Game date: October 1st, EY217
Previous events: Selling guns, buying bullets, flying away
Location: Providence | Beck | Skousen
The Steel Hummingbird leaves Beck without any further incident and reaches Limbaugh late that night, docking at McNeely station. Flush with cash they splurge on a private interior dock, something that will also give them the privacy that they desperately desire. Their mood is dampened when traffic control tells them that the Navy wants to talk to them and it's not made any better when Bishop comes down with some sort of flu and ends up confined to the room he shares with Volkova. Harry also claims to have come down ill and to be in no condition to leave the ship. He's not very convincing.
It's late enough that they decide that the Navy can wait until tomorrow. The members of the crew who are well decide to get the mail that's waiting for them and get a hotel for the night. Bishop and Harry are going to have to fend for themselves. Before they leave Jillian uses the ship's comms system, linked into the station's systems, to call Lt. Mariska Ivanova, a shipmate from the Cunningham back when she was in the Navy. Ivanova is still in the Navy and stationed in McNeely station; maybe she knows some details about what the Navy wants, though Jillian has the sinking feeling that their murder spree on Beck has already been discovered and traced back to them. Despite the late hour Ivanova's not home and Jillian leaves a message. They lock the ship up tight and Volkova removes and hides the distributor to make sure that no one steals off with their ship. McNeely is a big station but no one's really too sure about Harry either.
Taking the elevator up to the main floor of the station is a revelation after the cramped quarters of the ship and the dark spaces of the docks. McNeely is the premiere tourist destination in the system and the most intercultural place in the cluster bar none. It's comprised of five units, one major one and four smaller ones. Each has a large dome above it to let in natural light and the central unit has a large park in its centre. Most stations pack their entire space with rooms; McNeely's domes are high enough to allow actual buildings and streets on the top level and give it the feeling of a city on a low-atmosphere planet.
While Gabi, Jillian, and Volkova take the subway to go get the mail Malcolm rents a scooter and buzzes through the quiet late-night streets. They're heading to the same subunit, Lenape, where the mail depot and Victoriaville -- also known as Little Piccadilly -- are located. Malcolm will rent a suite in the Queen Elizabeth hotel in Victoriaville and wait for the rest of them there.
The mail depot is open all the time and the mail ends up being a single letter addressed to Jillian and Malcolm. It's from the Grunewalds, a couple on Olberman whose child the Steel Hummingbird saved a few years ago. Lise is turning five on November 2nd and the crew is invited to her birthday party. Jillian is touched but not sure if she can make it; she feels like they'll be leaving the system as soon as they can. Volkova opens up an account here, her first. She has no idea who will ever send her something but it feels good to have a mail account. It's not far to the Queen Elizabeth and everyone walks there.
The QE is a rather upscale hotel that they'd normally not be able to afford and as they take the elevator up to the suite Malcolm's rented the elevator attendant tries to avoid contact with the grubby Volkova. When they enter the suite everyone's impressed with its opulence. Malcolm is taking advantage of the hotel's services and in the middle of a massage. No one takes the masseuse up on the offer of a massage of their own; it's late enough that it's time to have a shower, put out their clothes to be washed, and sleep in large, soft beds.
When morning comes everyone's feeling well rested indeed. Jillian gets the cleaned clothes and the two newspapers that were left in front of the door, intending to look for any news of what happened on Beck. She doesn't have to look far: both papers are running the story on the front page. The McNeely Post has the rather hysterical headline of "HORRIBLE HIGHWAY HOMICIDE" taking up all the space above the fold, while the more sedate McNeely Times reports "Limbaugh Executive Killed on Beck". There's a definite difference in tone but the information in both papers is much the same. Someone driving down the highway came across the grisly scene. The RV was obvious but the pickups in the badlands have yet to be found. The two people that Malcolm crushed with the ship were John and Sarah Thomas, VP of Internal Amalgamation of Selden Auto Parts. They were identified as two of the victims by their identification cards but the people that Volkova shot with the autocannon were too chewed up for identification to be legible. Police are investigating and won't say more, but it's obvious that there's a fair amount of confusion over exactly what happened.
Gabi, Jillian, and Volkova head back to the ship to see how Bishop and Harry are doing while Malcolm, who slept in, checks out later and wanders the streets of Victoriaville. He revels in the Piccadillyishness of it all and makes a sizeable purchase of teas, arranging to have them delivered to the ship.
Back at the ship Harry hasn't done anything untoward and Bishop is feeling a fair bit better. Ivanova has returned Jillian's call and asks her to call any time after noon. Jillian calls and after a bit of small talk asks Ivanova if she knows what the Navy wants with the Steel Hummingbird. Ivanova was working the night shift in the Navy office and recognizes the ship's name; it turns out that they're in trouble for their behaviour on the Crapworld supply run. How the Navy found out about this is a mystery but at least it's not about what happened on Beck! Ivanova and Jillian make plans to get together for a drink and a relieved Jillian waits for Malcolm to return. When he does they head off to the Navy office to get yelled at. Gabi decides to wander the station and see the sites; she's never been here before and has better things to do than be yelled at by an authority figure for something she didn't do.
The chewing out in the Navy office is thorough but in the end there's no fine, just a writing up and warning. Once that's done Jillian and Malcolm check out the pilot board, navigation board, and job board. The pilot board is full of the usual ramblings and there's nothing useful to be found there.
The navigator's board has its usual assortment of boring but useful information and a comment by Sly Fox. Sly Fox started leaving notes on navigator boards about a year and a half ago in purple sparkly pen describing the nav hazards in terms of hair's breadth escapes and crazy piloting stunts, drawing analogies to mythology and biology and ethnomusicology. As good as the information is it pretty much requires a university degree to make sense of it. Luckily Jillian got a fair amount of non-artistic learning in her brief stay at Aiscapo University and can work out the breaching whale analogies and literary metaphors to make out that about a week ago Sly Fox apparently saw a ship coming up from below the orbital plane immediately under the jump gate. Malcolm takes out a pen and adds "Seen it! -MD" to the confused comments that others have written on Sly Fox's note.
There are several possible jobs on the job board but only one looks reasonable to the crew: a toxic waste dump on Crapworld of barrels that promise to be "fully sealed!" Bishop's still not well enough to negotiate the deal so Jillian does that while Malcolm and Volkova prowl the loading bays looking for crates for the guns that are still loosely packed in bags in the cargo bay and soon return to the ship with tomato paste crates. With guns, ammunition, and a pickup truck taking up space in the cargo hold the ship will only be able to take some of the barrels. The negotiations go well enough and the barrels are soon delivered. It's worrisome that the company hiring the ship is a toxic waste middleman but the barrels do seem to be in good shape. No one seems to know exactly what's in them but they do look stable.
Happy to get out of the system so quickly Jillian calls Ivanov and apologizes for not being able to get together with her after all. She arranges to have a bottle of vodka delivered to her. Unfortunately, flight control informs them that there's a hold on their ship when they try to leave; the Navy wants to talk to them again. This time it is about the incident on Beck, although they're not sure if they've been tracked or their letters have been delivered. They're interviewed by Lieutenant Commander Phoebe Rubin, who seems fairly friendly but insists that they remain in-system until the investigation is resolved. How long that will take is unknown as it involves extreme accusations, over a dozen deaths, and executives of a major corporation, but she says that she'll keep them informed.
Stuck with a load of toxic waste the crew will have to find someplace to store it or pay someone else to haul it for them. Not knowing how long they'll have to wait they decide to upgrade the Steel Hummingbird's space drive and to possibly add more storage space in the hold, including some cabins for a dozen or so passengers. They get enough requests to take people around the cluster that it would be a good investment. ________________ finds a body shop that will do the work for a reasonable fee and Malcolm will rent a large flat in Victoriaville while they're waiting for the investigation to be resolved.
Malcolm writes a letter to Commodore Marcus Blith back in Vishnu explaining the situation and hoping for a bit of help. He also writes a letter to his mother with the Devereaux Daredevils, currently in Aiscapo.
Harry is still being suspicious and tries to work out how he can stay on the ship while the modifications are underway. The crew have finally had enough of this and confront him on his shady behaviour. He tries to continue his line about being a simple farmer from Olberman but eventually tells them the truth: he's an enforcer in the Selden factories on Limbaugh's surface, or was until he tried to embezzle and got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Once the corporation found that out he was attacked, beaten unconscious, and found himself with the rest of them in the human hunt. He's terrified to be seen here, as he'll probably be kidnapped again or just killed outright. If he goes to Walküren he'll hopefully be able to find a place there.
Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 10)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 1)