Freelance Traveller

by Michael Hughes

The PC's are offered a job lot of 30 tons of MRE's from a world, who had
received them from another system following a natural disaster. Due to a
clerical oversight they sat in an abandoned bunker in vac storage for
the last 70 years. Due to the high tech packaging, there is no expiry on
it, however the world does not want to offend the supplier and is asking
for discretion when picking it up, and the sale. They are offering a
bargain price to expedite matters before a local journo finds out (who
is the bane of the world's govt with exposes on govt abuse).

Possible directions to take this adventure:

1. It is as it seems. The deal is very good. A lot of it is pork and beans based. Trying to sell it may be a tricky issue. Alternatively, the MRE's turn out to be prized by Newts and, when offered for sale, rival groups from the Newt quarter frantically bid for it to the point that the losing bidder decides to thieve it or destroy it.
2. The journalist comes on board under an assumed identity and spends the jump trying to access the cargo to take pics of it. When the PC's arrive the cargo is impounded thanks to the journo's tattling. Unless the PC's spot them of course and take steps.
3. The MRE's were infected with some sort of bad thing (like CJD causing agents). There is a 66% chance inspectors will pick this up when the goods are taken off the ship - causing the vessel to be impounded for a month of decontamination. If not, and it leaks to the press, the PC's ship ends up having a warrant placed against it and the PC's now suffer legal issues for months.
4. The MREs start exploding, like popcorn, thanks to vibrations of the ship engines. The cargo bay is covered in mutated gunk - that gets into the air cycle systems if the PC's aren't careful.
5. As 4 but the journalist is on board. PC's end up as laughing stocks on the next planet - with photos of them cleaning gunk spreading across the net.
6. As 1 but all the Ceylon chickens are in fact packed with an illegal substance that a smuggler had tried to slip through via sending them to an accomplice in the humanitarian response team. Use your imagination. However, there is a chance that the syndicate, who has been looking for this substance, has found out about it, and sent a chase team to hunt it down. There is a total of 300 kg of Ceylon "chicken".