A Milk Run: Part Two

Every roll below is standard TiGGR: 2d6 + stat vs. Risky 6 / Dramatic 8 / Climactic 10. Where a saver says "beat by 4+," that's the threshold for the great result. Failure always fails forward — describe the wrench, dock the Margin, keep moving.

Scene 1 — The Pitch & the Window

Aalsund's office, a logistics board on the wall listing every other ship as inbound, outbound, opened-up, or held — and none of them able to leave today but yours.

The job, in one line: you are the only ship that can be in hyperspace before the end of the day. Aalsund lays it out — a relief cruiser has a critical failure; the parts are at the Tanby depot, far side of the continent; here are the codes, the priority chit, a generous fee. Two clocks start now: the launch slot for the Nonesuch is in 90 minutes, and the suborbital shuttle to Tanby boards in six.

Set the launch world's own strain while they move: the terminal funnels everyone through a ration checkpoint, Relief Coalition banners hang over the concourse, and the queues are patient in the way that should worry a thoughtful crew. Calder is feeding Sevren and rationing at home — the crisis starts here, just a notch quieter than where it's headed.

Petrel's one move. Aalsund runs the pitch — but partway through, Idun Petrel of Calder-Voss slides a single addendum across the table: a discretion clause. The fee is generous; part of it is for not discussing the cargo. She answers exactly what's asked and nothing more, and she's gone again before the crew has finished reading it. Keep her to this one beat — she's a punctuation mark on Aalsund's sentence, not a second briefing. The two patrons want subtly different things, and that small daylight is the whole thread: Aalsund wants the boxes there; Petrel wants the run quiet.

• Read the room (Mind, Risky 6, optional): a sharp crew notices what Petrel isn't saying — that this is being handled deliberately quietly, that the discretion is the point and not a formality. No Margin effect; it surfaces the discretion thread. (A crew that reads her clearly banks the insight: if the inquiry ever comes — see Now What? — they knew what they were signing, which is leverage when Petrel comes asking, or when an auditor does.)
• The six-minute dash to the shuttle (Body to sprint, or Charm to talk through the ration checkpoint, Dramatic 8): the chit flashed at the checkpoint waves you through automatically. Otherwise, roll. Fail forward: you make it with the doors closing — no Margin loss yet (too early to wreck the run), but you've spent goodwill or breath you'll want later.
• En route (the 25-minute shuttle hop) — the snag (Mind, Dramatic 8): the cargo-release paperwork flags amber: the customs seal is keyed to the Nonesuch's old registry name. Fix it in the air (Mind), or call Ferren (Charm), or kick it down the road to Vance (costs you a favor in Scene 2). Saver: clear it cleanly (beat by 4+) and the depot release goes fast → +1 Margin banked for Scene 2. Fail forward: it lands live, and Vance has to wave it through personally — which he can, but it costs his patience.

Scene 2 — Tanby (the relay)

A relief-logistics depot in Tanby — a Calder city living under its own ration schedule — the cargo behind a badge-controlled cage, the town outside having a bad afternoon.

The crew has to get the boxes released, signed, sealed, loaded, and back to the shuttle — through a system where three reasonable things are all true at once: the cage needs a supervisor's signature plus a valid seal; the supervisor (Vance) is in a meeting that matters more than they do (it's about Calder's ration cuts, not Sevren's); and the freight elevator is busy hauling the city's own rations.

Vance and the signature — the relationship gate.

• Force / bluster / name-dropping (any approach): Vance digs in — sensibly; a stranger leaning this hard on a relief depot is exactly who you slow down. He finishes his meeting first. −1 or −2 Margin.
• Patience / plain truth (Charm or Mind, Dramatic 8): show him the relief tasking, treat him as a colleague — a tired nod, a thumbprint, "don't make me regret this." No loss.
• ★ SAVER — the hauler robots (beat by 4+, or genuinely win him over in play): a won-over Vance activates the depot's automated loaders. The whole elevator-and-handcart slog vanishes. +2 Margin. This is the kindness shortcut: the crew that's decent to Vance gets the fast path the pushy crew never sees.

The elevator (only if the robots aren't running): wait it out (−1), hand-carry down the service ramp (Body, Dramatic 8; success no loss, fail −1), or charm the ration crew into letting the modules ride up with the pallets (Charm, Dramatic 8; no loss, and you're briefly part of the relief machine).

The route back is blocked → the canal. Street closures force the crew into a dry flood-control channel that runs under the closed district. The borrowed grav-sled drops in and skims it.

• Fly the canal (Body, Dramatic 8): a clean run is a clean run. Fail forward: clip a gantry, bend a strut, limp the last stretch — −1, and play it for laughs and having to explain the damage.
• ★ SAVER (beat by 4+): hit the deep express channel under the footbridges → +1 Margin.

Warden Osei — the force-makes-it-worse beat. At the canal's mouth, a nervous young warden raises a hand: a grav-sled full of sealed boxes coming up out of a channel it shouldn't be in looks exactly like the looting she was told to stop.

• Force / threats / blowing the cordon: confirms every fear — she calls it in. A second cordon, a supervisor inbound who can lawfully impound "controlled equipment." −2 Margin, and the cargo is now flagged (it follows you to the launch queue in Scene 3).
• Patience / show documentation (Charm, Climactic 10; drop to Dramatic 8 if you actually present the relief tasking): harder than persuasion because she's anxious, not stubborn — but reassurance lands. She lowers her hand.
• ★ SAVER — grace (beat by 4+, or treat her as doing her job right): "you were told to watch for exactly this, and you're correct to stop us — here's why we're the exception." She waves you through and you keep moving. +1 Margin. Reward the player who sees the person in the obstacle.

The customs wire (back at the shuttle pad). A final seal-check, one shipment ahead of you arguing with the scanner.

• Wait your turn (no change), or ★ SAVER — help the shipment ahead (a medevac whose paperwork is snarled; Mind or Charm, Dramatic 8): sort it in thirty seconds and the grateful officer fast-tracks you. +1 Margin. Doing the small kindness is the shortcut.

The VIP lane (boarding the return shuttle) — the self-balancing saver. A priority lane sits open beside the queue.

• Bluff or forge your way in (Charm or Mind, Dramatic 8): success → skip the queue, +1 Margin. Ordinary failure → you just wait the normal duration (no loss, no gain). Caught (fail by 4+): a Transit Authority hold — −2 Margin, and you're flagged (follows you to Scene 3). Risk priced into the reward.

Scene 3 — The Launch Slot

Back at Calder's port. The cargo's aboard. The slot deadline is real.

The Nonesuch is number seventeen in a departure queue, estimated wait long enough to matter. The crew's relief-priority claim is what jumps them ahead of the estimate — and it's fragile.

• The freeze (the big delay): a priority inbound (a relief convoy or a navy tender) freezes outbound traffic; the priority bump evaporates. To get back on the board:
  • Recover the slot (Charm or Mind, Dramatic 8): talk your way back into the queue. Fail → you miss the slot: −4 Margin (the next slot is hours out).
  • ★ SAVER — spend the chit: play the transit-priority chit to jump the queue, not just rejoin it → +2 Margin — but the chit is now spent (no cover later). Or call Ferren (Charm), who shuffles you up for a favor owed.
• The stale filing (Mind, Dramatic 8, optional): re-file the plan after the Tanby detour. Beat it well → fast-track, +1; scrape → on schedule; fumble → −1.
• If you were flagged (Osei or the VIP lane): a courteous inspector wants a look inside the sealed boxes before departure. Valid documentation (Mind/Charm, Dramatic 8) satisfies him and clears the annotation; stonewalling or bribery makes him thorough → −1 or −2, and the flag is written into the Nonesuch's departure transponder. It now rides with the ship — it can't be sent ahead, because nothing outruns the hull — and becomes the first thing Sevren traffic control reads off your squawk on arrival (see Scene 5, Talk the Approach).

End the scene on the beat: the board ticks green, and a port controller comes through against the odds — "Nonesuch, cleared for departure. Burn hard and don't make me regret it." Twelve hours to the IDP, then the crossing.

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To be continued...