Drone Run

(GM's note: Drone Run is a short job for Shen, but was really too short to be an adventure, more like an interlude between real adventures. But I had already proposed the job in game, and it does serve to help tie the Lost Sheep and The Yellow Submarine campaigns together.)

New Crew
6/7/2517
The Britannia is on Liann Jiun after saying goodbye to Ronnie and Sarah on Santo. Captain Windsor sends Cid out to get a cargo and they pick up 600 tons of grain bound for Beaumonde. Along the way, Naomi gets a call from her hacker contact, Citizen Wraith. He has a friend who is looking for a shipboard job to avoid an "Alliance Entanglements". He is on Beaumonde, Naomi agrees to pitch it to the captain. Captain agrees to meet the prospective crewman. Naomi sends back word to meet at the New Dunsmore port. Along the way, Windsor notices the ship's navigational system isn't working. He sends Silas out to check and he misdiagnoses the problem as a technical issue and bounces it off to Naomi; she says its not. Silas checks again and finds the sensor housing is cracked and jury rigs repairs.
They arrive at Beaumonde and begin offloading. Ruan goes off to do the tourist thing, but Beaumonde is beginning to be boring for him. The new crew member, Lawrence Felman Junior, arrives and interviews with Windsor. He does well and the captain is inclined to hire him, but waits until Ruan gets back and can Read him. Ruan finally returns and is introduced to Junior. Ruan Reads Junior's hatred of the Alliance and history of crimes against the Alliance and cryptically comments to the captain that Junior will fit in. They get a small cargo of agricultural robots headed for Angel and take off to meet with Shen.

Spy Mission
On Angel, they drop the cargo and go meet to find out about the new job. Windsor sends his crew off to shop in the salvage yard and get a new sensor housing. Shen explains the Alliance maintains a fleet of mothballed ships on the edge of the White Sun system. He would like to know what's in the depot and where, so they have built a small sensor drone. He wants the Britannia to drop off the drone outside the depot, then pick it up on the other side. The drone will creep stealthily through the depot making sensor readings. Windsor agrees and begins to deal. He wants a new ship's computer, Shen agrees to throw in the sensor housing. And, Windsor asks for some railgun rounds of the type they had gotten from the Blackjack cache job. Shen is surprised, but agrees to look into 2-4 rounds. They shake on the deal and the captain gathers up the crew and returns to the ship. They move the Britannia to the salvage yard's pad and the new sensor housing is installed and the drone is loaded onboard. They decide to load a cargo as well, so its not suspicious they left for White Sun, never landed anywhere and returned three weeks later with no cargo. Cid finds a shipment of meat going to Sihnon, they load up and take off.
Cid's plotted course drops them out too far from the drone's start course, they move in a little bit. Windsor, Silas and Ruan push the drone out and Windsor activates it. But there's a problem. The pulse drive's thrusters fire, but the inertial dampener system doesn't engage. Cid chases down the drone and Ruan goes out to the drone with his flight pack and snaps a cable on and they can pull the drone inside. Silas and Ruan check over the drone, but can't figure out where the issue is. Windsor assists and spots the malfunction. They relaunch the drone and it starts normally. They head off to Sihnon.

Ocean of Light
Arriving at the cargo transfer skyplex, they dock and begin offloading cargo. They decide to all go down to the surface for a 12 hour shore leave. They purchase shuttle tickets for the surface. Ruan always has to be armed, but he decides to take his second best pistol and conceals it in a null-holster. Unfortunately, his envelope isn't up to defeating the cutting edge security systems in the core and he is arrested, pistol and envelope are confiscated and he is fined 100 credits. He is also banned from going planetside and is forced to stay aboard ship while the crew goes on leave. Windsor and Cid take pity on him and bring him a fine black silk shirt and a snow globe. Cid also buys an expensive suit and Naomi gets a silk kimono. They pick up a cargo of textiles bound for Beaumonde and depart to recover the drone. The crew recovers the drone with no problem and heads to Angel. One night, Naomi sneaks into the cargo bay and accesses the drone's memory and downloads the sensor data.
On Angel, the drone is offloaded, the new ship's computer installed and Shen has two railgun rounds as part of the payment. They hop across the system and look for a new job. Cid finds a large cargo headed for Bernadette, but since he was arrested there, he passes on it and takes a smaller cargo bound for Persephone instead.

Quotes and Smart remarks
Talking about Matt's new character, Lawrence Felman Junior.
Lee "Worst. Anarchist. Ever"

Discussing Captain Windsor's remorse over his long lost fiancee.
Lee "I'm better now, I got some closure. And I got laid"

Interviewing the new deckhand
Lee "He came with the highest recommendations"
Jim "Meaning we were high when we wrote them"

Kevin "Political Science has science right in the name"
Raleigh "So does Scientology"

Emily's cats are going through a topical parasite treatment with a sulfur component
Emily "My hands smell like I've been packing snowballs in Hell"

Ruan Reads Junior and rolls a 20
Emily "That was a critical hit"
Lee "To his mind…"

Matt's character is a chemist, discussing making meth
Matt "You're English; you don't need your teeth"

Ruan Reads Junior's hatred of the Alliance and history of vandalism and explosive arson
Emily "Captain, he'll fit right in"
Lee "Thank you for your highly mysterious opinion"

The ship had a cargo of meat and were discussing just leaving it open to space to stay cold
Jim "We started with raw meat and delivered jerky. Space jerky or sperky"

After being banned from the surface, Ruan wrote a haiku on the white board
Emily "Shore leave cancelled
Da shiong la se ch'wohn tian!*
I'll be in my bunk."

*-explosive diarrhea of an elephant