Player Characters:
John A Rico - Former Star Marine
Rocke Ramora - Thief-Turned-Trader
Willy Warder - Noble Administrator
NPC Crew:
Zuleikah - Money-Obsessed Astrogator
A Quick Departure
Rocke gazed on in horror as "his" ship crashed into the bright-red ship one berth over and came to a stop at a 30-degree angle, crammed onto the platform. He, Rico, and Overseer Paulus Calidius started down the concourse towards the ship, planning to climb up to the airlock intercomm. A rocket launched from somewhere off to their right, streaking towards the star marine patrol corvette which they just now noticed hovering higher up in the dome, and the sound of gunfire echoed off in the distance. They jogged towards the ship, Rico carrying their 5kg of immortality drugs.
Meanwhile, Willy and Zuleikah yelled at each other on the bridge ("You should have piloted the ship!" "I told you, I'm not a pilot!" "Well neither am I!"). The ship was obviously way off-kilter, but neither of them were certain if it was stable, or if it was about to fall off the platform. The crowd that had been around the red ship they'd collided with dispersed, so Willy lowered the entry ramp; as the ship was still at a steep angle, the bottom of the ramp was still 6' in the air. He then used the intercomm to ask if anyone was injured, but nobody responded other than Zuleikah, who was one chair over.
Wanting to check on their "passenger" Willy brought the camera for the main airlock up and heard a bunch of pathetic moaning from the nobles who had been aboard during the crash ("Are there any other secret cameras I can check?" "Only Rocke knows about those" "Hey, those were supposed to be secret!"). After some fiddling with the computer system he was able to force a connection to the room GX-415 had been locked in, and he claimed to be injured but it didn't sound urgent.
The away team were forced to slow, as the Overseer found their quick walk to be too much exertion, and Rico had to help carry the wheezing man along. As they finally passed the fleeing crowd, Rocke saw a Yosemite Sam looking guy stomping on a cowboy hat in front of the two spaceships and yelling a series of hilarious old-timey curses (Rocke: "Does this look like a reasonable character?" "He looks like a prospector caricature stomping on a cowboy hat who is carrying a bunch of guns, you make of that what you will."). Rocke and Rico briefly discussed if they should just ambush and kill this man, but fearing reinforcements (and the red ship's top-mounted triple laser-turret), they settled on diplomacy.
Rocke greeted the prospector warmly, and the man just replied that "these dad-gummed idjits dun' crashed into my ship!". Rocke explained that he was the owner of the other ship and he was just as mad. He agreed that the person responsible was clearly an idiot, and would be fired into the nearest star as soon as possible. The prospector exclaimed that the damages would cost hundreds of thousands of spacebucks to fix, but Rocke was able to placate him by offering his contact info, so that he could arrange payment later (something he never actually planned to do), once they were away from this clearly unsafe planet ("Just make sure your employee gets fired into the sun" "Oh, believe me, he'll be fired into multiple suns when I'm through with him").
That dealt with, they headed to the boarding ramp, the air filled with the stench of burnt pork, where they encountered a problem: Paulus was incapable of climbing up, and was too heavy for the other two to lift. Rocke climbed up and headed towards the airlock to get a ladder, while Rico kept watch. Passing the two bisected men at the entrance to the airlock, Rocke found the clump of former slave-owning"refugees" all lying in a pile, each complaining about their arm or leg, and got them out of the way by threatening them with his rifle. After a brief intercomm discussion (Willy: "Next time leave a pilot on the ship! Or come back earlier!"), he was let in and headed to the hold for their ladder.
Meanwhile, Rico spotted a squad of battlesuited marines with laser rifles and one HMG running down the walkway towards the Suck-It. After conferring with Willy via intercom, Rico ordered the Overseer to hide and not tell the marines who he and Rocke were. He headed back up the ramp and into the ship, where he ran into Rocke, now carrying a ladder, and apprised him of the situation. In a panic, Rocke ordered Rico into the pilot's seat and to take off as soon as possible.
By the time he'd buckled himself into the captain's chair, Rocke remembered the patrol corvette, which was both faster and better armed than the Suck-It, and asked Rico if there was a chance of talking things out with his ex. Rico revealed that he had broken up with her over a text message on her birthday because he was cheating on her with her sister, and Rocke ordered him to punch it. In an astounding display of skill (a natural 12), Rocke rammed the corvette, knocking it off into the inside of the dome, and then gunned it out of the iris gate just as it was closing.
Winding Down
Willy bandaged the wounded, though none were seriously injured, and Rocke announced that the surviving "refugees" would be paying their entire worth for this passage (Rico tried to push for a "law of surprise" as well, but the others didn't want to deal with the added complication). Though the former nobles weren't happy, they didn't really have another option. GX-415 unfortunately turned out to have a space concussion that was beyond the tools Willy had on the ship and would have to live with some mild brain damage. Rocke declared that all passengers were to be locked into quarters for the duration of the jump to Solace.
Once back in contact with the financial system at Solace, Rocke eagerly awaited for the transfer of a princely sum to their accounts, only to discover that the former nobles' accounts had mostly been seized by the former slaves. In the end, "all that they had" turned out to be one hundred seventeen thousand spacebucks.
Notes:
Insurance doesn't exist for individual starship owners. You should have known better than to get hit.
The cost of repairs would be $100k for parts; Rico can do the work so they don't have to pay for labour.
At the end of the day: they decided not to sell GX-415 (because it was no longer strictly financially necessary to break even) and freed him instead! What a group of upstanding heroes.
The former slaves were able to successfully fight off the marines, and have claimed Verorum as a free system.
They actually ended up turning a profit after selling the illegal anagathics.
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