Play date: January 26, 2018
In-game date: April 13 or so, EY219
Location: In the slide points
Previous events: Going for a joyride in a new spaceship and getting caught by its owners
The humans get together to discuss the Aerikin. Are they a threat to humanity or just a menace? Jillian is by far the most cautious but in the end it's agreed to bring the Aerikin to Piccadilly. No one knows at this point how the war in Aiscapo is going and the D'vor are obviously still an existential danger. If the Aerikin can help, and they certainly seem willing, why not bring them along?
Bringing them along to Piccidilly isn't the worst idea. They'll meet the Resplendent Dragon there and if the Aerikin need to be put down Xao and his crew will be a great help, along with one of the most powerful fleets in the cluster. Nevertheless, as a sign of trust they hand over one of the Song-detecting lenses to the Aerikin.
Jillian works on the course to get to Piccadilly, using the formulae that Sunshine's people gave to her along with the Aerikins' ship's computer. It's an astonishingly fast computer. Faster than her slide rule and even faster than the vacuum-tube computer she's used in the past! The fact that she can't see the intermediate stages of her work is a little bit disconcerting but after she gets the exact same result the second time she trusts the computer. The alien navigator she works with is condescending towards Jillian's wide-eyed amazement at the computer's speed but Jillian gets her own in when she finds out that the Aerikin don't have jump drives and have never even heard of them. The navigator is stunned that humans, who fly around in tin cans and use slide rules to perform calculations have something so advanced!
Bishop gets a slightly less arrogant, or at least helpful, sense of noblesse oblige from the aliens.
Checking out the weapon systems Volkova is truly impressed. They're powerful and frighteningly accurate thanks to the computer doing much of the aiming. A collimating effect allows to focus any or all of the three guns at one target for more punch. They also fire bolts of plasma, which will melt ship components: repairs will be much more complicated for anyone hit by them! An electronic warfare suite also grabs her attention. It can be used to jam communications but when used offensively it will fry electronics. She's very happy her ship didn't try to fight these aliens and that they're willing to use all this on the D'vor.
The dropship and Steel Hummingbird need to be put into the mothership's hold. The dropship fits into its usual spot in the flight bay but the Hummingbird has to be awkwardly crammed into the cargo hold. While he's squishing his ship into a tight space Malcolm notices that the mothership has several other craft in addition to the dropship. There are two sleek fighter craft in the mothership's flight bay and a few dozen ships no larger than a car in another bay -- when he later asks about them he's told they're combat drones. The cargo bay holds eight more of the armoured suits of the type the dropship has, but there's still a lot of room.
Not sure of what to do with the alien they captured on the slide point planet, they offer it to the Aerikin, who hear their story and chuck it into the brig to deal with later.
One aspect of the Aerikin that bothers Malcolm to no end is that the Aerikin don't have proper names. The captain is literally just "The Captain" and no amount of explanations mollifies the Steel Hummingbird's pilot. The Aerikin are likewise confused by human names, which seem overly baroque to them. The human crew decide to come up with a name for The Captain as a sign of respect, but they can't agree on a good name. Malcolm in particular keeps coming up with ludicrous suggestions before they all agree to shelve the decision until a later date.
The passage through the slide points to Piccadilly goes well, with no injuries or insanity. It might be a smoother ride than the Hummingbird can provide but it's not any faster -- it still seems to take an eternity.
When they come out of the slide points it's immediately obvious that they're in Piccadilly. The inner part of the system isn't especially noteworthy from this distance, containing a gas giant and a terrestrial planet. The rings, though, are awe-inspiring. With a diameter of 150 million kilometres and they are the largest artificial structures known by several orders of magnitude. The Aerikin navigator asks Jillian in a hushed tone if humans made them -- she still seems unsure of human capabilities after the jump drive revelation.
They're definitely in Piccadilly, but when? No one's sure how long they spent in the disorienting slide points, and so Jillian notes the positions of the planets and stars to work out the date. Malcolm tunes the radio into the MSF-60 time signal. They both come to the same date: April 19, EY219. It turns out that they've only been in the slide points for four days!
A bit of scanning finds the Resplendent Dragon in power-minimal mode, waiting for them. The newly-rebuilt Dragon has a notably different look. While before it was a really beautiful ship, this new version has a distinctly military look to it. More brutal, less attractive. Malcolm has a bit of trouble communicating with them as he keeps putting his hand through the head-up display but they're soon reunited, with the Dragon's crew now meeting another alien race. They're getting used to it and act a bit blasé towards the Aerikin, less so towards the three-metre long iridescent centipedes crawling on the ceiling.
Xao has news about what's been going on. The Hummingbird may not have been gone that long, but much has happened. Xao and his crew were met partway in Providence with their newly-renovated ship flown by a military crew and Providence sent the Crocodile and Cobra along with them through the slide points to Aiscapo, the two naval ships being piloted by Cletus Jehoshephat Mosbey and Edward Watkins.
Things in Aiscapo are going better than might be expected. The Daebak (human) navy has had some ships damaged, but hasn't lost any. They've been helped by two ships that have jump capabilities that have been ambushing the Juche (D'vor) fleet. The Hummingbird's crew knows that one of the jumping ships is the Iof and the other is probably the Gurg, using the jump drive that Jillian gave the Black Rose. Without a base to go to for fuel, repairs, or supplies (thanks to Jillian and her crew blowing up Juche's moon/main military base of Keun along with the Juche military's top brass) and no way for reinforcements to arrive (thanks to Volkova disabling the jump gate) the D'vor have their back up against the wall. They've lost a corvette, two frigates, their sole refuelling ship, and an alien ship of unknown providence. Two actual D'vor ships have also been destroyed, both by one of the mysterious jumping ships.
Juche still has a lot of ships, though, including a few from Vishnu that came through before the jump gate was sabotaged: the cruiser Khan, the corvette Chakram (destroyed), and the destroyer Nehru. The last one is especially hated by everyone as the ship that destroyed Labrys City. The Dragon has asked the Daebak military for the honour of taking on the Nehru: Vishnu was their home system and they all lost at least one person who was very close to them when the D'vor took the system.
Two alien ships like the one that was destroyed are still in the fight. There is also the strange large, skeletal ship that Nana Kim saw guarding the jump gate, which seems to be surrounded by a cloud of debris or small ships.
Bishop and Jillian both notice a different feel to Xao. He has a much harder edge than he used to and it feels that, like his ship, he's been rebuilt for war. They don't like the change in the ship or the man.
While Xao is giving a rundown on the situation in Aiscapo as of two days ago Bishop communicates with Chig using the Egg. The news isn't good: once the Iof found out that there were Grob ships in the D'vor fleet (the three mysterious ships) they decided to try to protect them. They ended up between the Songed Grob ships and the Daebak fleet in the impossible situation of trying to protect both sides while under fire from everyone, and their ship was badly damaged. They've pulled up out of the orbital plane near the slide point, but they're pretty much unable to fight in the shape they're in.
Once he hears this it's easy for Bishop to convince everyone that they need to get back to Aiscapo as soon as they can. There aren't any objections and the Dragon's crew agrees to get on board the Aerikin mothership for the trip. Neet may be a great pilot but he's much too conservative to squeeze his ship into the cargo bay alongside the Hummingbird and so Malcolm does the honours.
As much as they'd like to take off right away everyone needs to get some food in them outside of the nausea-inducing slide points. There is a cultural exchange through food, with Azar and Neet cooking for the humans and Malcolm making the best tea he can. It turns out that everyone can eat each other's cuisine and it's all delicious, Malcolm's tea being a high point. Inspired by how well it's all going Jillian brings out some of her art to show the Aerikin. It turns out that as much as the Grob love her art and Sunshine was also appreciative of it the Aerikin reaction is much more human. She's a bit saddened by this, but then she's also lost or given away most of her best work lately. Surely when they see what she's really capable of...
Once the meal is done and everyone's feeling better it's time for another trip through the slide points to rescue the Grob and maybe Aiscapo. Again.
As the Aerikin mothership turns to fly back into the slide point Malcolm looks out a window at his home system and sadly waves it goodbye. One of these days he'll show everyone how wonderful it is. Maybe once this war is over.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 1 (running total: 36)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 5.5)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 16)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 7)