Marita Doyle opens the door of her cabin, just as Shui's dataglove chirps to indicate that it has found the information she was searching for.  "Have those two been up to something?" is her first question, followed by, "Is something wrong, Miss Tiesi?"

Jago checks the approach vectors that Ash has put up on his screens, brings the Margin round on a heading that will end on the planet in the vicinity of the landing field.

“Do they actually have any sort of flight control here?” he asks, “better give them a call just in case.”

Gently he ramps up the faithful old ‘Mitchells-Hyundyne’ drives and the ship sets off on the last leg of the flight.

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Shui smiles.  It's meant to reassure, but it also holds a hint of warning in it.  "There is no problem with the children at the moment.  Ms. Doyle, I need to speak with you regarding this world.  As you are my responsibility aboard this ship, I feel there are certain matters of which you must be appraised."

Reaching out, she touches the woman's shoulder.  "I dislike being the bearer of bad tidings, but all is not as has seemed prior to arrival.  May we speak?  Privately?"  She motions toward the woman's cabin.

There's no good way to say this; she's going to have to come right out and give the woman the bad news.  But at least she can spare her the embarassment of the shock in a public hallway.

Saskia smiles as she feels the thrusters start to throttle up.  The vibrations run through the deck and into the soles of her feet.  The drives pass the five percent mark, and the sound becomes audible, if you know what to listen for.  Sound damping can't cut all of it out, of course, and by the time the thrust hits a full gee and beyond, the humming is loud enough that even a passenger might hear it.

"But they still wouldn't know what it is." she murmurs, as the noise builds in volume.  Diagnostics flicker across the displays, unnoticed.  The engineer knows this ship well enough to recognise the sounds of normal operation.

Right on cue, as they pass 75% thrust, a faint whining sound starts up - the latch on the port inspection panel vibrating in its setting - only to stop again at 80% as the sound passes beyond audible range.

Everything seems to be running smoothly.

"Think I'll grab me a coffee." she says, standing and stretching before heading for the door to the lounge, "Behave yourselves while I'm gone."

Ash glances at Jago and gives him a salute.  Opening an external comm link from one of the pages on his dynamic display, the Margin's navigator slips his microphone arm into place and starts to address the 'starport' at Rangent, "Rangent Port Authority, this is the Profit Margin requesting permission to land..."  He runs through the standard chatter, verbally giving anyone that might on the other end of the line their information: their port of origin, as well as arrival information - ETA, cargoes, passengers - as well as, transponder IDs and the like.

The navigator glances around the bridge idly for a few moments as he waits for a potential response.  Honestly, he doesn't expect an answer, but Ash isn't going to contradict Jago.  Especially when the Captain is right that they have to go through the motions.  There is always a chance that someone is listening on the other end...

Tylen sits in his chair, idly swinging the display back and forth as he continues to monitor the area for other vessels.

Wondering if his comms channel had been properly open the first time, Tylen poses the question again.  "Jago?  Do you intend to allow all five low passengers to disembark at the same time?"

Marita Doyle's face falls, as Shui mentions bearing bad news.  "Of course."  She steps back and gestures for the steward to step into the cabin.

Ash and Jago wait for a response from the port.  Eventually a voice replies, faint and almost masked by static, but it doesn't come from the expected source, "Profit Margin?  Was tha... ... ...ust arrived?  This ... Jockram ab... ... ...ound.  Goo... to hear ... you." 

Just off the bridge Tylen and Yas are watching space for any nearby activity.  So far there is no sign of any shipping within range of their targeting system.  This is, perhaps, not too surprising, considering what a backwater Rangent is.

Saskia, having made sure the drives understand her instructions, wanders into the crew lounge to get something to wake her up.

Entering, Shui glances around.  Unsurprisingly, considering Marina's query, the children are nowhere to be seen at present.  "Please, Ms. Doyle, if you would sit?"  She does so herself after the woman; it might be her room, but Shui is in essence the host here, and also the bearer of bad tidings.

Once they're seated she wastes no time.  Keeping her tone quiet and calm, she quickly outlines what she has learned thus far of the society and situation on the world they approach.  Marina isn't foolish; it won't be difficult for her to realize this isn't exactly what she had assumed.  Freezing cold, a low world population that remains wary of outsiders...and the worst to come.

"The atmosphere is replete with a virus.  It's not lethal, or even seriously dangerous," she's quick to assure the woman, "but causes a mildly painful, long-term infection.  There is no cure once contracted, but it can be avoided by the use of a filter mask, or remaining in a filtered environment."

Reaching out, she takes the other woman's hand.  "If there is anything I can do to assist, please let me know.  We have time before landing - several hours - and I can research or speak to Captain Lanza if you have a change of plans."
The 'garden' and 'beach' of which Marina has heard...Shui doesn't comment on them.

Ash's ears perk up and he sits up more straight when the weak response to his hail starts to come over the comm link.  He motions to Jago, prompting, "Captain, are you hearing this?"  His fingers begin to work the controls as the Margin's navigator makes sure that their recorder is on and then tries a couple of different techniques that he is aware of to amplify and focus the signal.

"This is the Profit Margin," he notes rather insistently trying to keep up his end of the conversation, "Can you repeat your message?  The signal is weak and your message is breaking up."  He reiterates with some urgency, "Come in.  Can you repeat your message?"

As he repeats his appeal for more information from the other end, Ash also starts to do a Library search cross indexing 'Jockram' and 'Rangent' in case he has missed something important as to who or what might be contacting them.

With no obvious threats or shipping in range Tylen relaxes slightly, and sits back to just keep a weather eye on the situation.  With nothing to do, he reaches up to scratch his jaw with his thumb, before leaning forward to his control panel again.  Idly he flips through the controls for the various sensing arrays trying to work out where the broken message is coming from.

Ash tinkers with the comms and manages to clean up the incoming message a little, though there is still a fair bit of interference.  "This ... Jockram, on Ore Hound.  Good ... ... from you again Profit Margin.  Is ... ...ou, Conrad?"



Marita sits down heavily on the edge of the bed and gives a drawn-out sigh.  "So he lied to me?  That might explain why he's tried to discourage me from coming here in his last few letters."  Another sigh, and she pushes back to lean against the wall, lifting her feet onto the bed.

"There isn't really anywhere else for me to go.  I gave up my job and my apartment lease, and used my savings for the tickets to come here.  Perhaps he lied so I wouldn't worry about him, and he never expected me to follow him."

"Or perhaps there's another world in the system, like the one he described?"
This message was last updated by the GM at 19:28, Sat 08 Dec 2012.

Tylen fiddles with his controls to see if he can locate where on the planet the signal is coming from.

From where she stands getting herself a coffee, Saskia can hear the call coming in.  Not clearly.  But she can hear Ash asking for the message to be repeated.  Curious, she takes her cup and enters the Bridge, taking a seat at the Engineering repeater panel.

She sits watching Ash and Jago, and listening to the static-laden signal with her cup cradled in her hands.

"Jockram?  I didn't know he was planning to head up this way.  Would've thought he'd've retired with his cut of that salvage."

Ash looks up from his console where he is trying to home in on the signal.  He turns to face Saskia and Jago, while his left hand moves to mute the external connection.  "Uh," the navigator ventures tentatively, "Do you know the person on the other end of the line, Ms. Blake?"  Ash has more than a little bit of a 'deer in the headlights' look.

The wheels almost visibly click as he can now parse the 'Conrad' part of the message.  If the Profit Margin crew has had previous dealings with this 'Jockram' then the reference is to Ash's predecessor, Conrad Dietz.  The thin ex-Scout waits for confirmation from either the Captain or the Chief Engineer of the Profit Margin before responding.

Jago smiles on hearing the voice on the comms, “a mining ship we met on Arkadia,” he tells Ash before pressing the stud to send his own message.

“Hi, this is Jago, nice to here a friendly voice out here Jockram. That was our new Navigator, Ash, I got myself an upgrade, every one else is here though. How about you?”
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Perhaps, thinks Shui.  But perhaps Marita's husband has a different reason for keeping her away.  She can't say that aloud, though; the purpose now is to try to help the woman, not make her more miserable.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, touching the woman's foot - the closest thing to her hand.  "Let me check; I shall see if there is anywhere else you might be able to settle.  I'm sure we can arrange something, if that's the case..."

If not, well.  There are other things she might be capable of doing.

Bringing up her dataglove, Shui calls up system information on the holoscreen, searching for other, short-range possibilities that have a better chance of being habitable by Marita's family.  It's not likely, she knows.  Not likely at all, or the main spaceport for the system would be there.

But she needs to check.

Ash continues tweaking the comms, adds some filters, and the message continues to get clearer.  Hello Jago.  Oh... ... know how ... goes.  Cred... didn't have time to start wearing a ho... in my pocket, and frackin' Banster and Heger... started on about flux capacitor this and ion back-flow restrictor matrix that.  You know how engineers are."

"Listen, if you're planning to ...nd here, you should know there's a record brea... storm running.  Hundred kph plus winds, snow, hail, the works.  I sent ... other two ashore for R'n'R three days ago, and they can't leave the dome to get back ... the Hound.  Locals say it sh... die down in a couple of days, but you might want to wai... in orbit until then."

Marita Doyle sighs again as Shui starts going through the system data, "No, I should have expected it.  It's typical of him to get excited about something and tell me how great it is.  Only when it comes down to it, it's never quite the way he said.  So like this, he told me how nice Rangent is, but as soon as I started talking about coming here he started trying to put me off - things like they're still working on the town, so we'd be living on a construction site, or how there isn't a proper school for the kids yet."

Listening to Jockram from her position a short distance behind Jago, Saskia says quietly, "We could do with some new flux capacitors too!"

“ Thanks for that Jockram, I’ll take your advice. Perhaps we can get together for a bear before you head out.”

“Could you pass that out to passengers and crew,” Jago says aside to Ash, “we’ll be up here for a couple of days until the storm at the landing field blows over.”

As he speaks Jago focuses sensors towards the planet to see if he can get an optical or infrared feed of the storm for the ship board display monitors.
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Satisfied with the information he has and the rest of the conversation, Tylen selects some in offensive background music, sits back in his seat and props his feet up against the corner of his console.

He alternates between tapping time to the music and sipping his coffee, as he waits for the stand down decision.

"Of course, C... Boss." Ash almost catches himself in time, when addressing Jago.  But he doesn't dwell on it too much, as he has his orders.  His fingers glide over to another display and the ship-wide channel is opened, while he mutes his link to Jockram on Rangent though the audio is still piped through the bridge speakers.

He clears his throat for a moment and then after the three-tone introduction he speaks clearly over the open channel, "Ladies and Gentlemen.  It has come to our attention that the starport on Rangent," (such as it is) "is experiencing severe weather conditions."  He pauses for a moment, so that the passengers and crew can let that sink in, before continuing, "As such, we have been advised to wait out the storm in high orbit rather than risk landing under such conditions.  Captain Lanza has chosen to honor that advice.  We regret the delay, but it looks like we will have to sit tight on board the Profit Margin for another few days."

"Sorry for the inconvenience, folks." the Margin's navigator notes, sounding genuinely apologetic, "We'll get everyone to Rangent as soon as possible.  And in case anyone is worried; we have more than enough air and provisions to wait out the storm.  Please feel free to flag down Ms. Tiesi - or any other crewmember - with any additional questions or concerns."

With that, Ash closes the connection and turns his attention back to the interaction between Jockram, Jago and Saskia.

"Jago, when the time's right, I'd like a word or two with you," Yas calls out of the now open door to her gunnery seat.  "Nothing fancy, but I got an idea or two."

"And you, Ash, better hope no one 'flags me down', because I may have to either shoot them or kick them of the ship then.  But in the later case they'd make landfall before us, I suppose, so it's not all bad," she tells the navigator with a grin that hopefully means she is kidding.

“I’ll be in my cabin in about ten minutes,” Jago tells Yasmin, “you guys can stand down from the turrets, we’ll keep a watch on the sensors but while there is only Jockram out there we can relax a bit.”

Once he’s finished his conversation with Jockram Jago leaves Ash on the bridge and retires to his cabin with a mug of steaming hot coffe.

"Sure, Jago.  A beer would be good.  At least I hope it would, I haven't tried the local brew, and have no idea if they import anything.  See you later."

Jago makes a few adjustments to the sensors and, after a few moments, transfers an enhanced view of Rangent to the main display.  The closest of the world's three moons is just visible to one side of the image.  Most of the visible portion of Rangent is in darkness, but a switch to a composite of image enhancement, IR, and a graphical map overlay makes things cleaerer.

In shades of blue, white and grey, a large cyclonic storm is clearly visible.  A marker shows that the landing beacon lays about half way between the edge of the storm and its calm centre.  There are other storms on the planet too, though only one of those even approaches the size of the one over the beacon.

After a few seconds indicators start to appear overlaying the image: wind speed, direction, local temperature...  The storm does look bad.  And while the wind speeds are high, the storm itself appears to be almost stationary.

Jago exits the bridge, having given the gunners permission to leave their posts...

Saskia pouts at Jago as he goes past.  His lack of enthusiasm for buying spare flux capacitors does not go unnoticed.  It leads her to surmise that an additional spare Heisenberg compensator is similarly unlikely to make its way into the budget.

"It'll be good to see the Ore Hound again.  Might be able to trade spares with her people.  Her jump drive is the same series as ours, and they use a lot of the same components." the Engineer says to Ash.