"Want me to ask him, nicely?" Yas asks Sassy with a slap on her shoulder, grinning from ear to ear.  "What was it again?  Fox capitators?"

She glances towards Jago's cabin and checks the time.

"Ore Hound's down there?  Maybe we can put our popsicle terrorist on their ship, that'll throw a curve ball into his plans, eh?" she chortles evilly.

Once he gets the stand down, Tylen flicks the switches that puts everything in  standby and makes for the lounge to fill his coffee cup.  AS he passes through the cabin area he hears Yas's comment about the terrorist.  "Or just release him when the other four are clear of the ship." he grins evilly "I'd bet ten creds there would be a bounty hunter waiting for him ...."

A low whistle emanates from Ash's lips when the full majesty of the storm is revealed in the displays.  He knows when a planet's biosphere is trying to demonstrate to its squatters who is really in charge.

"Ah, yes." Ash notes as he leans back in his chair, obviously a little more at ease with the order to stand down and, likely, with Jago off the bridge for the moment.  "That's quite convenient." the navigator agrees rather amiably when Saskia divulges that the Ore Hound has the same model jump drive.

He waves idly to each of the gunners as they approach the bridge.

Though he is positioned to converse readily with the Profit Margin's engineer and gunners, Ash does keep one eye on the sensor feeds - both down at Rangent as well as outwards, primarily at the jump point - just in case there is incoming traffic.  "So," the ex-Scout asks idly of the other crew, "when and where was the last time you saw the Ore Hound and her crew?  And what is this about joint salvage prospects?"

"I'm deeply sorry, Ms. Doyle," Shui quietly replies.  "It does sound rather odd.  The situation is not ideal for you, I know.  If you wish, I can speak to the Captain about our next destination, and it may be possible to secure a ticket at a lower price."  Her lips thin, pressing together.  "Considerably lower.  More of an extension than a new ticket, as it were."

Reaching out, she pats the other woman's hand.  "Barring you deciding to stay on-planet, it may be your only choice.  I fear there is nothing else in this system of worth.  Is there anything I can do for you, now?  Or would you like some time to think?" A pause.  "Your husband is aware you are coming?"

There's an ugly suspicion in her mind about the woman's husband, but she keeps it to herself.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:54, Tue 18 Dec 2012.

"Yes, he knows that we're on the way.  He kept trying to put me off when I told him, but he'd made it sound so nice here before that, so I just ignored his protests about unfinished townships and lack of schools.  I should have realised that the original description was just too good to be true."  The passenger shakes her head slowly, "No, I don't need anything just now, and I don't want to go anywhere else.  I came here to be with my husband.  I'm sick of being away from him, and the kids miss him.  That's probably why they're being so badly behaved this last few months."

"He came here, and I got messages telling me how nice it is... was.  Telling me about beaches and gardens and sunshine.  Made it sound wonderful.  So a few months ago, I decided I'd come here to be with him, and that's when he started trying to put me off.  I suppose the way he described it first was so that I wouldn't worry about him getting sick or something.  But he did too good a job of making it sound nice here."

Profit Margin accelerates towards the planet, scheduled to arrive in orbit at about 19:00, Ship's Time.  The bridge display continues to show Rangent's violent weather, which actually looks oddly peaceful from this angle...

There is some discussion on the bridge about Ore Hound.

"Yeah, how long is it?  Three months?  Nah, just shy thereof," Yas muses in reply to Ash.

"Once upon a time there was this Leviathan class transport ship that came from a place unknown to us and was headed for a place equally unknown.  We, the Ore Hound and the Margin, found it, however.  It was on a small, frozen moon in the Arcadia system, very inhospitable.  Not that it mattered to the ship, as we saw when we boarded the derelict..."

She loses herself in the distance briefly.

"Mis-jump."

She says the words as cold as the frigid temperature on the moon where the wreck was.

"It may not have been haunted, but it could have converted most anyone to believe in ghosts," she says grimly and then adds, on a more cheerful note, "but we also found enough salvage there to almost set us up for life.  Three.  Million.  Credits.  And that's for the Margin only."

She waves a thumb towards the cargo bay.  "That's how I could afford my new toy, the suit.  Now I just need to get the proper equpiment in it and I can take out pirates all on my own by doing a space-walk, ha!"  She slaps Ash on the shoulder as if to put emphasis on the fact the her little story as come to an end, in case it was not obvious.

Ash nods at the appropriate places and is visibly distressed when a misjump is named as the root cause.  With pursed lips he asks a couple of questions, "Any idea how long she had been out there?  Or where she had originated from?"  From his tone, it is pretty obvious that there is both a professional, as well as a personal, component to his questions.  A misjump is serious business - not so much fun for the jumpers.

The Margin's navigator gives an appreciative whistle when the monetary extent of the salvage is made explicit.  "Quite the haul." he quips, concurring with Yasmine's assessment.  He adds with slight smirk to Saskia, "Sounds as though you could have gotten a couple of those flux capacitors yourself.  Given that Ms. Crow got a brand new powered exoskeleton, what did you splurge onMs. Blake?"

How Marina puts it certainly takes some of the sting out of the situation.  It seems less likely that her husband is up to something, and more likely he finds himself in a poor position for raising a family.  But Marina is determined, desperate, and somewhat depressed, and thus...

"Absolutely, Ms. Doyle.  I truly understand." She studies the woman for a long moment.  "If there is anything with which I can assist - anything at all - please, let me know.  I shall do some thinking along those lines myself, but...in the meantime, would you like tea?  Or something to eat?  I haven't had much chance to talk with you over this trip, and it's always nice to learn a little more about our passengers."

Talking might help.  A little.

"Well, I  must admit to digging a little afterwards, morbid curiosity or just whatever," Yas confesses, although if there are any she leaves any more specific reasons out.  She wrinkles her forehead in thought.  "Let's see, I'm bad with names but it was something along the lines of Mariachi or such.  Not many of these things built, you could find it...  Owned by a line but stolen and used in acts of piracy about a decade or more ago."

"But mis-jump, yeah, crew stuck inside of things kind of tells you that.  Not sure if the ones who still were in the ship in one way or another were the lucky ones or not, I'm sure there'd been more aboard originally.  Irridium, yeah, that was it, the stuff that brought home the big win, six hundred of them.  Could have used that suit back then, I tell you!"  She grins, although it remains uncertain if it is over the haul or the memories.

Saskia suppresses a shudder and hooks her thumbs together for a couple of seconds as Yas mentions a mis-jump again.  "Don't say that word again, Yas.  It's bad luck to mention it three times on a ship that's in flight.  Tempting fate."

Then she seems to brighten up, and changes the subject, "Hey.  You remember we found that weird little lifeform thing there?  Really nothing more than a patch of coloured ice but it could could move about."

Ash nods to Yasmine's information and assertion about the usefulness of her new suit.  "It's always the way of things." he agrees, "You always find the thing you need right after you need it..."  He gives the assembled a crooked smile; hoping that never to be the case with a mis-jump, since there will be no next time, if that mishap were to occur.

The Profit Margin's navigator does make a mental note to try and look up the history of that Leviathan - just for his own personal edification, if nothing else.  It is quite possible that with its ignoble history, the misjump was more likely caused not by an error in the astrogation calculation but in using improperly or unrefined fuel.  Unfortunately, they may never know.

"She's right, Ms. Crow." the thin navigator corroborates Saskia's superstition, "A long standing spacer tradition - definitely still upheld in the IN."

Then Ash turns to look at Saskia more squarely, when she moves on to the other interesting discovery on the Leviathan.  "You discovered a new lifeform?" he asks with a slight bit of incredulity.  After a moment he prompts, "Was there only the one?  Did you get a sample?  What type of stimuli did it respond to?  Is it anything like the moving sculpture that has us going to Fulacin?"  The ex-IISS navigator knows that the questions are a bit rapid-fire and definitely stream-of-consciousness, but he doesn't seem to be able to really stop himself.

He glances at the Yasmine, "Did both of you see it first hand?"  Given from what they have told him, they would have both been in vacc suits at the minimum, but still, to his mind that experience would be quite exciting.  It was definitely more fun then carting around and having to care for a cargo hold of tons upon tons of Solomani armadillos - which was what Ash had been doing on his last speculative stint some months before.

"I'm going to have to talk to the Selnia and Darien before we get there.  Explain to them that they won't be swimming and playing on the beach." Marita Doyle replies, "The sooner the better I suppose.  More time to get the tantrums over and done with.  I'll probably need something to drink afterwards, probably stronger than tea though."

A wry smile then, "Thanks for letting me know about this in plenty of time.  Would have been bad to find out about it when I was walking off the ship in lightweight clothes."

On the bridge, the conversation moves from salvage and derelict ships, to the peculiar organisms that dwell on ice moons...

"Shui saw it too.  It just looked like a coloured patch of ice that moved about on the surface.  Sort of a blue colour.  Not too fast, no eyes or mouth or anything that we could see, but I suppose if it had a mouth it could have been underneath.  You know, for scraping stuff up off the ice as it slithered along." Saskia reports, trying to recall exactly how the strange creature had looked.

The engineer holds  her hands about fifty centimetres apart, "Was about this big.  Oh, and it was scared of shadows, so maybe photosynthetic, like a plant."

Ash hmmms, "No direct sentience, but some stimulus response.  Interesting."  He  looks thoughtful for a moment, before asking Saskia, "Were there more than one?  And you didn't happen to get a sample, did you?"  He glances from Saskia to Yasmine and then back.  The navigator also makes a mental note to ask the doctor about her experiences with the life form in question.

He nods at Saskia biochemical assessment of the organism, "The bluish tinge might be a cyanide-based chlorophyll precursor..."  Another thoughtful pause occurs before he continues his brainstorming, "How was the light spectrum exposure on that moon?"  Ash prompts Saskia for her professional opinion, "Do you think that radiation conversion for energy storage would be a reasonable mechanism?"

"Yeah, that was something.  But didn't get close, didn't really care to.  Scared animals and all that.  But one for the old age and telling tall tales, for sure!  Anyway, I'm off to see our leader, keep the Margin safe, eh?" Yas says with a grin throughout the sentence and waves as she starts to retreat from the bridge.

Unless someone stops her she will end up outside Jago's cabin and knock before entering, even if the door is open.

“Come in Yasmin, take a seat, can I get you anything?”

Jago sits at his desk, half a coffee cooling to the side, a sheaf of papers before him and ‘the curious thing’ in its stainless steel tray on the corner. Classical music plays softly in the background but Jago turns it off as his visitor takes her seat, and smiles at her.

“ OK, go ahead.”

With a nod Yas walks in and takes a seat, shifting briefly to get comfortable.

"I've got a suggestion as to how to solve our... problem," she says, leaning back.  "We let the bounty hunter and their prisoner walk here, then we keep the brother for the next stop.  We don't tell either party about the other, we pretend to him we let them go a while before him on that same spot.  That way, at least, we won't be the cause of immediate bloodshed, one way or another.  After that, it's all their problem, as it was before."

"Unless you plan to hand him over to them, I'm fine with that too," she finishes and waits for a reply, tilting her head slightly to the side.

"I believe I can manage something a little stronger than tea," Shui murmurs, squeezing the other woman's hands.  "Please let me know - page me through the ship's systems.  I have duties before planetfall, but there are break times where I can take a moment to talk.  Or provide something appropriate."

But what does one serve to a woman whose dreams have been dropped into the dust?
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:45, Sat 29 Dec 2012.

Today the thing is shaped like a tesseract of thin silvery rods, with a darker coloured sphere at each junction, and balanced on one corner.  No matter how the tray is moved, tilted, or jolted, the object maintains exactly the same position relative to the surface, almost as if it had been affixed to it with some kind of adhesive.

This is, however, untrue.  Firm, but gentle, pressure from a finger will tilt it (though it returns to its original position when the pressure is released).  It can be moved about easily on the tray, and even picked up, though in that case there is an increasing resistance the further it is moved from the metal container until, at a distance of about 15 cm, it refuses to move any further, no matter how much effort is put into it.

For all of its peculiar properties, Yas and Jago have other things to discuss today, and are ignoring it, for the most part.  It would probably have to do something really spectacular to get their attention...

"Thank you.  I'm going to talk to the children first." Marita Doyle explains, "Hopefully it won't be too much of an upset for them.  Then I might have a rest.  If I need anything, I'll let you know."

Saskia is able to do better than further descriptions.  She uses the computer to call up some images and video uploaded from helmet cams and Shui's dataglove.  The creature is spectacular and impressive, in a way that only a patch of coloured ice can be.  It crawls along, slowly, maintaining a relatively straight line with minor diversions to avoid shadows and other obstacles.  The positions of those shadows show that the thing's course appears to be following the sun around its tiny world.

It's clear that the light isn't particularly bright, but the animal, if such it is, is slow enough that it probably doesn't use much energy.

There is a brief glimpse of a massive wrecked ship, half buried in the ice.  The markings on the hull seem to be upside-down...

In the lounge, Tylen enjoys his coffee, and speculates on  what might be getting said in Jago's office, and who is doing most of the talking...

“Keep him until the next stop, I hadn’t thought of that.”

Jago talks as he brings up some data on the computer terminal built into his desk, “the guy is obviously an amateur, just desperate to rescue his brother, I figured I’d give him a break and at least keep them on the same planet, of course I had intended to talk to him first, discuss it with the authorities on Denotam and see what crew here thought, I didn’t expect them to just dump him on us.

Ah here we are, Phlume.”

Jago studies the data briefly, “law level two, it should be OK to leave a guy there without papers  or anything, goes against the grain though, I’d told him I’d leave him here on Rangent. What if we warn the bounty hunters that he’s here but let him go in some out of the way place, no one gets taken by surprise then?”

“Next time I’ll check whether a prisoner is criminal or political before  I agree to take them on board, they I won’t have my own blasted conscience to contend with.”
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A chortle escapes Yas as she shakes her head slowly.

"They were more than happy to dump this on you, then.  See, that's what you learn in the military.  Never volunteer, it's just asking for trouble," she says, still shaking her head.

"Grain or not, if you release them on the same planet there will be bloodshed sooner or later, you will only have dumped what is our problem on their backyard.  No law?  He'll go buy some fruit and an assault rifle in the nearest store and they will be onto him.  It'll blow up, maybe he'll even grab someone else.  Unless you gave you word, specifically, what's worse?"

She sighs and leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees.  "You saw what he was like when they dumped him on us, his attitude.  You know he'll be gunning for them, and this world won't care except anyone caught in-between.  Hostage or stray bullets, maybe they all die here if either starts shooting.  Can you take that chance?"

Ash seems quite fascinated with the video of the creature.  Despite the grain and despite the limited field of view, he watches with rapt attention.  He nods approvingly at the end, noting rather redundantly, "Quite the specimen."

He turns to regard Saskia, "I am surprised that you didn't collect it or at least log it with the library.  I am sure that the TAS society or some such would be interested..."  He rubs his chin thoughtfully, "Perhaps even a publication or something in a scientific journal..."  He's not really sure to what end that might be; there wasn't really an economic angle that he could see - but, then that was probably why Ash wasn't the captain or a share holder in a ship.  His business acumen wasn't necessarily the best.

"So," the Margin's navigator ventures to her engineer after seeing the brief video image of the shipwrecked Leviathan, "do you concur with Ms. Crow?  Was the ship haunted?"

Tylen sits in the lounge with his coffee, using his data glove to scroll through the information on the world below.

Ten major cities and each with some sort of space port?  I wonder which city Marita Doyle's husband is based in?  He muses as he starts digging through the the rest of the system data looking for details of landing restrictions in the various cities.

Then he chuckles slightly as he imagines the the look on Othati-Fenn's face if they were to drop him off at a city half a world away from thr main stsarport ....
This message was last edited by the player at 11:53, Mon 31 Dec 2012.

Tylen researches more details on Rangent - with only about five million people on the planet, none of the cities are particularly big.  One of them, Davies, is mentioned as being the planets administration centre, under the control of the megacorporation Makhidkarun.  There is a further note that the starport at Davies is currently being upgraded, using labour and materials contracted from several offworld companies.

So far there have been no gunshots from Jago's office, which is probably a good sign.  Unless one of the occupants (and speculation on which one would be futile) has a knife on her person...

Saskia gives Ash further details, such as she can.  Which isn't much... had the creature been fitted with a fusion plant and wheels she could probably give him more information.  She does know that the ship's computer has records of life evolving in numerous unlikely locations, including some creatures which (superficially, at least) resemble the one from Arkadia.

Shui, having been assured that Marita Doyle is (relatively) well for the moment prepares to leave the passenger's cabin...

“If there are people trying to get out from under an oppressive regime, bloodshed would seem to be inevitable whether we are involved or not. This guy is trying to save his brother and I can sympathise with that, even if he is an arse hole. Thing is of course to make sure the blood shed is confined to those involved and not spread to innocent bystanders and if the only way to achieve that is to ship this guy to some other planet then that’s what I’ll do.”

“There are a couple of reasons why I don’t want to, partly because its kidnaping, or abduction or something like that, certainly unlikely to be legal but mostly because I said I’d bring him here and I like to think I’m a man of my word.”

“I’ll ship him to the next planet if I have to, and thank you, it’s a good idea that I hadn’t thought of, however, that’s a last resort. Fortunately we have a day or two before I have to decide and I’ll use the time to talk to the others and see if anyone can come up with a better solution. How does that sound?”
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