The executive, Vax Datas, leaned back in his chair, looking over his entirely unnecessary glasses at Eow and myself. "It has come to my attention that Sprockets has some deep agents in our corporate hierarchy. While we are doing our own due diligence, some hard evidence of illegally tampering with our employment server, RUDI. While we cannot be involved in anything illegal, in exchange for the evidence, we feel that there may be a reason for a significant remuneration." He continued to look at us over steepled fingers. I looked over at Ewo who was calmly returning the man's gaze, and with a quick nod of her head, she replied "I'll take that under consideration. Let me confer with my colleagues and we'll be in touch." She unfolded from her chain in a graceful move and started to the door. I jumped up after her.
A bit later in a cafe overlooking the wide park under the steel sky we were drinking tea, Ewo on the comms to the No Refunds. The air felt fresh and there seemed to be a breeze blowing from the park as I could smell fresh cut grass, and hear children playing. Transportation in the city was all via the tubes, no personal vehicles. The air just tasted good it seemed. Perhaps because being in the ship for a week at a time, despite the best scrubbers, you are still breathing the same air. Of course, we were breathing the same air here as well, but in a city of over a hundred thousand people build in huge underground shells. With parks, I thought to myself, watching couples walk by.
Ewo finally got off the comms, looked at me and said, "It's a go. They'll be here tomorrow morning. In the meantime, we can start gathering additional info from what Datas gave us." We already had the floor maps and some basic security information. I was wondering who had agents where as we had what appeared to be sensitive information. Paying our tab, we found a cheap hotel overlooking the Sprockets building, and I took out my computer and interfaced with the system to start digging into our target. I was helped a bit with the codes and infostream from Datas. It was a long night, and Ewo was working her own set of leads through the more public facing bots and people, using her advocate training along with her native glare.
Trying to be a bit more thematic. Not sure if I want to keep trying this or not, though I have always thought about being a writer. Regardless, I am going to chain together a few rolls, to see if I get any additional modifications for my success roll against what is going to be both a risky and difficult job. Malik rolls an 8 for his comms role. While he does not have computer skill other than at 0, I think parlaying some of that investigative skill may help, and so while not getting a great deal of info, neither does he trigger any intrusion alarms. So going to call that nothing extra. Ewo, on the other hand, rolls an 11. With her computer 1, I'll throw in an extra bonus for their roll. The next day the rest of the crew shows up, and with floor plans and computer intrusions and al the other preparations, it is time to see how we do. I think Malik may be a bit unnerved by their willingness to cross an apparently legal line, but as this is not in the Imperium but rather the League, perhaps his morals are a bit more flexible. Though this time he is in the action rather than reporting on the action!
Going with this is both a shaky plan due to the high technology Krim has, and dangerous as there well could be lethal protections over at the Sprockets building. And we squeak by, but only with the advantages from Ewo's previous roll as well as our passports (going to count that as a great asset), else there may have well been a fatality. And we can't afford that as I really need more crew about the ship as it is larger than I accounted for. We had a good consequence, so not only did we get the information Avison is wanting, we got some piece of kit. So, a high-tech office which I've not figured out what they are high-tech in...ahh, Psiz was a company that was working with autonomous vehicles. There are a couple of possibilities: a very high-end computer, much better than Malik's, perhaps with some autonomy? I think we'll go that way, and I'll work up the computer. Put an intelligence in there and see what else we can do with computers in various versions of Traveller. Classic not much, but I think T5 and Mongoose have some interesting things we may be able to do. Maybe a robot instead...that would also fit into the autonomous aspect of things. I'll see - I have at least book 8 (robots) in PDF form though I think I also have rules in a few other places. A small robot could be cool.
We're going to wrap up our Krim trip here: Datas is going to supply a couple of sample autonomous vehicles as well as pay for first class passage to Tryonous for his sales team. We'll be able to sell those vehicles so that will be pure profit, as well as have passengers aboard. So there will be some in-jump rolls to see what happens there!
Now to print up a travel sheet of sorts (and I may post that in a bit) to give me some basic world info and contacts and what we did there. I've found digging back through the blog just does not work well for me!
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