[Bridge}
"+++All hands, make any last minute preparations for jump.+++" Walter said over the intercom. "Pilot, ship is yours. Jump when you are ready."

Sharik noted apologetically over the crew channel, "++Helm, it will be a few more minutes before all of the astrogation calculations are finalized.++"  The calculations were delicate and precise - and usually took over an hour to complete.  Time which was usually spent getting to the 100D limit.  But here, there was no gravity well - which meant that the navigation portion of the jump was the rate limiting-step.  But, that time would be well spent.  Without taking into account the required high-level of precision on both the relative positions and vectoring of both the departing location and desired destination, it was almost a guarantee of a misjump.

Tagging along, the Longshot's navigator followed the Captain to bridge, prompting en route, "Captain, are you sure that Outpost is the best destination, at this point?"  She knew that Walter had family there, but it didn't make as much sense to backtrack, especially now that the Count was not comatose.  Elgin was still at Outpost and she seemed to have a really long memory.  "Also, we did promise, Dr. Lavaud that we would deliver her to Dulcinae..." the diminutive operative reminded Zeller and his contract with the good doctor.  Perhaps both she and Cromwell would disembark there...

Sam started prepping the ship for the jump.

"The alien vessel is a military matter and whatever happen to the Count is something they will want to investigate. Who better to brief them than the Doc and for the time being, she is going to be the Count's personal physician until whatever happened to him can be fixed. Continue to Outpost as ordered." Walter said to Sharik as they walked to the bridge.

Sharik simply nodded to Walter as they entered the bridge proper.  "Aye, aye, Captain." she intoned simply.  The diminutive socialite wasn't going to argue the logic, especially in front of the rest of the crew.

The Longshot's astrogator sat down in the co-pilot's seat and unlocked her session on the dynamic display.  The status of the multi-variate jump calculations continued to stream down one side of the screen, overlaying a multi-lobed shape that continued to undulate and change color as the calculations progressed.  She hummed a rather complex two-part fugue as she watched the numbers churn.

After another half-hour or so, the calculations were complete and Sharik pushed the results from the main core to the jump-drive controller.  "Jump vectors locked and loaded, Captain." she announced over the crew channel.  Her part done, Sharik cinched the five-point harness on her chair one notch tighter, tucked her gloves and helmet into the stowage compartment along side her console, and leaned back to enjoy the transition to j-Space.

---

[OOC:  One jump calculation to Outpost, coming right up!

  23:24, Today: Sharik Kaagira rolled 17 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 5,6.  Astrogation/Edu Check: Jump calc to Outpost (Astrogation/2, +1 Edu, +1 Expert, +4 Easy, -2 J-2).]

When Khea hears the jump preparation have started she hurries back to her cabin to put on her armored vest, just in case the engines decided to blow under that much stress like the last time.
While pulling over the vest she pushes the wall communicate with her free hand
"The military? We really have to discuss whom to entrust with the location of that ship during the jump before making rash decisions".

Not waiting for an reply she leaves for the engine room to get the drive ready for a jump making sure to triple check everything even when this takes a few hours.

OOC: Performing Jump
01:47, Today: Kheaiftouaw rolled 10 using 2d6+4 with rolls of 5,1.  Performing Jump. +1 Engineering, +2 Routine, +1 taking longer.

The Count, Lavaud, Jones and Kaengarr are all going on the other ship, which will take Lavaud to Dulcinae.

The Longshot is taking Serge's Scout ship, the salvage from the alien ship, and Evelyn Darque to Outpost.

You've got a week in transit now, which passes without incident.

You arrive at the 100-diameter limit of Outpost.

Visibly relieved when the Longshot leaves jumpspace and appears to be exactly where it intended to go Khea goes to the bridge to discuss the options.

"You are better experts with humaniti clans. How should we handle this. Contact the Imperium clan right away and announce that we rescued one of their own or should we keep quite and do this quietly as to not embarrass them? Or should we wait with that until we sell all the salvage and location of the alien ship so that they do not become competitors?

Sam looked at Khea "I think rescuing the Scout is something we can be open about - its good PR for us with the Imperium and generally if people know we did that. Regarding the space ship, then I think thats a bit more of a back room deal."

"Lets keep the alien ship quiet for the moment." Walter said. "Get in touch with the naval base and let them know that we are transporting a damaged scout vessel and request to dock at the base. If they ask, let them know that that due to the unusual nature of the damage that occurred, the local dockyard might not be able to repair it and they are welcome to send a team to look it over. The damage was not caused by weapon fire nor a mechanical failure. That should get their attentiuon." he added.

"Good.

But what about the sensor logs on the scout? It will have information about the unknown ship. We can try to wipe them but that will likely make the Imperium suspicious"

"Let me rephrase that. No one else in this system needs to know. The Navy will shortly find out when they look at the damage. Walter said.

"We should be more concerned about our passenger," Valeska spoke up.

"How about it, Evelyn? What do you want to do? I don't suppose there's any reason for you to return to your world. You are welcome to join our crew."

She gave a stern look at Walter in case he had other ideas.

Evelyn looked up from her thoughts. "Oh.. I suppose I don't have anything else. I don't have family. I was the one doing shifts noone else wanted to do simply so I could be alone. I never had any friends. I don't know if my funds still exist given the destruction. But I think I have no past... not anymore. " she paused. "If you need someone to fix things and stay out of the way. I can do that." she answered quietly. She hadn't really talked to anybody in years with the exception of waking up and trying to remember what happened to her. Even at work she was more do her job and avoid people. So it was awkward.

"That is up to you Ms. Darque if you wish to sign on. With the Count indisposed, some of the crew have decided to resign and their positions will need to be filled. " Walter said.

Khea sniffs the air around Evelyn but says nothing although she certainly looks displeased.

"Still I think we should at least try to erase all positioning information from that ship. With all other data still intact they will quickly realize why we deleted that information and might open up negotiations.

Unless they insist that the data is rightfully theirs. In that case we need a good escape plan.

Sharik nursed a large travel mug of black coffee; one that was meant to dispel some of the aftereffects of the previous night.  With Kaengarr's help, the diminutive socialite had organized a party during the week; it gave her a welcome break from the various studying that she was doing as she tried to brush up on her technical manuals.  The ship was exotic and complicated enough - and she wanted to know more.  Especially, as they would need to continue to maintain it.  But, given the ton of luxuries that the Count had originally commissioned for the ship (and now the lack of Cromwell's presence), Shar had broken into a few of the bottles of vintage wine and partaken of more than a few of the more perishable consumables - distributing them amongst the remaining crew to help foster the festivities she had planned.  While her mechanical skills might need some work, Sharik knew how to plan a party; she seemed to have plenty of experience with it.

She'd sat in her navigator's seat during the transition from j-Space, her shades protecting her from the bright flash which was common during the return to n-Space when the fluctuating bubble of hydrogen collapsed at their destination, depositing the Longshot near Outpost.  The ship's navigator hummed a light tune as she waited for the sensor diagnostics to run and for them to come back online so that she might be able to verify their position and plot a reasonable intercept course to the station.

"Not sure that we can really mess with our transponder too much..." Sharik warned the Aslani female when the topic of data erasure came up, "altering its recorder data could be construed as an Imperial crime."  Beside the fact that is was quite difficult to actually hack the ship's black box(es) - even if they knew where all of them were (which Sharik wasn't completely convinced that was true).

"And Serge had been tasked to with investigating the thing as an official IISS mission." she mused aloud, reminding those gathered that they hadn't been the only party to arrive at the strange vessel.  Which to her mind meant that someone else already knew a fair bit concerning the object.  Plus, Morgan and the other scout ship now (presumably) at Dulcinae had the same coordinates registered.

She shrugged though, agreeing implicitly that the alien vessel probably didn't need to be mentioned in polite, casual company if it could be helped.  More random treasure seekers were not likely to be helpful to the salvage situation.

As for Evelyn, joining the crew, Shar smiled genially.  The woman seemed amiable and helpful enough.  Perhaps a bit reserved, but then who wouldn't be after losing three years and waking up in an entirely different place.  All told, Ms. Dupont seemed quite resilient.  Honestly, after a week she already seemed to be part of the crew.  The Longshot didn't really lend itself to being a passenger ferry with all of the staterooms together and none really segregated from the others - working passage (at best) seemed most common (not surprising given its original incarnation as a system defense boat).  She raised her mug, acknowledging to offer to make Evelyn 'official' crew, chiming in with a simple, "Here, here."

"I have nothing else and a job is a job. Just don't expect much in the way of socializing. I prefer to do my job keep my head down and be even more forgettable than the forty third rivet in a hallway." she answered calmly looking around. An Job offer? It was strange to her. To be welcomed somewhere. It was an uncomfortable itchy feeling meaning she was noticed and she disliked that.

Being far less welcoming than Sharik Khea ignored the apparently new crewmate completely and stayed on the topic of selling the location of the alien ship for as much MCred as possible.

"We should have destroyed the other ships before leaving for Outpost.
So what now. When we give back the scout they will know the location of the ship and the information we have will be worthless. But if we don't give it back it is an insult and we can't negotiate with them in the first place.

GRRRRR. We are so close to being rich and that scout ship is ruining everything. We should have left it there.

"I guess you can't just simulate realistic damages that it might have suffered and Target key systems to destroy any valuable data on it essentially giving them the body of the ship but not the mind?" she asked the seemingly angry individual hoping the idea might be useful.

Sam looked at Khea and Evelyn "I think shooting the ship up is a bad idea. But what would be the potential side effects of removing the grid? Could it have shorted systems including the databanks? Thats something to consider. But I think far better to negotiate without damaging the Scout before we hand it over. If they insist we can't refuse to give it back, but we can still negotiate a recovery cost."

"I guess it's time to include the rest of you in on our real mission," Valeska says as the festivities continued.

"The Count was directed to... look for things. There have been a number of strange occurrences in this sub-sector that made no sense individually, and perhaps even less when taken together... other than the strangeness of them."

"The Count was... asked to keep an eye out for anything along these lines, but he was to keep to his normal activity as much as possible. Being the Count, though, that didn't really amount to much."

"This alien ship, by itself, probably qualifies as something but the presence of Evelyn on that ship is the first indication we've had that one of these events may have been caused by the aliens."

"Because of the nature of that event, of which the mechanism is still unknown, it isn't that much of a leap to think that these aliens might be responsible for the other events as well."

"Keep in mind that they are alien. Their anatomy and ship design are completely foreign to us, which probably also means that their way of thinking is just as foreign. We can't really say what their motivation is or what their long-term goal is."

"For all we know, we might just be little more than insects to them... some sort of space parasite that they feel needs to be eradicated. If would seem, at the very least, that they have no regard for human life... or Aslan or Vargr."

"Now... that being said, we are talking about a higher authority than the IISS... higher than the Imperial Navy. Without knowing who these aliens are, where they are from or what they want, letting the Navy know that these incidents are connected... well, that's a recipe for disaster. You'd have captains shooting indiscriminately at everything they thought was remotely suspicious... other ships, planets, whatever."

"And that's not to mention the panic that would occur among the citizens."

"So, in that light, we can purge the data we want from Serge's Scout ship. It should be easy enough to claim it was the aliens that did it. After all, there's no rational reason for them to have removed only a section of the grid."

"As it is, the Scout Service will keep the discovery of this new species under wraps for a long, long time."

She sat back then and let the full impact of her words register on the crew. She really had no control over what they would do. It's not like she was an intelligence agent or anything. She'd just been in the right place at the right time. Or was that 'the wrong place at the wrong time'?

Serge was quietly sipping a big hot cup of coffee, sitting in the chair in the background, keeping a poker face while team was discussing if they should destroy the Scout ship or erase its data.

Sam looked at Valeska, and raised an eyebrow"And how do you know all this? And who was the Count directed by, exactly? because thats who we need to report to I guess?"

Walter frowned at the new revelation of what the group was really doing. "This is news to me as I did not know that we were doing this for any person or agency. I concur with you Samantha, we do need to get with the Count's handler to finish this mission. If there is some other place that this information needs to go to, now is the time so we can get fueled up and out of here." he said, looking towards Ms. Brandenberg.

"However, I disagree about scrubbing the data on the scout ship. It will help them show how Serge's interaction with the ship occurred, along with its path of travel." he added.