"You can't prove that I'm the captain in a court of law" - El Capitane
"We can - your name's on the ship's articles" - Badass-Moustache
"Well... crap." - El Capitane

Landing on Prometheus was routine, and the paperwork from Grand
Walkabout could no longer be put off.

El Capitane promptly got on with mucking that up.

Nikki had, much earlier during the "annual maintenance" run when they'd
put down, jimmied the bridge data recorders to leave out annoying
evidence of crimes committed on Gashidda, etc.

The passengers they'd gone out to pick up from Gashidda were apparently
mislabelled as "refrigerated tractor parts".

I'd clean forgotten Drake was also a degree-qualified biologist.

"Of _course_ the briefcase is legit, apart from its origin.  You can't
move a briefcase _except_ on a ship." - El Capitane (referring to the
briefcase of precious metals they'd received in return for Bert's 3.5
dton of "enhanced" pharmaceuticals that apparently were going to be
palmed off at Gashidda Naval Downport).

Nikki wandered off to spec trade the valuable metals, (1176k base),
comes back with a bank draft for 825k.  (Both Easy Frag and Herr Sweep
have said they enjoy the trading, wheeling and dealing side of things).

El Capitane joked that Nikki was suffering from haggling withdrawal.

"_Now_ you can afford to pay your docking fees." - Me

With that oh-so-subtle reminder, they paid two weeks' of docking fees
and purchased 80 tons of fuel, which Nikki duly loaded.

"Well bugger me, the ordinary fuel lines still work.  I thought they had
corroded in the past year." - Badass-Moustache

Between the fuel, life support supplies, docking fees and spare-part
restocking, 250k of purchases made a dent in their ready funds.

"_Prioritise_.  You can high-pressure your ass clean.  Doesn't work so
well for propelling the ship." - EL Capitane

This sparked Nikki swinging out again in wheeler-dealer mode, scoring a
dton of whitegoods & fittings to refit staterooms, common areas,
captain's office and drug lab for 40k.

After that was all installed, El Captaine authorised a week of
off-the-boat shore leave at ship's expense, based out of the Risky Dingo
Brothel and Bar.  Making whoopee, blackjack, hookers, etc was not only
authorised - it was specifically _encouraged_.

Everyone pulled through the week-long Mandatory Fun ok, except for Rosa
- her low END and crap roll meant she had a _miserable_ time.

During the week, Badass-Moustache got himself uninvited from the local
casino, a half hour before Bert lobbed in and blew 50k of his own cash
in roughly a minute - he was bored.

The week of Mandatory Fun was apparently 75k well spent, according to El
Capitane.

"Why'd you refit the dunnies?" - Bert
"Afraid of running out of bog roll - again." - El Capitane (the players
were also sardonically referencing the First and Second Great Australian
Bog Roll Panics of 2020)

After a recovery day, the Boatload Of Lunatics departed for Terra.

"Does anyone know where my extra C4 went?" - Bert
"Depends, where did you keep it beforehand?" - Drake

"Gentlemen, it is a _plot_ device." - Me
"Plot devices are easily disarmed, as we have like 4 kilos of C4 still."
- Herr Sweep

6 days later, the Paradise emerged from Jump on approach to _very_ busy
Terran space - especially around the highports.

Bert decided to threaten Rosa with sedation.  Drake decided to threaten
Bert with gun.

"You do it - I'm holding a gun and discussing medicine" - El Capitane
threatening Bert

Badass-Moustache got on blower to Phoenix Orbital to request docking
clearance.  Was told to sit tight and wait for pilot cutter to come
alongside.

"Captain to medbay, hide the drugs... and the C4." - El Capitane
"Anything you want me to do with the guinea pigs back here?" - Bert
"Nah, we got paperwork for them." - El Capitane

They spent a total of 20 hours waiting for their slot to advance far
enough to get them a pilot.

"I can escape a prison.  I can't escape death!" - EC

"WTF happened with that other hour?  What the hell's in my coffee? 
BERT!" - EC

Drake amused himself walking around with magboots on the walls + ceiling
of cargo bay.  This backfired somewhat when he ended up hanging by one
boot, having overcooked the splits.

Rosa barely passed her "make-pilot-cutter-docking-easy" roll, then the
cutter came alongside, requesting permission to dock and come aboard.

First Mate Moustache gave permission, and sent Nikki to meet the pilots.

"We only got one chair" - Nikki

Lobbing from the pilot cutter were two junior TCN officers.  The first
(and their actual pilot) is a certain Sublieutenant Collinson, and along
for the ride is Ensign Rupert.  The cutter undocked while they headed
bridgewards.

"Kid barely looks 22.  Poor sod." - Badass-Moustache

The junior presumed-rupert was spun out by how the bridge had been
customised.  "Collision" Collinson rolled with it, asking (in a quiet
voice) exactly how close Rupert Rupert wanted to come to a charge of
conduct prejudicial.

Badass-Moustache reflected that Collinson, for all his faults of
ultimately coming from the Royal Navy, had the imperturbability almost
down pat.  After satisfying himself that the specialists were in place
and he had a solid picture of the traffic flow, he first asked Drake's
permission to get underway, then, permission received, threw a Moustache
at the blower and started guiding Rosa in.

Touchdown came as a surprise to most people on the bridge.  After shore
power was applied, Collinson handed back over to El Capitane, collected
his junior, and made to debark.

In response to Badass-Moustache's quiet query as they headed to the main
hatch, he found out that Collinson Sr had been a colour sergeant and,
wonder of wonders, Collinson Jr had paid attention, which apparently
justified the lack of adult supervision - two ruperts running loose in
public can turn out quite the nightmare for the poor sod behind the
"Officer Commanding" nameplate.  His opinion of Collinson's line went
up.  For further reference, in the British Army.  His opinion of
Collinson's line went straight back down.  None of them had the good
sense to join the Royal Marines.

Post-debark, Drake continued his luck with paperwork - flubbing the next
admin roll by 1.
   
Words along the lines of "TROUSER THE LOT OF 'EM, MILLENNIUM HAND AND
SHRIMP!" were uttered, and Drake collected the crew for real grub,
cooked by _someone else_, without the distraction of Mandatory Fun.

Bert dug up a public map of the port, and they ended up lobbing at a
joint with the following sign outside:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/612927701258469378/734725727877857340/unknown.png

(No, the image isn't mine.  It's from GT: Starports)

Burgers with the works all around + sides of chips were Drake's shout,
but everyone had to pay for their own plonk.

While waiting for dinner to arrive, Badass-Moustache tried ringing
Derryn - ended up leaving a terse, cryptic message.

They took the time to unwind, eat, drink, and enjoy Brubek's.  Not sure
if anyone reflected on the irony of recreating the mythical
pre-starflight neighbourhood joint on Terra approx 36,000 km up from
said rock.

As they were in no rush, they took a scenic route back to the Paradise's
berth.

There, they found the berth had been locked down, with port security
people posted.

Turns out, after Drake rang the bank and worked through the run-around,
three fifths of one half had actually landed on the mortgage in the 12
months since departure.  1.3 million solars were outstanding.

Drake found somewhere he could deposit the remaining 475k of that bank
draft onto the mortgage - that apparently quieted enough of the bank's
concerns to let the crew access their ship tomorrow, according to a
phone call an hour later.

They needed somewhere to kip tonight, so Drake and Rosa went down market
to a youth hostel - they figured their combined old-fartness would keep
the kiddies away.

Badass-Moustache asked if anyone else wanted to kip in comfort. 
Receiving a unanimous "yes", he led the remaining crew into the FTA
lounge and asks the concierge there if they could arrange a night's
lodging - he wasn't really surprised when the concierge identified him
on sight.

Concierge took 40 min to chase up 5 rooms - 4 singles, 1 double.  500
solars - includes dinner, bed, breakfast.

Moustache tried ringing Derryn again after dinner, but still got no answer.

Everyone kipped in their chosen digs.

Dodgie rang back during breakfast.  Badass-Moustache, with help from his
fellow diners, told now-Commodore Dodgie the story of Milford's Run. 
One bottle of Scotch later, a slightly-sozzled Dodgie bets
Badass-Moustache that the latter's intention to retire will last 18
months.  After the others sod off, Dodgie says that two ... specialist
... gentlemen will be along for the refrigerated tractor parts probably
day after tomorrow.

The berth was unlocked at roughly 2pm station time. El Capitane and
Nikki board and start catching up on the planetoid of paperwork that had
become outstanding since they jumped outbound from UN space the year
before - that took them two weeks just to scratch the surface, get the
ship's paperwork up to date, and scratch the surface of what else came
up during Milford's Run.  Multiple habitable planets, one rogue gas
dwarf, claims thereon and thereto, masses of survey data, etc.  Nikki
rocked a 15 out on her Admin roll to help El Capitane, who netted out a
respectable 10 with the assist.

The .. specialist .. gentlemen lob 2 days later and take delivery of the
refrigerated tractor parts (ie, the four dissidents extracted from the
Ziru Sirka) - the PC's Proper Prior Planning paid off and got them
through customs without notable issue.  About half an hour after
delivery, Drake's handcomp pings an alert that another 400k has landed
on the mortgage.

A day later, Drake digs out a bank error in its favour - Dodgie et al
had made the payment of 400k upfront, but for whatever reason it hadn't
been applied to the mortgage.  That brought the mortgage up to date to
the bank's satisifaction, so they withdrew their lien.

Badass-Moustache cashed one of his FTA-issued high passage vouchers,
topped it up with 500 solars of his own, and paid the two weeks' docking
fees.

Eddles proposed Badass-Moustache retire from active adventuring and take
over doing the near-literal planetoid of paperwork outstanding.

This quickly morphed to suggestion of a shore office as well, breaking
out as follows:
Moustache Ltd - Shore office, holding company, paperwork handling.
Butchers Paradise plc - Company actually owning ship.

And that, much to my surprise, signalled the natural and logical end of
Parental Advisory: Vector Thrust.  (Words I doubted I would ever
actually type in a session writeup).

Herr Collinson, when organic gameplay hands you such a giftwrapped
opportunity to transition a character like this, GRAB IT WITH BOTH HANDS.

I'm not sure if the continuing PCs (Drake, Nikki, Bert) will end up with
Badass-Moustache as a Contact or Ally.

--