Play date: August 3, 2013
Game date: June 15, EY218
Location: iLanga system
Previous events: iLanga atLasta
Bishop pings the Iof and gets a relieved ping back, revealing their location at 2AU past the planet of uBuntu. It takes an uneventful three and a half days for the Resplendent Dragon and Steel Hummingbird to get to them, during which Jillian notices uBuntu's strong and fluctuating electromagnetic field despite it not having a notable effect on the ship at this distance.
June 18, EY218
Once within hailing range Malcolm calls the Iof and speaks briefly with Seo Yee. The Iof had difficulty making it through the last slide point and is now largely out of fuel. This normally wouldn't be a problem as most systems have gas giants and the Iof has the capability to fill its tanks with a flight through the atmosphere but iLanga has two suns, a single rocky planet, and nothing else; settling a place like this makes no sense. Ensig wanted to raid the space station for hydrogen but no one else thought that was a good idea and they decided to wait; the Iof has lots of endurance when it comes to life support.
Umbilicals are connected and Bishop and Jillian enter the Grob ship's cargo hold, where they are met by Padb. While Malcolm and Neet hold their respective ships stable Olivia and Volkova start to transfer some of their fuel to the Iof. Much of the hold is filled with the still-damaged Wyrm ship that they found on the von Däniken platform in Providence. It seems that although the Grob can keep the Wyrm from von Däniken alive there aren't enough to be "smart" or to repair, much less fly, their ship.
Jillian follows Padb and clambers through the maze of machinery that makes up the Iof's interior to the ship's bridge, where some more of the Grob are on duty and Jillian's cast-off art has been inserted between controls and instrument panels. The two navigators exchange their most recent information on slide points under the watchful multifaceted eye of a winged papier-mâché goatfish.
While his captain risks the tangled interior of the Iof Bishop keeps his suit clean and waits for Chig. When the Iof's Dreamer appears Chig is wearing Bishop's old too-big hat and is pleased to see that Bishop has donned his "king of the Grob" crown. The Grob's big news concerns Dreams: Chig has been Dreaming a fair bit while waiting for the Hummingbird to show up and thinks that there are nonhuman ruins or something on uBuntu in the North Sea. It seems that Chig's Dreams only concern death in one form or another; this partially explains why the Hummingbird's crew met the Grob in the ruins on Ingraham. Chig is convinced that the ruins are important.
uBuntu's EM field is also of great interest to Chig and when Bishop describes the planet a bit more it bears definite similarity to a moon in the Grobs' home system that had a similarly troublesome field, an unimportant location, no resources, and yet was settled anyway. Both uBuntu and the Grob moon were "stupid" to settle, as Chig puts it, and yet huge amounts of resources were put into doing exactly that. Surely uBuntu must be important! And stupid.
Chig is hesitant when Bishop insists that the Grob can come down to uBuntu to examine this mystery, but Bishop insists that the people of uBuntu have had their minds opened up by the Dreaming and are waiting for aliens of legend to return to the planet. They'll love you down there! he insists. Chig is won over by Bishop's insistence.
While they are discussing these matters and the intricacies of the terms "hot" and "smoking", Padb crawls out of the tangles with Jillian in tow. When she hears about the possibility of something important in the northern sea of uBuntu she -- not surprisingly -- decides to call a meeting on the Steel Hummingbird.
The full crews of the Resplendent Dragon and Steel Hummingbird come to the meeting in the Hummingbird's mess, along with Chig and Seo from the Iof. Everyone agrees that a trip to the planet's surface is important. The Hummingbird and her full crew will make the actual trip to the space station while the Dragon and Iof stay where they are. Neet volunteers to stay on the Dragon. This makes sense, as having an extremely good pilot on the ship is a good idea, and he prefers to be in space when he can. Xao comments that Neet will probably turn off the gravity while alone on the ship and the pilot doesn't disagree. Olivia and Xao will come along with the Hummingbird and Chig, Rans, and Seo will come from the Iof. It seems that Rans will basically act as a bodyguard for Chig.
One hour later the Hummingbird heads off to uBuntu, Chig exclaiming "on to stupid death!" in Grob. It's a two-day trip, during which Bishop explains uBuntu culture: the matriarchy, the coming together due to the harsh environment, the waiting for legendary aliens to come back. Jillian tells the Grob about the Leary's entrance to Vishnu and its self-destruction due to their following it, which they are saddened by. The survival of at least some of its crew, like Nanda Reddy, is some good news, as is the existence of some more Wyrms. The Grob want to reunite their Wyrm culture with the rest. After recounting the mixed news Jillian spends much of the trip poring over the slide point data but doesn't get anything more out of it.
June 20, EY218
uBuntu's electromagnetic field gets worse as they approach it and it's a relief to finally approach the isiBhakabhaka space station to land there; the electronics on the ship won't survive a trip all the way down to the surface. There is no hailing on the way in; communication equipment that gets used here is likely to get damaged and thus ships are expected to register themselves upon docking at an empty berth.
Jillian tells everyone that she remembers that the commander of the station is s'Bu nKosi's brother and that the captain of the Beautiful Dream doesn't have much good to say about his apparently corrupt sibling who runs isiBhakabhaka. Much more exciting is Malcolm's discovery while making his final approach. There's small ship docked at the space station and he happens to see the name written on it: the Gallatin! It's the same ship of Flint Cardesco, the man who almost drove his family's flying circus bankrupt, leading to the suicide of the circus member who made that deal, and who -- as "Bill Miller" -- stole over 30,000 Bleahs from the Steel Hummingbird! This might be an exciting visit to uBuntu after all...
isiBhakabhaka is a small installation in terms of usable space but it has corridors that snake through the asteroid that it's carved from, covering a fair amount of distance. Malcolm puts down at an airlock as far away from the Gallatin as he can.
Someone will have to register the ship in person and it's decided that Bishop and Jillian are the best two to do that. Everyone else will head over to the Gallatin and see if they can find anything. Going out in force to the ship seems the best thing to do but the Grob are unmistakably alien. Bishop solves that by taking sheets from the guest quarters and quickly fashioning a reasonable simulacrum of iLanga desert-wear from them, with swathes of cloth loosely wrapped around limbs and most everything covered. With Seo and the two Grob so dressed they can pass as mother and children, hopefully not garnering too much attention.
Bishop and Jillian follow the hand-painted signs to the station commander's office. The receptionist there interrogates them at length about their ship, intentions, previous systems visited, and so on. Bishop gamely answers question after question until he realizes that the receptionist is just asking out of boredom, not because any of this information is relevant to registering! The actual registration form is very short and Bishop asks some questions of his own, finding out that Commander nKosi is in a meeting with offworlders and isn't to be disturbed. No doubt this meeting is with Flint Cardesco!
It's not long before Bishop has the receptionist -- Siyambonga Zulu -- in the palm of his oh so charming hand and convinces him that it's vital that Bishop and Jillian meet with the commander now; they've got important information about the person that nKosi is meeting with. Siyambonga knocks on the door until an angry nKosi wrenches it open and verbally lays into his inferior. nKosi refuses to further pause his meeting until Bishop steps close to nKosi and quickly convinces him to talk to him and his captain. After a hasty apology to whomever is in his office nKosi shuts the door behind him and tells Bishop to make it quick.
Bishop and Jillian tell nKosi about the con man that he's in a meeting with, telling him all that they know about Cardesco's poor character. nKosi listens to them but they have the impression that he's not terribly concerned about the fact that the man's a criminal. He instead seems to be looking for information that he can use to his advantage in the meeting! Once they're done he thanks them for the information and with exaggerate magnanimosity tells Siyambonga to waive their docking fees before ducking back into his office.
Siyambonga's on the simple side and it's not hard for Bishop to convince the receptionist to keep his ears open and tell Bishop what's going on. With that Bishop and Jillian head back to the Steel Hummingbird.
The rest of the gang gear up for trouble: Malcolm has his assault rifle, Blingmaster, and seething rage; Olivia brings what is to her a moderate loadout: a .45 pistol, sword, and grenade launcher, and Volkova takes along her grenade launcher Irina -- with her curry grenade in the breech -- and Khnuta, of course. Xao reluctantly takes his pistol. It's decided that Seo and the Grob will be better off staying on the Steel Hummingbird and acting as guards.
Heading down the corridors on the way to the Gallatin Volkova's impressed by how the entire space station runs without electrical systems. It's all clever mechanical devices and though the sporadic hatches are heavy and a pain to open they're well designed and in fact the same design as doors back in her native Walküren that were used to keep the vodka supplies safe -- doors that she soon learned how to open without leaving much trace! Even the lighting is non-electrical, coming through portholes and what looks like tubes of crystals that carry light into the tunnels; as clever as the lighting is it's generally insufficient and the gloomy darkness makes the station's abandoned-feeling interior a bit creepy.
Someone wearing colourful robes with a hood pulled entirely over his face accosts them seemingly from nowhere. The man calls himself Mondii. He says that he is a Dreamer and that if they wish to know the secrets of the universe, etc, etc, they just need to ask and he will gladly teach them to Dream, for everyone can do it with training here. Volkova is friendly enough to the man but Malcolm isn't in the mood to dally and mockingly asks Mondii why he won't show his face to them. Mondii shrugs and pulls back his hood to show them an attractive, friendly face; it seems that he's also blind. After everyone insists that they're really quite busy Mondii lets them go but repeats his offer, telling them that there are no strings attached. They just need to ask anyone on the station where he lives if they wish to meet him again.
After their brief interruption they're soon in front of the airlock that leads to the Gallatin. There is a window that looks in but Volkova rubs it with her meaty forearm and it's quickly made greasily opaque. Then she looks into opening the door. It's not quite the same model as back home after all and she ends up wrenching it open with a grinding screech. Learning from the first door she opens the second door in a more silent way, using her hand to muffle the bangs of her heavy wrench and giving her some painful fat knuckles.
With the second door opened all that lies between them and the Gallatin's cramped interior is a quickly whisked-away curtain... revealing a beefy man sitting in a chair with a heavy submachine gun pointed at the doorway. He's had lots of time to get ready while the doors were being forced and he calmly points his firearm at them while demanding to know what the Hell they're doing. The foursome in the airlock are jammed together and extremely vulnerable to automatic fire; Malcolm trades a few vague threats with the man and then he and his friends awkwardly leave the way they came with nothing to show for their efforts. The man in the chair lets them go. Xao mutters angrily at Malcolm about the situation he got them into as they head back to the Steel Hummingbird, the sounds of the Gallatin's airlock door closing behind them echoing in the hallway.
By the time they're back at the Hummingbird Bishop and Jillian have already returned and the two groups talk about what they found out. When Malcolm describes the standoff at the Gallatin Jillian's face goes red. She tells Olivia and Volkova to stay just outside the airlock and guard the ship and then drags Malcolm to her office to chew him out.
Out in the hallway, Olivia turns to Volkova and starts talking about the man on the Gallatin. One man, in a confined area, and the two of them here with grenade launchers... how difficult would it be to deal with him? She asks if Volkova would be up to seeing if her curry grenade would be enough to take him out. Volkova doesn't need much convincing and the two of them are soon skulking back to the Gallatin.
The damaged inner airlock door is still open and Volkova sneaks up to the second door, getting a grip and preparing to open it while Olivia takes aim with Irina and the curry round. With a grunt Volkova flings the heavy door open and Olivia fires at what seems from memory to be a good location of the ship's interior. Her aim is true and Volkova's curry grenade works beautifully: the round punches through the curtain and explodes into a stinging haze that fills the interior with a choking cloud. There is the sound of someone gagging, then a loud thud, then silence.
Volkova slips her goggles over her eyes and ties her bandana over her nose and mouth before slipping into the ship. The yellow-red haze makes for an apocalyptic scene but she can make out the man that threatened them before lying unconscious on the ground, well and truly curry-faced. She quickly ties him up and throws his firearm out the door to Olivia. Looking around she sees a fairly obvious strongbox and knowing that she doesn't have enough time to force it open here she smashes it free with Khnuta and her prodigious strength. She then smashes up an electrical panel for good measure and drags the safe out of the ship when the curry finally threatens to overpower her as well.
Holding the weighty safe in her massive arms a curry-reeking Volkova and Olivia head back to the Hummingbird, giggling madly. They're caught up short when Mondii comes upon them in the hallway but he just says hello to Volkova and repeats his offer to train them before coughing a bit from Volkova's spicy cloud.
A pleased Olivia takes up her guarding at the airlock again while Volkova lumbers onto the ship and into Jillian's office, where she's still browbeating Malcolm. With a grin the engineer heaves the strongbox onto the captain's desk with a crash.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 17)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (not surprisingly)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 1 (running total: 4)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 3)