In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 11):

Calliope laughs.  "Oh I'll definitely take a pass on the role of Nero Madigan's girlfriend.  Seems like a part that's just not worth the pay."

She shakes her head.  "My apologies for dumping on you.  I appreciate the insight.  It was just...the coincidence of it all.  It was unsettling.  Thank you Captain."

Your drink is getting warm Ledo.  As you head out, you see Ulie.  She's leaning against the wall like she was listening to everything the two of you had just said to each other.  She's frowning hard.

She meets your eye and holds a finger to her lips.  Shhhh she seems to be saying.  She turns and heads back towards her quarters.

We are in Jump.  I need to know what the duty roster is for the next couple of days. In other words, while the ship is in Jump, is anyone doing anything in particular?  And at any particular time?

Thanks

Rig remains busy working with Fritz to continue to get his computer virus "thing" wrapped up. This leaves Ledo, Tepha, and Silver taking shifts in the cockpit. Including Rig, two crew are awake at all times while the other two sleep. One remains in the cockpit keeping an eye on anyone else walking around or doing cockpit maintenance while the other person gets scrub duty replacing carbon filters or other basic level maintenance.

On top of that Ledo enlists BB to help with security. After the Nero stalker incident she becomes a bit obsessed with the idea that there might be a stowaway so while Nero is asleep she patrols the halls and checks the cargo hold for signs of disturbances and even tries to enlist "reclusive tech expert" Fritz and Rig to help her scan for any kind of tracking devices just in case. Some of it is just to feel productive while the ship is in jump but the photos at the hotel have her wondering if maybe one of the film crew is involved somehow.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 13):

Thanks.

I am going to let you chose who is up and about during the following.

The estimated Jump timer stands at 3 days, 14 hours.  This has felt like a long jump for some reason.  Maybe it's just the fact that the time with the passengers is coming to an end.  At least the film crew.  Maybe it's some nerves about the Duchess.  Or maybe it's just the first time some of you have had to scratch your ass without having to worry about something major.

Well.  Besides the whole Fritz thing.

The timer clicks down to 3 days, 14 hours, and 12 minutes.

A red signal comes up on the cockpit comm.

There's a problem with the low berth.

A quick camera check shows the problem.

One of the film crew's androids is standing over one of the low berth cabinets.  It's punched through the glasteel case and inside.  It's just standing there, punching.  And punching.  Coolant and gore are clinging to the android's arm.  Blood is squirting out of the berth.

The vital signs for that berth aren't so vital any more.

Ledo jumped out of his chair and sprinted for the doorway. As he crossed the room he pulled his sword out from its sheath. After their recent break in by the duchess he had begun staying armed at all times.

"Who's awake? One of the androids just killed one of the film crew."

There were a few mumbled cries of confusion as everyone was waking up but he had drawn his lot with Silver and she was back near the engine anyway.

"On it."

Silver brought her rifle to bear as she charged into the cargo bay. She was well aware that there were more than one of the androids so she kept her eye out for signs of the second one.


"Dammit Rig, I thought you had buried them."

"Mmmmmm I did. They keep getting out somehow."

"Or someone is letting them out. Fritz, go through our security footage and find anyone who's been near those androids since we jumped."

In reply to Silver (msg # 16):

The android is standing where it was when you saw it on screen Ledo.  Standing over the same berth, punching in and out, like it's broken into repeating the same action.

Can do.

Let's see...

Looks like no one has been near it since Jump.  The android just got outta it's box, walked over there, and...well.  Started punching.

The other one seems to still be in it's crate

The android seems oblivious to everything else.

For once Silver showed a bit of restraint. Instead of just pumping it full of lead she looked for a crowbar or some other tool to sweep the legs from the android and knock it over. If it was in a loop it would stay down and just keep punching the air until someone more tech savvy could fix it.

If it did try and get back up then Silver would make sure it couldn't get up ever again.

In reply to Silver (msg # 18):

Turns out a crowbar isn't even necessary.  It ignores you as you push on it's shoulder Silver.  It topples backwards, landing on it's back.  It's arm keeps thrashing into the air as it dents Tia's deck a bit from battering it with it's elbow.

The passenger in the berth...Relen.  It's Relen...Was Relen...is long gone.  The android crushed from below his nose to just above where his ribcage used to end.  It's just one big gooey pile of cheap starship fare.

Silver makes a call to the nerds (i.e. Fritz and Rig).

"Alright the android is...taken care of? Looks like it had very basic programming as I knocked it over and now it is just punching the air. Any safe way to turn it off or should I just start beating it with a crowbar until it stops moving?"

In reply to Silver (msg # 20):

Hmmm.  If you could run a patch into it's data port from one of the ship terminals, I can hop in there and do it.

Rig, you know there should be a manual override switch somewhere on it.  You can go look at it to find it.  Or you could try to see if this model's specs are on the net...

To try to have Rig turn it off, he'd either have to go down there or make a Computer/Edu check.

Rig was hustling his way down there already after quick throwing on some clothes. Sadly he was getting good at dressing rapidly in the dark and with no time to spare.

"Alright Silver see if you can see a silver button at the base of the neck, where it meets the chest and shoulders. If you can press it that should be the manual override. The problem is you might have to hold it in for a little bit so be careful."

Rig had worked with droids and robots of various kinds. Despite his affinity for computers and engineering he preferred real people to artificial ones.


15:09, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 13 using 2d6+4.  computer/edu.

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 22):

The button is there.  ONce it's pressed, the android stops moving.

Ledo and the rest of the crew came down to assess the damage. Tepha nearly threw up seeing the damage and Rig had a hard time looking at the android while it was in close proximity to the carnage. Eventually Ledo motioned to Silver and they moved it around the corner.

"Fritz are you listening? Alright we need to start moving fast. Rig take this thing down to the core and find out who gave it the order to kill Relen. It was given specific instructions and you know they had to come from somewhere.

Silver, contact BB and the two of you are on security duty. I want the other android secured in a way that it cannot get out and I want the passengers on lockdown. All of them."

Ledo turned toward Rig catching his eye with a very stern look. He had known what Rig had been getting up to for awhile and had turned a blind eye to it because watching some movie folk didn't seem to warrant tight security but that had just changed.

"Remember what happened last time. Bored wife and pampered daughter turn out to be cyber assassins. We are now assuming any one of these people might pull out some kind of pistol or explosive or hidden weaponry and try to ram us all into the sun. No more fraternizing."

He had broke Rig's gaze to cast a harsh glance at Silver who sighed and nodded. She hated all this "hu rah" military bullshit but she was smart enough to realize Ledo had a point. Someone had just been murdered in their sleep and if that meant no more boozing and smoking on the sly then so be it. Better for a few weeks of work than a lifetime of dead in your sleep.

"Tepha, you're on security cameras and handling the passengers that are still awake.  The sudden militarization of the ship might rub some of them the wrong way and you'll be their point of contact. Do what you can and say what you can but this is now a ship on lockdown until we can figure out what the hell just happened."

He cast a hard glance around the crew catching everyone in their eyes. Gone was the friendly loveable rogue and here was the iron fisted Imperial Navy Captain rallying his troops for war.

Once everyone was in motion Ledo caught BB privately for a sidebar.

"You're the only one here with proper military training and bodyguarding experience. If you can do it discretely set up some of those spy cameras of yours around the ship hallways to see if someone is moving around but keep the cameras off the ship's network. If someone is moving about unnoticed they've compromised our computer system which should be almost impossible but when the Duchess had her men come in they were able to loop the cameras. We found them in the end but they almost got through. Maybe Duchess brought on a higher caliber of infiltrator."

He paused and conferred with BB about the secret footage of Nero's cousin's murder.

"There is every chance that this has something to do with that footage so keep a close eye on Nero. I just don't know why it was Relen..."

BB gave a sigh.

"I think I do. Nero was talking about how Relen was secretly filming the expose on the murder under the cover of this Dark Sun project. Apparently Oscar had offered that up in exchange for some credits. I think you're right, someone is trying to stop the movie from being shown."

"Who else knows about it?"

BB frowned.

"Well Oscar, sir. And the other actors. I can ask Nero again but it seemed to me that he implied everyone but Ullie knew."

Ledo nodded.

"So it is less of a question of 'why' and more a question of 'why now'. Get those cameras set up, we need to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Silver of course ended up with the "clean up" duty. It wasn't that she was squemish around chunks of body, far from it. It's that this would seriously cut into her smoking and boozing time so she privately cut a deal with Ledo that if she is picking up chunks of body into bags then she gets all the booze and all the weed while doing it and he relented.

Cleaning up a dead body wasn't too bad if you were blitzed out of your mind for the really bad parts of it. Maybe she went a little too far and she was pretty sure some of the bags of Relen also included a few pints of alcohol she had vomited up but hey, who was going to know. It's not like they needed an autopsy or anything.

The first thing Rig did was re-arrange the cargo containers to once again fully barricade the other android in. Without the help of a cargo crane the doors to its container were buried under tons of metal and trade goods and if it did have some kind of secret assassin programing embeded into it, it would have to punch its way through multiple steel shipping crates to get to it. Hopefully someone would notice the noise long before then.

The second task was carefully separating the corrupted android's head from its body and enacting the diagonstic failsafes so the rest of it was completely lifeless. No horror movie "the killer isn't actually dead" antics here.

Then it was time to do a deep dive into the head of the droid to figure out just how the hell it had gone from storage to punching apart the director. Just thinking about the carnage he had seen made Rig squemish. It reminded him of the few industrial accidents he had seen. Someone getting their arm caught between the wall and a runaway cargo crate was all too common and quite a few dock hands ended up with artificial limbs. Just because there is lower gravity doesn't mean something like momentum no longer exists.

Focused he got to work with Fritz operating as his helper. Worried Fritz might get contaminated mostly Rig had fritz keeping the ship running smoothly so Rig could concentrate solely on his investigation. Even Sister Mary got put aside and deep down Rig was suddenly worried that perhaps this "too good to be true" nun was just that, too good to be true.

Ulie sends a message to you Ledo and Tepha

Received order to stay in cabin.  Understood.  Everything OK?  Something we need to worry about?

Maribell sends you a message Rig.  Staying in lockdown.  Is everything OK? You're not hurt are you?

Rig, the analysis of the defunct android is surprisingly straight forward.

It looks like a delayed command was sent to the android while you were all still on the last planet.  The command was triggered when the android's internal clock hit a certain time.  It was then instructed to get out of it's crate, walk over to Relen's tube, and...well. You know the rest.

THe command was sent via a private comm line.  Tracing the comm line back, it turns out to be Ulie's private comm.

Rig had checked over Ullie's phone before and passed that along to Ledo. Ledo sent a message back to Ullie while they were doing their investigation.

"Ullie, while you were filming did you lend your comm out to anyone else? You said you were having problems with it, did someone borrow your phone? I'm seeing a security breach that is tracing back to it..."

Better to keep everything calm until they were further into their investigation.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 29):

Ulie comes on line.  "My comm?  I had set it down on one of the props when we were striking one of the sets.  When I came back, it wasn't working.  I thought the cold musta zapped it.

"Whaddya mean 'security breach'?"

Ledo sighed. That must have been when someone had gained access to it.

"Alright when and where. We'll try and pull details to continue our investigation. At this time just stay put and we'll get this thing sorted out."


The idea was to try and focus on this comm issue. If they knew when and where perhaps there was video of it or they could interview the others to try and suss out the killer who implanted the commands into Ullie's comm.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 31):

I can check the log in the android's memory.  It shows the command being entered 4 16 at 1:12 EDST.

That would fit about the time Ulie borrowed your comm <puprle>Ledo</purple>.  Checking your own comm's log, you can see she asked to use yours about an hour after that, at 2:07 ESDT.

The film crew would have been on the last location shoot then.  So there wouldn't be any security cam footage from nearby buildings you could hack into.  And you weren't taking video surveillance At least I do not recall you stipping that when you outlined your security procedures

Interviews might be your best bet.

Ledo was expecting that. It was rare that an investigation like this could be wrapped up neatly. While he had never had to handle a murder investigation when he was captain of hundreds of individuals crimes like assaults and theft would pop up here and there. He was used to having a security team to do the overall investigation but was familiar enough with procedures to have a process in mind.

Just as he was about to speak though he recalled that Silver was once a police officer. From what he gathered an interesting side venture to avoid the gang she had once been part of. That had blown up in her face like most of her other career paths but if anyone on their ship was qualified to lead an investigation he figured it would be her.

"Silver, do you think you can handle the investigation? Maybe have Tepha join you while..."

"Wait...I have to clean up bits of brain matter and figure out who did it? What the fuck, man. Why do I keep getting the shit jobs?"

"Well...you used to be a cop, right?"

Silence from Silver. He was right although she was never a very good cop. She bit her lip and as a sour look passed on her face.

"Fuck. Alright but on one condition. If I'm running the investigation I'm doing it my way."

"As long as you find out who did it and don't get us sued or arrested do whatever it takes. We're not the police, we're just a group of Imperial citizens."

Silver started to nod as a smile crossed her face.

"Yeah...I can work with that. Alright someone else can take over my duties. I can't be a detective part time."

Ledo gave a sigh and nodded.

"Sure but you had better make progress. For all we know there are more commands buried somewhere that might lead to someone else getting killed."

Silver smirked at Ledo, patting his shoulder.

"Don't worry Captain Bossypants, I've got it covered. Silver is on the case."

With that Silver turned around and strolled down the corridor. Once she had passed through a set of doors Ledo looked at Tepha with pleading eyes.

"Keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn't end up pistol whipping our guests or something."

In response Tepha gave Ledo a quick peck on the cheek and silently strolled out after Silver.

Her head felt like a ten ton boulder had been squeezed into a five ton hole. There wasn't enough whisky on board to fix her hangover, namely because of how much she had put away getting it in the first place. Alcohol was a cruel mistress, luring you in with her tantalizing look and alluring taste before bashing your head in and leaving you bleeding out on the pavement with your wallet and ID missing.

Detective Silver took a hard drag on her cigarette before dropping it to the ground and crushing it under her foot. The crime scene had been cleaned up but the details had been seared into her brain. Nevermind she had been the one to clean it up, that was before she was on the case. Now it was a crime scene. She leaned forward and studied the glass of the cryo pod. It had taken several strikes to break but the android didn't feel any pain or any remorse, an unthinking murder machine that turned a human popsicle into crushed ice.

They had a victim and a murder weapon but the questions remaining were the big three: Who, Why, and most importantly Why Now.

Detective Silver walked the path of the android back to the shipping container it had punched its way out of. She tried to get into the mindset of an unthinking machine. Compelled to commit murder as if being ridden by Satan himself with...

<ahem>

Silver paused, looking up at Tepha and blinking.

"Ledo sent me to help. I've asked Calliope to meet us in the lounge so you can ask here about the afternoon film shoot where Ullie set down her comm."

Detective Silver glanced over at the femme fatale framed in the cargo bay doors. The captain's lady had curves in all the right places but time and work were starting to take their toll. How long would she be able to get by on her looks alone? Perhaps she was already plotting a way to bump the captain off and take his share of the...


"Silver? Did you hear me? Why are you just standing there, looking at me?"

This dame asked too many questions and...

"Do you want to reschedule the interview or..."

"Fuck. Fine. I'm going. We can talk to her or whatever."

As Silver stepped up the stairs she glared at Tepha.

"Just remember who's in charge here. Follow my lead or stay out of my way."

Tepha looked a little taken aback.

"I'm sorry I was just trying to be..."

The rest of the broad's words died as the door snapped shut behind the Detective. Silver had little time for a dame that didn't know her place. The captain must be worried about how things would go to put a babysitter in the investigation. Maybe too worried. Perhaps the captain had a thing or two to be gained by the death of....fuck...what was his name again?

Tepha gave Calliope a nervous smile as Silver stared daggers into the actress. The silence was quite uncomfortable and any time Calliope or Tepha had tried to talk Silver had shot a threatening glance at anyone trying to relieve the tension.


Finally after a minute of this awkward staredown Tepha decided to just ignore Silver and start the conversation.


"Calliope I...we asked you here because..."

Tepha tried to ignore the withering look thrown her way by Silver. It was so intense that Tepha stumbled.

"I...there has been an accident involving Relen and we just want to figure out if anyone would have any reason to cause him harm. We take things like this very seriously and if there are any conflicts we want to make sure they don't become a problem."

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 35):

Calliope Quans.  If looks could kill, she could be booked for murder right now.  Skin like a perfectly poured draft beer.  Eyes that lure you in and then lock you there.  She blinks those big, soft eyes. Once. Twice.  Her head comes up.  Her perfectly red lips slightly parting.

"What? Relen?  Accident? Is he alright?"

She seems surprised. But then she's an actress.  But then isn't every dame?

Hey. You started it.  Really liked Silver's post by the by

"Hut Relen? Why..."

She shuts those eyes and takes a deep breath.  "He's dead right?  The way you said it..."

She looks over at you Tepha.  "Relen was...well.  I guess you know by now.  We were shooting a second movie using the main pictures equipment. Relen was promoting it on the sly.  I and Ergan and Wisco were helping him."  She hesitates.  "Ulie didn't know we were doing it.  We kept it very hush hush.  But...I think she found out.  The studio was bugging her about cost overruns.  And I think she figured it out.  She and Relen had an argument right before we left the last shoot."