SC DART 77 Log  entry - Captain J.  Stone - June 18, 1107, 23:07 Bendor Space

Well we have a ship of our own.  At least that's the way it looks right now.  It even has my name on the licence.  I never imagined that would happen.  Anyway, for now she's here and she's mine - sorry ours.

She's called the Dart 77 - 100 tons of Scout Courier that's aging gracefully.  There are the usual issues - odd stains, patched together furniture, a weird gurgling noise in my fresher and, according to Rachel, a sassy computer that after a little arguing we all have administration rights to.  I like it though.  Kinda reminds me of us - holding it together, no matter what's thrown at it.

So Boris was helpful - too helpful in my opinion.  Something's going on but I can't figure out what.  An easy heist on a sleepy planet sounded great but it seems that reality is somewhat different.

Bendor is far from sleepy right now.  It's actually been designated an Amber Zone by the ISS.  We discovered that after arriving in a very busy system full of freighters and Imperial science and medical ships.  Bendor is a bread basket planet dedicated to high intensity industrial farming.  It has two seasons - Summer and Autumn, with four large island masses, much of which is constantly producing cereal crops, root vegetables and fruit.

We docked spaceside and met with our contact Iris Muldoon - a member of one of the docking crews that service the ships.  She took us to a backroom in Grimey O'Reillys - a Sol theme bar in the port to fill us in on the challenge ahead.  Billy spent some time chatting to the freighter crews and listening in on the Navy wonks.  Iris confirmed what he had overheard - that some sort of blight had struck the crops on the Easternmost land mass - St Paul's Island.  The northern half of the country was under quarantine as was every ship and cargo leaving the planet. 

This explained our visit from Imperial Naval science officers when we docked.  They inspected our cargo bay and implied a civilian evacuation could be a possibility.  How that marries up with a crop blight was not explained and Iris and her friends didn't know either.  Also, the presence of Imperial Medical staff seems odd in these circumstances.

Anyway, we got down to the business of the train.  It leaves the southernmost settlement of Devonstown at 11am tomorrow and takes about 4 hours to get to Jordansville, about 2,500km to the north.  The train is a maglev - cheap grav tech that follows a laid magnetic line.  In its straight line sections, the train gets up to 750 kph but there is a section of track about 200 clicks out of Jordansville where it slows down to a more manageable 250kph.  This is also a ‘dead zone' for comms and satellites as it runs through a mineral valley that creates a natural electro-magnetic field - a convenient point for us to stage our intervention.

We're looking for 4 large crates marked ‘M-1174A-D' which will be in one of 3 sealed cargo carriages at the rear of the train.  We'll need a team on the train to get into the cargo section from the front passenger coaches - this will involve some kind of electronic bypass.  No human guards are expected but there may be some robotic watch in place. 

Once we have located the cargo, we'll be able to open the carriage roof, so that Alex can manoeuvre the DART into position and winch it out - Iris's friends are installing that into our cargo bay tonight.  With everyone safely out and the cargo secure, we dust off and RV with Iris who should have a new cargo load for us to take back to Ffudn.  That should satisfy the customs guys that Rachel charmed the socks off when they poked their nose in after we'd docked.

Our first task is to fly down to Skaersh Island and then fly NOE to southern St Paul's to avoid land based radar.  With everyone's focus on the North, I think we'll be okay.

What happens after that is anyone's guess...