In reply to Battalion (msg # 31):

"Is everyone settled? Good. Let's get started."

Director Kelce taps a few keys on the presentation console, and the wall-sized tablet screen activates. The screen depicts the inner solar system, with dotted green lines that you recognize as corresponding to your journeys since entering the IDA's employ.

"You've had a busy year," she says with a smile. "And a productive one. You successfully procured sensitive schematics from SAGE's installation on Venus, obtained the superdense alloy needed to create prototypes based on said schematics from ACE's Martian complex, and shut down one of the Alliance of Sol's most important revenue streams while reuniting many fractured families on EROS. Excellent work."

The map lights up during each corresponding phase.

"All of those were wildly successful -- even the AoS complication, given the end result. But the Ceren mission seems to have gone a bit less smoothly, at least from the reports we've gathered. Commander Faust is particularly vexed with you lack of communication and unilateral activities."

She rests her hands on the back of her chair, which she has yet to actually use, and sighs.

"That, in and of itself, it not problematic. Faust has a stick up his rear longer than his arm. But you DID return here with two additional passengers than we expected...and one of you in particular has been keeping our lawyers very, very busy trying to keep up with the nuances of squatter's rights, salvage codes, and ownership in interplanetary space. That's not to mention our sensitive standing with SAGE at the moment. It was important for our goodwill mission to have had the desired impact. Based on recent insurance filings and personnel openings we've intercepted, I'm afraid it may have...not."

She's still smiling, but a little less warmly than before.

"So...that's the overview. I already know what Commander Faust thinks happened on Ceres. He wanted me to separate you all into little rooms to get individual stories, but I thought we'd try it this way first. You're reliable agents, and you've proven yourselves as far as I'm concerned."

She spares a glance at Kayla and Muse.

"And those who aren't are already neck-deep in sensitive knowledge. A little more won't change anything."

She inhales deeply, then exhales and clears her throat.

"I only have one major question, though I reserve the right to ask follow-ups."

Director Kelce finally slips into her seat, and steeples her fingers together as she places her elbows on the table.

"What happened on Ceres?"

"Is clusterfuck a technical term?" Billy offers in response to Kelce's question, "We were told to investigate a missing ship.  We found it, investigated it, and got sidelined by a mad scientist.  She was supposed to be there, we weren't, and we had to expend as much effort not being held at gunpoint as we did stopping her from menacing the whole planet."

Xander nods at Billy. What he said. The sparknotes version is that one of the SAGE researchers is a genuine psychotic scientist, who also happens to be an auger. She has some ability to dynamically alter code. At first she used it for healing, but things went to hell in a rocket-powered handbasket when she started making mutants out of the crew.

Xander slides over his datapad to the Director. There's a more detailed account. You should have also received the entire encrypted and warded contents of Olsen's research a month or so ago. If you folks haven't figured out the decryption keys, I can unlock it. Sophia worked it out a while ago.

In reply to Xander (msg # 34):

"Yes, we received the data package...we're still going through it. Your decryption key may aid the process considerably."

She frowns slightly.

"The mission's parameters were to locate and assist a ship that had lost contact with SAGE's facilities. You found the missing ship and rendered aid, according to your report. What was wrong with the ship? Why had it lost contact? Had this mad scientist conducted a mutiny? Did you have to board the ship and turn it back around?"

She looks over the datapad Xander slid to him.

"Wait, the ship had already crashed by the time you got there, and nobody on Ceres had noticed that?"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:21, Mon 06 Mar 2017.

"There was a saboteur onboard, several systems had bugs installed, one took the ship off SAGE's radar, but everything still probably would have gone fine for the ship if the good doctor hadn't turned half the crew into savage monsters that attacked the rest.  Besides, the ship was only three days late when we got there.  If no one noticed the impact they probably figured it was a delay in transit." Billy doesn't stress the timeline but looks straight at Kelce as he says it, noting her reaction.

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 36):

"Three days late?" the director responds. "That's...hardly unusual in space travel. But when did they lose communications? The ship was either traveling from Earth to Ceres or from Venus to Ceres. We would have needed to know weeks in advance about any kind of communication problem in order to send agents out fast enough to make any difference."

She frowns.

"That doesn't make any sense unless the ship had been blinded quite early in its voyage, Ceres staff noticed a lack of updates, and then notified authorities -- us -- to look into it. But if that's true, then somebody on Ceres had to know there was a problem. Someone had to requisition our help. Did you meet anyone there who was actually expecting you?"

In reply to Director Kelce (msg # 37):

Nightmare's head swings around as she watches everyone like a hawk but not quite contributing yet.

"No one expected us.  No one asked for help.  Like I said, we weren't supposed to be there," Billy states.  He looks appraisingly at Kelce's confusion before offering a follow-up, "The only people who knew the ship was missing are the people who paid to sabotage it.  Xander and Sophia found one of the bugs transmitting nav data back to a third party."

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 39):

"Do we know who this third party might be?" the director asks, intrigued. "That sounds like a vital clue."

"They claimed to be Braeburn, but that's apparently all the evidence they provided to their inside man." Billy is quick to beat Xander to the reply, and to underscore the uncertainty, "That and money."

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 41):

"That's good! Money always lead-leads somewhere," Viceroy perks up. "Not hard to veri-verify if the payments came-came from Braeburn or elsewhere. Even if cloak-cloaked! Did Xanderagent try-try yet? He is the best slicer we have."

In reply to Viceroy (msg # 42):

Director Kelce nods.

"Viceroy's right. If payments were made to a saboteur in the name of Braeburn, we might be able to flag that transactions -- or the saboteur's accounts, if he was sloppy -- for further scrutiny."

She frowns.

"None of this makes sense. What would Braeburn gain from sabotaging a supply ship? Or from arranging to have us show up in its aftermath?"

In reply to Director Kelce (msg # 43):

"We are already disliked by SAGE," Dr. Hawkins offers. "And the reports indicate that had our agents been on time themselves, they may have reached Ceres before the supply ship did, right?"

He taps his fingers on the table in thought.

"What would you do if a ship of SAGE operatives showed up here today and claimed to be investigating the disappearance of Commander Faust's ship? We are expecting him any day now, and have no reason to believe he won't be here as planned. We would, of course, look into it. Perhaps reach out to the ship itself."

"If we managed to reach the ship, and were told by someone onboard that everything was fine -- say, a suborned operative who had overtaken the ship already, lying to us -- then we would treat the SAGE contingent unkindly, I should think."

"If we did NOT manage to reach the ship, or if the ship arrived without communication and plowed into the Factory in a crash landing, we would still not look kindly upon the SAGE contingent. We would be suspicious about what they knew, how they knew it, and what role they had to play in the accident. Which is not the term we'd be using, I wager."

Dr. Hawkins shrugs.

"I'm not saying that's THE answer, of course, but it's AN answer. If Braeburn had wanted to increase the enmity between our organizations, they would have succeeded. Though what the mad scientist has to do with all of this is beyond me."

"What would you do if upon investigation of this hypothetical crash and SAGE contingent you found blatant connection to ACE?" Billy looks between Hawkins and Kelce, "If Braeburn was responsible for this it's still sloppy. There's no reason they had to tell some asshole under their thumb who he was working for.  They could've told him it was an IDA sting and buried us deeper or as a backup plan.  SAGE and Braeburn aren't exactly cozy either."

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 45):

Where did our intel of a missing ship that is not missing come from?

In reply to Nightmare (msg # 46):

"Let's find out."

She taps at the console for a few minutes, then frowns.

"Hmm...the mission was assigned to you through Commander Faust, who received the mission through the standard distribution ch- that's odd."

She taps a few more buttons, and a series of portraits scroll across the presentation panel. From left to right, the portraits show an unknown man, an unknown woman, Commander Faust, Billy, and Director Kelce.

"Here's the chain of custody, as it were," she explains. "The tip came into our leads department from an anonymous source, where it was authenticated by our analysts. Then it was sent to Commander Faust for assignment, who assigned it to Billy, who is now being debriefed by me."

"The strange part is the tip itself," she explains. "They are anonymous, but we still collect the location information for verification purposes. In this case, the source has been completely obscured. Either someone erased that information from our system, or they were using hardened equipment when they called in the tip. But it couldn't have happened until AFTER the tip had gotten past Leads and Analytics, because they would have flagged it. Unless they're in on it, of course."

Director Kelce's brow creases in concern.

"Either way, it's a big problem."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:52, Mon 06 Mar 2017.

In reply to Director Kelce (msg # 47):

Battalion nods sagely and taps fingertips together.

Clearly he is thinking deep helpful thoughts and not zoning out.

In reply to Battalion (msg # 48):

Muse considers taking a piece of cheese.

It sort of sounds like we're all getting played here, Xander remarks mildly. Can't say I'm a fan of the feeling. Any ideas on how to run this down, Director?

In reply to Xander (msg # 50):

"We'll start by pulling the lead generation specialist and the analyst into separate rooms and making sure their stories check out," the director says thoughtfully. "I'll also want to talk with Commander Faust when he arrives, get his take on all of this. If someone's screwing with his missions, he'll be first in line to rectify it."

She massages her temples with her fingers for a moment.

"Ok. Setting that aside for the moment, can we get into more detail about the Charlie Foxtrot? Specifically, the parts involving the loss of life, the destruction of the shuttle, and the part where you claimed it as salvage."

This last part is directed dryly in Billy's direction.

"I know your family likes to make the government pay for things it could easily afford to buy itself, but that's a little out of line, don't you think?"

She looks over at Muse and Kayla and blinks.

"We also should discuss our guests, their role in this, and what kind of future makes sense for them."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:59, Mon 06 Mar 2017.

I'd like to point out that Kayla essentially oversaw rebuilding the shuttle from the ground up, with limited time and even more limited resources. She keeps a cool head in stressful situations, and is more than a fair pilot. I'm not sure what she has in mind for her future, but the IDA wouuld be lucky to have her on board, Xander says.

He shoots a glance at Muse. And he has one hell of an uppercut.

Billy rolls his eyes at the pointed inquiry, apparebnly both used to and unphased by being caught red handed, "Doctor Olsen had help in SAGE's science department, possibly the head of it, but we can't confirm that.  Part of their security force had off-the-books upgrades, which apparently included explosives with remote detonators.  When we confrinted Olsen she blew up their security force.  One of them was minding our shuttle since we had only barely convinced them we weren't the badguys, while most of the rest of them were in the executive suite, which was turned to rubble thanks to multiple explosions.  We had no way of knowing until it was too late," he explains grimly.

When he's done he grins and shrugs, "Salvage rights were just a quick and dirty way to make sure the IDA had nothing to do with the mess, the only people who know who we really work for aren't likely to raise a stink about it, and anyone who might be suspicious about IDA involvement have a nice neat cover story." He pauses, looking smug for a moment before his smirk grows limp, "Also quite frankly a mission that makes no sense into a mess waiting to happen made me wonder how much I should trust our benevolent leaders.  Apparently a fear well founded if your tip is such a problem."

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 53):

Muse caves and eats a piece of cheese. He looks up mid-bite when he hears "uppercut."

In reply to Muse (msg # 54):

"The IDA is tasked with maintaining peace and order within the inner solar system," Director Kelce replies. "If a ship has gone missing, it is certainly our prerogative to investigate it. I'll not abide piracy, after all. And the IDA must maintain its reputation as an effective police force if we are to continue to dissuade others from taking such matters into their own hands. That would end poorly for everyone."

She glances over at Billy.

"The mission was also an opportunity to get back on SAGE's good side. Hopefully we've at least accomplished that, given the magnitude of disaster we've helped thwart."

She taps on the console and clears the projector screen, replacing its contents with two headshot-sized boxes. One contains Kayla's portrait, and the other Muse's. The images were clearly taken about 3 seconds ago (Muse has cheese crumbs on his chin).

"Ok. David Miles, Security Consultant," she murmurs, the words populated onto the screen near his headshot. "And Kayla..."

"Wallin," Kayla provides.

"...Wallin, Astronautics Consultant."

A bright light shines forth from the console, and soon the director has produced two ID badges. She hands them to their respective owners.

"This should give you relative freedom of movement around here, so long as you are in the company of an IDA agent or other employee," she explains. "We'll arrange details like payments, contracts, transit elsewhere, duty stations, or whatever else you'll need to move on with your lives soon."

"In the meantime, you're dismissed. I'm going to look into our anonymous tipster, and call another meeting once I've gotten somewhere. We'll arrange for someone to show you to your bunks and give those who want it a tour of the facilities."

She frowns, as if racking her brain for something.

"Ah yes. Rules. You may enter and leave your legally stolen shuttle freely, Billy, but you're not to take it anywhere until further notice. We'll have a follow-up debriefing shortly. Other than that, enjoy yourselves."

"Battalion, you are limited to a single entity -- yourself -- while you are here. The extra bodies eat too much food, drink too much, and breathe too much. We appreciate your compliance."

"Xander, if you'd be so kind as to remain behind after the others have filed out? I'd like to... discuss this decryption key with you. In private."

"That'll be all. Thank you for your service. Hopefully we'll have more answers soon."

Of course, Director, Xander replies, keeping his face studiously neutral.