Dave is thinking a lot about how to break the Imperial banking system, with little success so far. Captain Nangonya has 10000Cr on her bank card, but we can't access it without her codes.
We jump from Denotam to deep space. There is nothing about. Dinom's blue-white giant star, Ekota, is visible ahead.
We Jump from there to Rullis, Dinom's gas giant. We head in and refuel. As we do so we listen to adverts from the Dinom Corporation advertising satellite in orbit about Rullis; that's the only thing there - there is no space station or other ships here. The satellite is advertising (in a manner that could be considered slightly desperate) the cheap prices for all kinds of metals that are available from the Dinom Corporation. We decide to go to Dinom from here first, to try to find out how 'hot' the Calico Weapon is, and, if possible, try to sell the ship there. That's another week's jump (Dinom is about twelve light-hours away from Rullis, far too far for anything else). And Jump we do.
We arrive at Dinom and head in. A big open-frame ore carrier ship, the 'Medianne', is in orbit being loaded by shuttles from a field at the monorail junction at the city of Medianne on the surface. There are no other ships about, and no orbital facilities. And no SuSAG ships. Phew.
On the way in towards the planet we listen to the local TV broadcasts. The planetary news is telling the planet about the good news of the Dinom Corporation's performance - profits, dividends, sales and orders are all up, up, up! It sounds suspiciously like propaganda to us... There is also a corporate mission statement channel (very dull) and a corporate information channel, which tells us that the 'Medianne' is one of three ships owned by the Dinom Corporation, all much the same and named for the three cities of Dinom. There are also (bland) TV and music entertainment channels, and some educational channels.
As we close in we hail the planet. After a bit of a delay they answer; they don't seem used to visitors!
We get permission to land at the spaceport at Medianne (not the extraterritorial starport at Rhylan), and head in and do so.
The spaceport is a cleared field, with control tower, fuel tanks and two hangars. The city, which is very close by, is made up of a group of fairly low airtight buildings connected by airtight tubes. The huge, bright sun hangs on the horizon. We're only ship there.
Shuttles can be seen lifting from another spaceport (belonging to the Dinom Corporation) at the monorail junction on the other side of town.
Dave keeps the power plant on and the ship ready to go at a moments notice.
Shortly after we land, someone in a vacc suit comes out of control tower and heads over to the ship. We let them in. They introduce themselves as Bill, the customs officer. And traffic controller. And spaceport manager. And general person who runs the port here.
Bill inspects the 'Calico Weapon', and arranges with us to have the life support system recharged. He asks whether we want a hotel, recommending Fred's Hostelry in town (it's a bar and restaurant too). We take this under advisement, and he leaves back to the control tower.
That done, and now that we are connected to the Dinom communications grid, we begin work. We want to:
After a while an ambulance (a large-wheeled moon-buggy-like vehicle) arrives, and docks to the ship. Paramedics come on board and we show them the captain. They manhandle the low berth into the ambulance and head for the hospital. Hermes and Jonah accompany it.
On the way to the hospital the Paramedics examine the woman inside, and exclaim at state of her injuries. They tell us it'll probably cost about 250000 Cr to treat her! Ouch! We enquire how much just to keep her in low berth. 1000 Cr per week. We say we'll do that then 'until we can raise the money to treat her properly'.
They arrive at the hospital and the low berth is taken off to unload the captain from it into one of their own. We pay up front for three weeks care - long enough to 'go and raise some money'. They'll have the low berth delivered back to us (for 100Cr) when they're done.
Hermes and Jonah then wander back through the town of Medianne to the closest airlock to the ship. One of us brings out vacc suits so they can return to the ship, and this they do.
In the evening the low berth is returned to us.
In the night the ore carrier, now fully loaded, moves out of orbit and, somewhat later, jumps away. In the morning, people arrive with six tons of aluminium ingots and begin to load them.
As the loading finishes there is an explosion from the far side of Medianne.
A group of people with guns come out of the closest buildings of the city and run towards the 'Calico Weapon'. We hastily close the ore bay doors and make ready to leave. Over the radio we hear an announcer calling on the people of Dinom to rise up against their corrupt corporate oppressors and take control of the planet for themselves. We also hear that all starships on the planet (i.e. us) have been nationalised by the revolutionary government. We're not really on for this, and so take off. The people on the ground fire rifles at us, but to no effect. Hans fires the sandcaster back at them, and they all fall over.
Then Hans detects the radars of a couple of ground-based defence systems locking on to us... They seem to be a couple of emplaced weapons turrets. Hans fires the ship's laser at one, as we take off, but misses. They fire back, but their lasers are absorbed by a blast from our sandcaster.
Avni realises Hans doesn't really know what he's doing and takes over the weapons control. She blasts one of the ground turrets and fires sand at the other, but not before it blows a hole in a fuel tank (fortunately the tanks are all compartmentalised). Then we are away, nap of the earth, over the very close horizon of Dinom.
We fly off sun-wards (to blind their sensors) and make orbit as we discuss what to do now. Just leave? Hans suggests waiting around as the price we can charge to carry away fleeing people now will be high. The rest of agree that we'll loiter about Dinom for a while and see what happens.
As we do so we listen to the broadcasts being made from the planet. The revolution seems to be taking place all at once all over the surface; the Board of Directors is reported to be on the run. We use the ship's sensors to scan the planet and record what we can see of what is going on, to sell to news companies when we get to Regina. We also keep an eye on the shuttles on the planet, in case the revolutionaries try to arm them and come after us.
After a bit we are hailed by someone using a laser communicator from the surface. We take the call and respond using the Calico Weapon's own laser communicator. They ask if we are the 'Calico Weapon'. We say they are. They ask us for help, and say they can pay us well to take them off planet.
When we ask, the person on the link says he is Arlent Streen, a major shareholder in the Dinom Corporation. He and two other people are in an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) to the south of the city of Rhylan. Can we pick them up and take them elsewhere. He offers 150000 Cr. We ask for more. He says we can have the ATV they are in too. But he needs to sell some shares at Regina to pay us.
We discuss a rescue, first by taking the air-raft down to pick them up, then using the Calico Weapon itself. We decide on the latter, and use the ship's sensors to locate somewhere for the ATV to go where we can pick them up. They go there, and down we fly, coming in over the dark side so as to avoid any settlements.
There below us is an unarmed fusion-powered tracked ATV bearing logos of the Dinom Corporation. We hail them with our laser communicator and tell them to get out of the ATV. This they do; one of them (Arlent Streen) carries an attaché case. We let them aboard one at a time, where Avni searches them in great detail. Arlent Streen is a well-kept man in his fifties. With him are his daughter, Melissa, an attractive young woman, and Andrew Chalikos, his Personal Assistant. Andrew is youngish, handsome and not at all camp.
They have nothing out of the ordinary on them, and are disarmed and let aboard.
Meanwhile, Hans searches the ATV, and again finds nothing out of the ordinary. We set about loading it into one of the ore bays; it just about fits. Once it is on board he searches it again, just in case, with the same result.
We talk to Mr Streen. He signs the ATV over to us; that should be worth a fair amount. And discuss what to do. He wants to sell his shares in the Dinom Corporation when we get to Regina, before the news (which we are the bearers of) gets out. Some of us are a bit dubious at this insider trading, but we go for it in the end.
And off we go, lifting away from Dinom into space and into Jump, heading for Regina...