Conrad's course plot is good, and the trip to the nearest giant goes smoothly.  The two ships are about three hours from achieving a low orbital insertion - a couple of quick loops around the planet, and then move on to the next.

Even this far out, more than a half million kilometres above the cloud tops, the giant planet's EM field is already interfering slightly with the sensor suites of both ships.  Fortunately the mismatched pair are the same in one respect, they both have state-of-the-art passive arrays, though Ore Hound's active sensors have been shut down for some time, and she is receiving a tight-beam feed from Profit Margin.  All part of the subterfuge of making it look like a single ship.

Ghosts dance across the display screens.  Small though it is, this giant seems active.  The part of the world on the nightside of the terminator is constantly lit by huge flashes of lightning.  The daylight side is the colour of a fresh bruise, and just as angry-looking.

The planet has a ring system close in.  Dirty ice mostly, mixed with dust, and occasional large chunks of rock.  Six small moons, only four of them even close to spherical, orbit the world, though the system records indicate that the exact number of moons changes from time to time.

All in all, it's not a hospitable corner of the system, and a good place for somebody to hide.

"Jago, I'm pickin' up somethin' a li'l odd here.  The outermost moon is just a snowball, an' it don't reflect radar too well, but there somethin' there that's showin' as real solid.  Look."

Conrad slides the radar readout across to Jago's panel.  The moon shows up as a gray disk, with blurred edges.  Sitting near one edge of the disk is a bright spot.  The navigator continues to work on the sensors, trying to better define the object.

“You getting this Jockram?” Jago asks over the tight beam, “I’m going to move in a little closer.”

“Good spot,” Jago gives Conrad the nod as he makes small adjustments to the course of the Profit Margin to bring it round a lot closer to the planetoid in questions, then, for the benefit of those not in cabin, he puts it up on the relay screens and adds a little commentary via the intercom.

“This little ice ball is the outer moon of the planet below us, we are not sure what that bright spot is so we’re getting a little closer to take a look.”

"Ahah!" Conrad suddenly lets out an exclamation of triumph, "Got somethin' now.  Looks to be 'bout a hunerd metres long, maybes a touch less.

The navigator's hands start dancing across the controls, setting up a new course which will swing the two ships in closer to the icy moonlet.

"That ol' moon ain't much bigger, two hunerd klicks diameter.  Most likely a captured chunk from some comet.  Low density, so not much gravity, but that bright blip is metal.  Once we're a mite closer I can grab a spectro readin', but for now, that's the most I can tell."

"Seventy-three minutes, Jago, an y'all'll be able ter reach out an' touch it."

He sends the new course data to Jago's panel.

Unsure of it's exact nature, Tylen brings his turret to bear on the unidentified object. He does not attempt to get an active lock, simply aims the laser.

The outermost moon is small and bright.  A shade over 195 km in diameter, with a high albedo that makes it shine across most of the visual spectrum.

Conrad's new course brings the two ships in close, less than twenty klicks above the surface, both of them moving backwards, against the full thrust of their main engines, as they try to slow down for a better look, attempting to match the highly eccentric orbit of the tiny moonlet.

From that height, it looks even more like a snowball.  Spectrographic analysis confirms it.  Mostly water ice, with impurities.  Surface gravity is only 0.01 G, and the temperature on the sunside is a balmy -130°C.  Not even athe faintest whisp of atmosphere, though there is a slow moving cloud of ice particles around it.

The surface is cratered, and split by cracks.  One of those craters is almost forty kilometres wide, and at the bottom of that lays the metal object.  It looks like a ship, though it is crumpled, crushed, and broken beyond repair.  Partly buried in the ice, it seems to match the original estimate which placed it at about a hundred metres long...

Jockram's voice crackles over the tightbeam, "Looks like those stories about a lost ship might have been based in fact."
This message was last updated by the GM at 12:58, Sat 02 Dec 2006.

"This reminds me of when I was a rookie, posted outside of Behydria Saron, with all this stuff around.  Back then I had nerves, but they quickly burnt out there," Yas comments with a chuckle as she keeps scanning for anything that moves or looks as if it does not belong there, moves in a suspicious manner or simple looks in her general direction in a way she kind of objects to.

"It gives me an idea for a restort, though - Come and loose weight faster than you can say 'I've been had!', money back if you can catch me guarantee and all," comes the next observation from her.  Then, another, more serious comment, "Yup, there's the honeypot.  Where's the bees then, I wonder?"

Comfortable that THIS ship is not going to pose a threat to the "Profit Margin" Tylen switches his scan to the area AWAY from the planetoid covering any angle that a ship could use to approach them from the rear.

Watching the repeat from the bridge screens, Saskia suddenly gets up from her seat and crosses to the fusion plant, her bare feet padding across the floor.  The fingers of her right hand gently touch the housing of the D₂ injector module, following the curve along to the toroidal bulge of the reaction chamber, then on to the power converter.

There's a dead ship down there, and dead ships have ghosts that haunt their graves.  Ghosts that can reach out and clutch at the heart of a good engineer.

For this ship to have broken like that, in such low gravity, she must have hit hard.  More important, by the time she hit, she wasn't capable of avoiding the collision. even if her crew had wanted to.

Something had killed her, long before she slammed into this moon.

Shui watches the display with some curiosity, from the crew lounge.  Her dataglove taps into the main screens, and while the resolution is comparably poor, it is enough for her to at least follow along with what transpires.

Especially with the various voice-overs.

“Might have a something to salvage,” Jago replies to Jocklram, “but I’d be surprised if it’s been there ten years, it aint exactly hidden, about the right size though.”

“Eyes peeled everyone,” Jago continues over the intercom, Conrad, lets see just how good this navy stuff is, active scan, max range please.”

"As peeled as a banananas," Yas replies over the intercom and does what she says, keeping an eye out for any kind of trouble.  It would not do to fall asleep here and now, even if that stubborn thing in her back is kind of gnawing on her more than before.

But then, it might just be that she knows what it is now.

She starts to sing an ancient classic, finding that she enjoys some of the really, really old music sometimes.

"I won’t go away
Right here I’ll stay

Stand silent in flames
Stand tall ‘till it fades

Shoot me again
I ain’t done yet

Shoot me again

All the shots I take
I spit back t you
All the shit you fake
Comes back to haunt you

All the shots

All the shots I take
What difference did I make?
All the shots I take
I spit back at you

I won’t go away, with a bullet in my back
Right here I’ll stay, with a bullet in my back

Shoot me
Take a shot

I’ll stand on my own, with a bullet in my back
I’m stranded and sold , with a bullet in my back

I bite my tongue
Trying not to shoot back
No compromise
My heart won’t pump the other way

Wake the sleeping giant
Wake the beast
Wake the sleeping dog
No, let him sleep"


_{Metallica, Shoot Me Again (from St. Anger)}