Searlait, Jak, Alexei and Vormav

Meeting room three has the word ‘Loris’ on the door for no reason that any one knows, and like the other meeting rooms is practical, rather than decorative. The room is square with mid blue carpet, light blue walls and a white ceiling. There is circular, polished wood table in the centre, large enough to seat six in comfortable chairs. Built into the centre of the table is sonic damping field generator, but even when this is off sound in here is muffled by the acoustic absorbing materials in the walls and ceiling and the plush, but not exotic carpet on the floor. Daylight coloured lumens near the corners of the ceiling throw a bright even light over proceedings, though less so from one of these that seems as if it might be failing. The light shows off the colours on the odd mix of pictures around the room, one portrait, two landscapes, two spacescapes one still life and two abstracts, one of which though pleasant, is almost certainly of exenos origin. There are recaff facilities on a small wheeled trolley in one corner and four carafes of water on the table.

Right now, the sound damper is on, giving the words spoken a flat, muffled tone but ensuring that no one beyond these walls will hear what is said by the four people around the table.
Lady Captain Searlait Saoirse sits opposite Jak Tesla, the engine seer prime, with the 1st officer Alexei Talionis on her right and the High Factotem, Vormav, on her left.

OOC Please remember that most of you have information that the Lady Captain needs to know regarding the state of the ship and it’s personnel. Please could you all give me Awareness rolls.
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This message was last edited by the GM at 23:50, Thu 08 Dec 2022.

Alexei is still thinking of how to rearrange the disrupted meetings in the wake of the sudden requisition of the room, but then he puts it out of mind as he surveys his colleagues and boss around him. Dima can handle that, and hopefully it won't take too long either.

His dataslate lies before him, ready to be presented when required.

OOC:
08:36, Today: Alexei Talionis rolled 32 -- a simple success using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 40.  Awareness .
This message was last edited by the player at 08:52, Fri 09 Dec 2022.

The hours are definitely dragging on Searlait as she makes her way into the conference chamber about 10 minutes early and is slightly surprised to see Alexei already in the room with a slate in front of him. Nodding in recognition to the new XO she takes a seat at the head of the table pours herself a mug of recaf from the caraff and tells the first officer "Help yourself, we will begin as soon as Officer Vormav arrives." then takes a long draught of the hot beverage.


Searlait Saoirse rolled 95 -- 8 degrees of failure using the Only War system with a target number of 17.  awareness. The tiredness is really drag on her.

Vormav arrived shortly later. His normally slightly bedraggled appearance had been cleaned up to make a good first impression on the new captain. His gold chased hell gun gleamed brilliantly in it's mount hanging along his spine. His overcoat in the ships livery was starched and pressed but his hair was still in its perfectly messy style. He grabbed a caff and then took his spot at the table, in keeping with the established narrative. "Mi'lady, a pleasure to finally meet you, my skills are at your disposal."

OOC: 22:26, Today: Vormav rolled 68 -- 3 degrees of failure using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 30.  Awareness. –

 The Explorator is slightly delayed - not hugely, and he sent a missive before him to the security staff (since the implementation of St Faraday's Pattern into the walls of any truly secure meeting-room make it impractical to communicate into one) - but turns up in short order after Vormav with a matter-of-fact and metallic-flat statement of "I was delayed while assessing a Geller node long out of service." which contains neither excuse nor apology.

 The floating servo-skull that accompanies him darts about - and in due course settles under the malfunctioning Lumen, which it scans and adds to the (long) list of maintenance issues to address (albeit at a ruinously low priority) as the Explorator, seemingly tired but not permitting it to impact his presentation of red-robed, brassy inhumanity settles at (but not into) his conference room chair, stating "There are matters of the Pious Lament to discuss. Many are of high priority, but not are catastrophically so."

 ---

00:00, Today: Jak Tesla rolled 96 -- 5 degrees of failure using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 37.  Awareness.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:24, Sat 10 Dec 2022.

The meeting settles down with voices muffled and virtually no sound intruding from outside, the recaff is good and the seats are comfortable.



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 Being a Tech-Priest, Tesla doesn't sit of course (that would be too much like permitting the flesh to become a concern) but he does pause after his short speech and then rotate on the spot to move towards where his Servo-Skull is scanning the flickering Lumen, studying it himself for a few moments without the least awareness that he should be doing anything more... Meeting-y. And then picking up his chair to carry it under the light.

 From under his robes, he produces a slender probe-like tool with a complex locking arrangement on the end which he uses to start dismounting said malfunctioning lumen, remarking "Please continue." in a decidedly 'nothing to see here' fashion.

 He... probably knows what he's doing, right?

"Ah yes, Master Enginseer, it seems Autumn's Fall might require a double-check on the maneuvering thrusters. Some of the staff were a bit discomforted on the flight in. You'll find the records here."

He slides his dataslate over to the techpriest. It is a perfectly ordinary piece of minutiae concerning modifications to a storm bolter he intends to acquire. However, Alexei's hand obscures most of it. and his finger just so happens to be pointing to a hastily-added line below in encoded ship-cant.

PICTURE BEHIND L-C. POTENTIAL BUG. SOURCE? ACT NORMAL.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:13, Sat 10 Dec 2022.

 "Engineseer Prime." Tesla corrects, dismounting the Lumen in question and examining it at both ends in a rather diagnostic fashion that doesn't cause him to miss the message, "And inspection of the vessel in question will be added to the task list. More urgent matters claim the attention of shipboard staff however, and resources for parasite vessels will be restricted for some time to come." while looking down at the message and offering one short nod that could easily be mistaken for communing with the small, dim spirit of the offending lumen.

"My thanks for you all taking time out of your schedules to be here" she says to the assembled senior officers "Especially you Magos, I am told there are many repairs that require attention on this vessel."

"Mister Vormav, It is a pleasure to meet you as well, would you be able to start the meeting with a state of the departments under your purview?" she asks him and sets the dampener on.

Vormav pulls a data slate from his coat and scrolls through it "Simply Vormav or High Factotum, if it pleases you mi'lady." he taps a few things "You may have heard my predecessor was recently killed and I ascended to my current role. The immediate clerical staff should be commended on being able to keep things running as smoothly as they did while so many of the senior officers were in transition. I was not in my position for the assignment and vetting of all the new senior staff, were the appointments ran by you prior to your official instatement? Double checking all the vetting was properly carried out will be a high priority otherwise."

He appears to find the section he needed "In terms of immediate supplies; one of the primary water tanks was contaminated, half the consignment of machine parts for the Enginseer were sucked into vacuum along with seventeen crew when we left Port Wander, the promethium tanks are at 30% supplies locally are fairly scant but given time some might be found at a high price, there are still some other supplies on the surface which will take approximately eight hours to load, but to my knowledge it’s nothing critical if we need to leave it behind for some reason."

He scrolls more "Other than that... There is some rumor of the rats in the walls being more quiet than usual. Not like the twist Catcher to complain about doing his own job well. But if we were flush with cash, crew, and supplies I would allocate the resources to check it out. But I don't expect it's anything dire."

With the Enginseer Prime is dismantling a slightly dim lumen and the 1st officer wittering on about a manoeuvre thrusters that she knows are not faulty, the Lady Captain carries on her conversation with the High Factotum as if such things were normal.
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 Tesla is, of course still paying attention as matters are discussed - he seems to be able to conduct basic repairs without really requiring any conscious effort on his part, and delicately reattaches a small lose cable to the soft binary ripple of a soothing data-psalm, reassuring the dim spirit of the lighting emplacement that it will be returned to full function by this act, much as a man might sooth a fractious pet.

 When reassembled and lightly dabbed with a speck of oil on its corner it flashes back into full function and the Explorator begins a slow circuit of the room, studying the artwork as he remarks "It will be necessary to establish a complete list of such components as were not delivered. Much has been neglected in the absence of diligent pastoral care."

Alexei assumes the Enginseer Prime has gotten the message and shifts his attention to Vormav and the Lady-Captain, trying his best to spot any more bugs or listening devices, though he doubts he'll be that lucky again.

 The sudden, fluid movement of one of the Explorators hands and a short 'ssst' of compressed gas is followed by a brief, angry-sounding burst of Binary as something either happens or fails to happen which he doesn't approve of, and a moment later he's dismounting the entire picture he's standing in front of, to reveal a diminutive insect-like object which he smoothly proceeds (after a little chasing) to capture with a blob of adhesive and a tumbler from the table, brought to him by the servo-skull.

 Carrying it to said table, he stands in the position his seat originally occupied and examines it while motioning for the others to continue, the slick-click sound of lenses switching out behind his mask just barely audible over the soft buzz of scanning noises from the servo-skull.

 ---

15:51, Today: Jak Tesla rolled 53 -- a simple failure using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 49.  Conducting a RAID.

Searlait takes in the information that Vormav tells her and she jots down little notes in her own slate, Contaminated water, have tanks scrubbed clean and refilled from planet or suitable comet/asteroid. 50% machine parts lost, get inventory of primary needed parts, search for parts on planet if affordable. Promethium stocks dangerously low, bring up to minimum 60% as available. Less rats then normal, predation? Investigate? before turning at the sound of the Enginseer Primus dismantling the picture and capturing what at first appeared to be an insect but is determined to be some sort of advanced surveillance device.

"Magos, is there some what you can cease its collection of information without destruction and search the room before we go further?" those who look upon her not that she isn't shocked by the spying device, more annoyed that it was there and a knowing face that there are probably more throughout the ship.

Vormav noted everything down "The contamination should be dealt with easily enough. I expect the Magos and his staff will furnish me with a new acquisition list as soon as the inventory is completed, naturally my staff has knowledge of such things." he rolls his eyes at that. Growing up in the hive low grade tech Heresy was practically a way of life. But the forms had to be followed. "As for the promethium. I may be reduced to buying from the stocks of another ship in orbit if I can find it at all. It might be more economical to ask the new Warpguide to find a close planet with available stocks."

He continued through the revelation of the listening device as if nothing had happened. But cuts off when the captain remarks on it directly. "I'll add a review of which of the crew accessed this room most recently. But I expect the sauce is too public for the information to be useful."

"If you need to contact the other traders in orbit you can try the Cowlan Blue or the Grey Star maybe the Niger Porcus, they are on their way back into the Imperium and may have spare stock." She tells Vormav as she waits for the Magos to answer and adds "Make a list but do not act on it yet."

"I imagine Master Vormav will have lists of people to investigate in due time," Alexei adds, visibly more open now that the bug he noticed has been squashed. "This is not a battlefield I am familiar with, but I may have resources you might find useful. Let me know if I can assist in any way. In the meantime I will assign more voidsmen to the protection of the Lady-Captain's household. Madam, is there anyone you wish to nominate as the head of the detachment?"

"Thank you Mister Talionis, as the situation develops and information is had I will be sure to distribute it as needed. For now I will keep Órlaith as my Chief of protection, all concerns about security should go through her, I've known her for decades and trust her emphatically." She responds to the first officer "What is the situation with your departments?"

Alexei switches his dataslate to display the actually-relevant reports for the departments under his command and personal observations that he’s compiled over the last few weeks before sliding it over to her. This includes a list of the Lament's vehicle assets, a chart of the vessel's main crew departments (the Mechanicus contingent ends in a simple box labelled OMNISSIANIC HIERARCHY, while he's fairly sure Vormav's branch is out of date, but exactly who is under him is a number known only to Vormav and the Emperor Himself) with key appointment holders highlighted. Vormav, himself and Tesla are close to the top, with only Searlait above them, as well as a brief summary of events that have taken place since the demise of Captain Velspar up to Searlait's arrival.

Since Searlait presumably has working eyes, he does not mention much about their contents, instead talking about the details which are not covered within. Despite being more open following the removal of the bug, he still sticks to a just-the-facts approach, a clear sign that he's trying to assess the boundaries he has with the new boss, especially since he's fairly new to the position himself after the previous First Officer Commander Locke retired.

"I will arrange for Master Asgard to liaise with Miss Órlaith regarding the retinue in question, and I will have their quarters moved closer to your apartments."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:40, Sun 11 Dec 2022.

Sliding through the various slots of the data-slate she says "My thanks, but have it set near Master Velspar's quarters as I plan to start renovations as needed in the upcoming weeks, if possible I would like a full sweep of the apartments for weapons and bugs if you could."

 While paying attention - it would seem, since he was able to once again state "Engineseer Prime." as a corrective - Jak primarily has been involved in disassembling the tiny device he's discovered, the tech-priest having produced what amounts to a jewellers loupe worth of tools from his person and spread the artificial roach across the table in front of him.

 In due course, he makes his report.

 "The device records across a wide spectrum but does not transmit or receive, rather it is activated by a specifically coded sequence of light outside of unaugmented human visual range.  As a consequence of its design, it is not readily detectable at range. Conversely, it is not able to report remotely and it may be possible to identify the one who placed it by monitoring it henceforth in order to determine how collected data is captured from it." - as he speaks, he's reassembling the device with the same tools that he used to take it apart - "On an unrelated issue, while the current state of the Pious Lament can best be assessed as 'technically voidworthy', there are numerous ship sections which have not been inspected in too long in addition to which records of maintenance and repair are egregiously incomplete. A complementary concern is the state of undeclared war in existence between too many of the vessels machine spirits, their harmonious unity having been disrupted by cause or causes unknown."

 That's right, he's here for a briefing, isn't he?

"It shall be done," Alexei nods. Not by him, of course, but Vormav and Tesla ought to have specialists in this field who can perform a proper sweep.

"Enginseer Prime, Master Vormav, since we are here, can you give me the names of individuals you would trust to survey the late Lord-Captain Velspar's quarters? I will place my assistant Dmitri in charge of documenting the findings, along with other trusted individuals."

OOC: You don't have to actually name anyone, just say "X mentions a few people" and so on.

 "At this time, I cannot do so." the Enginseer answers flatly, although some arcane impulse does at least prompt him to add a moment later, for the benefit of those thinking with only organic elements "Every communicant of the Adeptus Mechanicus aboard the Pious Lament predates my arrival. To the extent that they are communicant of the Omnissiah, they are to be trusted implicitly. To the extent that they may not be at least peripherally connected to the suspicious events which took place aboard ship prior to my arrival, they must be considered potentially compromised until evidence to the contrary can be acquired."

"A fair point. We might need to employ bastion theory then. Clear an LZ, establish a bastion, use that as a base of operations to further clear more ground, or verify more personnel, as it were. "

The Enginseer Prime reassembles the device on the table and during his examination has been able to ascertain the simple infra-red light sequence that turns it on and off and the signal that triggers a data dump.

The servo skull that identified the miniscule powers signature of the device still registers at a reduced level until a second device is found under the table and turned off with the same signal. Now the occupants can be certain that their conversation will be private as intended.

OOC Just pushing things along a bit, nothing more to find here.
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 Members of the Adeptus Mechanicus do not, on the whole exhibit delight but there seems to be an element of that in the way Jak triggers the recording device with carefully modulated microlumen-pulses from his tool kit, capturing the download and examining it to see whether or not the listening device has captured evidence of prior meetings in its onboard memory.

 While he's doing this, Yasha is flitting about the room emanating the same pulse-sequences and this leads to the capture of the second bug (which receives the same treatment as the first), leading Jak to declare "This pattern of listening device has been secured. Devices responding to different preconditions and of different model may yet be in operation, but there is no evidence at this time to suggest that this is the case."

Vormav nods then the Magos confirms the bugs have been handled. "I suppose now would be the time to mention that my predecessor had been embezzling quite heavily from the ship's funds. His co-conspiritor is very likely still at large. I expect his death was related.

He ponders and adds I should also amend that I was using 'rats' as a euphemism for the mutant tribe that makes residence in the between decks. As much as I enjoy flagrant speculation, their inactivity could be as benign as they have been drinking from the contaminated water tank or could be related to the unauthorized surveillance." he gestures to the bugs at that last.

"Enginseer Primus, if you could have servo-skulls or servitors assigned to the scanning and apprehension of any listening devices that would be appreciated, as well if you can attempt to confirm the loyalties of your staff to the Mechanicus and the Dynasty, Explorator Draccius may be useful as an outside source should you need to rely on someone." She says to the Magos before turning to Vormav.

"That is disconcerting but not altogether that surprising, try to recover what you can and uncover who else was involved, as before do not move to apprehend them just collate data and we can attempt capture the whole lot, I have a potential use for them that will require the assistance of the Mechanicus."

She waits a few more moments to see if anyone has anything else to say before getting on with the business that she knows may stir the pot. "Now, the mission that we have been assigned by the Senatorum Imperialis to investigate into the Sinkhole for a planet that has mysteriously appeared and at first glances appears to be an industrial planet called Gelron from Segmentum Tempestus. We have a known opponent in a rival trader, Gilvan Vexel. I would like all information we can gather about him, his dynasty, their assets and most importantly find all information on the Emperor’s Glory. Will we be able to stand up to it in a fight if we have to; will its complement of troops outnumber us or are they a raider and we have to worry about a knife in the back."

Alexei makes a note to pull up a dossier on "Gilvan Vexel" and his dynasty. Recovering an industrial world would be quite a prize and yield great profit for the Dynasty, but of course the path there will ahrdly be smooth sailing.

 "There is a non-zero possibility that the mutant clans formed in the dead spaces of the Pious Lament are engaged in ritualistic maintenance." the Engineseer reports, the deafening irony of that statement entirely escaping him, "As for the theft, is there any possibility of locating or recovering the missing Gelt?"

 The Traders request meanwhile, is answered with a speculative "There is little possibility of success in this venture. These listening devices operate at power levels below those of background machinery and are controllable only so long as they respond to the code signals that these units answered to. More security may be had by holding the meetings at irregular times and in irregular locations, at the concurrent cost of efficiency. It is for you to concern yourself with the relative priority of each. Conversely this reduces the possibility of the hypothetical mutant tribe being responsible for their deployment significantly. These are not crude or easily deployed devices."

Vormav rolls his eyes at the tech priest "I was avoiding speculation but if you insist. If I needed to carry out a covert operation on this ship and I didn't have exclusive access to high priority areas of the ship and a small army at my command it might be useful to have a staging area on the vessel, weather it is a barracks for an armed force or a vox relay to communicate with allies or a workshop for the storage and maintenance of my listening devices. Making use of the dead spaces in the vessel for such an activity could be reasonable. So predation, as the captain said, may well be the answer. Predators with two legs and a Lasgun rather than fangs and claws."

He takes a breath "In any case, there is no solid recovery plan for the embezzled funds. I expect a large portion of them left with my predecessor when he died on Port Wander. But I suppose he may have stuffed his mattress with bank notes or what have you. Investigation pending."

He listens intently to the new mission "I'll collate a report immediately. The name sounds familiar, perhaps a story from one of the crewmen or an old incident report. If there is anything documented my staff will find it."

"If there are mutant clans present a threat then we should mobilise the shipborne troops and purge them, should they be non-detrimental at the moment then we can tolerate their presence for now and as we bring the ship to a better state of repair we can gather them and either terminate the mutants or deposit them at a munitorum depot for labour or penal legion service." she says with obvious disgust at allowing mutants to survive but as needs must.

"If we can recover the gelt that is well, if not then it was already lost to us so it is not as much of a loss. If we can at least discover whom was involved and plug the leak. Keep it secret for now what we search for but once you have uncovered what you can in secret gather those involved and their families. I will get a space cleared for your use and ask Orlaith if she and Asgard can get a team to you, liaise with either of them to determine suitable crewman to recruit."

"We employ a man to keep them in line. The loss in food water and air to allow them to live has not been worth the cost to remove them at this point. Understandably they occupy areas of the ship that no one knows very well. So the military action that would be needed to remove them is surprisingly expensive. I have the theoretical figures put together if you want them." He taps at his dataslate for a second.

"In any case they themselves are probably not a threat. But if something is displacing them it might be. With your approval I can make the request to Mr.Talionis for additional ship's security to be assigned under my Twist Catcher's command."

 "At this point, rectification of the difficulties being suffered by the Pious Lament is unlikely to be achieved within the lifetime of those in this meeting, juvenat treatments notwithstanding. Fifteen hundred years of accumulated neglect and growing backlogs cannot be addressed without a significant increase in resources or an extended period spent in drydock." the Explorator states, when her state of repair is brought up "With this stated, the vessel is combat-capable and may be considered fit for such voyages and duties as do not take it beyond the possibility of assistance if it should prove necessary."

Alexei nods in response to Vormav's statement. "If Master Vormav finds it necessary and you wish it, I will arrange for manpower and resources to be devoted to the mutant-eliminating effort. It has not been done at the moment for reasons he has already outlined. Is it feasible to use them as disposable assets for covert work?"

"For now try and figure out what may be causing the mutants to migrate, if its worse mutants or worse" and she lets that hang for a second to sit in that she may be talking of those who worship the ruinous powers "Then we need to combat that threat. With the ship considered mission capable we will embark once we are fully prepared and should we be rewarded sufficiently from our mission we may be able to put into drydock for some more extensive repairs even if not full could help remove a portion of the backlog, but lets not count the grox before they spawn."


"Mr Talionis, do we have a list of military assets available to the Lament, armsmen and soldiers, their equipment, reserve weapons for armed crew in the case of boarding. Are there gaps that need to be filled and can we do any last minute recruiting from the planet, not just for armsmen, Mr Vormav this applies for any other departments as well as the Mechanicus departments as well. "

"Yes, actually. Master Asgard is in charge of them, but the logistics branch has a list of deck armories, vehicles and armsmen."

He brings up the list on his data slate and slides it over to Searlait.

"If we're going to engage in conflict with another Rogue Trader, we might want to consider expanding our forces. Even if there is no direct combat, the Lament must be self-sufficient when spreading the Emperor's Light at the edge of the Imperium and being able to defend ourselves better can only be a good thing. Personally I would recommend a sum be spent to ensure improvement in crew training procedures, as well as other crew improvements. New uniforms, for instance; it may sound trivial or even laughable to you, but I believe it is the same principle as wearing gang colors in the underhive. It promotes unity, camaraderie and cooperation. I believe the Enginseer Prime would understand it as lubricant and ensuring cogs mesh better."

OOC: This is a formal proposal to put in a Barracks, get BC Crew Improvements and to start acquiring Stormtroopers for everyone.

"I have the list here. Control of materiel is presumably left to me so that it remains my sole prerogative to liquidate assets for the good of ship commerce." he switches his dataslate to
link to a message in this game
"I believe the maneuvers of the mutant hunt should be under the command of Mr.Asgard to maintain the proper chain of command. I'll supply my Twistcatcher Mr.Church as a guide. It may serve as an interesting expedition if you wanted to oversee it personally, I expect I'll be occupied elsewhere." He looks to the Tech Priest "Enginseer Tesla I expect we will need at least some level of Mechanus support, unless you would rather us simply flag internal damage and submit a report?"

"I'll do my best to make as ready as possible but our coffers are only so deep."
OOC: Everything depends on how many rolls the SG lets me make before we have to start the mission.

"Good, have Mr. Asgard devise a recruiting request that I can submit to the governor at some point in the next few days and perhaps talk to her about the benefits of their people being amongst the host of a Rogue Trader and heading to the edge of the Imperium. If we could start out with a light infantry regiment from them and perhaps augment and advance them as we go along, perhaps make them some mechanised infantry if we stop by a forge world." She says to Alexei and continues "If she is amenable we could even see if she has schola progenium troops in her PDF or those trained as much. And should we be able to spare up some deck space and turn it into a barracks space and expand from there as needed. We could also begin a regime of crew training and specialisation to create a more trained and resilient crew."

"As I said before for now the mutants can remain but that might be pushing them out should be identified and curtailed, the twist catchers can lead expeditions, and armsmen should go with them, perhaps we can ask Mr. Asgard if a platoon can be relegated to their protection detail and have arms assigned that would suit their mission."

 "It would not be appropriate to undertake such an expedition without extensive support from ordained personnel... The risks to a group which entered into a hallowed or consecrated space without such assistance would be considerable." the Engineseer Prime reports, his augmetic brain ticking over for several moments and then adding "If an itinerary is provided, it may be possible to assign engineseers to support it, although resources at this point are stretched thin. Liase with my department once plans are formed."

"Your assistance would be appreciated. But both unlettered mutants and my Catcher and his team manage to navigate just fine if your men are too busy." he says to the tech priest.

Listening in on the captain's thoughts on their troops "Good news on that front. We have a significant number of armored personnel carriers on hand already. But I might say that given our typical expected surface activities. Specialized drop troops might have a higher return on investment.

"That is true, if we could acquire valkyies, vultures and sky talons as well as accatran pattern equipment that would be for the best in drops and close confines" she comments to Vormav.

 "Navigation is not my concern. Many of the compartments of the Pious Lament which have been sealed have gone unsanctified and unshriven for periods of time ranging from decades to centuries. Many of these compartments are due to be assessed. Combining our efforts to perform both tasks together is logical, but will require the aforementioned liasing so that appropriate resources can be scheduled." Tesla clarifies, seemingly prepared to support the operation as long as it fits in around his growing plans to try and begin to assess just how much trouble there is aboard ship to be rectified.

 Just like a cogboy, to put the machines first.

"In any case. I think we have slipped into idle dreaming of the future. For now my primary acquisition will still be Promethium if any is to be had. As for the embezzler, I think the 'beach head' strategy will be a good one. In parallel I can work through the logistics of who would be necessary to carry out the scheme and who could be still benefiting. I suppose I could also do an inventory of shipboard assets, selling off rarely used materiel is a sometimes profitable trick, for the unscrupulous."

"Well, I think that about sums up things for now, is there any concerns any of you have before the meeting is adjourned?" she asks the senior officers.

"Only that if there is any personal equipment that you desire do not hesitate to forward the request to my office. I am happy handle gear for the senior officers personally."

"I shall pass our destination on to the Navigators ma am, will we be breaking orbit as soon as the remaining supplies are loaded?"
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 "Such personal augmentation as I desire to manufacture would require the facilities of a fully-staffed Mechanicus Temple to implant, but it would do no harm to seek it in advance of need." Jak states aloud, framing himself as likely to be a customer for parts rather than finished technology, although there's nothing especially unexpected about that since fabricating exotic technologies is the sort of thing many tech-priests consider 'recreational' or the equivalent thereof.

"I will have a requisition list sent to you in the next few hours" she tells Vormav before suddenly remembering "One last piece of business I almost forgot. While on planet I had a meeting with an Inquisitor and we will be bringing aboard several of his operatives, 3 I believe, they are to be granted the utmost respect and allowed as unimpeded access as is necessary to their mission without undue harassment and damage to our operations."

Vormav stiffened at the mention of an Inquisitor "Well, that is quite the door knob addition. But I'm sure we can be accommodating. Were there any special requests from the Lord Inquisitor? Were you able to ascertain their Order?" He asks attempting indifference.

"It is, I've been deciding during the meeting if I should make it aware and have decided that you shall know but that is all. I will be meeting with a representative of them to determine how we proceed sometime today and if there is pertinent information I will make the appropriate persons aware." she tells him before taking the last dregs of the recaf in her mug "I'm currently unaware of their order but there is also a representative of the High Lords so we can guess they are not of the overly heretical bends."

 The logic chain that statement causes to unfold seems clear enough - the Inquisitorial acolytes have a mission which is likely to be on board the Pious Lament itself and that if the mission was one their Trader had been advised of, she would have said so. More likely they didn't share it with her (or shared only a part of it) and left her with reason to be gently irritable with them.

 Which would serve to explain the rather dangerous, unspoken 'there are Inquisitors of an heretical bent' corollary to her statement, because that's the sort of thing that can get someone investigated or denounced just by itself.

 Probably not a Rogue Trader, although it certainly won't keep them off a watchlist.

 In the end however, it's not really Teslas business since he's a new arrival and more or less guaranteed to be innocent of any transgression worthy of an Inquisitors time (even if they weren't generally leery about provoking the Adeptus Mechanicus without good cause - which is no protection at all if they think that they have one) so his only real question is "Is one of the acolytes a member in holy orders of the Adeptus Mechanicus?"

"I have not met any of of them yet, so I am unsure, if this question is in regards to Arius them he is not to my knowledge an acolyte of the Inquisition, merely an explorator looking for a ride into the great expanse."

 "It was not. If none of the acolytes are ordained however, then there will be locations that it will not be possible for them to safely enter. If one of them is ordained, then this will not apply." - and here, whether Tesla is saying that because those locations are simply too holy for normal people or so radioactive that, absent shielding on your organs five minutes and your tits will grow lips is impossible for a non tech-priest to know.

 And truth be told, neither does anyone else.

Alexei was being rather uncharacteristically quiet. She didn't have much to bring in so far and just opted to listen to what the Captain had to say. The fact that they apparently had Agents of the Inquisition aboard and a representative of the High Lords made her nervous, the former more so then the latter. Politics she could deal, much so did she loathe it. The shadowy Agents of the Inquisition less so. She brought her cup of recaf to her mouth only to find it empty, which elicited a slight sigh born of annoyance.

"Should they not be ordained within your order and faith I will have them liaise with a member of your order should they require access to anywhere that is restricted and to follow commands of said representatives." she tells the Magos before looking to Alexei "Any comments or concerns First Officer?"

Alexei shook her head a little "None regarding our would be guests, I just get uncomfortable with the Inquisition about.. Bad experiences with working the Holy Ordos. So do we have any idea as to what our Honored Representative of the High Lords wishes of us then?"

"Well one of the perks of being a Rogue Trader is many of the rules don't apply to us, and by extension our crew do as well. However I find keeping to many of the norms of the Imperium is best to keeping ones skin. Should you feel too uncomfortable have your subordinates deal directly with them" she tells the XO.

Alexei takes a step back from the meeting as she takes a vox message. There is a brief pause before she replies something, after which she returns to the meeting at hand.

"That won't be a problem Captain. And I've just been informed that the Emperor's Glory is firing up its main engines."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:20, Tue 27 Dec 2022.

 Explorator Tesla remains quietly beside his chair, having largely voiced his concerns and been reassured of them and having no other business to immediately address.