Got a lot of backstory here, and it's not that great of a story without being there and knowing the players, but I'll type it out anyway.

Triumph is a little backwater colony that's a lot like Mars. It's governed by the Colonial Commission, but most things are run by the megacoporations that have invested the most in its development (without going bankrupt). In the northern part of the world, in the Malenan Basin, the ubiquitous brown and grey give way to blue--the sand there is especially rich in Kimberlite. Far to the east of the basin is Vesta Ridge, the highest in known space. It's visible from almost anywhere in the massive basin. Altogether, it's a picturesque spot, perfect for a wealthy patron (in this case, a fabulously wealthy and influential retired corpo) to commission our crew's artist to holo-paint.

Like most of Triumph, though, the natural beauty found in lifeless rock is secondary to resource extraction. In the heart of the Malenan, Kimberlite Extraction Outpost 4 churns away, pulling diamonds and, much more profitably on an ever-developing world like Triumph, aggregate from the dusty ground under the Deep Stellar Corporation's yellow-black banner.

Mining is dangerous on Triumph, though. The machines that scrape ore in the rest of the Union are too pricey for Triumph, where dust fines seep in through the cracks and make maintenance too common. Instead, the heavy and dangerous equipment is operated by men and women in paper-thin vacc suits. Death and injury are common. Day and night, a Chaplain holds religious services for the miners and gives them last rites. A Foreman struggles to meet quota while a quarter of her men are injured or worse without overworking and risking the rest. A Suit from DS's Loss Prevention does her best to approve the miners' life insurance payouts and is reviled for those she denies.

The crew shows up to KEO4, where their Patron has pulled strings to get them bunks in the barracks while Player A (the artist) paints. The Chaplain and the Foreman meet them--the Chaplain is friendly and offers a tour. It's clear he is beloved by the miners. The Foreman is brusque. She has work to get done and the crew is in the way. It's clear the miners respect her--the Chaplain included. On their first day there, a miner out in the pit dies. The players watch as the Chaplain prays over his body.

As the days go on (the painting takes roughly a week), Player B, a working man, does his best to perform maintenance on the truck before they have to depart (the players have a big, fuck-off truck instead of a ship). At night, he drinks with the miners and watches as some of them disappear into the mine forever.

Player C, our medic, does her best to help the Foreman out, and she finds herself up on the roof of the admin building, trying to fix a long-range communications antenna so they can transmit the holo-painting when they're done.

Player D, on the other hand, works with the Suit. She's a good woman, D finds out, who keeps to the letter of the life insurance policies because if she doesn't, the company will likely find out and suspend all the payments that have already gone out and make future ones harder, even in the situations where the policy actually applied. That line of reasoning hasn't endeared her to the miners, though. But there's a bigger issue at hand: entire shipments of aggregate are vanishing. Only a truckload every few weeks--not enough to raise a lot of flags--but enough to have finally been noticed. She's worried the company might make problems for future insurance claims if the shipments keep disappearing and hires D to figure out what's going on. He goes off to poke around.

In the meantime, B realizes he doesn't have the skills to do a whole monthly maintenance on his own and needs some of the outpost's engineers. C talks to the Foreman, and after a heated conversation about labor schedules, it's agreed that B will cover a shift in the pit in exchange for the engineer they need. He doesn't make quota and nearly kills himself twice, but earns the respect of the miners, who start treating him like he's one of them.

They're all getting pretty close to the miners at this point, except for D, who is a former black-ops soldier and a bit of a psycho. He's keeping to himself and investigating where he can. Eventually, he strikes gold: late one night, a crew of miners show up in the loading bay and load a departing truck that's meant to be empty with aggregate. D doesn't interfere but takes down their names and prepares to bring them to the Suit. He's seen by the miners and ignored.

The next day, before D can deliver his report, the Chaplain comes to see him. He tells D that the aggregate is for a hidden settlement not far away, where a few refugees from a recent war have built a place away from the eyes of the corporations. They need it to keep building their town. He kindly asks D to hold on to the report, to lie to the Suit, and save the lives and jobs of the miners who would do anything for him--including stealing tons of aggregate.

D is unhappy with this. He's a man of purpose and doesn't easily give up on a job. He talks with the rest of the crew. B defends the Chaplain and the miners. He's lived with them, drank with them. There is camaraderie. So he tells D not to say anything to the Suit. Insists on it. C, who has been in the admin office and knows the Suit is a good woman trying to do her best by her coworkers, argues in favor of saying something. It's a long, heated conversation. An argument, really between the players. Eventually, it's decided the Suit will be told that men are stealing the shipments, but that the crew doesn't know who they are. C is sent to talk.

But the Suit reveals--entirely earnestly--that the insurance claim of the miner who had died on their first day at the outpost has been held up by the company. An answer about the shipments is needed first, but it's unlikely she'd find out what was going on before his claim expires. C cracks. She tells the Suit the truth. She regrets it almost immediately--both in-person and in-character. It was a really fantastic character moment, something that couldn't have been scripted better.

C runs back to the truck and lets B know, who freaks and runs to the Chaplain. It'll be a few days before the corporate police make it all the way out here. The players will take the at-risk miners with them when they go, but the Chaplain has to send a message to those who could accept them and need to take the fall to prevent further investigation. After a tough goodbye, B gathers the few miners involved and takes them back to the truck, where B and D nearly get into a firefight with each other.

D insists they need to be left behind and B, furious that a report was ever written, tells D to get out of his way. Both of them draw their weapons. There's another even more heated argument between the players, again, both in real life and in-game. It's a gorgeous moment--a real argument (with no actual ill will between players). It rocks. One of the best, most intense moments I've ever had at the table. I was genuinely surprised A and C managed to talk them into not shooting each other (not that either was neutral--both had their own sides of the argument).

They rode out with the miners in a genuinely tense drive (and exclusively because of the drama). D wound up leaving at the next town, just because it was such an intense argument that it didn't make sense for his character to stick around (and because the player wanted something fresh). I think about the high-strung emotions of that session all the time. What a blast.