Kaengarr retrieved Walter's rifle-case and returned to his seat, unfastening the catches as Vonon made his appraisal of the situation. Even before Samantha had raised the point he'd considered the laser rifle a contingency option rather than a primary weapon - he was better with pistols and his stunner had several other features going for it as well - but he was also pragmatic enough to recognize that they might need heavier firepower at some point. If nothing else, the laser rifle was a reasonably controlled means of removing any obstacles that the hijackers might put in their path.

  He meant to inspect the weapon but something that had just been said drew his attention and he looked over at his fellow Vargr, this time being the one to peel back his lower lip in their species' version of a smile. "That's not how you described me earlier, Vonon! As it happens, I have seen occasional boarding action. It was always from the other side, though."

  The odds of going sixteen years as a trader covering the Extents and beyond without having to repel at least one attack? Humans had a metaphor about snowballs and hot places for that.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:03, Sun 18 Oct 2015.

When Kaengarr looked over the shipping container for the laser rifle, he noted that while the exterior was dinged up and dusty, the insides were just like they have been when it was first packed.

Sir Walter continued his preflight check. "You might want to put the power packs on the charger there Kaengarr as I am not sure if I even pulled it out of its case since I got it. I did not have the time to learn how to use it but did not want to leave it for my ex-wife to use it on me." he said with a chuckle.

Sam nodded at Pablo's and Vonun replies "If that's how you want it, fine by me." She shrugs "Meat covers still cover" and grins, and she might be joking...

Settling in to her seat and beginning to strap herself in she continues "We need to come up with some options for what we're gonna do when we get there. And Sharik - can yo see if we can get comms with the long shot?"

ooc
I assume we'll talk tactics in ooc thread?

Khea takes a seat at the back row and dumps her equipment right in front of it. That includes her newly bought Vacc Suit, her armor vest and her toolkit. While it is mainly used for generator repairs it can hopefully help in patching up anything the others manage to destroy.

"Unless we can somehow remotely close hangar doors we have to spacewalk to get in, even if the ship happens to have a open and unoccupied hangar. I suggest the lower airlock near the mining area. From there it is only a short way to the engine room and once there I can disable the jump drive, just in case."
While staring at Vonon she adds with a slightly amused growl "Better use some real guns now. When you get hit worse things happen then you taking a nap. This was once a combat ship, so the hull is thick enough to withstand small weapons. But be careful around anything that blinks or makes noises. And in the engine room you best use stunners if able.

  In the midst of the conversations, Kaengarr inspected the rifle to ensure that it was still in working order after years spent gathering dust, setting the power packs to charge as needed.

The Count realizes that he's not really up for the heroic space marine action, he puts the "riot control" gear before the group, "Take what you need, this will form the basis for our 1st armory once we have our own ship."

Available Gear:
4 stun grenades
6 stunsticks
1 sonic stun carbines
4 teargas grenades
2 tranq rifles with ammo (20 rounds)

Darrel already has one of the sonic stun carbines.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:43, Tue 20 Oct 2015.

  Kaengarr found himself facing a difficult set of choices, and though the deliberations were silent, the signs were there in his body language if anyone happened to look.

  It was a fine selection of gear that Darrel had set before them, but Kaengarr was already confronting the problem of how to carry all of his gear without it slowing him down or getting in the way. He couldn't very well keep a shield strapped to his arm and brandish a laser rifle as well, so one of the two would have to go; given their numbers and the fact that he wouldn't be leading the charge, the shield was likely to wind up on the losing side of that argument even before Kaengarr considered the prospect of a stun-stuck or a batch of grenades, and he'd be hard pressed to carry any of those without leaving something else behind; there were only so many ways to carry a weapon and he had four as it was. Five if he counted what he was wearing.

  The stunner was staying with him no matter what - it was the one thing he knew how to use reasonably well, and it wouldn't be at a disadvantage in close quarters. No one else had shown an interest in the rifle, and it offered too much utility (even if his aim with it wasn't the best) to simply leave it in its case. The thuerrlakh could be set aside, but the prospect of leaving his rokkhou behind during a boarding action felt almost un-Gvegh, even with other blades at his disposal...
This message was last edited by the player at 02:41, Wed 21 Oct 2015.

Sam nodded at the Count "Thanks, I'll take these" she said as she picked up a tranq rifle, half the ammo and a stunstick.

She carried on gearing up, intermittently tapping on her wrist comm as she appeared to check data.

"We all loaded?" Sir Walter asked the group as he finished his checks.

Once everybody is seated in the launch, the Scout ship took off. It was a 20 minute slow ride up to orbit because of the piggybacked launch.

Once in orbit, 30 minutes of high acceleration took the ship to jump point. And then the ship jumped! There was the flicker of lights that signaled the jump, then the transition.

An hour later, the ship dropped out of jumpspace, and the sensors indicated the ship was out in the Belt.

When the jump concluded, Ryzov smiled faintly. "Everybody okay? Limbs and vital organs all in their proper alignment?" With that he started a last check of his suit and gear. Reaching into his carry-all, he dug out a flashbang/stun grenade. Detaching a plasma grenade from its place on his harness, he held one grenade in each hand.

It was obvious he had no intention of using either, but he frowned as he considered the two, clearly trying to decide which to take with him.

When the ship jumped Khea panicked. A week in jump space in this tiny launch witout any supplies would be their certain death. She recited every Aslan curse she know multiple times only interrupted by mutterings about that dishonourable and traitorous Cerlueanne and idiot pilots.
When the ship remerged in realspace Khea instantly fell silent wondering how this is possible. Missjump?  Too convenient, but what else could it be?

Sam was as surprised as anyone else when the ship jumped, but happy when 30 minutes later they re-emerged. She had heard rumours of mini-jumps in service, but had figured it was all BS and scuttle butt. Perhaps not.

She called over to Shakira "can you get any info on your home made sensor thing?" she asked

She'd already been tapped into the Scout's sensors when Vonon asked, though she suspected that the Scout pilot was letting her do that--it had been kind of easy. Then again, Scouts weren't really ultra secret--just 'classified'. Which classification depended on the data.

She was actually linked to the shuttle's sensors, but at the moment, they were getting a sensor feed from the Scout via the umbilical.

She didn't quite panic when the jump drive went hot and almost as quickly shoved the ship into jumpspace. Since the two vessels were connected by the umbilical, she knew they wouldn't run out of air or water during the week in jump, and they wouldn't starve in that time either.

But... a week to somewhere and another week back even if it put them closer to the Long Shot would have long exceeded their window of opportunity to rescue the crew and the ship.

The Scout pilot knew she was monitoring their sensors and knew that she knew when the ships reached the jump limit. She received a brief text from him--[Don't panic.]--just before jump.

She didn't think passing on those two words would really have helped the others; it'd prompt discussion that would probably lead to mass panic. Instead, she decided to remain as nonchalant as she could, considering she was in her spacesuit.

Sure enough, the ship dropped out of jumpspace a mere hour later. Her training kicked in then. Rather than marvel at the wonder of a mini-jump (a heretofore 'impossibility'), she immediately wondered what the significance of the Long Shot was... or possibly a crewmember. There had to be more to the rescue than what they were told in order for the Scout to reveal such an incredible secret.

After all, how many of them could really be trusted with that kind of information? It was at least a few orders greater than anything their raid on the dome entailed.

Back in normal space, the sensors kicked in again, but the Scout wasn't doing any active scans. Only the GPS map showed where they were: in the Belt, slightly low on the ecliptic, maybe 1,000 klicks from the location of the Long Shot.

But there were a few hundred asteroids of various sizes between the two ships.

"That was... unexpected," she said to the others. "I wasn't worried... much."

"Got it covered, Sam. We're out in the Belt, about a thousand klicks from the Long Shot, with quite a bit of cover between us. The Scout isn't running active sensors, so no details. He's signaling if we're ready to disconnect."

  Kaengarr's ears pinned back and he managed a startled, "What..." in Gvegh when they unexpectedly entered jump; the implications of being trapped for a week in a tiny capsule - even one with a link to the scout - were not lost on him.  "Is this something else you didn't get time to tell us about, Darrel, or are they surprising us all?" He was making a valiant effort to keep his voice even (as much as it ever could be to non-Vargr), but it was a mix of trepidation, annoyance, and curiosity that were hinted at when that effort wavered, as opposed to Khea's outright panic. As usual, the cast of his ears, muzzle, and tail were far more indicative of his true state of mind.

  They were trapped in jumpspace with very little in the way of resources or room to live, but at the same time it made no sense for their employers to trap them in jumpspace for a week if the mission was actually as advertised, and there were more plausible ways of presenting an 'accident' if the mission had actually been a setup intended to ensure that they disappeared, so something else was going on - something that no one had seen fit to tell them in advance. That was usually a bad sign, but again - to what end?
This message was last edited by the player at 11:41, Mon 26 Oct 2015.

"Well now, that was a bit of a surprise as I was not expecting a micro jump. Once again I am sure there is more to this mission that Ms Blue had "conveniently" forgotten to mention." Walter said as he checked the systems to make sure nothing got dinged in  transit as he muttered a few choice curse words in seven different languages concerning Ms Blue and that she reminded him of his ex-wife.

With the word that the scout was ready to disconnect, Sir Walter nodded in agreement. "Lets see if we can get close to the ship before they know we are on the way to pay a social call." he said "Before we go Sharik, please have the scout's computer plot us a course and see if we can close to say 20 km, blending in with the asteroids before we surprise them."

Sharik opened the closed-circuit comm to the Scout and made the request. After a minute of argy-bargy, she turned off the comm.

"That's a negative," she replied to Walter.

"The Long Shot might have that kind of detail about the asteroids, but nobody has bothered mapping them in that much depth. If the hijackers have a ship and it's got its own sensors out, then the Scout's active sensors would alert them."

"In other words, they can't map the asteroid field without using active sensors. That's why we're approaching in the launch--visuals only."

"And Walter... keep in mind that Ceruleanne is just the facilitator. She may not have been told all the 'details' about the mission. In this business, we all operate on a need-to-know basis. If there's more to it than we've been told, clearly we didn't need to know."

Sam listened to the conversation and then joined in "Well, I am not sure if this is need to know, but it might be relevant. Might not " She shrugged " I did some background checking on the Long Shot, and found an anomaly. It was originally named  'Resolute' that served in the Imperial Fleet on Imili in the Edge subsector for 50 years before being decommissioned there. It was converted to a mining ship at Garrison 12 years ago, where Blackwood purchased it. However, there's no record of how it got from Imili to Garrison. Not sure how long a gap that was but it may mean there is more to the ship than meets the eye. I couldn't find anything though."

The grenade dilemma was finally solved by just taking both the flashbang and the plasma grenade, with a second plasma grenade added just to satisfy Pablo's long held belief that there really could be no such thing as overkill if things got tight. After listening to the discussion he shrugged and said, "Is anyone else thinking that if we were a proper set of rogues, we'd forget all about the Long Shot, and take the ship we're attached to? A jump drive that can micro-jump has to be worth a great deal more than we are being paid for this rescue mission."

  After the jump - when it became clear that they'd not be locked away for a week but were instead riding along with a ship that had jump technology well in advance of what most ships possessed or that the public was even aware of - Kaengarr settled back down, his nerves still somewhat raw from the unwanted surprise and his thoughts now on the possibilities that it represented.

  Unless he'd been uncharacteristically clueless about recent developments, the micro-jump was something new and something that had been kept quiet. Some of the others had known about the possibility of micro-jumps, at least as a theoretical possibility, but those who did either had high-end social contacts or military experience... yet despite the secrecy, here it was being used for a rescue mission involving an old, albeit converted, mining ship. That simply didn't make sense.

  "We're not turning on our employer," he growled emphatically at Pablo's suggestion. "There've been lies of omission, but that doesn't justify doing it, and if it has this sort of jump drive it will have security to match and it'll be chased with everything they have if someone makes off with it. Besides which, they wouldn't have sent it out if this was just about rescuing a few miners and an old ship."

  Samantha's discovery only furthered his impression. "Either the ship or the people on it are far more significant than we've been told." He considered his own words for a moment, then concluded, "I don't think they do what they're registered to do."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:43, Mon 26 Oct 2015.

Sir Walter listened to Sharik as she mentioned that the scout would not be able to scan the area "Sharik, then let them know that we are ready to go. Hang on every it might be a bumpy ride." he said

A few moments later, he dropped his head and shook it side to side in frustration at the mention of turning on the Scouts. "Mention it again and we can see about a one way trip out the air lock for you Pablo." he said. "You are forgetting that there are a few Imperial nobles on this vessel and that statement just violated a couple of laws. The only thing saving your neck right now is that we are not in Imperial space."

In reply to Walter Zeller (msg # 84):

Pablo listened to Kaengarr's gruff response, and nodded agreeably. He didn't mind the tone. Taking the Scout ship, morality aside, would be tactically straightforward, but a disaster in the larger scheme of things. Besides, he'd already spent enough time paying for misdeeds, both real and contrived.

Then Walter started in. Pablo listened to him, just sitting there expressionless. When the noble finished, Pablo answered, "Of course, your worship, please excuse my impertinent words. They were meant only in jest. Now, if it pleases your grace, please fly us to the Longshot, milord, so that I, your humble servant drawn from the unwashed masses, can do my poor best to perform the duties you mercifully deigned to bring me along to tend to."

Khea nervously tapped with her foot on the floor as she didn't like surprises, especially ones involving jump engines. Still, it was kinda comforting that the others were as surprised as she was, or nearly so, about the jump.
If she got the chance she has to look at that engine.

Otherwise she stayed out out the planning of the approach as this was clearly a male thing and she wouldn't have much to offer to this discussion.

Walter (or Sharik) signals the Scout ship that you are ready for separation. It goes quite smoothly as it is the grav engines that push off from the Scout rather than combustion types.

Walter has a crude map of the asteroid belt that shows the location of the major ones, with a 'generic' fill in between them. The Long Shot wasn't on one of the big ones but there's no detail about the one they are on.

The GPS for the ship shows its approximate location.


Walter needs to make 3 piloting checks... insertion into the asteroids, negotiating through the asteroids to reach the destination, and the approach to the final asteroid.

Sir Walter turned his head around to address the crew. "This is your Captain speaking, prepare for a run to the Long Shot. Make sure that your vacc suits are sealed as there is a good chance of micro meteors on the way there since there has been mining in the area. Also, when we get to within 10 km, I will turn off the floor grav plates and decompress the hull so you can go directly out rather than waiting for the air lock to cycle." said as he made a last minute check of his suit to make sure it was operating properly.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:43, Tue 27 Oct 2015.