Play date: November 9, 2014
In-game date: December 8, EY218
Location: exiting the slide point in Vishnu
Previous events: Convincing Mi Kyong Choi to leave Crapworld
The trip to Vishnu through the slide point has gone off without a hitch, thanks to preparation and experience, and everyone's all right with the exception of Choi, who has taken on a bout of paranoia and refuses to come out of her room. While Jillian confirms on the sensors that no one's waiting for them Bishop heads to Choi's room and tries to talk her down.
Over the three-day flight to Shiva Bishop manages to get Choi back to normal -- for her -- something he's happy about given his previous lack of luck with helping out Jillian when she's gone off the rails.
December 11, EY218
Wanting to keep their trip as quiet as possible the Steel Hummingbird docks at The Ashram space station, where they can get a private docking space and keep things as quiet as possible. The bureaucratic hassles and costs are more than they would be in Bhopuhr's spaceport on the surface but secrecy is key here. As they negotiate for a bay they're greeted in a friendly voice by Ashley Nelson, Neet's girlfriend who is one of the space traffic controllers on the station. Jillian tries hard to remember much of anything about her but she mostly fails and makes bland small talk instead. She also manages to not order any ketchup at all.
Arrangements are made to refuel and resupply the ship. There are enough parts that need replacing that Volkova also arranges for routine maintenance work to be done. The mechanics here are competent and Volkova decides to take it easy, settling for only supervising them. At Malcolm's insistence the maintenance work will happen on a piece-by-piece basis, so they can fly away quickly if they need to. It won't make things more expensive but it will take longer; the estimate is a day and a half. When it's done Malcolm brings up the idea of waiting on the station for a few days anyway. His family's traveling show, the Devereaux Daredevils, will be in the system when the jump gate from Walküren opens on the 14th, and he hasn't seen the whole gang in a donkey's age. No one wants to commit to anything with Choi and the Black Roses on board but it's a possibility.
Pretty much everyone wants some shore leave after their extended stay from civilization and after everything's set up the only ones left on the ship are Choi, Ghost, and Volkova. Those who leave the ship are greeted by Chandra Mukpadohay, who is as slight, bespectacled, and obsequious as ever. He doesn't have much new to tell them -- it's a pretty quiet system on the whole -- and the crew are unwilling to reveal much to him. Once past him it's time to hit the bar, dragging a reluctant Bishop along, where Malcolm makes an open challenge to the rest of the gang to a game of darts. Jillian, not surprisingly, passes, and only Ester takes on Malcolm, whom she trounces in short order. While in the bar Bishop receives an emotionally neutral "ping" on the Grob egg. It looks like Chig is doing better! Bishop sends back a "happy" ping and receives a "tired" ping in return. The Iof is still in iLanga.
After the bar most of the group do some shopping and eat some different cuisine in one of the restaurants on The Ashram. On the way they see a few posters advertising the Devereaux Daredevils' upcoming show. While the others shop Jillian checks the navigation board. There's nothing terribly interesting there with the exception of the news that the Ashoka, the cargo hauler that Sly Fox is currently shipping on, has docked here. As much as she'd like to meet up with him again there's the issue of the Roses finding out more about them, so maybe later. She also notices that there seem to be a fair amount of jobs, dating back a little while, for construction equipment to be taken to Labrys City. Shuddering a bit at the thought of the intimidating construction criminal mastermind Mr. Adraghand lurking in his evil web down on the planet's surface, Jillian posts a D'vor poster up on the navigation board and heads to the post office.
There are two messages for the Steel Hummingbird. One is from Helga Lang at Labrys City. Dating back to April 4th, it reads "Your egg was very interesting. Please contact us about details." It's obviously about the ovoid thing that contained the black ooze that almost killed Jillian in Labrys City. She shudders some more at the memory. The other message is from Olivia from November 2nd simply saying that the Resplendent Dragon will be in Aiscapo for the time being. Jillian shudders at the thought of her current status with Xao and rejoins the others. Jillian also sets up a mailbox for Choi under a fake name in case things go badly for her and she needs help. Jillian shudders at the thought of sending someone to the Black Rose, especially when that someone's work could give the Black Rose a marked technological advantage. It honestly hasn't been the best return to The Ashram for Jillian.
Having gorged themselves on civilization everyone returns to the ship, with the exception of Jillian they're feeling content.
December 12, EY218
The day starts with breakfast on the ship and some conversation about their next plans. Labrys City is only a two-day flight away and with the news about the ovoid device the Hummingbird's crew are interested in taking the trip over: they play up the trip as one to see friends and a girlfriend of Volkova's. After all, their mission was one without a tight time frame. Samiksha, not knowing the truth, insists on heading back to the Black Rose as soon as the maintenance is done, but Jillian pulls rank and puts Samiksha in her place in no uncertain terms.
Everyone hangs out on the ship for a lazy morning. The maintenance should be done by around noon and most of the crew are still feeling a little full after stuffing their faces the night before. Choi is pleased that Jillian has set up a mailbox for her but expresses her desire to not have to use it. She hopes that her new stint with the Black Rose will end up better than her last one.
It looks like it's going to be an uneventful rest of their stay when Malcolm hears something odd coming over the comms. Entering the bridge he notices that the space traffic control is broadcasting to every ship that's wired to the station's communications system and also over the wireless. It sounds like someone's left a microphone or headset transmitting in the control centre. Out of reflex Malcolm starts recording the call. There is the sound of confusion and someone with a Vishnan accent insisting that he's in charge of the station when a burst of gunfire -- an automatic rifle, Malcolm guesses -- cuts him off and there is screaming and more gunfire before the sound cuts off.
Malcolm is in the pilot's seat in an instant, starting up the non-spacedrive systems while using the ship's internal speakers to tell everyone to get ready for a hasty departure. Jillian races to the bridge and gets a quick rundown of what Malcolm heard. She agrees with his instincts -- two rifles and a Khnuta can't possibly be enough to handle the situation and the whole Choi situation doesn't help -- and runs down the stairs to the engineering deck to yell at Volkova to get the parts installed now and for the four Ashram mechanics to come up to the main deck and get ready for a ride. Volkova doesn't need to hear the details, not with that tone in Jillian's voice, and begins to smash pieces into place with Khnuta in front of the shocked mechanics.
Even once the space drive is running there's the issue of opening the bay doors. Normally they'd request that the control centre open them but that's not going to happen now. There's a brief debate over whether they should use the ship's cannon to shoot out the doors but that would probably go through much or all of their ammo before they got a hole large enough to get the ship through. Volkova offers to suit up and open the doors manually and while she gets her bulky EVA suit on Bishop clambers to the turret and points the Lyudmilla at the internal doors to the bay, just in case.
While Volkova is heading over to the doors Malcolm calls the other bays, internal and external, on the station's comm system. The only ship that responds is the Nehru, a Vishnan naval destroyer. Malcolm asks them if they notice anything wrong but they claim that everything's normal and that they just got off the line with space traffic control. When they ask which bay Malcolm's in he gives the wrong number and hastily hangs up. Jillian asks the mechanics if they've noticed anything odd with the Nehru but the only real comment they have is that the ship's been docking for short periods lately and switching out its marine contingent with the one on the station a lot. The marines have also been getting drunk much less lately, but the station just took that as a blessing. From what Jillian has heard the Nehru's Captain Singh is a good captain: this is bizarre behaviour for her. She tells the mechanics to run down to the passenger deck and strap in there, then makes an internal announcement over the intercom that everyone should strap in before doing so herself at her console.
The doors aren't very difficult to set to open even in her EVA suit, and Volkova sets the atmosphere for an emergency venting in thirty seconds, by which time she should be back in the ship. She lumbers back, making it with seconds to spare and sealing the hatch as Malcolm backs the ship out the doors as soon as the ship can fit through the gap, snapping the wired phone line. There's a call on the wireless comms, and when Jillian cautiously answers it it's space traffic control asking her why they've vandalized the doors. Jillian plays innocent but control answers that they can see her ship through their windows. Jillian quickly cuts off the call, noticing that the voice on the other end didn't sound like a civilian controller; their delivery was very military. Down on the engineering deck Volkova disengages several safeties on the space drive: doing everything by the rules isn't going to work if they end up shot out of the sky.
Malcolm swings the ship around and tries to keep the station between the Hummingbird and the external dock number the Nehru was tied to. It works to some extent, especially with the Nehru waiting outside the wrong bay, but the destroyer soon comes around and gets line of sight to the smaller ship. The destroyer's first salvo is fired without really taking the time to line up a good shot and Malcolm manages to prevent the ship from getting hit. Jillian broadcasts a distress call to the planet's surface on all channels and Bishop uses Lyudmilla's gun camera to take photos of the Nehru as evidence. He doesn't bother to actually shoot at the naval vessel. It would likely be ineffective and he's not really a killer anyway.
Remembering that a stock destroyer wouldn't have atmospheric engines Malcolm flips the ship into a vertical dive at the planet's surface, kicking in the afterburner and making full use of Volkova's dangerous extra juice for the space drive. The drive is soon ineffective due to the gravity well but Malcolm smoothly transitions to the atmospheric engines and keeps the pedal to the floor, picking up a dangerous amount of velocity as he plunges the ship towards the planet's nighttime surface.
Far behind them, the Nehru is taken by surprise and by the time they manage to locate the Hummingbird it's too late: the smaller ship is out of effective firing range. It looks like the Nehru has a sensor lock on them and it follows them for a while, keeping to low orbit. The terrain here is flat and unremarkable with nowhere to hide and even in the dark it takes a while for Malcolm to properly evade the destroyer's gaze.
Might as well fly to Bhopuhr and report to the military what's happened. They're not too far from the city, certainly within range of several types of transmission, but the city's suspiciously quiet and there's no sign that anyone's heard Jillian's distress call. The city is also suspiciously dark. Some shuffling happens, with Bishop moving to comms and Volkova on Lyudmilla. On the way back to Bhopuhr the horizon ahead starts to lighten as dawn approaches. Bishop tries a military band and manages to connect with a suspicious officer, Major Shiv Sekhon. They've met with him before but he doesn't remember them. Ah well.
Both sides exchange what they know about what's happening. It seems that there's been some sabotage in Bhopuhr and the electrical supply for the city's been cut along with many local backups. The tiny military base managed to stay powered through its own generators and although there's confusion very few people are awake this time of night and there's no general sense of panic.
While Bishop talks to the Major Malcolm notices a strange bright spot in the sky ahead of them. His sharp eyes and Jillian's sensors both work out what it is at the same time: it's The Ashram, dropping out of orbit! It's heading towards Bhopuhr and glowing from its passage through the atmosphere. There's no way they can possibly stop it -- all they can do is make sure they're nowhere near the blast. Exactly what the blast radius is for roughly a hundred thousand tonnes of metal screaming in from orbital speeds and hitting the ground at an unknown angle isn't something that can be easily calculated and it's best just to run. The fact that the impact will send a torrent of ejecta in their direction doesn't help. There is a horrible realization that this must be a deliberate act. The chance that the station would happen to drop out of orbit right onto the biggest population centre on the planet without aim is miniscule.
While Malcolm turns the ship around and speeds away from the city Bishop informs a quietly stoic Major Sekhon about the situation and suggests that he broadcast to everyone in the city to evacuate -- surely many people will have radios with batteries. The Hummingird itself starts to broadcast a similar message on every frequency it can, Volkova and Bishop working to push the power output on the transmitter. After that there are several tense minutes of silence as Malcolm tries to gain as much distance as he can from the doomed city.
Even if it is deliberate there's a fair amount of luck involved in aiming it; a space station is hardly an accurate weapon. As it turns out whomever is responsible is skilled, lucky, or both. When the station hits the city there is an intense flash of light and the shock wave soon overtakes the Steel Hummingbird, but Malcolm keeps the ship steady and avoids the debris that rains down around them. After a few moments there's just a horrible silence as they fly on, the cloud from the impact starting its several-kilometre ascent into the dawn sky behind them.
Shocked as they are it's time to plan their next move now that Shiva is basically a wasteland. Bhopuhr is destroyed and even if they do find survivors there isn't much in the way of space or medical equipment on the ship. The Grob mentioned that when the D'vor attacked their home system they managed to get many of the Grob to fight for them and this looks like that modus operandi. If this means that the D'vor are starting their assault it's time to get out of the system, fast. First, though, they'll have to contact Labrys City and warn them. Not knowing where the Nehru is Jillian plots the stealthiest path out of the atmosphere and to Kali that she can. Volkova aids the process by powering down all nonessential systems that might be detected, including life support -- she suggests that everyone breathe shallowly for the next half hour or so.
Passage out of the atmosphere goes well and while Jillian detects the Nehru there's no indication that they've been noticed in turn. It looks like the destroyer is heading to Labrys City as well, possibly to destroy the second largest population centre in the system. If that's the case it's not enough just to tell them about the danger: they need to go there and save whomever they can. The Nehru is going at a regular pace. If the Hummingbird pushes it they can get there ahead of the destroyer, unnoticed. The distance to Kali isn't far at well under 2AU: the Nehru will be there in a day and a half and the Hummingbird will get there in just under a day, giving them a calculated fourteen and a half hours before the destroyer arrives.
With a bit of time to think the enormity of the situation closes on them. The engineers from The Ashram have to come to grips with the fact that everyone they knew on the space station and in Bhopuhr, friends and family, are dead. Bishop leads everyone in a moment of silence and then gives a speech to prop everyone up psychologically. It works, and although everyone on the ship is still pretty shaken up they hold it together. Even Jillian.
A tight-beam transmission to Labrys City will keep the Nehru from detecting the Hummingbird and that's how Jillian sends a message. With the distance involved the message will take almost half an hour to get there and back, so Jillian puts everything into the message: the destruction on Shiva, the impending arrival of the Nehru, and the need to evacuate Labrys City. The latter point will be difficult, as Labrys City doesn't have any ships of its own. The Steel Hummingbird can take on 150 passengers if they pack them in like sardines -- compared to the 40,000 population -- but food, water, oxygen, and other supplies will have to be supplied by the city for a two-week trip. It's unlikely that they can use the jump gate: it's probably guarded by another of the naval ships. The upper slide point will take them to Providence but it's currently a long trip from there to any planet in that system. The lower slide point would lead to an unknown location. In either case, no one relishes the idea of taking a full load of passengers through a slide point.
The message they get back is from Disha Malach, the head of security. She has no reason to doubt the Steel Hummingbird after all they've done for the city and she acknowledges their information and takes them up on their offer of taking as many passengers with them as they can. Malach also thanks them and signs off. She has work to do and not much time.
There are four naval ships in they system: the corvette Chakram, the frigate Chempil Arayan, the destroyer Nehru, and the cruiser Khan. It has to be assumed that all of them are working for the D'vor. There's a lot of concern about Malcolm's family: if the jump gate opens in two days they may sail through into death. That's speculation; the jump gate may simply be shut down. For now, though, they're certain that Labrys City is truly in imminent danger. A tight-beam transmission to the jump gate, complete with a forty-minute round-trip delay, gets no response, but that could mean anything.
The closest thing to good news comes when they receive a transmission from the Chempil Arayan making a general hail, wondering what's going on with The Ashram. It looks like not everyone is under the D'vor's sway...
--------
Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 20)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 9)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 4)