The trip from jump point to Mont was pretty boring: Mont is not a well-visited system. While I tried the comms, there was nothing until we were almost in orbit.
"This is Mont Downport. Please state your reason for visit." The voice was not exactly unfriendly, but there was a harsh accent of sorts I could not place.
"This is the No Refunds requesting permission to land. Free trader with two passengers for Mont. Cargo to be delivered per contract." I responded as well. There was no computer beep asking for the manifest or anything. Guess we were really at a sort of frontier system.
"Permission to land, No Refunds. There is a single pad outside Chutaco ready for your ship." And then the signal was killed. Looking at the 3D globe of Mont, I could see the port was near the southern pole, at least according to the map we had in the database. "Captain," I called on the comms, "permission to land was granted. At the only apparent landing pad. I don't get any transponder or locational pings on comms."
"Don't worry, Malik. The map is accurate. Prepare our passengers for landing in less than an hour" the captain responded. I did as told, and watched the feeds as we de-orbited and made a spiraling approach to the south pole of Mont. Looking at the world real-time, the atmosphere seemed foggy or steamy as we approached the planet. I knew from the library it had a very thin atmosphere, and most of the world was a steam bath. The poles were a bit cooler, and as we made our final approach, I saw some mountains snaking off into the distance. We skimmed over waters of a bright blue and then settled on what looked to be cracked bedrock. Panning the cameras, I could see what appeared to be a large set of doors set into the mountainside, and a wide path leading from where we were parked to those massive doors.
"No Refunds is settled down" I radioed the port. It took a few moments, and then that same harsh voice responded, "Welcome to Mont. Outer doors are unlocked, and we have a truck ready to transport cargo." I thought of the cargo we had, and groaned to myself. Ewo looked over at me and smiled. "Yes, this will be a lot slower than on a modern port. We'll be here a bit. After we get the passengers and cargo unloaded to this yeaoo kei, we'll see if Petria is worth the passenger fees we did not charge him." I was unsure what yeaoo kei meant exactly, but figured it was not a flattering term from how she said it.
The truck did rumble out to us. Not sure what powered it but it generated a lot of smoke or steam as it approached our main cargo hatch. We sealed the bay from the rest of the ship, I donned a vacc suit as we did not have any environmental suits, and directed the cargo transfer. My visor would steam over quite often. The workers from the port wore bulky respirators and loose-fitting clothes that sealed at the wrists and ankles. In the end, it was almost 2 days to get the cargos unloaded, and half a day with Ewo handling the legalities of the destroyed aromatics. The mountain entrance was the first of many heavy doors. The cargo warehouses were just large caves, barely smoothed out, to either side of the passage about 2 doors in. There were more cargo caves further in if they required more atmosphere. Inside the caves, each airlock increased the air pressure and reduced the temperature. The 4th lock in was a shirt-sleeves environment. There was condensation on the walls as well, though by the 5th lock most of the condensation was almost all gone.
Seemed everyone here spoke with that harsh accent and tended to abbreviate things a good deal. Ewo told me it was because they were from Helfom. Usually over time most accents tend to disappear with travel, but I suppose that Mont did not get a lot of visitors, nor did the people often leave.
Apparently, we made a good impression on the people helping off-load the cargo. We got invited to a tour of Chutaco with a bunch of them. Once inside the final lock, the main cavern was easily 200 meters wide and almost as deep. There were branching tunnels, some large enough to fly a small ship through, others just a few meters wide and high. Buildings were built into the walls and reached bac into the bedrock. Stairs were everywhere, as were an amazing number of plants. Every you went there were plants. Ceilings and roofs had full spectrum lighting, and I was told the plants helped with the air and moisture content. Some of the more industrial sections of the city had huge steel pipes that led to the surface, giant fans circulating air. There was also a constant sound of fans and air moving, though it could barely be felt. The place smelled like a rainforest between the humidity and the plants. I did not notice many animals such as pets or wildlife. I found that several caverns had small herds of food animals. There was also a cavern set up as a beach, complete with sand and something that looked almost like palm trees. The water was pretty balmy, almost too warm for me.
One of the most peculiar things though that there seemed to be a lot of heavy doors, very similar to airlock doors. I asked Mari, one of the people showing us about, why those doors were so prevalent.
"History. We come from Helfom, and safeguards against vacuum are how you survive. Mont's air is a bit more than vacuum, but our greats and grandparents added the safeguards. One of the main jobs here is maintaining the doors and seals. Some of the minerals you transported are used for smoothing the seals, some for the air systems. Most of what you delivered we need for survival. The aromatics, though, were to make some things more bearable. We use those in the herd warrens a lot."
For a city of over 7000 individuals, there were a lot of warrens and some really interesting art, mostly abstract things that looked vaguely like circuits or some sort of geometric designs. And due to differing mineral compositions, the buildings were all various shades and colors, though often hard to see behind all the plants. Some of the caverns it seemed you could barely see the other side, and the ceilings stretched high above. Others were a lot smaller, and small shops were tucked away in odd places at times. I know my legs got sore from the walking: the surfaces were usually rock.
The captain had moved the No Refunds to the nearby ocean, and they were refueling the ship. We found Petria and got him started checking for buyers. He managed to bring in Cr33,600 for the polymers, and a pretty amazing MCr1.125 for the machine parts - they were definitely needed here. Finally coming out well ahead. We're also getting his services for purchase, and then we're even. But he was well worth the cost of the trip.
We spent the next day rounding up supplies for the ship. There was not a lot available, and we'd be eating ship stores more than fresh food in the jump ahead.
Tried to get a bit of the feel of Mont: large caverns with buildings built into the walls, plants everywhere. It is not a claustrophobic set of caverns - some are quite huge. Probably need more fluff, but as it is just me....
Next session: actually buying the cargo. And some work to look at systems nearby to see what we can buy low & sell high. Though we've used up half the week already. My guess is cargo loading will be equally slow as they have to use TL7 trucks and equipment: no grav trucks or sleds to aid in getting the cargo in. And I rolled decently for the polymers, and then really well for the advanced machine parts. Finally showing a decent profit! The group taking us about was one of the world encounters and gives me a +1 on finding cargo. Think I'll use that to allow me to add 1 to the d66 roll for cargo if I want to.
I neglected to do much on the approach to Mont: there is little traffic here, and the tech level, while it does have radio and early computers, does not have much in the way of automation. Not sure a single landing pad is enough but as there is little traffic, it may suffice. Of course, one bare spot is as good as another I supposed. Perhaps there will be a ship next to us when we're ready to launch.
And messing with maps and a scale image of the No Refunds on the single pad for Mont downport. Squares are 10' or so. Took a bit to cut out that ship image, but now I can use that in future map projects.
And did the captain just get water to process for fuel? Or are there more nefarious things going on that he did not want me to know about? Of course, I am playing all the characters in theory, but really, I'm trying to tell the story, such as it is, from Malik's viewpoint. Perhaps I'll try a change of pace & run from another character next session.
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