03/12/2019 - Search for the Ancients (1)

Medical Relapse

The next morning Del is at breakfast not looking well when he has an epileptic fit and has to be rushed to the Auto-Doc. Cyrus is forced to spend several hours with him making sure he’s alright.

Grant, Drent and Juni discuss it being time to get out of this system. Juni wants to go to Regina, as she has things to sort out at the University. There are also good medical facilities there.

Recover the Ship’s Boat

Before they leave, Drent teleports back down to Beck’s World by the caves with the aim of piloting Bay’s Ship’s Boat back up to the Liberator. He discovers the boat is locked out and he needs the key. He is able to recover and repair the key from the remains of Bay’s body and use his DNA to persuade the ship to release control.

He decides against going to see if the sniper woman is still alive and flies the Ship’s Boat in to orbit and parks it in Liberator’s cargo bay.

Drent then instructs Zen to set course for Regina. During the jump down time, Drent goes and plays around with the Ship’s Boat, repairing things that are broken and customising things. It is very luxurious with leather seats and a mini-bar. Drent checks for bobby-traps but can’t find any, although he does find a secret compartment with a gun in it.

Call an Ambulance!

Once they arrive in Regina, Cyrus prepares Buzz and Alisa for transport to hospital. He realises that it could be risky moving them away from the Auto-Docs for an extended period of time during the journey to Regina.

Fortunately, they both have expensive medical cover. Grant resolves to call an emergency ambulance to come to Liberator and pick them up, using Buzz and Alisa’s medical insurance codes. This is easily arranged and a fast Ambulance Ship launches at high speed and docks alongside Liberator. They transfer Alisa and Buzz to the Ambulance and Grant goes with them to the Prime Hospital on Regina.

Drent then takes Juni, Cyrus and Del in the new Ship’s Boat to Regina. It’s slower than a Liberator shuttle, but more comfortable and less likely to attract attention. They take Del to a more normal surgical hospital to heal his injuries and Juni leaves for the University of Regina.

Complications

At the Prime Hospital, Buzz and Alisa are taken in for surgery. Buzz has complications during his operation and has a stroke. The Doctors reckon he will have some bad side effects when he finally awakens. They will have to keep him here for a month or so in order to repair the damage to his brain. Alisa is fine and will recover in a few days.

Juni reports back that she has got tangled up into a legal nightmare. There is going to have to be an official investigation into the deaths of the students and she is the main witness so she has to stay. She effectively says good bye, they can use her detector equipment, Orac should be able to operate it for them. She promises to keep their secrets and tells them to look her up next time they are in the system.

Grant sends a message to his father saying he is OK, their financial situation has improved and he has met up with Buzz, who is currently in a critical medical condition on Regina.

What to do about Alisa?

Grant then calls a meeting with Drent and Cyrus to discuss what to do next. They are OK with leaving Juni here. They discuss what to do about Alisa. They don’t want to have to wait for her to recover. They decide to go to see her and try to get information out of her.

She is awake when they visit her in the Prime Hospital. She is surprised they saved her. They have an awkward conversation in which she tells them very little except that she will need to speak to her employers and that in her line of work she is not told more than she needs to know.

She does know that Grant’s Uncle was into a lot of shady things. Grant replies that they have just begun to find this out.

Alisa agrees to tell her employers that she woke up here with no memory of what happened and not mention this meeting. She cannot guarantee they won’t be enemies in the future, but she hopes that they won’t be. She admits she misjudged them. They leave her.

Armour Up

Grant settles Del’s medical bill, although he will need to stay in hospital for a few days to recover and for monitoring. In the meantime, Cyrus arranges to sell some of the stuff they got from Bay’s ship, cashing in about 100,000 Credits, which they use to buy some body armour.

They then go shopping in some specialist armour shops in Regina. They end up buying a number of pieces of armour each. This costs 50,000 Credits. The rest is split 10,000 each as wages and a “bonus”. They have a couple of days of shore leave to do whatever they like.

Back to Aramis

When they pick up Del, he is a bit quiet and slow for the time being, but doesn’t want to stay any longer in hospital. They decide to return to Liberator and head for Aramis, to hand over Vlen’s will and resolve that issue before investigating the Boughene system further.

They fly back to Liberator in the ship’s boat with Drent at the helm, then instruct Zen to set course for Aramis, but plot a jump point fairly far out in the system.

They spend a couple of days relaxing and doing their own things while Liberator is in transit to Aramis. They begin to experiment with the various entertainment systems that they took from Bay’s yacht, as well as the Auto-Chef.

Cyrus spends his time expanding his horticulture, which was originally drugs but has now moved to actual food.

Orac’s Program Works!

When they arrive in Aramis, they again take the Ship’s Boat, which they have affectionately named Trojan Hors, to head for the planet. Its transponder signal resolves as Ships-Boat-1 of the White Star.

Their approach is unquestioned by Space Traffic Control on Aramis. Drent signals his father and tells him they have the will. However, Williams seems bothered that Grant is in the system and gives cryptic instructions for where they can meet.

They prep for trouble but pass through customs without a problem. Looks like Orac’s program has worked and purged their wanted status.

Reassuring William Kennedy

They meet up with William Kennedy, who is in disguise and chastises Grant for coming here when he is wanted. He was questioned by the police about the events on Alell because his son was involved. William told them Grant was just there to search for his late Uncle’s last will and testament.

Grant assures him that the legal situation has been resolved. They passed through customs without incident. William visibly relaxes and takes them to a nice restaurant that he uses occasionally. He is pleased they have the will and it has not been opened.

William chooses to pocket the will and have it checked. He could also use 100,000 Credits and Grant gives him 300,000 Cr from the cash they got from Bay, for which William is very grateful and impressed.

William also asks about their encounter with the Federation Destroyer. They are a little circumspect and say it was just a lucky shot that took the Destroyer out.

William is pleased that everything is OK and leaves Grant to carry on his investigation, while he sorts out Vlen’s probate.

Checking Out Boughene

Once things are resolved on Aramis, the Travellers return to the Liberator via the Ship’s Boat and have Zen set course for Boughene.

Cyrus and Drent, being former scouts who have operated in this area, both know that Boughene is the home of a large scout base, as it is on the edge of Federation space. The gas giant Komesh is a very large planet, with a huge magnetic field and a large radiation output. It also has over 100 orbiting bodies. Vlen’s notes do not say which moon the Ancient Artefact was found on. Looks like they could be searching for a while.

It takes a few days to jump back from Aramis to the Regina sub-sector and reach Boughene. When they arrive in the system, the scout base detects Liberator as it has an enhanced and powerful sensor array. Cyrus is able to fob them off and satisfy their queries without arousing suspicion.

The Search is On

They set course at a normal, Federation maximum thrust speed towards Komesh,, which takes several hours. When they arrive, they try to operate Juni’s Detector equipment, but struggle to do so. They turn to Orac, who was anticipating their enquiry. He has already linked up with the detector equipment and has plotted a course for Liberator to follow that will efficiently scan the most likely moons of Komesh.

Drent executes the course program and Orac displays the G-band detector’s output to the main screen. There are several registered disturbances during the Liberator’s sweep around the planet, which takes a few hours. There is no obvious pattern and Orac has upwards of 1000 possible sources of the disturbances. He puts up another course to check the less obvious orbital bodies of Komesh and try to triangulate the existing data, which Drent again executes.

A few hours later more G-band blips have been detected. Orac has reduced his list of possible locations, but the most likely candidates have still turned out not to be the sources of the G-Band disturbances.

In the Atmosphere!

Orac puts up a third program, which he is sure will narrow down the possible locations to less than 10. Drent executes it and Liberator continues to fly around the planet for a few more hours.

Most of the Travellers are by now bored or asleep. When they assemble again in the morning, Orac has a final report for them. He has been able to work out that the source of the disturbances is not a body orbiting the planet Komesh, but is actually somewhere deep within the atmosphere of the gas giant. That is the only remaining possible location.

The Travellers do not like the sound of this at all.

End of Episode One