Workin' For The Weekend

 Upgrades in hand (or, in Reggie's case... his hand), the bunch headed to a place called Gravel Junction, in the hopes of getting a job, as promised by the fellow they ran in to. The first station they came to, Reggie attempted to convince the "incoming workers" secretary that they were, in fact, another team. Another team that had already been paid, but that hadn't actually done the work yet. Caught in his lie, Reggie sheepishly admitted that indeed, they were not that team... and managed not to sign up for a year of work for free. The company wouldn't have minded, and definitely not the other team, but it might have slowed down the campaign a bit...

That said, they made it to the main station of Gravel Junction - a huge mining operation by one PeldCo Holdings, the only inner world company that operates this far out. Inside, they looked for the Rusty Bucket, a freeholder bar in the lower levels. A kid, Zap, showed up, and managed to swipe Reggie's vape, but was accosted and made to return it. When he learned they were looking for "John", he freaked out, pointed them in the right direction, and fled.

John, as it turns out, was a shadowy character who made deals out of the back of the bar. His job was a simple enough one - head to one of the most dangerous part of the outer colonies, and make $10k inner credits for picking up four feral deaders, plus another $5k bonus for any extras, delivery to Angmar Research Station. The deal was made, hands were shaken, and they headed out again, this time to a system full of dead ships, dead people, and four ravaged planets, all under the destructive, radioactive wash of a pulsar. Which, in and of itself was odd, seeing as how a pulsar is the leftovers from a supernova sun - the rocky planets had to have collected (re-collected?) after the sun went nova - which means this system must be incredibly ancient.