005 - Departure from Shedezar star port

[ffilz]

The Maize Star lifts from the star port uneventfully. An erratic flight plan will eventually bring the Maize Star over the target island.

Let's have a Navigation roll to achieve the flight plan without complication. There will then be a Pilot roll to achieve the insertion of the surveillance crew and the dive crew. Go ahead and make both rolls (if the Navigation roll is horrible for some reason, I'll deal with the circumstances...). Both will be DM +skill vs 8+.

[joertexas]

Vee works with Foix to prepare for the drop. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," she sighs. "I'm going to jump out of a perfectly good starship on a rope."

[Ramona]

Sara is our best Pilot and Andy is our best Navigator. Haven’t heard from Eris since the hurricane, hopefully everything’s cool.

Ana helps with the cargo loading and prepping the low passengers, while she’s not rated for activating the pods she’s been inside them enough that she’s comfortable getting the passengers in place and prepared for Vee.

On the cargo front she ensures the load is properly divided fore and aft and that there’s a clear path through the middle and across the middle of the ship, she also makes sure that there’s a small working area next to each cargo door for them to easily perform their dive and rappelling functions. Once she’s happy with all that Ana secures the cargo so it won’t move about.

Once all that is done Ana gets ready for the dive, changing into the black swimsuit with long arms, hauling the dive gear and bang sticks out, prepping the climbing harnesses and sensor gear, and finally moving the cargo crane into position so it can be quickly slid into position to recover them. She also readies a smallish crate with about 40 litres of fresh water in it for cleaning off the dive gear.

We test the sensor set up at least a couple times before packing it up. We’ll have to decompress in cabins after the dive for a few hours unless we raise the pressure inside the whole ship and then decompress all of us with the ship.

[Tiglath]

Vee works with Foix to prepare for the drop. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," she sighs. "I'm going to jump out of a perfectly good starship on a rope."

Foix smiles “Madam Vee, your presence makes even such a rash exercise a pleasure. Looking on the bright side at least we have the rope!”

Foix checks the team’s individual loads are secure and ready for the insertion. He is wearing military fatigues in a “jungle” disrupted pattern camouflage and has placed a holstered automatic pistol and a sword atop his pile of personal gear. The sword is not the ceremonial weapon he wore for dinner but a straight bladed heavy rapier. All of the weapon's well worn furniture and scabbard are matt black.

[joertexas]

Foix smiles “Madam Vee, your presence makes even such a rash exercise a pleasure. Looking on the bright side at least we have the rope!”

Foix checks the team’s individual loads are secure and ready for the insertion. He is wearing military fatigues in a “jungle” disrupted pattern camouflage and has placed a holstered automatic pistol and a sword atop his pile of personal gear. The sword is not the ceremonial weapon he wore for dinner but a straight bladed heavy rapier. All of the weapon's well worn furniture and scabbard are matt black.

Vee, clad in a heavy maintenance coverall, a safety helmet, and boots, considers the man before her. For all of his bravado, he clearly is competent. She smiles at his ploy to ease her anxiety, and the thought that he would care enough to do such a thing feeds the little ball of warmth in her stomach that manifested itself whenever he was around.

"You always seem to to find the bright side," she says with a crooked smile.

[Ramona]

Ana, dressed in a bathing suit with long colourful tropical print sleeves, pushes a small water filled crate into a corner and locks it down. “You’ve also got enough rope to hang yourself with.”

She quickly clamps a lid onto the crate before grabbing her wet suit and squeezing into it.

”At least you aren’t getting kicked out the door without it.” she grins and zips up.

[Tiglath]

Foix grins at Ana's comments and then returns Vee’s smile and replies “Supreme confidence is much easier to achieve when one is already supreme”.

He collects more gear and adds it to his pile including binoculars, a military looking radio and a rifle case.

Then he gives Vee an appraising look and says “You are ready for work but not for stealth but I have an idea – if I may Madame?” With a dextrous flourish he unfurls the military cape he has been seen wearing about the ship. This time the black and green pattern is to the outside as he reaches over to secure it about Vee’s shoulders.

He takes a moment to study Vee again then smiles “There, most fetching indeed and we shall have no trouble from the locals now!” Indicating his and Vee’s camo outfits he says “Against one Legionnaire they may have thought to try their luck but against two never!”

[joertexas]

"I find my blessings where I may," Vee tells Ana with a grin. She turns to Foix. "Thank you. I will try to not bleed on this, so I may return it in good condition. How are we going to carry all of this when we jump out?"

[Ramona]

Frank, what’s the whole thing weigh? My mental ball parking is about 5kg for each of the sensor probes, about 20kg for the brain, another 20kg for the transmitter / receiver, about 30-40kg worth of batteries and solar cells and then 10kg for good measure. So all in about 105kg total or 230lbs.

[lenusmars]

Sara is the strongest pilot skill, but if she’s jumping then pongo or buzz is probably driving, right? Unless we’re doing some kind of hand off

[Tiglath]

Foix quickly replies "Madam Vee please do not jump out! Ana is jumping out to land in water but we will be lowering ourselves onto rock. The mission equipment will come after us via the cargo crane. We will need someone to act as load master to operate it. Grimaud may oblige?"

Grimaud nods and fits himself with a safety harness for attachment to the ship. He then arms himself with a sub machine gun which he wears strapped to his chest.

Foix continues "As to our approach this ship is very different to a nimble grav vehicle so I suggest we keep things simple. I will look out of the open cargo door and tell the pilot when the hull is touching the top foliage on the pinnacle. That will tell us when to make our descent!"

Foix will fit Vee with a climbing harness and brief her on controlling her speed of descent when rappelling. He cheerfully adds "Remember to keep our cloak clear of the rope!"

[joertexas]

"That still qualifies as jumping to me." Vee sighs. "Whatever it is, I will do it. I might need a change of underwear afterwards."

Vee allows Foix to help her more with the harness than she really needed. Having him in her personal space, here and earlier in the cramped galley when they prepared meals together, was enjoyable, to her surprise. Her dark skin hid her flushed condition well, but it did nothing to hide the way her eyes locked with his as they talked. "Yes, I understand."

[ffilz]

Frank, what’s the whole thing weigh? My mental ball parking is about 5kg for each of the sensor probes, about 20kg for the brain, another 20kg for the transmitter / receiver, about 30-40kg worth of batteries and solar cells and then 10kg for good measure. So all in about 105kg total or 230lbs.

Oh, I think it could be a lot less than that. Long range communicator is 1.2kg, hand computer is .5kg, so I'd say more like 20-30kg total (with much of that being the batteries).

[ffilz]

Sara is the strongest pilot skill, but if she’s jumping then pongo or buzz is probably driving, right? Unless we’re doing some kind of hand off

Yes, this Pilot roll can't be from one of the folks being inserted.

Work out who is doing what and I'll make the skill rolls (realizing we might not hear from Eris, but I don't think we need to wait for him to roll).

[Tiglath]

Yes, this Pilot roll can't be from one of the folks being inserted.

Work out who is doing what and I'll make the skill rolls (realizing we might not hear from Eris, but I don't think we need to wait for him to roll).

Frank as per the above if the pilot can't be Sara then whoever is at the helm is Pilot 1. By all means move the action on and we can decide who to cheer or blame later!

[ffilz]

Yes, this Pilot roll can't be from one of the folks being inserted.

Work out who is doing what and I'll make the skill rolls (realizing we might not hear from Eris, but I don't think we need to wait for him to roll).

Frank as per the above if the pilot can't be Sara then whoever is at the helm is Pilot 1. By all means move the action on and we can decide who to cheer or blame later!

Hmm, we actually don't have Buzz, so I'll move him out. Do you folks want me to assign most reasonable crew positions? We never actually settled that...

For this mission though, crew positions will be a little different.

We have Sara, Ana, and Squee on dive team
We have Foix, Vee, on monitoring station install, anyone else?

If you have Andy on Navigation, you don't actually have an Engineer in Engineering... Otherwise Pongo should do the Navigation.
I think you'll have Wen on Pilot (he can also manage comms/sensors which is good he has Electronics-3)
Grimaud can handle the crane, with Vee giving it a good inspection before the drop.

[Tiglath]

The above crew positions sound good.

It is Wen's ship so he should take the risk of scratching the paint on the rock pinnacle .

Andy should surely plot the Nav course, hand it to Pongo to execute and then cover Engineering?

Chu is the extra guy on the installation team.

[Ramona]

"That still qualifies as jumping to me." Vee sighs. "Whatever it is, I will do it. I might need a change of underwear afterwards."

Vee allows Foix to help her more with the harness than she really needed. Having him in her personal space, here and earlier in the cramped galley when they prepared meals together, was enjoyable, to her surprise. Her dark skin hid her flushed condition well, but it did nothing to hide the way her eyes locked with his as they talked. "Yes, I understand."

“When you have to drop out at 12,000 metres then we can have a chat about needing to change your delicates sweetie.” Ana says with a grin synching up her weight belt over top of the climbing harness.

She shrugs picking up her rebreather and throwing it over her back, “Jumping out of a moving object isn’t so bad, you’re just trading horizontal momentum for vertical, jumping out of a stationary platform is the one most people loose their lunch over.”

Ana clicks on her coms as she adjusts the straps on the rebreather, “Sara, Squee, you two ready to get wet?”

[ffilz]

The above crew positions sound good.

It is Wen's ship so he should take the risk of scratching the paint on the rock pinnacle .

Andy should surely plot the Nav course, hand it to Pongo to execute and then cover Engineering?

Chu is the extra guy on the installation team.

It's more of an active role on Navigation. Engineering should be routine so, you could have Pongo cover (he does have Jack of all Trades)... Of course you also had the misjump... But you're not jumping just yet...

[joertexas]

“When you have to drop out at 12,000 metres then we can have a chat about needing to change your delicates sweetie.” Ana says with a grin synching up her weight belt over top of the climbing harness.

She shrugs picking up her rebreather and throwing it over her back, “Jumping out of a moving object isn’t so bad, you’re just trading horizontal momentum for vertical, jumping out of a stationary platform is the one most people loose their lunch over.”

"It's all so simple," Vee deadpans. "Silly me." She smirks at Foix. "I suppose it's too late to ask if you consider me a friend." She tugs at the ring for the rope. "I hope the warranty is still good on this. If it breaks, I plan to demand my money back."