Arion 1-06: All the Single Ladies

"And this is where the story really starts." - The Highly-Esteemed Goon Show, Dishonoured

Hollis Inbound Drift, 1105 Week 43

Once the routine activities of emerging from jumpspace are dealt with, Arion has time to look at his message queue, and notices that his arrival at Hollis has triggered unsealing a new set of orders, which he reads with some interest. Twice.

The first step is to wake Major Sheng from cryosleep. That makes sense, as her medical skill is needed to wake the others safely. Before she does that, however, she needs to be fully recovered herself, so he helps her to the crew common area and sits her down, marvelling at how good she looks even straight out of the freezer.

However, during the trip Mr Osheen casually mentioned that she can take him two falls out of three, and given his casual attitude to violence and mayhem, Arion decides to limit himself to being politely solicitous. He pours her a half litre of tangy citrus liquid which supposedly contains all the nutrients needed to help her recover, but she grunts and pushes it away, croaking "Coffee". He obliges. Mr Osheen snakes out an arm and snags the liquid, which he consumes with apparent relish.

A little later, Sheng is awake enough to recognise him.

"It's good to see a friendly face," she says. "I don't know either of the others, and that's never a good start. Where are we?"

"Hollis," he says. "In the Foreven Sector. A few parsecs rimward of the Zhodani border. You didn't know?"

She shakes her head and inhales more coffee. "No. Sealed orders, get into the berth, protect the other two, do what the man says and forget about it afterwards."

"So he's a spook, huh."

"Yeah, I think so. What you don't know, they can't make you tell, and right now I only know what I've told you."

"Well... if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined." They share a smile at that.

"What about you?" she asks. "It'd be nice if there was a friendly face around for a while. Less lonely."

"Get the three of you to Hollis, get the ship overhauled, do whatever the man says and forget about it afterwards."

"This is stupid. If we're going to work together, we need to know each other."

"You and I know each other. We both know Mr Osheen. That may have been part of the selection process." There is silence for a moment, then Sheng takes a deep breath as if stepping forward out of cover in hostile territory.

"You know," Sheng says, not looking Arion in the eye, "I think this will be my last mission."

"Really? I had you pegged for career," Arion says, refilling her coffee and pushing what pass for cream and sugar aboard ship closer for her.

"Yeah, me too. But I'm thirty four subjective, Arion; the ol' biological clock is ticking. Finish this job, then figure a couple of years to find someone, couple more to settle down... I'm running out of time."

Arion makes a non-committal noise, and takes a slug of his own coffee. Behind him, he is aware of Mr Osheen surreptitiously emptying the coffee jug, drinking directly from it. Sheng continues.

"Of course, if there were somebody I already knew... already liked... who was... interested..." Arion freezes like a rabbit in headlights. Having planted that seed, Sheng changes the subject. "I'll take some gloop now, please. Then I'll take a shower. Then I'll wake the others. Then, we can ask them some questions. Which they probably won't answer."

"May I also have some gloop?" asks Mr Osheen, whom Arion privately suspects has hollow legs.

"Sure, why not."

Hollis Inbound Drift, 1105 Week 43

"I'm Captain Arion Metaxas. I don't know who knows what about Hollis," Arion says, once the other two passengers have been decanted, fed and watered, cleaned, and parked around the common area table, "But I am required by law to give you a safety briefing before you disembark."

"Hollis is, frankly, a bit of a dump. There's no free standing or subsurface water to speak of, it all has to be imported from the gas giant moons. So don't waste it. If you go down to the surface, do not go outside if you can avoid it, and if you can't, wear a full-face filter mask; the local life is desperate for water, and if you expose your face you'll get dust in your lungs and extremely aggressive microscopic windblown spores in your tear ducts. Soon after that, your lungs will start bleeding where the silicates have cut them up, and you'll have local plant life growing out of your eyes and all the way down your respiratory tract into your lungs. Also, the average surface temperature is 57 Celsius, so stay hydrated, stay in the shade, ideally indoors. Also also, atmospheric oxygen levels are on the low side, so you'll get stupid and cranky after a few hours. That's the point where you'll start to think taking your mask off is a good idea. It isn't."

"Further, the local law level is - shall we say - lenient. Mr Osheen, you'll have to leave the laser SMG in the ship's locker, but blades and slugthrowers are fine. I anticipate a lot of people with big guns and short tempers, so watch out for those." Mr Osheen smiles in anticipation.

"I'm going to stay in the highport myself, and I strongly suggest you do too. Any questions?"

There are none.

"Very well. My orders are to get the ship overhauled, which will take about two weeks, and then place myself at the disposal of one Aksunar Karagoz. That's you, sir, I take it?" Karagoz nods in confirmation.

"And your colleague is Ms Coriander Ganzfeld?" Two more nods, one each. "This is my gunner, Mr Osheen, and this is Major Evelyn Sheng, in case you don't know her. They are both my friends, and both capable of extreme violence, so please bear that in mind in your dealings with them. Given the nature of my orders, Mr Karagoz, I assume you won't tell me anything unless I need to know." Another nod.

Arion sighs. "We'll be docking at Hollis Highport in about three hours. It'll take another hour or two to clear customs. Then, Mr Karagoz, you can tell the rest of us what you want done."

Karagoz speaks for the first time. "Initially I'll need to meet a few people and review the most up to date information; what I think I know is a year and a half out of date. So you may as well take a few days to recover from the trip. I'll find you when I'm ready."

Meanwhile, Ganzfeld and Sheng are communicating in a silent language the men are oblivious to, one of subtle microexpressions and tiny gestures.

He's cute.

I saw him first. He's mine.

We'll see about that, old lady.

Hollis Highport, 1105 Week 43

Officer Muhammed is not especially attractive by Arion's standards, but she hums as she works and there is something infectious about her ready laugh.

And he has been in space a very long time, now.

She pokes at the commlink strapped to her wrist as she emerges from the hold.

"Well, apart from you being smoking hot in a built-up area, everything seems to be in order. Thumbprint here please," and as he complies, she contrives for her other hand to brush against his and linger, just a little.

"You're not worried about my gunner?" Arion points his thumb over his shoulder at the cockpit transparency, where Mr Osheen is watching stolidly. She smiles.

"Nooo. He's on your ship, so he's not in my jurisdiction. But if he does run amok, I'll need a big, strong man to protect me." She winks at him to confirm who she means, but Arion has noticed the worn handle of the 10mm pistol on her belt and suspects this is merely decorative flirting.

Arion spends the next few hours getting his passengers and cargo offloaded, arranging for an annual overhaul at the scout base, and getting the Dolphin transferred from its current hangar to the dockyard.

After nine months in each other's company, two-thirds of it in a hullmetal can not much more than twenty metres long, he and Mr Osheen are staying in separate hotels for a while.

As he emerges from the dockyard, spacer's duffle over one shoulder, he notes a figure waiting for him.

"Officer Muhammed," he says. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"As I said, you are smoking hot in a built-up area, and there is a fixed penalty for that."

"And what is the penalty, may I ask?"

"You take me to dinner. I can show you around on the way to the restaurant."

Arion hitches his duffle further up his shoulder to cover the slight hesitation while he thinks about this.

What the hell, he thinks. I have to eat anyway.

"Okay then," he says.

"Good. As this is a first offence for you, you can have dessert." She sticks out an elbow. "Put your arm through here."

"Umm, why?"

"It shows you're under my protection. The local gangs will be less likely to shake you down; it's one thing mugging a spacer passing through, it's quite another messing with the Port Authority."

As they stroll off, arm in arm, Officer Muhammed speaks again.

"I have reason to suspect you may be carrying contraband about your person," she says. "I will have to search you later. Thoroughly."

"Are you sure that's necessary, Officer Muhammed?"

"Call me Karen," she smoulders. "Now, tell me, how do you feel about handcuffs?"

GM Notes

I'd intended to start using Interstellar Rebels to generate the solo scenarios in this post, but I got carried away with the character interactions and settling the main characters in on Hollis, so we'll do that next time. It's easy to forget sometimes that the main point of all this is for me to have fun, not just show off the cool toys.

The change of venue for the campaign is a good chance to get more of the band back together, so I took advantage of it. Hollis is going to be the base world for a while, so it needs a 'face' NPC, and it's easiest if that's somebody who interacts with Arion each time he arrives. Enter Officer Karen Muhammed of the Hollis Port Authority, who rolled Happy for her Ally Personality. (On reflection, I think having distinctive NPCs at the starport on Sink is what hooked the Aslan Route players into picking that as their base.)

What I was not expecting was for all the female characters to roll so high for their reactions to Arion, and for the off-camera oracle rolls to lean into that so heavily.

Normally, the Arioniad is a dark, twisty espionage thriller, but the dice seem to be trying to tell me that this season is a harem comedy.