Ganymede Station. They call it the “breadbasket of the Belt,” because Ganymede is that rare body in the solar system with its own natural magnetosphere, protective shielding against radiation. It is what has made the moon’s argi-domes—fed sunlight from giant, orbiting mirrors—bountiful enough to supply food to the rest of the Belt and Outer Planets. It is also what makes Ganymede a favored place for Belters to give birth to children, minimizing the potential for birth defects. For generations, Ganymede has grown from one of the first colonies in the Outer Planets to a thriving hub of millions of people, and you are thinking of the challenges of finding just one person in that multitude—like a single, tumbling rock in the vastness of the Belt.
You and your crew run the Sommelier, a small cargo ship that makes runs throughout the Belt and Outer Planets, so you’re often bringing or taking shipments from Ganymede. One of your regular clients is Amalthea Ambrosals, a corporation based on Titan that supplies luxury items: wine, cheese, chocolate, and other delicacies from Earth and Mars. They sell mainly to the high-class spas on Titan and to anyone else able to pay what is a month’s wages or more for most Belters for what amounts to an expensive snack. Amalthea is run by the Dardanus family, and it seems they’ve misplaced their heir-apparent.
Kai Dardanus took off from Titan not long after his eighteenth birthday and disappeared. His family has been searching for him for a year now, without any leads or much hope of finding him, until Kai’s access codes were used to log into a company system. The login was brief, but traced to Ganymede. With your ship already en route for a delivery, you received an unusual tight-beam transmission, a message from Theo Dardanus telling you that if you recover his son and return him to Titan, you will be compensated with enough money to pay off the mortgage on the Sommelier.
Of course, Daddy Dardanus also made it pretty clear that, if you refused, you might find cargo contracts drying up awfully fast, and have trouble paying your docking fees, much less keeping your ship from being repossessed. Although the elder Dardanus didn’t say so, one other thing was also clear: Kai is a legal adult, and his family has no right to force him to do anything, but they want him back on Titan no matter what. This is less of a “missing persons” investigation and more of an authorized kidnapping, not that the distinction will matter much to Pinkwater, the corporation that handles security on Ganymede. So it’s best to watch your step and be discrete, sa-sa?
You have arrived at Ganymede Station and are searching for Kai Dardanus to.....persuade....him to return to his family on Titan.
How would you like to proceed?
