Game Date: September 29, EY217
Previous events: Gun smuggling and ghost ship chasing
Current location: Providence | Beck | Mechanicville
In a place called Mechanicville it's no surprise that maintenance is a snap to set up and the mechanics here are above average in skill; it will take about three days until the Steel Hummingbird is ready to go. First, though, there's some cleaning to do. All the weapons are taken out of engineering and off the bridge and stored in the cargo hold. All the doors that the maintenance crew doesn't need to use are locked up, hopefully keeping them away from the cargo.
Malcolm decides to relax in his own particular way. After finding some ammunition for one of the assault rifles (in a vending machine; it really is that gun-happy a planet) he takes a folding chair and a parasol up onto the top of the Hummingbird's hull and plans to sit up there, sheltered from Beck's harsh sun and drinking tea with the assault rifle on his lap until he finds something better to do. He likes being up above things.
Volkova decides to stay on the ship to oversee the work and will likely end up frightening the maintenance personnel. She's become quite fond over the past few days of wandering the corridors of the ship with an empty grenade launcher, pointing it at anything and anyone and pressing the trigger, quite enjoying the clicking sound. This disturbs everyone else but without ammo or training she's harmless, they hope. She dows realize that this won't go over well with the other mechanics and decides to forgo doing this where they can see her. Ghost won't have anything to do with her regardless and that's fine with her. She doesn't really understand what a cat is doing on a ship anyways.
Bishop has bigger plans than either of those two layabouts. The last time that they were on Beck he went on a hunting trip led by a particular Kel Varnsen. It turned out to be a very different hunt from what Bishop was used to from his upbringing on uBuntu: back home they actually used the parts of the animal, hunting for sustenance. Here on Beck they left the animals' remains out to rot and used rocket launchers and truck-mounted machine guns to kill them! Disgusted, Bishop talked to the others in the hunting party about how wrong all this was and managed to turn them against Varnsen, who in return kicked Bishop off of the truck and sped off, leaving him to die in the harsh sun.
Luckily for Bishop his weak-looking exterior hides an extensive knowledge of how to survive in barren environments and he managed to make it back to civilization. He then found that Varnsen's family is numerous, widespread, and stuck together. With law enforcement unwilling to do anything Bishop took revenge in the way he knew how, finding Kel's fifteen-year old half-sister (or niece, or both... Bishop was never sure) and sleeping with her, making sure that Kel found out. After that he returned to the Steel Hummingbird and soon left the planet.
All that is in the past now, but Jillian and Volkova's repeated talks seem to have affected him and he wants to apologize to Kel's half-sister (or niece, or...) for using her as he did. This is a frightening prospect, though. It means heading into Varnsen family territory, which is potentially quite dangerous. He talks to Jillian about this and asks her to come with him. She agrees, wanting to help him along his path to redemption. The town of Springfield is only about thirty kilometres away but without public transportation they'll have to rent a car and neither one knows how to drive.
Malcolm is the only one who knows how to drive any form of land transport and so they ask him to help them out. He sighs but agrees, a day of perfectly good perching ruined. He quickly rents a large SUV and they're soon on their way. It's pretty much a straight road to Springfield through badlands that Bishop recognizes from his last time here. This doesn't make him feel any more comfortable about the situation they're heading into but he keeps his fear in check.
Springfield is a small town with a thousand inhabitants but Bishop can't remember where Kel's half-sister (or etc etc) lives, nor her name! They find a phone booth and talk to the operator to find out about her. Not surprisingly, the operator knows everyone here and gives them an address and a name (Emily). The house is easy to find and Bishop plans to sneak into Emily's bedroom the same way he did last time allowing him to speak with her privately. Jillian puts an end to that idea and insists that he go up to the front door and talk to her like a normal person. It's at this point that his courage fails him and he talks Jillian into going up to the house and calling him over when Emily's at the door. Jillian rolls her eyes and finds this ridiculous but agrees and heads up to the house.
It's not Emily but presumably her mother who answers the door. The early 40-ish woman is friendly enough talking to Jillian but the whole situation is a little confusing and Jillian soon motions Bishop to come to the house in an annoyed fashion. When he shows up at the door to find not Emily but her mother instead it's his turn to be annoyed, but nowhere near as put off as Emily's mother. She coldly recognizes him and goes to get her daughter. Emily is sixteen now, short with long, straight dark hair, and is surprisingly happy to see Bishop. She shoos her mother back into the house and tells Bishop that she doesn't feel at all used by him. She knew what she was getting into and is interested in seeing him again! Say tonight at 8? By the Jumpin' Jack's on the outskirts of town? Bishop happily agrees and they leave to head back to Mechanicville.
The surprising success of the venture is ruined when they are pulled over by a police car a little outside of town. They haven't done anything illegal as far as they know (and on a planet as libertarian as this that would take some doing) and seeing that they've been pulled over by an Officer Varnsen makes them paranoid. He insists on taking Bishop but doesn't give any justification for it other than his authority. Deciding that there's no way that this is going to end well anyway Malcolm pulls away in a cloud of dust. The police officer's partner brings the patrol car up, Varnsen climbs in, and the chase is on!
It's a long, straight road back to Mechanicville and the patrol car is definitely the faster of the two vehicles. Worse, backup has probably already been called. The small side roads that they see won't be much help if they don't know where they go to. Deciding that he who dares wins Malcolm takes the SUV off the road entirely, hoping that their higher clearance will be an advantage over the police car. Bishop remembers the general lay of the land out here from when Kel Varnsen tried to kill him and gives what guidance he can while Jillian helps with her innate sense of direction.
The chase goes on for a while. Neither vehicle is designed to go off-road and they both fare badly: steering alignment is thrown out of whack, a windshield is cracked by a kicked-up rock, a headlight smashed and fender torn off in a narrow pass. Malcolm uses every trick he knows, at one point even managing to jump the SUV over a piece of corrugated steel that's somehow been propped up against a boulder! All this doesn't give the SUV enough distance to lose the cops: they know the area better and although Malcolm is a solid driver with a definite flair for driving or piloting anything that moves the police driver is trained for chases.
Malcolm decides that if he can't outrun them the only way to end the chase is to run the cop car into something suitably solid and tries to force it into a prominant part of the landscape. Sadly, the patrol car is in better shape and its driver's superior skill means the chase ends with the SUV planted solidly into an enormous boulder. Seatbelts save the crew from being more than stunned but by the time they get their heads about themselves they've got high-caliber pistols pointed at them. They're arrested, handcuffed, and crammed into the back of the patrol car, which rattles back to Springfield.
Back at the Steel Hummingbird, Volkova is keeping herself occupied (point, "click", point, "click") when the Sheriff shows up and politely asks her to come with him. Having no reason to say no she goes along and is taken on a long ride, past Springfield and out into the badlands. The car eventually stops at a small encampment with a few tents, an RV, and three pickups, two with heavy vehicular machine guns mounted in their beds! The Sheriff is suddenly much less friendly and leads her at gunpoint into one of the tents. Inside she sees her three friends and two other people that she doesn't know handcuffed, with a chain running through the cuffs to the central pole of the tent. Her tool belt and Khnuta are taken away from her and without any explanation she's handcuffed to the chain as well. The five of them are left alone.
The Hummingbird's crew quickly recount how they came here and ask the two unknown people who they are. The woman's name is Gabi Zimmerman, from Walküren. She's a follower of Ned Trudley, an anarcho-primitivist there that Bishop has met. She claims that she was captured by the government during a raid on Trudley's camp. Harry Young hails from Olberman, where he was a farmer who was kidnapped with neither rhyme nor reason. Both claim to have a minimal amount of survival skills and no real combat abilities.
While everyone is sharing their stories Volkova manages to slip her hand free of the handcuffs thanks in equal parts to her strength, her captor not cinching them them tightly enough, and her constant layer of engine grease. Once free she takes a bag from her pocket that she fills with rocks and attaches to the handcuffs to make a crude flail. She waits by the tent flap for someone to come in, fully intending to beat them senseless or worse.
No one's sure how long she waits before the flap opens. Unfortunately it opens into her face and her target is quick; she misses and before it can turn into a proper brawl two more men enter the tent armed with shotguns. Volkova backs down and surrenders her weapon. She's reattached to the chain with a much tighter fit on the cuffs. The first man in is Kel Varnsen. Tall and muscular, he's got closely-cropped black hair and Motorhead moustache. He seems quite happy to see Bishop among the group, recognizing him and remembering what the youngster had done to his family. He tells them that he's found some people who are willing to pay quite a lot of money for a hunt. In particular, to hunt people. Specifically, the tied-up gang in the tent! Gabi and Harry were going to be the prey but an extra four people will make things all the more interesting. The hunt will begin in the morning and he finds this much more rewarding than leading standard hunting parties. More rewarding in both the fiscal and personal sense. Kel expresses his hopes that he's there when Bishop gets gunned down and leaves them for the night.
Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 10)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 1)