Chapter 13: To Asteroid B0510-5428

[BackworldTraveller]

Maggie takes up her video-blogging as the ship heads off - recording in case of future opportunities to post the monologues. Her presentations include the inspection and cleaning of the coolant piping pumps for the main staterooms; how to patch a wall-plate; and making a model of a humming bird from the remains of the cables damaged by the recent gunfight aboard the ship. This latter effort is rewarded by a shape that can't be described as a hummingbird in any way, shape or form, and a plaster over a cut inflicted when crushing the resulting disaster ends up with the cable-end impaled in the flesh of her palm!

Her bridge watches are dull - but as an ex naval officer she fully appreciates the dullness. The ship really isn't wanting another episode of excitement.

[BackworldTraveller]

Assana is unsure what she's doing on the ship - and a bit unclear of her position. She's not really the patron - despite the crew having taken her money to find her father - and not really crew either. She resolves this by paying attention to the sensors while on-shift and digging around the Computer's simulated asteroid while off-shift.

It's clever stuff. But whatever corrupted the AI has left footprints throughout the code. No indication of what or who.

She also finds the ships passenger entertainment library. Hours of Romantic Comedy for her spare time!

[ateno]

Pranit falls into watch standing and enjoying the down time.

He takes a full video and diagnostic reading of his air car and prepars it for sending to insurance.

In a Vacc Suit he will also cover the car in soap suds and reduce to .75 vacum and look for leaks and mark them.

Then cover the leaks with Bondo

Pranit

[The Bindoner]

Nālani begins to relax over the first watch, quietly enjoying being back on the Queen's bridge, flying the ship again.

Her relaxation is complete when she has handed over the watch, returned to her room, greeted Hoshiko, changed clothes, laundered what she was wearing, and settled down with a bowl of udon noodles in broth with fried tofu slices.

After 8 hours in her own bed, with her Sphere of Solace cancelling all noise, she feels fully refreshed.

Dressed in a light blue silk robe over darker blue silk trousers, with plain hair and minimal make-up, Nālani emerges into the commons, prepared to potter around for an hour or two before her next watch

[joertexas]

Indrani goes through the ship, cataloging what repairs it still needs, and what supplies and equipment they have on hand.

[BackworldTraveller]

Indrani goes through the ship, cataloging what repairs it still needs, and what supplies and equipment they have on hand.

The list is extensive...List

After 24 hours, the routine has become...routine. The crew slips easily into a more relaxed mode and the whole place is comfortable.

There is a smell of fresh paint that the Queen's filters take some time to remove (Maggie has brightened up her walls) and Assana actually get out a school-text on the Economic Management of the New Earth Colony in the 1st Decade. Somehow, Hoshiko has gained a white, acrylic smudge down one side and won't allow anyone near her while she contorts herself on the bridge controls whilst trying to lick-off the offending paint.

The bridge watches all note that the sensor arrays are no longer giving all-round coverage due to the loss of aerials during the external firefight. As a consequence, the ship has to be periodically rotated on its long-axis to ensure nothing gets missed for long.

The highlights of the first day's transit are a freighter that never comes closer than 10,000km (and is proceeding at a very high speed relative to your own (now substantial) velocity) and the dog-leg turn - plus the news that Noor has, after all, decided to run to replace her Mother as Councillor for West Sapphire. The Anne Kroker exclusive interview is almost a polemic!

Can I have a sensor check by whoever is on watch at the dog-leg turn please.

[joertexas]

Can I have a sensor check by whoever is on watch at the dog-leg turn please.

Roll[2d6] = 7 + Electronics (Sensors) – 1 = 8

Indrani will be on the bridge during the turnover, so if someone else wants to take a Sensors roll, feel free...

[ateno]

Pranit will ask each person to inventory thier own room.

"Captain will you inventory the bridge, Reven the engineering spaces, I will do the Galley and library and all the other rooms.

Pranit will do this over the 4 days, taking it slow and recording is in two seperate places.

"Looks good to me Captain."

[joertexas]

Pranit will ask each person to inventory thier own room.

"Captain will you inventory the bridge, Reven the engineering spaces, I will do the Galley and library and all the other rooms.

Pranit will do this over the 4 days, taking it slow and recording is in two seperate places.

"Looks good to me Captain."

Indrani turns in her results and sits with Pranit to review the survey. "I can start on the life support repairs. What else do we need to focus on?"

[BackworldTraveller]

The quiet of open space reminds Reven of why he became an engineer: The pressure of all those people is just Stress. Out in the black that stress starts to fall away.
OK - There are a few people moving about - Reven isn't a recluse - but it is preferable to the bustle of the city.

His meditations have no particular foreboding. He's expecting quiet and deserted. But then that describes most uninhabited asteroids.

The engineering spaces, however, are clearly in need of sorting. And some of Maggie's paint wouldn't hurt. Pranit's needing to patch a door seal on his air-raft with a hairline crack (and clean off a load of soap) gives him an excuse to chat about engineering things. Objects are so much more predictable than people.

The hull plates in the Crew Lobby are stored safely and tied down. Arnwulf's beam laser parts (such as remain aboard) he files for later use.

Maggie and Assana try to get Nalani to do their nails.

The Queen seems to be almost purring with self-satisfaction. Hoshiko finally is doing so.

The survey of the life-support turns up a small stash of euphorics under one of the floor panels, and a floor-cleaning drone trapped under one of the state-room mattresses!

[The Bindoner]

Nālani uses an hour of her waking non-watch time to eat and socialise, and uses the other three to work on whatever internal Queen maintenance/repair project is ongoing.

She happily assents to helping Assana and Maggie with new nails. The question is whether they accept her more avant-garde designs, or settle for something more traditional.

[cybersavant]

Reven Stiilpahth spends the majority of his non-bridgeshift, awake hours down in engineering, even taking his meals there at times. He rearranges and logs every loose bit. He cleans and paints what he can, after attending to leak repair on the air raft. Once everything in engineering has had a once-over, he works in the cargo bays; cleaning and sorting as much as he can move by himself. The fatigue from the extra work helps ease him into sleep after each monitoring shift. On those occasions where he has opportunity to interact with some of the others, he amiably chats, mostly about his previous tours and the places hes been.

[BackworldTraveller]

The second cycle of watches progresses and each get their on-watch and off-watch and sleeping turns. In this cycle, the Queen will pass perihelion in it's short-cut across the inner system to the far reaches of the belt. It's also the turnover point - acceleration will stop as the ship reverses facing before the long braking flight. You are passing inside the orbit of Ares (although Ares is still a long way off in that orbit - the nearest planet is, in fact, Poseidon) and as such the density of debris and traffic is negligible.

The turnover is uneventful (as you'd expect) and it is early in 300-012 when Maggie and Assana are working with Pranit on Sensor Training that the pair as Pranit

So, if that blip is just dirt, and so is that, and these, why is the dirt always on just about the same bearing?

Asking the Queen comes back with Due to the degraded sensor array, I cannot confirm that there is anything there.

None of the readings are long enough to give any indication of range - whatever it might be is a long way back and wobbling across your course or over 500km wide!

Assana and Maggie come up with 5 separate transient anomalies, 4 since turnover and 1 from before. Pranit isn't certain about all five, but does find another possible in the same sort of region relative to the Queen.

[ateno]

Assana and Maggie come up with 5 separate transient anomalies, 4 since turnover and 1 from before. Pranit isn't certain about all five, but does find another possible in the same sort of region relative to the Queen.

Pranit will thank the pair for their sharp eyes. "Having a 2nd set of eyes , and a third really increases the success.

Pranit will look over the last 24 hours on the radar log and try to find the 5 contacts designate them as alpha thru echo and set up a history for each and look for a projected course. Also if he can see a definite course change on contact echo.



Then write up a report and flag it for the captains attention noting the attention of Maggie and Assana, if there is a definite course shift in echo after the dog leg, I will wake her.

there is a way to get course and speed of a contact with only bearing, as long as you have a long period of readings then a course change and another long period of bearings. I could not find it in echo and I dont have my 25+ yo course books any more

[joertexas]

Assana and Maggie come up with 5 separate transient anomalies, 4 since turnover and 1 from before. Pranit isn't certain about all five, but does find another possible in the same sort of region relative to the Queen.

Pranit will thank the pair for their sharp eyes. "Having a 2nd set of eyes , and a third really increases the success.

Pranit will look over the last 24 hours on the radar log and try to find the 5 contacts designate them as alpha thru echo and set up a history for each and look for a projected course. Also if he can see a definite course change on contact echo.



Then write up a report and flag it for the captains attention noting the attention of Maggie and Assana, if there is a definite course shift in echo after the dog leg, I will wake her.

there is a way to get course and speed of a contact with only bearing, as long as you have a long period of readings then a course change and another long period of bearings. I could not find it in echo and I dont have my 25+ yo course books any more

Since Pranit still has the conn, Indrani arrives on the bridge and settles into the unoccupied station as she listens to the discussion about the contacts.

[BackworldTraveller]

The anomalies take a little while to work out. The first (and oldest) is an ion trail consistent with a comms laser passing through the solar wind; the second is a brief flash consistent with the spectrum of flare-bright but coming from the wrong direction; the third is the occlusion of a star (one of the weird sisters)- it vanished for several seconds then re-appeared. The fourth is possibly attributable to the Solar Wind - or a radio transmission bouncing off it. A false-positive? The fifth is possibly an IR source. The one discovered by Pranit on initial review is another possible occlusion just after the dog-leg turn.

Pranit tries to work out the range based on the 6 bearings, and while they are clustered, and indicative of something that altered course at the same place as the queen did (whatever it is, it's in about the same place before and after), it is not holding a straight course - or the measurements are of more than one thing.

Having been aboard customs cutters on covert surveillance of merchants, Pranit suspects that it is exactly that. Maggie concurs. I don't think they are doing a very good job though. They are too close - I don't think they know we have low-grade military sensors and have assumed civilian standard. But I still wonder why they are crowding us? Someone's told them not to lose us?

[joertexas]

Having been aboard customs cutters on covert surveillance of merchants, Pranit suspects that it is exactly that. Maggie concurs. I don't think they are doing a very good job though. They are too close - I don't think they know we have low-grade military sensors and have assumed civilian standard. But I still wonder why they are crowding us? Someone's told them not to lose us?

Indrani considers what she knows about these cutters and their operations before speaking up...

[ateno]

"Well I trust the navy, but not everyone in it, I don't want to tell them where we are going. Usually when the stalker ship is following someone, they are waiting for something else better, or see where they go.

But it could be someone else that want to follow us for some reason. And that sucks. I never got a new maneuvering kit for my suit.

Anyway, there are a few options: do another dog leg at exactaly the same time as the last and see if they follow, this will throw them off the asteroid. Stop exaxtaly in space and wait them out, this should force them to board us. Turn around and head towards them, same as before. Send them encrypted message, asking if we can help them. Cruise to another location that's in the general area we were heading.

Pranit would have tried to get the cleaning bot working or put in a ticket for it's being fixed.

[BackworldTraveller]

Pranit would have tried to get the cleaning bot working or put in a ticket for it's being fixed.

Thus endearing himself to the Queen!

The bot is now running about hoovering. (A cleaning bot's life sucks). It's basically 3 balls for motion, a magnet for traction, a camera system for location and a hoover. It automatically unloads in the galley where it has a "home" under a cabinet.

[joertexas]

"Whatever our contact is doing, I don't think it bodes well for us. Let's see about loading our best anti-shipping missile package, just in case. It will be a little tricky with us being underway, so caution is definitely the watchword here." Indrani sighs. Unfortunately, our laser parts are gone, so the missiles are all we have."