Also in jump, Kalida Siena approaches Misha for a private
conversation.
|
(Referee and Kalida's and Misha's players only) |
Mich Saginaw has a private conversation with Grand Admiral Baron
Bridgehead. Mich asks the Doc if he knew that the ship was sucking
the brains out of everyone. "The sparkly pink mode is sucking your
brains," he explains.
"No, it's not sucking," says Bridgehead, "It's
responding to. There's no actual transfer of brain material. I'm
a doctor, so I know."
"There was a staff meeting where they said there was a
psychic
component to sparkly pink mode."
"Yes. It's like it senses, it doesn't do anything
active."
"So it's a good thing?"
"It's a good thing. If you look at the brain scans
of people before and after they've done it... If you recall, back on
the Anastasia, we could tell the difference between people who had
been altered. The scans before and after sparkly pink mode are identical."
"So it doesn't hurt you."
"It does not hurt you," says Bridgehead emphatically.
Mich is less sure: "I dunno."
"Nobody's asking you to do it."
"OK."
"But it is not hurting anyone."
"Well that's why it uses more power when it goes into
sparkly pink mode. I knew there was a power drain..."
"Now if anyone starts acting strangely and you suspect
them, we can pull them in and do a scan."
"The whole crew is acting strangely," says Mich.
Bridgehead nods and smiles sagely.
During jump, personal training continues. Shark works
on pistol, and also with Misha on zack skills. Shark is concerned that
they may run into danger on Mora
. Vonish Kehnaan continues to work on gravcraft
piloting. Kalida practices with the gunnery console; she manages to
get the minimum missile salvo down to about ten missiles.
Also, Robert has been working on ways to pick up news
without revealing their location. He's also been working with Mich
on a power system communication unit.
The Nightshade comes out of jump in stealth mode in the system
of Frenzie
.
It's a busy system, a thorough test not just of stealth
mode but also of Helia Sarina's ability to stay out of the way of ships that don't
see them. Both the stealth and the pilot are apparently well up to
the task.
All the ships in the system are apparently running transponders.
No "stealth mode" objects show up on the sensors, although the range of those
scans is fairly small.
As for picking up news, Shark says their ship can take
light in one side and send it out the other -- can't they just put themselves
in the way of a tightbeam? Alternatively they could use the remote
sensor and laser capabilities to "take over" a tightbeam communicator.
Robert says it would be sufficient to get close to another
ship, and send their own tightbeam from there. After all, the base
station would never guess that there's two ships so close together when they
can plainly see only one.
Helia flicks the Nightshade rapidly towards the
most recently arrived passenger liner -- just come into system from Garda-Vilis
-- all the while saying cheerfully, "Slowly I crept, inch by inch, step
by step..."
Robert reaches out and touches a communications channel.
He says they could also just take over the ship's communications system and
use that, but the consensus is to try this method first.
It's very tricky. The catch is that they need to
be about ten meters away to generate the laser signals. That means that
Helia has to bring them real close to the ship. He tells her
so.
"Are you loco?" asks Helia. "Why do we have to be ten meters away?"
"To keep the carrier locked so that the signals appear
to be from the other ship, we have to be that close. If we're any further
away I can't keep the data stream in place."
Helia shrugs and moves in. She says, "If ever they're
going to detect us, this is about it. If we're interfering with their
particle wake..."
Robert has picked up the news. He laughs and says
it would be much easier the other way. He tells Helia she can move
out now; she does so.
There are indeed new items on the TNS
network. There
are entries for 020-1121, 041, 042, 063, 084, and 103. A silence descends over the crew as they read.
Helia laughs that it was she who started the rumor that
Akim Gavrolovitch
wasn't really dead. Now it's taken a life of its
own.
Their mission to Gorram
has had other repercussions.
The Red Zone
is being enforced by a light cruiser and two destroyers, based
on Capon
(coincidentally where Akim was from). There's a mention
in the news item of Red Zone violations -- while the Third Eye
had a permit, it's certainly true that the hiver
ship and Brandon Asu's ship
didn't.
The Berlin has struck again, this time in Denotam
on a small far trader
carrying "specialty plant material." Shark guesses
that is mushrooms from Digitis
-- the trader they met in First City
the first time was on the Denotam
run. Some time after that,
she apparently was involved in a battle with another pirate ship.
Shark says that
the Berlin is clearly capable of two successive jump-2's. Helia wonders
if it's a black ship, but just doesn't look like it. Shark says he's
working on being able to do that with the Nightshade -- they've just
had their ship longer, that's all.
On the basis of the news reports, Helia wants to visit
Ianic
. It's just been reclassified as Green Zone
, and sounds
very interesting to her.
Shark laughs, "Captain, can we screw them up?
We have a copy of the unpublished book on our computer, as well as the next
one he was working on!"
Helia points out that Akim's Army would not have burnt
the publishing house. "That's it," she says, "Break out the computer.
We've got to find the manuscript, and we have got to let it out. Akim
would forgive us for not getting any money on it. Let's release it
now."
"They won't believe it," says Shark, "They'll believe it's
some ghostwriter."
"It doesn't matter! Even better if they think it's
ghostwritten."
Kalida says, "They'd believe that even if the publisher
published the one they have."
"See? Even the level-headed ex-Brigadier General
agrees with me. Let's do it. We'll send it to a couple of newsgroups,
and every newspaper we can think of."
Shark says, "As former crewmates of Akim Gavrolovitch on
his last ship, we are publishing this in his memory. All proceeds are
to be donated to charity in his name."
Misha says, "Helia, aren't you the one who started the
rumor he's still alive? So you have to publish it like he is."
Shark suggests an anagram of his name, in a different publishing
house.
"Better yet," says Helia, "We follow it up with denials
that it can be true, using an anagram of his name."
"We'll' think about it. We're on our way to Mora
. What better place to publish it?"
Helia says they should drop it off everywhere on their
way... but as she then points out, it would track where they went. She
does say that they should drop off a copy here -- Akim would like that.
Then they can find names in Akim's computer records for likely members of
Akim's Army.
Robert suggests putting it on a data crystal, and physically
having it sent to Akim's Army headquarters; also sending it out to some other
publishing houses.
Helia says, "He probably used the one publisher for a
reason. Perhaps we should send it back to them. Except they'll
get bombed again. Let's look at his records -- his correspondence and
stuff -- and see who there is."
Suddenly Shark points out that the Marquis can publish
it in public, and he can honestly say he was a friend of Akim. He can
deny whether it was a recent request or not -- he can say something like
he's doing a favor for an old friend, and can't say anything about the date
of the request. "An old friend," not "a deceased old friend."
And all proceeds should be deposited in a numbered account in such-and-such
a system. Seriously, though, he says they should let the Marquis do
it, and wait until they get to Mora
.
Misha says, "What if Akim's Army is really the government,
who burned the thing down and blamed it on a group that wanted the book published."
Shark says, "Yeah, the Arden
government, perhaps.
Or maybe the government burned down the house trying to destroy the book,
and blamed a real group which was protesting."
Helia says, "Of course, you know, if he was really still
alive, it's the kind of thing he would have done. Burned down the publishers.
So maybe Akim is really still alive, even though we saw his body."
Mich idly mutters that maybe Bridgehead could build a
new Akim. He's probably got DNA samples, but not brain scans.
He grew a new Jill, after all.
The next matter is to decide on a route. Robert suggests going to Arkadia , since that was where the pirate was last seen (and Bridgehead points out it was the real Robin Sherwood's birthplace). Helia, however, picks out a good route through to Mora -- since it was quite some time since the last news report, anywhere in the Berlin 's recent stomping grounds should be as good as any other, and Ficant fits that profile while being very much on their way. All agree.
The Nightshade jumps for Ficant .
While they're in jump, Kalida starts reading the
Arden Gambit, Akim's unpublished book. She says she's read all
his other books and found them entertaining.
Robert and Mich working together have figured out a simple
power cube communicator -- it uses power responding to a photocell, so they
can rig up any Imperial
equipment with an LED to trigger it.
Everyone else works on their usual training, study, and
research. They also continue the daily battle drills.
The Nightshade comes out of jump in the Ficant system. It is really quiet here -- there are apparently no other ships in system.
Kalida has finished reading The Arden Gambit . It's typical Gavrolovitch fare; a private investigator, looking into a local murder on the Imperial border, traces it back into the Federation of Arden. The further he gets into it, the deeper the conspiracy levels get, until he gets far enough to find that at the heart of the Arden Federation -- the Arden Society -- is a secret cabal of people who have higher technology. This cabal has a whole complete other armed forces sitting around in bases in deep space to back up the Arden military if needed. Anything who finds out anything about it is hunted down -- that's what the original murder was all about. The victim hadn't found out about it, but had stumbled onto something that could have lead him onto a trail, and even that was enough to get him killed. In the end, the hero gets killed too, right after he finds out the secret. It's a good book -- Akim's style and technique have improved with each book, and this one is perhaps his best. It's involving and gripping, definitely a good read.
Mich runs a quick diagnostic on the drives, then Helia pops the ship into jump for Arba .
The Nightshade arrives out of jump. Arba
is a cold world, with just 600 inhabitants (not including starport
personnel,
of course). The system has two categories of worlds -- too cold, and
too hot. The mainworld is merely "cool," with an average temperature
of -25 degrees.
There is one ship in system, landed at the starport. It's
a far trader. There are apparently no ships in stealth mode.
They jump immediately for Capon
/ Lunion
.
They come out of jump, right on time at six days. There
are a good number of ships here, especially as there is an Imperial Naval
base
here.
Robert hooks into the Naval base, by relaying
through a network of ships. It's a formidable effort, but he has no
problem doing that. Helia has brought the Nightshade near enough
to a subsidized merchant for Robert to hack into it.
There is no news
from the border -- they're travelling further away from any originating there -- but there is an item
from further in the Marches
. The starport on Pimane
has re-opened; the system has been reclassified as a Green
Zone, and the starport (being run by Imperiallines, LIC
) upgraded to class
C.
The most recent information
about the Imperial Navy is the three ships that have been moved in to guard
Gorram
. They're operating in concert; occasionally the light
cruiser will take some time off, while the two destroyers are on station,
but usually it's the cruiser on station with one destroyer, while the other
destroyer remains here at the naval base -- the destroyers provide courier
capability if required. All three ships remain on full alert at all
times. The two destroyers are run by Imperial Navy Intelligence. The
INI procedures are that any ships in the Red Zone are to be arrested immediately,
the crew taken into custody and transferred to Capon
for questioning,
while the ship remains at Gorram
. The cruiser is regular Imperial
Navy, to provide the muscle, while the INI destroyers run the operation.
Base security here has been raised because of the local
terrorism, but other than that it's pretty quiet. They have implemented
the new encryption scheme that Robert picked up some time ago, but there's
no new updates planned.
Robert then digs into the highly secure systems to look
for anything on them, or the Third Eye. Their former ship is
noted, because it's the private vessel of a noble -- Marquis Marcus Crestworthy,
University of Mora, etc..
That's all they need to find out here. The Nightshade jumps for Maitz / Mora .
The ship arrives out of jump. There are ships everywhere in this system. Shark looks for ships that aren't using their transponder, or which are in stealth mode. He finds none; neither does Robert.
They've now been stuck on the ship for a month, with
no prospect of leaving the ship until Mora
. Of course the staterooms
are large, and there's the garden and lounge to hang out in, but it would
still be good to get off the ship. The bridge has sprouted quite a
number of Helia-sized hammocks at various heights.
Helia slips them into jump for Mora
.