Feeling rather relieved that the talkiphone box was all shape-ship and sound, Smoke calmed. At least the Us and herself would get into a to-do. She outlooked in confusion as Traveller ran around the puter and set the controls and yammered on about elvises, and then took them to some place else. She outlooked through the doors at the city beyond — not as many aliens or flycars or holos as on Space Vegas. 'Outlook's yawny.' But they were outgoing back to Space Vegas for icecream!

Remembering her goodies, Smoke Alarm picked up her box of scrap and went around the room handing out her prezzies. 'I buyed some scraps. Here you go. Sereth, a sharpener rock for your kitchen knife.' It was actually a decent whetstone, 'Traveller, I figured you'd like this kir-kewee-try. Outlookit, it's all shiny and wirey.' The old circuit board did indeed have shiny components and wires hanging off it. 'Oh, Dev! I got you a new panel for the sky-bike. I kicked a dent in the old one last night. Mayhaps you don't need it now Traveller renovated it, but...' Smoke shrugged and passed him the replacement panel.

(presuming that Vesha and Stan take the $500 gift card to steakhouse)

Trav waves at the two. "Oh, New York throughout history is damned exciting. But it's back to Space Vegas. Those two need their privacy."



Trav's eyes go wide like it was christmas morning. "Trilinium mono-circuitry with 3 quad-plex capacitors! Video game system upgrade time! Yer a babe, Smoke!" She aims her sonic at the TARDIS control panel, and the Time Rotor starts up again. "Oh,Sereth, lighten up. I'm sure there's stuff out there that can even make a Draconian smile. In fact, I was thinking 13th Century China might be cool after this. Confucianism, the 100 schools, and lots and lots of Kung Fu, the birth of Shao Lin temple, floating maidens and brides with white hair! One of these days I'm gonna learn Kung Fu. Maybe Kang Fu! And hey Dev - now you and Jenfer can actually say you've time travelled."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:13, Tue 26 Aug 2014.

"What's that they say?  It's the thought that counts?"

Dev shrugs, and looks over at Jenfer.  "I wish Miz Sallenn hadn't run off so sudden.  I'm kinda vague on how this whole 'working for the Valbreco Family' is supposed to work.  Well, I guess if anyone can find us again, it's her."


"Huh.  Feels kinds of... exactly the same, no offense."  But then he grins.  "But the bike, now, that is krivv.  Smoke Alarm!  You want to go for a ride?  Maybe we can get some more copbots to chase us!"

Smoke Alarm grinned as Traveller thought that her shiny prezzie was icehot. Mayhaps it would even be useful.

She thought that visiting this China land would be interesting, with Confusionism and Kang Fu, and mayhaps they could meet Zheng Ru and the other Orange Kangs again.

'Yeah, travelling through ticktocks is like that. We have to outgo outside to really time travel.' she with the wisdom of one who'd made three whole time travels.

Her eyes widened at Dev's offer of a ride on the new hotted-up sky-cycle. 'Icehot! ...But I think mayhaps we have to outgo eyespy some elvises first.' she hesitated, torn between hanging out with new and old friends. Icecream or skycycles?

Stanley nods. "You're right: it is only 'stuff' and other things are more important. Like how nobody got hurt.....It is not only that I damaged your car, but also that I damaged it in such a stupid way. I knew, I saw that the car was too big for that opening."

"Thanks for not being mad at me. Some people I know would react very differently. Don't scratch expensive cars near hospitals...okay that was weird advice. I meant to say that some of my colleagues care an awful lot about their cars. "



"Thanks Trav! Visiting 21st century Earth is better than just talking about it." Stanley says enthusiastically, as he accept the gift card. He turns to Vesha "Um...I can't wait to show you Earth as I know it."

Vesha chuckles.  "Well, sometimes you'll never know whether to play it safe until you try...."


She looks around at the lights of New York, bright-eyed and startled.  It takes years off her features.

"Che bello!" she exclaims.  "I... you know, it's one thing to say 'This person is supposed to be from another time', and it's something else to actually step out into the middle of another time."

Beaming at Stanley, she adds, "Well, lead on!  What are we waiting for?"

After saying their farewells to Vesha and Dev and Jenfer,  Trav sends the authentication codes to the Mailman's drop address.

She and the others have to wait less than an hour before her iPad returns a reply with a set of coordinates.  At a derelict fueling depot around the outermost world of the Estanve Gastem, they find the jump torpedo waiting for them.  It sits in the center of a hangar open to space, scarred by micrometeors, by frost and rust that must be the residues of the last atmosphere the station ever held.  The system's star gleams coldly into the hangar from far, far away.

The actual sample of the Corsair's tissue is locked away safely, deeply in the TARDIS, where the Traveller keeps secrets even she'd prefer not to remember.

Instead, she has a fake sample prepared. Her sonic is at the ready, with a spoof program that will simulate Kellnar's visual image and biodata to the capsule's sensors, if need be.

She extends the TARDIS atmosphere field, so that they can approach the torpedo safely.

"I can't believe I used these back in the old days." She winces at the mean streak she had. Immediately, the sonic is out, and the turbopistol is in the other hand.

"Well, well. Hello there, little fella. Here, I have a present for ya."

Immediately, the sonic goes to work, identifying her and her team as Kellnar and crew, and opening it. She's scanning the torpedo for data, and opening it, to insert the sample as per the hand off protocol.

OOC: Ingenuity+Technology+Sonic?

Sounds right.

Tick-tocks tracked back...

On the questions of ice-scream or sky-cycles, Smoke Alarm decided she could just do both, having a joyride with Dev then tracking back to the gang later for ice-scream and the Elvis Review. Sorted. So, while Traveller went about her yawny skin business, Smoke Alarm ran off with Dev for a joyride, leaping on his sky-cycle and zooming off into the city, down the streets and up the towers. She loved a city at night, all bright-lights against the darkness, rising up to meet the stars. Home-sweet-home and beauty-full.

Her escapades with Dev, cruising the city and raising havoc, were mayhaps best not show-and-telled to Sereth and Stan. Dev took her clubbing, and Smoke Alarm danced wildly and treated everyone to some Kang hiphop. 'Blue Kangs, Blue Kangs, Blue Kangs are best!' Though the drinks made her brain and tummy feel funny. Later, Smoke Alarm put some wallscrawl on a blank wall, show-and-telling the story of mousetrapping Kellnar in bright, child-like designs. That was until they were chased by flasher copbots, but they fire-escaped them in Dev's new hotrodded sky-cycle, easy-peasy. Finally, she tracked back to the others. Dev mayhaps seemed to want to show-and-tell Smoke something, but he seemed unbold about it. Smoke felt funny and warm herself, but mayhaps it was the sprinkle drinks. So Smoke waved goodbye with a cheery 'Build high for happiness.' and departed, wondering if she would meet him again.

*

After a fun but bewildering Elvis Review, and as much different kinds of icecream (no sprinkles!) as a tipsy Kang could handle, they tracked back to pick up Stan and Vesha. Smoke kinked her head sideways to Stan, wondering what it had all been about and asking curiously 'Did you make a baby?'

Nowatimes...

Smoke Alarm footed out of the talkiphone box, looking dismally around the empty hangar. It was cold and the walls were bare and bleak. No-one had been for a very long time. 'Brrr. Aircon's too low.' she commented, hugging her arms to herself and tucking Puddy back inside her pack. She outlooked to the stars at the edge of the hangar, but Traveller had warned not to go beyond the wobbly window around the talkiphone box.

Trav takes off her duster and scarf and hands it to Smoke. "Bundle up, sweety." She squats down and carefully works with the torpedo. "Hey Stan, do you have the sample?" Tody she wears a beat up American flag T shirt, a pair of Levis from 1865, and mid-thigh flat heel suede boots, with fingerless driving gloves. She's using that reverse handed method of wielding her sonic. The hat is a black stetson today with a grey band.

12:06, Today: The Traveller rolled 26 using 2d6+16 with rolls of 5,5. Trav scans and reprograms the torpedo - Ingenuity 8+technology 6+ Sonic 2.

"What?" Stanley gets red in the face."You..what...you shouldn't ask that. That is none of your business."



"Yeah, here it is." Stanley replies as he hands Trav the fake sample.

Trav: As the sonic whirrs, giggle. giggle. Tee hee! SNERK.

"Hey Stan, do you have the sample?"


"Thank you sweety." Trav is wearing a shit eating grin as she takes the case from Stan.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:12, Wed 03 Sept 2014.

Trav takes a surprising amount of time to rewire the jump torpedo.  She was able to find and defuse a pair of anti-tampering devices, either of which could have blown up in her hands or slagged the torpedo's guidance system, as well as an etheric transmitter set to remotely signal the torpedo's destination.

In the end, however, she is able to gain full access to the torpedo's master control routines.  She finds the destination coordinates -- about thirty parsecs away -- and can either trigger the torpedo without the notification signal going off, or leave it and use the coordinates to navigate the TARDIS.

The torpedo's technology, though sophisticated and clearly reworked by an expert, seems to be largely off-the-shelf for this period.  There's no sign of any temporal displacement capability.

The Guardian, for the NPC The Mailman, rolled 20 using 2d6+13 with rolls of 6,1. Torpedo tracking countermeasures: Ingenuity(5) + Technology(6) + Technically Adept(2).
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:09, Wed 03 Sept 2014.

Smoke Alarm shrugged at Stan's red-face response, deciding she wasn't really interested after all. He was an Inbetween, and Inbetweens were old and yawny and had forgotten all about being babies and youngsters and where they came from. So, if he didn't knowhow and didn't want to say, then she wouldn't poke into "his business". Kangs were respectiful like that.

She pulled on Traveller's coat, which seemed like a great big blanket on her small body, and wrapped the scarf around her waist as a belt. With nothing else to foot off and go look at, Smoke hovered over Traveller's shoulder, outlooking into the jumping torpedo, but she found all the puter stuff and kircuitry confusing and yawny. Other Kangs had been much better at fixing picturespouts, talkiphones, and vending machines. But eyespying Traveller at work, with all her knowhow, made Smoke Alarm wished she had the knowhow too. 'Does it work? All shapeship and sound?'

Trav is working with tweezers and hairpins, occasionally holding the sonic in her mouth. "Whoever did this," ZZZT, "is pretty good." zzzt. "A ha, logic center. Hand me the clamp in my left pocket, baby?" Trav, like her mentor the Doctor, likes carrying junk in her pockets. "Stand back, this is like a bomb. This piece here," she casually yanks out a bright red square and tosses it away, "would have melted a hole in the floor. And this," she pulls out something that looks like a spring, "would have signaled the bad guys. But, that is the master brainy peice. I am now talking to it," the sonic goes whirr, whirrr, "and telling it we're Kellnar.  Chibi, catch!" Chibi pops up out of the Ipad, and happily catches a bundle of code. "And that - Oh, Jelly babies. And those are Jolly Ranchers. She sniffs at them - still fresh! Want one?" She takes a Jolly Rancher into her mouth and smiles, and offers Smoke, Sereth and Stan candy. "What? It's still fresh!" She inserts the sample, and slaps the case closed. "Later, Smoke, if you want, I'll show you all about circuits and computers and machines. I love em!"

"There. When this arrives, it will send a signal back to us and will let us know it arrived. Then, we come on in, and have a conversation with that jerk. Then, I decide if I want to drop the hammer on him. I need to know if he's a threat. Any ideas for once we arrive? He might not be as much a cowardly cutlet as Kellnar was. All shipshape and sound now."

OOC: I forgot that Trav has Resourceful Pockets. Who knows what Smoke will find in her duster!
This message was last edited by the player at 04:18, Thu 04 Sept 2014.

The capsule hums and levitates itself a short distance on its repulsors, then rotates to orient itself horizontally and boosts itself through Trav's force screen and gently out of the hangar.  It's still visible when a coruscating globe of light envelops it momentarily.  Then it's gone.

Not long afterwards, Trav's iPad chimes and the Chibi avatar waves for her attention.  Checking the report, Trav finds that the avatar has intercepted a bland message acknowledging receipt of the package.  (It also appears that the Mailman has forwarded credit codes to Kellnar's account, comprising his payment in full.)

Meanwhile, the modified capsule has also sent back telemetry giving a precise fix on its arrival coordinates.  According to the TARDIS's navigational data for this era, there's a white dwarf star system there, with a collection of unimpressive, rocky cinders and no known inhabitants.

I'm not sure if there was something else you were interested in finding out from this.

'Okay.' Having the coat inside out, Smoke Alarm stuck a hand into the right pocket — much deeper than seemed physical — and fished about, feeling all the strange things inside. 'What have you got in your pocketses?' she wondered, more curious than exasperated. The Kang would find out if she could dump it all over the floor. She pulled out some kind of whirligig, a little robot spider currency, and something that might best remain unmentioned, but not a clamp. 'Um.' At last, a little furry paw handed her the clamp. 'Lost and found!' she reported, smiling knowingly and handing it over.

Given the foods she was used to scavenging and consuming, Smoke didn't hesitate to take the lollies, sucking on them as she whirled the whirligig. She wondered how and why Traveller was responding to something she hadn't said outside her brain. Traveller did weird things like that, she'd found. 'Oh, no worries.' she demurred, and watched the jumping torpedo jump up and jump away.

'Us will get the signal?' Smoke asked, confused, then realised it was the other kind of us, and quickly recovered. 'Okay. We'll need to find a hammer. And a dog. Dogs chase mailmans, catch them if they can. And mayhaps first I could go hide-and-seek in the Mailman's tower, lose-and-find his brainquarters and hide-ins and unseen outways. I could eyespy the hazards and keep outlook for you.' she volunteered.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 12:03, Thu 04 Sept 2014.

"Yeah, we'll get the signal. I used to own 3 dogs back in a town I used to live in."  She frowns, and was remembering her Basset hound Jake from RIFTS Earth, back when she was Louise the human girl. Jake peed on Cyborgs and barked back at Coalition Dog Boys. She missed Jake so much.

"But, I don't have a dog right now, but the rest of it sounds solid."

As they trot back to the TARDIS, Trav explains, "We'll be going in blind. They will probably be shooting at us. This will be dangerous, and may very well be a trap, for me. Just so you know." She smiles widely.

OOC: Feel free to talk out how you're going in, everyone.  It sounds like Trav is contemplating materializing close to the destination coordinates.  When you've hashed things out among yourself and commit to throwing the Big Lever, I'll open a new thread.

'Three dogs?!' Smoke exclaimed, impressed and alarmed and confused. She wondered how could anyone own dogs, and naturally said so. 'How do you own dogs? They're mean and smelly and bitey.' Smoke Alarm complained, fingering her fang necklace — dog teeth — and thinking of the day those fangs had stuck in her leg. The dog was big and savage and snarly, and there'd been so much hurt when it chomped her and shook her. Smoke had felt so unbrave, she thought she'd be dog-food, but she'd had her arrowgun and her sister Kangs to rescue her. Then they'd gotten their own back... 'They don't even taste very good.'

She thought on what Traveller said about the coming brainquarter invasion, declaring 'I'm brave and bold as a Kang should be. I can play blind woman's bluff and trip the mouse-trap... But mayhaps we should eyespy the Mailman's tower first.'


OOC: As we don't know what kind of place we're going to, there doesn't seem much point planning at this stage.

OOC: I don't disagree, but it sort of makes a difference in setting the scene as to whether the crew jumps in commando style, or stops nearby to take a look at the place first.

"I know how much you love walking into traps Trav." Stanley says jokingly. "But Smoke's suggestion might not be a bad idea. Eyespying the place first gives us information, that could be useful if it turns out to be a trap."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:35, Sat 06 Sept 2014.

Trav strides into the TARDIS control room. "That is the reason I need people like you to be my good sense. I'll place us 10 klicks away from the torpedo's drop point, and we'll take a passive scan."

Trav notes how everyone is picking up Kang slang.

Trav is calling up on the charts maps of the local vicinity near the drop point.

OOC: The torpedo is staying local in terms of time, right? This is "local", for lack of a better term?
This message was last edited by the player at 23:45, Sun 07 Sept 2014.

OOC: Correct.  I mentioned that with the torpedo itself, but I suppose this is to confirm that it doesn't pull a time jump out of its metaphorical hat.