Episode 212: Packages and Pop Stars, Part 2
Well, that explains what the men are after. They must know what Peale is carrying and they don’t want the word getting out. Or rather, whoever hired them to catch Peale doesn’t want the word getting out. And they’re doing it on the sly, to avoid rousing suspicion and giving the Independent movement any ammunition to use against the Alliance. But does that have to do with the Angel Sisters?
Peale admits that due to their song, “Miranda Calling”, the Sisters have credibility that he lacks. He hoped that they could put it on the Cortex. What exactly does he hope to accomplish by doing that, Nika wants to know.
Peale may be from the Core and an MP’s right hand man, but he does have a conscience nonetheless.
Peale: I’ve seen a lot of things. Things that have gone through that I just chalked up…but….(gathers his thoughts) I know they’re people that live out there. Not just…They can’t be that expendable. Something… People need to know that this is what’s happening. This quarantine is unfair.
Nika: She told you to go find out if you could find any support for this stance. Did you?
Peale: Well, has the Quarantine been lifted?
Arden: You’re not answering the question.
Peale: Yes, there are plenty of people in Parliament who think this is the right response: Let the people of Blue Sun die.
Nika: Are they actually arguing about it? Or did you find a nearly unanimous support? What exactly did you find?
Christian: Is this why the Sihnon Faction walked?
Peale: No. This is not why they walked. They are probably…well, it’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been working with Parliament. It’s not as—some of what we do is meet in session but those sessions are mostly done deals. They’re theatre. I’ve talked to other chiefs of staff and aides and liaisons to feel them out. A ‘Here’s what the crazy base is saying, what do you think should be the response to this…’ sort of thing. It’s a little more subtle than—
Nika: Yes. But what I need from you is the bottom line. What did you find in terms of actual support for this versus people who might argue against it.
Peale: I think that…there are few in Parliament who would stand up against Falkan.
Christian: Not for one system of farmers.
Nika: A small system of farmers.
Peale:' Well, Blue Sun is not a favorite amongst the Parliament to begin with.
Nika: Why?
Arden:’It’s all so far far away’.
Peale: She had a good point. It’s a lot of energy for not a lot of return.
Nika: Yet. But that’s because they haven’t actually done anything out there.
Christian: They’re very short-sighted.
Peale: Those are long term projects and those don’t get you reelected.
Christian: Besides which, it doesn’t help that it has Miranda. Which is something they don’t want to remind people of.
Peale: There are more people in a major city on Londinium than all of Blue Sun.
Nika: Yeah, I know…we’re just—
Peale: I know. You’re from Boros. You have a lot of different attitudes.
Zing!
Arden: Whoa! And how do you know she’s from Boros?
Peale: From her accent.
Arden: (to Nika) You have an accent?
Christian: (admiringly) You’re good.
Peale: I said I’m not a completely incompetent person.
Arden: Except in air ducts.
Nika: (to Peale, drawling) Well, darlin’, that’s highly offensive.
Peale: I’m not a spy. (to Arden) I’m not a thief.
Christian: (to Nika) You do have an accent.
Arden: (to Nika) I never noticed.
Christian: Just a small one.
Peale: Boros is a perfectly good planet. But it’s a Rim planet—a Border planet, practically Rim.
Arden: (to Peale) What planet am I from?
Peale: You’re a little more challenging. It sounds like you’ve spent time in the Core but you’re not native. I don’t know where you’re from.
Christian: Okay, we’re done playing ‘Guess Your Weight’. Jake? What do you think? This is your baileywick.
Jake: Why mine?
Nika: Why his?
Because…um….he’s a professional cameraman? With, you know, experience? Just as a guess.
Peale: I don’t think we can broadcast this unless we can guarantee a big enough audience. If you broadcast it now, you’re just putting a bull’s eye on your ship.
Christian: That depends on the kind of audience you’re trying to get.
Nika: And that brings us to the other question: What do you hope to get out of this? What exactly do you want?
Peale looks at the Wu sisters:
Peale: You said you were going to go on that show. It’s a live feed. There’s over a hundred million people who watch that live.
He’s referring to Voices of the Verse, the wildly popular and most-watched Cortex music show. Peale is going to pull a Neal Patrick Harris at the Emmys.
Nika: What exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish with this broadcast?
Peale: The true thing? Well, it’ll….
Arden: The truth will set you free.
Nika: You should probably bear in mind that, by your own words, there are probably more people in a city in Londinium than there are in Blue Sun altogether and the vast majority of them who live in White Sun couldn’t care feakin’ less what happens to the people out in Blue Sun.
Peale: I don’t believe that.
Christian: Are you hoping to incite another rebellion?
Peale: (fervently) I’m hoping to prevent a rebellion. I think that if we can get Parliament behind doing something right, then we won’t have this—
Christian: Which would require the return of the Sihnon Faction to return to the Parliament.
Peale: I think this might bring them back in if they know that there’s enough of the other planets that want a call for an action, they might come to Parliament.
Nika: So what you’re hoping is this broadcast will inspire enough people who have an awful amount of inertia on the matter to rise up and holler at their representatives so as to send them back to Parliament?
Peale: More like to embarrass the Parliamentarians enough to do what’s right.
Nika: The Miranda Wave didn’t t do it and really, that should have been the biggest trigger.
Peale: The problem with the Miranda Wave was it was deniable. It was one person nobody knows…but everybody knows Falkan.
Christian: What does Gibbons say? He represents Blue Sun.
Peale: Oh, the MP? In general, he’s hard to pin down I would have to say. He’s ambitious but I think he would probably be one of the leaders that would call for an investigation. But of course, that’s kind of what he does.
Christian: Why did the Sihnon Faction leave?
Peale: Mostly because of the insult to have their—
Christian: Is it cultural?
Peale: I don’t think it’s unique to them. I think that if the Navy had landed in Londinium and set up martial law, and then as they had in Lian Jinn—
Christian: Massacring cows…
Nika: Destroying people’s livelihood.
Peale: Without consulting, but just kinda swept in like, “Ha, ha! Caught you in the act!” sort of thing…
Christian: Who gave the order for that?
Peale: It was done by the Defense Council and Falkan is a member of that.
Christian: Which doesn’t have a Sihnon majority. Or didn’t at the time.
Peale: There aren’t parties. There are just , you know, leanings….
Christian: It honestly amazes me that we have a system of government that won’t account for a mass walk-out.
Peale: Well….it’s never happened before.
Nika: And no one’s asking.
No debate there.
Nika: If you want to just put out the broadcast, that certainly can be done.
Arden: But he wants a major audience.
Christian: He wants to put it on the most-watched program in the Verse.
Rick: Let’s do it.
We all speculate the chances of the broadcast being suppressed, if it being a live wave would work against that tactic or for it. Christian asks the Sisters why they are hiding—why are they going under a different name? One of the Sisters tells us that they were blacklisted as Wu Wei—they had to rebrand themselves in order to continue their career. Which would explain their reluctance to have anything to do with Peale earlier—he kept calling them by their old name. If the word ever got out that The Angel Sisters were Wu Wei…well. When Arden asks why they were blacklisted, Peale says it’s because they were an embarrassment. People were humming their tunes, they were protesting at Blue Sun Headquarters…haven’t we been watching the news? The Miranda Wave caused a big stir and then to have people keep reminding others by showing footage of it on their vid screens and all that?
Major embarrassment.
Arden questions Peale on his apparent double-face. After all, wasn’t he the one who’s brought us the chip? What does he mean with all this talk of embarrassment being a bad thing?
Peale: This is a little out of character for me. I served my MP as best I could, until I couldn’t anymore.
Christian: People do have changes of heart.
Peale: I thought she ….I mean….
Arden: He’s acting like I would.
Nika: What? A retard?
Arden: Pretty much.
Christian: No, he’s genuine in what he did.
Arden: That’s what I’m saying. He’s just like me.
Rick wants to know more about the show Peale intends to hijack for his chip—Voices of the Verse. Will they be able to cut away from whatever feed we manage to hijack? Not if we manage to take over the production booth, says Christian.
Do what, now?
Take over the production booth. That’s now we’ll take over the signal. The signal passes through the production booth. Whoever controls that controls the signal.
At which point, we all look to Jake again. And before he can say anything, Rick comes in with a question: are the guest judge positions already filled? If not, could Rick get a position as one. As such, he could be our man on the inside. Peale says Rick could probably play the celebrity card to get tickets to get us in but at this stage of the game, getting a spot on the show as a judge is out of the picture. On the plus side, the show’s being held on Paquin, in Red Sun. And lo, we’re already headed that way anyhow.
It’s decided. We’ll do it.
Christian orders Peale to the showers because, really, that bad dye job is torqueing Christian’s delicate sensibilities something awful. Christian turns to the Sisters and offers them the option to leave on their own recognizance, though it might not be safe to do so, or they can avail themselves of our guest facilities for the next little bit while we assess the situation. Their choice. They choose to stay and offer to pay for their passage to Paquin with their winnings from the show—because, of course, they are confident they’ll win the 500 credit prize. Christian declines to take any promises of money for the nonce and escorts them down to the Crew lounge where the big screen tv is. When the Sisters are settled and Peale is safe out of earshot in the shower, Christian draws Jake into the discussion.
After all, Christian says, up until now Jake’s entire purpose on our ship was this sort of thing. Showing the Core back home what life was like out here, right? After all, he spent months on Miranda in order to get the word out. Jake reluctantly agrees, but…weren’t we all trying to move away from this sort of thing? You know, the politics and the activism? Nika seconds that statement.
Christian agrees, yes, it is. We can off-load the Sisters here and now and leave. We’re not committed just yet. Arden can’t see his way clear of turning our backs on something like this. Nika just can’t see how broadcasting the chip would actually accomplish anything. Christian counters it would make the people in Blue Sun angrier. It may do more damage than good. Then again, Nika speculates that perhaps the guys who were tracking Peale might not be from the Parliament but from Blue Sun and they wanted Peals so that they could broadcast that chip. Christian says it’s a really long shot. Arden says it’s more likely that the bounty hunters are pawns being pushed around in a greater game. Christian then quips he expects Arden’s Operative brother to show up….any minute now…really.
Nika repeats her earlier doubts: how will something like this incite anyone to rise up for political action? She’s not sure that this broadcast will convince the Browncoats of the Core to stand up and declare they’re going to jump back into the fight. Christian points to both Jake and Nika and says they both have the biggest horse in this race.
How so?
Nika has family running a capitol ship in Blue Sun’s Navy—Planetary Defense Force, his ass—it’s a NAVY. Jake is all about journalistic truth and has been the entire time aboard our ship. As such, Christian asserts, their opinions weigh more than the rest of ours. And Rina, too, due to Mike. Rina snorts and says she’s just shoveling the shit out of the stables, don’t look at her.
We all agree that a lot of bad things have happened that the government had caused, and that there have been conspiracies to cover up those things and that people have been killed to keep things covered up, but Peal’s chip doesn’t have evidence of anything on that scale. It’s more an expose of Parliamentary maneuvering.
Christian calls for a vote.
Jake thinks that people should make their own decisions. If they decide to go to war over this, he thinks they should have that choice. However, he can see trying to protect people from themselves as a motivation to suppress the information on that chip.
Nika asserts she knows what her family would want—they’d want that info out there. Broadcast the chip. As for what she herself wants? She doesn’t know for certain. She’s torn between the realistic outcome versus the idealistic one.
Speaking strictly for herself, Rina says we should run that sucker at six.
Arden’s in favor of it.
Nika cautions us the minute we try for this, we’re screwed. We’ll have crossed a political line there is no going back over. We’d be committed, for better or worse, on the side of the opposition. Christian counters we could pass the chip along to our friends in Blue Sun and let them do what they thing best with it. Rina suggests we pass it along to….somebody we’re on the way to see, anyway. Arden says he knows a pop star, intimating that might be a way to secure a back way into the show. Christian brightens and says he knows one, too. Well, not a pop star but a figure of the Opera world:Stuart Volenci
Jake warns us that the longer we sit on the chip, the less credibility it will have. We have to do something with it soon to get the most effective use out of it. When is the Voices of the Verse show being broadcast? A week from now. Where? Paquin. Paquin’s three days away. That’s soon enough for our purpose.
Rick: Let’s do it. It’ll be awesome.
We all agree to take Peale to Paquin and we assure him that we’re willing to help him make this happen. Christian cautions that hijacking the signal might not be as great a worry as the vigilance of the show staff against any hijacking, and once hijacked, where their sympathies lie. However, Peale is quick to mention that there are sympathetic leanings to the Rim’s plight in the Core, that it’s not Everyone vs. The Rim.
Our course decided, we take steps to fly it. We need to deliver our cargo first. Nika suggests to Peale and the Sisters to stay aboard the Gift. Christian asks them if there is anything they’ve left behind on the station that they absolutely must have? The Sisters need their costumes for their act and various other sundries. Some of the crew are dispatched to their quarters to find and bring those things back. The bounty hunters already know what we all look like, so there’s no point in disguises or skulking in the air ducts. Rina, Nika and Rick are the three best capable of handling themselves if it came to fistfight, so they are the logical choice to go. Christian will deliver the cargo and see what he can pick up for our trip out and meet us at the station again.
Being twitchy, Rina’s the first out the door. Outside our airlock is a longish pressurized corridor that leads back to the main hub of the station, where lies the elevator and the ring corridor connecting all the airlock corridors to it. The airlock corridors have shorter corridors on the perimeter connecting them to each other as well, making the network look like a giant cartwheel, with the ships docked on the wheel rim at the perimeter, the airlock corridors making the wheel’s spokes and the elevator shaft making up the wheel’s hub and axle. The airlock corridors are rigid structures fitted with viewports and through them one can see the other airlock corridors and the ships hooked up to them. It’s quite a nice view, if one’s into that sort of thing and being that she is, Rina’s looking. And she spies in the spoke corridor to the left one of the bounty hunters looking out. Their eyes meet and the bounty hunter hides behind the corridor bulkhead.
They’re hunting us. They’ve found us. And bucks to bao they don’t wish us well.
Dierma.
Rina: Guys, check our left. We’ve got company.
Nika and Rick keep walking. Nika comms Christian on the bridge to lock the Gift up. Arden comms back he’ll be standing by to let us in quickly if we need to. Nika thanks him.
Arden: What’s going on out there?
Nika: (sighing) I don’t know. Rina says she thinks she saw one of the guys out there.
Rina: I don’t think I saw. I know I saw.
Rick: I think I saw some random flasher chick, man….just streakin’…
Christian: (over the comm to Rick) We need to get you laid. We really do.
We continue on. We call the elevator and wait for it. Christian keeps the engines warmed and coordinates a cargo dock. Arden stands by the airlock doors to let us in on our return.
The elevator doors open and one of the bounty hunters is standing inside. Standing inside pointing a gun. Pointing a gun right into our faces.
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