Play date: April 4, 2015
In-game date: February 8, EY219
Location: Vishnu system, just by the Leary
Previous events: My, but this system's crowded. Who are all these folks?
The two (putatively) alien ships refuse to acknowledge any hails and the faceoff continues. No one can tell if the aliens are tracking them with their weapons. It's not even obvious what weapons on these strange designs would be. The aliens don't look like they're communicating according to Malcolm's comms board.
When Jillian's sensors pick up four ships emerging from their locations inside the Leary's corpse she gives the order to back off; this has gone from her fleet outnumbering the others to them being outnumbered and they're not here to fight a losing battle far from home and reinforcements if they don't have to.
February 9, EY219
The Hummingbird and her other ships retreat an AU towards the sun without being followed and debate what to do. They were hoping to talk to Nanda Reddy on the Dobbs Habitat but it's abandoned. They were hoping to find her on the Leary but it's crawling with bizarre ships. Volkova comments that Reddy's ship, the Varma, looked like it had a pretty good range, unlike most of the other prospectors' ships at the Dobbs Habitat.
Jillian has a sinking feeling as she recalls giving up Nanda Reddy's identity to Venla Inberg on the Telushkin when they were captured. She might be able to blame that slip on her wounds and the really good painkillers they had her on but she still feels bad about that.
If the Black Rose has Nanda she's probably at their base on Ganesha's moon, Ganapati, if the Gurg's loquacious xenotechnologist Tapan Markesh is to be believed. The D'vor ship that the Black Rose captured in this system is probably there, too, and if they'd brought Mi Kyong Choi to the Telushkin as they were supposed to they'd probably be bringing her here... or someone else would have ferried her.
Jillian tries a long-range scan of the system, but 11AUs out from the sun is far, far too distant to be able to pick up anything in the inner system. She tries Ganesha but 4AU is also outside of a sensible range and not surprisingly her sensors can't pick up what's supposed to be a hidden base. The fleet flies off to Ganesha to find the Black Rose.
February 12, EY219
Pulling up 1AU away from Ganesha, Jillian tries another long-range scan after Volkova's fiddled with the sensors to allow them to work better for this. They'll be in trouble if anyone comes up close but there are three other ships who have unaltered systems and who can defend them if needed.
With pumped-up sensors and less distance Jillian picks up the definite signs of a base under Ganapati's ice. It's decently sized and defended by six guns and what looks like a small armoured vehicle on the surface. A stealth ship in the sky is one that she recognizes as the same one that harassed them in orbit over Kali a year and a half ago. There doesn't seem to be any satellites or other structures around
Knowing exactly where they have to go it's not too hard to come around from the other side of the small moon and fly low; any sensors will probably be pointing up into space instead of expecting a NOE approach. When the ships pop up -- the Chempil Arayan left behind due to her damage -- they take the stealth ship and base completely by surprise. They take up position above the stealth ship and the base, outside of everyone's effective weapons range but still menacing.
Keeping Sheema down below Jillian hails the stealth ship, identifying herself as Nikoo Zandi and demanding Nanda Reddy. The stealth ship, identifying itself as the Owl, relays her command.
The AA guns on the surface start to swing into action; Jillian quickly insists that they be shut down and when they aren't she instructs Olivia to destroy one. It's a shot far outside of what even her cannon could be expected to hit reliably and she doesn't take time to aim, preferring to cross her fingers and hope her skill will allow a lethal and intimidating snap shot. Her aim is true and one of the guns on the surface explodes into fragments. The other guns quickly shut down.
The base below calls the Steel Hummingbird directly and Jillian recognizes the impressively deep voice of her husband, Rashid Zarin, instantly. He claims to be happy to see her, having presumed that she was dead, and pretends to not have anyone by the name of Nanda but Jillian sees through his lies and threatens to let Olivia shoot down the Owl and anything visible on the surface before drilling down to the base itself with her cannon. Rashid reluctantly admits that he has Nanda and asks Jillian (whom he calls Nikoo) to come down and pick her up. After all, he hasn't seen his wife in some time and they could catch up, no?
Jillian turns down his kind offer and suggests that he send Nanda up in the D'vor ship that they captured. Rashid is smart enough to know that while he can usually get away by intimidating his underlings he's not in that sort of position now and lying isn't his strong suit, so when he tells Jillian that it doesn't work she believes him.
As much as it would be great to take the D'vor ship with them there's no guarantee that it would fit into any of their cargo spaces and landing on the surface of the planet has all sorts of risks. Jillian instead demands that Nanda be released in her own ship -- which she's only fairly sure is here -- and gives him an hour before she lets slip the Olivias of war. Once he reluctantly agrees she cuts communications with a huge grin on her face.
Given that the Leary was destroyed to keep the D'vor from here it's probably best for the Iof to back off so as to not frighten Nanda and it does so, moving quickly out of visible range. Everyone waits for an hour, Jillian almost giddy with how well this is going, and then they see Varma, Nanda Reddy's ship, take off from a camouflaged bay. They communicate with her and tell her to follow the Hummingbird. From her voice over the comms it sounds like she's in a fairly bad state but insists that she can fly.
As the ships leave Ganapati, Jillian calls Rashid once again. She tells him that they're trying to save the cluster and that if he wants to make a positive difference for once he should contact her -- she gives him her contact information at McNeely Station in Providence. She adds that she knows about the slide points and that the navy is on her side. Rashid laughs: wasn't the navy responsible for what happened in Vishnu? Jillian laughs back and tells him that he's out of the loop on his little frozen rock. She's pretty sure that she's left him with the impression that she's much better informed, much cooler, and definitely not the timid little thing that he remembers from Zartosht.
The meeting point will be a reasonably safe 1AU away from Ganesha. The ships mostly keep radio silence but Bishop does contact Nanda Reddy on a tight-beam communication on the way to tell her about the Iof and the Grob. He manages to convince her that while there will be a D'vor ship it's actually been captured by a friendly race and she has nothing to worry about.
Jillian, elated, composes herself and goes to Sheema's cabin to tell her that Rashid was at the base but that they'll have to wait for another day to bring him to justice.
February 13, EY219
The Hummingbird attaches its umbilical to Nanda's ship -- tricky given that she's in a small craft without a proper airlock but ultimately doable -- and she limps into the courier ship. She's in horrific shape and the first order of business is to have Bishop treat her in his terrarium sick bay. The physical damage includes a badly broken rib and shattered orbit in addition to numerous smaller bruises, cuts, and burns. Mentally, she seems to have weathered the torture surprisingly well and Bishop's surprised when she not only has no objections to the various unguents, slugs, and slime that he uses but is curious about them and asks him about their properties despite her injuries.
Once she's been properly maggoted the Hummingbird's crew talks to Nanda about her experiences. They find out that she was kidnapped by the Black Rose before any of the naval attacks in the system -- meaning that she's been subject to Rashid's tender mercies for over two months -- and doesn't know about the destruction that's happened in the system. She's horrified when the crew interrupt her to tell her about the deaths of almost everyone in the system but continues talking after a pause to take it in. The Black Rose somehow -- she doesn't know how -- knew that she was part of the Leary's crew. At this point the Hummingbird's crew tries not to let on that they know about this but Bishop slips up and Nanda gives him a piercing look before continuing. Although Omenand tried to stop them and there was a brief firefight in the Dobbs Habitat he was forced to let the superior forces of the Black Rose take her away.
Jillian and Malcolm reveal that the Iof was actually the D'vor ship that followed the Leary here from the Wyrm system and that the Leary self-destructed for naught. She's winces at that and is saddened that the crew of the Leary who didn't make it off died for nothing, especially as it seems that the real D'vor managed to follow them anyway.
Nanda asks about the Resplendent Dragon and she's told about her and her crew. When she asks about the damaged military ship she becomes very concerned when she hears its name: the Chempil Arayan was the ship that captured her when she and some Wyrm tried to explore the system years ago! That time she was tortured as well and managed to escape, though the Chempil Arayan allowed this and followed her, destroying the Leary survivors' base. The Wyrm and ship were the ones that ended up on the von Däniken platform in Providence. She clams up and refuses to talk about anything else until she sees the captain of the Chempil Arayan.
Jillian calls the Chempil Arayan to arrange for her captain to come over on his own, which he does once the ships are tied together via an umbilical. Soon he's in the galley, meeting Nanda. Malcolm's there with his Blingmaster handy but out of sight and Volkova's got her trusty Khnuta at her waist.
The two of them have never met. Nanda certainly wasn't introduced to the entire crew of the Chempil Arayan and Travancore insists that he was promoted and transferred to the Chempil Arayan less than three years ago, after Nanda was captured. Actually, the entire crew was transferred. The captain at the time was Kamakshi Singh, who was in turn took command of the Nehru. He's horrified at the idea that the crew of a Vishnan naval ship would engage in torture and profusely apologizes on the behalf of the service, but Nanda's not ready to have anything to do with the navy at this point and Jillian escorts Travancore back to the umbilical.
Just before Travancore takes his leave Jillian orders him to take his ship to a coordinates that are 1AU from the upper slide point, where he should prepare his crew to abandon the ship and boobytrap it -- there's no way the Chempil Arayan can make it through the slide point in her current state. He sadly agrees and returns to his ship. The frigate is soon flying away on its own.
The Varma is loaded into the Resplendent Dragon's hold, where she fits without needing to be disassembled at all. Once that's done Nanda tells them to head towards Brahma, where her people's base is.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 20)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 1)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 12)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 4)