up the martian elevators. He never really had a chance to bid the Germans goodbye. 

After three days of captivity in the cargo hold of an elevator's car, Horatio was pushed to a small hotel room on Deimos. The room was themed to cater to megastructure geeks. He spent the best of that time trying to get in touch with the Triad again. Unsuccessful, he ended up taking the guided tour of the elevator's control area four times in the next five days. 

While killing time sightseeing, the hotel's steward sent him a message via the Internet. It sent a picture of an asian-descent Olympian looking for him at the spaceport's pub. Upon entering the place, the Augmented Reality layer added metadata to all of the people inside. There were a quartet of probable boiroid's rights activists and an Olympian. Takeda was highlighted as the most important person in the room. 

Deimos' Earhart Spaceport

The 宁静的龙 ended its push 1200 miles from the moon and began orbital maneuvers to intercept. Deimos looked like a small bead strung on the fine thread of the space elevator. Takeda was un Augmented Reality (AR) mode where the walls of the 宁静的龙 weren't visible and as the ship approached, it looked like he was floating in space towards the port. There was chatter on the chatroom keeping all crew members in contact. A few pieces of news were pushed by John to the others about a standoff between the authority and a group of boiroid's rights activists over the discovery of about 25 contraband ZR-3s. Some of the 'roids had been awaken from their vats, some had died and the authority were threatening to give the $3.5M valued lot the airlock treatment. 

Only Takeda was enthusiastic about leaving the 宁静的龙 to fetch the new mechanic at the hotel. The place was largely empty of people, but was buzzing with stevedor drones, the odd megastructure tourist and tired crewmembers either preparing to leave or just arriving on port. 

The hotel was a hole in the wall. The lock lead to a shaft with a reception desk and six locks to rooms. A humaniform cybershell came out of sleep mode and welcomed Takeda. Takeda was informed that Horatio Spex was away from its room, but would be messaged and would meet at the pub. 

Takeda left for the pub, hoping to be able to sip slowly on something that wasn't made from the 宁静的龙 food prep unit. 

Meet the colleagues

The reception on the 宁静的龙 was unceremonious. The Ship's AI, Pradeep was not welcoming to the uplifted Astropus and reluctantly passed along the onboarding material including ship's schematics and Gigabytes of logs. Horatio's personal AI, XKCD, began crunching the data immediately. The captain didn't have a Virtual Interface Implant (VII), and thus couldn't contribute to the conversation on the online chatroom to the same extent. Horatio realized that the captain (and owner) of the 宁静的龙 was more or less an outsider. After a few hours of checking things out, XKCD/Horatio identified the faulty control system and flashed new firmware on a minor component that Pradeep had overlooked. The moisture control kicked in as planned and all expected that the problem would be solved within a few hours. 

Pradeep retired its TechSpider cybershell and resumed internal duties within the mainframe. 

A low-hanging shiny coin

John interjected upon the banter on the ship's channel and explained that there was $3.4M worth of 'roids stuck on Deimos and that whoever smuggled them in would love to retrieve them for a fee. He tasked Horatio and Takeda to identify the location of the bay where the bioroids were detained. 

Horatio approached the activists drinking away at the pub, but he was mistaken for a Xiao Chu spies and threatened with violence. Being an astropus can be hard. Takeda approached two Xiao Chu agents guarding a lock to a cargo bay. They were berated by a small group of 4 activists. The ZR-3 bioroid's v-tag (virtual tag) identified him as Agent Qi. The other agent was a Securibot cheap-o shell without a name v-tag. They are first hostile, assuming that Takeda was a touble-maker. However, they relaxed when they realized that the Olympian was a veteran from MAD. Takeda got to peer into the cargo bay when the Securibot crawled into the area, revealing about 10 vats and at least 7 ZR-3 bioroids floating about and unsecured.

At the other end of the hall, Horatio was sneaking around, with his VII in airplane mode and his camouflage skin in full effect. He determined that the bay must have life support access, but his effort to tap into the ventilation network were foiled by built-in grates that could not be open.

On the channel, John announced that they'd be able to smuggle the bioroids from the outter lock. How he got that done would remain a mystery, but no alarm would be sprung in the process, at least in theory. The crew rallied into the 宁静的龙 to devise a cargo loading plan. 

Being caught stealin'

The logistic problem of taking upward to 25 bioroids into the 宁静的龙 is the lack of living space. The crew estimated the number of 'roids in vats to 10, which would fit just right. This leaves anywhere from 7 to 15 awaken ZR-3s to deal with in a ship designed for a crew of three and 4 bunks. A plan is devised to can some of the 'roids back into their vats after acquiring more vat fluids from a depot at the far end of the port. To do this, they rent a stevedore drone that Horatio will teleoperate. They get to the area where vats are disposed of and seek one with a nearly full canister of fluid. Shortly after stowing the canister into the 宁静的龙, the ship get into a physical/firewall lockdown for misappropriation of biomaterial. Xiao Chu's insurance company places a grievance against the crew's insurance and a SAI judge hears the case in a few seconds. It is ruled that the misdemeanour incurs a $500 fine. The crew agrees to settle and the lockdown is lifted. They know, however, that Xiao chu now has the 宁静的龙 under the microscope. [John used streetwise to acquire the cargo, crit failed, and was reported by the counterpart right away.]

To alleviate the suspicion, they plan for 18 mouths to feed for 70 days and acquire the biomaterial for the food generator. They scored a huge shipment of Titanium ingots that would fill the hold with 40dT, leaving a mere 20 dT free for the ZR-3s. The bill for the water reaction mass came in. The ship was now ready to depart with Ceres as destination. All that was missing is a messy cargo of ZR-3s that the crew would need to quietly load up in 15 minutes. 

Ze ZR-3 'roids' heist

At the appointed time, John disengaged the seal. The connection to the port's pilot went silent. Manually, he performed a minor sideways push to align with the next gate and engaged. Takeda, donning his battlesuit and Horatio, teleoperating a rented stevedore cybershell, went over the loading plan one last time. A freight handler agent software had laid out the cargo template in AR.  

The stench wafted in the 宁静的龙 when the lock started to slide open. Takeda found improvised way to pack the vats even more efficiently without compromising stability and centre of mass symmetry while the drone was coralling the material inward. They ran out of good ideas when it came down to packing in the live ZR-3s. John and Pradeep just shoved them tight in any available corner of the ship for the time being. 

Takeda had a stroke of genius and prompted Horatio to rig the bay door to remain open upon disconnection, this triggering an explosive decompression and masking the extent of the theft. Horatio did a great job at it and, by the time John pushed away from the dock and the seal was broken. The entire mass of air, and loose material shot out of the bay and blasted against the nose of the 宁静的龙. 

The blast sent the 宁静的龙 into an uncontrolled spin. One of the reaction mass tank got punctured when it smashed against a port's structure, 15 dT of water further sent the 宁静的龙 into a spin although John soon was back in control. A bloom of ice crystals radiated from the ship and bounced against the station. 

John set course for a Martian gravity well escape path and engaged the thruster to its maximum power: a mere 0.015G. In 60 hours, they'd be speeding away from Deimos at 20 miles-per-second. It is unclear at this point what the damage will be in terms of liability. However, the authority certainly let them off the hook easily.