Elite roleplay: Off station

OFF STATION

Your ship, deep space, anything that is not happening inside the Citi Gateway or Ingaba...

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25 Mar 2022, 6:49pm
Maul approached the latrine and stood in the door way. He looked at Silas first and then noticed his slate and chunks of vomit floating near eye level now. With a sour expression he carefully reached for the slate and stepped aside to let Silas out.

"Thanks....kind of." Maul said as he punched the button to close the door to the latrine and tapped another to vent out the remaining gross bits floating inside.

Maul looking down at the slate, tried to rub the dried vomit off to no avail. Giving up, he just unlocked it to see what all the message notifications were about.

"Uhh...."

He continued swiping.

"...We...uh...whoa..." His eyes growing wider.

He briefly looked up at the slate, noticing Silas' look of confusion.

"So I guess while I was absolutely blasted out of my mind, I reached out to the remnants of my old crew and uh...well, just look."

Maul handed the sticky smelly slate to Silas. On the screen were multiple documents detailing some sort of method of creating Crystalline Gold similar to that of the Sothis Crystalline Gold but much further from the bubble. A swipe of the slate revealed text communication between Orwell and a man that he kept referring to as professor. Another swipe revealed a recorded audio call with Orwell and this mysterious professor discussing the ship modifications that would be required to follow through with the same plans outlined in the previous document. He continued swiping, pictures of Orwell with his current followers, articles written about the ever-growing cult, interviews with Orwell explaining the good nature of his followers, etc. Until finally landing on a picture of a young Orwell Vandemen heading a news article as the lone survivor of a mass suicide. The title reading, 'Young man who escapes a cult mass suicide, loses girlfriend in the process.'

Maul looked at Silas with a worried look.

"This guy is a fucking lunatic. He's been pulling these cult scams for most of his life and getting away with it. How much you want to bet that he's gonna try to replicate this. Mass suicide, lone survivor, there's loads of credits to be made in a scheme like this."

"...Judging by the info we have, his followers are willing to die to protect this cause...but they're just idiots being swindled out of their creds and potentially their lives."

Maul squeezed his eyes tight and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"How the fuck do we handle this?"
26 Mar 2022, 10:48am
Dorn pointed at the blip on the screen as if Napoleon wouldn’t see it otherwise.

“I think it’s a K-Krait, but we can’t tell unless we make th-th-the captain point the scanner array at it. We only have the wake left, they must be idling”

Napoleon chewed his lip for a moment, he could do with more details before he brought this to the High Seeker, but it sounded like he wasn't going to get them.

“Is the captain aware that ship has entered the system? I take it we are still filtering everything that gets to the cockpit?”

“Yes, but if we stay on schedule with the flight tests, we are going to be easy to find as soon as the ship enters supercruise”

“I get it Dorn, where is the captain now?”

Dorn saw the serious look on Napoleons face. When the Senior Guardian of the Seekers looked like that, someone was going to get a strip torn off, and perhaps have to spend time with him in an enlightenment conference. Dorn shuddered recalling the memory of his conferences.

Dorn flicked through the internal cameras until he found her. “There she is sir, she’s in the Witnessing Hall talking with Seeker Cobie about the first flight test”

“Good, that man can’t stop taking tech. Watch that ship, if it moves alert me at once. I must take this to the High Seeker. That cannot be a coincidence; we are literally nowhere and a ship happens to jump to this star. No”
26 Mar 2022, 12:34pm
“Thank you for attending me as I requested Miss Mercy” said Orwell while he regarded the notes one of his girls had made from Napoleons’ report. “The eyyye has shown me what it sees, and the eye sees many things. Currently, a snake in the field has beeeen reviled-ah”

The woman was standing in front of Orwells’ lounger, pretending to be paying attention. Instead, she reminded him more of a school girl paying lip service to a principle that was lecturing a student.

“Someone has arrived in this very systemmm, and the eye knows they mean us harrrrm-ah. I want, no, we needed you ensuuure they do not, detect uss-ah. I am entirely confident that this is well within your abilities Miss Mercy. Now, I Trust you will see to it at once”

It was the last line that did it. Orwell noticed a tip of the womans’ head that was clearly caused by restrained anger. Although Mercy was below Orwell, he couldn’t shake that feeling she was looking down on him.

He felt like a pet looking up at it master while she contemplated neutering a poor specimen that was no good as breeding stock. If he had owned a tail, Orwell feared it may have been tucked between his legs right now.
26 Mar 2022, 1:39pm
"Lady Mercy, or at the very least Captain Mercy, High Seeker" Corrected Lamb sighting her uniform to keep her hands from Orwells' neck.

Being told how to do the job she was paid for was bad enough, but telling her to look out for an invisible enemy some magic faerie had found was simply ludicrous. Lambast took a step towards Orwells' raised lounger to tell him how she worked on jobs like this.

"I will execute our contract with the considerable expertise at my disposal. You can rest assured I will bring your people to.. . the place of observation safely, no matter how many snakes I find in the grass"

Lamb studied her reflection in the round eyes of Orwells' mask and decided she looked perfectly neutral, but what she said and the long stare into his eyes may have appeared confrontation. A smile would more than likely defuse any tension the man maybe harbouring behind his robes, and he was the paying customer, after all. She smiled politely and gave Orwell a bob somewhere between a curtsy and a bow.


"Now, I had best attend my station and see what I can do to avoid this ne'er-do-well the eye has warned us of. Good day to you High Seeker"
28 Mar 2022, 1:05pm
Napoleon peered round the end of the corridor and watched the captain leave before he went in to see the High Seeker.

“What do you think the ship is High Seeker; something to do with her?”

“No Napoleon, I do not. That woman does NOT care for her fellow man. Nooo Napoleon, I feel it faaaar more likely the cartel have double crossed us. I fear loading the monoliths without their knowledge was an impossible task”

Exploring many possibilities, Orewll dismissed many theories and focused on the two most likely reasons for a confrontation with the mystery ship.

“If not them, then perhaps someone that has incepted-ah a communication between my goOD SELF.. . and our intrepid Faaaar Seeker orbiting the beacon site”

Both possibilities seemed the most probable given the evidence Orwell had at his disposal, but what to do about it?

“Have the axillary pilots on standbyyy in case they arrre cartel agents Napoleonn-an. I feel our intrepid captain may acquiesce to their demaaands in order to protect her business interests back in Robigoww; and we can’t have that, can we my dear Napoleon?”

The cruel intentioned security chief wrung his hands, hoping that was the case. The woman had an attitude about her that needed adjustment. He listened to the rest of the blessed High Seeker's commandments.

“If however it is raiders that have found us one way or another, we shall trust our captain to evade their assault, if indeed they attack at all. You may go now my boy”

Napoleon bowed and made the sign of the eye as he backed out, still bent.

“Oh and Napoleon, do send my girls back in on your way by if you would be so kind”
29 Mar 2022, 2:12pm
Maul Montresor
"How the fuck do we handle this?"


"Well... what do we know?" Silas said, scratching his beard.

"We know they're in this system. We suspect they're jamming her comms, so we can't hail her unless you can get your zero-cool on and work some hacker magic. Would she recognize your ship on the scanners if we just dropped in nearby? Or would she attack?"

Silas' eyes got a little wider and he turned his eyes from the distant space on the other side of the hull to Maul.

"Would she have to attack to keep up appearances?"
29 Mar 2022, 5:40pm
Maul held the slate in both hands, thumping a rhythm out with his fingers on the back of it while he tried to think.

"Speaking of 'zero-cool', if we had stayed in the Scout we could have dropped in on Lamb's signal from a distance and coasted in all quiet like and off their radars with silent running. They wouldn't even know we were there."

He laughed.

"Being in that close of proximity of her ship while in the Nest would have made it a 'ez-gg sitch'. Could have booted them out of the ships systems and granted control back to Lamb. Then it's a matter of making a simple comm call. This ship though...not so much."

He looked at Silas about the time he'd realized that boasting about a hypothetical situation was not very helpful right now.

"...But that doesn't matter now." He paused. "Ya think she'd recognize the ship if we got close enough? If they're jamming comms then they'd certainly have to be in control of the ship identification systems, right?. I mean, she's seen this ship a few times before, and it does have 'The Ghoul' plastered on the side of it in big letters."

"...Even then, if she does recognize the ship, what do we do from there? Those fanatical bastards will probably try to subdue her and take full control of her ship and continue to take us out."

Maul shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his temples. This hangover wasn't much help either.

"I really don't know man. Do we have time for a pros and cons list?"
29 Mar 2022, 8:12pm
“It’s that bloody Colonia bridge project. No raiders would use secluded deep space stations as a leaping off point for accosting passing liners or exploders, obviously” complained Lamb sarcastically as she sat down to fly “If there is anyone out there at all… The eye has shown me..” she mocked in a parody of Orwells’ voice “…my left tit!”

Whatever her opinion was on the matter, the masked moron had paid for Lambs’ service and she would do her best to accommodate her customers. If there was anyone out there, this was a game of cat and mouse. As an ancient wise, and handsome man had once said, there is only one way to win this game, don’t be the mouse.

Lamb checked the Twenty Twos’ payload in case it had suddenly materialized some weapons. The ship was still unarmed.

“Ramming speed it is then”

If that was the case, she’d have to scan the target fist and check it was light enough to crush without defeating the Twenty Twos’ formidable shields. Any damage to the armour could be a serious problem when it came to taking the Conda through the vicious atmosphere of the planet she was contracted to reach.

“Holly, we..”

No Holly installed. Now Lamb felt silly for talking out loud before. Holly was a great listener and always agreed with Lamb unless she was being extra foolish. Turning the Conda to face the systems entry star, Lamb plotted her previous jump. It was time to bait-out anyone that maybe waiting for her to continue the journey. Before that, she needed to lie to her passengers.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is captain Mercy. We will be preforming a routine stress test on the FSD to ensure it is still operating at peak efficiency. Do not be alarmed to hear us hold the charge for a prolonged period, while the diagnostics program takes readings. Thank you ladies and gentlemen”

Once in supercruise Lamb watched the scope for a blip to appear. Killing her speed and dropping out of supercruise, she aligned the Twenty Two with the jump marker and waited with the FSD charged to jump. Her signature should be shining like a diamond, and anything about D-Bex size that came to investigate was going to be smeared on her shields like a moth on a headlight. Anything else was going to shit their pressure suit as a Conda entered witchspace right on top of them.


Last edit: 30 Mar 2022, 2:45pm
31 Mar 2022, 2:39pm
Maul Montresor
"I really don't know man. Do we have time for a pros and cons list?"


"Pros and cons of the one option that we have?" Silas shrugged.

"I mean really, if we can't hail comms, we've kinda just got to try to visually signal her."

He thought for a second, pacing, while Maul continued to tap on his slate.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up. He had an idea.

"Alright... how about this. Come with me."

Silas beckoned Maul to follow him as he quickly made his way back to the bridge, and sat down in the captain's seat.

"OK here's what we do. I'm going to shut down a couple systems, and I'm going to put out a distress signal. We don't have to worry about looking like a threat if we're out of commission, and we don't have to worry about hacking her comms if she's the one hailing us." he said, already tapping around in the ship's menus.
31 Mar 2022, 7:40pm
Maul rested one hand on the back of the captains seat and watched Silas navigate the menus.

"Good fucking thinking, dude. I'd have never baked up a plan like that."

He looked up and out of the canopy at the stars.

"...Which probably explains why I get shot at so damn much." He mumbled to himself.

Maul looked back at Silas.

"She'll almost certainly recognize the ship and then when she tries to connect comms with us it'll put these doofuses in a dilemma. They'll have to either block her from making any outgoing connections and risk making her grow suspicious or they'll allow the connection to go through and..."

"...wait, what do we do if they allow the connection to go through? They'll probably be listening in and if we start divulging all this info we have on their leader...hell, if they even suspect that Lamb knows us they'll probably do something drastic."

"If only we could cue Lamb in somehow and just play it off like we're actually in a dire sitch here and need rescuing. We gotta get on that ship."

Maul's eyebrows furrowed as they usually do when he get an idea.

Without saying a word he made his way over to one of the consoles behind the captains seat and began typing. After a moment the default prerecorded audio distress signal began playing over the ships internal sound systems. Maul began editing the recording into chopped up bits to sound as if there was interference in the signal.

"Lamb was in the Imperial Navy, she's bound to recognize Morse code, right?" Maul chirped over his shoulder to Silas as he continued editing the audio.

"I'm pretty rusty though. I kinda learned it out of boredom a few years back and never thought about it again." He glanced over at the captains seat. "I'm trying to have it say 'U R IN DANGER' and then followed by 'U DONT NO US'...but I could use a second opinion here, you wouldn't happen to know it would you?"

"If we get it right, we'll just have it play if they allow us to connect comms. I mean, what are the chances that a bunch of cultists know Morse code, right?" Maul said with very poorly faked confidence and enthusiasm.


Last edit: 31 Mar 2022, 8:05pm
31 Mar 2022, 9:44pm
Her thump hovered over the boost button as lamb watched the contacts panel for an incoming ship. Nothing. Just as she was about to cancel the jump, a signal source appeared on the nav-panel; a weak distress beacon.

Lamb didn’t care about people in distress, unless it was an interesting distress to which she could play impartial observer, but there were rules. Ever since the days of wooden keels floating on Earths seas pushed by the wind, any civilised captain always obeyed a few unwritten laws. One of them was Never Ignore a Call For Help. Sometimes an unscrupulous raider would use it as bait, but it didn’t change the law of the sea, or sea of stars.

“Damn and blast. Times my change, but standards must be maintained”

Cancelling the jump, Lamb selected new destinations until she had a jump point-behind the distress beacon. Entering super cruse, she mulled over the strangeness of the situation.

She had picked this system carefully for the test and modifications to the Twenty Two because it was well off the beaten track between the Bubble and Colonia. The chances of an explorer just happening to be here and in need of assistance were incredibly slim.

Also, Orwell had randomly called, asking for a chat to talk about a ‘snake’ that needed to be avoided. How did he know? Was there really something to this Unseen Eye? Poppy-cock; strangeness was afoot in the expanse between occupied space. Someone was obfuscating the truth of the situation, but who was it?

Lamb had focused so much on what was wrong, she had forgotten the basics of approaching a signal; she hadn’t even checked what ship she was approaching. The Twenty Two dropped in at the last moment; it was that or over shoot, ruining the point of having an escape jump lined up.

Silhouetted against the distant star was the narrow profile of a Krait MkII. With the ship targeted, Lamb drifted to the side to see if there was any obvious damage once the ship was in the light. With the scan completed, the pilots' name came up Funkmaster Jazzy-Zee, but it was the ships' name that caught Lambs' attention, 'The Ghoul'.

One of Lambs best friends owned a Krait called The Ghoul, and he was often in distress.
31 Mar 2022, 10:16pm
Dorn checked the sub-systems of The Ghoul; the FSD was off-line, and the fuel scoop too. An info request would take an age to be returned out here, but Dorn liked to know everything he could, so he started to track down the registration location on the Krait before he raised Napoleon on the comms.

"It's not moving, perhaps to conserve fuel, but it is equipped and armed for multi-operation, sir. Shall I run the voice clone program or let the Capitan communicate with them?" asked the hacker, still typing.

Napoleon stroked his side-arm under his robes so as not to alarm the two pilot seeker waiting with the rest of his guardians.

"No Seeker Dorn, let her speak, but have the exchange fed to us and the High Seeker. Stand by with the voice clone. We may need to keep the Krait talking while we remove the .. captain and put our pilots in her place"

It was a short walk from this cabin to the cockpit; in preparation, Napoleon checked the security override Dorn had transmitted to his slate was ready. Waiting impatiently, Napoleon slipped his fingers in and out of the knuckle dusters in his pocket. He was begging for a reason to bust the Imperial cow's mouth open.
01 Apr 2022, 3:54pm
Maul Montresor
"If we get it right, we'll just have it play if they allow us to connect comms. I mean, what are the chances that a bunch of cultists know Morse code, right?" Maul said with very poorly faked confidence and enthusiasm.


"Uh, yeah hang on let me listen..." Silas instinctively turned his ear toward the nearest speaker, as humans do, to listen intently to the morse code.

'U... R... I... N... D... U'

'Oh, shit, dude you got an extra dot in there. You said ' U R IN DUNGER'... which I guess could kinda imply she's in deep shit, so maybe its not a lie, but you should probably fix that.'

Silas' ears perked up just then, as he heard the telltale whoosh of a ship dropping out of supercruise. He saw the blip appear on the radar and rushed to his contacts panel to see who it was, but the panel was empty. Lamb had her transponders disabled, which was part of the issue in locating her in the first place. It had to be her... or at least her ship...

"Dude, she's here, run it!"
02 Apr 2022, 6:26pm
Maul hastily swapped the distress signal message with the new half assed one he'd been editing and hoped for the best. Once Lamb connected comms, with The Ghoul, the message would play automatically.

He approached and stood next to the captains seat to join Silas in looking out of the canopy at Lamb's ship.

"Fingers crossed."
02 Apr 2022, 9:47pm
No movement and no lights made Lamb press her lips together in thought. If it was Maul, why was he out here playing dead? Scenarios started running through her head, but involving Maul, it could be anything. What she needed was information; there was a reason Maul was using an unusual amount of subterfuge, so Lamb would have to respect his play in case he was being held hostage. Again.

"This is Captain Mercy of the long range liner Lambaconda Twenty Two. I regret to inform you we are not equipped to render mechanical assistance"

Nothing but stuttering static came from the speaker. Something about the rhythm, or rather the lack of rhythm of the white noise reminded Lamb of an ancient dot-dash code, but by the time she realise, she only caught the last few letters.

GER-stop

"Ger! Was an involuntary noise Lamb made every time she imagined entering Mauls' living space, and clearly not all the message. Maybe it wasn't just Maul that was in trouble; perhaps he came out here because someone else was in trouble too. If it wasn't just Maul, it must be Kaisla. Now, Lamb was getting a little worried. She had to find out if this was Maul and who needed help, while she drummed out the message in the static.

"Jazzmaster Funky Gee, are you and your crew medically fit? Will you be able to wait for an emergency rescue vessel from Colonia? Jazzmaster Funky Gee, please respond"

start-Urin Danger-stop

Well, Mauls' lack of hygiene and inability to wash cups, plates, cutlery.. .anything would very likely give him many urinary tract infections. While it was nice of him to warn Lamb before she shook his hand, it didn't sound like a message he would send. He must be needlessly butchering the written language again. Lamb pictured the many abysmally constructed, and picture assisted messages Kaisla had sent over the years to help her work out what was being sent.

start-U R In Danger-stop

That seemed unlikely. If the red robed glee club were going to do anything, they would have done it light-years ago. Maybe it was the people holding Maul hostage. Perhaps they were going to wait until her guard was down and attack the ship. Lamb held position, but started charging the FSD. If the Ghouls' Hard Points deployed, she was out of there.


Last edit: 02 Apr 2022, 10:11pm

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