Play date: June 3, 2016
In-game date: March 15, EY219
Location: McNeely Station, orbiting the planet of Limbaugh, Providence system
Previous events: Best. Party. Ever.
The Steel Hummingbird leaves McNeely station with a happy crew. On the flight to Beck Volkova noodles about with a guitar that she bought on the station, learning the basics through Heinrich Albert's "Anyone Can Play" guitar book.
March 16, EY219
By the time the ship nears Beck Volkova's already learned a fair bit and is entertaining to listen to instead of painful. Jillian spends time on the sensors trying to see if she can detect the Crocodile, the frigate that found Maurice Clegman and Tigd years ago and that's been suspiciously present when the Hummingbird's been trying to be sneaky. Being seconded to Hoax doesn't endear the ship to Jillian either. There's no sign of the Crocodile, which kind of makes sense. The Hummingbird has nothing to hide right now, after all. Malcolm hails the military station on Colt and sets up a meeting with Vice Admiral Egan; she'll be waiting for them as soon as they land.
Landing in the pressurized bay is uneventful and a pair of Petty Officers are waiting as escorts. Azar, Malcolm, and Volkova opt to stay on the ship and only Bishop, Jillian, and Sheema go to meet with Egan. Ghost also remains on the ship; she doesn't really have a choice and even if she did she'd stay on the Hummingbird so she's fine with her fate.
It's a bit of a maze through the base's hallways to get to the meeting room. Bishop and Jillian have been here a few times but they're still happy to have someone lead the way. Two more petty officers are standing guard outside the door, submachine guns slung over their shoulders -- with Vishnu lost things feel more serious on the base. The three members of the Hummingbird's crew enter to see that this room is the one they've been to before: they recognize the paintings of the ancient seafaring and contemporary spacefaring King Shark battleships on opposite walls. Egan is sitting at the far end of the large table that takes up much of the room. She has a pile of papers on the table in front of her and to her left is someone introduced as Lieutenant Commander Noah Lawrence. He's been tasked with converting the space drives of the military ships in the system to allow them to use the slide points.
The meeting quickly gets down to business. Jillian's report, ghostwritten by Sheema and delivered by the Resplendent Dragon the day before, contained pretty much all the information that Egan could ask for, so there's not much in the way of questioning. Egan's position is that the humans have pretty much won against the D'vor despite losing. The D'vor followed the Leary to Vishnu and haven't been able to leave there. The squid ship that the Hummingbird saw and sold photos of to the Star? In Vishnu. The Gurg was attacked in Vishnu. The mind-altering black slime that almost killed Jillian was in Vishnu. The invasion of Vishnu also, unsurprisingly, happened in Vishnu. The D'vor can's use the jump gates unless both sides are activated at the same time. Using their jump drives would take forever to get to another system. They don't know about the slide points. Thus, humans can ramp up production of military ships and invade Vishnu whenever they want via the slide points. Losing Vishnu is a terrible loss, but it seems that the D'vor have pretty much painted themselves into a corner.
Jillian mentions that the D'vor seem to be able to get people and other species to fight for them; how can anyone know that they haven't got spies spreading through the cluster? Egan admits she has a a point but there's not much they can do right now other than look for suspicious patterns. More than a little suspicious after the Vishnan navy's betrayal Jillian uses the conversation to try to get a better feel for the Vice Admiral's mind. She gets the feeling that Egan really believes that the navy can be a force for positive change, which is a relief. Bishop also a little paranoid and plies on the charm: he may not be a part of the navy but he knows people and his crew could definitely do with having the Vice Admiral as a friend as well as an ally.
What about the rescued Labryssians? Xao mentioned in his message that Jillian would have to talk to the military to see them. Egan says that the refugees are currently being kept in the Colonia Juarez housing complex in the city of Skousen. They're not in a gulag or anything, it's quite nice, but the government doesn't want to tell the public that aliens have taken over an entire system in the cluster. Not yet, anyway, not without more of a plan to take it back. The current story is that It's part of why the Grob and Wyrm have been kept a secret. One Grob and a bucket of Wyrms didn't seem enough to tell the public about, not without finding more about the aliens and seeing if relationships between them would be cordial or hostile. Egan's opinion on the matter is irrelevant; her superiors have given the order to keep this all hush-hush. Hoax is likewise something Egan has little control over. The organization doesn't have many friends in the military but they do have a lot of political sway.
For now the best thing is for the crew of the Hummingbird to go about their lives until the navy calls on them. This sounds good to Jillian -- she's been wanting to find out what that strange thing in the slide points is for a while now! -- and the meeting comes to a close.
As the crew begins to head down the hallway back to their ship Sheema hears the distinct sound of the room's door being locked. It's an unusual thing, and she glances over her shoulder to see the two guards posted at the door unslinging their submachine guns and pointing them at the Hummingbird's crew! She gives a cry of "run!" and, used to running when someone tells them to instead of asking why, Bishop and Jillian begin to sprint as well. The guards seem surprised at how fleet of foot the trio are and their first long burst goes wide, though barely: both Bishop and Sheema later find bullet holes in their clothes. Then the crew is around a corner and going as fast as they can.
Rounding the next corner, Bishop digs a handful of especially slippery grubs from his first-aid pouch and throws them on the ground. Their pursuers slide about on the sudden slick and one goes down on her ass while the other continues his murderous pursuit...
Back on the Steel Hummingbird Malcolm is listening in to the military channels as best he can. Inside the base there's enough interference that he's unable to easily contact anyone on Beck without going through the base's transmitters and he's not that trusting these days. He perks up on hearing a report about gunfire on the base and a fire in one of the meeting rooms. When he asks the command tower what's going on Command doesn't seem to know.
This feels too much like what happened in Vishnu and Malcolm's not going to stay around any longer than necessary. He starts up the atmospheric engines so that they can go as soon as the rest of his crew make it back. The landing bay doors are closed but he'll deal with that once his captain's on the bridge. Control tells him to shut down but he stalls while telling everyone on the ship what little he knows about the current situation and asking them to see if any of the other ships in the bay are pointing their weapons at the Hummingbird. Everyone peers out and no one sees any of the naval ships' ordnance pointed their way for the moment, though two people in naval uniforms seem to have snuck up and to be starting the process of breaking into the personnel hatch in the rear loading door.
Control is still telling Malcolm to shut down his engines but he continues to stall by telling them what happened on The Ashram space station in Vishnu, where a similar series of events led to the beginning of the end for that system. Control doesn't really believe him -- Vishnu's loss is still a secret! -- but at least he gets the news out. Volkova gets her grenade launcher and Khnuta and clambers down to the cargo bay. If the people outside break in she'll deal with them as needed. Using the ship's cannon directly isn't possible; the two are under the overhang of the rear of the ship and even though the shrapnel from the shells would do for them firing 30mm rounds in a landing bay isn't the way to keep the navy on your side.
Running through the hallways gets more and more difficult. Alarms are sounding and people come spilling out from doors trying to grab the suspicious civilians running though the corridors. Once Bishop and Jillian are hauled down to the ground Sheema comes to a stop as well. This allows the guard chasing them to catch up. He mutters something about their song not being his song and opens fire at the crew and personnel. Some of the military people in the hallway are hit and others pull out sidearms, starting a deafening and bloody close-quarters shootout. Unable to move, all the Hummingbird's crew can do is cover up and hope for the best.
In the hangar bay the two navy saboteurs are temporarily stymied by the Hummingbird's non-standard locks and door assembly. As Malcolm starts to lift the ship off the ground despite the warnings from Control the two back away from the ship a bit and one of them heaves a heavy package of some sort up at her stern. Then they both run. The package is a powerful demolition charge that makes an impressive bang but doesn't do anything other than scratch the ship's paint job: it's meant to be carefully placed in surface contact and, chucked at a heavily armoured ship, it bounces off, detonates in the air, and comes nowhere near its potential for destruction. Some of the other ships in the bay have noticed the action and have been informed by Control. Cannons are now being swung the Hummingbird's way.
In the hallway, the gunfire ends quickly. The guard and his slightly delayed companion are both gunned down by various naval personnel, though not without cost. The Hummingbird's crew are pinned down by the base's people, who have no idea what's going on but want to keep the outsiders here. At the bottom of the dogpile Bishop thinks about the song that he heard in his head while Dreaming in the House of Dreams on McNeely Station. On top of him, Jillian thinks back to what Volkova said the slime-controlled woman in Labrys City said before trying to kill her with an axe. Something about Volkova not hearing the music. On top of Jillian, Sheema hopes that she's not feeling someone intentionally grabbing her ass.
Malcolm notices a pair of MPs with pistols drawn approaching his ship, shouting something at the two people next to her. Malcolm's too angry and worried to let this continue and decides to take matters in his own hands. He kicks the engines up a notch, twisting the ship to vector the thrust at the would-be saboteurs. They're blown down by the wash and when they pull out their small arms he keeps up the blast, edging back until he's bouncing them off the metal wall at the edge of the bay. He keeps it up until they're battered into unconsciousness.
Things eventually calm down and the crew are reunited with none of them the worse for wear but everyone very paranoid. A Rear Admiral Madeline Miller visits the Steel Hummingbird to discuss things. The crew only lets her and two assistants on the ship, and only if they come unarmed. Miller agrees and describes what happened -- no one can really explain it. Lieutenant Commander Noah Lawrence locked the door to the meeting room, shot Vice Admiral Paige Egan to death, and burned her notes. He fired on anyone trying to get into the room and was eventually killed. The two guards with submachine guns in the hallway were likewise killed in the firefight. Only the two who attempted to enter the Steel Hummingbird are alive, and they're still unconscious. The base is currently on lockdown until some of this makes sense. The navy will go through the records of their people who seem to have gone insane and see if they can work out any connections.
While the meeting is going on in the common area Malcolm goes to the bridge and tries to patch through a call to Xao on the planet's surface, but can't get through to Skousen Airport. It's not that they don't pick up, the line is just dead. He contacts Control and asks them if they can raise the airport, but they don't have any luck either. They eventually manage to contact the navy's local office, located at the edge of the airport, who report that there was some sort of dogfight: reports are confused but there were at least two aircraft shot down and damage to the airport facilities as well. Nothing more detailed is available.
Intrigued by the idea that something about a "song" might be tying the attackers to the D'vor, Bishop and Volkova get an escort to the medical bay to see if they can Dream anything useful around the unconscious attackers. Azar goes along with them as a bodyguard. In the medical facilities the two Dreamers bow their heads at the beds of the would-be killers and fall into the Dreamscape. Volkova's not trained enough to not be distracted by the machines that go "ping" but Bishop does hear the "song" that he Dreamed back on McNeely station! The three of them do a long tour of the base, Bishop and Volkova trying to detect any more instances of the song, but they come up blank. Maybe it's clean?
While the walk is going on Malcolm gets a call through to his family. He hates having to route things through the military's comms but he's worried. They're staying in in Mechanicville, where feral children rule the streets at night and the crew had their beer money stolen by Hoax. His mother answers and everything's fine with them; they hadn't even heard about what's happened in the Skousen airport. Jillian and Sheema sit in the captain's quarters together, twitchy about what's happening and wanting to be able to do something.
Once back on the ship, Bishop gets on the "egg" and contacts Chig on the Iof. He relays the information that they have so far and Chig's response is expected: "Doomed." More helpfully, Chig asks what the Grob should do and Bishop just asks for them to be ready and come closer to Beck in case they're needed.
It doesn't make sense for the one ship on the base that can't be part of a naval conspiracy to not be able to leave, and Rear Admiral Miller is eventually convinced of this but not before she shares some of the information that they've been able to come up with so far. All of the attackers were part of a military exchange about a year ago to Juche, in the Aiscapo system. There are also three others who were part of the exchange but not on the base today: Lieutenant Commander Julia Baker and Lieutenants William Brown and Sara Green. They all took some personal leave and went down to Beck yesterday. They haven't been in touch.
More interestingly, based on a receipt found in his room Lieutenant Commander Lawrence sent a package two days ago to Admiral Wu Jo on Juche! It wasn't sent by naval mail but instead by private courier, a ship called the Cheap Bastard. Jillian does a quick calculation in her head and works out that, since the Cheap Bastard will have to go through Crapworld, they won't make it in time for the jump gate opening on the 17th and will have to go through to Crapworld on the 25th. The Hummingbird can definitely catch up to it before the ship goes through the gate. It's agreed that the Hummingbird intercept the Cheap Bastard, provide an official note that gives them permission to take the package, and bring it to Admiral Wu Jo themselves; the navy can't send ships to another system without permission being given well beforehand. Looking at the package's contents would be useful, as would bringing it to Juche and seeing how far the rot goes...
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 22)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 3)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 13)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 6)