Characters: All
NPC: Chuck and passengers
Location: Miishakaal
System: Sardia (outbound towards the Kuiper Belt)
With the ship fully pressurized, the crew start examining the ship to
determine what's been taken and if the corsairs damaged anything in the process.
Lakir has already reported that the ship's locker has been plundered of Simrii's
gift of shotguns, Chuck's shotgun, and Gvarokh's laser pistol. Shiraamer's snub
pistol, which was on her person, was taken from her person. All of the shotgun
ammo and Shiraamer's snub pistol ammo was taken as well.
Also missing from the ship's locker are the vacc suit thruster packs.
After completing this report, he heads to the cargo hold with Vincent to report
what's been taken from there.
While Vlad checks the passengers rooms for "bombs", Simrii checks the Equipment
Locker on the upper deck.
Once the passengers moved updeck, Gvarokh goes up to the bridge and says to
Shiraamer, "I guess the passengers want to go back to Sardia so there can be an
investigation. I suggest we give them back their passage fees and leave them on
the damn planet. Or, better yet, is there a way we can keep the passage fees and
leave them behind anyway?"
He pauses for a moment, then continues, "We were so close to Theton. There is
no way we will be able to get out of Sardia if we go back. Not any time in the
near future, anyway. Well, I guess you had better get back with the authorities.
Is there anything you want me to check on? Well, besides the passengers." With
a smirk, he adds, "Otherwise I will go looking for bombs." He obviously
understood and appreciated Chuck's little invention.
Shiraamer smiles at Gvarokh's line about bomb disposal before sobering. "It's
not a surprise that the passengers want to go back to Sardia. I agree that we'll
never get away on a timely basis if we do though. I DO need to tell
Sardia something soon though. I really don't know what I was thinking when I
started to repressurize the ship all at once. Feel free to change it if you
think it will make it quicker. I don't think my brain was totally engaged when I
started to do it all at once. In the meantime I'll bring up the contracts and
see if I can find any loopholes that might help us."
Meanwhile, down in Engineering, Slade gives the place a visual inspection to
make sure that there's nothing obviously wrong. Fortunately, everything is as he
left it. Even his engineering tool kit is where he left it. The one exception
is a large, bulbous looking, mesh sack hanging off of the port jump drive. Slade
creeps closer to it and soon recognizes it: the vacc suit helmets.
"I've found our vacc suit helmets," he reports over the crew comm.
He heads over to the engineering computer and fires up a cursory diagnostic.
That will take a couple of minutes. After that he'll have it run a detailed
diagnostic while he performs a visual inspection of the easy access panels, and
maybe the more difficult ones too.
While the cursory diagnostic runs, he asks Gvarokh over the comm if it's time to
recover his subgun from its hiding spot in the gel condenser coils.
Gvarokh replies that the crew can recover their stuff as soon as the passengers
are secure in the passenger deck. He decides to leave his gun where it is for
now, though he takes his handcomputer out of his suit. His side aches from hours
of lying down on it.
Chuck appears on the lift and heads towards the galley. Gvarokh approaches him.
He thanks Chuck for bailing him out.
"No worries. Dealing with people is part of my job. I could tell neither one of
you could afford to back down. I figured that I'd outflank him." He smiles.
Gvarokh then asks if he could check on the low passengers once the annoying ones
have been secured.
"Sure thing. But the captain should be able to do that from the bridge."
Chuck returns to the upper deck with a tray full of drinks.
Meanwhile, Lakir and Vincent call in from the cargo hold. "Cap'n, we've been
cleaned out of most of the cargo. The iron ore, quartz, and circuit boards are
all gone. They left the metal parts and holocrystals behind."
Simrii reports in with his findings. "We've lost all of tool kits and even the
med kit, though they left us the first aid kits. All IR and LI-IR combo goggles
are gone as is the holocamcorder. They left us our emergency gear though."
With all of the ship's systems accounted for, the crew start retrieving their
weapons from the places that they've stashed them. All are accounted for.
Shiraamer has been going over the passenger and crew contracts as well as
Imperial and Vilani regulations with regards to both. In essence, all pirate
activity needs to be reported to the authorities immediately. Delays only aid
the criminals in their flight from justice. Both the Imperium and the Ziru
Sirkaa take piracy very seriously and impose stiff penalties upon those
convicted of crimes of this nature. Unfortunately, it goes without saying that
piracy has flourished during the Rebellion/Civil War as resources to combat
piracy have been diverted towards the war effort. Nonetheless, victims of and
witnesses to piracy must come forward immediately to officially lodge their
complaints. Any effort made to hinder victims and/or witnesses from reporting an
attack of piracy will be met with charges of conspiracy to aid or commit piracy
or outright accessory to piracy charges. The penalties for these crimes are
slightly less severe than the actual crime of piracy, though extenuating
circumstances might absolve one of these charges, subject to magistrate's
discretion.
With regards to insurance claims, these require piracy victimization forms to be
filled out and certified by Imperial/Vilani authorities. Insurance companies
are absolute in this requirement in order to prevent fraud.
She holds a conference with the crew over the crewcomm to decide what to do next.
Lakir is first to voice his concerns, "Soooo... the place we just left is highly
xenophobic, as well as subject to regular Vargr pirate strikes... and we may be
heading back to report our "pirate attack", with a passel full of passengers
that don't seem particularly inclined to cut us some slack... as well as 2 Vargr
crew members, one being the First Officer."
Lakir goes on to say, "I'm inclined to continue with the jump, as heading back
sounds like a quick way to the gas chamber, what with our current crew comp. I
say we hog tie the passengers, if they look like causing probs, or stick the
really obnoxious ones in the spare low berths,and call the contact report on the
pirates to Sardia Control, once we know they can't run an intercept, prior to
us hitting the jump point."
Vincent disagrees, "I suggest we call into the Starport, explain in full detail
what's transpired and wait for their instructions. No need for us to run away.
Granted we might have to deal with some red tape crap once we get there but then
again I'd rather that than give the law enforcement here some reason to chase
and shoot at us. Just a thought."
Gvarokh then offers his opinion, "Actually, we don't have much choice, unless
we're willing to kill the passengers. I'm not a cold blooded killer, no matter
what some xenophobes might think about my people. If they aren't killed, the
passengers would rat us out once we got to Theton, at which point we are even in
more trouble for not reporting the crime here.
"As I see it, we need to report in with the Starport ASAP and give them a full
accounting. When they ask why we delayed in reporting, we just say that we
wanted to do a proper accounting and that required repressurizing the ship which
took time. I doubt we will have problems on this. They might be annoyed, but so
be it. The passengers need to be allowed to send messages immediately. We don't
want them to think they are prisoners.
"Then we, I mean the captain, needs to start filling out the stupid forms. There
is no reason to wait until we get back to Sardia to do that. Just start now.
Actually, we could probably request the forms from the starport while we are out
here. Then, we have a choice to make. Do we go back to planet, or do we try a
different gambit? If we go back, we will be stuck here for a while. Going back
is what we are supposed to do, and, even with the delay, we will eventually get
out. We'll be bored and harassed, but we will eventually get out.
"I suggest we try something different. First, Slade needs to sabotage the
maneuver drive. We haven't fired it up since the attack, so we don't have
anything to worry about on lying about it. Plus the passengers won't know the
different. The sabotage needs to look like something the pirates would
reasonably do, but that we can work around over time. Then someone besides Slade
needs to hide the missing pieces somewhere on the ship.
"We then ask for a patrol boat to meet up with us. This boat can ferry the
passengers back to port (with their refunds) and finalize any forms we need to
sign. Then we convince them we don't need a tow, as we will get it fixed soon
enough to not justify the effort and expense.
"Once the passengers are gone, and we are relatively alone, we jump. By the way,
we're already well past the jump point. We can jump at any time."
The captain speaks up, "I like the alternate idea. Slade, get somebody to help
you on it just in case we need it. We can't leave this open ended. We still have
our reps in the merchant world to think of. As much as I hate paperwork, there
comes a time when you just have to buckle down and do it. I'm going to contact
planetside and see what they have to say. Hopefully I can get started on the
paperwork from here. After contacting the authorities, we'll see about refunding
the passenger fees and letting them contact planetside. I see that the pirates
took most of the cargo but did leave us a couple of things. By the way, how are
we fixed for food supplies. Let's get going on this. The sooner we can safely
jump and get out of this system I'll be happy."
Slade replies, "There are several standard things you can do to cause a drive to
be unworkable for a relatively predictable length of time. Some of them don't
even require a part to be broken or misplaced... but it might be better if we
misplace a part and then when we contact starport, ask them to please send a
replacement ASAP. Drive field balance modulator would do it. Small,
self-contained, easy to pull, and they never break so there'd be no typical need
for a ship to carry spares. It'll take me five minutes."
Gvarokh asks, "How long does it take to put back in? Remember, the idea here is
to make it not worth their while to wait for us. That way they leave us behind
so we can jump. I will admit, though, this all assumes we can complete our legal
requirements from here. If we have to return planetside for inspections or some
such, we are pretty much screwed. It is probably not a good idea to become
Vilani fugitives prior to whatever illegal activities we will have to do on
Theton."
After only a minute, Slade comes back online, "I just figured out the deal
breaker: the normal monitoring programs were up and running. Anyone looking at
our logs will be able to determine when our engines got broken, and its going to
conflict with the timeline presented by our transmissions and the recollections
of our passengers. I think we're SOL on this count. If you want to risk getting
caught messing with the logs, then there are other externally accessible, yet
deeply connected drive parts that can be broken in pirate-like fashion. Breaking
them comes with extra risk of breaking something else, and most of those parts
are bigger and far more expensive."
Gvarokh is the first to reply, "In that case, we probably will have to just go
back to the planet. However, we will need to make sure ask the planet if they
can just come and get the stuff they need (and the passengers) instead of us
going all the way back. If they ask why, we can tell the truth and say we just
don't have a whole lot of confidence we can make it back to 100D safely. We
would rather just meet our obligations here, then go."
Shiraamer follows up, "Good thinking on the tapes and monitors. Yeah that would
show nothing is wrong. When the authorities answer my call, we'll play it safe
and just see if they can come on out since we're already to jump. We're not
trying to get out of doing the paperwork, just trying to get it so that we can
get it done in the minimal amount of time."
Having gotten the crew reports and her questions answered, Shiraamer calls an
end to the meeting announcing that it's time for her to put in the call to the
authorities. "This is the Miishakaal called Sardia Down Starport."
While waiting for the starport to reply, Gvarokh suggests to the captain that
they kill their vector. "Since we're already past 100D, there is no harm, and
we'll have to kill it anyway to return. Plus, if they are willing to work with
us, killing the vector makes it easier for the patrol boat/ship to get to us."
While waiting for Sardia Down to answer, Shiraamer takes Gvarokh's advice and
gives the word to "kill our vector".
Gvarokh sits down in the pilot's chair and puts the ship into a deceleration
maneuver.
Characters: Shiraamer and Gvarokh
Location: Miishakaal bridge
System: Sardia (outbound towards the Kuiper Belt, but decelerating)
Shiraamer's hails go unacknowledged for two minutes. She checks the nav
computer for distance from the planet. At 702,000 klicks (421,000 miles) they're
well over 200D out, but still close enough that there shouldn't be that much
lag for distance.
Finally, the starport answers, "This is Sardia Down. How may we be of service?"
It's the same bureaucrat as before.
"This is Captain Shiraamer. Thank you for being so patient with us. I would
like to report that we were raided by Vargr pirates. I have checked with my
passengers and crew and everybody is all right. They did take our cargo and
other stuff though."
"I see. Now that would be the Enkongsuerrgvo class Packet that docked with you
earlier, yes?"
"Yes."
"Well, he tells a different story." Before Shiraamer can say anything, the
bureaucrat continues, "We've sent word to the naval base asking for assistance.
We estimate that it will be another six and a half hours before they get the
call. It should only be thirty to sixty minutes after that before they arrive. I
apologize for the delay, but all of our jump capable couriers are unavailable
to hasten the delivery of the message. In the meantime, I can summon Chief
Inspector Khiikurshasekha to start the investigation, if that's acceptable."
Gvarokh whispers to the captain, "Please ask them what story would that be?"
Shiraamer blinks at the news but quickly recovers, "Of course they would say
something different. They were the ones who had guns on us and wouldn't let me
contact you before. That warning shot they sent my way proved to me they meant
business. I would appreciate any help in getting this investigated. I do have a
bunch of anxious passengers on board also."
The bureaucrat just stares at her, unmoved, while she instinctively defends
herself.
Shiraamer takes a deep breath and rubs her temple. "Yes, I would appreciate the
Chief Inspector looking into this. While we're waiting, I can rotate my crew
here and they can give their statements if that would help."
"The Chief Inspector will handle all matters of the investigation. Please wait
with your statements until then. I will contact him now. He'll hail you when he
is ready to begin." He looks away, presumably at some holoscreen. "I see that
you've begun decelerating. Good. That will make it easier for the rescue party
to rendezvous with you. Should your situation change, please contact us
immediately. Sardia Down out."
And just like that the call is ended.
Gvarokh groans. "We're screwed. They're in league with the corsairs. We have no
proof, only a group of passengers who will be willing to sell us out with
little provocation."
Gvarokh pauses before continuing. "Captain. I can't ask the passengers, as they
don't like me anymore. But you might want to explain the new reality of our
situation to our passengers. They might now be more amenable to leaving once
they find out the authorities don't believe we were really attacked." He shakes
a little, anxiety and paranoia setting in. "I bet if we offer to refund their
fares and give them the trip for free, they might even lie for us. 8 or 10 grand
should help salve the wounds of whatever they lost."
Shiraamer nods her head, thinking.
Gvarokh's eyes flutter about from one portion of the bridge to the other, not
looking at anything in particular but as a result of his thinking process. "One
more thought to consider: Sardia can't get word to the Naval base for six and a
half hours, yet the Navy is only 30 minutes away. Can we talk to them in less
than six and a half hours? If they can get to us in 30 minutes, can we get to
them in 30 minutes?
"I'm just thinking that if we can get to the Naval base prior to Sardia, then we
have a chance to make our story the one they hear first. Putting our story and
the passengers' stories together might be enough to save our asses before the
Sardia lies hit them.
"It's a long shot, I know. But even if we jump away we are still going to end up
having the whole Vilani navy chasing us, and that is likely a death sentence.
I doubt we can make it all the way to the border prior to being caught,
especially if we spend any time on Theton looking for our target."
Shiraamer looks over at Gvarokh and nods. "I think I agree with you old friend.
There isn't any good way to come out of this. Figures that they cut us off
before I could ask what the pirates story was. I somehow doubt that they'd tell
us anyway. Give me a minute to figure out what a minijump will cost."
Shiraamer gets to work and shortly sighs again. "If I did my figuring right, if
we minijump to the naval station it will basically leave us with zero fuel
left." She passes over her work to Gvarokh.
"Feel free to double check my numbers, or get one of the guys to, but I figured
it like this. A full tank equals 50 tons. To fuel our jump 2 to Theton it
requires 40 tons of fuel. That would leave 10 tons for maneuvering and power
plant ops. That's about 5 days of 1g. So far, we've only burned about a half
hour's worth of fuel, which is negligible amount really. The minijump to the
naval base will require 8 tons of fuel. That would leave just under 2 tons. 1.96
to be more precise. Turning that into hours and minutes it leaves us with 23
hours and 30 minutes of maneuver drive fuel. Actually it would be 23 hours if we
wait until we've killed off our current outbound vector 1.92 tons. We should
probably do that since the navy probably doesn't want us drifting around. That
wouldn't be so bad but the power plant requires fuel too. A week in jump with no
major energy draws on the system would require 1.25 tons. Arriving at Theton we
might have 0.67 tons of fuel, but more than likely it would be a little less.
So we'd arrive there with 8 hours of fuel.
"Looking at Theton though, we know it's a big planet and that means a deep
gravity well. I'm afraid that it means we'd burn at least 7 hour and 15 minutes
of fuel getting in from the jump point. The end point is we'd be cutting it
really close and probably have less than 45 minutes of spare maneuvering fuel
TOPS."
Shiraamer waits for Gvarokh to go through her work and offer an opinion.
Gvarokh inspects Shiraamer's calculations and confirms her results. He then
scoots over to the nav computer to see how long the micro-jump to the naval
base will take.
The nav computer comes back with two warnings. First, is the standard warning
about in-system jumps:
It's not something that Gvarokh hasn't seen before and mini-jumps are done
all the time.
The second warning, isn't:
Not as helpful as Gvarokh hoped.
Gvarokh, after confirming the numbers, sighs and says, "The fuel might not be a
huge issue. If they believe us, they will likely let us 'top off'. If they don't
believe us, then we aren't going anywhere no matter how much fuel we have.
"Also, I am more than willing to admit I have just entered the 'paranoia zone'.
So far, both Slade and I have gone there once, and we were wrong each time. I
could be completely overreacting to the whole thing.
"Another thing to consider is that when we get to Theton, we are probably going
to be committing illegal acts, anyway. It may not matter much if we are running
from the Vilani here, as we will be running from them there soon enough."
Shiraamer looks over at Gvarokh and gives him a smile. "Not too many options
that I see. I almost hate to say it but our best bet is to just stay right here.
We would definitely be breaking the law if we jump right now and we've already
put in a request to start the paperwork. If we jump then the passengers will
also have a legal right to file a claim against us. We need to make frequent,
but not obnoxiously so, checks on the passengers. Tell them we are waiting for
planetside to send out an investigator to take statements, etc. We also need to
make an official list of what was taken for the investigator. Tell the crew
privately that the pirates have already told planetside a different story from
ours so they'll be prepared for it. You heard that I wasn’t able to ascertain
what story the pirates told them. I think we could probably guess though.
"I'm going to start my reports here and make a list of what kind of shape we'll
be in if or when we refund the passengers their fare. Remind me next time to
only take on low berths.
"Oh yes, if you get some free time, get somebody to watch the bridge for me
while I check out what I have left in my own quarters also.
"Keep me informed on the morale of the crew. This is the kind of thing that will
make or break us as a team and I’d hate to lose anybody."
Shiraamer looks over at Gvarokh to see if he has any questions.
Gvarokh says, "You're probably right. I'll start calling the crew and let them
know." Before starting, however, he says, "If we go back to Sardia, crew morale
is low. Even without knowing that the pirates beat us to the story, they are
seriously concerned about us ever leaving again.
"As for the passengers, I strongly suggest giving them the report forms and
having them start filling things out prior to them making much contact with
Sardia. Staying here, our only chance is to have the passengers back us up on
our version of the story. Chuck will likely have to nursemaid them through the
process."
After a moment, "Oh, and feel free to go check your quarters. I can wait."
Shiraamer nods. "I like the idea of giving the passengers something to do. That
might help the time go a bit faster for them. Have Chuck help them." Shiraamer
takes a breath and looks Gvarokh in the eyes. "I can't say I blame the crew.
This certainly was a blow. We've had good runs but this time our hand wasn't
good enough. Let me go check on my stuff and then I'll be right back. Call me if
you need me. I might take a couple of minutes to go check on the guys also."
Shiraamer gets up to leave. As she does, she gives a friendly slap on the back.
"Don't count us out yet."
Gvarokh informs the crew over the crewcomm that the pirates have been in contact
with the starport. He doesn't know what story they told the starport, but it
certainly wasn't that they were raiding Miishakaal.
The Chief Inspector has been summoned and will be leading an investigation into
the claim that the Miishakaal was raided by pirates. He doesn't know if
that will require the ship to return to the surface or not.
The ship is decelerating to kill its outbound vector in order to make it easier
for the rescue party from the naval base to rendezvous with the ship. Their ETA
is approximately 7 hours.
Also, Chuck is to keep the passengers busy by having them fill out theft/loss
claims forms.
Chuck agrees that keeping the passengers busy in this way is a good idea.
Simrii grunts and decides to take a nap until he's needed for something. "No
sense getting all worked up while we sit around and wait."
Slade says, "I'll start running engineering diags, and I'll look at the internal
sensor logs for foot traffic during the boarding to see if we've been bugged or
tagged."
Gvarokh replies, "You know, that's a good point," referring to Simrii's nap
suggestion, "I'll work with the Captain to make sure that she and I can get a
quick nap in while waiting for the inevitable interrogation. The rest of you
should probably get some sleep too once you've taken care of your stuff. I don't
know what to tell you Chuck, as those passengers likely need more babysitting."
"That's ok. I'll manage," Chuck replies.
Next: Chief Inspector Khiikurshasekha