The Starsong War (IC)

[DeTess]

The Starsong War
Chapter 1: Dominoes
As dawn arrived on Avron, the city of Rustport slowly awakened. Crews of scrappers gathered and set out, those working in the various smelters headed off to their jobs, shopkeepers opened their stores, and the one small school opened its doors for those that could afford to spend time there.

Despite this, The town still felt quieter than usual to its inhabitants. Recent tensions with the empire had resulted in fewer off-world traders visiting the moon, and the markets where salvage was sold where half-empty. Those few that could afford a trip off-world where spending some time in the core worlds, and only a couple of ships where currently docked at the port, though a mid-sized freighter had joined the collection of shuttles and smaller transports during the night.

The news this morning, readable on personal communicators or large screens scattered throughout the colony was better than it had been the past few days. The stand-off between the Federation’s first fleet and the empire’s third over a federation mining colony that had declared itself for the empire had apparently come to an end, with the empire allowed to evacuate anyone on the colony willing to leave with them, under the condition that the empire acknowledged the federation’s sovereignty in the system. This development signaled an easing in the tensions between the two powers, which in turn should bring commerce back to Avron.

The various movers, shakers and other people of remarkable skill also received a message from Portmaster Kameko. That in itself was not unusual as she’d often share news and requests this way, though the message itself was longer than they usually where.

From: Iseri Kameko
To: Revalk Maserat, Yue Shiratsuyu, Av Messer, Adrian Basil, …[and 28 others. Click to expand]
Subject: When it Rains, it pours

Good morning to you lot,

Before I get to the serious stuff, I’d like to quickly touch on some good news. By now you’ve probably heard the news about the de-escalating tensions in the Berrit system. I actually know someone in the mining colony, and they recently got in contact with me, basically confirming everything you’ve already heard on the news. Though I wouldn’t say the empire and federation forces are parting amicably, the deal was reached quickly and easily enough that I reckon this’ll be the end of the current tensions, which in turn should mean traders will return to this world.

Now, on to more serious things. First of all, as you might have heard by now, Bernhard has gone missing, and there are some clues that he might have been kidnapped. My people are doing what they can to find him, but if any of you have heard anything that could help, or have some time to lend a hand in the investigation, that’d be very much appreciated. This also means that, until we’ve found him, all ships leaving the colony will be subject to a full inspection. So those of you that sometimes do some ‘tax-free trading’ will have to suspend those operations until the man is found. All the more reason to help out though, isn’t it?

Secondly, we’ve had a radiation alert early this morning in the wreck of the ISS Mesiah, two kilometers north of the colony. Levels settled back down into the acceptable range shortly afterwards, but this is still worrisome. If any of you scrappers accidentally opened something you shouldn’t have while looking for salvage, please inform me and I’ll see it disposed of. Otherwise, there’s a small bounty for investigating and disposing of the source in the usual manner.

Lastly, there’s a request from LCdr Stork. Before I get to that, I’d like to point out that as far as I’m concerned, this request has a far lower priority than the two previous ones.


The Mid-line freighter Latrodectus recently returned to Avron from imperial space. The freighter was empty, with only a single corpse found on the bridge when we investigated the ship. Everything points to a smuggling operation gone wrong. The Latrodectus’ last port of call before entering imperial space was Avron. Any information regarding its cargo and activities while docked at Rustport will be rewarded according to federal bounty-scale 4-A-II. Citizens in good standing wishing to help with the investigation can find the ship on landing pad L2. Approach sergeant Okei to be given permission to access the ship.

For those not familiar with federal bounty-scales, this means a pay-out somewhere between 50 and 2500 gold credits, depending on the information you bring in and just what the ship was doing here. As for being a 'citizen in good standing', unlike his boss, Sergeant Okei understands the realities of this colony. As long as you're not a particularly notorious smuggler and seem earnest, he should let you in.

That’s it from me for now. If you’ve got questions or information, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Be careful out there,
Portmaster Kameko

[Merilan]

The Sunlight Orphanage isn't one of Rustport's finer buildings, a dilapidated two-storey converted townhouse with a childish, colourful wooden sign bolted down with spare screws from some old model of mobile suit no one probably would miss. Yue is typically one of the earliest to wake, as always; the message catches her attention as she lies in bed, the artificial light of the colony shining through the shared bedroom. Bernhard, huh...

First things first. The young brunette - really, no more than 18 years of age - gets up and sets to the order of breakfast...

"Is the fighting really over this time?" asks Mika, a six-year old girl with dark hair as she stares towards the television declaring that the stand-off between the First and Third had come to an end.

Yue leans over and wipes the excess milk off her face, gently. "Let's hope so..." she softly answers.

"They're not gonna get over here, right?" murmurs a bespectacled seven-year old, Khalid, clinging onto his toast tightly in his jam-covered hands.
"Even if that's the case, Avron's best is gonna go 'pewww!' and send 'em packing! Like Yue, right??" queries the eldest child, Li, nine years of age. He's having sugary cereal today.

"Hmm... hopefully it doesn't come to that," Yue responds, her voice not raising further as she dutifully passes out toast and glasses of milk, and napkins. It's become rote for them already, one year in - always having breakfast together, then washing up and brushing their teeth, before getting on with the day.

Some time later...

Slipping into her usual jacket, with her self-defence weapons packed away, Yue steps out of the orphanage with a cheery goodbye from the children. They've managed to get the tire swing up last night, and they're eager to give it a test.

She first sends Kameko a reply message in turn:

I'll look into the Bernhard issue. I owe him for all the repairs he's done for me. Any places other than his usual shop I should check?
-Yue

[DeTess]

Yue recieves a reply from the portmaster within a couple of minutes.


I reckon we all feel that way, Yue, so I'm happy to have your help.

Regarding where he could be, we've combed through pretty much all of Rustport by now. At this point, all that's left to check in town are some Fujin warehouses and their main office, which I'll have access to in a couple of hours, one way or another. Best to leave that to me and mine though.

If you have the time, I'd check some of the wrecks surrounding the town, as that's where any kidnappers could more easily hide out. You could also have a chat with Adrian Basil, as Bernhard basically adopted the kid, but I'm not sure how much more he could tell you, as he was the one to warn me about the disappearance in the first place.

It's not much, but if I had a better idea of where to look, I wouldn't need to send out a general call for help.

Be safe out there,
Portmaster Kameko

[Valmark]

Adrian jumped up wide awake as the sound of notification robbed him of his restless sleep. He took a second to get his bearings before checking it, stretching a hand from below the sheets. Ever since Bernhardt's disappearance, that had been the only place he felt home.

He rapidly checked the news and the message, but there was nothing he cared for. No actual progress had been made in the search for his foster father, and right now that was all that mattered. Still, he felt like he need to send a reply.

If there's any spare time I'll look into the radiations, but my focus is on Bernhardt obviously. What haven't you checked?

He sent, biting his lip and thinking about what to do. The old man had no enemies that Adrian could think of- while his background could be cause of concern, the boy knew everyone respected him and Bernhardt couldn't hurt a fly either way. Or to be more precise, he wouldn't hurt a fly. If Adrian had to bet, whoever did it was after his skills. That seemed to rule out strong organizations like Fujin's, since he was sure they could just call for someone among their midst instead of kidnapping one old man, as good as he may be. But that didn't mean he could be sure of it, only that it made less sense.

"I'll find you, one way or another" he told himself, getting dressed and ready to head out. He was going to comb the wreckage- as a scrapper, he had a few ideas of where there were larger ships that could house a group of people with discretion, even including their robots. Maybe the radiations were connected? It seemed strange since there was a time lapse of two days, but it was worth checking it out later.

Let's break off with the first roll of the game! Which could be completely needless, but whatever.

Knowledge (geography): [roll0]
My aim would be to think of the best spots I'd go if I wanted to kidnap someone with as much discretion as possible, prioritizing closer places.

[DeTess]

The portmaster's response to Adrian's message arrives quickly, within a matter of minutes.


I completely understand your priorities, Adrian, and we're doing whatever we can to find Bernhard. I've had promises of help from several other people in the colony, so you're not alone in the search. Some of them might approach you to ask some questions though. If that becomes problematic for you, I could just send the statement you gave to me when you reported the disappearance to them and tell them to leave you alone.

We're pretty much done checking all the reasonable places within the colony itself. All that's left is Fujin's holdings, and I'll be taking care of that today. Next on my list are the wrecks in the vicinity, so I'd start there if I were you.

Be safe out there,
Portmaster Kameko



You can think of four places in the colony's immediate vicinity that could be used as cover for any kidnappers.

First is the underground section of the hydroponics ship that Rustport itself is built into. This section is almost entirely flooded, and actually functions as Rustport's main water reserve. Because of this, there are some protections in place, such as camera surveillance and irregular patrols by police officers, but those protections only cover the entrance, and you've heard some claims that there are still some dry rooms in there that you could dive to. This place would be the closest for any group of kidnappers, but it would also require specialist equipment to use (diving gear) and a knowledge of its security to avoid getting caught by a patrol or the cameras.

The other three locations are all large wrecks located close to the colony, being the ISS Messiah, the ISS Inferno and the FFSS Courageous.

The Messiah and the Inferno were battleships, and though just about anything of value has since been removed from the ships, the hulks themselves have been left in place, as they function as stormbreaks for the colony. In addition to that function, the Inferno has also had some emergency shelters built into its lower reaches for use by people from Rustport in case of emergency. Both ships have plenty of hiding spots for a small crew, though any mechas stationed in the ships would eb fairly obvious, as both ships only have a couple of bays large enough to store mecha. Both ships are also used often as temporary storage facilities by scrappers and smugglers, so they get a reasonably amount of traffic through them, increasing the risk of a group hiding out there being found.

The FFSS Courageous was a light carrier that crashed into a ravine. It has been shredded pretty badly, and spread out over quite a large area, as some parts of the ship slid further down than others. It hasn't been explored as thoroughly as the Inferno and the Messiah as the wreck is quite unstable, being continually at risk of sliding deeper into the ravine. A small group could hide out for a bit in the wreck if they where willing to take the risk though, and there'd be a far smaller chance of a random group of scrappers stumbling on them than if they where hiding out in either of the imperial battleships.

[Valmark]

Adrian had started pacing around the room, fiddling with random things to calm his nerves as he thought of places he could search. He also gave another look over to the workshop, hoping to find anything he previously missed.

Search check to find anything I could have previously missed? [roll0]

After narrowing his options down, he sent a message to the Portmaster.

Forward this to those that are handling Bernhard's rescue.

The ISS Messiah, the ISS Inferno, Rustport underground section and the FFSS Courageous are the most likely places to find him, in order from least likely to most. The two imperial ships see a bit too much activity for anyone wanting to hide out, but anyone wanting to investigate the radiations should keep an eye out. I can't go in the underground section 'cause I lack means to go underwater with ease, so I'll be heading to the Courageous. Anyone that wants to speak with me should be prepared to risk to break their own necks on a fall, cheers

With that, he decided that he had spent enough time there and went out- with Fluffy's speed he knew it wouldn't take too much to get there.

[DeTess]

It takes a bit longer for the Portmaster's response to arrive this time around, and when it does the response is send to both you and several other people from the colony, including Revalk Maserat and Yue Shiratsuyu.




Forward this to those that are handling Bernhard's rescue.

The ISS Messiah, the ISS Inferno, Rustport underground section and the FFSS Courageous are the most likely places to find him, in order from least likely to most. The two imperial ships see a bit too much activity for anyone wanting to hide out, but anyone wanting to investigate the radiations should keep an eye out. I can't go in the underground section 'cause I lack means to go underwater with ease, so I'll be heading to the Courageous. Anyone that wants to speak with me should be prepared to risk to break their own necks on a fall, cheers


I agree with your assessment of the ships. Regarding our water reserves in the underground section, we've already checked the camera recordings for the last two days with no indication of unauthorized entry, but I'm planning on sending a diver in as soon as someone properly trained has the time, just to make sure. That might take a while though. The underground section only has one proper exit, so I'll make sure that one is guarded, just in case.

As always, be safe out there, especially if you're going to take a look around the Courageous.
Portmaster Kameko



You've already looked over the workshop several times, and the portmaster's people have also done a sweep, so predictably enough you find nothing new.

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke had already been up as the news and messages came through, sitting on the small excuse for a balcony drinking his coffee. Closing the mail on his glasses, he would hang them from his collar and go inside to his PC. He would send a brief message of his own, "I will try to looking into everything, I the order listed. Of course the old man takes priority though. Any info that can be shared would be appreciated."

While he waited he would make brief breakfast, but then would get the message from Adrian. He shakes his head, He couldn't find been wait for me, that figures. He would make short work of his breakfast, while cycling his cybernetics to create the modules he wanted for today. He straps his gauntlets on and checks his sidearm before heading directly the Strider via a ramp from his apartment which was several stories high.

Heading for Adrian's place, he would find himself intercepting Fluffy. He would open a communications channel. "I can search the underground, or I can partner with you. I'll let you make the call. I know how important this is to you."


Dueling Visor socketed to Helmet
Spazer Beam
Exploration Kit
All Currently with 1 Cyber-Energy

[Merilan]

Yue looks towards the reply as she heads on out. "The Courageous..." she murmurs. "I suppose that is as best a place to start as any."

She sends another message-

Yue here. I'll assist with the Courageous mission. Catch up with you once I'm on-board.

The Ophanim isn't docked too far away, in one of Rustport's many hangars -- possibly from Bernhard himself, and not far from the orphanage. There is a quiet pause and a sigh as she slips into her usual white pilot suit and stares towards the winged machine. It still brings too many memories to see, with its individual pock-mark damages and gashes from each battle with Fariha and Leon that she can still recall. But she needs it right now.

[Valmark]

Adrian was traveling with Fluffy when he crossed Zeke, or at least he was going to. Either way, once he got signaled by his friend Adrian managed to smile finally. He'd usually be the first to, but in the last couple days there had been quite a lot going on and he hadn't found much of a reason to.

"I'm glad you're in on this too- gotta grab a drink after this is over. That said, I imagine that you wouldn't be offering if you couldn't get underwater, so I'd appreciate if you could check it out- covering more ground is bound to be helpful. Be safe" with that, he waved with his arm -the robotic one, no point in waving from inside the cockpit- and took off again, speeding away. Hopefully someone would find Bernhard and it could all go back the way it was.

Receiving Yue's message, he smiled and rapidly tapped a response- he considered her to be a good person from what he had understood of the orphanage situation and a good pilot from what he had understood of her machine, so it was good that she was coming too.

Alright, I'll be waiting outside the limit of the ship's carcass- I shouldn't be hard to spot, 'cause giant robot

[Merilan]

Yue looks to the message again, tapping out a quick, 'Got it.' and then finally boards the Ophanim as she goes through its start-up sequence; her fingers fly over the darkened cockpit as the panels and globe at the centre light up, one by one, a spinning gimbal emanating as the white and blue winged mobile suit rises from its perch and heads on out to the colony's customs gates. If there isn't any impediment - she might wind up speaking to the Portmaster of her current mission - she'll head out to the designated point, around the Courageous, checking if the Fluffy's there already.

[YuweaCurtis]

"We do, all three of us." It had been awhile since I need had been in the military, he still had the basic mindset. It wouldn't be over until they had found there man. He would nod in response to the wave, though it was kinda pointless as it was in the cockpit and Adrian was already on his way. He would turn and head for the entrance to the underground.

[DeTess]

---FFSS Courageous---

It takes only a couple of minutes for Adrian to reach the wrecked drive section of the courageous, and Yue isn't far behind, having encountered no trouble while leaving the colony.

The Courageous itself is spread out over about 2 kilometers worth of ravine. The largest intact section is the ship's drive section, which is wedged in at the top of the ravine, still sticking defiantly up in the air, even as the metal that made up the ship slowly rusts and crumbles. The rest of the ship tore loose of the drive section during the crash, and is scattered all over the ravine in larger and smaller chunks wedged between the rock walls of the crevasse.

When Adrian arrived, a flock of scavenger birds nesting in the drive section took flight, but after a couple of minutes of agitation they settled back into their perches. No other signs of life or activity are apparent, however.

---Rustport's Underground---
The entrance to the Water storage facility consists of a large, mecha-scale door that was likely once a cargo door of the vessel on which the city was built. It is closed, as is the small human-sized entrance set into the larger door at ground level. Sitting on a chair next to the smaller door is an older man wearing the badge of Rustport's police force. Against the chair leans a rifle which, though clearly an older design, looks well cared for.

The officer looks over when Zeke approaches and shouts "What business, citizen?". One of his hands has come to rest on the rifle's stock, but he hasn't gotten up from the chair.

[Merilan]

"Good to see you, Adrian," Yue speaks through the shared comms when she catches up with the Fluffy. The Ophanim is sporting a relatively new... very bright colour scheme, white and blue with splashes of yellow and red... perhaps the children of the orphanage had some influence.

The wings of the Ophanim fold as she focuses on her scanners. "Nothing obvious stands out... we have a lot of ship to cover. I'll start from one end, and you take the other. We can meet in the middle."

She lifts the suit to proceed to the other end of the carrier, taking her time to inspect and look out for hidden nooks and crannies that might not be obvious at first.


I'll do... Spot? [roll0]
and also Knowledge (technology) to see if I know anything about this model of carrier that could stand out. [roll1]

[Valmark]

"Hey Yue! I like the paint job" he said, waving the robotic hand "And yeah, good idea. I'll probably check deeper in the ravine too- I'd hide there if I was on the run" with that he left off to begin his search, aided by the Fluffy's suspicious powerful sensors.

So... 100 mu max speed, capable of hovering and with 16 energy restoration. If possible, I'm not touching the ground ever.

Spot, Listen, Search checks:
[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

More importantly, the Fluffy has Blindsense 120 ft. And Blindsight 30 ft. Which I think are going to be more helpful.

[DeTess]

Yue and Adrian split up, with Adrian's flying mech starting at the far end of the ravine where most of the deepest wreckage lies, while Yue in the Ophanim carefully scouts out the drive section and the larger pieces of wreckage closer to the rim of the ravine. Progress is slow, due to the scattered and unstable nature of the wreckage, and it takes the better part of an hour to comb through most of it.

Fluffy's thrusters kick up quite a bit of dust from the wreckage, but its sensors easily pierce through those clouds to scan over wrecked rooms and hallways. Some interesting things appear on sensors, including a rather intact room located fairly far down that seems to be a storage room for spare mecha parts. There are no signs of recent or current habitation in any of these though, untill Adrian makes his way a little past the halfway point back in his sweep towards the drive section. Here, a larger section of ship has remained intact. This section is big enough that there could be several rooms deeper in that can't be reached by mecha or observed from the outside. There's also signs on the wall that it has slid down a couple of meters fairly recently.

Yue's sweep starting at the drive section is similarly fruitless. The drive section and many of the higher sections have been completely gutted by the wind and scavengers, leaving little room to hide. Many of the deeper sections are harder to observe, but they seem empty, or at least uninhabited by anything larger than lizards or birds, though it's hard tot ell fro up at the edge of the rim. When Yue is almost at the mid-point she encounters something interesting though. In a shallow side-branch of the main ravine barely 2 meters deep is set a winch of sorts. It's mostly dust-free, indicating it must have been used fairly recently, within the last couple of days. Looking down in the ravine past the winch reveals a rather large section located fairly deep in the ravine.


The FFSS Courageous was a light Strike Carrier from Admiral Haramoto's third fleet. Such carriers could carry up to two lances of mecha, but would generally only carry one and use the remaining space for maintenance and storage of supplies. The hangar would run about half of the length of the ship, with most of the machinery and crew quarters located closely behind it.
The fact that that larger section is still intact so deep down means that it's likely more armored than the rest of the ship. This means it likely contained important rooms, such as the bridge and, given that it was a ship originally designed by the empire, quarters for high-ranking crew.

[Merilan]

"I... just can't say no to those kids," Yue answers rather frankly, before getting on with the search, activat It's slow going, and after the better part of an hour is consumed...

"Hm?" Yue blinks a few times and stares towards her find - then contacts Adrian again, forwarding a photograph of the winch from the cameras. "Adrian. ...I might have found something."

A pause, as she murmurs, looking at some other reference material, "There is an intact large section of the ship underneath that gorge, and the winch has signs of recent usage. Judging from some information about the Third... it may contain important rooms, such as the bridge or living quarters - ideal for a hideout, if it still functions."

I'll roll that Reflex save just in case - [roll0]

[Valmark]

"It's not like I was being sarcastic" Adrian said, on the paint subject.

"I'm coming- there are signs that this section slid down recently. I think it unlikely that it did it on its own, dead ships don't try to crawl inside a hole usually" he took off to reach Yue then.

"I agree on the subject, a bit less with having to leave the robot. Oh well, I'll find a landing spot" he said, once he could actually see what Yue was looking at.

Let me roll it too just in case:

[roll0]

+1 if it's in the mecha.

[Merilan]

"It cannot be helped... I have some skill at infiltration and on-foot engagement, if you are not feeling confident," Yue offers, as she readies herself to head on down as the Ophanim kneels and she cables her way down towards the ravine with the winch. Inspecting the machinery, she says, "Looks like it will work."

After Adrian's onboard as well, she'll press the button to lower them down towards the structure, and heading down towards the hatch.

[Valmark]

"It's more like feeling more secure behind Fluffy's metal chest" Adrian said, landing and getting out of the robot.

Once on the ground, he reached her on the winch, rapidly taking a virtual note of the location- that was an interesting find since it would give easier access to potentially salvageable parts.
He also looked at the battery's power, wanting to see if a travel through the lift has any noticeable impact on the remaining fuel.

[DeTess]

The structure let's out a groan of settling metal as Yue and Adrian reach its roof, but it doesn't move noticeably. A hatch close by gives access to a hallway. The structure seems to be mostly right-side down, with the floor of the hallway only having a very slight slope. The hallway is barely lit by the light coming in from cracks in the ceiling. A heavy set of doors is set in the side of the hallway, right across from where the hatch opens down into it. These doors are ever so slightly ajar, leaving enough space fora relatively slender person to worm through, with a dark room beyond it. Fading signage indicates that that room is the bridge. To the left and the right the hallway ends in dark stairwells leading down.

[Merilan]

"... I can relate," Yue does answer, as she carefully goes through the hatch onto the hallway, paying attention to keep herself as silent as possible. She focuses as she activates the ghosting protocols, her form flickering as she gains a measure of stealth to what's to come as she slips through the door with her fairly skinny frame. The bridge... but it didn't look like what they're looking for is here quite yet.

They'll have to proceed further down. She continues down the left stairwell. Chances are they might connect, but...

Move Silently as I go - [roll0]

[Valmark]

"I'll go the other way- no point in me checking the bridge, given how dark it is. I forgot a torch" Adrian whispered, moving towards the right. Thinking about it, he sent a message to Revak.

Hey- I'm at the FFSS Courageous. Did any of your boys come by here in the last could days? Maybe used a winch past a relatively small crevice? I've found signs of recent use, and didn't want to go on a wild goose chase

[DeTess]

Both stairwells seem to go down about four floors, before ending abruptly in mid-air. Whatever part of the ship was down there has been torn off and likely decorates some other part of the ravine. The next floor down from the bridge seems to consist of multiple smaller rooms, maybe storage rooms or cabins for officers.

Revalk's response to Adrian's message comes after about 5 minutes.


None of my boys have been at the courageous recently, nor have the Jackals, Rustworks, Knight's, or any of the other crews I talked to while trying to get an idea of where Bernhard could be. My crew is currently combing over the Inferno, and that'll probably take us the rest of the day. If we find anything, I'll let you know. I expect the same from you, of course!

[Valmark]

Adrian looked around, checking briefly a few rooms. He didn't expect possible kidnappers to choose small rooms for refuge, unless there were like two of them, but it was entirely possible for them to use a small room to keep Bernhard. Still, time was probably better spent getting to the next floor in his opinion. To not rise his voice, he sent a message to Yue:

ll move on to the next floor, to try and cover more space- if there's a substantial group, it's likely they took a seat in a bigger room

Should roll move silently too:

[roll0]

[DeTess]

Adrian checks the first two rooms on the floor. Both were clearly officer's cabins of some sort. They've also clearly been looted and stripped of anything valuable, though the lack of traces in the dust on the floor suggests this must have happened quite a long time ago. There are no signs of any recent habitation.

The next floor down looks fairly similar to the previous one, Though based on the door's spacing the rooms are likely slightly larger.

[YuweaCurtis]

---Rustport's Underground---
The entrance to the Water storage facility consists of a large, mecha-scale door that was likely once a cargo door of the vessel on which the city was built. It is closed, as is the small human-sized entrance set into the larger door at ground level. Sitting on a chair next to the smaller door is an older man wearing the badge of Rustport's police force. Against the chair leans a rifle which, though clearly an older design, looks well cared for.

The officer looks over when Zeke approaches and shouts "What business, citizen?". One of his hands has come to rest on the rifle's stock, but he hasn't gotten up from the chair.

The Strider comes to a rest, kneeling near the entrance. Zeke opens up his cockpit and lowers to the ground using a cable with a place for his foot at the bottom and a couple of handgrips further up. He has a hand up as he does so, showing a relaxed demenor so the Police wouldn't be in guard. His sidearm is very obviously on his person, but his hands are nowhere near it.

He waits until he is in comfortable speaking distance, "Whoa there, I'm just here to look into the disappearance of Bernhard. I'm Zeke Mathis, you've probably heard of me?"

[DeTess]

The officer nods. "I have, wait there one moment." He holds a short conversation using a portable radio while keeping an eye on Zeke, then nods towards him again, appearing a lot more relaxed now. "The Portmaster says you're cleared to go in, as soon as I've scanned you." The man gets a small tool out of a pocket on his belt, with a camera lens and a couple of antennae-like protrusions at one end. "The water gets filtered after it comes out of the reservoir, of course, but that doesn't mean we're going to take risks we don't have to."

A quick move of the tool and a happy beep later and the officer nods, satisfied. "Seems you're not ill, and no one has tried to poison you, so you're good to go." The man turns around and opens the small side door. A catwalk can be seen beyond it, with several ladders leading down to the water's surface, glimmering three meters further down.

"Oh, before I forget, after how long should I start looking for someone to go in after you? I don't know how long your equipment is designed to last if you get in trouble or lost, and anything short of a QEC won't work for getting help once there's a couple of meters of water above you."


The water becomes very dark very quickly, as the reservoir itself isn't that well lit. If you have neither blindsense or blindsight, please make a spot check, if you do have low-light or darkvsion, please mention it as it'll make the check easier. Either way, make a survival check for navigating the area down there, as once you leave the main reservoir it tends to get rather labyrinthine.

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke makes a momentary check of his equipment, before briefly thinking. "Hmm, let's say 3 hours. I appreciate the concern." He would then make his way inside, carefully checking his surroundings as well as his footing.


[roll0]

[YuweaCurtis]

Survival
[roll0]

[DeTess]

The water quickly envelops Zeke, and with it comes a nearly impenetrable darkness. It takes several long minutes before his eyes have acclimated enough to make out as little as vague details close by, making exploration very slow.

Zeke spends a long time swimming through partly collapsed hallways and backtracking through dead ends. he finds several small rooms that are above the water level, all completely empty, before finally finding a dry room that is different. Where the other rooms smelled of stale air and humidity, this room smells like sweat and smoke. Furthermore, a very slight draft can be felt, and a very diffuse light falls down from further up.

The room itself is a small storage room, turned on its side when the hydroponics ship crashed. Most of the floor-that-was-once-a-wall is dry, with the only wet spot being at the down-wards facing doorway. Zeke can just about make out what seem to be some discarded food-wrappers in one corner, and a little pile of ash in another. A thin mattress is spread out in the room as well. The light seems to be coming from a rather wide crack in the ceiling, but there's quite a long shaft of rock or metal between the crack and the source of light.


there might be some things of interest hiding in the detritus. If you wish to look into that, roll as search check. If you want to try climbing towards that light-source, it's a climb check, though the climb itself doesn't look that difficult from where you're standing, though it'll definitely be slow going if you're not a good climber.

[Merilan]

Got it. Will keep checking.

Yue herself methodically checks the rooms on her side, keeping her invisibility up as much as possible and moving quietly; as it is, however, it would seem that the bigger room seemed more likely...

[YuweaCurtis]

The water quickly envelops Zeke, and with it comes a nearly impenetrable darkness. It takes several long minutes before his eyes have acclimated enough to make out as little as vague details close by, making exploration very slow.

Zeke spends a long time swimming through partly collapsed hallways and backtracking through dead ends. he finds several small rooms that are above the water level, all completely empty, before finally finding a dry room that is different. Where the other rooms smelled of stale air and humidity, this room smells like sweat and smoke. Furthermore, a very slight draft can be felt, and a very diffuse light falls down from further up.

The room itself is a small storage room, turned on its side when the hydroponics ship crashed. Most of the floor-that-was-once-a-wall is dry, with the only wet spot being at the down-wards facing doorway. Zeke can just about make out what seem to be some discarded food-wrappers in one corner, and a little pile of ash in another. A thin mattress is spread out in the room as well. The light seems to be coming from a rather wide crack in the ceiling, but there's quite a long shaft of rock or metal between the crack and the source of light.


there might be some things of interest hiding in the detritus. If you wish to look into that, roll as search check. If you want to try climbing towards that light-source, it's a climb check, though the climb itself doesn't look that difficult from where you're standing, though it'll definitely be slow going if you're not a good climber.


Zeke carefully makes his way out of the water, staying especially alert when he sees the bed and trash. Quietly making his way, he would first make his way to the bed. Removing a glove, he checks the mattress for warmth. Putting it back on, he moves to check the containers for warmth, as well as trying to see if he can find any other signs of activity in the area besides the food containers.


Move Silently
[roll0]
Search
[roll1]

[DeTess]

---FFSS Courageous---
Yue carefully checks the various cabins. Most are dilapidated, dusty and looted of anything of value. One pair of cabins further away from the stairs is different though. Both cabins are dilapidated, but the dust has been swept into the corners of the room, likely because of movement within the room. One is as empty as all the previous ones, but the other one has a new-looking sleeping bag lying on top of the bare mattress. Both the beds and mattresses are as cold as the room they're in though.

---Rustport underground---
The mattress is roughly the same temperature as the room, but among the containers is one formerly containing cup noodles that still retains some warmth. The small heap of ash in the corner is also still warm, and there's the charred remains of the cover of a small booklet of some sort in there. While checking the remains of the fire, Zeke also stumbles upon a small slip of paper. The edges feel charred, but the slip itself seems mostly unscathed. There seems to be some words on it and when held close to a light source, the following can be made out, written in a fairly neat handwriting:


24/6/2839, 15:43: Go-signal from Ouroboros[any further words are cut off by a charred edge]


The date and time seem to be in Standard Earth Time, which would correspond to late in the evening, three days ago when converted to Avron's local time.

[Merilan]

There's a frown from Yue as she inspects the sleeping bags, and she sends another message.

Got signs of use in two of these cabins. Cold, though. We might be behind.

There's no other choice but to keep investigating - after searching, she keeps heading down.

[roll0] Search

[Valmark]

ºTwo rooms, uh...º the idea of getting there late formed a drop in Adrian's throat. He took a few moments for himself, taking large breaths to calm down.

Hope not

He merely replied, and then went on with his search. He planned on combing through most of these rooms, this time around.

In the order, Listen Spot & Search:

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

[YuweaCurtis]

---Rustport underground---
The mattress is roughly the same temperature as the room, but among the containers is one formerly containing cup noodles that still retains some warmth. The small heap of ash in the corner is also still warm, and there's the charred remains of the cover of a small booklet of some sort in there. While checking the remains of the fire, Zeke also stumbles upon a small slip of paper. The edges feel charred, but the slip itself seems mostly unscathed. There seems to be some words on it and when held close to a light source, the following can be made out, written in a fairly neat handwriting:


The date and time seem to be in Standard Earth Time, which would correspond to late in the evening, three days ago when converted to Avron's local time.

Making mental note of the words, he would continue his sweep, checking the whole room. If he finds nothing else he would then attempt to climb to the light source. Seeing he wasn't particularly skilled he would take his time.


[roll0]

[DeTess]

---FFSS Courageous---
Yue doesn't find anything else that seems odd or out of place in the two rooms she'd found earlier.

On the floor below, Adrian cautiously searches through the rooms as well. It isn't entirely clear what most of the rooms might have been when the ship was first build, but at some point before its crash they had been roughly converted to crew quarters, with 4 to 6 bunk beds in each chamber. Some decorative woodwork and upholstery is still barely visible in some spots of the room, but it's all badly degraded. There is one large room that is different from the others, set at the end of a hallway running at a right angle to the one connecting the two stairwells. This was clearly once an officers-lounge of some sort, based on the remains of decorations and woodwork still visible, but it has since been converted to a more general ship's mess, with a number of long, simple tables arranged in the room, and an area where food can be served set in one corner. In one corner of this room lies a discarded cylinder for cooking gas, which, judging by the lack of rust, can't have been there for that long.

---Rustport---
Zeke finds nothing else in the small room, so he begins the climb out. Getting to and through the crack in the room's roof is somewhat tricky, but the rocky shaft afterwards is actually quite climbable, with small hand and toeholds cut into the rock at regular intervals. It still takes a bit of time to climb all the way up, which seems to be about 30-odd meters. Parts of the shaft feel oddly smooth, as if the rock had been cut or drilled through, while others are rough and seem natural. A canvas sheet the same color as the surrounding rock has been fitted over the top of the shaft, through which the light that was visible in the room below fell. There's a zipper running the length of the sheet, to open it.

Beyond the canvas sheet is a far shallower rocky crevasse, only about 3 meters deep and easily climbable, which opens up at the base of the crashed hydroponics ship making up most of Rustport's bulk, a small distance away from where the settlement lies sprawled around the ship.

[Merilan]

Nothing... Yue proceeds to go further down, towards the bottom-most floor. It seemed most likely that the more spacious rooms were what they used, at this point.

[DeTess]

The lowest level of the chunk of wreckage is reasonably well lit, mostly because the various hallways all end in open air. There is one large room on this floor, accessible through three large doors set in its sides. This room appears to have been a briefing room, with several tiered half-circles of chairs surrounding a central podium. Behind this podium are screens, but also an old chalkboard. There seems to be some text on the chalkboard's lower left quadrant, but in the low light conditions in the room it's hard to make out from the entrance.


If Yue or Adrian decides to explore this room, please roll me both a spot and a search check.

[Valmark]

Someone cooked here recently. Think we aren't dealing with too many people

Adrian was starting to think that the people here weren't the kidnappers, since he expected a larger group, but in truth there had been no reason to assume a certain amount of people. Besides, he didn't want to accept it.
He pocketed the cylinder and moved on to go to the next floor.
Meeting up with Yue, he waved at her and proceeded on- if there was anything to find, that had to be the place.

Spot&Search

[roll0]
[roll1]

[Merilan]

In all honesty, Yue's not even certain they have the right people. There certainly were people -- just like her -- who came to Rustport on the run, for all kinds of different purposes. Still, for Adrian's sake, for Bernhard's sake, she can only hope they or Zeke hit the jackpot.

She proceeds to go search, along with Adrian.

Spot - [roll0]
Search - [roll1]

[DeTess]

Both Yue and Adrian quickly notice the gossamer threads of red light spun across the 4 paths leading towards the room's centre. These are easily tracked back to sets of emitters and receivers attached to chairs and railings, with wires snaking from both to something currently hidden from view at the front of the room.

[Merilan]

A sensor...? Yue thinks for a moment as she carefully approaches one, thinking of what she might know about how to disrupt one of these without setting anything off. She had no particular skill in disabling devices, but...

Knowledge (tech) [roll0]

[DeTess]

Sensors like these are pretty familiar to Yue. The group she used to run with would often use these to set up booby-traps. They're fairly simple in function, making them tricky to disarm. They'd constantly be getting power from a central hub, and they'd be transmitting a current back as long as the lines of light remained uninterrupted. Once something passed through the light, or if the sensors themselves got damaged, the flow of power would stop, and the central hub (usually a bomb, but could be a gas canister or similarly nasty surprise) would trigger.

The easiest way to disarm the whole system would be to transmit a disarming code to the system. Someone skilled at manipulating devices could try to fool the sensors into think they where still receiving light when they weren't, but that's pretty risky. The traps only seem to cover the natural paths into the room though. Climbing over the chairs should allow you to bypass these, now that you know where they are.

[Valmark]

ºA trap...?º Adrian examined the lights and followed to the emitters up to the wall, careful not to cross them. He didn't have instrument with him, but that wasn't gonna stop him from trying. For all he knew, in the back there was Bernhard- unlikely, unless they sticked several cables in him for some orrendous motive, but possible.

Should be -2 for Disable Device without tools, right?

[roll0]

[Merilan]

I recognise these, Yue transmits to Adrian. They're rigged to a payload - usually a bomb or worse - if the stream of light is interrupted; destroying the sensors won't work. We'd have to either manipulate it or send a disarming code... or just work our way around it. Those chairs are a weak point.

She doesn't really have the tools right now, she thinks. But, moving around it...

Yue lets out a breath as she lets the protocols work over her body, and it flickers as she gains a ghostly outline around herself and she slips past the sensors.

Activating Ghosting Protocol to turn Ethereal and move past the sensors. [roll0] rounds until I can use it again!

[DeTess]

Adrian figures out the likely mechanism of the sensors pretty quickly once he takes a closer look at them. The easiest way to bypass them would be to quite literally bypass the sensor itself, having the power cable forma complete loop. With a small knife and some spare wires he had in a pocket he manages to create a couple of bypasses like that, allowing him to move safely through one of the paths between the chairs without running the risk of triggering whatever it was the sensors where attached to.

Yue's ghosting protocol likewise allows her to bypass the sensors, as the light beams just pass through her, uninterrupted.

There are two things of note at the front of the room. The first of these is the hub of all the wires. It appears to be a small bomb of some sort, hidden away against the base of the room's central podium. It appears to be a rather crude and simple thing, basically just a chunk of plastic explosives, with a detonating system stuck in at one end. A steady hand could probably disarm the whole system by separating the detonator from the explosives.

The second thing of note is the blackboard. It's clear that most of what it contained has been erased, with only some dates and text remaining in the lower left quarter. This text, too, looks like it was about to be erased, with one stroke of an eraser going right through the middle of it, but for whatever reason, the one erasing it then stopped. The text reads the following:


24/6/2839: Go/no-go decision
25/6/2839: Evacuate irreplaceable assets
[there's quite a bit of room between this one and the next date. Marks on the blackboard suggest there was a list of these 'irreplaceable assets' in the erased section]
27/6/2839: Day of Infamy [the text corresponding to this date seems to have been erased and replaced quite often]


Converted from the 'Standard Earth time' date system, these dates correspond to roughly (Avron's days are 3 hours shorter than a standard earth day) 3 days ago, two days ago, and today.

[Merilan]

Yue gives Adrian an approving nod when he manipulates the sensor and creates a bypass; that'll make getting out of here easier. But her attention is more on the blackboard now, frowning as she takes a picture on her phone.

"Irreplaceable assets..." Yue murmurs. "It's possible 'evacuate' also included 'kidnapping'. Day of Infamy, though...? We might have to rendezvous with Zeke and Kameko and see what else they know."

She looks towards the bomb, and remarks, "We might not have to risk tampering with it, with the path you created. Want to leave it alone?"

She does conduct a search of the front of the room, to see if there may be other clues...

[roll0] Search

[Valmark]

"A b- nevermind" Adrian said upon looking at the message, shivering. No point in telling her he thought the most that could happen was triggering an alarm when he manipulated the cables. Following her, he examined briefly the bomb -with zero intention of touching it- and then went to the blackboard.

"This... ****. You may want to go to the orphanage and take the children somewhere safe. If my guts are correct... Something is gonna explode. Maybe something radioactive. Rings any bells?" he turned to go away, not caring anymore about silence "I surely have no idea of touching this bomb without my tools"
On another level, he felt lighter. If his thoughts were correct, "irreplaceable assets" meant Bernhard was likely alive.
"Let's get out of here"

On the way out he wrote to Revalk and the portmaster:

Found a bomb, but more importantly something saying that today is the Day of Infamy. Not sure, but may have to do with the Messiah. Two days ago was listed as the day to retrieve "irreplaceable assets", so Bernhard is alive and whoever they are are probably getting out of here

I/we can go through the previous passage Adrian opened without risk right? Well, making sure not to cross any other light.

[DeTess]

Yue and Adrian make their way from the wrecked section of ship without any further incident. By the time they've made it back to the top of the Ravine, Revalk has responded to Adrian's message, though the portmaster hasn't.



Day of infamy? The hell? Not that I don't believe you, kid, but why would anyone be looking to stir up **** here? We're just a border colony, without anything of value.

My gut agrees with you though. Something was wrong here from the moment this day started. I'm getting my boys to move the entire operation to the Messiah, but we'll need a lot more hands if we're going to finish a sweep of the entire ship before today's over.

[Merilan]

Yue's gut wrenches at that thought for a moment. "If that is the case... all of Rustport may be in danger. It would not do to just evacuate the children..."

Not that they would have anywhere to go, is the quiet part Yue doesn't voice out loud. No, she has a home to protect...

"We have one more job today, then. The Messiah."

[Valmark]

"The portmaster isn't answering... Think she's just distracted?" Adrian asked Yue, thinking about the next move. Someone needed to go to the Messiah- and the Latrodectus right now sounded much more suspicious.

"Follow my reasoning. They needed to decide wether to go right? This means getting a ride. And what ship is currently free? The Latrodectus. Or at least, is free to be visited by distinguished citizen which are also those that knew we were coming here. Someone stopped cancelling the blackboard for some reason right? And left a bomb there?" Adrian paced around while his brain worked- almost forgetting he was on such a unsteady place.
"Someone needs to go to the Latrodectus- either me, you or Zeke. The portmaster isn't answering, Revak is needed at the Messiah and I'm not trusting anyone else. What do you say?" he wanted to go check the Latrodectus, but the gravity of a potential nuclear explosion or any other source of heavy radiation was too big a threat for the colony to not prioritize.

[YuweaCurtis]

---Rustport---
Zeke finds nothing else in the small room, so he begins the climb out. Getting to and through the crack in the room's roof is somewhat tricky, but the rocky shaft afterwards is actually quite climbable, with small hand and toeholds cut into the rock at regular intervals. It still takes a bit of time to climb all the way up, which seems to be about 30-odd meters. Parts of the shaft feel oddly smooth, as if the rock had been cut or drilled through, while others are rough and seem natural. A canvas sheet the same color as the surrounding rock has been fitted over the top of the shaft, through which the light that was visible in the room below fell. There's a zipper running the length of the sheet, to open it.

Beyond the canvas sheet is a far shallower rocky crevasse, only about 3 meters deep and easily climbable, which opens up at the base of the crashed hydroponics ship making up most of Rustport's bulk, a small distance away from where the settlement lies sprawled around the ship.

Zeke would throughly search the area, looking for footprints or any other signs of someone being there recently. If he finds nothing, he would head back the way he came from.


Search
[roll0]

[DeTess]

There's definitely a set of tracks visible in the dust and sand, leading away from the rocky crevasse, towards the lower areas of Rustport. As these tracks approach the town though, they get swallowed up by the tracks of countless other footsteps, and Zeke quickly loses track of the trail.

[YuweaCurtis]

Heavily sighing, Zeke would head back. Seeing he was already outside, he would simply head back that way. When he is back to the officer he explains what he found, minus the information on the paper, "You may want to get someone better at tracking on it if you can find them. I suggest quietly monitoring the area for a couple of days just in case they return."

[DeTess]

"I'll get some surveillance on this other exit, and I'll inform the portmaster about your find as soon as she's done dealing with Fujin's BS. Thanks for the info, and be safe out there!" The officer waves Zeke off and returns to his seat, already relaying the find through his communicator.

[YuweaCurtis]

"I'll get some surveillance on this other exit, and I'll inform the portmaster about your find as soon as she's done dealing with Fujin's BS. Thanks for the info, and be safe out there!" The officer waves Zeke off and returns to his seat, already relaying the find through his communicator.

"Don't worry about notifying her, I'll do so directly." he says before heading back to Strider and boarding it. He would send a detailed report to both her and Adrian. Additionally he would add a bit about if he was needed elsewhere.

[Valmark]

When Adrian received the message from Zeke, he showed it to Yue too.
"This seems to prove my theory- that they are getting out of here. Or at least that an operation has started" then he started typing a response.

Whoever was in hiding there has ties with whoever was here. We found a bomb that was likely set up so that we wouldn't be able to find any proof- and it looks like something bad is gonna happen today since it was marked as Day of Infamy. Three days ago they decided wether or not to "go", which is coherent with what you found, and two days ago the "recovering of irreplaceable assets", which coincides with Bernhard disappearance. We think that the radiation spike at the Messiah has something to do with this Infamy, but I'm also thinking that the Latrodectus is their way out- we found traces of people leaving in a hurry and you traces of warmth even, and who knew we were coming? All those who received the portmaster message and can access the Latrodectus. You are the nearest- can I ask you to go stop anyone who might be boarding it? The portmaster isn't answering, which is worrying in its own right

[Merilan]

Yue seems distracted when she receives the message from Zeke, her face paling a bit. "Ouroboros..."

It takes her a while to get going again. No, it could just be a coincidence. She can't prove anything right now, and there are deeper concerns. Though the rigging on the bomb was kind of familiar, with the sensors... no, she's grasping at shadows right now. She can't distract Adrian and Zeke with an unfounded theory.

I'm going to check on those Fujin warehouses, Yue messages to the two. Best case scenario she's just distracted by bureaucracy, but she needs to know the city has a higher priority right now.

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke sends his own message; Seems this is more complicated than it seemed at first. I'll see what I can do, but without information on who I'm looking for that won't be so easy. He already had a hunch it would be, but he didn't mention this because he didn't want to cause any undo stress.

He would then run Strider to the ship, hoping he could figure something out about finding the right person or persons.

[DeTess]

---The Latrodectus---
When Zeke arrives at the landing pad holding the Latrodectus two mena and a women are just leaving the pad. Patches on their overalls identify them as being part of the 'Treasure Cove' scrapper crew. Sergeant Eiko is standing at the entrance to the pad, and raises his hand in greeting as Zeke approaches in his mech.

"Good morning , Zeke! Here to take a look at our mystery ship?" the sergeant says, once Zeke has dismounted. "If so, I'm going to have to ask you to wait for a couple of minutes. Those guys from Treasure Cove had a rather interesting theory about the ship's appearance that I'm going to let them test, but I'd prefer not to have anyone roaming through the ship in case they're wrong."

The Latrodectus itself is an ugly ship, with a hull that's been patched up so many times that it's hard to tell what class of ship it was initially. It's a fairly large freighter too, nearly 70 meters in length. There are signs of fairly recent damage to the hull, though nothing major (a couple of laser burns, mostly).

---Fujin's holdings---
Yue finds the warehouses to be quiet, with only a single police officer keeping an eye on them. When approached, he informs Yue that the Portmaster is currently at Fujin's offices.

Fujins offices area actually a custom-built ship. Fujin uses these on frontier worlds as easy to deploy offices. There's another officer standing watch at the entrance. She nods at Yue when she sees the pilot approaching. "Looking for the Portmaster?" She asks. "if so, I do hope you've got something to lighten her mood, as Fujin's really getting on her nerves right now."

[Merilan]

The trip back had Yue pensive; she was thinking of Ouroboros' End the whole time, hoping in great measure that it wasn't true. There was an orphanage she was involved here... she knew that they would catch up with her eventually, yet...

"I see... I will check the offices, then."

Yue heads to the ship, and looks to the officer. "I have urgent news to relay to her. The entirety of Rustport may be in danger."

[DeTess]

The officer grimaces, then gets her communicator. "Boss, Yue Shiratsuyu is here for you, says it is important." She says. A moment passes, then the officer speaks up again. "I mean, maybe? All she said is that there's a potential colony-wide threat." The officer winces at whatever response she gets, then turns to Yue again. "Alright, she's on her way down."

A minute later, Portmaster Kameko barges into the entrance hall, an expression of barely contained rage on her face. "Yue, this had better be good." She growls.

[Merilan]

Yue's expression is terse as she pulls out her phone and shows Kameko the images of the message, as well as Adrian's texts and conclusions. "... this is what we were able to gather - this was information rigged up to a bomb that, if we had not bypassed it, would have been erased completely." A quiet frown. "I believe we need to move fast. Zeke is moving to investigate the Latrodectus in the case that it may be their escape plan."

A pause, as she glances aside. "I might have an inkling of some of the collaborators, but do not have proof yet."

[DeTess]

The portmaster slowly regains her composure as she listens to Yue talk. "So, this 'evacuation of critical assets' occurred two days ago, right? What would you say if I told you that the director in charge of Fujin's Avron affairs, as well as his top accountant and their families left the colony for the core worlds two days ago? And with explicit instructions to their personnel to keep up the illusion that they were still here, 'to avoid worries about Avron's viability'?" She shakes her head. "Don't answer that, I know exactly how that sounds. I'm going to see if those paper-pushers they left behind have anything new to say if I reveal that their boss might have just left them here to die. If I find anything useful, I'll let you know. If that bomb, or whatever it is they're planning hasn't been found by noon, I'm going to order an evacuation of the colony. We can rebuild these buildings, but people are a lot harder to replace."

After this, she turns to the female officer that had been guarding the entrance. "Go get some heavy tools, and start breaking open those Fujin warehouses. I want to know exactly what they contain."

[YuweaCurtis]

---The Latrodectus---
When Zeke arrives at the landing pad holding the Latrodectus two mena and a women are just leaving the pad. Patches on their overalls identify them as being part of the 'Treasure Cove' scrapper crew. Sergeant Eiko is standing at the entrance to the pad, and raises his hand in greeting as Zeke approaches in his mech.

"Good morning , Zeke! Here to take a look at our mystery ship?" he says, once Zeke has dismounted. "If so, I'm going to have to ask you to wait for a couple of minutes. Those guys from Treasure Cove had a rather interesting theory about the ship's appearance that I'm going to let them test, but I'd prefer not to have anyone roaming through the ship in case they're wrong."

The Latrodectus itself is an ugly ship, with a hull that's been patched up so many times that it's hard to tell what class of ship it was initially. It's a fairly large freighter too, nearly 70 meters in length. There are signs of fairly recent damage to the hull, though nothing major (a couple of laser burns, mostly).


"I see, is the ship in operational order?" he would lean over, trying to be discreet as possible, "We have reason to believe someone my be trying to use this ship to escape. I could easily prevent this with the Strider, but there's no guarantee they'll make it out alive and we need to question them."

[DeTess]

Sergeant Eiko looks a bit skeptical. "Technically, yes, the ship is operational, but its fuel reserves are low. It might just about make it to the next system on what it has left, but only if it did a very slow approach. Not exactly an ideal escape vehicle, at least not until it's refueled. What is this about escaping anyway... oh, has this something to do with that missing engineer, Bernhard?"

[Merilan]

Yue frowns rather deeply as Kameko relays the news. "That strengthens our case further. I'm headed back to the warehouse - I have the appropriate protocols to give them a head start."

A pause, as she lowers her head. "I have a request. If I am not back before the order, could I please have you send someone to the Sunlight Orphanage...? I cannot bear to see those children..."

A longer pause, and she shakes her head. She can't afford to be distracted here. Heading down to the warehouses with the officer, she nods and says, "Let me assist." She draws the beam knife she'd prepared as part of her tools, focusing as she channels the appropriate nanomachines in her body -- and makes a focused tap upon the locks. Just like she had been trained by Ouroboros' End...

Going to use Mountain Hammer, which deals 2d6 extra damage and ignores hardness.

[roll0] - Attack roll (Dex - Weapon Finesse)
[roll1] - total damage (1d6 (no Str) + 2d6 extra damage)

[DeTess]

"Of course, I'll make sure someone stops by to pick them up if it comes to that." the Portmaster reassures Yue.

***
It takes a couple of taps, but the doors on the three Fujin warehouses don't hold back Yue for long. Two of the warehouses themselves are about half-full. There are crates with long-lasting food supplies, as well as boxes with electronic components, and a large variety of small spare parts of all kinds. One warehouse mostly contains specific pieces of salvage, such as a part that appears to be a mostly-intact mecha cockpit or another that seems to be a heavily modified rifle. This warehouse is mostly empty though. Nothing immediately suspicious stands out.


Please roll a search check.
also: cop search checks

[roll] 1d20+5

[Merilan]

Yue frowns quietly as she works with the officers to investigate -- the salvage is getting closer, certainly, yet...

[roll0] Search

[DeTess]

"This'd be easier if we had the official manifests for what should be here." One of the officers mutters as he checks box after box. "For all we know, we're looking for something that's missing rather than something that's still here."

"The portmaster should have those in a bit. We can do a second sweep then." The female officer that had been guarding Fujin's offices before brings up.

During her own search, Yue stumbles across a box that sounds hollow, and after opening it up, it seems almost completely empty, which is odd, given that all the other boxes and palets in the warehouses contained at least something. At the bottom of the box lies a small metal badge, which on closer inspection appears to be an imperial rank insignia, which when worn with a full dress uniform would identify the wearer as holding the rank of captain. A small piece of torn paper is also stuck in the bottom of the box. It seems to be the corner of a map, but it's too small to figure out what the full map would have depicted, though there's part of a river visible in the sliver she has, which makes it doubtful that it'd depict Rustport or its surroundings.

[Valmark]

"I'll see what I can do at the Messiah" Adrian waved goodbye, writing the same thing to Zeke, and taking off with Fluffy.
On the way, he remembered something- something rather old, and probably useless, but still something.
He wrote to Zeke and Yue:

This should be useless info but, keep a look out for a patch with a skunk wearing a mecha jetpack and a gear in the background. If you see one, it's likely that they are one of the culprits- though it shouldn't happen. Don't tell anyone else

He was gonna have to explain it later, but for now he hoped it could be even a bit useful.

[Merilan]

Yue glances towards Adrian's message, biting her lip to the officers for a moment. Sounded sensitive...

She does stop as she looks towards the hollow box and opens it. A small metal badge... Imperial, possibly quite high ranking. She frowns and takes a picture of the map as well, sending it to both Zeke and Adrian, before pocketing the badge.

Found a lead as well. We may have Imperial perpetrators in the mix. And, to tell the truth... I have a possible lead on the 'Ouroboros' mentioned in Zeke's note too... if you see either:

- a sigil of an armored knight crushing a coiled snake underfoot
- a ship bearing a symbol of a chained hound and flames

Please let us know.

History - [roll0]

[DeTess]

For Adrian, it's a little over two minutes flying to the wreck of the Messiah. The wreck is a massive rustig hulk, over 700 meters in length and dozens of meters wide and high. It was a 'Smite' class battleship, and in its time the pride of the imperial navy. Now, it only functions as a wind-break for the colony of Rustport.

In front of the colony is a sizeable gathering of people, about 40 all told. Adrian can easily make out the massive frame of Revalk standing in front of the group and gesturing at the remains of the Messiah. The size of the group with him indicates that he's roped in more than just his own crew for the search, as his crew only has a dozen members.

[Valmark]

ºOf course we needed imperials too in the mix... Though it makes senseº Adrian thought reading Yue's message.

Reaching the group of people, Adrian momentarily landed to talk to Revalk.
"Revalk! I'm here to help" he said, getting out of the cockpit "I'll quickly sweep the ship from the outside using the Fluffy's sensors before joining inside the ship" at that point, unless Revalk said something to stop him, Adrian jumped back inside and took off.

I'll roll Spot Listen and Search, though I think from the outside there is little point besides Blindsense/Blindsight.

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

Also... Whatever's the knowledge for Battleships (I know I have no ranks in it), to think of a spot where I'd hide a bomb. Or turn something in a bomb, like the engine in case it's still there, in the srw setting battleships are nucler-powered but dunno about here.

[roll3]

[DeTess]

"Right! We'll be doing a bow to stern sweep for traces of radiation first, and then we'll check her reactor rooms. Hopefully that'll turn up something!" Revalk shouts back at Adrian, then motions for the small crowd around him to get going.

The sweep of the outside of the ship turns up little of interest. the Messiah looks like it always does. Some armor plating might appear a little loser than the last time Adrian properly looked over the ship, and a bit more of the inner structure might be visible, but there are no clues to the location of a bomb.


Battleships are indeed powered by nuclear reactors, and the Messiah is no exception. The Messiah had two Main reactors and four smaller secondary reactors. Three of the secondary reactors have been removed entirely from the ship by salvage crews, while the fourth one had been destroyed in the battle that downed the ship, contributing to the ship's demise. The two main reactors are still in place, but they've been completely decommissioned under Bernhards guidance several years ago after one of them threatened to go critical. As far as you know it'd take an enormous amount of effort and special knowledge to turn those reactors into a threat again. (side note: it was because of the risk of a metldown risk that all wrecks close to the colony had been fitted with a couple of radiation detectors, to give the colony early warning in case an old reactor started acting up).

Given Adrian's suspicion that there might be a nuclear bomb, the easiest place to hide it would be within one of the old reactor rooms, as the slightly higher radiation levels there would help mask the bomb's own signature.

[Valmark]

"Predictably, there was nothing" Adrian told himself, going back.
Given that Revalk's people were going to check the reactors last and given his own suspicions, Adrian decided to go check there first.
On the way he remembered about the sensors at the other ship, and hurriedly contacted Revalk:

Tell your people to watch out for traps! Of the deadly kind!

I'll move as much as possible in the mecha and get to the nearest main reactor then. When near I'll advance carefully, given the laser sensors at the other ship.

Search for traps (gonna put ranks in this as soon as I can): [roll0]

[DeTess]

The stern main reactor room looked very different from how it once had, back when the ships was still operational. back then, it had been a four-story high room centered around a massive orb containing the reactor and all machinery necessary to keep it stable and producing energy, with walkways and gantry's providing access to the generator for emergency repairs. The slow decay of the ship certainly played a role in the rooms change, but it was mostly down to the alterations made to the room as part of the decommissioning process. After the work on the reactor itself had been completed, Bernhard had suggested they be encased in a thick layer of concrete, just to be on the safe side. A large cilinder taking up most of the room had been built and filled up, securely locking the reactor away.

After a careful and cautious search of the room, Adrian finds nothing out of place. There are no traps, nor are there any traces of a bomb. Some broken tools lie in one corner of the room, but the rust and dust on them suggests they must've been there for a long time.

[Valmark]

"It doesn't look like anything is here, uh?" Adrian asked himself while searching.
ºMay have to rethink the theory if the next room doesn't have anythingº with that he left for the other reactor.

[Merilan]

Yue looks towards the officers and says, "I'm going to report the findings in this crate. With any luck, Kameko will have persuaded them for the shipping manifest. Could you take records of this evidence as well? I'll see if they talk further." She provides the badge and map piece for a moment, then returns towards the offices at a brisk pace.

[DeTess]

---ISS Messiah---
Adrian makes his way across about half of the ship's length, passing through hallways slowly rusting away. Luckily, the Messiah has been mapped fairly thoroughly, she could avoid the areas in immediate danger of collapse.

The second reactor room looked much like the first, and as Adrian arrived, he heard a familiar voice. "So, nothing here? Maybe it was a bit too obvious a hiding place." Revalk stood two floors down from where Adrian had entered the room with two of his crew. Upon spotting Adrian, he waved. "Suppose you came to the same conclusion about the easiest place to hide a bomb?" he shouts up at Adrian. "Did you check the stern reactor already?"

---Rustport---
the officer nods in thanks as she receives the badge and paper from Yue. "Huh, you don't see something like this very often." She says as she slips the badge into a small plastic bag.

Back at Fujin's offices, there's a lot more activity this time around. the portmaster is sitting in a comfortabel chair in the middle of the entrance-hall, with a portable computer on her lap and a small stack of datacarriers on a table next to her. Fujin employees rush in and out as she orders them to find various bits and pieces of information.

[Valmark]

Adrian started pacing up and down the platform thinking.
"Yes I did! Equal to this" he shouted back thinking. There had been a radiation alarm, so there had to be something somewhere.
"I'll try checking the destroyed reactor room- if that fails, then I have no idea besides controlling the whole ship!" frustration was starting to build up. Could this have been a bluff? Having alarms attract their attention to the Messiah while something else happened elsewhere? But there weren't signs of tampering whatsoever... Did they take a nuclear bomb, do something risky like exposing the reactor or similar and then took the bomb somewhere else? That... Seemed way too risky.
He wasn't sure what else could give off radiations homewever.
"Revalk, do you think this could have all been a bluff? Attracting our attention to the Messiah by somehow triggering the radiation alarms two days prior?"

[DeTess]

Revalk considers for a moment, then shakes his head. "I helped install those sensors myself, and I know the specifications Bernhard made them to. They're pretty hard to fake out. But if they wanted to go for the 'needle in a haystack' type of security, they could do a lot worse than this ship." He checks his phone for a moment. "There've been a couple of scattered measurements of slightly higher radiation, but no trail, and nothing found yet, but I reckon there is definitely something here. And even if we need to literally go room by room, I managed to scrounge up enough folk to help that we should be done in the early afternoon at the latest."

[Valmark]

Adrian nodded weakly.
"Very well, I'll check the remaining reactor rooms for now" he turned and exited in a hurry.
ºThere must be something we overlooked- searching the whole ship randomly cannot be the only answerº

[DeTess]

The three secondary reactor rooms that are still intact all prove to be as empty as the main ones. The fourth is completely inaccessible, as it used to be at the centre of large rent in the ship's forward section. As Adrian makes his way to the various rooms, he encounters other salvagers picking their way through the ship, radiation-sensors in hand.

Adrian has just finished looking over the third reactor room when a message from Revalk arrives, asking everyone in the searching party to come to an old briefing room as soon as they're done with their scan of the ship. By this time, a good hour of the search has passed.
***
When Adrian arrives at the briefing room, he sees two members of Revalk's crew fussing over the old holo-projector at the room's centre. They get it working by the time everyone has arrived in the room, and a large 3D map of the wrecked ship now floats in the air for everyone to see. 11 yellow dots are spread out across the map, located located all across the ship, though none are in the forward section beyond the rent created by the destruction of the third Secondary reactor, and all measurements are in the more intact areas of the ship.

Revalk speaks up as soon as everyone has arrived. "As you can see, we've measured heightened radiation in a lot of different spots all across the ship. None of these spots have an apparent source, nor was anything found near them. Still, based on where we didn't make any of these measurements, I think it's safe to say that we can ignore the front third of the ship for now. Now, if someone has smart idea for where the source might be based on these measurements, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, I'll start assigning sections of ship to everyone, and we can start a thorough search."


If you've got an idea based on this information provided above, feel free to put it in. Otherwise, if you're proficient in knowledge (architecture and engineering) you can roll that. If you're not, you can roll a straight wisdom check instead. Either way, I'm going to put a hold on this time-line for a bit until Yue and Zeke have caught up, as there's a chance they might uncover something relevant, or otherwise just decide to join this search, in which case they'll be attending this briefing with the opportunity to provide input as well.

[Valmark]

Adrian had been tapping irritated on the table through the whole meeting.
"What's at the center of those 11 points?" he finally asked.
"Even if it's apparently only a wall, I think we should search for it" meanwhile, he also sent a message out to Zeke and Yue:

Did you uncover anything new? We've found eleven different traces of radiations but not how they relate. This makes no sense

Rolling Wisdom, unfortunately:

[roll0]

[YuweaCurtis]

Sergeant Eiko looks a bit skeptical. "Technically, yes, the ship is operational, but its fuel reserves are low. It might just about make it to the next system on what it has left, but only if it did a very slow approach. Not exactly an ideal escape vehicle, at least not until it's refueled. What is this about escaping anyway... oh, has this something to do with that missing engineer, Bernhard?"

Zeke nods, "There's no too much I can tell you, but current clues hint towards involved person's trying to move around. Can you tell me what they are trying to attempt?" he was getting a bit nervous, staring at the ship. His demeanor would stay calm, but he didn't want them to get away if that was indeed what was happening... Then again he really didn't have enough info to do something brash.

[DeTess]

Segereant Eiko shrugs. "Sure. You might have heard that treasure Cove has a bit of a reputation for 'tax-free trading', as the portmaster might call it. So normally, I wouldn't want them near this ship. However, one of them approached me with an interesting claim about this ship having a false hull, basically parts and metal bolted on to change its profile. A ship-sized disguise, if you will. They'd know about such tricks, so I'm willing to let them prove it."

A clanking noise can be heard as an industrial mech slowly makes its way towards the platform. It's neither dextrous nor pretty, but its heavy claws and array of tools are perfect for cutting salvage into neatly manageable chunks. Two of the three salvagers Zeke had seen before are walking next to it. Sergeant Eiko raises a hand, motioning for them to stop. "Remember our agreement!"

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry. If we're wrong, this should only lightly scratch the outer hull." One of the salvagers answers, and Eiko nods and waves them through.

The three approach the bow of the ship, and the mech grasps hold of one of patches covering the hull almost tenderly. In so far as claws capable of crushing titanium beams can be 'tender'. The mech then slowly draws its claws back, and after a bit of resistance the plate peels away, leaving a large hole. "Ha!" A shout of triumph come from the crew as they motion for the sergeant to join them. The hole clearly shows a supporting structure of sorts, keeping the plates that had appeared to be part of a haphazardly fixed hull in place. Behind the structure, the actual ship's hull could be seen, looking to be in a far better shape than the fake outer hull.

"So, how about that reward?" The two salvagers beside the mech ask the sergeant, almost in unison.

"400 gold credits, provided you get to properly stripping of the entire disguise right now. And I'll throw in coming up with a plausible reason for you to know about this trick which doesn't suggest experience with smuggling operations for free, and ignore the fact that if you had been wrong that'd have done more than just 'scratch the hull'." The sergeant answers. He then nods towards Zeke. "If you wanted to take a look inside, it should be safe to do right now."

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke had watched with curiosity, they were actually right. Not that the idea of a disguised ship seemed that far fetched, but he sort of expected them to try and pull a fast one.

Given to go to check it out, Zeke would close and lock Strider which had been open for standby reasons. "This shouldn't take too long." he says before heading inside. He head to the flight deck first. Once there he would check any systems he could, seeing how reasonable it was for flight, and seeing perhaps if there was any signs that my point towards plans for it to leave soon.

[DeTess]

The interior of the ship feels odd. It's clear this ship has been in service for quite a while, and usually a ship with history would wear it visibly. There'd be little good luck tokens left by the crew in inconspicuous places, or drawings in otherwise bare walls, or a very out-of-place leather couch on the bridge, or any of a dozen other little things a ship would pick up over time. Even military ships weren't immune to picking up the odd good-luck token or little memorial. This ship has none of that. if it wasn't for the wear and tear visible here and there, it could have come fresh out of a shipyard. Yet there where some minor reminders that something had been there once. The remains of tape on one wall suggested an absent poster. Old bullet impacts on one bulkhead around a pristine, circular area suggested that there must have once been a target for target practice there. And on the bridge, a change in color on the wall right behind the captain's chair hinted at a mural of sorts that had been stripped away.

The bridge itself is fairly small. It has four crew stations, including the captain's seat, and the array of buttons and sticks available tot he captain suggest that the ship could be flown by one person, if it came down to it. The three stations besides the captains station seem to be one for the helmsman, one for general engineering, and oen for sensors. This last station has been heavily modified from its stock configuration, with extra screens and interfaces, more typical for a sensor or tactical station on a warship than for one on a freighter.

A lot of the bridge controls have been physically secured using sturdy locks. These locks don't look like they'd stand up long to someone with a set of strong bolt-cutters, but it'd still slow them down a bit at least. The fuel gauges also confirm sergeant Eiko's assertion that the ship is very low on fuel.

[Merilan]

Yue steps towards Kameko and looks towards the employees, placing her phone and the image of the badge and paper down in front of her. "A hollow box that has an Imperial Captain's badge and a map with a river." She glances aside and remarks, "We have the location of the cargo... do we have anything to cross-reference what it was intended to be?"

[DeTess]

The portmaster took a quick look at the pictures, then nodded as she quickly swapped out a data card on her computer. "Well, we're in luck, that's from the one warehouse I've been able to get a proper manifest for so far. Let's see..." She types some commands, then frowns. "There isn't supposed to be anything stored there right now, but..." she hits another couple of keys. "...last storage in that lot was two weeks ago. A box of assorted party-clothing and novelty hats, according to the entry here. The box was supposedly handed over to a captain Adago Beru of the..." The portmaster stops mid-sentence, rage flashing through her eyes.

"You lot!" She shouts, and every Fujin employee within earshot immediately freezes, and Yue sees several police officers wince as well. "Am I going to have to drag every bit of relevant info out of you the hard way? Haven't I made it clear just how serious this situation is?"

"You!" She points at one of the Fujin employees, seemingly at random. "Get me a full manifest of all the goods Fujin has loaded and unloaded from the Latrodectus when it was here two weeks ago." The man quickly scrambles away, presumably to follow her orders.

The portmaster takes a moment to regain her composure, then turns back to Yue. "That box was meant for the Latrodectus. I'm not sure if it's connected to what we're dealing with here, but I don't like coincidences."

[Merilan]

Yue listens on in, frowning rather quietly when it becomes clear the box was meant for the Latrodectus. That was definitely more than just a coincidence. She takes her phone out again.

Zeke, Adrian. The boxes in the Fujin warehouse were meant for the Latrodectus - I can't point conclusively to what it means, but definitely look for Imperial signs; whether a victim or a perpetrator, I can't say.

"All the better for us to hold the ship," Yue responds to Kameko. "We had theorised that they would use it as a kind of escape vessel."

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke sees the message, Great, he thinks to himself, now shifting his thought process to like for decidly Imperial tendencies that may have be done on the ship. With this in mind he would message how the ship seemed to be stripped of it's "personality" and that it could be almost mistaken as new. He would go to engineering to see if he could find anything suspicious.

[DeTess]

---Latrodectus---
Zeke makes his way to the engineering sector, which requires passing through most of the length of the ship, including its cargo bay. The empty cargo bay provides another oddity, as the Latrodectus has more than four times more movable cranes, clamps and other cargo handling equipment than a ship this size would normally have. All this extra equipment wouldn't even really increase the speed at which it could unload cargo, as the ship would be bottlenecked by the equipment outside, so all this would be good for is shifting cargo around inside the ship itself. Most of the cranes are currently clustered in the centre of the bay, but there are a couple of cranes and robotic arms clustered at the far end, arranged in a familiar way to the veteran,as an arrangement like that could be found on most federation carriers in their mecha maintenance bays. A quick count of the cargo bay's equipment and estimate of its size suggests that it could maybe maintain as many as four mecha.

The engineering sections is just past the cargo bay, and seems typical for a civilian vessel, if a bit larger than it normally would. The ship is powered off of large thorium reactors, as civilian ships aren't allowed to use anything more volatile. Like the rest of the ship it's stripped of any signs that it once had a crew, with not even any signs of the small moonshine distilleries the engineering sections of ships all over the known galaxy tended to spontaneously acquire.


---Rustport---
The portmaster nods, then seems to think for a moment. "If it comes to an evacuation, I'll impound the ship. Its cargo bay could be used to hold supplies, and if we need to camp out for a while outside Rustport, it can provide hard shelter for those who need it." A darker expression flits across her face again, as she adds, under her breath; "And if Stork doesn't like me taking his prize, he should have been a bit more forthcoming with offering help when I briefed him on the situation here."

[Merilan]

Yue checks the messages again with a quiet frown on her face.

Kameko uncovered evidence of the Fujin director and close friends evacuating two days ago, and telling their personnel to keep up a facade that they hadn't left. There must be something -- even if it isn't the radiation like we thought... a direct attack?

A pause, as she looks to Kameko again. "It sounds like Revark and Adrian have their hands full with the radiation analysis... eleven points..."

Wisdom - [roll0]

...

Yue sends another message to Adrian:

Adrian, do you see any life support equipment in or around those eleven points -- vents, ducts or air filters? I hesitate to suggest it, but you may be looking at a case of irradiating a ship's life-support system... the random spread you're seeing may be residue from natural airflow throughout the ship. Try checking the main life support system.

I don't need to tell you or Revark to be extremely careful - you will be dealing with conditions hostile to life at the source.

Yue's gut wrenches a little, as she lets out a sigh. She didn't particularly like how she knew that... but it's a silver lining that such dark knowledge could potentially save people today.

[Valmark]

"Revalk, a friend of mine came up with a theory" Adrian said as soon as he saw Yue's last message. He wasn't entirely sure they were on a friend basis, but that was besides the point.
"She asked if there were ventilation shafts or similar near the radiation points- because it could have been residue from the natural airflow. Which implies checking the main life support system. She also said to be careful, but I'm assuming we all knew that while searching for radiations of all things? Though I'm not sure I have any shielding, aside from getting there on robot breaking down walls"

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke messages Adrian his findings in the cargo, and once again how this ship seemed to be stripped of personal identity.

"I think it may be a good idea to keep an eye on the ship, but I may just be wasting time I could be spending actually getting something done... What do you think?"

The message would end with that.

[DeTess]

"Hmmm, that could be...." Revalk turns to the map of the ship again. "The life support systems would be here, here, here and... here." As He speaks, four sizeable rooms on the map, distributed through the ship light up.

"It'll be one of the two central ones." A youngish woman from one of the other Salvaging crews speaks up. "The bow and stern ones are in fairly bad shape, so we'd have noticed when we passed if there was any kind of significant radiation source in there."

Revalk nods. "If I had to guess, it'll be this one." Revalk points at the center-most of the four rooms. "Just because its closest to being at the centre of the places where we measured higher radiation levels." He turns to the woman that had spoken before. "You're with Rustworks, right? Could you and yours check out the other central life-support system?" The woman nods, then heads for the exit, followed by a half-dozen other salvagers.

Revalk then turns to the rest of the room. "I'd like everyone not with my crew or Rustworks to leave the ship, but stay nearby in case this ends up being a dud. If we do confirm a nuke of some sort..." Revalk's voice trails off for a moment, but it seems everyone in the room gets his meaning anyway, as people start filing out of the room, after a few short wishes of good luck.

"Well kid, want to come with us to see if your friend's hunch is correct?" Revalk asks Adrian. I've already send some of my crew to get our hazard-suits and tools, so you won't have to worry about the radiation if it is where I think it is.

[Valmark]

Adrian bited his lip, tapping a response.

I can't possibly accept the Latrodectus unattended, especially with what you and Yue uncovered. If you want we can exchange places, but I'm not leaving it to Eiko especially since I'm even suspecting a traitor. Or to anyone else besides you, Yue, the portmaster and Revalk

He resumed his irritated tapping. Was he getting too fixated? They had a potential nuclear bomb at hand but most of his thoughts were focused on his father.
ºEven if I am, this is hardly the time for doubtsº



"Of course I'm in, Revalk. You'd think I'd let you play with a nuclear bomb unattended? Let's go take a look"

[Merilan]

Yue pinches the bridge of her nose for a moment, then looks to Kameko after finishing her message. "All right. Do you need me here still? I believe you have it under control, and I should be on standby next to the Ophanim in case urgent action is required..."

[DeTess]

---ISS Messiah---
"Heh, the help is appreciated." Revalk says, as he gestures for Adrian to follow him.

It's a bit of a walk towards the location of the life supports systems, and Revalk spends most of it in uncharacteristic silence, as he's clearly pondering something. A short distance from the room, several members of Revalks crew are waiting. When they see Revalk and Adrian approach, one of them speaks up. "Revalk, seems we hit the jackpot already. Some joker welded the door to the room shut, so Rief and Anna suited up and got to work opening it. They drilled as small hole first, to check out the room, and when they did our geiger-counters immediately hit the yellow, so the rest of us retreated to a safer distance."

Revalk nods as he receives the report. "Right, help me and the kid with the remaining suits, then leave the ship. Brief the Portmaster once you're out." It looks for a moment like they'll protest at those orders, but then they get to work, helping Revalk and Adrian put on the heavy hazardous environment suits.

***

Once suited up, the Revalk and Adrian approach the door, where two other members of Revalk's crew are just finishing cutting their way into the door. The suit's in-built geiger-counter indicates a hazardous amount of radiation in the area, but nothing the suits can't handle.

The room beyond the door is filled with complicated machinery for scrubbing CO2 out of the air and creating oxygen, as well as machines that condense water and filter and reuse the ship's waste. None of the machines look to be in anything approaching working condition.

All eyes are drawn to the object installed in the centre of the room, though It appears to be a very large bullet, almost a meter in diameter, held in a rig that's clearly designed to make transporting the thing easier. There's a large rent visible in the side of the bullet, and the sensors on the suit mark this rent as the source of the radiation in the room.

"Well I'll be damned." Disbelief can clearly be heard in Revalk's voice, even when filtered through the suit's radio. "That's a Glasser round!"

"And what's that?" A female voice, identified by the suit as coming from Anna's suit, asks. She sounds almost bored, despite the current circumstances.

"Imperial orbital bombardment round, used only when they don't care about collateral damage." Revalk explains. "These're generally only carried by capital ships, and only used in rare circumstances. In other words, they're bloody rare, especially on this side of the border. This doesn't make any sense though..."

"Well, no matter. Let's take a closer look first, to see if we can figure out if this really is what it appears to be, and how it is set to explode. Don't touch anything though, just in case." Revalk says after a second.



Roll a spot check, please, as well as any knowledge checks you feel might apply to bombs and high explosives.


These suits give an AC bonus of +6, an armor check penalty of -9 and they have an arcane spell failure chance of 75%. They halve the wearers speed, and the wearer can not run.
The wearer does not suffer any ill effects from exceptionally high or low environmental temperatures, and are immune to inhalation and contact poisons, as well as the effects of radiation.
The wearer also has resistance 40 to fire damage, and resistance 20 to cold and lightning damage.



---Rustport---
"I wouldn't exactly call it 'under control', but unless you know a way to make bureaucrats work quicker and more efficiently, I don't think you can help me much here." The portmaster responds to Yue's question. "If anything comes up with which you can help, I'll contact you."

[Valmark]

"I... It makes more sense then you think, but we'll talk about it later" Adrian, said, getting closer to a nuclear bomb more then he ever wanted in his life. Though it would have been something fun to tell the others in front of a beer.
"Day of Infamy indeed"

Spot! I'm not the one suited for this!
[roll0]

Honestly, I can only think of Knowledge (History) to know how these things worked, and that's a stretch. Or Knowledge (tech) that Yue has, but I don't have that.

So I guess I'll roll both hoping they apply.
[roll1]
[roll2]

[DeTess]

The rig holding the Glasser round is attached securely to the ground with very big bolts, and on each bolt a small sensor si attached, with wires running to the back of the oversized bullet. What looks like the trigger mechanism is located at the back. It consists of a rectangular box of a different metal than the bullet, which ahs been sunk into the metal casing itself so the front is flush with the surface of the bullet. There are several lights on this box, as well as a timer of sorts. The timer is currently counting down, but there's a little under 6 hours still left on the clock. The lights are all off except for one, burning a steady red. Adrian notices that one of the other lights also flickers on very lightly periodically, whenever one of the four people surrounding the round makes a particularly heavy step in their radiation suits. Lastly, the clamps holding the round in its rig also seem to be rigged up with some kind of sensors, likely intended to trigger the bomb if the round gets removed.


Adrian has heard of a couple of infamous incidents during the breakaway war in which these weapons where used. the rounds wheres strictly reserved for orbital bombardment, as they couldn't be launched quickly enough to have a decent chance of hitting a moving target, and they weren't too accurate, so the empire would often fire at least half a dozen of the rounds, if they used them at all, instead of more precise missiles. This approach likely contributed to the weapons reputation, as any deployment of the system meant a fairly large area would get hit.

The rounds itself are fairly unique in that they're the only nuclear 'bullet' ever used in actual warfare. Nuclear weapons usually tend to be on large missiles instead, as this gives them better range and accuracy, though it also makes it easier to intercept them.

Adrian also remembers something about the troubles with a quick orbital re-entry from his work with Bernhard and his salvage work with Revalk. Anything hitting the atmosphere at great speed would need to be made of either very heat-resistant material, or have a thick ablative layer that can be burned off. Judging by the depth of the rent in the side of this bomb, this weapon seems to have gone for the ablative approach, which in turn means that the actual bomb is relatively small compared to the size of the bullet.

[Valmark]

"Stop stop stop! That thing's got all the sensors!" Adrian said, keeping still "Move too much, we explode. Move the bomb, we explode. Well, to be precise move the round- the bomb itself should be rather small inside ablative armor. Which... I don't actually know how to use. I'm not sure I want to touch that device. Maybe we can make a hole from up and take it out? Sounds pretty stupid though. With almost six hours left maybe we should try finding Bernhard"

[DeTess]

"Hmmm, seems we won't be solving this by defusing it ourselves." Revalk's voice actually sounds somewhat relieved. "Let's back out of the room, carefully of course. There's a couple of things we need to discuss."

Revalk leads the group back out of the room, and then a bit further, until the suit's Geiger-counter no longer registers a significantly higher radiation. He then takes his helmet off, and Anna and Rief quickly follow suit. Anna is a fairly young woman, looking about twenty years old, with long blonde hair. Rief is an older man, of about Revalk's own age, with a thin face, and some burn-scarring on his right cheek.

"We've heard Adrian's assessment. What do you two think?" Revalk asks the two members of his crew.

Rief speaks up first. "I hadn't noticed the sensors in the rig holding the bomb in place, but it doesn't surprise me that they're there. Probably also some kind of impact sensor to make tampering with the rig or shell a lot harder. I reckon that was what was noticing our movements. The long timer time is odd. it suggest that whoever placed this one needs it to go off at a very specific moment, because otherwise you'd give yourself barely enough time to leave the blast zone, and no more than that. I've got some ideas for how to approach defusing it, but those would be difficult in radiation suits."

"Hmmm, the kid, Adrian, right?" Anna nods towards Adrian for a moment. "He said that the bomb was pretty small. Is it even big enough? We're some distance from the colony, and at the centre of a battleship. A badly wrecked one, but it'd still dampen out the strength of the blast a bit."

Revalk nods at Anna's statement. "That's why I said this didn't make sense. A Glasser round doesn't have the yield to wipe the colony of the map from this location. Oh, it'd still be bad if it exploded and we weren't prepared. People outside would get a nasty burn, windows would shatter, debris from the wrecked ship would hit the colony and might kill people. A significant area north of the colony would be badly irradiated, but only for a year or so, these bombs have been designed to not leave an area unusable for too long."

"Frankly, if we'd just stumbled across this as part of a normal salvaging operation, I'd tell the Portmaster to evacuate the colony for a bit. We could wait out the blast at a safe distance, then move back into the colony, repair everything that got broken, and move on with our lives. But whoever placed this bomb presumable also kidnapped Bernhard, and used a grandiose term like 'day of infamy' to describe what would happen. A lot of preparation clearly went into this, so I find it hard to believe that these people never checked whether their bomb was big enough to do the job. And it's not from a lack of resources either. A couple of years ago I was approached by a smuggler looking to acquire one of these. I reported him to the portmaster, of course, as we don't need that kind of goods moving through the colony, but the amount of money he offered should be enough for someone to buy a significantly more powerful bomb."

"So, yeah..." Revalk shrugs, a movement exaggerated by the heavy radiation suit. "This doesn't make any sense to me, even if I accept the premise that someone wants to harm the colony. And that bothers me."

[Valmark]

ºHow young do I look like?º Adrian thought when Anna called him a kid.
"Knowing that there's a lot of time is pretty good- I do wonder why they need so much time in the first place. It's more likely to explode because of a bad move- or wrong tinkering. Oh, and I know someone that could maybe approach without a suit, but I'm not sure he's got enough resistance or if he has the skills you need" Adrian said, after thinking a while "He also found traces of the same group that likely planted this bomb and kidnapped Bernhard in the underground of Rustport. I'd think a potential attack on the water reserves, but it's not something that kills us rapidly and he didn't find anything related. There's also the fact that they are usually used in clusters, but that's due to aim- if you're rigging a bomb for a explosion in a specific place, you don't really need accuracy. Besides, I think someone would have seen a nuclear bomb somewhere if there were multiples" he shrugged, not knowing what to do. Six hours, uh.

"Let's get further back. I need to take this off to be able to contact those who are helping with this matter"

[DeTess]

Revalk quickly glances at Rief, who shakes his head. "If the bomb doesn't risk wrecking the entire colony, I'm not going to risk disarming it."

Revalk nods, than gestures towards the hallway. "Let's get going then. I'll call the crew to come help us out of these suits, and then I'll go and have a face-to-face talk with the portmaster about this."

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke sends a message about staying put, and let him know of he's needed. This time both to Adrian and Yue. He finds a good vantage point, viewing the main ramp, but also trying to be able to hear activity in the cargo.

[Valmark]

Adrian, as soon as they removed the suit, contacted the other two:

Three bad news and three good news. Good is we found the bomb, bad is we can't disarm it, or at the very least that the risk is too great right now. Good is that it's not very dangerous, bad is that we don't know why it's not dangerous since today should have been the Day of Infamy, their words. Bad is, we need Bernhard probably, good is we've got almost six hours to find him. On that note, no idea why so much time. Maybe they won't make their escape in a short time.

He turned to Revalk "Anything I can do? Otherwise I'd go meet the others- not sure what good that will do though. The other ship's search was left unfinished right?"

[Merilan]

There's a look from Yue as she thinks on it for a moment, then admits, "I will try. Could you lead me to where they are right now? It looks like Adrian and Zeke are both in need of more leads, so anything will help right now."

She texts: Possibly the bomb is yet another time-waster meant to throw off whoever chases their tail -- I think we need more intel. I'm going to try convincing the Fujin bureaucrats Kameko's got here.

[YuweaCurtis]

'I was thinking similar, this bomb sounds like a distraction." Zeke would reply. "Unless we are overestimating them."

[DeTess]

---ISS Messiah---
Revalk shakes his head. "Nothing I can think off right now, Adrian. I'll ask my crew to return to the Inferno and finish the search we'd started there. If you find yourself with nothing to do, you could go and give them a hand."

---The Latrodectus---
Just as Zeke finishes his message to the others, a voice comes over the ship's internal announcement system. "Hey Zeke, found anything of interest?" it sounds like Sergeant Eiko. "If you have a moment, come outside and take a look at the ship's actual bow. Those treasure cove salvagers have uncovered the remains of what seems to be an emblem of sorts. Doesn't mean anything to me, but maybe you've seen it before."

---Rustport---
"Huh, well, if you want to give it a shot... They're all over right now, but try the offices right down the hallway there." The portmaster points at one of the doors at the far end of the entrance hall. "Most of them should be there, working to get me the information I asked for."

The offices The portmaster pointed Yue towards are fairly cramped, holding space for 8 people to work. There's two women and a man in there currently. As Yue enters the room, she just catches the tail-end of a conversation.

"...deleted?" The man asks.

"Yeah.. I've already started recovery, but this'll take a while, even if I can get anything useful back at all. Hate to say it, but this actually starts to sound pretty shady." One of the women, currently hunched over one of the workstations, replies.

[YuweaCurtis]

Finally, something. He thinks to himself before going outside to see what Eiko was talking about.

[DeTess]

---The Latrodectus---
the treasure cove salvagers had already stripped most of the fake hull of bow of the ship, revealing a far-better maintained hull underneath. The sergeant and one of the salvagers are standing near the bow, looking over the remains of a large circular emblem. The tools laying nearby, and the heaps of grey paint-flakes on the landing pad suggest that the emblem had been covered by paint before.

The emblem itself is only about half intact, with large strips having been stripped off together with the paint that had initially been covering it. The circular emblem has a yellow border, and a black interior, with some kind of red animal with a chained collar inside. A short name was spelled at the bottom off the yellow border, but too much of it has gone missing to make out what exactly it said.


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/xp2byf1imx2n3vc/galm_recovered.jpg

[Merilan]

Yue pauses for a moment, then steps in after overhearing. "Hello," she expresses in a polite, neutral tone. "I'm Yue, one of the investigators in this case. I'm sorry that you're all caught up in this - I heard the news of how your boss essentially left you here to fend for yourselves."

She reflects, for a moment, on the kinds of diplomatic courses that she was taught; while another friend was the most naturally amiable of them all, perhaps she took them more to heart than she realised. Maybe it's the kids that woke that up inside of her...

"Is there anything I can do to help? I couldn't help but overhear about some kind of data recovery?"

[DeTess]

"Well, this is an improvement over just bossing us around, at least." The woman that had been quiet so far spoke up. "If shouting at us made us perform miracles, we'd long since have turned this colony in a thriving center of commerce."

The man shakes his head. "We should have been able to get the data she asked us for by now, but..."

"But someone sabotaged our data-bases to make al the things we want to find, near impossible to find." The woman at the workstation finishes the man's sentence. "I'm Mako, by the way. That guy is Thomas, and the grouch in the corner is Madeleine." The other two Fujin employees nod as they're introduced.

"If you know a bunch about computer systems, you're welcome to help me out in trying to fix our systems. I'm currently trying to recover a bunch of entries that were deleted a couple of days back, but I also need to get the our databases properly indexed again, so if you can help with either of that, I'd appreciate it. If you don't have the relevant know-how, you could help Madeleine with manually reading through Fujin's databases in search of things the Portmaster should know."

"Or you could talk to the portmaster and get her to give Mako permission to roll back the whole system to what it was three days ago. We'd lose some recent data, but it should fix most of the issue we're dealing with right now." Thomas asks in a hopeful tone.

"That's what I asked you to do, Thomas, so how about you get to it?" Mako retorts.

"The portmaster's scary though." Thomas replies, under his breath.

[Merilan]

"Nice to meet you all, Mako, Thomas, Madeleine," Yue answers. Deleted entries... she'd been taught a little about data retrieval methods as part of sabotage and espionage by the cell, of course, but whether or not she could apply it here is...

"If you have a rollback to three days ago available, could you not just restore that to a separate database server?" Yue suggests. "The portmaster is concerned of losing production transactions, right? Surely you have a non-production instance you could use?"

Regardless, Yue looks to see what she can do...

Knowledge (tech) - [roll0]

[Valmark]

"Mmm... Alright, I'll come to the Inferno for now" Adrian said after mulling it over "I'm not sure we'll uncover anything, but I also don't think one more person at the Latrodectus or Fujin's will help" with that, he jumped on the Fluffy (well, kind of) and took off for the other ship.

[DeTess]

---Rustport---
"Heh, wish it was that simple." Mako Replies. "Well, actually, if we were just about anywhere else it would be. Unfortunately, there's a lot of security measures to stop me from cloning our current database over to new hardware, unless it's a special Fujin-made server. It's meant to stop theft of data, but it makes maintenance of this kind far trickier if you don't have lots of spare hardware lying around. The backup data is a special format for the same reasons, and to reduce the amount of space it takes up, so I can't really do a selective rollback either." She sighs. "Welcome to the joys of working with systems designed by an accountant and a lawyer, rather than a programmer."


A couple of quick tests at a spare workstation reveals the problem the Fujin employees have been struggling with. The entries in the database can be be accessed all at once, but any attempts to sort them just results in the entire list of entries seeming to get randomized,ad any attempts to filter or search the database returns nothing.

A couple more tests reveal no new info, but Yue does remember a bit of advice from a hacker that she'd worked with in the past, about trying to open anything giving you trouble in as basic a format as possible. It takes a bit of searching, but eventually she finds a way to open a database entry as raw text, which reveals something interesting: Eachentry has a whole bunch of random garbage symbols inserted at random places in the data. Fujin's standard programs don't display these, but it would explain why all searches and sorts tend to fail if the system does actually read the symbols.


---ISS Inferno---
The wreck of the Inferno looks pretty similar to that of the Messiah. Unsurprising, because the two ships are of the same class. however, the Inferno is in a significantly better state, for the most part. During the battle above Avron, the ship's engines had been disabled, and it's orbit had subsequently decayed quickly, preventing recovery of the ship. Still, the ship's captain had managed to have it land relatively softly, and most of its hull is still intact, though most of the ship's internal systems had been salvaged since.

On his way there, Revalk had sent a map of the ship to Adrian, including details of where they'd already checked, and which areas they still needed to go through. As it stand though, only about 20% of the ship had been thoroughly searched so far.

[Valmark]

"I guess I'll just start from a side and go up from there" Adrian says to himself, before entering the inside.

Like before, I'm going to start from the reactor rooms I know could be used as bombs:

Knowledge (history) to remember which could be used: [roll0]

Spot/Listen/Search checks:

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

Starting from reactor rooms, then the main life support system room just in case they pulled the same stunt twice somehow, and then just generally exploring the ship's areas that are still unchecked. Will keep it up until new things come to Adrian attention or the search is finished.

[DeTess]

---ISS Inferno---
Due to the Inferno's relatively controlled crash, it had been one of the first targets for salvaging. Initially, plans had been made to try to repair the ship as a whole, but it was eventually concluded that doing so was infeasible, as the central structure of the ship had taken too much damage during the crashlanding. All four secondary reactors had been removed within two years of the ship's crash, and Fujin had brought in specialists and special equipment to fully dismantle the main reactors 5 years after the landing, something they where willing to risk as the Inferno's captain had followed all the proper procedures after the crash, including a full controlled shutdown of the ship's power plants.

Of note is that the Inferno's captain was never identified by the federation's forces checking over the wrecks after the battle. General consensus is that he or she simply disguised himself as a common sailor and joined the many other survivors of the crash, who were quickly repatriated to the empire after the peace-talks.

All 6 of the Inferno's reactor rooms lie completely empty, and unlike in the Messiah, there's not even a trace of elevated radiation left. The life support rooms are similarly empty, having been stripped completely of their equipment. Overall, the inferno gives the impression of having died a far gentler death than the Messiah. Time and the elements have still taken their toll as the ship slowly wastes away, but with the exception of several large rents and holes in the drive section, the ship is free of major battle-damage. As Adrian begins his search of the ship, he's soon joined by most of Revalk's crew, who are currently being led by Rief as Revalk is still over at Rustport.


[roll0]

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke looks over the symbol, racking his head on where he had seen it before... Oh yea, Taking his phone out, he would take the best picture he could, the forward it to the other two, sending this message along with it, "So I remember something about seeing this while working a minor terrorist suppression operation. While it was federal space, they only worked against imperial holdings and colored themselves as freedom fighters. Don't think they were caught though."
He turns to Eiko, "Do you make anything of this? I only remember me minor details on a terrorist group."

[DeTess]

"Hmmm, maybe?" Sergeant Eiko thinks for a moment. "Now that you mention it, I think I might have seen this emblem a couple of years ago in a briefing for a pirate suppression operation. That was before I was posted to Avron though, and I haven't heard of it since."

[Valmark]

Adrian mulled on the picture a bit before answering something.

Isn't that Ouroboros? Yue told us about a symbol of a hound with a spiked collar and flames on the background. Dunno about the flames, but that's a spiked collar around the lower side. On a ship.

Not sure I already tried making a history check on Ouroboros?

[roll0]

[DeTess]

The picture of remains of the emblem jog Adrian's memory a bit. He'd seen it two years ago on a news-show about the federation's most-wanted. Apparently the terrorist group, known as 'Ouroboros' end' had tried to take large super-freighter and ram it straight into one of the largest cities on earth. Their attack had only barely been prevented by an imperial captain ramming a battleship into the superfreighther to knock it off course, resulting in the loss of both ships, and quite a few lives both in the imperial navy and near the final impact point of both ships. The group itself had mostly managed to escape the event though.

The potential magnitude of the attack meant that the federation was risking war if they didn't take action against the group. There hasn't been any sort of news about the group after that though, so they likely got either eliminated, or went to ground.

The emblem is the one associated with their ship, the Galm, a supposedly heavily modified medium freighter.

[Valmark]

After thinking about it some more, Adrian wrote something else to them:

Yes, I remember seeing something on television, that's Ouroboros' end's ship, the Galm. Or at least the symbol comes from them.
Looks like we know who the terrorists are. Did you check if they have a black box? It's unlikely they'd leave compromising information if they have one, but hey, maybe they made a mistake like with the blackboard.
This is strange though... Weren't they anti-imperialists? Why come kill us out of all people? Maybe it's Infamy because they are striking at the federation?

[YuweaCurtis]

Let me see. Zeke replies be for address Eiko again. He wiiks ask I'd they checked the black box, and would be answered that it's has no info prior to it jumping into the system... Zeke would relay this then add a bit about him becoming suspicious this ship may be the thing detonating after all. He looks at the ship wearily.

[Valmark]

He looked at Zeke's theory, wondering. It made plenty of sense, in all honesty.
He added the portmaster and Revalk to the recipients of the next message.

Zeke's saying that the ship could be the thing that's going to explode. If we think they are Ouroboros, then it makes sense because they already tried crashing a ship on a planet once, this is similar. Can we kick the ship into space? After making sure it won't explode when you start the engine? For the portmaster and Revalk, not sure if you already know this, but Zeke uncovered that the Latrodectus has the insignia of the Garm, a terrorist ship. Same terrorists that seem to have made the bomb at the Federation ship carcass according to Yue and that Zeke found traces of under Rustport.

[DeTess]

Two messages arrive from the portmaster in quick succession. The first is send to Zeke and Adrian, in reply to Adrian's message. The second one is sent to everyone in the colony.



That's unfortunate. After talking with Revalk, I've decide to order an evacuation, and that ship would have made things a lot easier in terms of supplies. If its origin is that suspicious, we can't risk using it though. I'll get some people to look over the ship, and if it looks safe to move, I'll have it moved away from the colony.




EMERGENCY EVACUATION DECREE

All citizens of Rustport are requested to evacuate the city at 12:00 local time at the latest, bringing at least 3 days of food and water with them. The gathering point will be the victory crater, 15 km south-west of the colony. Any citizens with transport capable of shifting larger amounts of good should report to the portmaster, who'll provide them with extra supplies.

The reason for this evacuation is the discovery of a bomb in the wreck of the Messiah. This bomb is not large enough to significantly damage the colonies structure, but will pose a threat to any people within the colony. Work is being done to study this bomb and potentially disarm it, if that can be done safely. Nevertheless, for everyone's safety, the colony should be evacuated until the bomb has been disarmed or has detonated.

Signed,
Portmaster Iseri Kameko



12:00 local time is 2 hours after noon (Avron's days are shorter than standard earth days), and 3 hours before the bomb is scheduled to detonate.

[Merilan]

"Proprietary, huh..." Yue muses quietl, nodding rather glumly towards Mako. Somehow, she already feels like she has a slight inkling of what that's like.

She sits down to get to work, and eventually digs deeper down in her methods; "Even a proprietary format has a basic structure, however, so if we dump this into the rawest format we can manage..." And it'll be ugly, but if she uses the basic shell tools and just decipher a way that a row would present itself... there.

"There," she murmurs. "Looks like there were incompatibility issues with these symbols... whoever tampered this knew the limitations of the software. If I remove all these and try again...?"

She looks towards Mako to say, "Do you have any tools to remove these incompatible characters? If we whitelist the known characters, I'd wager we could have some success."

But she gets a text not too long ago, and her face falls for a moment. The symbol on the Latrodectus... it can't be.

That is the symbol of the Galm, yes, but... is it the same ship? I would have to see it for myself to confirm...

Her blood freezes for a moment as she considers the possibility, as she looks towards Kameko's message. She lets out a heavy breath as she keeps typing, her fingers trembling a little:

It's possibly me that they want. If this is truly Ouroboros' End. I don't want to risk the colony any further. If you think sending me out will bait them, I will do it. Right now, I've found a way to gather more intel from Fujin's databases. I'll at least wait here long enough to see if that provides a lead.

[Valmark]

Adrian stopped searching as soon as he red the portmaster's message.
ºIt probably was required either way, but still... This leaves less time to find Bernhard. What if... What if our evacuation had been the target all along...º
It was only after Yue's message that he writed something.

If she plays bait I'm not letting her outta my sight with people mad enough to slam ships into planets. My Fluffy's stealthy enough either way.
Are we sure the long charge time isn't to let us evacuate? And you know, clean us up when we are all nice and concentrated? Not much of a problem not having fuel for your escape vessel if you commit genocide and leave plenty of ships to steal fuel from. How many working robots are there on Avron besides Fluffy, Ophanim and Strider to protect the population?

[DeTess]

The portmaster's reply comes quickly, but lacks here usual sign-off. It's likely she's quite busy organizing the evacuation right now.


There's a whole bunch of mechs for scrapping and moving salvage, but those aren't that much use in a fight. The port Authority has a pair of VF-1s, the police has a pair of old imperial Zaku mark 1s. There might be a couple more usable mechs owned by private parties on the colony, but I don't know the details on those by heart. Stork has a full lance of Guarlions, but I've yet to convince him to deploy those down here.



---Fujin's holdings---
"Huh, good find." Mako replies to Yue's suggestions. "I'd been checking all the search algorithms and database software itself, as the data itself had seemed intact..." She thinks for a moment, then nods. "I should have something whipped up to fix this within an hour or so."

[Merilan]

"All right," Yue answers. "Could you send me a message when you are done? Given the portmaster's message, I..." She bites her lip. "I need to tend to the children."

She passes Mako her phone's contact details, before departing. There's still hours remaining, but she needs to at least make sure the orphanage children are ready.

[DeTess]

---ISS Inferno---
The through search of the Inferno is slow going. Adrian receives regular updates from the rest of Revalk's crew about which areas have been searched, and is expected to return the favor, but after the first hour or so they're only approaching the halfway mark, with no signs of Bernhard or another bomb.

---The galm---
Shortly after the Portmaster's evacuation message arrives, Revalk turns up at the Galm with several police officers, and they start their own investigation of the ship. They don't find anything new, even after a complete sweep of the ship, and are in the process of unlocking the controls so that the ship can be moved when a new message arrives from the portmaster.

This message is addressed to Zeke, Yue, Adrian and Revalk.



I just received some new information from Fujin. Apparently the Latrodectus unloaded six crates when they were last here. One of these crates was radiation-shielded, and according to the Fujin records contained Fuel rods for the colony's thorium reactor. None of these crates are in the warehouse they are supposed to be in. All crates are about the size of the bomb Revalk described to me and according to him, an intact Glasser round would require very little extra insulation to not stand out at all on radiation detectors.

Therefore, I have to assume that there's six of these bombs, either in or around the colony. If you wish to continue searching for Bernhard or these bombs, I won't stop you, but I'm now working under the assumption that the colony is lost and will focus on evacuating everyone safely. I've send out a request for help to the Federation, so aid should arrive within a week. Please keep this information to yourself for now, as I'd like to keep panic to a minimum during this evacuation.

Be safe out there,
Portmaster Iseri Kameko

[Merilan]

Yue spends some time preparing the kids; just as Kameko says, she has to keep the panic to a minimum. "We might have to go for a while... but we'll all be together still, okay?" Her heart wrenches a little at a statement that may not remain true, and yet... what can she do?

The only thing she could have done was not stay here in Rustport, a year ago... and now, possibly, she has doomed an entire colony to be on the run.

She shouldn't be here. She doesn't belong anywhere. She should've known that.

Yue finds the message. Six bombs...? They don't have anywhere near the kind of manpower for that kind of search, given they can't even disarm one of them.

I want to see the Latrodectus as well. If it truly is the Galm...

She looks to Li, the eldest of the kids. "Look after the others, okay? Don't go out to play just now. One of Kameko's friends will pick you up. You remember Auntie Kameko, right?" The children nod; she smiles weakly and gets up. "You're all very brave."

Too brave...

Then she heads out, heart full of consternation; she then heads out to the site of the Latrodectus.

[DeTess]

There's an odd atmosphere in the streets of Rustport as Yue makes her way to the landing pads. People are quickly making their way to or from their homes, but there's very little conversation as everyone gets ready to evacuate. Everyone seems fairly calm though, and Yue sees several groups of people going door-to-door to help families and older people get ready to move.

The landing pad holding the ships Yue'd had been heading to is likewise quiet. Revalk is standing close to the entrance, talking on his phone, and Sergeant Eiko is still standing guard, though he looks a bit lost. Yue's attention is drawn to the ship's bow though, where the false hull has been fully stripped away. It looks pretty much exactly as she remembers it.

[Merilan]

Yue bows her head to Revalk and says, "I'd like to do a pass of my own, if that is all right. Not that I believe you missed anything, just..."

Just, she needs some closure? Perhaps? Or... perhaps there will be some context that only makes sense to a once-member of Ouroboros' End.

She quietly enters, her heart still clenched at actually being in the Galm again; she quietly heads for the quarters she once used. If there's a call-out message...

[Valmark]

Adrian took his time coming up with all kinds of curses to scream while still alone, venting.
It had gone the worst way possible. Well, not the worst, but it was too close for comfort. Bernhard was missing, the terrorists hadn't been found and they had... What, two hours left?

And he was fairly sure Bernhard wasn't there at the Inferno, nor bombs for how much it mattered.
ºI'll just... Go fetch some clothes and food from home and pick up some toolsº he thought to himself, standing up and returning to where he left Fluffy.

[DeTess]

---The Galm---
Yue wanders the Galms stripped hallways as she heads or her quarters, the ship at once terribly familiar and almost unrecognizable.

Nothing distinguishes her quarters from the others on the ship anymore. The drawings that had once livened up the room's barren walls had been completely washed away, the small desk had been completely emptied out, and the crisp white sheets in the bunk gave no hint that someone had used this room anytime recently. However, in this barrenness there was also no sign that anyone had expected Yue, or anyone else, to return to the room.

---Rustport---
Bernhard's workshop appears as it always has when Adrian returns to it. The only thing that's missing is the sound of metal on metal and the whirring of tools.

[Merilan]

Yue places a hand on the desk, looking at how clinical and empty this all was; it was almost heart-wrenching, to see all of those childhood memories be dashed away. But there seemed to be nothing here...

"Farewell, my childhood home. I have better places now."

She proceeds to two other places - Fariha and Leon's rooms, just in case. And if that still yielded nothing... she starts thinking about some of the quirks the Galm has. Was there anything used in an emergency, or something that she'd know?

Search, I suppose? [roll0]

[Valmark]

Adrian sighed, going through the motions with a somber look on his face. It wasn't leaving home the problem- it was leaving everything he had of his father.
He decided to give it another search- not so much to find clues, but to find something to keep close to him for confort.

Search: [roll0]

I want to find the Badger Badge, possibly. Failing that, any whatsover trinket of Bernhard will be good.

Actual things to pick up:
- Masterwork Thieves' Tools
- Let's make it 7 rations for a week (for food shortages) though I'm not sure one keeps in his house enough food for a week that doesn't spoil.
- A rapier.

[DeTess]

---The Galm---
Fariha's room is as barren as Yue's room was. Leon's room appears to be so as well at first, but Yue remembers a particular hiding spot Leon had made behind a light-switch, to keep some of his personal projects out of the hands of the crew. The hiding-spot contains a folded piece of paper. The ink on the paper has already faded somewhat, suggesting that it must have been there for quite a while already. It reads:



Hey Yue,

I'm not certain why I'm writing this, as I certainly hope you'll never see this ship again. Maybe it's just to help me calm my nerves.

We survived, but the Adder caught us again. Fariha convinced him it was all her idea, and took most of the beating for it. She still doesn't walk as well as she used to, but she tells me not to worry about it.

Tomorrow is the big day, the project the Adder had been working towards for the past months. He wants to ram a superfreigther straight into London. The one on earth, not the new ones in the colonies. He says that millions will die.

No one deserves that, not even the empire. Not even if everything he's said about them is true.

So Fariha and me will try to sabotage the mission, and maybe escape. We've been doing exactly what he said these past months, so hopefully we'll get the chance to make a run for it and warn people. Even if we don't, we can't let him get away with this.

I hope I'll get the chance to tell you about all of this myself one day. And if not, that at least we manage to stop him.

I hope you're safe somewhere, with good people taking care of you and all the nice food we talked about.
Leon


---Bernhard's workshop---
Adrian quickly finds the tools he's looking for, and the Workshop has sizeable store of non-perishable food, for those days when Bernhard would end up working around the clock. Finding a weapon is a bit more difficult, as Bernhard didn't want any weaponry in his workshop. However, after a thorough search, he discovers a well-hidden loose floorboard in Bernhard's office. Below it is a rapier with an ornate basket hilt shaped like a skunk against a background of interlocking gears. The blade itself also appears to be of exceptional quality. Below the rapier are the skunk-patch that Adrian remembers finding before, and a photograph.

The photograph shows three young men. Two of them are wearing a military uniform of some sort, while the third is wearing a suit. the man in the suit looks a bit like a far younger Bernhard, while on of the uniformed men has the same massive frame as Revalk. The last man in the picture reminds Adrian a bit of Rief. On the back of the photograph is a date: 07-09-2806, meaning that the picture must have been taken before the start of the breakaway war.


Adrian finds the rations and tools he was looking for. The rapier is of masterwork quality, however, but also very distinct.

[Valmark]

Adrian looked over the blade. If that badge could have been a random trinket from his past, this blade was anything but that. And the photo...
ºCould these be really them? I was pretty sure Bernhard was some kind of military man in the Empire, but this... I must talk to them when I canº he slipped the photo inside his pocket, together with the rest of the things.
Looking at the rapier, he decided to not carry it visibly around. He searched for a bag big enough to carry it and hide at least the hilt, then decided to board again the Fluffy to go meet Zeke.

Do you want a Disguise check? When in doubt I'll roll. Trying to hide mainly the hilt with the symbol, though if I can somehow mask the whole weapon it would be better.

[roll0]

[YuweaCurtis]

As the police proper had arrived, Zeke decides to go back to his places to pick up some clothes, food and personal items. It was great no one would have to get hurt, but the bit about Bernhard was still bothering him. He would then get the message about the possible of more bombs... That makes sense to him.

He sends Adrian a message, "Any where we haven't looked that sounds like a good place to look? We still have some time."

[Valmark]

While on his way Adrian red the message from Zeke.

No idea- the only not properly searched place that I can think of is the Inferno, but we explored half the ship without finding anything at all

[Merilan]

Yue's held strong through all this, even for the children. But when she checks the lamp-post and actually finds something in there, her heart leaps out... and she stares to the message, for moments at a time.

Then she sits down on the bed, feeling herself begin to weep. The letter was so old. She wishes she could find it sooner. But Leon was right. It was better that she not find it, for it meant being back on this ship. How ironic...

London. That must be the large incident that was on the news, wasn't it... how twisted the Adder had become.

She quietly tucks the letter to her person, wipes her face, and keeps going.

I'm on hand if you want to search anything else, she messages Adrian and Zeke.

[Valmark]

After a while Adrian grabbed the cellphone to write something else to Yue.

I was thinking... If you were who they wanted I think we'd know. They kidnapped Bernhard and had the time to set up something like seven nuclear bombs. From what the portmaster told us they had like two weeks to do this, but no action was taken against you. Nor against the children that are the best way to get to you without risking a bullet to the head.
I don't know why they'd want you, but I doubt you are a target. At the very least, it's not your fault they came here. Hell, they might not even be the same people given this apparent lack of motive- the Ouroboros I heard of in tv were anti-Empire!
...so yeah, nothing useful to add to the matter, but I don't think it's your fault, whoever they are.

[Merilan]

Yue pulls her head up and looks to Adrian's message.

Thank you. That does help a little...
The Ouroboros' End I knew was an extremist anti-Empire cell... but their methods got more and more extreme.
A few kids and I wanted to break away from all that. I was the only one who got out.
But you're right - it doesn't add up. I feel like we're missing something about the Empire here in Rustport...

It's time to head out again. But where?

[DeTess]

A message arrives on Zeke's, Adrian's and Yue's phone, sent by the portmaster.



The main group of civilians will be leaving Rustport for Victory crater in about forty minutes. I'd feel a lot more relaxed if you could watch over them as they do. You lot are the only ones in the colony with combat hardware that isn't older than the breakaway war, and if these terrorists do decide to try something I'd like to have our best-equipped fighters in the vicinity.

Be safe out there,
Portmaster Kameko

[Merilan]

Yue lets out another soft breath as she looks towards the message. Time to go.

She returns to the Ophanim, checking that the children are safe too; before long, she's descended down beside the colonist group, pensive thoughts in her mind. This still isn't over...

[Valmark]

ºWait, she was with Ouroboros!? But that means... Noº Adrian shook his head ºNo way she's a traitor. Logically, she wouldn't have mentioned it like thatº and not logically, Adrian didn't want to mistrust Yue of all people- nor Zeke, but Zeke was a given.

When he received the portmaster message, he and Fluffy made a sharp turn for the evacuation route.
On the way he wrote something to Revalk:

When all this somewhat settles, I have to talk to you and Rief. Alone.

[DeTess]

Just outside of Rustport a large and varied collection of vehicles is gathering. Off-road cars, flat-bed trucks, industrial mecha, motor-cycles and even a couple of atmospheric transports are all parked haphazardly. Supplies are being loaded on some of the vehicles, while others are clearly intended to transport people. Two Zaku Mark 1 mecha in the blue and white livery of the colonie's police corps are patrolling the edges of the mass of vehicles, instructions ringing out from the speakers mounted on the mechs.

Just as Yue and Adrian approach, two VF-1's in the green of the port officials land nearby and transform to their two-legged form to join the police Zaku's in managing the operation. More and more people come walking out of Rustport, packs filled with supplies in their hand or on their backs, to join the convoy that is slowly taking shape.

Adrian receives a response from Revalk just as Fluffy touches down near the mass of vehicles.


I hope we get the chance to have that talk.

[Valmark]

ºNot ominous at allº Adrian thought reading the response.
Arriving at the meeting he waved the other troops there and Yue, surveying from up in the sky what happened.

For Spot! [roll0]
Plus usual Blindsense. Tecnically there's also Blindsight, but with 30 mu keeping to the air it probably doesn't reach.

[YuweaCurtis]

Seemed there was nothing else to be done. Sighing to himself, Zeke would make his way to the evacuation site, though he would stay a ways off so he would have view of the whole area and the area around it.

[DeTess]

It takes about half an hour for the convoy to get organised, but eventually the mess of vehicles start straightening out and looking somewhat organized, all the goods are loaded and everyone finds a seat on or in the available vehicles.


You don't notice anything off or suspicious, but one little thing does stand out to you. Revalk would have been easily recognizable, even from the air, given his large size, but you haven't spotted him among those preparing to evacuate.

[Valmark]

It didn't take much for Adrian to get worried. WAY worried.
"No... No no no!" he screamed to no one in particular, whirling frantically around to try to see him.
ºThe way he wrote that message... Could it be... Did he knew...?º
"I'm sorry I need to check up the Latrodectus! I'll make sure to come back before it's time!" he said on the comms, not sure anyone wss there hearing him.
ºHe could even part of the terrorists...º he took off pushing Fluffy's engine to the max output, using the relative free sky to write a short message to Revalk.

Where are you???

Then he got called by him, which resulted in a torrent of words and worrying before Revalk could even get a word in.
"Wow, kid, relax! I'm fine, and reasonably safe. The Portmaster just asked me to check if it was safe to move the Latrodectus, that's all."
"Then when are you coming?" Adrian asked. There wasn't much time left.
"I won't be joining the main evacuation. It looks like the ships hasn't been boobytrapped in any way, so I'll be moving the ship a couple of kilometres the other way. If it does contain a bomb of sorts then the colony might just survive, and if it doesn't, then we have an intact ship of sorts."
Adrian was almost accepting that, but realized something.
"And how are you getting back? Aren't the avalaible robots deployed at the evacuation line?"
"I've got a dirtbike here, so I should be able to catch up to you before the bomb goes off."
Right. A dirtbike.
"Should? Is Rief with you?" he asked, not sure if he saw the other man at the group.
"He's not. Last I heard, he wanted to check some final things on the Inferno before joining you lot. If you're worried about me, you can always come and pick me up once you've seen those people to Victory crater."
Yes, he could most definitely do that.
"I will. Not that I doubt your survival skills, but Fluffy's all about speed"
"Heh, I know that. See you in a while then, kid!"

With the call concluded, Adrian briefly thought of going to the Inferno, but there was no time so he headed back to the evacuation group.

[DeTess]

As the convoy starts to get ready, Zeke, Adrian and Yue receive a message from the portmaster, containing the radio-frequency that will be used by the convoy's defenders. Shortly after tuning in, the Portmaster's voice can be heard coming over the radio. "The convoy's almost ready, so here's how we're going to do this. The regulars from the police and port authority will be the first line of defense in case something goes wrong. The three auxiliaries will jump in if trouble emerges. If anything does happen, do everything you can to keep trouble away from the convoy. Things shouldn't get any more complicated than that." The portmaster sounds tired and weary. "Let's have a quick round of introductions, since not everyone here has worked together with everyone else."

"Roger that, portmaster." A deep male voice replies. "I'm Erik Sjö, with the Avron port authority. My callsign is Sparrow 1, and I'll be guarding the convoy's left flank."

"Izumi Kameko, Sparrow 2, right flank." A youngish female voice replies matter-of-factly.

"I'm officer Liza DeMarko, Cruiser 1 for this mission. I'll be all the way at the front of the convoy. Nice to have some extra muscle with us in case things go wrong." A slightly older-sounding female voice replies.

"And I'm Bobby Fergus, Cruiser 2 for the military-minded folk among you!" An enthusiastic male voice cuts in right after Liza. "I'll be on rearguard duty!"

[YuweaCurtis]

"Zeke Mathis, I'm here to back you all up." he would active his Quantum Generator before moving away from his vantage point. He would move up to on side of the group.

[Valmark]

"I'm Adrian and... Uh... Izumi Kameko? Are you the portmaster's daughter?" Adrian said, the Fluffy hovering high over the evacuation group in a circle, its black armor and white collar making it look like a vulture.

[Merilan]

The Ophanim stations itself near the right flank, the prototype G-Territory device activated; might as well absorb any blows that come from the front, though anything can happen at this point. "Yue Shiratsuyu, Ophanim."

[DeTess]

"Niece, actually. Is there a problem with that?" Izumi's replies to Adrian's question, her tone still neutral, but there's a a hint of anger or exasperation there as well.

"Attention everyone, we're moving out." The portmaster announces over the radio, and the convoy lurches into motion. Officer DeMarko leads the way, with the vehicles behind her keeping a respectable distance from the Mech, to give her room to fight if need be. Sparrow 1 and Sparrow 2 take off again and start patrolling the convoys flanks, while Bobby takes up his position at the rear.

As the convoy slowly makes its way to its destination, other vehicles join in. Some of these are stragglers from Rustport, others are trucks from the various salvaging companies that had been busy at wrecks near the colony, including a vehicle with the logo of Revalk's crew on the roof, coming from the direction of the Inferno. This slow trickle quickly dries up as the evacuees leave Rustport and the closest wrecks behind.

Beyond Rustport and the first ring of wrecks, Avron is barren place, the terrain a mixture of sandy dunes, rocky gorges, impact craters and the remains of crashed starships.


I'd like everyone to roll spot and listen checks, as well as any other checks they believe relevant to their current situation (such as move silently or hide for the more stealth-inclined).

[Valmark]

"I'm guessing I shouldn't have asked. It was just curiosity" Adrian commented, soaring through the sky.

While flying, seeing Revalk's crew join in, his humor lifted a bit knowing at least Rief was with them- he barely knew the man, but he was included in the photo he found or at least was similar to the man, so he wanted to ask him several things.
"I'll go ahead of the group- I should be able to act as some kind of scout"

As I said, I'll move ahead- with 100 flying mu speed even while moving silently he should still be able to stay ahead.

Not sure Hide applies while moving, but I'll roll it anyway. Thanks to Nacht System I can hide even without any cover!

In the order, Spot/Listen/Move Silently/Hide
[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]
As always I'm relying more on Blindsight/Blindsense then my Spot and Listen :p

[Merilan]

Yue looks for a moment towards the vehicle the kids are in, giving them a wave from the Ophanim's hand for a moment - then turning her attention outwards again.

Spot - [roll0]
Listen - [roll1]

Not bothering with Stealth, since it's better for her to take the aggro than anyone else.

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke would move quietly, keeping his sight one the horizon for any threats.

[Spoiler=OOC]
Spot
[roll0]
Listen
[roll1]
Move Silently
[roll2]

[DeTess]

The convoy slowly winds its way towards victory crater, passing by gorges, around wrecked ships and through the craters left by the breakaway war 30 years ago. There are plenty of possible ambush locations, keeping the convoys defenders wary, but no sudden ambushes or explosions occur.

After about half an hour of travel the convoy enters a section of open desert, uncluttered by wrecked ships, with the only notable feature for the next couple of kilometres being the end of a large ravine cutting into the desert, terminating fairly close to the rudimentary road the convoy has been following.

Adrian, flying ahead, is the first to get a proper view into the ravine, and though he can't make out much himself due to the glare of the afternoon sun on his cockpit, his mecha's sensors pick up two unknown contacts within the rocky crevasse.

At the same time, Yue and Zeke notice a glare of reflecting metal from a large dune on the other side of the road from the ravine.

Before much more can be done than a quick warning, the dune on the right side of the road seems to dissolve as two Zaku mark II's in imperial crimson burst from it. At the same time, a further two boost out of the ravine on jump-jets.

The two Zaku's emerging from the dune are about 60 MU away from the front of the convoy. One is equipped with a shield and an assortment of close quarters weapons, the other one is covered in missile launchers. Thw two Zaku's emerging from the ravine are about 145MU away from the front of the convoy and are equipped with a variety of guns. One has two massive railguns on its back, while the other is loaded down with a large variety of cannons and rifles.


Roll initiative!
Missile Zaku: [roll0]
Melee Zaku: [roll1]
cannon Zaku: [roll2]
railgun Zaku: [roll3]
Cruiser 1&2: [roll4]
Sparrow 1&2: [roll5]

Some further notes on positioning:
Adrian scouted 140 MU ahead, so the Zakus emerging from the ravine are only 30 MU away from him, while those emerging from the dune are 80 MU away, and closer to the convoy than to him.

Yue and Zeke would be a bit behind the front of the convoy (the convoy itself snakes over a distance of about 150 MU), but they are free to decide where exactly they are (including right next to cruiser 1 at the front).

Cruiser 2 is at the rear of the convoy, meaning that he's about 210 MU away from the closest hostiles.

Sparrow 1 and 2 where flying on the convoy's flanks. Sparrow 2 is about 100 MU away fro the Zaku emerging from the dune and 200 Mu away from those emerging from the ravine. Sparrow 1 is 120 MU way from the dune Zaku and 190 Mu from the ravine Zaku.

[Merilan]

Yue's eyes widen for a moment as she looks to her radars. Why are those units...?.

She flinches for a moment, but resolves herself -- as she emerges and presses forward herself. "... Zaku units. This is the Ophanim. Do you recognise me?" She frowns. "These are civilians! Do not open fire on them! Your target is me, if anyone!"

Init - [roll0] and... attempted Diplomacy - [roll1]

[DeTess]

"Huh, should have run further away, Yue." Yue receives a reply to her plee over a tight-beam connection. The one responding clearly doesn't want anyone else to listen in. "You get one chance to stand aside and let us do our work. Otherwise, I'll happily martyr you too!"

The hostile Zaku's surge into motion. The one laden down with guns and cannons whirls around to face Adrian's mecha, unleashing a barrage of shots with its beam rifle, though moving steadily towards the convoy as he deos so. The railgun laden one fires a pair of shots at Cruiser 1, one shot taking off the mecha's head, the other ripping through it's left leg. Cruiser 1 topples, but the surprised curse from the mech's pilot suggests that she survives her mech's execution.

The missile armed Zaku likewise approaches the convoy, firing a missile at the oncoming Sparrow 2 as he does so. The missile hits the rear section of the flying mech, and the resulting explosion tears the engines apart, leaving the cockpit to tumble towards the ground. Before it crashes though, a flash can be seen from the cockpit as the pilot ejects. This is immediately followed up by a retaliating shot from Sparrow 1, striking the Zaku in the side and tearing off one of its two missile pods.

While this is going on, Cruiser 2 is running up from his position at the rear as fast as he can manage. As he does so, he fires a smoke canister covering the front of the convoy.


Fluffy gets shot at with an armor breaker, rolling a 27 to hit. If this hits, Fluffy's DR is halved untill the next round and he takes 7 damage.
Fluffy is also shot at with a beam weapon, with rolls of 20, 27 and 12 to hit. These shots deal 10, 20 and 12 damage slashing. This weapon has the power (meaning only half AC from natural armor, armor and shield bonuses), rending (only apply half DR) and disarming properties. The mech gets a bonus to disarming, so roll against 26, 33 and 18 respectively to avoid getting disarmed if the respective shots hit. This targets the biggest weapons on fluffy first (first the roche saber, if that one goes, the twinned beam rifle, and if that one goes down, the lt kinetic cannon)

The railgun Zaku moves 40 MU forward, putting him 100 MU away from the convoy's front (175 MU from Zeke's current position, 60 MU from Fluffy) The cannon Zaku also closes in with the convoy, but slower, keeping its weapons trained on fluffy (110 MU from convoy, 40 MU from fluffy, 185 from Zeke). The missile Zaku slowly closes with the convoy, and is now 50 MU away from it (125 MU from Zeke, 90 from fluffy).

Yue and Adrian are up in the initiative order.

[Merilan]

"That voice... Janus Ober...!" Yue murmurs, looking towards her radio as if she wants to glare at him. "Just what is your aim here? Why does Ouroboros' End want Rustport?!"

There is a grimace, then she switches: "Adrian, pull back if you need to recuperate. The nanomachines in the Ophanim can help reconstruct the Fluffy."

She sees the missile and railgun take Cruiser 1 and Sparrow 2 out, and there's a deeper grimace. "Don't push yourselves too hard - pull back as you need to!"

I have to do this. For the children's sake. For everyone's sake...

The Ophanim's eyes glow as it raises its arm towards the incoming missile-armed Zaku, a large cannon coming into view as the targeting reticle scans over her eye. Nanomachines suffuse over her as she whispers,

"Target acquired... multi-lock. Sub-routing power to the Buster Rifle..."

There is a low, ominous noise -- and a momentarily horrific black line of gravity streaks through, widening into a gravitic shot upon the missile Zaku.

HP: 90/90 (regen 14)
EN: 70/120 (regen 24)
AC: 37 (with Focus)
DR: 10 + 5/magic + 5 hardness

Remaining SP: 15/30 (SP Regen: 10)

Free: Focus (Spirit) (15 SP)
For 1 round you gain +6 Perfection bonus to attack rolls, AC and saves, plus your attack rolls automatically hit on a natural 14+ and attack rolls against you automatically fail on a 6 or less.

Full-Round Action: Concentrate One with G-Impact Cannon on Missile Zaku.
Effects: Power, Heavy, Area(Line), Brutal, Pinning
Attack 1: [roll0] Damage: [roll1]
Attack 2: [roll2] Damage: [roll3]

[DeTess]

The first shot from the Ophanim's buster rifle cracks the Zaku's armor and leaves a large crater right at its centre. In desperation, or maybe defiance, the Zaku's pilot fires a missile back at Yue, but the missile goes wide as the Ophami's second shot tears straight through the hostile mech. The mech collapses, with nothing left of its core, or its pilot.

[Valmark]

"****!" Adrian screamed when he found himself in front of a giant cannon.
"I'll take you up on that offer if I can make it back!" he replied, quite pissed off. Turning towards the convoy, he blatantly ignored the cannoneer and pointed his rifles at the railgun-user.
"Let's see if take that off, yes?"
After shooting, he put the foot on the pedal and run all the way back towards the main group, prepping his smoke round.

Right, those railguns are too dangerous.

First, Scan on it to get -2 AC and know those are actually two separate railguns.

Then turn towards it (-5 ft. Every 90º angle)

Shooting with twinned beam rifles:
One hit roll for 31 and 8 damage with Power property, 35 check to disarm a railgun.

One hit roll for 20 and 12 damage with Power property, 24 to disarm a railgun.

Then if I can get them without triggering AoOs I'm moving 90 ft. (Assuming 10 got lost to turning) while picking up the railguns (no action required for techno-thief).

Otherwise I'm just running the **** back.

In any case, when/if I get to move and get back I'll spend my immediate action to shoot a smoke round at my feets to cover me in smoke. If it requires a roll, it's 16.

At the end of my turn in all cases it's 7 additional damage to the zaku and 3 additional damage to enemies within 30 mu of it, ignores DR.

[DeTess]

30/30 HP
105/110 Energy
0/0 Spirit
AC: 23
DR: 5
Movement: 40 MU land
feats: defend, counter x2, glory in death, running shot
weapons 2x burst railgun, 1x Md kinetic cannon


The railgun-armed Zaku takes the hits from fluffy's beam rifles, but seems to shrug them off with only minimal damage, the railguns themselves remaining attached and functional. The nanite payload delivered by the shots seem to have a far greater effect on the mecha, as the nanites start eating through its armor.

Back at the convoy, the Zaku equipped with melee weapons charges at the Ophanim, a blade of energy forming in its right fist.


The Melee Zaku charges the ophanim, attacking with a melee weapon. He rolls an 18 to hit, and deals 13 damage if it hits. The weapon has the power property, meaning it ignores half of the natural armor, armor and shield bonuses the Ophanim might have.

And Zeke's up now.

[YuweaCurtis]

"Don't overextend yourself Adrian, Zeke says calmly as he dismounts the rifle that was over his left shoulder. Take careful aim at the railgun Zaku, he would fire a single powerful round.


Swift action and 15 Energy;
Standing Snipe
Gun Maniac (Stance) [Rifle], [Launcher]
Level: Real Pilot 3
Initiation Action: Swift action
Range: Personal
Target: See text
Duration: Stance

You cannot enter this stance if you moved since the start of your turn.

Choose one your ranged weapons. It gains a bonus equal to your PL on damage rolls and half that bonus on attack rolls. It also gains the Pinning property. If it already had the Pinning property, enemies damaged by the weapon must make a Will save with DC 10+1/2 HD+ Dex mod or become Shaken for 1 round.

When you move you automatically exit this stance.

Free action:
Focus[Real Pilot](15): For 1 round you gain +6 Perfection bonus to attack rolls, AC and saves, plus your attack rolls automatically hit on a natural 14+ and attack rolls against you automatically fail on a 6 or less.

5 Energy
Divine Launcher
Gun Maniac (Strike) [Launcher]
Level: Real Pilot 1
Initiation Action: Fullround Action
Range: As gun
Target: See text

Charges and fires off an indescribably powerful grenade.

Make one attack with an Heavy weapon. It gains the Power property for this attack. If it already had the Power property the shot deals an extra 1d12 damage and the crit threat range and multiplier both increase by 1. For each 5 PL you have the extra damage increases by another d12.

GN Sniper Attack (Crit 15-20/x4)
[roll0]
Damage
[roll1]
[roll2]
Disarming (targeting railgun)
[roll3]
Power, Pinning, Volatile
Will Save 14 or Shaken for one round.

If I drop one, I get to make another attack at half damage. Can occur twice per turn.

Total Energy Spent: 20
Energy Recovered: 15
Current Energy: 95/100

[DeTess]

The railgun-armed Zaku is hit by Zeke's shot. For a moment, the mecha remains standing, damaged, but seemingly still functional. Then it starts collapsing. As it does so, it fires a final parting shot into the smoke cloud housing fluffy, but the shot goes wide and sails off harmlessly into the distance.

The cannon-armed Zaku rushes towards the convoy, firing its beam rifle at Yue as it closes in on the Ophanim. Sparrow 1 attempts to intercept the Zaku, but the hostile mech just barely manages to dodge the shot with a quick jump into the air using the mech's jump-jets. Sparrow 1 in turn manages to weave through the Zaku's return fire unharmed.

Cruiser 2 fires his heavy hook at the melee-oriented Zaku in an attempt to drag the assailant away from the Ophanim, but the Zaku easily bats the hook aside with his shield.


The cannon armed Zaku has run towards the convoy and is now 10 MU away from the Ophanim (90 MU from Zeke, 50 MU from Adrian). It fires it's beam rifle at the ophanim, rolling a 25. The weapon has the power (half AC from armor, natural armor and shield), rending and disarming properties. If this hits, the Ophanim takes 11 slashing damage and needs to roll against an attempt to disarm that bigass guns Yue just used to erase a mech (DC31).

Yue and Adrian are up now.

[Valmark]

"I'll help you Yue!" Adrian screamed, bursting out the fog and flying right past the melee combatants only to break the flight and reverse, while the pilers for the sonic breaker started charging up, meanwhile the cannons rapidly shoot at the cannon zaku.
"CHARGE!" with a roar, the Fluffy bursted forward- the intent to break through the two mechas in a line and take refuge in the fog once again.


First off, Scan on the melee zaku.

Using my 100 mu flight speed to position 10 mu away from the melee zaku in a position that forms a straight line through the melee zaku with flanking, the cannon zaku and the fog. If not possible then prioritize lining up both zakus and flanking the melee. If not possible then just making sure I can flank when I charge with the sonic breaker.

Shooting the Light Kinetic Cannon at the zaku cannon, 32 to hit and 12 damage. It should be within 30 mu, so no cover applied due to blindsight. If not, then it's whatever cover the melee zaku gives.

Then Sonic Breaker! Since I can move 75 mu in a straight line I should be able to hit both zakus and hide again in the fog (should require 70 mu, I've got plenty to spare)

The sonic breaker on melee zaku hits with 23 and deals 25 damage, if not flanking then hits with 21 and deals 12 damage. Also, DC 19 Strenght check to not be pushed away 5 mu.
If I defeat it I should be able to steal on the spot two weapons and an accessory- if I can steal only one thing then the accessory.

Sonic breaker on cannon zaku hits with 28 and deals 11 damage. Forgot the strenght check [roll0]

Then I go back into the smoke.

At the end of the turn they receive 10 damage each from nanites.

[Merilan]

The Ophanim's shield raises just in time to deflect the Melee Zaku's beam saber, in a swift motion that slams at its wrist to turn the blade away; at the same time, it seems at first that Janus' Zaku takes a bead on her, she's able to use the momentum of their melee engagement to make the shots go just wide enough.

"Be watchful of the cannon-wielding one," Yue warns. "I know the guy piloting it - Janus Ober... a member of Ouroboros' End. He was a real piece of work."

Following up with Fluffy's manuever, the Ophanim withdraws a beam saber from its shield -- and its verniers lift and charge it towards the melee Zaku as she makes two quick strikes. "You're open!"

HP: 90/90 (regen 14)
EN: 59/120 (regen 24)
AC: 37 (with Focus)
DR: 10 + 5/magic + 5 hardness

Remaining SP: 10/30 (SP Regen: 10)

Free: Focus (Spirit) (15 SP)
For 1 round you gain +6 Perfection bonus to attack rolls, AC and saves, plus your attack rolls automatically hit on a natural 14+ and attack rolls against you automatically fail on a 6 or less.

Swift: Activate Careful Aim (Boost). When you initiate this maneuver, your attacks ignore the DR and Hardness of your targets until the beginning of your next turn.
Standard: Activate Twin Assault (Strike). As a standard action, you may attack with two melee weapons or two ranged weapons, whitout any penalty on the attack rolls.
Effects: Finesse

Attack 1: [roll0] Damage: [roll1] ignores DR/hardness
Attack 2: [roll2] Damage: [roll3] ignores DR/hardness

Total EN used: 10+5+20 = 35

[Merilan]

Critical confirmation rolls (+2 to them) since I didn't see the OOC topic my bad!! [roll0], [roll1]

[DeTess]

Adrian's charge catches both Hostile Zaku by surprise. Though the cannon-armed one manages to get a shot in in retaliation, the charge knocks both mechs back and off balance, giving Yue the opening she needed to deal decisively with the close-quarters mecha that had been attacking her.

However, whether due to an unfortunate placement of Yue's attacks, or pure malice on the part of the Zaku's pilot, the mech then erupts in a large explosion.


Anyone within 30 MU of the melee mecha (that'd be the cannon-armed Zaku and the Ophanim, as well as any of the leading civilian vehicles that hadn't retreated yet) needs to pass a DC 15 reflex save, or take 19 points of damage.

The cannon armed Zaku is still functional, though badly damaged (and 95 MU away from Zeke). It is now Zeke's turn.

[YuweaCurtis]

As always, Adrian was being overly dramatic about the situation. He locks the sniper back on the mount while flipping out another rifle. With a deft pull of the trigger, he would fire at one of it's legs. If this didn't bring it down, he would fire at the other. "Be prepared to take him in alive, if possible."


15 Energy to go back into (I need to select a weapon when entering stance. If I can't reenter without actually dropping or going into actual other stance let me know)
Standing Snipe
Gun Maniac (Stance) [Rifle], [Launcher]
Level: Real Pilot 3
Initiation Action: Swift action
Range: Personal
Target: See text
Duration: Stance

You cannot enter this stance if you moved since the start of your turn.

Choose one your ranged weapons. It gains a bonus equal to your PL on damage rolls and half that bonus on attack rolls. It also gains the Pinning property. If it already had the Pinning property, enemies damaged by the weapon must make a Will save with DC 10+1/2 HD+ Dex mod or become Shaken for 1 round.

When you move you automatically exit this stance.

Not leaving it to chance;
Focus[Real Pilot](15): For 1 round you gain +6 Perfection bonus to attack rolls, AC and saves, plus your attack rolls automatically hit on a natural 14+ and attack rolls against you automatically fail on a 6 or less.

Rifle Attack #1 (15-20/x3)
[roll0]
Damage
[roll1]
Attack #2
[roll2]
Damage
[roll3]
Power, Pinning

Energy Spent: 35
Total Energy: 75/100

[DeTess]

The cannon-armed Zaku rocks under the strikes from Zeke's mecha, then starts collapsing. As it does so, a chain-reaction rips through the mecha's structure. One final radio message is sent to Yue. "This changes nothing." The pilot's voice sounds strained and hurt. "We won days ago. Death to..." Any further words are cut off, as the mecha's ammunition cooks off and rips the mech apart.


The Ophanim (and anyone else within 30 MU of the cannon-armed Zaku, but I think that's just the Ophanim) needs to pass a DC15 reflex save or take 6 damage.

Combat is now over.


As the smoke clears, the convoy appears to have escaped the twin explosions, but only because the vehicles at the front rapidly moved back, resulting in a number of crashes further down the convoy.

"Well, that could have been a lot worse." The Portmaster speaks over the radio. "I'm halting the convoy here for half an hour to care for the wounded and repair or move aside those damaged vehicles. Please keep an eye out for any more trouble."

[Merilan]

There's a quietly conflicted expression on Yue's face as she shifts back from the explosion.

"'We won days ago'," Yue repeats to Adrian and Zeke. "It's too bad we weren't able to take him in for questioning. ... Janus..."

There's a soft sigh as she murmurs, "We truly are still on the back foot, even with this victory..."

[Valmark]

"So..." Adrian said, giving a quick sweep of the battlefield "I'm not the only one who noticed them having an imperial paint job, yes? Either Ouroboros decided to betray the Federation or tried to frame the Empire. The former is more likely" with that he concentrated on... "tweaks".
ºI didn't ask about Bernhard... Don't think they'd told me though º

"Just to be sure, Izumi and Lisa, are you alright?"

As I said, stealing a burst railgun and the carbon armor. Also making sure the enemy pilots are all dead.

[Merilan]

"Come here when you have the time, Adrian -- I'll use the nanomachines to bring the Fluffy up," Yue speaks. She'll go ahead and use the study-type kits and deploy a large cloud of nanomachines once he does, grimacing for a moment.

One day, it kind of feels like she'll be devoured by the machines in her body, but until then...

"That may be so... but it the mystery is still why Rustport," Yue muses. "Unless there were secrets here the Empire absolutely could not overlook. Given the ship and the badge we saw, however, that may be likely."

[DeTess]

"Yeah..ughhh... I'm alive. Bruised all over though." the voice of the former pilot of cruiser 1 checks in over the radio.

"I'm fine." The portmaster's niece's response is as short and devoid of emotion as ever.

The pilot of the rail-gun armed Zaku is still in her cockpit, but she must have died as her mech crumbled around her. Her flight-suit is also clearly an imperial design, however. The other three Zakus have been destroyed so comprehensively that the only way their pilots could have survived is if they ejected, and there's no sign of that.

[Valmark]

"Thanks" Adrian said, parking near the Ophanim.
"The pilot suit was that too imperial, uh. They could've picked this spot because of those here- those "irreplaceable" assets. Although it's just a conjecture"

[Merilan]

"... it's true," Yue answers, looking back towards the convoy. "I think all we can do is bide our time. The more they feel pressured to chase after us, the more information they'll wind up tipping our way. At least, that is my hope."

A pause, as she adds: "I think we need to loop Kameko in on the Imperial discussion. What do you think?"

[Valmark]

"Don't see how it would hurt" Adrian replied "She needs as much information as she can to protect our group. Assuming you mean the portmaster, her niece scares me" he made sure to add that last sentence in a private channel between them two.

[Merilan]

"Kameko," Yue speaks up, perhaps smiling quietly at that last comment of Adrian's. "The strongest pattern we have is of Imperial presence so far - Ouroboros' units had Imperial colouring, Imperial pilot suits, the badge and map we found in the Fujin warehouses, and possibly even more... but the end point in question is still Rustport. Why Rustport? Why does the Empire have interest in this region? Do you know of anything - no matter how small - that might help?"

[DeTess]

"There was quite a bit of high-value imperial hardware here." The portmaster responds to Yue, though she's speaking on the channels hared with all the defenders of the convoy. " Crashed ships, some prototype mecha and the like. But as far as I know, everything of serious strategic value has been recovered decades ago. So if the empire wanted to deny us technology or weapons, they're about twenty years too late." There's a moment of silence, then she speaks up again. "I've been talking to Rief from Revalk's crew about a possible imperial motive. Actually, I'll let him explain this."

A moment later, Rief speaks up on the radio channel. "So, if its not technology, the only other resource of note Rustport has is people. Specifically, there's still a dozen or so people on Rustport that deserted from the empire after that final battle. People who, for whatever reason, decided to walk away from their wrecked ships and merge into Rustport's quickly growing population of salvagers, rather than be repatriated. The empire would have just listed these people as MIA, so its a good escape for those wanting to be forgotten. Of these, only three or four would warrant any kind of imperial attention, and only one would warrant an actual operation or incursion into federation space." Rief pauses for a moment, then speaks up again.

"If this had just been the kidnapping of Bernhard, I'd definitely suspect it to be an imperial operation. But those bombs, and now this attack? It doesn't make sense. If there hadn't been evidence that the kidnapping and attack might be linked I'd say it was two different operations occurring simultaneously by accident."

The portmaster speaks up again. "Revalk told me that he suspected this to be a false flag operation. The bombs and fallout would be pretty recognizable as being imperial, or so he told me. However, this theory falls flat too. The empire isn't known for planting bombs or being subtle. If they wanted this colony gone, they'd send a fleet. Stork and his crew would have to be in on any attempt to make it look like this colony got bombed by an imperial attack, and Stork is just not the kind of man that would betray the federation like that. Plenty of his crew have family living in the colony as well, so I'm just not seeing them turning against us like that."

"That having been said, I've yet to receive a response to my call for help to the Valiant. I suspect that is because these attackers knocked out or jammed the main communications uplink in Rustport before attacking, but still..."

[Merilan]

"... the strongest theory I have is that there is someone here the Empire wants that they can't just erase off the map," Yue responds after hearing the explanations. "The bombs, the fallout seem designed to smoke us out of Rustport -- using the civilians as smokescreens for a kidnapping operation in the wake of the chaos. They were definitely waiting in lie for us on this route, knowing we would evacuate."

But it's just a theory. "Rief... you mentioned three or four people. Do you have any more information?"

[Valmark]

Adrian mulled on their words pensive.
"I agree with Yue- this all looks it was done in purpose to bait us outside. I fully expect them to frame the Empire and maybe try to respark a war, but there's a secondary objective here. I think I know three of the people Rief mentioned... Which worries me. One of them's alone right now, while we are busy evacuating"
After a bit of pause, he added "I have no personal knowledge of Stork, but I'm fairly sure there is at least one traitor -or a spy- since those at the Federation ship wreckage knew we were coming. There could be more, so I'd be at least weary of Stork, or someone close to him anyway"

[DeTess]

"Apart from Bernhard, the others I mentioned were all reasonably high ranking officers. The only reason the empire would be interested in them is to execute them for desertion. And they wouldn't want to do that badly enough to destroy this colony." Rief replies to Yue's question. "I hope you'll forgive my evasiveness on the issue, but as this whole situation shows, there's still people for who the war isn't done yet. I wouldn't want to put them at risk for something they might have been involved in decades ago. If I had reason to believe this whole plot was focused on them, I'd say more, but there is just no good reason why someone would go to such lengths just to kill the three of... them."

"As for Stork, unless he comes down here, it's out of our hands now. There won't be enough time to send someone up to check on him before these bombs are set to go off." The portmaster chimes in.

[Merilan]

"No, you're fully in the right to protect their privacy," Yue does conclude.

She, too, suspected herself as a reason this all happened, after all... she can understand how these people might feel.

"Still, I believe all we can do right now is continue onward once we are ready..."

[Valmark]

"Then let's just go" Adrian said "The faster we reach the Victory crater the earlier I can rush back. Oh right Zeke, did you see my performance there? I'm good, aren't I?"
As soon as he said that he took to the sky, to check up on the area.

He contacted Yue in private.
"That guy, you knew him right? You ok?"

From now on, assume I patrol staying 30-40 mu in the air

[Merilan]

"... I'm fine. The guy was a piece of work - always did everything to make my life miserable. I guess I'm not surprised he went this way," Yue responds to Adrian. "He'd always try to look for opportunities to make it big, and I guess the Empire was that for him."

[YuweaCurtis]

"Leading us away to kidnap someone that may be in the caravan seems over the top unless it's a person that's difficult to get to otherwise..." He would think then look back within his cockpit. "We may want to take a role call, someone could have done the deed on foot while the mecha where distracting us. I feel more like they want either the town or something else."

"You almost go shot down and got taken off guard... Zeke's reply to Adrian.

[DeTess]

"We're doing a roll call as we check for wounded among the civilians from that encounter." The portmaster responds to Zeke's suggestion. "It'll take a bit of time, but we should know if anyone is missing before we get going again."

[Valmark]

"Well, good thing it was him then" Adrian replied in the private channel with Yue "Hopefully we'll find a way to not kill -or even fight- anyone you care about"

"Yeah, but that almost is important!" Adrian said to Zeke "Hopefully we haven't lost anyone. We'd be dealing with madmen if they were people who send four soldiers to die to kidnap one person... Although they probably thought they could win"

[DeTess]

Over the next half an hour, the convoy slowly reorganizes. Vehicles that where broken in the crash are dragged aside by industrial mecha, while the wounded are treated as best they can be.

Just as the convoy is finishing its preparations, the portmaster contacts the defenders over radio again. "Roll call is complete, we're definitely not missing anyone from those that joined in Rustport, and none of the salvaging crews that joined up later reported anyone missing either. It seems that attack really was meant to wipe us out, rather than to provide cover for something else. That doesn't make me feel any better though."

The remaining journey to victory crater passes without incident. The crater itself is a fairly deep crater with a diameter of a kilometer. A cut has been made in the crater's side to allow vehicles to easily enter and leave. Inside the crater is a small collection of buildings that have laid abandoned for well over a decade, after an attempt to turn the crater's relatively sheltered area into a farm failed.

The portmaster sends several of her people ahead to check the buildings, and they report several minutes alter that the buildings are empty, with no signs that anyone has been there for several months at least. Upon hearing this news, the portmaster start's organizing the convoy and preparing the people of Rustport for a prolonged stay in the crater's shelter.

The shadows in the crater are already starting to lengthen, and people are keeping an eye on the clock as the moment the bombs are set to detonate approaches. There's only 98 minutes left before the bomb in the wreck of the messiah was set to detonate.

[Merilan]

"Yeah. ... there are two people I absolutely want to meet again," Yue answers quietly to Adrian. "People who sacrificed their chances to leave to get me out. I need to repay them."

She listens in on the call, and speaks up, "That's good to hear..."

Once they've started settling onto the crater, Yue eventually disembarks from the Ophanim, looking for the person Kameko sent to take care of the children. She needs to check up on them.

[DeTess]

It takes a bit of searching, but Yue eventually finds the kids at a couple of trucks laden with supplies. The older kids are helping some of the portmaster's people with handing out food, water and camping equipment, while the younger ones are sitting in a corner, talking quietly or just looking around. They are definitely quieter than Yue is used to, but that's not surprise given all that they've been through in the past hour. Still, they all seem to liven up as they see Yue approach.

[Valmark]

Adrian looked at their new "home".
"I had expected an actual evacuation, for some reason. Uh" he gave a quick inspection with the sensors and then pulled back.
"Portmaster, if we're good I'd go check up on the Latrodectus, see if everything's going well. I can race there and be back in a short time"

[DeTess]

"We should be good here. This place is at least somewhat defendable, so if they did have more trouble to throw our way, they should have doen so before we got here." The portmaster sighs. "I wish I knew for certain who 'they' are... Well, no matter. Go check on Revalk and the Latrodectus."

The Latrodectus is easy enough to find. As Adrian passes by Rustport he can make out the ship's bulk hanging in the air to the northeast of the colony, and as he approaches the ship touches down in a deep crater not dissimilar to victory crater, though significantly smaller in diameter. After a couple of minutes, Revalk appears in the airlock, carrying a large backpack. He waves Adrian over as soon as he spots him.

[Valmark]

When Adrian arrived at the Galm he breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he had been so paranoid for nothing.
Waving Revalk witn the Fluffy, he went to land near him after giving a brief check of their surroundings.

"You'll be happy to know we have safely escorted everyone back... Well, more or less safely. I did get almost shot down" he said in the speakers, unlocking the cockpit.
"Come, hop in and let's go. Staying out here all the two of us isn't the best thing to do"

Hopefully there's no need. Spot/Listen/Search:

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

[DeTess]

"Thanks for coming to get me, kid." Revalk says as he manages to get himself situated in fluffy's cockpit behind Adrian, and the two of them begin the flight back towards victory crater.

As the pass over the site of the attack on the convoy, Revalk speaks up again. "I think I count four attackers in imperial colors, assuming the mecha that left those craters behind where like those two other wrecks. Was there a fifth one that got away?"

[Valmark]

"If there was, nobody saw it. Or spoke up. I was flying low, so I wouldn't know it even with my sensors" Adrian shrugged.
"Why you ask? Also, you may want to take a look at that" Adrian gestured towards the bag containing Bernhard's rapier "I don't want to take it outside, yet anyway, so it is convenient that you can check it out. I'm sure you'll recognize it"
After a bit he added "I'm not accusating or anything, don't worry. I'm just... Curious. And I'll eliminate this conversation from the black box later"

[DeTess]

"Hmmm, just something I was wondering about." Revalk says in response to Adrian's answer about the number of attackers. "During the breakaway war, standard imperial doctrine was 5 mechs per lance, but they might have changed that to the more sensible four the federation and just about anyone else uses."

Revalk carefully reaches out to pick up the bag and draws out the rapier. Revalk lets out a surprised grunt as he sees the weapons hilt. "I'm surprised Bernhard kept this..." He lets out a sigh. "The short version is that Bernhard used to be one of the top imperial mecha engineers, and this is one of several tokens of appreciation and gratitude bestowed upon him by the empire."

"The long version..." Revalk pauses fro a moment. "...that one will take a while to tell. If there's nothing else you need to do though, I'll tell you what I can once we're at Victory crater."

[Valmark]

"Well, our enemies seem to have been an anti-Empire terrorist group, so it makes sense they'd keep this tactic" Adrian said. He was gonna have to confirm with Yue later.

"There shouldn't be much else- I'm not sure my abilities would aid the preparation, given my focus on giant robots. I wanted Rief to be there too anyway" with that he concentrated on piloting.

[YuweaCurtis]

"Be careful," Zeke says as Adrian goes to pick up Revalk.

Upon getting settled I the crater, he would find a good vantage point and get his mech there. At least as a good of a point he could get his mecha to that wouldn't collapse under it's weight. He would them make some coffee in portable coffee maker and eat some power rations. All while still keep look out. He was ready for the long haul, not content to let the others handle it. Perhaps it was one last show of arms to keep them moving or something to make the Imperials look bad and they were fine. They had too little info for him to get comfortable.

[Merilan]

Yue spends a bit of time checking on the children, speaking encouragingly to them. "I know this is scary, but we'll stay together, okay?" She hugs one child who's on the verge of crying, squeezing her gently.

She gently takes out a flower and hands it to her. "Hang on to this for me until we can find a pot for it, okay?"

She helps with some of the handing out of food and water as well, chatting up some of the Rustport denizens to get their spirits up as well.

[DeTess]

The people of Rustport slowly get settled into victory crater. Morale isn't exactly high, but those that have stuck with the colony are generally a hardy lot, and the consensus is that this too will blow over, allowing them to rebuild their lives.

***
After they both return to the crater safely, Revalk leads Adrian up a path onto the crater rim, to a flat are that might have once been a lookout, or maybe just a place for the farmers that lived int eh crater to relax and enjoy the view. Rief joins them shortly afterwards.

"Let's see, where to begin..." Revalk takes a moment to put his thoughts in order. "Rief and me have known Bernhard since we were kids. Our parents where fairly accomplished military officers, which had earned them a sponsorship from house Isental. Basically meant we where a step up from being commoners, but not quite nobles either. Bernhard was an orphan, but he'd been flagged as a genius at a very young age, so house Isental took him in. Contrary to popular belief, not every noble house in the empire was completely blind tot he needs and skills of its commoners."

"Yeah, a good third of them were instead fiercely ambitious, and would do everything to get an advantage, including taking care of their people to ensure loyalty and benefit of any exceptional individuals that might not have been born noble." Rief interjects.

Revalk nods, then continues his story. "We'd meet at social events for the not-quite-nobility, as well as at school, and the three of us became good friends. Me and Rief would eventually follow in our parent's footsteps and join the Navy, while Bernhard attended university. His master thesis involved the development of a powerful and compact new power plant."

"If you where wondering why there's such a large gap in capability between first and second generation mecha, it basically all comes down to that powerplant." Rief adds.

"Yeah. After graduating, Bernhard was given a lead position at a new development lab, focused solely on developing new mecha and weapons." Revalk explains.

"The Hephaestos Skunkworks set the standard for generation 2 mecha before the breakaway war started, and during the war they created advanced custom mecha for special operations and notable aces. Just about all notable imperial aces had a mecha designed by him and his team. Quite a few aces of the federation had one too, either because it was granted to them before they defected, or because the federation captured them from their initial owners. However..." Revalk stops his story for a moment, but Rief quickly picks it up again.

"Me and Revalk pretty much were soldiers by upbringing, but Bernhard wasn't. He was an idealist. He'd designed that initial engine with a whole host of revolutionary civilian applications in mind."

Revalk takes over the story again. "I'm fairly certain he didn't really understand the reality of what his designs where used for. His teams was based on mars, right in the centre of the empire and very isolated from the rest of the conflict, and it was easy for Bernhard to lose sight of the wider implications once he was focused on an interesting new challenge. But in the closing months of the breakaway war a small group of Federation commandos launched a raid against the Skunkworks facilities. Quite a few of Bernhards colleagues died, and I think this served as a wake-up call for Bernhard, about the reality of what he'd been pouring his heart and soul into."

"Bernhard demanded that he be allowed to see his creations in action after that event, and he'd joined the engineering crew of a carrier housing many of his top creations by the time the battle over Avron occurred." Rief adds.

"When that carrier got downed, Bernhard ended up in an escape pod headed down to the planet. And that's where he decided to stay, rather than return to the empire, who would certainly put him back to work on creating weapons." Revalk concludes.

"He also never revealed who he was to the federation authorities for much the same reason. The corporations would be only too happy to make him the head of their mecha design branch, but Bernhard was done making things that people could use to kill each other with." Rief adds with a sigh.

"Well, that's the..."Revalk's voice trails off as he stares off at the eastern horizon, where a bright star has just appeared. "Aw hell..."

"A burn-flare that bright... that's got to be an incoming fleet." Rief squints at the horizon. "And from the direction of the Imperial wormhole, if I'm not mistaken."

Revalk nods. "They'll probably be in orbit shortly before those bombs are set to go off... I'll go warn the portmaster. Things just got even more complicated."


Time-keeping: 20 minutes till detonation

[Valmark]

Adrian listened intently to everything. At the end, there was really only a question.
"How- he didn't finish the sentence, instead looking at the flare that had been shooted up.
"Does that mean they are imperials? Then..." Adrian jumped up "Then the Federation will think it was them! Of course! You said it yourself that the Empire wouldn't use such covert operation- but if the operation ends with them around it'll look like they did it!" he raced outside, planning to board the Fluffy.

*****

The second he was on board, he first tried the shared channel they previously used to see if the portmaster was still there, otherwise he'd just write a message including all the notable IDs- Revalk, the portmaster, Yue and Zeke.
"What do we do? Can't we signal them to stay away? It could spark a new war! Should I try go meet them with the Fluffy?"

[Merilan]

"Don't," Yue answers by the time she climbs back into the Ophanim. "We can't be certain they aren't the main force to complement the vanguard we just handled, Adrian. You would be in extreme danger. Kameko, is the signal still jammed?"

[DeTess]

"I'm not certain." The portmaster replies in response to Yue's question. "I can still get access to information in Rustport from here, but I can't get any contact with the Valiant. However..." She looks off in the direction of the new 'star'. "...if that is an imperial fleet, then either I was wrong and Stork has gone rogue, or we haven't had functioning off-world communication for the past couple of hours at the very least. There's no way that fleet could have just snuck up on Stork, given that there's all kinds of early warning satellites near the imperial jump point. So either Stork knew, and didn't tell us, or he tried to tell us, couldn't get through, and then just moved on to the next entry on his to-do list in case of a large imperial force appearing in the system. In case anyone is curious, that'd be a full retreat to ensure the warning gets out of the system. The federation would never really try to hold Avron, especially with only one small warship in the system to begin with." The portmaster lets out a bitter-sounding laugh.

"As for warning them? I'm with Yue here. There's nothing in this system that could have provoked an imperial fleet to cross the Federation's border as far as I know." As she says this, the portmaster glances at Revalk, who simply shakes his head in agreement. "But if this is the start of an invasion then everything that happened so far could make a twisted sort of sense. I still don't see the point in bombing our colony, but why would an imperial fleet come here in the first place if its not the start of another war?"

[Valmark]

"Revalk said that imperials don't use 4-mecha groups usually... Couldn't the Empire be here to, dunno, make an exchange and Ouroboros is lying to set them up to fall? I... I just don't see WHY trying to kill all of us of! Wouldn't it be better to take the workforce they can find?" Adrian sunk in his seat, silently cursing.
"I guess we'll know the truth soon enough either way"

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke watches the horizon, and lets out a sigh. "Just try to stay calm Adrian. We just need to stay vigilant and do the best with what information we have. If Ouroburos is trying to start a water or at least hate towards to Empire, bring them here would be a way to do it... Though I'm wondering what they would have to say for a fleet to show up. The problem is this is either a plot from Ouroburos, and with the fleet about to show up for the explosions seems the plan is almost complete. Or it is something the Imperials are up to, but details of it don't make sense... Warning them may be a good idea, despite how we feel. Not communicating will only buy us a few minutes anyways."

[Merilan]

"Can we send a message to the fleet without risking anyone, Kameko?" Yue asks, as she listens to Zeke and Adrian. "If we can establish communications with them after they jump from afar, we can get ready if they turn out to be hostile."

[DeTess]

"Hmmm..." The portmaster is pacing now. "There's three places with a strong enough communciations system to be able to reliably reach that fleet. There's the Rustport uplink, which I'll send a message on, but which might be compromised already. Then there's the Latrodectus and the Fujin headquarters ship. The Fujin headquarters ship is the closest of the two, but both of those could very well have been tampered with already. There might also be a way to improvise something with what we have here, but I doubt it."

"There's also the Inferno's emergency beacon." Revalk adds. "It should still be functional, but it can't really send anything more sophisticated than a set of emergency codes. Though one of those is a warning that the ship's reactors are compromised and at risk of a metldown or explosion, which should get the general idea across. But there's no guarantee the empire will actually heed the warning."

[Merilan]

"I don't relish the idea of having to go back Rustport-way with how close the explosion is... Adrian, the Fluffy has the highest speed of our units around, does it not?" Yue muses. "At this point, I don't think we have a choice - both Fujin and the Latrodectus we know to be part of their ploys, after all. It may still be better than nothing."

She looks to Revalk as well. "I think the beacons would be useful too - the signal of something being amiss is better than total silence, in the best case scenario."

[Valmark]

"I'll go to Fujin's" Adrian replied "Going to the Latrodectus at this point would just make me see the explosion from nearer, and Rustport's could be dead if we didn't hear anything from Stork" with that he took off in the direction of the corporation ship.

[DeTess]

"One second, Adrian." The portmaster says to Adrian before he can leave. "First of all, there's a reason we parked that ship a good distance away from here. It might have been rigged up with a bomb, so don't stay there too long. Secondly..." A Fujin employee approaches the two of you and hands a keycard to the portmaster, who tosses it at Adrian. "...You didn't think they'd left the ship unlocked for anyone to run away with, did you? This should give you full acces to the ship though."

As Adrian hurries off to Fujin's ship, Revalk speaks up. "Can I borrow Sparrow 1 from you, portmaster? I need someone to quickly take me to the Inferno if I'm going to activate that emergency beacon." The portmaster nods, and Revalk too goes on his way.
***
Fujin's headquarters ship is a 6 minute flight away for fluffy. The flying office building looks really out of place, standing alone in the middle of a large stretch of desert. The Keycard the portmaster had given Adrian gets him access easily, and the communication room isn't that hard to find. The ship's communication's array is currently linked with Rustport's uplink to save power. Attempts to switch it over fully to its own system are blocked by a request for authentication that the keycard can't seem to bypass.


Valmark, if you'd like to try to bypass the system, roll me your choice of disable device or open lock (either using your int bonus instead of your dex bonus). Alternatively, you could try rolling craft(code) or profession(code monkey) if you happen to have those. Alternatively to those, you could try doing a physical bypass on the system, provided you have tools to do that with. That's a normal disable device check, but is likely to be more time consuming.

Either way, I'd also like to know how close you're willing to cut it before detonation (you have 11 minutes remaining before the bomb is set to go off by the time you enter the com room, and you can make your way back all the way to victory crater in 6.5 minutes).

[Valmark]

ºI totally thought they'd leave it openº he thought taking the key-card before taking off.

*****

Adrian cracked his knuckles, sitting at the desk. Most of the time he was working on robots, so this was half a novelty.
Making sure to check the remaining time, he got to work.

11 minutes and 6.5 to go back means 4.5 of useful time- I'm gonna take 6 and leave 5 minutes to go back. By then I should be removed enough from the explosion, I hope.
If not and Adrian knows that, I'll spend bit less minutes then- just, I don't care of coming back to the colony in time, as long as I'm far away from the ship.

Rolling Disable Device (or Open Lock, they have the same values) with the int modifier instead of Dexterity!

[roll0]

[DeTess]

Whatever extra security had been put in place seems to have been a fairly hasty addition, and it takes Adrian only three minutes to cut through it and get the ship's communications systems working at full capacity. As soon as the system comes online, a message from lieutenant Commander Stork is received, though the time-stamp on the message indicates that it has been sent over 5 hours ago.

The communication system itself is now fully operational, with options to both send messages over the Federation's interplanetary network, or start broadcasting on any number of communication channels.

If you want, I could give you the full text of Storks'message, but opening and reading that will take a bit of time. If you want to try and get in contact with the imperial fleet, there's a number of open channels you could try to use for that. Do roll diplomacy if you're going to try to reach out to them though, in addition to, of course, saying whatever you want to say.


***
Meanwhile the people still at victory crater can see that the star that had come within view a couple of minutes minutes ago seems to have expanded, and a smaller flare seems to have detached itself from the main cluster and is positioned lower, indicating that some ships might have detached from the fleet and are aiming to land directly on Avron, rather than going into an orbit first.

[Valmark]

Adrian opened all the public channels he could find, hoping at least one of them would get picked up.
"Anyone can hear me? Do NOT come to Avron! A terrorist group has rigged everything to explode with imperial bombs! They want to frame you and spark a war! Stay away from Avron, there's only a handful of minutes until the city explodes!"

Can I forward Stork's message to the portmaster? Or download it on the Fluffy? Or any other way to save it for a later reading?

[roll0]

[DeTess]

Even after repeated attempts, all public channels remain silent in response to Adrian's message.


Adrian's self-imposed deadline is coming up. He's got time to quickly grab a copy of Stork's message, but anything else is going to cut into the 'get out of there' time.


***
The single star resulting from the light of the oncoming fleet's engines has now splintered into individual pinpricks of light. There's almost two dozen of them all told, including four that had broken off from the main fleet. These four lights quickly become brighter and turn from a blueish white to orange as the four ships hit Avron's atmosphere and begin their descent.

[Valmark]

"Argh! I need to get out!" Sirthis didn't bother shuttinf down the computer, only making a copy of Stork's message, and run out for th Fluffy to get away from there.

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke watches the sky, though he intermediately checks the surroundings just in case there was still danger lurking on the edge of their new home. "If there isn't something sinister about the Empire being here, hopefully they will listen to Adrian's warning..." He pretty much assumed sending the message wouldn't be the problem, even though this wasn't exactly Adrian's forte.

[DeTess]

***300 seconds till detonation***
The engine burns approaching fleet has turned from distant pinpricks of light into clearly visible plumes of plasma high above the surface of Avron. Then, almost all at once, the plumes disappear, though the largest vessels in the fleet can still be made out, high up in the sky. The fleet seems to have at least 3 capital ships, similar in size to the Inferno, as well as half a dozen more ships that aren't that much smaller.

**256 seconds till detonation***
The orange flares marking the progress of the four ships that dove into Avron's atmosphere have dimmed, and the four ships settle into a formation as they approach Rustport. First are two light frigates, followed by the large boxy shape of a troop transport. Some distance behind these is a light carrier, from which two lances of mecha launch in rapid succession.

***175 seconds till detonation***
The formation of four ships arrive near Rustport. The frigates take up a high position while the troop transport dips down for a landing.

***126 seconds till detonation***
The ships and mecha near Rustport suddenly start moving again, and quickly too, with their engines working as hard as they can in atmosphere. The ships are sticking to their formation, but it's clear they're trying to get away from the planet's surface as fast as they can manage.

***80 seconds till detonation***
The ships in orbit are moving slightly, as the visible silhouettes shrink and narrow. After a moment, the engine flares return, their orientation suggesting that all ships have turned directly away from Avron.

***20 seconds till detonation***
The formation of the four ships racing away from Rustport is broken, with the two smaller frigates leaving the larger troop transport and carrier behind. The ships are now several kilometres above Avron's surface.


***0 seconds till detonation***
Adrian's mecha suddenly gets thrown sideways, as if a second mecha had slammed into it. At the same time, the light dampeners in the cockpit kick in to protect the pilot from the sudden bright flash coming from the direction of Rustport. Fluffy's flight stabilizes quickly again though.

The ships climbing away from Rustport are hit hard by the shockwave as well, but they remain flying, though the mecha get scattered and thrown about quite a bit.

Half a dozen large dustclouds start climbing skywards from the direction of the colony, with the wrecks of the Messiah and Inferno having seemingly been completely obliterated. One of the clouds seems centered on where Rustport itself used to be.

The signs of a smaller explosion can also be seen in the direction of the Fujin office ship.

***1 minute after the detonation***
The refugees in victory crater were spared the worst of the shockwave thanks to the craters high rim. The actual shock of seeing their former home obliterated is also slowly starting to wear off. Some people cry. Others become angry. Many more just sit in stoic acceptance. Very few of those living on Avron are unfamiliar with hardship, after all.

***2 minutes after the detonation***
A voice suddenly speaks up on the radio, being broadcasted on all frequencies and drowning out all other communication for the duration.

"I am ser Kay, currently attached to the second battle-group of the first fleet." The voice is clearly female, and its owner sounds old. "We did not cause this. We came here in pursuit of terrorists responsible for an assassination attempt on the emperor himself, but we never intended to cause harm beyond what was necessary to catch our quarry."

"It seems that we underestimated just how ruthless our enemy is. And for that miscalculation, I can only offer my apologies." she continues.

"As for the one that warned us... Thank you. I hope our reaction was swift enough to avoid being incriminated in this horrible act, but..." Another short silence followed. The speaker clearly sounds tired, and shocked.

"If anyone is still alive down there, I would hear what exactly happened. You have my word that I only intend harm to those responsible for this attack, and I'll provide what aid I can to the survivors."

[Merilan]

Yue grimaces as she watches the scene from the Ophanim's cockpit. It's a horrific sight.

She hurries on down and checks on the children again; calming the ones that are taking the hardest for it. Then the radio hits.

"... this is Yue, from the Rustport defence forces," Yue remarks. "Could you explain more about what your pursuit is about?"

[Valmark]

Adrian took a second to recover from the explosion, stopping to check up on the damage done. As much as it pained to see Rustport in shambles, he couldn't help but smile seeing the Empire ships still standing.

When the message came, Adrian didn't bother with waiting for the portmaster to speak up.
"Hi! Adrian from Fluffy. The one screaming his heart out to not get you all horribly exploded. We believe you. We found traces of an anti-Empire terrorist group -including a known member of it- called Ouroboros' End. They filled the colony with those bombs you like to use and attacked us using robots with your typical color, though they forgot that you use 5-mecha teams and not 4-mecha. Also they used nuclear rounds not meant for this kind of mission... But to someone external it probably won't matter much. You know anything regarding a corporation called Fujin or a ship called Latrodectus? Not sure for what the ship has been used, but the Fujin rapresentatives were clearly in on it. Fairly sure their mission got screwed somehow, since you've got plenty of witnesses, as long as we can get to the Federation before they can get to you"

[YuweaCurtis]

Explosions didn't bother Zeke, at least not ones that should pretty much be free of any people.

He was all for talking, but Adrian was being a bit over excited, perhaps sharing a bit too much. "Perhaps you wanna save some of that information, we don't know who could be listening right now." He was still wary of the empire, but he didn't want to let them know that. Besides, with these open channels terrorist listening was an honest concern.

[DeTess]

"...You're going to have to repeat all that again, preferable a bit slower and with more details." Ser Kay remarks in response to Adrian's explanation. "Preferably in person, too."

"As for your question, Yue from the Rustport defence forces, we were in pursuit of a ship going by the name 'Latrodectus', though in truth it was the Galm, a ship belonging to a notorious group of terrorists responsible for a plethora of attacks within the empire. Also, a group that diplomatic sources within the federation had assured us had been wiped out over a year ago." There's a lot of bitterness in Kay's voice as she speaks. "But given the gravity of their most recent attack, and since the federation apparently can't be trusted with dealing with these murderers themselves, the decision was made to chase them down ourselves and in force. That way, the federation should finally get the message that, if they wan't us to respect their borders, they can't be a safe haven for those conspiring to assassinate our rulers or kill thousands of our citizens."

"Ser Kay, was it?" The portmaster speaks up over the radio. "I am portmaster Iseri Kameko, currently the highest ranking civilian functionary on the planet. If you wish to speak to us in person, I can arrange that. I've got an old imperial emergency beacon here that I'll use to mark a meeting spot, if that's acceptable."

"It is." Kay responds. "I will be escorted by my lance, but they'll keep their distance unless trouble arises."

"Understood, I'll have about a lance equivalent with me myself, as those pilots have played a key role in discovering this conspiracy in the first place." After replying to the Imperial officer, the Portmaster switches to the channel used by Rusport's defence forces. "Zeke, Adrian, Yue, there's a crater about 5 kilometer north of Victory crater that I'd like to use for this meeting. I'll send you the coordinates, please meet me there."

[Merilan]

"Roger that. I would agree to a discussion in person," Yue answers, after Kameko introduces herself and the pitch of a meeting is had. Kameko sends the coordinates, and Yue begins moving the Ophanim in that direction.

The most significant part was definitely 'the group that diplomatic sources within the Federation had assured them had been destroyed'... a third party? They knew of Imperial involvement, of Ouroboros' End, but... what could this third party be?

But something was still not right.

The timing wasn't quite right... and it still didn't explain why Rustport was the target, even with the new revelations...

"I have a feeling Fujin's involvement in this is deeper than we currently know," Yue remarks to Adrian and Zeke. "And... given what that ser Kay said, it would not be the first time a given faction has hired agitants to stir trouble in enemy territory as an excuse to charge straight in. Let us not be too hasty."

[Valmark]

"Fine, we'll talk in person" Adrain replied, and then closed the channels to be alone in order to listen to Stork's message.

[DeTess]

Stork's message looks like an excerpt from an operations log, and it is fairly short and simple, provided you know the Federation's military handbook by heart.


27/6/2839 14:35 SET: Early warning satellites near imperial wormhole have been disabled. Long range sensors confirm the presence of a sizable fleet. Avron colony is unresponsive. According to emergency protocol 56-A-4, I am now assuming that the colony has already been compromised, and therefore I will order the FFSS Valiant to retreat and bring word of this assault to the federation in case the inter-system communications network is also compromised.

If anyone at the colony is still capable of receiving messages, know that the Federation will not abandon you. We will push these agressors back and liberate the colony in time. Hold strong until then.

-LCdr Timothy Stork

[Valmark]

Adrian sighed and contacted the portmaster, Zeke and Yue privately.
"Found a message from Stork. I guess the portmaster was right, he pulled back to tell the Federation and gave some promises to come save us. Does the book really say nothing about, you know, scouting to make sure you are right? I'll forward his message to the three of you. Has Revalk returned?"

[DeTess]

"It does, actually. If Stork had a second ship under his command, he'd have to send one ship to check on the colony, but with only one ship he was obliged to prioritize warning the federation." The portmaster responds. "And before you ask, I don't read federation regulations as a hobby, but when I found out how much of a stickler for the rules Stork was, I decided it would be good to know those rules as well."

"And Adrian, don't worry, Revalk made it back in time."

[YuweaCurtis]

Zeke doesn't speak up until Yue's last bit. He would get down from his perch and head to the meeting spot. "Not too sure about that, but something is definitely off. That or we got really lucky. Still doesn't explain what could be so important here... Maybe we are just the most conviently placed bait. But I suppose if we are bait we definitely need to stay on our toes."

He would chuckle about the bit on reading regulations.

[Merilan]

"... when Stork comes back with the Federation at his back, the Imperials are going to see it as agitation. I don't know about you, but my first priority is the citizens of Rustport - and stuck between a Federation-Empire conflict is the last place I want them to be in," Yue remarks. "But we don't have any mobility at the moment..."

[DeTess]

The meeting spot chosen by the portmaster is a small crater, one like many pockmarking Avron as a result of shots missing their intended target during the breakaway war's last fleet battle. As far as craters go, this one is fairly modest, being less than 20 meters in diameter.

When Zeke, Adrian and Yue arrive, they can already see Sparrow 1 standing at the rim of the crater, while the portmaster is standing couple of meters in front of the mecha. The portmaster waves th three of them over when they arrive. Once they're all gathered around her, she speaks up. "Before I let the imperials know where we are, I'd like to ensure we're all on the same page regarding what to tell them, and what not to." At this, she looks pointedly at Adrian. "I haven't gotten the full story out of Revalk and Rief, but I'm good enough at reading subtext to realize that it'd probably be better if neither of their names came up. The same is probably true for Bernhard. Apart from that, is there anything else you think it'd be better to keep to ourselves?"

[Merilan]

"Well... selfish as it may sound, they may not take well to my former affiliation with the very group they are hunting," Yue admits. "But, I spoke before of how if it would save Rustport, I would gladly do it. Otherwise... I'd like to let them lead the conversation a little - supply and corroborate facts only as we need to."

[Valmark]

"Why looking at me? I've left anything sensible out" Adrian shrugged "They're nice. We saved their lives. Don't see why we shouldn't trust them. Besides, it seems pointless to be prudent when you're meeting them out of your mecha"

[YuweaCurtis]

Seeing the Postmaster, Zeke would disengage and walk over to meet her.

"Wait, you what?" This is the first he heard about Yue being associated with terrorists. He shakes it off, he had no reason not to trust her she's helped out and been a part of Rustport for a while. Still this would make him a bit weary of her. "Well anyways, it's understandable and we don't really have any proof this has to deal with you personally.

He would then listen to Adrian. "Adrian, try to calm down and think a bit. We don't know how nice they are from a brief conversation over a comm. This is an elite soldier capable of communicating well. Also just because we aren't trying to fight them doesn't mean we want to show our hand. Also why are you still in Fluffy if you trust them? Besides we aren't meeting them quite yet. I agree with Yue, we should let them lead the conversation so we can hopefully get some more information while sharing as little as necessary."

[Valmark]

"Meh, do what you want. I'll just limit myself to poke questions then. And I'm in the Fluffy because meeting on a neutral ground with terrorists potentially around the next rock seems like a major bad idea" Adrian said, taking flight.
Opening the channels the imperials used previously he added "Ser Kay, if you see a black robot with a white fur collar flying around, it's one of us on patrol, so... Don't try to shoot me down, possibly"

I'm paranoid, yeah.

Spot/Listen/Search
[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

And as before, Blindsense 120 and Blindsight 30 mu, flying at a height of 40 mu.

[DeTess]

"Well, I can't blame Adrian for being on edge after all this." The portmaster sighs and shakes her head. "Yue, Zeke, I agree on trying to let them lead this conversation. However, I've also got a whole lot of people to look out for, so I'd prefer keeping things as friendly as possible, which means we won't be able to keep our cards too close to our chest. If there's nothing else, I'll activate the beacon and we can have a chat with these imperials."


You fly over empty rocky terrain. You spot no signs of movement, and your sensors don't register anything.

Then, suddenly, as you pass over a narrow gorge, a large jackal breaks cover and dashes after a smaller, mouse-like creature. Apart from that chase though, the terrain around you remains quiet.

[YuweaCurtis]

"Sounds good to me," Zeke says, heading back to Strider. Powering it back up he would have it move back a bit, but would keep the Quantum Generator off. His weapons wouldnt be stowed, but he wouldn't be actively using them either.

[Valmark]

"Uh! A dog- well, a cousin I guess" Adrian exclaimed (after having switched off from the Imperial channels) and descended to spy on it since no threat seemed to be around.

move silently!

[roll0]

[Merilan]

"That's fine, we're in alignment. My priority is Rustport and its citizens, just like yours," Yue answers the portmaster. A pause, as she adds, "Sorry, Zeke. I can explain more to you later if it'd make you more comfortable."

Yue proceeds to disengage as well and head over to the portmaster.

[DeTess]

Adrian carefully moved closer to the jackal. It seemed to have caught the creature it was hunting, and was now bringing it back to the gorge it had come from. Carefully tracking it from the sky, Adrian saw it approach a rusted piece of mecha armor, from which several young jackals emerged. The older creature started tearing its prey appart and tossing the pieces to the pups. Then suddenly, the canines all looked up and quickly took shelter beneath the wreckage.

At almost the same moment, a tight V formation of five mecha flew over the gorge and Adrian. The outer four mechs where in imperial red, but different parts on each mecha had been painted white as well. On one it was the helmet, on another it was a shoulder-pad, The others had white detailing on their legs or arms. The mech flying at the head of the formation had the color scheme of its companions in reverse, with the mech being painted almost entirely white, with only its helmet being colored in imperial red.

***
As the mechs approached the crater, the four outer mecha pull up sharply and spread out some distance away around half the crater's perimeter, opposite to where the portmaster is waiting. The white mecha instead descents down to the crater, and settles down. After a moment, it's cockpit opens, and a figure leaps down to the ground. The figure wears a simple white pilot suit, though even from a distance it's clear that the suit has some kind of exoskeleton built in. The figure removes her helmet as she approaches the portmaster, revealing an old and deeply-lined face, with short grey hair.

"You are the portmaster, I assume?" She says as she stop a short distance away. "And you must be Yue." She nods towards Yue. "I am Ser Kay, the emperor's voice and eyes on this mission."

"Welcome to Avron, Ser Kay." the portmaster responds, keeping a neutral face as she does so.

"Thank you." Kay responds. "However, I don't think either of us have time for an extensive exchange of pleasantries, so let's get to business. What can you tell me about what happened here?" She gestures in the direction of the slowly settling cloud of dust and ash where Rustport used to be.

The portmaster sighs, then explains in short the discovery of the bombs, the decision to evacuate and the subsequent attack.

"You said that one of the bombs was damaged?" Ser Kay asks. "If that's so, it means they must have come from a stockpile of weapons salvaged after the breakaway war. They might even have come from this planet to begin with. And this corporation that worked with Ouroboros' end, they're a fairly major power in the Federation, right? It seems to me like whoever is behind this attempt to start a war has some major power within the federation."


on mecha-identifaction:
Those imperial mechs aren't recognized by Fluffy's internal database. You can roll knowledge(geography) if you want to see if Adrian himself knows something about them.
The silhouettes of the mechs match that of the WeissWritter third generation mech, which is used by the empire primarily for space-born patrols and special forces oprerations. There are some obvious alterations to these, however, including bulkier armor and larger flight engines.
You've seen mecha somewhat like this one before. The empire uses them for long-range patrols and special forces operations. The Ophanim has fairly extensive databases for mecha-recognition, based in large part on data stolen by Ouroboros' end. Your mech identifies these as WeissWritter-HSw/Kay type mechs.

On the IC conversation. Kay certainly has more to say and to ask, but I also want to give you all the time to ask questions and give input as well. If I'm going too fast already, please do say so.