Welcome back to #mothershipmonth. Every week day this month I’m producing part of a supplement for Mothership, set on Callaway Falls, an abandoned (mostly…) luxury resort turned mining colony. This week we’re looking at major locations at the ruined resort, and the wild life that’s moved in as well as some plot hooks for what really led to the downfall of Callaway Reef. Today, we’re off to Rashid Spaceport.
The primary spaceport for the resort is located on an artificial island out in the bay. It’s small but very well appointed and almost entirely abandoned. There’s a small group of Carter Competents patiently maintaining the facility for guests who will never return.
Points of Interest
The Fire Doors-Faridah Rashid insisted on there being two quarantine and security points, one at the top and one at the bottom of the causeway connecting the island to the main land. That causeway can also be detonated via shaped charges, ensuring that anything that lands at the spaceport can be contained there if needed. This process was bupassed by Platinum Double customers, despite Rashid’s protests.
The Lovelock
Syblline Retrievals deployed a team to Callaway Reef from Alexandria, their mobile cntral office. The Lovelock is a repurposed combat shuttle, densely built, hard to kill and able to serve as a fortified base of operation when deployed. Team Svalbad live here, and while they have cordial relations with the CC team on the island, there is a 50m exclusion zone around the Lovelock within which none of the spaceport’s staff or systems work.
The Nightingale
On the other side of the port, the Nightingale is a Bradda Geologic vessel. A similar size and build to the Lovelock, it’s the transport used by the Custodians to come to Callaway Reef. It’s plugged into every major system at the Resort and it’s computer systems are two weeks into a detiled search, copy and delete sweep through every system on the planet.
Melbourne Catering Six Heavy
Melbourne Catering Six Heavy is a cargo crawler that delivered food supplies and staff to the resort shortly before everything went wrong. Engine faults stopped it lifting off and the maintenance was still pending when the resort collapsed. The crew were evacuated and the ship written off as a lost asset.
This is a lie. Melbourne 6CH is a smoking gun.
The ship is a White Rock Industrial Gas Hauler, reskinned and with a new transponder code. It was intended to take the last major haul of Helium 3 offworld. The engine fault was real but 6CH was taking off from the mine and was forced to land at Rashid. White Rock Industrial are very good at what they do, and had an exit strategy and cover storyh in place. But not quite good enough, because 6CH, with a full cargo of Helium 3, is still here and the only thing keeping the Custodians and Team Svalbad out of it, is legal wrangling that will, eventually end.
Groundhawk nest
To compound matters, 6CH’s bridge has been chosen by a Groundhawk fleet as a nest. The colossal not-quite birds are the dominant species on Callaway Reef, vultures the size of small horses able to glide for short periods low over the ground. They are all over the ship, adding a welcome level of security but also a very real threat,
The Aurora
Ever since the storm,the aurora above Callaway Reef have been astonishing. The Custodians and Team Svalbad have a small communal area set up at the far end of the spaceport where they cook, get drunk and watch the sky dance above them.