The Nellie Bly - Group 2
The group is currently at the Metropelago Arcology on Poseidon. The city looks like a series of interconnected columns rising from the sea, joined by platforms, transit tubes, and the two long landing platforms of Metropelago Starport. The characters are all at a hotel there, the Sea Haven Starport Hotel and Resort. The view, aside from the imposing structures of the city, is wide, blue-gray sea in every direction.
They already know, if they want to invest in a starship, this is not the right place. Some planets have good spaceports where used ships can often be bought cheaply, but this is not one of them. Even though Poseidon lies along the Main Line in the Epona Sector, a heavily traveled route, this is due to geography. In Metropelago, landing space is limited and precious. They do not charge ships to come and go- they want the traffic. But store a ship here? That takes up space they do not want to sacrifice, so it is costly.
Lyonesse, further out towards the frontier, is the preferred place. But fate has left the characters here on Poseidon. We will assume, for sake of story, that they have met each other.
The characters have been offered another opportunity, though: service on the Nellie Bly, a ship belonging to a Lilana Najarian, a Documentarian, who researches and produces documentaries from her ship, and needs a few hands to fill out her crew, which is short.
They get a chance to see what they are getting into...
The Nelly Bly had begun life as the Durban, a navy “Utility Corvette” with “rough field landing capabilities”. These ships were meant to serve a wide variety of functions other than acting as line warships: they provided survey and research services, rescue and recovery, patrol and law enforcement, field headquarters for ground operations, mobile medical facilities, and more. Nellie Bly’s whole class was eventually replaced by the Riga class, which was faster and carried more advanced electronic countermeasures, and other features. The class had never been designed to be profitable in commercial service, but a few found their way into special niche applications.
The ship has six Standard Container Units of cargo capability, but only four can accommodate actual containers. It can make short and rough field landings and has an FTL speed of 4.8 LY/day. It has 6 staterooms, a medical bay, lounge/galley, exercise room and sauna, and an office and media production studio. It also features a long range high capacity communications antenna. It has a standard airlock and a cargo lock, which connects to the non-container cargo space. It retains minimal defensive armament, just old leftovers from its military days.
Lilana is not going to stay here long- that parking fee issue. She intends to get underway soon but for security reasons the destination must remain secret until the crew is signed up and underway.