"Here's hoping they will clean up this cesspool, take control over their lives.  I for one won't miss the place," Yas comments regarding the news broadcast, unable  to contain the grin on her face.

"Sure was a nice change of pace, that dinner..." she mumbles to herself and then settles in with a little sigh, grin all but gone.  "...of sorts..."

Saskia laughs aloud at the news from Rangent.

"So we made it harder for the local bullies to frighten people." she comments over the internal comm system, "That's a shame.  It adds some purpose to our pointless, juvenile and disgusting vengeance, and makes it less pointless.  But it's still disgusting and juvenile, so it wasn't a complete waste.  Unlike what we dropped on them."

Then Yas mentions the dinner, "I'm glad we don't have dinners like that every day, Yas.  I don't know about you, but I had to let my belt out a couple of notches this morning.  Going to take me weeks of running around the hold to burn off the weight.  I'll start tomorrow, some time after breakfast.  Or maybe the next day."

Still smiling slightly, Tylen listens to the banter as he starts an overview search of the system.  He knows where Ore Hound is, but he wants to know what other ships, if any, are in the vicinity.  He really doesn't expect to see much in the way of traffic, and he really doesn't expect any trouble from it -  but it is always good to know.

Shui sighs, shaking her head with a smile.  As long as good came out of it, she can endure all manner of vile vengeance, and the jokes that follow.  Truthfully?  She's actually relieved.  Problems were solved, and without turning the ship's lasers or plasma weapons on the criminals' lair.  That, too, would have solved the problem, but in such a way to leave her awake at nights.

Given the choices, a solid waste bombardment seems far more preferable.

The Ore Hound is on its way, and she silently wishes them safety and luck, in that order.  Then Shui surveys her work.  Good enough, the Steward decides, for the moment; time for some recreation.  Most of the crew is busy; she could speak with the passengers, or she could do some exercise.  Saskia's comment has put the thought in her mind, and with a shrug, Shui decides on the latter.

Activating her dataglove's link to the comm, she sets out for her quarters.  + Well, Ms. Blake, if you're serious about that, I'm going to be taking some time now for exercise in the hold.  No wooden knives involved, so we wouldn't worry about hurting ourselves. +

+ Always better to start today, than wait for the tomorrow that never comes. + She makes a face.  + Isn't that correct, Captain Lanza? + 

Tylen reaches out and flicks a switch, so that the view from the internal hold cameras is displayed on one of his screens.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:59, Mon 09 June 2014.

"If you say so Shui," Jago replies with a slightly puzzled tone, "stand by to leave orbit everybody."

In truth Jago was hard pressed to see how the steward's comments about exercising related to him.

 "I'll use options two," he tells the navigator as he easies power into the thrusters and gets underway towards the gas giant.

Saskia considers briefly, then jokes, "No thanks Shui.  I think I'll keep the little extra as a small homage to our bold and fearless leader."

Shui sighs at Jago's reply.  + Isn't it time for our regular check-up, Captain Lanza?  Especially given all that's been going on of late? +  She continues into her office, locking up before changing into her exercise clothing, a small smile lighting her features.  + Ah, Ms. Blake, you aren't providing a good example for those who require it. +  The Engineer certainly doesn't, but Shui is of the opinion that it's preventative as well.

+ Just be careful - I understand expansion in the reactor core is to be avoided. +

After studying Ash's projections, Jago selects his gas giant of choice and applies gentle thrust to swing Profit Margin around onto a course that will take her there in the shortest time.  The target world is not in the closest orbit, numerically, but is better positioned.

As the ship aligns with the displayed course, Jago  ramps up the thrust.

The Margin accelerates at her full 2G.  Sensors show that the only other vessel in the system, at least on their timeline, is Ore Hound.  There could be ships which have arrived recently, but Profit Margin, her sensors constrained by physical laws, especially the speed of light, has not detected them yet.

For the moment, though, all seems quiet.

Shui gets changed and heads for the hold, thankful that the ship currently has no cargo to fill up the space she intends to use for her exercise regimen.

At their gunnery stations, Tylen and Yas relax a little, knowing that any danger approaching them will show up on their scans long before it gets within weapon range.

Tylen selects some background music for his turret control cubicle, but leaves it playing quietly.  That way he can leave the cubicle door open without disturbing the rest of the bridge crew.

Knowing scanners are set, he continues to fiddle around tweaking his computer code that extracts news snippets from the ground signal.  As the signal fades he tries to incorporate code that will augment the signal and amplify  potentially relevant sections.  However, it is a real Heath Robinson system that is cobbled together from all sorts of code snippets that he has harvest from the computer libraries, tied together with jury rigging code.

He could probably do better if he tried -  but this exercise is more to keep him occupied that anything else.

Profit Margin accelerates away from Rangent, towards the gas giant, with its system of rings and small, barren moons.

Tylen continues to listen for news from Rangent for as long as he can, but fails to pick up anything more exciting than what he'd heard from orbit.  Eventually, with the planet far behind them, Jago orders the gunners to stand down, knowing that they can be back in their seats, with the turrets ready, long before amything gets close enough to cause trouble.

Ore Hound makes Jump exactly on schedule, leaving Profit Margin, at least for the moment, alone in the system, except for assorted barren moons and a few planets.

Things aboard the ship settle into their regular routine...

Sensors are set to sound automated alarms if anything breaks the monotony, and the crew and passengers relax a little.

After about fourteen hours there is a little excitement as a ship drops out of Jump, approximately ten hours and 6.5 million kilometres behind Profit Margin, and immediately starts moving in towards Rangent.  It's transponder identifies it as Dame Fortune, a Beowulf class free trader.  Not capable of matching Profit Margin's acceleration, and already moving too slowly, and in the wrong direction, to present any threat.

...

...

A little over two and a half days after leaving Rangent, Profit Margin is passing over the rings of the gas giant, decelerating in preparation for atmospheric entry.  The rings spread out to each side of her, a glittering array of ice fragments and dust, sparkling in the light of the distant sun.

Ahead sits the giant, a bloated ball, banded in shades of orange, dirty yellow and salmon pink.  A quarter of a million kilometres in diameter, it is the largest body in the system except the sun.

And Jago intends to help himself to some of its atmosphere...

Jago oberves the looming bulk of the vast planet that fills most of the forward screens and dismisses a vertigo that false perspective tries to induce.

He also dimisses any thoughts of checking with Saskia, the idea that she might not be on top of things and three steps ahead is laughable.

There is realy non point in anouncing his intentions to the pasangers and rest of the crew, no one aboard could posibly be unaware of the situation, but, feeling a bit redundant and just for good for, he might as well.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are curently approching the outer atmospehre of the planet I'll refer to as 'Big Blob' and will comence atmospheric scooping in aproximatly three hours. If any one would like to observe this opperatin from the bridge, please let the Miss Tiesi know. Thank you."

Saskia makes another check of the boards, ready to transfer the readouts (and associated controls) to her Bridge station.  Then she hears Jago's announcement, and decides to call him instead.

"Jago, I'm going to stay back here for this one.  Give you more room on the Bridge for your audience.  I just started transferring all remaining fuel to reservoir one.  Two and three will be completely dry by the time we hit the atmosphere, and four will act as a buffer tank for the purifier."

Two seconds.  That's how long it takes, between Jago's announcement, and the urgent chirping of Shui's comm channel demanding attention.

Keryn is on the other end.  "Can I come to the watch the refuelling?"  Voices start yelling behind her, indistinct and off-mic.  "Um... make that all three of us."

Space around the giant is a mess.  The gravity well has swept up all kinds of junk from all around the planet's orbit.  As well as a dozen or so "official" moons, there are hundreds of asteroids in independent orbits, some of them retrograde, or tilted out of the planet's own private ecliptic, which is, itself, angled at 43.7° to that of the system as a whole.

Eventually most of the smaller moonlets and captured rocks will end up as part of the ring system, but for now they just make the place look untidy, and require Jago, Ash, and the gunners to keep their eyes open.

Shui looks up from cleaning dishes and flicks the holocontrol of her dataglove with a damp fingertip.  "Yes?  Maybe I be of assistance?"

It's going to be any or all of the passengers; it's an even bet which one got to her first.

OOC - Sorry about the brevity, I'm a tad cramped for time this morning.

"Hey, Jago, if we're bringing all the security risks over here, is it all right if I bring my guns over?  Just the small ones, they should at most just dent the hull from inside," Yas calls out to the bridge, avoiding to use the comm just in case someone actually believes it.

"And if not, let us at least lock all systems not needed during this, yes?" she adds, not wishing to experience any accidental pushing of buttons and similar incidents.

With that she begins to get out of her gunner compartment to help ensure no one gets lost on the way.  "I think I can spare a few minutes until they are all here, no?  I'll got help herd the flock..."

Ash frowns slightly as the extend of the surrounding space debris becomes more apparent.  "Cap'n," he notes with a touch of concern, "There is a lot of junk out there."  His fingers are already working, and the plot on the tactical display continues to morph and refine itself.  "I should be able to give you ..." he pauses for a moment as yet another data stream comes online, the glow illuminating another column on his face, "a reasonably firm 32nd order approximation."

"But the multivariate problem presented with all of that stuff out there out there..." he readily concedes, "is pretty much an intractable, nigh-infinite body interaction.  We'll likely have to improvise minor course corrections as we proceed."  He doesn't seem overly concerned - just very focused.

"We are also limited by our sensor data." the thin navigator notes off-hand, "We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and I'd like to turn up gain on our proximity alarms, if you don't mind, sir."  Ash seems ready to start calling out course corrections as the Profit Margin embarks on the route that has been set.

"Are you sure you want to allow the other passengers on the bridge?" Ash prompts of Jago, "It could be a bit cramped.  And noisy..."  He would never countermand the Captain, of course.  But minimizing distractions might be in order.

The door of Tylen's gunnery compartment is already open, but he swings his seat around so he is ready for visitors.  When they arrive, he joins everyone on the bridge, but stays at the back near the wall.

"We'll all be coming to watch the refuelling." Keryn restates, a little more clearly, "It will be interesting to see the bridge, and watch a real crew at work."  Of course, most of her knowledge of ship operations is based on an endless stream of trashy holovids.

Jago sighs and glances over his shoulder at Yas, "If you really must, I suppose.  Keep them at your station though, out of sight unless they're needed.  It'll be at least a couple of hours before our guests are here, so there's no hurry."

"We should be all right, Ash.  We've done this sort of thing before.  This doesn't look any worse than space around Regina.  We'll just keep an eye open.  Once we hit the upper atmosphere, things should be better."

He thumbs the intercom control, "Thanks Saskia, you can run your end of things just as well from there anyway.  Do you want a video feed, so you can see what's going on outside?"

"Already got one, pulled it off your feed.  Best seat in the house." Saskia closes the channel and reorganises her display.  Visual on the gas giant dead centre, surrounded by instrument readouts.  Tell-tales across the top edge of the visual.

So she can watch their approach, and the scooping run, and still keep an eye on everything else.

A press of a single control in the lower right of the panel activates audio alerts on all instruments.  No chance that any trouble will slip by her now.  Not that any of her systems had better give her any frelling trouble.

+ Well, then, + Shui replies.  + When the time comes, you'll all be informed.  Please meet me in the lounge at that point - everyone - and we shall proceed from there.  We'll make a brief stop outside the bridge, where I'll ensure you're aware of any necessary cautions. +

Better find those out now.  Even as she speaks, she's quickly marching toward the bridge to confer with the crew.

In reply to Shui Tiesi (msg # 36):

Tylen sips a his coffee then fiddles with an old fashioned metal coin that he pulls from his pocket.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:37, Thu 26 June 2014.

"Actually, I never go anywhere without at least two, so it was a joke," Yas says completely deadpan, referring to whatever it might be she is referring to.  "Mostly concerned about accidental, or overly curious, button presses and such.  Can we handcuff them?"

"Although I think I have zip-ties if you prefer," she adds, still deadpan.  "Which reminds me, I'll just go over and talk to Sushi."  Runaway train of thoughts, it must be.

"But first, a cup of cocoa."

"Won't be time for that once the circus arrives."

And at that precise moment, as if by magic, Shui walks onto the bridge, and directly into Yas' line of fire...

"Ah, Ms. Crow."  Shui nods to the Security Officer, slowly turning to catch sight of anyone else on the bridge. "Mr. Tescali.  Captain Lanza." A small smile first, then she launches into her query. "I will apparently be bringing our passengers for a sight-seeing tour later today.  All of them."  Another smile. "It's possible our discussion of sights of the universe at our recent dinner has roused them."

Now the point. "Hopefully you have some guidelines I can lay down for them before they arrive here, so that they know what not to touch -" probably 'everything' "- who not to disturb -" likely 'everyone but the steward' "- and how to comport themselves in general."

Most probably 'quietly and without extraneous movement'.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:53, Wed 25 June 2014.