Cruising Then Black - IC

[Aneurin]

You've just left New Hope, after picking up a discount cargo of live fish from an old friend there. You're hoping to turn a pretty hefty profit from it. At the time you bought it, it was looking to net you a profit of about 50 credits per ton, but the longer you hang on to it, the less it will be worth when you sell it.

The closest planet to New Hope is Daedalus, about a day's journey away. You know you can probably find some work there, too. Just as you clear atmo on New Hope, you get a recorded message sent to you over the Cortex. For whatever reason, you're all hanging around on the bridge of the Charos when it arrives. Even the cat's on the bridge.

The face that appears on the screen is Rudolph Xhang, a rather non-descript man with neat, greying hair and a tidy moustache. You've done a little work for and with Xhang before, and know he has a reputation for honesty and working fairly with crews.

"Hey there Davies. Hope you get this wave soon. Got a job for you and your crew. Good money, but a bit risky. Who am I kidding? It's great money and a bit risky. Can't give you the details right now, but if you can get to me on Persephone before the end of the month, the job's yours. If you're not there, it goes to someone else.

"If you're coming, send me a wave when you hit atmo.

Later."

You get the feeling that the message has taken a while to get to you, as it's only 8 days until the end of the month.

You know that Persephone is 8 days away, or 5 on Hard Burn. Daedalus, on the other hand is 1 day away, or 15 hours on Hard Burn.

Here's your ship's deckplans:
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd148/darrenmalin/Betty_beck_plan.jpg

[bigstipidfighte]

Beth listens in on Davies' message unabashedly. After thinking about the distances in her head for a minute, she was the first to speak up.

"So... we have time to do both jobs, right? Or do you have something else lined up to do after we unload the current cargo?"

[Sarone]

Feet propped up on a dash that doesn't have any controls on it and leaning back in the pilot's chair, Jason listened to Xhang's message. Eight days to get to Persephone, thought Jason as he did the math in his head, then quickly shaking it. "Don't know about you all, but I'm not thrilled about having fish on the boat for a week just because Xhang is offering good money at a 'bit of risk'."

Putting his feet down, Jason went over some controls and pulled up a map, showing New Hope, Daedalus, and Persephone. "We're located here, " Jason said, pointing to the map. "Based on the ship's speed and hard burn, we can get Daedalus in about a day, 15 hours Hardburn, tops. Unfortunately, Persephone if about 8 days away, 5 hard burn." Jason looks to Beth and Davies. "Unless you know someone we can sell the fish in hurry, we can easily spend a day or two on Daedalus then try to get to Persephone in 5 while on hard. It'll be cutting it close, though."

[Skycroft]

Michael looks over (or rather, up) at Beth as she makes her comment, and grunts in thought.

"Unloading and selling cargo takes time, we probably won't make it if we don't head right there at full speed"

Michael pulls out his Databook to look at current prices on the Cortex.

"Let's see," he muttered to himself, "how much will the fish depreciate in value after a week?"

Looking up he added "Plus it'll stink to high heaven in here if that stuff goes bad."

[Callos_DeTerran]

Gabby

One person on the bridge stays silent as the wave plays, considering the information given and the other's responses to it. "I say we take Xhang's offer. He ain't the lyin' type and if he's saying there'll be a lot of money involved at little risk then I'm inclined to believe him. In my not-so-expert opinion, our only question is 'what do we do with the fish'?"

It's no secret that Gabby didn't like their current cargo, it stunk already and they got water every where whenever they had to be feed. Or at least they did when Gabby had to feed them. One of her favorite t-shirts stunk of fish now and she'd hardly been pleased to find that out.

"If Jason thinks we can hit them both, I say we do that, but if not...well Xhang's offer sounds a lot more tempting then 'see what you can get for some fish'."

[GFawkes]

"I'm for whatever gets these gorram fish outa here faster. They keep dyin' 'fore the hour's up." Dan says, trying in vain to knock the smell away from his nose.

[Skycroft]

Michael listened as Dan chimed in to echo his earlier comments, and it solidified his decision.

"All right, boys and girls, gather round, the captain is speaking." said Michael decisively.

"Those new fuel cells we were lucky enough to pick up give us some Gao Guhn speed, and it'd be a gorram shame to waste that," he said, "so we're going to hit both. We spend a day in Daedalus, and sell as many fish as we can. I think we're all quite eager to offload this cargo. I know I don't want to have to clean the smell of dead fish out of the cargo hold.

"Then we take off with whatever is left on board. With luck, we should reach Persephone by the end of the month, barring any unforeseen delays. Best case scenario, we sell the whole load and still make it to Xhang. Worst case, we lose a couple of days for nothing, but I'm willing to take that risk."

"Jason," he said to his pilot, " get us moving as fast as we can go to Daedalus, full speed. I can take over for you for a bit on the way, but I'm not so hot with landing and taking off."

He turned to the female members of his crew, "Beth, Gabby, I want these goods offloaded as quickly as possible, so find me some buyers. Use whatever contacts you have. Let it go at a lower price if that's what it takes to get them to buy in bulk. Go as low as a profit of 40 cre- no nix that," he amended, "I'll trust to your discretion on the prices. You're both better hagglers than me. Go as high as you can, obviously, but as long as its better than," he made some quick calculations on his Databook, "60% of the profit we'd make at list price, it's more than what we'd get on Persephone. If we can pick up some passengers who want to get to Perphone quickly as well, so much the better, but that's not very high on our priority list."

"Dan," he turned to the mechanic, "give me a rundown on what a week of hard burn is going to do to the engines; better to get ahead of these things than suddenly find in two weeks that one of our engines broke down because we pushed too hard."

"Li," said Michael, turning to his last remaining crewmember on pure momentum before abruptly realizing he didn't have any orders to give this one, "uh...you can...um, do any of your traditional remedies use fish bones or something?" He winced at his own words, "...never mind, forget I said that. You just be ready when we get there."

"Right," he said, turning back to address the whole crowd, "I shouldn't have to say this, but there'll be no shore leave while we're on Daedalus; everyone not finding and dealing with buyers is going to be helping me unload the cargo. Except Jason, who will be taking a well-deserved rest so he'll be ready to fly as soon as we need to leave. "

"Personally I'm looking forward to putting this boat through her paces. Speed was her selling point, after all, so she'd better not disappoint." He patted the bulkhead affectionately. "I'm going to catch some rest now, and I'll take over a shift from Jason in a couple of hours. Li, you can rest too, and I'll be expecting to do any heavy lifting on Daedalus. Any questions or objections? "

[Aneurin]

You arrive in Daedalus in fifteen hours' time. The docking fee is 25 credits (this includes fresh water hookup to refill your tanks, and power).

Whoever is in charge of buying, roll Intuition and Persuasion, please.