User:Narc/Liaden Voice Adventure

Characters

 * Nar tel'Cotik (Narc)
 * Liaden, Clan Loma.
 * Sent to Kalgor as part of Loma Himself's solving for an unfortunate incident.
 * Master marksman.
 * Chris (Cristobal) Fernandez (Icepick)
 * Pilot-owner, second class license, ship name Mercury
 * Minor trader.
 * Zeth (Dreadwolf7)
 * Juntavas assassin.
 * Sent to Kalgor to find Sector Judge Warren and report in to him.
 * "Shell", a Clutch Turtle youngling
 * Was in a box.
 * Full name available: First Shell, Twelfth hatched, Dagger Clan of Northernmost River's Summer Spawn of Forger Brown Hills of the Harvesters Den, "Shell"

Locations

 * Kalgor
 * Terran-owned planet, edge of Liaden space (and edge of Terran space, as well)

Plot points

 * A box shows up on the grounds of Kalgor Spaceport, triggering an alarm and evacuation. It is a large box, big enough to contain two humans and leave plenty of headroom.
 * We converge on the box. Nar can sense the being inside the box, and speaks to it.
 * Zeth can't see an obvious way of opening it.
 * Chris can't see any symbols.
 * The box is flat black, occasionally dinged, but apparently made in one piece.
 * Shell hums, which shatters the box, and Shell is now recognized as a Clutch Turtle.
 * Dread acquires a shard of the box, which turns out to be pretty sharp.
 * Portmaster shows up, says hi, get off my runway.
 * Zeth peels off to visit the Bodyguards' Guild.
 * The rest of us go chat privately in Chris's lodgings.
 * Library research:
 * Clutch turtle article points to Liaden Scouts.
 * Search for references on Scouts points us to Daren van'Rinkin Clan Farah, and an address and public comm line.
 * We try calling Daren van'Rinkin, and talk to him. Probably woke him up. He asked us to visit. He also suggests we pick up a bodyguard for the Clutch Turtle.
 * We pick Zeth up for the bodyguard slot.
 * We fly over to Daren's city, follow directions, knock.
 * We reacquire all the box shards.
 * Sending a message or visiting the CT homeworld is fairly difficult: no pinbeam on Kalgor and no jump ships available for at least a month.

Important notes

 * Pilot's Guild is the certified Terran authority for pilots in the Theo Waitley books; we may assume this to be true in our time, as well. 3% of base pay (possibly auto-deducted) is guild membership fee. This is something Chris Fernandez should be fully familiar with.
 * Pilots' hand-talk -- out of band communication between pilots, non-pilots rarely knowledgeable. Zeth probably knowledgeable, Nar almost certainly not, Shell definitely not. Chris and Daren guaranteed knowledgeable, though possibly with accent/minor misunderstandings due to different sources of education.
 * Special note, pilot sign language sometimes subconsciously triggered, handy for occasional "accidental" statements, especially in younger pilots.
 * PSL example:
 * good test flight query
 * second rear stabilizer almost no reaction must check otherwise all safe safe safe
 * noticed leak left rear outboard possible cause good landing regardless
 * Translation:
 * "Did the test flight go well?"
 * "The second-rear stabilizer wasn't responding, I need to look at it. Otherwise, everything was fine."
 * "Yeah, I noticed some kind of leak on the left rear outboard as I was coming in, which is probably the cause. Looks like you made a good landing regardless."
 * Hints: keep it simple and strive for terseness, remember punctuation doesn't (quite) exist (though you can be forceful in sign language).