<> < returns to Petrovich Ship Docking at noon tomorrow.>> (Today has been a series of short wakefulness periods puncutated by 1 hr naps) <> (Man, how long did it take for Lexi to seduce 80% of TC to achieve the other team's objective? If it takes us over a day for this, that's a lot of time! (They spent the night in TC for questioning.) (Poor doods.) (*hurls Zeke at the wall to see if he explodes*) * Zeke gets to be there! That's pretty sweet. He has his suitcase as usual when he's traveling, and seems unconcerned. "It is much quieter today." * Hestia is dressed up all pretty! Actually she's just wearing her standard black with purple bit she always wears, and is there! Talking, with people! "So, how do we want to play this? We don't want to make him suspicious." She gives this some thought, then indicates her gun. "I could just hide somewhere and shoot him." <> "That might put a damper in asking him questions." At first. * Zeke tilts his holohead. "It seems easiest to simply take him into space, with us along, where he will have little recourse." * Hestia is about to respond to that when Zeke speaks. For what is approaching the twentieth time in two weeks, she slowly swivels her head at him with a distracted expression, before turning back to Galia. "What Mr. Box means is that I was joking." Zeke gets another brief glance, but by the time anyone could turn toward her she's looking back at the Nova's crew. <> "That's a good idea. I could tell him I discovered a network of spy devices hidden around the docking area, that seems plausible enough." ("Why do you persist in referring to me as Mr. Box?" "Because Mr. Container is too many syllables.") * Zeke's birdsect looks at Hestia. "If you continue introducing me as Mr. Box, it will become highly problematic to distinguish me from stray animated physical objects, such as toasters." No it won't. The toasters are quieter. <> "Space Jesus, you guys are *out* there." Yes, that's the marvelous crew of the Fate Breaker. In eternal social orbit around the farthest star. * Hestia glances at the ship. "Still, interrogating the bastard in space is a good idea, plus if it turns out he's behind it all, shoving him out an airlock and watching him explosively decompress is a much more satisfying death than just shooting him." <> "I suppose it is at that. Can I punch him first, though?" You can break his kneecaps for all I care, it's your ship. "Actually it's Przemo's ship, but he's not here, so we'll do what we want with it. Can either of you pilot?" * Hestia nods. "Yeah. I'm no drunken telekinetic media whore heiress but I can get the job done," she adds, inscrutably. "Great. You guys had better go find someplace to hide. I'll drag Termite back to this reality and get him on the ship. When you hear the airlock close, just take off. Don't worry if the DunnoTCs yell, they're idiots around here anyhow." * Zeke is silent a moment, then nods. "Understood." Reassuring. * Hestia heads to the ship! Presumably to the bridge! (Unless like, that's where they're going to drag him through. "And on our left you'll OH MY GOD WHO ARE YOU") (No, airlock isn't by the bridge.) <> "...ause we're cautious, that's why. That's what makes us such good chainjumpers." <> "I understand the need for security and discretion, but really? Meeting in space seems like a bit of overkill, and a waste of energy besides." (You taking off?) * Hestia is sitting in the pilot's chair! But when she hears the airlock close (among other things) she doesn't hesitate and finishes the startup sequence on the engines, having primed as much as possible before hand that wouldn't be obvious to someone. As soon as it's done: into space they go. * Zeke rests against the wall as he waits for the takeoffs. ~ This is simple enough. ~ <> "... hey, who else is on this ship? I thought we were going to be talking alone." <> "It's just the pilot, we had to have someone to get us up into orbit, right? iI mean that just makes sense, if you think about it." * Hestia sounds distracted even though she appears to just be sitting in the pilot's chair lazily. ~ Yeah. Bound to go wrong at some point. Bet he has a nuclear deadman's switch. ~ <> "Can we talk now, or must we wait until we get into orbit?" <> "I said, we're not safe until we're out of broadcasting range! Who knows what they've stuck on my ship that I haven't had time to find yet?" ~ That seems unlikely. ~ ~ That's because you have zero imagination. ~ ~ I did not say it was impossible. I said it was unlikely. ~ * Hestia cocks her head at the snippets of conversation, then smiles grimly. ~ She must have told him we tried to break in yesterday to get him on board. Clever. ~ * Hestia taps her finger on her leg. ~ Well, that or they're selling us up the river, but that seems... 'unlikely'. ~ <> "THERE. Now can we discuss this deal?" * Zeke deploys out of the bridge towards the conversation. ~ From their logs, looks like their bidders have access to the extra data, just like us and the Orchid... there might be more but I can't tell while we're up here. That 'Termite' guy's actually quite good. Can't concentrate on flying and hacking at the same time. ~ * Hestia also gets up! If there's no artificial gravity, she floats up! Science! <> "... y...you!" <> "You DID set me up! You said you ran them off yesterday!" <> "We did. They came back, like we asked." It's almost, like, a trap or something. * Zeke's holoface smiles that creepy smile. <> "Don't... don't come any closer! I'll open the airlock!" (Of course, he says this despite the fact that neither of us die in vacuum.) * Hestia just crosses her arms over her chest. "Well, I'm HEV protected, as is Mr. Box. Because of the box. I mean, sucks for these two, but it's not really a good threat, overall." * Hestia turns to Galia and Termite. "Not that I'd let him kill you. I'm just making a point." <> "Yeah, I get it." Yes. It is exceedingly likely we could close the door after you had flown out, Mr. Jackson. (Galia: "I don't give a damn who it is, SOMEBODY'S going out that airlock today!") (BBCA bleeps "dick"? Bravo will let you say "dick"!) (Wait, they just said "shit" unbleeped. Maybe they were saying "fuck".) <> "I ... uh... what... what do you want? You got paid!" ...I actually don't have a response to that. (gah afk a sec) (Neither does Zeke. Let's just kill him.) (We want information! About his crazy named conspirators!) (And why he's trying to kill us all!) * Zeke crosses his arms, with his holoface frowning as the birdsect watches him. "You have a strange habit of hiring ships to perform the same lethal and pointless job." <> "I... don't know what you mean." You know, people playing dumb makes me *inexplicably violent*. I just, you know. Thought you'd want that info. <> "Okay! Okay! So we send you to rocks! You're not dead, right? I mean, you're here, so you can't be dead, and you got the money for the job, so we're all okay, right? ... right?" Who's 'we', Mr. Jackson? "I, uh. Don't ... know?" <> "I DON'T KNOW, I REALLY DON'T!" <> Right, what DO you know? "He says his name's Gene Ashwell. Although sometimes it's Null Reg. He's got ... he's not right, you know, in the head? He talks sometimes, and there are lots of voices, or it just changes really fast, but sometimes, he's perfectly fine? Maybe it's a couple of guys, I'm not really sure, it's not like I get paid in anything other than credchips so I never see anything official and he or they only ever talk to me by phone, with the video bl anked out by this weird butterfly looking thing except it's kind of like it's crystal, and I get paid in a package that shows up in my mail three days after every hiring, and he says we're righting a wrong nobody understands but him, and also itkbmrmms." <> Null Reg... oh, as if I needed any more reasons to dislike this guy. * Zeke says, "Speak up, please, clarity is important." * Hestia scuffs Jackson's leg with her toe. "Hey. Hey!" <> "AND I TOOK BUGS FROM THE PLANETS BACK WITH ME OH SPACE JESUS DON'T SPACE ME" <> "You ... what?" <> * Hestia turns to Termite for a moment, then gives a low whistle. "...you're a man of many layers, you know that?" <> "Thanks." * Hestia tilts her head. "We knew about the butterfly. We didn't know it was crystal. Why would someone use a... crystal butterfly, steal Bugs from planets, and take all his fake names from old Earth popular culture?" * Zeke frowns. "It is an extremely... erratic pattern of behavior." "I don't know! You ... gotta... believe me!" <> I do believe you, somewhat. I think the fact that it's entirely believable you're a clueless patsy to a potential sociopath should unsettle you a little. * Zeke is silent a moment, then his birdsect turns to Hestia. ~ I believe we could learn more about him if we were to present him with a... bugged Bug. ~ * Hestia makes a concerted effort not to turn toward Zeke. It's hard. ~ ...a *what*? ~ ~ If the Supernova completes its mission, we can then provide him with a Bug that has communications capabilities that would allow us to identify the mystery eccentric.~ <> "This is insane. I thought maybe you guys were blowing this out of proportion, you know? Kind of .... like you were trying hard to find bad guys behind stuff. But this? Bringing bugs? Dissociative identity weirdoes?" * Hestia doesn't turn to look at Galia even as she responds. "Yeah, we get all the fun things." ~ ...you're kidding me, right? ~ ~ Do you have an alternative approach? ~ <> ~ Hey, you get to pitch it to them, including where you think we can come up with a fake Bug, but if it works I don't care. ~ * Zeke looks to Mr. Jackson. "What was your plan for the rest of this job? Did it involve capturing another Bug?" <> * Zeke nods back, and then turns to the group. "I believe, if you are interested, we could make it seem as if we had completed this job, and deliver a surveillance device to this Gene Ashwell that would enable us to gain more information." * Hestia glances at Zeke for a moment, then at Jackson. "You'd be helping us out, and I'd like to stress the alternative is watching your eyeballs pop like balloons." <> "A surveillance device? But he's expectin' a Bug." Yes. As he has given us the coordinates of a planet with Bugs on it, it would be possible to obtain a Bug and then make them function as a surveillance device. <> "You're just gonna go _get_ one? Like it's a CubeMeat?" * Hestia is unable to suppress a moment of looking at Zeke with the universal symbol for WTF etched across her face. (FUCK, seriously, fingers) * Zeke looks over at Mr. Jackson. "If he was capable of it, it does not seem beyond us." <> "Now I know why you guys are some of the best chainjumpers. You're fucking insane, from start to finish. But okay, if we've got to do a fakeout, I'll convince the captain to do it." <> "You're not gonna bring that thing on this ship, you know that, right?" * Zeke tilts his head. "Mr. Jackson carries a large metal case on these missions, it is likely that is how he stores the captured Bugs." (I admit, battery reserves running low z_z) * Hestia inclines her head at Jackson. "That true?" (I know, I'm basically asleep in my chair, I'm trying to drive it to a conclusion) <> * Hestia frowns. "Right. This isn't something we can decide right now... you two have to talk to your crew about it." She turns to Galia and Termite with a faint smirk. "If you're not doing that already." * Zeke looks back to them. "Yes. We will need to operate on either the case or the contents to gather more information." <> "They're really all on vacation. We're the only two who stayed to work on the ship. But I sent them emails, they'll get back to us soon." * Hestia nods, then turns back to Jackson. "What to do with you in the meantime..." <> "Can we keep him? If he's not in contact with ... whoever his boss or bosses are, they'll know, right?" (Convenient!) * Hestia shrugs. "If you can, it'll be easier. We need to tell our people about this plan too." "We'll be in touch then. Want to take us back down?" * Hestia nods and heads to the bridge! So it looks convincing! <>