Silver paused, tilting her head slightly as she stared at the projection.

"Wait, how much footage do you have stored? Is there a way to select the playback?"

A clever lil' scheme was hatching in Silver's brain. If she could figure out how to tell everyone else she was helping repair an android could she kick off for a few hours and watch behind the scenes footage of the movie they were filming?

In reply to Nerotes Madigan (msg # 10):

I do not seem to be able to lay my hands on Nero's background.  Not sure what I have done with it.  Sorry about that.  Let me know if I get any of this wrong and I will edit accordingly.  Thanks

Calliope seems to hesitate a moment, but then finishes shaking your hand and smiles.  "No.  Sorry. I don't listen to much on the streams.  Too much celebrity gossip, you know?

"Combat...Sort of.  I actually grew up on the border with the Sword Worlds.  So lots of raids during my prom.  That kinda thing.

"When you say Madigan...are you related to House Madigan?  It's just not a common name on this side of the Claw."

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 11):

Uhmmm...hmm.  There is electrical current in it's systems, yes.

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 12):

Her eyes go wide when you lean in and plant your lips on her.  She doesn't kiss back...but she doesn't pull away either.  When you step back, she goes bright red.  A deeper shade than you.

She puts the back of her hand to her lips, but just keeps them there.  She doesn't brush at her lips, like she's trying to brush away the feeling of your lips.  The gesture just seems to be one of...surprise maybe?

Maribel straightens up, glancing at you and then looking around the garden.  She wipes her hands on the front of her shirt.

"Uhmmm...wow.  That was...huh.  Wow."

She purses her lips and stares at a spot that's about ninteen degrees to your left.

"So. I guess we should...maybe...talk about this?  I..."  She scratches the side of her cheek, still not looking at you.  You can tell she seems to be getting more flushed.

"Uhm.  But someone...someone might come in." She gestures vaguely at the door.  "So...uhm...maybe we can talk about it..."

Her voice drops to a bit of a whisper.  She really is looking anywhere but at you now.

"...maybe we can talk about it...back in my stateroom...maybe?"

In reply to Silver (msg # 13):

Stored images secured by passlock.

Passlock disabled.  Appears damage from my fall has reset internal security features to basic.  So I can show you all of it.

There is eighty four hours of footage in my memory.  Would you like to see all of it?

Nero wasn't sure if he should lean into the house name or away from it. After a second's thought he figured it couldn't help to let her know she was dealing with an upper cruster. Might help her open up a bit.

"Yeah, that's me. Well, not me. My family. You'll hear about my parents, and my older brother and sister of course. But not me. I wanted to try and build up a life of my own rather than coasting off the family name, you know?"

The irony was completely lost on Nero and he said that earnestly despite the fact that his entire adult life was spent coasting along on his family fortunes. Even with his bump in stream clicks the amount of money he had "earned" through advertising was less than the editing software expert he had bought to make the videos in the first place. However in his mind he was spending money to make money and was standing on his own two feet. It was a naive delusion that only the extremely wealthy had the privilege of knowing. They could afford to do risky and unprofitable things because if it failed they could always go home to their mansions and servants and extremely dense network of political connections to try something else.

Rig's eyes go wide. His mind goes completely blank. It doesn't even feel like anything is real anymore, this is all just some crazy dream. Somehow he musters the neural control to nod his head a little but remains completely silent.

Silver looked around. Nobody else but a bunch of popsicles barely kept frozen with their cobbled together controller.

"Sure! Got any clips of anyone naked? Start with those. Then move onto the violence. Then to the hot gossip and then we'll see what's left."

Silver was a simple woman. Complex discussions of privacy took a backseat to the ability to see some hot celeb ass.

In reply to Nerotes Madigan (msg # 18):

Calliope nods.  For a little longer than you would think she would.

"No.  No.  I hear you.  It's always a good idea to stand on your own.

"You said you're a streamer.  You do general content?  Entertainment?"  She seems to think a moment.  "Political commentary?"

It's very warm.  Maribel has her cheek pressed into your left arm, her gentle breath falling on your chest.  You can see the cabin's porthole from where the two of you are laying.  The stars in jump look like God decided to take the points of light and stretch them out into long lines.

Well.  Maybe not the best time to think about God.

"Ya know..."  Maribel turns her head so she's peeking up at you.  Her soft gray eyes are visible over your beard.  "I don't want you to get the idea I...I just do this all the time.  I don't. But..."

She lowers her head, burying her face into your side.  "I feel really safe right now."

In reply to Silver (msg # 20):

107 pauses a moment.

I have a rough outline of the script stored in my memory bank.

Playing scene 8 Takes 1 to 28.  Love Scene 1

It's not quite as sexy as you would think.  Calliope and Wisco are both nicely built.  But other than their naked asses and Calliope's tits, not much action.

It's weird to see them constantly stopping and restarting everytime that Gosh guy yells cut.  Gosh will come on camera, telling them to redo this or that part of the scene.

At one point, you can hear someone off camera say "Cheez it.  Ulie's heading back."

Then they all scramble up, Calliope and Wisco hurrying to get dressed.  The takes after that look like they're happening at a different time of day.

The scene where Count Mayerston kills Hallie Madigan hasn't been filmed yet.  Nor has the final duel.  No other scenes meet the criteria of violence.

I am not quite sure what hot gossip you are referring to.  The files marked He Killed Her would seem to fall within that parameters.  However, I cannot access it without Mr. Gosh's authorization.

Nero frowns a bit as he considered the question.

"I don't really want to put a label on it. It started out as more travel focused. You know, 'here is something cool to see in this part of the galaxy'. After the Wyltz incident though I guess you could say it has gone more political. I was dating this girl who was part of the Pansy Paws and they were framed as terrorists by their manager so I've been trying to raise funds and awareness to clear their names."

He pauses and then nods to himself. It was mostly true.

"So yeah, I guess you could say it has gotten pretty political recently."

Rig just squeezes her tight. He doesn't want to speak for fear of shattering the moment.

Silver's eyebrows raise up when she hears about secret files.

"Fritz? Oh Friiiitz! This guy's got some secret files in his noggin. Can you help me play them. It's for security purposes."

She grins. She wasn't even trying to actually lie to the AI but just give him an excuse to get cracking.

Tepha grins. That helped narrow things down but time to narrow things down even further.

"Was it installed in the ship prior to us buying it?"

This would help filter things like the sensor station from something more interesting like herself or Fritz.

In reply to Nerotes Madigan (msg # 24):

She nods.  "It's just so many streams seem to end up on politics.  I don't really like mixing up with politics. It's all so...transitory."

She gives you a wane smile.  "I'll check out your stream.  Have you been doing it long?  How's your family take it?"

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 25):

She says nothing.  The two of you drift off to a warm, dreamless sleep.

In reply to Silver (msg # 26):

Hi Silver!

Wow.  Secret files?!? I'm there!  Can you find a patch cord...oh.  You're holding one.  Okay.  If you can connect him to...yeah.  Just like that.  Thanks!

'kay.  Lemme see....oh man.  This encryption is like grade school.  Really county town frolics if you know...huh.  The file itself is a bit...hmmm.  Okay.  Yeah.  You wanna play rough do ya?  Oh yeah baby.  Daddy likes it when you play hard...to...get...

Okay!  Here we go!

A new scene pops up.  But it is much different than what you've seen before.  The camera angle makes it look like security cam footage of a hallway, with the camera set in the ceiling.

A door opens and a woman staggers out.  It's not Calliope.  She looks familiar.  And she's been stabbed.  Not movie-fake stabbed either.  You've seen enough people who have been stabbed, shot, set on fire, splashed with acid or radioactive waste, and once had a grenade stuffed down the front of their shorts...which reminds you, how is grandma doing these days?...to know when someone has really been stabbed.

The woman staggers into the opposite wall, blood splashing down her side and on to the floor.  She seems to be trying to get away.

A man, holding a long skinning knife, comes our of the door.  He looks familiar too. He's not Wisco.

Hey!  The news database identifies her as Hallie Madigan!  She's related to Nero I think!  She disappeared about five years ago.  It was on all the news feeds!

That guy...I think that's Count Reztoc Mayerston.

Are they movie stars too?

Silver scratches her head.

"Huh...not what I was expecting. Alright Fritz let's clean up after ourselves. Shoot a copy of this security footage to the captain, shoot a copy of that sex scene to my personal quarters and then let's erase all evidence that we were ever here. Also I think this guy is recording even as we speak to help me shut that camera down and get rid of that recording too."

She figured it was the captain's job to figure out what to do with that recording. It was her job to get this android back into its crate so once Fritz helped her get it fixed she would work on getting it boxed back up again.

Nero smiles and nods.

"You don't have to unless you want to. I...it probably isn't worth watching until the more recent ones anyway. I'll shoot you a link and you can see how you like the battles we've just been in but if you really want to help out would you be up for an interview? Any topic you want to talk about. None of that bullshit "which actor do you want to share a kiss with?" nonsense. Do you have a hobby? Do you like to cook? You could do a cooking episode and really catch people off guard."

He was rattling stuff off from the top of his head hoping he says something that will pique her interest.

Ledo was just entering the bridge when he saw a message appear for him. He smiled at Tepha and sat down.

"Huh...a video file from Silver. No context of course. Let's see what...oh. Oh no..."

Ledo and Tepha sat shocked as they saw the recording of the murder. Fritz' helpful identifications made it sink in even further when they realized it was Nero's sister being killed.

Ledo hit the comms.

"Silver...about that recording..."

"Found it on one of the androids buried deep. Doesn't matter how or why. Fritz and I are cleaning up after ourselves though."

Ledo paused and then just started ranting outloud. Technically it was at Tepha but he didn't expect her to have any answers.

"How the hell did this end up on our ship? I swear we're cursed sometime. First we had Silver's crazy ex-pirate stalking us, now Sang Real is making a move and now we've got political cold cases dropped in our lap."

He paused, letting the frustration drain out of him while Tepha silently shut the recording down. After a few moments of silence she spoke up.

"So...do we tell him?"

"Yes, we should. But first let's figure out what we're stepping into. Let's pull up everything we know about...who was it...Hallie Madigan and Count Reztoc Mayerston. Let's see what he's been up to since the murder..."

In reply to Nerotes Madigan (msg # 32):

"Let me think about the vid.  I can't talk about the movie I'm filming.  Contract has a non disclosure clause.  But cooking...I do make a mean mac an' soyachez.  Hmm.  Can I get back to you?"

She gestures at the airlock door and hallway, smiling.  "It's a small world we're living in.  So I'm sure to see you soon."

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 33):

Should mention:  Ledo would know Mayerston's name.  He is part of Sang Real.

Sorry for the late update.  Thanks

A quick look up on downloaded records gives you a decent start.

Hallie Madigan was the daughter of one of the poorer branches of the Madigan family.  They only owned two moons.

There's nothing about a murder.  But she did disappear several years ago.  Apparently she joined a hunting excursion hosted by Lady Abingdon Clastel.  During the excursion, Hallie apparently had an altercation with another guest, Livie von Holksten.  Witnesses say they saw Hallie get into a chartered hov-car after stating she was going to head to the nearest low port and book passage home.

She never made it there.

The hov-car was found crashed into a canyon on the planet the excursion was visiting. But there was no sign of Hallie.  The Madigans conducted a search, but no trace of Hallie was ever found.

Nero does his best to look nonchalant about it.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you want. It's all good."

He felt heat rushing to his cheeks so he quickly about faces and wanders back down the hallway in no particular direction just to exit her presence. He realizes that he accidentally headed towards the bridge corridor and his exit was now blocked by a door he didn't have authorization to cross. Cursing he realized he had to either hide here until she left the lounge or awkwardly sneak on by back to his room.

Given that he hadn't seen any crew pass this way in awhile he figured he was safest to just wait her out and he crouched down in a corner and pulled out his phone to check his messages while listening for her to leave the lounge so he could exit properly.

Ledo called for an all-hands on deck meeting in the bridge.