Jago turns in his chair and offers a sad little smile to Shui, and Yasmin, “all three of our passengers are sensible adults, I’m sure you don’t have to tell them not to touch anything or distract the crew but feel free if it makes you more comfortable. You probably won’t have to shoot them that much either Yasmin but, bring guns, hand cuffs, cable ties or inquisitorial torture devices, whatever makes you most comfortable.”

Chuckling at his own little joke, the Captain turns back to his instruments and makes a little adjustment that will keep them clear of a passing rock, but continues talking over his shoulder, “there is plenty of room up here, having a few observers shouldn’t be an issue but, please make sure they know to return to their quarters quickly and wioth out question if asked to do so.”

"As you say, Captain," Shui replies with a little bow.  "In part, my inquiries are also to satisfy any concerns the crew might have."  She considers for a moment, tapping her finger on her lips.  "I have little doubt our passengers will know to go below swiftly if we ask.  Mr. DeSant has experience with our sorts of trouble, Mr. Armusezash is former navy, and Ms. Taylor often takes her cues from them.  Even so, I will note that to them to ensure that no errors transpire."

A small smile follows.  "And for your peace of mind."

The thin navigator nods to his captain's assurance that navigating the clutter space lanes will be straight-forward.  "Aye, aye, Cap'n" he acknowledges.

As for the visitors and any ground rules, Jago and Yasmine appear to have things well in hand.  Or under control.  Or under foot.  Or whatever.  But, it is all good.  Life on the Profit Margin seems all good; definitely much better than his last stint of employment.

Ash just sits quietly and sips his black coffee, taking a long draught from his oversized travel mug.  He's definitely not looking to get into any lines of fire (especially between other crew members) or get into a set of handcuffs.  Nope, he just likes his coffee.  Black as can be, though it will never match the emptiness of space (and that is probably a good thing).

And Ash likes his astrogation calculations, his gaze locked firmly on his console.  As the discussions go on around him, those calculations seem mighty interesting.

Tylen flips his coin as he waits.

"I told you, it's Yas.  Or Yasmine.  Or I will start calling you Ma'am," Yas replies to Sushi with a crooked grin.  "It's a sight worth seeing, though, I bet Ker's going to remember it for the rest of her life, being this close to a celestial body."

A brief moment of looking wistful is broken by a more evil grin as she glances over at Jago.  "Nah, no need for you to open you discipline cabinet, boss, but no shooting?  Aww, shucks!  Not even a little?  Just a flesh wound?"  With her tone of voice not even Mr, Gullible of Gullibletown would believe her.

"Any way, as I was saying before 'the boss' interrupted," she sighs dramatically as she turns back to Sushi, "I'm sure they'll behave if you tell them to keep all arms and what-not's inside at all time.  But I'll wait in our lounge to make sure none of them tries to steal my favourite cup."  Unlike the earlier statement that last one comes across deadly serious somehow.

"Oh, and boss, you know I always got at least a couple of peashooters on me, I wouldn't want to sit around naked after all," she calls back over her shoulder as she steps out into the lounge to guard her Precious.

Three hours of negotiating dust, clusters of rock, and magnetic field fluctuations as Profit Margin moves closer to the recently christened Big Blob.

The passengers, soon to be granted access to the nerve centre of the ship, gather in the passenger lounge, the only one they normally have access to, and after a quick check with the other crew members, Shui leads them across the empty cargo hold, and into the crew side lounge, where she gives them a brief run-down on what they shouldn't touch, and how quickly they should leave if Jago tells them to do so.

Yas reinforces these instructions by... casually loitering... off to one side of the room.

And then... on to the Bridge, carefully devoid of coffee cups, snacks, and empty plates - at least for the moment - first impressions, and all that.

With Saskia in Engineering, and the two gunners at their fire control stations, there is plenty of space for Shui and the passengers.

Beyond the armoured windows, with their overlaid traceries of HUD instruments, the planet looks enormous.  Which it is, but it looks even more enormous.  Keryn gasps, and the gasp gives way to a faint whistle from outside as the ship enters the upper fringes of the atmosphere, and what passes for air here blows across the hull...
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 14:10, Sun 29 June 2014.

Saskia hears the whispering of atmosphere over the hull and smiles.  They need to go deeper, of course, but this is the start of it.  Her fingers dance across the controls, and she calls in to Jago.

"Fuel purifier online, Jago.  As soon as you open the intakes, the system will activate.  Static discharge probe extended.  Surge baffles locked.  Everything's good to go."

She activates a second external view, this one showing the static discharge probe, projecting from the stern of the ship, ready to direct the inevitable electrical build up on the hull away from Profit Margin's vitals.  She doesn't need to watch it, but there is something fascinating about the play of lightning along the probe and out, into the surrounding atmosphere.

Not the sort of thing you show the passengers though.

Profit Margin descends into the gas giant's mesosphere.  Here, still high above the uppermost cloud layers, the surrounding gas is clear and thin.  Little more than a tainted vaccuum.

Further down, the clouds, which had looked like mere coloured bands from space, are taking on distinct patterns of whorls and eddies - minor storm systems, at least on the scale of this giant world.  Occasional lightning flares down there, among the clouds, causing crackling and popping on the open comm channels.

The ship descends steeply, nose tilted almost vertically down towards the clouds, but her rate of descent is carefully controlled by her maneouvering systems.

"Spectacular!" Corlan declares, taking in the view ahead.

Keryn, meanwhile, has a question...  "Why do Yas and Tylen have to sit in those closets?"

"Because we asked too many questions," Yas says with an utterly serious face.  After a dramatic pause she nods, slowly.

"A-yup", Ash seemingly agrees with Yasmine - at least in seriousness of tone, "They are quite questionable."  His tone is incredibly deadpan, stolidly even and flat as his expression as he is keeps his eyes forward and watching the tactical displays.  His fingers continue to dance on his console and the navigator remains vigilant for any large (i.e. fist size and greater) objects nearby and their trajectories.

He can't hold his neutral expression for too long, however.  A slight, crooked smile does cracks across his lips.  Though, the lanky ex-Scout's gaze never pulls away form the displays, the light dancing on his features as the datastreams from both his console and the bigger screens continually updates.

Shui glances in Yasmine's direction with a lopsided smile, then looks back to Keryn. "Because Crew needs to be in their positions," she quietly explains.  "In this sort of situation, it pays to have everyone prepared."  Another small smile.  "Not that there's any real danger, but many accidents are caused by laxity among the crew.  On the Profit Margin, things may be casual, but they are never careless."

Overall, she's quite pleased with that.

"Building up a bit of a charge, as usual.  Nothing we can't handle though." Saskia reports.  On her secondary monitor the probe flashes and flares in a most spectacular fashion.

"Looks to be about normal for this level in the atmosphere."

"I... I see.  I think."  Keryn definitely sounds uncertain.

Corlan is hypnotised by the clouds but Eneris seems less interested in the exterior environment, and more interested in the ship's operations.  He watches the instruments, and pays close attention to the exchanges between Jago and Ash, and to Jago's responses to Saskia.

"Captain?"  Navy habit that, no matter how well you know the commander of a vessel, you always call him Captain when he's on his own Bridge.  Etiquette, and a good habit to get into.  "Does Profit Margin scoop fuel often?"

Lightning flares brightly among the clouds below, and some distance off their course, and distracts Keryn, who hurries forward to stand behind Ash, staring out at the view.

"Sushi, once the show's over, let Keryn come over here.  I'll take her back later myself," Yas calls out to the tour guide, figuring she will not be as distracted as the younger woman by the sight.  Plus, she is supervising them in a sense, so she is no doubt alert.

She can't help but smile at the sight of Keryn, remembering how she felt the first time she saw that very sight.  It may be routine now, but it never really gets old, as she keeps an eye on the process via both the screen in her gunnery station and through the viewport itself.

"Oh, and do tell her asking questions is fine," she adds with a grin.

Jago replies to Eneris without looking round.

"We don't do this very often," he says, pausing as he makes some minor adjustments to the course, "most ports have fuel on tap and that's far more convenient."

+ Absolutely, Ms. Crow, + Shui responds to Yasmine with a small smile.  If there's going to be an insistance to naming her after food, well...she'll just have to stick with the honorifics. + I'll ensure she's aware of that, though I'm fairly certain she needs no encouragement. +

The steward moves to stand next to Keryn, keeping a close eye on the woman.  She's beside the pilot, after all; not that the ship's automated systems couldn't handle any issues, but it's good to ensure mistakes don't transpire.

"Security Officer Crow would like you to know it's acceptable to ask questions," she quietly informs the young woman, still smiling.  "I suspect that's a tad unnecessary, but I like to deliver my messages.  Impressive view, isn't it?"

Truth be told, gas giants occasionally make Shui feel a trifle ill.  There's an atavistic fear she just can't shake, an instinctual wariness of what might lie beneath the roaring clouds.  More clouds, a compressed, semi-dense core,, her rational mind states with authority.

Teeth, her reptile brain whispers back, and her rational mind cannot help but shudder.

The drop towards the cloud layer, their speed restricted by the increasing density of the atmosphere, takes a little while.  Time for Keryn to ask to sit at the vacant Engineer's station and rest her feet.

She's back on her feet again, though, as Profit Margin passes into the clouds, which quickly change colour, becoming blacker as she descends, until finally she emerges into a black night torn apart by lightning.  And, against all reason, there are other things flying there, illuminated by the distant lightning.  Fast moving delta wing shapes, not much smaller than Profit Margin, ignore the ship as they hurtle past, briefly outlined by lightning glare.

Jago turns on the floodlights as the ship drops lower, and something else comes into view...

It looks like a cloud, at first, longer than the ship by at least a thousand metres, but with more clearly defined edges.  The lights pick up circular, coloured markings on its surface, and as they drawer closer to it, accelerating to match its own speed, they can see that there there are long tendrils hanging below it, as it is carried along on the 800 kph storm wind.

"What is it?" Keryn asks, amazed by the sight.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:52, Tue 08 July 2014.

Shui tenses as the objects flash past them; not out of fear, but sudden concern.  They're in a biosphere.  It doesn't happen often in gas giants, but life occasionally does flourish here.  It wouldn't take much to disrupt the balance, if things are fragile.  Fortunately, whatever the dark shapes are, they appear unconcerned by the Profit Margin's intrusion.

Deeper into darkness they go, and the steward swallows thickly, her instincts gibbering with fear.

Then the massive object hoves into view.  "Life form?" Shui whispers in reply to Keryn. "Colony form?  I have seen gasbag creatures, to put it colloquially.  This shape resembles that of passively predatory life forms that travel in a fluid media, like the gasses in which we find ourselves now."

The...creature?  colony? isn't terrifying to Shui in and of itself, but something in the base of her mind notes that it might not be alone.  That it might be prey for something larger, hidden in the darkness.

With an enormous effort she maintains her composure.

Quietly Tylen tirns back to his turret controls to watch the action on his own screens.  His fingers flick a couple of controls to fetch his systems towards the ready point.

Ash does do a bit of a double-take as the large cloud-density creature comes into view; it really is quite something to behold.  That look and a low whistle are his concession to his amazement, his hands and eyes continue to monitor the proximity displays.  He adjusts the gain to try and see if they can accurately differentiate between the creature and the surroundings.

He plots a course by hand around the thing, pushing the corrected route onto the main tactical display.

The lanky navigator also sends a low-priority task to the computer core to start pulling up any additional information on gas-giant inhabitants and their biological make to push to one of the side screens, linking it to one of the video feeds which he is trying to focus in on the creature itself to get a better view.  "Now there," he concedes readily, "is something that you don't see every day.  Or even in every gas giant..."

Jago smiles quietly to himself and lets the speculation run for a while.

"This is the 'Halfacre Blimp'," he announces eventually, "I'd hoped we'd see one. It's named after it's discoverer and some historical balloon reference. It poses no danger to us. Those smaller ones are just called 'kites' as far as I can tell, the have a Latin name, 'rapax milva' or something like that, they could be a danger to the Halfacre Blimp, but not to us."

"Quite majestic, that big fella, just floats along absorbing nutrients through it's dangly bits, I'm guessing this is a relatively young one, apparently they can grow much bigger."

"Ah, so that's where the name for General Acres came from," Yas guffaws, "I guess he was an adult then."

While laughing she does record the event view her display for later study, should she feel inclined to do so.

"I mean, the General was, ah, blessed with a whole lot of... generousness.  Half a ton almost...  Some claim to have never seen him walk, only roll, but I'm sure he could waddle, he had gadgets to help.  He sure liked those fast foods a bit much, though, and sugar, real sugar.  And fat, real meat stuff.  Sure helped motivate me to keep in shape, ha!"

Corlan leans forward, watching the view as the ship swings close to the gargantuan creature, switching his gaze from the viewport to the sensor displays and back again.  "Most impressive." he murmurs, then louder, "Thank you, Captain.  I've certainly never seen anything like this before."

Keryn's response is a more basic, "Frack!" which draws a chuckle from Eneris, "And she has the nerve to scold me for my language."

"Shut up, you.  This... this is alive?  I mean, it's an animal, and not a... I don't know... an atmospheric phenomenon or something?"

For Yas and Tylen, watching the scene from their own stations, and with all the clarity that hi-tech fire control systems can provide, the view is just as spectacular, and has the added advantage of the computer flagging potential points of interest on the creature's body... a cluster of what look like rudimentary eyes here, a pulsating membrane there.

Then Keryn gives a startled shriek, as a loud boom rolls across the hull, audible even above the sounds of the storm.  Then several more, at shorter and shorter intervals, until they seem to be one continuous sound, which lasts several seconds and then fades.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:16, Sat 12 July 2014.

"I get the feeling it doesn't like us," Yas says thoughtfully, "maybe it's the way the Margin smells?"

"Based on the fact that those booms went in sync with a membrane on the little baby out there, that is."

"No idea what it's capable off, may want to keep our distance," she suggests, the voice calm and untroubled.

"Specifically what was that. Anyone?"