LogStormlight-Jacko-5

Game log for the 2020/12/28 session of Impulse Drive: Stormlight, as taken by Jacko

Drix finds himself being tailed by the Long Watch in Tiberius and they're not being real subtle about it. He heads back for the ship with a quickness after letting the rest of the crew know. He doesn't recognize any of them by name, though he's pretty certain one of them was with Brother Strekred. Drix decides to take the head-on approach and greets him. This particular Watchman is a Duzan, wearing royal blue facepaint.

The Duzan Watchman, Yorzids, tells Drix that his heresy cannot be allowed to continue and they know he's harboring 'the abomination'. Drix tells him that there's always a time to question oneself and he knows what he's doing and not doing. he turns to leave and another Watchman reveals themselves.

Janus and Kyruss are at The Carbon Brick, a dive bar on Tiberius station that's frequented by freelance pilots and truckers. Galileo, a human fixer that janus is familiar with, motioned the captain over and mentioned that there are jobs available for certain commodities that could use more implements for resolving 'labor disputes'. The situation on Poileps is not unique.

Galileo knows that there's a ship laoded with praseodymium that may be soon heading into Eprueg and it needs repairs. If the crew could move the praseodymium off the ship at Eprueg, it'd be a worthwhile score. Janus can take a few hours to think it over and Galileo shows her the numbers. It'd be worthwhile.

Janus and Kyruss head back to the Stormlight and Kyruss thinks base theft of this nature is the sort of work that tends to get bounties put on people. Ember thinks the split is too bad, Franco thinks it's more petty crime that's beneath him. Even so, Kyruss has a bounty but Ozlaf is a long way. He decides to hand him off for a fraction of the bounty itself and the Ceinerth Guild rep, Stoks, is impressed and a bit dismayed that he even bothered to snag this guy. But hey, crime is crime.

Janus finds a job to ferry a arbitrator rep to Poileps, Halley, who needs to get there quickly. He's bringing his wife to the warzone but no judgement, and he also has a bodyguard Mrup named Odaks. The crew is onboard to do a ferry run and they take the job. Halley and his wife board the ship and Madam Halley is unnaturally beautiful, artificially so. Drix is unnerved at this and goes to his bunk to search his soul. He knows her from somewhere but isn't quite certain where and that bothers him.

The Stormlight heads into drillspace for Poileps. Drix brings Ember her meals since she's wary of the passengers. He questions her about her childhood, her memories of that time, to try and determine more about her past. Franco finds Kyruss away from the passengers and explains he has a bounty for him, a man named Alnair that he recognized with Mendi on their last job in Poileps. Kyruss is happy to take the bounty.

Arbitrator Halley is more of a stick in the mud than anything else but his wife is a different story. Madam Halley is weirdly cultured, showing knowledge of Duzan dining etiquette and even speaking Kyruss' native language about 75% correctly, which is very impresive since she lacks mandibles. She is able to handle her own speaking on political influence in the Sierra Nevada and even drops Brother Jericho's name a couple times.

The Stormlight soon arrives in Poileps and is harassed by customs border control once more. They get to the settlement and there's been some rather nasty violence done very recently. Franco raises Mendi and they banter about needing to speak in person to trade information. The goats are a little malnourished and so their sale is a net loss but at least the ship smells better now.

Drix consults the abyss once more in his meditations to try to remember about Madam Halley. He recalls that his Long Watch training days featured a hologram of Madam Halley but she was referred to as Benevolence back then. Halley's definitely tied to the AI somehow.

Franco and Kyruss take the Stormlight shuttle to the coordinates that Mendi has given them and fly map of the earth to get out to the coordinates. They find a biometric scanner rig that seems to recognize Franco and gives new coordinates. Mendi is waiting for them and Kyruss recognizes that there're two snipers hidden in the flora and their LZ seems to have been messed with. It looks like someone dug something into it. Franco avoids it and touches down but, on Kyruss' advice, leaves the engines running hot.

The two confront Mendi and Franco reveals that Alnair is a mole in their organization. He'll take him off their hands to prevent future consequences. Mendi is resistant to giving him up unless there's more weapons in the offering, which Franco clearly doesn't have. Kyruss notes that Mendi also has a bounty on his head, courtesy of the Singing Palm corp, and they could take him out. Kyruss and Franco tell Mendi that he's a wanted man and they could take him instead and the Ceinerth seems to want a fight.

Kyruss goes to town on the snipers with his assault rifle while pinning some of Mendi's tentacles. The two snipers start firing, Franco lands a solid shotgun blast on Mendi and rings his bell. More assault rifle fire from Kyruss helps keep the snipers busy while Franco KOs Mendi with a stun shot from his pistol. Kyruss is at the shuttle and there's covering fire from the bounty hunter, taking out the second sniper, while the infiltrator takes Mendi back to the shuttle.

Janus resolves the contract with the Arbitrator but Drix has some news; Madam Halley is an avatar of benevolence and that means bad things are going to happen on this rock. Janus can't warn Franco and Kyruss about this for fear that sending a signal will cause them to be detected but she agrees. She's looking for work though and happens to find out that Arche, the OTHER cutter crewman that baorded their ship last time, wants off Poileps. He wants to head for Hole In One and though he doesn't relish flying with Kyruss, he'll do it.

Ember's thought strayed to her past when she was in the facility and she recalled Roya, a friend, who discussed escaping. When the time came, Ember didn't heistate but Roya did and was left behind. Ember justified leaving her behind by telling herself that her heart wasn't in it but Ember isn't sure she believes that. There's a vision of a woman who looks like Madam Halley, dressed in Long Watch gear, comforting Roya and telling her everything will be okay.

Franco and Kyruss make it back to the ship with Mendi and find Arche in the brig. Kyruss takes him from the brig to the mess for food while Franco talks to Mendi. He's not willing to budge on Alnair and so Franco turns him over to Kyruss. A security team from Singing Palm shows up shortly to collect. Janus informs Kyruss that Madam Halley is an avatar of Benevolence, which is news to the bounty hunter but he doesn't put it past the being. Singing Palm has no issues with the Stormlight leaving and they're soon back in drillspace heading for Hole In One. Drix and Janus have a conversation about Benevolence and it's clear the Watchman had a hand in Ember's past and would want her back.

The ship arrives in Hole In One and things aren't in good shape. No word from landing control and obvious blast marks mar the buildings and the crew is wondering just how badly things have gotten.