Before you set out to Noctol, there's a brief flurry of activity among your guests.

Ulie comes out of her room and asks if some messages can be sent high priority and secured.  She'll of course pay the fees.  She doesn't mind you looking at them Ledo, but you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before she'll open them for you.  "There's some business matters in there.  So I have to make sure nothing gets leaked."

Maribel vacates the garden.  She spends an afternoon finishing what she started, and then holes up in her room.  Communal meal times are quieter, but also a little less...warm?  Probably most of you find her easy to talk to.

Most of you.

A couple of messages catch up to you.

Nero, Mom is reminding you to show up for Grandma's birthday party in two months.  She's also hinting around about...maybe it's time you find a girl to settle down with.

BB, you get it from Nero'sDad.  I need you to make sure Nero is at that party.  There's going to be family business going on.  It is vital he shows up.  I'll pay a bonus.

Fritz manages to get the android reprogrammed to 'forget' about the data breach.

Along those lines, you hear back from Yumi Ledo.  The message is to the point.

This is gold.  Shopping it around.  Stay on the move.  Will get back to you.

---

The tip out to Noctol is quiet.  Either happily so or eerily so.  Depending on your point of view.

When was the last time things went so well?

A few hours before you come out of jump, Ulie sends you a message Ledo

Would like to discuss the security set up for our shoot.  When do you have time?

Part of the contract is providing security for the shoot.

Nero opens up the email and then shuts it again. Yeah yeah, pops. Grandma's birthday. I know already...

He thought a bit about things and then thought about Calliope. They are hounding him to bring home a girl, right? Why not get an actual actress to play the part. He wanders out of his room to try and find her in the lounge once again.

So the idea is that Nero is going to try and convince Calliope to pretend to be his girlfriend for this event. She gets to hobnob with the rich and famous, he gets his parents off his back about settling down. In his mind it's a win win although I'm not 100% sure how famous Calliope is in the grand scheme of things. I figured these people were like B-list or C-listers. Not Angelina Jolie or Gal Gadot but more along the lines of Jenna Fischer (Pam from the Office) or Sophie Turner (Sansa from GoT). So your A-listers are headlining blockbusters, your B-listers are main cast for hot TV shows or supporting cast for blockbusters, your C-listers are supporting cast for hot TV shows or main stars for "Made for TV shows" now being your Tara Reids or Lindsey Lohan types. Then you have your D-listers who probably don't even have named characters or reoccuring roles. Bikini Girl #2 or Murder Victim Prostitute type roles.

Where would Calliope and the others fall in that spectrum?

From wikipedia:

quote:

In popular usage outside the film industry, an A-list celebrity is any person with an admired or desirable social status.[3] Even socialites with popular press coverage and elite associations have been termed as A-list celebrities. Similarly, less popular persons and current teen idols are referred to as B-list celebrities – and the ones with lesser fame as C-list ones.[4] In the year 2000, Entertainment Weekly interpreted a C-list celebrity as "that guy (or sometimes that girl), the easy-to-remember but hard-to-name character actor".[5]

The D-list is for a person whose celebrity is so obscure that they are generally only known for appearances as celebrities on panel game shows and reality television.

This message was last edited by the player at 18:39, Wed 19 May 2021.

Ledo will sign whatever NDAs are needed so he can monitor communications. Security has definitely been ratcheted up a few notches since the pirate attack and he would sit down with the guests: Ullie, Calliope, Maribel and especially Nero to discuss how because of the increased pirate activity outside communications would have to be monitored to ensure their position wasn't being tracked.

Ledo had Tepha watching the bridge, although it appeared she was more interested in looking at wedding fashions rather than monitoring the sensors and went down to Ullie's room to find out just what exactly "Security detail" meant.

BB had been banking quite a bit recently and was more than happy to try and earn a bonus. More importantly if she could hold his prodigal son in check perhaps she could parley that into a more permanent position in the Madigan household. Head of Security had a nice ring to it...

Understood. Expect to see him there

- Ms. Nova

Rig's guts were in knots. Guilt was starting to effect his work as he nearly electrocuted himself three times when his mind would wander. What was he doing? Why was he ghosting the first person he had established a real connection with in years.

Depression started to settle in. His thoughts centered around how Maribel would be better off without him, how he was too broken to deserve happiness and the best thing was for her to just get over him and move on with her life because he was the relationship equivalent of a black hole. Trying to figure out how to fix his patch job on the low berths was something to occupy his time and luckily the complications of trying to wake the Miner and his wife from deep freeze with their spotty temp controllers was going to be quite the challenge.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 3):

The NDAs seem fairly cut and dry.  If knowledge of the contents of the messages leaks out, and there is a reasonable reason to believe you were the cause, you would have to forefeit a hefty damages fee, stipulated in the contract.  Basically, you'll lose the majority of your shares in Tia Ledo.  It would be the only way to cover the costs.

You also assume the obligation if any of your crew leaks any of the information.

Before I give you the contents of the messages, just to make sure, Ledo is still signing the NDAs, right?

And since you mention Ledo will sit down with each of the guests...

---

Maribel responds to your summons to the lounge Ledo.  She doesn't seem as chipper as she has been.  But she hasn't been sending messages.  Fritz has confirmed the most activity she's had on the Net was placing an order for some honeysuckle seeds to be picked up at her destination.

She nods her head.  "Sure.  I'll be mindful.  I wasn't really planning on sending any messages anyway.  But if I do, I'll ask you about it.  Will that be alright?"

</hr>

You head down to Ulie's and Calliope's room.  As you are reaching for the door chime, the door opens and Calliope walks out.  The two of you startle as you almost collide.

"Sorry.  I wasn't watching where I was going.  Did you need to see me Captain?"

"He's probably here to see me."  Ulie calls from inside the room.

Calliope glances back over her shoulder, frowning, but her expression is neutral as she turns back to you. "Then I'll get out of your way.  Thanks Captain."

Ulie is seated at the desk, working from a tablet.

"I'm guessing you're here about the security detail?"

If you want to know what the contents of the messages are before you respond to Ulie, that's fine.  Just didn't want to assume you signed the NDA without knowing the terms.

Rig, Fritz seems to think you can run a patch from the low berts to the auto doc in sick bay.  That way, you could use the auto-doc to monitor life signs during the thaw.  It means you could only thaw one passenger at a time.  And it would take about four hours a passenger.  You'd have to have Tepha monitoring the auto-doc while you baby sat the low berth tube.  But it seems the safest way.

The other alternative is dock and transfer the passengers to the port's hospital and let them do an emergency thaw.  But Tia would have to cover the cost of that.  And those are not cheap.  At all.

But before you can patch the low berth, you have to wake everyone up.

You hustle up to medical, just to make sure the patch is actually feasible...it is...and are heading out.  The door slides open and standing there, looking up at you with big, deep green eyes blinking up at you, is Maribel.

She seems to draw a breath and then looks at the wall.  <seagree>"Oh.  Sorry.  I was going...I had a headache...and-"</Seagreen>

She steps back and aside, giving you a large amount of room to pass.  "Sorry. I'm in the way."

Dance Monkey!  Dance!