The Group
The Group is an as-yet unnamed group of travellers, currently located in the Wypoc system. The group was initially formed by Gary Grey to assist on a job he was hired to do, and have continued travelling together after the inconclusive end.
Members
The Group currently consists of 5 members, all of which are original members. They are:
History
Formation
The group was formed by Gary Grey. Originally to aid him in delivering a crate he was hired to deliver to K'kirka by Benjamin Blue, a contact of his. The Group were to meet an unnamed individual in a mining colony cafeteria at 8am who was to take the crate off of them, but the individual never showed. Some members of the group (notably Connors and Erreqif) continued to wait for this rendezvous at 8am for the next week, whilst others began to give up hope and retired to their rooms, or to other activities around the K'kirka town.
K'kirka
K'kirka is a planet primarily inhabited by workers of mining coorporations, and virtually all traffic to the planet is commercial. The cost of living is also very high, for the most part due to the lethal nature of the atmosphere meaning constant life support is required to live. The mining coorporations keep wages high enough to afford the expensive cost of living, but too low to easily afford passages on one of the commercial vessels that prefer profitable minerals as cargo. The price of transport from K'kirka compared to wages can be so high that some families have to save for generations to afford just one member passage to a new system.
As time went on, The Groups situation started to become more dire as the prospect of being able to leave started to become less and less possible due to the high cost of living. After a week of waiting, the group notice a Bwap enter the cafeteria and futilely attempt to hire people for a job. Due to his timid and quiet nature the majority people in the cafeteria did not hear him, and those that did simply did not care. The group approached him, and he identified himself as Dalglee Hahsh, an agent for Lysani Labratories stationed on K'kirka. After several failed attempts by Qenzh Erreqif to offload the crate onto Hahsh, the group decided to hear him out and take him up on his offer.
The Calendula
see The Calendula Incident for more information
Hahsh stated that he had lost contact with a science ship chartered by Lysani in orbit around K'kirka, and needed to hire a crew to head up and fix the communications array. He offered extra money for a full report in case anything else had gone wrong, and included passage offworld for the entire group. Hahsh provided the group with vacc suits and an air raft, and they travelled up to the Calendula.
They were unable to contact the ship from the outside, and after a fly by the communications array appeared in tact, so the group boarded the ship from the only free air raft bay. They were immediately alerted to something bigger going on due to signs of struggle, blood, and damage all throughout the inside of the ship. They discovered that the ship had been researching combat drugs, and that some illegal experimentation was being carried out on crew members of other ships that were kidnapped by mercinaries. They also discovered coorporate espionage was going on, with lab reports being stolen by the atrogrator Harris Slowcombe and being transmitted to Butler Chemical, a rival of Lysanis. Butler finally ordered Slowcombe to destroy all the evidence, and he set a bomb in the auxillary labratory. The bomb caused multiple experimental drugs to mix in the air, which was propagated throughout the ship by life support. The drug cocktail caused some members of crew to die instantly, and the others to fly into a murderous rage and kill each other, leaving only 4 survivors. Of the 4 survivors, The Group triggered rage flashbacks in 3 of them and injured them to near death.
The Group also alerted Slowcombe to their arrival and intent to discover what happened on the ship, causing him to set another bomb in the auxillary labratory. After incapacitating Slowcombe and a failed disarming attempt, Bronston and Connors decided to take the bomb outside the ship to detonate is harmlessly in space. They succeded in getting the bomb into the air raft and flying it far enough away to detonate safely, preserving the rest of the ship to investigate for their report.
Upon reaching the pinnace, Bronston and Grey decided to call the incident in to the authorities. After managing to persuade them he was telling the truth, K'kirka ground control enlisted a passing scout vessel to intervene on behalf of the authorities. The Group finally met up with the scouts after clearing the entire ship, and Brontson and Grey were left to report to them. They told the scouts everything, including the name and location of their patron Hahsh, and his involvment with Lysani. Grey made the interesting choice to withhold the coorporate espionage, protecting Butler Chemical and placing all the blame squarely on Lysani and Hahsh. The Group promptly handed over all 4 surviving crew members along with the entire Calendula, and left.
On arrival back on K'kirka, The Group made their way straight back to Hahsh to give their report. They told him of the coorporate espionage and the bomb, but limited details of the scout involvment to "handing over the crew members to a passing ship for medial attention". Hahsh was not pleased but kept up his end of the bargain, paying the travellers and contacting James James of The Ligma to comfirm the passage off world he had on hold for the travellers. Moments after the travellers left Hahsh's office, K'kirka security forces entered and arrested him on the spot.
The Group spent several more days on K'kirka, recovering from the Calendula Incident in a medical facility. During this time, Bronston and Jeremy opened the crate they had been charged with delivering. Inside, they discovered a second crate addressed to Regina from K'kirka. Inside this second crate they discovered a load of miscellaneous junk, including candlesticks and several toasters. Subsequent members of crew took turns looking at the crate as they were discharged one by one, and eventually it was discovered that the crate had a false bottom, and concealed below were a couple dozen tubs of a white paste. After some casual observation of the tubs and Bronston tasting the contents, they decided it was likely moisturiser, but were unsure why anyone would to ship it so surreptitiously.
Once all recovered, The Group set off on board the Ligma, taking the undelivered crate with them.
Wypoc
The Ligma was bound for Regina, 4 parsecs away from K'Kirka, so first stopped at Wypoc, a jump-2 system from both. The ship made it to Wypoc and landed without issue. The Group decided to disembark and explore the Wypoc startown, first heading through boarder control and customs. Part of these security checks were performed by Sergent Johnson, an officer on duty. Things were going well, until The Group deduced Johnson may be a racist. This caused Erreqif to become agitated, and interrogate Johnson on his opinion on psions. As law enforcement on an imperial planet, Johnson was of course required to arrest any psions on behalf of the empire, and this mention made him suspicious. Connors jumped in to try and convince Johnson that everything was alright, but unfortunately he and Erreqif failed to subside Johnsons suspicions and they were both taken to an interrogation room for further questioning. The interrogation stagnated, with both group members managing to keep from incriminating themselves any further, but also not quelling Johnsons suspicions. Eventually, Bronston was able to hack into Johnsons communicator and convince him he was a ranking officer and that Johnson was urgently needed elsewhere, leading to Johnson simply releasing Connors and Erreqif and banning them from entering Wypoc.
The remaining members exited the starport building and headed into Wypoc startown, where they were approached Captain Black Star. Star offered The group the opportunity for a chance to see a Wypoc Dragon, an extremely dangerous local predator and one of the things Wypoc is most famed for. Grey and Bronston turned down his offer, with Grey citing the lack of reviews of Black Stars services being the reason for declining. The two continued to make their way around star town, visiting Bopper Burger, where Grey notably purchased a Mawk with ketchup on behalf of Bronston.
Illegal Aliens
Back aboard the Ligma, Connors and Erreqif bumped into James James, who was offloading cargo. They explained their situation to James, who offered to smuggle them across the boarder in crates. The two accepted this offer, notably opting to share a crate instead of going in separate crates. This crate was a struggle for James to handle alone, and so he enlisted the help or Srj. Johnson to help dismount it from the transport on the other side of the boarder. Johnson remarked on the weight of the crate, asking what was inside, to which James replied "Fugatives". Johnson took this to be a joke and left James and the dismounted crate, allowing James to free Erreqif and Connors into the startown without issue.