Solo Session 4: Preacep 234-1106

234-1106 Preacep 0803 C22467B-A

After checking in on the two passengers, Mail resumes his post at the sensors station as they start entering Preacep air space. Seeing two incoming craft, her alerts the captain.

"Yes," Lynwood says over his shoulder, "an escort craft from each country. They want to make sure we stay where we are supposed to stay. They'll be following us all the way down. Should have then in visual range in a few moments."

And as the No Refunds dropped in through the thin atmosphere, Malik got some good imagery of the two craft. While significantly smaller than the 300 ton merchant vessel, they had a lot more fire power.

Jeff Zugale: 210/365: Tashkent I-44

"Don't worry about it, " Ewo said from the opposite station. "While the do prohibit the population from meets and greets, they still need stuff the outside universe can supply. I've been here a few times, and no world exploration here. Hopefully there will be something in the port to keep us from dead-heading out."

The class C port was not impressive as the merchant settled down on a ferrocrete pad, the two air fighters zooming off. A small, spidery island maybe 100 kilometers wide with fingers stretching into to tainted ocean, the port was adjacent to the western side. Huge fuel silos to the north next to the ocean, and the small port tower to the south. Maybe half a dozen pads were there, more than half empty. A few standard trading vessels were there, as was what appeared to be a Space Patrol ship.

"Same class as the Wyvern," Malik thought to himself, "but can't read the numbers from here."

The No Refunds settled on the assigned pad, the landing lights switching off as soon as she touched down. The Captain flicked several switches, and with a quick acknowledgment to the tower, got up and walked back towards the lift to the mid-deck. Passing Ewo and Malik, he said, "Good luck in finding cargo here, or passengers. Now off to fill out some reports at the admin building." With that, he turned to the lift and went down.

Checking his sensors, Malik only saw the IDs of the various ships pinging the system. "Is there any formal sign in or anything we need to do?" he asked the Aslan.

"That's where Lynwood is headed now. While we are transmitting the last port's info blocks, Preacep is a bit more old fashioned about some things. Ok, there's the transport. You need to hustle and get our guests aboard that as well. They've already paid passage, so let's get them out there and out of here."

Heading down, Malik and Ewo escorted their guests to the transport which was locked to their starboard air lock. Malik, Ewo, Lynwood and the two passengers boarded, and Malik almost hit his head on the ceiling as the gravity shifted from the standard 1G on-board to barely .3G of Preacep. With some hissing and banging, the wheeled transport disengaged from the ship, rolled back and did a 180, and headed for an opening a few dozen meters away. The bus had room for more people than the five passengers.

Heading down a grade once past the big lock doors, the gravity slowly shifted back to a standard G and the dim light from the sun faded as the doors closed behind the transport. Coming up on a platform, the vehicle parallel parked and matched air locks. Much quieter than the outside locks, the doors slid open to reveal what looked to be an admin center. A central desk with a couple SPA officers overlooked the external transport corridor, and was in front of what appeared to be a rapid transport system. The ship's passengers went to the woman on the left, and the ship's crew headed to the man on the right.

"Welcome to Preacep, Captain, Ewo. Someone new this time 'round?" the large man said, shaking hands with them as Lynwood introduced Malik to Joesph. The captain, after a brief conversation, left to get on the tube transport to get to the admin building, leading Ewo and Malik. Malik was carrying the ship's cargo load out and they were going to post at the admin building to see what they could get for it

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Okay, enough story time for the moment. Let's roll on the actual purchase price table, remembering that +4 by selling on a non-industrial world. Rolling a 10, then adding 4 gives us 300% resale value. So - we hit the motherlode! Realistically, if we could find something here to sell at a profit back on Yllom, we could just go back and forth and make a killing assuming we could get aluminum often enough. Regardless, I need to explore the League of Independent planets a bit.

Currently, the ship is at Cr47,500, Getting the Cr16,000 from the 2 mid-passengers, and selling the cargo at Cr225,000, gives us Cr288,500. Refueling, we used only 1 jump so half a tank at Cr15,750. Berthing fees, Cr100 (I cannot for some reason find the berthing costs so making a guess), life support for 2 weeks (as we'll be here another week looking for cargo and getting, well, maybe not fresh air but at least fresh views) is Cr3000, and half the monthly maintenance is Cr3600. So we currently have Cr266, 050. And so far the crew payments have not been made. So from the 225,000 we need to subtract ship expenses (22,500 for the last two weeks), and figure the profit which was: purchase price $52,500 from sale price 225,000 = Cr150,000. Take out a bit for the next two weeks (22,500) and some towards the ship funds and maintenance, so Cr50,000 is going towards future use, Such as a shuttle. And we need a kitty for the next purchase as well, so we're left with Cr25,000 to make the math easier (Cr75,000 towards a new cargo)  Total shares are 25, so each share is Cr1000. Considering Malik, as a Steward 0, should be getting Cr3000 per month, he is behind that schedule. Hopefully another good cargo.  But we are left with Cr75000 towards cargo, and Cr50,000 saved up for future ship costs: he needs to pay Cr179000 per month! He only has not even 1/3 of that at the moment saved up. So we may have to get into patron territory or something to make up the money.

So yes, it does seem as if I've swerved into accountants in space...

And next session, we start looking for cargo and anything else to help pay the bills.

The fighter is from Jeff Zugale. I followed his Kickstarter last year for the Starshipwright Book 1. Eagerly awaiting to see if he'll publish a Book 2. I do follow him on Patreon as he comes up with cool ships that I just love looking at.