Play date: March 25, 2017
In-game date: April 7th, EY219
Location: Juche's moon Keun, in the Aiscapo system
Previous events: Taking a bus tour, killing people in microgravity... the usual
Everyone is quickly strapped into their battlestations with the exception of Volkova, whose repair duties require her to be mobile and thus less protected if the ship starts taking damage. Up on the bridge, Jillian and Malcolm take in the situation. The Iof is flying about using its weapons on the base and keeping far enough away from the Steel Hummingbird to give her enough time to get her bearings. There's some debris in the sky, apparently from the Iof shooting the fighter patrols out of the sky, and none of the nearby antiaircraft guns are operational. Indeed, one of them has been replaced by a gout of flame, meaning that at least one shot from the Iof has punched down into the base and it's leaking atmosphere to feed the fire.
Time to get out of here before the Juche navy converges on them. It's likely that none of these navy ships have atmospheric capabilities and flying down close to Juche itself and coming up somewhere else is a possibility, but the Hummingbird and Iof are both much faster in space -- indeed pretty much any ship is faster in space than even a fast ship in atmo -- and it's likely the navy can just track their path and wait for them en masse when they try to break orbit. Much better to make an escape now while the navy is disorganized.
Bishop is patched through the comms to the Iof and coordinates actions with them; the two ships will stay close to cover each other. Jillian's working out the best path away from the moon base and on the engineering deck Volkova is disengaging every safety feature she knows to get more speed out of the space drive. Padb is there with her and saying things in Grob, but she doesn't understand the language or intonation and doesn't have time to try to work things out. Very soon the deck gets hot as various dented pieces of space drive start to glow from the heat pushing through them.
There are some distinct advantages and disadvantages here. The Hummingbird and Iof are definitely faster than military ships and have more skilled crews by a long shot, but they're outnumbered and as more naval vessels close in it will get harder and harder to get away. Sticking together also means that whichever ship messes up will drag the other one down with it.
Malcolm hopes that Hrav and the rest of the Iof's crew can keep up. He tells Volkova to give her everything she's got and pushes his ship to her limits. Pretty much every gauge he can see is redlining and several warning lights are flashing.
The first of the impromptu blockade is the frigate Masan and a quartet of light fighters. They're quickly dodged and as they pursue the cruiser Guanggaeto joins the chase; if it gets a hit in from any of its main guns they're in a lot of trouble. Next the corvette Jinju and a lone gunship show up. The Hummingbird and Iof keep pouring on the speed and avoiding the cannonfire, largely by pulling away from their pursuers and getting out of range. Both ships are running their space drives far, far beyond what they're safely able to maintain and it's only a matter of time before something melts or explodes.
Thankfully, they manage to leave the naval ships far enough behind that they're home free! The rest of the ships are too far away to give chase and Juche falls behind until they can finally back off a bit and reduce the strain the ships are under. Malcolm's impressed with the Iof; those little Grob are pretty good!
Both ships keep flying away from Juche at high but not insane speeds until they're sure that no one can catch them. The Hummingbird thanks the Iof for its help and then the ships begin to tie up to each other with an umbilical to allow for a confab and for Seo and Padb to return to their ship. While the ships tie up Jillian checks in on Sheema and Whang and Bishop treats himself and his crew for their wounds. Only he and Malcolm were shot during the fight in the base, but everyone in his crew save Azar will need some minor treatment for their exposure to vacuum, though there's not much he can do to treat the way they'll look, with burst blood vessels and the like. Treatment means crapbark and Volkova refuses to take any, saying that she's warmed herself up by the heat of the space drive and is fine. Not convinced, Bishop sneaks into the shower and wedges some crapbark into the showerhead to make sure she gets some. It's important for recovering properly, after all, even if it's not a grub.
There's a lot to be decided but once the ships are attached they decide to first celebrate their escape. Everyone gets cleaned up -- Volkova's the first to shower and thus the first to experience the delight of being doused with crapwater. She removes the crapbark from the shower with a scowl.
While the humans celebrate with alcohol and tea the Grob have their own drinks -- ethanol isn't the best thing for them and Malcolm remembers that the one time the Grob tried tea it didn't end well. Chig breaks out a strange musical instrument and plays electronic tunes while wearing a fetching metal helmet with Bishop's hat on top. Jillian sings along as best she can with the strange rhythm and Volkova accompanies her on guitar. The vocals are fine but acoustic guitar and Chig's instrument don't go well together -- the Grob don't mind but Malcolm puts in earplugs and suffers through the performance.
So how did Padb and Seo end up on the Hummingbird? When the ship with them inside it was dragged off of Landing Pad One Sheema and Whang kept out of sight but turned the radio on to try to figure out what was going on. When the Iof showed up Bishop told them not to destroy the Hummingbird, and Arba managed to quickly find the Hummingbird on the moon's surface. Seo radioed the Hummingbird to see if anyone was on it and if so tell them to get the airlock open -- neither Sheema nor Whang can fly but opening a door is hardly that difficult. Padb and Seo suited up and, in a relative lull during combat, jumped out of the Iof's airlock when the Iof came close to the Hummingbird and jetted over. Once in the ship Padb jumpstarted the space drive and Seo backed the ship up to Landing Pad One's airlock.
What to do now? There are a few options but they choose to return to Daebak and tell the navy there what happened. Jillian starts to calculate a roundabout route that would misdirect the Juche navy about where they're going, but Rans suggests tying the two ships together and jumping to Daebak. It will be faster, taking several hours instead of a day and a half, and they won't have to worry about Juche tracking them -- the system is small enough that it will be difficult to avoid detection if they fly the whole way. This sounds much better and the tying together and jump calculations are begun. Padb does the bulk of the jump navigation work but Jillian helps where she can; jump drive calculations are both similar to and very different from regular space drive navigation. This would no doubt be much faster if they attached the Iof's "brain"...
When the jump is made to Daebak it goes well and they're not far from the moon base on Eondeog. They send a tight-beam signal to Rear Admiral Choi to tell her they're coming and are soon in the base. Choi takes them to her office where -- with two heavily-armed guards -- she pulls out one of the "lenses" and checks them for the Song. Once she's determined that they're clean she visibly relaxes. The crew insists on combing her office for listening devices but can't find any. Once everyone's ok with the situation Jillian reveals that the navy of Juche is entirely under the sway of the Song but the planet isn't, in a frightening similarity to what happened in Vishnu. She also mentions that Juche has been confiscating civilian ship for some reason.
Choi sighs. Looks like they'll have to nuke Juche's military base and start a civil war after all.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (contractually obligated; running total: 29)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 5)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 15)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 7)