The crew deliberates their options: we have done far more than Earth intelligence originally asked for, so some serious hazard pay is likely in order, but we may be considered expendable enough to lock us in a small box and throw away the key, after we’ve learned plenty they likely don’t want becoming common knowledge. Best case scenario is they give us more hard work like this, which would very likely get us killed…

“I took a look, and AstraZeneca and Pfizer both look like they’d pay well”
– Bankman, checking non-government options for selling the world ending bioweapon samples

We conclude that we should go debrief with the UN at a more neutral point like Ceres Station, with some of the local goons paid off to ensure the UN can’t anchor our ship if they don’t want to let us be free. We’ll leave the biosample in a hidden torpedo deep in space, both as our own insurance to get us out of there, but also we don’t want to bring such hazards to a civilian station ;)

Ceres Station

They take us into separate interrogation rooms, and while most of us keep our story straight, Eva leaks out far more than we’d discussed, which makes the negociations about turning over the biosamples harder. Ultimately though, we get such a large hazard payday that we can afford to buy Lani an Earth pet, and with Bankman naively doing the shopping, we end up with an extremely exotic sugar glider and a crate of frozen fruit.

We’re able to upgrade our ship’s sensor suite, and, with our newfound riches, pay for a rush delivery of imported ridiculous luxury amenities, including a fully stocked bar, gym, and fancy Lazboy chairs. There’s even a dozen guest slippers, so any future martian marines we bring aboard don’t scuff the new mahogany hardwood!

As Lani’s condition worsens, Vanessa/Jessica, our mostly-silent refugee of the Crocodile, finally spoke up and explained that one of her other crewmates that got away in the escape pod, had a theory on how to fully arrest the blue-goo infection. Unfortunately, while we know the doctor got to Ceres station, the records show they were disappeared by that station’s security. This somehow leads to a standoff between the crew debating whether or not to dump Vanessa to become the UN’s problem – the crew ultimately votes to not ask her what she wants lol, but we’ll try to drop her off at her home Lida Station, which happens to be where her crewmates were disappeared from.

Lida Station

Arriving there, Bankman heavily bribes the Lida stationmaster (again) for information: his Security Chief offered to ‘take care of’ the sick crewmates, since they were potentially contagious. He said no, but a few days later he seems to have done it anyway, and now the crew are gone. Froon simultaneously gets a video call from a nondescript Belter ship, saying his boss has information about who we’re looking for, and offers to meet us within 24h to get it. Roger quite effectively ‘intimidates’ the Security Chief into submission, who confirms he checked out the 3 crewmembers from Medical,and was taking them off-station when they resisted and he killed one, with the other two breaking away. Reviewing his security footage (doing his job for him, lazy bum) shows them board a ship in disguise, and that ship went towards Lido Station (which regularly gets typo’d mail bound for Lida). That’s where the Belter wanted to meet anyway, so off we go!

“What’s the station called?” – Eva
“Well you asked, so you have to name it”
“Ok, Lido station!”
Us all: “That’s what the last one was called!!”

Lido Station

Eva uses her contact to hire a trustworthy bodyguard, Lemun and his friend Russ, for the meet with the Belter. Upon sitting down, the Belter casually inquires about how Lemun’s family is doing. Nice background checks there Eva! The meet seemingly goes quite well anyway: they’ll let us meet with the ex-Crocodile’s doctor, but we’ll have to do some work for them after. They claim to not be motivated by money, which utterly baffles Bankman’s thus-far-impeccable bribery efforts. How could they not want more money?? So we do what anyone with a high income stat would do: we call the cops, but our UN contacts are hesitent to militarily engage with the OPA, and will not initiate anything. So we go to board their rather large ship, to meet this doc.

On the OPA’s large ship, the Crocodile’s doctor is answering our questions very stiffly, until she quietly triggers an alarm to pull our guards away, and pleads with us to get her away from the ship. She explains that she has a procedure that might treat Lani, but will require an infected specimen to compare against, such as her quite-far-gone ex-Captain Crocodile.

“Hey do you think you can hack the system for me, thanks
just like hack it, the cctv or whatever” – Eva, clearly knowledgable about such things

“Can I like, pull the fire alarm or something?”
“Well, its a station, so that’s a really big deal and going to bring a lot of attention”
“Oh you could try the duck maneouver again! Queack quakk! He’d at least wonder wtf was going on!”

[Bankman’s fists manage to do 18 damage in one punch. Their pistol bullets were doing 8 and 9]

The crew manages to have 3 separate simultaneous fights: Bankman’s fistfighting, Roger’s chokeholding. Froon notices his ship alerts were stopped, and heard multiple goons approaching the bridge, so decided to use the ship as a weapon by doing a sudden high-g burn (we’ll profusely apologize for the ‘accident’ and proactively offer to pay the station for any repairs to the docking bay). This takes out 3 of them, but Lani gets into a Mexican standoff with the last one. Their tie is broken by Greebo the Sugar Glider launching from Lani’s chest pouch directly at his face, buying the precious second of confusion Lani needed. The away team manages to pick up the unconcious Captain Crocodile, and flee back to our ship.

The rescued Doctor manages to use the ex-Captain to treat Lani, and her condition gradually stabilizes, but the Doc warns this doesn’t kill the transformed tissue, merely halts its growth.

Season 2 Epilogue

Lani is resting in a hospital bed when a new doctor walks into her room. She greets him cautiously, but he doesn’t reply, and proceeds to unpack some equipment and bring out a syringe. She questions him, but he silently goes to inject it into her IV – so she kicks him away. He coldly brings out a pistol and shoots her twice in the chest!! … but Lani is barely knocked back, and proceeds to obliterate him with a flower vase. Bankman arrives on the scene just in time to see blue pulses fading from her forearms…

[The Anaconda now has 3 tally marks on her hull: Phoebe Station (after getting a blue-goo core sample), E-Corp’s Refueling Station (where we fought way too many blue zombies), and the Ear Pods Station]

Previous Chapter: Phoebe Station

Dramatis Personae

• B - Froon Blagmare, Belter-weeb, intrepid pilot, and definitely “captain”
• R - Sam Bankman, jacked quartermaster turned “captain”
• M - Eva, “spy” but not the hacking or sneaking type
• M - Roger Roger, Military-weeb, conspiracy theorist
• S - Lani, thin wrenchmaster, on lifetime anti-blue-infection meds
• Greebo the Sugar Glider

Todo: install neurotoxin distribution system in the ships air vents