Star Frontiers: A Fistful of Credits

Started by MadPanda, May 13, 2008, 01:34:30 PM

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MadPanda

Port Loren (Gran Quivera)
PGC Headquarters Complex
Personnel Section


As the saying goes, once you've seen one corporate office waiting area, you've seen them all--the only differences seem to be in the color of the wall panels (an annoyingly loud pink), the age of the hardcopy magazines (ancient!), and the particulars of the receptionist (female and Vrusk).  Otherwise, the doors at one end of the rectangular room lead back to the lift, and another set leads into the office proper.

All of you received a summons to present yourself here and meet with one B.P. Vostock, no title given, for a quote matter of interest and remuneration unquote.  In other words, this particular suit wants to hire you for a job...and since he (she?) works for Gee Pee Cee, you'll probably actually get paid in credits that won't mysteriously evaporate.

In the meantime, here you are, in the waiting room...waiting.
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

Hunter

Feezor walked into the waiting room, absently adjusting his sungoggles as he did.  He produced a datapad, reading though the contents even as he walked over to the receptionist.   "Feezor."  He identified himself, absently scratching one winged armpit.   "I'm expected."  He spoke without even looking up.

MadPanda

The Vrusk barely looks up from her workstation.

"Have a seat, please," she buzzes in a bored tone.  "Mister Vostock will be with you shortly."
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

Hunter

Again, without looking up, the Yazirin finds a seat.  He appeared more interested in what he was reading than what was going on around him.

Ace86

Adam walked into the odd office and looked around. It seems that his reputation is finally starting to catch up to him and he is starting to get calls for missions instead of asking for them. As the human looked around he saw that the waiting room was completely empty except for one Yazirin and a the Vrusk receptionist.

Adam walked toward the Vrusk and took his head off his head, placing it down on her desk. "howdy mame. I've got a massage asking me to come here, so here i am. Name's Adam Johns."

JadeCore

As much as academics would like to think otherwise, corporate offices and laboratories were very much the same in one very broad way. Every little detail was carefully manufactured for a certain effect. Most of the time, it was bland cultural neutrality that favored nothing. Though the magazines were old and outdated, they were nevertheless carefully picked and surveyed to appeal to the maximum amount of people. The artwork, such as it was, was technically pleasing yet held very little artistic life. The walls were neither dark nor light and the chairs... well, the chairs never quite made you comfortable enough to feel rested.

Spying the cover of one of the magazines brought a small smile came to Ophelie's face as she approached the receptionist. The featured article was about a new hypothesis on the development of subspace harmonics. 'Revolutionary' said one of the tag words splashed across the cover, interlaced with images of stars and nebula. She had heard about that hypothesis, in fact, and had known the writer of the article. It was a shame that the magazine was more than a handful of years old and the writer had died several years after; she'd read the article when she was in summer school taking an extra credit course with that same writer.

"Ophelie Summerfeld. I have an appointment with Mr. Vostock."

It was more a statement than anything else as Ophelie didn't bother to wait for an answer that wouldn't answer anything and took a seat next to the stack of magazines. Placing one knee over the other, the human female plucked one of the aging magazines and began to thumb through it.

MadPanda

#6
The Vrusk rolls her compound eyes, heaves an overly dramatic sigh in that unprofessional manner beloved of temporary staff the Galaxy over.

"Please take a seat.  Mister Vostock will be with you shortly."

Somehow she manages to miss the fact that by the time she looks up, Ophelie has already seated herself in anticipation of just such a response!

The intercom buzzes to life, emitting a series of squawks rather like the 'adult-speak' in a Peanuts cartoon.  The Vrusk presses the talk button and replies, "yes, sir, the first three are here.  Shall I send them in?"

More squawking.

"Very well, sir."  The receptionist goes back to her workstation.  "Mister Vostock will be right with you," she adds again, speaking in the general direction of the three arrivals.

Within two minutes, the door slides open to reveal a Dralasite which holds out a 'hand' to each of you simultaneously.

"Good morning!  Sorry for the delay.  I'm Vostock.  Please step into my office," it says cheerfully...well, as cheerfully as a blob can.

The office is done in Generic Midranking Suit, with a hint of Ambition here and there.  Vostock ambles back behind the desk, a sober black metal thing that would be intimidating if it were a few feet higher.

"So," Vostock says in that same upbeat way, "here you are!  So I'll cut straight to the chase.  Pee Gee See needs troubleshooters and you come highly recommended.  So we're offering you a job."
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

Ace86

Adam looked up to see a Dralasite come out. he quickly got up and moved over to the next room, sitting down on the nearest chair he looked around to see if the rest came in aswell.

He turned toward Vostock and listened to what he had to say. It seemed that Adam was going to get a new job, he hoped that this time it would be one that he could somehow enjoy. He was sick of doing normal, uninteresting jobs for almost no money.

Hunter

Feezor still hasn't looked up from whatever he's studying until he's firmly seated in a chair in the office.  His expression is suddenly very serious as he gives his undivided attention to his potential payor.

JadeCore

She drops the magazine back on the stack before standing to exchange pleasantries. Amorphous as Dralasites were, Ophelie couldn't tell much about their would-be employer as the trio followed the alien into his office and took seats at the row of chairs neatly laid out in front of the short desk. There was no sense of Vostock or his office trying to be anything other than a what it was though, so she could only assume that this was the sort of legitimate job offering that a corporation could afford to be public.

Ophelie smoothed the seat of her pants before taking a seat between the human and the yazirin. Since coming to the Frontier, there had been little need in her life for nice clothing; she intended to keep what presentable clothing she had in as good a condition as she could. Even at the fringes of known space in the age of interstellar travel, looking like a million bucks never lost its value.

"What is the job?" She asked, resting one knee on top of the other, deciding to be as straightforward as Vostock was.

MadPanda

Vostock rubs one hand over the top of its head as though smoothing back the hair it doesn't have in a gesture probably meant to look suave and debonair.

"Put simply, our offer is a freelance contract.  75 credits a day to start, plus transportation allowances if a case requires you to take a non-company vessel.  You'll get bonuses on completion of various missions, of course, depending on the nature of the precise tasks required, risk involved, and the efficiency of your solution."

It hands each of you a datapad loaded with standard boilerplate.  The first obvious element is that nowhere do the words 'PanGalactic Corporation' appear!  Instead, the contract references something called SOLPROV, complete with a snazzy little graphic.
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

Ace86

Adam looked closely at what could be his next long time employer. The offer sounded promising and the payment was good too. The only questions that the bounty hunter had in his mind was what kind of missions were going to be giving to him and how did Vostock find out about him in the first place, for what he knew he wasn't that popular yet. Instead, the human male asked the fallowing question, hoping that ha could sum it up in one answer.

"What kind of company are you?."

MadPanda

"Why, we're Pan-Galactic Corporation!  The biggest, brightest, richest, and most obvious corporate target in the Frontier.  Which is why you three are going to be employees of a less well known organization.  All perfectly legal, of course."
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

Ace86

Adam set back in his chair and pondered the situation over, until finally smacking himself in the head mentally. This was the best offer he had in a long time and it seems like a good deal. all that Adam needed now was to get information about their first mission and he would gladly take off.

"Please continue. Your offer sounds promising."


 

JadeCore

It was typical corporate politics. Well, politics in general really, corporate or otherwise. The dance of a thousand policies was something Ophelie was familiar with, despite a youthful (and perhaps, as she would occasionally admit to herself, foolish) desire she had as a child to avoid politics. That outlook had changed with jaded experience, of course, and while no longer so adamant against them, she allowed herself to play along for the same of those in greater positions than she.

Switching one leg over the other, she nodded with Adam's words and waited to hear what the chase was. There always was and while she allowed herself to be a leaf on a river, she certainly tried to avoid getting caught up in unescapable situations. Those were the things action heroes in holo-flicks get out of. In real life, not so much.

MadPanda

"In that case," Vostock says, reaching under its desk to press an unseen button, "I'll be more than happy to invite you onboard.  Are either of you familiar with rumors of the Ancients?  Or, as I believe they are also called, the Progenitors?  We're investigating some anomalous archaeological finds, all on the QT you understand...so we can't have our normal everyday card-carrying employees do the work.  That's where you two will come in."
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

Ace86

"Just tell me what you want me to do, point me in the right direction and let me be on my way. And start talking in a way i can understand. You see, unlike you, im just a simple man. I don't have know what the hell 'anomaulgus archelouges'...what ever the hell you just said there, is. So lets cut down on the small talk and lets talk to the point.
Where, when and what. And speak in a way i can understand."

Adam has had enough of the talking, he was a man of actions and care little of knowing over the basics of what he was paid to do. As long as he got the little information that told him what he was going to do and how much he was going to get paid, the part about why he did it meant little to him. He was a man of little morals. As long as he didn't kill for nothing or torture his victims for no apparent reason he was ok with his mission, and this mission seemed like it didn't go in either of these directions.

MadPanda

"Simply put, she is to explore certain sites, and you are to keep her alive.  Is that plain enough?"

Vostock does not smile--Dralasites can't--but somehow gives the impression of doing so.
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

Ace86

Adam lets out a big laugh. "Well why didn't you say that sooner. No problem there."

Adam turns to look at the woman to his side. He took his time to just look at her before smiling and nodding his head.

"don't worry my lady. As long as you got me by your side you'll be safe."

JadeCore

"What can you tell me about the sites?" She asked the Dralasite. Anomalous could have meant almost anything. From spooked locals to dangerous wildlife to a random deposit beneath the site setting of sensors.

MadPanda

"They run the gamut," Vostock says.  "We've accumulated reports for some time but haven't had the resources to investigate adequately.  That's what your little branch company is going to handle, one at a time.  Now, in general I can say is that each of these reported ruins is in an out-of-the-way spot, usually on an unsettled and incompletely explored world.  If they were closer in, we'd be able to get our other people in to have a look without as much trouble."

Scratching the nose it doesn't have, Vostock continues.

"What we have is a collection of sites that ought not exist.  Stepped pyramids on an airless moon, for example.  Or a vast city complex on a planet too young to have evolved life, let alone intelligent life.  That sort of thing.  You understand?"
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

JadeCore

"I understand, yes," She replied with a nod. It didn't seem like Vostock knew very much about the sites they would be exploring. Perhaps the basic details, but these seemed like the sort of ruins born of hoaxes. Or of things to change the galaxy. Ophelie had to admit that any scientist of any sort would have been more than a little curious to see the truth of the matter. It's what their job was all about, after all.

"Did you have any site you wanted to begin with?"

Ace86

Adam leaned back in his chair and watched as the two others in the room continued talking about the details of the mission. For him, continuing to discuss it any farther was useless as he didn't really care about anything that involved..well, anything other then the amount of money or the type of action that he was going to get.

Adam took out a cigarette and lit it, getting up he walked toward the door. This could continue for quite some time and Adam had no wish to continue sitting there doing nothing.

"When your done come get me. I'll be outside"

With that he started opening the door and started to leave.   

MadPanda

Vostock hits a few buttons on the desk console, bringing up a number of holographic projections which the Dralasite proceeds to describe in excruciating detail (insofar as the details are known).  The key point is that each and every one of these 'anomalous constructions', some of which do not look like very much from orbit, are in contested or hostile environments!  Hence the apparent need for Adam...

After a pile and a half of excruciating detail, Vostock returns to the point: "Would you rather start with the closest anomaly or the least unpleasant one?"

====

Meanwhile, Adam is swiftly reminded by the cross Vrusk receptionist that these offices are a non-smoking zone, but if he'd like to take the lift up to the roof, he's welcome to smoke outside...
Voluptas ailuri fulgentis decretum est!
Omnis nimis, temperantia ob coenobitae.
(Jes, tiuj frazoj estas malĝustaj. Pandoj fakte ne komprenas la latinan!)

One on Ones Suggestion Box
Group Game Suggestion Box
Pandariffic Ons and Otherwise
In Memory of Bishrook

JadeCore

She had to quirk an eyebrow as the common thread connecting each site became apparent. A bodyguard to protect against robbers and thieves was one thing. A bodyguard to protect against more dangerous foes was something else altogether. The man ready to cigarette must then be more capable than his lackadaisical attitude would suggest. Ophelie left those questions unspoken. Vostock was enough of a diplomat to answer such questions with a lot of nothing.

"I think I will let my..."  She hesitated as she glanced back at Adam. Bodyguard sounded too trivial. Escort sounded too formal. And calling him as simply a mercenary seemed too blunt for not knowing him just yet. "My protection decide on the best course of action."