8. Getting a little Shell Shock
Man it never rains but it pours. So, we have the data we’d contracted to get. We even managed to find some nice new gear to augment our supplies. From that side of things, it was going well. On the other hand though, we were almost out of fuel, we were down a crew member, and our stores were running low.
With our diminished capacity we weren’t leaving Pergalon anytime soon, and checking the Signal revealed that there wasn’t much work to be had on the planet. Nothing that would help us replenish our supplies anyway. As it turns out though, Starburn was able to track down an information broker that might be able to provide us some credits in exchange for some juicy intel. While we didn’t have much to trade in those lines, we could at least see what sort of thing he was interested in.
We tracked him down to a backwater village, standard sort of frontier town. All wooden shacks, gronks, and run down farm buildings. As we went in to talk to this guy a firefight on the other side of town broke out. Now, I’m never one to look a gift gronk in the mouth, and this was opportunity galore.
Whatever was going down was clearly because this information broker had pissed off the wrong people. The Void Dragons, being a man down, weren’t really up for getting into this fight, but where there’s a dead body there’s something to loot. We laid low on the outskirts of the town until it was all over. Admittedly we did take a number of shots at a number of people. Target practice should never be frowned on. Besides, bullets came our way first. Can’t expect a crew to take fire and not return it.
When the dust settled and everyone retreated we moved in to see if there was anything useful that had been left around. It had been quite the firefight and many bodies had dropped. We know because we mostly watched from a roof with a bottle of slaunch. Good times.
Anyway, we made some useful, and not so useful, discoveries. The first thing was that the information broker was dead. Double tap. No way were going to be able to make money with this guy. The second thing is that most of the gear left lying around was damaged beyond repair. Also not so good for us. There was some usable stuff though.
One of the bodies was wearing a Swift Suit. She’d taken a head shot so the suit was completely intact. We stripped that off her and took it for ourselves. Could have fetched a good price, but a Swift Suit is far too useful to get rid of. It helps the wearer move faster. Speed under fire is a valuable thing, far more than the few cred’s we’d get for selling it.
There was also a serviceable shotgun lying by the remains of a robot. Smaller and lighter than a standard shotgun, it would have let you carry extra gear with it. That we did sell. Nobody felt like it was something they needed.
This all left us in an interesting situation. We didn’t have enough credits to fuel the ship, but we did have enough to buy some supplies. Either that or we could try and recruit someone to fill Red’s berth. I didn’t want to make the decision right away, and the crew were still low after what happened to Red, so I decided to hit a bar.
We all went, everyone needed to let off some steam and crappy dive bars are a cred a dozen on Pergalon. Easy enough to drink the night away, bond with crewmates and swap stories. Wolf, Sarge, Starburn and I had the most to tell. We’d lived through the Last War and travelled the Ravaged Galaxy the most. The other guys didn’t have our experience but they were happy to listen. In no time at all they’d have their own stories to tell, battles to relive, comrades to toast and recall.
The night wore on and everyone was slightly the worse for wear, that’s when it happened. We were sitting there when, all of a sudden, a chair lands beside us and a robot carrying a grenade launcher sits on it. We all look at her, she looks back at us. She introduces herself as Shell Shock. Turns out she’s been listening in on our conversation and has worked out that we’re short a crewman. We need crew, she needs creds and a ride.
We all look at each other and nobody seems to have any objections. Starburn and I take a sidebar for a moment. He’s the First Mate, he definitely gets a say on who comes on board. The rest of the crew look fairly at ease with Shell Shock, she seems easy for them to get along with. We decide to sign her up.
The next morning is brutal, everyone is feeling it. Jammer claims he’ll never drink again. Heh. If I had a cred for every time I’d heard that one. Well, I’d have like 20 creds but you take my point.
So now we have a Grenadier on The Stone Shark. What we don’t have is a job, supplies, and fuel. We’ve got enough to live on for the moment, but only if we don’t try to leave Pergalon.
Stargrave is published by Osprey Games and was created by Jospeh A. McCullough