Vengeance, Served Cold

" Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow."

- Ancient Alliance poetry

2780.203 - 228
the Deep Dust -> Stannis Law

As they journey through the nebula on the way home from the battle, Ace recalls the key that Maury got from Klothos' jump pilot, and sets to work on forging a duplicate. Materials are a little limited, so he has to use some different materials (lead instead of illudium q-37, that sort of thing).

The Hippocrates crew is permitted to take one of the badly wounded Decider prisoners. Ruehan sets up a test of his xenopsionic theory, using Hippocrates, Sophia, Max, Jim, Jayla, and himself, and goes for the "very perilous" version. He tries to answer his question about what it means for the Deciders to be missing two stats (focus and outline), but in the process identifies a little too closely with the decider and acquires a zero-stat of Coordination of Body.

In other experimental excitement, people try to damage the psi-recording crystal, as per Eva's instructions. Nobody seems to have any Sonic Engineering, which could be a problem. Sophia designs a mad nuclear chemistry experiment, which (after some consideration) she sets up in the Diversity instead of on the Hippocrates, just in case it all goes Horribly Awry. Sophia, Ace, and Hippocrates all head out in the Diversity to blow it up... er... to do the experiment.

The experiment rolls to get one success, then two, then three, then four, then five, then six - at which point Ace remarks to Sophia that she really needs thirteen dice to succeed. "You bastard!" she shouts, and nearly bursts into tears. It looks like she's about to run off, leaving the experiment in the middle, but Jayla and Ace manage to talk her into continuing it. Going-for-six is a success. Okay, now the experiment is going for seven, which wasn't in the plan, but mad science devices often don't have simple off switches. Sophia shouts at Hippocrates to grab the crystal and run for it, while Jayla thinks that this whole experiment is going nowhere good.

Hippocrates grabs the crystal, seriously irradiating his hand, as the experiment insists on trying to go for eight successes, while Ace swings the ship around to throw the experiment out the hatch. With luck it goes away from the Hippocrates, and explodes in a wonder of colored light. Hippocrates' hand glows in a wonder of colored light now, too. Sharra has him detach it puts it in a lead box in the lab, and makes him a temporary hook. Arr!

"Does this end of the table have any peril they want?"
"No! No!"
Next in the list of tasks assigned by people not in the run, Maury (who has headed off to find planets with the Inopportune Moment) has suggested that the Hippocrates climb the gradient of weird-chain-dust, on the way back to civilization. Sophia and Sharra swap the dust filters on the engines, but they decide that using only one engine will keep the other one unclogged and in reserve. Ace flies a corkscrew route with just the one engine, and eventually they reach the top of the gradient. It's very very thick here, like egg drop soup.

Sharra's robot doobies ask her if they should start building a house. How odd, as they aren't designed to talk and don't usually need houses. She tells them no, just clean up the gunk on the filters. Ruehan notices something odd, and wants to know why Sharra is outside. She's not...

Ruehan wants to go outside and look at the sticky dust. Ace is psyched - he's been waiting to space Ruehan for a long time!

Sharra's doobies have finished cleaning filters, and again offer to build a house. Ruehan starts getting very disturbed that Sharra is holding down a die of psi, which she doesn't have.

Ruehan, Hippocrates, and a Jayla-projection go into the airlock, and Ace spaces them all! Well, he (grudgingly) pumps out the air first, so they can step out. Ruehan and Hippocrates drift around, being glommed onto by long-chain junk, while Jayla sort of stands there in space. Sharra mentions that her doobie robots are interested in building a house, which everyone finds somewhat disconcerting. They're not really complex enough to be that opinionated. In the end, Sharra instructs two of them to stay here and build a house. They're a little disappointed that she's not going to stay here with them, but seem happy enough to do so.

Max heads out (in a space suit, the first one to do so with a suit, and on a tether), and retrocogs the middle of the dust. He passes out, and is reeled in again. Sophia, going over him in the medlab, says that he tried to kill himself with his coordination of mind, but it's zero, so it didn't work. Oh dear.

Ruehan goes back inside, as this is all getting sort of creepy. Jayla thinks about all this, and thinks that Max just thinks he has a coordination of mind, he doesn't actually have one. As contrasted to Ruehan, who does seem to have that coordination of body. She tries to get Max to play speed chess, to try and convince him that he really does have a speed roll in mind.

Jayla also notes that it's really time to get out. In fact, not getting out soon will probably preclude ever getting out, as the ship is covered in the long-chain gunk and getting more covered by the minute. Sharra panics when she wants more dice, and booches filtering - there is much coaching, to get her out of her panic, and by this time the escaping piloting roll is getting pretty hard.

Jim thinks about increasing the engine temperature to try and burn away the gunk. He talks to Sophia - she wants to turn the engines the other direction. The party probably doesn't want to do both, and Sophia's already started putting together a reverse-the-engines schema. Sharra finally gets back to cleaning the filters, but it's going too slowly.

The engines are thrown into reverse, and with many bridge lurches, Ace backs the Hippocrates out. Oof. Some navigating later, they turn up on Crux (so maybe this was the real center of the dust cloud after all!), a little ahead of the returning fleets. A day is spent on Crux; the group discusses ideas about opening the jumpgates. Using Elmer as a front man is discarded, alas. The idea is brought up to use Ruehan as speaking for both the outworlds (since he's a politician in one of the Crux parties) and for the Vertaki (since they have Pierogi); this is ruled out as possible, but excessively underhanded. Lord Stannis wanted to know that the outworlds wanted this, and substituting "Ruehan wants this" might not satisfy the spirit of the requirement. On the other hand, there's the possibility of opening a gate to Vircus - that should be easy enough to get a general request from.

Jayla spends a while psychoanalyzing Max to get rid of his delusional Coord of Mind. Max and Sophia go spelunking in the Crystal Caves of Crux. Sharra makes a wooden articulated hand for Hippocrates. Ace runs some chess-related errands. Hippocrates reports in to the Defenders on the state of the war with the Tarn. Jim volunteers with the Cooperative Front, designing leaflets. The guns get disabled. Ace stows the Memento Mori probes, hiding them by 7. And then, it's on to the inworlds!

The jump pilot transfer goes smoothly; the party considers complaining to Klothos about the extra confirmation code and the psychic scan last time they came through, but it's not clear that this will get them anything, and will tip their hand to Klothos that she was noticed. Nobody says anything.

The news in the Red Hegemony is more upbeat than the last time the group came through - "Red gives Blue bloody nose, draws line in sand!" Apparently there was a large Blue incursion into Riden, which was rebuffed (in part due to the telepaths.) The Red Hegemon has categorically refused to leave the planet, and has drawn the line of battle here. Then, it's on to to Nurl, which is now "Blue space" though the planet itself still has the Gloryweb defensive fleet, and the planet is not officially Blue.

Hippocrates emails Commander Branch, asking what his status is, and giving updates. Then, finally, to Stannis' Law. Sharra and Ace bet 10 asters over Andrej's engagement, whether it's legitimate or if Dylanna is up to something Evil.

Shortly after landing, Geoffrey Oxford shows up and goes off to the conference room for Jim's Board of Review. The room is guarded by the Elite-in-training for the duration. Katya heads off to Icefeather Mountain (a Stannis family retreat) for Solstice Hearth, bringing Martan and leaving her panic button for Jim as she'll be with Stannis.

Max calls Franklin DeWitt, who suggests that they meet - in the park, near the ice-fishing plaza, just after sunset. Ace and Ninja Sharra head to the park early, sneaking around; Hippocrates and the others head over in a rental van to be the slightly-farther away backup. There are people in the park with flyers and signs - "Down with the Blue Hegemony! Down with the warmongers!" Jim notes that this is about nine successes of propaganda. Meanwhile, Max heads over in a cab. Max takes a cab.

Ace spots some sort of machine under a bush - Sharra has a photomultiplier lens, so she takes a look from where they're hiding. It's a scooter. Max begins to wander around the park, and hears the scooter beep. He goes over, and answers it. Franklin isn't here - he notes that Max is accompanied. They're very good, Franklin hasn't seen anyone, but he notes there are five, which is a little more than he was interested in being jumped by. He tells Max to take the scooter to the lifeguard's station down by the lake.

Max heads off on the scooter, while Hippocrates hails a cab to take him to near the lifeguard station (the cabbie thinks he's crazy, it's too cold to swim now). Max putts up on the scooter to where Franklin is standing, near a swim-changing room.

Franklin says that "the news reports that the Blue Heir has been retrieved and is back in her place." Does Max care to comment on the veracity of these news reports? Max finds only minor fault with that report - she's been confirmed as the Hegemon now. Franklin allows as that's true. However, during the time that people were attempting to find the Blue Heir, and subsequently, Franklin has run across something very interesting, that there is a Blue Heir, and it's not on New Light. He has more information about this, but he's not really interested in trying to deal directly with the Blue Hegemony; he knows Max has contacts, and would rather sell the information to Max, who can deal with the principals more directly, and wash his hands of it. (Max notes that the path to the Blue Heir goes through DeWitt, while the path to the Blue Hegemon goes to space.)

The haggling starts. Max offers 5000. Franklin is nonplussed - he had thought that Max was a serious man. Ace suggests swooping in and grabbing the information from him, rather than spending a lot of money, but Max and others aren't as happy with that - Franklin has played straight with them so far. Jayla thinks the information is important. Max and Franklin finally settle on 15,000 asters, untraceable, with Franklin not to resell the information. They'll meet at the Solstice Hearth fair tomorrow to exchange the money and the info.

Hippocrates is notified that someone has shown up at the ship, with a big black kitbag, asking for permission to come aboard. He says he's a Sparky Cola technician to do tuneup and service on the Sparky Cola machine. He gets told to stand by. The party starts heading back to the ship. A few minutes of standing by in the freezing wind later, he buzzes again. Can he wait inside where it's warm? They tell him to stand by, and hang up.

Eventually, the party arrives. Sharra checks out his bag - it appears to be the engineer's dream kit. No, there are no explosives. Ruehan checks and says that he wants to fix the Sparky Cola machine. The Tinoori bring him hot drinks - do they have Hot Spark? No, their machine doesn't do that. Oh, he can get it upgraded for them.

Ace goes cruising for rumors. He hears Blue is going to invade, and hears about Andrej and his "fling" (lordschildren are popular gossip targets). Hippocrates connects Junior to the planetary network.

The repairman does a lot of tuning up, including fixing the wireless card. He has to go get a couple of parts, so he'll be back tomorrow. After he leaves, Sharra takes out the wireless card. For practice, Jayla looks for bugs - she finds one! Or, at least, she finds that the "o" in "cola" in the plain Sparky Cola button is a lens, and is taking pictures. Ace and Hippocrates hack in, and note that it's collecting pictures on users and non-users. Jim is listed as a Type 1 user - he has a favorite, but tries all of them. Hippocrates is a Type 5 user - he never buys any.

The next morning, Max takes the 15,000 cash to the previously arranged fair. People check to see if they think Max is a problem (as now that he's carrying money, he will no doubt be mugged). First Frost of Autumn is instructed to look for him (he doesn't see him), and they also tell him to look for a new (sort of) bug. He sets off searching for it.

Other people wander around the fair. A teenager offers Sophia a pocket ice sculpture. She's a little confused - he explains that it's cold enough out that the sculpture won't melt. She says yes, how much? He says four asters, looking confused. She thinks this is a bit much, and offers one aster. He still looks confused, and then runs. After he's started running, Sophia notices that her shtick frobinator and her coin purse is missing! They give chase, with Max providing direction. Around the back of a building, they find ten kids, looking at the device - the kids scatter. Ruehan mind controls the one with the device to stop.

The kid gets a stern talking to by Jayla - as it turns out, he is not in fact a poor lost beggar child, who steals to be able to eat, but one of a bunch of schoolkids who do this for fun on their holiday. Well, that's a different sort of social ill. Jayla epiphanies him into feeling guilty, and agreeing to bring the remainder of the money they took off of Sophia, by the ship later that night.

The exchange is made. Ace trails after Franklin, who gets into a car (license plate "DEWITT") and drives off.

The paper Max has been given has an address on it. The group drives by - Ruehan says there are four minds there, one a psi. Ace sneaks around, looking in the windows. There are three men, including a guy who looks like a professional tough, and a little blond girl, tied to a chair. Two of the men are arguing - eventually one of them gives in, unties the girl, and sends her to her room. Sharra sneaks up too, and looks at the girl - she doesn't look like Donella or Doraine. But Max thinks the path to the Blue Heir points to or through her. Ruehan reads her mind - she's grumpy, she's missing Solstice Hearth, she's missing school, she doesn't get to see her daddy (who is a scientist!). Well, this gives some hints of a plot, at least.

The question becomes whether to call the cops or do it themselves. Lord Stannis seems to get cranky when the party skips the law enforcement step. On the other hand, now there's something going on inside - the girl is getting moved, and one of the guys is making a phone call. Ruehan points out that their psi is a precog. As soon as the guy hangs up, the group swings into action.

Jayla buffs everyone with inspiration. Max grabs Ruehan, and the two of them stop being a problem, on the way to the girl. Ace and Sharra try to kick in the door, but it's pretty solid and takes them a little while. Max and Ruehan decloak by the girl, and are promptly opened up on by the fighter. Max falls. The chief retreats into the bathroom - Jim, who's broken in a window, discovers that neural disruptors don't go through frosted glass. Chief dives down the laundry chute.

Ruehan stabilizes Max, who stops dying, and convinces Fighter to hide in a closet. Psi (who cannot be dodged) takes down Sharra. Hippocrates punches through a wall into a dead space, which turns out to be the heavy weapons cache. Chief tells Fighter to come out of the closet. He comes out, and takes down Ruehan. Ace and Sharra neural disrupt Psi.

Jim tosses Psi down the laundry chute (to set off any traps), and then jumps down after him. However, explosions don't actually happen until the end of the round, so both Psi and Jim take the damage from the grenade. The little girl (Tara) keeps screaming.

Sophia spots a secret door behind the fridge (to the weapons cache) and another under the piano. How mysterious. Jayla shouts that another team just like this one will show up at the end of round ten, which throws everyone into a panic. Eventually all the bad guys are neural disrupted into immobility, but several party members are in bad shape, and Tara is still screaming (which takes people to half dice in their next action). Unfortunately, trying to flee with the bad guys is tricky, as Chief is doing something to make carrying them hard. Everyone but Chief gets dropped, but Ace is stubborn and manages to drag him out to the van (Hippocrates helps). Jim manages to swing by the weapons cache and grabs a rocket launcher and a machine gun with a grenade-launcher attachment on his way to the van.

Ruehan puts up an illusion of some "shady characters" leaving, as well as a cop car outside, and the party (just barely) manages to get away before the reinforcements arrive. At the next stop sign, though, as the van is coming to a full and complete stop, Jim passes out.

Chief is interrogated. Ruehan cuts loose and eats his mind. They've been holding Dr. Randolph's daughter, Tara, to get him do the work in lab that he's supposed to be doing for the High Lord Stone. What will the people at the lab do when they find out the girl is missing? They'll probably kill Dr. Randolph. He's likely at the lab.

Jayla ponders calling the police versus going there, and gets the answer "both." In order, the party shows up, then the police show up, then the backup strike team shows up. It appears that what Dr. Randolph has been working on is seven incubator-babies, nearly to term. Dr. Randolph is eternally in the party's debt, so he's willing to tell a story to the cops if necessary.

Jim calls Geoffrey Oxford. He gets an answering machine. Jim starts to leave a message: "This is Jim Powell...". The answering machine says "Voice recognition confirmed, forwarding." Dylanna's voice (recognizable from Hippocrates' tapes) answers: "Geoffrey Oxford's phone." Apparently Mr. Oxford is unavailable. She says that Jim is a day early - "Call me again tomorrow after you're panicked, and then we can talk." (Ruehan decides that tomorrow must be when Katya is kidnapped; tonight is something else.) Jim tries to insist that he has another issue to speak to Mr. Oxford about, but he is unwilling to leave a message with Dylanna.

Jayla considers whether to turn everything over to the cops, or to keep them, and (with several bonus fortune) thinks that giving them to the cops may be dangerous, like handing a glass of water to someone about to be caught in a tsunami, and expecting them to not spill it.

Hippocrates notes that communications on the planet have just spiked, and Jayla notes that a crisis which has been sort of starting to loom in the future has just moved to Now.

Back to the Hippocrates! (Sharra hooks up a wireless camera to the medlab where the artificial wombs are). There's hysteria in the spaceport, and ships taking off... Hippocrates summons all hands to the conference room, where he gives a quick briefing.

A bomb exploded at Icefeather Mountain. Lord Stannis is believed dead. There are no known survivors yet. Part of the fleet has taken off, blaming the Blue Hegemony, and is heading to the jumpgate. Orland Vigil, Lord Stannis' son and the governor of Stannis II, has declared himself in charge - but Lord Stannis officially has no heirs, so this is not necessarily a very valid claim. The other half of the military is blaming Orland, and is mobilizing against him. There is rioting in the capital, including fires near the opera house.

As the party begins to split up to deal with the different crises, Jim receives email from Dylanna - it has a picture of Katya tied up and unconscious, in a dark rocky area. "No helping him save his dream - you have to save yours."

There are some sparkly bits in the wall in the picture - it looks like a mine. Some searching turns up a likely candidate - it's an abandoned mine not far from Icefeather Mountain, but near a dam. Jayla doesn't think anyone but Jim will be very much help rescuing Katya, though adding other people won't hurt. Ace points out to the Tinoori that First Frost of Autumn could be very helpful at Icefeather Mountain, though they shouldn't bring him.

The party splits up:
Rescue KatyaJim
Icefeather MountainSophia
Ace
Tinoori
RiotsMax
Sharra
Fleet Heading for JumpgateHippocrates
Ruehan
Fleet Heading for Stannis IIHippocrates Bot
Jayla
Jim takes his scooter to the mine, to discover that the dam has been blown and it is flooding with water. The mine itself is a terrible deathtrap that he has to get through as fast as possible, before the water reaches where Katya is (Dylanna has provided a little video transmitter, so he can see how close it's getting). Unfortunately, as he heads through the first area, he encounters something like microwave emitters in the walls, damaging or destroying everything metal he's carrying (this includes his scooter, his manual, Ace's plasma pistol...). It's a close thing, but he manages to swim to where Katya is with just four phases to spare (Jim has only been moving in his own phases, while the water has been rising every phase). Swimming out is more difficult, as he not only has to get through the difficult swimmy bits and the turbulent whirlpool junctions, but he has to do each span in one breath, so the unconscious Katya doesn't breathe in any water. One karma later, they're finally out, Jim doses Katya with yellow, and the two wait on a secluded hilltop for the Hippocrates to come and pick them up.

Meanwhile, Sophia and Ace are working to get to survivors at Icefeather Mountain. It seems that they'll need some serious digging equipment, but luckily, (thanks to a shtick Sophia stole from Chief), "she planned for that", and had Dumbo with them. Ace determines that the passage deeper in is too treacherous for Dumbo and proceeds alone. Managing to get past the deathtrap like caverns, Ace discovers a small bubble of survivors, but will be unable to dig them out without Dumbo. Sophia meanwhile has disassembled the drive unit of the Elite shuttle and has now fashioned a gravitic drive shield onto Dumbo. As Kye's digger proceeds through the cavern, its gravitic shield protects them from falling debris. Inside they find that Martan has mostly burned himself out holding up a telekenetic shield around Stannis and some of his kinfolk (though Andrej is not found among them yet, either alive or dead). It takes a very steady hand, but they manage to get all survivors out and then grab Martan which disrupts his concentration, collapsing the shield, just as they dive into Dumbo's area of protection. The day is saved!

Simultaneously, Sharra and Max are trying to prevent the city from rioting and burning to the ground. Max seems to have a shtick in steering mobs, so he's quite helpful in getting the marauding people to start putting out the various fires, but their efforts are thwarted by a local demagogue who feels that if Lord Stannis is dead, they all deserve to die. Max and the miscreant battle in words and surprisingly, Max and Sharra manage to win. Max goes back towards redirecting the crowd towards helpful ends, while Sharra notices the demagogue returned with a knife and is sneaking up on Max. With no time to spare, she dives in and neural disrupts the man into the ground. Max capitalizes on this drama and convinces the crowd to work together to save the city.

In space, Ruehan and Hippocrates are desperately trying to convince half of the Stannis' Law fleet from launching a strike against the Blues. Unfortunately, the commander of the fleet, Vice Admiral Graf has definitive evidence, faxed to him this morning that the Blues are behind the attack on Stannis. The evidence comes from no less impeachable a source than Geoffrey Oxford himself. Hmm, having heard about Jim's "conversation" with Dylanna, the pair is understandably suspicious of such evidence. It takes some mighty fast talking, and promises that they have definite information that Oxford was not signing evidence earlier that morning, but eventually the pair manages to convince the fleet to hold at the jumpgate and await possible results of the ongoing rescue operation at Icefeather mountain.

On the other side of the system, Hippocrates and Jayla are having a similar conversation with the captain in charge of the other half of the fleet moving towards Stannis II. In this case, it seems the captain doesn't have definitive information from Oxford, but is in fact personally obsessed with Orland Vigil and his ongoing treachery. It takes some mighty fast talking, but in the end, the captain is convinced that even if Orland is behind this mess he can afford to wait for six hours until they all get word from the ongoing rescue operations at Icefeather mountain.

Whew.

Puttering