Play date: March 1, 2014 Game date: September 18, EY218
Location: the Telushknin Refinery, Providence
Previous events: Terrible wounds and capture
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Accompanied by a couple of guards Bishop enters the Steel Hummingbird and gathers the living medical supplies that he'll need to treat his injured crewmates. The guards don't know anything about uBuntan medicine, so it's no trouble to pick up a few items that can be used to make poisons as well...
Back on the Telushkin he briefly deals with his scratched-up face to make the pain less distracting and then gets to work on Jillian. He goes out of the way to make the grubs and poultices look and smell as disgusting as possible to keep the guards and medics away. It works and gives him enough space to be able to talk to his captain in relative privacy. Not that the guards want to get too close to Jillian's torn-up face in the first place! Just to be sure they also talk in Grob, which he pretends is a chant he's using to make his medicine work.
Jillian's up front with Bishop about her having to play along at being a Black Rose and that they might have to do some terrible things if they're going to make it out of here. Bishop understands -- after all, she did already shoot Flint Cardesco in the face when she was playing at being a Black Rose in iLanga -- but is annoyed that everyone else knew about her past but him and that he only found out yesterday, when Malcolm told him while Jillian was being questioned by Venla Inberg. The plan is to get the Black Rose on board with fighting the D'vor. Since the Black Rose doesn't need to follow rules they may well be the only ones who can prepare before it's too late.
Bishop thinks that Chig should be well enough with Thabisa's help to be able to communicate with the "egg" around October 9th, so the Iof may be able to play a part soon enough. Neither Bishop nor Jillian knows when the Resplendent Dragon will start looking for them given the state they left in. The Eggen observatory was likely watching Prager when the Hummingbird was shot down; they did watch the assault on the von Däniken platform and so were likely watching here.
It takes Bishop a while to work on Jillian and in the end the news isn't good. She's permanently lost the use of one eye and the other will take a while to improve: right now she's lost most of her vision in it and that won't get better for months. She'll also have some impressive scarring on her face. After the black ooze in Labrys City and this it looks like the only part of her that won't be scarred will be the Black Rose tattoo on her arm! It takes so long to deal with Jillian that there isn't time to deal with Malcolm this day.
While medical treatment is going on Volkova sits in her room and reads her new books for a while but once she realizes that she's worked out much of the plot and even the dialogue after the first few chapters of each she decides to spend some time examining the room that she's in. It wasn't meant to be a prison cell and it seems to be an empty supply room. There's a removable panel at the back that she works out likely leads to a gas conduit that, judging by the silence, isn't being used anymore, though she can't tell exactly why. Her beefy fingers are strong enough to loosen the bolts without tools and she does so just in case, but decides to wait and see what her captain will come up with.
September 19, EY218
Bishop starts the day treating Malcolm's injuries and although he insists that he hasn't put any wriggling thing into Malcolm's ears the pilot can't help but feel movement in there. Bishop himself is much better and his scabs are already starting to peel.
The rest of the day goes by slowly. Everyone's happy to just rest up and heal with the exception of Volkova, who has finished both novels and keeps eyeing the panel in her room. Jillian watches the guards and crew and tries to see if any of them are from Zartosht. With only partial vision in only one eye she has to go by accents and can't work anything out. Malcolm's bored but at least the Black Rose tea is very good. It takes the edge off.
September 20, EY218
Venla Inberg's obviously been checking things out and comes to Jillian with the very nice flight plan that Jillian copied out to show Neet. Venla's obviously impressed by Jillian's job and wonders why the Hummingbird left from Eggan; the observatory's not a typical place to visit, after all. Jillian claims that they were making a delivery and managed to get some fuel, too; Prager's pretty far from Limbaugh and they couldn't make a round trip on one tank. When she's asked why she plotted out such a bizarre, sneaky path to the Telushkin Jillian retorts that she was worried about what sort of reception they'd get. She follows up with a comment about how the Telushkin doesn't get many visitors if that's how they greet ships and watches Venla closely to see how she responds. There's a slight twitch that indicates to Jillian that someone -- the Deccan Driller? -- did visit here and got a hot reception.
Someone higher up from the Black Rose is going to be coming to talk to them but that won't happen for another week and a half or so. Venla doesn't want to reveal who this will be but Jillian manages to worm out of her that it will be Arman Sahlesi, the Black Rose bigwig that Jillian saw on McNeely a while ago. It makes sense; back in Zartosht he was the one brought in to fix things when they got pear-shaped.
While they wait the Hummingbird's crew will be moved to a recreation area next to the med bay. In part this is to free up the beds, in part it's because the common area will be more comfortable, but mostly it's because the Telushkin's medics are worried about Bishop's creepy crawlies contaminating their things. Jillian insists on everyone getting some of their clothing instead of the hospital gowns they're wearing, which they get, and when they hobble into the common area they find it to be much nicer and, best of all, to have a fit-looking Volkova there! Everyone catches up on the last few days.
Jillian brings up the idea of having dinner with Venla but the Telushkin's leader is much more interested in having dinner with Bishop. He agrees at Jillian's insistence and Malcolm tells them that he's noticed that Venla's been keeping a leering if subtle eye on Bishop whenever she's been in the same room with him. Bishop reluctantly agrees.
Venla's cabin is nicely furnished even if it's still stark -- the Telushkin is still a refinery above all else -- and the guard that's present doesn't especially help the mood. Nonetheless, Venla's dressed to seduce and the meal is surprisingly nice. As much as she is attractive, has a fascinating air to her, and is also quite charming, she's more than twice Bishop's age and isn't his Whang, so he plays the flirting game while keeping his will strong.
While they eat Venla presses him on whether they've met any aliens other than the D'vor and Bishop insists that no, they haven't. He in turn works out more information about the Telushkin from Venla and finds out that it's got a score of guards, six space fighters of its own, and has three larger ships to defend it, two of which Bishop already knows about.
When he's asked about how serious Jillian is about rejoining the Black Rose Bishop honestly doesn't know what that means in detail but mentions that his captain did shotgun an unarmed teenager in the knees and killed an unarmed prisoner. He gives the impression that he thinks that the Black Rose is all about being tough and ruthless, which is a pretty good guess as far as he can tell.
Venla seems awfully curious about the presence of other aliens given that no one else has ever met any and Bishop honestly wants to know why. Seeing what humans managed to do with space drives and jump drives, Venla can't help but wonder what could be done with more xenotechnology. Since none of the xenotech found has been functional it will have to be aliens who show us how to use it and there must be some friendly aliens out there. The ones who left us the space drive and jump drive obviously were. Not that Venla's a complete humanitarian about this: she wants the Black Rose to get its hands on functional xenotech first!
As the dinner progresses Venla decides that she's had enough of chitchat and would like to dismiss the guard and take Bishop to bed. He refuses, she makes it obvious that it would be a good idea for him to agree, and he refuses again. Rage clouds her face and she abruptly tells the guard to take Bishop back to his friends.
Back with his crewmates Bishop's criticized by Malcolm for "not taking one for the team" but holds firm on his choice. To make it up to them he works on Jillian's eye some more, replacing the arthropod he's got healing it with with a fluke that lies flat mostly behind the eye and doesn't have legs to stick out in front of the eye: the second set of eyelashes that would wriggle was really creeping everyone out.
September 21, EY218
Now that Bishop's gotten on Venla's bad side Jillian decides she needs to get closer to her by asking a favour. Venla's open to returning the locket that she found in the false bottom of Jillian's locker and when she does so Jillian imnmediately puts the locket on under her shirt and then uses her knowledge of Venla's interest in aliens to point out that Hoax has at least one piece of functioning xenotech: the strange sculpture that Inspector How used when interrogating them. Jillian comes up with a tangled tale of coming across the small D'vor ship, getting readings on it, trying to sell those readings to Professor Rolf Fisher at Aiscapo University before being caught by Hoax and questioned with the help of what is likely a lie-detecting xenotech device. Her ploy seems to work and Venla warms to her a bit.
Venla asks Jillian just how serious she is about rejoining the Black Rose and Jillian insists that she's very serious indeed. Having slightly wormed her way into Venla's confidence Jillian finds out that her father, the last that Venla knew, is doing fine back in Zartosht. As with so, so many things Jillian has conflicted feelings about this and is pensive while they wait for Arman Sahlesi to get to the station.
Malcolm, rarely the conflicted type, flirts quite heavily over the next several days with one of the guards, a young attractive man from Providence, but the guard's nervousness about sleeping with a prisoner -- and maybe about sleeping with another man -- outweighs his curiosity and Malcolm is left frustrated.
For the next week and a half everyone lays low and those who are still injured get better. They feel like they're being treated somewhat more like guests than prisoners, and that everyone on the Telushkin is waiting for Arman Sahlesi to decide the fate of the Steel Hummingbird's crew.
September 31, EY218
When he shows up Arman Sahlesi is a tall bald man in his sixties with a pockmarked face and piercing eyes. He hasn't come alone: he's brought what seems to be his mousy personal assistant, two guards, and a massive bodyguard that Jillian immediately recognizes as Asjadi, her old bodyguard when she was younger! It's obvious that he recognizes her as well and that he's shocked at her appearance -- for several definitions of the word "appearance".
After very brief introductions Jillian's grilled by Arman about her disappearance many years ago. The Black Rose assumed that the Red Imams had taken her and a gang war was the result with many people dead on both sides. She repeats her story about fleeing Rashid and Arman doesn't make any outward show of believing her or not. She claims that she's been lonely here, obviously implying that she's talking about the lack of her Black Rose family in her life, but can't tell how much he believes it.
Arman then asks about any other aliens they may have come across and Jillian insists that no, they haven't seen any other than the D'vor, but he smells blood and hounds her on it until she coughs up the existence of the hidden compartment with the piece of the D'vor ship and the jump drive components to placate him. Venla cringes when she's shot a dirty look by Arman for not having found the secret compartment and then leaves the room at a motion of his head to further investigate the Steel Hummingbird.
There's not much else to incriminate the crew. Always paranoid about being tracked, Jillian has spent years messing with the navigation data and logs for the Steel Hummingbird's trips and it benefits her here; although the Black Rose is suspicious about the bizarre trail she's "recorded" they can't find anything to prove that she's not just an insane navigator. She doesn't keep a captain's log, Bishop and Malcolm don't keep any sort of diary, and Volkova's "People's Report" series just reads like gibberish written by a madwoman.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 17)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0, despite his best efforts (running total: 5)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 4)