An hour later Fox lifted the Nemesis into the skies of Newcomb and guided her out into space. Two hours after that, she shifted into Jumpspace for the journey to Ariel.     

Ariel, Banasdan/Solomani Rim, 081/989

Ariel B-514735-E Im

“Ariel is an iceworld, with most of its' water sealed in the icecaps and the remainder blasted around the unbreatheably thin atmosphere as perpetual snow by the constant wind. Very few creatures live here, but the few very hardy ones that do manage to survive, and the mosses and lichens that cling to the frozen rocks,  produce some useful by-products not available from other environments. Exporting these supports the population, but not in any great comfort or plenty, and the poor facilities for a type B starport reflect this.
- Solomani Travel Services Library Data

The iceworld of Ariel was a pretty miserable place to live, and this was reflected in the starport. The orbital highport was derelict and abandoned, regarded by the SPA as not commercially viable. Over half the downport was also ruined, with only eight pads operational out of an original twenty.

There were seven primary cities; Miraaku (the capital), Ugalagiker, Maausa, Kanisdiirku, Shugaul, Gisshiminus and Aggemam, each with a class F spaceport. The Dilashkalu starport was near to Miraaku. There were 59 secondary cities and around 5,000 smaller communities.

Air travel was almost unknown; the winds were so powerful and unpredictable that it was too dangerous. Worlds at this tech level normally have underground transit systems, but Ariel couldn’t afford them; the cities were linked by ground vehicles. A linked crawler train service traveled between the major cities for public use. These made 150 miles in a 24-hour period, meaning that the 800 miles from Dilashkalu Down to Miraaku took a few hours more than 5 days.

The mainworld  possessed a highport, but it was clearly abandoned and loomed, huge and tattered, over the Nemesis as she headed for the surface.

The agents were deeply suspicious of the highport, and ran a full array of sensor scans across it as they passed, sure that there must be more to it than ruins. Nothing was found, however, and reluctantly they left it and headed towards the downport.

Landing control directed them to Pad 3, and the blindflight systems locked on to its' beacon; a good thing, because there was almost no visual reference available at all. Only a hundred feet from the port were they able to pick out any details at all.

The Nemesis settled into the pad, which was a recessed area of concrete about 20' deep, carpeted with snow from which projected the assorted facilities a starport pad should normally have; fuel and air dispensers, ground power, LS supply points and so on.

A docking bridge leaned out over the pad, clearly designed to mate snugly to visiting starships, allowing the crew to walk out and into the starport in shirtsleeve comfort. It was obvious at a glance, though, that this bridge hadn't worked for some time; the leading edges were heavy with corrosion, and snow and ice were packed quite deep along its' length. A crude metal ladder had been welded to it, allowing access from the pad floor; it seemed that visitors here would have to brave the elements.

As Fox shut down the flight systems, the others looked at the sensor readings for the other active pads. Four were occupied, by the following ships;

• A 400-ton SDB, part of the local systems defence squadron and very battered
• A 300-ton Gazelle class close escort, belonging to the Imperial Navy, a patrol or anti-piracy vessel probably
• A 400-ton Sundowner Solomani merchant, the marque of ship they themselves were pretending to be
• A 50-ton cutter from an Imperial Naval frigate that their earlier scans had observed in orbit

The starport's automated systems had displayed the local charges and facilities by now. The docking fees were rather steep; Cr100 per day right from the word go. Vasquez authorized payment for four days, and then turned to the other options. Interestingly, all were marked with references to an external company, Wellington Supplies. Following these links brought a connection to a human representative, a hard-faced and competent-looking individual identifying himself as Akira Makin.

He laid out Wellington's prices; Cr150/ton for unrefined fuel and a whopping Cr1,000/ton for refined. Lifesupport resupply was equally dear at Cr3,000 per head per jump. As the Nemesis hadn't scooped on the inward journey, she needed fuel, but at these prices it did rather feel like robbery again.

Fox had once more hidden the working Zucchai crystals, and brought out his pre-prepared broken one. Makin told him he'd need an hour to check stock, but assuming that they had some he'd place the order once they'd been to the office and paid. The price was Cr450 for a pack of three crystals, again vastly inflated.

Breaking the connection, Jeremiah and Vasquez entertained themselves for a few moments with the idea of going up to Makin's office and explaining Fair Trade to him with a fusion gun, before turning to the job in hand and consulting the planetary datanet for references to Torvald Shimuusha.

Fairly easily, they found him listed as arriving on an inbound liner on 019/989. He had a residential address listed - 19 Gegemin Street, Shugaul.

There was nothing, however, under births, schooling, marriages, deaths and so on, so it seemed safe to conclude that Shimuusha was not native to Ariel but had been posted here.

There seemed no reason for them to remain in Dilashkalu starport - or Miraaku, either - and no-one fancied spending a month on the crawler, so Fox took the Nemesis into the air for a quick suborbital hop to the spaceport at Shugaul. Normally, this would be perfectly standard procedure, but on Ariel it appeared to be extremely unusual - and it didn't take long to find out why.

On any world with conditions like this, it was standard practice to equip provincial spaceports with blindflight systems, to guide air and space traffic in. Here, despite the 'F' rating of the regional ports, this was not the case, and Fox had to bring her in on just her sensors and the Mk1 Eyeball. Cursing the lack of a dedicated sensor operator, their pilot swore his way through one of his less comfortable landings, finally delivering them to the pad intact but shaken.

Shugaul, Ariel/Banasdan, 081/989

Where Dilashkalu starport had clearly been a suckertrap for ship crews needing supplies, Shugaul Spaceport turned out to be entirely geared to supporting local businessmen, and was as a result much more reasonable in its' prices.

The 'spaceport' was in fact nothing of the kind, but rather a major station on the crawler network, serving the need for the local lichen farmers and trappers to ship their produce to Dilashkalu for export. No starships had landed here since the blindflight gear went west thirty years ago. Certainly there wasn't a hint of docking bridges here, and there was no way their air/raft would survive the winds. To reach the city, they needed a cab.

Victor was deputed to look after the ship, and the four agents kitted themselves out in 'Solomani Trader' gear, with TL14 thermal undersuits, energy blades, and pistols.

A radio call to the port soon organized a crawler cab, a long flattened cylinder with six large, flexible, independently sprung wheels. The driver, a cheerful black man named  Dake Scott, immediately took a shine to his new passengers, and asked them why they weren't 'up there with the nobs'. "Because they're nobs," quipped back Vasquez, making him roar with laughter.

From Dake they learned that Wellington Supplies had outbid the SPA for the resupply contract ten years ago. This was unusual, and another sign (as if the Highport wasn't enough) that the SPA didn't consider Ariel worth investing in. Dake considered Wellington bad for business planetwide.

This conversation filled the journey time, and soon the agents could see the city walls coming into view. Walls?

They'd never seen a city above TL3 with walls before, and wondered at their purpose - until the crawler cab passed through the gates and into the city. The ceaseless buffeting of the endless blizzard dropped by half as the cab trundled down the streets of the city. The walls were nothing more or less than windbreaks.

Dake dropped them at the Vias car rental office, and pressed his card on them as he did so, urging them to call him if they ever needed transport again.

Cr50 (plus a KCr5 deposit) secured them a rented crawler car, and they set off across the city, unfolding the free quaint paper map provided as part of the hire. Jeremiah had made a rather tactless comment about the female gender's ability to drive wheeled vehicles, and Vasquez had challenged him to do better - knowing the big Shiransharan had never qualified on a grounbd car. Nonetheless, it was Jeremiah who was steering when they rolled as slowly as they dared past number 19. Like all the other houses and most other buildings on Ariel, 19 Gegemin Street was a domed, igloo-like structure, but even from the outside it was obviously one of the better appointed and more well-to-do residences in the area.

Parking a hundred yards away, they swept the place with PrisBins, and established that there were no signs of habitation; no lights, no heat sources, no breathing. There was live cabling, though, and the heat signature of wiring with electrical current in it was particularly easy to read in the bitter cold of Ariel. This allowed them to get a particularly good idea of the structure of the security system.

As they did this, other impressions were slotting into place. A one-car runup; no spouse or children. No vehicle in it; not at home.

"Let's go and eat," somebody suggested, "and come back in a couple of hours." This met with approval, so Jeremiah threw in the forward drive and set off.

Unfortunately, his lack of experience with this kind of vehicle betrayed him, and the crawler shot off at a 45° angle. Jeremiah jabbed at the brake, but missed it, and a nasty little crash was the only result. Fortunately, the street was deserted, and only minor bodywork damage seemed to have been done. They had, however, completely destroyed a public vidicomm box.

With Fox' laughter ringing in his ears, Jeremiah relinquished the controls to Vasquez and they resumed their journey. Half an hour's travel took them to a promising-looking Italian restaurant called Donatello's.

There, they were able to relax for a while, eating an excellent meal and watching Fox chat up a rather pretty young woman who caught his eye at the next table. She seemed to be alone, and joined their party at Fox's invitation, introducing herself as Darla Hamil. Vasquez - who was not drinking alcohol at all - had a quiet word with the pilot, suggesting that a) he was careful, and b) that perhaps he should find out where she lived; maybe it would be a useful base of operations?

Fox, knowing Jeremiah and Vasquez' ruthless modus operandi, protested that the girl had done nothing wrong, and didn't really deserve the world of trouble such a move would bring her. Vasquez subsided, but continued to watch Darla with a jaundiced eye.

Finally leaving Donatello's around midnight, the group paid in cash, and withdrew a tactful few yards to watch Fox bid goodnight to Darla. Rather to their surprise, she turned out to be a "nice girl" after all, giving him her number, pecking him on the cheek and climbing in a cab to go home.

Refreshed and reinvigorated, the agents went and booked a cheap hotel room, and changed into their covert ops suits. The next step was investigating the house on Gegemin Street, and they felt the need of more equipment...