Session 97: The hottest Song on Juche
Play date: January 22, 2017
In-game date: April 3, EY219
Location: The abandoned Jejaeso Lumber Mill, Daebak, in the Aiscapo system
Previous events: Breaking and entering the university
It's very late, so everyone sleeps at the lumber mill. Jillian decides to let Vob sleep with her -- just cuddling, of course -- and though Vob doesn't try anything untoward she still can't sleep with a non-Sheema so close. Malcolm decides to sleep in a puppy pile with the Grob, as he's done before, and sleeps like a baby.
April 4, EY219
The next day Jillian is exhausted and sore. Now that they have some potentially useful xenotools they should head up to the Eondeog naval base before the group from Juche shows up that evening. Since no one knows how that will go the Iof is told to sit tight for now and wait to see what the Hummingbird's crew might need from them. All the humans except Seo clamber into the limo and head back to Wonju.
Back in Wonju Xao wishes them luck and tells the crew that the Dragons are ready if needed before he drives off. Bishop calls the resort across the lake where Sheema and Whang are still hanging out and tells them to take the next boat over to Wonju; it's time to get back to work. While he's making his call Malcolm checks out the newspapers. At the bottom of the page is an article about a break-in at the university. It doesn't mention much in the way of details and is vague enough that it really doesn't seem that they have any idea who might have done it. Excellent.
While Malcolm checks the newspapers Jillian checks for any messages that might have been left for her, such as from Inspectors How and Wen, but instead there's a message from Jinjing Wei reminding Jillian about the dinner they were going to have today and that they have guests coming over. Jillian's suspicious -- she didn't have a dinner planned. Is this a warning?
Jillian frets about this through a diner breakfast and until everyone's reunited and they get a shuttle up to the orbiting military base. The flight up is very turbulent and Malcolm mutters something about how happy he's going to be to be a pilot again instead of being a passenger. In the front row Jillian's tender constitution and lack of sleep combine with the bumpy ride to send her breakfast into the shuttle's airsickness bags while Sheema lightly strokes her back and offers what comfort she can.
When they arrive at the moon of Eondeog Malcolm and Volkova check on the Steel Hummingbird to make sure she's ok and that no one has broken in or anything. Their ship is in fine shape -- who's going to break into it in a naval base? Jinjing's waiting for them and tells a green Jillian that there wasn't any warning in the message she sent, Rear Admiral Choi just wanted to be sure that they'd be here and told Jinjing to send something subtle in case anyone's listening. Not that Jinjing's not up for dinner with Jillian and Sheema any time! As soon as Jillian's feeling better, that is. Jillian thanks her and once she's confirmed that the Juche delegation won't be here for another seven hours heads to the Hummingbird to sleep off her exhaustion and nausea.
As Jillian stalks off to her bunk with Sheema Jinjing tells Bishop that Choi wants to see him. Bishop doesn't trust the military and asks Malcolm to come along with him, bringing his Blingmaster (it's only a novelty lighter, right? Nothing suspicious about it.).
Jinjing leads them down the always-confusing corridors to the Rear Admiral's office. Once inside, Bishop and Malcolm are introduced by Choi to two iLangans, described by Choi as the Ambassador and her aide. The Ambassador, Ayanda Ndebele, looks to be about 40 years old and generally average in appearance. She's dressed in traditional uBuntan dress, while her assistant, Sakhile, wears a sharp Aiscapan suit. Bishop's a little surprised that iLanga would have an ambassador. When he presses her on it she admits that Aiscapo felt the need to have an ambassador to iLanga and that she took up the position more as a favour than anything else. Honestly, there's not much to do as ambassador.
Ayanda tells Bishop that Rear Admiral Choi asked her up to the station because she's not entirely convinced that Bishop and his gang aren't spinning a story. After all, there weren't any Dreamers on the station other than those who came in the Steel Hummingbird. If the Song is real -- and Ayanda makes it clear that she believes Bishop -- there are Dreamers in Aiscapo who can help detect the song. About one percent of the two thousand iLangans in Daebak are Dreamers, so that's 20 more people who can help. Bishop talks to the Ambassador for a little while and while he tells her about the Song and the D'vor he doesn't reveal the existence of the machinery inside uBuntu or tell her about the Grob. Only Whang gets to know everything. After they've gotten to know each other a bit better they both drop into the Dream and in it he shows her what the Song is and how to recognize it. It's not great without the presence of the Song itself, but she's a strong Dreamer and picks up the idea quickly. Once he's pretty sure that she's got it Bishop and Malcolm go back to the Hummingbird to wait for the delegation from Juche. Bishop has a quicky with Whang because, well, you know.
Six pm approaches and everyone gets ready, including a recovered Jillian. Juche insists on a ceremony when their people come to Eondeog and the Hummingbird's crew takes advantage of this. They all dretsteess up in Aiscapan naval uniforms and stand as part of the honour guard. Most of the military here are ethnically Aiscapan but standing in the second row they hope to not stand out too much.
They don't have much to worry about; when the small military cargo ship arrives the six crew are rigidly focused on the ritual and pretty much ignore the honour guard -- which is a bit of a blessing, as the Hummingbird's crew is terrible at the hoisting of rifles on command. There are four Dreamers here: Ayanda, Bishop, Volkova, and Whang. All of them easily read that each of the people from Juche is being controlled by the Song. A predetermined signal is given and as the Jucheans are taken away they are disarmed and put into individual interrogation rooms while Bishop and the others explain the situation to the Rear Admiral.
With the Juche gang secured in their individual (potential) Murder Rooms it's time to experiment on them. Jillian and Malcolm go into a room with one of them, who is handcuffed to a loop in a table. There is also one guard in the room armed with an SMG and another outside. It's pretty safe. The Juche Lieutenant (named Hahn) is furious about her treatment and refuses to give any information other than name, rank, and serial number. That's fine, it's not the point here anyway. The lens is produced and... nothing. They can't detect any difference and the prisoner doesn't react at all. After a bit of disjointed questioning Jillian and Malcolm leave. Once they're out of the room they're checked by Bishop and Volkova for infection by the Song and when cleared decide to try again with Sheema in the room. She's got great powers of observation, so maybe she'll notice something.
Back in the room she does indeed observe a strange effect when the lens is being held. The prisoner gets a little sharper in focus if you open your mind to it, sort of like an optical illusion. Once she whispers this to Jillian and Malcolm they, too, notice it. Fascinating! Lieutenant Hahn doesn't notice anything going on: there isn't any change in the prisoner's stonewalling responses to questions when the lens is active.
There's some more fiddling with the lens and after they don't think they'll get anything new out of the lens Bishop goes into every interrogation room in turn and breaks the Song. He intends to "make it his bitch", as he did back in Providence, and although he gets his wish he doesn't get any fresh information from the individual shards of the Song before they fades away. It looks like everyone infected with it has the same knowledge.
Twenty Dreamers will be good for noticing infected people but having a way for anyone to check is an added bonus, and so one lens is donated to the Aiscapo navy.
Once the Song's been rooted out Bishop, Jillian, and Sheema work on interrogating the prisoners to find out what's been going on in Juche. It takes a while, but these sorts of information-gathering conversations are what Sheema does as her profession. What they find is:
A monk called Orang Jahat came up to the Songun military base from the surface of Juche; he must have come through Jageun (the gateway moon to Juche) originally.
He didn't look like anything much. A little short, a little bald, liked to wear orange.
First showed up in the middle of EY217
Admiral Wu Jo said that the monk had won over Rhee Ha-Neul and that everyone should listen to him.
They would go to listen him talk for days on end.
He talked a lot about needing to relying on themselves, the usual sort of thing.
The naval personnel had to sit very close to him. He sat on a big box, like a small shipping crate. The shipping crate was from Garuda shipping in Vishnu (so that's a lead that the crew can't follow!)
After a while he would "invite" new people to listen to him talk.
The name Orang Jahat rings a bell for the pair from the Zartosht cluster (that's Jillian and Sheema, btw). It's a name that sounds like it comes from Gamelan, one of the systems there, and the choice of orange clothing is also typical of that system and a cultural habit that runs all the way back to the originating culture on Homeworld. The Leary's crew had a couple of members from that culture. Could this monk be from the crew of the Leary?
The box that he sat on -- assuming it was the vector for passing on the Song -- doesn't sound like it had black slime in it based on how it worked. Everyone sat near it instead of moving back and forth. Maybe it's a piece of xenotech?
It's probably a good time to get in contact with the "good" part of Hoax. Jillian sends another message to the anonymous mailbox that they know about, saying that it's urgent that they meet, signed "Where's our beer money?".
What to do with the Juche personnel who have now been cleared of the Song? They can't be sent back now, as the infected people there would know about them. The best thing is probably to send the ship back on autopilot, faking it having its crew on board, and then remotely detonating it. Risky, but what else can they do?
--------
Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 1 (running total: 26)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 4)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 13)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 6)