Dirtside Investigations

The typical shadowrunner has too many implants that could come loose under spaceship acceleration to risk a launch. Also, a shaman would be without his magic, which can be terrifying and repulsive. While deckers would be naturals for a space crew, one would expect, many of them aren't particularly good physical specimens. Fully-cybered street samurai would have trouble explaining their implants—and a built-in weapon would have spacers scurrying for suits and security forces as fast as they could scramble! Not every runner can or should be sent up into space. So what are those stuck on the dustball going to do? There are several options.

Investigate the Wunlon Hero's crew is one. Horace will welcome some sympathy for the lost crew members, and will be willing to talk over beers about the ship's explosion. He'll even provide the beers, if asked. The circumstances of his survival are such that no possible blame can be attached to him—meaning, he couldn't possibly have stolen the missing cargo. He has no idea who set the plastique, and will deny having set it himself. He doesn't believe Captain Jenks capable of sabotage, and is puzzled why GSM went after her so savagely. Horace believes the missing packet contained sensitive and expensive control circuitry for the lunar resort.

Ruth Pratt is also stuck on earth with Horace, and is living in an inexpensive hotel in Tooele until she can ship out again. She won't be as easy to approach as Horace, but if approached sympathetically can be talked with. She will say she believes the missing packet to have been either empty, as an insurance scam, or also sabotaged and blown out of the wreck. (She went looking for it after the explosion, and couldn't find it.)

She suspects Captain Jenks may have taken it, but that would be so out of character for her that she won't suggest it to anyone unless she is getting drunk. She will say if asked that her husband is a very good man but his mind is starting to slip a little. She won't betray him, but under the right kind of prodding will suggest that the people talking with her should investigate the lunar orbital resort and the Pratt News Net's warehouse in Tooele Valley. This is going to have to be role-played well by the players, rather than having them make a skill roll.

The GM should have Ruth be rather abrupt, look around a lot, and whisper if she is in her cups, but if she hasn't been drinking with the PCs she will clam up at any mention of the visit to the restroom after she had left her post. She was washing off not a stubborn grease spot, but the traces of the plastique. She won't pretend she knows nothing of the stuff; instead if the subject is broached without connection to the wreck of the ship, will display quite a lot of knowledge about it.

One way of approaching the survivors is to pretend you represent one of the victims or a family member of one. This will allow questions about the ship's explosion and questions about the crew and cargo. Calling ahead for a meeting with this or another plausible pretext will get Ruth to meet in a public place like a restaurant. Horace alone will agree to a meeting in his apartment; Ruth will at very minimum expect to go to the hotel's restaurant or bar.

Investigation of the GSM offices in Salt Lake will have to be done by shadow means; any open attempt for a public interview will be brushed off, and the company spokespeople will refer inquiries to the company lawyers. The corp's matrix security is a red 5. Records relating to the trial and wreck are in the hands of the company's legal staff, and will have to be traced by first finding out what law firm is handling the casework. This can be found by tedious search of the company records. The firm is Saxon, Barton and MacKenzie, of Salt Lake. Their offices are downtown, and their matrix security is a red 4. Theft of any record from their datafiles (meaning if anything is deleted) will set off an alarm, and contract deckers will release a search and destroy program to harry the decker taking the file(s). Files can be copied without this alarm, however. As most GMs don't take the time to roleplay out decking maneuvers, we use the shortcut of one role to break into the system and role-playing the decisions afterward. This is the only serious trap.

The shipping records for the cargo will show its entirety was shipped under and for the Lunar Orbital Resort Limited Partnership. Records will also show that PNN and Warren Pratt are the managing partners of this group. The warehouse shipped from is wholly owned by PNN, and its address is in Tooele Valley. There will be no record of what was inside the missing cargo packet, just that it was insured for the legal maximum of 1.2 million nuyen. This claim is pending, and the lawyers' records will show that GSM's insurers are fighting its payment, demanding an accounting of what the packet contained. Pratt will not ever reveal this, but unless the PCs intervene, it will be paid anyway.

Those who have learned of the PNN warehouse, either from the lawyers or from Ruth Pratt, may investigate it. As with those in the GSM orbital AE, physical examination will show components of heavy weaponry, both cannon and energy weapons. It will not show anything but "parts" and "components" in the inventory and shipping manifests the warehouse is holding and shipping to the lunar orbital resort. No parts are named in the warehouse's records. Whoever is keeping the accurate list of what is shipped is not keeping it in the warehouse or its matrix (red 3) accessibly files.

This information is actually being stored on the lunar orbital itself.

The organized crime partners, who are Caribbean-based smugglers, are handling security at the warehouse. There are standard alarm and camera systems, which should present little trouble to shadowrunners, and two armed guards on the premises. These are humans in armor jackets and helmets, rating 5/3, armed with heavy pistols and radios that can summon police back up. Use the Corp Security Guard in Shadowrun II, p. 205, for their numbers. One guard will be in the security office at all times; the other will be on rounds or on break. The warehouse does have contract astral barrier protection, provided by a grade II initiate mage working with a Hermetic guild in Salt Lake. This mage is a limited partner, but not the one working on the orbital.

More Shadowrun ™ in Space

Shadowrun ™ in Space: Introduction
Shadowrun ™ in Space: One Lone Hero (fiction)
Shadowrun ™ in Space: GM Notes and Set Up
Shadowrun ™ in Space: Tying the PCs into the Adventure
Shadowrun ™ in Space: PCs in Space
Shadowrun ™ in Space: PCs on the Ground
Shadowrun ™ in Space: PCs in Lunar Orbit
Shadowrun ™ in Space: Payoff