Tuesday, 111-1114: Morning
Music And Bureaucracy
Thanks to the message from the cargo permit office, Mikah, Jocelynn and Fesic set their alarms to wake them early. Jocelynn said she wanted to get to the permit office by 10am, and told Fesic and Mikah to plan accordingly. Mikah, Jocelynn and Fesic set their alarms for 8am. Sekea set his alarm for 8am and Aiden for 8:15. Since she might be off-ship before everyone woke, Jocelynn reminded them all to try and go out in pairs, or to let people know where you plan to go. She reminded them she didn't want someone isolated and killed like Terin.
Up early, the three ate foil-pack breakfasts aboard the ship before they left. While eating, Mikah told the others she'd planned to visit InstellArms later that day, to have them make custom holsters for her advanced laser pistols. She hadn't set a time for that trip and felt she could do that after they finished the "paperwork". While they ate, Rol finished his morning routine and moved into the space to cook food for the crew. In the lounge he saw the mess they were making. Worse yet, they had to get to the permit office and had no time to clean up. So, they'd leave their mess for him to deal with.
Soon they arrived at the permit office and Fesic was told his paperwork was done there. So, he and his Captain had to go to the certification office next. Having been through it all before, Fesic knew better than to ask what the next steps would be? From what he remembered, he'd have to pay a Cr 100 fee and wait up to three days to be told he could start trading again. Jocelynn was told she also had to go to the Certification office and complete what Fesic remembered was a metric ton of computerized forms. Fesic also warned her the "pleasant-looking" staff there were not at all pleasant, or even polite. After that paperwork, they'd have to pay a Cr 1,500 fee and, of course, wait the three to five more days. So, the 'one week in port" idea was truly dead.
Winding their way through the bureaucracy, the three could tell it would take quite some time, and settled in to get it done. As the acting captain, Jocelynn was able to pay the fees using ship's funds. Eventually, that work would take them all of the morning. While they did that, Aiden had woken in time to get his morning routine done and join Rol in the ship's common spaces while he was cooking. He'd even arrived in time to talk to Jocelynn, Fesic and Mikah. Aiden had wanted to talk to the others about a zero-g operations training session but held off on that. What Aiden wanted to jump on was to look into submarine tours and scuba diving opportunities. He also wanted to look into buying a gill-filtration suit.
Aiden wanted to look into buying local gear even though that might be over-kill and over-cost. Local kits were manufactured to detect and resist sulfuric water content and even pockets or currents of sulfuric acid. Because of that, the suits and systems would be over-built for non-toxic and/or non-polluted environments. They could also resist some other caustic environments, but might not stand up well to worlds with different caustic agents. One thing Aiden had not considered was the sheer lack of places where he could use the gear if he bought it outright? And, he'd have to fit it in his stateroom somehow. Still, Aiden figured that kid of gear would be cheapest on worlds like Lanth.
When Aiden logged into the port-net with the account he'd bought for the ship, the first thing he got was a huge, flashy and colorful advertisement. The ad touted a place called "UnverSound Sector Store", and claimed the shop provided sounds and instruments from across the Marches. Checking the ad carefully, Aiden could see no attached discount offer so it was a plain "notification" item. Nodding, he saved the data on the shop for later and started digging into the tours and experiences he hoped to get pricing on.
After Sekea got done with his daily routine and had breakfast, he started to dive into the books he'd bought from the true Crimes museum two days before. Because Lanth wasn't blessed with large tracts of land for forests and their on-world tech was easily interstellar, paper books were a rare thing. Most text were sold in data file format. When a buyer didn't have a computer or other electronic device, any books could be put on chips and sold with a datapad the chips could be jacked into. So, the books Sekea had were data files.
Sekea liked that because he could design AI summery prompts to get boil downs he could scrub for terms and methods to hone in on the sections he wanted. The issue he faced was that the techniques and exploits were not discussed in the terms of "forging" or "faking". They were often buried in different procedural discussions which worked hard to educate the reader while also not teaching them how to repeat the processes. That meant there were very rarely sets of common phrases used from one process to another. Especially where one section covered creation of documents while the next covered replication of a statue or other three-dimensional object.
Zimzod had started setting his alarm for 6am so he could increase his daily exercise routine. By the time Zimzod came to the table for chow, Jocelynn, Fesic and Mikah were just leaving for the port offices. After eating, Zimzod asked the others still on the ship and awake if anyone wanted to go hit thrift shops, reclamation and recycling centers and the like for anything interesting? When no one else signed on, Zimzod went off hunting on his own. Still, he told the others where he was going and had his comms, for emergencies. When Rol woke, he started with physical therapy then worked to morph that into calisthenics. He hoped to see how far he could push his body. The muscles were there but didn't want to work. Oddly, the best things he found were yoga moves that targeted the body parts which had the worst opinions about having to perk up.
After that, Rol showered and relaxed watching tri-vids. What he found was a tri-vid sponsored by the Sikaruu Kaadgiradish Foundation. That group sponsored the teaching of history through tri-vid. When Rol looked into the foundation, he found it was essentially a "Media Museum" where members could review their catalogs and download programs they have on file. From what Rol could see, the courses offered were mostly based on the history of the Lanth system, though he could see some non-historic classes in a casual search. Rol considered that Lanth was a cross through world they'd visit more than most, he decided to look into survey classes covering the system's history and see what he found. So, he dug into the catalog to see what he could find.
Aali and Colinne had both slept in, and were the last of the crew to wake. By the time they were out looking for food, there was little beyond the leftovers. After eating, Aali went to check in with the androids and spend some time catching up on their reports. From those, she made notes for herself on the things she wanted to personally check up on. Having done a physical workout during her morning routine, Aali shifted into stent practice for part of the rest of the morning then relaxed for the rest of the time before lunch.
Colinne split her morning between the class to learn Zhodani and her work on the intruder software package. Where it came to systems infiltration, it appeared to Colinne that the device was able to carry out multi-layer penetration. It seemed to simultaneously compromise User OS, device firmware, robot and android brains and ship systems including but not limited to life-support controllers and sensor arrays! Sliding between layers without triggering alarms. The unit's interface hacking expert system could connect with optical datalinks, neural stents, smart materials and cybernetic implants. Even treating biological/technical hybrids as hackable systems.
That told her that under the control of a trained operative, this package would be an apex intruder system. As Colinne worked, she found data deposits suggesting the package could cross optical links and even infiltrate neural links like the stents she and others in the crew had! That discovery did not please her. That also suggested whatever data repository the device maintained could already hold a map of her neural stent and its connections. As well as the stents of any crew member who had unwittingly worked with it. Things she didn't yet know were what the device did, or could do, with that data? The problem was that she was already in deep and well into what she considered the "spaghetti code".
Looking into underwater adventures and gear, Aiden had found a facility called the "Museum at FIT Center" or "Farnath Del Rhyne Interval Training Center". Farnath Del Rhyne had commanded the system defense boat LNS Mrtyu Sikari at the start of the Third Frontier War. It was the actions of Del Rhyne that saved Lanth's deep-site meson stations, newly installed at the time, from destruction during the initial Sword Worlds attack and he was posthumously promoted to Admiral. The facility seemed to be clustered sports and training arenas.
Aiden also found the Victoria Aquatic Sports Complex, in the city of Victoria. Added to those facilities which were on-world, the station also had both a "Zenith" and "Nadir" Public Sports complexes. He also saw a "Museum of The Depths" on-world. What Aiden had found were lists of places he could explore on the network or facilities, mostly downwell but some on-station, where he could visit and ask questions in person. Aiden decided he was most interested in calling the Victoria Aquatic Sports Complex to find an expert. He hoped to ask that person for advice on the best gear for scuba work? When he finally did get bounce to someone that man asked Aiden what was his experience with scuba?
Aiden had to admit he had little to no experience, and the man said Aiden should come to the facility to meet with an instructor. After they knew better what he could use, Aiden could perhaps hire an instructor to work with. He said that if Aiden went on his own to buy gear "hoping to get it right", it would only be a recipe for feeding the local sea life with his body. Especially considering the megafauna that had evolved in Lanth's world-covering ocean. When Aiden asked, the man made it clear he was suggesting Aiden buy nothing until he was properly advised. From the basics onward, including the gear.
Aiden thanked the man but made no appointments. He then made searches on the world net looking for submersible and undersea maritime tours. What he found, from a number of the world's wetport cities were tours including airfare or not: 20-person tour of local sea life and coral reefs (4 hours) - Cr 250 per person 50-person tour of sea life, coral reef and Continental drop off (7 hours) - Cr 1,300 per person 30-person 3-day tour of Littoral sea life with limited excursions into open-sea locations - Cr 6,000 per person 20-person 1 Week tour of Littoral and open-sea life forms - Cr 15,000 per person - includes a day hovering over the wreck of the destroyer INS Theed Tenha - Limited pressurized-suit visits to compartments of the wreck based on experience - Cr 8,000 There were other longer and more luxurious subsurface tours but Aiden knew they didn't plan to be in-system more than a week or two. Other tours from three to five days brought five, ten or even twenty tourists to visit undersea communities. Those ranged from Cr 8,000 to 20,000 depending on the settlement visited, settlement depth and distance from shore. There were also the standard glass-bottom boats and such, which seemed very tame. Aiden also saw that swimming equipment would cost Cr 200 and include swim fins, wet suit and face mask. Air Tanks for SCUBA activities would cost Cr 800(not including air recharges). Two tanks could last as long as 6 hours, and weigh 5 kg. Refills cost Cr 20. Artificial Gills would cost him Cr 4,000. Aiden noted the warning they would only function on worlds with thin, standard, or dense atmospheres. Those would weigh 4 kg. While they offered unlimited breathing time, warning said unfamiliar users may have issues.
Another sideline Aiden ran into while doing his search were "video hunting" excursions that left port for the world's abyssal sea. Looking at that item, Aiden saw the tours went in search of creatures called the "Sulfur Krakens". Deep sea giants that hunted the volcanic trenches of the depths, the creatures are known to rate high enough on intelligence tests to be considered "brilliant. Scheming giant creatures with dozens of tentacles and color-changing skin. They were known to be tool users and ambush hunters using their camouflage to hide and strike. If endangered they use sulfur-based ink clouds both to confuse predators and achieve great speed. While scientists are still uncertain, it believed the kraken are possibly semi-social.
Off on the station on his own, Zimzod had wandered from second-hand shops to reclamation centers where "not so bashed and trashed" items might be found. Despite the hours spent wandering, Zimzod didn't find much of interest. One shop he did find had "Once dropped(or sometimes "more than once") bladed weapons. Swords, Daggers, Blades and more. Zimzod was disappointed to see they had no laser swords or laser foils but he went in to look about. What the shop had were obviously battlefield-recovered weapons that came to this shop instead of ending up in the shops of InstellArms or one of the other mega-scroungers.
Many of the blades were not anything exciting, showing standard military styles and no flair. There were also a number of blades that showed superior workmanship, and for which the former owners had paid for quality. Of course, the shop charged more for those too. They also had a collection of "family blades" with engraved crests and names of the former owners. Zimzod kept a distance from those because he never knew if he might run into some wide-ranging member of a clan and find himself facing a duel. Zimzod also saw blades that had been customized, which was something else he didn't want to have to pay to "fix".
The shop did have a case on the back wall, behind the counters, in which were nine blades which were artistic, stylish, heavily decorated and engraved. Some of which had jewels or other precious metals. When Zimzod looked, he saw several cutlasses on offer and investigated several of them for quality. Zimzod had a vibro-cutlass, against which nothing in the shop compared. He also had a standard Imperial Marine cutlass which was engraved as a gift from Duke Luis of Lunion. But, outside the engraving, that blade was standard and two of the cutlasses the shop offered seemed to be better forged.
Ultimately, Zimzod could have spent Cr 150 for a "better quality" cutlass or Cr 250 for one of the family cutlasses. Both of those appeared better forged than the blade Duke Luis had given him. What decided him was that one of the "family swords" had a maker's mark on it that he could look up with his hand computer. It also had no crest and he could pay the shop to have the former owner's name ground off. That insured the blade was better forged than the cutlass Duke Luis had given him. When Zimzod went to pay the Cr 250, an alert was raised because system authorities had banned him carrying any weapon. That meant Zimzod had to pay and extra Cr 50 for the blade to be transported to the ship. He also paid Cr 50 to have the name ground off the sword's guard. After that, Zimzod continued wandering. He spent Cr 20 on lunch and then continued on looking for thrift deals until dinner.
Towards the end of the morning, Sekea checked his results and found his AI prompts had been close to "on the nose". Still, when he broke for lunch Sekea knew he'd have to work into the afternoon a bit to tweak them. Then, he'd have to let it run again. While he did that, Rol had cooked for those on the ship and gone back to work. Sekea saved what AI summaries and recommendations he had. He then made a few personal notes before deciding to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. He also looked to see what the others planned to do? After cooking and cleaning up, Rol got into gear maintenance and chatted with the others. He asked questions to catch up on the time he'd missed while he was being cloned.
In the permit office, Jocelyn, Fesic and Mikah spent nearly an hour on line waiting to get to a window. They were then told their permits were confirmed. They paid the fees using ship's funds, and were told they had to go to the port's certification office. There, Fesic could complete his certification and pay his fee. Jocelynn and Mikah, the "official Captain of Record", would work on Jocelyn's own certification. When that was done, they'd pay her fee and she and Fesic would have to wait up to three days. After that, Fesic would be able to trade on behalf of the ship while Jocelynn and Mikah would have to go to the "In-System Trade Certification" office to finish Jocelyn's trader permits. As the time for each step telescoped out, Jocelynn started to realize that getting off Lanth in just a week was only a very optimistic goal.
Still, they got to the cert office and dove into the forms. While Fesic's "pile" was much smaller than Jocelynn's, he decided to stay with them because he had nothing pressing he wanted to get done. He also didn't like the idea of leaving on his own to get back to the ship in a port where anyone could know there was a bounty on his head. Granted, anyone who wanted the money had to kill all of them, but he didn't like the idea of offering up the crew piecemeal. Especially with himself being the first to die. In one to three days, he'd be able to trade on behalf of the ship. They eventually finished up Jocelynn's documents by mid-afternoon and had to decide what to do next.
Mikah said she had to go to InstellArms, to have them make her custom holsters for her new laser pistols. Knowing she had to have them pick up the pistols, Mikah was told they'd waive the Cr 50 pickup fee so they could make the holsters for her. Thanking them, Mikah then called the ship to let those know an InstellArms agent would be there to pick up the pistols. Hearing Mikah preparing, Jocelyn said she wanted to go to InstellArms too. She also called the ship to have them hand over the custom zero-g .45 semi-autopistol she'd bought. She wondered if they could help her with more magazines for the weapon? That was because she knew she'd sent the x-mail to the designer on the 98th day. That meant the x-mail would have reached Lanth on the 105th day of the year, then D'Ganzio on the 112th day. Or, tomorrow. Jocelyn didn't know how long it would take the weaponsmith to answer her, but she wouldn't get the x-mail for seven more days after he did.
If he answered right away, she'd get her answer on the 119th day. Because of that, Jocelyn figured she'd give InstellArms a shot and see if they couldn't make her magazines that would work in the weapon. When Jocelyn asked about the zero-g .45's magazine, they said they had to look at one to see if they could reverse engineer and replicate them? After twenty minutes examining the magazine, they told her they could replicate the magazines for Cr 50 each. With that, Jocelyn paid Cr 700 and ordered 14 magazines. Because that weapon took .45 ammo, she needed 210 more rounds to load the new magazines after they were delivered.
Added to the .45 ammo the zero-g pistol needed, she needed the same ammo for her new Las-Slug pistol. Because of that, she eventually bought six 100-round boxes of .45 ball ammo for Cr 510. She also bought 200 rounds of ball ammo for her snub pistol. That cost her Cr 300. Loading the 210 rounds for the z-g .45 and Las-slug pistol would take 390 rounds so the six new boxes would leave her with 210 spare rounds for both .45 caliber eating weapons. She felt that was a comfortable stockpile. Jocelyn looked forward to getting the magazines so she could load up all her weapons. Just in case.
Colinne worked on the intruder software up to dinner time, becoming more intrigued each time she found something new. While she did that, Aiden decided to put off visiting the Victoria complex off. In the meantime, he decided to check out the UniverSound shop he'd gotten an advertisement for. Calling a portCab, Aiden got a ride to the location for Cr 10. When he arrived, the shop was a very glossy video-display immersed space. There were few actual physical display products, with most of them displayed on video screens. Each product was covered in glossy vid clips where the staff could call up more detailed product line coverage to show shoppers.
The shop saved space by storing all the product in storage behind their sales floor. Anything they sold was on a shelf in their stockroom and brought out after it was being bought. When Aiden told a sales associate what he'd been imagining, the man suggested a device called an "LSP-1603-SX213" SongMaster. Look at a vid showing the device, he saw both a keyboard and strung fret-board. The rest of the lights and toys were sliders, dials, buttons and sound-wave displays. Other videos showed how the controls could be used to alter sound files or even create sounds from keyboard or string-pluck created sounds. The device's base rose 3 inches from the table with an inch and a half unit-top for a total of 4.5 inches. The unit was 6 inches wide by 2 feet long.
When he asked, he was told the unit cost Cr 24,875 and had 12,000 instrument voices. It also data-linked to other computer systems via standard protocol, and provided a shared-processing, editing and development environment application. The salesman then stepped Aiden through some of the unit's capabilities using videos of the on-system tutorials to show off what it could do. When Aiden asked, the salesman told him there were any number of add-ons he could sell with the unit. All with the lust of avarice in the man's voice. Nodding, Aiden decided to buy the instrument and also asked about the up-sells Aiden was certain the man would offer him next.
Ready and very willing, the man decided he knew a mark when he saw one and went with the top of the line add on first. He told Aiden they also sold a KCr 50 "Extension Suite". The salesman said that added 100,000 more "instrument voices", although the paperwork would say those were mostly variations of existing instruments. That was because every world might have various stringed instruments but many of them would have very similar voices. So, the only way to create a new "voice" was to modify the voices, either on your own or by paying professional musicians and sound experts. The cost of this suite represented the work of those people. The suite also added more complete studio-like capabilities to those in-built to the device.
When Aiden asked, the man said it was a card that had to be installed on a slot inside the instrument. The man was vague about how to install it, but happily suggested Aiden pay Cr 200 to have him do the work. After Aiden paid the money, the man very quickly went to the stockroom and returned with the instrument and card. He unboxed and set up the instrument before opening an access panel that easily snapped clear. Aiden then saw a set of three open expansion slot ports, and watched as the salesman slipped the card into one and used an existing-lock down to secure it. Snapping the port closed, the salesman then powered up the instrument with a smile and showed it was ready to go. When Aiden asked about recording, the man demonstrated the internal and dismountable microphones while also saying that Aiden could load files and use or modify those too.
Aali had eaten lunch when Rol cooked it, and then considered her day. Zimzod had said he was going to look for second-hand shops, and reclamation centers. Junk hunting had its appeal for engineers too, because people often dumped things for cheap that could be fixed. Or, perhaps it was a part that wasn't recognized. So much good and working gear could be found if you knew what it was, and was often tossed and cheap to buy if you happened on it. Since she had the time, Aali logged into the station net and looked for active flea markets or junk sales. She saw there were no active markets being advertised, which meant randomly wandering the station's residential blocks searching if she was committed to that route.
The better news was that a side report generated by the search listed a number of thrift and second-hand shops along with reclamation centers. Aali decided to hit the junk yards and loaded the addresses of the reclamation centers onto her hand computer. While she left, Rol had been running through the catalogs of courses the Sikaruu Kaadgiradish Foundation offered. He centered on the classes offered on the Frontier wars, and especially the Fourth and Fifth war. While he'd served in the Fifth Frontier War, he had been locked into his part. News had come of the rest of the war, but it was always distant or far away. He'd also learned more from the news and discussions he'd heard or watched, but he considered it was time to drill down and perhaps understand more.
The foundation had several classes he liked, which included a set of classes that were a survey of all the frontier wars in the Marches. But that felt more like going back to primary school. There were also sets of classes on details of the Fourth and Fifth Frontier Wars. Of course, those were also behind a pay wall. Under certain circumstances, one could watch a small number of the programs free, but the "full class" cost a membership. Of course, memberships assumed local residency and they charged Cr 1,000 a year for it. Not very much to Rol, but still more than he wanted to pay for just a week or more.
When he checked, there was a code he could use to call the foundation so he reached out to them. Rol said he was crew on a ship and asked if they had a reduced fee for people like him to become members. Rol was told that would cost Cr 300, and last a month, which didn't please him either. Still, Rol wanted access to the classes so he paid the 300 and had his membership set up. If the person he was working with knew who he was, they didn't show any sign of it, nor did Rol notice the treatment either. Rol was told his membership would end on the 141st day of the year, which didn't bother him since he didn't plan to be on Lanth that long.
Looking into the Foundation's class on the Fourth Frontier War, he saw it was composed of fifteen "sessions". Each of those was an hour or so, and Rol could tell he wasn't about to burn that much time while they were in the Lanth system. Of course, Rol remembered the fourth war had been an accidental war. It had been stumbled into thanks to a series of accidents and mistakes. When he then looked at the courses for the Fifth Frontier War, there were many more sessions. The syllabus for that class said it contained 45 sessions. So, over 45 hours between the wars, all said and done. Definitely, something to do to burn free time in jump space, but far too much to do while in Lanth.
Rol knew that devoting time to watch those sessions would have to fit into the other things he did on his usual days. He certainly would have to make time not only for those vids, but also keep up the time he devoted to his comms training. And he knew he should he hitting that hard for hours several days a week. So, he'd have to download the sessions and it would then come down to time management. Adding in the crew's stent work and the rehab work he had to go through, the new vids would take time to fit into his schedule. Rol's days were getting as full as some of the crew's staterooms.
Figuring he could watch through the sessions over the space of a couple months an hour at a time, Rol decided to download the files. Of course, they were multi-media vids and they took up much of his allotted storage space on the ship's computer. So, that was another concern. While he ran the downloads, Rol did some stent practice and then picked up on his physical therapy. While he did that, Sekea was devoting himself to diving deeper into the books bought at the museum. Knowing he wouldn't learn "how to do" what he wanted, he worked to dig out pointers for where he had to look next?
Arriving at InstellArms, Mikah and Jocelyn were led to the site's weaponsmiths, who were examining the toys the two women had delivered. Since Mikah's one pistol and Jocelyn's were unique, getting a chance to look at them was gold. Being allowed to take them apart and understand them more completely would have been amazing, but they knew that wasn't on offer. Still, when the two arrived, the first asked Mikah what kinds of holsters she wanted? Mikah told them she wanted hip, shoulder and thigh holsters for both. They told her the thigh holsters would be bulky, but they said they would do the work. They quoted Cr 300 for the shoulder holsters, Cr 200 for the hip holsters and Cr 300 for the thigh holsters. Mikah agreed to pay that and they said they'd have them by the next day. Mikah also ordered two 100 rnd boxes of ammo for her submachinegun for Cr 240 and a 500-needle box of gauss ammo for Cr 700.
When Mikah and Jocelyn left for InstellArms, Fesic decided to look for thrift and second-hand stores or reclamation centers, like Zimzod had. In their time searching separately, Aali, Fesic and Zimzod searched for useful junk or second-hand items. Sadly for Aali she didn't find anything of interest. Zimzod had been in one of the reclamation centers he visited, and saw the workers there had even segregated the tossed items they'd pulled from the garbage. They'd even set up a small library shelf for books on datapads, infoChips and other electronic or even paper media. Looking through the collection, Zimzod found a datapad listed as having the book "Lost Ships of the Abyss Rift" loaded on it. Since he didn't already have the book, Zimzod asked and was told he could just take the book. Happy with that, Zimzod found a place to sit and read until he returned to the ship for dinner.
Hoping to find a flea market or two he saw flea markets were rarely spread in fields because the station was an enclosed city. So Fesic had to look for blanket sales or in-door "junk markets". Fesic found a small pile of what looked like electronic versions of flash-bangs in another reclamation center. The normal kind were cheap, disposable grenade-like distraction devices. One threw them at the enemy to scatter them and break up formations. In this case, Fesic could only guess the devices were more expensive yet expected to be recovered or provide some additional value, be it intelligence or something more. Just what that was wasn't indicated on either of the four devices. At the least, you could throw them at the enemy and they would both make noise and give off light effects that hoped to get the target troops to scatter. In this case, Fesic could only guess these were meant to be used in defense - where they could be recovered if you held your position. Any other properties were not apparent.
But the four devices on the pile were damaged. Looking them over, Fesic considered that he just might have the skills to fix them. One of them, at least. He could obviously see water-proof speakers meant to broadcast sound and multi-vector light at different angles. The price on the pile was Cr 20 for all four, and Fesic figured that was a nothing roll of the dice to see if he could get them to work. Even if he couldn't, Cr 20 was nothing to him, so he bought the pile. Eventually, everyone but Mikah and Jocelyn returned to the ship for Rol to cook dinner.
When it came to dinner time, Mikah asked Jocelyn if she wanted to go with her to a high-end restaurant? When Jocelyn agreed, Mikah looked for the highest end places near them while Rol cooked at the ship. When Jocelyn asked if they should invite the others, Mikah said no. She did say they could invite Aali and Colinne, making it a girl's night out. When they checked the menu, Mikah had her heart set on a good tasty steak. The lower prices were the seafood dishes, because the ocean was full of creatures. Cattle-like animals had to be cultivated on ranches and it cost more money just to create the conditions where herd could be managed. And the herd couldn't be large enough to keep the prices for beef-like meats in line with seafood costs.
The most expensive cattle meat was called "NieraBef", and came from cattle cultivated almost ever since Lanth was settled. While other strains of cattle that could eat grains grown on Lanth had followings or reduced costs, NieraBef meat had several things driving the cost. Not the least of forces driving prices up were the cultural values, since NieraBeef had been "the first". Because of that, it had been adopted in many ceremonies, like New Year celebrations, etc.. Because of that, ranches tended to specialize to raise meat herds butchered for NieraBef. Of course, the server really didn't say as much until the two asked, but they could also connect to the restaurant's net as guests and look up the meat while they waited for their orders to be cooked.
Jocelyn wanted to try the local version of 'Surf and Turf', and allowed herself to be steered to a dish with a NieraBef steak and "farmed Eapenebruunuus", an indigenous shellfish. That meat was suggested for the flavor and the farmed version had less sulfur leeched into it's flavor. So, their waiter had suggested it had a taste more acceptable to off-worlders. The ladies eventually spent Cr 100 for the meal and drinks. That included a local chardonnay. Done with dinner, Mikah suggested they go to a bar where they could sit and talk and Jocelyn joked, "Not a Fesic gets beat up bar." Both ladies laughed at that. After Cr 25 on drinks there, they went back to the ship.
At the ship, Aali relaxed with a 'vampire/Romance" e-book. When Aiden suggested stent practice, Rol, Fesic, Sekea and Colinne joined in. Aali also said she'd put her book to the side and join in, and planned to go back to reading after the session. When they finished the stent session, Colinne went back to breaking down the intruder software because it intrigued her. She even felt she was learning new ways to do certain things. Fesic suggested playing poker and Aiden, Rol and Zimzod joined in. As they sat, the smack talk between Fesic and Zimzod started up quickly.
While the others played poker, Sekea checked the ship's entertainment supplies to see if they had a chess board and pieces? He did see the ship computer had the ability to broadcast holographic chess sets, but they had no physical chess set aboard due to space constraints. In fact, the computer had hundreds of board games available that could be holographically broadcast anywhere in the ship, so people in the same, or separate compartments could participate in the same game. Unhappy with that, Sekea logged into the station net and found a vender selling a physical chess set. He ordered that to be delivered for Cr 20 and was told it would be delivered the next day. Sekea then went back to his reading.
When Mikah and Jocelyn got back to the ship Jocelyn went to Colinne and quietly asked if the other woman would have any time later that night to do some psi-work? Given it was past mid-evening, Colinne said they should make some time before they went to bed. Eventually the two did slip out to Colinne's stateroom and, separately, the poker game came to an end. Zimzod was happy to be the big winner, up Cr 65. Rol came next with winnings of Cr 23. Aiden and Fesic lost Cr 56 and Cr 32 respectively. When they all settled in, Sekea was the only one to set an alarm.
Wednesday, 112-1114: The Morning News The first person to wake, after 6am, was Zimzod. Annoyed that he couldn't get back to sleep, Zimzod heated up some caff for himself and then devoted the extra time he had to physical therapy exercises and physical training. He no longer really needed the physical therapy but some of the exercises were good things to continue doing. He was in the ship's lounge watching vids and doing gear maintenance when Sekea came out after his morning routine. Seeing Zimzod hadn't cooked anything, Sekea decided to cook breakfast for the crew.
Shortly after Sekea started cooking, Aiden joined them in the ship's lounge. While Aiden waited for the food to be ready, he called InstellArms to order ammunition. He wanted ball ammo for his LAG. He ordered one box of 100 rounds for Cr 200. He also bought a box of 50 .50 caliber rounds for his sniper rifle for Cr 70. Aiden then did gear maintenance and loaded ammo into his spare clips including the specialty folding magazine for his snub pistol. He also borrowed the "Crew" gauss needle loader and loaded up the magazines for his gauss pistol from his stock of loose needles.
When Sekea had finished cooking and eating, he sat in the ship's lounge and went back to his reading. Fesic and Jocelyn were next to join those who were awake. Fesic also got into the group gear maintenance. He also pulled out the flash-bangs to see what he could after a general examination. While he'd done his thing, Jocelyn had breakfast and then logged into the network hoping to start looking up trade brokers. She knew she wouldn't be able to do anything official, but she wanted to start getting ready. Unfortunately, Jocelyn quickly learned what she wanted was only accessible to those who were trade certified. So, she couldn't even do research. Accepting that, Jocelyn joined the gear maintenance party.
Aali, Colinne, Mikah and Rol had all managed to sleep in, and came out to join the others as each woke and did their morning routine. Realizing how late she'd slept, Aali shared leftovers with the others before checking on the engineering reports and reading. Colinne returned to her Zhodani language lessons from her language software. As had become her pattern, Colinne planned to shift back to working on the intruder software in the afternoon. Mikah also joined the gear maintenance party and they all spent some time filling empty weapon magazines.
After he'd eaten, Rol had to work at his physical therapy, and planned to add even more to his workouts. Still, he planned to relax for the early morning. Rol first set the galley to rights according to his habits while Sekea watched. In a bit of what some would call anal-retentiveness, Sekea committed to memory where Rol moved the items he'd placed in the galley, so he could avoid annoying Rol in the future. Rol then settled in and decided to spark up the interstellar news:
Extolay (B45589A-A N G 110 Im M2 V M4 D) Date: 087-1114
News broke in-system today as a small flotilla of ships arrived under the flag of the Interstellar Navy
of Arden. After a period during which the ships were intercepted and a news blackout was imposed, a
statement was released by naval spokesbeing Udnin Imdua. The flotilla, led by the ANS Hetim Tarbee were
in escort of the medical transport ANS Seseltiz Colenv. Commanding the flotilla, Admiral Pearja Nostoun
stated this was an offer of good will and humanitarian consideration from the new government of Arden.
Along with this statement, the Admiral announced the Seseltiz Colenv were carrying twenty eight Imperial
citizens recovered in the Tremous Dex system. The Admiral's release also gave the names of Imperial citizens
the bodies of whom were found during operations in that system. Admiral Pearja Nostoun also provided an
invitation to Imperial authorities to send a flotilla and medical ship to Tremous Dex, to aid in caring for
an additional seven Imperial citizens under critical care too serious to transport. TAS reporters have made
requests to embed with those forces when such a flotilla is dispatched. 
Thanber(B243653-C Ni Po G v 210 Cs M9 V Ml D) Date: 081-1114
Before departing the system for the Imperial Naval base in the Retinae system, Arch Duke Norris delivered
his orders to officers commanding the fleet in-system for delivery to both the Skull and Mora systems.
Per his orders, made public, His Grace is supporting the nomination of Lord Sir Akuegvarrv, late an Imperial
Army General to the post of Baron in the Skull system. This fief had been vacated by the order of the Arch
Duke due to the failure of Marquis Ladupnuku Arshuv to protect the citizens within his domain. The alteration
of the Fief from a Marquisate to a Barony was not commented on. This message packet, in addition to details
not made public, will be delivered to authorities on Skull and to the Court of Her Grace, Delphine, Grand
Duchess of the Spinward Marches Sector.
Mire(A665A95-C M Hi Cp G 110 Da M6 V) Date: 046-1114
In a combined press conference, diplomatic officers from both the
Darrian and Condarian governments have confirmed a framework
reunification pleblocite has been agreed on. This framework agreement
will be brought back to Condaria for consideration by that system's full
government and High Controller. The High Controller is the lead
bureaucrat running the system's impersonal bureaucracy. Details on
the agreement are few, and the document is not expected to be
released until such time as the system offers the choice to the world's citizens.
Since Condaria is not any type of democracy, it is uncertain what the planned plebiscite will look like.
Experts and political commenters have theorized the devil would be in the details. Where Condaria
decided to arrest their technology to the use of oils and other fuel-burning to generate energy, questions
are based on what the Darrian Confederation will expect of the system to qualify for reunification? Of
course, regardless of any conditions or lack, actual shifts in the system's circumstances would most
likely be gradual. This would prevent social dislocation. Especially since the world is astrographically
located in the narrowing independent space between the Confederation and the Imperial Five Sisters Subsector.
This largely means conflict is not expected, which prompts the question why Condaria sought reunification
"for security reasons".
Natoko (C8879AB-9v Hi An G 204 Im F4 V) Date: 080-1114
As operations continue planetside on Natoko, actions against Imperial Army forces have become more limited.
General Sir Darkirger, over-all ground commander, has expressed disappointment that the previous world
leadership used a military structure to weave the population together. A result of this philosophy, many
of the population have seen it as their duty to form resistance cells. Happily, the General says it
appears the arsenals to be used by publicly-formed units seem to have been in open public spaces. Due
to that strategy, many such stockpiles were quickly located and many captured before they could be emptied.
Despite those advances, many stockpiles were drained, letting many public militias prepare for a protracted
resistance. General Darkirger has rotated in a fair number of electronic warfare and electronic intelligence
units to support boots on the ground. A tactic which has shown success are to flood locations with
white noise after establishing laser-comms stations. This allows centralized drone and other operators to
use laser-links to keep their units operational while an area of operations is flooded with enough white
noise to shut down all non-wired communications and remote-driven weapon systems or bombs.
Despite this advantage, the white-noise tactic also nullifies a number of sensor systems. So, advanced
airborne and orbital assets cannot use deep-probing sensors during active field operations. Because of
this, spokesbeings from the Admiralty admit to planning operations "by shift". Such actions allow for
fleet and on-world assets to seek out and designate targets for later ground operations to move against.
When asked if the drop in counter-Imperial attacks meant partisan operations were nearing an end, Sir
Darkirger only reminded our TAS reporter that data supported the chance it may, or the this might be the
pause before some planned storm. When other questions were put forward, the General's staff repeated
that operational details would not be shared with the media.
FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!
In an appended report, TAS reporter Shierantha Kaen Peulfakav has reported on the death of his colleague
Netsial Uahrar. Viewers will know TAS reporter Uahrar had been working to seek out Natokan nationalists
in hopes of providing their side in this conflict. In recent reports, it had appeared Netsial Uahrar had
been making some hopeful connections and hoped to help gain insight into ending this conflict. While it
is uncertain if that had been a realistic point of view or the maw of a trap, it appears that reporter
had been captured and killed by partisan fighters. Given the particularly gruesome removal of the man's
eyes, tongue and genitals, it appears certain this killing was a message to Imperial forces. Especially
where the body had been set out on display, insuring discovery.
Regina (A788899-C 2 Ri Cp G 703 Im F7 V M8 D M6 V) Date: 080-1114
The Imperial Subsector Senate of Regina have today handed down a decision which will affect the government
of the Dinomn system directly, but may have consequences for other worlds within the subsector. The matter
of "The Estate of Shariïgi Ganekian v. Union of the Workers of Dinomn" was brought before the Subsector Courts
in late 1111. Under the claims, the deceased had petitioned the newly formed 'Union of the Workers of Dinomn'
for permission to emigrate from the Dinomn system for both employment and medical reasons shortly after the
1106 revolution which had replaced the former "World Board". That petition had been refused based on new laws
meant to raise government funds and improve conditions for all citizens on-world.
Rendered on Regina, 189-1114:
Countess Sharon Brighton-Miles for the Subsector Judiciary Council on appeal of the High Court of Justice
of the Subsector of Regina, and in appeal of the Judiciary Council of Dinomn, sitting in appeal of
the Union of the Workers of Dinomn.
Summary:
Shariïgi Ganekian (the Appellant) was an Imperial Subject resident of Dinomn in the Lanth Subsector of
the Spinward Marches. The Appellant was a worker in a factory of the planet and worked, as do all the
residents of Dinomn, for the planetary government. Dinomn is a world with a tainted and unbreathable
atmosphere. The Union of the Workers of Dinomn, the government of the planet (the Respondent) has enacted
regulations stating that a worker can only leave the planet if in possession of an exit visa. This visa
can only be obtained if a worker has reimbursed the Union of all the costs associated with the feeding of
himself and his family, including a cost associated with the breathing of air provided by the government
to the residents of the planet. The cost of the breathable air is transmitted to the heirs of that
individual in the form of a debt that will only be claimed if the individual is to leave the world.
Mitigations:
Due to the onset of, and actions during the Fifth Frontier War, the case of the Appellant was set aside for
future consideration. Due to a continuing medical decline, the Appellant died of medical causes after conclusion
of the war, but before the matter was revisited by courts established by the Union of the Workers of Dinomn.
While the Courts held the worker was free to emigrate under the stated government restrictions, the family of
the Appellant claim the assigned debt amounted to usury. The position of the Appellant's survivors holds that
the position of the Government and planetary courts prevented the Appellant from seeking medical relief which
may have prevented the Appellant's death.
Decision:
The Regulations are found to be contrary to Article VI of the Warrant of Restoration (commonly known as the
Slavery Clause) and are therefore declared contrary to Imperial Law and, in consequence, null and void.
Extract of the text of the judgment of the Council was delivered by Countess Sharon Brighton-Miles:
"My Lords, My Ladies, I present you, in the name of the Judiciary Council, with the text of the present
decision for your acceptance and ratification (...). The text of Article VI is clear and unequivocal:
(translated from High Silean) "Chattel slavery shall not exist within the Imperium (…) nor on any member
world (…)". It is well known that Article VI does not affect the rights of governments within the Imperium
to impose forced labor as a reasonable punishment for an offense committed.
In the case before us today, the government Respondent has created such an obligation that it is impossible
for a Subject of the Crown residing on the said world to actually depart the world. The evidence produced
before this Court has demonstrated that even if the said subject was to work 24 standard Imperial hours
a day, there is no way they could gather sufficient funds to reimburse not only his own debt but that of
his ancestors, which has been accumulating over the centuries. Each inhabitant of Dinomn now owes enough
money to make every member of this body rich many times over. That there could be repayment is illusory.
Although the requirement of an exit visa does not create by itself a situation of chattel slavery, the
impossible burden imposed on a citizen to obtain such a visa, does. (…)
In consequence, the Regulations are declared contrary to Imperial Law and null and void on all who reside
and travel to Dinomn. The Respondent government is hereby instructed to deliver exit visas to all who can
pay a reasonable fee. Furthermore, the Respondent government is instructed to issue a visa to all descendants
of the Applicant in the present case, at no cost.
So We have decided."
Rocking The Day As the gear party began to wind down, Mikah decided to start looking for tours and other interesting things to do in the system. Seeing she was looking at things like that, Jocelyn suggested they look for a natural history museum or other facility with gemstone collections and displays. Sekea overheard that and said he was also interested in that. Mikah was up with that and they both looked until they found a listing for the "Museum of Natural History of the System and Cluster", which was located on the planet. So, if they chose to go there, they'd have to book shuttle flights downwell and back too.
When he finished working on his gear, Aiden decided to call the contact number for the office helping Knights find resources. When he connected and asked about renting warehouse space, he was told they were aware of a seriously disused space that was "currently" available and they could actually get the space for him for only Cr 200. When Aiden made the mistake of thinking he could schedule that price for some time in the future, he was reminded they had said "currently". That meant "today", not tomorrow or another day. What Aiden had no way of knowing was that the warehouse manager involved had to raise some money to pay the bills, regardless if there was a profit or not.
Asking the tech to hold for a moment, Aiden asked the others if they wanted to take part in a zero-g practice session in a warehouse that afternoon? Rol said he was in because the Z-g workouts easily matched a lot of what he did in his rehab workouts. Aali, Zimzod and Fesic also said they'd go too. Colinne said she could get back to the intruder software after, so she agreed to go too. Mikah, Jocelyn and Sekea said they'd planned to go to the museum and would link up with the others later. With that agreed, as the others prepared to head to the warehouse space Aiden had rented Mikah, Jocelyn and Sekea decided to head for the shuttle port and the Museum of Natural History of the System and Cluster.
Again, before anyone left, Jocelyn gave her 'Captain's PSA', saying, "Before you all leave, I just want to remind you all not to wander off without telling someone where you are going. No one wants to die like Terin did." That got a couple of chuckles. After that, Mikah, Jocelyn and Sekea called for a portCab and Jocelyn paid the Cr 20 for the trip to the shuttleport. There, they each paid Cr 200 for tickets for a downwell shuttle and Sekea then paid Cr 10 for a cab from the port to the museum. Getting there, they each paid Cr 5 to get into the place, grabbed maps of the galleries and started deciding where they wanted to go?
Like any other museum designed to survey a large subject like an entire stellar cluster, there were wings hosting many sections in which numbers of galleries were set out for display. So, they only had to search the listed galleries for the displays related to gems and minerals. Jocelyn suggested they also look for light-labs displaying fluorescent minerals too. That not only told them where to go, but also cut down the amount of time they'd spend cruising the entire museum. They did still spend enough time at the museum that they each spent Cr 15 on lunch in the facility’s cafeteria. They also had an interest in checking out the animal exhibits, hoping to see depictions of the monsters of the sea, and perhaps get a look at the cattle the NieraBef had come from the night before. So, their museum visit wasn't just a hit and run.
When they visited the empty animal exhibits, they saw those were not the exhaustive coverage of every species that had evolved, or been introduced, on Lanth. They were more limited descriptions of family lines and the evolutionary paths of natural and gene-gineered life forms. While they had holographic displays of significant sea life, they didn't have an aquarium on that property. There were aquariums, and Jocelyn was interested in those. Aquaria and live animal zoos were only dirtside because the space needed was too great for a space station. They did have trivid and holographic zoos and aquaria on the station, where visitors could see media vids documenting the life forms in more limited space auditoriums and viewing rooms.
They did see representations of creatures like the sea Kraken, and it lived up to its descriptions. They also saw creatures like the Abyssal Mesh, which was more of an ecosystem than an animal. Huge Gas-filled bladder like structures drifting in Lanth's oceans which had even been known to trap and endanger human submarines. While they had quite a number of questions about Lanth's oceanic megafauna, the subjects were only lightly covered in the museum. For a deeper dive, one would have to go to other places or take related classes.
When they stepped in, the museum giftshop offered more expensive datafile books on every sort of subject. The three could easily have bought written or documentary files and learned the answers to their many questions. Of course, they all wondered if the shop sold Krakens? While they did have small figurines of creatures and did have krakens, they also sold projector systems and the vid-files to go with them. The vids were sold in organized "Creature files" with the costs starting near Cr 20, and rising as they bundled like-creates together, or grouped scientific families.
As Sekea walked the displays, he came to shelve that each held chunks from various stone-types from across Lanth. They were very literally garden variety stones one could find anywhere. Sekea looked for any stone that looked "pretty" or special in some way, and saw a bin marked "Saly-B-Gneiss". That stone had some similarities to samples of Gneiss Sekea had seen, but the dark bands seemed darker than he expected. And the light bands also featured brassy yellow or metallic flecks. Picking a sample up, Sekea felt the weight, which seemed heavier than he'd expected. Another odd thing was that the stone had been sealed in lacquer. When Sekea asked, a shop worker said the sulfuric content of the stone, if exposed, could allow for unwanted chemical reactions. So the stones they sold were sealed. Sekea bought one for Cr 10.
Jocelyn blamed Mikah for sending her spinning off on a vector looking for jewelry, and checked the shop for anything that struck her fancy. The displays had necklaces, bracelets, pins, broaches and other types of jewelry created from or featuring materials from native stone and minerals to repurposed animal bone and other natural materials. Where bark, leaves and other ephemeral materials were used, the internal fluids of plant parts were replaced by a silicon sap which invades and preserves the plant material.
Jocelyn was looking for a necklace that had a significant pendant. She hoped for a pendant of natural stone only found on Lanth which was two to three inches across. She did find a necklace with pretty, but low value, stones and a two-inch pendant. That Lanth-native stone was "Shuurmanaa", and was similar to tourmaline in nature. That cost her Cr 1,000. Mikah looked for something of interest and eventually bought a wall-mountable plaque sampler of Lanth's geologic stones for Cr 400. Seeing what she bought, Sekea bought one for himself too. When they were nearly finished with the displays they wanted to look at, Sekea checked to see if there were gem or mineral specific shops nearby but he only saw jewelers of various qualities.
Hearing him mention what he saw, Jocelyn suggested that the smaller shops often have pieces that were sold to them from estates or the late relatives of customers. So, she said they might find something interesting if they checked those out. With that, they decided to look for what they hoped were local, less commercial shops or pawn shops near the museum. While a shop they found was close, they would have to have rented masks to walk there so Jocelyn paid a Cr 10 taxi fee to get them there without needing the masks, since businesses on Lanth tended to have pressurized arrival garages. Even strip-malls shared a common arrival compartment.
While the three fanned out in the shop, the keepers did their best to show pieces they claimed were unusual but were not. They did notice the jewelry each were wearing, but were not astute enough to notice the Tellona chips. If they noticed the lanthanum metal of the rings, they didn't mention the cheap-metal fashion statements. Working her way through their stock and collections, Jocelyn came on a display of "Named" stones! Most were in their own settings but twelve were in a single setting and they all seemed to be heirlooms. When she called Mikah over, Mikah's first question were if they were "hate" or "love" stones? Seeing the collection, Mikah looked over the names but none of them meant anything to her. Sadly, Aali, who was the crew's genealogic hobbyist, wasn't there to ask about them. Figuring she could check, Mikah sparked her comms to end Aali pictures of the gemstones, but the engineer didn't answer her call.
Love Stones: When a loved one passes away in the modern societies of many Imperial Worlds, it is possible to memorialize that lost loved one. Where it is desired, a family or survivor can pay to have the body collected following the funeral or other memorial and then cremated. The ash from that body would then be mixed with "clean ash" from sources like blessed holy wood so that enough ash to create memorial lab-grown diamonds, rubies and sapphires. More exotic stones can be created by some shops and at some technology levels. These would be worked into new or existing settings for the loved one's survivor(s).
Hate Stones: When one with whom you've competed or simply had a detestable history dies, One can pay a fee to have the body collected and cremated for ash to use with additional ash as desired by the buyer. That added ash could come from specific sources, such as wood on which One has urinated. Or, the burnt ash of an item that had been treasured by the deceased. Additional costs exist for the collection of the body, especially in situations where the person owning the body is not yet done using it. As with Love stones, Hate stones can be lab-created diamonds, rubies and sapphires.
Before leaving for the warehouse, both Fesic and Aiden grabbed their teaching suits. In the warehouse with Aiden, those who were either helping him and Fesic learn, or just there to toss people about, had all ordered lunch packets for Cr 10 each while they spent the day playing. Well past mid-afternoon, Aali got a ping saying she had in-system mail but was actively throwing people around. Since it wasn't marked priority, she didn't open it. Jocelyn admitted she was tempted to buy them but also put off a bit by the imagined karma. Mikah had no interest in owning them but had only hoped Aali could give them some extra information about the stones.
Jocelyn spent Cr 2,500 on a pair of hair cuffs she'd found. Designed to hold hair into ponytails, both were silver with one of the two mostly decorated with in-set blue stones. The other had pink stones. The blue cuff had a watermelon tourmaline stone set into it and the pink had a blue tourmaline stone. The shop keepers were very pleased to make the sale and did their best not to let it be noticed when they saw Jocelyn's title. Still, there was no suggestion they knew why she had a title, which suited Jocelyn and the others just fine. Checking the time, Mikah saw it was only 4:30 and suggested they should stay down-well for dinner. That way, she figured she could find a really high-end restaurant to feast in, before they left for Sonthert and it was all rations for a long spell.
Checking the local network, one of the shop keepers suggested an Army/Navy Thrift Shop not far away. Liking that idea, Mikah said they should visit the place and called for a cab. Paying a Cr 5 fee for that, they rode to the shop and spread out to check it out. What really shocked them, because the staff had managed to get it into the back of their showroom, was a pre-Fifth Frontier War Grav tank! The shop staff were proud they'd even gotten the tank onto the shop floor. They could see the vehicle had been a design from the Fourth frontier War, but had been built after that war and before the Fifth. So, it was an old design that might have been used in the Fifth Frontier War.
There were questions and comments but Mikah firmly said, "We don't need a tank." Still, some of the shop staff noticed them giving the tank the once-over and said it was fully operational! One of the staffers said it had been pressed into service after it was listed as salvage, and used for patrol and some training work. Because of that, a paperwork snafu let them buy it with all weapons installed. When Jocelyn asked, just for giggles, she was told it cost 3.5 million, which was a steep discount from the "bought new" price of 5.9 million. Still, working to control and hide her sticker shock, Jocelyn could only get out a, "That's nice" as she turned away from the staffer.
Sadly for the three, they went through the entire shop and, aside from the tank, they found nothing they wanted to buy. The trip did eat up time and they were ready to decide which palace of fine dining to have dinner at and call a cab. While checking, they were happy not to select a place called "Bread", which advertised ordering on-line or from kiosks and an android crew. Something about that made them all doubt the claim to "fine dining". Eventually, they selected a place called "The Table". Judging by the menu they had on line, it was not only the top of fine dining but they were gonna spent a LOT of money for dinner! And by the end of the meal, they had spent Cr 150 each, with nickels and dimes for all the extras. After that, Jocelyn was calling a cab to get them back to the shuttleport. There, they expected to pay Cr 200 tickets for a ride back to the station.
Getting A Bang Out Of The Evening Later in the day, the folks in the warehouse tired of the exercise and decided to return to the ship. While they began walking, Colinne asked what everyone else wanted to do? Return to the ship or go out for dinner? Aali suggested they go out for a crew dinner before returning to the ship. The others agreed and they walked back from the port and cargo sections to the more commercial ports sections, they moved through a number of passages and companionways. Eventually, they left spaces devoted more to cargo and ship berth operations into the commercial concourses.
While they walked, Colinne and Aali were talking to each other and Aiden had joined in. Just ahead of them, Rol and Fesic were chatting. Zimzod trailed Rol and Fesic, and took part in their chat on occasion. As they walked and talked, concentrating more on each other than their surrounding, they were surprised by a sudden wave of gunfire reports! Fesic cried out as he was hit in the arm. Colinne knew she'd drawn fire because she heard and saw where a round had struck the passage floor near her. Zimzod was also hit in the lower chest, but didn't get knocked down by the wound. Another round struck the ground near Aiden.
In the sudden confusion, what the crew "knew" was that they were being attacked by gunmen even though it didn't seem those shooting had high-powered weapons. That was, of course, little comfort since they were not also armed. The one piece of good news for all those who'd been shot was that they were all wearing executive armor. Because of that, some of the damage from the rounds was mitigated. Fesic had been hit in the left arm, and suffered damage to his elbow, though that wouldn't be determined until he'd been treated for the wound. Zimzod's wound was to the outer right side of his chest closer to his abdomen. It would turn out just to be a "meat wound" with no critical organs impacted.
Grabbing seconds to look and see who was attacking them, the 'standard tactic' for dealing with an ambush was to counter attack. Every member of the team with ground combat training knew that, and they all knew that wasn't possible because the crew had not been allowed to have weapons. So, they could only scatter and seek cover in hopes the Lanth port security forces would move in to save the day. Glancing around, some of them could only see one or two of the gunmen while others could see what they thought was all four. Of course, more gunmen "could" be out there choosing not to reveal themselves yet. Why that would be, when the first shots would have raised alarms and time was against them, no one could tell. But there was no accounting for stupidity.
Others, who the crew had to assume were not involved, were screaming, panicking and running away and that happily caused confusion that could only make it harder for the gunmen to track their targets. Still, no one could spare a second to see if innocents had been hit because each of the crew had to find and reach cover. Fast! Rol dodged to the left heading for the line of tables so he could turn one over. He wasn't sure it the table would stop a bullet, but it would hide him so the gunmen would have to shoot up the whole table trying to hit him. Fesic also darted to the left toward tables outside the shops.
Given his position in the group, Zimzod broke right and was followed by Aali and Colinne. As she sprinted, Colinne did her best to concentrate and use her mind to push her telempathy, trying to sense the hate or anger of the gunmen. connecting with one of the minds, Colinne then shifted to concentrate even deeper and send thoughts to that mind that the port security forces where "right there and on top of him" while also focusing on intense fear. While she did that, Aiden also broke left for cover. As the gunmen tried to track their targets through panicked innocents and the scattering crew, Colinne had no way to know one of the gunmen had panicked, dropped his weapon and began to flee directly away from the crew and his partners.
The first of the remaining gunmen fired at Colinne and missed clean. Thanks to lack of communication, the second and third both targeted Aali, who was one of the crew out in the open for both of them. While one of the gunmen missed her, the second shot hit the engineer in the gut. Very luckily, Aali didn't go down with the hit and kept moving for cover. While Rol and Fesic reached a table and toppled it for cover while the others continued running for tables. Unaware of her success, Colinne again reached out as she had before and found a mind. This mind "felt different" than the first, but she had no time to waste on that as she pushed thoughts and fear into this second gunman.
The gunman who Colinne had first hit with fear had not recovered and was still running. While her success wasn't as spectacular with her second target, the man did get confused and that spoiled his aim. Adding to the confusion while the crew dove for cover, they heard four gunshots instead of three! What they could not know is that the gunmen firing from the central kiosk that had been in front of the crew were now being flanked by port security. And those officers were firing on the gunmen. Another thing they could not know was that the gunman who'd fled was being corralled by a pair of security officers who were not aware how he fit in but decided he needed to be stopped and questioned. He also seemed to be charging them, so they drew their weapons.
Again, and before they knew port security were there, one of the three gunmen had targeted Fesic again and the two had again targeted Aali. Thanks to Colinne, the man targeting Aali fired wide and missed her. Of the two men shooting at Fesic, one was suddenly hit by flanking fire from a security officer and his shot went wide. The third gunman's shot went wide because of his own aim. While that happened, two security emergency response vehicles pulled up from behind the cowering crew and officers started to deploy. Seeing that, Fesic called out, "I need an ambulance!" as if that wasn't obvious. Rol looked at him and sardonically asked, "First time?"
What the crew couldn't see were the convergence of roving patrols which should be the first on any crime scene. In this case, while Lanth wasn't a "high-law" system, they were in the middle of the world's main high port. That meant they could expect security to be more prevalent. With the officers closing from all directions, one of the ambush gunmen had already been shot and all the attackers were laying down arms and surrendering. While the crew asked for medical support, the officers reminded them the situation had to be contained first. They had to make certain the situation was safe enough to bring in medics. Still, it was very obvious medics were needed.
The first word spread was that the gunmen they knew about had surrendered or been taken into custody. As that word spread, other officers were arriving and swarming the compartment looking to see who was wounded and if they could find more gunmen? It took a bit of time for the compartment to be called "Clear", and the crew's wounded were looked over and told to put pressure on the wounds until the medics arrived. Very soon after the all clear was given, medical teams and transport flowed in and started triage and treatment.
While the medics worked, Aiden bemoaned, "The one time we don't have Jocelyn." and Rol laughed. Aali had been hit in the gut from behind. The good news was the round hit between her spine and kidney without damaging either. The bad news was it had hit and damaged her intestinal tract, and that would be messy. They had to get her to surgery as soon as possible to clean up the damaged organs and tissue so that she didn't become infectious or even go septic. Using hand scanners, the medics told Zimzod his chest wound was just a meat wound. He'd likely heal up faster than the others.
Ignoring their annoyance, Zimzod sparked up his comms and called Mikah. Where she was, Colinne called Jocelyn. Mikah was reaching for her comms when Jocelyn's went off and they instantly knew this couldn't be good. When Mikah answered, Zimzod flatly told her, "We've been ambushed." When Mikah asked if anyone was hurt, Zimzod said he and Aali were hit and from what he could see, Fesic was hit too. Of course, Fesic was being treated with the others on the far side of the corridor. When Mikah asked if security and medical support were there, Zimzod said they were. Mikah accepted that and told Zimzod to take care of what was needed and she, Sekea and Jocelyn would come straight back to the highport.
Colinne told Jocelyn they'd been ambushed by four armed gunmen and had three wounded out of their group. She continued that security and medical support had moved in, but she felt she should call and report that they'd had an incident. Jocelyn only told Colinne to make sure everyone stayed down and safe under cover, and to let the authorities handle the situation. Colinne agreed and Jocelyn told her they'd meet the rest of the crew at whatever hospital they'd be brought to. After the calls, and a brief chat between themselves so Mikah and Jocelyn could compare notes and update Sekea, they agreed to get back to the port and get a shuttle to orbit as quickly as possible.
Mikah called the Duke's seneschalate while Jocelyn called for a cab and wondered if they could charter a shuttle or would have to wait for a scheduled flight? When an operator at the seneschalate answered, Mikah introduced herself with titles and then said they'd only docked their ship at the highport days before and she'd just gotten word her crew was attacked on the station. Based on the circumstances, she said she wanted to have a meeting with the Duke as soon as possible. Hearing that, the operator asked where the attack was and she repeated it had happened on the highport. He then asked if she was on the highport and Mikah said she was planetside with two members of her ship's crew.
When Mikah said they were preparing to return to the highport and meet up with her other crew, the tech had Mikah hold for a bit. Very shortly after, the operator came back on the line and told Mikah to stay where she was. He said they were pinging her comms and sending a gravCar for her. Hearing that, Mikah told Jocelyn to cancel the cab she'd called for because the seneschalate was sending a car for them. After they were done with their calls and the cab had been canceled, they only had a short time to wait before a convoy of grav cars swooped out of the sky.
While people outside scattered, they saw that all but one of the cars had the insignia of the Ducal Guard. And the last one had the seal of the Duke's household. Comedically, Jocelyn muttered that the convoy was going to draw attention, as if that mattered. Observers were certain the spectacle had been carried out that way specifically to draw attention and scatter anyone who might have been in the way. The sight was enough to make sure the restaurant's maître d was getting filter masks and other outside gear ready for them. But, as soon as the cars hit pavement, troopers swarmed out to secure the area while a seneschalate worker rushed the restaurant with gear for the three.
While the crowd of obvious on-lookers grew, the seneschalate officer helped them gear up and escorted them to the car with the Household seal on it. With them aboard, the troopers remounted their cars and the convoy was off to the world's downport. Inside the car, they could see administrative computers, comms and management systems with space for a number of people beyond the system operators. They saw the two drivers and two technicians already in place along with a trooper posted next to an assembly they realized was a "pop-up" turret. So, the vehicle had teeth if it was attacked. Another person aboard turned out to be there to care for Mikah's people as if he were the car's steward.
Getting them seated, he said, "Before you have any questions, we are in contact with highport station security and we're gathering information on the attack but we don't have the details just yet. So, any questions on that will have to wait. We're taking you to the port where we have a shuttle standing by to transfer you to the highport." When Mikah asked about transport from the station's shuttleport to the hospital she was told station administration would handle that. The seneschalate man then turned and asked, "Lady Mikah. You said you needed to have a meeting with the Duke. May I ask with regard to what?" When Mikah said she wanted to talk to him about her crew's security, he said the Duke's office didn't manage security issues. He said it would be up to the highport security authorities to decide.
Accepting that, Mikah made it clear she wanted to know how the gunmen managed to get weapons on the station and the man pointed out the weapons may not have been illegal to have. He reminded her the reason her crew were not permitted weapons was an order issued by the system government. And that was based on events related to the actions of her crew in other systems. He made it clear the station security team had to understand the day's attack before making any decisions, and that investigation was underway. So, they had to wait until that was done and the answers had been gotten before asking for any changes.
On the highport, the hospital tech was properly interstellar in systems and training, so they were better than many planets in the sector. At the very least, initial medical care and stabilization was on the station's credit because they'd been attacked there. If, after they were stabilized, they wanted to transfer to other care, like their ship's doctor, they were welcomed to do that. After the wounded were moved to the hospital, security asked who else also wanted to go to the hospital? There, they would set up an isolated and secure space for the crew to wait while the wounded were treated.
Everyone but Rol decided to go to the hospital while he chose to stay and give his statement to security officers on site. Hospital administrators told the crew that Fesic's wound had damaged the bones of his elbow and surgery was needed to make certain the bone damage was healed properly. They said he'd be in a cast for a bit but they expected he'd heal 100% and not lose any dexterity or range of motion. The report on Zimzod was that he was being sent to the scanners to make certain he hadn't suffered damage to any of his organs but it seemed his wound had been a through and through meat-wound with minor muscle damage to his diaphragm. All in all, his wounds were less urgent or critical.
They'd done some scans on Fesic before he and Aali had been moved into operating rooms, and Aali was their main concern. With her intestines violated and her digestive fluids and intestinal contents splattered inside her body cavities, they had to both close up and repair the damage and clean the cavity. Failure to do that would risk septic infections. While they waited, they were told their captain and her team would be transported to link up with them and station security officers will also come there to take their statements.
On the scene, Rol walked through events with investigators who used his direction to bring out as many facts as Rol could give them. Of course, there had been a lot of confusion and Rol could only speak to when Fesic was hit because Zimzod and Aali had gone after cover in the other direction. Still, being 'in the setting' did help jog his memory as he gave his statement. After he was done, they shifted him to where the others were waiting in the hospital as they were told Lady Mikah's shuttle from the surface had landed at the shuttleport. They were also told Mikah and her party would be brought to meet them there at the hospital. When he arrived, the others brought him up to speed.
With that, Rol called Jocelyn even though they'd told him the shuttle had just landed. That meant she, Mikah and Sekea were likely disembarking from the shuttle and getting into a portCar for the ride to the hospital and would be there in under 20 minutes. And Jocelyn's team had been met by the port's high Administrator himself! Still, as she was following the station administrator leading them to a car, Jocelyn answered her comms. When she did, Rol told her everyone else was at the hospital waiting for the three and the wounded were all being treated. He added they would wait for the three to arrive at the hospital. Jocelyn OK'd that and then cut the call before passing the update to Mikah and Sekea.
Of course, the administrator only showed interest in dealing with Mikah because she was the officially recognized Captain of the Upgrade. Regardless of the other situations surrounding the crew, he was very upset this happened on "His Station" and on his watch. Getting a snark in, Jocelyn commented, "I'm upset this happened on your station too." To Mikah, the administrator was apologetic and promised to investigate this shooting completely. He also assured Mikah their crew would be absolutely secure during their visit to the station from that point forward. While they waited after that, the station administrator had food brought in for them.
Eventually, Zimzod's doctor was the first to join them in the secure room assigned to the crew. The doctor said that Zimzod's wound looked bad but really wasn't as critical as it appeared. The wound had been a meat-wound and none of his organs were damaged. He would be expected to wait a few weeks before resuming exercises and physical therapy, but he would completely recover. The doctor also told Mikah he would be released into her care that night and could return to the ship. When Mikah asked about Zimzod's existing scar tissue, she was told there would be no issues there and some of the scar tissue was even removed. They'd patched him up with growth enhancers and stem cells to re-grow some areas that had previously been damaged.
Sometime later, Fesic's doctor sent a member of the team to speak with Mikah and the crew. That junior doctor reported that Fesic's ulna had been damaged and the team had to rebuild a portion of the olecranon, which was the end-most tip of the ulna - underneath the elbow joint. The capitulum, or 'little head' of the humorous had also been damaged and they'd had to rebuild those bones in Fesic's left elbow. So, they'd not only shaved the damaged bone sections, but also used other doner bone and growth enhancers. They'd also built out sections of the bone with saturated cartilage which would eventually turn into bone material too. So, Fesic would have to wear a cast for the next month. Since he would also be released that night, they expected Mikah would make the decision when to remove the cast?
That said, there was not expected to be any lasting damage once the cast came off. When Mikah asked if Fesic would still be able to pick locks she got a blank look back because the junior doctor had no idea what Mikah was talking about? That didn't stop the other members of the crew in the space from giggling more than a bit. Some time passed before a member of Aali's surgical team came out to talk to them. As they all knew, gut wounds were a mess, and doubly so when the wound came through the victim's back. In addition, Aali's intestines had been violated so they had many issues to chase after. Identifying the damaged tissue, they had to hunt down and sew up any of the many possible points where she could develop bleeders. Even more important, they had to explore and clean every part of her abdominal cavity, to prevent against infection. Finally, they had to identify tissue that might no longer be receiving blood flow, because necrotic tissues could not be left in her body when they closed up the wound.
Over all, the difficult and time-consuming operation was still on-going and they would be keeping Aali in hospital for two days. They did expect that Aali would be up and walking in several days so long as she doesn't push things or pull her stitches. Ultimately, she would heal faster than Fesic, but they'd finish the operation with growth enhancer, stem cells and other regrowth biotech. Aali wasn't moved to a recovery room until near 9pm and Mikah was told they wanted to hold her for two days to be certain everything was knitting properly and she'd been completely cleaned out. By that time, Fesic had been released and had enough anesthetic that his arm wasn't bothering him. By then, Zimzod had also been released.
Fesic joked about getting stickers for his cast and Jocelyn suggested she might break out her chocolate fountain "if they were good." They chose to wait until they were told they could visit Aali even though they knew they'd not get to visit long with her. Mikah also had been told by the Station Administrator that he'd send a car for her when he had a more complete report on what had happened, so they could discuss the situation. Colinne also told Mikah and Jocelyn she wanted to talk to them privately when they got a chance. When Mikah said they'd hire a secure ride after visiting Aali, one of the security officers in the room told her station security would certainly be transporting the crew back to their ship when the time came.
When Fesic asked who would be guarding Aali in the hospital, he was told the hospital would have a station security detail assigned to her until she was discharged. They also had to have details present because the wounded gunman was also being treated for his wounds. It turned out the gunman who'd panicked and thrown his weapon down had come around a kiosk and into the view of a roving patrol responding to the sound of gunshots. When they first saw him, it appeared to them the man was charging at them, so they'd shot him too. That meant he was also being treated for his wounds.
When they finally did let the crew visit Aali, she was obviously high as a kite! While the group delivered their well wishes and other comments, Aali only asked if someone might bring her another cocktail? Mikah promised they'd bring her one the next day while the others laughed. Rol joked that while she was stuck in the hospital, she wasn't under arrest. Fesic beat that dead horse saying, "Yeah, you're not in a cell." After the visit wrapped up, station security got them all aboard a transport and moved them safely to their berth before seeing them all aboard the Upgrade.
Mikah ordered both Zimzod and Fesic to the med-bay so she could check them over as she muttered, "When are you people gonna learn to duck?" Mikah felt Zimzod would heal on his own but decided Fesic could use a night in the autodoc. Zimzod felt he needed some reinforced rest, so he asked Mikah to hit him with a sedative and he went to bed. While they did their thing in the med-bay, Rol cooked snacks for the crew and people munched. With his free time before he racked out, Rol pulled his side arms and did maintenance. Sekea followed Rol's example. After Mikah was free, Colinne said she wanted to talk to both her and Jocelyn privately. Aiden watched the news and then tried to find a sound that would be calming and soothing for the crew while the others ignored him.
The two women then found Jocelyn and they stepped into the ship's computer room to talk. When the door had been closed, Colinne explained what she'd done using her psionic powers during the ambush. While Mikah was pleased, Jocelyn was surprised because she hadn't yet considered how to use her growing powers. At the moment, Jocelyn shared the telempathic powers at a much lower level of strength but she could not yet psionically send thoughts. Colinne said she'd have to rest up for a bit to recover and both Mikah and Jocelyn said that was fine.
Jocelyn added that Colinne had likely saved lives, which was true even though no one could prove it. But when she'd confused the second gunman he'd been targeting Aali. And she likely couldn't take a second hit. And they had no idea who the guy who ran would have targeted. Mikah agreed with Jocelyn and told Colinne to use her abilities the way she wanted to and take all the time she needed to recharge. Especially since that group would likely not be the last group to come after them. They all agreed on that and Colinne said she wanted to hit the rack for the night. Jocelyn got the final word, telling Colinne to never worry about using her psi for the crew, and added, "Just don't get caught".
In the hospital, Aali knew the routine. They were constantly testing her as they worked to help her heal. The constant flow of medial workers was only tolerable thanks to the drugs they had her on. Finally, as things moved along, they gave her a sedative which knocked her out for the night. In the ship, the others had faded off to bed.
Thursday, 113-1114: Early Morning Where everyone is at the end of the session: Aali: In hospital being treated for her abdominal gunshot wound Everyone Else: Asleep aboard the ship
_________________________________________________________________________ Next: Pending The May Session