The Slow Mail to Juniper Reach
Deliver the mail to three tiny moons, one cup of tea at a time
Premise
The postal shuttle Dawdle has flown the Juniper Reach route for forty years, carrying letters, seeds and spare parts to three small moons at the quiet edge of the system. Next week the Post Authority retires the route and the ship. Its old pilot, Auntie Ola, has one last run left and a bad back, so she has hired help. The hold is full, the schedule is loose, and somewhere in the sorting bins is a letter that has been waiting thirty years to be delivered.
The World
Juniper Reach is three small moons circling a gas giant the color of peaches: Bramble, a farming moon of domes and orchards; Tinker's Rest, a scrapyard moon of workshops and very opinionated robots; and Hush, a quiet gray moon with a single lighthouse beacon and almost no one left. The Dawdle itself is a cramped, patched-up shuttle with a cockpit, a galley, a sorting room, artificial gravity set low enough to make everything float a little, and a cat-sized maintenance drone named Biscuit.
Starting Location
The Dawdle's Sorting Room
A cramped room of brass pigeonholes and drifting parcels, lit by a window full of peach-colored gas giant. A kettle is bolted to the wall, and one dusty bin is labeled in faded ink: UNDELIVERABLE.
5 characters to meet · 2 factions to discover · 3 plot hooks to uncover