Chapter 10: Year 300, Days 7 and 8

[BackworldTraveller]

Assana

So lets get your crate open! Reven has a cutter in his tool-kit - And I'm sure Pranit has something that can force the lock.

[joertexas]

Assana, dear, I want to find Raoul, regardless of contracts, but we are not going anywhere until the Queen is fit to fly, and I am not finding your father only to bring the trouble he has carefully hidden from to his door. This ship is marked. You and I are marked. Listed. Even when the Queen can fly, it is not as simple as to merrily go in search of Raoul.

A good first step is to deal with this strangeness of the chip. If it is telling tales, we must silence it before we go anywhere.

"Well put," Indrani says in heartfelt agreement. "No one wants to leave this place more than I do, but we must make some repairs first."

[BackworldTraveller]

Assana

OK - So can I help. What shall I do?

[joertexas]

Assana

OK - So can I help. What shall I do?

"We need a computer to fly, so let's get that taken care of first. Then, we can make whatever other repairs we need before we can leave the dock. Everything else, including the container, is secondary."

[BackworldTraveller]

Assana
So - If you log in the access isn't me and the computer shouldn't kill your avatar immediately you step past the door. Whatever you do, don't touch anything and you can look about as much as you like in that first virtual space. Touch anything and then the axe comes out and "Off with your head".

So before we start going down that route, we need to even the odds. Either send in expendable avatars from people that have less chance of virtual-survival (less computer skill), reduce the ships computer power and/or map the memory using the probe so we can see where we are going before we go there - but that needs a good techie (and I've discovered I'm not that good) and, anyway, I don't have a probe.

Or there could be other plans...attack the computer with every avatar we can set up and hope to overwhelm the computer that way...although that will burn through Avatars very quickly and we'd be scuppered if we run out.
or something else.

[SpinwardMarch]

Maggie

She walks in, some time during the conversation about the ship. She is muttering, no, cursing, to herself in German. It sounds as bad as you might expect; no translation is needed. She is not happy.

I assume she has been walking around the ship, doing steward tasks, and preparing repair /requisition /cleaning lists.

She looks up from her data pad and says, Ah, the chip issue.

With your permission, Captain, might I contact acquaintances in certain alphabet agencies and make inquiries on its origin and purpose? I may be able to access information requiring a security clearance, and provide you with some details about it. We might also be able to borrow high level diagnostic tools, especially if we share our findings with said agencies. I believe they might be interested.

Over to the referee, over.

[BackworldTraveller]

More like: Over to the Crew!

Assana
Which agency do you have in mind? How do you know they aren't in league with the bunch that attacked us?

[The Bindoner]

Maggie

She walks in, some time during the conversation about the ship. She is muttering, no, cursing, to herself in German. It sounds as bad as you might expect; no translation is needed. She is not happy.

I assume she has been walking around the ship, doing steward tasks, and preparing repair /requisition /cleaning lists.

She looks up from her data pad and says, Ah, the chip issue.

With your permission, Captain, might I contact acquaintances in certain alphabet agencies and make inquiries on its origin and purpose? I may be able to access information requiring a security clearance, and provide you with some details about it. We might also be able to borrow high level diagnostic tools, especially if we share our findings with said agencies. I believe they might be interested.

Over to the referee, over.

I do not like the idea of such agencies involved in my..our business. Assana is right to worry, and so should the rest of us, the attack we just escaped was very well organised and long in the planning, some agency must have been involved, and we do not know which.

I can see that the help of your colleagues would be useful, but there might be a high price for it. Can you do this without compromising the Queen and her crew?

[ateno]

"I'm not to sure about bringing in anyone but a expert, we can continue external work tomorrow and hire someone.

Pranit is very tired

[joertexas]

Maggie

She walks in, some time during the conversation about the ship. She is muttering, no, cursing, to herself in German. It sounds as bad as you might expect; no translation is needed. She is not happy.

I assume she has been walking around the ship, doing steward tasks, and preparing repair /requisition /cleaning lists.

She looks up from her data pad and says, Ah, the chip issue.

With your permission, Captain, might I contact acquaintances in certain alphabet agencies and make inquiries on its origin and purpose? I may be able to access information requiring a security clearance, and provide you with some details about it. We might also be able to borrow high level diagnostic tools, especially if we share our findings with said agencies. I believe they might be interested.

Over to the referee, over.

I do not like the idea of such agencies involved in my..our business. Assana is right to worry, and so should the rest of us, the attack we just escaped was very well organised and long in the planning, some agency must have been involved, and we do not know which.

I can see that the help of your colleagues would be useful, but there might be a high price for it. Can you do this without compromising the Queen and her crew?

Indrani sips her coffee as she awaits the response.

[SpinwardMarch]

Maggie

I intend to do some inquiries into the chip. As I mentioned, there was a theft of certain items, which resemble the object found here.

As far as dealing with authorities, your background check on me (you did do a check, yes?), should have shown my previous association with the Touchdown Embassy to the Belt, as Naval Attache until 299. I do have access to private, discrete, intelligence channels.

She pauses, looks at the group, and then gives a nod.

[joertexas]

Maggie

I intend to do some inquiries into the chip. As I mentioned, there was a theft of certain items, which resemble the object found here.

As far as dealing with authorities, your background check on me (you did do a check, yes?), should have shown my previous association with the Touchdown Embassy to the Belt, as Naval Attache until 299. I do have access to private, discrete, intelligence channels.

She pauses, looks at the group, and then gives a nod.

"Let's be about it, then," Indrani says. "We need the computer back, and soon."

[SpinwardMarch]

Maggie

She will go to a quiet place to answer her messages and then send several messages to the appropriate people

[BackworldTraveller]

Reven and Pranit
The spares ordered have been arriving by courier. And finally, shelving too. The Engine Room and Workshop are starting to look more usefully stocked.

The cargo crate stands invitingly in the Hold.

The passenger decks are still in need of a refurb - some of the soft furnishings are starting to smell now that they are warm, although the low berths seem to have survived almost untouched by the passage of time.

And Pranit receives a note that his air-raft may be collected from the police pound in Carmelites

Noor
Noor receives a bank transfer from en Sabah Media. Cr24,000.

She is also receiving literally hundreds of posts on her old political e-address: Her computer is filtering them and filing many as threats, blame for the starport attack, wishes of good luck and offers of solidarity - some even suggest that she should take her Mother's place as the new councillor. In the middle of all these is a note from her Sister.

Indrani, Maggie and Nālani
Maggie has withdrawn to converse with her contacts in her stateroom. Indrani and Nālani ponder what is in the computer that is so worth protecting - and what the whole virtual sim is about. Assana has withdrawn into her computer and seems to be surfing sites on flight-tracking, "How to shoot a laser pistol" and "How to look after your cat". Look I'm sorry I got myself locked out of the computer guys.

[joertexas]

Indrani keeps picking at the computer issue, including trying to find out anything more about the sim.

[BackworldTraveller]

Indrani
The sim continues unchanged. The outside still looks like an asteroid; the inside like a lounge - and the queen appears each time, "I'm sorry Captain, this area is still off limits." before ushering you back to the airlock.

Roping Assana into the exercise gets a very different response. The airlock refuses to open, and if she insists on hacking it, she is met by a queen with blue-glowing necklace, bracelets and anklets wielding an axe. It's over quickly.

Computer Skill Roll + EDU please for observation

[cybersavant]

Reven and Pranit
The spares ordered have been arriving by courier. And finally, shelving too. The Engine Room and Workshop are starting to look more usefully stocked.
The cargo crate stands invitingly in the Hold.
The passenger decks are still in need of a refurb - some of the soft furnishings are starting to smell now that they are warm, although the low berths seem to have survived almost untouched by the passage of time.
And Pranit receives a note that his air-raft may be collected from the police pound in Carmelites

Reven Stiilpahth opens the crate in the hold after fitting out the workshop and engineering. "You know, I'd consider hiring extra help for the refurb, IF we could find trustworthy people. But how to be sure?"

[The Bindoner]

Nālani, with her Holo-deck connected to the Queen's system, sits recording Indrani and Assana's visits to the sim, running analysis and comparing these attempts to previous ones recorded over the past day, and old recordings from the Queen before she was impounded. Perhaps she will recognise the modelling. If she's lucky, it might be a particular artist/design house.

Nālani, in looking for clues about the designer of the sim, uses a datanet connection to expand her search. Isolating details of the Queen's new avatar, she searches for other examples, hoping that they have a specific cultural reference that will reveal something about the chip and its origin.



Computer: [_2d6]=(5+6)=11 +1 Skill = 12

[BackworldTraveller]

Reven and Pranit
The spares ordered have been arriving by courier. And finally, shelving too. The Engine Room and Workshop are starting to look more usefully stocked.
The cargo crate stands invitingly in the Hold.
The passenger decks are still in need of a refurb - some of the soft furnishings are starting to smell now that they are warm, although the low berths seem to have survived almost untouched by the passage of time.
And Pranit receives a note that his air-raft may be collected from the police pound in Carmelites

Reven Stiilpahth opens the crate in the hold after fitting out the workshop and engineering. "You know, I'd consider hiring extra help for the refurb, IF we could find trustworthy people. But how to be sure?"

The crate in the hold has a key-code lock...do you just cut that off? Nalani has a finger-printing test kit improvised about the lock as you arrive

[ateno]

Reven and Pranit
The spares ordered have been arriving by courier. And finally, shelving too. The Engine Room and Workshop are starting to look more usefully stocked.
The cargo crate stands invitingly in the Hold.
The passenger decks are still in need of a refurb - some of the soft furnishings are starting to smell now that they are warm, although the low berths seem to have survived almost untouched by the passage of time.
And Pranit receives a note that his air-raft may be collected from the police pound in Carmelites

Reven Stiilpahth opens the crate in the hold after fitting out the workshop and engineering. "You know, I'd consider hiring extra help for the refurb, IF we could find trustworthy people. But how to be sure?"

The crate in the hold has a key-code lock...do you just cut that off? Nalani has a finger-printing test kit improvised about the lock as you arrive

"Iagree with you, but with happenings the list is short.

Pranit walks to the box
, cleans off the coca and enters the ships registration number.