Last Voyage of Delilah, Episode 202: Bones of Ares
Air date: 06 Aug 2014
Present: Andy, Kim, Maer, Matt, and Terri
Saturday, 30 Jun 2525
Vandenburg Spaceport, Boros
Georgia (Huang Long) system
The crew has returned from the Festival at Copperhead and are docked at Aldebaran's Ship Yard. Baran offered Rachel a line on a salvage job on Ares and the crew takes him up on it. He briefs them on the particulars.
Somewhere on the moon at the destroyed Iskellian facility is a ship, a new destroyer design named Xi'an. Baran can't verify if it's been destroyed along with the facility or if it's intact in whole or part. If it is intact in whole or part, what we're looking for is aboard.
And that is: New Tech Hunter-Killer drones, with program sticks. People in certain circles are highly interested in getting their hands on this new tech and they're willing to pay a pretty penny for it.
Which just begs the question: why not go for it themselves? Why farm out the job to a third party?
The penny drops: Ares is irradiated and it's guarded by armed drones on the surface, missile platforms in orbit, and beyond both of those measures, there have been reports of pirates hanging out and picking off anyone who makes it away from the surface.
Oh. Is that all?
Wait. There's more.
Of course.
Poco takes Valentine aside and warns him that we're not equipped for this job.
Baran agrees to equip us for a price, deducted from our salvage shares once paid. Valentine does what he can to negotiate guarantees and equipment. In the end, he doesn't get as much as he'd hope but he doesn't come away empty handed. He's managed to get burn gel, cutting torches, radiation suits, a chip drive with the Xi'an's coordinated, and a copy of the signed contract.
We will leave in the morning and will use the coming evening to prep for the job. Teams and radiation watches are made: when the rad counters on the watches hit the red, we're taking off.
As part of the mission prep, Poco looks into his underworld contacts at Vandenburg, hoping to find someone with a little more intel on the Ares job conditions. He finds an acquaintance by name of Cuthbert who tells him a few things.
There are two main threats:
- Depending on how we approach, we'll run into SAMs. 'Nuff said about those.
- Once on the surface, the Iskellian security drones will find us, stick to us, and gang up on us. They are networked together and the size of a small shuttle. Once gathered round their target, they will fire collectively until their target is destroyed. Though they are big, they are hard to find on sensors as they emit virtually no energy signature at all.
Poco thanks him for the info and makes it back to the ship, though unknown to him, he's garnered some attention during his visit … It remains to be seen if that attention will be merely in passing or will come back and bite us in the ass.
Using the information gained, Valentine orders Vikki to rig up a mobile distraction unit to give the figurative guard dogs a cat to chase. She manages despite the time crunch.
Sunday, 01 Jul 2525
Ares, moon of Boros
We take off the very next morning and it's not long before we run into the standard Alliance warning buoys informing us we're entering restricted airspace. Rachel ignores them and flies right on by. Valentine is manning the medium range sensors but fails to notice the red light of a missile lock before 4 missiles are launched.
Incoming!
Rachel swears and yells at Poco to give her some juice. She evades the first missile but the second hits our ship, causing a plasma leak. Vikki and Poco scramble to cap it off. Poco succeeds but not without a complication: he and Vikki both get plasma burns. Tian is in the cargo hold securing a failing cargo coupling. She hears the screams and dashes up to engineering to help her crewmates.
She hustles them into med bay and manages to save their lives and their skins—literally—doing the voodoo she does so well. Poco comes away with nothing but dose of pain killers and a bit of crisped skin, which he soothes with mentholated smoke from his cigarettes. Vikki is likewise saved from dying a crunchy death but unlike Poco, doesn't walk away as easily. She's heavily bandaged and flying high on painkillers. Feeling no pain, her brain-to-mouth filter stops working and for the next day anything she thinks comes right out her mouth. Most of the time it's funny … sometimes, not so much.
While this is unfolding in med bay, Rachel evades the third missile and the fourth. The third was a mite tricky and the fourth was a cakewalk. Having thus survived the gauntlet, Rachel sends the ship down for deck, flying close to the surface to avoid the SAM radar.
Vikki leaves med bay to stand by in the airlock with her decoy, waiting for Val's order to deploy it.
The coordinates Baran gave us are good. We find Xi'an and land next to her. Vikki sends her decoy over the landscape, bidding it goodbye and don't forget to write! She's high as a kite. She's floating light in her boots when she rejoins the crew to suit up for the expedition.
Valentine insists on making Vikki his partner so as to keep an eye on her. She perks right up at this, asking him if they're going steady. Rachel grumbles about how they're all going to die. Valentine assigns her Nuri as her team partner. Give the older woman someone to mother over. Tian and Poco make up the last two-man team and Valentine orders everyone to step lively. There's salvaging to do and not much time to do it: our radiation suits are only good for two hours and we've no way to scan for what we're looking for. No quick zeroing in on our booty—we're going to have to comb the ship for it. Valentine's team assignments make sense in that light: each team has at least one science- or tech-oriented person, and each team has at least one level-headed experienced person accustomed to taking charge.
Stepping off Delilah we find that the atmo is still in place, as hoped, and we don't die in vacuum. A plus, very definitely! We also encounter a problem we hadn't anticipated: our comms don't work. Possible due to the radiation on the ground which, by the way, is making our rad counters tick. Great. Not only can we not talk to anyone not standing right there, the place is slowly trying to kill us. To say nothing of having a drone stumble across us in the meantime. Nevertheless, there's no going back now.
Tick-tock, people.
First item on our list: Finding the Hunter-Seekers.
Eyeballing the outside of Xi'an, we see that there are several places where the exterior hull is missing, offering entrance possibilities. After a couple of false starts, Tian finds the way in and manages to let the other teams know. Once inside, everyone regroups and picks an area of the ship to explore.
Poco finds the place the HKs are likely to be stored, a sizeable vault with a heavy door. There's a manual release for it and yanking it, explosive bolts on vault door blow. Poco jumps back as it crashes to the deck with a loud BOOM!
The entire ship shudders.
Vikki and Valentine hear it but no one can coom to find out what happened. They listen for a beat or two, hear no following weapons fire or screams … and figure that it's probably Poco or Rachel finding something interesting. If it's the HKs, good. If it's something else but valuable, also good. If it's something bad, we'll hear the screams soon enough. Valentine decides to continue the search trajectory he's on. Vikki follows him, still high as a kite but gripped now by a sense of adventure … and still voicing her infatuation.
Nuri hears the boom and grabs Rachel. What if it's the robots? Are they coming to shoot us? Rachel assures her it's okay, honey. See? Ain't no shootin' or screamin'. C'mon. Let's see what's around the next corner.
Poco and Tian enter the vault and sure enough, this looks like the place. Shelves with armored boxes line the walls, stenciled in mil-speak, which luckily Tian has some passing acquaintance with.
Vikki and Valentine hear a smaller clang ahead of their position and Valentine steals forward for a look. The passage they are in empties onto a catwalk above a large space holed to the outside. There's debris down below and looking carefully, Valentine sees something moving around in it. It's about the size of a small ground van and it's shooting laser lines all over the place, measuring or maybe scanning the area. He ducks into the passage out of sight and motions Vikki to go back. It looks like the intel about the ground drones was right, too. Best not tip them off we're here.
Rachel and Nuri explore on their own path and they find evidence of scavenging aboard. Interesting. We're not the first to arrive here, apparently, and likely we won't be the last. They keep looking, hoping to find something they can take back with them.
Tian finds some useful ship ordnance in the vault, something like AK-AK ammo, roughly 20 mil. She pulls those boxes off the shelves and keeps looking. Poco is going down the next aisle over, pulling items half-off the shelf like earmarked books in a library, making them easy to find on the way out.
Valentine and Vikki retrace their steps to find Poco and Tian in the vault. Rachel and Nuri join them moments later. Poco and Tian have come up empty—the HKs aren't in here. Valentine warns everyone of the drone he sighted and suspecting that it won't be long before more arrive, he orders Vikki to rig up some weapons to take them out. There's plenty to work with in the vault and she falls to it. Now that their loopy chatterbox inventor is gainfully employed, the crew leaves the vault to find the HKs.
Poco's past experience with boosting cars and assorted craft for parts really serves him well on this expedition. He finds the vault with the HKs. Poco spots a long strip of duct tape with stick drives on the wall. He rips them right off and tells everyone what he's found. The crew spreads out and quickly finds an entire intact HK and multiple unassembled parts for more. PLUS this vault has the ordnance to arm them.
Pay dirt!
Valentine prioritizes:
- HK drones and the stick drives get taken to Delilah first.
- Partial HKs and ammo second.
- Scavenging for extra salvage is dead last.
Meanwhile, Vikki readies her weapon against the drones and helps the crew with the removal of their prize. Working quickly, the crew manages to accomplish all three tasks in the time remaining. And not a moment too soon, either. Bullets pepper the cargo ramp as it shuts, pinging off the metal hull like a swarm of angry bees.
The drones have found us.
Rachel dusts off and Delilah rises into the air. Riding shotgun on the bridge, Valentine's keen eye spots a 20-ton military shuttle on a nearby landing platform. It's in mint condition, despite the destruction all around. Hell, it's even got most of its "bubble wrap" still attached. It only takes a glance but he wants it. He wants it bad. He tells Rachel to hold off burning atmo and asks her how they can salvage that shuttle in one piece.
Poco grumbles over the risk imposed by the delay but consoles himself with the thought of the money the shuttle will bring. Valentine doesn't completely agree, having other plans for it. Nevertheless, we're not leaving it behind if we can help it.
Rachel devises a plan to scoop the shuttle into our portside shuttle bay. There's nothing in it and there's room to spare. All we need is to have our crew in place to jump out, strip the wrappings off, and secure the shuttle to the bay decking. Then we'll close the bay up and skedaddle with our booty.
The wash from Delilah makes the dust and debris around the shuttle fly. Bullets from the drones are flying too, but luckily for the crew, the ship's bulk protects them. Poco and Tian hustle off the shuttle bay ramp and start ripping off the wraps while Vikki rigs a generator for the mag couples. Working with the crane hoist, they get the shuttle aboard. There's a tense moment when the shuttle bay ramp balks and Poco has to move the crane arm out of the way but everything gets closed up in time.
The shuttle is ours.
Can we go now, please? Rachel is getting anxious. One drone by itself won't hurt Delilah any more than a single flea biting a dog would, but Baran's warned the crew of the collaborative capability the drones have. If enough drones fire on our ship at the same time … ?
No thanks.
Rachel's all for getting the hell out of here. She's got her hands on the throttle, just waiting to punch it for the Black … and Tian spies something in the near distance just before the shuttle bay closes tight.
There's another ship on the ground, with lights and movement inside.
Tian gets on the horn and tells Rachel that they have to go back, that there's someone on the ground they can't leave. Valentine orders Rachel to investigate. Grumbling at the delay and the damage done to her girl, Rachel complies.
Valentine isn't going to just take the bullets laying down. He gets Vikki to make a homemade bazooka in her machine shop. He'll pop out of a hatch on Delilah and take out any drone that comes close while we rescue whoever it is in the crashed ship. Tian offers to make that run. She's got experience as a combat medic in the first U War and running under fire won't be new to her. Besides, if whoever's in that ship is injured, she'd be the only person qualified to stabilize him for transfer.
Rachel gets as close to the downed ship as possible. Tian rides the extending airlock as far as she can before stepping on the dirt. She comms Valentine she's ready to go. Valentine rises from his hiding place and shoots the nearest drone.
BOOM!
Valentine achieves a solid hit but it's not enough to take it completely out. Shot spent, he ducks back down again to reload. Tian runs out and Poco is hard on her heels with the burn gel, just in case. In fact, Poco catches up with Tian and passes her! You can't blame him. Bullets are still flying from the drone. Tian runs right behind him, twists her ankle on something, and manages to keep upright. She keeps on going and they both fetch up hard on the crashed ship's hull and start banging on the metal.
Hello? Anyone there?
Valentine loads another round. He shots. He hits. It dies!
Poco gets to work with the burn gel and gets the hatch off the ship. A gunshot flies out. Someone inside yells about Reavers. Poco yells back we're not Reavers, we're trying to rescue his stupid ass!
Oh, well okay then.
A scrawny man in longjohns and overalls pops into view with his rifle, takes one look at Poco and Tian, and ducks back inside. He comes back with what looks like a wastebucket or trash can covered in electronics and buttons. He's also hauling some duffle bags. Rescue his ass, sure, but he ain't leaving this stuff behind.
Poco draws breath to argue but Valentine shouts down that there's movement on the horizon. The other drones are networking and homing in on the dead drone.
It's time to go.
Poco growls but starts hauling the oldster and his stuff aboard our airlock. Rescuing people sucks. Tian promises to kiss him later for it. Rachel rolls her eyes and punches for the sky. Dumb kids and their crazy stunts are gonna be the death of her one day.
Or it could be pirates. Today. Right outside.
Hailing us.
Stop or we'll shoot, they say.
Says who?, she snarls back, in no mood to deal with this.
Us.
And you are? she returns.
Pirates.
Yeah, right! Rachel can hear they ain't no genuine pirates but a bunch'a pansy wannabes. She hollers down the pipe for the boosters and she hauls on the handle before Poco's ready. Of course, the boosters kick in at the worst possible moment and something inevitably blows: we have premature fuel injection and a huge cloud of smoke floods Deck 3. Nevertheless, we leave the would-be pirates eating our wake and Rachel flies us the hell outa there for the surface of Boros.
Rachel: Poco! I pressed the giddy-up stick and she farted!
The fire is too big to deal with by hand. We're going to have to take more extreme measures and luckily, it's right outside. Valentine orders the entire crew (and guest) to hole up on the bridge so he can vent the third deck. Tian herds Nuri in front of her and when she gets there, she congratulates Valentine on his shooting—not even her husband could have done better. Coming from Tian, that's high praise indeed. Poco and Vikki bring up the rear behind the man we've rescued. Who, by the way, is pleased to meetcha, and this here's my robot. Her name is Buttons. Don't touch her, she's mine. Vikki gets him safely seated and strapped in while Valentine vents the lower deck.
The vacuum of space sucks out the fire as Delilah trails huge billowing clouds of black smoke. Which smoke, coupled with our outer appearance, gives Traffic Control on Boros cause to worry. Cuz, you know, we sorta-kinda look like … oh, like, …REAVERS!
They hail us.
Traffic Control: Incoming ship. You got a lotta black smoke comin' off ya'. Is this an emergency? Do you need assistance? Should we have emergency vehicles meet you?
Valentine: No, no, we're fine. How are you?
Rachel: Hey Roy, It's me! Tell'em I got money on me landing. Seriously. Money. On me. Landing.
What is she, flypaper for freaks? Rachel wonders out loud.
Rachel might be flypaper for freaks but she's still a kick ass pilot. Even though the fire on the deck had played havoc with the controls, she manages to get us through atmo and land us like a feather. We're charred around the edges but we're still in one piece. Everyone on the bridge breathes a sigh of relief and watches the crash trucks outside scramble with their lights and sirens blaring.
Once the dust settles and Poco's calmed down with a cigarette or three, he pulls Rachel aside.
Poco: Mama Bear?
Rachel: Yeah, Papa?
Poco: We need to have a small discussion about the speed stick.
Rachel: Well … I pushed and it made it—what happened?
Poco: You know when I said before, "Don't use this until I say use it"?
Rachel: I heard "use it".
Valentine: She's right. She's got you there. This argument is over.
The bruhaha dies down eventually. The alarms go silent. The smoke dissipates from Delilah. The ground crews sprays the area down with anti-radiation foam. The crew waits for the all-clear before they step onto the tarmac to inspect the damage. That missile hit didn't do the ship any favors but it's fixable.
The crew debates what they will earn on their haul. A good amount, actually. What they scav'ed off Ares is good military grade stuff. Valentine gets his first good look at the shuttle in the shuttle bay and blinks.
Damn. That's one fine-looking shiny shuttle. Stepping aboard, everything is new and clean. Even squeaky. There's a head, too. Imagine that.
Valentine: Holy shit, it's shiny.
Vikki: Yeahhhh …. it's so shiny … (licks the bulkhead) … tastes like candy….
Valentine: Can anyone give me a reason not to keep it? Cuz I'm keeping it.
Poco: It's worth a lotta money and we haven't used it yet.
Rachel: (dry) Wow, that came fast.
Valentine: No, why did you have to offer me a logical argument like that.
Vikki: Nooooo! We can use the shuttle!
Poco: To do what?
Vikki: Space rescues!
Tian: As an example, when we put down and I need to take myself off when someone is in need of my services—(looks at Nuri, smiles)—a shuttle might be very handy. As opposed to moving the ship.
Vikki: We could do—
Poco: I'm not sold.
Valentine: I value your argument but here's the thing. When we immediately convert it to cash, that cash will get immediately wasted like in a void—
Valentine throws a gesture at Delilah at large. She's been fixed up tolerably but like an old house, she's a money pit. Apparently she's Poco's money pit, however, and he doesn't budge from his position.
Poco: The engines could use it.
Valentine: That'll be exactly what I mean. I'll be honest. I'm being completely selfish. This is something on the ship that is shiny and new and is completely unscathed. And I can't bear the idea of selling it.
Poco: Which means it won't last five seconds.
Valentine: I know but I want it anyway. And we got a fairly good haul, Poco. We got a good haul.
Poco: Yeah, but it'd be a better haul if we sell that shuttle.
Valentine: But let's see what she has to offer. She's got lots to offer.
Rachel: So Papa Bear, Lilah's not broken is she?
Poco: Well, not any more'n usual.
Rachel: I'm sorry.
Rachel pats his arm. She sympathizes. She does. Vikki can see that people are taking sides and hoping to head off a possible argument, she distracts the crew with another topic.
Vikki: Hi, I'm Vikki. I'm sorry but I didn't catch your name?
Vargas: Vargas, Elon Vargas.
Tian: Mr. Vargas. How long were you stuck up there?
Vargas: Oh, about a week.
Vikki: A week?!
Tian: I'm glad we spotted your light.
Vargas: (with relish) Yeah, well, I was flyin' past—my plan was to salvage. I heard that there was some containers off to the side that was unmolested and then, then I see this ship. I think it's like a … a battle cruiser? Something like that? Some kinda big ol' military ship. So I veered. But that second missile got my tail. I kept her together. You saw me there.
Tian: I did.
Vargas: And then I landed. There was some problems.
Tian: And you're still alive.
Vargas: And there's some extensive damage. My fuel tank. I tried repairin' it but I … I didn't feel comfortable bein' out there weldin' for very long. But you know, we can go back. I'll pay you half of everything I took if you take me back to my ship.
Valentine: Wait for it …. No.
Vargas: All right. Three-quarters!
Valentine: No. You can hire somebody else to take you back but I made a promise about where we're heading next.
He looks at Tian and back to Vargas again.
Valentine: And it's not going to the moon.
Vargas: Well, I'm much obliged for your rescuin' me an all.
Vargas grumbles but sighs, giving in. Valentine tells the old man he's sorry but he can't help him. He has a promise to keep.
Valentine: And I'm sorry we couldn't get your ship but I'm happy we could get you.
Rachel: And it was awfully nice to meetcha.
Vargas: All right.
Vargas gathers his belongings and his beloved robot, Buttons, and trundles across the tarmac to whatever the future holds. We stand on the ramp and watch him go. Poco takes a long drag on his cigarette, blows, and ask through the smoke:
Poco: So where are we headin' next?
Vikki: Kerry!
Poco: Isn't Kerry the place where they're shootin' each other? It ain't no death trap of a warzone or nuthin' is it? (to Tian) I ain't lookin' to stop you from asking somebody to go helpin' your son but I violently object to landing someplace where they're actively robbin' large ships.
Tian: Oh yeah, no. Kerry's not that place.
Vikki: So … help me out here. Are we keeping the shuttle or what?
Are we? Valentine inquires as to its worth. Is it worth thousands and thousands of credits? If he got a REALLY good offer, it would be hard for him to ignore it.
Vikki: No, I think it's better to keep the shuttle. We can change her hull markings …
Poco: I don't know. It can bring in a lot of dough and that would do a lot of good for our ship.
Vikki: But we could do a lot of good if we had the shuttle. I think we could do more with the shuttle.
Valentine: And that's where I'm going with this. We might not have a use for it now but once it's in our tool box, I'm sure we can find a use for it. So, we're keeping the shuttle.
Vikki: Yay!
As for keeping anything else, we return the tools and the suits that Baran let us borrow for the job. We can't afford what Baran would charge us for keeping them. We need the money for fuel and food to Kerry. Valentine will look for a job that will take us to Kerry or barring that, a job on or near Boros that will get enough money to make the trip.
No matter what happens, we're going to Kerry. Valentine is the captain and the well-being of his crew is his responsibility. He made Tian a promise to help her find out what's happening with her son and he will keep it.
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