The Whippet leaves the University of St. Mary of Mars on December 4th and heads insystem towards the Wytherby Memorial Space Station, the high port which orbits VanKilla Kiertotahti. Its a little over a six day trip which should leave them plenty of time to connect with the Pax Combine Tender Hibiscus on which they’ll hitch a ride to Dorlass. It is scheduled to depart on December 15th. On their way in they contact a broker on Wytherby to secure some additional cargo for their trip to Dorlass. They also look into parolee transport since they have a large number of low berths.
They bid 1,000cr each to transport some parolees (they are allocated 12) to Dorlass. The broker finds a couple of tons of prisoner produced wine which after some haggling they procure for 7,600cr a ton. It has a pretty good reputation and would fetch a good price on Dorlass or an even better one on Terra/Sol. There just isn’t a lot of cargo coming out of VKK since it is a prison.
On the way in the crew decides to do another sweep for stow aways. They run a bio scan. The scan is designed to detect the electric signature of biologicals. The scan detects an anomaly in Avionics, an electrical spike. It doesn’t fit the parameters of a biological signature but gets the crews attention. After much paranoia and preparation for invasion the crew decompresses the bridge and opens up Avionics for a look. After going through it with a fine tooth comb they discover a blown circuit which has fried some wiring. Mika sets about fixing the damage.
Also during the trip insystem the crew starts working on a few of their projects and makes progress on recoding the fire control program they stole from Buddy Bricker. They get the beam laser they bought totally refurbished and make progress on the Particle Beam as well.
When the Whippet reaches Wytherby the biologicals all take some R&R time. Neurog continues working on the Fire Control software however. The station itself is very well kept with a plethora of amenities, shopping and entertainment for the most part with some parks as well. The amenities are out of proportion to the numbers of visitors observed. But merchants say it does get busy a couple of times a month as Warden Service personnel come here to get away from VKK which can be kind of a depressing place.
Kimba during his time carousing the station runs across a group of Children of Orion. They make some snide remarks and words are exchanged. The CoO threaten to call the authorities after Kimba responds back to them demonstrating one of the primary tactics. Hiding behind the law to cover their abuses.
They eventually make contact with the Hibiscus and get the Whippet attached for the trip through Tachyon Space. However on day 2 of the 3 and ½ day trip the Whippet is attacked by a group of CoO. After a brief but intense firefight in which a couple of the Children are killed the crew drives off the rest and secures their ship.
The Children who have a ship attached to the Hibiscus as well button up their ship and refuse all contact with the Whippet’s crew as well as the Hibiscus after the attack. It turns out that the attackers came on board in cargo containers in the Hibiscus’ hold. One thing is clear the CoO seem to have declared war on the crew of the Whippet.
Currently the crew has the bodies of two dead CoO and are a day and a half from dropping out of T-Space over Dorlass. What will they do……..?