Play date: June 24, 2016
In-game date: March 16, EY219
Location: Skousen, the biggest city on Beck
Previous events: More attempted assassinations, the Dragon is wrecked, and a D'vor agent is captured
In the filthy alleyway behind the apartment building Volkova keeps a grip on the woman that Malcolm shot in the back. The woman tries to wriggle free, but with her wound and Volkova's muscles there's no way that's going to happen. Everyone heads back to the ship, bringing the woman on board. Bishop looks at her through the lens of the Dreaming and she is indeed controlled by the D'vor. Finally, a live one!
She's not especially struggling, so Bishop (with Volkova keeping guard) treats her wound. It's not too bad, and while he's layering some medical leaves on it he talks to her and manages to befriend her as he's explaining iLangan medicine. She is indeed Lieutenant Commander Julia Baker, the last of the group of naval personnel who went to Juche. She's a bit confused as to why Jillian tried to kill her -- as she recalls it she was spooked by the people buzzing her door, especially after seeing someone hiding in the alley with a shotgun, and she tried to sneak out the back when all the gunfire ensued. That's not how anyone else remembers it, but she doesn't seem to remember her D'vor-related activities.
With a friendly D'vor sleeper agent sitting in front of him, Bishop asks if he can try the Dreaming on Julia and briefly explains what it is. She agrees. Why not? They move to the murder room just in case. There Bishop, supported by Volkova, drops into the Dreaming and investigates Julia. There is indeed the "song" that he'd noticed before, and it's coming from her: it's not a universal song that she's tuned into. Bishop fights the song, working on bringing it under his control. He wants to be able to get information about it, not just drive it out from Julia.
It takes him an hour and a half but at the end of that time he's decisively beaten the Song in Julia and finds out several things about it. It is indeed coming from her, like a possession. The Song isn't something that is everywhere in the aether. It also affects her actions but isn't in charge of her. Rather, it gives her motivations and she acts on them; when she's strongly acting on its behalf she has difficulty remembering what happened and her mind seems to retroactively fill in the blanks and make up rationales. This is not a micromanaging possession. It also isn't in communication with others infected with the Song: they recognize each other but don't have any sort of telepathic abilities.
Julia suddenly spasms and Bishop quickly administers some crapbark to calm down her thrashing. She passes out and Bishop can't hear the Song anymore. It seems that she's been cured!
With this new information about the Song it's important to catch the Cheap Bastard and find out what's in the package Noah Lawrence is sending to Aiscapo. Jillian and Bishop head to the hospital to see if the Resplendent Dragon's crew want to come along. Sheema accompanies them, her pistol giving her the role of bodyguard.
The hospital's elevator has an "out of order" sign in it so they take the stairs. On the third floor the various bullet holes in the walls have been circled but not yet spackled and the bodies and blood removed and cleaned, respectively. To no one's surprise the Dragons want to come along. Xao is explicit about his desire to kill Julia in retribution for her part in the attacks on his crew. Jillian tells him that's not going to happen and he snaps back with the strong implication that it's a hypocritical thing for her to say after kiling someone when he'd stolen from her. Jillian ends that thread of conversation pretty quickly, but she's not sure of how Sheema interpreted that and doesn't make eye contact with her.
Olivia and Sabine are bundled off to the Hummingbird directly, while Azar goes with Neet and Xao to get what personal effects and equipment they can from the Dragon. It should take about an hour. Once back on the Hummingbird Jillian focuses on a good route to catch up to the Cheap Bastard. It also helps her avoid talking to Sheema. This route planning takes all her focus, you know. All of it.
When Azar, Neet, and Xao show up the ship's ready to go. They've brought weapons and nonlethal things like clothing and Xao used the time to also make preparations for repairs to his ship. It will be pricey but she should be ready to fly in a month. The Hummingbird takes off almost as soon as the hatch closes.
March 17–20, EY219
Watching Beck recede in the distance Malcolm thinks sadly that he still hasn't seen his family or the refugees from Labrys City. Hopefully they can see them soon.
It will take a little over five days to catch up to the Cheap Bastard and there are lots of things to keep people busy. Malcolm has more time off than usual with a pilot as skilled as Neet on board. Bishop hasn't had this many injured people to take care of since the D'vor destroyed Vishnu and his terrarium gets emptier than it's been in a while. Jillian finds all sorts of ways to suddenly avoid talking to Sheema, mostly focused on an art piece she wants to work on. Desperately wants to work on.
In addition to the physical wounds Bishop also takes care of Julia. He wakes her from her unconscious state with smelling salts infused with crapbark. When she wakes she's nauseated, confused, and has gaps in her memory. As a military person she wants to contact her superior officer and Bishop tells her they can arrange that. He does find some "holes" in what he'd describe to others as her "aura", which is curious. Dreaming, he figures out how to fill them and how to do it in a way that protects her from the Song. This is an intriguing prospect...
Jillian's happy to have an excuse to be Very Busy with a call to Rear Admiral Miller on Colt, using a tight-beam transmission. She updates Miller on their race to catch the Cheap Bastard, the hospital attack, the interrogation of the Song, and Bishop's way of hardening people to the Song's influence. Miller is eager to weaponize the Dreaming and asks for a list of Dreamers from Bishop that she can use to round up the uBuntans as conscripts and start training them. Both Bishop and Jillian are concerned about this tack and ask her to hold off until they get back. Miller relents for now but will still get the list together as best she can...
Julia's conversation with Miller is anticlimactic. Miller tells Julia nothing and simply says that she'll be debriefed when she gets back to Colt. For now she's to work with the Steel Hummingbird and make it back alive.
Once off the radio Julia admits that she's got no combat skills. Her role in the navy is managerial. Jillian responds that with the people they've got aboard this ship it shouldn't make a difference.
With the conversation with Colt done Jillian has a burning need to get back to her art and not talk to anyone. Anyone. Her work is partially inspired by her artistic hero John Smith, who lives on Beck but somehow she's never managed to meet. Working on the piece requires much metal and welding as best as she can. She works on it for many days with a frightening focus. She tries not to think about the looming conversation with Sheema but her mind keeps coming back around to her lover and she realizes at one point that Azar and Sheema must have slept together.
Jillian had two separate pieces of scrap metal to incorporate into the sculpture (two pieces that V cleared as not being needed for ship repairs). There were two emotional themes to the sculpture: on the one hand, there was the hope arising from Bishop's victory over the Song in Julia, balanced against the fear of this strange, intangible enemy which might still destroy everyone in the cluster. And, on the other hand, there was Jillian's fear that Sheema will find out who Jillian really is and what she's done and will hate her for it -- balanced against hope that Sheema would still love her even if she knew everything. It's reasonably well put together, technically, but terribly, terribly ugly, the sort of art that only the Grob could love.
Seeing Jillian's furious artmaking inspires Volkova, who decides to make a piece herself. It may not have true artistic skill behind it, but it's beautiful.
Jillian spends some of her time hiding on the engineering deck and one night she and Volkova get drunk together -- or at least Jillian gets drunk. Volkova's not so easily intoxicated but wishes she were as her captain goes on and on about how Sheema is a deeply good person while Jillian is a despicable example of humanity and a murderer at that. Finally tiring of the whinging, Volkova suggests that Jillian talks to Malcolm. He sees the worst in people and would be the perfect person to give her a radically different perspective than Volkova's.
Malcolm is woken up by Jillian -- hoping that Sheema doesn't peer into the corridor and see her -- pounding on his door. She quickly slips in as soon as she can fit in, and spills her heart and concerns to him. Malcolm freely admits that he focuses on the bad side of people, but Sheema really doesn't seem to have one, unlike Jillian. Brutal honesty, that's what he brings to pretty much any conversation. Jillian admits to ordering the hit on a Brutus Montoya back in her home cluster long ago when she revelled in being bad, but realizing what it meant when she saw a photo in the newspaper of his family at his funeral. That's when she tried to change and be a good person but she feels that there's no way back no matter how she tries. Malcolm eventually sends her out of his quarters, unable to give her any peace of mind, and she slinks off somewhere to sleep alone.
Volkova and Sabine, the two engineers, find some time to bond. Sabine's confused by how everything on the ship runs so well despite looking so bashed and Volkova explains her method of percussive maintenance. Sabine complains that no one seems to trust her outside of Xao and that she's feeling very isolated. Volkova has no patience for someone who needs to be the centre of attention all the time the way that Sabine does and "subtly" tells her that she has no need to worry about being safe if she's a friend. If she's not a friend, though...
March 21, EY219
As the Steel Hummingbird closes on where the Cheap Bastard should be, Bishop detects a distress call. He responds, and isn't at all surprised that it's the Cheap Bastard. Her owner, Dominik Dolezal, is notorious for skimping on maintenance so that he can save money and offer cheaper rates. This naturally results in frequent breakdowns and a need to keep to well-travelled space lanes so that there are passing ships to find them. He also regularly skims money from his crew, so turnover is constant.
True to form the Cheap Bastard has broken down with inadequate supplies for repairs and the Steel Hummingbird comes to the rescue for the twelfth time in their shared history. The two ships are soon connected with an umbilical and Volkova clambers into the Bastard's interior to see what she can do. She's a small ship and the living quarters are pretty cramped. Dominik tells his two crew to stay where they are and boards the Hummingbird, where he stretches out and takes up a lot of room. He also tries to scam a free drink or three.
Jillian hands over the form from the military and asks for the package that Noah Lawrence sent. Dominik tries to get something more out of her for the out of the ordinary orders but she's having none of it. He's already getting his ship repaired gratis. He heads back to his ship and soon returns with the package.
On the Cheap Bastard Volkova finds that the engineer is a sixteen year-old Vishnan named Raj, pimply of face and sullen of demeanor. The pilot is a beautiful Walküren woman who looks put off by the delay and pointedly ignores Volkova. She gets ignored in return.
Raj has been trained and is a decent engineer, especially for his age, but the shoddy state of the ship and the lack of spare parts frustrates him. Volkova gets a few spare pieces from the Hummingbird and soon has the Bastard up and running again. She comments that it would run better if the distress beacon didn't have so much power devoted to it, but Raj says that "Mr. Dolezal" insists on it being kept this way. Raj can't wait to make some money and return to Vishnu, where he can set up his own repair shop and be his own boss. Volkova doesn't know how to tell him what happened to Vishnu, and so wishes him luck and hurries back to her ship.
The crew of the Hummingbird watch the Cheap Bastard lurch away before turning their attention to the thick envelope. It's addressed to Lieutenant General Min-suh Hwang at Juche's military base on Keun. As much as they try to be sneaky about opening it, they tear it. Ah well.
Inside are two copies of the blueprints to the slide point modifications -- the ones assumed to have been destroyed by Lawrence -- and a letter. The letter is written in a familiar tone and doesn't read like a D'vor-infected zombie penned it. After some friendly introductory sentences it gets to business with:
• an explanation of what the slide points are
• explanations of how to use the blueprints to allow modifications to the space drives for slide point travel
• comments that Lawrence worked hard to get in charge of the slide point modifications in Providence to make sure they were installed incorrectly on the naval ships there
• descriptions of Steel Hummingbird and Resplendent Dragon and that they know about "our friends"
• promises that Lawrence would have the crew of the above two ships killed
• a brief summary of the Hummingbird's report on the situation in Vishnu.
It looks like neither the D'vor nor their agents in Aiscapo know about the slide points, nor about the Hummingbird and Dragon. That's a relief and gives the party more freedom to act. Now they need to decide if they want to continue to Aiscapo or go back to Beck. No matter which way they go, Jillian thinks, she'll have to talk to Sheema sooner or later. And maybe get killed by the D'vor. She's not sure which is the more frightening.
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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)