Introduction
And just like that, we were off. With no debts to speak of, the ship could’ve flown milk-runs for the next fifty years and made us all very rich. But that’s not what she was born to do. And I picked a restless crew for her.
-The Memoirs of “Gentleman” Jack Cartwright
23 October-19 November, WY602 – Whistler, Roberts, Foxglove
Current Job: Stop The Bleeding
The Bureau agents are obliged to conduct a munitions inspection of Legitimate Salvage, and the crew aids them in the friendliest possible way. Medical personnel are standing by to retrieve the injured sailors, and the rest of the passenger and cargo offload goes as planned.
The crew decides to take on the escort mission from Garrett Barnes of Consolidated Equipment Mfg.. They hire on a squad of Cara’s former marines, as well as a lance of former special forces operators, and take on another load of passengers and cargo before departing for Roberts.
Once there, they offer Barnes a tour of the ship, and he uses it as an opportunity to come aboard and describe the job to the crew. For the past year, Consolidated has been a consistent victim of very well-armed piracy as they run shipments of refined ores from Foxglove through Rebekkah and to Roberts. Every attempt at taking alternate routes has failed, as had shuffling the command crews of the transports. He’s unsure of how the pirates are getting the information about where his convoys are jumping to, but it must be in near-real time. Starting in September, the pirates have gone from raiding the ships for specific goods, to stealing the ships outright. Consolidated is unsure what’s become of the crews or the ships, as they haven’t shown back up again to anyone’s knowledge.
The crew accepts the job, as well as his personal cipher to pass instructions along to the head of the next convoy due to depart Foxglove at the end of the month.
The crew takes on another load of passengers and cargo and departs for Foxglove. En route, they analyze the very specific goods that had been stolen from the convoys. One such material sets off red flags, as it was used in reactor parts in WDF naval vessels around the time the Murphy class was built. The crew makes the leap that the supplies might have been preemptively collected to help the thieves support their purloined fleet.
The crew arrives at Nevada City a week ahead of the convoy’s departure, and plans to pound the pavement to gather as much intel as they can before the freighters depart.
