Game date: September 16, EY217
Previous events: Phat lewt and Crapworld
Malcolm needs to push the engines to make it to the gate to Providence on time and does so. The Hummingbird arrives at the gate on the 17th to find itself in line behind two giant hydrogen tankers, the Adalbert and Frieda. Providence is the only system in the cluster that must import hydrogen thanks to the relatively new field of debris that surrounds Prager, its only gas giant, and the Adalbert and Frieda from Walküren are two of the tankers tasked to keeping the system supplied.
Jump gates are only open for a relatively short period of time and it's obvious that the tankers with their enormous extra tanks attached are going to have to take it slow to not scrape the sides of the gate: since every settled system has a gas giant the transport of gases at this scale wasn't a major consideration when the gates' size was decided.
Jillian takes advantage of their last-minute arrival at the gate (Malcolm actually slowed down a bit to ensure that their arrival wouldn't be too early) to argue with the gate control that they shouldn't be boarded to be inspected. There just isn't the time and their mass can be remotely determined; if gate control does that they can see that the mass dropped off on Crapworld is just enough to account for the medical crates. Besides, the very memorably painted Steel Hummingbird has gone through this gate many times and never done anything untoward.
There is an uncomfortable wait while gate control considers the request but in the end they accede. Adalbert actually scraping the side of the gate on the way through and having to ponderously back up to extricate itself helps in that decision. There just isn't time to do a full physical inspection of the smaller ship before the gate closes.
With a feeling of relief Malcolm pilots through the turbulence of the gate with his usual aplomb and an instant later they're in Providence. The Adalbert and Frieda are already moving off sunward at speed with a pair of military ships, the cruiser Panther and the carrier Wasp, the latter's fighters buzzing around the group. Escorts are necessary in this system thanks to the price of gas; pirates can make a lot of money by stealing a ship of this size and selling its cargo and anyone who has gas reserves can make a pretty penny by destroying incoming tankers and driving up prices.
The Hummingbird would usually take advantage of the military ships and keep close to them on the way in but they've gone through most of their fuel in their rush through the Nodapar system over the last couple of days and need to refuel. There is the usual fuelling depot near the gate and they head over to refill the Hummingbird. These depots are usually overpriced and this one is doubly so thanks to the general scarcity of gas in Providence. Fuelling and topping up the life support systems takes a while but they are eventually on their way.
Providence is a much more spread out system than Aiscapo or Vishnu and the jump gate is fairly far out; they'll have to refuel again on the way in and decide to do that at Carlson. With some luck they'll find something to bring to Beck from there and make a bit of money. They haven't gone far down the gravity well when Jillian's sensors pick something up. It's a ship that's heading up, directly out of the orbital plane. This is strange, as there isn't anything that's up there in any of the systems in this cluster that would make a trip worth it. Ships that are trying to stay undetected often take an arching route above the plane but this one is going straight up.
It's definitely under power and not some wreck that's drifted up there. Curious, the crew decide to follow the ship. If they stay at the edge of the Hummingbird's superior sensors they'll be unlikely to be noticed while still being able to track their prey. They follow the ship for days, a boring time for all. This far back it's difficult to get detailed readings on the other ship but Jillian determines that it's roughly the same size as the Steel Hummingbird, likely a cargo ship, and traveling at a speed a fair bit slower than what the Hummingbird can manage. No one knows what this mysterious ship is up to but it's flying far enough out of the elliptical that it must be doing something it feels to be important. Having just refuelled the Hummingbird can travel for almost 4AU before it will have to turn back and having come this far they're determined to go that far if they need to.
After three days of travel they're just shy of 2AU above the elliptical. On the bridge, Bishop suddenly remembers a slightly more detailed version of the Dream that he had behind Maurice Clegman's mansion on Daebak, about a ship flying above strange stars. He suddenly realizes that he is the ship in the Dream, with a body that seems slightly different to him. Looking at Jillian's star charts he sees that the strange stars from the Dream are the stars and planetary positions at the present moment!
At almost the same time that Bishop has his realization the sensor readings go wild and weird for a second. As soon as the strange readings begin they disappear, along with the the other ship! A sensor sweep with active sensors at full power doesn't show anything there nor any trace that anything was ever there. Malcolm kicks the ship into high speed and they get to the spot that the ship disappeared from. Once there another sensor sweep doesn't reveal anything new. After a few more empty scans they give up, noting that the ship disappeared exactly 2AU above the spot where the jump gate is currently located.
With nothing else to do they head to Carlson, the water planet of the system. It's the next planet in where they can refuel, Ingraham being a desert wasteland with no value to it. Over the five days of the trip Jillian analyzes the data that she recorded with the sensors. Volkova helps and the two of them come to the conclusion that the strange energy readings as the mystery ship jumped could be made from a space drive that's been modified in the fashion of Clegman's Little Darling. Although their interest is piqued they're not sure what to do with this information.
They arrive at Carlson on September 26th and land on the water-storing moon of Dasani. It's a short stay, just long enough to get refuelled and get a mail delivery job to Beck. While picking up the mail Jillian drops off her own own letter to Jinjing Wei back in Aiscapo. The letter mentions the ship that they saw above the elliptical, mentioning it as if it were a new observation and that they'd never talked about this before. The Hummingbird desperately needs some maintenance after all the pushing of the engines but this is not the best place to do it and Volkova is certain that she can hold the ship together until they get to Beck.
It's another three days to Beck. They land at Skousen Spaceport at Skousen, the capital city of Beck, and deliver the mail. Without enough money to buy anywhere near enough ammunition to make the weapons worthwhile to Labrys City they'll have to sell some of their cargo. The pistols are the obvious choice for this sacrifice: they have hundreds of them and pistols are poor weapons to defend a city with. No one in the crew has had any experience as an arms dealer and so they decide to contact someone that Jillian knows from the military: Captain Cristofer Dniessa, who retired to the city of Mechanicville. It's only a few hours by air, so they take off and fly there. This is only the second good use of the atmospheric engines and Malcolm appreciates the new power he has at his control.
Mechanicville has about fifty thousand inhabitants. It gets its name honestly from the numerous vehicle part factories and assembly lines there. The Hummingbird lands at the county airport without incident and Volkova decides to get her beloved ship the maintenance she so desperately needs while they're in such an auspiciously-named location. Jillian looks up Dniessa's number and gives him a call. After a bit of small talk she asks him about a good place to surreptitiously sell a large number of small arms and buy a large amount of varied ammunition. He suggests Raygun Arms to sell the pistols to; they intentionally don't keep very good track of their inventory and are renowned as a shady dealer that can get you the weapon you need. For ammunition he's not sure, but it should be easy enough to find a place near Raygun Arms.
Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: None (running total: 10)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: Zilch (running total: 1)