Arrival at Lossend's star port: Dawn's Landing

The Delivery
The star port is not quite what you would call "dirt strip" quality but it's not as cosmopolitan as star ports like Port Loren or Port Royal. It has a relaxed almost sleep quality. There is a terminal building, an administration building, fuel depot, a vehicle rental office, and a major freight handling facility for Tachton Instruments. As the player characters debark their shuttle they note about a half dozen other shuttles as well as Thruster Class privateer with Tachton company markings across the ceramacrete landing area. There is easily room for many more ships. About a half km away a large boisterous group is loading their shuttle with farming equipment and crates.

Kleevor provides the player characters with a credit draft to cover the rental on a heavy lift cargo copter and the ag goods over an above the cost of the weapons. He also gives them the map coordinates for the farming outposts and sends them off while he goes to file paper work at the administration building and purchase a refuel for the shuttle. He'll be on his viso-com if they have any trouble.

The trip to the farming outpost takes 4 hours. On approach they notice some thin wisps of smoke stretching up into the sky. Over flying the location reveals smoldering ruins of buildings and about a dozen bodies laid in a row next to a line of graves. Nearby is a drainage culvert passing under the road leading to the fields is where all the women and children of the community are hiding. If the PCs are using IR goggles they will spot someone looking out of the culvert and ducking back. If they opt to not even land and investigate roll a INS check each PC to spot someone ducking back inside the culvert.

If the PCs contact the women and children they will find out that the pirates came and killed all the men despite being paid the extortion and then took everything. The women came out of hiding after the pirates left and began to bury the husbands and sons. They will beg help from the PCs desiring a lift to another farming community two hours away by air where they have family and friends. It's obvious the PCs won't get paid here so perhaps the other village might desire the guns since the pirates seem to be particularly vicious.

Kleevor will feel some guilt over what happened to the farmers as he did delay for a few days with this delivery hoping to get the charges dropped against his jailed crew and then had to hire the new crew when that didn't succeed. If the PCs don't suggest it then he will instruct them to see if they can unload the weapons with the other farmers and obtain enough food goods to fill up the ship's hold.

The head man at the other farming outpost is Markum Manns. He won't negotiate with the PCs right away insisting that the women and children be seen to first, though he will suggest that they'll talk after supper tonight. To a certain extant he will blame the PCs for not getting here sooner so that these deaths could have been prevented and he'll look to see if that accusation puts the PCs on the defensive. He's looking to get the original deal that the other village got but also to commit the PCs to train and aid them against the pirates. He'll settle for just training knowing that the pirates are due back this week and one week of training should ensure that the PCs are here when the pirates show up.

During the week that the PCs train the farmers 90% of the food stuffs can be transferred to the star port and Kleevor then transport it to the ship and come back with some heavier weapons that he's throwing in to assuage his guilt over what happened. If the PCs have not agreed to fight the pirates the farmers will ask them for all sort of advice about how to defend the village if they were the ones to do it. What ever defensive measures they suggest the farmers will impliment. They will be fed and housed at the village all week.

Before the week is up and with very little notice one of the PCs will discover that the pirates are actually due and that the farmers didn't tell them that when negotiating for training. The PCs will not have time to leave as the sound of approaching copters will be heard or if they are gung ho to help then they should have some time (30 minutes to one hour) to prepare.