Sharik simply shrugged when Serge said he need a vacation.  “You’re on inactive duty,” the thin ex-Scout noted cheerfully, “You can do whatever you like!”  Once the debrief was done, of course.  And with his ship in for repairs that meant he was grounded for the duration of the refit, potentially.

She turned to face her fellow scout for a moment, slowing in the hallway a touch.  “If you don’t want to spend the time stuck station-bound,” Shar noted amiably, “I am sure that we can come to some sort of working passage arrangement on the Longshot.  Though it would mean leaving your ship behind,”.  As there was no telling when the Longshot might return to Outpost.  Given the presence of Baroness Elgin, perhaps ‘never’ was a distinct possibility ...   Still, she’d not leave an IISS survivor adrift.  And though Captain Zeller would have to approve any crew contract, Sharik was pretty sure that Walter would be satisfied if a suitable arrangement could be made; Serge had skillz after all.

And, seriously, he’d just be another stray dog in a rag-tag crew comprised of stray dogs.

Turning back to the hallway and meeting ahead, Shar muttered quietly, reminding both Serge and herself, “Wait for the others to arrive before the meeting can officially start...”

"Carry what you want but remember, you will be responsible for them. We are merchants for the time being that just got tied up in something that most of us was not told about. I do not plan on carrying anything." Walter replied to Kheaiftouaw

Taking everything Vonon said completely serious she can't help herself than to roll her eyes and shake her head.
"Men and their rituals.
I bring one weapon they can take and nothing more."

Deciding to hide away in the guts of the ship rather than dealing with the idea of leaving and socializing she found out the communications hub and dealt with her banking taking her savings and using it as a buy in to the one in charge of keeping things ordered. It wasn't like she had much use for it anyway. All she wanted was a quiet place to work without having to socialize and maybe food to eat and a place to sleep . Down here in the ships guts was as good as any place. Far out of sight of the others.

Samantha's efforts on the sensors produce some rather odd results. Outpost 7 is a much smaller asteroid than the one the naval base is on. It's only about 20 miles in diameter.

Off to one side of the two scout ships that are parked/landed on it already, there is a quonset-style space dome anchored to the asteroid's surface. At most, it could hold about 25 people crowded in. Based on the two ships, though, it would seem that there are only two people in it.

Sam also picks up an underground fuel tank... large enough to refuel about 10 scout ships.

Serge lands his scout ship next to the other two, and Walter lands the Longshot nearby.

Getting to the space dome will require EVA, but it is accomplished without incident.

Evelyn, Pablo and Valeska stay behind on the Longshot.

Once inside (after passing through the airlock), you are met by two humans.

"Welcome to Outpost 7," the woman says to Serge, who is the first one in. "I'm Maizy Strom. This here is Simon Nurando."

"Not the Taj Mahal you were expecting, is it?" she finished, gesturing around her. "We relocate it from time to time. Security."

"Looks like someone started scavenging the Elusive."

Sam shut down the Longshot and looked up at Walter "They seem to have a fairly sizeable fuel tank here - we should see about topping up, amongst all the other business."

She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms back out before getting ready to head over to the compound. Her most obvious weapon is a cutlass on her belt.

Once inside the dome, Sam takes a quick look around as well as acknowledging the two Scouts with a slight nod, letting Serge talk for now.

- Greetings! - Serge snaped a salute. - I am Serge, Scout.
Serge looked around, evaluating the place.



- Emm... What do you mean? - Serge inquired apprehensively.

Khea keeps herself in the background and tries not to draw attention to herself, purposefully keeping Serge and the others between her and Maizy.
Still she nearly spoke up to correct the comment about scavenging the ship but kept silent as to not spill what has happened too soon.

"More like tore it apart" Walter said, having inspected it when it was first encountered. "Greetings, I am Dr. Sir Walter Zeller, acting captain of the merchant vessel Longshot. This is the crew..." he said as he made introductions of those that were there.

"We were able to bring back the damaged scout craft and thought you might like to take a look at it as the damage is quite peculiar, along with some more unusual incidents that occurred during the encounter. Do you have some place that we could sit down and talk, some place "very" private?" he asked.

The space walk to dome had been uneventful; the diminutive operative seemed quite at home in her tailored vacc suit, moving in the high-tech fabric as though it was a second skin.  Once inside, she didn't remove her gloves or helmet, though she did retract the visor and opened the face plate breaching the seal yet still allowing for quick redeployment.

Sharik smiled amicably and nodded towards Maizy and Simon each in turn as they were introduced.  The inactive duty scout introduced herself using a slightly more formal means of address, "Sharik Kaagira Mepede."  Though she'd left off much of her full name and her official (if inactive) IISS rank; so, it wasn't that formal - even if the Vilani sur-moniker of 'mepede' roughly translated to 'discoverer' or 'scout'.

She nodded curtly (though marveled privately) at the required relocation SOP adopted by Maizy and her cadre, while she visually inspected in the rather cramped and spartan accommodations.  "Prudent." the auburn-haired socialite agreed, figuring that the political situation (either externally or internally - or both) must warrant such action.  She glanced in Walter's direction wondering if he was thinking something similar.

"Those scavengers were both extremely precise and brutally efficient." Sharik noted casually, if a touch enigmatically, tacking onto Walter's own addendum to Ms. Strom's assessment of the Elusive's damaged lanthenum grid, "They either knew or very fortuitously stumbled upon the best way to cause a full-on misjump..."  Though she'd not say any more yet; waiting to see where Walter's request for a secure location led to.

Maizy looks around the hut at Walter's comment, frowning slightly.

"We're on an asteroid," she replies. "How much more private do you think it can get?"

"But, by all means, step into my office." She gestures to the table and chairs, though there's clearly not enough chairs for everyone.

"My apologies if there aren't enough chairs for everyone, but in the 12 years this outpost has been operating, there's never been more than four people here at the same time... and that was just for the Saturday night poker game."

It's hard to tell if she's being serious or facetious with that last bit.

"Just remember, you asked for this meeting, not me. So, what can I do for you?"

Pablo kept his comm unit open in case anyone from the ship that went to the meeting was broadcasting it, or in case someone called for help. He'd put on his armored vacc suit and carried his weapon slung over one shoulder.

But now he had to deal with the other 'problem' on the ship: Evelyn.

It's not that he distrusted her, but there were things going on that he didn't know about or understand, and he needed to know.

"I haven't had to find any place to hide on this ship since we acquired it," he said to her as he leaned against the door jamb of the compartment she was hiding in.

"I did a few times on the old ship. Seems nobody was really interested in being friends with a marine... except other marines. And we didn't have any more of those on board."

"Turns out I was wrong."

"I can't begin to understand what you've gone through. The headshrinkers like to call it survivor's guilt. Why should you be alive when so many others are dead? I tend to turn it around and look at it from the other side... kind of the 'half empty' or 'half full' perspective. Why should so many of them be dead when you are still alive?"

"We all die sooner or later. It's kind of a cosmic crapshoot whether it's sooner or later."

"The religious folks all try to find some cosmic meaning to it all. I think it's just human nature... a survival tactic--find someone or something to blame so that you can keep it from happening again. It's also easy to say that civilization and society have gotten too complex to make such simple statements, but, guess what? Even the unintelligent animals in the wilderness do it. Survival instinct. So, I guess it's not really human nature after all."

He really didn't know if Evelyn was feeling survivor's guilt or not, but whatever was bothering her, talking about it usually kept it from festering inside. And, sometimes, you just needed someone to listen.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:30, Sat 13 Oct 2018.

Evelyn was caught off guard by the man's presence in her hidey hole. "Alexander, Margaret, Joshua, Kevin, Vael, Van, Rebekah, Samson. Those were the names of my colleagues. But if you wanted me to count on my fingers how many friends i had you'd have to cut my hands off. Since I escaped my dad's bed into the working world I've put my heart, my soul, my blood, sweat, and tears into my work. I'd take other's shifts and let them keep the pay only keeping pay for my own shifts.

I chose a job in which I never had to talk to anyone. I may remember the names of my colleagues that died but we never talked, never grabbed a drink, never attended the annual engineering party. Work and isolation are all i know. So their deaths while tragic in a worldly sense have no emotional impact on me. right now in the galaxy someone accidentally got sucked out an airlock. Do you feel emotionally connected to the Stranger?


 And i don't have survivor's guilt. I tried to give up and Die. The Aliens forced me into that stasis pod. So the guilt is on their shoulders not mine. I just want to work in silence and be forgotten. No Data Buoy saying "Here Lies Evelyn she died as she lived alone" just someone climbing around in vents one day finding my skeleton that nobody cared enough about to look for."

She didn't know why she felt angry about the man's "counseling" but she did.

Standing in the office, Walter started to talk. "You might want to have a seat then as there is a lot to cover. You will want to record this for your records, how you will classify the report, that is up to you." he said as he placed the standard salvage contract on the table.

Once ready, he started to describe the misjump, their rescue of Serge, the Elusive along with its damaged grid, and the encounter with the alien vessel. The mission in the vessel, he left to those that boarded it.

When Walter starts recounting their strange encounter Khea only whispers to herself
"Here we go"

Sam stands behind Walter to one side as he talks. She  doesn't say much but will add in any details about the boarding which don't get mentioned but she thinks is relevant.

Other than that she keeps watch on the scouts and tries to gauge their reactions.

In reply to Walter Zeller (msg # 513):

Serge listened to Walter's speech, nodding where appropriate. Then Serge added description of what happened inside of the pyramid, and when Serge was speaking, he tracked expression of the Walter's eyes to make sure he is not saying too much.

"Quite an interesting story," Maizy comments when Walter is done.

"I understand why you came to us with the Scout Ship. There was no way Serge was ever going to reach a base in his lifetime without the jump grid. So, by interstellar salvage law, you've salvaged the ship and even rescued Serge."

"Oh, sure, we would have sent out a search for him at some point, but there would have been a slim chance of us finding him."

"We have no problem signing your salvage claim. I'm sure you're aware that the Scouts aren't in the habit of employing bureaucrats, so there's no one to protest the payout or challenge the claim."

"Now we come to the rest of the story."

"There's no way the Navy or the Imperial government will pay full value for the ship, the aliens or the information, and you could easily find yourselves stranded on Barapalok. Of course, that depends on who you tried to deal with. Most uphold the law, just bend it quite alot. Some, however, have no problem erasing you completely."

"My opinion, of course. Don't have any evidence to support that."

"What I don't also have... is any kind of value. Standard salvage value for a 400-ton ship I can determine. Aliens... haven't got a clue. Same for the equipment and tech. Those are kind of outside my wheelhouse."

"I can contact the appropriate departments in various corporations and get an estimate. If you want what this is probably worth, though, you're back in the dangerous territory. A department head has a certain amount of leeway in acquiring items. Up to maybe 5 times that amount, he could still take the risk. Above that, he has to get approval from his superiors. At that point, you'll have stirred up a hornet's nest."

"The plan, as I see it, is to get a value, accept your claim and pay you for it, and then pass it up the line for the Scouts to get reimbursed by the government."

"Is that the way you see it?"

"You are correct." Walter said. "There are too many unknowns to leave this to chance. As it was a navigation hazard, you would be able to deal with it under your organization a lot easier. Since it has an ability to generate its own gravity field disproportionate to its size, roughly that of a dwarf planet, it is a curiosity. The other part of me can see the multiple military applications if it was used as a weapon. Hold on a moment." Walter added as he pulled out his computer. Looking up the prices of vessels of the same size, he did some calculations.

"Lets say 30 million credits for the alien vessel, and another 5 million for the salvage of the Elusive. So 35 million credits total."  Walter said

Sam stood back, trying to look like she was a bodyguard of some sort. Her eyes widened slightly when Walter mentioned the sum, but she quickly surpressed that and tried instead to hide a smirk on her face.

"If it would make the paperwork easier, you could do them as separate transactions." he suggested

The Scouts didn't seem to bat an eye at Walter's price.

"Yes, we'd have to do the transactions as two separate entities, mainly because one of them is ours," Maizy replies.

"And it would make for a nice lead-in to the bigger one. Connected, but separate. And it's not like this would pass through the small claims department anyway."

"Not that we're bragging, but we didn't get stationed here because we were being punished or being shuffled off the beaten path, so to speak. While Outpost may seem like an out-of-the-way posting, it's become a significant hub of interstellar traffic and political machinations. The only reason there isn't a full-scale Scout base is because the Navy got here first. Adding a Scout base would be suspicious if not outright threatening, even if we really aren't the spies most people think we are."

"I'm just letting you know that I do have the authority to validate this claim. We'll have to do it aboard one of the ships, though. This little shack doesn't have the comm power to access the net."

"Having grown up on Outpost, I can see why. I didn't know you had this place. You are welcome to come aboard the Longshot to complete the transaction. Walter said.

"Very well then. We'll go to your ship," Maizy replies. "While it is an old converted system defense boat with tender, it has several registered remodels and upgrades, so I'm guessing you have a state of the art comm."

She quickly dons her vacc-suit over her clothes and heads for the door.