Log Entry: 11/03/2519

0530 We just finished the live-fire test at the Grigorii Debris Field. Everything performed as expected, although I need to run up and oil one of the loaders. Lots of room for improvement, but it’s definitely a good start. We’re heading over to Oleksi now.

1030 Brett just briefed us on what happened last time they were on the planet. Looks like they won’t be happy to see us–apparently they killed 20+ pirates last time they were here. Guess this is going to be an eventful visit.

1230 Brett, Seren, and I just finished doing a vulnerability analysis of the Palomino’s ship class, just in case we have to deal with them. We should be orbiting Oleksi in under an hour.

1335 Landing on Oleksi complete. Offloading cargo now.

1430 Unloading completed. Just waiting for payment. Hrm… getting a wave.

1445 That cheong bao ho tze Travis Berkley is trying to kill us!

1455 Had to cold-start the engine–I hope I never have to do that again. Travis decided to launch a couple of SAMs at the ship. Fortunately we were able to shoot them down. We’re en-route to meet up with the resistance forces. That go neong yun duh Berkley landlocked the ship and we had to tear at least one landing gear off taking off. That’ll be several hours’ work down the drain to fix it. I just hope these resistance forces have a decent landing facility or it’s going to be a bumpy landing. On the bright side, Nicole leveled the landing pad’s administrative building and the SAM launcher with the ship’s cannon. Oh crud… the pirates have a gunship in orbit and it’s trying to get a lock. Good thing these mountain ranges seem to block their sensors. Still, I’ll be glad once we’re somewhere safe.

1500 Well, at least they had a magnetic grappler to pull us in. Looks like we’re only missing one landing gear, but it’s still going to be a pain to fix. Looks like they only have three ships here (not including the Pallas), and one of them looks like it’s toast. Hope they have a good plan.

1545 We met with Lt. Wynn and Captain Uijanov. The miners in the primary mine are under siege, and it looks like the “sealant” that we brought along is to be used to gas them (it creates a toxic gas when combined with certain minerals). The resistance is trying to tunnel down to an underground river that supposedly links up with the primary mine. They haven’t found it yet, but they’re working on it. Unfortunately, we need to get the sealant before the pirates grab it. They’re sending down a couple Skiffs to pick it up, so we’re going to try to turn the tables and grab their ships. That should give us a little more of an edge in the future.  We’ll have to take the Mantis to avoid detection. (I’m just hoping the Mantis’ stealth systems are up for it.)

Session Notes: 07/10/2010

Old
• Jason got results from Cortex search on Ace of Hearts
  • Not well known. Little context. The Ace of Hearts apparently has been a straight shooter up until recently. Some hits on anti hacker activity where he p0wned some fools.
• Details from black box
  • There is no inherent statement of being an Alliance project. There is no company information either. In fact, there is only one name referenced at all: “Meinrad”

OOC

• General ship security details
  • Ship life support and manual controls (flight, for example) can’t be easily hacked
    • Life support tends to return to a “default” state if it detects a hacking attempt
  • Data systems, sensors, and certain non-manual controls are hackable

In transit to Oleski (Cont.)

• Jason and Brett spend 2 1/2 days working on the VR weapons setup
  • The system worked well
  • The next enhancement would be integrating the ship’s central computer to include movement projection and similar features
• Jason picked up a physics textbook with accompanying lectures
  • He got one that was written by the head of the Physics department on a university on Osiris (An older woman)
  • It cost 210 credits
  • Contained over 100 hours of lecture time, plus a book and experiments
  • There was also a follow-up course on theoretical physics
• Brett and Jason searched for Jason’s contact Marty Applewood
  • Lots of basic stuff on him
    • Address
    • Posts on common boards
  • Very visible on the regular Cortex
    • Almost so much so that he must have been trying to be visible
  • Dropped off the Cortex a couple of weeks ago
  • His last post was a seemingly incomplete post to a forum
    • It was on a technical forum
    • The response was ordinary, expect that the post had been cut short, there was a spelling error, and his signature had been changed to a Blue Sun logo
• Brett briefed the crew on their last encounter on Oleksi
  • They had previously been contracted to deliver supplies to the orphanage
  • The local pirates were holding the townspeople’s children hostage to force the townspeople’s work in the mines
  • The crew killed 20+ pirates on the planet, then were attacked by a pirate ship (The Palomino) while fleeing.
    • The ship was smaller than the Pallas, but well-armed and fast
    • Bret found a couple of hits on a Palamino from ten years ago, known for piracy during the war, hitting both sides, especially vulnerable civilian targets.
  • The leader of the pirates was Tumbledown Jones
    • Basically took over Oleksi
    • He’s mostly planet-side now
      • Someone else captains the Palomino
    • Travis Berkley oversees the town
    • Shen Li oversees the orphanage (where it’s director Irenei Uijanov seems to be a good guy)
    • Broosh oversaw the mine but probably got shot for skimming.
    • There’s also Jeannie, who is usually in space and handles “networking”.
      • Jeannie has long, slightly curled dark hair, dresses provocatively, knows she’s good-looking, olive skin, light eyes, a bit tall for a woman – maybe 5’9”, 5’9 ½”, he estimates 148-149.
    • There’s a ship called the Brazen Bay.  It’s never logged in when it lands on Oleksi.  It may be Jeannie’s ship but that’s not certain.
  • Other characters on Oleksi
    • Jake – young guy who hooked up with Jones’ crew so he could get on a starship someday.
      • Basically good kid, they found him a job on Beylix working with horses
    • Cole – one of Jones’ goons
      • The only dude who survived the engine exhaust maneuver.
      • In Alliance custody on Beylix.
• More details on Cecilia’s contract
  • She was hired by Emilio Morenas
    • He was a war baron–he bought things cheap after the war, then resold them at a huge profit after the Alliance began stabilizing the economy
    • He owned a small estate on Bellerophon
    • He was also a collector of earth-that-was artifacts
  • The books were currently held by Travis Berkley
    • He was one of Tumbledown Jones’ second-in-commands
  • The books passed from Morenas by Herald Smith (now Pastor Smith)
    • We don’t know the circumstances of the transfer between Morenas and Smith
• At some point, Fu went back to being Xiaoli
  • Possibly triggered by listening to the “music therapy” in her medical records
• Jason, Seren, and Brett researched weaknesses and security flaws in the ship class of the Palamino
  • The Palamino was of a fairly common class of light transports
  • The ship class is a later version of the Knorr Class Light Cargo Transport (Six Shooters and Spaceships, Pg. 78)
  • Major changes to the Knorr 2.0:
    • Speed 6/8 hard burn
    • Loses Fuel Efficient
    • Needs 1 more crew
    • Cargo capacity increased to 240 tons
    • Higher maintenance costs
  • The basic ship (without modifications)
    • Fast
    • Moderately maneuverable
    • No weapons
    • Cheap design (low reliability)
    • Not well-armored
    • Sensor suite is substandard

Wednesday Sep 3rd, 2519

• Arrival at the Grigorii Debris Field
  • Hathaway, Nicole, and Seren did firing drills
  • All the weapons performed well
• We set course for Oleksi
  • Jason fixed some minor problems that were discovered during the live-fire test while en-route
• Arrival at Oleksi
  • We landed at a large industrial landing facility
    • There was a large warehouse-looking building nearby
    • There was a pile of ore nearby
  • A few dock workers came onboard and unloaded the cargo
  • One them was shooting the breeze with Brett during the unloading
  • After about an hour of unloading, everything was off the ship and be accounted for
  • The dock worker went to double-check the ore shipment
    • He also mentioned that we may need to purchase ore canisters
• A few minutes later, we received a wave
  • Brett answered it. An intense-looking man was on the other end of the wave.
  • It was Travis Berkley
  • He was upset about the previous visit
  • Hathaway realized that something had a target lock on the ship
  • Brett asked Seren to trace the lock
  • It was from a surface-to-air missile battery
  • The ship was also landlocked
  • Travis said that in exchange for our ship, he would “only put us to work in the mines”, and gave us one minute to make up our minds
  • Brett traced the signal to the admin building, but he thought that it was bounced from there
  • Seren traced the missile signal and thought it was coming from a nearby ridge
  • Jason cold-started the engine
  • Nicole attacked the SAM battery with the 20-lb cannon
  • Seren broke us loose of the landlock (possibly breaking the landing gear in the process)
  • Brett opened fire on the admin building
  • Another weapon attempted to lock onto us, but couldn’t get a lock
    • Hathaway traced the signal back to something that was trying to target us from orbit
  • Seren brought the ship in an incredibly tight strafing run around the admin building
    • Nicole opened up with the 20-lb cannon on the admin building
    • She pumped 9 rounds into the building, causing it to collapse
  • Hathaway tried to track whatever was in orbit, but couldn’t find it
    • Jason got on the sensors helped out
    • They tracked the signal back to a huge ship in orbit (4-5 times the tonnage of the Pallas)
    • They were attempting to target us with four different weapons systems. They appeared to be using heavy ship cannon
  • Jason checked for nearby SAM sites, but didn’t find any
  • Hathaway started receiving a weak communications signal
    • Jason helped him get it tuned in
    • It was Uiganov
    • He said that they had a serious gunship in orbit
    • He gave us coordinates where he thought that we would be safe
    • He then said “Welcome to the resistance”
    • The coordinates were about 50 miles away in the middle of the mountains
  • Brett probed the gunship in orbit for weaknesses
    • He was certain that, if he had a reliable connection, he would be able to mess with their ship systems
    • He also found out that the ship was “The King of Clubs”
• We arrived at the location provided to us by Uijanov
  • There were a couple of buildings and a large industrial mine entrance
  • The mine entrance had a large blast door that was opening as we approached
  • Inside, it was a big hanger carved out of stone with metal catwalks
    • It was big enough to hold about 3 Pallases
    • They had 3 ships the size of shuttles
  • There were also tunnels heading off in various directions, all sealed with blast doors
  • There were about a dozen people with guns, watching us land
  • There was also a single stern-looking younger man standing with his hands behind his back, waiting for us to land
  • They used a magnetic grappler to bring us in
    • The ship rocked slightly when set down, due to a dead landing gear
• We headed off the ship
  • The leader identified himself as Lt. Haven Wym of the First Colonials (a Browncoat unit) now the Commanding Officer of the 103rd Miner’s Union.
    • He said that he had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander, but he preferred Lieutenant
  • Brett offered to pay them for repair materials
    • He said that first priority was rations, followed by medical supplies, followed by “killing pirates”
  • We were escorted to a nearby office
    • As we were walking through the hanger, Jason checked out the ships
      • One of them was badly shot up and probably couldn’t fly
        • It had no weapons, but had a mount for one
      • One had minor damage
        • It had a single 10-lb cannon with a gunner’s roost
      • The third one looked to be in good shape
        • No weapons
      • There were a couple of small (~50 caliber) weapons lying around near the ships and a nearby weapons locker
    • He told us that the first time the Pallas was there, “Captain Uijanov” was able to rescue his family from the orphanage
    • Jason offered to help with the ships
      • Wym said that his master mechanics was working on something in the mines, but he would introduce him when he got back in the evening
    • He set up a conference call with Uijanov
      • They began a briefing
      • We were located at the planet’s secondary mining facility
      • The second site was not in use when Jones showed up because their primary mining facility had hit a particularly rich vein about 3 years ago (when Jones had shown up)
      • Jones set up control in three regions
        • Central township: Headquarters
        • The orphanage: Source of control
        • The mines: Source of income
      • Uijanov was able to bring sympathetic members of Jones’ crew and town members into the orphanage.
      • When they tried to attack the Pallas first time, they took the opportunity to evacuate the children from the orphanage.
      • Unfortunately, while the miners were able to overthrow the work teams, they didn’t secure the outside of the mines
        • Their primary fighting force was stuck dealing with a siege of the primary mine
      • They were able to take total control of the secondary mine
      • They currently controlled the orphanage and the surrounding area.
      • They had moved the children in small groups into the surrounding hills
      • Their fighting strength was concentrated around the primary mine
      • They had been able to exchange large amounts of ore for small amounts of food and water, but Jones had finally stopped agreeing to that trade
      • Jones still controlled the town and had gotten the overrides for the Cortex
      • Jones had two ships in orbit
        • One was the Palomino with around 3 light cannons and possibly a single-use ship-to-ship missile pod
        • The other was the King of Clubs (Jone’s own ship). They had confirmed at least 4 20-lb cannons per side, with a 20-lb cannon and several light cannons , and some type of energy weapon on the top (Jason identified it as an early, large plasma weapon prototype–not very efficient)
      • They had 25 men in fighting condition and 10 wounded
      • There had several hundred mine workers in the primary mine, that he believed were still alive
      • Brett asked what they had for comms equipment
        • A few dozen short-range comm packs
        • A few satellite phones with men in the mountains
        • Jones would try to shut them out of the satellite, but he didn’t have the access codes to shut them down. He would shut down specific signals, but they would just switch
        • Brett offered to help with this, which he was very interested in
        • They had a single terminal here with intermittent coverage (about 5 hours a day, plus partial access the rest of the day)
        • Uijanov had a portable terminal and a generator, but kept on the move so they couldn’t find him
        • They also had terminals in the working shuttles
      • They believed that Jones remained his ship
      • Berkley had barricaded himself in the mayor’s building
        • Brett asked what their best flight time from this location to the mayor’s building. (To try a targeted assassination)
        • Wym said that the only reason they weren’t bombing from orbit was because the pirates still had the upper hand
      • Brett briefed them on some ideas we had
        • Controlling the communications satellites
        • Targeted assassination
      • Hathaway asked how many pirates there were
        • Before they freed the orphanage there were around 70 men: 15-20 men in town , 15-20 in the orphanage, and the remainder overseeing the mines and ore transport
        • After the orphanage was lost, they believe that Jones transferred more of his crew from the ship to the surface. Their scouts believed that they were keeping ~50 men at the main mine, another 30-40 in the town (number may be way-off), 2-3 dozen elsewhere trying to find the resistance. He also kept some for crew in the ship. In all, between 100 and 120 men.
        • Jason guessed that the skeleton crew for the ship was 5-10 people. Wym believed that they were keeping just a skeleton crew onboard the ship, but he wasn’t certain.
        • They had tried a single assault on the secondary mine, which failed badly
      • Jason recommended that we grab the sealant to use as incendiary device
        • Wym was very interested
        • He thought that we should get it ASAP, as well as the re-breather masks
        • The sealant was banned in modern mines because it created a toxic gas when mixed with certain minerals
        • Jason asked which minerals were needed to make the gas, and they were locally available
      • Uijanov went off to talk to his men in the field about the equipment on the tarmac
      • Wym called up his chief mechanic
      • Wym had a few men in the field near the landing pad
      • Jason asked if the minerals required to make the toxic gas would be available in the secondary mine
        • He believed so, but was reluctant to use it as a weapon
      • Nicole asked if they had mining explosives, which they did
      • Jason asked what Wym’s chief engineer was working on
        • They had been rigging a deep-penetration radar system
        • They believed that there was an underground river that ran close to the primary mining facility.
        • They hoped to evacuate the miners without the pirates knowing it
        • They hadn’t had much success so far
      • Hathaway asked if Edmond Ross knew about the resistance
        • Wym wasn’t familiar with that name
        • Hathaway filled him in
        • Wym believed that it was part of the monthly supply shipment
      • Jason offered medical assistance to the injured
        • All they had was people with medical training and one person with mining safety training, so he was very glad for the assistance
        • 8 of the injured were movable, while the other two may have spinal injuries
    • Uijanov commed back
      • Two of his people (John and Stacy) were within an hour of the tarmac
      • Several transports had been dispatched from the King of Clubs to pick up the materials
      • John and Stacy wanted to move on the tarmac, but Uijanov left it up to Wym to make the final call.
    • Jason asked what weapons they had
      • 3 single-use RPGs
        • Wym was fairly sure that they would all use
        • The planet was the site of a Browncoat surrender
        • There were caches of weapons in the mountains that the Browncoats left
    • Hathaway asked if Wym was with Gronberg
      • He had served under him shortly, but wasn’t there during the surrender

Log Entry: 11/02/2519

1430 Ta Mah Duh. Marty disappeared into thin air. Looks like he was in the middle of a forum post and something happened. It has a few spelling errors and his normal sig was replaced with a Blue Sun logo. If one those kuh wu Blue Sun huen dahn had something to do this, there’s going to be hell to pay. I wish I had more time to deal with this, but I need to start prepping for touchdown tomorrow. I’ll have to take care of it when we’re back in the black.

Log Entry: 10/26/2519

2015 Brett and I just finished up the VR interface to “Stella 2.0″. We’ll see how it looks when we test it in a couple of days. I already have a few improvements in mind, but that’ll have to wait until the next long-haul trip.

Log Entry: 10/24/2519

1315 Got the results of Fu/Xiaoli’s medical record decryption.  It’s mostly medical stuff, nothing overly revealing. There were some brain scans and tentative reports, but no one seemed sure of anything. There was a mention of some music therapy, and Fu seems to have strangely turned back into Xiaoli. I suspect that the music is the trigger that turns Fu back into Xiaoli, but we won’t know for sure until the next time she’s Fu. The most interesting thing in the file was what wasn’t in the file–the file had been edited by “sysadmin2″ just prior to transmission. Someone had something to hide, but we have no idea of exactly what they did.

Log Entry: 10/23/2519

1500 Took another look at the black box today. I was trying to figure out exactly who had it before it was captured, but didn’t really have any luck. There’s nothing that specifically says that it was an Alliance project (or any other company’s project for that matter). The only identifying information is a reference to “Meinrad”… whatever that is. On an unrelated note, I picked up a physics text (with lectures) from a university on Osiris. The download is in-progress right now. Hopefully a refresher course will help me make sense of more of these crazy equations.

Log Entry: 10/22/2519

1730 Just got an alert that the decryption is complete. Time to get up to the bridge and see what we’ve got.

1900 Ok… my brain hurts… I think I’ve got this right, but if I am right, (A) this process completely breaks the laws of physics as we understand them and (B) we’re sitting on what’s left of a 100% undetectable stealth ship. The black box contained a section of equations that appear to describe a stealth system that uses grav drive emissions to fold space around the ship. This completely conceals ALL emissions from the ship–even visible light. Yeah, it seems like something out of a science fiction Cortex show, but their data seems to indicate that they got DARN close before they stopped their experiments (presumably when the Alliance took the ship). It appears that they were slightly out-of-alignment still, but if they had completed their work, this tech might have changed the outcome of the war. As it is, we’re sitting on what is probably the most valuable,  most revolutionary scientific discovery in the last century. Even at partial effectiveness, this thing is incredibly valuable. I’m going to go back to the textbooks and increase my physics knowledge, but I’m thinking that we may be able to make this thing work!