Sell Hard, Fly Fast

[Lazy Bum]

The gleaming spokes of Cattamanis glittered white and silver in the morning sun. They all led from the glitzy outer ring of the city to the Down Port at it's centre, five circular landing pads separated by groups of large metal sheds weighed down by thick blast coatings.

The rusty-brown Verbose Eloquence perched like a dainty bucket between the pitted black sheds surrounding the landing pad. Nestled between the two forward protrusions, the wide cargo ramp descended from the gaping maw of the hold.

At the foot of the ramp, two men in refined suits made the final trade of papers with the four Imperials. They were older gentlemen, acting with practised professionalism as they sifted through their bank's approvals and conditions. The financing of a starship - even a worn-down one - was always a complex affair.

The taller of the two men proffered a hand computer displaying the final agreements as he finished rattling off the details of the contract.


"...So that's one-eight-one hundred, nine ninety monthly locked in. Two-forty months. We just need one additional signature from the captain.

And that would be..?"

[ValhallaStreet]

A tall, slim woman steps foward. "That would be me," she says with a tight smile, ready to sign the document before anyone can object.

Annukka is a blonde-haired, blue eyed woman, whose fairly plain face has a pinched and severe look. It's hard to tell whether this is the result of genetics or her experiences, but given that she seems to look at everything with impatience, it's probably the latter.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you gentlemen," she adds, with only the faintest trace of irony.

[Lazy Bum]

The taller banker attempted an ingenuous smile, producing something closer to a tight-lipped grimace, as he accepted the hand computer back.

"The pleasure was all ours, Captain Pentikäinen."

He pulled a data wafer from the computer, then continued to gesture with it as he spoke.

"This is all complete. The Verbose Eloquance is entirely yours. This wafer contains your copy of the contracts, I advise you to load it onto your ship's computer. If there's nothing further, we'll leave you to it."

He thrust the data wafer to Annukka before walking briskly for the short steps leading from the landing pad to the maze of black-coated sheds. His quieter companion followed.

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka sighs with irritation, apparently glad that the bankers are finally gone. Pocketing the wafer, she turns to the others.

"Why don't we take the tour? After that, we'd best start making a plan. That loan isn't going to pay itself."

[The Grue]

Rod lifts a hand in a mock salute. "Heh. Right away, Captain."

Rod has the look of a veteran spacer; wirey, calloused, and greying. His straight posture says "military", but a few days' stubble says "not for a while".

"Let's start with the engine room. A ship that's been sitting this long might have all sorts of mechanical troubles."

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

Quinlan followed Pentikainen - make that "Captain" Pentikainen - onboard their new ship. He pulled out a cloth handkerchief as they went inside - mildew aggravated his allergies something fierce. "Not to mention all sorts of technical issues. Who knows if the systems even communicate with each other any longer? Wish we knew how many hidden costs we were about to run into."

[The Grue]

Rod shrugged. "Well, like my ma used to say, 'You get what you pay for'."

[Lazy Bum]

The cargo hold is vast and empty, marked only by five doors. Opposite the ramp is the large door to Engineering. Halfway down the port and starboard walls are the doors to the Low Berths.

To the immediate right of the ramp is the door to the Crew's Staterooms - three for the regular crew and one large stateroom for the captain. To the immediate left is the door to the Crew's Common Area and the elevator up to the six Passenger Staterooms.

But for now we're strolling over to Engineering. The metal grate floor of the Cargo Bay is littered with cargo straps, which are themselves speckled with mildew. The metal grates themselves each have several "clip points" to which the straps can be clipped or unclipped. This allows any configuration of cargo to be safely held down during flight.

Through the door into Engineering, you see the two-part J-drive. On the left and right of the J-drive are the linked M-drives that power the thruster plate that pushes the ship through normal space. The drives are grimy, although they look to have had a service recently. Affixed to the Engineering/Cargo Bay are an array of Diagnostics Screens.

In the middle of the floor there is an inconvenient ladder leading to a hatch marked Fuel Access.

Fuel Access leads up to the Fuel Bay and the power plant. Since the Fuel Bay is full of fuel, it is a VERY BAD IDEA TO ACCESS THE FUEL BAY RIGHT NOW.

A more in-depth inspection of the whole ship would be a series of five Routine (+2) Engineering checks, one for each speciality.

So one M-drive check, one J-drive check, one Electronics check, one Life Support check and one Power check. Each check takes 1d6 x 10 minutes to complete.

[The Grue]

"Quin, you wanna take a look at the electronics while I check under the hood?"

Rod makes a cursory visual inspection of the drive elements, before booting up one of the diagnostic screens.

"Let's see what we've got here..."

//run diag.power; lev1

Rolling Routine Engineering 0 + Edu: [roll0]
Rolling for time: [roll1] * 10 minutes

"This might take a little while. If you guys wanna go take a look at the rest of the ship, I'll call you over the intercom when we're finished here."

//run diag.lsup; lev1

Rolling Routine Engineering 0 + Edu: [roll2]
Rolling for time: [roll3] * 10 minutes

//run diag.mdriv; lev1

Rolling Routine Engineering (M-drive) 1 + Edu: [roll4]
Rolling for time: [roll5] * 10 minutes

//run diag.jdriv; lev1

Rolling Routine Engineering (j-drive) 1 + Edu: [roll6]
Rolling for time: [roll7] * 10 minutes

[Lazy Bum]

Spoilered for anticipated time split shenanigans.
The power systems and flow look reasonable. In a ship this old, it's difficult to tell what's an appropriate flow or not for any given system. The flow to the bridge, for instance, is a little higher than Rod expects. That high flow might actually be appropriate for the Verbose Eloquence bridge, though. You just don't know!

Life support, though. Life support looks good. Maybe change out the scrub filters in a couple months time.

The M-drives present a slight problem. The actual physical drives themselves are fine, but the thrusters - the additional miniature thrust plates that allow precise manuevering of the ship - are showing signs of micro-fracturing. That's bad.

It's not really fixable. All you could do is replace the mini-plates, but that's basically the same thing as just buying complete replacement thrusters. There's no immediate danger, and the micro-fractures are unlikely to get much worse. It will affect the ship's ability to manuever, though.


Thankfully J-drive is in full working order, as far as Rod can tell. You never really know if it works right until you use it.

[The Grue]

OOC:
Is it possible to compensate for the damaged manoeuvring plates by routing additional power through them? Would that likely accelerate their deterioration?

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

"I'll get right on that, Rod. I'll even check the major power couplings - it'll take longer, but I don't think there's any reason too rush at the moment." Quinlan starts running some electrical diagnostics, setting up a slave program to send updates to his personal computer while he physically checks the wiring for problems.


Education/Electronics (increasing time by one step for a +1 DM): [roll0]
Time Spent (in hours): [roll1]

[Lazy Bum]

OOC:
Is it possible to compensate for the damaged manoeuvring plates by routing additional power through them? Would that likely accelerate their deterioration?
More power won't really solve the problem. The micro-fractures are going to distort the actual thrust being put out, causing the resulting ship positioning to not be quite what the pilot wanted. Good piloting can accommodate for the inaccuracies.

(It's like driving a car that pulls to the left. More power to the engine won't solve the issue, but remembering to compensate for the pull as you're driving will.)

The thruster plates should probably be replaced sometime within the next few years. It's not an immediate issue, but it is an issue.


"I'll get right on that, Rod. I'll even check the major power couplings - it'll take longer, but I don't think there's any reason too rush at the moment." Quinlan starts running some electrical diagnostics, setting up a slave program to send updates to his personal computer while he physically checks the wiring for problems.


Education/Electronics (increasing time by one step for a +1 DM): [roll0]
Time Spent (in hours): [roll1]


The electronics are mostly on the Bridge, the way to which is through the Crew Common Area and Bridge. There isn't a door separating the two, but the massive bulk of the computer and the third Crew Stateroom creates a sort-of corridor between them.

The Common Area is currently quite sparse, with just a collapsible table, 5 plastic chairs, a kitchen worktop with sink and the elevator up to the Passenger Staterooms.

The Computer itself looks out of place, like it was ripped from a different ship. The protective casings all use a much lighter shade of grey than the casings of the other electronics units on board.

The Bridge is a small open space with three chair that is enclosed by the huge, sweeping Control Board. This dizzying array of controls allows all ship's functions to be handled from this one location. Mounted above the Board are display units that reach the ceiling. They primarily connect to the ext-cams mounted all around the ship, allowing the pilots to see in space. They can also display sensor readings, diagnostic results, incoming communications or just generally anything digital that can be visually displayed. The bridge toilet is cunningly disguised as a utility closet where the Control Board would meet the stateroom wall.

Quinlan's 1 hour time split
A one-hour look over reveals some good news and some bad news.

The ship's computer is much better than it should be - it's a Model 2/bis when you were only expected a Model 1/bis. The upshot is that you can actually run some decent programs on this baby.

Someone's tried to erase the computer's installation history, but you were able to reconstruct a copy from fragments in the emergency back-up directories. It looks like it was originally installed on the Merchantman vessel "Star Treader".
Whatever, it's here now and working better than fine.

The sensors are another matter. You don't have to clamber up the side of the ship to know that the Avionics Bays are showing signs of advanced wear and tear. There's not even anything to really fix - thirty years of high usage and poor-to-average maintenance have reduced their accuracy.

Two people working the sensors and cross-checking results would probably negate the problem.

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka takes a brief look at the rest of the ship, though having little understanding of engineering, she decides to let the others handle it. Instead, she heads to the bridge to inspect the pilot's station and the astrogation computer.

Remembering the banker's advice, she also copies the documents to the ship's computer, so that the others can inspect them. Finally, she heads to the captain's stateroom, to take in the luxury due her station as captain.

[The Grue]

"The hell...?"

Rod punches up the shipwide intercom.

"Quin, my screen's showing a heavy power draw from the bridge compartment. See if you can track it down while you're up there."

Satisfied for now, he resumes his check-up on the ship's innards.

Whee time split...this would be twenty minutes after Quin went up front to take a look at the electronics, and before Rod started on the LS diagnostic.

Also, erry'body can hear that over the PA.

[Lazy Bum]

Annukka finds that the pilot's chair cunningly has all necessary flight and positioning adjustment controls close to hand, as well as display screen controls.

The Captain's Stateroom is outfitted much like the passenger staterooms - a double bed, a wood-effect wardrobe and a storage unit. Unlike the passenger staterooms, it features several floor-to-ceiling display units, with a unit to control exactly what is being displayed.
The Captain's Stateroom is, of course, the single largest on the ship.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

Quinlan's eyes light up as he powers up the computer and puts it through some routine diagnostics. "This is more computational power than this ship actually needs. Where did you come from?" He spends twenty minutes or so recompiling data files - nobody deletes files as thoroughly as they should. "Star Treader, hm? Well, good to know."

Quinlan frowns and mutters to himself as Rod comes on the intercom. "I'll get to it, I'll get to it," is his only immediate response. His mood doesn't improve as he examines the sensors. "We won't be flying blind; just near-sighted. That'll need to be upgraded."

"Now...where is that power draw coming from?"

[ValhallaStreet]

Having found everything to her satisfaction, Annukka strolls down to the drive room to find Mann. She gives him a curt nod. "Mann. How does she look? Something strange going on?"

She wanders around the room, inspecting the various elements of the engine, though she knows better than to touch anything without proper training.

[The Grue]

OOC:Where are we for time at this point, Lazy?

[Lazy Bum]

OOC:
Rod's stuff takes 2h 20m total.

Quinlan started at the same time, and took an hour. During that hour, he received Rod's call.

So Quinlan is starting his task at the 1hr mark, with 1hr 20m left to go before time matches up.

See the OOC thread for more.

[The Grue]

"Well...here, have a look."

Rod clears the diagnostic monitor and brings up the power distribution readout.

"See that orange spot on the bridge? That's a higher power draw than I was expecting to see on a ship like this. It's well within tolerances, I'm just curious to see what's causing it. Could be a short somewhere in one of the grid conduits, could be some equipment that wasn't installed correctly, or it could just be whoever built the ship used substandard wiring. Unfortunately, that's not the worst of it."

Again he clears the monitor, and this time calls up schematic of the manoeuvre drive.

"The main M-drive looks fine, but I found microfractures in all of the manoeuvring plates. It's not serious, but it'll be enough to have an effect on the ship's handling. Now, I can fix it, but we'd need a whole new set of thruster plates and some time in a spacedock to swap them out. Until then she won't be as responsive as she should to course corrections, so you'll have to watch your thrust vectors.

"The good news is, J-drive and life support check out. There's some routine maintenance that needs doing, but nothing that requires immediate attention." He smirks. "Just try not to crash this one, okay Pentikainen?"

[ValhallaStreet]

"Go screw yourself, Mann," Annukka says, though without rancour. This had been an old joke between them, since she first put herself in hospital back in the Navy.

As she says this, she leans in to look at the screen with a frown. "Damn...this looks like it handles even worse than the Lakshmi, and she was even older than this one. At least it's our wonky ship, right?"

Annukka studies the screen for a bit longer, trying to work out the best way to compensate during various maneuvers. After a minute, her thoughts turn to other matters.

"This extra power to the bridge...could it be that they installed something not strictly legal, and they didn't want it showing up on routine diagnostics? It'd be a simple matter to claim their engineer had installed something wrong, and hadn't had time to fix the problem."

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

OOC:


OK, rolling a Routine Edu/Engineering (Power), which should end up giving me a +5. Time is still 1d6x10 minutes, right?

Engineering: [roll0]
Time: [roll1]

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

OOC:


Bah! Stupid snake eyes! Assuming I've still got time and can do so, I'll go ahead and try again.

Engineering: [roll0]
Time: [roll1]

[Lazy Bum]

Quinlan's first look doesn't actually reveal anything out of the ordinary - every power feed from the bridge is drawing the proper amounts of power to the equipment it feeds to.

Then it hits him - there's an extra piece of equipment. The power feeds run under the floor, so he has to start unlocking the square floor platings and setting them to the side. Now standing in the exposed crawl-space, he easily traces the cables from the equipment back to the split - the point where the thick power cable splits into the different power feeds for the bridge. There's one power feed that's clearly been spliced into the split some time after installation. This mysterious "black" feed is stapled to the underside of the bridge control feed, leading to some mysterious unit installed under the bridge control arrays.

Quinlan carefully yanks it out, revealing... A mail server?


Whilst interstellar mail delivery does involve some delivery of packages and physical mail, the vast majority is electronic communications. These communications are stored on special mail servers, which are delivered by the courier to the destination planet. Here, the contents are uploaded to whatever internet-like system they have.

There's no particular reason to plug one into your power supply. These things are basically just specialised computers - they retain their data even if switched off.



Back before Quinlan actually started doing any of that, Devlan is shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. He's smart and knows his way around a ship, but he also knows when somone is just plain better than him for the job - and Rod and Quinlan are definitely better engineers than him.

"Uh... Hey, Annuk- Captain. If these engine checks are gonna take a while, I can run out and get some leads. From the city. Business leads."

Getting the nod from Annukka, Devlan hustles down the ramp, across the landing pad and towards the nearest taxi rank. After a few minutes, a shady-looking taxi rises up above the sheds and across into those parts of Cattamanis that exist between the spokes.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

"Well, well, well," Quinlan says to himself as he pulls the mail server out from the arrays. "What's a beautiful server like you doing in a scow like this?" He replaces the server - a little closer to the access point, so he doesn't have to scrape his arm against the metal as much as he did to extract it - and heads back to the intraship intercom.

"Found your power draw, Rod - someone hooked up a mail server off the bridge systems. Not sure why or what's on it, but I figure that can wait until we make a jump and don't have anything else better to do for a week. The computer's actually a sweet piece of work, but it used to belong on some other ship, based on what I was able to recover from the files. Sensors are borked, though. We'll probably have to have two people running sensor sweeps and double-checking results until we get some new eyes on this bird."

[Lazy Bum]

The sound of booted feet clomping up the cargo ramp signals Devlan's return. He find the crew in the common area, watching Quinlan put the bridge floor back in place. Devlan looks a little out of breath, maybe a little harassed.

"Hey... hey, guys. I found us a supplier. Wasn't easy, but I got one."

He takes a breath.

"He says he's Di Wu of the Black Feathers. Claims they have, uh, "special access" to "supply chains". I think it's mostly just the regular Hofud stuff, but he was dropping hints about the growing complexes making stuff they shouldn't... I think like biochemicals and those blood thingies?

And robots. He was quite clear about wanting to shift 2 million credits worth of robots.

He's expecting us back if you want to meet him. It's either this, begging round the trade houses or posting a destination on the local 'net and waiting to see who's interested."

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

Quinlan brushes the dust off his hands by rubbing them on his slacks as he listens to Devlan's report. His eyebrows arch as he hears about Di Wu's special cargo. "Robots, you say? Well, 2 million credits is not a small number. It'd keep us flying for some time. I'm in if you are, Captain."

[The Grue]

"Well...we do need the work."

Rod glances around at his shipmates, gauging their reactions.

"I say we go talk with this Di Wu fellow at the very least."

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka looks sour. "So we're going to be criminals now, are we? Guess I should have just taken up smuggling five years ago when I had the chance. Fine, whatever. Let's just get this over with."

[Lazy Bum]

"Aw, it'll be alright. We can leave if you're not happy with the guy."

Devlan continues to talk your ears off during the taxi flight.

The Black Feathers are an organisation built around Sheriff On Wa, who is appointed by about eight residential blocks and a couple of low-grade warehouse districts. She gets government funding as the legally appointed Sheriff, but supplement it with a small commercial operation.

Most of their stuff is legally purchased, just often as a result of shady dealings. They take their protection duties very seriously, and do actually protect the neighbourhoods that appoint them, unlike some ground-level Sheriffs. Devlan reckons there to be about thirty to fourth Feathers in the gang organisation.

As the taxi shuttles over the dilapidated concrete-grey buildings, you can start to see some splashes of colour from graffiti and murals. The grav-car stops outside an unremarkable but functional commercial building. The front doors are the large doors of a loading bay, but a gentleman in a cheap black suit is holding open a side door. He gestures with his hand for the four of you to go in.

Inside leads to an unfurnished hallway and staircase. Up the stairs, you are lead to the left and then through a door to a much fancier meeting room. The room is dominated by an oval wooden table that can probably seat about twelve, and lined with charmingly (if slightly faded) light green wallpaper and six Feathers in cheap black suits. The Feathers each, appropriately enough, have a stylised black feather tattooed on the right cheek. Three of the men have their hair styled, the other is fully bald. The women both wear ponytails. They are all wearing shades and attempting to stand nonchalantly. Those of you who look see that they all have a pistol holstered at the hip.

The bald Di Wu is seated at the far end of the table. Like the others, he is dressed in a black suit and sports a feather tattoo. He has several hand computers on the table in front of him and looks to have been doing something when you entered the room. He stands, smiles and gestures you to sit.

"Please, make yourselves comfortable. The crew of the... Verbose Eloquance, I understand?

What may the Black Feathers offer you?"

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka seats herself comfortably. "I'm Captain Pentikäinen, of the Verbose Eloquence, yes. A pleasure to meet you. My crew and I have recently taken possession of the Eloquence, and are interested in taking on a cargo. Allow me to introduce my crew. You've met Mister, ah, Devan, of course. Mister Mann, here. And Mister Tosh is my merchant. He handles our trading concerns, of course."

Annukka turns her attention to Quinlan and arches her eyebrow.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

Quinlan nods as the Captain introduces him to Di Wu, and he gives a polite bow before sitting down as well. "Devan told us you were interested in moving some cargo. We wanted to have a sit-down meeting and see if we could come to an agreement that would be beneficial for both your organization and ours. Now, Devan had mentioned something about biochems and robots...?"

[Lazy Bum]

"Ah. Yes. Hofud is a great producer of biochemical products. And also less... accepted chemicals. Chemicals that would be worth a great amount to certain people.

People on Tyrfing and Sting. People who are anxiously waiting."


Di Wu leans forward a little in his chair.

"The robots are a different matter. One of our debtors persuaded me to take them as payment. Now the robots must be converted into credits, but I am struggling to find a reliable buyer.

I doubt, however, that you have the resources to help. Perhaps we should focus on the cargoes you can afford."

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka's eyes widen slightly at the mention of the dangerous biochemicals. She turns to Quinlan and narrows her eyes at him, hoping he'll get the message.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

Quinlan notices; in fact, he goes a bit pale as Di Wu describes what he's wanting moved. He clears his throat, which turns into a hacking cough - another reminder of the advancing years. "My apologies - live on Egypt long enough, and you're bound to get bad lungs. I believe there might have been a misunderstanding, sir. Based on what Devan's recollection of the conversation, I think all of us thought you were wanting something more, let us say, 'recreational' moved offworld. I'm not sure the Eloquence is the ship for these arrangements. Is there anything else we might be able to move for you?"

[Lazy Bum]

Di Wu seems to tense up for a moment - but only a moment. He quickly returns to his cool demeanour.

"Ah. Yes. I think we could send you on one of our low-profit runs as a trial."


He picks up one of the hand computers and glances at the screen.


"A food shipment to Tyrfing, 50 tons. Standard rate, 120,000 credits.

It should be a single jump for your Far Trader, so I expect a swift delivery. On arrival, request landing at the Down Port. Claim engine troubles if the Traffic Control challenge you.

Is this an acceptable opportunity for you? Do it well and we may have more... exciting offers in the future."

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka pretends to think for a moment. Knowing that they had little choice but to take on some questionable task if they were to pay their mortgage, she waits long enough to avoid seeming desperate, but not long enough to offend the man.

"I think that should be acceptable. We'll have the cargo loaded as quickly as possible and be on our way. Our thanks for this opportunity. Now, if there is no more business to discuss...?"

Eager to leave the presence of such a despicable person, Annukka is nevertheless polite and respectful, and waits for Di Wu to dismiss them before rising to her feet.

[Lazy Bum]

"No, I think that concludes our talk.

I'll have the truck loaded with your shipment and sent to the Port."

Di Wu politely rises as the four of you leave.


As you head down the stairs, Devlan speaks up.

"If we're headed for Tyrfing, you want me to put an ad out on the local 'net? It's not a tourist destination, but we might get a few passengers."

The taxi is still waiting for you outside.

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka sighs deeply as she makes her way down the steps, allowing the tension of the meeting to leave her body. She looks up as Devlan asks his question.

"Yeah, that'd be good. Remember what we agreed, that none of us are suited to babysitting, so we'd better fill those freezers."

As they arrive at the taxi, Annukka looks at the others. "Well, gentlemen, any ideas? We could just head back to the ship and start getting ready to take on the cargo and passengers. There might be something else we can do to help make this trip worthwhile as well, though. I'm open to suggestion."

[The Grue]

Rod shrugs. "Could check with the local Comms Office I suppose. If we're lucky there might be some low-priority mail bound for Tyrfing that don't warrent the attention of an X-boat. "

[ValhallaStreet]

Annukka nods in agreement. "Good work, Mann. I'll see you get a promotion for this."

Taking a seat in the taxi with her comrades, she directs the taxi to the Comms Office, then sits frowning for a minute or two while the taxi makes it's way.

Suddenly thinking of something, Annukka looks up. "Didn't he says 50 tons? That still leaves us another, what, 10 tons? 15? Do we have enough credits to engage in a little speculation? Or we could always advertise for that space."

[Lazy Bum]

The taxi, having made it back to the Down Port at the heart of the city, puts down outside the Comms Office.

Entering inside, Annukka files the Verbose Eloquence's details and it's destination with the reedy clerk. She looks back at Annukka over the display unit of her terminal.

"You've been approved, given the excellent qualities of your naval engineer. We insist that he be placed in charge of the safety and security of the mail containers for the duration of the delivery.

Payment is 25,000 credits, as usual. Please make sure you have the requisite 5 tons cargo space available when delivery is made. Please press your thumb to the unit to finalise the agreement."

She holds out a hand-held thumb scanner towards Annukka.

"And would you like your delivery immediately?"

[ValhallaStreet]

Taking the scanner, Annukka presses her thumb to the device. "I'm sure Mr. Mann will be pleased to take responsibility for the containers. As for delivery, immediately suits us fine. We'll be there," Annukka states, unsmilingly.

Having settled matters in the Comms Office, Annukka speaks to the others as they head out. "Come on. We'll try and get a few corpses in the freezer while we're waiting for the mail, maybe a few parvenus."