"Where did they live before they moved in here?" Billy asks with a slight frown, "And who lived here before they moved in?" Then a thought strikes him, "Where do the other tribe live?  Just roughly, or a description maybe ..." he adds recognising that there are still communication difficulties.

I like your thinking Billy. Professor, are these people nomadic ??

Ken shook his head.  "Once we have the computer the translations should go along much more smoothly.  Can the people here tell us much about the surrounding areas Doctor Gilenkaar?"

"Obviously not nomadic, if they live in a village. I gather they are something more like... exiles. Voluntary or not, I can't say."

Some talk ensued. "Yes, they can show us around. I think they've been here about ten Imperial years. I don't know much about their dating system yet, I;m afraid."

In reply to Ken Jenkins (msg # 839):

"Ken, Lucky has established communications with the surface camp, via the relays.

"I think moving camp is fine. Do you want them to move everything and everyone? They're still working on getting one of the cutters operational."

Blake will inquire about the status of the cutter. Any chance it coulkd be hidden/camoflaged ??

"Didn't we do that before we came down here?" Billy asks.

In reply to Billy (msg # 843):

The cutter was camouflaged and hidden down in between the ruins of two surface structures.

While work was continuing on getting one cutter operational Lorrain didn't want to move the entire camp. Lucky Jack volunteered to go back and bring additional supplies and camping gear to establish a forward exploration base. But they were starting to run a little low on spare personnel.

In reply to GM (msg # 844):

After a couple hours, Lucky returned to the village with Dr. Talia McKenzie. They also had the portable scientific workstation with them.

"I pulled Lex and Hanno from rebuilding the cutter to help move camp. They are guarding most of our supplies, which have been moved in the living quarters area. Do we want to set up camp here? At the elevator? Or in the living quarters?"

Billy looks at the others, "I would have thought the living quarters at the bottom of the elevator?  It means they are close to hand, but unlikely to be attacked by any disgruntled natives.  And they should be able to make something of those quarters,  maybe clean them up a bit ... "

"Living quarters and an elevator, an asteroid with everything, including atmosphere."

Our unfriendly Mr K will eventually be returning with a crew for a further look at what has been found. We must keep that in mind. Being able to defend ourselves and then make a return is our endgame. This vessel's powerplant and weapons will have to be researched.

Angus listens with interest, holding his thoughts mostly, "Let me know if you need me, we're all stuck here together."

Ken considered their options.  "Let's set up the camp in the living quarters.  It's off the main path but close enough to access either the elevator or the main route.  We can move up the elevator to continue our discussions with the locals.  The key is going to be making local allies and finding resources."

He looked over at Jack.  "We're going to need your engineering and spacing skills Angus.  We need to find engineering spaces and power plants that maybe we can use to help rebuild the cutters.  That or maybe we can find one of the Jump capable scout ships that could be refurbished to get us help."

"Dr. Gilenkaar, can we get the locals tomorrow to start showing us around the infrastructure here?  We want to understand what might be useful."

In reply to Ken Jenkins (msg # 850):

Dr. Gilenkaar snapped, "don't you want to let the machine analyse the language first? All right, fine." He struggled to communicate with the headman, finally giving up. "I tried to ask. But I don't think he understands. The wretch," grumbled he temperamental scientist.

"Don't blame him, you don't understand half of what he says either."

"And I don't understand any of it ..."

In reply to Billy (msg # 853):

The repeater carried the signal from the surface base camp and the message was the party with the new base camp would arrive at the abandoned quarters area in three hours.

Ken shook his head. "Well, if things are still uncertain we can wait until you can get the computer working on the translations."

OOC: Ken would probably have a better sense of timing on all of this than his player!  I probably somewhat misspoke.

"Hmmmm, so everything is destroyed or booby trapped. Why would the raiders do that to their base? Can we gain access to the Power Plant and the drives? Maybe get this ship functioning a little bit?"

Ken shook his head.  "There was a civil war.  They seemed to have driven themselves back to the stone age."  He looked at the others.  "In tracing the Sky Raiders we found an ruined, dead civilization on Qarant founded by refugees from this disaster.  The records told of a fight where they turned their savagery on each other."  Ken nodded to Lorain.  "Lorain can probably tell the story better than I."

He shrugged.  "We were headed to the aft end of the craft to find the power plant and see what could be done.  I don't know if we can swing the resources to bring the ship entirely back on line but we should be able to set up a functioning corner.  The Sky Raiders based their technology on Vilani standards so a lot of what is here should be familiar."

In reply to Angus McStubbin (msg # 856):

Lorain nodded at Ken's explanation.

"When we made our approach to the mothership we noted not just maneuver drives with a Bussard electromagnetic fuel scoops, but Jump drive. Enough for a 1-parsec jump. It must have taken several months to refuel after each jump. But the electromagnetic arrays were destroyed, as were the Jump drive nacelles. We did note several functioning fusion power nodes and we also know the Sky Raiders had very sturdy RTGs (Radio-Thermal Generators) that could function a very long time. But we think it would take a long time to repair the engines and we don't know if we have the materials. You'll need to talk to Hanno, he's a scout and fixing up a damaged cutter we were left with by the mutineers that stranded us here.

"Back to this ship and the people, who were also known as the "Loeskalth". Our theory is that there was a civil war aboard this mothership during or just before it transited the Qarant system, 14 parsecs to spin-rimward. A large contingent left to settle the planet but eventually their colony died out, due to a plague, we think. As to why the docking bays would be sabotaged is to prevent the return of the fleeing faction, to prevent pursuit by those who remained aboard, or both."

"Perhaps we can set up a relay between us here, and the computer they are bringing forwards?  Maybe via my hand computer?"  Billy muses.

OOC:  I have Electronics:2 and JOT:1 - anyone prepared to throw some Computing into the mix?
This message was last edited by the player at 06:21, Wed 25 Sept 2019.

Mechanical and JoT from me. Maybe the profs can add to out mix ?? as Blake looks to them.

In reply to Billy (msg # 859):

"Good idea. We brought plenty of repeaters for exploration inside the asteroid. We can rig it so we have a comms and data link to our base came in the abandoned living quarters."