Episode 1: Bark at the Moon

[VennDygrem]

Episode 1: Bark at the Moon

(Or: There's Always Credits in the Banana Stand)

"Screams break the silence, Waking from the dead of night, Vengence is boiling, He's returned to kill the light;
Then when he's found who he's looking for, Listen in awe and you'll hear him... Bark at the moon."

About 72 hours have passed since first receiving the distress beacon picked up by the ship's Comm system. About a day ago, the signal stabilized, though it's still fairly weak. Along with the beacon, however, you began picking up a recording. It repeats on a loop, playing:

"To any ships flying through Fringe space, this is... this is acting captain Tobin Fresner of the cargo-freighter Jamais-Nu. We set out from Rattaset-7 about three and a half weeks ago with a shipment scheduled for delivery at the core world of Erasmus Prime. S-something *kssh* horribly wrong... If you are receiving this message, do not investigate! Turn *kssh*ound, go back where *ksssssh* from, and forget *ksssssssssssssh* million credits! It's not worth *kssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssh*"

From there, the message cuts out for about a minute, after which it repeats again.

[Bozwevial]

After a lengthy pause, Benedict switches the recording off. "Funny how they're playing this message but the distress beacon is still broadcasting."

[skydragonknight]

River plays back the message in her mind. She gestures with her right hand. "Money." Then her left hand. "Danger."

She looks at Noa, waiting for her opinion.

[Childe]

Noa listened to the last cut of near-silence, the sound of a recording device capturing air in motion, and the final click as Benedict shut it off. He said something - "Funny how they're playing this message but the distress beacon is still broadcasting."

"Maybe they can't get to the deck. Maybe they can't shut it off." Maybe they were dead, she was thinking.

"How far are we still from the ship?" she asked. "Can you locate Rattaset-7?" she asked. And "Can we contact anyone there who might have heard of the ship?"

She asked because sometimes you arrived too late. She'd rather they not arrive at all in that case. Rule #2 of investigating was, if it's lethally dangerous, avoid investigating. Rule #1 was, determine if it's lethally dangerous to investigate. She looked at Benedict, waiting for an answer.

[VennDygrem]

(click to show/hide)

Benedict could probably access timestamp information embedded in the recording. Likely it's something he's done before, and something easily enough accessed, so I won't require a skill check for something like that.

Gaining that info, you can make some rough estimates about how long the beacon's been where it is and reference that against where the Jamais-Nu was when the recording was made (about 3.5 weeks journey on the standard routes between the two worlds.

The recording was made about 10 days ago, and you can surmise the general distance to the planet, albeit with a fairly wide search radius. It would take a while to establish a connection with Rattaset-7, and then it might take a lot of work tracking down someone who had the proper information. Knowing Rattaset-7 for a pretty rural, agriculturally-focused world, there probably aren't a lot of records kept of who comes and goes.

In short, the ship is just several hours away, while Rattaset-7 is at least a 75 hour ride and it might take as long to get the information on the ship as it would to fly to it.

[skydragonknight]

While the boss entered caution mode, River was looking for opportunities. "Shouldn't we at least do a fly-by to check for escape pods and see if anyone answers the comm? And even if they didn't make it, Ironfist might be able to salvage some spare parts if it's something simple like a hull breach."

[Bozwevial]

"Looks like this message is...ten days old. Rattaset-7 would be a good three days flight, maybe more, but that whole world is one big farm. I doubt there are many flight records there, we'd be back to asking the old-timers sitting outside an entire planet's worth of bars."

Benedict glances up at River's reflection in one of the displays. "It does seem like the polite thing to do. Mostly because if we hit up Rattaset-7, we'll have to find a refueling station, and I'd feel pretty silly going three days out of our way without at least trying to pad our bank accounts."

[Nanshork]

Ironfist grumbles something under his breath.  They're going to investigate a ship that is most likely full of something that will try to kill everyone, but that's okay because he'll get a chance to grab some spare parts...

[Childe]

"It's not a hull breach," Noa said. Who ever called a hull breach something gone "horribly wrong?". "Fly us by. Do not dock. Weapons ready. Maximum distance while maintaining communications."

"And prepare a course from the Jamais Nu to the nearest station. I'll be in the lockers maintaining my gun."

[Bozwevial]

"Yes ma'am," Benedict says, laying an escape route in just in case. As he slowly eases the ship into hailing range, he murmurs to Ironfist, "Well, look on the bright side. You'll have an entire freighter to pick over for parts."

[Nanshork]

Ironfist murmurs back, "You know this is going to end with somebody trying to kill us.  It usually does."

[Bozwevial]

"Why do you think I fly this ship?"

[Nanshork]

Ironfist laughs and says, "Good point."

[Childe]

Noa returned from the lockers sometime later, rifle slung against her shoulder. Her mind turned over tactics and close calls.

"How long until we're within range? How are our weapon systems looking? Don't get too crolly, Ironfist, but I wouldn't mind getting some parts for those."

(click to show/hide)

Crollies are a quick-skittering rodent on Noa's homeworld, known for their sudden alarm and erratic movements. The phrase is similar to getting antsy or anxious.

[skydragonknight]

River is at the console checking the database. There was always a chance it could a common medical ailment, like 'five-minutes-and-you're-dead' flesh-eating bacteria or brain slug peaceful cohabitation.

She relaxed a bit reading the entries. "It's probably nothing too dangerous, like a loan shark."

[Bozwevial]

Benedict twiddles a dial, frowning. "We should be in range any minute. Guns haven't exploded yet, but give them time, I'm sure they're just feeling shy."

[Childe]

Quite unsuddenly the crew was within range.


"Do not broadcast. No sense in alerting any unfriendlies. Can we retrieve any information about their ship from here? Any metrics?" Metrics were always valuable. If you were salvaging, you needed to know if the ship still had oxygen. If you were investigating a possible attack, it would help to know of any damage to the ship. And if you were playing it safe, you wanted to know if their weapons were still operational, and if they were armed.

[VennDygrem]

You know that the ship is outfitted almost entirely for cargo, from the broadcast as well as from the looks of it; This class of ship isn't a viable candidate for much of anything else. It appears to be a fairly standard cargo ship at that, with no external damage visible and no particular markings other than the ship's designation and name, which match the information from the recording and beacon. Metrics read that life support is still operational, though data is incomplete. Something has definitely corrupted some portions of the ship's data storage.

The only way to get a reliable reading is going to be getting on board and doing it manually with an environmental monitor. Preferably while in a pressure suit. If, of course, you want to board the thing at all.

Benedict, Ironfist:

(click to show/hide)

Both Benedict and Ironfist recognize that certain forms of data encryption can also read as corruption, though they each know this for very different reasons.

Everyone:

(click to show/hide)

It seems that we're lacking a few important skills for this game. I could say that these are covered by existing skills, but some really ought to be kept separate since no other skill quite covers their uses.

I'm going to say that everyone has basic computer knowledge, so most mundane activities are achievable by the crew. Anything advanced, such as knowledge about data encryption, hacking, and similarly higher-level stuff is going to have to be governed by skill use.

On that same note, we're going to be dealing with some shady business from time to time, as mercenaries (of a sort) are wont to do. This necessitates, I believe, an Underworld knowledge skill. Originally I thought maybe Larceny would suffice, but that's dex based and covers more finesse talents. So, there are now two new knowledge skills available: Underworld (Int) and Computers (Int).

For simplicity's sake, I'll say that as a special bonus for having successfully completed the prologue you each gained one extra trained skill. This can be used to gain training in Underworld or Computers, or something else, though I will say that some of you will likely want to train in one of those to appropriately match your backgrounds. They'll also both come into play during this game and will be pretty invaluable as I estimate.

[Bozwevial]

Benedict runs the ship's scanners over the Jamais-Nu. "Definitely a cargo freighter. You'd have to do some serious retrofitting to get that model to do anything else. She doesn't look so much as scratched; life support is still online. Parts of the data stream are corrupted, though. Could be any number of things. Faulty emitter array, magnetic field scrambling the drive, crew member overwriting part of the ship's memory with his erotic novel, maybe an encryption protocol. That's a fairly standard trick." The trick was to be vague enough that they assumed you were talking about being a lawyer and not, for instance, an Epsilon agent. It was an excellent lie, in that it was not, strictly speaking, a lie, and was also, speaking strictly, true.

"We'll have to do a manual environmental scan if you want more answers. I think the pressure suits should be safe now, the epoxy's had long enough to set."

[Childe]

"You know just how to comfort, Benedict," Noa said dryly.

"Well, we haven't been sucked in and crushed, and we haven't seen any small craft deploy. So we can rule out black holes, and we at least know that if it was attacked, whoever attacked is long gone, still onboard, or one stealthy cicada. Which brings the obvious discussion: we decided to investigate; and there isn't a clear sign of danger, though I don't like the air around this; so if we're continuing, we need to decide who will stay back to keep the ship in case anything goes awry. Good news is that if they are onboard, we're in for a big welcome, I imagine. They'd have to have someone in the hangar, same as we'd be." Hangar was one of the first words she learned in her new life.