Prison Pit

Cell B-005: Paradise Island

Shelnat island, Inversar, Inversar/Flavin, 02:21 local time 149/1106

DM Note: No Allan this week.

Courier in the hangar - click it for larger image!

Alice's eyes roamed over the landing pad, taking in the two guards with the welcoming party, the two hangars - and the slender starship peeking out of one - and the stubby ground-defence turrets around the perimeter. Secure, but not worrying. She continued down the ramp until she was face to face with Rosalie Wallis. "I know we're here to talk business, but I have to say - where's the bath?" Wallis laughed. "You took the words out of my mouth," she said, "let's make you comfortable and we can meet in the morning." Swift introductions were performed, and the eight visitors ushered into a speeder which set off along a packed-dirt road through the jungle.

Shelnat Island - click it for larger image!

As they zipped across the island, Alice Manx and Gripper all noticed various sensor clusters mounted on posts at intervals along the road. Some were larger than others and quite possibly held weapons as well as cameras. Almost too quickly to see, they passed one that had been violently smashed over and ripped open. Manx asked their hostess about it and she waved a hand dismissively. "Sometimes the staff are careless with the speeders, and trees fall in jungles. The maint robots will fix it," she said confidently. There'd been no sign of fire damage or explosive effects, so this made sense.

Across the far side of the island to the landing pad was the leisure complex, where the employees of Tallis based here took their R&R and visiting VIPs were accommodated. Apart from a large, luxurious hotel building there were sports facilites, a theatre/holoma, every kind of bathing and grooming imaginable, and a beach for those inclined to water sports or boating. The quietly efficient robotic staff soon had everyone in adjoining suites, and ready for bed. Alice got her bath as well as a sauna, massage, lobster thermidor and several glasses of wine; Gripper put away a huge kebab and several pints of beer before turning in.

hotel, Shelnat island, Inversar, 10:54 local time 150/1106

The next morning, the command crew gathered for a brief premeeting before their 13:00 appointment with the Tallis people. By prior plan, they discussed the offer from Viator in terms of MCr27 while Martha and Minion swept the suites for bugs, the former muttering all the time at the lack of proper detection sensors. Even with the limited equipment she had, she was fairly sure the place was clean by the time they came onto tactics.

"You realize," said Alice, "that as soon as Maximillian realize what we've done, we're in trouble?" Manx nodded. "We need to disappear," he commented. "The dog was right - we need to lose the ship. Perhaps for something gold-plated, with altars and big collecting boxes..." Gripper shook his head. "So, you'd hide by disguising yourself as you?" he said with a chuckle, "radical." Martha held up the dataslug with her prepared digests of the research data on it. "We need to hide this," she said, "there's a copy on Minion to present with, but I didn't want to leave a copy aboard with none of us staying to guard it." Manx took it out of her fingers. "I'll hide it," he said with such confidence that all doubts vanished. Alice eyed him speculatively. After their traip onto the the surface of Inversar and his confidence in being unarmed, she had her suspicions about his torso rebuild, but she said nothing.

Gripper with Hair

Manx goes Blonde

After a heroic breakfast, there were still several hours to kill, so the cons dived into the hotel's facilities and made good use of them. Manx had his hair coloured as a start towards changing his appearance; Gripper discovered a spin-off of regrowth technology in the hair salon; localized regrowth for the cranial follicles. An hour later, he emerged with a full head of greying dark brown hair plus ponytail covering his distinctive tattoo. Benkin made hasty notes about the changes he was going to have to make to the ID he'd created for them.

hotel & main complex, Shelnat island, Inversar, 12:45 local time 150/1106

At a quarter to one, a polite robot knocked at the door and announced that their ride to the meeting had arrived. a few minutes later they were skimming through the jungle to the main building situated in the centre of the island.

This turned out to be a lavish office and conference complex with acommodation on the upper floor for the employees. Visitor's badges were handed out; Gripper stuck his on with aplomb, Manx dropped his in a pocket and Alice's ended up in a pot plant. A series of soft-carpeted corridors led them to a splendidly-equipped conference room, where sideboards bore coffee, snacks and lunch, and a smaller round table was set aside from the big rectangular board table for a more intimate meeting. Wallis was already seated, along with Paul Highsmith and two others; the Station Director Bella Bidwell and the Technical Director Nathaniel Dillon.

DM Note: A classic Brooks Special, snake-eyes at the worst possible moment!

After the pleasantries, Alice took a seat as near as possible to a position from which she couldn't be surprised, and unpacked Minion. "You want evidence; we want to leave with money," she said. "Today is when we both get what we want." Wallis lifted a hand. "I know you have said you want a quick payoff, but there are other options to a more progressive deal that you haven't considered," she said, "don't rule one out until we've covered them." She nodded to Alice to begin, and she brought up the first hologram as Manx rose to his feet to begin the presentation - and dried up completely. "I need a coffee," he said with an embarrassed cough, and walked over to the buffet to get one. Alice reset the visuals, reflecting that this might not be a bad thing; it made them look less like trained sales professionals (or possibly conmen) and more like what they were; ordinary joes with something to sell. Manx came back with his coffee and an apologetic grin, and Alice restarted the presentation as he turned to face his audience.

This time he was a little further back, able to see them all, and their numbers turned some switch over in his head. This wasn't a serious-looking businesswoman looking at him a little sceptically; it was an audience! All his old confidence swept over him in a rush, and with a grin and a flourish of his long hands he was off and running.

The presentation had been carefully crafted to leave out critical information, but show all the stages of the research that had led to the successful development of the terbium hull grid, from the grinding and preparation of the Monazite ore the cons had all spent the last four years hacking out of the ground, the refining and processing of the metal, the drawing of the filaments for the grid, and the building of test rigs around wooden dummy 'starships' ten inches long. After some debate, they'd left in the nasty sequence where the scientists discovered the hard way that the grid needed to be a different shape from the usual Lanthanum ones. The terrible screams as three scientists were sucked into jumpspace and a horrible death echoed through a suddenly quiet room. But Manx had been right; the tragedy served to contrast the triumph as their successors painstakingly worked out the correct shape, and finally the last rig - the one the cons had seen the day they escaped - shimmered on the edge of reality as the telemetry equipment confirmed it was ready to make a clean transition into the Jump-1 level of hyperspace. With the scientists capering and embracing, the presentation ended. Alice closed Minion with a click, and looked up.

Dillon

Dillon was practically dribbling with eagerness, and the other three wore expressions of intense interest. Pulling himself together, he peeled off a couple of intensely technical questions, and seemed satisfied when it became apparent that none of the cons had any idea of the answers. Wallis looked at him to see if he was finished, and he nodded slightly. "What's to stop you," she asked, "going on and selling this to someone else as well?" Alice looked her in the eye. "Enough money," she said levelly. Wallis pursed her lips and changed the subject.

Rosalie Wallis

"We all know that this ... merchandise ... has an unusual origin, and that you as people may wish to avoid unwanted attention," she began diplomatically. "Your first reaction is to take the money and run - but maybe we can help you improve on that. We are a sector-wide company, with all the resources that implies. We can help you disappear. You could stay on Shelnat in luxury for the rest of your lives; or you can head off into the stars and start a new life. Payments of your share of the profits can be fed to you through any number of routes. New identities of the most solid background can be created for you. Are you travellers by nature? I guess you need to lose the ship you came in; it's recognizable. You want a ship? We have ships. You seemed to like the look of the Vanguard class courier in the hangar - we can set you up with one, and you'd really own it." Gripper shrugged. "How would we trust you to keep paying?" Wallis smiled. "We would have a legal contract, which would stand up in a court of law - if either side broke it. We're a sector-wide company; we can arrange really compelling evidence to prove that we invented this." Unspoken was the fact that if their payments found them, Tallis could find them as well...

Veedback

"All right," said Alice, "get down to cases. How much?" Wallis squared her shoulders. "If you insist on a single payment, the most we can authorize is Mcr10; we'd throw in the ship, I think. For staged anonymity, we would treat you as employees with a salary of MCr5 per Imperial standard year, plus a ,01% profit share between you once we go to production. It will take years to recoup, of course, but should you have children they will die very, very rich." The cons glanced at each other, impressed despite themselves.

Manx spoke up. "We'd want a codicil in the contract; we can hadly be held responsible if the process does turn out to be unworkable later. We delivered it in good faith. We're not scientists." Wallis nodded. "It would just end," she said. "Maximillian wouldn't have put Mcr500 on our heads if it wasn't workable," she pointed out. "We'd be happy to stay on here for a month or so, while you check it out - I like it here."

Finally Gripper spoke. "We'd like to discuss this amongst ourselves," he said, "can we have a recess? Perhaps reconvene early evening?" Wallis sat back. "Of course," she said calmly. "It's concert night - we have a holoperformance of Veedback - most of the staff will be over at the theatre. We can talk more then." Alice shook her head - she hated Veedback - but agreed to meet in the evening.

hotel, Shelnat island, Inversar, 16:34 local time 150/1106

Back in their hotel, the command crew discussed the offer. Gripper, in particular, seemed to think the money on the table all he'd ever need. "How much money can anyone spend?" he said. Manx shook his head pityingly. Soldiers, he thought."You know what the weak link is in all this?" said Alice, "the Vargr." Gripper cracked his knuckles. "Maybe something needs to happen to him?" he suggested. Manx shrugged. "Let me talk to him first," he suggested.

leisure centre, Shelnat island, Inversar, 21:03 local time 150/1106

That evening, the command crew and Wallis met again, in a quiet bar outside the theatre where they could hear themselves speak. The idea of a replacement starship appealed to them, and Wallis commented she'd observed their interest in the sleek courier parked at the landing bay. "You would be welcome to one of those; we use them as couriers within the company. They're fast, but big enough for you." Gripper chuckled. "Can we take a test drive?" he asked. "I'll arrange it," said Wallis. "We can do away with your existing ship, too," she continued. "If we file a plan and guide her out to jump point with a robot and jump into nowhere, it will help cover your tracks." Alice coughed. "There are four frozen convicts aboard," she admitted. "Their records were scrubbed, so we don't know who or what we have in there, but we wouldn't want to see them dealt with unfairly." Wallis didn't blink. "I'm sure we can find a use for them," she said blandly. "If we stash them for a hundred years or so and then thaw them out, they won't be noticable any more and we can hire them on." A small smug smile appeared. "They'll owe us for low storage, so they'll need to work."

"As you'll be on our payroll," she added, "and have proved yourselves resourceful in getting from, er, there to here with this information, we may have other work you might be interested in taking on; work suitable to you abilities."

"Start the paperwork," said Alice, "and you two have your test drive. I think we have a deal."

Pad and orbit, Shelnat island, Inversar, 9:40 local time 151/1106

DM Note: Click here for stats of the Vanguard.

Manx and Gripper walked around the outside of the Vanguard, admiring her sleek lines. "It's a lot smaller," said Gripper doubtfully. Rosalie Wallis and the pilot had met them at the hangar, and ushered them aboard through the rear drop-ramp. Though small, the ship was well-designed, with two staterooms and four bunks forward, as well as a generous common area and a lavish diplomatic communications centre. The bridge had several consoles, all holodynamic and adjustable to control any of the ship's functions. For armament, she had neat defensive sand dispensers clustered under the nose and twin lasers in a trim dorsal turret. Somehow, the designers had managed to cram into the tiny sickbay at the stern not only a model FIN-LE robodoc but a single regrowth berth as well. "Cargo capacity isn't much," said Wallis, "you won't be trading cargoes of elephants or wood, but for - ahem - the small packet trade, she's perfect." Manx glanced at the controls. "What's the performance like?" he asked. Wallis chuckled, and gestured at the pilot's seat. "Find out," she said.

Test Flight - click it for larger image!

Gripper took the controls, and noticed that a flight plan to orbit had been laid in. Lighting up the engines, he lifted her off the pad and into the air. Within fifteen minutes, they were swinging around Inversar in orbit and Manx whistled. The IVP would have taken half an hour.

As Gripper performed some agility tests Manx went aft to have a look at the drives. The IVP's drives were about her best feature; but these were a completely different proposition. As they were they were impressive; with skilled tuning, they could be awesome.

Returning to the bridge, he found Gripper looking slightly dazed. "Jump-6," he muttered. "How did they fit six-drives into a hundred tons?" Fast courier was right; no starship could travel faster between star systems. They wandered back to the main deck and eyed the communication suite. "We don't really need that," said Alice, "can it be refitted with two more staterooms back here?" Wallis smiled. "Probably," she said.

main complex, Shelnat island, Inversar, 9:40 local time 151/1106

Zugh

Ueknou

Meanwhile, Alice went to talk to their unplanned Vargr associate. "You got any family, Zugh?" she asked him. The Vargr shrugged. "Father, a brother," he said off-handedly. "Close?" "No, I keep in touch when I can." Alice changed the subject. "What do you earn in a good year?" she asked. "Two, three hundred thou, the Ueknou takes a lot of upkeep," said Zugh, "why?" Alice sighed. "Tallis think you're the weak link in all this," she said 'reluctantly'. "I don't think the future looks good if you don't stick with us. We don't want that; I like you. Come with us. I think I could get you a couple million salary for you out of these guys if you do."

Zugh agreed readily, and made a call to his second in command to tell him he was promoted to Captain as long as he and the Ueknou were out of the subsector as quickly as possible. The vargr ship lifted within half an hour and was gone.

leisure centre, Shelnat island, Inversar, 23:02 local time 155/1106

A week later, progress was good. The Tallis scientists were hard at work on the body of data provided by Tallis. The cons, as well as relaxing, were putting the time and Tallis' excellent library to good use by studying to improve or add to their skills.

The Vanguard had been sent off to nearby Lyrrath for refitting as requested. The Exismolia had been sent off, less the four frozen cons and with a robot pilot and some recordings of the four command crew to play over the radio. Following its' flight plan conscientiously, the robot took the rustbucket to jump point, engaged the jump drives and in an act of unmarked robotic self-sacrifice vanished into jumpspace forever.

On the evening of 155, a second Veedback concert had arrived and most of the island's population had packed the theatre to watch it. Alice, unenthused by the pulsing heavy metal shaking the walls, had elected a moonlight walk instead. Inversar had no moons, so she was forced to settle for starlit, but it was still a nice night. She'd been warned to stay away from the labs - several had customer research going on and the nondisclosure contracts were ferocious - but she got up onto the gentle slopes above the beach and walked along the perimeter of the jungle, making note of the robotic turrets dotted about as well as the sensor posts. A quick check showed that the larger posts did indeed carry lethal weapons. She hiked on for half an hour or so, pistol on her belt and breathing carefully in the thin air of Inversar, with the faint sound of the Veeb drifting across to her.

Suddenly, with no warning, the sound cut off, and the distant twinkle of lights from various of the islands buildings all vanished at once. A brief, faint roar of anger from the frustrated audience in the theatre was replaced by eerie silence. She stood still for a moment, and then a sharp rustling and the crack of a broken stick from the jungle behind her spun her around, hand flying to her holster for a quick draw of her pistol.

	Session Date: 13th July 2011 (194/-2507 Imperial)