Play date: January 10, 2015
In-game date: December 28, EY218
Location: Providence system, the Colt naval base
Previous events: Hoax agents shoot up the Hummingbird
With Choi now in the hands of the military and the Hoax inspectors ordered to leave the station everyone on the Steel Hummingbird is at a bit of a loss about what to do. While things are tidied up Malcolm enters the bridge and sends a message to Vice Admiral Egan, asking her if she can do anything to find out what happened to his family. He's been preoccupied with their fate since Vishnu.
Their various activities are interrupted by a buzzing at the cargo door. To everyone's surprise it's Inspectors How and Wen, who want to come in and insist on speaking in private. The crew agrees, but only if they don't bring in any weapons. This leads to Wen grumbling that his pistol is already in the air vent.
All the exits from the cargo bay into the rest of the ship are locked up and the idea of turning off the lights and having the crew backlit by the minibus's highbeams is floated but rejected. The inspectors are let in through the smaller door in the main cargo entrance and patted down by Volkova, who finds nothing untoward.
How opens with a simple request: don't send Choi to Hoax. There's much confusion -- isn't she part of Hoax? -- but she continues, telling them that something's gone wrong in Hoax in the last few years. The organization's been acting strangely, people have been disappearing, and there are strange stories circulating around the von Däniken platform. How knows that there's a good chance that Choi will be disappeared if she's turned over to Hoax and she doesn't want that to happen. The inspectors have been stepping in to send people to Crapworld before others in Hoax can get their hands on them. There are a few others in the organization who think something's gone rotten but there aren't very many of them.
Ever since Jillian saw How's reaction to the massacres in Vishnu's she's been thinking that How might not actually be evil. Listening to How, Bishop concludes that she's telling the truth and really believes that humanity needs to be protected.
How asks them about how they managed their strange travel. Before she's going to give up something like the Grob and slide points Jillian wants to make sure the sharing goes both ways. She offers to work together as long as both sides open up. First, though, Egan should be told not to let Choi be put into the system. Jillian gets on the horn and finds that Egan's not entered Choi's information yet. She was going to do so after Choi was done being patched up for the bullet graze but if Jillian wants the xenotechnologist Egan will not do that and instead bring her by the ship soon.
How agrees and asks how they managed to find Choi and why they rescued her. This opening up is going to take a while, so everyone heads to the mess and Malcolm makes tea for everyone -- the Hoax agents wait to drink until the crew has done so. After that there's a fair amount of back-and-forth about information.
Jillian admits that they were working for the Black Rose in a sort of "offer you can't refuse" job after the Hummingbird came across the Black Rose station at Telushkin. The information on Choi's location came from the crime syndicate.
How admits that the "sculpture" that she carried around with her was a piece of xenotech that helped her tell if someone was lying or not. The Hummingbird is obviously going to be doing most of the sharing here.
The existence of the slide points is revealed. How takes that in but that doesn't explain how the Hummingbird made its intra-system jump in Providence. When the crew hems and haws Inspector How tries to get them to open up by offering to tell them who stole their beer money on Beck that one time. This is enough to convince the crew to tell the truth about the Iof and the functional jump drive. The Grob are known to Hoax after the University of Aiscapo team got home and Seo Yee openly traveled with the aliens, but How didn't know how closely the Hummingbird's crew had become with the Grob, nor did she know that the aliens traveled in a sentient D'vor ship that had basically been lobotomized, nor that they were likely the last survivors of their speices. For her part, How picked up Seo Yee on Beck under orders and had her transferred to another ship in the system, the Xenos, but didn't know that she'd been transferred to the von Däniken and tortured there, nor that the platform also had other species, including a Grob.
How is also surprised -- to put it mildly -- to hear that the Grob are celebrities on uBuntu and that uBuntu is a giant xenotech communication device that is trying to fix itself. This xenotech explains The Dreaming and it's not just a phenomenon on uBuntu: the Grob system seems to have a moon that's similar to uBuntu.
Their conversation is interrupted by Egan buzzing in. The inspectors are hustled into the "murder room" with Malcolm and the intercom left on one-way so they can listen in on what's said in the galley.
At Jillian's suggestion Choi goes to freshen up and change into some clean clothes and the crew uses that time to fill Egan in on what they've just learned. About How's suspicion of Hoax, what happened on the von Däniken, the Grob and the Iof -- including its "brain". They then invite the inspectors and Malcolm up to the galley where the Hoax agents and Vice Admiral have a more civil conversation than their last one.
Everyone's agreed that both Hoax and the navy are compromised to an unknown extent, unlike the Steel Hummingbird. The Hummingbird's crew also brings up other intelligent species that they've met: the "small, smart worms" and the Crapworld "ghosts", just to get everything in the open.
Now that everyone's completely up to date they need to figure out what to do next. The Hummingbird still wants to go to Aiscapo to meet up with the Resplendent Dragon and transfer the Dragon's friends and family. They'll do so by using the slide points. Amusingly, the Vice Admiral's heard of the Resplendent Dragon from the permits necessary to mount such a huge cannon on a civilian ship, but she doesn't know of Olivia personally. The Hummingbird will be repaired on the Diego Garcia platform that orbits Limbaugh and they'll pick up a test pilot there to take through a slide point. While the ship's being repaired the crew will relax on McNeely Station.
What about Choi? Inspector How reveals that the breakaway Hoax employees have their own uncompromised research centre that they've set up in Piccadilly. Choi can work there with other researchers. Jillian brings up the problem that the Black Rose hired them to get Choi -- Egan doesn't show any obvious reaction to finding out that Jillian's in cahoots with organized crime -- and that they'll be annoyed if Choi isn't delivered. In the end it really has to be Choi's decision, so Jillian descends to Choi's room and tells her that Hoax wants to make her an offer that she can refuse. Choi's dismissive about Hoax but agrees to hear what they have to say.
Jillian leads Choi to the galley, where the xenotechnologist can't help but to take a swing at How, failing to connect. Volkova firmly puts her meaty paw on Choi's shoulder after this and that's enough to stop a full-on brawl.
Malcolm briefly explains what the Hoax splinter group has to offer Choi. She's still bitter about How having sent her to Crapworld, but then she's also bitter about the Black Rose having abandoned her. When Inspector How has the chance to sway Choi she brings out a side of herself that no one here has seen before: eloquent, passionate about doing what's right for humanity, and utterly convincing. In the end, despite her personal hostility towards How, Choi fully commits to joining this side branch of Hoax for the good of humanity instead of the self-serving Black Rose. She seems surprised at herself by this but has bought into How's vision.
It shouldn't be too difficult to pretend that Choi was officially found by the navy and taken away by them. Choi will then be put in a crate of "material confiscated from the Steel Hummingbird" by Hoax. How and Wen will take her off in their ship (the Dangerous Idea) and immediately fly off. There's nothing that the Black Rose can do about that and hopefully they won't blame the Hummingbird for losing Choi.
Everyone works out the details of this bit of shadowplay and then discuss names to use for false post office addresses that they'll set up around the cluster for secret communications. Hoax and the navy clear off the ship and the passengers who have been left in the station's mess for far too long are finally brought back on board: Ester, Helga Lang, Kasturi, Maji, Janaki, and the three engineers.
At this point it's very late and the crew are exhausted. Malcolm needs some relief from all the stress he's under and goes to the station's bar, where he gets lucky with a cute naval cadet. Jillian and Volkova drink the night away. The captain's weak constitution gets the best of her again and Volkova ends her night putting Jillian to bed and cleaning up her captain's vomit once again.
December 29, EY218
Jillian is, unsurprisingly, hungover the next day. Despite her state she explain the agreed-upon lie about Choi to Ester and thinks that she's succeeded despite her throbbing head.
As soon as they can they swoop down to Skousen on Beck's surface to drop off Janaki and pick up the concussed but mostly mobile Samiksha and the injured engineer. Then it's off to McNeely station at Limbaugh, less than one AU away. In addition to the usual crew they now have Ruchi "Maji" Shetty, Esther Hahn, Samiksha Sharma, Helga Lang, Kasturi Karwal, and the four mechanics from The Ashram. It's a full house on the passenger deck.
Jillian takes some time during the flight to work on a painting. When she takes a step back to take a good look at her initial sketch she realizes that some of it looks like a knife going into someone's back. Suddenly she has a flash and realizes that back on the Telushkin she didn't fool Venla Inberg when she claimed to be serious about rejoining the Black Rose. There's no way that she can go back there again now. This means that she's truly lost the only home and family she ever had short of the Hummingbird. Granted it was an evil family and a life she was at best ambivalent about rejoining but nonetheless it's gone forever. At least she doesn't get stinking drunk again that night.
In the midst of her angst she also realizes that Inspector How never did tell them who stole their beer money.
December 30, EY218
Everyone except the core crew of the Hummingbird is dropped off at McNeely Station. The engineers are given some money to tide them over until they can find jobs. It shouldn't take too long given the general need for mechanics on this station. Helga goes to report to the BoX office on the station. Kasturi and Maji are both put up in the Queen Elizabeth hotel in Little Piccadilly -- it's upscale but the crew can afford it and the refugees have been through an awful lot. As for the Black Roses, Jillian asks them to not call in to the organization until the Steel Hummingbird is off the station and gives them enough money to lie low for three weeks. Ester and Samiksha agree. They both seem to be decent people at heart. At this point they've been through a lot with Jillian and her crew and as far as they can tell the Hummingbird really did get Choi for the Black Rose only to have her pulled out by the navy. Besides, they're not in any great hurry to report their failure: Samiksha wants some time to recover from her head injury before getting yelled at.
Once the passengers have been dealt with the crew fly the ship to the Diego Garcia naval platform and drop it off there to be repaired. Egan's good to her word and the ship is taken in to be patched up without any problems. The crew take a shuttle back to McNeely station.
On the station they split into two groups. Bishop and Malcolm want to stay at the Queen Elizabeth hotel while Jillian and Volkova head over to Gabi and John's apartment with Ghost in a cat carrier. They're happy to see their visitors, if horrified by Jillian's injuries, and offer to let them stay as long as they'd like. In addition to the tale of Jillian's face they're also told about what happened in Vishnu and about how the ship's in trouble with the Black Rose. There's no good news on this visit.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 20)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: zip)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 1 (running total: 10)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 4)