Chapter 6: The wormhole not taken

Taelor's research is frustrating. Whenever she thinks she found a good candidate to talk to, she comes across material linked to the person revealing them to be either batshit crazy, fake or dead. After several hours and a few fruitless calls she has to admit. She can either go to the official news channel of Nan, or the officials. Alternative reporters are either affiliated with the officials, crazy or dead. Frustrated, she pushes her dataslab away and pours herself a drink.

**********

Sam and Graham deboard and head over to "fuel and supplies". Much to her delight she can find most of her sought supplies. The more exotic stuff, such as steaks, fruits and real vegetables are outrageously expensive, but she manages to talk Graham into getting a little something special for a initiation meal.

Spoiler:

**********

Elan leaves the ship, determined to find someone who can find someone. He remembers from his last excursion into the station, where most of the bars are that his potential business partners would frequent.
After a little walk through the crowd, he arrives at the Tilted Hour Outpost.
He sits, without buying a drink, and observes.
There are the loud boasty dock workers, the secretively sticking their heads together maintenence crews and some other groups that fit to the place, but not to Elan's plans.
After some time he sees two guys that look like crew members from some ship and after eavesdropping for a moment, he can confirm, their ore haulers. Over a pretext he introduces himself and the three quickly engage into a lively discussion about the art of hauling ore through space, a topic Elan, despite knowing little to nothing about, manages to entertain long enough to get to the juicy details.
When the topic comes to the dried up trade between Haliant and Gor information seems to become more and more vague. "They say that Haliant is behind a bunch of the problems on the mining stations, but I don't know. Why would they cut the branch their sitting on? It doesn't make sense. But thanks to them, the embargo is up and now we sit here and stick our fingers up our noses, instead of earning pretty creds one jump at a time.
We, for one, are considering taking our loads to Tireus. The Glory Fire Fellowship on Alcalit certainly have the creds to pay. But between them and the pirates, it's not exactly easy money. "

Elan tries to type out a message to Taelor:

<<Hey, can you come to the Tilted Hour Outpost? I'm talking with some ore haulers, dropping lingo that I've heard you use, but I'm out of my depth.>>

"Wait, Haliant has an embargo on Gor ore?" Elan asks to clarify. "I was just on Haliant and the merchant I was talking to didn't mention an embargo, just frustration that the shipments from Gor had dried up. There's an embargo but it's not even public knowledge?" He seems just as bewildered as the ore hauler.

He tries to bait them into sharing more.

"So you're making runs to Alcalit in Tireus, but you have to slalom through pirates on the way? Oh man you must have some slick stories about that..."

"Well, Gor is prohibiting export to Haliant. Is that not an embargo? I dunno all those fancy words.

Well, our last run to Alcalit has been a while. Tireus is just a nasty system, if you ask me. The Fellowship only cares about Alcalit and therefore pirates can roam undisturbed. Fortunately they often fighting each other, that's when you can slip through without convoy. But it's a tough thing to do. And on top of that, the Fellowship prohibited all booze and personal entertainment", he winks, "So there is really nothing to do, when you actually make it, except for heading back again. I just hope the Gor - Haliant route opens again soon."

"Oh, I thought you meant Haliant was prohibiting imports from Gor. If Gor is prohibiting exports, that makes more sense. Well, not that I understand why, but more sense than Haliant prohibiting imports and then complaining about it.

"How is Gor enforcing the embargo? What's to stop you from jumping to Haliant instead of Tireus?" A wink of Elan's own to convey that he's cool and on the level, which is to say criminal scum.

Tecumseh wrote:

<<Hey, can you come to the Tilted Hour Outpost? I'm talking with some ore haulers, dropping lingo that I've heard you use, but I'm out of my depth.>>

Elan's message pops up at the top of Taelor's dataslab, where she was watching some trite, local melodrama. She taps on the few visible words to expand it. //Sure, she texts back, didn't get anywhere anyway// She downs her drink, packs up her dataslab, and heads out.

The walk to the Tilted Hour is a pleasant one. The mass of people, the hum of the station, the smells coming from the different counters... the very humanity of it is like a warm blanket. It lifts her up out of the funk she'd found herself into after her failed search.

Taelor walks into the bar with a grin on her face. She looks around until she spots Elan talking to a much bigger dock worker. "What's up?" she says as she sits down next to her shipmate.

"Taelor, guys. Guys, Taelor.

"Taelor here is the best pilot I know. She grew up on a mining colony so she walks and talks the rock.

"The boys here were just telling me about Gor's embargo on shipping ore to Haliant," Elan says to lead the conversation the direction he wants it to go.

"Hi Taelor! I'm nameless-orehauler-1 and this is my colleague, Pete.
The embargo? Easily. They control the ships around the jump point to Haliant. The Tireus jump point is quite a distance from there. Some try to jump to Tireus and from there to Haliant. But that's quite a ride and the fuel really takes a bite out of the profits.
Where are guys coming in from? "

Samara's outing with Graham is relatively uneventful.  Not well versed in negotiation or haggling, much of their time together could be resumed as follows:



1. Samara sees an item that she would like to get and bounds over, dragging Graham exactly as much as he is willing to be dragged, since she is not particularly strong. 

2.The vendor, seeing her unbridled enthusiasm and insistence that this product is the one  that they have to get  cracks a smile that falls somewhere along the amused/ predatory spectrum

3. Graham steps in to thank the merchant for being fair, to intervene to keep Samara from being gouged, or to pull the cook away, heedless of her pouting, with a friendly reminder that "Few, if any consumables are worth that," or "The crew won't taste the difference," and sometimes both.



Once they have everything back on the ship, she is impressed with their haul. "We were able to get a lot more than I thought! I did not always enjoy your interventions at the time, but they were undeniably effective! Thanks Graham!  I'll get started on a meal as soon as I have an idea of when the others think they will be back."

The crewmembers not yet returned receive two messages from Samara in rapid succession:
<< >>
<< >>

"Hi No1, Pete, nice to meet you both! Our outfit's based in Xenthra, but our last stop before Gor was Mentta. It's where we first heard about the embargo. Any idea why the authorities aren't letting anything through? Are the rich old farts on Haliant not paying their bills? I swear, I've never met anybody cheaper than rich folks. Penny pinchers, the lot of them." Taelor waves the server over and orders a drink.

"Must be hitting you guys pretty hard. Unless the digging's stopped too, the pebbles must be piling up. Know anyone trying to make some room in their storage?"

Taelor's dataslab vibrates. She pulls it out to see Sam's message. She types a response and hits send.

It says: // ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ //

"Ne, the Halianti are paying more than fine. It's the Gor authorities that are blocking exports, after those Haliant agents attacked those mining colonies. Dunno if you heard. Some mining operations have been taken out, interfered with or sabotaged. Incidentally no operation out of Haliant. Serves those idiots right, but sucks for us. If you guys want to buy ore, I can hook you up, there is plenty available. What you do with it, is your decision. "

Taelor types another text to Sam: //We're at the Tilted Hour Outpost if you wanna join us//

She looks up sharply when No1 mentions Haliant agents attacking mining colonies. "What's that about attacks on mining colonies?"

"Here's our ship's comm ID, you can send the deets about your ore hookup there. We'll set up a meeting. Our business folks will talk to your business folks, yadda yadda..."

"Didn't you read it on the news feeds? It said they Haliant agents sabotaged and attacked the colonies and that as a consequence all exports to Haliant are now forbidden.
Why would they do it? No idea. Those old farts maybe want to pay less, I dunno. Who is gonna understand the senile old crazies.
Honestly I don't know whether they captured anyone. Good question. After I read the feeds, I didn't dig more. Why would I? Haliant sends agents, we cut them off the ore. Simple. "

moarhair wrote:

Taelor types another text to Sam: //We're at the Tilted Hour Outpost if you wanna join us//

Samara stares at the shrug for a moment and then shrugs her shoulders in turn; life was inherently uncertain after all. It's what makes it so beautiful!. With that in mind, she tosses a few key ingredients in marinades meant to enhance their flavor, improve their dubious quality, or both!, and then runs out, calling over her shoulder to whoever was listening (possible no one) that she was heading out to join their crewmates.

Crewmates! I have crewmates! She marvels for the Nth time, her elation not yet abated, while hitting send on a message.


<< >>[/color]

Taelor gives Elan a sidelong glance. This is shady as fuck.

"Hmmm..." she utters noncommittally as she turns her attention back to her dataslab. She searches the feeds for whatever she can find on these Halianti attacks.

Taelor finds a few articles, all following roughly the same narrative.

Quote :

Halianti agents linked to colony attacks

Officials managed to link Halianti agents to the recent attacks on peaceful mining colonies. After tireless investigations, findings show Haliant to be most likely to be responsible for the recent attacks and sabotages on Gor mining colonies. After attacks have only been registered on colonies not affiliated with Haliant, investigation efforts have concentrated on parties with ties to Haliant officials and investigations have been rewarded with positive results.
As a consequence all exports from Gor to Mentta have been suspended and any efforts to transport materials to the system will be fined. These fair and peaceful measures have been installed to stop further aggressions and avoid escalation with Mentta.

Elan is ready to move on. He raps on the table to signal the conclusion of the gathering. "Alright, lads, thanks for the tip. Stay safe out there! There's donkey suckers everywhere."

He breaks away from the conversation, ready to discuss next steps with Taelor, Lola, and Samara.

"Here's how I see it," he begins once they've gathered somewhere private. "I don't know that we're going to solve this one without a significant risk of life and limb. I say let's make some money instead!

"We're generally moving back in the direction of Xenthra to take Graham and Rena back to Astyoc. Mentta - and thus Haliant - is directly between here and there so it would be convenient to drop something off along the way. But the local authorities don't want us doing that."

You can practically hear the wink and the nod in his voice.

"We have a drive-3 so we can, in theory, just jump straight back to Xenthra.

"So it seems to me that we can load up some ore - we have about 120 tons of cargo space, is that right Taelor? - and head in that general direction. If nobody interdicts us, we jump to Mentta and make some money. If someone stops us, we just tell them we're going to Xenthra instead. We have enough documentation about our business interests there to be convincing. Graham can spin some administrative mumbo-jumbo to either befuddle them or lure them to sleep.

"And if we do have to jump straight back to Xenthra? No big deal: we drop off Graham and Rena and then take the ore to Mentta for a payday."

He to Taelor to see if his plan is feasible. Elan is, after all, a petty thief, not a smuggler.

Taelor nods when Elan asks about their cargo space. "120, yeah."

Taelor considers Elan's suggestion. She moves her head and mouths words silently as she does some mental calculus. In the end, she shrugs. "Hard to say. It'd be hard to bluff a Gor-Xenthra trip. It's not a common trade route. If I was stopping a ship making that claim, I'd ask to see their rutter, and I'm not sure we have one from Gor to Xenthra without stopping in Mentta. The Gor-Mentta and Mentta-Xenthra are well known and mapped, but I'm not sure anyone's found a meta-path for Gor-Xenthra. I'll have a look at the Undertow's archive. If I don't find anything, we can ask around. Someone might have done it before Astyoc's problems began. It'll be old, and expensive, but better than drilling blind."

"Without one... I doubt we'd make it."

Sam bounds into the Tilted Hour Outpost and immediately spots the rowdy dock workers.  On a different day, she might have joined them (not so much asking to do so as popping up next to them with a smile and the next round) - spending long stretches listening to the stories that are told when hearts are warmed by intoxicants and shared experience is one of her very favorite things to do.  But that's not what she is there for today.


When she finally clocks Elan and Taelor, they have wound down their conversation. It takes a lot of energy for her not to immediately engage with the duo, who seem to want to change venues.  Once settled in she listens intently, furrowing her brow occasionally, and nodding at the more declarative statements: it is not unclear whether she isn't actually following the exchange.

"So we have a plan!... Right?"

"Well, Sam, what do you want to do?" Elan asks, flipping the question around on her.

"We have a ship that will need maintenance eventually, so we should figure out a way to pay for that. Also, I'm broke _{because I spent all my money} so I'm motivated to make some creds.

"You have a new lease on life. What's calling to you?"

Samara looks at Elan with wide eyes, looking overwhelmed. What she wanted? That had so seldom mattered while she was with Mother J that she still struggled to think about what it was that she wanted for herself.

The only thing that she knew for sure, more instinct than conscious thought, was that she wanted to spend time getting to know these people; to share meals, sorrows, and triumphs;  to have her own stories to tell.

"I have 25 creds if you want them Elan!" She offers, beaming. "As long as there's a place I can sleep and a grocery budget for our meals, I probably won't need any credits for myself." with a shrug she adds, "We didn't use creds at Temple because 'you cannot place a value on fellowship', so any money that was earned or received was entrusted to Mother J." Samara pauses and bites at her lip, brows furrowed in thought. The others can see the exact moment that Samara makes a realization and seems to have found her resolve.
"I would like to find Mother J.  She wasn't there when… when I woke up... but I know that there must be a reason. She's probably working on building a new Temple!  Not that I'd want to join her," she says gravely, as if to try and reassure the others. "But it would be nice to get to say goodbye. And to tell her what happened to everyone. I'm sure that she'd want to know.  That won't necessarily help us get credits though.  Not unless there was a bounty out on her or something!"  Samara giggles at the idea that seems too ridiculous to entertain.

Taelor chuckles at Sam's offer. She's going to earn more money than she knows what to do with with us...

As Sam goes on, though, Taelor smile shrinks and vanishes into a puzzled frown. She gives Elan a sidelong, quizzical look, before her eyes swivel back to Sam. "Wait... what happened to everyone? And who is this Mother J?"

***

Later.

Taelor walks off the bridge and to the Lounge/Galley on the Undertow. She plops herself down on the couch with a groan. "No rutter. So much time wasted. Ugh. We could go to Tireus, but I don't know if there's a Tireus-Mentta route we could then take. Could be a wasted drill spike."

She lifts her head up. "Otherwise, we either give up on the ore, which sucks, or we take our chances dodging the authorities, but you saw how fast they were on our ass when we drilled in."

“It was my first spiritual pilgrimage. I was so excited to finally be allowed to join in; all the kids were.  We stayed up and we fasted until everyone was sooo tired and sooo hungry. And then, we had a HUUUGE party! Well not a party. Mother J always calls them," Samara pauses and looks a touch mischievous. When she begins again, she is clearly affecting someone else's speech. "An invitation to drink deeply of the Revolution and share joy; to rest one's soul, and then return Awakened." She intones, gesturing impassionately in rhythm with the bombastic delivery. "Only," She drops her arms, and takes a long steadying breath. "I'm the only one who woke up and Mother J was gone and none of the other pilgrimages ever went this way and I know that when people die 'we must dutifully seek peace in the face of the inevitable', but it was really realy hard."   Samara takes a few short breaths that sound like she might be hyperventilating, but then her breathing evens out again, and she swipes at tears that were threatening to spill."So you see why it would be neat to find her! You'll really like her, I'm sure!"

Elan gets skunked on the rutter too. Evidently they are not sold by trenchcoat wearing ner'er-do-wells. Not on space stations at least.

Guess there's not a reason to wear a trenchcoat on a space station, he muses to himself. No rain, no trenchcoat. Pity.

Elan returns to the Undertow. "Well either we take the scenic route back to Astyoc," he says. "Or we change course.

"I'm open to a little bounty-hunting. Presuming, of course, that the bounty is not on me."

Another AKA wrote:

"So you see why it would be neat to find her! You'll really like her, I'm sure!"

Taelor's frown deepens and turns into a horrified expression as Sam goes on. She looks away to regain her composure. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I would like to meet her," she says, her hand resting where her pistol would normally be.

***

Tecumseh wrote:

"I'm open to a little bounty-hunting. Presuming, of course, that the bounty is not on me."

"Aw, that's too bad. That would be the easiest kind of bounty: we already have the target in custody!" Taelor says with a grin. "Hell, if you're wanted in different systems, we could turn you in, bust you out, then do it again somewhere else!" She chuckles.

"I suppose we could put Graham and Rena on a transport and let them make their own way back to shitsville. We'd miss out on a bunch of credits from Mentta, though, if we ditch the ore idea."

Moarhair wrote:

"Hell, if you're wanted in different systems, we could turn you in, bust you out, then do it again somewhere else!" She chuckles.

Samara gives Taelor a sidelong glance, heavily emoting complicity.  "And while he's being held, we can eat all the mushrooms we want!  Mushroom shortbread cookies are amazing!"

Moarhair wrote:

"We'd miss out on a bunch of credits from Mentta, though, if we ditch the ore idea."

"Would we even be bringing enough ore for people to get upset with us? If we explain that we are not trying to actively undermine the local authorities, they might understand.  I find that people are generally very understanding if you give them a chance!" She pauses to reflect a moment.  "We could also offer them a bribe!  Fresh baked cookies can be a real game changer."

A sudden chime interrupts the swaying discussion, announcing a ship message.

Spoiler:

The message reads:

Quote :

My sources tell me you are in search of a specific rutter. I might have what you are looking for, but I am not selling, but trading. If you are interested, contact me on this secure channel.

The message has a link to an encrypted channel attached.

Elan reviews the message. He's encouraged.

"Any concerns?" he asks the group. "I know these are closely guarded but I can't imagine a rutter to Astyoc is that sensitive. We don't think this is a sting operation, do we?

"I would vote to hearing them out."

The thought of bribing officials with fresh-baked cookies makes Taelor break into raucous laughter. She's still chuckling by the time Elan finishes reading them the message.

"Yeah, sure, let's hear 'em out," Taelor trying to stop chuckling. "Maybe they just want to trade it for some cookies."

The linked channel is an encrypted text channel. It is a local channel to somewhere on the station, but there is no indication of who is on the other side.
It contains one message:

Quote :

I'm happy that you decided to parlay. Concerning the rutter you seek, I can offer a military rutter, no older than 1 year. But unfortunately I cannot simply sell it.
I'm in need of an item that has been misplaced outside of my reach. If you could acquire said item for me, I would show my appreciation with the rutter.

Before responding, Elan asks the group a few questions.

"Will we have a sense of whether the rutter is legit or not?" he asks Taelor. "Can you look at a rutter and tell if it is complete and functional, or do we have to trust this person not to direct us into the metadimensional void?

"Is there a common assumption about the value of a rutter? Jumping from here to Xenthra is a convenience and would save us some time, but we should make a judgement about its value versus the risk that we would be assuming.

"We'll need some details about the item, of course. Size, portability, volatility, etc. A piece of jewelry is comparatively easy. Someone's recalcitrant, estranged spouse is difficult."

Taelor takes a deep breath, finally getting her laughter under control. "If I can get a look at the rutter, yeah, I can see if it's legit."

"Rare rutters are valuable because they give opportunities others don't have. If the ore is still being produced, but they lost one of their big clients due to the embargo, people will be looking for other buyers. With this rutter, STEGO could be it. We can use it to rebuild Astyoc or sell it to Haliant or whatever. I'm not too keen on running a regular route, but Graham might be able to hire another ship when he's back there or something."

Taelor shrugs. "I say we see what the guy wants and, worst-case, tell him to go fuck himself."

"It is no fun when you cannot reach something that you want; I hope that it is something that we feel okay getting..." Samara is not sure what exactly the others would not be okay with, but felt confident that it would not be too divergent from her own sensibilities.

"I have some experience with the, ah, acquisition of items," Elan says. "There's a bit of a tango during opening discussions. Let me dance it."

With the others looking on, Elan responds to the mystery person.

<<We're listening.>>

<<We need specifics about said item. Size, weight, portability, handling conditions, timing restraints, anything that could impact our success. Is it volatile, does it pose any danger in transit? The assumption is that it is an inanimate object; we don't do kidnapping or involuntary extractions.>>

"Business-speak for corporations kidnapping employees of other corporations," he clarifies to the assembled group. "Voluntary is a bit different. Sometimes corpers want to escape their servitude."

As a bargaining tactic, he decides to downplay the value of the rutter.

<<The rutter is a nice-to-have, not-a-need-to-have. As such we will be balancing risk and reward accordingly. We'll accept reasonable risks for its acquisition, but not extraordinary ones.>>

Quote :

The item is a small box, delicate, but not explosive or alive. It is located in an office on the station, where exactly my sourced could not tell me. The location of the office is attached.

It is my understanding that a rutter to Xenthra is fairly valuable, given the current political situation, so in case you are not interested, I'm sure the will be a crew that is.

<<We'll see what we can do. Monitor this channel for updates.>>

He scrunches up his face to Taelor, Samara, and Lola.

"Not a lot to go on. I'd like to think that they're giving us what we need to know to succeed - that, for example, this will not be an office full of similarly sized boxes - but there's always the risk that this is a diversion for some other op they're running. You don't want to find yourself framed, half-blind and blinking when corpsec hits you with the spotlights."

He fantasized for a moment about being a teleporter. Maybe in his next life.

"Let's scope it out, see if it's within our risk tolerance. Taelor, can you cross-reference this office location with a map of the station? We'll need to figure out if this is a low-traffic area or a high-traffic area. From there we'll decide whether it's advantageous to go in covertly or if it's better to hide in plain sight."

"They didn't say anything about the timing. Once we know where the office is, we will have to figure out if there is anything that could affect when we go for it.  But unless the doodad is being kept in room filled with lasers and acid, I think that we should go for it! It'll be fun!" Samara looks ecstatic, and then mouths the words goo spiders, and frowns remembering that she had never gotten the answer to whether the spiders had been made of goo or had made goo or whether either were edible! but Taelor, Elan and Lola were still here, so she felt sure that they would not take on risks beyond their abilities.

"Yeah! Our first adventure together!"

Taelor half shrugs, half nods. "Sure, no harm in having a look. I'll start by looking up the office on the local information network."

She takes out her dataslab and unfolds it. She begins her digging into the office.

The office is located in one of the more central rings of the station. A relatively calm area, albeit not a deserted or avoided one. The office is registered as a bookkeeping firm "Peshkov, Yamazaki and partners". Nothing unusual pops up regarding the location or office.

"I'll go check it out," Elan says. "I have a nice suit from our time on Haliant. I don't know if it will be in fashion here, but it should at least identify me as something other than a gutterpunk."

Elan is not ashamed of being a gutterpunk. If anything, he's proud of his roots and finds strength in his origins. He gives particular thanks to his parents for their less-than-dutiful overwatch that enabled his current life of criminal wanderings. He wishes them well and resolves to drop them a note next time he thinks of it.

Having donned his suit - but leaving his hair artfully tussled - Elan scouts out the calm-but-not-deserted office location. Once he gets a read on the scene he'll decide on a course of action and report to the others.

"Bookkeeping, eh," he mutters to himself. "Maybe Graham can apply for a job here."

He tries to remember some of Graham's babble, just in case - you know - in comes up in bookkeeping conversation.

"In generally accepted accounting principles, goodwill is the portion of the purchase price that is higher than the sum of the net fair value of all of the assets purchased in the acquisition and the liabilities assumed in the process."

Yeah, that's the stuff, Elan smiles to himself with a nod.

The hallway is not as wide as the outer ring, but comfortably fits two persons side by side, but not much more. Elan cannot help but wonder how deliveries to the offices and the cafe ahead are being made as a service cart would barely be able to pass, and it'd block the entire hallway.
Its ceiling is about one story high above the pedestrians heads. Elan sees about 10 people solemnly walking up or down the hallway, following their routines or errands. The width of the hallway is commonly used to make sure there is sufficient room between two passing persons, a faint nod or a mumbled greeting being the height of social interaction. It is quiet.
The office is half way between two perpendicular hallways. There is no window towards the hallway, just a door and a fairly plain sign stating the name of the residing firm.
The units up and down the hallway mostly houses other offices, ahead there is a small cafe and across from the office a dry cleaners offers his services with the colorful name of "Feathersoft Cleaning".

Elan scowls to himself.

<<Tight quarters. Hallway is wide enough for two people to pass. No space to surveil things discretely. No windows either.>> He types to the rest of the team on his compad.

<<There's a café ahead. Let me see if it has any lines of sight on the office to do a miniature stake-out. But aside from that, there's no way they could be bringing restaurant supplies in and out via the hallway. There must be a back door, a service entrance. And if there is for the café then there is for the office too. Taelor, are there any behind-the-scenes schematics available?>>

Elan starts looking for Employees Only entrances or doorways that might lead into service tunnels. He also looks up to the space between his head and the ceiling. Now that he has the gecko anchors, he can start thinking three-dimensionally. He looks for windows or any structural features of interest that are off the groud.

The cafe seems like a decent stake out place. It features a large window towards the hallway with an angled view of the office in question.

The hallway is only one story high, hence no windows are visible for upper stories. The ceiling of the hallway is occupied by pipes, air vents and cable channels, following the hallway and veering off into the separate units.

There is no direct door to a service corridor, the sides of the hallway are wall to wall offices and service establishments. But after poking around a little, Elan can find a door two hallways over that states "Authorised service personell only". It's locked.

<<I found a door labeled 'Authorized Service Personnel Only'>> he reports. <<Worth checking out, but maybe not dressed like a corper. We have some time to do recon so maybe we see if we can spy the look of anyone passing in or out.>>

Elan sets up the stake-out at the café and invites the others to join him.

<<Here's the café location. Anyone want to join me?>>

He orders a cup of coffee or soykaf or tea or whatever passes for a hot, caffeinated beverage on this station. Then he sets about looking Very Important in his Big Boy Suit as he keeps an eye on the office as he pretends to fiddle with his compad the way that business-people do.

Another AKA wrote:

"An invitation to drink deeply of the Revolution and share joy; to rest one's soul, and then return Awakened."

Lola's head had turned sharply when Samara had mentioned the R word. To be honest, she hadn't been paying full attention to their new crew members words about her background. Her optimism and lack of distaste about what what been obviously done to her, didn't suggest that she would be a fervent ally in the workers struggle. But now after she'd used that word. Was it possible that there might be a bit more to her group than she'd thought? Clearly there were religious overtones, which made her uncomfortable, but even those who concentrated in faith could become useful ally's if this belief came from a foundation in workers rights. At least for a bit anyway. There were many cults who at least began preaching the need for equality. The problem occurred once the leadership started accruing power. Not that this was a problem limited to cults of course...

When she got a moment, she asked Samara.
"This Revolution you speak of, can you tell me a bit more about that?"


Post the anonymous communication, Lola started to chew her bottom lip, eyebrows furrowed and arms crossed.
"This is probably my background coming into play, but when a splitin' wheel gifthorse like this comes prancing up offering to give us all a quick lick I start thinking turnkin. It's all a bit chesn' lucky right? The thing we need suddenly contacts us out of the blue. Then again, those miners knew we had a mind to this and its not too much of a jump to think we'd need this. I'm just wary of this being honey smeared over a bear trap."

When Elan sent his message, she sent along a quick reply.
"I'll come down. I've nothing that looks fancy like yours but I can sit at another table in my casuals."
After changing, she popped her head into the main common area to see if anyone wanted to join her, before heading along to the cafe.

Taelors is sitting in the Undertow's lounge, legs crossed, her dataslab unfolded before her, as she digs into "Peshkov, Yamazaki and partners". Her initial interest has waned in the face of the incredible amount of boring she has found and she now sports a half-pout and sleepy eyes. She yawns.

Elan's message pops up on the corner of her screen. She taps it. Her eyes regain some of their focus as she reads it. She straightens up. //I'll see if I can dig up a schematic//

She attacks her new goal with newfound vigor. Reading boring corpo shit was never going to keep her interest for long, but schematics? Yeah. That would.

When Lola pops her head to see who would join her, Taelor doesn't even notice.

"The Revolution?" Samara pauses dramatically. "It is first and foremost a rejection of the conditions of an inhumane world. Cruelty, avarice, bigotry… They prevent us from keeping a shining light in our hearts.  Too many are those who spend their whole life suffering from poverty; facing disappointments and pain.  The Revolution calls for all people to give as they can and to receive as they have need." By now Samara is beaming at Lola, relishing in her pride at the ethos of the Temple - something that has not come easily to her for some time.  It was nice to share what it had been at its core: a community that sought to be in service to one another and to itself.

Nitafrong wrote:

After changing, she popped her head into the main common area to see if anyone wanted to join her, before heading along to the cafe.

Samara leaps at the chance to head back out, especially since most cafés have treats!

As Taelor digs through the internal networks of the station, her new found enthusiasm is quickly dampened. Transparency is apparently not a big thing in the system and all her efforts come up empty. Almost having given up, she tries another angle and finally finds a maintenance schematic. It covers hallways and supply rooms, but offices and residential areas are just grey squares.
The schematic shows an intricate network of small hallways connecting almost every unit with a supply room and a major hallway. Additional there are larger maintenance routes usually half a level above or below the main hallways.
The office in question is serviced via a hallway behind the unit, which leads also towards the hallway Elan seems to be in. The connection could easily be the door Elan spied earlier.

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Elan, Lola and Sam unite in the cafe, each ordering a drink of choice. Sam adds a French Roll, which turns out to be a pastry which resembles a flat croissant, drenched in sugar and cinnamon.
The office does not seem to get a lot of foot traffic. Over the course of half a cycle, three business-looking people enter and leave again. At the end of the cycle two larger men and a well trained woman in functional clothing enter and two other women and a man leave shortly thereafter. Finally a young lady in pant suit and a middle aged man exit, chatting and leaving down the hall. After that the office stays quiet.

Taelor grins. "Bingo." She encrypts and forwards the schematics to Elan. //found a nice spot for a walk// she writes him. //any luck finding proper looking hiking gear?// It was unlikely anyone was monitoring their communications, but it didn't hurt to be careful.

Taelor sits up sharply and grimaces. "Oh, no... Graham is rubbing off on me!" Turtle, who had settled in her lap, glares up at her, clearly upset at the disturbance. She smiles apologetically at the cat and scratches him between the ears. "I swear, if I find myself looking fondly at accounting logs, I'm walking myself out of the airlock."

<<I see a couple ways of going about this>> Elan types out to the others on his compad to keep it discrete.

<<One, go in the front door dressed for business. We're looking for a bookkeeper for STEGO and would like to interview Peshkov, Yamazaki and Partners. That potentially gives us some inside intel to act on in the future. I'm not sure I could talk the talk so maybe Graham can blather while I scan the place.>>

<<Two, go in the back door dressed as a maintenance crew. Would need some gear to look the part. Taelor is a good technician so maybe she can be the technical cover while I do the B&E bits.>>