Brent knelt next to her.  "It looks like they may have shot each other.  What happened that forced you to go into the low berth?"

It takes her a minute to regain control. "We had to get away. When we arrived here, there was a battle going on. They blew the highport to dust, and then the real fight started." She shivers and looks up at the ceiling. "Computer, status report."

"Verified Joxe Laiam, sole remaining crewman aboard. Four unidentified humans aboard. Fuel status, bingo fuel. Security protocol enabled, controls locked. Access granted to unidentified humans since critical fuel state exists, leading to low berth failure."

Joxe looks at Brent. "Looks like she let you aboard. Where is your ship?"

That is an an excellent idea Malcolm please proceed. If Gareth is unable ant written materials or manifests he will join Malcolm in attempting to operate one of the computers.

The language is now readable, but Malcolm and Gareth can't get the computers unlocked.

Brent considered what the woman was saying.  Given the ship and high technology he was ready to believe just about anything.  "You are from out system."  He said this to confirm the fact rather than a question.  "No one has been here from outside since the collapse; when the high port was nuked."  He took a deep breath.  "As far as we know everything is gone.  Why did you go into the low berth?"

At her question he frowned and then sighed.  "I don't know.  The captain must have been afraid of the ship.  She tried to fry us with the drives and headed away.  Regardless of that we need to get your ship to the port.  Your technology will allow us to regain the star"

Veronica steps up beside Brent, holding some clothing in her hands. "I found these in one of these containers. They've been sealed in nitrogen, so they're still good."

With Veronica's help, Joxe gets out of the low berth, dries off and gets dressed in the same jumpsuit uniform worn by the dead crewmen. As she dresses, she continues the conversation. "The first thing, this ship needs fuel. Computer, are we still in orbit around that gas giant?"

"Yes," comes the reply.

"Set us up on a skimming run, please."

"Due to our fuel state, we will have to use a slower trajectory", the ship replies. "It will take us 22 hours to reach the upper atmosphere."

"Thank you," Joxe says. She returns her attention to Brent. "Regain the stars? Do your people still have jump drives?"

Feeling that he truly has learned everything he can on without additional help Gareth decides to regroup. Ideally Malcolm will join him should he choose to.

"Give me an update and your location, we need to decide on our next course of action."

Still carrying the pistol Gareth will attempt to join the rest of the crew.

Gareth makes his way to the lift, and then into the cargo bay. There, he finds Veronica and Brent talking to a dark skinned woman with red hair. Veronica looks at Gareth as he zigzags through the boxes scattered randomly across the deck.

Brent listened in amazement at the sophistication of the computer and the controls.  He shook his head slowly.  "We've lost the ability to manufacture Jump drives these decades."

Malcolm makes his way to the room with the rest of thE crew as well.

Joxe takes a couple of experimental steps, and just manages to make it to one of the crates scattered on the deck. She plops down onto it, sits quietly for a moment, and then looks at the assembled group.

"I'm just a trader; I don't have the equipment or the material to make a jump drive." She takes a breath. "My shipmates and I own this ship together. The three of us were the only ones who escaped. So, if they are dead, this is my ship." She looks at each of you in turn. "The problem is, although the computer can run the ship, it still needs a crew."

Brent stands as the woman tries to walk.  "Be careful, you've been in cold sleep for decades."  He sighs in relief as she sits down.  "You have a working Jump drive on this ship.  That is what is so valuable.  We can build our own if we can reverse engineer what is on this ship.  And the technology that this ship represents, it's far beyond ours."  He shook his head and focused on the present.  "We can crew the ship at least a bit.  Victoria is an engineer and I'm experienced in engineering and on the flight deck.  We have two others on board who are very experienced as well."

As he thougth about her comrades who had died he lowered his voice.  "Just what did you escape?  And from where did you come?"

"We were running from the war, but it caught up to us here," Joxe says quietly. "Just like Egg, the ships came, and everything was wrecked when they left. We were in Montezuma when the attacks began. We ran, and by the time we arrived here, another trader told us Poznan, our - my, homehad been attacked and destroyed."

Joxe wipes at her face, and Victoria gives her a tissue. "Thank you. We refueled in company with the other trader, and we were planning to go back to Poznan. But, while we were still skimming, the other ship was attacked and destroyed. We hid by diving into the planet's atmosphere, and we nearly didn't make it back out."

She sits up straighter. "So, we watched the battle here. Two Imperial light battlegroups fought it out, and we had the best seat in the house. The survivors left, and there we were. A few light units were prowling around, so we decided to hide in the rings. We tethered the ship to a rock, and had a meeting. We set the ship up to look for friendly ships' transponders - people we knew , and then we went into the low berths."

"At least," she finishes quietly, "I went in."

"Something about this ship scared our illustrious captain so badly that she tried to kill us all to destroy it. We have to know why before we bring anything back to home. If we don't take any new technology through the right channels it could destroy the fabric of our society. Or worse bring back the imperials. Handling this poorly will amount to genocide."

Gareth clutches the pistol tightly, but manages to hold back. He still need the other less compliant members of HIS ship for now.


Still I am willing to serve for a time if it means an opportunity to responsibly study your technology. I'm against returning home until we're sure this ship is safe and we have a plan for introducing new technology. So the question is: where do we go next?"

Joxe regards Gareth calmly, her eyes shifting to the pistol in his hand and back to his face. "Please holster that thing. This isn't technology, it's one ship that I happen to own. This is also my home. My plan is to find what's left of my family. You are welcome to accompany me, if you wish."

Victoria clears her throat. "Actually, we do know how to build jump drives, but we don't have the materials to do it anymore."

Joxe glances at her. "I know. Many of the systems were mined out, and the materials had to be imported from less settled systems. That might be a way we can help, but we'd have to find a supply first."
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:39, Thu 07 July 2016.

"Well, we can either stay here forever or get this bucket of bolts moving. Does this ship have he ability to scan the region for the resources we need to build a jump drive?"

Joxe shakes her head. "No, not specifically. The nearest shipyard is, or was, at Gorky. That's where I would start looking."

"That should be our fist stop then. Tell me more about this ship? What are its combat capabilities? What can this ship do?"

Joxe lifts her hands, indicating the cargo bay. "This is the largest part of the ship. We have enough room for twelve people, counting the passenger deck above us. As for combat?" She shakes her head. "We can't outrun a warship, and we only have a laser turret and a few missiles. We are also unarmored, so any hit is serious at best."

Brent listened quietly.  "And no friends ever came... until now."  The spacer was silent as Gareth and Malcom spoke.  "Certainly something odd is going on here Gareth.  I have no idea why the captain attacked us.  I know people in the outer system that we can communicate with privately if it comes to it.  We can find out what might have gone on here."

He looked back at Joxe.  "Certainly we respect your ownership of this ship and all that you have been through.  I'm not talking about taking the ship apart but just the technical specifications and design data that you should have aboard would greatly benefit the entire system." Brent stopped and listened as Joxe laid out some options.  "Ideally you could make a lot of money renting out your ship to allow the governments here to go do the hard work.  Then of course you are at great risk that said governments here might just seize the ship from you with possibly no more than a thank you."

Brent sighed.  "Let's get the ship refueled first.  We have to do that no matter what we do.  Meanwhile I'd like to see if I can find out something of what is happening if I can tap into the comms net."  He looked about.  "What Jump range does this ship possess?"

"Agreed. We can jump one parsec," Joxe replies. "We used to have fuel tanks that fit in here, but we got rid of them a few years ago," she falters for a moment, "um, because we were running the main and didn't need them."

She looks at Veronica. "Can you help me get to my quarters? I really need a bath, and," she looks at her arm, "to shave this mess off." She sighs. "Computer, grant Brent non-control access to the ship's systems. You can listen, but not transmit."

Veronica lifts an eyebrow as she looks to Brent.

Gareth was already concerned that this new captain would be even more of a tyrant than the last. For the time being he had little choice in the matter though.

"Let me know when you need us. In the mean time I will familiarize myself with the layout of the ship."

Gareth will spend this brief respite attempting to locate the ship's escape pods or life boats. If he is successful and still has time will take an inventory of the ships cargo.

Joxe sighs. "Computer, allow this gentleman access to all areas except engineering, and non-control access to ship's systems." She points to Gareth as she speaks.

OOG: Where does he start?

Brent gave Victoria a slight nod of assent as Joxe asked her to help.  "Thank you Joxe, we'll see what we can do to understand more of the ship while we finalize our plans."  He glanced at the others as Victoria and Joxe started to go.  "I'm headed to the bridge to look over the comms systems.  I want to look at the star map as well and see just where we can get if we choose to Jump out."

Brent headed to the bridge and sat down at the central position.  He began to slowly explore the controls to see if he could figure out the communications.  Knowing that Joxe used voice commands he started by asking the ship's computer to display the comms console.

Malcolm will look for the mess hall and attempt to asses food and water supply. he is also hungry.