Lilana realizes something as the drones hover around the old colony ship...

"We're not looking for what's there, really.  We're looking for what's missing.  And signs that it was recently removed."

And of course, if everything was in pristine order and the drones could just fly on in and through, it would be easy.

Everyone knows, it's never easy.  The good news is, they are certain that this is a type of ship that would have carried hibernation pods, lots of them.  The bad news...

First, there are doors securing the areas they want to see.  There's no power to the ship at all, and they would have to be opened the old fashioned way- pulling on handles.

Second, the ship is, as those with any mechanic skill are aware of, not the type that was ever designed to sit on a planet's surface.  Every element in the ship's structure is taking much more of a load than it was ever designed to.

Third... even though they cannot see the interior of the sections they want to get in to, there are signs that this ship was previously scavenged in the bad way- people or robots acting recklessly, cutting into things and leaving possibly dangerous situations behind.

As Charles cycles outside with Abe he looks at the wreck and then shrugs as he starts his approach.

"Lets try to avoid the really dangerous parts. Though i think looking at the spots where the salvagers did their work might get us the quick n easy place to enter close to where we might need to be. Anyone has an idea where the pods should be?"

As he approaches the structure he fires up the engineering program and tries to map out the structural unsafe areas they really should try and avoid.

ooc: My own mechanic 2 and the computer engineering expert should do the trick here right?

Absently, Abe nodded to the Captain's observation, "Either works. If there are pods missing, there may be a way forward; if there's not, there are salvageables to help us understand their needs, or lay out some tradeable bait..."

His eyes roved the structure, gravity having been lent a careless hand by whoever had been here before them, and then further out at the ship's carcasses nearby

His nod to Viper was firmer, "Let's see if we can lay up some supporting beams if we need to?"

Lending Charles a hand in diagnosis with his own JOAT skills

"I have deconstructed a few ships in my time. Let's see what I can do to help with this." Jackson will try to use experience at the shipyards to help

It's a good thing the characters actually have a good stock of engineer/mechanical skills between them!

As they learned earlier, there are some salvagers who cheat: tear things out, cut, chop, and don't fix their mess and don't report what they've done.

That's illegal.  But... that's been done here.

Jackson is able to engineer a safe salvage plan. (He rolled, and a 12 is a great outcome.)  Or at least, a safe entry way.  It's still uncertain whether you actually want to salvage anything.  Working to his directions, you have safe movement into the old ship's hibernation pod areas, without the floor collapsing.

Still, it creaks a lot.  In space, no one can hear a floor creak, but this planet has an atmosphere, just a very inert one.  It still transmits sound, so it's noisy as things strain under weight.  Whenever there is a stiff breeze outside, there is a groan from the hull.

It's old, but well preserved.  The atmosphere prevents rust and decay.  No water, no oxygen.  There is some fine dust scattered around.

It doesn't look like what you might have been expecting.  It's a long wide gallery, with the spaces for hibernation pods arranged in clusters.  The decor is the unexpected part- it's not a medical or industrial look.  It's like the ship designers went out of their way to make people feel like they were in a pleasant country Bed and Breakfast, and hibernation would be a little nap.  Wood trim and paintings on the walls... still there.  A lot of decor still there.  The hibernation pods, no.  But they left the decoration.

"Rats" Jackson was somewhat disappointed, then again even with a large ship expecting success on the first attempt was a bit over optimistic on his part.

He looked around at decor that surrounded each pod cluster. The Vultures seemed to have gotten  all the valuable stuff, or did they? "Lilana, what are the chances any of the 250 years old artwork may be valuable today?"

In contrast, Abe was somewhat excited and a smile slipped through as he sought to find some kind of working system outlet or surveillance storage. It was unlikely, and they had little with them capable of the necessary forensics, but the fact that these pods had been so thoroughly scavenged was a sign that perhaps their quarry had been there, and with that perhaps there was the potential for a trail.

Whilst he sought some kind of record in the wreck's systems, he asked of their local crew as well: did they know who might have been here, at this wreck

Looking through the place Charles was impressed at the effort made to make this place look so nice for something that was little more then a glorified refrigerator. Charles calls up the images from the pods on the planet and tries to see if there are any markings on them that he can recognize here to determin at least some of the pods came from this place.

The Hibernation Pods are long gone.  And so is *some* of the supporting hardware.  Examination by the mechanically minded characters reveals that the pods went first, in an orderly, efficient fashion- probably pulled out as the ship was being decommissioned.  Support equipment, much later, in a much sloppier fashion.

The artwork on the walls… is kind of tricky to estimate in value because “Art Dealer” is a very rare skill for characters.    You cannot tell the difference between an original masterpiece and a cheap imitation.  Lilana thinks its likely that the works are imitations, considering that the people who they were meant for would have seen them only briefly, before and after hibernation.  Still, they are well done, and as “consumer home décor” they could have some value.  She has a theory as to why they are still here:  people generally have an idea in mind when they are looking for something.  If one is really after wall art, then the logical choice would be to look in high end passenger ships.  Who figures they’d put it in colonist ships?  How weird is that?

Meanwhile, Abe tracks down some information about the ship to whom the crew that last scoured this place belonged to, via the staff and logs of the Gamboge Boneyard.

Back with the Crossers, the party encountered the agricultural ship Caledonia, which, according to its crew, was the last remaining ship of its class.   But the gang later learned, while looking up Ghost Ships, that's not exactly true.  Its sister ship Patagonia is operating in the frontier space past Calderada, which is where you are now.  As a ghost ship, it's not engaging in known trade.  Just coming and going doing it's own thing, and nobody really knows what it is up to.

But the Patagonia was here. Two years ago.

"We have a ship name, now," Lilana remarks.

Florence had quickly admited that she had no interest in looking for a carinian starship, erratic or not  and had instead tried to look into their next destination and what she could do to make herself useful. Which was...well, not much, especially not on the way. While Lilana's opinion that the hibernation pods hadn't been the only thing likely taken, there was no way she'd be able to find before they reached the planet, so she was left with nothing much to do. Or at least, nothing regarding Lilana's current goal.

Instead, maybe pushed by their current investigation, she spent the trip trying to learn more about ship systems and how to pilot one. She didn't know much of anything of the former - besides a bit of skills with computers - but she showed that she had the basics of navigation and piloting and was more than willing to learn more about that: having multiple pilots or navigators certainly couldn't hurt, and she figured that those skills could always be useful.

On the planet itself, unable to directly help with the scavengers - she figured that considering her age and appearance none of the grizzled locals would take her seriously - instead, taking once again advantage of the excuse of sampling the local specialities, she went for a roundabout way of talking a bit with lots of people, mostly to get a feel of the place and the way it worked: who mattered, who to avoid, who to look for if you had this or that problem, etc..

She hesitated for a good while about joining the trip outside of the starport, but in the end decided to follow to the Ultima Traiectum, though she stayed well in the back: she didn't think she had much to offer to the team - the lessons she had taken recently being far from being enough for it - but since there was no way to know in advance, she figured she might as well come. Plus, another set of hands and eyes might come in handy and at the very least, she could always learn a few things.

She didn't seem all that impressed by the hibernation bay though, but she did comment with a “Eh, almost feels like home...” Which might explain why she didn't seem impressed. Regarding the value of it all, she added, “The fact that it's in wood could, by itself, be worth quite a bit, especially if it comes from Earth: it's not something that gets shipped often, it's too heavy for that.” Well, among other reasons. “But it is heavy, and most of those interested in buying things like that can do so directly. I'm not sure finding buyers would be easy or quick.”

“And we know it still operated in the region.” Florence added when they learned about the ship's name. “But there's no way it's operating alone: a ship that size would be far too easy to track from port to port and it wouldn't be much of a Ghost Ship. When we get back in the starport we should try to see if there were other ships with it. It won't be a guarantee, but it's one sample. If we manage to get enough, we might pinpoint some of its contacts. And maybe we could try to see if anyone remembers what it was doing here. It probably left quite the impression on the locals, they know their ships after all.” or at least one could hope considering the place...

Florence does some research, looking into Gamboge's government.

With about 150,000 people, Gamboge is a minor Governate.  If it were a region on a larger inhabited planet, it wouldn't even rate as a Governate on its own- too small a population.  But the Commonwealth recognizes that management of an entire planet (technically, a star system, though there aren't any other settlements in the system) is a special responsibility, and 150,000 is too many for it to be classed as an outpost to be administered from a nearby world.  Thus, Gamboge has a Governate- though it is considered one of the sleepiest, dullest assignments one could ask for.  Almost a punishment.  Yes, it is a whole planet.. but its mostly yellow dust.  Compared to a mediocre Earth assignment like Morocco, it's nothing to brag about.


A check of the frames of the paintings shows that Florence is right about the wood:  it is genuine and it is almost certainly from Earth.  They are old: no off world sources in use, back then, at least none shipping wood all the way back to Earth for use in frames.

They leave the cold colony ship with all the artwork they can carry; paintings long forgotten because no one remembered they'd been put on a hibernation ship, just to make colonists feel more relaxed.

"I'm getting the feeling that as get closer to the location our Crosser friends gave us, we're going to be crossing paths with the Patagonia sooner or later," Lilana says.  "Why would you keep a gigantic agricultural ship a secret like that?"

Florence considered the question for a moment, before answering. “Maybe they're selling black colonies. Who gets to colonize what, where, is restricted for a lot of reasons.” She grimaced slightly, “Among other things because, besides the whole political considerations, seeing Humanity's rate of expansion makes our alien friends nervous. There are still illegal colonies popping up here or there, but they tend to be small affairs, and in most cases doomed to fail. A big reason for that being lack of resources which make it pretty much impossible to weather the first problems. A ship like the Patagonia could probably by itself drastically improve the chance of one such colony succeeding. If you have the funds and the will to carve yourself an Empire in the stars, that's exactly the kind of ships you'd want with you. Or at least, it'd be a start, you'd also need a lot of other things.”

After a few seconds, she shrugged, “Though there's probably a better answer.” That one was a bit nuts after all. “Plus, you'd definitely want to have hibernation pods, among other things, but I still don't understand why you'd drop lots of them on the surface of a random planet. They could have stored those they couldn't fix there instead of simply jettisoning them to the nearest star if they thought they might be able to use some of them as spare parts but…” She grimaced, obviously not convinced by her own explanation.

“I'd say 'follow the money' if we could, but since we don't even have that, I'm not sure we'll get any closer to an answer until we reach that planet with the pods.” At least then they'd know if there were people inside. Or if the pods had been gutted, used for spare parts or whatever. “Though it would probably help if we could find out what the Patagonia was looking for - or bought - besides the pods when they were here two years ago.”

It seemed, in hindsight, a logical explanation... a secret, under-the-table off-the-books colony effort.

They certainly existed, and they've been growing in number since the Commonwealth's authority began to wobble.  Their proponents call themselves "Freelanders" and they feel they have the right to settle on any unsettled world.  Or sometimes, in uninhabited portions of settled worlds.

There were a couple of small problems with the whole movement.

First, it was hard to integrate an unauthorized colony into the complex (and heavily subsidized) interstellar economy.  Space operations can be expensive.  Back in the early 21st century it took the combined efforts of many nations to keep one modest space station going.  Now, operating starships is fairly cheap, but only because the Commonwealth supplies so much of support and infrastructure and the costs are unseen.  Who's going to run the starport on a remote, independent colony?  And what would it export?  Freelander colonies tend to be shabby, primitive things, the only thing they can really offer is a rustic frontier sense of total independence that appeals to some people.

Second, and more important by far... the other civilizations, the powerful Oumo especially, hate the idea.  Oumo philosophy is built on the idea of careful, enlightened management.  Such uncontrolled chaos is detestable to them.  Worse, it raises the possibility of conflict, either accidental or deliberate, between spacegoing civilizations.  There is only one of those, and it has been horribly costly.  This is the sort of thing more familiar to academic circles and the Governate administrators, but it's not a secret.  The Oumo despise the Freelanders, and have pressured the Commonwealth to crack down.  The only reasons the Oumo do not take matters into their own hands are that the problem is small, and using force against Humans might cause the very interspecies conflict they want to avoid.

"I'm really, really, really hoping it's not Freelanders," Lilana says.  "With Ghost Ships, you don't really know if it's a problem.  With Freelanders trouble has not only been invited in already, it's got it's name on a plaque on the door.  I'm sorry... was that a bad metaphor."

"But we have something to look for now, a ship, the Patagonia,"  Lilana's assistant Minka says.  "And they've done something bizarre and we're going to make a documentary about it and get rich.  That's still the plan, right?"

"So all we have to do now is find one starship that is much too big to hide... and.. or... the pod depot in the pictures we got from the Crosser explorer.  Strong hunch they are both in the same direction.  Anyone need anything else out of Gamboge?"

Sadly, with all the mechanical talent the crew has, Gamboge could be a dream world.  They have the necessary skills to hunt down the parts they need to make almost anything.

Something just occurred to me boss" he said to Lilana "Given the worsening of political situation we may want do some weapon and other system upgrades to the Nelly Bly. There may even be some of her sister ships with parts we can do the upgrades with."

Charles chuckles at his own mental image of turning the nelly into a small deathstar.

"Question is do we have the time and resources to do that. I think we got the skill to find and upgrade her but my guess is we need to sell our story first before we can upgrade it. "

“Actually...” Florence paused, clearly thinking for a few seconds. She looked at Lilana “Jackson might have a point.” Which she clearly was a bit uncomfortable with - and it had nothing with Jackson himself. “If that's what we're looking at, someone able to hire - or make use of - a ship like the Patagonia almost certainly has some kind of defences in place. The last thing they'd want is for someone to talk to the Commonwealth about what's happening in their necks of the woods. It might just be to capture and not kill - though I'm not sure it'd be all that better considering - but I believe it would make sense. I'm not sure we'd need weapons so much as countermeasures against said weapons, but it wouldn't hurt...”

“Plus,” she shrugged, “While I may not be able to help finding what we'd need, I'm pretty sure I could help get the permits we'd need. If we find ships of the same model as the Nellie Blye, it could be done quickly right? Though I have no idea if it would be financially possible.” After all, while she could help with the authorization's side of things - or so she assumed anyway - she had no idea how much weapons or countermeasures even cost.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:14, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

Jackson nodded in agreement to both Charles' and Florence's points "While serious weapon upgrades may beyond our budget I wonder if electronic upgrades could be done. If we want to do some serious surveillance I wonder if there any sensor or Electronic Warfare equipment  better than our current capabilities available to be salvaged." 

“Well, there's not much to be done about time.” It was entirely up to Lilana to decide if she wanted to take the time for all of that after all,  “But as far as the budget is concerned…” She waved around as she asked, “I seriously doubt there are many documentaries about Gamboge. In fact, if we do it right, it could bring credits and allow us to go faster than we would otherwise: it could be nice advertisement for some people after all.”

She seemed pensive for a moment, then added, “Plus, I'm not an expert, but… this place is pretty much unique, something few have heard about: wouldn't a documentary about it sell very well in lots of places?” She looked at Lilana at that.

Lilana considers the possibilities.

She has something she never had before already:  a crew with some real talent.  Upgrading sensors, weapons...

Weapons were probably not going to be here for the taking.  If someone left a laser cannon on a decommissioned spaceship, someone has made a career ending mistake.

Parts for weapons, on the other hand...

On the third hand, the ship doesn't have much room.  Maybe, one day, a bigger ship?

And on the fourth hand, sensors.  The current crew seems to know a lot about that.  Charles with his drones, for example.  Good sensors could get you out of a situation where you might otherwise need good weapons.

Sensors are often left behind, because everything electronic loses value as it ages.  Stories say that once upon a time, on Earth in the pre-contact early space flight era, a computer a decade old was considered ancient, and value-less.

"Whatever you can find in 24 hours," she decides.  "After that, we have to be on our way, and track down the Patagonia and a lot of missing pods... which, I should remind you, aren't on the Patagonia in the pictures we have.  They are waiting on a planet surface.  A depot, maybe."

Now he was given orders and a deadline to do it heF set his mind in motion to make it happen. First thing was to throw a couple ideas out and see if one had a way to make it work.

"First off looking for scout ships would be a good start." He will nod to Abe,the other former scout in the group. He will then look to Charles."A possible wild card may be found if there is a police impound lot here. When I was working in the security section for the authority I found that smugglers tried to have to best sensors they could afford to spot us before they spotted them."

Charles nods and as they had a guide agrees with Jacksons assessment and asks the person where there is a site with a more dense spot with their desired ship types Hell he might even heard of a potential weapon but that might cost em too much. He already starts setting up his drones to look for the right type as they start moving about.

Florence nodded to acknowledge Lilana's instructions, even though it left her with a bit of a problem: what exactly could she do in those twenty-four hours. She wasn't going to be of much help looking for ships or spare parts, and it was too short of a time to record anything interesting. Especially considering that Lilana hadn't seemed interested in it in the first place.

Instead, she decided she'd try to look for information about the last time the Patagonia was in the system: what it had been interested in and maybe if it had had an escort of some sort.

It takes time and work, but Florence has an angle no one has worked before:  ships that overlapped the schedule of the Patagonia often enough to make coincidence a stretch. This time, she finds things.


Meanwhile, the others use the time they have for scrounging.  They look for scout ships.

Very fortunately, there are more than they would have guessed!  And it hindsight, it's obvious.  Freighters can be used long after more modern freighters race past them.  They just move bulk freight cheaply, if slowly.  Passenger ships get converted to freighters, and do the same.  Scout ships, though... with so little "money maker" tonnage... who wants an old, slow scout?  And worse, scout ships must operate far from help.  No one wants to be on a scout ship full of old gear.

Eight surviving ships of the Scotia class, old scout ships, too slow, too unreliable to be of any use, are parked in a neat row.

Once upon a time they had weapons for self defense.  They are unarmed, but the mounts are still there.

"This is a good place to start" says Jackson "Hey Abe, ever serve on one of these babies? Let find us some sensors" Jackson will work with the other to help find and obtain the best sensor system among the mothballed ships.






17:11, Today: Jackson Taylor rolled 9 using 2d6+1.  scrounging for electronics.
(Would past service in the scout service aid his roll further?)

For a time, Florence studied her findings, pondering what it all might mean. At some point, while the men were looking for ways to improve the ship, she went to find Lilana. “So, remember when I mentioned finding other ships that might be involved with the Patagonia? Turns out, I'm pretty sure I've found one: the Baccarat.”

She handed out her findings and let the older woman quickly go over them. “As you can see here,” she pointed out the links between the courier ship and the agricultural groups, “genetic engineering for crops and livestock. That would make perfect sense for Freelanders.” She grimaced slightly, “Or at least Freelanders with one hell of an infrastructure. And much better financing than usual.”

“Wherever we go, we'll have to step lightly…” she commented idly, while she sent the other members of the crew a quick summary of her findings to keep them up to date.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:26, Mon 22 Feb 2021.