20/11/2019 - The White Star (4)

Disabled Ship

Drent checks the sensors and sees that the White Star has had its engines destroyed but it has also partially decompressed. It has begun to slightly spin and it is moving from geo-stationary orbit into actual orbit of Beck’s World, but very slowly. The reactor has also been damaged and is leaking radiation into space. Main power is down on the Yacht.

Juni (Professor Voslang) is introduced to Orac by Dirk and after an initial bumpy start, they seem to get on well together. Orac is pleased that someone with some intelligence and learning is finally on board the ship.

The G-Band Disturbance Detector

Juni then tells them about her Detector Project. The G Band is a section of electro-magnetic wavelength. It is used in sensor and communication equipment. There are a lot of natural things that cause disturbances in the G Band, the occasional glitch on your sensors or in comms, is a sign of natural sources of disturbances in the G Band. Planets, stars, magnetic fields and radiation are amongst things that affect the G Band.

Her research primarily involves filtering out natural causes of disturbances and try to detect unnatural causes of disturbances. There is a source of this on Beck’s World and it is stronger and happens more often closer to the Ancient ruins.

Her detection equipment involves using a number of Tech Level 13+ special detectors linked to other high-tech filtering systems. It is not hand-held technology, it is best with the detectors set some distance away, possibly in other rooms of the Liberator. She goes off to try to set it up.

What about Bay’s Yacht?

Grant and Drent go to the Medbay and discuss what to do with Bay’s Yacht, the White Star. They discuss sending a recognisance drone over to check the place out.

Dirk suggests they use teleport. The teleport bracelets are flexible and could be attached to an item for teleport. They also work out that the teleport can transport directly to Liberator’s cargo bay.

Cyrus asks if anyone has scanned for life signs on the Yacht. In fact, did anyone do that before the engines were taken out? They realise this is not the case. Dirk feels a little guilty, he assumed that had already been done.

Investigating the White Star

Cyrus goes to the flight deck and scans for lift signs. There aren’t any and there are no organic sources that suggest that there are dead bodies on board. Part of the yacht is decompressed, but the forward section still has atmosphere thanks to emergency sealing doors.

He does detect a reasonable sized object on board that sensors will not penetrate, likely holding some valuables.

The send over a teleport drone and then teleport over Cyrus’s robot drones. They do not detect anything interesting or dangerous. They go to the large item to discover it is a safe built into the ship, in what looks like Bay’s private quarters. They will need to cut it out from the ship and teleport it over to Liberator’s hold, where there is a separate teleport pad.

Bay’s Safe

They attach a teleport bracelet to the safe, but the auto systems cannot detect it as different from the background. Cyrus gets his probe to cut the walls away around it, but even then the auto systems cannot tell the difference between the safe and the ship.

The safe is wired into the ship’s systems via the floor. Cyrus sends the probe down to the next level below and cuts up through the floor, severing all the wiring and connections. The Teleport auto-system is then able to teleport the safe over to Liberator’s cargo bay.

The Rest of the Ship

Cyrus has his probes check the rest of the de-compressed section of the White Star. The interesting parts are mainly Bay’s personal living quarters, which have some expensive additions and modifications. They get the probe to pick up a few interesting expensive toys.

They also find a top of the range auto-doc and arranges for that to be teleported over.

Breaking into the Safe

Once the safe is on board, they consider how to break in. They first try programming the teleport system to teleport one of the walls away. Dirk tries this, but he concludes it’s not possible with the software, there has be a change in atomic structure in order to teleport a specific item. The outer walls are probably different materials, but Dirk cannot work out how to program the teleport to pick up one material.

They eventually get the mining laser that Orac got them and try that. Del uses chain-drilling to slowly cut his way in. He begins the process but it is going to take several days to cut in. After a while, Del gets bored and is still in some pain, so he has a drone take over.

What Next?

After a few days they discuss what to do next. Juni has set up her detector equipment. She would like to go to Regina and report the deaths of all her students. Cyrus points out they could do with going there as Buzz needs medical help.

They ask if Juni will stay with them and operate her detector for them. She is uncertain and asks more about who they are and what are they doing on the Liberator. They go back through their past, including parts that Del does not know about, including the involvement of Mika Hunt and his Tempest operation.

They continue to rest and strip as much as possible from Bay’s ship. There is very little traffic in the star system they are in and no-one disturbs them.

News from Aramis

Grant catches up with news after a communications ship jumps in and beams system-wide updates. He picks up news from Aramis, which includes a fascinating story about Federation ships operating in the Sector. A Federation Destroyer was taken out by a ship of unknown configuration, bearing a resemblance to the Liberator of Roj Blake fame.

The authorities in Aramis have issued a warrant for the arrest for questioning of the Liberator and their crew. They know that Drent, Grant, Cyrus and Del are on board because their identities were recorded on Alell. They have issued Persons of Interest notices against them.

They also have a recording of the sensor image of Liberator, which is now on a watch list.

Getting Liberator Off the Wanted List

They realise that going to Regina is going to be problematic. The current fake transponder will need to be changed. Dirk points out Orac sorted that out last time, looks like we will need to ask him for help again.

They approach Orac and Del asks for a program that will delete all references to the Liberator and its crew everywhere. Orac points out he can only affect computers in the current system and this system is away from the main space lanes. He can affect systems as they jump in, but he needs to be left switched on in order to do that.

Cyrus suggests the new fake name for Liberator could be Tatty Bojangles, but Orac points out that is an unusual name and will attract attention. They resolve on the Lost Widow and Orac changes the transponder.

He also writes a program that will remove information about the crew members being wanted and changes the sensor image that the authorities on Alell recorded of Liberator, so that Liberator cannot be recognised, when they first jump into a system.

Bay’s Yacht is Ransacked

The next day or so is taken up with Cyrus’s drones gaining access to the pressurised section of Bay’s ship to search for more things to steal. They find a cache of weapons and a sex droid. Grant does not want the sex droid brought on board, but Del argues there’s nothing wrong with sex, he’s not had sex for a few years.

When they finally break into the safe, they discover 1 MCr (one Mega-Credit, one million Credits) in cash, another 2 MCrs in rare expensive items like precious metals, 2 MCrs in rare items like Ancient Artefacts and another 2MCrs in illegal drugs and other contraband that is probably worth a further 1 MCr.

Social Experiment

Juni is a little disappointed about the delay, as she would like to get back to Regina to put her affairs in order. She cannot do much about it right now, but after digesting their bizarre story she begins to empathise with them.

She also has an interesting discussion with Orac about her detector system and how to improve it. They seem to get on well. Orac drops a hint that he is happy to be aboard the Liberator as he is conducting a social experiment that helps him meet his needs. He is attempting to reproduce the conditions of a previous situation that resulted in him achieving a number of his research goals.

End of Episode Four