As it involved everyone's necks, Old Joe tried to convince Him Wot Gets
Strung Up First to sign up to the Beat Feet Manifesto.

"Do you even _see_ these grey hairs, captain?" - Old Joe

EC floated around Shulgi's port a bit himself (while Nikki turned said
port upside down in search of spec cargo) and, primed somewhat by Old
Joe's concerns, picked up some disconnected fragments of rumours that
could be stitched together to spell "fleet movement" if you squinted
hard enough.

El Capitane proceeded to muse about this in a very Milfordesque manner -
decamping to a passing boozer and propping up a stool.

Unaware of the fine detail of Old Joe's concerns, (fair firing squad
then fair trial, etc), El Capitane drank to his current predicament. A
major drag of the job - namely, he would be responsible - became more
apparent with each passing lager.

He wasn't overly looking forward to an indefinite period of residence as
a guest of the Ziru Sirka, for some reason, either.

Nikki had previously waxed lyrical about the shortcomings she endured
during her 12 years as a guest of the German state - and that was as a
citizen thereof.  As an alien in two senses of the word, El Capitane
didn't expect his tenure to be better.

Buggrit.  Millennium hand and shrimp.  Trouser the lot of 'em.

As Drake drained his n-th lager, he mused that he'd have to ask Joe for
a membership card to the Beat Feet Manifesto.

A pre-arranged ping summoned Bert.  In the latter's professional
opinion, the captain was _maggotted_.

The two headed back to Das Boot, where Bert loaded Drake (aka Ralph) up
with sufficient electrolytes and analgesics to blunt the worst
aftereffects of his musing.

After the bent landing gear got fixed somewhere along the way, Das Boot
made to lift to Zaggisi.

The jump was routine, although Drake was a little tense upon emergence.

Approach and dock was nice and boring, whereupon Old Joe was set loose
upon unsuspecting freight lots.  Two lots of breakbulk, 30 dton and 4
dton, both to Nusku.

Refuel, pay fees, scarper - both Old Joe and El Capitane figuratively
looking over their shoulders all the while.

Das Boot proceeded to Apishal all nice and boring-like, and, after
refuelling, thence to Nusku.

The _jump_ seemed routine, but emerging on _the wrong side of the Nusku
system primary_ not so much - not to mention unusually high traffic.

Nikki suggests to book docking while they beat feet across the inner
system, so they could wait out the port congestion en route.

Curly managed to balls up the approach, bending both the boat and the
dock.  He managed to breach the hull and cripple the M-drive.

"I didn't know you could drift.  I'm impressed." - EC

Possibly as a result, the port didn't bother pressurising the berth. 
Drake had buggered up the ship's gravity control when he was drinking
with Bert.

"Let's hope so.  It's our ship, we can't guarantee that." - EC

Despite the zero pressure, they manage to unload the breakbulk cargo
without too many incidents, but the docking fee had ballooned by 1.2
megacredits while they weren't looking.

"Curly emptied the bank" - Old Joe

"I don't want to spend money on fuel and watch it float away.  We've
done that before." - EC

Nikki fixes the hull damage, but flubbed the critical repair twice and
wasted 5 hours.

Drake sorted out delivering the cargo and paid the docking fee and the
fuel for the upcoming international jump.

Nusku Control was for some reason happy to see the back of the PCs and
Das Boot.

Old Joe flew the departure (fulfilling an earlier bet he'd lost).

The jump was about as welded-flightpath as possible, with two critical
successes (El Capitane the astroguesser and, big surprise, Nikki on jump
drive) and one success with effect 5 (Old Joe on the yoke - one short of
a critical).

As they were merely transiting Agidda, El Capitane had chosen to jump to
a gas giant and take his chances skimming.

Curly dove down to the Deeps and filled tanks in a mere 160 minutes, but
inflicted some hull damage on the way out.

Drake decided to take the helm - everyone else freaked.  Drake crit
failed the layer-change roll and crit-succeeded the buffeting-avoidance.

"The _ship_ has taken no damage.  Your fellow crew members' psyches, I
can't speak for." - Me

The second escape attempt had dual critfails, inflicting 6 points of
hull damage, triggering a sev 1 hull crit, which inflicted _another_ 6
points of damage.  Nikki and Bert suited up and started sealing hatches.

El Capitane's third escape attempt failed but not as badly, doing
another 2 points of damage and inflicting a sev 2 armour crit, which
removed any protection the armour used to give.

Curly resumed the helm, and Old Joe tried to psiboost him.  Net result:
null program.

Old Joe took the helm.

"You don't _need_ to throw anything at us, Alex, we do it ourselves" -
Easy Frag.

Old Joe's first escape attempt was as manic depressive as El Capitane's
first.

"Just watching the dollars fall off the ship" - Nikki

Old Joe's second attempt finally gets Das Boot clear as Nikki gets
weaving on the frame hit.

"Nikki, do you want the captain's help?" - Me

"NO! He's done enough damage!" - Nikki

Nikki rocked out fixing the frame crit in an hour.

While Nikki was distracted, Drake went EVA to fix the worst of the bulk
hull damage, managing 6 points' worth.

Judging from Nikki's cursing, Drake figured they'd need some yard time
to replace the busted armour shell.

Terra was almost certainly going to be a madhouse (not to mention a
damned long wait), so Prometheus would probably be easier, as no jump
drive work was needed (yet).

The run to Prometheus was nice and boring.  On emergence, it was
immediately obvious that the long-awaited upgrade (via direct investment
from the TC itself) to starshipyard had commenced.

"It'll probably work out.  We haven't _landed_ yet!" - EC

EC sorted out clearance and threatened to take the helm.  Curly docks
safely at Prometheus while Nikki WTFed at the hull damage she didn't
have to fix.

After docking, Nikki started looking for a buyer for the gemstones, and
found one.  Said buyer haggled her to a standstill, settling for 1400k
solars - payment took the form of a letter of credit, drawn on a
different Terran bank.

Nikki also found a buyer for the industrial radioactives, settling for
450k.  She got another letter of credit, this time drawn on a Swiss bank
apparently headquartered on Wash House Street in Geneva.

Intending to do the armour refit herself, Nikki started chasing up the
raw materials for a new armour shell, while getting Old Joe to sort out
hiring the hangar and frames needed.  She also asked him to see what he
could do about the frame critical hit.

360k covered said raw materials, and Nikki also scooped up 2 tons of
spares - they'd just about run out.

Old Joe took a day to straighten out the frame critical and spent the
time waiting for Nikki chasing down a whole bunch of minor maintenance
items that were a lot easier to do with the ship off its landing gear.

El Capitane blamed Bert for the hull repairs.

--