Jackson calls in his past knowledge gained from Scout service to aid his search.. which is ideal when focusing on past Scout ships.  So, by default, the Scotia ships are where he looks.  It will pretty much his only choice, given the time constraint.

He already knows the weapons are gone.  Old ships might be parked here for parts, but no one leaves live weaponry lying around.  Ship lasers, even old ones, are very dangerous!

He remembers reading about the Scotias in history books.  They went out of service even before he went in.

Looking for sensors, he finds several items of interest.

High frequency terrain mapping radar.   Used for detailed analysis of a planet's surface and capable of picking up details a few meters across during a flyby, but obsolete.

Laser warning receivers.  Very simple devices designed to alert a ship when a laser, even a low powered one, makes contact.  Even the old ones like this are designed to be connected to automated defenses.

Passive thermal sensors, which detect heat sources, even distant, buried, etc.  These are large systems. They would take up the Nellie Bly's available cargo space.  Newer systems are smaller.  That's part of why these ships are retired.

Extendable "foot" sensors, used on landing gear to make a final, physical check that the surface about to be landed on was actually safe to set down on, and not reactive, sticky, soft, or anything else dangerous.  A must on scout craft ever since Apollo 11.

Looking at the ships Charles gets his suit aand toolbox ready again to go outside.

"So rip out what we can and apply them on the float? Hell i'm not even sure how many of them we might be able to fit and which are redundant."

He will check his tools for the task on hand. "I think most of the sensors we can fit, expect perhaps the passive thermal sensors. If our boss want those sensors I suppose we could find a way to make them fit."

He will look over the mothballed relics "While the sensors were good for their time, most of it were usually made by lowest bidding contractor. Depending on how they were designed we might be able to tweak their capabilities by integrating newer parts. It probably still not be state of the art but any improvement we can make could spell the difference between success and disaster."

Listening to the suggestions from his crewmates, Abe is thoughtful about the options they've laid out: perhaps they might "soup-up" the Nellie-Bly from the remnants of her sister ships. He nods, once, when Jackson poses the question surrounding the Scotia-class ships - if not their class, then ones very familiar.

"Rip out what we find and fit them in the black", he echoed, inclining his head towards Charles for the suggestion, "Take what we can, even the thermals. We can always sell them on if we find no use"

Charles nods and unless some local authoroty comes to stop them from 'borrowing' the stuff or the boss says no he starts to work on ripping everything out and sort it later when they have the time for that assigning a drone to everyone wich helps them to make sure they strip all the components by sending checklists to their terminal and mechanical diagrams to help them if its needed.

Taking scrap from the old ships here isn't illegal at all.  It's the purpose of Gamboge.

It has to be paid for, though.  That's also the purpose of Gamboge.  They don't run this place out of the goodness of their hearts.

There is no price list.  They aren't even sure what they have out there in the desert.  Besides, it makes no sense to try and fix prices on a gigantic list of components, many of which are one of a kind (the artwork in the old colony ship might be an example... not a lot of that around here) and/or very obsolete.

So instead, Gamboge merely charges by tonnage, and rough type.  Hull and structural components are the cheapest, electronic and engine equipment are on the expensive end (gravitics are the most expensive!)

But even so you get a bill for 6,000 for the sensor equipment removed.


**** **** **** ****

For Lilana, the real change here was the addition of a second ship to the list of "what's involved" in the strange and growing circle.  The Baccarat isn't even a "ghost ship", it's a commonly seen corporate express transport.  Something they will be able to find when they can start accessing normal logs.  Lilana notes something else of importance:  Whomever it is still has no idea.

**************************

When everything is settled, the Nellie Bly departs Gamboge.  They set course- further out to the ends of the frontier.

Leaving Gamboge, Florence was reasonably pleased: for once, she had been useful to Lilana. In fact, she should maybe say for the first time, since it had all been Marlo previously. Not wanting to simply leave it at that though, she started to study their route. “We should be able to learn more about the Baccarat in Terpsichore or Kanyon. Juwuku comes first, but I'm not sure they'll have what we're looking for.” On the other hand, maybe it would help her refine her research parameters, which would allow her to be more efficient in either of the other two systems.

On the way, Florence worked on her laptop for the most part, and not just to read or write reports, she was trying to learn how to use it more efficiently...and maybe access things that didn't want to be accessed.  Other than that, she dutifuly continued her piloting lessons: she wasn't planning on replacing anyone, but she considered that knowing how to fly a ship, while aboard said ship, was pretty smart.

At some point though, she went to talk to Lilana while she was in the mess [So if anyone has an opinion, wants to participate or whatever, don't hesitate], to ask her for a bit of help: she obviously had her own goal for coming here, which she succintly explained, “I have an assignment for my school, where I'm supposed to find ideas about how to deal with the current unrest in the Commonwealth. Or at least, I'm supposed to find ideas others have.” She grimaced slightly, “If no one in power has been able to find the miracle solution I don't see how I'm going to find it myself but...” She shrugged, “My opinion wasn't asked for. Anyway... I haven't been able to get anywhere with it,” She waved her hands in front of her chest, “Not because I don't have time or anything! It's just...” She grimaced, obviously not particularly pleased, “I'm not really taken seriously when I'm asking those questions. Do you think you could do it, present it as a reportage or something? Maybe reach out to some of your contacts, if they want to send ideas over?” She seemed to hesitate, “I don't have a lot of money, but I can pay for the good ideas? A bit?”

After a while, pensive, she asked, “Or... Maybe I could, I don't know, set up a sort of anonymous forum or something? To offer anyone the opportunity to share good ideas?” She didn't sound all that convinced it was a good idea, “It'd take forever to go through all the stupid ideas, trolls and whatnot though, right?”  She mumbled to herself for a second, “Unless we somehow restrict it to some people who are likely to have some ideas of what they're talking about?” She wasn't really interested in Joe, the drunkard who redesigned the world every afternoon after two drinks after all...

They have time to consider, during the voyage out towards the frontier.

For a long time now, as they have travelled in the "Antispinward" direction, settlement and civilization has become thinner and thinner.  Even the most habitable planets this far out have populations that, on Earth, would be one city.

They pass one Naval base at Alamut- it's worth a check, but the information here is very spotty- clearly, if one is trying to keep something quiet, one does not make a habit of stopping at military bases.

It's at Juwuku where they have their next "event".

 Juwuku is the largest space habitat on the frontier, and is the property of Cyrene corporation, which treats this as a small “company nation” even though it legally operates as its own governate.  The founders of Cyrene believed that they had to move their company as far as they could to the frontier, and they have prospered for it.  Cyrene is a diverse high tech manufacturing conglomerate, producing many of the consumer goods in use not only on the frontier, but as far as the “New Core” region.  The yachts of the owners are often parked here, and they are the most luxurious private spacecraft in the sector.

Juwuku is both a private corporate space habitat, and a Governate, as the Commonwealth decided long ago that ownership of a place does not deprive the inhabitants therein of their  rights as Commonwealth citizens.  They fall under Commonwealth law, (weak as it is out here) and the Governor here has political authority.

It's one of the smallest Governates in existence, which, as Florence knows, has a work load so light that assignment here is sometimes treated as an insult.  Small, remote, in a place owned and operated by a corporation, all the Governor has to do here is check to see that things are being within the Commonwealth's laws.

And here, they quickly learn... The Baccarat is a frequent visitor. It's not here now, but it's here often.

Charles convenes with the other technicians to make a plan on how to integrate and upgrade the ships systems and as their zero-g mechanic would be doing most of the things on the outside. And like always those wee little drones are there to record it and it seems Charles was becoming quite adept in not only having the drones be nonintrusive but also getting nice angles and interesting shots. He is just having a coffee break and has his suit recharging oxygen and is still smelling of sweat his head is red from the hard work outside when Florence pitches her problem. Initially he ignores it muling over some issues he ran in but after a bit he chips in.

"Whats your pitch to people that they are unwilling to cooperate?"

“Well,” Florence scrunged her nose, “It's not so much that they are unwilling to cooperate than they don't really give it any thought. Or at least, that they don't think someone like me deserves a well thought of and argumented answer.” With a hand she indicated herself, and it was indeed very possible that she was pretty easy to dismiss considering that she could easily pretend to be a high-school girl - and not even a senior, maybe a sophomore - even though her papers said otherwise. “Or at least that I'm not really interested in an answer and only trying to play grown-up.”

She grumbled under her breath for a second, “So for the most part I get jokes, or if there are two people around they quickly go off on a tangent and quickly forget about me.” And it wasn't like she could push it too much after all, could she? “Few people in or around a spaceport have much patience for someone they only see as a kid.” Especially when said kid wasn't buying anything of note...

Charles nods.

"Well port side people usually do not have the time. you should hit a bar in the civil areas and talk to people there. Make it about wanting to make a documentary and reward them for their time. A few credits go a long way. I might be able to give you a hand pretending you are my intern if you think its your age."

Florence looked doubtful. “I'm not sure a bar would be uld be the right place.” Not really because of the type of people she was likely to meet there, but simply because of her age, once again.

“I will try the documentary thing though.” She briefly grimaced, not quite sure she liked the idea of paying for it, but... Cocking an eyebrow, she asked, “Where would I be able to find one of those drones like you have? You know, that follows you autonomously? If I could pretend the drone is recording, it'd probably improve my credibility.”

Charles shrugs he clearly doesn't agree but isn't invested enough to push the issue he was clearly just giving his idea on the issue.

"Well you can buy em. But they do not come cheap. I can just slave one to you if you like too next time you want to give your thing a try. Or i can give you the specs and order details but again its not necessary unless having me along doesn't suit you."

During the voyage to Juwuku Lilana has time to talk about Florence's current "project".

Piecing together bits and  hints acquired over the course of the journey, Lilana is very surprised to learn that Florence is a Commonwealth Governor "trainee" and worries how this might impact everything they are doing.  So she has a question.

"Does everything we do here get officially reported, then?  Not that you're a spy... but we're in the midst of uncovering things that the Governors might react to.


About the issue of unrest, she is less concerned.  "I guess it's all inevitable in a way.  As long as the war was a constant threat, and people were afraid, they never questioned anything the Commonwealth did.  Now it's further, most people alive have never had to run for a survival shelter, they see things differently.  I think there will be some accommodations, somehow, the Commonwealth will go on."

And she agrees with the issue of Florence not being taken seriously enough due to age.

"No one took me seriously either.  Of course at your age I was in school full time, I didn't get out until I was 25!  It does take time.  You will get there... if you are a Governor, of course you will... unless they send you to run Juwuku!"

There are at two very different approaches they can take, after reaching this place.

They can do some research here, and wait for the Baccarat to make one of its frequent appearances.  Or they can continue on to "pod cache" location they got from the Crossers.  And then, possibly, double back.

Lilana calls a quick meeting to go over the options.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:37, Wed 17 Mar 2021.

Florence opened and closed her mouth, then grimaced and grumbled, obviously not quite pleased to have been found out. Not that anyone could have expected her to pretend as long as she had considering that deception wasn't really one of her strong skills, but still… Regarding Lilana's question, she shook her head. “No, I haven't said a word of anything to anyone. Well, except for the Eco-sentience stuff, I talked about it with a friend. Who isn't even human, she's a Momo so nothing to the Commonwealth. Anyway,” She shrugged, “I'm not here to spy on anyone, and I'm not going to prevent you from doing anything. While what we discover could be of some interest to the Governors, it's… Well, you can consider things like that: Governors, for the most part, are not interested in any specific crime. It's not their jobs to fight any one crime. What interests them are the statistics about those crimes, which would help design policies to lower crime in general, communicate about it, etc.”

“So in the specific case of what you're looking for, I'm not going to prevent you to release your work. Not that I could even if I'd want to anyway. And I won't even ask you to present things one way or another.” She paused, tapping her lips for a second or two. “Not only I don't have the authority to do so, but more importantly that's not how Governors operate. If we do find something important however, I will probably have to send the details to the relevant authorities to make sure they know about what's coming. In fact, I'd likely ask you to coordinate in such a way that they'll be able to act before the other guys can disappear once you've blown the whistle. But what you release and how…” She shrugged, “Ultimately that's up to you. Though, hmm… I might have opinions on it…”

She didn't look as optimistic about the Commonwealth going on just like that. Or maybe more precisely, she didn't think it would be as easy as that. “Maybe, but… I'm among those who have to come up with the 'accommodations' you speak of.” Assuming her opinion would be heard, to say nothing of being taken into account considering that she was after all only a student - one on an unscheduled trip at that - but that was a problem for later. “And the issue isn't only an internal one, our alien friends are…worried…” Which could be - or at least could become - the biggest problem of them all.

“25, uh?” Florence looked away, her cheeks reddening. “Yes, I uh, suppose you're right.” Glancing at Charles she added, “It's not that I don't want anyone coming along or helping, I just don't want to take anyone's valuable time if it's for something they don't really care about.” After all, they didn't spend all that long on the ground and she was pretty sure the crew had better things to do than listen to her asking a few questions here or there.

“As for doing some research here or going straight for the pod cache, I'd be of an opinion of doing our research here first. While it might not tell us all that much about what we're going to find at the 'pod cache', it's unlikely to draw attention to us. On the other hand, if that pod cache is monitored one way or the other - or if we're unlucky and stumble on someone already there - we'd be on the clock.”

“And…” Her gaze became distant for a moment, “I might be able to get us some information about the Baccarat here.” Possibly a bit more, but she wasn't going to promise anything until she knew more herself.

Charles had been working mostly on getting all the new stuff set up and being the ships zero-g mechanic meant he was spending a lot of time on the hull and after that was too wasted for much more so not only had he little interest in looking at who the boss took on she most likely knew better how to run a background check anyhow. He also cared less in the most general sense of things. He eyes the governess to be for a second to estimate how dangerous she would be in the new light and was clearly dismissed as an immediate threat. He wondered if either Florence or Lilana knew he would put her highness out of the airlock in a moments notice if she posed a serious threat to them. If anything there was only a short moment his eyes went cold and hard before he seemed to dismiss it all and gives her a soft smile stepping entirely over the big reveal.

"Though i agree with the lady i would suggest going for the pods first using the same argument. If they know we are onto them thats one of the easiest things to disappear. It might be a red herring but seeing how the info traveled to us i'd rather not waste it."

Then he turns to Florence and one of his drones hovers over to hang above her right shoulder.

"Its called building social credit. I suffer some minor inconvenience for you and in return one day i might need your specific set of skills and can bring up me helping you. The drone will be following you around to learn how you move and talk to people so it can record at the right angle. So try to do your thing with the crew on their downtime to have it learn some."

The fact the drone was already there and Charles tone might make it clear that the fact the boss thought she might be a spy meant the drone might be more then a friendly gesture.

Florence begins assembling reports from the computer network here.  She doesn't have all the time she wants, as since the Baccarat is not present, Lilana opts to go straight for the pods, as Charles suggested.


But they do have to stop to refuel.  Juwuku is a stopover for many vessels.  Out here, the options are fewer.  Ships are fewer, but so are the places they can go to refuel.

Once that is done, they set out again- this time for a barely visited system off the Main Line.  There are so many star systems that no one bothers with the vast majority of them.  If there is no good reason to go there, no one does.

JWKK19 is one of those.  It's probably swept by military patrols every now and then, but star systems are big places- unless something is floating in space emitting energy, it's hard to find unless, like Lilana now, you know exactly where to look.

Marlo the Crosser, who has been fairly quiet for a long time, notes something while looking at the star charts.

"I have seen this place.  I do not remember why, it was not on my assignment.  It had something of interest to another Crosser.  A contract, I think."

The system consists of a typical orange "K" type star, some icy chunks in the outer system, and a "temperate Neptune".  It's a deceptive looking world- pale blue with white swirls it can look like a habitable ocean world.  But it's much too large, and the atmosphere is much too thick.  The pressure at the surface would be unbearable- if it had a true surface.

It has a few moons, though, and the Nellie Bly heads that way.

As they arrive in their presumed right system Charles joins the cockpit crew.

"Well now is the time of all that work on the systems paid off. Lets see what the scanners tell us. I am firstly interested if there are any surprise defences waiting for us."

As they left Juwuku, Florence grumbled a bit, as she obviously would have preferred staying a bit longer to get more information. Still, it wasn't like she hadn't learned anything. “As far as I can tell, the Baccarat is pretty much always close, or at least in the Frontier except for a trip once or twice a year to the New Core area.” Which didn't say much of anything by itself. “However, I know that while the company that owns the Baccarat has offices here, its HQ is at Kanyon. Which is a bit surprising for two reasons: first, it's even farther from the frontier than Juwuku, which doesn't make much sense. Usually, you want your HQ to be as close as possible to where the action is. Second, there is only one thing I can think of that Kanyon has, which is the presence of a colony of the Antarean Ecosentience. You know, the one I mentioned back in LDMLT01, where I learned that it had started 'trading'.” And she was visibly quite excited that they'd likely head there soon. “At least that'll give us a good excuse to be there!”

In JWKK19, she seemed a bit… Well, not disinterested, but there was little she felt she could do for the time being.  She was however curious about Marlo's remark. “A contract?” She tilted her head to the side, “Not a large one involving an asteroid I guess,” after all, those jobs involves an entire Crosser Ship, “What kind of contract could it have been?”

With newly acquired infrared sensor equipment, they run infrared scans.

There is something down there.  Camouflaged, so as not be seen easily, but not with the sophisticated heat dissipation devices the military might use to hide things from infrared detection.  After all, out here, it would be bizarre fortune to just happen to steer the scanners in the right direction.

Unless one already knew where that direction was.  Which they do.

It's not a big something, and it is dispersed over a few hundred meters area of the planet surface.

After a while they can make it out:  a well camouflaged landing pad, and nearby... tents.

The tents look a lot like the structures that hid the pods in the pictures.



*******

"I am guessing," Marlo says, "but I believe it is a rational guess that the contract involved engineering.  It is something we have a reputation for in Human space.  I think you are right that it is not an asteroid habitat, which would require our entire ship.  But perhaps a smaller habitat.  Especially in this part of space.  What else would we be wanted for?"

"But it's possible that your ... that the other Crosser ... might have been contracted to set up ... a planetary habitat, an outpost, for example", suggested Abe as he studied the scan results coming in

"We should check it out, boss", he continued, a tautness across his shoulders clear, for he had not been at the prior site

“I don't know for what exactly,” Obviously, Florence thought, “But as for the why… I would bet it was at least to avoid having to answer questions about what they were asking for. And very likely, because what they asked was illegal. Or at least would have been illegal in the Commonwealth.” The young woman paused deep in thoughts, before rubbing her neck and admit a tad uncomfortable. “I, uh… must admit to being a bit fuzzy at the moment on the legal ramifications if it were indeed the case…” Probably nothing good, but she'd need to check the specifics.

“At any rate,” She shrugged, “It wouldn't be a bad thing if we learned what that project was exactly.” Though of course, it wouldn't be possible until Marlo had had the opportunity to communicate with his ship.

Regarding the forest of tents, Florence asked, “Can we get an infrared scan of the place? And maybe energy sources?” After all, if everything was cold and dead down there, there wasn't likely to be any immediate danger. But otherwise, they'd have to be even more cautious.

16:08, Today: Florence Pearce rolled 6 using 2d6+1.  Advocate.
I supposed that was a bust.

"Aye time to touch down and get investigating. I'll be suiting up and ready for trouble. Jackson can you tell me what the scans tell us? The lady is right they might give us a heads up warning on trouble waiting for us."

Charles says as he gets ready to suit up and prepare the battle routine on his weapons and armor.

"If we're landing, I should suit up too", offered Abe, still with pre-conflict tautness trained into him. He remained at his station until the word was given, however, continuing to operate scans on the moon and the outpost on it

In reply to Charles 'Viper' Delorean (msg # 172):

"Actually I believe our boss and Abe are better on sensors than I am."


Jackson's old Scout instincts were also starting to kick in. "I like to know what sort of approach are we on the site. Are going to try to sneak in?"