Move 15 (Chapter 1.15)

[yhlee]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), evening

[I'm trying desperately to get Mikodez caught up, I promise! If the rest of y'all want to take a bit of a break, that's fine--or if you want to settle logistics, that's fine too. So sorry...]

Mikodez and Istradez [NPC] on Moongray Station, plus HATCHED EGG, ca. 20:50

[continuing from this comment by pengwern]

"I have no idea what would happen if you fouled up the stock market," Istradez says. His eyes are starting to look glassy. "And I'm just as married to the fucking job as you are." He gives forth a sigh and appears to be dropping into semi-slumber when Mikodez's last words penetrate. "We need you as hexarch. Just...maybe less of a psychopathic one? But you don't know about that 'training incident,' either..."

Hmm. Istradez's pulse is becoming too slow for comfort. Better do something about that.

---

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen, ass o' clock Monday

on the Bumblebee/Wasp/Monthra

around 1:00, in the hold of the Wasp

Remi and Alaric have made excellent progress on the conversion of the "Bumblebee"'s hold space into a mothling habitat. Remi has lapsed into a brooding silence, considering Alaric's revelations about what life is like outside of the heptarchate. At this point, however, the moth starts to hum again. It doesn't seem to want to shut up, but at least its humming is quieter--maybe the station hasn't noticed.

Remi looks interested. "Your moth is very talkative--is that usual?" His expression turns sad. "They never talked much in captivity with us. I suppose it's understandable."

around Monday 2:50

Gerae asks Ashari and Sasha, "Should I go back into my room now? I promise I'll stay out of the way. And you have all my lockpicks, so it's not like I can finagle my way out." He glances sidelong at Virmad and Sulen, then adds, "Fluffy especially likes cookies, but she shouldn't have too many of them. She also likes honey-dipped locusts, if you can get any. Some of the food vendors on the station carry them sometimes, but I have to request them special, and they confiscated my supply."

NOTE: For anyone who is not otherwise occupied, it would be a great time to get some rest, or alternately, ask Iawa for stims in anticipation of the morning's activities.

Comments

02:60, back in comms

[zuhrovet]

Sasha returns to the communications room with yet another cup of tea. She does indeed have a first installment of calendrical data from Alaric, but before she starts splicing it into the magistrate's files, she wants to spend some time on physical security. She sets the grid to generate text notifications when various categories of object are brought onto the Wasp, or removed from it: notify Sasha, Ashari, and the Kel for weapons, explosives, highly radioactive objects, and augments, notify Sasha, Ashari, the Kel, and the Rahal about lockpicks and exotic technology, notify Sasha for unauthorized devices with grid capability, and send Sasha and the Kel a list of anything the grid can't identify. She programs the lighting in the airlock to turn slightly bluer when anyone besides a crew member has items in the weapons/explosives/radioactive category, and writes Ankat and Kaliyan a note inquiring whether they'd like audible alerts.

Then she checks quickly on the station security monitoring. She thought she was deeply enough embedded in that system that she'd receive any alerts, and there haven't been any. But it can't hurt to triple-check. [OOC: trying to balance the need not to complicate the Mikodez timeline with due diligence.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[venndaai]

Sulen knocks on the door. They come in without waiting for an answer, but linger in the doorway. "How's it going?"

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[zuhrovet]

"I just set a bunch of notifications for the airlock. The grid should generate a message to you now whenever someone brings lockpicks or exotic technology onto the ship. Let me know if you prefer a different format. And Alaric sent me the first installment of calendrical data. Was that what you were wanting to look at?"

Sasha's music continues playing, softly. Right now it sounds like a thunderstorm, interspersed with dissonant plinking.

[OT: continued GM delinquency]

[yhlee]

[Hey--sorry about that. My seven-day headache is gone, but apparently the med that killed it makes me loopy. Give me a couple hours and I'll try to catch up on pending comments later tonight. I'm so sorry, everyone...--the GM]

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[venndaai]

"I'd appreciate a look at it, yes, but actually, I was thinking of printing myself a gun, and thought I ought to tell you so I don't set off those alarms you're setting up. And to check with you that the kind I pick won't be detected by the station."

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[zuhrovet]

Sasha relaxes slightly. Her record with people lurking in doorways hasn't been terribly good tonight, but Sulen's problem sounds concrete and specific.

"I haven't set any audible alarms-- except for Iawa's tablet, but that's a special case-- but I can note that you're an authorized user."

She continues, "I haven't thought carefully about how to evade the station's scan. We've got more information about their procedures now, and I did pay attention to their sensors. But ammunition is still going to be a problem. Ankat's plan was to print a weapon while on station, then pick up the ammunition via drone transfer. But then you have to recycle the weapon before returning to the Wasp, and you probably don't want to do that in the middle of arresting Remi?"

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[venndaai]

Sulen comes further into the room and picks a chair, guessing that sitting down might put Sasha more at ease. "I don't actually want ammunition," they clarify. "Just something that looks like a gun."

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[zuhrovet]

"I don't understand your reasoning," Sasha says. "The second printer can produce your choice of an unloaded gun, a toy gun, or an air gun. But the second you reveal you have any of those, you're breaking a rule that the station expressed very clearly, and you won't be able to follow through and protect yourself. I watched you sparring with Ashari-- you're clearly trained in unarmed combat. And Ashari, or for that matter Alaric, has weapons that won't show on the station scan. Why isn't any of that enough?"

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[venndaai]

"Just caution," Sulen says. "Ashari won't be with Virmad and I tomorrow. If anything goes wrong, I want to be able to convince Shan that I'm dangerous. She's not a Kel. I won't actually have to shoot her. Which I'm not capable of, anyway. Virmad is a good Rahal," (being honest about their opinion of his reliability feels like it would be a betrayal) "but I can't see him effectively threatening anyone."

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters

[zuhrovet]

Sasha stares at Sulen like they're code that won't parse. She remembers her grandfather, with the solemnity induced by being three or four toasts into a formal dinner, intoning Never draw a weapon unless you're willing to use it. (Or her mother, smiling: Go ahead, sweetheart. Try to follow through.)

"But . . . you're Rahal. That's its own threat, to the entire station. Look, best-case scenario, you and Virmad go to the visitors' quarters before meeting with the administrator, you find either Avrayen or Alaric and me there, we print you a weapon, you have your meeting, the administrator agrees to your demands. Then either you have to find a way to recycle the weapon, or we have to talk to Alaric about chemistry and finding a material you can squash or break down. It's a little complicated, but easier than retrieving ammunition, certainly."

Sasha shuts her eyes for a moment, organizing her thoughts.
"Worst-case scenario without a weapon, the administrator says she needs confirmation from either your superiors or hers, and we have to find another way to sneak Remi and the mothlings off the station. Worst-case scenario with a weapon, she hits the panic button and Teo arrests all of us. Or you've acquired a hostage, and have to drag her back to the Wasp at non-functional gunpoint, with Virmad as your backup."

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters

[venndaai]

“If that’s the worst scenario you can think of,” Sulen says flatly, “then I’ve seriously underestimated your levels of pessimism.”

They lean forward slightly. “Regardless, I don’t think you have the authority to tell me no, so you should help me or else I almost certainly will accidentally set off station security.”

[Future awkwardness on the horizon when the next mission swings around and she does have the authority.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters

[zuhrovet]

Sasha shrugs. "I don't need to plan a response to the scenarios where I'm immobilized and die horribly. Those will proceed just fine without my input. Anyway. Can you find a way to recycle a real weapon in the printer before returning to the ship? Or do you need a fake that's easier to destroy?"

At this point, the incoming call alert lights up. "Fuck. Teo's calling Virmad." Sasha switches the room audio to Teo's call, and checks the station security alerts again, even though she just looked at them four minutes ago.

[For maximum awkwardness, we put Sulen in charge, Sasha as second in command, and Ashari as tiebreaker on the side of havoc.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters [paging Virmad as well]

[yhlee]

[Heh, that sounds like an interesting command setup.

Just so you know where I'm going with the Teo thing, Teo has noticed Mikodez repeatedly lokworing in an attempt to find out more about Gerae, and is choosing to lean on Virmad before escalating matters. Teo will probably start with the "Hey, you guys should keep better tabs on that teenage kid of y'all's" approach.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters [paging Virmad as well]

[pengwern]

[:O it takes a search on /Gerae/ for the station to get suspicious? Mikodez’s other probing earlier about Bokaliand the Pentarchate ships didn’t raise any flags, because they were so off the mark? To sasha or gm, was the arrest of Gerae so hush-hush that his whereabouts remain a mystery for Mikodez? (I’m slightly unclear on whether Sasha’s ability to check up on people extends to all crew members)
I’m about to blame the retrieval on Ashari, and Teo’s message is an hour after the current gate encounter, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

whether Mikodez knows Gerae was arrested

[zuhrovet]

[Sasha told Mikodez that the Rahal had taken Gerae to the Wasp in this message, time-stamped 18:50.

(I think anybody can ask the grid on the Wasp where other people are on the Wasp, though one could probably use a privacy setting to restrict what answers the grid gave. Tracking people who aren't on the Wasp is harder. At least, it's harder if we're assuming the lokwors don't have magic locating-people capabilities when not transmitting, which I'm sort of hoping they don't, because that sounds like a property that could be used against us.)]

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters [paging Virmad as well]

[yhlee]

[Possibly Teo has been of the philosophy that "I should give them enough rope to hang themselves seven times over." ;) --the GM]

[Paging GM]

[venndaai]

[Can I have some wolfly swears? Sulen needs them.]

"(Heptarchatey version of 'good grief'), that's exactly what we need. Can you tell me where Virmad is right now? And can we listen in on this call?"

Re: [Paging GM--Rahal swears]

[yhlee]

[Let's say Rahal swear on variants of "fang" and "claw"?

Also note that I leave at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning as per this post so, uh, I may be out of touch for a while after this evening.]

pricked wolfly ears

[zuhrovet]

"Grid, display Virmad's location on the Wasp map, screen three," Sasha directs. "The audio will play as soon as Virmad accepts the call. This is the communications room, after all. You can tell me how you're going to destroy your fake weapon, while we're waiting."

[I'm assuming Virmad went back to his room?]

listening in

[zuhrovet]

Sasha sets Screen Four to display a constantly scrolling column of "Fuck". It's that or start swearing in Naxorian, and she wants to listen to the call. Mishka has been playing with the Wasp's grid all evening, but she thought he was bored, not incompetent.

[An infinite loop of curse words seems like the right place to leave Sasha for the holidays!

On the hiding-an-unloaded-weapon front, I don't think this is Sasha's style of problem-solving, but one possibility would be to leave it in a box in Remi's office and put police tape reading Do Not Disturb all over the door.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters

[lleullawgyffes]

[fwiw as soon as the call with Teo ends Virmad is going to message Ashari, Sasha, and Sulen to tell whoever's in charge to tell Miki to chill, but if Sasha wants to get in touch with him preemptively, that would probably make sense; Virmad will be pissed that she was listening in, but.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms: tree diagram of potential disasters

[zuhrovet]

[Sasha favors sending Ashari to descend upon Mikodez in person.]

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[vass]

[Between this and the screaming, am I the only one who would totally subscribe to Sasha's Bandcamp feed?]

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[venndaai]

[Definitely not the only one!]

Re: 02:60, back in comms

[zuhrovet]

[Yay, I have reached peak character/self differentiation! (Sasha's music collection is divided into 'things that might be good for karaoke' and 'things I am too plebeian to understand'.)]