"Tales From Where Angels Fear to Tread" A White Star Lines Publication, A Division of Orbital Spa and Cruise 9 August 827 A.S.
A Curious Transfer
The Stagecoach, Orbital's Pilgrim-class liner, strives to replicate the authentic experience of the early explorers of Sirius. The vessels were famed for their reliability, but their robustness came at the cost of forgoing any amenities beyond a berth barely long enough to lay flat in and enough oxygen and ration bars to keep you alive by the time you reached your destination. As humanity's expertise with ship building increased and our transports became comfortable and even luxurious instead of just functional, Pilgrim transports became relegated to transporting increasingly desperate classes of travellers. Explorers gave way to settlers, settlers to refugees, and sadly in many cases, refugees to slaves. While nothing in The Stagecoach's history belied that in her 400 years of service she sunk so low as to transport enslaved persons, that streak came to a most unusual way while in service to Orbital Spa and Cruise.
Captain Brandon Bancroft, shipmaster of The Stagecoach was using the liner for its namesake purpose of transporting TAZ pilgrims to the Baffin system when he faced a daunting decision. "We were closing on the Baffin Jump Hole when out of the field a rather large group of Outcasts and Freelancers appeared on my radar," said Bancroft. "Rather than try and turn back I pressed the Stagecoach forward into the group." Normally, a liner versus such a flotilla would be a suicidal dive, but the captain was confident in the neutrality afforded by his passengers. "With a large group of Zoner Pilgrims aboard bound for Shasta Orbital, I was fairly certain that we would be granted passage."
As the diplomatic banter ensued to resolve the paradox of an unstoppable military force meeting an unmovable humanitarian target, a bizarre exchange was offered: one bottle of The Stagecoach's vodka for a single slave from the enemy fleet. "Of course we would have rather saved the entire group, some 2,700 in total, but given the rather tense situation... we did of course meet their monetary demands, along with the exchange for the slave."
Unsurprisingly, the health of the former enslaved person was in poor condition and well beyond the basic facilities of The Stagecoach to mend. Fortunately, TAZ is not the only Zoner affiliated faction to call Baffin home. "Bring the poor slave to our research base here in Baffin," said Doc Holliday of Med Force Enterprises. "He will be given proper care there." The former slave's condition is currently stable and improving. Hopefully his next journey on an Orbital vessel will be more enjoyable than his first.
A Night to Remember
Captain Stan Stone is normally employed running logistics routes for Riviera Resort. He, along with other Orbital Network Express ships, keep Orbital's first Gallic station running by providing the food, oxygen, water, fuel and amenities that keep the lights on and the crew alive. In short, he keeps this outpost of Sirius's premier hospitality provider hospitable. But every dog has his day, and when fortune smiled upon Captain Stone, he wanted to mark the occasion in style.
The Logistics Pilot found himself the champion of the Bretonian leg of the Community Culture Rally. His procurement skills were certainly put to good use while racing to purchase a bottle of Gin for Shetland in less time than his competitors. The victory, and accompanying prize money, were means, motive, and opportunity to celebrate and Stone found himself entering Riviera's dining room using the VIP entrance instead of the staff access hatch for a change.
"I just want to thank [everybody] for coming and showing me what a celebration party in the OSC style looks like," said Stone the morning after while nursing a visible hangover. With the aid of some Cryer pills and Orbital's legendary house blend coffee, he continued "Just...wow. It has been a very long time since I had so much fun, met so many nice people, drank so much of...everything with them, and in the morning felt so bad I wanted to cut my head off. But it was worth it, I hope you enjoyed it too."
The Orbital staff had quite the clean up on their hands, resulting in several curious artifacts to testify to the revelry of the night before.
"Someone forgot a bra with NeuralNet call number written on it in the men´s toilet and I found it there before leaving around like...uh, six in the morning?" said Stone. "Anyway, I took it for safekeeping because it´s quite personal, so if you can convince me you are either the girl which came to the party wearing this bra or you are the lucky person which was supposed to leave with it, you can have it." Anyone wishing to claim the rogue lingerie best act quickly, though. "My wife would not appreciate this kind of souvenir in my possession. Not to mention that what happens at the party, stays at the party, right?"
While Orbital wishes continued success for Captain Stone in the rally and that he finds many other occasions for celebration in the corporation's service, even Stone concedes that he's not a young man anymore. "I don´t think [the next party] can be earlier than, like, a month. My head still keeps spinning. And I still hear inside it that song which was for some reason played, like, twenty times that evening and we shouted the refrain so I almost lost my voice. You know the one."
A New Friend
White Star Lines, the division of Orbital that sticks closer to house space, also functions as the face of the franchise, making the friends the corporation relies upon to deliver the most exciting excursions possible for the rest of the sector. Friendships and partnerships with freelancers and groups lay the diplomatic framework that allows the more adventurous expeditions that Orbital offers to have a safety net to fall back into. Some of these friendships are carefully crafted over weeks and months, while others are completely serendipitous.
Breezewood under the command of Captain Jonathan Seabourne, found itself with a silent menagerie after some unexpectedly excessive radiation exposure from the Stellar Matter Stream in Puerto Rico. Customers were carefully shielded in their private quarters, but the public areas of an Enterprise class liner are not as well protected. While the worst that the passengers experienced were headaches and nausea, sadly the signature mascots of White Star Line's flagship perished due to radiation poisoning. Planet Harris used to be the main source of resupply for Breezewood's properly licensed menagerie, but with the evolving political situation in the Taus, the only source of the majestic creatures is now the original one: Planet Gaia, deep inside Enclave territory.
Breezewood settled on Halifax Freeport in Leeds, looking for a Freelancer willing to risk an excursion to liberate some of the creatures from the Royalist occupiers. "I had just posted the job to the Freelancer message boards," said Seabourne. "I left to get a cup of coffee and I had a reply by the time it finished brewing."
The freelancer Blank.Stare had accepted Seabourne's offer and was already on their way to the former Edinburgh system to meet the order, even before getting a confirmation from Orbital. Shortly thereafter, the hand-off was made in the Leeds smog cloud. "I though we would be moored there for ages looking for a pilot," said Seabourne. "I should have paid extra for sparing the Breeze an extra couple of weeks of damage to the paint-job."
Blank.Stare is normally a survey pilot in the Omegas, but welcomed the change of pace and the stack of credits. However, as is the way of pilots across the sector, it wouldn't be long before the two ships ran into each other again.
"We were flying the first batch of VIPs to Baden Baden with our new animal companions when we came across a familiar call-sign at West Point," said Seabourne. Since Baden Baden borders the omegas, Blank.Stare offered to escort Breezewood for no cost beyond the pleasure of having another pilot to talk to. "Making our way through Texas," said Seabourne, "we both realized that neither of us had a proper map of the Bering system, despite knowing that it somehow leads to Hamburg via jumphole. We elected to take a bit of an adventure."
The two ships made for the jumpgate to Bering instead of the usual route through Hudson. Once a bastion of pirates and Insurgent activity, the Liberty navy recently pacified the system with overwhelming firepower. "There were lots of wrecks," said Seabourne of the war-torn system. "Fighters from the Liberty-Rheinland war, dead tradelanes, and a cracked freeport." A quick survey of the southern end of the system found the suspected jump hole to Hamburg, and the rest of the flight to Baden Baden proceeded without incident.
"It was a fun jaunt and a good way to mix things up," said Seabourne of the survey mission, "But until its infrastructure is repaired, I don't see it becoming a routine Orbital path so long as Hudson is well maintained and the Rheinland civil war stays civil."
A Resurrected Reverie
Ever since her brush with almost total destruction, Reverie has been squirreled away at Freeport 1, the only station with proper ship fitting facilities that the damaged liner could limp too. An impatient Captain Theobald Franklin has been pacing the station's halls ever since with a single goal in mind: Getting his liner flying again.
"I assure you, I would never give up on my Lady, never!" said Franklin of his ship. "Only if she is engulfed in flames and reduced to space dust would I leave her behind. And then I would go and gather as much of it to integrate into the rebirth of her. Reverie will raise again from her ashes, like a phoenix, and will travel between the stars once more."
While the sentiment is noble, it takes more than strength of will of a ship's captain to hold the vessel together, and none could deny that Reverie would require a near total overhaul to be space-worthy again. A "proper" repair was estimated to be almost the cost of an entirely new liner. Resurrecting Reverie would be a Herculean task. Fortunately, Franklin found himself in the hands of the one group of people in Sirius who routinely play Lazarus with all things mechanical: The Junkers.
"Have faith in the skills of the Junkers," said Captain Caitlyn Cross, director of Triton Expeditions, when asked for advice. "You know I was one, and I know what I say when I tell you they can make miracles with machines and ships."
With a level of faith that would be the envy of any TAZ pilgrim, the Junkers set about the task of making the ship space-worthy again, offering a steep discount on labor provided that Franklin could procure the parts and equipment needed. This resulted in some unusual substitutions for a Renzu built liner. "I decided to replace Reverie's engines with a MOX Intermix Chamber from Rheinland," said Franklin after surveying available components. "The Commandant thinks that he and his team will be able to adapt these engines to Renzu specs. If this is true and the engines work, then the Liner will be a unique look in Sirius and Gallia."
However, even Junkers have their limits, and while Reverie can hold atmosphere and move under her own power again, there is far more to an Orbital liner than merely circuits and bulkheads. "The interior of the liner as well as her paint-job will still need a lot of attention to cover the patchwork up," said Franklin. "The cabins, restaurants, bars, spa-area need to be repainted, the furniture replaced, the outer hull needs an overwork, and so on, and so on; everything to Orbital's highest standards."
Looks like there things beyond even the Junker's skill sets, and soon it will be time to see what DSE and the other so called "proper" shipbuilders of Sirius can work to get Reverie back in service.
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OS&C|Breezewood
Captain Jonathan Seabourne, Editor-in-Chief, Wanderlust Magazine
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