Description
The viewing panels at the Sleeping Satellite need a clean. Are you up to it?
Start: Side Jobs, Spirit of New York City
Introduction
You swipe at the terminal and wait for confirmation. After a unit's pause, your file passes the Consortium's background check and you're assigned the job.
New goals: "Visit Adelina Krastev at the Inn for the panoramic panel cleaning job.".
You have accepted the "Panoramic Panel Cleaner" job.
Next NPC: Adelina Krastev, Inn, Spirit of New York City
- See Adelina about the job.
As you approach Adelina, you find her staring in dismay at what appears to be a broken cleaning bot, frozen in place half way up the Sleeping Satellite's main panoramic window.
Me: Adelina? I'm here for the—
Adelina swivels and grabs your arm tightly.
She says: <name>, right? Am I glad to see you! That things been stuck there for segments. Suction system's still holding it onto the glass, but everything else in on the fritz. I think the some of the polish solution leaked into the motor… We'll have to do it manually. Hope you got good rope skills?
Adelina points at a harness on the floor, next to various window-cleaning tools and detergents. You turn back to the large glass viewing panel before you. Through it, a dazzling stellar vista stretches out, hundreds of light-years in every direction. Adelina leaves you to it, and your thoughts return to the more mundane question of cleaning the huge glass window that separates you from the expanse beyond.
- Put on the harness.
(Agility check)
After some trial and error, you slip into the harness, fastening the various straps around your torso. It feels sturdy enough to hold your weight against the station's fairly weak spin gravity. You look up at the auto-belay units fixed at regular intervals above the panoramic window.
- Get started.
(Agility check)
With a few taps on a wall panel, you manage to activate one of the auto belays. The box on the ceiling slowly lowers a dangling rope to the floor. It hangs like a thick white Taungoo noodle as you attach yourself to it. A sensor on your harness bleeps, and the rope then tugs you upwards against the huge glass panel!
Me: Whoa there!
- Get cleaning.
(Agility check)
Your agility comes into play as you use one hand to control the auto-belay rope while applying a series of precise wipes to the glass panel with the other. With each flick of the wrist, the sparkling galaxies on the other side of the glass get even crisper and brighter!
- Finish the job.
(Agility check)
With the upmost agility you retract the rope and swing your body weight to reach the upper corners of the panoramic panel. With your other hand, you pass a wiper over the glass, its rubber blade releasing microscopic bursts of cleaning fluid as pressure is applied.
Me: That should do it…
As you lower yourself back down, the panoramic panel's glass is now spotless. Beyond it, the light of million distant stars shines that little bit brighter. Incandescent nebulae swirl and the flash of a shooting star glimmers occasionally as a comet burns up in the weak atmosphere of the planetoid directly beneath the station. Momentarily you lose your gaze in the infinite horizon.
A voice says: Nice, huh?
It's Adelina. She's holding a credit chit in her hand.
- Collect your payment.
Me: You got one heck of a view here.
Adelina says: Clean window helps. Thanks <name>, here's your wage.
Adelina smiles and hands you the chit, then turns back to admiring the view in contemplative silence.
You have received 85.00 credits.
You have completed the "Panoramic Panel Cleaner" job.
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