The Paradise emerged from a routine jump inbound to the no-man's
um...land (... I don't have anything that fits better) of Sirius,
sandwiched between the UN and the Ziru Sirka.

Badass-Moustache picks up some completely unexpected (ie, any) contacts
on sensors just after emergence, with one apparently manoeuvring, ~ 10
light minutes away.  For reasons known best to El Captaine (ie, I had
stuffed up), they hadn't refuelled from the unfolded tanks while in Jump.

Drake ordered the ship to silent running (aka EMCON) and to duck behind
something big enough to block their residual EM signature.  Rosa pulled
off some Extreme Drifting (tm) and apparently convinced everyone that
"no one here but us rocks!".

Once hidden (?), Drake ordered everyone except Rosa to the hold to
transfer fuel.

"I'm a doctor, not an engineer, dammit!" - Bert

Despite the "help", Nikki managed to transfer the full fuel load without
incident in roughly an hour (she was taking it easy, being the first
in-space refuelling that _she_ was responsible for).  Nikki suggested
rather unsubtly that Drake and Bert should bugger off and go do
something useful, while everyone else helps her collapse the tanks.

Up on the bridge, Rosa didn't pick up anything on sensors.  Das Boot's
ubersensors (civvy grade (-2 to sensor rolls) to start with, then a
vessel quirk of -1 to all sensor rolls on top of that) helped her out
muchly.

"Cap you can't captain for a while, because medically speaking we don't
want you to" - not sure if that was Bert or dingus

Everyone else down below managed to collapse the tanks without incident
(again, Nikki was taking it easy).

As far as everyone knew, the jump out to Markharshi was nice and routine
- until 184 hours ticked past on the jump elapsed clock with no hint of
emergence.

I just about pissed myself laughing at the nervous scans of the big grey
void - funny as hell to me, but good role playing.

Nothing turned up, and the Paradise exited approx 700 D out from Markharshi.

Bert had the "bright" idea to soup up the fuel.  I was laughing too hard
to correct him.

"If it's the engines, there's nowhere safe on this ship" - Nikki

As Drake didn't really like taking roughly 2.5x as long to reach
Markharshi as it normally would, Nikki got to overdriving the thrusters
and powerplant.

Judging from how Bert was shooting his mouth off, the suspicions the
players formed about him having Tim "The Toolman" Taylor as a great- or
great-great-grandfather seemed rather justified, notwithstanding Tim
being a fictional character that did not exist in this timeline.

Rosa thought the actual physical Big Red Button that Nikki bolted onto
her panel was a nice touch.

With all loose objects secured (or so they thought), the PCs commenced
Operation Galvanise (Push The Button).

Das Boot took off like a mouse with a hungry cat in hot pursuit, and:

"You've copped 8 points of damage there, Bert, from losing an argument
with a bulkhead" - Me

"I'm going to sickbay - I trust the bloke there" - Bert

"If there's a ringing in your ears, don't answer it" - Me

Bert dragged himself down to sickbay and did a reasonable job of first
aid, restoring 5 points thanks to his Asclepian skill.  (on further
reflection, I now see why chargen skills are hardlimited to 4).

With one parsec of fuel left aboard, and sod-all folding money that
Vilani ports would even _look_ at, Drake was quite interested to hear a
recommendation from his fellow ex-Scout that, as Markharshi orbited a
gas giant, it would probably be worth attempting to skim fuel, since the
Paradise was equipped for it.  The zero down payment with zero balloon
payment might have had something to do with it.

After Mr Sweep tried to channel Sir Patrick "Mullet" Stewart as Jean-Luc
Picard and failed miserably, Badass-Moustache got on the blower and
filed a flight plan, Eddles rolling boxcars.

Rosa managed to botch the first insertion attempt, costing the Paradise
5 of its 72 hull points (another quirk that dropped it down from 80).

With Moustachian assistance, she managed to insert the Paradise into the
cloudtops, trading a rapid skim run for a safe one.

Per the MGT2 GG skim rules, full-tilt skimming captures 1% of vessel
displacement every 2D6 minutes, at a -2 turbulence penalty.  The
shallows halve the skim rate for a -1 penalty, and the cloudtops divide
skim rate by 10 in exchange for unpenalised Pilot rolls.

Das Boot needed 30% of its volume in fuel, and thus would expect to be
skimming for 35 hours.  Drake decided to do two runs, one to fill the
collapsible tanks and the second to top off.

After an exhausting, long skim run, Drake had the bright idea of
transferring the first refined load himself while Nikki inspected her
eyelids for storm damage.

He tried (and failed) twice, then pings Nikki, blaming Bert (to general
player lulz).  When a half-asleep Nikki lobs, even she realises the kick
dents beneath the control panel come from size 8 steel-cap work boots (a
la Drake), not size 12 loafers (a la Bert).  For some reason, Nikki
couldn't figure out what went wrong and crawled back to bed.

El Capitane fiddled with the fuel controls some more, gave up, and
headed back to the bridge.  The sensor board pings him - 10 thousand-ton
ships have formed up and are heading his way in two groups of five. 
They ping him, and he can't make head or tail of the request.

Drake being Drake, he wakes everyone else up.  Badass-Moustache and
Nikki manage to figure out that a) it's a warship squadron, b) they were
asking if the Paradise needed assistance, and c) the squadron flagship
is the one pinging.

Nikki, still half-asleep, explains we're fine, and the delay in
responding is due to it being shipboard night.

Rosa feels ice cubes drag race down her spine as she recognises the
voice of someone very senior aboard the flagship - the
previously-voluble Spaniard goes _very_ quiet, and Wombat commented that
if Rosa stood up now, she'd bring the seat with her.

Rosa had rolled up a full-blown Enemy during her
"stuck-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-border" term in the UNNF Scouts, and the
squadron commander was it.  I also wanted to recycle a character name
I'd used in Flight of the Vindicator, so the disgraced Commodore
(damifino what that translates to in Bilanidin) Dekenaana Irirusiran,
AZS, was unknowingly well within nuclear missile range of her nemesis. 
(I was cursing my inability to take off video game announcer/narrator
voices as well as I could do back in the day - this deserved a
gratuitous Starcraft takeoff if anything did).

Nikki kept chatting, unknowingly managing to convince Irirusiran, and
the squadron formed up and boosted out.  Nikki then returned to her
multiply-interrupted kip.

After a full night's sleep (and letting the refiners chunder away), the
top-up skim run was nicely uneventful.

"We've got to rebuild the bridge into something I like" - Drake

The jump out to Shuruppak was routine, despite El Capitane both
astrogating and piloting the jump.

As Shuruppak had law level 0, I figured this was a good place to trial
the adapted spec trade system I had put together.

Nikki, being both the best wheeler-dealer and the dodgiest one aboard (3
terms as a Prisoner (Fixer) had something to do with it), dived in with
gusto and rocked out boxcars when looking for cargo.

For the overture, Nikki managed to offload their initial 3 lots of spec
cargo for 2226 k overall (nearly 30% over the list price), starting her
reputation as a "tough but fair dealer, for a barbarian anyway".

A running gag started here, when she found some poor sod trying to
offload 4 dton of jump drive-grade lanthanum.  They had to pass that one
up (lack of folding money - list price was 5M per dton and Poor Sod
refused to break the lot up).

Nikki got 4 dtons of starship computer kit for its list price (1M) and 6
tons of radioactives for 540k - she actually could have bargained the
seller down to 480k, but she felt the hit was worth it to strengthen her
reputation.

There was a lot of solid roleplaying going on here, but I was pretty
tired by now, so I forget most of it.

According to the starport's rumour mill, Nikki was the Paradise's purser
and just palmed off the boring bits to the big beefy bloke with the
moustache.

Those who hadn't gone looking for cargo racked up another week of study
while Nikki and Badass-Moustache traipsed around the port.

--