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An adventure for Classic Traveller Little Black Books set in or near the Elysium system.(Return to the Traveller Adventure Cover Page.)
Summary
Guess who decides to stow away on board the characters' ship?
Background
You'll remember Alexis Vesper (UPP 497923 Mechanical-1) from Stop, Thief? and Fixing the Factory at the very beginning of this adventure arc. Turns out she's even more adventurous than her parents gave her credit for. This encounter can give the characters a reason to return to the adventure on Elysium if they decide to jump to a different system before investigating MediShield, or Alexis can complicate the characters' lives during the adventure arc, like when they head off to Stygia to try and capture a Quartz Leopard or when they arrive on Pandora Station.
Adventure
At some dramatically-appropriate point while their ship is under way, the characters become aware of Alexis being on board. She's a compulsive thief as a way to alleviate her boredom, so it's not a far stretch to have her sneak onto a ship and hide in hopes of having a grand adventure. She's enthusiastic and willing to earn her keep for a chance to learn skills to make her a better crew member and to see more of space.Feel free to have the characters figure out how she slipped on board based on the security measures they left in place on the ship. She could have snuck into the hold while the characters were off dealing with getting permits and such, or she could have hidden in a cargo the characters purchased, or she could have disguised herself as someone purchasing a middle passage (and where she got the 8kCr to buy that passage could fill another adventure arc). In any case, she will try to sneak around and find something to fix before revealing herself in an attempt to prove her worth to the characters.
Alexis should at worst inconvenience the characters by returning her to her parents, but she can fill in as a crew member for the short term. She knows the rudiments of the Steward skill from her mother, so that's a potential role she can perform. If the characters allow her to stay on board, she shouldn't get underfoot too often, at least in the early days. She knows she's on probation, so she'll curb her pickpocket tendencies and be on her best behavior to keep earning her chance to fly between the stars.
Dealing with her parents will be a different matter. She has taken over the day-to-day maintenance of the Vesper's factory. Without her, the production schedule will slip slightly and the factory's bottom line will suffer for it. If the characters don't come clean about Alexis stowing away as soon as they know, that could strain the relationship and threaten the discounts promised in return for Fixing the Factory. Dorian and Amanda aren't domineering parents by any stretch, but taking their 13 year old daughter off-world stretches the limits of a harmless prank, even if she stowed away to begin with.
Further Hooks
If the characters decide to keep Alexis on as a crew member and allowed to train, she'll pick up Steward 1 within a year. If the characters don't tell her parents about her stowing away, they will file a missing persons report and the characters will see the notice in every port of call. They will eventually get reported somewhere along the line and get arrested for kidnapping. If this happens, Alexis will privately thank them but throw them under the proverbial bus by publicly saying that she kept asking the characters to take her home.
She's also a compulsive thief. She'll settle into the ship's routine after a while, but eventually she'll get bored. She's used to playing the "Cute and Innocent" card with the local police, so she's used to getting away with whatever she wants. That approach won't hold water on a new world where nobody knows her. Alexis could potentially provide an adventure seed in every port the characters visit if she stays on board for long.
Return to the Traveller Adventure Cover Page.
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