Last Voyage of Delilah, Episode 210: Voice in the Silence
Again, not as detailed as I like, but at least the episode's posted.—Maer
Air Date: 08 Oct 2014
Present: Andy, Kim, Maer, Matt, and Terri
Sunday, 29 Jul 2525
New Bruges, Meridian
Blue Sun (Qing Long) system
Afternoon
We arrive at Meridian to deliver our passengers to New Bruges, an expatriate retreat for the deaf. Our passengers have bought into the retreat and will start their lives over in an enclave specifically geared toward those who cannot hear. From the air, there are no obvious signs of technology—no aerials or power supply. The retreat looks like a quaint pre-industrial Belgian village: cottages of plaster and stone, thatch and shingles. It's set on the banks of a wide swampy river and forest hems in the perimeter. There is no airfield or hard pad. There is a cleared area set off to the side and the bare dirt makes it obvious that this is where the supply and passenger transports land. Rachel sets Delilah down on it nice as you please.
Welcome to New Bruges, y'all.
There is the general flurry of activity. Our passengers gather their carry-ons and children and head for the cargo deck. They seem eager to leave, to embark on their new lives. Vikki acts as Steward, helping them gather their things for departure.
Up close, New Bruges looks less transplanted European village and more like Disneyworld recreation on Old Earth. One of buildings around the town common looks to be a little more modern. It looks somehow newer than the others, or at least not as faux-antique. The door opens and a man walks out to meet us.
Valentine greets him and starts on the introductions. The man, the village representative, holds up a tablet and starts his response on it. By it, the crew comes to understand that he is deaf and unlike our passengers, for whom sign language is preferred, text is this man's mode of communication.
Valentine Quick, meet Orson Beam, leader of the Mission of New Bruges and salesman of shares into the enclave.
Beam types a query: Have we seen or had any word of two ships that were supposed to arrive? The Blue Danube and the Crichton?
Valentine says that he has not. Beam apparently can read lips, as it seems he can follow Valentine's answer well enough. He looks disappointed but invites us on a tour of the village. As he leads the crew around the grounds, he types he's expecting the two ships to arrive with 100 more people, from Georgia and Red Sun. Until they arrive, there are only a few people settled in New Bruges.
It was purpose built for the deaf, offering a haven from the hearing world. Technology was also deliberately downgraded in the village's design in order to make it a less visible target to Reavers. There will be no logging or mining industries here. As a result, the village will survive on farming and hand crafts and, of course, the influx of settlers who have paid into the enclave to live here. There is a sense that Beam hopes that Valentine and his crew might offer him the opportunity to sell a few more units … but alas, no. The crew already has a home.
As Valentine acts as the front man for the crew, the others are free to look around and draw their own conclusions. Off to one side busy cleaning up from a construction/repair job is a group of workers. In keeping with the low-tech restrictions, there isn't much in the way of machinery. Poco sees that the workers are dressed differently from the representative and the other villages already there. Unlike the European-based clothing the settlers wear, these workers are garbed almost like Nepalese farmers. How odd. He ambles over to chat them up, offering to share his cigarettes.
Vikki meanwhile is playing the consummate rubberneck, looking this way and that at everything. She notices that there are signs throughout the village of patch-up jobs. The repairs are scattered here and there and she can't be certain if it's merely the elements working their attrition on the plaster or if the damage was from another cause.
True to Beam's description, there isn't any tech visible. It's a world run on fire: lighting, heating, cooking. No power units, no wires. The only tech on the site is found in the unit that Beam walked out of to greet us: a pre-fab model home. The lights are on and a glowing computer screen can be glimpsed through a window.
The enclave isn't very big, so the tour is short. Valentine dispatches the crew to help the new settlers unload their cargo. Vikki helps with the unloading. Still put off by his manipulation of her feelings (however necessary at the time), she 'yes sirs' and 'no sirs' Valentine and keeps him at an emotional distance.
Once the cargo is unloaded, Vikki perks up when she convinces Beam to allow her to install one of her well pump/Sterling engine packages. To allay his fears about the tech luring the Reavers, she tells him she can bury it to reduce its profile. She chooses a spot halfway between the Model Home and the ship and starts digging. She has to use a shovel because there is no backhoe or excavator due to the tech restrictions. She cheerfully puts her back into it. It keeps her busy and out of Valentine's way, two things she really needs right now.
Rachel has a few words with Valentine about him slinging his "woo" around aboard ship on the trip over. She doesn't feel it was quite fair to Vikki. Valentine insists that his private life is his own business and not up to speculation (or debate) with the crew.
Tian sidesteps the issue: she's already told Valentine "I told you so". She has other fish to fry. She offers Beam her services providing IRP plague treatments and vaccinations. She and Poco haul out her clinic unit and set it up close to the ship, at Beam's request. He wants to leave enough room for the other ships he's expecting to arrive. In fact, as she's already treated as many of the passengers we've brought as consented to the treatments, Tian has very few people left until the other ships arrive. She sets everything up in readiness for their arrival. It might take another day or two and then she'll be slammed.
Tian and Vikki spend a good portion of the ensuing day and evening in their separate pursuits. As evening descends, our passengers—now settlers—break out the supplies to cook their first meal on their new world. All the cottage units are stocked with staples but they are carefully rationed out. The plan is to survive by growing crops and fishing the rich resources from the marsh that surrounds the mission. Fires cast their rosy glow from the cottage windows. The crew grab a quick meal nuked in the galley and afterward, Rachel and Poco share their beer and cigarettes around as a way to socialize. Rachel wanders the village, enjoying the sights and silence. It's very quiet and peaceful. It's not a bad way to wind down from a day filled with space flight and work.
Monday, 30 Jul 2525
Valentine chats up Beam and they go to his office in the model home. Valentine notices a few things, namely the computer and some powered lights. Also, he notices a surprising multitude of security cameras.
What need would Beam have for them way out here? And why are they pointed at Beam's office and at a certain door inside the office (looks like a closet door)? There is even a camera mounted at the top of the flagpole (sans flag) planted out front.
How odd.
Valentine doesn't make a big deal of it with Beam, but merely notes them. After his visit, he returns to ship, neatly avoiding Tian (still busy with her container) and Vikki (still busy with that shovel). Instead, Valentine joins Poco on the open cargo ramp, where the engineer is lounging with a beer and smokes. Valentine quietly tells him about the cameras he's seen.
Valentine: You notice those cameras, Poco?
Poco: … No.
Valentine: Indulge my paranoia. Why do they need all those cameras when they don't have power?
That makes Poco take a long and thoughtful drag on his cig. Interesting.
Meanwhile, Vikki is busy digging the hole for her well/power generator. She ends up making a drill to help dig and using it, she encounters something in the dirt. It's a metal barb. Spear? Harpoon? It's not very big and it's a mystery as to why it's in the dirt. On a hunch, she grabs some string and some stakes and grids out the excavation site. Digging carefully and methodically, she finds a scrap of cloth. The fiber is like a spacer's or a soldier's utility jacket—thick, durable, made to wear like iron. What's it doing buried in the dirt? She continues digging and uncovers a strip of … leather? Dried tendon? Flesh?
It's about 5 inches long. Holding it up to the failing light, she can see a hole has pierced it. The puts the barb she's found to the hole but the two don't match up. So the barb didn't pierce the mystery strip. But what did?
As night falls, Valentine watches Vikki working away and it's clear that whatever the young woman had set out to do, she's diverted onto something completely different. Vikki's actually working by lamplight, unwilling to quit when it gets dark, sectioning off another 15 foot square and excavating it carefully.
Midnight arrives and Vikki's still excavating and Valentine finally puts his foot down. What is she doing, he asks her. It's obvious she's not digging a well. She shows him what she's found: the barb, the cloth, the leathery strip. As they talk, she digs and her shovel hits something hard. Something metallic. She uncovers a crudely ground butcher's knife.
It's pitted and scarred and rather creepy, given the circumstances. Nevertheless, Vikki puts her shovel to the dirt and continues to dig. She knows she's on to something, something odd, and she wants to find out what. Valentine has a hard time convincing her to stop for the night but he manages.
Barely.
Valentine escorts his wayward inventor back aboard Delilah to make certain she doesn't try to sneak out.
Tuesday, 31 Jul 2525
Morning
Valentine tells Tian about Vikki's fixation on the dig site and what she's found there. Tian's puzzled: she's what? What is she doing?
Oh and another thing, Valentine adds. What do you think about the cameras that are installed here and there? What are they for? What are they running on if the place really has no power? Tian shakes her head. She didn't notice the cameras and quite frankly, Vikki's current obsession worries her more. She promises Valentine that she'll look in on her throughout the day.
Valentine checks in with Beam on the status of the incoming ships. Any word? No. Beam says he has no radio and has no way of calling them. Sorry.
Vikki doggedly digs and Valentine hands her an ultimatum: he wants the well dug by noon. She promises to deliver it by then and works hard to achieve it. Despite her best intentions, she's distracted by more odd findings. This time, she digs up a whole batch of metal slugs and despite her relative inexperience, she can see right off that they're the slugs of spent bullets.
She puts two and two together and …
Oh no.
At that moment, one of the children from the mission wanders up and asks her what she's doing. Vikki pulls her wits together and offers the kid a chance to help—over there, thanks—and puts a shovel in his hand. Tian comes up to check on Vikki and tries to lure the woman away with the promise of a meal. Vikki explains she's promised Vlaentine she'd be done by noon and doesn't dare stop.
A sandwich, then?
Vikki agrees to the sandwich and Tian brings one out to her. The young woman wolfs it down and continues digging. She also surreptitiously shows Tian the bullets she's found and not to put too fine a point on it, Vikki admits she flat out suspects she's digging into someone's grave. Possibly someone who's died in a hail of bullets. Perhaps this settlement's been raided by armed marauders before. It would explain the scattershot repairs throughout the mission. It would explain, possibly, the artifacts she's been able to dig up so far. And it would provide an explanation for the cameras mounted here.
Tian returns to the ship to find Valentine. When she does, she tells him everything Vikki's told her. Valentine decides to ask Beam about it. Tian goes with him.
Beam listens to the story and says that the slugs were from shooting crocodiles. They are, after all, living in land reclaimed from swamp. Plenty of crocs in the area. Tell the little gal that there's nothing to worry about. Tian plays Bad Cop to Valentine's Good Cop. She smells bullshit and obviously watches Beam with distrust. For himself, Valentine isn't 100% certain that Tian is wrong in her assessment. He's not entirely convinced the man is telling the truth either but he can't be certain. The tablet Beam uses to communicate hides a wealth of cues that Valentine would normally use to gauge someone's veracity.
Valentine had to dig for answers in the more obvious way: he calls Beam on his story.
Beam explains.
Valentine and Tian leave and check on Vikki's progress. She's still digging away. The kid digging with her isn't really much help, at times putting dirt back into the hole, but Vikki good naturedly puts up with it. Tian grabs a shovel and helps.
Valentine goes on to the ship to find Poco.
Valentine: We ready to go?
Poco: Since yesterday, Boss.
Valentine Thanks. Sorry, but I had to ask.
Vikki slips Tian the odd bit of leather/sinew she's found. Could she check it out in medbay and determine if it's leather or human remains? Please? Tian agrees to do it and sure enough, it is human flesh.
She tells Valentine and they decide to take the mission's boat to the next settlement upriver to check out Beam's story about the crocodiles. Before they can leave, however, Mary Ann Valmont chases them down and says she's found something unsettling on the comms. Tian and Valentine put off their departure to listen to it. Poco and Rachel join them. Vikki keeps digging outside.
Mary Ann fiddles with the dial, hoping to find that odd signal again. Everyone hears it when she finds it: hideous screams and static pour out the speakers, like the souls of the damned being tortured in hell.
Is it a space or a ship based signal? More fiddling with the dials. Yes. Yes, it is.
Rachel, can you boost that signal up, asks Valentine. I can try, she says.
Of course, the signal doesn't sound friendlier when she succeeds. It only sounds worse.
Valentine sighs.
That's it, he says. We're staying. We're not leaving these people at the mission to the Reavers.
Rachel chimes in: she's heard of old spacer tales about Reavers who stalk their targets for days in order to whip up more fear and panic. If you hear this kind of broadcast, you're marked to die.
Can we leave now?!?!?! begs Poco.
No. Not yet.
Tian and Valentine discuss how best to load the mission aboard and taking them with us. Valentine will make the offer but he knows we can't force anyone to come with us.
Poco suggests (against his better judgement!) to jump on the cortex and inquire if anyone else has heard this broadcast. Responses will allow us to triangulate the origin … but that would tip off the Reavers we're on to them, wouldn't it?
Valentine decides to approach Orson Beam first and tell him his suspicions as to the fate of Blue Danube and Crichton. If Reavers are in the area, it's very possible those ships have already fallen to them. Rachel tags along to the meeting.
Beam admits he's been warned of Reaver attacks but doesn't seem too credulous, despite. He's convinced that the PDF is sufficient to protect everyone at the mission. Valentine isn't entirely convinced. As a casino manager, he's good at spotting lies. He's also good at spotting the truth that lies are based on. Observing Beam, he's sure the man isn't being forthcoming.
Valentine tells him he'll talk to the other settlers and warn them. Let them decide what their fate will be.
Back on Delilah, Poco REALLY wants to leave. Tian vetoes him. She's not leaving Valentine. They can't leave without Rachel, anyway.
At the mission, Beam gathers the settlers in the town square and using his tablet, translates for Valentine: Reavers are suspected inbound. Go or Stay? The villagers sign back their answer. Beam translates: They are grateful for the offer but they're not leaving, thanks.
Valentine tries again, circulating personally amongst the settlers. Beam doesn't impede him. He has another settler translate and this sets off arguments with the translator.
Finally one of the settlers approaches Valentine. Is an attack imminent? Valentine tells him he can't be sure but could not in good conscience leave them without giving them the chance to evacuate with us.
The settler is a father. He has family. He asks Valentine when he's leaving. Valentine tells him soon. Valentine asks the father if he'd tell the others about this and those who want to leave are to come to the ship. When the settler goes off to do just that, Valentine goes to another family and tells them the same thing.
Response amongst the settlers is mixed. Some are insulted, thinking it undue bias against their deafness. Others seem prepared to fight off any attackers, clearly digging in to defend what's theirs. And some seem willing to go but are afraid of the cost.
How much is Valentine going to charge them to fly them out of here?
Appalled, Valentine tells them truthfully: not one damned cent.
Valentine lets them think it through and goes back to the ship to inform the crew. Well, all except Vikki. That girl is still digging.
Poco insists we leave. There's a storm coming. Best we get out before it arrives. No, really. See? Clouds!
Tian realizes that Vikki is unaware of what's going on and she runs out to tell the woman what's happening. When Vikki sees Tian, she unloads on the doctor all her thoughts and fears about what she's found. It's a trip into paranoia land … or a really good slasher flick. With Vikki, it can be hard to tell sometimes.
Meanwhile, Rachel lingers in the mission and sneaks up on Beam in his office. She makes a noise upon going inside when the man isn't looking and she sees him react to the sound. Of course, he pretends to be surprised when she approaches him but she's already seen everything she needs to know.
Still, to make it look good, she asks him if he's got protection against the Reavers. Beam says that there's a boat they can all get on, to take into the swamp and hide. She asks about the cameras, listens to his answer, and thanks him kindly for his fatalistic views.
Then she pulls a Columbo and sticks her head back into the office with an inconsequential question—just to verify that he can hear her.
Yup.
Meanwhile, Tian has found Valentine and is busy telling him about Vikki's suspicions on the dig site: how it's the scene of a hasty grave for a prior massacre, of how perhaps Beam or others like him have been luring settlers to the mission for some time, then killing them for their belongings and money, only to clean everything up and sell positions in the mission to a new crop of unsuspecting victims.
While she's wrapping up her report, Rachel comes over and informs Valentine her suspicions about Beam. The man isn't deaf. He reacted to her voice like no deaf person ever.
That sets Valentine and Tian and Vikki arguing what they should do next. Rachel goes to find Mary Ann and asks if she knows about the Reavers. That talk doesn't end well and Rachel stomps off.
Poco takes all this in and makes a mental connection or two. He suggests killing Beam's generator—the one obviously running the office lights and the computer—and watching to see if Beam wants to leave afterward. He'll need someone to distract Beam while he does the B&E. Valentine volunteers to run interference.
Beam is annoyed at the interruptions. Valentine doesn't believe his BS and convinces him to see Vikki's dig. Tian draws Vikki out of the way and asks the young woman why she's so paranoid. Coming from Tian, it's a bit much to take—pot/kettle much?—and Vikki can only sputter that coming from a rough neighborhood, she's seen a lot of the dark that human nature can dish out.
Poco, meanwhile, sneaks into Beam's office and after examining the closet door with the camera aimed at it, he finds that there is a solid metal security door behind it. It's locked with a key pad.
Hmmm….
The obvious way around the keypad is to cut the power to it. To do that, he'll need to turn off the generator. Turning off the generator requires that he find it first. He looks around. He doesn't see it in the office or anywhere he can get to.
He suspects that the generator is behind the security door. He'll need to get past the door to turn off the generator. He examines the security door a little more and finds a lead running from it to the computer. At that point, he tries a hack.
He manages to get past the door. There's a ladder leading below ground behind it. Taking it down, he enters a cavern underneath the office. It's about 15 to 20 feet deep and it leads right to a solid bunker. He can't tell if it's big enough to fit the entire mission or if it's just large enough for one man.
The fact that there's a concealed bunker behind a concealed door with a surveillance camera on it in a place that's supposed to have no power says enough about the situation.
Poco climbs out of the cavern and leaves the office. He doesn't bother hiding what he did or even shutting down the generator. Evidence that the hidey hole has been compromised should be enough to make Beam rabbit.
On Delilah's bridge, the proximity alarm begins to blare. There's a ship incoming in atmo. Rachel warns everyone via comms.
Everyone makes tracks for Delilah.
Rachel sweeps the incoming bogie with sensors. It's throwing off a big EM field. She comms Poco and asks him if he's heard of ships doing this.
Yeah. Reavers. Oh, and he looks over his shoulder at Beam standing there and calmly tells the man that he don't have a panic room no more.
And just to make it clear, Valentine announces to all and sundry that Reavers are coming. Sure enough, Beam starts running for Delilah, leaving all the settlers at the mission without a single thought.
Tian is appalled but she's still able to marshal Mary Ann to help her evacuate the mission.
Poco mentions using the shuttle as a chase decoy to give us more time to evac the mission.
Done!
Valentine runs for the shuttle as he orders the crew to rescue everyone. Just load them onto Delilah and get the hell out.
Poco does some quick work to make Delilah look disabled so the Reavers will pass them by. He does a splendid job and sure enough, the Reavers chase after the shiny lure that is Valentine.
Rachel, Vikki, and Tian are caught by surprise by this move of Valentine's—Rachel was deep in preflight and Vikki and Tian were busy elsewhere rescuing the settlers. Their first indication of Valentine's plan is the shuttle taking off with a roar.
It's suicide, what he's doing.
Nevertheless, the woman stick to the plan and his (final?) orders: they warm Delilah up and they evac the mission.
Beam closes the cargo bay doors and announces to Rachel on the bridge that everyone's aboard, let's go. Rachel doesn't fall for it and verifies with Poco—they aboard?
Nope. It's just Beam, the coward.
Poco draws The Baron on Beam and marches him to the Tiki Bar. Stay there or get shot. Beam stays there. Poco goes down and opens the cargo doors so Vikki and Tian can get everyone inside.
Valentine is flying the shuttle for all he's worth. It's small and nimble but the Reaver ship is bigger and more powerful. It's only a matter of time before it catches up with him. And when that happens …
Best not think of that now.
He jinks and evades and flies like crazy.
Tian gets everyone aboard and shuts the cargo doors and yells down a comm to Rachel to get us off the ground.
The engines spin up and Rachel flies flies flies us out of there.
Tian and Vikki secure the passengers. Some of them were injured in the rush and in the hasty take-off. Mary Ann turns up injured too. Tian and Vikki do what they can.
Valentine pulls a squeaker of an evasion and gets winged by an EM pulse beam. The military shuttle he's flying has systems hardened against that sort of thing so it doesn't go down … But he can't continue taking hits like that. Sooner or later, something's going to fail and odd are, it will be his craft and not the Reavers'.
Rachel, meanwhile, has a plan. She's not leaving Valentine behind to die. She's not going to lose yet another boy while she turns tail and runs. She cannot face Valentine's mother and tell the woman that Valentine is dead.
No sir.
She will pull a pulse burst inside atmo and blow out the Reaver engines. Of course, she's going to have to get close to the Reaver ship in order to do that. She changes course and the hunters become the hunted.
Tian has spent enough time on military ships during maneuvers to feel Delilah change course. Quick as she can, she races to the bridge to find out what's going on While Valentine is off-ship, she's the XO and the next in the chain of command. She gains the bridge. Rachel tells her the plan. Tian doesn't like it.
Neither does Poco. It's insane that Valentine is going off to play martyr. Why the hell is Rachel doing the same?
Rachel argues that Valentine had already taken a hit but cannot sustain another.
Tain argues against Rachel's plan. Poco argues the same. Tian tells Rachel to find a place to hide us. Rachel tells Tian to watch the sensors and tell her where Val is.
Valentine gets hit by another EM pulse beam and the sparks start to fly. His comms go spotty and Rachel can no longer talk to him.
Rachels swears mightily and yells down the comm to Poco. I need that giddy up bar!
Tian belays that order. She tells Rachel that Valentine will bail out and hide.
The two women argue. Rachel resists Tian pulling rank on her while Tian has to fight Rachel's maverick streak. Exhausted by her chronic insomnia, Tian loses the battle and Rachel wins.
She flies for the Reaver ship and yells at Poco for more power. Rachel plans to come up under the Reavers, zip in front of them, then make them veer or damage them with her afterburners.
Tian tries one last time to dissuade Rachel. No go. She tries to get Poco to dissuade her. He can't. Tian finally gets on the comm and starts screaming on the emergency channel for the PDF.
HELP! HELP! HELP!
Poco, amazingly enough, is working like a fiend in the engine room, and shouting through the comms at Rachel the entire time. Stand down, gorrammit woman! You'll get us all killed!
Rachel says quietly that she left Freddy behind. She's not doing it again. Ever.
She turns Delilah around for Valentine's position. Poco screams that she'll kill us all. Rachel turns a deaf ear on his warning and flies on.
To hell or victory? No one knows.
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