Traveller Adventure: Fixing the Factory

Check out all the participants in
A September of Short Adventures

Fixing the Factory
An adventure for Classic Traveller Little Black Books set in and around the Vesper Textile Company's factory just outside the city of Athens on Elysium, a TL8 agrarian planet.


Summary
The Vesper family runs a textile factory which has run afoul of a criminal syndicate. Some goons recently visited and broke some of the machinery. Getting the factory productive again by clearing an infestation of metal-eating worms and making repairs needs to happen before tracking down and punishing the people responsible.


Background
The characters can get involved in this adventure by talking to Alexis from Stop, Thief? and learning about the problems at her family's factory. Alternately, they can decide to investigate the factory when a promised cargo of Cloth armor doesn't show up at the Elysium Downport.


Dorian (UPP 6A6998 ATV-1, Electronics-1, Mechanical-1, Rifle-1) and Amanda Vesper (UPP 469899 Admin-1, Broker-1, Steward-1) created a thriving textile business after he retired from the Army's motor pool. Dorian is tall and thin, quietly deferring to Amanda's talkative nature. They maintain a small cotton plantation for their finer fashion cloth, but military contracts for Cloth armor and Vacc Suits add the most to their bottom line. Their daughter Alexis (UPP 497923 Mechanical-1) has learned how to maintain the factory's machinery, freeing Dorian up to spend more time developing fashionable concealed armor for ambassadors and other VIPs.


Recently, the Vespers refused to supply armor to a representative of the Marconi brothers - the Marconis offered too little money for a huge rush job. Yesterday a few Marconi goons showed up and trashed the place with baseball bats. They've been trying to repair the damage, but the goons left a few Ore Slugs behind. Ore Slugs are a protected species - they live in the indigenous species preserve on the southern continent, and they eat metal, the more precious the better.


Adventure

There are two parts to getting the factory working again. First, the Ore Slugs must be removed, especially before they reproduce and spread into Athens. Second, the machinery components that have been broken or eaten must be repaired or replaced.

Ore Slugs grow up to a foot in length if they get enough metal to eat. The ones in the Vesper machines are already 6 inches long - they will breed thousands more Ore Slugs if left for another day. They're drawn to precious metals, so the gold components in the machinery's electronics smells like a four star buffet to them. The Vespers can't kill them because they're a protected species - the law imposes a stiff fine and mandatory imprisonment for killing them. Since they're so deep within the machines, they'll require disassembling the machines and pulling them out (throw 10+; DM +Electronics skill for each slug, plus added time to get the machines online), though nobody knows how many there are. Alternately, the characters can set a trap baited with precious metal - a pound of gold or platinum should get the Ore Slugs' attention. They'll need a glass enclosure to contain the slugs once they're extracted. If the characters want to sneak into the preserve to return the Ore Slugs, that can be its own adventure, otherwise let Amanda take care of it through her contacts.

To repair the machines, the characters will need to repair what they can with Mechanics and Electronics skills, but they'll need some replacement parts to do it using the Broker skill. Amanda will give them a 20,000 Credit budget from the business; if the characters can negotiate the price down, they can keep the rest.


Further Hooks
The Vespers will make great contacts and allies on Elysium. Amanda tells the characters if they can take care of the Marconi family, the Vespers will sell them Cloth armor and Vacc Suits at discounted prices. How much of a discount and for how long are details left to the GM's discretion.


Dorian identifies the leader of the goons as Victor Marconi, a lieutenant in the family. He's got a reputation for being hot-headed, and he can usually be found in the Marconi Construction branch office in Athens. If the characters need help decrypting the data cube from Alexis in Stop, Thief? then Amanda can put them in contact with one of her computer-savvy contacts.