Chapter 3 - The package

"Ok, let us try to do this." Faraz's nervousness is back. "Erm, when we get out of the elevator turn right and busy yourself without being suspicious. I'll go left and get the Imprinter. That should not take more than a few minutes."

Faraz leads the group through a few grey service tunnels. Cold light illuminates the bare concrete and mocks the modern white look upstairs. After a few minutes walk they reach the elevator. The elevator ride is fast and short again and a red digital 6 glowing in the glass door reveals the floor the crew apparently is on. Faraz shoots the group an intense nervous look, then steps out and walks away to the left. After a few meters he turns a corner and the group can faintly hear him saying "Hi Klaus, I'll have to pick up something from the vault. Hand me the checkout form, will you?" The rest becomes inaudible.
The crew finds itself stand in a plain, white corridor. To the right, the corridor continues for a good 30m, with doors on either side. About 10m from the elevator the corridor widens for 5m with some plain white couches and chairs and a drink dispenser. It's very quiet in the hallway, just somewhere a machine buzzes in the distance.

"Someone should probably keep an eye on him," Taelor mutters to Elan.

"Follow me, I've got an idea" she says to the others. She steps out of the lift confidently and heads towards the drink dispenser. Making sure to place her body so that passerbys can't see what she's doing, she quickly dismantles the spout so that it starts leaking all over the floor.

She then unplugs the machine, unscrews its side panel, and starts getting to work "repairing" the broken dispenser.

"Someone should probably set up some wet floor signs," she says, nonchalantly. "Oh, and get a mop."

As she had rode up in the elevator, Lola had leaned back into the corner of the space, her arms thrust deep into the pockets in the front of the overalls, her head tilted low. She hadn't any experience in being a cleaner, but she did know what it was like to be a menial worker. Her factory days might be many years behind her, but it wasn't hard to relax her body from its usual rigid bearing. Part of recon involved escaping the enemies sight, and a way to achieve this was by presenting them with something they would be expecting to see. If she was really working this shift, she wouldn't be motivated to do anything quickly.

Following after Taelor, she gave a quick nod and a grin at the other woman. That was quick thinking.
Shaking her head, she swore.
"Split wheel, ches'n nats been messing about with it again, I don't doubt."
Turning languidly, she scanned the room quickly with her eyes, keeping the rest of her movements slow, and if she could find something that resembled a cleaning closet, made her unhurried way over to it, and rooted about inside it for a mop and some wet floor signs, which she would bring back over.

Her expression while she did this, was a listless frustration. All the while though she was carefully listening and watching out, the best she could to try and work out if any of the rooms behind the doors were occupied.

"Well, shit", Graham muses, not thrilled with the idea of searching for a janitor's closet. He knows wandering, mucking about, will look suspicious. But Lola seems to find one quickly, and thankfully.

Reasoning that there may be a valve or something where a water pipe feeds into the machine, he sets out to find where the water feeds into the machine.

"Hmm, maybe we can pry off this panel behind the dispenser...", but he has no interest in prying off the panel. Just more mess to clean up, more mess to explain. He busies himself around the water line, hoping for Whiteley's rapid return.

Elan disobeys and turns to the left out of the elevator, following Faraz to keep an eye on him. Faraz is visibly nervous and that could spell trouble to an alert security guard. Elan wishes that he had a suit to wear to pose as some high-and-mighty exec. Elan's a little young but he could pretend to be some wunderkind, maybe rattling off intelligent-sounding things he's heard Rena say before. But Elan doesn't own a suit and nor does he have enough time to steal one.

Right now his main goal is to remain unseen. His secondary goal is to hear the exchange between Faraz and Klaus. His third goal is to watch the exchange. He doesn't want to bonk Klaus over the head but that might be the preferable course of action if Klaus grows suspicious and/or summons backup.

While Taelor fiddles with the newly broken drink dispenser, Lola walks past the next few doors. Each door has label illuminating on the door. Most of them are semi cryptic alphanumeric nonsense, but surely enough on the third door she finds the label 'maintenance'. With a smile, she touches a the open icon and almost walks into the door, as it stays closed.

In the meantime a woman in a very fancy, dark grey pants suit walks into the coffee area and looks at the crew in surprise. "What are you lot doing here? Ah, darn it, the drink dispenser again? God, I need a coffee now. But why is there five of you for the machine and a puddle?" She points at Lola and Rena and continues "You and you, come with me. The air conditioner in my office reeks and your colleagues have been pushing my request down the list forever. Let's go, chop chop." She turns around and walks back the way she came from and into an office not far down the hallway.

Elan follows Faraz until the corner and overhears the conversation. Peaking around the corner he can see a counter, with a man behind it, obviously Klaus. Past the counter is a wide door with two guards standing motionless and staring emotionless into the distance.
Elan can see Klaus handing a dataslab on which a nervous Faraz scribbles something and hands it back. "Sank you Faraz. Vait here, I vill get you ze item. Are you alright? You seem veird." Klaus takes the slab and walks past the guards into the door and the leaves a nervous Faraz behind. Faraz fiddles with whatever he can get his fingers on, again and again peeking, not so subtly over to the guards.

Best to have a real tech deal with the hag. "Take my place," Taelor tells Rena. "I'll go help the witch. She probably can't tell the difference between us anyway."

She stands and moves out of the way so Rena can get through. "Just wriggle your hands around in there."

Taelor walks to the office. Fixing an AC should be child's play, hopefully her metatool would be enough. When she gets to the door, she gags. The lady wasn't kidding about the smell. "Yeah, that's a problem alright," she says. She looks around the room, trying to locate the air conditioner. She then makes her way towards it and starts examining the broken machine.

The scene unfolds before Graham, and he watches the lady in the gray pants suit as she walks away. Taelor seemed to be on the same wavelength. "Take your 'trainee'. Get somebody in there with a chance to actually fix the thing quickly and get out. She won't care who goes in there, as long as whatever it is gets fixed."

He has no idea whether Rena or Lola can fix anything, but having a couple of amateurs bumbling around might get Pants Suit Lady in a huff, and that's when calls are made. Taelor can handle this.

He hates not knowing what his people can and can't do...

"Wait, I didn't ask you. Why are you not fixing the dispenser? I need a coffee! It's late and some people have important work to do. And those people need coffee. But whatever, it's over there, just fix it already." She makes an unspecific gesture towards the corner of the room, without even looking and sits down at her terminal starting to furiously hack on it.
Taelor finds the air conditioner and after opening the blinds immediately sees what the problem is. Embedded into the filter, which is clogged with dust, someone placed a, by now half rotten, rat cadaver. Taelor gags involuntarily due to the sight and stench. "How much longer?"

"Well, I found the problem." She smiles at the mean lady, briefly considering grabbing the rat and tossing it at her. "You may want to go for a walk while I dispose of it and clean this up."

Taelor reaches for the bin under the desk and takes the plastic bag out of it. She puts it around her hand and grabs the rat carcass. It feels soft and leaks a bit. Taelor suppresses the urge to throw up, again. She decides to take out the whole filter. The lady won't know the difference before they're gone anyway. She closes the bag around it and ties it up. She then closes up the air conditioner.

She takes the bag out of the office and drops it in the bin in the coffee area.

Elan raises his telekinetic defenses. He starts studying one of the guards, focusing his concentration and aiming in case he needs to drop the man. He hates the odds and doesn't want to act preemptively, but at the same time he's kicking himself that he didn't get the drop on Cheng while Cheng was on deck and unsuspecting. As a result, Elan got punched and still aches from it.

What are the options? he thinks. Abort? With or without the helmet, we're the same distance from the ship. Might as well grab it if we can, salvage some sort of value from this whole escapade. If the guards are going to shout, might as well give them something to shout about.

Lola had turned back from the non opening maintenance door, when the new figure had come into their room. A problem? She'd have to keep her eye on her. And if she was, she'd go for silence before blood, straight hard and fast to the throat to stop any chance for a scream. Following Rena, she moved into the room, shoulders and head tilted low, but keeping a close eye on everything in the room. It seemed like she was alone here.

The smell was certainly strong in the room. It was an awfully familiar smell. Something had died here and was rotting away. Something small, she guessed, or else the smell would be stronger. As Rena withdrew the rat, she grinned and flicked her eyes over to the other woman.
"Wonder if someone put that here deliberately?" she asked under her breath. Half curious, she gave a brief look over the machine and the floor beneath it for rat droppings, all the while reaching around the back of the machine and fiddling with the front. Giving the inside a brief brush with the edge of her sleeve.

"Smell 'ell go soon and you'll be back to normal again."
She followed Rena back out of the office and made her way back to the maintence closet to see if she could figure out how to open it.

Rena nods in confirmation, then pretends to get interested in the vending machine. They were in so deep that she could barely believe it, and all they could do was keep going. The situation should be overwhelming, but for some reason the good doctor was as calm and lucid as if she were effecting combinatorial synthesis on a newly-hydrophilicised isotere cluster.
It's not just the stim, she muses, though its impact could not be discounted. It's this crew. They make something this insane seem as natural as catabolic enzyme induction.

Finding solace in the eye of the storm, Rena continues to act out the part of janitor.

It takes only a few minutes, but with Faraz demeanour it feels like eternity until Klaus returns through the door. "Here you go, Faraz. Ze form is filled and everysing is logged. You are good to go. Zo", he stretches the last word, eager for small talk to pass some time of the boring late shift, "Vat does zat sing do? Everybody is all secretive about it. It's zo exsiting." Faraz eagerly grabs the case with the helmet and just walks away, towards Elan. Klaus looks after him in surprise, the guards are yet to show any interest or emotion.

The lady looks at Taelor with a dismissive look, which says 'I don't care about the reason, that's your job' and then gets back to her terminal.

Graham pulls out Chengs compad and flips through it. It's almost empty, no apps, no data, no contacts, very few calls. Definitely nothing related to flight control.

Elan watches along. Not saying anything isn't the worst move; if anything, it might fit in with the general atmosphere of imperious executives. But maybe Faraz has a reputation for chit-chat and the guard will be suspicious that he just walked off without a word.

Oh well, Elan sighs. What the hell.

Elan knows that the team has split up a bit. If it looks like Faraz is free and clear, then he'll send a simple message to rally the troops: <<alright my little berries, it's time to jam>>

Faraz walks quickly, only little short of jogging, towards the main hallway, turns, starts when seeing Elan and continues. Under his voice he hisses "I told you to stay on the other side. Let's go, I have a feeling they are on to me." He hurries, clutching the container in front of his chest to the elevator, waiting there for its arrival and the arrival of the rest of the crew.
Behind themselves the members of the crew coming from the coffee area can hear a familiar shrill voice "That machine better be working like new, or I'll call your supervisor."

In the elevator Faraz exhales long and loud. He is visibly shaking. "I have the Imprinter. They're probably already on to us. Did you manage to do something about the flight plan? We have to hurry."

Taelor grits her teeth at the sound of the boss lady's voice. Corporate schmucks are such assholes. Thankfully, she sees Faraz and Elan walk past with the case containing the Imprinter. She quickly puts the spout back together, then taps Rena on the shoulder. She takes her place and closes up the drink dispenser.

"Hold the lift, please. We'll just be a second." She takes some napkins, hands a bunch of them to Rena, Lola and Graham, and cleans up as much of the spill as she can in a few seconds, then stands and heads for the elevator.

Thelonius wrote:

In the elevator Faraz exhales long and loud. He is visibly shaking. "I have the Imprinter. They're probably already on to us. Did you manage to do something about the flight plan? We have to hurry."

"There wasn't anything on Cheng's compad that was any use, but there's on other thing to check."

He goes back to Cheng's compad to look at the phone records. Is it possible that they simplified ship clearance via call? He thumbs through the records, hoping to see contact names or contact functions. If he doesn't see anything here, he knows they may be dodging planetary defenses as they try to make their escape.

"Stay calm. Think. Think!"

"Did anybody get the name of Pant Suit Lady? A nameplate on her desk or anything?" Graham searches for anything, any piece of information that can be of use.

In an 'aha!' moment, Graham spots a link on Cheng's compad that takes him to the Freyer corporate intranet.

He mumbles as he scrolls, "Ellison....Farnbacher.....Fazzioli....Fenton...Aha!...Flight Control" He backs up to find Cheng in the directory, in case anybody asks for a first name.

He taps the number for flight control and waits a moment. A cheery voice comes across the line, "Freyer Flight Control, do you have a request this evening?"

"Good evening, thank you, I'd like clearance for Tsunami, please. Should be departing in the next 30 minutes or so." He continues with a little chit-chat about the pleasant weather for an atmospheric departure, the joys of crossing into daylight during a night flight, until he's sure that the friendly voice at the other end is ready to be rid of him. The call ends with a thank you and the obligatory pleasantries, with a profound twist of his mustache.

"We're clear, let's go. If there's suspicion, would it be helpful to walk out the door separately, or take different elevators down?"

The elevator arrives at ground floor with a gentle chime and the six passengers spill into the lobby. Given the time it's not surprising that it is deserted. Outside a couple of carts are waiting, their bored drivers flicking through content on their compads. As the crew exits the building the first driver jumps up and asks for their destination. After he learns the destination to be the ship and confirms the flight clearance, he drives the cart with the group over to the ship.

Arriving at the ship, looking back, everything seems quiet. Almost everything.
When Lola enters the ship last she looks back one more time at the place that was her home for a long time. She's about to turn to the ship when she sees a few more carts leaving the building. At the same moment Faraz's eyes widen. "Erm, I-i think we have a problem. I just got a company wide notification about me deserting. I-i don't know what happened or how they know we're here. We have to leave. Fast!"

"Shit!" Taelor scrambles up the stairs to the cockpit. She rushes to the pilot's seat and enters the ignition sequence. She sits down and fastens her harness, before activating the ship-wide comm. "Might need y'all to buy me a bit of time while I get us in the air. Graham, get up here and make sure they don't lock us down."

Taelor grabs the controls and keeps her eyes on the Tsunami's instruments, ready to take her up as soon as she can.

Elan doesn't seem overly concerned. Either he's been in so many high-adrenaline situations in his life that he's used to it, or he figures that the outcome is largely outside of his control and thus is detached and fatalistic about the consequences.

But, still, he hustles. Now that they're back at the Tsunami he has access to his equipment. "Here," he says, handing the laser rifle from the boat to Lola or Rena. Then races to his berth to retrieve Betsy and a handful of Type A cells before taking up a position next to the hatch.

"Strap in, doc," he tells Faraz, indicating the booth in the mess area. Elan crouches in the main cargo bay by the rear hatch, ready to lay down covering fire if necessary.

"What do you think?" he comms Taelor. "Skim low next to the surface before escaping on the other side of the world via the planet's shadow?" This is mostly speculation; ship-based tactics aren't Elan's expertise. It's entirely possible that jumping fast and furious is the only logical approach.

Taelor pauses as Elan asks his question. "Huh. Uh... Depends. Faraz? Lola? What can you tell me about the planetary defenses?" She asks over the comm. If the defenses are lasers or railguns, then Elan's suggestion makes sense. Best to get out of their field of fire. If they're missiles, then getting away as fast as possible would be the way to go.

Graham straps in and fires up his console looking for any mention of local defense networks.

Figuring that HQ and the spaceport will be the most heavily-defended spot on the planet ,"Put the spaceport between us and HQ. Stay low, so HQ's defenses don't have line of sight. Get as much speed as you dare before pitching vertical." He glances quickly at Dr. Whiteley, saying "Don't worry about the vomit, we'll deal with that later."

"Scanning for defenses..."

He feels his fingers involuntarily gripping the armrests of his console, and pries them off to work the console. He looks anxiously towards his viewscreen for signs of aggression.

Taelor initiates the takeoff sequence, skipping every check that can reasonably be skipped. Like a sleeping dragon the ship slowly awakes, the reactor scaling up, the familiar hum spreads through the ship. Taelor closes the hatch and punches in a preliminary flight plan. Out low and then fast up. The defences will be strongest over the compound, best to stay out of that line of fire, but who knows what's waiting elsewhere. She throws another look at the outside cameras. A comical chase started, the slow carts with their pursuers creep slowly closer, but are still a good way out. Unless something completely unforseen happens, they won't make it on time.
Shortly after the ship is ready to leave. Now it counts.

The Tsunamis engine screams loudly when the ship darts off at max acceleration, taking no regard of the platform and its installations. The forces inside the ship are overwhelming when everybody gets pressed into their seat. Taelor has to use all her strength to move her arms to steer the ship out towards the ocean.
Only a few moments pass until the Tsunami is well out of sight of the Freyer buildings, when Taelor pulls up the ship in a wide arc towards the dawning sky. Now acceleration and gravity work in opposite direction, making it hard to breath.
The ship shoots up through the thinning atmosphere when suddenly a red light starts flashing indicating an incoming projectile. Taelor frantically checks the scanners and spots two missiles roughly following the Tsunamis path, but closing in fast.
Announcing the pending maneuver on the coms she puts the ship in a spin and prepares to change course. The missiles get closer and closer, already visible on the outside cameras, when Taelor pulls the ship around, heading back between the missiles. The missiles following the spin and the fast turn start a morbidly beautiful dance around each and almost reach the ship, when Taelor desperately pulls it around once more. The missiles follow the turn once more but get into each others way and detonate in a large explosion. The ship shakes and rattles worse than during the high speed atmospheric chase. It feels like it was just moved by several meters sideways. Content of cabinets spill and fly around the ship. Heads hurt, ears are humming. Then silence. Taelor holds her breath waiting for the klaxons to start blaring, but the ship remains calm. Just the hum of the engine. She takes a look at the controls, the ship is in space hurtling away from Sepcinc and no major damages are registered.

The hard maneuvers, the incoming missiles...Graham remembers the familiar sensations from his dad's ship. The exhilaration, followed by the moment after combat resolution, like a sword-wielding warrior checking his extremities for lost limbs after a savage fight.

The silence settles in, the crew seemingly holding their breath. The moment seems interminable.

"Freyer's going to be mad -- we scratched their missile" Graham says, breaking the silence, and probably with more nonchalance than intended.

"Great job, Taelor. Seriously good bit of flying. I think you confused the hell out of their defenses with your fancy footwork." He can't help but smile as he looks at Whiteley the scientist, so aptly named, considering he was now white as a ghost and ready to puke.

"Status reports?"

Captain_Hoyt wrote:

"Freyer's going to be mad -- we scratched their missile" Graham says, breaking the silence, and probably with more nonchalance than intended.

Taelor chuckles, the tension starting to leave her body. It had been touch and go for a while, missiles were a particular pain in the ass, but she and the Tsunami had pulled it off. She pats her console affectionately. "Good girl," she says under her breath.

Captain_Hoyt wrote:

"Great job, Taelor. Seriously good bit of flying. I think you confused the hell out of their defenses with your fancy footwork." He can't help but smile as he looks at Whiteley the scientist, so aptly named, considering he was now white as a ghost and ready to puke.

"Status reports?"

Taelor looks at her instruments. "Looks like some of the shrapnel hit us. We're still space worthy, but I'll have some work ahead of me during the trip. I'll set a course out of the system and have a look." She plots the course and sets the autopilot, then unfastens her harness and pulls herself out of her seat to go check on the damage.

She heads down the stairs and takes the hallway towards the galley. "Everyone okay?" she asks as she passes through on her way to retrieve her tools from the engine room.

As they exited the elevator and moved into the lobby, Lola turned to Taelor and asked
"Which berth is your ship in? I'll meet you over there in two shakes. Most of my stuff's in a locker not too far from here and I should grab it."
As she turned to run, she grinned,
"Hopefully catch up with you before thumbs are pulled out!"

Boots thumping on the hard floor, she ran as fast as she could, occasionally pretending to check her wrist for the time. It was only a limited disguise but when you see someone running you either try to stop them, or get out of the way, and today wasn't the time for a lone mechanic to figure she was a thief. After a couple of minutes of hard running, she eventually found her way to the row upon row of lockers. Jogging a bit slower, she winded through the rows until she finally found it. 42. All her worldy possessions fit into there. Entering the combination, she pulled the heavy bag free and slipped it over her shoulders, smiling at its familiar weight and feel. The laser rifle, she strapped her chest, where it could be easily grabbed if necessary. Despite the overalls, no one was going to believe she was a worker anymore. The bag and gun were just too obvious.

Aboard the cart, her eyes were wary and watchful as they accelerated through the port. It was odd to think she'd probably not see this port for a long time. For the past ten years she'd been in and out of here repeatedly for various missions and activities. Would she miss it? She doubted it. None of this was her home. It was just the prison she'd lived in carrying out the dirty deeds of those in charge. Of course it was also true she'd grown here, rising up from a rabble rouser breaking windows and antagonising the guards, to actually thinking and observing how the world was around her. Didn't mean she'd miss it though. Spitting out the back of the cart, she promised that when she did return, it would be to tear this all down.

Leaping from the cart, she'd jogged up the ramp before turning to see the carts coming.
"Guess they realized we left without any party bags."
Taking the opposite end of the rear hatch to Elan, she unstrapped her weapon and quickly checked to see it was loaded and ready, before turning to stare at the oncoming carts. She remained in her position as the engines came on, and the ship started to vibrate. It was only when they finally started to move, she darted from her position over to a seat, and quickly strapped herself in. She was well used to fast and furious exits from war zones, nitros chemicals spraying everywhere, bullets and laser whipping fast her face and that pull somewhere down in your gut as you suddenly moved extremely quickly away. Thankfully this exit had none of these, though she did have to pull both forearms up and above her face, as a cabinet opposite sprayed her with cans. Only one managed to slip through her defences in the end, smacking her in the eye.

As Taelor came past, she had a load of the offending cans in her arms and was packing them back into the cabinet.
"Right as rain and only half as wet comrade" she grinned.

As soon as the airlock hatch closes, Elan scrambles back to a seat with restraints. He buckles himself just in time for Taelor to launch the Vomit Comet into the stratosphere and beyond. He gulps hard to keep the snack from the boat from coming back up.

The missiles explode and Elan's head rings. He looks around. "Either we're alive or the afterlife is a lot like actual life," he says to nobody in particular.

"Things seem intact down here. How's the hull?" he comms the bridge. "Can we jump or do we need fuel and repairs?"

He scans the map of the current system and the next one over.

"There's a modern world - Ankanju Ratri - in this system where we could fuel up and get repairs. Fairly populous - 200MM - so we could get lost in the crowd.

"Next system over has three planets: one modern, one not-so-modern, and one that's maybe empty. The modern one is small, so nowhere to hide, and there are troubles with the indigenous population. The not-so-modern one is huge but there's a planet-wide conflict there.

"I'd vote for Ankanju Ratri, especially if there's a risk of us flying apart when we try to jump."

Tecumseh wrote:

"There's a modern world - Ankanju Ratri - in this system where we could fuel up and get repairs. Fairly populous - 200MM - so we could get lost in the crowd.
"I'd vote for Ankanju Ratri, especially if there's a risk of us flying apart when we try to jump."

"Stop for days worth of repairs right next to Freyer's seat of power? We got away from planetary defenses, but who's to say they aren't fueling a bird right now to come after us? We're still flying as Tsunami -- the transponder is telling everybody our identity."

Arm on the armrest, chin in his hand, Graham ponders.

"If we make a jump, we can change the transponder while we're in metadimensional space. When we come out of m-space, Tsunami would be identified as a different ship. We wouldn't pass close inspection, though, so that's the right time to blend in with a big crowd. For Freyer, it would be like searching for the needle in the proverbial haystack. To do this, we'd also want to temporarily disable our interstellar mail pickup before we jump, as well."

"I see it like this: if we want to trade with Innovative Networks, wash our hands of the protoype, and trade away this ship that Freyer is chasing, we want to go to Alba/Aldega. If we want to go on the lam with a scientist whose life is in danger, while carrying a prototype that Freyer will kill us for, and go to unknown areas where we have no idea what kind of help we can get, and pay 10,000 credits out of our own pockets to repair the ship we don't own, then we fly somewhere other than Alba."

He flattens his mustache with thumb and forefinger, and looks at Whiteley. "Doctor, do you want to get dropped off someplace and hope to find new employment where Freyer can't find you, or would you rather be under the protection of Innovative Networks as a paid scientist?"

Starting out of his thoughts the addressed looks a bit surprised to be involved in the conversation. "I, erm, to be honest I didn't think that far. The thought of Freyer reprogramming the product to follow everything, any crazy ideology or order unquestionably and with full conviction was too much to bear. But... I don't know what to do now. I'm scared. They will come after us for sure. If we had a powerful ally, I'd like that. " Faraz looks around seeking support for his worries.

Thelonius wrote:

Starting out of his thoughts the addressed looks a bit surprised to be involved in the conversation. "I, erm, to be honest I didn't think that far. The thought of Freyer reprogramming the product to follow everything, any crazy ideology or order unquestionably and with full conviction was too much to bear. But... I don't know what to do now. I'm scared. They will come after us for sure. If we had a powerful ally, I'd like that. " Faraz looks around seeking support for his worries.

Graham's eyes widen as Whiteley mentions what the helmet can do. Then he grins a little grin.

"Well, isn't this about the most dangerous thing ever invented..." he muses casually. "By virtue of holding this prototype, both Freyer and Innovative Networks will want us dead. We already know that Freyer would kill us without a second thought, but Innovative was probably already trying to find and kill us. Returning it to IN gets one mega-corp off our backs. That is, assuming they don't continue trying to kill us to keep their new toy secret."

"Faraz, we could also drop you off on Astyoc. It's a backwater place, you could probably blend in, and you could work for us. We don't pay a lot, because we just don't have the cash flowing yet. But if you happened to specialize in nano-technology, we could probably use you. I'm not making an offer, we haven't discussed it as a group, but it's a possibility that we could consider."

Lola had finished packing the offending cans back into their cabinet, and had turned arms folded, watching the others as they discussed their next move. Her right eye was beginning to throb, but she ignored it. Probably look like a cat's backside when the shiner came through but she wasn't really concerned. More important was what was going to happen next. She'd escaped/ contract been terminated and was suddenly free. Some might say the whole galaxy was open to her. Someone else might remove thumbs from their arse and say in reality, she was what she could carry on her back and the service she could provide. Reality of the capital industrial complex. So yeah, while she was just another passenger, it was worth putting forward her opinion. Their intention might be just to let her off at the next planet, which would be fair enough. And if not? Well, she'd judge that crossing when it came up. They were an intriguing group so far and she'd be interesting in finding out more about them.

When Graham mentioned her home world, her head titled to the side, interest flowering across her face. Now that really was an odd coincidence. She'd not been back since she'd been dragged away in manacles ten years back. She smiled to herself and wondered how many of the family might still be about. The Silent Legion liked to live up to its name.

Looking over at the older man, she spoke up.
"I might not be a member of your crew, but as someone else onboard, I'll put forward my thoughts. Considering all the points you lay out, I think Aldega makes a lot of sense. If they hadn't decided to silence me, I'd have probably been on one of the killer squads sent out to hunt you. Losing a ship that Freyer was able to identify would be the very least you could do. Plus when you've got one big hairy bastard getting handsy, easiest thing to distract it, is to introduce an opposing bastard."

Arms still folded, she suddenly grinned.
"Tis also my home planet, so I might be a little biased that way."

As Faraz spoke, Lola turned to look at him, her eyebrows creasing into a slight frown. Her heart had started to beat faster, and she could feel anger start to bubble deep down.
"Faraz? You say that thing could ensure that if it was put on someone they'd follow whatever orders they'd been given. Did the bastards have anything else like that? I'm ex Legion, as of earlier today. And while I have a chequered history I didn't think I'd done anything to justify termination. I have these vague memories from when they'd drugged me though, and they were talking as if I'd started to fight back against their mind control? Have the donkey sucklers been pupeting me?"

Taelor goes around the ship, inspecting the points of impact and making sure none of the shrapnel got through. As she works, she follows the conversation over the comms and as it echoes down the shuttle's hallway. Once she's satisfied the Tsunami won't come apart from the strain of a drill spike, she takes off the maintenance overalls, dumps them in her quarters, and joins the rest of the crew in the galley.

She leans against the doorway and looks at Lola. "If they were mind controlling you, it wasn't with the Imprinter. Didn't have it for long enough. Maybe that's why they wanted it; their old ways weren't working out. At least, you're out now." She smiles at Lola, then turns to the others.

"Anyway, good news is I can confirm we can make the jump. As for the destination... Alba sounds good to me. Only issue I can see is I may be wanted by the authorities there... If we can include amnesty in any deal we make with Innovative Networks, I'd be grateful. I'd love to stop standing on silt."

Faraz looks at Lola eyes wide with surprise "Why, yes of course", he lifts his hand to his chin and scratches it, the look of surprise changes into scientific interest, "Interesting, you didn't know. Well, mindcontrol is a strong word. See, those medical checkups were mostly to administer a cocktail of drugs that are designed to suppress your individual thoughts. They make it hard for you to form your own opinion or make decisions, leading you to be happily accepting other people's orders. Now, as you know, with some individuals this worked better, with others less so. You are one of the latter. This made the process fragile and the Imprinter is the perfect solution. Instead of suppressing free decision, Freyer can make sure those decisions will always be in line with the ideology and strategy of the client. Even better, you no longer have to give conclusive orders, you can rely that the subject will make the right decision by itself. It's quite ingenious. " during the last sentences Faraz gets more and more excited about the fascinating science involves. "Alas, you obviously see the problem with this. End of individualism and free will as we know it. The Imprinter can be used for very good purposes, you saw the video I sent you. But as with many great inventions the risks of misuse are immense."

moarhair wrote:

"Anyway, good news is I can confirm we can make the jump. As for the destination... Alba sounds good to me. Only issue I can see is I may be wanted by the authorities there... If we can include amnesty in any deal we make with Innovative Networks, I'd be grateful. I'd love to stop standing on silt."

Graham juggles with the competing conversations, but Taelor's mention of the ship focuses his attention.

"No fatal perforations, eh? That's some good news. I've turned towards Alba, by the way. If Freyer showed up, I wanted to already be on the way to a jump point, rather than sitting in neutral space picking our noses waiting to be caught. Hope you don't mind. Thanks for checking Tsunami out."

Taelor's revelation about being wanted by Alba's authorities solidifies Graham's thoughts on the next jump. There's no outward sign of worry, but it seems to enter his calculations.

"You're currently registered as the captain of Tsunami, and that could be a problem. When we arrive in Alba, you'll register in all the local flight control databases, so let's do something about that. While we're in m-space, let's go ahead and change the transponder. We probably needed to do that, anyway, if we were going to deal with Innovative. This is just another good reason to do it."

Graham taps his viewscreen a few times, the light reflecting off his face. He disables the mail transmission, so there are no inconsistencies with mail picked up by Tsunami, and delivered by the S.S. Who The Hell Is This.

"Aldega..." Elan muses, not having realized that they had enough fuel to jump that far.

"That works," he says with a shrug, appearing somewhat indifferent. "Lots of shadows on Aldega, which suits me just fine."

He muses for a bit about how Graham is so preoccupied with laws and contracts and doing things 'in the light' so to speak. It makes sense, given Graham's career as an administrator. Elan, conversely, has spent his career actively trying to avoid the law. The megacorps and the courts that bind them are so far above him that they're largely outside his notice. They doth bestride the narrow world like Colossus, he thinks to himself, and we petty men walk under their huge legs and peep about.

He raises a finger to make a point. "I will note that Lola asked Cheng where Cox is, and his answer - as he gurgled blood - was 'Aldega Court'.

"Aldega's a big enough place that I'm confident that we can get lost in the crowd, but it's not Freyer-free. I don't know what sort of retinue Cox might travel with but it's entirely possible that he'll have some Silent Legionnaires with him for security. There might be competing forces on the ground while we're putting out feelers, trying to make a deal."

Tecumseh wrote:

"I will note that Lola asked Cheng where Cox is, and his answer - as he gurgled blood - was 'Aldega Court'.

"Aldega's a big enough place that I'm confident that we can get lost in the crowd, but it's not Freyer-free. I don't know what sort of retinue Cox might travel with but it's entirely possible that he'll have some Silent Legionnaires with him for security. There might be competing forces on the ground while we're putting out feelers, trying to make a deal."

"That does seem likely. Do we need to be concerned about him, or do we need to work our own game? I take some satisfaction knowing that it will be some time before he finds out that Freyer no longer has the helmet. If he had plans at Aldega based on having it, he'll be in an awkward position, to say the least." His fingers tap on the console. So many possibilities. So many opportunities. So many ways this can all go to hell.

"When we get to Alba, let's see if we can tap into the system's navigational beacon. Find out what ships have arrived in-system, and see if we can nail down which ship he's on."

He seems lost in thought as he weighs the possibilities. He's dealt with navigational beacons before. His programming experience was more on the planet-side of navigational record-keeping, those systems interacted heavily with the navigational beacons. Ideas flash through his mind. If he can just get into that system...

Elan doesn't know anything about transponders or navigational beacons so he leaves that for Graham to figure out with Taelor.

Elan is still a bit achy from being punched by Cheng. He has Rena give him a once-over to confirm that nothing's broken. Evidently Elan just needs to rest and avoid strenuous activity, which is convenient because rest and non-strenuous activity are the only options on the Tsunami for the next 7 days or so. He could do a whole bunch of squats and pushups but... ew.

"I need a personal project," Elan muses to himself. "Maybe I'll compose an opera. Set in space. A space opera."

Elan isn't really a composer, or a librettist, but you have to start somewhere. He starts working on it in the lounge.

"What should I call it?" he asks rhetorically. He's mostly talking to himself.

"We just survived an assassination attempt, so maybe I should call it Perseverance. No, not descriptive enough.

"Star Trip? No, not exciting enough.

"Star War?" He makes a face. "Exciting, but too grim.

"Galaxy Odyssey? Galoxyssey? Tongue twister.

"I know! Star Safari!" He scribbles it down excitedly on his compad, underlining it twice, and starts to work on a script where a devilishly handsome rogue full of mysterious space magic is on the run from the evil Imperium...

Lola nodded her head over at Taelor.
"Tis true. Free to plan whatever I want to hit them back."

Her expression darkened visibly as Faraz continued his description of what the drugs had done to them. Tightening one hand into a fist she slammed it angrily into the open palm of its opposite partner.
"Ches'n.. donkey mouthed suckling corrupted and rotting arseholes! No Faraz..."

She let out a loud sigh and after a pause continued in a calmer voice, though there was clearly still a brush of heat behind the words.
"I didn't know. None of the rank and file knew. It makes a lot of sense though. Rats chew, yeah there's a lot I need to think about. Orders which were just followed out. Things I've done..."

For a moment she looked down at her hands, before stuffing them roughly into the front pockets of her overalls. She was quiet for a while as Elan and Graham spoke, but as they came to the end she spoke again.
"Changing the transponder sounds sensible. I'd also suggest while we are trying to make a deal, to have at least one or two trying to see what Freyer is up to. By the time we arrive on planet they'll know about the missing tech and it would be useful to know if they are hunting for us, or up to something else altogether."

If the group seems to be splitting up, she'll ask if there is a cabin or an area she could make use of.

"You can take one of the coffin beds for the passengers. They're just off the cargo bay, towards the back. Just ask Elan which one he picked. If you're claustrophobic or something, then you can bunk with me. You'll have to sleep on the floor, though."


As the Tsunami travels from Valiu to Aldega, Taelor resumes her usual routine: working out regularly and fiddling with her drone in the common area, happy to chat with whoever's there. She seems more nervous than during their trip from Astyoc to Specinc.

Reposted for Lola, in case she chats with Taelor:

Once they're in metadimensional space, she swaps the transponder.

The past few days had been a blur of intense excitement for Rena causing a need for some personal recovery, and the news that she was heading back to Aldega for the first time in over a year left her feeling both nervous and reassured at the same time. The good doctor spends most of her free time alone in the cabin kindly offered to her by Elan, working through the vivid memories of the assassin's final moments with the help of her own chemical concoctions and Taelor's kind words on the boat, before finally shaking the melancholy. When the Tsunami was a day out of drilling in to the Alba system, a much more buoyant and composed Rena Young began enjoying more time with the crew, especially getting to know Lola as best she could.

When Graham mentions contacting flight control on Ankanju Ratri Faraz looks up in surprise. "You will not have much luck contacting anybody there. There is a dense asteroid cloud around the planet, noone has heard anything from there in ages. Must have been two big asteroids colliding near the planet or something and gravity collected the debris. It's not clear, all we know it hasn't always been like that. The debris is exceptionally fast flying so it is insanely dangerous to collect it or fly through. And since noone has received a signal from the planet in ages, so far noone bothered to invest into the cleaning of the orbit. So, noone will be able to tell you about other ships. Or tell on you for that matter. "

Elan is content in his little bunk. He comes out for meals and is happy to converse or play a game of Elan Ball, but he's also fine in his 2m x 1m x 1m berth for hours at a time, laying on his back, listening to music, and composing lyrics of middling quality. Occasionally he can be heard singing to himself in low tones, sometimes experimenting with different pitches or notes.

He's sympathetic to Lola and Faraz. It's warm under the dragon's wing, but it's no place for Elan so it makes sense that they would want out to. A life of militaristic discipline - or scientific rigor - is quite the opposite of how Elan wishes to live. He seems put off by the notion of hard work, which is ironic because he's put so much work into avoiding work he's gotten quite good at what he does.

"We should get a cat," he says, apropos of nothing. "A cat," he repeats, looking around to confirm that everyone comes from worlds with domestic felines. "Small carniverous mammal? They're soft and they purr a lot. Sometimes they shed. Anyone have allergies?"

Taelor is sitting at the table in the common area, reading the latest issue of the Metaspace Starfinder, an interstellar celebrity gossip rag, on her dataslab. Liao Xiang, of Hellrider I through VI fame, had broken up with Billie Peterson, all-star catcher of the Chracleburg Chariots, and she needed to get all the details.

She perks up at Elan's suggestion. Cats were one of the rare kind of pets they had back home. Wherever humans went, rats seemed to follow, so people brought cats. "Ooh, a pet! That's a great idea! And if we ever have rats, it can hunt them for us." She pauses, remembering how useless Purrdro, her childhood cat, had been at hunting. "... or, you know, stare at them with mild curiosity, then roll over for a belly rub."

After the fun visit to Sepcinc, Graham reflects on his new life. He's found himself struggling for survival far more in the last month than he ever had in his entire life. He's never relied on a gun so much. He reflects on the devastation he has wrought to two ficus plants, and realizes that getting pointers from Taelor, Elan, and/or Lola would be in order.

But with that risk, Graham is finding reward in both friendships and financial opportunities that he'd never had before. He wonders how the company is coming along, and composes a message to be sent after they arrive in Alba. "Check that, after business is concluded in Alba. Don't want to put data on the network that traces the Tsunami back to Astyoc. Not yet, anyway." He makes a mental note about reminding the crew, in case they had messages of their own to send.

The crew. They seem to be in good spirits, even with their injuries. Graham checks on them from time to time, and quietly watches for hints of a limp from Elan, or soreness from Taelor's shoulder. When he can find Rena apart from the crew, Graham asks her about their condition. They seem to be very resilient, but no one is invincible...

His thoughts turn to the ship, and while it's not in dire straits, it could use a little attention. Professional work isn't cheap, and Graham isn't excited about securing a nice payday on Astyoc just to hold out his hand later to take all the money for repairs. Working the ship into a package deal with IN seems like the right play, but with Mr. Cox ahead of us, there's no telling how he can screw up that calculation. Could we trim the course and get ahead of him? If we fail, we arrive in Alba late, and Cox will have been made aware of our departure with the helmet. He could prepare a surprise for us. If we're early, we can deliver the helmet to Innovative Networks, and the man who ordered the helmet theft on a silver platter. That may be worth the risk...

From the bridge, Graham's reverie is broken by the distant conversation in the galley.

"Cat? Did someone say we're getting a cat?"
Long pause.
Someone calls back "Yeah, a cat!"
Long pause.
"Okay!", he calls back.
Pause.
"Can we call him Mr. Floofer-sploot?"
After the resounding chorus of "No!" dies down, "Fuck, why not?!" drifts back from the bridge.

Lola gave Taelor a wink.
"Before I throw any shit about your floor, I'll give one of the coffin beds a try. If its truly terrible I'll come crying."
She found the space though confined, was no worse than she'd experienced in the past. It was a chas'n sight better than in two foot of mud fitfully gaining whatever hours she could between mortar fire. A lot of soldiers she knew tended to prefer small spaces in any case. There was something terribly full of possibilities about an open space.

**********************
In the intervening days, Lola established a loose routine. She would have liked to cast off the shackles of her past completely and live free, but it was hard to completely lose the routine of her past. Waking early, she would exercise first before making rations. Her food was fairly bland but nutritious and she made enough that others could eat if they wanted. After this she'd wander the ship, as if, and also not on patrol. When possible though she'd also take time to talk to the crew.

Sitting down, cleaning out her equipment, she'd enjoyed exchanging stories with Taelor. They came from a fairly similar background, both poor and later experience in armed forces. Her whole family had all been contracted for life in a factory, mother, father, two sisters, and three brothers. Hers had been a hand to mouth existence, until she'd got mixed up with the right crowd of rabble rousers pushing for unionization at the age of 17. One failed strike, and mass riot later, she'd been arrested and given the choice of the Silent Legion or death. Speaking back to her past days, Lola would smile, her eyes bright, looking back with fondness at her past fighting the company. The eleven years since had been more limited in their opportunities to rebel so she'd instead educated herself and took whatever little victories she could. She was less interested in talking about the various actions the Silent Legion had taken, though she'd make reference to a number of stealth missions, assassinations and opposed landings. She was happy to be free at last, free to gather strength and see about her revenge.

She made sure to talk to Rena curious about the crew member that she had seen the least, to discover what her background was like. She'd laughed when Elan had mentioned about it being warm under the dragon's wing.
"More like forcing yourself through the buttocks of a horny grass munching creature. Ches'n thing is on you from all sides and makes you smell worse than your dad after a night on the cog stripper. Only benefit is now I've seen their insides, I'm better equipped to tear them apart."

Sitting on the floor in the common room, leaning into the corner, she'd been poring over a well thumbed and grimy book, from which you could discern the title, 'Makhnovian tactics and strategies: Raising the Black Flag' when the cat conversation had started up. Grinning over at Taelor, she'd replied
"You say if you get rats. Can't certain but unless someone in the crew likes spreading tiny pellets over the underdeck, I'd say you are safe that way. Probably worth getting in a hunter to keep their numbers low."

The idea of a pet was a strange one to her. The only cats she'd ever seen were the fierce mousers in the factory, or rough scarred strays which attached themselves to their unit if they ever set up a base.

Metadimensional space always created unease for Graham. Moving through space made sense. You start here, you go such-and-such speed for this many hours and then you're over there.

But metadimensional space? It always seemed to him that it was cheating physics. It even looked different, like some kind of boiling mixing pot with space, matter, and time all blending together with unpredictable results. Cheating Mother Nature has its consequences, he knows, but he hopes to never find out what those consequences might be. So, it's with some reluctance that he calls the crew and Faraz to the bridge. Over the intercom, the message "I'd like to run something by all of you for a moment. Could you all head to the bridge, please?"

When they've all arrived, Graham gets straight to business. "We seem to have a group decision to make, so let's lay out the choices we have."

"Cox is headed to Aldega, and is several hours ahead of us. If his ship's drive is comparable to Tsunami's, he'll be there and probably on the ground by the time we get in-system. It is unlikely that he would know that we escaped, unless Freyer sent a faster ship after we left."

"We have an opportunity, if we trim the course, to arrive ahead of Cox, and contact Innovative Networks. If we can get a meeting with them before Cox arrives in-system, we can really ruin his day. Considering he tried to ruin our days -- permanently -- getting ahead of him has great appeal to me. You may feel differently, that it may not be worth the risk in trimming the course. Failure could cause substantial delay, and by the time we arrive in-system, Cox would be likely to know that we'd escaped. Fortunately, we won't be arriving in a ship called Tsunami, and that's very helpful. But giving him that kind of time advantage could cause problems for us."

He pauses, wondering what questions will fly. "And that's about it, really.  Nothing big, just what would you like to do regarding the guy who ordered all of our deaths?" He laughs and twists his mustache a little, before leaning back in his console chair.

Taelor shifts in her seat uncomfortably. Most of her piloting experience had been in-system and she was still a bit uncertain about her drill spike skills. Especially after the mishap that had landed her on Astyoc. Sure, the ship had been damaged, but she didn't know for sure that that was all that had happened.

"That's an extra layer of complexity to some already pretty difficult calculations... I..." She trails off and looks away, ashamed of her doubts. She was usually the kind of person to charge ahead with her head down, but this... failing the others... this scared her.