Jockram calls in again, "Heh!  I just got the same ID readout here.  Still no sign of trouble, but if you want to go take a closer look, we can run high guard duty for you.  She doesn't show as hot, if you want to get down there."

"Even if she's lost her cargo, the boys at Tukera might pay a reward to find out what happened to their... " a moment of stunned silence, and then, "... thousand megacredit investment."

"Not to mention that the Navy might be interested in crossing off a big pirate ship from their list.  I can't believe Tukera paid that much for a ship that couldn't run at a profit."

Whistling as she hears the details about the ship below, Yas barely hears Jag at first, trying to with a near complete unknowledgeable knowledge figure out what it might be worth in its current condition.

It takes a whole two seconds to respond.  Luckily she is no longer in the Marines.

"Be right over, Jago.  Trigger, stay alert," she replies and gets up from her gunnery position, opens the door and steps out onto the bridge with a big grin on her face.

"Do you think we might be that lucky, boss?  If so I'll be happy to buy you a drink or two when we land," she tells Jago and winks impishly.

Tylen toggles his com sending a single blip to Yas to confirm he is in position. He scans the surrounding area, his turret sensors set as wide as they can cover whilst he maintains a visual scan of the wreck site.

Finally emerging from the dim silence of her laboratory, Shui moves with a purposeful stride toward the Galley.  Her mission?  The usual.  Beverages for the crew and for any interested onlookers.  After that, perhaps some small foods for the 'passengers'.

+ Would anyone wishing beverages, please inform me, + she pipes into the crew com, and the quarters of their official passengers.  Then she switches to a secure line to the Captain.  + Captain Lanza, thanks to the assistance of Mr. Ogresh, I have the full report prepared.  In brief, there is nothing wrong with any of the crew of the Harper's Dream that a bit of rest and decent food would not fix. +  She makes a face.  + A decent long-term diet, as well. +
This message was last edited by the player at 15:25, Tue 17 Apr 2007.

While they are (somewhat) less interesting than her duties as Profit Margin's medical officer, Shui takes her duties as the ship's steward seriously.  Good morale is an essential for health, so, in a way, her two roles are interconnected in the drinks that she prepares for the crew, passengers, and prisoners.

Conrad continues to study the downed ship, using all the sensors that Profit Margin can bring to bear.  As mentioned by Jockram, the radiation down there is well within safe tolerances... little more than normal background levels.  Above his head, the bridge ports of the inverted ship frame the broken surface of the icy moonlet.  There is definitely room to land a ship of Profit Margin's size next to the hulk, or even on top of it, which'd let Jago use the grapples again, to hold the ship in place in the snowball's microgravity environment.

Saskia, glad to have work to do, which distracts her from thinking about the wreck, calls up schematics for the Leviathan, and starts marking places on the hull which she believes would take the strain of having another ship perched on them.  There are quite a few useable locations - Leviathans were, it seems, constructed for sturdiness.

Tylen sits at his station.  From where he sits he does not have a direct line of sight to the wreck, but he is able to patch through a visual display, overlaid with data readouts, from the Yas' turret.  In many ways, it's even better than the results from a Mk 1 Eyeball.  Meanwhile, electronic senses sweep out for hundreds of thousands of kilometres around him, degraded slightly, at maximum range, by the magnetic field of the nearby gas giant, but still more than sufficient to give ample warning of danger.  So far, they show all clear.

Meanwhile Yas, steps onto the bridge, in response to Jago's call...  There are decisions he needs to make about how to deal with this.

“Thanks Jockram, high guard would be useful.”

“Nearest thing you’ve got to coffee please Shui,” she actually makes dammed fine coffee, as he’s told her many times, and Jago isn’t one to baulk over the cost of beans.

“Ah! Yasmin,” Jago stands as his security chief comes in, lifting himself heavily from the contoured comfort of his well worn pilots chair, then parking his unlit cigar into the corner of his mouth, while he straightens his jacket.

“I have a hankering to go down to this one my self, but I think I’m the only one on board who can fly this tub, so I suppose  I have to let you have all the fun, again,” Jago says, ending his sentence in a way that invites comment.

+ Certainly, Captain Lanza. +  Entering the galley, she begins preparations for the orders - both those of the crew, and those of their passengers, willing and unwilling.  It is, of course, an easy guess as to whom receives priority.  The crew - first in all things.

Working in the galley, she can't help but overhear some of the conversation in the cockpit.  Shui frowns for a long moment, then flicks the *brew* switch on the coffee pot.  The next switch is on her dataglove - another private message, this time to the Captain.

+ Captain Lanza...I should inform you that while I have certainly never piloted a ship under combat conditions, I am skilled enough for simple flights within a star system.  On the Bonaparte, some two ships ago, the Pilot enjoyed my company.  He made it a point to...attempt to keep me in the cockpit as long as he could, eventually through the use of piloting lessons.  While I do not have a license, and likely will never achieve the kind of proficiency you possess, I am capable of piloting the ship.  Technically it is illegal.... +

She pauses, considering.  + Mr. Ogresh, as a former scout, may possess similar training, likely superior to my own.  But I understand he is needed either aboard the wreck, or in his turret. +  Ugh.  How horrible must that be.

"So, you think it is fun, eh, skip?  Putting on that trabbing suit, walk around with a trigger happy scout next to you or behind you, navigating dangers that could cause a slow, painful death or worse?" Yas asks with a chuckle and then, after a brief pause, adds, "You darn right it is fun, boss!"

Then she hears Sushi mentioning that she is skilled enough to at least fly it straight - hopefully - and she chortles as she says loudly so Sushi could hear her in the crew lounge, "I won't ask how he enjoyed your company, girl, but you just gave Jago the excuse he needed to go exploring, making me having to babysit him!"

She winks at Jago and shrugs.

"It's your call boss.  With Jock watching from above we can easily land, and there's people aboard that can fly in case you stub a toe.  Trigger, Ditzy and even Sushi now," she concludes and dons her crooked grin again.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:40, Thu 19 Apr 2007.

"I can handle gunnery, or pilotin', if'n y'all need somebody to stay aboard." Conrad says, adding his own input to the debate.  "With Jockram hangin' over the site, we should get us some warnin' of any trouble comin' in though."

He starts running his hands across the console, "Want I should see if'n I can get some plans of that ship?"

"I just hope they don't ask me to go." Saskia whispers, sitting at the master engineering console, where the crashed hulk is displayed at minimal magnification, so that she can't see it too closely.  Not that she looks at the screen.

"It'll bring bad luck.  I'll go aboard, and the bad luck will follow me back, and infect my drives.  I've seen it happen, but I won't let it happen here."

She slides up the volume on the intercom, just in case anybody needs her for anything, though she won't answer if it's a call to visit the other ship, oh no, and then moves away from the panel.

She pads across, barefoot, to the fusion plant, and sits on the floor with her back against the plasma containment vessel, head tilted back to resting against the housing.  She closes her eyes, and listens to the drives murmuring to her, a 20Hz voice in the back of her skull.

Conrad's efforts soon turn up the blueprints of a Leviathan class transport.  There is, however, an attached note that the, while the main structural elements of such a ship are fixed, individual ships may vary somewhat in the layout of the non-load bearing partitions.  To say nothing of the mess a collision with a small moon might have made.


The data from the sensors continues to stream in.  The wreck seems longer than it should be, buut there is a lot of debris on the ice behind the main hull, perhaps indicating that it perhaps struck fast, and at a low angle, leaving a lot of stuff behind as it slid to a halt.

There are no power readings, which is hardly surprising, considering that the hulk might have been on the moon's surface for a decade, or so... plenty of time to burn up any fuel, even if the power plant survived the crash.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:09, Fri 20 Apr 2007.

Tylen pulled up the menu on his datapad and flicked through his music selection. He found a header marked "Painful" and gave a wry smile. Moments later the strains of "Forget Me Not" floated through the tiny capsule.

“Well done Conrad.”

Jago sucks thoughtfully on his cigar as he studies the plans, then casts his eyes to the infinite star field ahead, with the wreckage hanging upside down under the vast icy rock that’s suspended above them.

Eventually, he nods to Yasmin and gives here a little smile, “OK then, I think I’ll take a look round this one.”

“Any one want to take a look at this wreckage with me?” Jago asks of the intercom, “I’d like either yourself or Tylen to stay onboard the Profit Margin he adds as an aside to Yasmin, “on account of the prisoners.”

"Well, I must say one thing, boss," Yas starts with a grin as well as a shrug, "or three perhaps.  First, at least two should stay if anyone stays.  Second, the more eyes we got down there the quicker it will go, so the less that stay the better.  Third, we don't we freeze the lot?  They've had a chance to freshen up and that, and unless you plan to ask them anything more I'd recommend to stick them in the ice box, for the safety of us as well as them.  Either that, or we charge them for the service they receive," she rounds off, with only the very last being in jest.

"In other words, with our eye in the sky and the likelihood that these shmucks indeed work solo, I'd say we all can go take a look.  It's an awful lot of ground to cover over there, and an extra pair of eyes makes a big difference, beleive me.  I've been through searches before."

"Oh, and I can go take a vow of our Vargr passenger that she will behave.  I believe she will, as it is in her own interest to see us catch those responsible for her brother's death," she ends.

There's a slight pause while Shui digests this.  Then she comes back online.

+ I would be pleased to assist in anyway possible, Ms. Crow.  Should it be necessary for yourself to stay here, I can function as a reliable pair of eyes in the derelict ship.

It might even be better - I could take a first-hand account of the condition of any of the crew, and possibly give an estimate as to how long ago this took place. +

Another pause.

+ On the other hand, I am more than willing to allow the bulk of the crew to leave the ship - I can easily take matters in hand up here. +
This message was last edited by the player at 13:04, Mon 23 Apr 2007.

Tylen sat in his capsule and flicked through his collection, the tortured sound of an electric Guitar wailed the start of the chorus...."You call me greedy, 'cos I keep a piece of me..."

He sat back and watched his moniter, confident that the A.I. was smart enough to warn him of any approaching trouble.

Data continues to flow in from the sensors of the two ships.  Ore Hound's sensors, calibrated for metallurgic analysis, feed additional information to Profit Margin over the link.  And every byte of data seems to confirm the identity of the wreck.

Hull composition, mass, density, configuration... all match the parameters of the missing Marcucci.

And still there is nothing else in the sky, other than Profit Margin, Ore Hound, and the ice moon, with its frozen passenger, all of them sweeping around the gas giant, where storm patterns as big as some worlds rage through the atmosphere.

“I don’t rely want to freeze those guys Yas, it’s dammed expensive firing up those low births. I’ll take you with me down there, but we’re not necessarily exploring the whole ship, I’m just looking for some means of making a profit here, so far this operation has cost a packet”

“Do you want to stretch your legs Conrad?”

“Shui, would you ask Corlan if he’d like to take a nose round, if so, find him a vac suit and make sure he knows how to use it, we’ll bring him over once we’ve had an initial look round.”

"Well now, I dunno, Jago.  If'n I wan'ed to do a lot of walkin' 'bout, I'd've joined the Marines, like Yas." Conrad replies, grinning, "Why don't y'all take Tylen?  He's a Scout.  He's into all that explorin'n' everythin'."

+ Certainly, Captain Lanza. +

She still has to deliver the food...but the dataglove is not an option.  Shui leaves the smallfoods for now, and heads the short distance necessary to arrive before Corlan's door.  Once there, she chimes the door and awaits answer.

Corlan opens the cabin door, and invites Shui in.  Once she is inside, he listens, with growing interest, to the offer to accompay the landing party into the wreched ship.

"It's been some time, Miss Tiesi, but I did once consider the idea of a pleasure trip around the Regina system.  And I learned to use an environmental suit, in preparation for the trip.  Sadly, business got in the way, and I never took that particular vacation."  He smiles, a little wistfully, "Story of my life, I'm afraid... but I'm sure I can remember the basics, at least."

Jago uses thrusters to gently lift the Profit Margin, flip it right side up and lower it feet first onto the icy bolder, he lands next to the stricken Murcucci and lets the landing legs sort out their own anchor points.

“Right, anyone who wants to come, I’ll see you by the dorsal air lock, I don’t want to evacuate the whole cargo bay again.”

“Saskia, what do you think about installing an air lock up here by the bridge, between my cabin and the computer core, Is that doable?”

Jago stands, stretches and makes his way back to his cabin to shake the moth balls out of his vac suit.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:56, Fri 27 Apr 2007.

"Mr. DeSant."  Shui bows to the man, and listens attentively.  "Seeing as it has been some time," she says cautiously, "perhaps it might be best if I assist you in suiting up, and we check with the Captain.  I doubt there is anything seriously wrong with the derelict after this time under hard vacuum, but one never knows."  She catches Jago's intercom announcement, and nods.

"Evidently you need to be at the dorsal air lock - perhaps we should commence moving in that direction, to expediate your preparations?"

+ Captain Lanza, Mr. DeSant informs me that he is knowledgeable in the basics of vac-suit operation, though it has been some time.  I can assist him in getting into the suit.  Please confirm whether his presence is acceptable. +

Jago smiles, “yes that’s acceptable Shui, we will just take a quick look round, then come back for him so there’s no rush.”

Saskia pushes herself back up again and moves across to the intercom.  "Not sure exactly.  If you're talking about cutting through the hull, I'll have to take stress readings, check for EPS lines, and run a ground test on the Jump Drive, see how the Field Grid looks around there."

Her voice takes on a hopeful note, as she adds, "I can save some time on that part, if I run the ground test while you look around the dead ship.  I just need to run a trickle of power, barely enough to light that cigar of yours, into the drive, and see exactly where it flows in that area of the hull."

"With luck there should be a clear section big enough to poke an airlock through."