The older man shook his head.

"I talked with Ashe while checking out the med station earlier, but it was by comm."

"Even though I still don't remember most things, talking with Ashe via comm seemed... familiar."

"I don't have any memory of Ashe as a humanoid droid..."

He stood up to follow Baylee to the living quarters, unless anyone needed his assistance elsewhere...

There was a long moment of tension, like the muscles in your abdomen was tensing in preparation of projectile vomitting, then... a curious weightlessness, a blinding wash of color and then a long silence.


The silence loomed heavily for a few moments... then, slowly, so very slowly, the lighting in the ship came back on.

Viper glanced at the display that had been before her before the distortion, and saw that their location had changed.  In the manner of jump-ships, preliminary information was sparse.

If the Orisihi's communications suite was operational, it would begin pinging local relay stations and start filling in information.

She held her breath for a moment, as the display started populating.

We're two days from the nearest habitable planet, or rather the nearest asteroid of the Xingxing Guodjia Asteroid Belt, of the Deux system. This system seems to be split between two political entities : the Inner Colonies dictatorship on Paix, and a sort of all-against-all confusing anarchy on Scylla. I haven't found which of them the XGAB responds to..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:57, Mon 24 Jan 2022.

I've taken the liberty of splitting Viper's last post to give us the jump.

Viper & Baylee - Preliminary investigation of the Orishi's set-up shows that it has transponder codes for a handful of different ships names and identifications... and more importantly, different allegiances.  It definitely has one for Scylla and one for The Inner Colonies...

_{^{"In Sovereign Hands..."}}

The murmured response came to his lips without hesitation.  He knew that the path he walked was ordained from before time began.

But... the vision held fragments of memories, just out of reach.  The scene was familiar.  The symbol was familiar.  The words Mendat Silall were familiar, and important.

What path has he already walked?  Just what else had he forgotten?

He pondered this quietly as tidings came of their current position.

After several moments, he turned to Lincoln.

"Does the database have any information about me?"

Baylee lurched but caught her footing quickly and easily. Still, something was slightly off to her sense; she always felt heavy without and explanation. Every time she checked the ship's gravity settings, the read normal. The lurch continued to confirm her suspicions that she had spent time ship bound. Well, that and the fact she appeared to have been crew on a smuggler.

An instinct reinforced by the logs as she navigated them intuitively. Thinking about information idly and she found her hand reaching to an icon if she didn't actively mind it. So she started letting her hands do as they liked. As she read over the incoming data, it took her microns longer than the others, it seemed, to process the names. Blinking, she stared harder at the names until her idle hand once more flipped an icon and the names showed now in another language with universal translation beneath. It seemed the local dialects were more to her liking.

"Arai, Wo kankan, now those squiggles make a LOT more sense that the universal stuff. I am beginning to suspect that I really am local."

Pursing her lips, she shook her head and ran a hand through her short ragged locks. "Well, best to find out if we can before we get there. No use docking for repairs and supplies only to be arrested again... not like we have a ton of choices though."

Rayfe was a little bug eyed, and pale. The hand with his pistol was shaky, and he lowered it slowly. He went back and sat down again. "That was not... That was not how it was meant to be. That was not what I did!"

What was it he had seen? Why had he seen, of all things, that? Nowhere in his hole-bored mess of a memory did he recall that in the plan. He had seen the list of charges against him, laid down for all to read. Not one of them mentioned that. He had planned the perfect crime, even the money was insured. Nobody was meant to get hurt, and especially not...

Who was she?

He looked up, and spoke with a rather shaken voice, "Did you all see that? Did you see the girl?"

"Emergency command routine complete.  Fallback destination Beta achieved." The ship said. "Jump-drive offline."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:57, Tue 25 Jan 2022.

"No!"  Gilina called out, anger and fear played across her face.  "You can't!  I didn't mean--"  But she stopped, her mouth hanging iopen in confusion and surprise.  Body tensed, she shook herself then, "Girl?" she looked at Rayfe.  "There was no girl.  Only my brother and... Oh. Papa..."

She squinted and wiped a hand across her eyes, then looked over at Baylee. "You said you were crew.  On this ship?"  She appeared to still be confused.   "We've been up and down this whole thing thrice upon five--except for the biometric vaults.  The Orishi doesn't have a jump-drive.  Only theta-class carriers and bigger can generate the charge needed to generate a horizon.  Whatever that was... "

She trailed off, here eyes going sullen. "That sure as feck wasn't my brother."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:25, Tue 25 Jan 2022.

"Does the database have any information about me?" Sheng-Xin asked.

Spohr leaned forward and gave Sheng-Xin a long look under furrowed brows.  He looked around the room and something about his countenance shifted, became ever so slightly more guarded.

"Not much." Spohr said.  "Nor on Maxir.  I don't.  Oh, hold on."   He shook his head.  "A couple of notations only.  Origin unknown.  Family unknown.  Genetic markers tests removed from the database.  Political prisoner.  Maybe... maybe there's more under another name? I--"

There was an audible sequence of buzzes, then "Oh, come on!." Spohr said.

Access Denied. flashed across the display.

Of course, if any of our resident PCs with strong Systems skills want to give it a shot, you should be able to further decode some of the restricted elements of the database.  Sadly, parsing the database without the UI/filters and table definitions will take some time... But that means we get to let this sit and we can come back to this database again and again...

This message was last updated by the player at 04:57, Tue 25 Jan 2022.

The older man focused his empathic senses upon Lincoln to discern his emotions as they gazed upon each other, and as he looked around the room, and as he searched the database...

As the message flashed upon the display, the older man sighed thoughtfully.

"Well...  Not as informative as I had hoped, but interesting.  Thank you for trying..."

After a moment, he turned to Rayfe and Gilina, their words and reactions and emotions breaking through his preoccupation with his own vision.  He met their troubled reactions with a gentle, calm empathy...

"I saw something, but different from what you described.  What did you see?"

Baylee ignored the talk of strange women and apparitions to focus on the here and now. "Mm, that was right out of some late night horror vids. Dui a? If it happens again, I'll worry about it. For now it's just anomalous. Hen kakaiba danshi we got more important shit on our plates. Like, what is fallback Beta? Tian a, this thing has more ghosts than a haunted brothel!"

She looked toward Galinia to see if she had a clue. "Any information on this asteroid at all? ID? Demographs? Laws?" After a second, she directed the saw query to the ship's computer as well.

Then, while waiting for the answer, she turned her gaze to Sheng Xin, "Can you stop fondling your cock long enough to be useful to someone? The data's not going aynwhere, but this ship is."

Rayfe managed to tune back into reality. "I have no memory of what I saw. A little girl, crying over a corpse... No mention of that on my rap sheet. Why did I even see it?" He then held his hand out to Spohr. "Give me the pad, I might be able to do something with it. Otherwise, I'll go back to the main terminal. Pretty sure I can unlock it all, with enough time. The system here is antiquated compared to what I am used to, so it might be a bit slow to crack it all, but I can do it."

Baylee's focus on the immediate problem did not go unnoticed. "Is there anything I can do to help? If you need someone to poke around inside your ship's systems to find out what the hell just happened, I'd be delighted to do it. Just say the word."


If the ship had no drive, how did they get here? Did that have anything to do with the hallucinations? Had they escaped a prison, only to end up in even hotter water? What the hell was going on here?

The older man gently turned his calm empathic gaze upon Baylee, speaking with quiet and respectful reassurance.

"孙子曰: '不知彼不知己，每战必贻', 舰长."^*

"We know very little of ourselves, our ship, or our destination."

"What do we know?"

"We know that some of us are escaped prisoners that others may seek to recapture."

"We know that we have a ship with unknown capabilities in need of repair."

"We know that we have wounded in need of medical attention."

"We know that we need credits and supplies, and therefore a way to earn them."

"We know that as we try to assess our destination, some of us have significant memory gaps... and some do not."

"Therefore, in light of what little we do know, which destination looks most promising?"

"I suggest that we pool what little knowledge we have to make such an assessment, from all those aboard."

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
^*"Sun Zi said: ' If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle', Captain."

---

"Fallback Beta."  The Orishi said.  "In the event of immediate threat to captain and crew due to environmental circumstance or coded command, the Orishi will initiate tranverse jump to Deux system safe-zone.  Damage from debris threatened He3 volatility, meeting threshold requirements."

It took a few more moments before more of the display started to populate with information as the Orishi automatically initiated handshake with stellar satellites.

The Orishi was near the Xingxing Guojia Asteroid Belt, and about twice the same distance from the orbit of Proteger.  A couple of regions of space near the Orishi were flagged and tagged as debris zones and radiation zones, evidence of a collision or , more likely, a battle in space.

A small section of the asteroid belt--approximately 4 degrees--was highlighted.  Several ships--maybe twenty or thirty of various sizes, all but one the size of a corvette or smaller.  The biggest ship was center of the line.  It appeared to be a blockade of some sort.

None of the ships of the blockade reacted to the presence of the Orishi.  The Orishi remains undetected or is not of a concern to the blockading ships.  Likely, communication with satellites did not alert the blockading ships, nor any other ships in the vicinity.

There appeared to be a handful of settlements on Asteroids within the blockade zone, and a couple outside the zone.  Most are on carbonaceous asteroids, though a few mined metallic asteroids.  The ones inside the zone appeared to be fuel refineries that mined the asteroids they were on to sell the refined resources to ships of the Paixois ships.  One was a specialized agricultural colony, another a R&D outpost for a company identifying itself as Exogenesis.  Details of populations are unavailable.



CSX:
Thank-you for the sum-up.   If you wish to assess Lincoln's emotional state--or any other character, you can make an actual mechanical roll.  An Empathy() roll versus the appropriate defense of the target.  Usually, the appropriate defense would be Will, but not always.

He3 - Helium-3, usually harvested from gas-giants, when fused with Dueterium, it is a key component for clean reaction drives and a key catalyst used in the massive jump-gates to create jump-points between the stars.

Gilina looked confused. "But where is the jump-drive?"  she sasked.  "Computer.  Orishi.  Ashe?  Please provide a schematic of the Orishi and indicate location of the jump-drive."

A basic schematic of the ship came up.  No area of the ship was marked.

"Unable to comply. Please restate your command."

Baylee frowned at the man quoting ancient upon ancient wisdom. A part of her understood the sentiment; another part rebelled. She frowned down at and hard through the console for a stormy second. Finally, she glanced at the man then to Rayfe, "Fine. It does no good to sort this mess only for another to be waiting beyond the horizon. Besides, I think you two have proven your worth in a dust up to be fuck-all." She smirked at the monk, "See, I already begin to understand."

She then forwned down at the puzzle presented. Puzzles. Then returned her attentions to the pair of information specialists, "Techie, yeah you" She now points at Rayfe, "If you can investigate without fucking up any ship systems, fine. Also, as a side project, if you could locate any subroutines related to the ghostly jumpy drive and relay them to Viper, do it. Computer, This one has limited access to files on jump drive and personnel. Read only, no editing. Monk, see what you can do about the injurd and, if possible, get an idea if any of these mouths know how to cook and what would be needed to fill bellies. Sealed, reheated rations are fine and all, but fuck-all for taste. I'd fuck your mother for real guotie or siomai. I'd slit her abdomen to gullet for some sinigang."

She then looekd at the readout and pushed aside the schematic for a second. "you, too, Viper. We can sort the jump drive's Schrodinger status once we sort this." She waved her hands at the information coming in. She zoomed in on the Ag colony to see if it was in the blockade or not. "Computer, gimme a brief status report on Exogenesis." She listened silently as her mind ran in circles. She glanced to the one she was already considering her first mate, Viper, "Can we get a safe FOF on the blockade?" She glanced through the list of their pirate signals and took a deep breath, "Any guess which of these we should be using?"

Rayfe rose, and replied to Baylee. "Karnell. My name is Karnell. I respond to that better than 'techie'... That's the sort of treatment that made me want to rob the Cartel in the first place." Still, she had asked for something he was capable of delivering. This was good. He reasoned that, if he was able to make himself indispensible, he was less likely to be dumped on an asteroid. Muscle was easy to find. But a skilled pilot, and a gifted systems analyst... they were rare. At least two of the group were going to be able to justify their presence.

He had nowhere else to go. Yet. He just had to wait for his memory to return. Then he would know exactly who he had to kill. And after that... new face, new name. Six months working in the bank of some planetary system, and he could steal so much that they would never be able to touch him. He made mistakes in the past. But never again.

He went back up to the office with the net terminal, and set to work. Pulling up sensor logs was so easy a monkey could do it. It looked like the blackout was due to power being sent to the drive system from other systems. While he could understand that the drive needed that, he found it extremely strange that a ship would be designed like that. But he did not know what was normal for this sort of vessel. He would have to ask the others who were more experience in spaceflight.

Once he had that data, he went elsewhere. He did as requested, and started burrowing about, looking for whatever subroutines were connected to the jump. Why here?

In the meantime, he had another task. He had to patch the ship into the local network. Sometimes that was easy. Other times, it meant writing a whole new interface protocol so they could understand each other. That was pretty much his bread and butter. Clients of the Cartel had come from far and wide, and creating interfaces between their systems and the Cartel so they could move money and data safely was fundamental to his job. Not a huge challenge.

And once he was in? Two vitally important topics to check.

First: had news of their escape reached here yet? Had it been reported at all, or was the penal colony still dark? He reasoned that Ptolomen Station would be the relay point for the colony to broadcast out to the rest of the galaxy. With the station gone, the colony was cut off, so would have to send someone physically to report the incident. That took time.

And secondly... he looked for anything about himself. If he was a criminal, he had to have been reported. What he had done was pretty audacious. Unprecedented, even. Somewhere out there, there would be media. And official files. Information to prop up his hole-riddled memory.

A lot to do. None of it trivial.

OOC:

01:07, Today: Rayfe Karnell rolled -1 using 4 Fudge dice.  Systems Operation on the Orisih for various things (Systems: +5 shifts).

01:06, Today: Rayfe Karnell rolled 2 using 4 Fudge dice.

01:06, Today: Rayfe Karnell rolled -1 using 4 Fudge dice.  Systems Operation on the Orisih for various things (Systems: +5 shifts).

I did three rolls for stuff to speed up the process. Happy to do more, as needed! End results are:

Roll 1: 4 shifts
Roll 2: 7 shifts
Roll 3: 4 Shifts

The older man nodded.

"And, according to our ship's AI, I am Chang Sheng-Xin, and I was present on-board the Orishi for travel to fifteen destinations across a span of one-hundred and twenty galactic standard cycles.  So it would seem that I have been useful to you in the past."

"Well met once again, Captain.  It is a privilege to serve."

He turned to give a meaningful nod to Sergeant Shy.

"Sergeant Shy, shall we look in on the injured once again?"

He gently regarded the others.

"Do any of you have cooking skills?  I suspect that I might, but my memory isn't quite what it used to be..."

RPoL Dice Roller:

22:48, Today: Chang Sheng Xin rolled 1 using 4 Fudge dice.  Reading Lincoln's Emotions (Empathy +5).

This message was last edited by the player at 06:41, Sat 29 Jan 2022.

"Exogenesis Station founded by Mervyn-Dahl to research personality mapping away from population centers to allow the use of L4 Sapient-AIs.  Exogenesis researcher, Doctor Gil Raith was the first being of Deux recorded to have had his personality mapped and uploaded to exostorage.

Mervyn-Dahl divested itself of Exogenesis as part of a corporate restructuring and ownership transferred to Nanodynamics.  Nanodynamics came into conflict with Exogenesis staff when it was discovered that several Artificial Intelligence entities on Exogenesis had developed higher levels of sapience than permitted by Paxois and Scylla law and that Exogenesis staff had illegally copied their personalities to said sapient-AIs.

After a short but brutal armed conflict, Exogenesis declared itself a sovereign state and currently exists outside of Nanodynamics control.  This appears to be the reason for the blockade.   (Exogensis is definitely within the blockade zone).  Exogenesis is governed by Zhang Kai Shou, a L5-Sapient AI.  While Exogenesis claims that no other L5s exist, they have refused an audit to verify this claim.

The fact that it is governed by an artificial intelligence says nothing about what kind of shell the AI is housed in--or even if it's using a mobile shell.  Remote scans indicate that three of the five laboratory areas on Exogenesis Station do not currently have atmosphere.  Exogenesis station remains a leading research laboratory involved in the study of  intelligence augmentation, Mind-mapping and bio/mechanical interfaces.  The profit-stream from Mindmapped entertainment patents guarantees that it can remain a force in play for some time.

After a few second: "We have not been to this system for five point six galactic cycles.   Tactical recommendations available pending intention or destination."  the impersonal voice responded. "Updating system information.  Download will be complete in approximaetly two arns."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:58, Sun 30 Jan 2022.

Viper leaned over the controls to check how the Orishi tagged the blockade ships - and asteroids (including Exogenesis station), for that matter. They too can be the target of missiles...

Regarding the second question, Maissa emitted a sarcastic rebellious snigger : "I suggest we continue to use the one we're currently using, captain! Since we already sent & receive signals and IDs with many automated satellites, it would look suspicious to switch it, would it not...? Changing our profile ID is something usually done before a planned jump, if you remember!".

Having expressed part of her daily dose of provocation (Provoke : 4!) The venomous Viper sighed and added "So far, nobody fired at us or ordered us to 'surrender or be destroyed', so I assume the ship showed a pretty neutral ID."

She however tried to determine how the Orishi introduced itself to the space traffic controls. Maybe by looking at the exchanges logs?

"Phah! Like they're paying any attention to little old us? Nah, the ship is probably setup to use a pretty inoffensive one as default, but... you know... let's find out what colors we are flying, shall we?" Baylee was just about to return her eyes to the readout when she smirked, "Oh, yingwei you want to fight me or fuck me, suoyi don't raise your voice at me. My poor little heart gets easily confused." She shot a look to the pilot which implied both options were always on the table in Baylee's book.

She regarded the blockade and then sighed as she looked around at her crew and environment. As much as she liked making trouble, this was hardly the crew for it: barely any fighters worth note, a bunch of hostile and semi-hostile folks, and a lack of information. "Let's find a neutral location then where we can lose dead weight and gain supplies. Danshi, how we mean to do that legally... wo bu jidao. Not that I oppose the other manner, pero we're about as equipped for that as a whore on her first day."

She scanned the un-blockaded area for a ag outpost or trade setup or something giving off trade vibes.

Maissa's eyes widened and locked on the large pupils of the captain. She was engulfed in a burst of heat, heart pounding and tingling excitement as she fantasied on the options, both involving close body contact with the exotic Pai Huai.

"Now this is what you call LIFE!", she thought

She tried to convey through a wink and a twitch of an eyebrow the answer "why not both?"

Wondering if yingwei and suoyi were derogative, and how many meanings they carried, the pilot went on to retort "wo bu jiao? Cap'tain, I'd certainly like to get to... know your tongue... better... and taste it-s... vocabulary... but could you please issue your orders in standard glangtic, you know, for the crew? - US."

Getting back to her screen : "okay everybody, calm down, keep fresh and focused on the work at hand <small pant>. I'll read through the news, the local gossip, the classified ads. I think we should aim for the XGAB asteroids, like, with their emphasis on freedom and lawlessness. They shouldn't screen our IDs too much."

After what looks on the outside as a deeply thought-out balance of risks and advantages - but is in reality a wild guess - Viper advises : "More factors point to the asteroid of K-Zino - a den for never-do-wells, a place where people can multiply their wealth or lose everything. It's a 6 hours travel, and everyone watching our vector for it will be convinced that we're not trying to break the blockade"

Baylee stood up to her full height then and her eyes flared wide as several wicked thoughts ran through her mind. For a few seconds, the only possible outcome was her releasing some tensions right then and there. She visibly shook, though, as she slowly brought herself under control. Still, her eyes bored heated holes through Viper's space and her tongue licked her lips like a hungering lion.

Instead, as she stepped in close, she only playfully grabbed a handful of Viper's jumpsuit and whispered, "Later. Now, get us to that asteroid." Then, growling with a frustration she felt deep in her guts, she turned on her heels and went for a walk to cool down while muttering darkly in something distinctly NOT standard galactic speech.