April of 2516, before the main events if the Firefly series.
Episode 1……………………………………………………………………………………………4/11/2020We meet Mark Darkfellow. He makes his living as an itinerant assassin. He knows people. He knows people who know people. He gets in contact with Marc Oberlindes, a shipping magnate based on Persephone. Marc offers to front him a mid bulk freighter. Dark(as he's called) will have to find a crew and run the ship. This ship can take him to and from his various jobs, but Marc expects him to turn a profit carrying cargo and passengers. Dark agrees, and starts looking for a crew. He recruits a ship's captain named William Guy. The Captain agrees to work for 75 credits a month, plus five percent of the net profits. Together they locate a former Alliance naval second engineer named Samuel Parker. He accepts the deal on the condition that he can take a look at the engines before giving a final answer. The three of them go out to see the ship, an Osprey class.
It's seen better days, but it's been well maintained. For reasons known only to himself, Dark decides to name it the Queen Anne's Pride. When they get to the bridge they meet a fellow named Ivan, asleep in the pilot's seat. Seems he wandered into the unlocked ship and slept off the bender he'd been on. Turns out he was a former Alliance pilot, rated on everything from shuttles to the big military cruisers. After a round or two of testing, the Captain declares Ivan the real thing. Dark hires him on.
Over the course of a week the ship is prepared for her first cargo run. The Captain negotiates a cargo of iron stock going to Athens. It's a six day and ten hour trip. Ivan lifts with clearance, and plots the course. Sam finds that the engines perform quite well. Before long, they are requesting landing clearance at the main downport at Athens. The docking fee is 210 credits, an expense that Dark hadn't planned for. They deliver the iron to the customer then look for another cargo. They find that one of the "Mayors" of Whitefall has ordered 300 tons of munitions. It's a short trip (less than an hour) and fairly profitable so they carry the munitions to Athens' moon. Twenty people are willing to pay a credit each to ride back down to Athens. From Athens, Ivan finds an offer of a credit per ton for 400 tons of fertilizer and soil treatments going to Regina. There's an agency willing to send 20 miners as passengers for a total of 300 credits for the 16 hour trip. At Regina, they stay for two days. Dark has found a contract. The wife of an Alliance enlisted man wants the wife of another soldier killed. Dark gets all of the info, then plots the kill. The Captain picks up a speculative cargo of magnesium then looks on the Cortex to see where he can get the best price. If he wants to stay in the Georgia star system, it will be Fiddler's Green at 13 hours away. They will pay 4 credits more per ton than the captain is paying to buy it. If they take it to the Kalidasa system, to Beaumonde, they can get nine credits more than the purchase price. Beaumonde, though, is twelve days nineteen hours away. The solution that they come up with: Run one load to Fiddler's Green, come back to Regina and run a second one to Beaumonde. They deliver to Fiddler's Green, pick up a load of sorted and graded coffee beans going back to Regina, then make the run to Beaumonde. Less than a month in business and they've already made more than enough to make that month's payment to Oberlindes. They decide to layover for a few days.
Episode 2……………………………………………………………………………………………4/25/2020Ivan and Dark head for the Maidenhead, Ivan to hustle darts and drink vodka, Dark to look for work. Dark runs into an old coworker, a fellow tong member named Huang Wen.
She says " Hi Dark. You looking for Bishop too?" He says no, and asks why he would be looking for their old trainer.
"You didn't hear? On the eve of his retirement he killed the head of the Blood Angels and his number two, then took off for parts unknown. There's a 50,000 credit reward out for him"
That didn't sound like the Bishop that Dark knew, but then again people change. The Dark Angels were the elite of the Malfi Blood Sworn, A group of highly trained and skilled individuals commonly hired as hitmen and assassins. They were affiliated with but not part of the White Tiger tong. Bishop had been brought in to help train a group for the White Tigers, Dark and Wen among them. Dark and Wen catch up on old times while Ivan starts raking in the bets at the dart board.
After the post flight checks are done, Sam Parker, the engineer goes out to shop for assorted junk parts to support his tinkering habit.
Back at the ship, Captain Guy gets a cortex call from their benefactor, Marc Oberlindes. Marc wants to charter the Queen Anne's Pride to try to find another ship of his that has gone missing. He says "The Mudskipper is an Arrowhead class courier, manned by the husband and wife team of Alexander and Jade Copeland. It was last reported running a cargo of medical supplies from Beaumonde to Paquin. It is believed to also have carried two passengers, a Daniel Opiela of Paquin and a Doctor Edna Tuttle of Bernadette. It's last confirmed contact was message traffic through a deep space cortex node consistent with a path to Paquin." The Captain agrees to go look for them, and calls the crew back to the ship.
They do a hard burn for Paquin, duplicating the path of the Mudskipper as closely as possible, scanning all the way. They arrive at Paquin and start pinging for the Mudskipper's transponder. They detect it on the opposite side of the planet from Paquin's capital.
Using the telescope they see it parked just outside a small village, sitting in a large circle of burned grass. Calling down, they get a response from Alexander Copeland, grateful to hear from them and asking for help. The Pride lands on the far side of the Mudskipper from the village. The two Copelands and one of their passengers, a Doctor Edna Tuttle. Jade is the only one of them armed, wearing a Newtech Gauss pistol on her right hip. After a brief discussion, Captain Guy calls for Sam to grab his tools and go over to the Mudskipper.
There is not a Cortex node anywhere near Paquin, so the only contact would have to be through the powerful repeater in the capital. Since the Mudskipper is grounded, it's radio is not powerful enough to reach that repeater, so the Copelands were unable to get a message through to call for help. The Pride, with a more powerful radio is able to send a message to Marc Oberlindes that the ship has been found.
Alexander is a skilled engineer. The problem is parts. The control board for their power plant fried. It dumped its plasma to the outside of the ship, thus causing the circle of burned vegetation. Sam has a spare control board from the Pride, but it turns out the board is incompatible. It's the wrong manufacturer so it's a totally different design. Sam figures out that even though the boards are incompatible, they use the same main chip. Sam carefully unsolders the chip and transplants it to the Mudskipper's board. The plant fires up, but Alexander and Sam are both worried that the polymer/ceramic neutron shielding may have crystallized due to the thermal stress. Alexander plans on limping back to Persephone, but Captain Guy insists on towing the Mudskipper back to Beaumonde. It's a lot closer, and he feels it would be a lot safer, just in case the shielding were to give way. The crew of the Pride brought towing gear for just this eventuality. It will take approximately 20 days, but it's the safest course.
Doctor Edna Tuttle observes that the Mudskipper will be out of commission for a while, and asks if the Pride needs a doctor.
Dark asks what sort of salary she's looking for, but she says no salary. It turns out she receives a monthly stipend to travel around the 'verse rendering medical aid to those that need it. She is paid by the Benevolent Society of Eritosthenes. The organization is headquartered on Bernadette. Dark agrees, and says what she does during downtime on the ground is her business. If she wants to treat patients during that time it's fine with him.
They arrive at Beaumonde highport and hand off the Mudskipper and her crew to tugs thoughtfully arranged for by Marc Oberlindes. They then return to New Dunsimir downport where they are placed next to another Osprey class, the Elgyn's Folly. Dark decides to see if he can find where Bishop might have gone to ground. It would take a lot of luck to get the drop on him, but considering the size of the bounty it's worth trying. He rules out several possible locations, then decides to investigate the lowest levels beneath the city. After much searching he hears a sound behind him. He turns to see Bishop holding a large pistol aimed between his eyes. "So they sent you to find me," he says. "No," says Dark, "I only heard about all this a few weeks ago from Wen."
"It was a frame. Someone poisoned Demetris. Then Martin walked in on us, misinterpreted what he saw, and attacked me. I had to defend myself. Of course no one would have believed me, so I got out of there and went to get my wife and daughter to get offworld. Marquis was there waiting. He slit my wife's throat right there in front of me. I managed to take him down but he died before I could get from him the name of who had set me up. Fortunately my daughter was not there at the moment. I found her and left the planet. I'm trying to track down who did this, and I'm going to make him pay… That is unless you think you can stop me."
"No," says Dark, "If I'd got the drop on you perhaps… but no. Do you need a way off planet? I'm here with a ship. Here's the docking bay code. If you decide to show up I can sign you on as crew. If not, well good luck to you and your daughter. I'll keep my mouth shut about you." Dark turns and walks away.
When he gets back to the Pride, he finds a note taped to the airlock door. He takes it, notifies the Captain that he may have a new crewmember coming aboard soon then sits down to try to decode the cypher from the note. It turns out to be a tong code he's seen before. It says "The package is at 1428 TsingTao avenue. The door code is 3827"
Dark goes back out and seeks out the street and address. The door of the residence has no keypad. He circles the building and finds the garage door has a keypad. He punches in the code and it opens. There is a cubical white plastic storage container about one and a half meters in each dimension sitting on a pallet in the center of the garage. Dark finds a pallet jack and moved the container outside. He calls the local truck rental place and has them come pick him and take him and the container to the ship. He puts it in one corner of the cargo bay and warns everyone to not disturb it. He figures it's Bishop's, and probably booby-trapped. A few hours later, there's a ring at the ventral lock. Dark opens the hatch to find Bishop carrying a duffel bag and a seven year old little girl with a small suitcase. He introduces her as Sarah.
He informs Dark that he's currently going under the pseudonym of Ronnie Fulmer. Dark signs him on as purser, and pays him an advance of 25 credits. It's a quirk of his. He feels a strong sense of duty to the crew. Now that Bishop is part of the crew, there's no way he could turn on him. Dark introduces Ronnie Fulmer and his daughter Sarah around to the crew, then takes them to the cargo bay to the big white crate. Bishop tells him it's not from him. Dark wonders what happened. He has them leave the cargo bay in case of booby-trap and opens the container. It is filled with clear tubes in turn filled with small white pills They are labeled BlueSun and are marked as Acetaminophen. Dark strongly doubts that that is what they really are. He puts them aside to deal with later. The Captain has found a cargo of livestock to JiangYen. Big livestock. Fourteen elephants and six mahouts. He contacts a local underworld figure with the unlikely name of Mingo who would like him to carry twelve passengers to JiangYin, no questions asked. As soon as Sam is able to cobble together enough bunk beds for the twelve to be able to sleep in three rooms they take off for JiangYin. Eleven days later they arrive. Ivan sees many small animals on the landing field. He tries to avoid them, but still manages to crush a few under the landing gear. The place is swarming with one of genetic engineering's early successes, the Jackalope.
Meanwhile Ronnie Fulmer is sweeping out the cargo bay.
Dark and Ivan go to the Gan Bai, a bar and restaurant sitting across from the landing field.
Parked in front of it is a very newtech version of a hoverbike
As Ivan and Dark enter the Gan Bai, a young lady steps out. Dark notices the White Tiger bracelet she's wearing but does not comment.
She gets on the hoverbike and races off to the northwest.
After picking up a couple of cases of the local beer, Dark returns to the ship. Lots of children and not a few adults are hunting the jackalopes. Apparently the local government has put a bounty on them.
Dark looks to see if there has been any response from his tong contacts about the case he picked up. They still have no idea what's going on, but they currently have someone on planet. If he'd like, they'll take it off his hands. He requires 100 credits for it. The tong finds that acceptable. The next morning a shuttle comes and lands next to the Pride. A very large fellow of mongolian descent steps out and introduces himself as Bruno. He hands 100 credits cash to Dark, and picks up the case and puts it in his shuttle.
Captain Guy manages to arrange a cargo of gold ore going to Pelorum. That's only 3 days 13 hours 16 minutes 40 seconds away. Less than that, if Ivan has his way.