Join Our Hero, Tangent Turner, recent new hire for Gateway Shipping Incorporated.
As he works to fulfill his dream of delivering High Quality, Organic, All-NaturalLuxury Foods
Along with the latest and Greatest, Most Potent, Entirely Legal, Pharmaceuticals throughout the Sirius Cluster!
Character background:
Tangent's Mother was an engineer for Cryer Pharmaceuticals on Planet Denver, his Father was a farmer on Planet Cambridge, his Uncle was a pilot for Gateway Shipping.
Tangent has spent almost equal portions of his life on Denver and Cambridge. Spending the harvest times at Cambridge on the farm, and the growing seasons at Schools on Denver.
The last few years has seen Tangent taking internships with Cryer Pharmaceuticals and studying Agricultural Genetics at Cambridge.
Motivation for joining Gateway:
Tangent is already quite familiar with the Gateway Shipping run between Cambridge and Denver.
His Uncle, a 30 year veteran pilot for Gateway Shipping, has taken Tangent on trips on both the official Trade Lane paths,
as well as his Uncle's less than official jump routes. An official position with Gateway Shipping is the perfect career in his mind.
Traveling between Home and Home, being paid for it, and plenty of time between to work on his own genetic research.
Documents Submitted:
Tangent Turner's Resume -Arrived 7 days ago.
Letter of Recommendation
-From his mother, a prominent Cryer Phramaceuticals Engineer, who happens to be on a minor shipping committee. -This letter arrived 14 days ago.
Letter of Recommendation
From his father, a small "Traditional" farm owner on Cambridge, who specializes in Luxury Vegetables and Meats. -This letter arrived today.
Letter of Recommendation
From his uncle, a 30 years veteran pilot for Gateway Shipping, who indicates "Tangent is a mediocre pilot at best, but he (Tangent) knows more about the products and the route than I do." -Strangely enough, this letter was submitted to Human Resources more than 15 years ago ... it seems to have just been sitting in some digital inbox all this time.
When: 10-27-2018
Starting @: 5:00 PM Eastern Standard US Time
Length: At least a 2 hour stream. Just getting started.
Ending @: 8:00 PM Eastern Standard US Time Post Mission Report:
Well for a first shift on the job, things didn't go too badly. When I arrived for duty at Planet Cambridge I picked up a work order for a new "Camara" Civilian Freighter, currently stationed on Planet Pittsburgh from Corporate.
I managed to secure a sidejob from one of the local farmers my dad knows. It was just a shipment of Food Rations meant for the Ark Royal a hop away, but there is every change that local farmer will ask for larger shipments in the future.
After the quick hop I picked up a small parcel of Luxury foods for my mother's team on Denver, and set course. Fairly uneventful run, pirates here and there, nothing really bad until I got to Denver. I've never seen that many Xenos hitting the trade lanes at the same time. As it turns out the Xenos had hit a local Cryer Pharmaceuticals ship, not cargo, just some minor executives and engineers, but Cryer made it pretty clear that their shipment wasn't going to get moving until the Xeno issue died down some.
Enter me, in my dinky one man Stargazer to the rescue. After some atmospheric issues that disabled my engines ... twice ... I made it into the asteroid field the shuttle was lost. Didn't find the shuttle, but found more than my fair share of Xeno ships. I've never been a good combat pilot, and I have to say I'm rusty, and I was in a bad way, almost thought I wasn't going to make it once two Aces showed up, ran completely dry of nanites and shield batteries.
Enter Officer Berakh of the Liberty Navy, or was it the Liberty Police. Honestly, I don't remember much of it, aside from him flying straight into the group and buying me enough time to disable one of the Ace's ships. After that the rest of the Xenos were fairly easy to clean up.
You can call it the price or being rescued, or as I like to think of it, My first Contract with the Liberty Defense Forces, but Berakh requested ... insisted ... well I kinda did owe them for the help ... anyways, I don't typically like Human Freight, but ... per the hastily negotiated contract I was instructed to deliver the criminals to the Battleship Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
It was only a couple of jumps, and by the time I got there I received a message from Cryer that the shipment was ready to load. I went to Pittsburgh, picked up my new Camara ... I say new ... but it's used ... I'll have to find some strong cleaner to scrub the crew quarters ... maybe my mom has some stuff on Denver. I'll have to ask her next time I'm there.
630 crates of High Grade Pharmaceuticals, Destined for Nuremberg, Munich.
Then the hitch ... The Camara came ... unarmed. I didn't know. I didn't have the kind of money on my person to outfit a freighter with weapons ... like hell I was going to ask my mother and have Cryer know that their drugs were going completely unguarded all the way there.
Stiff Upper Lip, and probably need to have my booster looked at ... or replaced ...
Long Story short, nothing of note between Denver and Nuremburg. I managed to barter free shipping and my share of the contract to an alloy Merchant who paid for some turrets to the ship for the trip back to Cambridge.
Back home safe and sound, Ship intact and armed. Which I'm actually quite glad of ... I think my mother noticed the ship didn't have any turrets. I saw my dad's shuttle in orbit, and if didn't know better I'd say he was scanning me and taking pictures of the turrets, probably sending the pics to her as I type up this report. Maybe she will just think she was mistaken? Yea that's rich ... like she's ever "wrong"
When: 10-31-2018
Starting @: 12:00 PM Eastern Standard US Time
Length: 2 hour stream.
Ending @: 2:00 PM Eastern Standard US Time Post Mission Report:
Well a corporate piloting contract came down yesterday. Apparently I’m on a shift rotation for providing Food, Water, and Oxygen for our Oceana Shipping depot in Cortez. I hired a local freelancer to ferry me to New London in order to report aboard the -GSV-Vostok. A big ole’ train of a hauler.
I could have flown myself, but there are kids here on Cambridge looking to get into space or buy their own ship instead of borrowing one. Figured since I’m actually making good money with Gateway I could share the wealth.
Not making much commission on these trips for corporate though, but that’s fine, gives me a chance to fly these big barges that I wouldn’t be able to afford anytime soon. I know that I don’t wanna be a full time pilot of one of these behemoths. To say the controls are sluggish is an over-statement. Several times I had to abort a turn into a trade lane and use cruise engines to reach the next one because I couldn’t orient the ship fast enough.
It’s a great crew aboard though. Really fast loading and unloading, and a good control crew and gunners. We did several runs, 2 loads of water, 2 loads of oxygen, and one of food. Annnd one shipment of pharmaceuticals from Planet Denver.
Being a corporate hauler, it has its own corporate bank account, which we use to pay for goods for local transport, and officially the rules for those account say that it’s never to be lower than a certain amount, except we went below that amount in picking up the shipments. I didn’t have the kind of money i need to stock up a vessel of this size, but I do have reliable contacts at Cryer Pharmaceuticals.
Cryer was glad to have the extra work, they are always shipping research materials to Cambridge, and a hauler as big as the Vostok, with a contract a full 5% less than normal rates, they were more than willing to negotiate the single shipment while I was in orbit.
I should have known it was going to be more complicated than that. in the middle of our shipment, we got stopped by a Navy Heavy Fighter. Who informed us that only Cryer Pharmaceuticals is licensed to move those materials. Threatening to attack the freighter unless we spaced all of the materials and pay a 5 million credit fine. That’s only about a year of earnings with my current ship ... as a fine ... not to mention the breached Cryer Contract by dumping it in space ...
I’d like to say I handled it with suave and stern captain’s resolve. But I didn’t ... I freaked out, raised Planet Denver and Cryer on Comms, tried to raise corporate on Comms, tried to contact The closest Navy Base on Comms. As pilot of the PharmFresh, the liner between Cambridge and Denver, I’m fairly well known, and usually don’t have to deal with the issue. But the Vostok on the other hand ...
Honestly I still don’t know if it’s legal, Luckily some pirates attacked the trade lanes, and the officer got tired of waiting on my communications. i did have 3 or 4 people up on Comms at the same time. When the fighters showed up, i put us straight into cruise and got Us out of there.
After that I treated the entire crew to the most expensive Luxury dinner on Planet Cambridge that my paultry credit can provide. We had a good laugh about all of it, my poor turning ability in the giant ship, the police, the impromptu Cryer contract, which surprisingly enough, isn’t something the crew is used to, but they enjoyed the bonus.
One last run of Food to Oceana, and I got me a transport back to Cambridge ...
Exhausting work ... but that’s the life of a Gateway Transport Pilot.
