Episode 106. Part 3
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It takes two days to line up the cargo and the containers, coordinating everything with the Feds. Once everything’s secured and signed for, we’ll take off for Hera. It’s only a short hop, relatively speaking, just six hours away.
During the layover, Christian takes in the sights on the dirt, keeping an eye out for military personnel. There are a lot of them about, given the nature of recent events and Christian narrows his search down to a particular category: the highest ranking personnel he’d have a shot with, who look to be in need of a sympathetic ear. Christian intends to latch onto an individual that fits the bill and chat him or her up, angling for access to the O clubs and the USOs, the better to increase the pool of candidates.
He has to walk a fine line doing this: he’s not a licensed Companion anymore, and flat-out prostitution is illegal. The risk of being hauled in for solicitation is real. However, if it was simply two consenting adults agreeing to a dalliance, without money changing hands….there’s nothing illegal in that.
His efforts pay off: he finds an individual going about his duties with all the markers of PTSD. Christian takes full advantage of it, being as soothing and flattering as possible. Lt. Cmdr Bond is a navigator for the IAV Gilgamesh, one of the big ships, and Christian arranges some time to be with him when the man gets off duty. Bond shows up and they get to talking. When asked what’s got him so distracted and upset, Bond makes it clear that though he can’t tell Christian everything, he can say that there was a big battle recently and there were…things there that they just weren’t prepared for. He was in the War, and he knows what death and combat are like, knows how to fight people who are willing to die. But this time, it was….different. What he saw, those ships that they lost, it’s…
He’s clearly seriously bothered by all of it.
His own ship. which should have survived virtually attack, was seriously damaged by kamikaze attacks. Kamikaze attacks. In this day and age. Inconceivable…. The complete chaos kept their group disorganized enough that the enemy mopped the floor with them. It’s not supposed to happen like this…
Christian uses all his tricks to soothe the man down, redirecting him to the Yamato.
Bond: What do you want to know?
Christian: Anything you can tell me. I’m very concerned about my relative. Not a close relative, mind, but a relative all the same…who was on the Yamato.
Bond: You’re lucky. The people on the reserve ships are going to be doing only clean-up. If the Yamato is being routed to Blue Sun, which I suspect, because of it’s defensive systems, it’ll be fine. I wouldn’t be worried about your …cousin, was it? Brother?
Christian: (covering) Well, I’m asking because I’d like to send him a wave, or at least make sure that my family knows so they can send a wave, because I’m sure he’s too busy to wave them back. I’d really appreciate it if you could find out for me….? (batting his eyelashes…)
Bond: What’s your brother’s name?
They’re both a bit drunk by this point and though Christian’s mostly faking it, he manages to keep his head and keep this guy talking. He redirects Bond to tell him about Hera.
Bond: I could do some checking for you, but I don’t have all the access in the ’Verse. What I know is a lot of ships are being sent to Hera to replenish what were lost. There is a general military blackout on info, so we’re not making a lot of chatter between ships…because we don’t want anything falling into the hands of people who…
Christian: Oh, of course….like that whole horrible fake broadcast…
Which prompts Bond into recounting rough details of the space battle with the Reavers over Mr. Universe’s moon. Christian is as sympathetic as possible, keeping the man talking and moving him through it as gently as he can.
They end up spending nearly eight hours together, with Bond mostly talking and Christina mostly listening and taking mental notes. Bond doesn’t know anything about the Yamato beyond the fact the ship’s stop on Hera was unscheduled and because of the blackout, he hasn’t any way of finding out why or for what. Christian realizes that there’s little else he can get off Bond, but gives the man the name of our ship and our contact information, just in case Bond needs someone to talk to. Since there’s nothing left to be done, Christian makes sure that Bond has a pleasant evening to remember and takes his leave in the morning.
Christian boards our ship to find us waiting for him.
Christian: Good morning. I should… probably make breakfast.
Arden: We’ve been waiting….(pats his stomach)
Nika’s slumped on the couch over her coffee, and laughs at the comeback.
Christian: Well, I learned interesting things…
Christian rustles up breakfast, talking the while.
Arden: I thought you were trained in that already.
Geez, but Arden’s a snark when he’s hungry. Christian cooks on.
Christian: The Yamato was scheduled to go to Blue Sun, but the trip to Hera was definitely a last-minute addition to their plans. It was added specifically after the explosion [of the factory on Beaumonde]. Also, apparently, the battle that took place in Blue Sun, was more horrible than anything that happened during the War. Apparently they had ships—not fighters with one person inside but entire ships full of crew—willing to crash into flagships, capital ships…
Nika: (over her coffee) That would be commensurate with Reaver activity.
Christian: Yes.
Rina: Um-hm.
Arden: TheReavers don’t usually form fleets, I thought.
Christian: That would be unusual and I didn’t get to go into a whole lot of detail why that happened…yeah, it is.
Nika: I guess it would depend on what they actually found out there and what they stirred up….because, you know, wasps don’t necessarily run about in a big swarm.
Arden: Yeah, but they all protect the same nest.
Nika: They protect the same nest, right. So if they stirred up the wasp nest….
Christian: We don’t know where the battle took place. For all we know, the Alliance fleet went to Miranda and—
Nika: We have no idea what the social structure of the Reavers actually is, considering that the Core has—
Arden: None of us really want to know, either.
Nika: Yeah. Precisely.
Christian: Even a wild pack of animals generally has some kind of ….
Rina: Hierarchy. Some sort of pack mentality.
Nika: If they’ve stirred up some kinda wasps’ nest out there…
Christian: Anyway. So. The Hera stop I think is definitely important. I was vaguely worried that they had dropped off our…person at one of their stations along the way. But I don’t think so—
Nika: I think of all of us, Arden is in the best position of all of us to go in there, take a look around, and see what’s what, and actually be on site if and when they transfer—
Arden: I’m thinking there may be some sort of medical debriefing room at the hospital they may be wanting to be used on… (looks at Rina)… whatever your friend’s name is.
Nika: There’s no way to know what name he’ll come in under.
Christian: It’ll be a private wing with armed guards. Of course, it’ll be chaotic and they’ll tell you that you can’t divulge anything you find out.
Nika: He is an Alliance citizen. They’re gonna have his ident in the system.
Christian: Well, yes, they’ll know he’s a doctor.
Nika: No, no, no, no. That’s not who he is. Retinal scans are going to pop his real name.
Arden: What is his real name?
The Feds would have barely anything on him. He’s a Cortex Spectre.
Christian: I would be, if I were a spy.
Arden: So what should I be looking for, if I’m looking for a name?
Christian: I wouldn’t be looking for a name, I’d be looking for where the Alliance is trying to keep you out of the most.
Nika: If they managed to erase him, there’s not going to be anything in there.
Christian: If he’s there at all.
Nika: It’s a huge leap of faith, there.
Christian: We have very little go on.
Nika: Well, we have four days to fly in and establish ourselves, make ourselves known in the area, before the Yamato arrives.
Tuesday, 30 Aug 2518
Serenity Valley, Hera
Georgia (Huang Long) System
10:30 hrs, local time
We load up our cargo, secure our new containers, and burn atmo for Hera. It’s a short trip, just six hours. Once we land, we start setting ourselves up to be useful to the Alliance.
There are plenty of jobs for volunteers on Hera. Especially at the VA Hospital.
Arden sends his credentials in as a doctor. Christian reckons he can try to get more information the old fashioned way, but he’s going to need a target for that to work. He admits there are times that he wishes he still had his license, he could so do much more with it. Barring that, he’ll have to come up with another angle.
Nika decides to volunteer her services as a Candy Striper, because she actually does have some field medical expertise. Rina will sign up as a repairman because stuff is always breaking down.
Nika sends another quick message to Brian Connolly, a casual request to the effect: Hey, if you’re in the system, there’s a bunch’a stuff going on. If you’ve got the time, look me up. It’s not the usual thing for Nika to wave Brian twice so quickly in succession, in itself a signal that something’s up.
He gets back to her with a real-time response, we’re close enough for it. Nika and Brian type their messages back and forth across the aether. The news from Brian is less than joyous: He and his crew are grounded in the Blue Sun system. No travel in or out is allowed.
Brian: —I’d love to see you, but I’m grounded, officially.—
Nika: —Traffic coming from that direction is pretty amazing. Any chance you guys will get out of port soon?—
Brian: —Well…we might have to sacrifice our communications systems to do so, I suppose.—
Meaning Brian and his crew will be running silent. Meaning there’s a blockade he’s going to have to run.
Brian: —There are things afoot.—
Nika: —Well, you know…maybe I’ll give you a call back later in the week… If I can buy you a new one, it might work out…—
And off to the side, Christian hits on what he can do: he’ll hire on at the hospital as a cook. No matter what else the Feds are going to do to their prisoner, they will have to feed him. Possibly even drug his food. And it’s most likely that, unlike regular patients’ meals going out in batches, his meal will go out individually and under guard. With Christian in the kitchens, we’ll have a man on the inside tracking meals and their recipients. And Christian is actually a good cook. They’d be glad to have him.
And so it goes. We show up at the Hospital. Arden works as a doctor. Nika is a Candy Striper, Rina’s a Ms. Fix-It, and Christian’s a cook. Time passes and we learn a few things while working under the Fed’s noses.
Rina discovers that while the main hospital has an oft-failing power system, there is a wing to the east that has its own power grid. (Which is aptly named the Serenity Valley Memorial Wing. Geez…twist the knife, why don’cha?) She’s also looking to find out if there are maintenance and/or steam tunnels running under the hospital and where they go. They could come in handy during the extraction op.
The hospital has Arden mostly doing corrective surgery, refining the quick and dirty meatball surgery done on the front. A good portion of the patients are victims of burns from ship fires and damage from exposure to space vacuum. All of which are commensurate with injuries sustained in space battle. Even so, most of the people in the hospital are in stable but injured condition. Arden also notices that the Serenity Memorial Wing has requisitioned a number of psychotropic drugs, ones that would be useful for interrogation, that make people …. chatty.
Like that’s any surprise.
Nika sees a lot of patients with space injuries, like Arden’s seen. She also discovers that while the hospital has a regular morgue, there is an additional morgue that is under guard. Why? Not sure. But for whatever reason, this particular morgue is totally off-limits and isn’t really a morgue but a storage facility being used as a morgue.
Christian discovers through working in the kitchens that there are three sets of meals, actually three groups of related meals (and which Christian is asked to help prepare once his talents are noticed). These meals have to be prepared in a certain way: some of them have specific things—like a favorite dish of the recipient—or some meals are plain. Sometimes Christian is told that so-and-so isn’t to have a meal today, and when he asks why, he’s told that the patient is to undergo surgery that day. Knowing the arrival date of the Yamato, Christian takes pains to note any increase of exclusive instructions or additions to these special meals, hoping to pinpoint which group or target is in…or if our target is isolated away from the other patients.
Rina manages to get a rough map of the facility, one based on when the hospital was built. She can already see that there’ve been some modifications made since, but she doesn’t have access to more up-to-date plans. The East Wing isn’t shown in any detail, only showing in the rough. That being the case, there’s no telling if the steam and maintenance tunnels under the hospital haven’t likewise been modified (read: bricked up or otherwise blocked) to deny access to the East Wing.
Saturday, 03 Sep 2518
Alliance VA Hospital
Serenity Valley, Hera
Georgia (Huang Long) System
The arrival of the Yamato’s shuttle hardly makes a ripple in the bustling activity of the hospital. There is but a single injured party, who is taken straightaway to the Serenity Valley Memorial Wing.
We estimate that there’s probably no more than ten active security people assigned to guard the East Wing, based on the meals Christian has tracked for them. Working in three shifts around the clock, that makes for 30 guards total. He’s also noted that they are packing the latest in security equipment and wear security armor, if what the guard detailed to pick up and deliver the food to the Wing is anything to go on. The food is wheeled out of the kitchen on a cart, and the used plates and utensils come back via the same. On the day the Yamato’s passenger arrives, there is an order for an array of Phenobarbital and other drugs for one of the meals.
Arden hears of the order for the drugs, and Christian is likewise in the kitchens when the order is carried out.
At the end of the day, we all go back to our ship and compare notes. Rina asks Arden if he can somehow slip Christian drugs to counteract the drug cocktail ordered for Mike. Arden responds with a flat-out no, remembering the last time we did something like that we nearly killed Jim “J.J.” Jeffries, Potemkin’s engineer. Talk progresses to drugging the guards’ meals as a way to take them out. Syrup of ipecac, that sort of thing. Good try, but the on-duty guards eat off-shift. Besides, any gastro-intestinal distress on part of the guards will point the finger to food poisoning, which would in turn implicate the kitchen staff of negligence or wrongdoing and we’d like to avoid that for Christian’s sake. So…taking out the guards via their food may be right out.
For the moment, we’re short of the information we need to execute a successful extraction op. We know where our target is, we know where the enemy is. And until we have the info we need, we’ll maintain our covers, watch and plan for the best moment to strike.
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