In reply to Billy (msg # 241):

Jedec recalled, and the scientists confirmed, that the Sky Raider mothership was on a ballistic course into the void, crossing several parsecs of empty space before its coreward course would take it across the boundary of the Zhodani Consulate. It was deep space and the Inquisitor's sensors did not indicate any planetary or other large masses within at least a light year. The closest fuel source was the outer fringe of the Oort Cloud of the Galatea system, but Galatea was to rimward so they were heading away from it.

Billy grimaces at the news.  A working ship without fuel isn't going to be a lot of good.  Better just hope they can find some, or perhaps synthesise some in this factory unit.

Flipping the comms switch, he calls Angus and Linus.  "How are you doing, guys?  How far are you going to chase those natives?"

Linus was getting out of breath.

"It doesn't seem that they want to talk. Every time we get close, they're off again. They are amazingly agile, though. It's like chasing monkeys..."

Still, by observing the way they moved, he was developing a few new moves of his own.

"Maybe it's time to regroup ..." Billy suggests to the ex-navy man.

In reply to Billy (msg # 245):

Angus looks at Linus with a what do you want to do expression on his face.

In reply to Billy (msg # 245):

Sounds good. lets regroup.

In reply to Jedec Istec (msg # 247):

"Time to head back Linus, we don't want led into an ambush either. Are they the same ones from up top, or are these the enemies I wonder?"

Linus grinned.

"Okie dokie. Regroup it is... coming, Angus?"

He performed an aerial turn inspired by the natives' antics and headed back the way they'd come.

In reply to Linus Spruance (msg # 249):

Angus followed.

When the others get back, Billy happily tells them that Dr. Goezghae thinks the factory could be made to work, if we can find a way to channel power to it.

"So what now, Doctor?  I suppose we had better wait here with you until the guys who can fix the bikes turn up?  Or shall we push them back to somewhere that will be safew from the natives?" he asks the team.

"We can't leave her here alone."

In reply to Billy (msg # 251):

"Yes, I would appreciate you waiting here with me!"

It was clear the natives they were pursuing were not interested in a fight. When Angus and Linus broke off the others just kept going, swiftly disappearing down the access shaft in the distance.

They regrouped at the entrance to the industrial module. In a short while Hanno and Lucky Jack arrived towing a slow grav sled loaded with tools and battery modules. With the help of the scientists they quickly determined what was needed to return the ancient vehicles to service. It would be possible, but take several hours to accomplish.

In reply to GM (msg # 253):

Seeing it was going to take a while, Hanno thought for a moment.

"Fortunately, there is no gravity here in the access shift. We can just chain the all together, then push them back to where we can work on them safely.

"Speaking of safety, we have 2 camps right now. One at the surface. The other is in the Agro module, the closest module to our surface camp. But to get from one to the other we need to travel about 500 metres or so through the access shaft. If we have natives traversing the shaft as well, what's to stop them from bumping into them while we go from one to the other? There are doors we can lock to keep them out of either area, but we can't control the shaft in between unless we post a guard there."

Billy nods as Hanno describes the problem with the two bases, the obvious solution would be to consolidate in one location, but ...

"Well we need the base on the surface, if the guys are going to keep working on the boats.  But," he turns to Dr. Goezghae, "Some of your colleagues are working on the computer we found in the control centre for the AG Module ...  Both are important. One gives us a chance to leave the asteroid, the other helps us understand it." he adds after a moment of thought.

"But is a working cutter going to do us any good.  It won't have jump drive, and we need that to really get away.  Angus's Scout Ship does, IF it is still functioning ..."

Thought processes exhausted for the moment, Billy looks at the rest of the team, waiting for their input.

In reply to Billy (msg # 255):

"If your ship jumped out of system, the cutters are useless. They can't jump so they can't get us out of here. My scout is the only option to jump out, and we don't even know where it is, let alone whether it is space worthy. Find and repair the scout, forget the cutters, just salvage them of things we may need."

In reply to Angus McStubbin (msg # 256):

The ex-Scout, Hanno, spoke as he worked.

"The ship that stranded us here, the Inquisitor, it's likely to be back bringing God knows who. I guess the hope was we could somehow get to it and take it back when it returns. But that's a distant hope. Really, they shot both cutters down before when things were confused, they can do it again, and it'll probably be easier. Maybe we shouldn't make repairing them a priority. At least until we discover some kind of ship bay with repair facilities. Right now we are mating the surviving engine module from one and the surviving command and service module from another, using hand tools. It can be done but it's unsafe and will take time.

"Angus, you're probably wondering who and why anyone would strand us here. Billy and Jedec, you're probably wondering as well.

"We think the guy that stranded us here is a big-time smuggler and stolen artifact dealer named Enari Kalamanaru."

He explained that Kalamanaru ran a crime syndicate in the neighboring Jungleblut subsector. He was a successful industrialist and shipping magnate and was legitimately successful. But also ran a profitable side business in stolen and smuggled art and artifacts. And he had become obsessed with the Sky Raiders. (Angus had heard about this long-vanished human minor race that had run rampant through Far Frontiers sector thousands of years ago.) First, Kalamanaru had tried and failed to rob a Sky Raider tomb on Mirayn/Jungleblut that Lorrain's father, Dr. Jothan Messandi, had located. Linus, Blake and Ken had tangled with his main henchmen, Bren Pylory and Taren Gildinkur.

Jedec and Billy realised with a start they recognised a man matching Bren's description (tall, close-cropped black hair, facial scar, carried an LAG) had been on the Inquisitor before it mutinied. And that maybe Taren (slender, carried a Zhodani-made ACR) had been there as well, after the takeover (possibly smuggled onboard).

Hanno continued. Lorrain, following her late fathers's evidence, found the tomb on Mirayn first under the auspices of the Institute for Interstellar studies in the League of Suns. Images of the items found inside had been disseminated throughout Jungleblut. Not just the Imperial-friendly League of Suns, but the Zhodani-allied Descarothe Hegemony. A piece of Sky Raider jewelry had been located on a "Free Suns" world, and pointed towards a possible Sky Raider site on Qarant, a world on the border between the Free Suns and the Hegemony and over whom both exercised joint control by treaty.

The Institute of Interstellar Studies in the Free Suns had paid for an expedition to Qarant in the hopes of locating what could possibly be a Sky Raider world. Maybe their home world, as they had seemingly founded no colonies. Again, Kalamanaru followed them, along with his henchmen Pylory and Gildinkur. But they also brought a large force of mercenaries, backed by regular forces of the Hegemony, where Kalamaru did a lot of business and wielded tremendous influence. The Sky Raiders site on Qarant had turned out to be a failed colony and not the Sky Raiders homeworld. The members of the expedition (Blake, Ken, Linus and others, plus Lorain Messandi) entered a gargantuan synthconcrete structure that seemed to be a temple to the Sky Raiders. Further exploration of its depths revealed it had actually once been a planetary defence installation on the outskirts of the colony. Kalamanaru's men followed them into the depths of the temple, then through the web of tunnels beneath it. Following scanner data and other hints they finally made their way to the bottom of a deep pit, actually the base of what had once been a silo. In the bottom of the silo wasn't a surface-to-air/orbit missile but a spacecraft, a 400-ton planetary raiding craft. Once it would have been ready to launch from its hardened and camouflaged silo, now it was converted into a ceremonial tomb. Inside the spacecraft were more skeletonised Sky Raiders, and a salvageable data bank. The remnants of the expedition escaped by climbing the silo up to the surface, and exiting the bunker located there.

Analysis of the data bank revealed three facts: the Sky Raiders were originally an obcure minor human race originating far to trailing in Gushmege Sector, the Loeskalth. The Loeskalth were extremely warlike and after losing a war with the early Vilani Imperium, chose complete annihilation over surrender and assimilation by them. Or so it was thought. Second, this failed colony was founded by dissidents after a devastating civil war among the Sky Raiders. Third, and most mind-boggling, was how the Sky Raiders traveled from Gushmege Sector through Rift, the Spinward Marches and Foreven to arrive in Far Frontiers Sector in a massive asteroid-starship, and how along the way the Loeskalth's already warlike culture was transformed into an almost completely nomadic one. They had not stopped or tarried until they reached Far Frontiers. But once there they settled into a pattern of raiding and pillaging the many helpless worlds there that were already settled by a minor human race, the Vlazdhumecta. The Vlazdhumecta had settled much of Far Frontiers using Zhodani-derived Jump drives before being partially annexed by the Zhodani Consulate, the rest of their worlds falling into pre-spaceflight barbarism making them easy prey for the Sky Raiders who arrived a century later. The Sky Raiders pillaged Far Frontiers for centuries, using their asteroid as a mother ship. Then there was a decades-long civil war that saw many thousands of Sky Raiders leaving a mother ship that was almost completely wrecked, and the rest of the population trapped as it drifted helplessly through the void on a ballistic course heading coreward.

It was by analysing this course the Institute calculated where the mother ship would be, and send an expedition on the Inquisitor, a ship leased from the neutral Mnemnosyne Principality, which was close to the mothership's suspected position. There was a mutiny, or takeover, or something on the Inquisitor, which saw the expedition on the mothership marooned. Then the Inquisitor jumped out. And here they were.

After a couple hours, the grav sleds were repaired.

There were no further sightings of native scouts. No reports of enemies from inside the Agro module, either.
This message was last updated by the GM at 17:04, Tue 27 Apr 2021.

In reply to GM (msg # 258):

"The grav sleds should make it easier to explore the facility, think we can find the 'bridge' of this place so we can find the sensors and maybe find my scout?"

In reply to Angus McStubbin (msg # 259):

I am all for trying to do that!!!

In reply to Jedec Istec (msg # 260):

"I think I can point us in the right direction to find the bridge. It's likely internal, not on the surface. But our survey of the exterior indicated extensive battle damage. Plus there was a civil war here. I don't hold much hope it's intact.

"We could try for a secondary control module. That is likely to be more towards the aft areas and the engines. But again, much damage there."

"Can we find a plan of the vessel, or some kind of directory?" asked Linus.

The Navy ships he'd served on always had ways in which anyone could find their way around. He started looking for the sort of signs he was familiar with: frame numbers, directional signs, wall-mounted plans and so on.

In reply to Linus Spruance (msg # 262):

"Anything is possible. I can't say.

"The Sky Raiders seemed loathe to document anything like a normal navy or military might. But we've not found any kind of command centre."

Billy takes a deep breath as he listens to the conversation, then tries to sum things up.  "So we are going to pull everyone back from the surface, and set up the main base in the area by the ag-module.  From there, the scientists can explore this factory unit in more detail, if they think there is something there of value." but his brow furrows in concern.  "However, we know that the natives use this area,  so the base needs to be secured and trips away should be carried out by armed teams, rather than one person acting alone."

Looking around at the others, he continues  "We take the grav bikes and explore further along this large transit way towards the rear of the vessel, looking for a command centre or a working power source - but keeping an eye out for Angus's scout and anything else that might be of interest."

Taking a deep breath, he continues "Does that cover it?"

In reply to Billy (msg # 264):

Angus nods agreement!

In reply to Angus McStubbin (msg # 265):

Once everyone was able, the group regrouped and assembled back at the base camp.