Date: September 24, 2011
Game date: October 11th, EY217
Location: Providence | LImbaugh | McNeely Station
Previous events: Meeting Roberta Kirshner and working out the possibility of alternate space jumps
There are many different possible paths to follow but everyone is in agreement that they should rescue Emily Varnsen first. Everyone except Malcolm, who smells something fishy about the message she sent, but he's outvoted and reluctantly joins in the planning.
The plan is simple and relies on surprise: land the Steel Hummingbird in her backyard, rush in heavily armed, and get Emily out by any means necessary. Bishop remembers that she lives with her parents and two brothers, but can't remember too much of the house's layout. To make sure that Emily immediately recognizes that the ship is there to rescue her Jillian suggests painting a huge image of Bishop's face on the side of the ship: she'll take a photo of him and use a projector to allow her to trace the image with more accuracy than usual.
Malcolm heads off to the library to hunt down a map of the town of Springfield. He's lucky enough to find one, but it's crude: as a rule of thumb tiny towns on the frontier don't have very good maps. He makes it back in time to take a call from the Aiscapo University team that's heading for Ingraham. They believe the lie that the Steel Hummingbird is being repaired and won't be ready for three more days. That's fine with them, but they'll need the ship to stay on Ingraham while they do their initial investigation of the ruins. This should take two or three days, and they'll pay the crew for their time. It's a decent amount of money and Malcolm agrees to the deal.
Bishop's lack of stylish clothing is starting to wear on him and due to his lack of funds he can't indulge in his tastes. Malcolm finally gives in and offers to buy him a new set of duds while Jillian and Volkova develop the negative and do their painting. Although he's paying Malcolm goes out of his way to make the whole process as awkward as possible, acting like an embarrassing parent and loudly making terrible fashion suggestions.
By the time they get back the face is done, complete with a comic-style narrative box ("Little did Emily know that Bishop was there to rescue her!") and dialogue baloon ("Emily, I'm here to save you!"). Gabi has shown up, gotten the background between Bishop and Emily, been told the rescue plan, revealed that she thought it a crazy plan, and helped out with the painting. Unfortunately, given the combined artistic abilities of the painters it doesn't look much at all like Bishop. Displeased, he picks up a brush himself and gets to work. It takes a while but the painting at least looks like him once he's done.
Harry shows up after all the work is done and is filled in on the plan by Jillian. If there's a chance for violence he's in, something that disturbs the crew but which is appreciated this time. The Deccan Driller's crew is called and they agree to hire a private investigator while the Steel Hummingbird is away on "urgent business".
The flight takes less than a day and the ship easily steers clear of Beck's moon, Colt. It's tricky to find the right building from the air but Bishop, Jillian, and Malcolm have been there before and they do have a mediocre map of the area. Jillian's innate sense of direction helps immeasurably and Malcolm's ability to land in tight spaces results in them landing with a roar in the backyard of Emily's house as the sun is just starting to rise above the horizon, the ship coming to a halt just five metres from the back door!
Bishop is manning the ship's cannon (more for intimidation than anything else) and calling out to Emily on the external speakers that Volkova has patched to a microphone in the gun cupola while Malcolm is at the controls ready to blast off. The rest of the gang charge off of the ship and runs to the back door. Volkova's in the lead with a homemade ram that she made on the ship with a photo of Bishop's face on the front of it. She's followed by Harry, armed with a pistol, Jillian with her shotgun, and Gabi with a knife.
Volkova smashes open the back door in one go and everyone piles into the kitchen. There are stairs behind a door that lead down to the basement that Harry takes while the others head out of the kitchen and up the stairs just outside the kitchen to the second floor. Climbing to the top they arrive in a hallway with several doors. One is open with a dazed-looking slightly older man -- presumably Emily's father -- in his pyjamas holding a large-caliber revolver at his side. Jillian points her shotgun at him and tells him to drop the pistol but is distracted when another door is flung open and with a cry of "Dad!" a muscular teenager charges her! She reflexively fires on him, aiming low and hoping for a non-lethal wound. He goes down with a cry of pain and his father shakily raises his pistol to fire. Volkova's too quick for him and smashes the firearm solidly out of his hand with her trusty new Knuta.
Outside, Malcolm is keeping an eye on the outside of the house and notices two things. The first is that a young boy is staring slack-jawed out of one of the second-story windows at the spacecraft in his backyard with amazement and the second is that Emily has climbed out of her bedroom window and is on the roof of the kitchen looking unsure of how to get down. He flips a switch and calls out over the external speakers that their goal is on the roof.
Everyone inside heads back out as quickly as they can, a frustrated Harry reuniting with them after finding nothing of interest in the basement. In the backyard an ecstatic Emily is convinced to jump into Volkova's arms and everyone piles into the ship. Malcolm lifts off as quickly as he can, causing no little property damage from the jets' blast. On the way out of atmosphere he angles the ship so as to burn off the painting of Bishop's face. It's not a very efficient way of flying but the paint is fresh enough to not survive the trip, so he's happy.
Jillian is disturbed by what she did back on Beck but on the whole the crew is relieved and not a little surprised that the mission went so well with the exception of Harry, who sulks about not getting to hurt anyone. Emily is the happiest, jumping joyously into Bishop's arms and almost knocking him over. After some very brief introductions he takes her to the med bay to examine her and make sure she's ok; although he can't see any bruises her long nightdress hides much of her body. She's confused about why the med bay is filled with terraria and he explains about iLanga's unique take on medicine while checking her for injury and finding... nothing at all.
When confronted she readily admits that she was lying about her family beating her in the letter she wrote to him but didn't see any other way to get off of Beck. He's shocked. She thinks of him as a great traveller and now they're together! It's all ended up just fine as far as she's concerned. They have a brief discussion in which she brings up the idea of marrying him, shocking him again. The captain of ship can marry people, right? This is not going the way that Bishop was hoping at all. Eyes wide, Bishop brings her to his room, locks her in, and goes to tell the captain the truth.
Jillian's furious when she hears the news, storming off to talk to Emily. Emily's calmly waiting in the quarters that Bishop and Volkova share, wearing his clothing. Jillian rages at the girl, who really doesn't see what she did wrong and doesn't even seem terribly concerned that her brother's been shot once Jillian says that he's not dead! Jillian tells Emily that she'll be abandoned on McNeely station and that she's not to contact the crew ever again. This finally shuts the girl up, which is a bit of a relief.
Of course, none of this helps the fact that Jillian has now shotgunned an innocent teenager...
Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 11)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 1)