Baby Girl (Orbital Engine)

Overview

An orbital engine held by the Blacktop Saints on behalf of their allies, the Pacifica Confederacy. Locally it goes by the nickname “Baby Girl.” It’s the missing piece the crew needs to make the derelict Continental Brands ship at Port Fantôme spaceworthy for the Moon job offered by Zach the Hot Dog Maniac.

Description

• About the size of a pickup truck
• Sits on a large trailer, out in the open in the middle of the Blacktop Saints’ camp, visible to anyone walking past

Known Facts

• Recovered by the Blacktop Saints more than a year ago from a crash site in Northern California. Pacifica asked them to retrieve it because the Saints were uniquely able to, shortly after Pacifica bailed the Saints out following a disastrous supply run through the Sierra Nevada
• It’s a cornerstone of the Saints–Pacifica relationship, and giving it up likely isn’t the Saints’ decision alone. Pacifica may have space program ambitions of its own
• Maintained by the Saints’ mechanic Ezekiel Washington, whose daily work logs show he’s constantly tinkering with it and is personally attached to it
• Security is lax. No one seems specifically assigned to guard it, though the camp as a whole is watched from guard towers and has fought off small raider attacks
• Session 09: Kenny Log-ins planted forged records in the camp network claiming Washington had damaged the engine and that a far more skilled tech would be needed to do anything with it. The roll was low, so the forgery is likely not very convincing
• Moving it would require a vehicle big enough to haul the trailer, which the crew doesn’t have

Status

Held by: Blacktop Saints, for the Pacifica Confederacy

Wanted by: the crew, for the Moon job. They are weighing a negotiated “test run”/lease (Broker’s idea) against a heist disguised as raiders (Kenny’s idea), pending Felix’s return.

Open Questions

• What does Pacifica actually plan to do with it?
• Will Kenny’s forged damage records hurt Washington, lower the engine’s perceived value, or just draw attention?
• Can it be acquired without starting a war between Ziptown, the Saints, and Pacifica?
• Where did the crash it came from originate, and whose engine was it before that?

Appearances

• Session 07 — First mentioned (unnamed) by Zach as the engine the derelict ship needs, held by the Pacifica Confederacy
• Session 09 — Located and named: sitting in plain sight at the Blacktop Saints’ camp. Kenny pulled its history from the camp network and planted forged damage records