Date: February 27, 2012 and
Game date: November 11th, EY217
Location: Providence system, Beck
Previous events: deciding to make the cultural re-exchange early
Bishop gets bounced around in different ways for a while but Volkova's crude padding job is up to the task and he's not hurt. The crate is eventually still and there's the sound of someone working at prying the lid off, which is painfully loud inside, and soon Olivia lifts the top off, removes the upper layer of spare parts, and welcomes Bishop onto the Resplendent Dragon. Once he's out she pokes around in the box for another moment, happy with the choice of parts that Volkova included. It's not as if the Dragon needs the additions; it's partially a scavenging ship and there are literally piles -- organized, but piles nonetheless -- of spare parts in the cargo hold.
They're getting ready to take off and Olivia needs to be in engineering so she informs Bishop that Vob is in her room with the door locked. Since he has the key to her quarters he can stay with Vob until they're out of atmosphere and it's probably best if he waits for Xao to call him before leaving the room. They need to make it without Colt noticing them and potentially stopping them.
Bishop and Vob talk in Olivia's room as the ship gains altitude. The room is sparsely furnished and Bishop's been distracted enough while here in the past to not pay too much attention to what's in the room outside of the bed. The assortment of weapons ranging from an intimidating heavy revolver to a terrifying bazooka have always been obvious, but this time he also notices the technical manuals, finance books, and padded helmet with an embossed golden skull before he starts to talk some more with Vob. As before, the alien's moderate grasp of the human tongue makes for a slow, often ambiguous conversation.
• The first thing that Bishop explains is why they are making the exchange so early. It's not that they want to get rid of Vob, but Hoax -- whom Bishop describes as "evil" -- may well take Vob away for experimentation if they know about the alien. Since the Steel Hummingbird has a way of communicating with the Iof they can get Vob back later if it's willing to spend some more time with the humans. Vob certainly seems to want this. They can also find a friendlier planet than Beck and stay there for a bit. Vob thinks about this for a moment and says that this last idea requires further discussion with the other Grob.
• If there are "evil" humans who would want to grab Grobs Vob agrees that they should be far from any other ships when they meet the Iof. It will come "quickly" when Bishop calls it but Vob can't properly describe just how fast the Iof is. Bishop hopes that it's much faster than even the Hummingbird if they're not going to sit around for a good long while in space.
• It's not Grob who built the ruins on Ingraham and they don't know who did. The green material that it's made of does have stealthy properties and that's why the Grob were getting it. They found it partially by Chig's use of what seems to be Dreaming but Vob doesn't really know much about that nor about Ubuntu and seems slightly dismissive of the Dreaming; Bishop's going to have to talk to Chig to get more information about that.
• The Iof has been in Providence for four years. They came from the Vishnu system and got there from the system of the Wyrms; Vob is careful to specify that these are the "small, smart" worms as opposed to the big, dumb ones on Ingraham; the small, smart worms are apparently dumb when they are too small but Bishop can't get any more sense out that. The Iof fled when the D'vor invaded the Wyrms' system, following a very large ship -- not D'vor, not Grob, not "small squishy ones", not Wyrm -- that was also fleeing the system and exploded in the Vishnu system. They got from Vishnu to Providence by going on an extremely dangerous trip through a "tunnel".
• Vob's description of how the Iof travels is vague and Bishop doesn't have the background to understand much or even know what to ask to clarify things. It seems that the Grob are reluctant to leave the system. This makes sense to Bishop, as there's no way that their ship could pass through a human-operated jump gate without being noticed.
The gravity shifts from Beck's 0.8 to the 1.0 that space drives provide and Bishop knows that they're in space but waits until Xao calls him on the comm before heading up to the bridge with Vob in tow. On the way he can't help but notice how much prettier the Resplendent Dragon is than the Steel Hummingbird, inside and out, regardless of any particular artistic additions.
Arriving on the bridge he and Vob are quickly told to duck out of sight as Xao suddenly notices a large contact coming into sensor range. Neet identifies it as the naval frigate HMS (Homeworld Military Ship) Crocodile and Xao, working the sensors, is pretty sure that she's noticed them. There are several tense moments but they aren't doing anything suspicious and the Crocodile doesn't hail them; everyone breathes a sigh of relief as the ships' vectors lead them away from each other. Neet explains that he's pretty sure that he plotted a course good enough that Colt didn't notice them; the moonlet orbits Beck in a fairly low but speedy orbit about twice a day and was pretty much over the horizon when they left the planet. The Crocodile is another matter and couldn't be avoided; there's just no way of knowing when another ship is going to appear on the sensors.
Now that they're away from Beck Neet wants to know where to go. He's plotted out and is following a course that should keep them alone but could be interpreted as heading towards either Carlson or the jump gate if they've been noticed. The Resplendent Dragon doesn't have VTOL capacity so landing on a planet is out unless they want the transfer to be at a spaceport. It will have to be a transfer in space, which is much more likely to keep the whole thing a secret anyway.
They decide to stay in the elliptical and continue to fly retrograde, Beck rapidly vanishing behind them. A distance of 2AU sounds good; that's half a week of flight for the Dragon -- definitely slower than the Hummingbird! -- and assuming that the Iof doesn't take too long to get to them once they're there they should be able to get Bishop back to Beck before the official date of the transfer and not raise too many suspicions.
Bishop takes the time to work some more on learning the Grob language and to get to know the crew of the Resplendent Dragon better. Neet's still something of a cipher and Bishop gets the feeling that the Vishnan is pretty shy. He's the navigator and pilot of the Dragon as well as its cook; he's good but only makes vegetarian meals although Olivia and Xao both eat meat when off-ship.
Xao seems angry with Jillian about not being told about Vob until the Hummingbird was afraid of getting into lots of trouble. Given the peripatetic nature of their lives he feels that they need to stick together but instead the Steel Hummingbird keeps them at arm's length. The Dragon's crew was only on Beck because the Hummingbird was undergoing modifications and Jillian kept them from really mingling; the presence of Vob should have been something that brought them all together but instead he feels used. There's something that he doesn't trust about Jillian even if he likes her. Bishop thinks that Xao is crushing on Jillian. Given what he knows about his captain this will likely not end well.
Bishop and Olivia end up getting along well even when they're stuck together for a longer period of time and are vertical. He sleeps in her bed with her and is relieved that Vob doesn't want to sleep under it! The alien likes tight quarters and chooses to sleep in a wrapped-up blanket in one of the piles of spare parts instead.
The two of them talk quite a bit and Olivia reveals that she was afraid that Bishop's initial foray into extended conversation with her was a lead-in to getting her to give up her life and settle down or something similar. It seems to be something that has happened to her before. That would never work; she has other people that she's seeing around the cluster and is almost ten years older than Bishop -- he shudders at the thought and blocks it out from his mind. For her part she's relieved that he's not trying to make an honest woman out of her!
Bishop talks about his life on Ubuntu and his Dreaming. This interests Olivia and she'd like to give Dreaming a try. Her background involves growing up in Piccadilly and being pushed by her upper-middle class family into studying business at Regina University there. When she graduated she joined the navy to see more of the cluster but mostly to annoy her parents who expected much more from her than the military. The latter goal unfortunately worked out better than she'd planned and she and her family aren't in close contact any more. Youthful rebellion is no substitute for actually enjoying something and after excelling in both gunnery and engineering she got bored of that life and left the navy. When Bishop asks about the padded helmut with the embossed gold skull she mentions that it's something given out by the navy as a mark of recognition to exceptional gunners who have at least five confirmed kills. Bishop doesn't ask for more details about that.
She offers to train him in some sort of combat skill so he can defend himself when things get rough, as they probably will in the near future. Gunnery, heavy weapons, pistols, swords: he just needs to choose what he wants to know and she'll teach him. He returns the offer by suggesting that if she wants to learn how to Dream she should start with meditation. He can help her with that, he claims, and brings up the concept of the tantra... The next few days pass pleasantly.
The Iof should get some warning that the Resplendent Dragon wants to meet up early and so Bishop begins to "ping" them on the 13th. Chig pings back but Bishop doesn't have the skill to find out where the signal's coming from without Neet's navigational knowledge. The two of them work out that the signal's coming from Ingraham, where the Grob seem to still be. That's over six AU away, a long distance to travel when there's a bit of a rush; Bishop wants to get back to Beck before Hoax realizes that he's gone. He pings them lots and gets pings back but can't really interpret what that means.
As the day goes on the signal's location doesn't change measurably and the Iof is either still sitting on the surface or flying towards them at truly mediocre speeds. Either way it looks like the Dragon is going to have to fly most or all of the way to Ingraham. Neet works out a route that will involve refuelling at Hannity, as the Hummingbird had to, and turning what was intended to be a short trip into a two-week slog before they reach Ingraham, meaning that they're unlikely to make it back to Beck before a month has passed. No one's happy about this, Xao leading the way in unhappiness, but there's not much else that can be done and they start the long trip to Hannity, Bishop pinging Chig as they go.
A few hours into the trip the sensors start to give strange readings and everyone has strange sensations wash over them. Bishop recognizes this as the same feeling he had when the squid ship in Vishnu jumped and by the time he and Vob run up to the bridge the Iof has appeared not far from the Resplendent Dragon; the Grob ship apparently has a functional jump drive of her own. The Dragon's crew has the same first reaction that the Hummingbird's did: an initial elation at seeing an alien ship for the first time followed by disappointment at it being such an unimpressive specimen. It also looks different from how Bishop remembers it. There's a fair amount of the greenish material the alien ruins were constructed with on its surface but it's also shaped somewhat differently.
There's a crackle and a voice comes over the comms. It's distorted but definitely Seo, who's sounds worried about the new ship with the very large cannon. Where's the Iron Butterfly? Bishop corrects her about the name and she and Vob manage to reassure the Iof's crew that everything's all right. After she gets to call Bishop Pimp Boy again everything seems calmer and soon the ships are connected via an umbilicus.
Bishop and Vob meet Chig and Seo in the middle of the connexion and briefly talk. Seo seems quieter and a bit skinnier after two weeks: maybe wirier is a better descriptor. She requests some fresh food, preferably with something leafy, and some beer. The Dragon has both of these things and after just a few days of flight the vegetables are still very fresh. Neet quickly makes something and Bishop, Chig, Seo, and Vob sit down in the Jillian-art-free Dragon (at Seo's request) to talk while Seo ravenously eats.
Neet and Olivia take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime to board the Iof and giddily clamber about in it while several of the Grob wander about the Dragon in return. Xao stays on board his ship for the time being and uses the salvage equipment; it turns out that the Iof has already pulled off enough green plating for the Steel Hummingbird and has brought it along instead of leaving it on Ingraham and he loads the plating into the Dragon's hold.
While everyone else is occupied Bishop tells his small audience about his plan as Seo and Vob do their best to translate as needed. Things are getting too hot on Beck for Vob to stay with the Steel Hummingbird and so the Grob should reboard the Iof. Seo should come back to Beck and they can somehow make it seem that the aliens dropped her off without needing to actually have Hoax meet the Iof. Neither of the humans trusts the organization much. Seo's had some experience with them in her profession as a technician in a xenotechnology lab back in Aiscapo and they've gotten weirder in the last few years, more aggressive and secretive. She agrees with Bishop's plan but desperately wants to return to the Iof later and is worried that Hoax will keep her as a research subject or something similar. Seo makes Bishop swear to get her if Hoax tries to keep her and he agrees.
Vob indicates a strong preference to continue to travel with the Steel Hummingbird but not if confined to a single room. This only seems fair, agrees Bishop. He wonders if the Iof can carry other ships with her if she jumps and it turns out that she can, although with difficulty. This would make getting to Olberman much easier than trying to use the ferry. Bishop suggests that once everything with Hoax is resolved all three ships can make the jump to Olberman and spend some time getting to know each other in an underpopulated verdant environment where they can all run free. This sounds good to the representatives of the two ships but Xao will have to be asked if he and his crew are interested, not that there's much of a chance that they won't be.
With the rough outline of a plan worked out talk turns to other things. The Grob don't want to give any of their technology to appease Hoax; Seo thinks that they reuse all of their equipment and obviously don't have any access to new gear. When she first boarded she thought that their constant working on the ship was a desperate attempt to keep her from falling apart but she now thinks that they are constantly changing her capacities instead. She also reveals that Ensig, another of the Grob, has captured some of the worms from Ingraham and has been training them as pets!
Chig and Bishop want to talk about Ubuntu a fair bit but their non-Dreaming translators don't have the vocabulary to help them out. The best that Chig can do is to give Bishop a new device in exchange for the "football". This is much smaller, the size of a small egg, but Bishop soon works out that it not only sends out a locating ping but also transmits an emotional feeling. He sends Chig a pleased ping and gets one in return.
Wanting to be back a week or so before the original planned date for the trade -- the 24th -- means that Bishop should be back on the 17th. It will take just over two days to get back to Beck, so they'll need to head back on the 15th. If they're going to be eventually tethering the Steel Hummingbird to the Iof to make a jump to Olberman why not try that out now with the Dragon? If the Dragon and Iof disengage about a day's flight from Beck there's virtually no chance that they'll be caught together. Everyone agrees to this.
It's also time to start thinking about how to fool Hoax into thinking that the Grob dumped Seo on Beck. She can tell them that the Grob, for reasons she doesn't understand, jumped to the surface of Beck, bundled her up, and pushed her out the door. Nothing hostile, just sudden and unexplained. Who can really understand alien psychology? Hoax can puzzle over this and be concerned about the Grob being apparently able to jump to wherever they wish while at the same time the Grob won't seem hostile. With the D'vor on their way a little bit of extra caution on the government's part is probably a good thing.
This has the additional advantage that most of Seo's story will be true and so she won't have to lie much. She isn't a terribly accomplished liar and Bishop's story about Inspector How's small alien device doesn't make her any more confident in her abilities. It's not too surprising that Hoax has access to functional xenotechnology despite the government's insistence that the space and jump drives are the only artefacts that work. Bishop suggests trying to break How's lie detector if Seo gets the chance but she's not convinced that she'll succeed. Hoax may well take Bishop's "football" once Seo is back so he asks Chig to make a fake version that he can pass off to them.
So where exactly on Beck should Seo be dropped off? As it turns out Xao knows the system pretty well, having piloted the Providence-Fortuna shuttle for a few years, and he and Bishop work out that the city of Norquist would be the best place to leave Seo. Being the largest city in its area means it has the local spaceport so the Resplendent Dragon can land there. Largest city in the area is a very relative term: it has a population of all of twenty-five thousand. The local terrain is rough enough for Seo to remain hidden until Bishop leads Hoax there and the lack of large predators in the area -- having been hunted to extirpation -- should keep her safe. Best of all it's far enough from Skousen that there should be no Varnsens. Once back in Mechanicville Bishop will contact Hoax and claim that the "football" started pinging like mad, indicated a location on Beck, and Seo can quickly be found, safe and sound.
With the rough plan worked out and a few days before making the jump Bishop tries to work out more about the Iof's technology, especially the weapons that they have. It's really not his field but he feels that he should get some details if the D'vor are coming, especially since the ship is mostly D'vor technology.
It's a good thing that Vob knows how to communicate in the human tongue, as it turns out Vob's position on the Iof is engineer and gunner! The Iof has some sort of energy weapon that physically damages things as well as some other sort of weapon that damages electronics. Bishop doesn't really understand the details but Olivia -- also an engineer and gunner! -- does. The energy weapon has a different way of targeting than humans' projectile weapons: the difficulty is not in leading the target and trying to get a relatively slow physical object to hit it. The beam is virtually instantaneous but needs to be maintained on a relatively small spot to properly do damage.
Defensively, the Iof has physical armour plating as well as some sort of protective energy shield. The Grob are maddeningly vague about putting actual numbers to the Iof's capabilities as they really can modify her to a phenomenal extent and can gin up whatever they need, given enough time. That the technology has been designed to be this adaptable indicates that the D'vor ships are probably constantly changing as well.
The Grob are unfortunately unable to provide any information about the D'vor's combat tactics. They didn't fight them directly and came across the Iof when she was in a badly damaged state. There wasn't room for any crew in her and they think that the "brain", as they call it, was controlling the ship. Bishop thinks that it's unlikely that the D'vor are entirely mechanical, as there had to be someone to build them at first. Perhaps these ships are a mechanical army sent out by living masters to do the dirty work?
To show what the capacities of the weapons on the two ships Neet finds a small cluster of asteroids not too far away and the Dragon and Iof take turns blowing up asteroids while the other ship takes readings. The Iof's energy weapon is strange, as there is no visible indication that it's firing other than the target being destroyed. The Grob think that the Dragon's autocannon is reasonably good but are still pessimistic about humanity's chances against the D'vor, especially when they find that it's an oversized gun and not representative of the armament of a ship of that size.
The rest of the three days is spent with the humans getting all the information they can about the Grob and the Grob doing the same about all things human. The ships are tethered together and Padb, who is apparently the jump calculation expert on the Iof, leisurely works out the details of the jump given that there are three days to do them.
Seo also gets to know the crew of the Resplendent Dragon, though she still spends the majority of her time on the Iof with the Grob. She and Xao don't find much common ground and her constant mocking of all and sundry seems to terrify Neet, but she and Olivia trade barbs and get along well. It turns out that Ensig has indeed taken on a few of the sand worms from Ingraham as pets. They give Bishop a few scares on the Iof but seem to have been effectively tamed.
On November 16th the two ships are firmly attached to each other with the Resplendent Dragon gone almost entirely dark to interfere with the jump as little as possible and Padb, having long since done the calculations, prepares to fire up the jump drive. Bishop and Seo have decided to make the jump in the Iof and try to get as comfortable as possible in the cables. There's suddenly chaos on the Iof as Arba, on sensors, detects another ship! There isn't enough time to jump before the other ship will likely detect the Iof. The Grob shout amongst themselves and the ship, encumbered and awkward, lumbers away from the intruder to put some distance between them.
There are long, tense moments as everyone waits for something to happen and the tension only slowly ebbs once there doesn't seem to be any reaction by the other ship. The Iof sends its passive sensor readings to Neet on the Dragon, who recognizes it as the HMS Crocodile, the same military frigate that they encountered leaving Beck! It's certainly suspicious to have come across the same ship that was originally headed entirely in the other direction but they weren't found and there isn't anything that can be done at the moment. Whoever's plotted out the Crocodile's course has done a good job to get so close to where she is without actually knowing their location.
Having moved requires that the calculations be redone and Padb does so with a newfound sense of urgency. While that's being done Xao runs sensor checks on the Dragon to see if there's some sort of transmitter on board but he can't find anything suspicious.
After almost three house of calculations the jump drive is at last engaged and the jump finally happens. Bishop feels a sharp disorienting lurching sensation and realizes that he has joined Jillian in the select group of humans who have actually jumped. They're about a day's travel from Beck when the trip is done an endless second later; it's been a small jump but useful in working out the issues in doing so with multiple ships. The Dragon starts up her space drive and Xao uses her salvaging equipment to aid in quickly untethering the ships from each other.
Bishop and Seo prepare to transfer over to the Resplendent Dragon. Seo's got a few travel bags of clothing and such and the Grob give her what looks like plastic bags of food and water: it turns out that they have managed to work out how to make human food. Bishop tastes some and decides that while it may be more nutritious for humans than the Grob food that he's tasted it's nowhere near as tasty. Still, it's not bad.
Chig presents Bishop not only with a fake "football" but also a crown! The latter is translated as a token of friendship, the Grob having noticed Bishop's love for his white hat. As far as crowns go it's neither obviously alien nor very fancy, made of metal with no circuitry, jewellery, or precious metals evident, but Bishop is nonetheless extremely touched. In return he gives his hat to Chig -- which immediately falls to the diminutive alien's shoulders -- and decides that he wants to do more. He makes everyone wait while he measures Chig and Vob. When he gets back to Beck he'll order suits for them: the same sort of suit that he wears, but measured to fit them properly. Seo can't help but express her disbelief that he both wants to waste time while the two ships are so near each other close to Beck and also that he wants to make an army of miniature pimps but he ignores her and keeps measuring.
Finally done with that task, Bishop and Seo say their farewells to the Iof and her crew. Seo is openly tearful, more than half convinced that she'll never see them again. Then the two ships part ways, hopefully not for the last time.
On the day's flight back to Beck Seo makes peace with Bishop, or at least the two of them reach a detente. She's the one who does most of the reaching out, possibly because she needs to count on him for the next part of the plan to work out. He also thinks that her small stature and enormous nose means that she was alone for much of her life and that she uses her biting humour to preemptively keep others away.
The final minor details of the plan are worked out. Seo practices what she's going to say. Most of it is going to be true anyway, which will hopefully help her keep the rest of it a secret from Inspector How.
Finally, on November 17th, the Dragon lands at the Norquist Spaceport, Neet having timed it so that Colt is on the other side of the planet at the time. Norquist is centred around one of Beck's extremely few natural bodies of water and contains a large number of greenhouses where intensive agriculture takes place. Once they've landed Xao and Neet go to bribe the officials at the airport so that the Resplendent Dragon doesn't show up in the records for the day.
Olivia rents a motorcycle with sidecar and she takes Seo and Bishop off into the wilderness. Seo sits behind Olivia while Bishop rides in the sidecar at Olivia's insistence since he's going to keep wearing that stupid crown and grinning. It's not really much of an all-terrain bike and Olivia's not the greatest driver so they stay on the highway for about two hours before Bishop finds a location that seems promising and they carefully pull off the road. They putter around for a while to make sure that there isn't anyone living in the area and finally finds a good place that is hard to come across unless you know where it is and sheltered from the worst of the sun and wind. Seo's still preoccupied with being taken away by Hoax for debriefing and never coming back. She makes Bishop promise, again, to rescue her if it becomes necessary. He once again agrees and then he and Olivia make the return trip back to Norquist, Bishop still relegated to the sidecar.
By the time they return the Dragon's refuelled and ready to go. As it turns out Xao knew the person in charge from his days piloting the Providence-Fortuna shuttle and he's convinced that they've been well and truly expunged from the records. They take off and a few hours later they land in Mechanicville again. On the drive back to the Dragons' house they drop Bishop off several blocks from the house that the Steel Hummingbird is renting so he can sneak back.
Once on foot Bishop decides to be very careful and very stealthy. He crawls under fences and through shrubs, not worrying about personal comfort. He ends up a filthy mess, his face scratched and his suit a write-off, by the time he's at the house's back door at one in the morning, but he's convinced that no one has noticed him.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: Lots, but only with one person (running total: 14)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 1)