The night of Gemini is frigid, a harsh, biting cold as the frost in the street is illuminated by the glow of the planet's twin above. The streets are empty, the shops all closed, and a strange, almost inaudible hum of machinery emanates from the sewer grate in front of the machine shop as it sits in the dark, closed for the night. Inside, beside the massive bulk of the complex holo-printer, a bolt breaks through the cement floor, sending small bits of dust into the air. Several more follow suit, sending cracks shooting through the floor between them as a circle forms around the machine.
Beneath the streets, at least a hundred taidarens toil in the darkness, clicking, whistling, and singing merely as several groups of triplets with multiple hands showing missing fingers scuttle their way to the front of the pack where a massive makeshift collection of scaffolding has been set up, with pulleys and winches strapped this way and that all leading to a number of gas powered motors idling on standby. They climb the scaffolding, clutching their bags, and one by one pull out a series of small looking cubes of putty, sticking each one in a slender line along the carved out underside of the shop above. The taidarens around them dive into the waters below and scurry away as the set of triplets empty their bags one by one, tossing them onto their backs, each covered in a patchwork of flame resistant cloth, and they begin attaching the wires to the metal bolts, the small, durable detonators drilled into the concrete.
...Remind me what they're supposed to be doing, again?
Samuel Stewart
Shadowrunning
Jaxon Taylor
Stealing a 3D printer for us.
Anthony Moore
Stealing shit so we can make fake IDs
Isaac Sanders
A shuttle carefully docks with your ship, the Orphan, holding a rather conspicuously looking reinforced metal block covered in dents in its cargo clamps. A number of its loading arms unfold and carefully pluck the box, which shakes periodically, from the firm grip of its clamps and slides it through space the short distance to the waiting cargo bay pod connected to the Orphan's hull spine. As the cargo doors seal and the shuttle departs, your clones return to their typical activities, only occasionally startled by the muffled roars of the predatory beast taken aboard from within its sealed container.
Your clone drops off the small tribble back at the ship, and quickly makes his way through the myriad of corridors and twisting hallways filled with market stalls and shouting merchants peddling strange and exotic goods from all over known space, much of which, you note, seems painfully overpriced. Nearly a quarter of the way around the station's habitation ring and up a small elevator to half way through one of the ring's spokes is the office of the Valen official you have been waiting to speak with regarding your hive-produced merchandise. The doors open to a short hallway lined with chairs of various shapes and designs, and a desk next to a closed door where an incredibly uninterested woman sits typing something on a computer.
cont.
Henry Wilson
A moment later the door opens, and you hear a loud blast of air like someone hitting the keyboard of a pipe organ with a sledge hammer, and a trio of taidarens flee in random squiggling paths, scurrying across the room like panicked rodents. Your thinkers quickly interpret the shouting as you hear a blaring error report from what you assume is a translator program malfunctioning from the enraged slurring curses being said.
"Away you parasites! You sentient ticks looking to suck my wealth dry! You useless, gnawing..." the efforts of your thinkers begin to fail, although they manage to get the general idea of a kind of dog sized parasitic animal similar to the human head louse known to colonize the gill-covered waterlogged underside of the Valen body, causing a rather painful bleeding rash. The image is not flattering, to say the least.
The door closes again as the taidarens pass your clone.
"You are rude!" "Bad at business!" "Pass on good deals, yes." "Yes! Was wise investment!" "Double money, more, triple!" "Cannot fail!"
The group quickly enter the elevator as the door closes, and the woman behind the desk looks up at you.
"Next." She says. Your clone walks up to the desk and she slides a small piece of paper across the table with a pen. Your clone quickly fills it out, including the ship's given ID, account, and various generalizations regarding the quantity, size, and legal status of the fusion reactors in question, mostly through check boxes and binary questions. Your clone slides it back to the woman as she chews her bubble gum and glances at her personal data pad.
"He's in a bad mood, so you should keep it quick." She says. "Parently a mating deal went bad a week too late and he's stuck a seller in a buyer's market." She stifels a slight giggle, as if she finds some level of schadenfreude in the statement.
>Ask for details >Head straight into the meeting >Other
