RP [Phoenix Team] - All That Good

Sargasso, Flatiron's Hill, The Heroes Armaments
Jotting orders onto paper, Allison flittered from client to client. Snuffles' order was to the point. Ravnir's took up a half page with a note adding to look for an 'ore rich rock'. Tucked away past the drinks menu on the menu tablet was a 'silicates and geophages' section with metals and ores. The only catch was that it depended on demand. "I'll check the pantry and get back to you on the rocks," the waitress said. Everything else was straightforward and in order.

With everything sorted out at the reserved table, Allison headed off. Luca answered the Maidenhand's query first. "A Fantail's about 23 and a half metres in length, 15 and a half wide, five metres tall." He recalled the details from the network site he browsed on the way to the pub, and he was sizing up Ravnir's bulk. "To save cost and add some space we're stripping a couple of things out until necessary - I figure this'll be a dropship dealy."

"Older models are a bit fatter in the middle, and they have more hiding spots." Johnny recalled fondly, having stashed of illicit cargo in all the hidden, breakaway spots. A true bane of customs teams. "Generally, a Fantail flogs between UC2500000 or UC4500000 at a One-Stop reseller but you can buy them and parts suitable for one secondhand." Yttrium meanwhile was watching the sun setting outside, the evening sky lit up with buoys out in the ocean and a setting sun painting the clouds golden.

And the team had been seeing that sort of money flow in in return for their public services, as well as contracts and bounties cashing in for random members when the Units got around to processing the crime scenes and aftermath. "This one's in the thirty two thousand range, bought outright with the cash I got from Kransky and Sons'." There was the one issue though: "Delivery time will be when it's done though."

"That's because you're a bit ahead of yourself - you need somewhere to put it." Johnny raised a finger, "like...?" He trailed off, twirling his finger around in lazy circles.

"Midway Beach has space-" Luca replied immediately after visualising the interior of his stronghold. It has plenty of- He thought, before realising that Johnny was leading him down a path. While the warehouse had the space envisioned, the Fantail didn't have access to the interior via ground level, the roller doors which led onto street were meant for vans. A Fantail could fit inside Midway Beach, but there was no way through. Luca then completely eliminated using Ferros Block to dock the new vessel either - too open and public.

This presented a business opportunity. Luca flared his nostrils as he realised some remodelling would be in order. Johnny took a sip of his drink as he let the proposal rest on his friend. "...but it doesn't have a spiffy ceiling that opens to a hangar space - or a pad on the roof or..." Luca voiced ideas for remodelling to the table.

To whit, Midway Beach's roof had been patched up from the Brokkoldat incident, and hanging around to watch the reconstruction in action had given the resident Crude an idea. Yttrium didn't place any dinner orders since her diet was totally different to those around her, and the chemicals which sustained her often smelt awful indoors. "And who pays for that?" She asked, hyperactive and chipper - Phoenix Team's coffers weren't that awash collectively.

Johnny had anticipated the lure of batting an upselling around, gazing in Luca's direction as he could do with a two-fer deal. The man in red snapped his fingers. "I'll call that favour from Elena." The name made Yttrium roil in a little shock and Johnny's smirk faltering before relaxing entirely. She didn't want to be near the Sourcian who moonlighted as a Kaiju for cheesy movies. "Maybe she and Gerald knows a construction company or something."

Johnny gave Luca a tap on the arm with the back of his hand. "Not me~?" He hooted, singsong as his long arm slowly reeled away. Luca rolled his eyes and raised his left hand, waving dismissively to swat Johnny's retracting hand away. The rest of the conversation drifted to lighter topics from there: Frame Running, other sports, current events, and tall tales.



Over the next hour and a bit, meals and drinks were served, chowed down upon, quaffed with gusto, and cooked throughly and dependably for a pub fare. Salt, pepper, and other condiments common and otherwise offered little adjustments to the experience. Curiously Ravnir had been offered a side serving of Feleaf - a spicy and potent plant associated with spellcasters locally. The chef had added it as a garnish to a fourteen pound hunk of stone marbled with veins of copper.

By the end of everyone's respective meals, the table was crowded with empty plates and glasses, used napkins, round beer mats idly rolling along on their edge between a pair of glasses. A calmness had come over Luca as took in the sunset disappearing behind the horizon, a cool breeze dispelling the day's radiant heat from the sand, stone, bricks and roads to name a few. It also kept the interior of the pub cool - with so many customers, fresh air was a necessity for quality of life, and fine beachside pub dining.

Luca was recalling an EAD tall tale from the 'golden days', "...point is, don't ever leave your chemical and magic reagents and stuff unattended. That's how you get weird shit when it breaks and mixes, and me throwing your magic stuff at you." He nodded - words to live by when a jar of something acidic turned a close fight in his favour. It also may have started a chain reaction which lead to more bad (read: explosive) things, but Luca glossed over that part with "I dealt with it".

"It's getting late." Yttrium had entertained herself by watching some Frame Running qualifiers and open races out in the Sargasso Countryside. A timestamp was in the corner of the picture, reading 21:33. "When are we going to see the ship?"

Johnny had enjoyed his parma. "Ready when you guys are. Only fifteen minutes walk, away down in Dripton." He nodded, having spent plenty of time to overcome the daze of a food coma. "We'll all have a look together, then I'll go work the markets for a bit." Luca nodded in agreement, examining his peers for their readiness.

 

Sargasso, Flatiron's Hill, The Heroes Armaments
Determining that people were ready to up and go, Luca nodded decisively and started shuffling out of the booth seating with Johnny and the others. The merchant was eager to get moving, shaking the stiffness out of his legs once he was standing up. "Right then, short walk to Dripton," Johnny said, nodding along towards the others as Luca was heading towards the door, "it'll get the food coma out of our heads."

"You better not be selling us a pup or I'll get the bird to tie those arms of yours in knots, got that?" Luca made a jesting threat as he held the door open for his team. From across the bar, Joey and Ally waved the team goodbye. The tab was taken care of.

♫ Infinity Frequencies - Y∞U & ME ♫

The setting sun made the other moons of Traveller, the starscape, and the gas giant itself more visible in the sky - rings of stone, dust, and ice surrounding the enormous planet twinkled against the back as they caught what remained of the daylight. Clouds of the red tide surrounding Aleph Null served as the backdrop for the night sky, dotted with spacecraft flying lazily through the stratosphere and foreground - outshone by the brightness of stars twinkling through the crimson shroud - wavering ever so slightly as their real positions were muddled by the spatial phenomena.

Closer to home and down the streets of Sargasso, the roads and sidewalks were bathed in the pale, soft light of the night sky, neon signs and gaudy advertisements on billboards against the façades of buildings. They all tried to catch the fleeting attentions of many pedestrians. If one advertisement didn't click with one person for whatever reason, it would find another in time.

The steps of hundreds of moving feet, automobiles and hovercars commuting, traffic signals, and small chatter echoed down the streets Phoenix Team was walking down. Immediately above, walkways and plazas were built over the street, creating a second tier of public space over some of the larger intersections or roads, accessible via stairways, winding ramps, or from inside of buildings. The reason for this was to allow people to continue moving with relative ease even when monsoon weather was swamping the street below.

Stepping into a space where the buildings thinned out and the bay opened up south of Barrier Island, Phoenix Team was greeted by the sight of the long bridge to Ogonori Island stretching into the night, presiding over the sight of hundreds of colourful tents and temporary structures and heated merchant pidgin which composed the famous Night Markets. From here, Johnny took a turn left and towards the ocean.

"That was picturesque," Luca remarked as Johnny lead the group towards his warehouse, stopping in front of an unremarkable building with very wide side-scrolling doors, "now, the Fantail?" he prodded.

"Hold your horses," Johnny sighed after getting a lock at ground level undone. His long arms reached up to a lock near the roof of the building, "just gotta get the door open." Luca tilted his head at the means of security, but if it worked, it worked. Once both locks were free, Johnny begun pushing the doors open by himself, long arms wiggling like damp spaghetti as they reached their upper limit of an eight metre wingspan.

The interior was dark, but the team could see the silhouette of the alleged spacecraft. Luca seemed puzzled by the introduction, glancing towards the merchant with bemusement. "Oh, lemme get the lights." Johnny said, reaching up for an unseen switch and clicking them on. The fluorescent lights came on row by row, shedding light on the other crates and things he had stashed away in his warehouse, while in the open space in the middle was the Fantail, as advertised.

The ship itself was the right shape, with a dark blue paint job and canary yellow accents. As advertised, it was a second-hander, but kept in relatively good condition. Stepping further inside to get a closer look, its landing gears, central cargo ramp, and rear walking ramp were down. Luca stepped inside the interior via the walking ramp through a rudimentary airlock and a small living space.

Beyond a curtain which separated the living area from the middle of the ship, Luca saw the floor and underside of the ship lowered via long vertical bars - for easy mechanical and cargo access. He spotted a lever on the wall - illustrated with helpful diagrams to control the central ramp. Luca pulled it to raise the floor and undercarriage of the ship back up after a few seconds of sirens and motors. Satisfied, he made way towards the cockpit with two seats in the bow. The upholstery and amenities seemed a bit worn in, but acceptable.

He sat in the pilot's seat and examined the controls: Standard One-Stop joysticks, buttons, pedals, holographic monitors and a 3D radar. He stood up, stepped out, and lowered the ramp again, standing in the middle as safety sirens flashed. He looked towards the marchant with a nod of approval, and towards the others of his satisfaction. "Seems good to me." He said.

Johnny was quick to seal the deal. "Now, you'll give me a yell when you've got space on your end to park this ship?" he asked, restating his terms and Luca's predicament. "I can hold onto this for a couple of weeks."

"Of course." Luca replied, looking for his communicator and making a call to Elena. "Hello? Yes, it's Luca Pavone, I'd like to leave a message..." He hopped down and let the others in the group explore the ship's interior at their leisure, while he was getting things into place.

Yttrium meanwhile was fixated on a pin-up painted onto the port side of the hull, mimicking the pose for giggles and trying to recall any street artists worthy of adding another to the starboard.

 

Taking a closer look around the interior of the Fantail Snuffles found that the starboard rear compartment (Class G) of the ship had a budget shield generator suitable for light space debris and little bumps in the starboard's rear compartment, and the port rear compartment (Class G) contained a cargo rack suitable to carry four standard cubes of cargo. The two smaller compartment spaces closer to the Fantail's bow (Both Class I) were empty, currently open to the central cargo ramp in the middle of the ship, which accessed all of the compartments and made installation of new components and cargo quite easy.

The styling of the life support/living area for the pilots consisted mostly of inoffensive beige on durable plastic, though a little scuffed from previous wear: A wall-folding table which concealed the kitchenette, a sink which sat above the chairs which came out with the table, a viewscreen in the wall for entertainment or additional ship status and computing, a pair of folding bunkbeds, and a bathroom stashed away in the starboard corner with a toilet, a shower, and a bar for the towel. The curtain which separated this little living space with the central cargo and access area was a shade of green with a light tartan pattern, thick and quilted.

Perhaps it could be livened up with some gun racks and a litter bench in that spare corner... Snuffles was likely to know of someone in her immediate family who furnished spacecraft.

Otherwise, she found the budget shield generator had some good looking places to hide things - most of a budget shield generator was just bare space, so a couple of duffel bags of contraband could fit amidst non-active components in the interior casing.

 

Sargasso, Dripton, Johnny Longhands' Warehouse
The man in Red was looking out into the street while on call with his favour to Elena getting cashed in to do some refitting. The lady had joined the call, taking over from a secretary of hers. "Just don't go building a miniature city in my place and we're good," Luca outlined, knowing that the Sourcian actress and gourmet slime afficionado was prone to a joke at a human's expense.

"Of course, of course. Hangar roof, got it~ Gerald will know the right men for this." Elena replied, velvety before lifting herself away from the receiver of a wired telephone and covering it with a pale hand. "Darling~!" She called out in a lyrical, playful lilt to the director before getting back on the hook: "Anything else you want~?"

"That'll be all thanks. See you around," Luca kept his business short and closed the line. He crossed his arms as he watched wheeled trucks inch down the road at the end of the street. Above, aerotrucks, and other light aerospace were plastered with holographic advertisements for services and goods, breaking up the stale white streetlights and interior lights of the Warehouse onto the evening street.

Inside, Johnny was hovering around the Fantail, stepping onto the lowered cargo platform. He heard the Chelti's comments above, figuring he could upsell them somehow. "Of course, that's standard for of these resold One-Stop craft," the merchant preened, clasping his hands together and flexing his fingers out before raising his long arms up into the interior and grasping onto the bulkhead, lifting himself up and inside with aplomb.

He had no problem standing in the doorway of the cockpit while the interior floor of the Fantail was down, continuing a little business pitch he had in mind. "A popular addition could be a permanent catwalk, so you can still get to the back of the ship while the cargo ramp's down." Johnny looked down into the floor of his warehouse below, before grappling with the bulkhead above to swing towards the living area. "I can throw a scaffolding ladder in for an extra 250000, yes?"

Yttrium got bored of inspecting the Fantail, and begun prancing upon metal feet towards Luca, leaning into his field of view with her cascading hair and dark body. "Well, we know what we're here for now! Do we all have to be here now?" She asked.

He shrugged, coming up empty for things to do here. "Nah, I've gotten my business sorted with Elena, and we can all head home or something-" Luca yawned suddenly, shaking his head a little as he felt fatigue set in from a long day of moving around, eating out, and making his connections work for him. Some time to himself sounded great about now. "Well guys, I'm going to head home - Great to see you all again, and don't let Johnny keep you, yes?" Indeed, the merchant had a stall to run and he was running late - the automerch robot he kept around couldn't keep up without him forever.

Luca's motorcycle pulled up, called by his side with his keyless access. He mounted and looked out to his peers: "If something comes up, I'll keep you all posted, got that?" With that, he sped off, and Yttrium followed by taking big strides, hopping on her legs to form a series of hydraulic jumps to jog down the street after Luca.

The rest of the team was left to their own devices. The Night Markets were only a few moments walk away from Johnny's warehouse, and otherwise, public transport wasn't far away, with a subway entrance at the other end of the street from Johnny's warehouse, and a bus. Otherwise, it was only a few minute's walk back to the Hero's Armaments to retrieve their original mode of transport.

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OOC: New Mission on the way soon, but use this thread to make some purchases at the night market and look around, or filter out and do your thing/get some rest with your characters.