Editing The Spinward Blues (section)

=== 263-1110: Crash Landing ===

The ships separated just before hitting atmosphere, and spiraled crazily down to—thank goodness—safe landings. But where the hell were they? Astronomical analysis showed that they were on Penkwar—a red zone world off the beaten track. The ships' Jump grids were ruined, but the ships were reparable within a few days. 

They would later figure out that they were also a few weeks ''ahead'' of their original timeframe; the misJump had carried in time as well as space. 

While exploring, Sunrise, Jhon, and Olivia made contact with some native rangers. It appeared that a low tech colony here had been forced to become a Company town some decades ago, and now eked out a living for some semi-legal interstellar mining corporation. However—as the natives explained—a week ago the entire mine had shut down without explanation, a few days ago the power cut out, and now Company supplies were running out. Were they free? Were they abandoned? What was going on? 

(The other ship, with Sunrise's Jeffrey aboard, had come down in some far off mountains, and was having trouble with native snipers, according to their last radio message.)

Lieutenant Rickard, of the naval ships, decided that liaison would be profitable with these people, and proposed to help them out. Extra urgency was added by the sighting of smoke rising from the direction of the settlement. A day-plus-long journey on foot was easily made into a short grav flight, and soon Our Heroes, the natives, and a couple of armsmen were on the scene. 

The settlement around the big mining crater had seen rioting and confusion, and apparent malfunctions on the part of some of the tractor-sized mining robots. People were scared and worried. Closer inspection of the mine itself discovered the unfortunately named Hari Reham, a middle manager at the site, who'd been trapped in the inert control room ever since everyone disappeared down below.

Down the tunnels they went, to the supposedly-useless and off-limits Ancients site down below. After a brief encounter with some rogue mining bots, they forced the door and discovered a half-flooded chamber filled with equipment and corpses. Apparently, a Lunionite strike force had been gathered here, and got themselves killed fooling around with some sort of Ancient transportation device…

==== Notable NPCs ====
* Arrol (Hum/M), an experienced Penkwar ranger, and his two joeboys, Sluice (Hum/M) and Terry (Hum/F). 
* Hari Reham (Hum/M), corporate middle manager, who was ''not'' intentionally named after an infamous 1970s pornstar, but now that it's been pointed out the GM must admit he bears a striking resemblance. Poor fellow.
* Seldokova was seen puttering about the ship ''quite'' relaxed and happy, after staying a while in Ishugi's cabin. Good for them.
* Jzeri also got some. Sunrise, however, has been quite irritated that Jeffrey had to be on ''the other damn ship.''
* Boris has passed into NPCdom, and Highway has had to go on hiatus.