Asa tossed and turned all night, straddling the border between dreams and wakefulness, tumbling from one state into the other and back. Maybe it was the conversation with Aisha, or maybe the upcoming meeting with Muwakkil, but she was restless for reasons that she couldn't quite put a finger on. At one point she forfeited the fight with her intangible demons, finding the attempts to fall asleep more exhausting than actually not sleeping. Instead she just lay there, staring at the ceiling and going through all the things that had to be taken care of.

Contact Muwakkil, agree on a meeting time and place. Wake the passengers and pray to the Icons that all of them make it out alive. Land on Coriolis. Get the passengers off the ship. Only then retrieve the merchandise. Get through customs. Meet the man, make the transfer, get the birr. Get the ship serviced and refueled. Find a buyer for the cargo. Get a drink or two, maybe? Yes, all in all, it was going to be a long busy day.

Unable and unwilling to stay in bed any longer, Asa got up, took a shower, dressed up and left the cabin. It was still early, roughly an hour before the others would wake up, and the Nameless Star was serenely quiet. Asa got her first cup of morning kawah and savored the slightly bitter taste. She relished the silence, the moments of alone time before the crew woke up and the everyday hustle and bustle overtook the vessel. Finishing her beverage, she contemplated visiting the chapel for a prayer before heading for the bridge.

Thirty minutes later, as the reveille resounded through the ship, the captain was already at her post.

The access hatch hissed and then irised open, and Kira climbed up onto the bridge, her red hair still tousled from last nights sleep. “Mornin’, Captain”, she said cheerfully to Asa. “How’s things? Aisha doing okay?”

She padded over to the pilot seat and flung herself down in the soft chair. Taking a sip of water from the water bottle she had brought from the galley, she flipped on the displays and instruments in front of her. She took great care in aligning the screens just the way she liked them. More than once, Asa had heard the pilot’s loud and vocal annoyance when someone had messed with her console.

Kira checked the ship status and flight plan methodically. She knew Asa would alert her to any major issues, but she still liked to make sure the Star worked like a well-oiled machine.

“Everything looks clear here. When would you like our corpsicles woken?” she asked Asa with a grin.

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This message was last edited by the player at 19:41, Wed 15 June 2022.

Asa wasn't the only one open-eyed that night.

Aisha lay awake, reading the technical specifications of ancient ships and buildings. The detailed facts and figures soothed her; kept her mind off what she might see if she slept. She knew she'd have to sleep eventually, but she'd pulled all-nighters before and that thing's image was too fresh in her mind now.

Eventually, she heard the Captain get up and go to her station. Aisha took a quick shower, grabbed a Kawah - four sugars - and headed down to engineering. She'd given everything a quick check before bed last night, but now she turned on her music and settled in properly.

Adhan, for his part, slept soundly and woke up refreshed, a tendency which had been known to annoy his more grumpy crewmates on occasion.

"Morning, Captain, Kira," he said cheerfully as he reached the bridge. He spun into his chair and flicked the main sensor screen on as he nibbled on a ball of tameya. The route from the Portal station to Coriolis was always busy, and while the ship's computer and traffic control usually kept everything well out of collision range, having a human mind double-checking things was never a bad idea. The Star's sensors had been more than a little flaky in the past despite Adhan's best efforts to troubleshoot them, so he paid extra attention to nearby traffic while he ran a diagnostic script in the background.

"Anything special we need to worry about?"

“Nah, should be smooth sailing from here to Coriolis,” Kira replied, tying her small talisman to the joystick she used for the ship's delicate maneuvering jets. The small, faded family photo of her, her parents and her sister Dana was stuck to the corner of her main screen with a piece of gum.

She flicked on a few more switches and swung her long legs up on the console, yawning slightly. “Hey Adhan. Any more kawah left in the pot?”

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This message was last edited by the player at 20:08, Thu 16 June 2022.

"Good morning, Kira," she said with a smile. She was abnormally alert given her restless night, but when she got to, she was usually wired.

"Must you call them that?" she asked, feigning exasperation. "I mean, usually I think when we land is a good a time as any to wake them."

"Good morning, Adhan. And I agree with Kira. Nothing special that I can think of. Should be a pretty routine day. Routine, but busy."

Settling in comfortably in the pilot's seat, Kira checked the ship's status and flight plan. They were roughly 170 million clicks away from Kua, right on schedule, and at their current rate they would reach their destination in about 10 hours.

Adhan, in the meantime, fired up the main sensor screen. At these distances the chance of collision was negligible almost to the point of being non-existent. It was extremely rare for flight plans to overlap due to the orbital movement of the portals and the planets, as well as different ship speeds. As they got closer to Coriolis, however, things would get a lot more crowded, with vessels coming in and going out at a variety of vectors.

Nevertheless, it never hurt to be careful, so Adhan examined the display. The ships they had exited the portal with were already far behind them, and they had even managed to overtake a lumbering Celer-Delekta freighter that had arrived in the system a day earlier. He zoomed in on the current traffic around Coriolis, bearing in mind that at their distance the ping was about ten minutes. There were several Scarab class light freighters in the area, as well as a pair of Azuk gunships and a larger destroyer belonging to the Legion. A wing of Nestera Hawk X-9 fighters seemed to be patrolling the area, and several bulk freighters belonging to Hyperion Logistics and the Zenithian Hegemony were docked with the station's spindly outer perimeter called the Net.

A sudden ghost blip caught his attention, far on the Star's port side. If it were a ship, it seemed to be traveling off the beaten paths, and for some reason the sensors weren't able to lock in on its trajectory. Adhan tapped the anomalous object, but got only a pop-up window filled with garbled data. Before he could do anything about it, the blip disappeared from the display as if it had never been there.

Adhan frowned. The sensor array had always been the ship's Achilles heel, and he did not particularly enjoy figuring out whether a blip on his screen was a real object or the sensor's whimsical fantasy. They still had ten hours until docking, so it was as good a time as any to do some repairs together with Aisha.

"I just put the last pot on," Adhan said absently, his attention fixed on the sensor display. "We really need a restock."

After a few moments, he tapped at his screen, then frowned. "Did any of you see that? Some kind of ghost signal off the port side." He paused for any response, then continued. "It's probably just another glitch in this cursed array. If you don't need me up here for a bit, I'm going to head down to the sensor compartment and see if I can pin anything down."

“Port side, you say?”, replied Kira. She swung her legs down, put away her book, and checked her own boards. They were more rudimentary than Adhan’s full sensor array but might still give her an idea of any nearby ships.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:54, Fri 17 June 2022.

"Yeah, it was weird...trajectory was outside the usual routes, and I couldn't get a good lock on it or any usable data. Like I said, it's probably just a glitch; these sensors need a complete overhaul, or maybe an exorcism."

"Maybe we can find some new parts on Coriolis," said Kira. "In the mean time, let's stay alert and perform some extra sweeps from time to time. Could be a raider." She looked out the port cockpit window, trying to spot anything out of the normal.

Kira quickly checked her own displays to see if she could locate the culprit, but of course there was nothing there. She instinctively looked out the left viewport, although she knew that the only way to actually see another ship with her own eyes was to have it match the Star's velocity and conveniently be within visual distance.

Adhan excused himself and headed down the ladder to the second deck and the sensor compartment. It took him almost an hour of opening panels and checking connections before he found the alleged offender, a wiring harness that stank of burned plastic. Grabbing some tools from the storage compartment, he spent another hour cutting, stripping, soldering and praying. Given the sorry state of the array, he knew full well that his repairs were a temporary stopgap that would probably unravel with the next power spike. Nevertheless, he enjoyed getting his hands dirty from time to time. Closing everything up with a feeling of satisfaction, he headed back to the bridge.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:47, Sat 18 June 2022.

Kira knew of course that her naked eye would not spot anything out in the Black, but she still liked to check. She recalled the words of a an old and scarred combat veteran at the Academy; "Sensors are great but sometimes when things go sideways, nothing beats the ol' eyeball Mk. 1!"

She noted the blip in her pilot's log and leaned back in her chair, occasionally making minor course directions. The Star felt good in her hands, smooth and responsive. She smiled and put on her headphones, choosing some relaxing music.

A few hours later, she switched on the autopilot and wandered down to the galley to get some snacks. Their larders were nearly empty and she looked forward to restocking them with fresh food from Coriolis. A visit to the Market Plaza to sample some delicacies and then perhaps a few drinks at Fudaila’s cantina. Perfect!

She started back towards the bridge but then decided to head down to engineering instead. Stepping through the thick bulkhead door to the guts of the ship, she called out. "Aisha? How are you doing, habibi?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:37, Sat 18 June 2022.

Adhan paused as he left the sensor compartment, and after a moment's thought headed down the ladder instead. He threaded his way through the cargo hold and down the stairs, then made his way back to engineering, stepping loudly to make sure he didn't inadvertently surprise Aisha.

"Everything good down here in the depths, my lady?"

She couldn't do much other than monitor the comms, but she remained in the Bridge even as others left. It gave her a sense of security to be there, and it was a good a place as any to do her work, preparing for the upcoming day. She didn't always end up so stuck there, but especially after the strange reading others had gotten, it was best to have a presence there it seemed to her.

Approaching engineering, both Kira and Adhan were comforted to hear the loud thump, thump of a bassline. Aisha's habit of playing club music-loudly-while she worked was something the whole ship had gotten used to. In fact, they'd had to have Adhan rig up a software trigger to turn it off so that Aisha could hear when the rest of the crew was trying to reach her.

Adhan activated the simple triple-click of the comms as he approached. "Everything good down here in the depths, my lady?"

A muffled reply came back; "Mumtaz, excellent! Just who I needed! Adhan, jump on the software!"

Kira's voice floated in as Adhan was heading to the panel. "Aisha? How are you doing, habibi?"

"Kira? Oh, great, come hold this! Adhan and I are trying to rig a more secure remote reactor restart, a hardline from engineering to the bridge. I was looking through some dhal-class ship schematics - you know, classic Odacon ships from the second major design phase in the Portal Wars - and they seem to include some direct lines and it just got me thinking, you know, why not us?"

Coming into the room as Aisha spoke, both Adhan and Kira were confronted with a pair of green tights - showing much more leg than was proper - protruding from a wall panel halfway around the room. Complicated and delicate tools lay spread around the legs, and they twisted slightly as Aisha reached further into the ship's intestines.

“Great minds think alike, eh?” grinned Kira as she spotted Adhan. She navigated across the maze of wires and components scattered across the floor to stand next to Aisha, reaching down to hold whatever mysterious device the engineer handed her.

“You sound better, but I came down to check anyway. You were pretty shaken up back there. If you want to talk about it…?”  Kira let the sentence hang in the air and glanced at Adhan. “Adhan and I are always there for you. We’re not just a crew, we’re a family. Granted, very dysfunctional, but still.”

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Adhan sniffed at Kira in mock offense. "I'll have you know I am not only functional, but absolutely normal in every way." After a moment, he added, "And that includes listening when any of us needs to talk," in a more serious tone.

He made a few more entries on his portable computer and sent the data update to the local terminal. "I've rejiggered that problem subroutine," he called to Aisha. "How about now?"

Aisha's legs stiffened as Kira and Adhan make their offers to listen; no sound came from within the bulkhead. Adhan, clearly reading Aisha's hesitancy, brought the moment back into practicality. Aisha lay for a moment longer, then spoke softly.

"I know it sounds crazy, but... it's never been like that. Never."

She rolled out from under the bulkhead, eyes full, glaring hotly at first Aisha then Adhan.

"But I don't want to talk about it. Not the detail. I don't want to think about it."

Tears broke through her full eyes, but it wasn't the panicked sobbing of yesterday. Aisha didn't even seem to notice.

"We'll go to Coriolis, get rid of the passengers, re-stock, and head out again. And maybe it was just a dream, but maybe we can make sure it can't come true."

She stood up, and wiped her eyes.

"Wouldn't it be good, Kira, if the autopilot could keep a course even through a reactor shutdown? So that as long as we could get the reactor going at all, we could get the ship going? And Adhan, if the reactor does shut down then shouldn't we be able to access a temporary log, on an isolated power supply? Maybe even isolated from the main ship systems, in case some meme knocks around our systems? It might seem like overkill but if we were stuck... you know, somewhere... it might get us going again. Quickly."

She looked one to the other, searching, hoping they would take her seriously.

"Hey," Adhan replied softly. "It's okay. You don't have to say anything. Just know that we're here for you if you do need anything. We're a team here."

When Aisha proposes her ideas for the backup systems, he taps his chin thoughtfully. "I could have the logs periodically back up to my computer, so we can still review them if the reactor's out. It might not capture the last few moments right before an outage, but it would give us something to work with..."

Time passed as the crew performed various tasks around the ship, Coriolis drawing closer and closer with every minute. There was an informal agreement to have all stations manned at the two-hour mark, so Kira and Adhan headed back to the bridge at that point. Asa was there together with Farah, who had already taken her seat at the gunner's control panel.

Kua was barely visible through the viewports, a tiny emerald speck against the star-dotted canvas of space. The station itself was too small and too dark to be seen with the naked eye, but it was there, orbiting the jungle planet at roughly thirty clicks per second.