In the aftermath of the attack, the officers rounded everyone up and medical aid was administered. Almost immediately, SAP ground forces showed up to try and understand why RAM had taken a direct military action on one of their facilities. As the facility spokespeople worked out the situation, the NEO officers and recruits emptied the place of anything that would identify it as an NEO facility. When all was said and done, the SAP higher ups and RAM agreed this was a case of mistaken identity.
The adventurers were provided medical aid and quietly everyone was brought back to their living spaces to await instruction. A day later, Coop showed up to speak with the adventurers. Coop was brief in his instructions, explaining what he knew about the situation, and said that it was like a result of Tine being captured. There had already been a RAM counter intelligence operation taking place, but the murder of a pair of RAM officers who were meeting with murdered SAP officials that were providing RAM information about the facility, appeared to be the typing point and what triggered the assault on the facility.
Coop went on to explain that the adventurers did extremely well and NEO still needed them in the operation. He provided the adventurers with travel tickets for passage on a starliner to Tycho. He did not explain what they were meant to do after that, but gave them two days to gather their belongings and say goodbye to Earth.
Not wanting to waste the opportunity, Carm and Seraphina spent their time gathering shelf stable herbs and spices that they knew would be prohibitively expensive or impossible to purchase off world, while Buzz picked up a couple boxes of Twinkies and 20 lbs of Coffee. Max purchased some assorted food stuffs as well, while Alex simply gathered up his stashes and ensured that he had all the gear he needed.
Two days later, they headed to a spaceport in the outskirts of Chicagorg. Wearing their space suits that NEO had provided them, and ladened down with their worldly possessions, the adventurers boarded the ship to leave Earth for the first time in their lives.
As the Ship took off, Max suffered a minor panic attack. While Alex attempted to calm them down, other individuals on the flight seemed to be doing just as poorly. After a short 1 day trip between Earth and the Moon, the adventurers landed at Tycho and got their first true taste of less than Earth Gravity. Those packs that felt very heavy a bit ago, suddenly felt much more manageable. Standing in the port, attempting to take in all the splendor of Tycho, the group felt a bit dazed.
Alex continued to walk around in wonder, while Buzz did his best to flirt with a flight attendant that eventually had to go. Max was the only one who seemed to have their wits about them enough to try and figure out what they were supposed to do next. As the group of adventurers made their way toward customs to head into Tycho proper, they were stopped by a middle aged man who began asking some pointed questions.
Somehow, the man knew the details of their travel and explained that they were meant to go with him to a different ship. The group did not have any means of validating this arrangement, but since he seemed to have knowledge that only an NEO coordinator could have, they decided that an overabundance of caution was not necessary, and followed the man to a different port, where along with a few other people that looked familiar, they crammed themselves onto an Astrover with a stripped down interior, which was retrofitted to have as much seating as could possibly be crammed into a ship this size.
As the men preparing the ship seemed to have an argument with the Tycho Spaceport police, everyone's gear was loaded and then very quickly, the ship left Tycho and headed off into space. The ship expertly navigated the debris field in the near Earth orbit, eventually coming to an obfuscated space station that was a short half day’s travel at some scary speeds. The captain of the tiny transport vessel announced a welcome to Salvation III and they docked.
As their gear was unloaded, the group of people on the Astrover were brought to a conference room within the facility. Here they were all seated in front of a group of NEO uniformed officials. When the room settled down, a dark skinned man stood up and announced that he was Carlton Turabian and he was excited to welcome all the new comers from Chicagorg, regardless of the circumstances.
Carlton went on to briefly explain what happened at the facility and how it will unfortunately be sunset, but a new one would be made. Thankfully, the majority of the equipment, and the personnel that survived, had been moved off site and were safe. In all, thanks to the quick thinking and action on the part of the facility’s defenders, what should have been a tragedy, ended up being a success story. Carlton continued to explain what was expected of them from here and then dismissed everyone to their new operating groups.
NEO officers entered the crowd and gathered people into units and then headed out of the room. Carlton asked the adventurers by name to stay behind and meet with him. Once the adventurers and Carlton were alone in the room, Carlton explained he was their commanding officer and that he came out of retirement to be their leader and point of contact.
Carlton went on to personally thank them for their exemplary performance at the training facility, acknowledging that their actions were directly responsible for the preservation of a large number of lives and a large quantity of equipment. If it had not been for their leadership and quick restoration of the air defenses, the situation would have ended very differently.
In recognition of their obvious ability, NEO provided the adventures with a 1000 credit bonus each and Carlton had arranged for them to immediately be put on a salvage ship of their own, jumping them past a lot of menial labor and climbing of ranks. Carlton explained that their work detail was one of the most desired and was the last step before becoming a full NEO agent; essentially they had been fast tracked.
Carlton explained that they would not be issued any more equipment, and that they would unfortunately be responsible for purchasing their ammunition and equipment from the stock within the station, or anywhere else they could come by it. This was just a reality of working for the most cash strapped guerilla terrorist organization in the solar system. Carlton gave them their living quarters assignments and told them they were expected in Zero G training the next day. Lastly, he provided them their first doses of Gravitol.
With all the administrative stuff out of the way, the adventures headed to their new living quarters to get settled in. The spaces were spacious enough, but lacked any furnishings that were not built into the walls or mounted. Given the facility was gravity free, this was a bit of a shock, but one that they took easily in stride. After getting their gear stowed, the group made their way to the Cantina to enjoy some refreshment before they got some rest.
In the Cantina, Max made quick friends with a Desert Runner named J’Zargo who had a mohawk and the tips of their ears dyed a bright blue. Max learned that J’Zargo was a victim of RAM genocide and was smuggled off Mars at a very young age. J’Zargo was then raised in the belt before finding a home among NEO as an agent.
Alex ran into Ron “The Swan” Smith, who had been a constant rival of Buzz’s during training. Ron and Buzz traded records on the simulators for the entire time that the group was in training and now that Buzz made it to Salvation III “The Swan” seemed excited to continue their rivalry.
Buzz encountered an old friend from the SAP military Rex “The Raptor” Hanson. Rex was glad to find a familiar face and the two sat drinking and trading war stories until Rex got overly excited and began a fight that was quickly stopped by NEO MPs.
The following morning, the group woke when they were told and headed to Zero G training. Here Alex and Max showed an above average aptitude for the activity and gained more than a little skill. Buzz was adequate and they all were given the green light to start their work assignment. Later that day, they were loaded onto an Astrover affectionately labeled, the Junker.
The first day was quite uneventful. The adventurers were able to gather a decent amount of salvage and spent a good amount of time observing the comings and goings of ships to Salvation III. That night, the group spent more time hanging out with their new friends and ran into Jana again. Jana explained that she was slotted to do water recycling, which she did understand, but she was excited to be a part of the organization and was glad to be off Earth.
Over the next day or two, things went just as uneventfully. The adventurers learned the names of a few ships that came and went from Salvation III regularly. The first was the security vessel The Kingsman. This well armed and armored light cruiser was the first line of defense for Salvation III and could be called upon if anything threatened one of the salvage crews. Next was The Sysco which was a light freighter that made trips between Earth and the station daily to bring food and supplemental fresh water. Finally, the Mary Jane was a spy ship covered in RAM markings that came and went a few times over the course of a week.
By their second week of service, the adventurers became quite comfortable in their routine. Max continued to foster their friendship with J’Zargo, spending lots of time sparring with the various martial arts clubs and learning more about combat in Zero G. Alex spent a lot of down time in the simulators with “The Swan” and in the ship combat sim, managed to achieve a high score that was so far and above anything on the leader board, that the two of them became instant legends. Buzz continued to pal around with “The Raptor” and flirt with anything that would give him the time of day.
One afternoon, while the Crew of the Junker floated through the sunny side of Earth’s debris field, something caught Alex’s eye almost directly in front of the sun. The adventurers were not exactly caught flat footed, but were quite surprised when the object turned out to be a ship.
Buzz worked the console and determined that it was just another salvage freight of civilian manufacture, but when Max took a second look at the instrumentation, they showed Buzz that the transponder must have been messed with because the military vessel with a significant payload, was most certainly not a civilian vessel.
The ship had been drifting toward them for some time unnoticed because their drive was not turned on, but when they got almost within range, they fired their engines and approached before the Junker had time to react. Alex quickly radioed Salvation III and The Kingsman, but no help was in close range. Buzz fired up the Junker’s engines, but just as they attempted to evade the incoming ship, they took two hits to the engines and were left drifting.
The ship caught up to them quickly and matched speed and rotation while extending a boarding tube. Over the public channel, the crew of the Junker was informed that this was nothing more than a robbery. Close enough to touch, the ship was finally identified as belonging to one of the most cowardly bands of pirates in the solar system, un-affectionately known as the Trash Pirates, thought most people called them a much more derogatory name.
The Trash Pirates continued their breaching efforts and assured the crew of the Junker that as long as they stayed out of the way, no one had to get hurt. Not willing to just roll over, the adventurers set themselves up in the cargo area near the airlock. As the pirates entered the cargo area, Alex, Max and Buzz started blasting them. Max threw a Dazzle grenade into the air lock, but it seemed to do nothing to the pirates. A quick exchange of laser fire caused a few of the armored pirates to go down, but before too long, the pirate’s sonic stunners knocked the crew unconscious. Hours later, with severe head aches, the adventurers woke up to find that what little personal money they had on them was stolen along with all of the salvage they had collected that day.
The Kingsman arrived and the crew were able to patch the Junker’s engines up enough to get them back to Salvation III. Carlton assured the adventurers that this was not that uncommon, and that they conducted themselves well. Buzz decided that it was a good idea to try and find some grenades, and as quickly as he bought a Stun grenade and a Dazzle grenade, Max stole them and added the grenades to Max’s backpack.
A day or two later, the Junker had a phenomenal day of salvage which included a couple weapons systems. The adventurers laid claim to some of the weapons and outfitted the Junker with its first set of guns. Feeling better prepared, the crew continued their work in the debris field.
Traveling through the dark side of Earth this time, the crew was having another great day of salvage. Now that they were on alert for new threats, the crew of the Junker was prepared when another ship drifted toward them at high speed. It was a bit easier to spot this time and once again, the crew radioed to Salvation III and the Kingsman, with the same result as last time; help was nowhere near them.
As soon as the ship was within range, Alex and Max manned the guns and put a few shots into the pirate ship’s engines. The situation changed dramatically, as the Trash Pirate’s ship realized that this was no defenseless salvage boat, and with damaged engines, began to retreat. Buzz pulled a 180 and pursued the now fleeing aggressors. After a few more minutes of shooting, the Trash Pirates made a hasty retreat. Back at Salvation III, Carlton was ecstatic that they had done so well defending themselves. And so it went for a few more days. The Trash pirates did not show back up, and the crew of the Junker continued to gather excellent quality salvage.
A few days later, while drifting in the closest Earth orbit they could, the crew of the Junker noticed something very odd; A fully intact Light Cruiser with no markings and a disabled transponder. Initial scans indicated that no life was on board and nothing but emergency power was enabled. It looked like someone had just abandoned the ship to drift for some reason.
Not wanting to trust this as simply good luck, the Crew radioed in the anomaly and summoned The Kingsman. Carlton told them to board the ship and try to find out what had happened. If it truly was derelict, what an amazing find this would be.
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