A Mysterious Package

As Higgs attempts to seduce a passenger, a mission is completed that pits the crew against some old foes

Short Summary
The scene begins with a woman named Ms. Fate talking to a monk of the Purity Initiative on a Pfotenhauer battleship orbiting Onintza. The monk tells Ms. Fate that the Purity Initiative's intelligence had discovered that Mr. Sicarian is alive and well. The two then walk into the office of someone named 'Titan'. Sitting around the mess hall, Rajani informs the crew that the Andoni blockade, previously composed of Ximinez Shipyards ships, have all left the system due to some impending fight between Ximinez and Sunbeam Multistellar. Rajani then lets the crew know that they will be landing in an area outside of the local police force's domain. She then offers to the crew 300,000 credits for a job in which they are to retrieve an excavated artifact from a nearby dig-site. The reason for the large sum is because the artifact is very valuable and they are taking it under a false alibi. The crew accepts the mission and before leaving, they drop off the cargo that they have for Heather. The crew then infiltrates the dig-site without any problems and walks into the excavation tent. Soon enough, a sphere with metal appendages [Piani believes this to be pretech] gets put into a cargo-container and given to the party. The crew then leaves the dig-site and arrives at the Swan Song. When unloading the container onto the ship, Pi mentions that the sphere has a wireless communication device. Immediately after saying so, Pi's voice becomes full of static and the ship's power reboots. Piani tells the rest of the crew that she doesn't want the container on the ship but eventually becomes dissuaded as Pi explains that what had happened isn't an issue and that they will hold off on any further attempts at communicating with the sphere. Now with the container, the crew heads for the drop-off point of the artifact. After a few hours of waiting, a large black battleship [Closely resembling the one seen orbiting Onintza] appears and the Swan Song receives a hail, telling them to disable their engines and that they are going to be grav-lifted into the ship.

Detailed Summary
The date is July 1, 3200. After just having previously left Taxila Station in flames and gaining two temporary passengers; Connor Wu - space repairman extraordinaire, and Rajani Van Dorne – Madari Syndicate agent, the Swan Song is en route to Andoni of the Gunnhild System. Owing a favor to a Madari Syndicate crime lord, the crew is currently employed by Mustafa Lee to escort Ms. Van Dorne to a hidden Madari base on Andoni.

Preface
A recently bombarded city is seen surrounded by a desolate landscape.

Planet Onintza – Nakagawa Prefecture – Sekigahara – July 1st, 3200

The camera pans up, latching onto a massive black battleship looming over the city. A Pfotenhauer Society logo is on its side. Within the ship, two figures are seen walking down a hallway. One of the figures is a woman who has a military haircut and is wearing black fatigues. The other is a monk wearing orange robes representative of the Purity Initiative. The woman turns and says to the monk,

Woman: And you're sure? They said his name?

The monk nods.

Woman: You can't be wrong about this.

Monk: Yes Mrs. Fate. It was very clear. Our intelligence is accurate in this matter. Your Mr. Sicarian is alive and well.

The woman looks frustrated and nervous. The two of them walk up to a door.

Woman: You just need to be sure because he's not going to be happy about this.

The woman opens the door. Inside of the room is a desk that has a nameplate on it. Impressed onto the nameplate is the word ‘Titan’.

A New Piloting Technique
Mr. Sicarian, Rajani Van Dorne, and Wilbur Higgins III are all seated in the Swan Song's mess hall, killing time until their arrival at Andoni. Higgins looks over at Rajani and then looks back at Mr. Sicarian and says,

Higgins: Mr. S, you remember that time where I saved us all on that planet?

Mr. Sicarian: You have a tendency to do that friend.

Higgins: That's right, I do. That's me. I've saved the crew seven times now.

Mr. Sicarian looks over to Rajani and says,

Mr. Sicarian: You know, they say his member is over nine inches long.

Higgins: Yep.

Rajani nods politely and laughs.

Rajani: Is that so? I understand that's a very important quality to have as captain, it must be why I no longer have a ship.

Higgins: Well... I mean... I don't know what happened to your ship but this is my ship and my dick is nine inches so nice to meet ya, I'm Wilbur Higgins III.

After some small talk, Rajani tells Higgins that the CPF had previously been using Ximinez Shipyards' ships for the Andoni blockade but that those ships have recently left Andoni space because of an impending fight between Ximinez and Sunbeam Multistellar. Higgins warns Rajani that they had killed Randy the last time they had been on Andoni. Rajani asks if they have false credentials and Higgins asks Rajani if he may use the name of her last lover. She tells him that it probably wouldn’t work because her name was Lisa.

The Tri-Annual Meeting of the Swan Song
Over the ship’s intercom, Higgins calls all crew members to the board room for the tri-annual meeting of the Swan Song. Once everyone is there, Higgins grabs an empty liquor bottle from a nearby table and throws it onto the ground, shattering it to pieces.

Higgins: It wasn't supposed to break... Welcome to the tri-annual meeting of the Swan Song. First off, I want to welcome Mr. Wu to the crew. He's been on the ship for about three days and that's the longest that anyone's ever been here, so please Pi, commence with the glitter.

An overhead light flickers on and off a couple of times.

Higgins: We need to have this meeting 'cause we're about to enter Andoni air-space and we're gonna have to do some smugglin' for our favorite person here. Now Rajani, where exactly are we dropping you off again?

Rajani walks over to a nearby hologram projector and brings up an image of Andoni. The image magnifies onto a rural area that is highlighted in green surrounded by zones highlighted in red. Rajani tells the crew that they will be dropping her off in one of the red zones where there is a dig site called Damascus Gate that is controlled by the CPF. She explains that because the zone is red, that means that it is outside of the CPF’s “pacified zone” and thus it will be difficult to land the ship there. The tri-annual meeting of the Swan Song adjourns and everyone prepares for the arrival to Andoni.

To Andoni
Piani Pic temporarily changes the ship’s name to The Seaward and attempts to hide as much information as she can from any future CPF scans. Mr. Sicarian reads a message that Mr. Falcon recently sent to him from his ship, The Stranger In The Alps. "Titan on Onintza, look out." Mr. Sicarian responds back, "Thanks. Would like to meet and talk soon. -Mr. S." As the Swan Song approaches the planet, the crew is hailed by the CPF. Higgins introduces himself as Lee Zah and with some finesse and luck, manages to convince the CPF officer to allow them to land.

The ship descends into the center of a multitude of abandoned, prefabricated, colonist buildings. The surrounding roads are cracked and have vegetation growing out of them. Rajani disembarks from the ship and embraces a woman wearing a grey jumpsuit who was obviously expecting their arrival. Higgins interrupts their reunion and says, "Lisa?" Rajani laughs and says no, that her name is Viktoria and that she is in charge of security at their base here. The party follows Viktoria to a nearby building. They duck under a half-opened garage door and inside is a tunnel entrance secured by a large metal cap and a wheel. Rajani says to the party that she hopes they like being underground and pulls open the lid.

Further Employment
The first thing that the party notices when going down the dimly lit tunnel is the strong smell of curry. As they walk, they pass by side entrances leading to paltry-looking rooms. After a few minutes, the party finds themselves sitting around a table in what looks to be the base’s dining facility. Rajani tells the crew that she has a business proposal for them. That there is a container of unknown contents that needs to be retrieved from the nearby Damascus Gate dig site. She says that Mustafa Lee put her in charge of this mission specifically and that it pays 1 million credits, 100,000 of which she is willing to give to the crew if they can help her. She further tells the party that it should be a simple snatch-and-grab operation as she already has clearance to go to the dig site and pick up the container. After the exchange of some sly words and good charms, Higgins manages to use his silver tongue to raise the price up to 300,000.

Everyone is in the operations room sitting around a large holo-table that is projecting surveillance footage of the dig site. The location consists of seven large concrete pylons inter-connected in a circle by an energy fence. The circle has a 2000 meter (1.24 mile) diameter and on opposite sides of the circle are two sets of towers acting as entrances into the facility. Inside of the concrete perimeter are various tents and makeshift buildings as well as a handful of trucks located by one of the gates. Rajani tells everyone that there is a visitor at the dig site that has recently arrived there from off-world. She doesn't know who he is, but he isn't part of the archaeology team. Rajani shows a picture of the man. He has sunglasses and is wearing a winter coat and holding a briefcase. She then goes on to explain that their target of extraction is a sealed storage crate that has an LED panel on one side and has spray painted the words ‘kx001-m’ on the other.

While looking over schematics, Pi messages Piani and tells her that there have been 16 unsuccessful attempts to access the ship's computers since they have landed. Piani tells the crew about this and suggests that whatever their plan is, they had better do it fast. The crew decides to stay at the base for the night and head to the dig site at dawn. Before heading off to sleep, Mr. Sicarian contacts the people whom the Swan Song was sent to transfer illegal salvage to by Heather on Taxila Station. The people unload the salvage from the ship and everyone receives 5,000 credits as well as 750 experience.

Damascus Gate Dig Site
In the morning, everyone loads onto a cargo truck and disembarks for the dig site. After getting within a kilometer of the site, a security drone flies over to the party’s truck, scans it, and then flies back to the base. They stop in front of the metal gate leading into the site. A guard in white battle armor approaches the truck and a female voice comes over the suit’s outside speaker asking for everyone's identification. Once the woman gathers all of the party’s lanyards, she asks them to wait there and leaves. A few minutes later, an officer with an mp5 approaches the car and asks if al-Massari could please step out. Because none of the lanyards have name tags, the crew nervously looks around at each other, unsure of what to do. After a few moments, Mr. Sicarian steps out of the car. The officer then addresses Mr. Sicarian and asks him what their purpose is at the dig site. Mr. Sicarian tells the man that they are there to pick up an object that they had paid handsomely for. The officer retorts, saying that he doesn't like rich foreigners but that their documents check out. He tells them that he will let them pass through, but not without watching them the entire time that they are there.

The party approaches the appropriate tent and out walks a guy who looks to be an archaeologist. The man goes up to Mr. Sicarian and tells him that they need at least 3–4 hours to prepare the crate for transport, however; he and his crew are welcome to come into the pavilion if they wish to see their work in preparing the artifact. Prosper Trudeau is the only person who opts to stay with the truck as the rest of the crew walks into the tent.

The Contents of the Crate
Inside of the tent are half a dozen people wearing goggles and gas masks. They are all standing around tables that contain various pieces of scientific equipment. Two of the scientists are brushing away dirt and chipping away rock from an object. In the center of the tent, there is a large hole with a safety fence around it. The archaeologist tells the crew that he had originally thought their artifact to be around 2,000 to 3,000 years old, but might be even older than that. He says that they were surprised that they hadn't found it sooner and that it must have some kind of a protective field around it.

After a short while of waiting, a person comes up from the hole, wheeling out a coolant-sealed metal cylinder. A couple of scientists put on heavy gloves and open the container, releasing cold fog into the environment. Nervously, one of the scientists reaches into the container and, with a wet gelatinous sound, pulls out a beach-ball sized, metal, black sphere with blue lights surrounded by a thick layer of viscous fluid. Looking at the artifact, Piani realizes that it may be pretech. The sphere has metal appendages that dangle at its side as it is lowered into a crate. The team of scientists starts doing tests on the crate and Piani notices that they seem to be making sure that no communication is able to get into or out of the box.

The entire process takes a little more than an hour and once it is completed, the head archaeologist walks up to Higgins and tells him that the crate is ready for transportation. He warns Higgins to be very careful when handling the box and to make sure that it doesn't get damaged because it could be very dangerous. He then says that if anyone were to find the crate, to not trace it back to Andoni because then war could break out. The party load the crate onto their vehicle and safely evacuate the dig site.

A Powerful Artifact
When the crew arrives at the ship, Higgins pulls Rajani aside and asks her what they had just picked up. Rajani tells him that she doesn't know. Connor Wu then inquires what is in the box and Piani rapidly responds, telling him to not fuck with it and to just bring it up onto the ship. Wu spends a couple of minutes strapping it down, removing it from the grav lift, and then loading it up into the Swan Song. Pi then says to Piani that they don't like the box. Pi's voice begins to fill with static and then all of a sudden, the ship's power reboots. Piani then yells to the rest of the crew that she doesn't want the crate onboard the ship and tells Wu to take it back off. Wu starts to complain and Higgins pulls out his gun, points it at Wu, and tells him to get the crate off of the ship. Wu puts his hands up and says, "Okay, okay" and begins to unload it off the ship.

Pi then comes back on over the comms and tells the party that whatever is in the box has a wireless communicator and that it reminds them of when they were back on the Pizza Party and everything was dark. Pi then reassuringly says that everything is okay, that the thing in the box only acted in self-defense, and that it should be safe to bring on board so long as they don't try and communicate with it again. Piani asks Pi to promise not to communicate with it. Pi says that if Piani thinks that it's dangerous then they promise that they won't.

Higgins walks over to Rajani and tells her to get ready and that they will be leaving immediately. Rajani responds by saying that she is going to remain on the planet and that they are to take the crate to a specific set of coordinates. Rajani then hands Higgins a data stick and tells him that she is unsure who they will be getting in contact with, but that the codes on the data stick will match those of the ship. Higgins gets angry with Rajani and tells her that Mustafa Lee better hire him for everything from now on. He then walks over to Wu and orders him to bring the crate back onto the ship. Wu throws his hands up into the air and exclaims, "What the fuck?" Wu then turns to Piani and tells her that if he keeps carrying crates for Higgs, that he will eventually have strong enough arms to rip off his head.

The End?
The crew painlessly gets through Andoni customs while heading to their destination. Once they arrive, they send out the hailing frequency that Rajani gave to them. While waiting for the unknown recipient of the crate to arrive, Higgins goes over to Wu's room and asks him for his bank account info. Wu hands it over and Higgins transfers him 15,000 credits and apologizes for pointing his gun at him. Wu says, "For this much, you can point a gun at me sometimes." Higgins tells Wu to keep up the good work and Wu suggests that he will bring up the topic of having an illegal AI aboard the ship at the next annual Swan Song meeting.

A couple of tense hours later, a proximity alert within the Swan Song goes off. Piani brings up the scanners and notices a very large ship approaching. Zooming out of the Swan Song, you can see a large black battleship closely resembling, but not identical to, the ship that was seen at the beginning of the episode that was on Onintza. The Swan Song receives a hail from a man who tells them to disable their engines so that they may pull the Swan Song into their ship. The last scene is that of the Swan Song getting pulled into the large black battleship as its large black blast doors close, sealing the Swan Song inside of it.

Crew Status

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Ship Status

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Criminal Activities

 * New Crime:

Business

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 * Debt Paid Off On Swan Song:
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