Patron: Factory Manager/owners
Required Skills: air/raft or other driving skills, non-lethal weapons helps
Required Equipment: none
Location: agricultural world with oceans (Hydrographics >5)

Players’ Information:
The local fish canning facility is having labor troubles. The people who do the cleaning and canning are on strike due to the owners cutting their pay. The owners say that to stay competitive they must cut labor costs and the workers will have none of it. The government and nobility want nothing to do with this situation and the owners are convinced they can outlast the worker’s strike by bringing in cheap labor (a.k.a. “scabs”) up to and including basic industrial robots.

One of the owners’ agents, a Mr. Simon Bing is at the starport looking for off-world help. The owners will be willing to hire the PC’s to bring their temporary workers into the facility and to bring the finished product (canned fish) out of the facility to their waiting ships at the starport. They have three Grav Cargo Flyers (see Supplement #5, p54; 12.5 tons; TL-C; hauls about 7.3 tons of cargo) available to haul people and goods in and out of the facility some ten miles away. Each Grav Cargo Flyer can seat two people (Including the driver). The PC’s will make one run in and out of the factory a day at variable times to avoid confrontations with the locals. Each successful trip in and out of the factory will yield the PC’s 1,000 credits per flyer. They can expect work for the next thirty days.

If the PC’s are confronted by the local workers, it is asked they disengage and avoid all confrontation. They expect the workers to cave into their demands and they need a healthy workforce, not one that is busied and bleeding. The PC’s will be issued some company-owned body armor (as TL9 Diplo vest, see Supplement #4, p134) to wear underneath their company-issued coveralls. They will also have a crash helmet (treat as Light Infantry Helmet, Supplement #4, p139) with a camera mounted in the front. This camera will identify any troublemakers who confront the PC’s while they are working.

Referee’s Information:
This strike has been running for about two months. The workers’ families are becoming desperate and there is talk of serious civil unrest. The workers they are transporting are coming from off world and they all seem to be in moderate to poor health. Every third “body” transported is actually a robot that stays deactivated until after they are delivered. 20-30 people are hauled in the back of each of the Cargo Flyers and needless to say, violent maneuvers could result in serious injury or death.

Outcomes:

1. The locals are very unhappy to see the Flyers driven in and out of the factory. By the end of the first week the PC’s will notice that their whereabouts are being asked about and the managers of the hotel will house them in a different room each night. The contract will terminate on the 30th day as the workers give in to the demands of the plant owners. Only half are hired back and the others are replaced by the new off-world help.

2. The locals are very unhappy to see the Flyers driven in and out of the factory. By the end of the first week the PC’s will notice they are being followed. By the end of the second week the manager asks them to find another place to say as his family is being threatened. The only place available to the PC’s is a luxury suite at double the normal cost. The contract is terminated at the end of the 30th day as no more workers are needed and the new help can drive the Flyers.

3. The locals are very unhappy to see the Flyers driven in and out of the factory. By the end of the first week one of the Flyer is sabotaged and a second flyer goes down by the end of the third week. Meanwhile if the PC’s go out in town they will be recognized as the drivers of the flyers and they will be assaulted by fists and clubs. The contract will terminate after 30 days and the strike will roll along.

4. The locals are outraged to see the PC’s driving the Flyers. After four days they riot at the gates of the factory and company security in riot gear suppress the crowd with fire hoses, batons and shields along with tear gas. The will be death threats to the PC’s by the end of the second week. The contract will be terminated by the end of 30 days as the strike continues.

5. The locals are outraged to see the PC’s driving the Flyers. At the end of the first week the PC’s receive death threats. At the end of the second week a contingent of workers on strike infiltrate the workers and some strikers stow away on one of the flyers in disguise. After the PC’s drop them off they begin a series of actions that end up shutting down the plant. The plant owners will blame the PC’s and terminate the contract immediately.

6. The locals are outraged to see the PC’s driving the Flyers. At the end of the first week the locals storm the gates of the factory, overwhelming the security forces there. The factory is put to the torch with loss of life on both sides. Needless to say the PC’s are now out of a job. There will be a government inquiry and the PC’s will be asked to stay on world for no less than 30 more days as a result of the investigation. Meanwhile the hostile workers will be looking for the “company scabs” who they blame for escalating tensions during the strike.