[CHILD PAGE SUMMARY]
Accident or Incident: Teagan finds the explosion of the Ace of Spades was caused by a rogue sub-program which had been inserted into the computer's software, causing it to dump an extraordinary amount of fuel into the engines all at once. She performs further diagnostics on Audacity's software without finding anything similar in their own computers.

Family Matters: Saved comms from the family of the deceased indicate that Queen Of Hearts' (the sister ship)next port of call was Tripoli Station, a farm planet in the Empire Proper not too far from that side of the Neutral Zone.

[14 hours later -- at the turning point]

Paladin and Willa were both on the bridge, and as it happened, Morgan had taken the ops chair. it was time for the turning. Time to begin to decelerate into orbit around the moon Epsilon-Jay. The world around Audacity had become something resembling routine. Ships appeared and disappeared on the granar as they passed The Twins by on their way to the Empire or the Provences. The space was flooded with news, popular music, and entertainment, all thanks to their closeness of Meridian. The military formation was nearly off their screen now. Their course was defiantly northward and rimward, which made Willa think of the last word she had about her mother's conflict with the Imperial Legions.

Was this carrier group headed off to try and kill her mother and her people?

But before such ponderings could gather into dread, the EMS array registered a new signal. An active densitometer scan, bearing...

Directly ahead --- Epsilon-Jay!

Willa groaned, “Great, just what we need. It’s probably standard operating procedures, but man, getting hit with a densitometer makes my bones hurt! I feel like the viewers are getting ready to cut me open.” She rolled her eyes and leaned against the back of Morgan’s chair.

Morgan felt the pain of the densitometer's pass, "Awww ..." He crunched his body into a ball and tried to push past the pain. Once the Jade Rose had been held at bay by an Imperial ship with no weapons other than their densitometer; and it was just as discomforting today as it was then. He forced himself to look at his readings, trying to plot the position and source of the painful signal. He was happy he was strapped into his seat, and not trying to get back into it after the attack.

Paladin noted the active ping, and said, “You don’t actively scan space with a densitometer unless you already have a target and you need some specific details...” Which was Paladins way of saying ‘I don’t think they see us yet.’ “Lets do a full visual scan and see what else we can pull up on the passives”

"No - I think they are looking for that thing we brought abroad." Morgan said, trying to get a read on whatever was doing this to them. "That means they are looking for us."

Further analysis of the sensor data quickly showed the signal to be very weak. So weak the computer was having a hard time determining whether what type of densitometer it was, even. There were too many gaps in the signal.

As Willa maneuvered the visual scanners in a wide sweep around them, she found nothing. Epsilon was now directly beneath them. A beautiful sight, even at several lunar orbits away. But there were no ships, not even a great number of asteroids around. But then... a ship a long ways away would be very hard to find on a quick visual sweep.

“Well yeah probably.” Paladin replied to Morgan. “But chances are that they don’t know that they are looking for us. They are looking for something, most likely the Ace of Spades, on the surface.” Then the thought for a bit, “Or they are looking for the Princess, like we are. Once we got into orbit we’d have to do active scans as well to find the most likely place to search. Which would mean that they are ahead of us.... We need to find that ship.” Paladin returns to the sensors.

“We Athenians prefer to use the infrared scanner it’s high resolution, can see through foliage like it isn’t even there, and it’s passive,” Willa paused for emphasis, “undetectable. I’d suggest we use that to do the majority of our scanning.”

"Maybe they're desperate... Maybe they don't care... Either way we need to find them before they find us. Keep up the visual and other passives. When we ivan* we'll see what the passive denso can tell us as well.

This was the hardest part of his job: the waiting. Everything out here take too damn long. He thought to himself. He checked the Ops panel, most everything had leveled back out after the scan. "We're back to nominal, Captain. Let me know when you want me to initiate a scan or just blow the shit out of them."

The thirty minutes seemed to crawl buy. The planets looked like rocks on the granar. Ships came from behind, presumably Meridian or the shipping lanes nearby, all of which were now in their sensor baffles, and marched accros the display on various routes -- none of them threatening.

Then came the rotation. The computer automatically reoriented the granar. Meridian was back on the display. Several ships lost in their baffles were back, right where they were supposed to be on their trek spinward. Their moon appeared too. A line right in front of them. And, the passive EMS array was still picking up the active densitometer signal -- directly from the moon. But visual scans of the disk at high magnification still showed nothing. Well, nothing other than a beautiful view of Jay's atmosphere.

Epsilon-Jay had a normal but dense atmosphere Meaning it was perfectly breathable, but very rich for human lungs.

Paladin looked at the passive scan a second time to make sure. “Its not showing up. That means it’s on Jay or behind Jay.” He then pulls up the record of the Active Denso ‘noise.’ He has the computer adjust for the fact they have been getting closer every minute and then display the strength of the signal over time. The display shows the signal remaining steady from the time they first detected right until the last little bit when it drops off. “Thats it, that them going behind Jay and the signal weakening due to atmosphere and rock.”

Paladin smiles slightly. “This can work for us. They can’t see us with Jay in between any more then we can see them. But they are actively scanning and we are not. That means when they were clear of Jay and could have picked us up on the granar, we might have been in their baffles. If not we weren’t at warp and are kind of small to pick up. Either way I like the odds of them not knowing we are here.”

Paladin sets up an alert based off the ‘noise’ signal strength. If it stops or if it starts to get stronger faster then they close the distance he wanted to know. Turning to Morgan he said, “Sorry it looks like we have to wait for them to clear Jay first.”

For the next thirty minutes the signal continued to weaken, even though they were still closing on the moon. By the time they rotated for the second time it was obvious that who or whatever it was, was somewhere on the other side of the moon.

"Any bets on whether they're hunting for what we're coming here to hunt for?" Willa asked sardonically.

It would take three more hours before the active densitomter signal they were tracking would again start to strengthen. And while their ability to scan the surfact of the moon was increasing all the time, it would have been pure luck to find the downed ship from a million kilometers away. Luck wan't with them. Chasing down the source of the active signal, however, was much easier.

Scanning the edges of the moon as the signal strengthened revealed the tiny form of a ship coming over the horizon. A standard mercenary cruiser, which meant several things all at once. For one thing, it could be friend or foe or something inbetween. For another, it almost certainly carried troops. Merc cruisers always did. And, as it was more than three times and armored, hurting it wouldn't be the easy.

"Let's stay on the opposite side of the moon from that thing." Willa said breathlessly.

Morgan nodded, "Yeah, you don't live to be this old by fighting everything you see."

Paladin looked at the instruments, "Agreed... Still there is no place to hide that would allow us to be close enough to search the planet for the princess. If they find her before we do its game over." The same problem presented with running. If they had no problem with failing the mission they could take all the time they wanted. What they needed was a distraction.

"Morgan is the wild weasel still loaded?"

Morgan checked his display, "Yes - it's ready for your release." He was curious about just how they were going to use the weasel like this. Paladin had been someone who had a reputation for unorthodox flying and fighting. Morgan smiled at the thought of learning a new trick.

"Excellent, load up a sensor drone in the tube opposite. Grab Jacob if you need him. I'll have the program and target co-ordinates by the time you are ready." He turned to look at Morgan, "They are going to be able to see us soon. I want to give them something else to look for."

"Aye." Morgan said, before pushing the comm-button, "Jacob, meet me at the launchers -- need to load something." Morgan then raced off to load the thing before coming back to watch all the pilot-y action.

Paladin ran his numbers and figured out the course and actions he wanted them to take. When he finished he buzzed the intercom at the loading area. "All right guys I've co-ordinates and timing ready"

"Aye sir. Everything here is locked and loaded." Morgan said happily. "You want me to stay here in the launch bay or return to the bridge?"

Hearing that they are ready Paladin pushes the button that sent the data down to them. Hearing Morgan's question he answered. "There is a chance that this might not work. So after they launch so I'm going to want a weasel and pixie loaded next and a double check on the sandcaster's readiness. Still you should have plenty of time to get back up here before the show starts."

Audacity shuddered as the launcher ejected the the drone. It streaked down range, then slowed, taking up the preset course Paladin had programed before it began to radiate.

Then Audacity's EMS boards lit up nicely as the drone came on line. It looked for all the world like an approaching ship. The reaction aboard the cruiser was immediate. As Paladin and Willa watched, it's radar went active -- and at very high power. Willa punched a button on the console and Audacity's computer found the radar frequency and `echoed' a weak return signal on their own display. As Paladin had hoped, on the radar screen the drone looked like patrol cruiser.

Then Audacity shuddered again as the second missile was ejected by the launcher, chasing the first at a full 40,000 km/second. Then a second signal came the merc cruiser; the distinct emission of a transporter being activated. The signal vanished as the wild weasel fired, smothering their entire EMS system in white noise. On the canopy display a dot appeared, and began to move away from the mother ship. Then the engines fired and the merc cruiser started a burn out of orbit.

It was leaving Epsilon-Jay -- but it was also leaving a small ship behind.

Well... well... well... That had worked pretty good. Pulling up the visual cameras, Paladin tries to figure out what was left behind. To the others in the cockpit he said, "Lets give 'that' plenty of time to go away."

That the ship was a launch was obvious. That it was headed to the moon became obvious about five minutes later when the bridge crew saw the tell tail ball of fire formed around it, indicating that it had begun atmospheric burn in. But what kind of launch it was -- they were too far away and it was too small to really tell. The tiny silhouette suggested it might be a gcarrier -- which would make sense, but... "

"If it is," Willa offered. "It's probably one that's armed and armored, and it'a probably heading down to support troops. Any bets that's why the transporter was activated?"

"No takers here on that bet." Paladin looked over the transport signal to see if he could get a rough idea of how much mass they moved with it. He also set up the computer to track the merc ship. As long as it continued to leave he was happy, but if it stop or changed course he wanted to know about it. "The odds still aren't that great, but they are much better now then before with that ship gone."

While the signal processing computer chewed on transporter question, Paladin and Willa watched the ship leave orbit. The blazing tail fire from its maneuver drive made it easy to follow. A good thing, as with the wild weasel still blanketing the area with white noise, all the other sensors were quite useless.

"They're not headed outward," Willa observed after watching their trajectory a few moments. And it was true. Once free of moon, the ship headed toward the star, not away from it. The next orbit in from Epsilon was empty. The next planet -- the only planet inside them orbiting The Twins B -- was Beta-B, a dry but habitable planet with an even more habitable, and very wet jungle moon.

"Umm... Captain, I'd bet a month's pay this moon is being watched," Willa said grimly.

Then the computer spat out the answer Paladin had been waiting form: The signal to noise ratio was high enough -- due to planetary interference and distance, that it deduced between 3 and 5 distinct transport signals.

"Five," Teagan chimed in from the engineering station. "The number of transients present in the signal packet stream exceeds the safety envelope for only three transmissions and would be dangerous were there only four. There is a 90% chance that five were transported from the mercenary cruiser, and a 10% chance that the transport failed completely due to atmospheric interference, killing the transportees."

Willa's comment was in line with what Paladin was thinking. He was hoping to use some more active scans once the weasel died but that would have to be curtailed with watchers around.

When Teagan reports he nods, “Five it is then... Can’t depend on an accident to make our job easier. And the launch might carry fourteen or more...”

Paladin hoped that the ships deployment of personal meant that they thought they were close. That meant they needed to stay on the launch, and at some point ‘deal with it.’ Of course dealing with it would be messy, and that would signal the Mercs to return.

If they were to have any hope at all they would have to plan three or more steps ahead. Paladin had the computer crunch some numbers, then once he had the results he contacted Morgan down at the launch tubes, “Got another program to load into the next Weasel.”

Once Morgan confirmed the drones readiness Paladin launches it. Its plotted course to place it drifting between the mercs and the planet with a timer counting down.

Once done, Paladin tells Willa, “We are following them in. Keep your eyes peeled on the IR visual.”

Willa nodded. It wasn't hard. As the gcarrier hit the outer edges of the moon's atmosphere it began to radiate like the sun. Then, as it slowed, its hull was still hot enough to provide a good signal as it arced over the hemisphere in a long loop to shed excess velocity.

They were about half way to orbit themselves by the time it finally touched down in the Mare Maris Siccus, the massive and ancient crater that dominated the moon's equatorial region. It was thought to have been a sea at some ancient time past. Now, like nearly everything else on this moon, it was "dry" -- though dry in this context meant the "dirt" was frozen water.

Willa futzed with her controls. "I can make out... Five human sized objects... Now six, seven, eight, nine... Number ten just stepped out of the gcarrier. Probably the pilot. There are some other objects around them, but we're still too far away to get great resolution.

Another few minutes went by. "Ah... Another object is coming out of the back of the gcarrier. They're putting equipment on the moon. That could be bad. They'll be highly mobile, and if it's military gear, it'll pack a punch."

A few minutes later some smaller equipment came out of the gcarrier. It was clear they meant business on the surface, whatever business they were there for.

Morgan listened to Willa as she described what she saw. From his position in the cargo bay, there was little else he could do. "Captain: you still want Jacob and I here, or do you want us somewhere else. I can handle the loading duties solo for a bit if you need J somewhere else." And, by loading duties, he meant waiting.

The pieces were almost in place... Except this wasn’t a military crew and he was ‘captain’ by majority vote only. If he threw them in to combat all of the sudden he might have a mutiny on his hands. That wouldn’t do. He heard Morgan’s question and he more or less ignored it for the moment

Activating the ship wide he said, “Attention everyone. Things are about to get really busy so I wanted everyone to be aware of what is going on. Once everyone lets me know they are listening I will continue.”

The intercom automatically lowered the volume of the music he was dancing to, but Lawrence didn't stop. He did a slide-step to the left which put him within arm's reach of the intercom panel. In a flourishing move, he puched the talk button to the beat.

"At your service, captain," he answered before doing a spin and sliding back to the middle of the floor.

Qamala's finger touched the comm controls from the med bay. "Here, Paladin."

After receiving an acknowledgement from everyone he continued. “We are 15 minutes out from Jay. Somewhere below in a crashed ship is our objective. We have a few complications. First is a mercenary ship that is in system with us. It is much more powerful then us. If it finds us all we can do is run. If it finds us before we find the crashed ship, we fail.” His tone was flat and blunt.

“In addition on the surface of Jay is a force of 10 mercs with a launch, ground craft and undoubtedly some serious firepower. We suspect they have a lead on the crash site, and they should be in contact with their space ship.”

“On the plus side shortly after we enter the planet’s atmosphere our drone will go off cutting off contact between the two merc groups. The merc ship is too far for a good visual of the planets surface and that means with the drone working well will have a window to act in. Our choices are to either to find the ship get the data and get out while ‘dealing’ with the merc forces, or to strike at the mercs from surprise and cut off all their means of communications.”

“Those are the options I see before us. I am willing to consider others if you have them.”

"Aye." Morgan said. Tactical options were limited, there were only a few tested shooters on this ship; most everyone here was hired for reasons other than marksmanship. If they had the skill, it would be safer to neutralize the ground force and then move to the crash-site. But, without the training, the ambush would likely be disastrous. "Captain, as much as I like a fight, I think we're better off trying to out run the people on the ground. If that's an option."

The Magellen shook her head slowly as Paladin spoke and then fielded responses. She was out of her element and knew it. "I have nothing except to suggest offering the mercenaries who are already on the planet something to distract their attention from the downed ship while we move in. Of course I have no idea how that's to be done or if it would be effective."

She paused, for something wasn't right. She felt uneasy, restless, unable to focus. Shrugging a little, she went on. "I would like to request being on the recovery team for this mission. I have... gifts.. that might prove useful, if the situation gets tight."

It's just Med Bay, you're aboard Audacity, why the....

"Hey Captain," Jacob answered over the com. "I'm not much of a fighter, especially not trained soldiers, so I'd rather sneak. The thought of getting shot doesn't really appeal to me." Although Paladin couldn't see him, the big man shrugged. "Either way, though, just let me know what you need me to do."

The young Magellen caught her breath just as a bolt of searing agony hit her, center mass then radiating outward. Other emotions quickly crowd in. Anger, rage, panic, resignation. Oh stars above, a vision? Now? Her hand reached out blindly for the comm switch as sounds began to overwhelm her -- the staccato of metal pounding on metal; screams, orders, feet pounding on a deck, the sizzle of metal being melted instantaneously.

Abruptly, she was sucked into the scene itself -- the vision became akin to reality itself.

Shooting...oh, ick. What a downer, Lawrence thought while kicking and then turning along the floor of his stateroom. One-two-three, cha-cha-cha, one two-thr--

He stopped, stock still, with a penetratingly thoughtful "did I leve the gas on" look on his face. Then he smirked, killed the music, and walked over to the intercom panel.

"We sell them," Lawrence announced. "Everyone meet me in the mess in five minutes."

Paladin sighed before pushing the button to talk again, "Lawrence we are fifteen minutes from an orbital insertion, and we have hostiles in the near space. Now is really not a good time for me and some of the others to be leaving our posts." Had things been different he would have called for it in the mess in the first place. "That being said if you have idea that could see us through this, I really want to hear it." Muting the comm he turns to Willa. "Keep an eye on those Mercs. As soon as you can make a guess of their direction move out ahead of them and try to find out where they are going."

Vaguely, Qamala heard Lawrence and Paladin and even Jacob's voices from someplace far away, but she could not focus on them. In this usurping reality, there was only a disembodied watcher, a star ship! Solders were attacking, wearing full armored space suits. Military! All the suits looked the same: Red and white with a badge on the left breast, crossed swords piercing an armor helmet. Gauss weapons, lasers. The ground around them emerges into awareness, a strange, pale white. Dust fluffs up at every footfall. And from the lightness of their step, Qamala knew the gravity was much less than 1G.

Behind the approaching soldiers shapes emerge -- armed track vehicles. More soldiers spill out of them like a river of blood and snow. But the star ship, there on the ground, had already been breached. Civilian bodies lay strewn around the dying craft. Some were wearing survival gear, others were in simple clothes....

"Aye," Willa murmured, attention focused on her equipment. While the Athenians had been using high resolution IR to find and track objects on the surface of planets for generations, this particular task was anything but easy. For one thing, they were still traveling at well over seven million kilometers per hour. And the moon itself was rotating on its axis at another thousand kilometers per hour. Then there was the travel of the moon in its orbit around Epsilon. Granted, they were now close enough that the arc of the tangent to Jay was only a fraction of a degree, but when one is trying to read the equivalent of a license plate number on the back of a grav car from more than seven million kilometers away, small changes add up quickly. And there were a lot of changes going on all at once -- even for Audacity's powerful computers.

Finally, deciding she was going to have to wait a few minutes for the screen to turn into something other than a blur, she punched up the meteorological program and set it to analyzing the moon. It took only a few seconds. "Well boys and girls," she said over the com system. "We will have fine weather on Epsilon-Jay today. The high will be a balmy -73° [-100°F] -- perfect weather for Epsilon bathing. And at -137° [-214°F], the low tomorrow morning will require jackets. Local days on Epsilon-Jay are 50 Standard Hours long." She flipped off the com system.

Willa... Willa! Oh gentle powers... In the back of her vision rapt mind a rage was growing: Where is it? The incompetent cretins! Why can't they find it?

"The informants lied!" The shooter roared. "Police the camp. We're leaving! Phrixus will pay for this insult!"

At seven and a half million kilometers per hour, things changed fast when one was only a million and a half kilometers away to begin with. "Standard MERC company camp formation, Captain," she murmured, piping the output of her display up to the canopy so everyone on the bridge could see.

Since the image was in the infared spectrum, it looked funny, but major objects were easy enough to see. Sure enough, Paladin had seen enough MERC member encampments to recognize one when he saw one. Even a small one. The structures were all arranged in their neat little rows, as were the vehicles. They'd obviously been there at least a day or two†.

"There," Willa pointed out a track headed away from the camp with a digital pointer. "They've got a couple of tracked ATVs down there, and they're headed in a NW direction from the camp." She zoomed in even closer. Audacity's computer groaned in Teagan's ear at the request for even higher resolution at such complex approach vectors, but managed to comply. When the picture cleared even the teeth marks from the tracks were visible. "Busy place," she murmured.

Lawrence smacked his forehead with his palm in frustration. Fifteen minutes...Lawrence old boy you really need to start paying attention.

"What I propose," he said after clearing his throat, "is to take the air raft down to the camp and provide you with enough of a diversion to allow the more useful members of this crew to do whatever. Captain, I've got a ton of high-end swag here. I've got the threads and I know I've got the rap. I also know I wouldn't be the first smuggler to drop in on a mercenary camp to try and do a little business. A friend of mine back home used to - um, never mind. I'm digressing."

"The moral of the story is, even if all I do is stir things up and give them something else to think about, it might be enough to slow them down. Best case, I sneak a bomb into their camp inside a case of wine which we can detonate after we're gone. All I need is the air raft, the bomb, of course, and someone to act as my assistant."

He let go of the button and held his breath.

Audacity reappeared around her abruptly, looking remarkably sane and comforting now. Gasping, almost sobbing in relief, Qamala reeled forward, shaking hands pressed to her face. Was it the attack that brought the yacht down she'd just seen? Or the mercenaries there now?

There was no way to know. What seemed evident was that the message was left aboard the yacht when the mercenaries left -- but which band of mercenaries?

Her hands slapped the comm button. "Willa, Paladin -- is there any way to know which mercenary unit we're facing, here?" Her voice sounded panicky in her own ears, but there was nothing for it. She had no time to explain or even order her own thoughts enough to calm down.

"Not yet," Willa supplied. "Eventually we might get a good enough look to tell by uniforms or at least insignia." And that assumes any of us actually recognize regalia, she thought to herself. Though in reality, between she, Morgan, and Paladin, she was pretty sure they had the spectrum of MERC, non-MERC, and even Medrass outfits covered.

† For the sake of clarity and ease, all time references refer to the Standard Time of 60 minutes per hour and 24 hours in a day, unless "local time" (meaning the time as reference by the diurnal cycle of that world) is specifically stated.

OOC: Don't hate me. It wasn't my idea. ;) I'm just giving it to the game as the GM gave it to me. Make sure to scan up a ways -- I boldfaced all the new stuff.