Details on the characters can be found here and here. We left with the group divided: Brace doing drugs with a thug named Rocks, Nightngale shopping, Vivek returning to the ship with a sex slave, and Midnight Storm fleeing a cult.
The Asteroid Base
Brace snapped out of his vision and hurried back to the ship. He passed Gale still sifting through the junk bins and warned her, "We need to get back to the ship, it is dangerous here."
Gale ignored him and asked Rum, the child behind the counter, "Was there something you wanted to tell me?"
"I saw one of the men from your ship, the musician. He went off with the Family. They are dangerous."
"Stop bothering the customer," Bob said, shoving the boy into the back. "Please excuse the nosy child. I told his dying mother I'd watch out for the miscreant."
"That's fine," she said. "Which way does this 'Family' live?"
Bob pointed the way between coughs.
Gale barely exited the market however before she spotted Midnight running towards her. Rips cover his blood stained pants.
"This way," she said leading him back to the Starlight.
At the dockyard, she and Midnight overheard Brace and Farley arguing.
"We need to get out of here now," Brace said loudly.
Captain Farley informed the pilot, "We haven't completed resupplying. Besides all you've described is visions of dust, drugs and some over excited fans. As far as I can tell that's better than most of our stops."
Just then Gale and Midnight reached the entryway. Farley halted his conversation and helped Midnight inside. Brace slipped close to Gale, his hand slipping toward hers.
She grabbed his wrist hard and slammed him against the metal wall. "Don't do that again. Not if you value your arm."
Denied. I don't recall the original ruling but I probably would have used Act Under Fire with Interference followed by Go Aggro. Or maybe just the later if Gale was quicker describing her action.
Brace backed off and everyone else headed to the medbay.
Elsewhere in the bowels of the ship Vivek led Donna to his bunk. The junkie disrobed for her new owner, the drugs and abuse long having broken her will. Vivek spent sometime afterwards reading her history from her spare frame.
In other words using the Savvyhead sex move to apply Things Speak to a person.
In the medbay Gale decided to use her psychic talents to patch up Midnight. As her hand touched his skin, the sound of a tolling bell resounded in their minds. Their thoughts drifted together as a connection formed between them.
Gale missed her roll on Healing Touch.
Gale remembered being in an escape pod with her brother, Bluejay, the air growing thin. Midnight’s mind shot to Lilly Pad base burning.
"Gale," Tally said, perhaps for the third time, snapping the pair out of it. Skip pulled at her pants from behind the woman.
"Oh sorry, Tally. Did you need something?" Gale asked.
"Just wanted to talk about the filter system," she said, coughing. Skip pulled at her leg again. "Not now Skip."
"I'll take care of him," Midnight said, leading the young child into the hall.
Tally and Gale quickly talked about the status of the water filters.
Then Tally asked, "What is going on between you and Midnight? I know you have a thing for him. Did I come in at a bad time?"
Gale denied anything of the sort. She then noticed the same gray tinge to Tally's skin as the inhabitants of the base.
In the hallway, Midnight showed Skip some of the basics of playing the guitar.
Donna walked by, her eyes locking with Midnight. She smiled suggestively and said she'd like to 'talk'.
Midnight turned to Skip. "You stay here, okay." Then the teenage rocker headed off with Donna.
Midnight tends to let his hormones make the decisions, at least at this point in the story.
It took some time, but he did eventually talk to her, entrancing her as much if not more than she did to him.
In other words he hypnotizes Donna with his Sex move.
After stewing a while, Brace decided to see if he could convince Gale of the danger. He found her in the medbay. When he described the dust cloaking the asteroid, it reminded her of the coughing and gray skin she encountered in the market. She agreed to help but she needed a sample to analyze.
Brace walked off to find some from the ship’s air filtration system.
Down in engineering, Brace approached Shiv. "I need you to pull some dust from the air duct?"
The older man grunted. "I need to finished the engine tune up first. I'll get to it later."
"No I need you to do this now," Brace said.
As he reached for Shiv's beefy arm, the balding engineer caught his wrist and smacked him with a spanner.
Brace fell to the floor in pain. Prone, he grabbed Shiv's bare ankle. The spook pushed his desire into Shiv's mind. Then he yanked on Shiv's mind with all his might.
I believe Brace failed a Manipulate and then did something silly like Go Aggro. He took some harm and then succeeded in using Puppet Strings. He inflicted 1-harm ap just because he can.
Blood dripped from Shiv's nose.
"Now get that dust from the filters," Brace ordered, his head aching from the blow.
Shiv glared at him and stiffly climbed a ladder into the ducts.
Brace returned to the medbay with a icepack on his head and metal box of dust. Gale checked him for a concussion and then fed the sample into medbay computer.
It is a workshop.
The spectroanalysis revealed the dust contains toxic levels of Krypton Dioxide, possibly from the asteroid's Gallium mines. Brace and Gale went to talk to the captain.
They found Farley on the bridge talking with three men in fatigues. "So what H?," the captain asked. "You want to hire Midnight Storm to give a concert?"
"It would be good for the community. Take their mind off the recent deaths."
"That's fine by me, but I'm not his manager."
"Tell him I'm offering a barrel of copper wiring."
4-barter.
"Okay, I will." After H left with his men, he turned to the others. "What do you want?"
Brace and Gale told him about the dangers of staying here. Farley rubbed his chin. "I'm not sure we can just take off and go. Tally told me she still needs several more hours to fix the water filters. Then there's this business opportunity."
"We need to go now," Brace said.
Suddenly one of the crew, Tatters, stumbled into the room. The skinny grease monkey slammed to the floor as Visage entered with a shotgun leveled at the Farley and Brace. His "family" fanned out behind him, armed with clubs and rusty guns.
"We want Midnight Storm," Visage demanded. "Otherwise we will decorate your ship with your entrails."
Hearing the commotion, Midnight rushed to the bridge. A pair of women with shears stopped him before he reached the door.
"No need for violence," the musician said, raising his hands. "I'll play for you but only if you leave peacefully."
Midnight manipulated the gang and succeeded.
Visage considered his options. "You do a concert tomorrow. and you come with us until then."
"Fine."
The Family surrounded Midnight Storm and they left the Starlight.
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