Malcolm lifts his cup. "Nah, I have some here. If I drink too much, I get all sleepy."

The lift door opens, Veronica and Naimh step out, dressed in shorts and T-shirts. "Sit down, and I'll bring you breakfast," Veronica says to Naimh.

"Thank you, sweetheart." Naimh blushes as she pulls out her chair and sits down.

"You don't have to be embarrassed," Malcolm says with a gentle smile. "I think I can speak for everyone and say that we're happy for you"

Naimh nods and smiles up at Veronica as she sets a cup down in front of her.

Brent watches the two women enter the room.  It takes him a moment but he finally smiles. "Yes, I'm glad you two have found what Joxe and I have as well."

"Thank you," Veronica picks up a tray of food and sets it in front of Naimh. "We are happy for the two of you, as well."

OOG: Please let me know what each of you are working on during the week in jump space. I know there are references to that in the older posts, but I'll let you look that up for yourselves :-)

Gareth will resume his study of the ship's systems and technology.

Brent works on piloting.

On the third day in jump, Joxe sits at the table after lunch, with everyone in attendance. "What did you all think about my father's letter?" She had sent it to everyone first thin this morning.

Brent had seen the letter a few days ago so he stayed silent as the others weighed in.

"Execute is as good a destination as any. Maybe we can find a few answers there."

Veronica tapped on the control panel built into the table, and a holo starmap appeared over the table.

https://travellermap.com/?x=24...mp;scale=107.6328125


"This is Execute," one of the star systems is encircled with a blue sphere for a moment. "It is one of the four planets on this end of the main that have breathable atmospheres. From Execute, we can either continue trailward through Davao, or rimward through Nysorb."

Brent looked over the data.  "If we're going to find people this is where we will do so.  They had a couple hundred thousand people living here before the shit hit the fan and with that biosphere I'd expect survivors unless things really went sideways. I think we jump in to the gas giant and refuel.  It'll delay us a few days on the transit in-system but we can listen for traffic and bolt if need be."

No one objects to that plan.

OOC: We will assume that the gas giant was the intended destination. Does anyone have anything else before we move on to emergence?

OOC: Nothing more than studying the details of the system and whatever maintenance and training can be done.

3/VI/1402 1100hrs

Just before lunch, the emergence alert sounds throughout the ship. Joxe is on duty in engineering, while Veronica and Naimh are preparing the lunch menu in the crew lounge.

Malcolm has the bridge watch, and Brent is seated at the pilot's station, wrapping up a study module.

Gareth is completing a maintenance check on his combat armor in the cargo hold.

Brent shuts down the training module and calls out on the loudspeaker. "Stand by for emergence everyone to your stations.   We'll be coming out at the gas giant."

Ten minutes later, with everyone at their stations (Joxe and Veronica in engineering, Brent, Malcolm, and Gareth on the bridge, and Naimh at her sensors station in the upper lounge), Wanderer transitions into normal space.

Reports from the ship's systems flow into the bridge displays; the jump drive terminated operations normally, the maneuver drives have 18 hours of operation at 1g available. The auxiliary fuel tanks in the hold have enough refined fuel for a jump, or for another 18 hours of maneuvering.

This gas giant is the closest of four to the system primary. Their arrival vector is close enough to require minor adjustments to their orbit to achieve an optimal skimming run. The passive sensors are detecting nothing beyond the emissions from the gas giant they are orbiting.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:36, Sat 22 Sept 2018.

Brent adjusts the course slightly to allow them to coast toward the gas giant. "It seems all clear.  Let's listen for system traffic.  There should be a lot of chatter."

Two hours later, the system primary, and Execute itself, comes into view around the limb of the pale blue gas giant. Naimh and Gareth train their sensor arrays on the main planet.

"There's nothing," Naimh reports an hour later. "It's completely silent out there." She sits back with a sigh.

Gareth's systems show nothing but natural objects. They are far too distant from the mainworld for any of the active sensors to be remotely useful.

Brent sighs.  "Ok, stand down everyone.  We'll do a high-G skim and then push to the main world as fast as we can.  Go ahead and do an active ping before I initiate the burn Gareth so we don't hit anything that is off the charts."

According to the navigation display, the refueling run will take another twenty-two hours before they reach 100 diameters and can jump. In that time, all of the skimmed fuel will be refined.

OOC: I think we want to head to the mainworld...

Fully expecting nothing Gareth Pings as requested.

Gareth's expectations are not disappointed - there is no return from the active sensors at all.

Wanderer tracks down the center of the projected orbital path, accelerating as the gas giant's enormous gravity field pulls it ever closer. By dinner time, the ship is in the upper atmosphere, and Veronica opens the fueling scoops and starts the fuel processor. By 0200, the fueling run is complete, and the ship starts it's climb out of the gravity well, bleeding off speed as they coast outward under the bridge crew's watchful eye.

Just as lunchtime approaches, Wanderer crosses the hundred diameters limit, and is free to safely jump.

Robert will engage the Jump drive to take them to the main world.

11/VI/1402 1530hrs

The jump to the Execute main world goes off without problems. The third day in jump, Veronica and Naimh put together a luncheon for Brent and Joxe, where Veronica presents them with matching wedding bands. Joxe and Naimh weren't familiar with the custom, so the Egg System folk explained it.

On the seventh day of the jump, the emergence alert sounds, and everyone mans their stations. Wanderer reenters normal space three hundred kilometers from Brent's intended arrival point. Their vector is pointed ten degrees closer to the planet than Brent intended, though.

Naimh and Gareth deploy their sensors, and, as at the gas giant, there are no artificial signals detected. The visual sensors do detect a substantial cloud of debris in a high orbit around the planet. A quick search of the system map places the debris field in the same orbit as the system's orbital starport.

From this position and vector, Wanderer is about 5 hours from low planetary orbit.

"Perhaps we should start with the starport's wreckage. There may be something of note for a change."