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--- game_systems:traveller:starlightdrifter:adventure_journal [2025/10/11 14:35] – [Leaving Ramiva by Firefight] Bryan Stephens
+++ game_systems:traveller:starlightdrifter:adventure_journal [2025/12/20 14:19] (current) – [Red Light District] Bryan Stephens
@@ Line 1058: / Line 1058: @@
 Sgt. Hanson and Rally want to go shopping. They immediately head down to Trin itself. It is time to see what they can find. And maybe what trouble they can get into.
+|Game Date|11/2/25|
+|Campaign Dates|1099, 198-208|
+==== Supper and Shopping ====
+Sharri and her pilot Galen take supper with the owners of KDV. The young Sana is enthralled with Sharri’s and Galen’s stories of their adventures since she inherited the //Starlight Drifter//. The evening runs long, because, even edited, there is a lot to say. This leads Sana to ask for help.
+//”You have done so much. I wonder if you might help us. We have been pressured to let certain goods transship through KDV, by a group of “investors” calling themselves “RTDD”. The goods show up on a private ship. We unpack them and sort them into designated parcels. It is clear these are some sort of prototypes coming from LSP. The stuff that is in one sort, anyway. The other stuff is clearly normal things for cover. Both sets go out on another ship. Never the same delivery or pick up ships. And we offload the cargo so they don’t see it.”//
+//”We know it is shady. Terek refused at first, then suddenly, some regulator is showing up threatening to shut us down. We get told by RTDD the can make it go away if we play ball. Anyway, after 5 shipments, here we are.”//
+Sharri immediately wants to get Viktor’s input. She promises they can look into things. This ends the meal, but makes the engagement with KDV more personal. Oddly, Sharri likes this. She has taken a shine to the younger Sana, who seems to dream of flying to the stars as much as Sharri ever did.
+The next day, the whole crew is on the planet shopping and sight seeing in the Trin downport startown, Sunfall Verge (Where the Shattered Halo meets the credit chip). Sharri has little interest in spending money on things, and instead plans to get with Viktor to also be sponsored for the Travallers Aid Society. That would fulfill a life long dream.
+{{ :game_systems:traveller:places:cybernetics.png?200|}}
+Sunfall Verge is Trin at its finest: Sleek, vertical, and lit by the world’s famous “Shattered Halo.” Built in three bands—the glassy Promenade Tier (shows, fine dining, museums), the efficient Transit Stack (magskid hubs, capsule hotels, Sunfall Medplex – Aesculon Cybernetics Pavilion), and the neatly pressure-washed Underwalk (service corridors and the discreet Shadow Bourse for “collector-grade” restricted wares)—it offers legal high-tech shopping at Vector-9 Arcade, tourist draws like the Shatterwalk Skybridge, Lift Gardens, and Halo Plaza’s Chronofountain, plus marquee spectacles (SHATTERLIGHT!, The Marches) and sharper cabaret (Zero-G Tease, AB•SIN(θ)). Culture fans drift between the Museum of the Marches Trade and the Shattered Halo Interpretive Center, while diners orbit Periapsis, The Quiet Vector, and the invitation-only Ling Standard Supper Club. Port Authority patrols and compliance drones keep everything glossy: stunners declared, kinetics sealed, and every deal brokered like art.
+Sharri, spends several days taking in the sights, enjoying what the high tech city had to offer. She window shops various boutique stores meant for tourists, buying nothing. At some point in the week, she talks with Viktor and gets her TAS membership, and takes him to speak with KDV to fully understand their story.
+Hanson, Rally, Galen, and Viktor all shop for weapons and other equipment. Hanson and Galen make a point of visiting the Shadow Bourse for their “specialty” items, paying more to make sure everything is above board. Viktor shops the Vector 9 Arcade.
+After shopping, both Hanson and Galen check in with the Sunfall Medplex at Aesculon Cybernetics. Each undergoes extensive subdurmal body armor and other upgrades. Their recovery will be long for both of them, with a week in rehab and then a few more weeks in out patient.
+==== Military Intelligence and other Oxymorons ====
+On their second day, Viktor is surprised when he gets his meeting with military intelligence. He meets with Capt. Jace Orvelle with the Office of Fleet Intelligence. Capt. Orvelle is polite, but skeptical of Viktor’s report. He has no record of any request for Naval support from Marquis Terik  or Sir Dane, though he is aware of some pirate activity. The extent of this direct request and report amazes him. Orvelle create s secure link to Viktor’s phone and promises him he will look into it. Viktor leaves very suspicious of how things have been processed in the office. He smells an inside man.
+After this visit, he talks with KDV and gets Sharri sponsored into TAS. While Galen and Hanson are getting surgery and staying on the planet, Rally is off enjoying himself, not feeling the need for a bodyguard this far from his old enemies. Viktor, Sharri, and Tangie all keep in rooms at the TAS hostel for the next week. With the knowledge that LSP parts are being shipped through KDV, Sharri insists she wants to eat at the Ling Standard Supper Club. Normally by invitation only; the TAS concierge is easily able to get them a table. Sharri feels that maybe they can rub elbows with some LSP types. Viktor is not sure this will work at all, however Sharri seems quite taken with the idea, as if it is out of a spy romance novel. She tries to dress them up to the nines, but needs Tangie’s help to get it right. They leave with Viktor with two lovely women hanging on him.
+Viktor notices the tail immediately. After leaving their autotaxi, Tangie notices as well and mentions it to Viktor. He tells her to ignore it. Their tail does not follow them into the Supper Club, which would be hard based on its exclusive nature. Their dinner is quite nice, this being one of the finest spots in the Verge.
+{{ :game_systems:traveller:starlightdrifter:lssupper.png?300|}}
+As they are waiting for desert, a sharply dressed woman departs from her group and walks to their table, her eyes on Viktor. He rises to meet her. She introduces herself as Thalia Casteen, a retired Admiral for the Imperial Navy with questions about the pirates in Ramiva. Viktor invites her to sit down. Sharri runs a data search and finds out this woman is now working for LSP as a consultant, a typical arrangement, though often seen as a way to land contracts. She is pleasant on the surface, but the danger is clear to them all. She knows all about their activity at Ramiva, including items in Viktor’s report. Her final request is that they //”Stop smearing Naval honor”//. She then departs to her table.
+Viktor goes to work with his new eavesdropping attachment to her comm to listen in on her conversation. It is all above board, and the only thing of note he can hear is that this dinner party was a very last minute thing, perhaps within the last hour. Tangie offers to scan one of them, and Sharri and Viktor assent. While Viktor listens and Tangie concentrates, both appear totally board with Sharri, who launches into what appears to be a semi-drunken, conversation, the type that is more a monolog.
+As they leave in their autotaxi, Sharri asks about bugs. Viktor frowns and pulls his comm out. Sharri her’s as well. The two work together to find several bug sized self-mobile listening devices. A TL16 planet is scary indeed. They have them squashed by the time they return to the TAS hotel.
+Tangie gives them her report. The Admerial (Ret) clearly was there to deliver a warning. Casteen knows more than she should. And the young telepath catches a single name: Luthien. She thinks it is a last name, but she is sure she would recognize the face.
+Meanwhile, during their recovery, both Hanson and Galen are approached by Agent Smith, working for Trin security. He is interested in how two men engaged as employees on a freighter have hundreds of thousands of credits to spend for combat upgrades. Hanson if courteous but asks for a lawyer to be present and the agent leaves. Galen is more talkative, perhaps not as good a thing. They both let Viktor know what happened. The two are discharged to outpatient care the next day and will need to find rooms.
+==== Many Meetings ====
+|Game Date|12/7/25|
+|Campaign Dates|1099, 208-216|
+{{:game_systems:traveller:npcs:reigns.jpg?300 |}}
+Sharri and Viktor pick up Hanson and Galen at rehab and clue them in. It is about this time that Rally calls in. Rally has been absorbed into the under culture.
+At the start of the week, Rally broke off from the crew to chase a very specific upgrade: experimental prosthetics and sensationware he believes will supercharge his pleasure-seeking lifestyle — with a crude, half-joking ambition of being “built for two-at-once.” He arrived hungry for chrome and indulgence… and promptly got swallowed by it.
+Instead of following through on the full prosthetic hunt, Rally fixated on something shinier: a backup singing robot he names Reigns. The detour becomes the trip. He disappears into android bars, tech lounges, and service-bot showrooms, entranced by the latest generation of bar-serving robots and the culture built around them.
+Rally vanised into the rougher districts and runs nearly nonstop on illicit substances, bad decisions, and bright lights. He wakes in random places — booths, back rooms, questionable pods, once even somewhere he can’t identify until the smell gives it away. Through it all, Reigns quietly became the thin line between “reckless” and “dead.” She redirected him, got him into a nearby room when he’s too far gone, and steered him away from the worst angles of the night without ever making a scene. Somehow in all his journeys over the week, Rally managed to break even with his gambling and spending. Typical lucky Rally.
+Everyone meets at the TAS Hotel, and Hason and Rally check in a guests of Viktor and Sharri. Galen decides to go some place cheaper. The shared suite becomes the meeting room for everyone. Sharri directs Viktor to update the crew on the goings on. After this briefing, Sharri goes to look up the customs and talk with KDV. This takes hours, and she finds out little new information.
+Viktor meanwhile hears back from Capt. Jace Orvelle on a secure com.
+//“Meet me at Pavillion 6 in the Stillgarden”//.
+They call it a “quiet node,” but the official name on the transit maps is The Stillgarden. It hangs off the flank of Trin’s primary arcology like a glassy seed pod, a swollen oval of green and blue anchored to the mile-high superstructure by a lattice of silvery support ribs. From outside, it looks delicate. From inside, it feels endless. The whole point of a Stillgarden is a place without comms, connections, and the ever-present hum of communications. People go for peace, fellowship, simplicity. It is also a place for clandestine meetings. Viktor goes prepared with a marker, and he leaves his comm unit at the hotel. But, as his appointment is not for several hours, he first investigates the general contraband on the planet.
+Stepping through the Stillgarden entry locks is like walking through a curtain.
+One moment there’s the usual arcology noise: crowd murmur, soft chime of public transit, the faint hiss of ventilation and advertising jingles leaking from a hundred personal devices.
+Then the door seals behind him, and all of it dies.
+Not fades — dies.
+{{ :game_systems:traveller:places:pavallion_6.png?350|}}
+Every comm implant, screen, neural link, and datapad Viktor carries drops into dead silence. For a man who has spent years as a constantly connected agent, the sudden absence hits like a missed step in zero-g. His reflexive awareness of feeds, channels, and threat updates finds nothing to hook into. There is no hum of background traffic, no comforting flow of data at the edge of his vision. His muscles tense without permission, waiting for an alert that never comes. The phantom itch of incoming messages flickers and fades.
+A discreet sign by the inner gate reminds visitors:
+**STILLGARDEN QUIET ZONE**
+  *External comms are blocked within park boundaries.
+  *Emergency paging services available at Reception.
+  *Enjoy being off the network.
+After getting a coffee, Viktor heads to Pavilion Six. It is clear to his trained eyes is it used by men wishing to hook up with other men. That fits.
+He misses Orvelle coming up behind him. They walk along like men checking each other out as they talk. As they get secluded, the conversations gets real. Orvelle acts the part of showing him different scenery, but drops his magazine. Viktor swoops to pick it up and slides out the piece of paper hidden, palming it. In turn Viktor sets his coffee cup down and the men switch them. He has written the names he needs looked at as part of the KDV investigation. The two men part and return to the world of communications, each alone.
+=== Red Light District ===
+The paper has directions to a closed down former business, “The Muzzled Puppy” (the less said about what it did the better), including a code to open the door and the general location of a data stick. Rally remembers this location from the past week and offers to take Viktor to the red light district. Hanson and Galen come along, and Rally brings Reigns //”She keeps me out of trouble”//
+{{:game_systems:traveller:lore:the_four_left.png?350 |}}
+The red-light District sprawls along the arcology’s underside and outward into the ground-level sprawl—tight streets under old support ribs, neon reflected in puddles that never quite dry, steam venting from grates that smell faintly of disinfectant and hot metal. The air is warmer here, louder, crowded with basslines and bargaining voices and the soft hum of signage that never sleeps.
+Everything is lit in invitation colors: crimson strips, violet halos, gold "OPEN" glyphs in half a dozen alphabets. Doors are everywhere—some obvious, some hidden behind false storefronts, some only a seam of light when you know where to press. Officially, there are patrol routes. There are cameras. There are ordinances. In practice, the district is relatively unmonitored on purpose.
+The rich and powerful want it that way.
+They come here because it’s one of the few places in the arcology where money can buy privacy—and privacy needs darkness to breathe. So the oversight is intentionally soft: cameras that "glitch" blind corners that never get fixed, and enforcement that arrives late unless a headline is at risk. The city’s public stance is disapproval. Its private stance is accommodation.
+No one relies on civic protection here—not if they can help it.
+  *The wealthy bring their own security. Quiet professionals in plain clothes, sometimes with visible hard-tech at the neck or wrists. They don’t posture. They just //own the space around their client//—a moving bubble that parts crowds without anyone noticing how it happened.
+  *Businesses protect their assets. Club entrances have bouncers who don’t look like bouncers. Hallways have door-scanners disguised as décor. Some establishments run private response drones that never leave the block—fast, silent, and calibrated to restrain without creating a public spectacle.
+  *Everyone else is on their own. Which means the district has two kinds of people walking it: those with backup… and those hoping they won’t need it.
+For the less well-off, the Red Light District is a gamble you make with your wallet, your pride, and sometimes your blood.
+Muggings aren’t rare. “Accidents” happen. A wrong turn can lead you into a corridor where the lights don’t reach and the music fades just enough for you to hear footsteps that aren’t keeping time. Some predators work alone. Others work in polite little teams—one to distract, one to lift your valuables, one to make sure you don’t chase. And yet the district stays busy, because it offers what the arcology’s upper levels can’t: raw sensation, anonymity, and the dangerous comfort of being seen for exactly what you want tonight.
+It’s glamorous in patches—velvet ropes, mirrored foyers, curated perfumes—and brutal in the seams between those patches. The district has a rhythm: lure, promise, transaction, escape. It’s a place where desire is a currency and safety is a surcharge. Down here, morality is a costume you wear if it helps you get what you want.
+And everyone is dressed for the role.
+Rally leads the way to a bar he had been too, not far from the closed down building, The Velvet Bucket. The Velvet Bucket sits on ground level where the foot traffic never really stops—half sports bar, half low-rent cabaret, with a stage that’s just big enough to make it feel like a show. The servers run in coordinated “uniforms” that are more suggestion than fabric, and the dancers keep the room buzzing between song sets. It’s not elite, not dangerous by design—just a middle-class pressure valve where people come to laugh too loud, spend a little too much, and pretend tomorrow isn’t waiting.
+The four men proceed to party in Rally style. Viktor, trained as he is, has no issues with keeping up with Rally. Hanson and Galen, still recovering rom their surgery, both struggle. Reigns immediately takes care of them, even using medicines from her built in med kit.
+After making sure she has this, Viktor heads to the bathroom, and slips outside. Viktor steps into the streets with a sense of satisfaction. This is like the old days. A seedy street. The traces of drug smoke, urine in the air. He looks like he belongs. Normally a loan man on these streets is a potential victim. Not Viktor. His carful eyes note the potential predators who move on. They are only alive because they are good a picking prey. The man in the long coat with golden eyes is clearly a predator.
+{{:game_systems:traveller:places:viktor_redlight.png?300 |}}
+Viktor comes to Muzzled Puppy. Above the entrance hangs the sign. Not lit. A thick, weather-pocked plaque with faded paint and a cracked laminate face, the edges curled where years of heat and moisture worked it loose. The art is blunt and unmistakable: a Vargr head in a bondage dog mask, muzzle straps drawn tight, ring fixtures and buckles exaggerated in a stylized way meant to read from across the street. Once, the eyes would’ve glowed—embedded LEDs, probably—giving the mascot a playful, predatory sparkle. Now the eyes are dead. Just dull plastic and old scratches.
+He enters into a side door using the code and heads for the kitchen. The data stick is going to be in a old refrigerator. The club is a hollow shell of velvet and chrome, the kind of place built to sell fantasy as architecture. His flashlight show the obvious theme:
+The walls are panelled with Vargr bondage motif art: silhouetted muzzles, collars, and harness shapes repeated like a brand pattern. Some pieces are murals—graphic, stylized, more icon than illustration—while others are embossed into trim and rails as if the whole building once wanted to be a single, cohesive statement.
+The data stick is hidden in a foul smelling cooler, but easy to find. Within less than 20 min, Viktor is back at the table. Hanson and Galen are barely awake, but Rally is rocking. They head back to the TAS, with Reigns carrying both of the sicker men. She puts them into Hanson’s suite and engages her medical protocols. Sharri diverts Rally to the TAS lounge and overindulges herself. Tangie manages to get them both back to bed.
+There is little sleep for Viktor as he revies the information Captain Orvelle has given him. The data stick contains data for LSP HQ. A blueprint and the security Layout, It also has an access card from one “Kellan Vayle” who a check on will see he was a Valet at LSP who was accidentally run over by an executive.
+==== Infiltrations ====
+{{ :game_systems:traveller:places:lsp_tower.png?300|}}
+//We used a points for heist system here, but I have knitted the narrative chronologically. -Bryan//
+The group spends much of the next week in preparation. Sharri gets an appointment to meet with LSP about possible shipping work for the megacorporation. This gets her access to the floor of Casteen’s office. She is also able to steal the access guest pass they give her, substituting a fake Viktor gave her and then getting a new one that works.
+Meanwhile, Hanson details where he could take out the power. Near the LSP HQ is a high end gym, “Executive Development”. He and Galen plan to go to the gym seeking “rehab” and find their way to the power systems and surge the grid.
+Meanwhile, Rally and Hason spend time searching for employees who might go to the Red Light District. He finds one, who after too many drinks manages to get significant information.They find a good place for Viktor to exit when the building is evacuated due to the surge. Sharri arranges for pick up of Viktor at this site, hoping the timing will be good, while she plots another car for Galen and Hanson as they depart.
+The evening of day 215, Viktor enters the LSP tower through the security entrance compromised by Rally and uses the stolen pass to get to the executive floor. He is confronted by someone and he pretends to be an employee of Captain Duncan and bluffs his way to directions. This is the end of the work day and people are mostly leaving and not looking at him. Thanks to the security guard, certain recordings are going to be “lost” when the power surge hits, erasing Viktor’s entrance.
+The door to Admiral (Ret.) Thalia Casteen’s office is not locked and Viktor easily enters. A quick search of her “wall of me” reveals a data stick hidden in her retirement shadowbox of medals. Viktor shakes his head at the way targets so often let pride dictate their patterns. He silently comms Hanson for the blackout as he brute force duplicates the drive, encryption and all with his advanced comm.
+During this time, Hanson and Galen had gone to Executive Development and asked for a tour. Hanson engages outrageously asking about several things and distracting their guide enough for Galen to slip into the machine rooms. The doors are not locked in any serious matter, and are easy for the old pirate to access. It is easy enough for him to find the power relay, and deploy his half of their equipment. With Galen’s signal, Hanson sends the guide off to get forms, and then he too, slides into the power room. The two quickly set up their rig and when the signal comes, the surge power into the grid, knocking down several blocks. Lights go to emergency and the men head to their assigned exit. As Galen passes their guide he notes that a year’s membership might not work for them as their ship might have to leave. With that, they head to a waiting grav car and flit away.
+Viktor, uses the chaos of the surge to both leave Casteen’s office and exit with the people leaving the building. The car arranged by Sharri lands just at the right time //(luck roll)// and the heist is complete with no one knowing.
+The rest of the night Viktor runs his advanced software and skills on his duplicated code. He is able to crack the security and arranges another meeting, this time at Pavillon 3, in the Stillgarden for the next evening. He then crashed for the day.
+Being up all night is getting to be a habit. Just like the old days.

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