Introducing Dark Matter HoldingsStop off at a unoccupied system about half-way to destination to play with toys. Ambassador plans to experiment on some Kuna units to learn gene-therapy tricks. Ziva keen to assist & watch. Utan finishes reparing the Albatross. Shar takes the picket for a few shake-down runs. Bnarch "helps" shake-down "his ship". Tsaijix completes installation of secondary jump room. Ziva assembles her medical bay. It's a military medical setup. Not suited for exotic cases, but a very good basic setup. Highlight is a funky diagonistic chair which reads the entire body. Nikchub is interested in getting scanned to better establish what has happened to his brain. Lack of space restricts investigations into Nikchub's cylinder. Placed in secure storage in Ziva's lab. Nickchub pokes at Latte's botnet plan and starts getting things into place for that. Kuna takes the ninja assasin hypno-tape "in self-defense". LAtte works on his plan, practicing secret identities and so forth. Ziva, visitng the Ambassador's lab, notices 6 large K-C units, 1 Kuna with weird bone growths (the Ambassador is somewhat frustrated by this). Ziva mentions that horn is modifed hair. The Ambassador is intrigued by this and has some further lines of research to explore. While repairing the Albatorss, 1 more corpse found. It's donated to the Ambassador's storepile of genetic info, and the keycard joins the pile. Utan chooses an emergency Imperial techie ID from the pile ("Lt. Fritzwarz"). Spend a week playing with toys, and then head to target system. Total travel - 3 weeks (2 weeks in transit, 1 working on stuff). Nikchub checks local news channels. News is dominated by a "royal wedding". The gradson of Consul Croazof (consul of neighbouring sector) is marrying daughter of plantery governor (and former consul), so lots of local sector rich and powerful around for that. Weeding is due in a couple of weeks. 2nd item on the news is of a grain blight in the main grain producing provinces (which also is the province of the capital). Several outbreaks have been reported and is generally a cause of some concern. Latte goes shopping for an expensive ship. Settles on "The Apple Mac" of ships, and pays extra for a bunch of custom stuff (custom paint job (red), custom decals on the engines (DMH), etc.) Gets horribly gouged on price for these. Arranges for ship to be delivered to local space station (Mingo station), known as a place to see and be seen (very Bohemian, lots of artists, no artificial gravity, etc.). Plan is Latte, Kuna, Shar & Bnarch as the official collecting party, with Ziva and Tsaijix as covert backup if needed. Nickchub and Utan notice wierd transmissions being received. Garbage headers, content scrambled, etc. Nikchub sees it in video signals, Utan in text feed. Some poking at messages, Nikchub decodes some to show what could be fragments of control system code. Looking at logs, establish that first messages arrived before we arrived in this system, so source is on the Ambassador. Shar examines messages - finds some evidence of evolving / learning in the way messages have changed. Much scanning of boxes, helped by Murgorakans, happens. Source eventually traced to a single comms unit in a box near Ziva's lab. Move box away and switch it off, and another unit in nearby box starts up. Further experimentation reveals that the cylinder is broadcasting something and is responsible for this. Nikchb hooks cylinder into private net and starts throwing info at it. Established that it jumps frequency over quite a wide range, which is why hard to spot this earlier. Utan reflashes affected and possibly affected comms units. Nikchub talks to Ambassador about cylinder. Ambassador still does not recall any details. Nikchub sees one of the new K-C units in action. Wood grain blends in very well with the ship and they are hard to spot. Latte and Kuna disguise themselves for trip to collect ship. Front company is official named "Dark Matter Holdings". Latte dies hair blue, Kuna dies hair green. Latte, Kuna, Shar & Bnarch go to station via fast picket. Tsaijix & Ziva take bus shuttle and arrive sometime later. Fancy party sees camera crew filming local performance artist on way to resturant. Head to "Mama's Resturant", which serves very traditional space station fare. Buy drinks, Latte asks for copy of camera crew's tape and for tape to be projected onto one of the walls. Also buys drinks for camera crew. Tsaijix and Ziva arrive, take table some distance away. Camera crew arrives for drinks, Latte beckons them over. Talks to presenter (Nora). Nora recognises Shar - Latte says "I could have turned her in for the reward, but where would I find such an excellent pilot?". Meal and further drinks follow, and then spaceship is delivered. Latte invites Nora and camera crew for the shakedown cruise, during which much drinking and footage acquiring happens. Bnarch takes picket to keep an eye on things, while Tsaijix and Ziva stay at the resturant. Latte does contact Nikchub to edit the footage, but with not very specific instructions, and, as he's distracted by various other things, Nikchub doesn't edit Shar out of the footage. Nora is dropped off at station, and then everyone returns to the Embassy. New ship is scanned, appears clean of tracking devices. Story about ship and DMH breaks in tabloid press shortly afterwards. Bnarch sends a suitable "DMH lawyer" takedown order, which (as intended) ensues that the story is widely propogated. Signal is sent to our buyers. Recieved a "There's been a complication, we need to meet" response. Utan, Bnarch & Tsaijix go as the away team. Instructions are to meet at a reasonably upmarket resturant "The Bellhouse" and ask for Nefri. Bells are clearly a local thing - lots of bell mobiles and so forth around. Public weapons are allowed, although with some restrictions. Utan carrying medium hand-gun, Bnarch several "tasteful" visible weapons and a number of hidden ones, and Tsaijix is unarmed. There are several lizards in town, so it appears there's some lizard settlement nearby. Make it from landing field to resturant via public transport without issue. Bellhouse easily recognisible, and has a large, apparantly functional bell outside. Talk to bouncers, get directed to second floor. Interior has lots of bells with jingle in the breeze. Upstairs is more business orientated than downstairs. Meet Nefri at one of the booths - she notes Bnarch's RFID ring, and guides party into booth. Another man in booth, appears to be her assistant. Discussion gets down to brass tacks quickly. Increased surveillance due to wedding and blight makes delivery currently impossible. Major issue is investigations into the cause of the blight, as most wedding security in rich areas. Nefri's employee has a lead on the cause of the blight. Blight is engineered, and being released by group in the city (cause unclear, could be speculation, revenge or anything.) They need them them taken care of in some sufficiently public way that it ends the blight investigation. They have narrowed down source to an approximate location, but don't have things completely nailed down. Area of suspicion is known mob area, so there's some options for "mob-justice" cleanup as well. Nefri's employer willing to pay a fair bit for this problem. Bnarch arranges a fee for us to look at the problem and quote on the solution. Is suspicous that price is agreed to too easily. Get data-pad with available info. Some pictures of agents, location guesses, etc. Nefri guess blight is part of local planetry politics power play (inter province in-fighting still quite common) Arrange contact details, and head to park to contact rest of the crew. Nikchub digs into records of grain speculation, but nothing obvious drops out. Tasijix contacts an ad-agency for DMH. Settles on "Pink fish", who have recently caused a considerable scandal with an ad campaign. Contacts them and arranges meeting for the afternoon (recpetionist is dressed as a pink fish). Brainstorming around datapad contents. Some photos of possible agents, although none close to the building. Centre of operations narrowed down to about 15 buildings, but all surveillance is long range (police surveillance in the area?). Some people identified as warrior caste from the neighbouring province ('Malawi' province), although there is some uncertainity. Nikchub checks records, identifies 2 techs (both with some bio-tech exposure) and 1 officer. Nikchub looks up mob links. 3 major mobs in the area, keep out of each other's way. 1 focussed on drugs, 1 on protection and so forth. No evidence that any of them are involved in the blight, although probable source is in drug mob terrority. Blight info form datapad and news is sparse.
Utan arranges to take a small Embassy KC unit (which the Ambassador will grow before nightfall) down to investigate area hit by blight and try to obtain samples. Nikchub digs into for more info and possible surveillance footage. Tsaijix queries planning database for recent expansions, especially for refigration installations. Finds 4 candidates in the suspect area. 1 ice-cream (booming business), 1 fresh fruit dealer (medium), 1 clothing (small, cheap local brand) and 1 leather shoe manufacture (low profits). Some are probably fronts for drug startups. Datapad info is really quite sparse, and Tsaijix feels it's sparse in a suspcious way. Deliberately edited or censored for some reason. Bnarch, Tsaijix, Shar & Latte go off to meet the ad agency. Latte calls ahead and changes meeting venue to a nearby restaurant "The Laughing Squid". Restaurant turns out to be a squid-themed very fast-food style establishment. Some dealing required to buy out the restaurant for the afternoon, but a large wad of small notes from Bnarch does the trick. Latte orders a very large squid for lunch and a bunch of platters are also ordered. Pink-fish people arrive about 10 minutes late, showing obvious signs of rushed trip. party is 1 manager, 1 minute taker and 3 creative people. Latte gives a vague "company vision" speech full of phrases like "A willingness to get away from the narrow stellar-centric paradigm. Trade Beyond the Empire" and such, and leaves the rest to deal with the fallout. Tsaijix's brief to ad people is "The campaign must make us look awesome, and create controversy". Much crazy idea stuff happens. Tsaijix approves lots of explosions and some censor bait. Promise of storyboards tomorrow. Latte's squid arrives and is shared with everyone. The left-overs, of which there are a lot, are donated to a local orphanage. Ziva watches a small KC unit get grown. She names it Scuttles. Ziva, Utan, Scuttles and a small lizard clone take a walnut shuttle down to the planet. Much prodding and smaple taking happens. Scuttles acquires a good sample. Blight is modified bacteria (the Ambassador is not impressed with the quality of the workmanship), with an definate off switch. Some poking at samples suggest it's a modified version of something not local to this planet. Style of modification is also suggestive of Imperial methods, so could be some sort of bio-weapons research off-shoot. Storyboards rejected by Latte. "We need something that tasteful, classy, and will get banned." Utan goes down to talk to local drug people to gain info, and conduct a little business. Drops of Ziva & Nikchub, so Nikchub can hack several companies records to leave traces of DMH transactions, and drops of a disguised Kuna clone with 4 small KC units to explore the suspicous buildings. Utan goes to the local drug mobs "info desk", and arranges to see a mid-range official using the mushroom drink as an in. Manages to setup a deal for 5 cases of mushroom drink for a reasonable (although Utan's somewhat rusty on horse-trading, so not stellar) price. Mobster samples mushroom drink, and Utan uses this opportunity to discuss recent activity. Several interesting points come out.
Utan leaves official the bottle, as a "goodwill gesture" Nikchub successfully plants several records of DMH. Once done, Kuna clone contacts Nikchub to say they've probably located the lab at the fresh fruit dealers. Arrange to meet back at the ship. Nikchub, Kuna clone, Ziva & Utan meet back at the shuttle. Report from Scuttles unit delivered via Kuna clone.
Utan sends Kuna clone and a Scuttles unit back to the Embassy, so data is captured by the Ambassador. Ziva, Utan & Nikchub head off to find good position to further observe the fruit importers. Choose deserted nearby building. Has suffered severe contamination of some kind, so Scuttles unit sign-languages us through the safest path to the roof. Observe "Mr Beard" from dossier emerge from building, with briefcase. Catches a cab. Nikchub tracks cab to train station. Unsure where target goes from there. Tsaijix starts making spy-drone things using the Ambassador's help. Bnarch plans to provide suitable extra biological material (the Ambassador needs more options for wings, etc.) Bnarch heads planet-side to add help to poking. Calls the fruit company on the way down. Uses CEO's private line (via Nikchub). "I'm interested in your hybridisation tech from your Lab". Denial and "I don't know what you're talking about <click>". Further calls produce no response. Latte contacts journalist (Nora), suggests something interesting may happen at fruit company. She passes over to a friend (Jef) of the "Obnoxious Inquirer" - described as "someone crazy enough to go into mob terrorist for a story". Party on roof observes a man arrive in taxi, argue with driver and swipe keys to force taxi to stay. Man attempts to not very subtly photograph the building. Flees in taxi (returning keys) when approached by the heavily armed security. Nikchub tracks taxi to Inquirer headquarters. Utan calls the CEO, offering to buy the company. CEO gets annoyed, especially by calls to his cellphone, and flushes phone. Bnarch arrives, sneaks around the back and picks the lock. Bnarch sneaks in, and goes up to second floor. Finds an inadequately cooled and not-well maintained server room. Bnarch pulls out a lot of drives from the RAID array, and heads out. Awkward moment when he's spotted by a guard. Unable to talk his way out of the issue, Bnarch pushes a crate onto the guard and flees. Nikchub joins Bnarch at a coffee shop (Utan & Ziva stay on watch) to examine drives. Several references to "stuff from below". Company doesn't't seem to know details of basement ops, but are aware there's something happening and are collaborating. Has a strong "favour for a good friend" vibe. People from downstairs are referred to by first name. Nikchub checks this against our list of candidates from dossier. Two matches found. Mr Beard (ex security guard at a biological facility) is "Mr Bread". Also identify Avni, (fairly non-descript woman), former biological facility tech. We detect encrypted outgoing comms from fruit company. Nikchub routes that via the Embassy, so Shar can look at crypto. Standard military encryption, so Shar decodes it. FC: "We've had a incursion" X: "Prepare to accelerate the calendar". Nikchub traces call. Routed to a local government space relay, and then routed back to the planet. Tracked to the palace of the Governor. Head back to the Embassy. Team gets hosed down due to contamination from building. Bnarch gives the Ambassador a number of insects as genetic materiel for spy drones. Head off to bed. Party wakes to headlines of "Double murder in new plague horror". New blight outbreak and 2 guards killed. Strong messages from all the major political figures currently around for the wedding. 4 major recurring quotes in coverage. Jenri (local sector consul), gives a very "on-the-up" "perpatrators will be brought to justice" message. Zenfiri (local province proconsul) - Emphasis on terrorism and threats of "destabilisation". Crack-down, prepare for war line. Mergen (neighbouring province's proconsul) - strong "we could do better than you" offer to help message. Krostor (neighbouring sector consul) - Somewhat unusual tone. Short diplomatic, message. Hint of threatening, without committing to anything. Tsaijix thinks he recognises someone in background of one interview. Everyone has a look - was Nefri's companion from the "we have a problem" meeting. Nikchub hacks local military database (easy to due to number of extra people who have been granted access for the duration). Looks up local delegates. Matches man to "Lt. Barath Fel" - on the staff of proconsul Zenfiri. Warrior Caste diplomat. Official title "aide to the cultural attached". Find Nefri on Zenfiri's staff as well. "Cmdr. Arra Quen". Officially bodyguard, but something of a "blacks ops specialist" feel to the record. Bnarch calls to setup a meeting with Nefri. Utan, Tsaijix and Banach meet Nefri for lunch in restaurant next to the Bell House. Latte and Kuna come along as hidden observers and put up a very convincing "couple having a good time" display (actual observations from the pair are thus uncertain). Nikchub examines the van pair arrived in - is very high tech and well armoured. Bnarch quotes a ludicrous figure for eliminating the problem. Nefri says it's ridiculous, but agrees "as a gesture of good faith". Some fencing about who's working for whom and where evidence should point, but mission parameters are settled (evidence should point to neighbouring province). Discuss arms handover, since it's clearly unrelated to plague elimination. Arrange to drop stuff off in orbit, and handle money transfer (down payment) at the station. Nefri leaves - Latte manages to catch aide's eye (trying for Nefri's attention) and mouths "Good day Lt.". Results of this are really unclear. Cargo is delivered (via Hausdorff and complicated orbital mechanics) and down payment is collected without incident. Time notes: This leaves us at 2 days before wedding, 1 day before scheduled drug delivery. News of latest blight and associated murder is quite prominent, but still second place to news of the wedding. Ambassador shows off current efforts on spy drone. Has many eyes, lots of wings. Has good visual range, and tentacle things it can use to grasp. Problem is wings are very noisy (shouting to hear each other in the room noisy), so it's not exactly that stealthy. Doesn't have camouflage yet, so, although ti can perch some way away from action, can't hide well. We give the Ambassador feedback, and will look for alternate wing options. Some chameleon-like abilities seem feasible to make it less obvious. Lots of suggestions about trying to use it as grenade carriers, but doesn't seem the most sensible use. Plan is: Utan will go deliver the drugs, then we'll take a force and eliminate the blight crowd, acquiring whatever info and personnel along the way we can. We plan to frame it as a drug mob hit, so we need to leave suitable evidence. Plan is to ensure we have adequate (i.e. overwhelming) firepower, so we'll take a bunch of lizard units. Research shows that each mob is associated with a specific "clan bell", so leaving some of the right bell around will be pretty much all that's required to suggest the mob involvement. Latte sends encrypted message to proconsul to arrange a meeting between DMH and the proconsul to discuss business opportunities. Hope is to determine if proconsul knows about staff's activities. Latte, Shar & Bnarch go to the surface in the flashy ship, so on hand for meeting if it happens. Proconsul sends response an hour later. "Terribly busy. Would be happy to discuss things at the wedding. Make arrangements with my aide, Lt. Barath Fel". Latte contacts Lt Fel and asks for 10 tickets to wedding. Utan takes drug shipment, 2 Kuna's, 6 medium sized lizards and 2 scuttles units to the surface in the bus shuttle. Plan is for more lizards in walnut shuttle to arrive early evening before attack, and walnut shuttle can be used to transport items taken that we don't want to smuggle back via the bus shuttle. Utan hires a very anonymous van, and bribes the port officials as required, and drives off to drug drop-off. Goes near the fruit importers and drops off a scuttles unit to get updated intel on activities. Scuttles unit establishes that lock on back gate have been changed, a new lock added and computer system is still out, which is causing complaints from staff. Head off to the travel agent. Meet Bnarch there. Very new receptionist, but give code phrase and get to talk to the mobsters. Conditions of changed somewhat. Mobster who made the initial deal is younger brother of more senior official, who's not happy with the deal. Deal is renegotiated with a 20% discount for this shipment and full price for later shipments. Drugs delivered and payment made, with much whining from younger mobster (Zack) that he's not getting the respect he deserves. We observe and not mob bell design on the way out. Drop off second scuttles unit to try map fruit dealer basement and go buy the right bells. Some care taken to make sure we're looking in the right place, as reports are that looking for those bells in the wrong place could be unhealthy. Scuttles unit reports that it observed 2 "combat units, male" and 2 "non-combat units, 1 male, 1 female" enter the basement and none have left. A rear entrance to the basement is also discovered. Meet up with everyone and the extra lizards. Party splits up for the attack. Shar, a Kuna and a scuttles take a sniper position in the chemically hazardous building overlooking the entrance. Bnarch and 3 lizard will guard rear entrance to basement, while the rest of us will take the front entrance. Bnarch picks the new locks, and we sneak into the loading dock. Latte spots a small blinking light above the doorway. Latte boosts small lizard to examine it. Identified as a tiny camera. Lizard duct tapes the camera. One security guard arrives, and is ambushed. Ordered to lie down, which he sensibly does, and is secured with lots of tape. Second guard comes to investigate, is also easily subdued and securely taped. Bnarch and 3 lizards take up station at rear entrance, rest of us go to the front. Keypad entrance, but not cleaned. Digits 1, 0, 7 & 3 have seen use. Based on what Kuna recalls from scuttles unit, possible codes are 3701 or 1703. Utan tries them in that order - 1703 works. Doorway opens, revealing a guard. Guard grabs for something (presumably gun) and ignores order to surrender. Is promptly shot by several lizards and Latte, and is very dead. Utan goes to investigate body. Dressed in plausibly deniable military'ish fatigues and has generic gun. Latte goes ahead to next room with most of the lizards. Utan grabs keycards from the corpse, tells a lizard to stand guard and informs Bnarch that we've gone in. Latte bursts into next room. Party is promptly shot at by guard. 1 Lizard is killed. Guard is shot (Mr Bread). Room is workspace, with secured door leading further into basement, and some more labspace and living space leading off as well. Sweep captures 3 techs (one is Avni, one is a obviously scared female tech, 1 is a crying male tech). Attempts to get them to talk reveal nothing though. Latte attempts to blow the secure door. Doesn't quite work (botched roll). Second attempt works. Room beyond is office-space of some kind. Has 3 corpses, all senior military people from the neighboring province. Corpses arranged in way which suggests "murder-suicide" pact, although Kuna reports that corpses aren't recently dead. Scuttles unit reports a invisible person around. Kills lizard on guard at the main entrance. Latte pursues, manages to shoot invisible person in the leg, and informs Shar. Shar spots figure via infra-red scope and shoots figure at the exit, and it drops to ground. Shar directs Latte to figure. Latte rips off suit (which is damaged) to reveal badly injured woman in plan jumpsuit. Utan and lizard explore further. Find room with blight samples and a bunch of extra interesting tech, including some very compact one-shot stasis bags which are new to the party. This room connects to the rear entrance, so we seem to have covered everything. Pack up to leave. Take injured invisible assassin in stasis bag, 2 other stasis bags, the 3 techs and some computers from the blight sample room. Load most of this onto walnut shuttle and ship it back to the Embassy. Leave some mob bells around. Utan sneaks remaining lizards and some tech back to bus-shuttle and returns anonymous van. Contact Zack (drug mobster) before leaving via Kuna. "Something has happened that, if you're smart, you can claim a great deal of credit for", and heads back to Embassy. Bnarch call Neferi to report task completed. Neferi says she'll inspect work and complete payment once she's satisfied. Tsaijix, on the ship, gets the updated ad from Pink-Fish. It's a somewhat bizarre one involving nude contortionists with attached bells doing some sort of complex dance / sex scene, which is somewhat erotic and also rather creepy. Tsaijix likes it and pays the bill. Nikchub hacks the official government broadcast and arranges to replace a "message of congratulations from several major religions", to be aired immediately after the vows are completed, with this ad. Religious message is shunted to a sports channel. Injured operative is shunted over to the Embassy and handed over to Ziva's care. The oeprtive is still alive, although in a sort of half-stasis state. Stasis bag didn't completely work as needs to have various chemicals replaced, etc. Ziva estimates that reviving her and patching would is at best a 50/50 option, so dumps her in the fancy healing chamber she's been cooking up with the Ambassador's help. Stuff starts happening, and wound is starting to be patched. Ziva watches and records process for further analysis. Plan is to exploit the captured by lizards angle and question the techs. Techs ferried over to the Hausdorff, where Bnarch, with the help of some lizard clones from the Ambassador, will interrogate prisoners. The backup plan is for Shar & Latte, with Ku-na clones to act as "Imperial rescue force", and liberate them from the lizards. Bnarch starts by questioning the crying man (Nevin). Nevin breaks easily, and tells Bnarch everything he knows, which is not much. Suspected the operation was illegal and related to the blight, but too concerned about job security to quit. Identifies techs as himself, Zuri and Avni. The boss is Tani, who is described as fairly non-descript (medium build, brown hair, blue eyes, etc.), but does more-or-less match the captured operative. Tech's were responsible for growing something in petri dishes, and then transferring it into appropriate containers. Zuri corroborate's Nevin's info. Zuri is basically too terrified to react much. Zuri aware of blight link, but has political motivations (Immigrants from Malari province badly treated), so OK with that part of the plan. Avni doesn't go beyond name, rank and serial number. Bnarch tries various tricks - monologuing, cutting off a little finger midway through a speech, injecting with surgical spirits (solution 3), and so forth, but get's no further than name, rank and serial number. Establish that Avni is somewhat concerned that Tani may talk, and when Bnarch claims she is in need of serious medical attention, appears relieved that Tani may die without talking. The "plan B" button is pressed. Some bad acting later (hopefully covered by smoke and noise), the techs are "rescued" and transferred to a secure room on the Albatross. Some debriefing by Shar as Lt. Cmdr, claiming to be from Enki province (distant, neutral, known to be on decent terms with Malari province). Avni asks for asylum. Says she was part of an "off the record" operation, and needs protection from local authoritied. Avni's alternative solution is to be dropped at Mingo station, as they can manage to find their own way to safety from there. Shar says we'll look into options. Avni volunteers no more info on Tani - believes she died on lizard ship. Utan attempts to hack computers taken from lab, fails, punts this to Nik-chub, who has much less trouble. Lot's of data on the blight - engineered in Malari province to help control / conquer agarian planets. Lots of control on life time and virulence. Being run in a very mild mode here. Several records of officials involved. There's no mention of Tani, but lots of mention of the 3 corpses. News reports of story seem to have bought the mob-hit lead, and there's some official reporting on story. No word on Malari province link, but official statements showing all the politicians show Proconsul Zeferi as calmer and more relaxed than before, Proconsul Mergen upset and unhappy and Consul Kroazan appears to be somewhat uncomfortable and unsettled. Via Nikchub, DMH sets up a short-term web lottery for 4 wedding tickets. Gets a large response. Arrange meeting with Neferi. Utan & Bnarch go, as Tsaijix is joining the wedding party (Latte, Shar, Ku-na, Tsaijix and Ziva as indepedant backup). Money is duly paid. Neferi mentions that they've misplaced a person of interest (Tani), and asks if we've found her. We claim not, but do offer to keep an eye out. Neferi would prefer Tani alive and intact, but will settle for dead. Drop the 3 techs off at the station, as there's not much interest. Techs are told not to contradict the official "mob hit" cover story. Avni is instructed by Latte to keep the others in line (this may be bad for their health). Tsaijix, Latte & Ku-na go to resturant to meet the winners of the lottery. Take flashy ship and land in VIP parking. Winners are teen girl, 90-year old woman, uncomfortable accountant dude and 10-year old boy. Nik-chub runs records - all have criminal convictions. Teen girl - driving under the influence, old lady - public nudity and prostituion, accountant - embezzlement, kid - propery damage (threw a brick through a ship window during an argument). Very PR stuff done - statements from winners, drinks bought, etc. Party departs - 5th ticket left as a tip for the waitress (she seems quite happy about it). Party attends the wedding - Ziva arrives seperately and tries to ensure she doesn't get associated with the rest of the party. Wedding in prominent shrine, associated with historical ruling family (links to current ruling family unclear). Party is in the 2nd level of VIPs, still good seats inside the shrine. Much hob-nobbing and such happens. Wedding goes off without hitch. Hijacked ad plays, and reactions are as expected. Party proceeds to the post-wedding reception. After some time, Lt. Barath Fel asks them to meet the proconsul in her private office. Meeting goes fairly smoothly. Proconsul implies that she wants to use Tsaijix's Gephken connection to arange meeting with the "fourth founders" people (we think). Basic message seems to be along the lines of "I wish to communicate" Latte asks about goals. Zeferi (speaking hypothecally), points out that current heir to the Empire will require a regent, and that recent events mean that Consul Krosovar is the best candidate, and that seh has considerable influence other the consul. Implies that Consul Krosovar is currently upset by proconsul Mergen's betrayal (the whole complex blight thing). Zeferi assures Latte we're safe here, and that Consul Javosequor's people arent around. Outside, Ziva is approached by a young man (Varin), claims to be a member of consul Krosovar's staff (accountant). Attempts a couple of bad pickup approaches, and then goes with "late on work, and needs help getting out of reception to avoid being caught by the consul". Ziva agrees, with the plan to clone access card or something. Contacts Bnach & Nikchub to relay this. They leave together, pretending to argue about a resturant, and leave without problems. Plan is to go to the Bell House for dinner (Varin paying). Latte, Tsaijix, Shar & Kun-na leave office to be greeted by sound of explosion. Word of mouth quickly claims it was from a ship leaving the VIP parking area. Latte's party heads for the exit - there is much running and pointing, and mentions of Proconsul Mergen's ship having blown up. Smoke can be seen from the very VIP foreign dignataries airfield. Nikchub is watching news feeds and emerging scandal on DMH ad. No unusual traffic before explosion. After explosion, everyone cuts over to live reports and so forth of events. Very little actual news "It's reported that Proconsul Mergen's ship exploded shortly after takeoff - details unconfirmed" comments and such like. All craft nearby grounded - massive search for explosives and so forth underway. Latte sends Bnarch to deal with the bus shuttle, while Latte, Tsaijix, Shar & Kuna go to leave via the fancy ship. No sign of Ziva, and her bracelet is off. They reach the parking lot. Security is distracted by the release of some home-video footage of the explosion (Mergen's ship takes off cleany, then explodes at about tree level). Nikchub records broadcast for further analysis. BAsed on evidence, looks to be internal explosion rather than missile or similar external attack. PArty heads to the ship (now christened DMH-3). Tsaijix and Latte do a quick scan of ship - it appears safe, and they take off. Some minutes after they take-off, they are contacted by the control tower with a "all flights are grounded, please land" message. There's a "could you repeat, our comms are flakey" bluff, followed by the launching of fighters who soon arrive on the scene. DMH-3 is hailed by the fighters with instructions to land or be shot down. Latte, in his DMH persona, attempts to negogiate a trip to the station, but this is nixed with threats of extreme prejudice by the commanding officer "Caption Ery", who is clearly unamused. After several exchanges, Latte agrees to land at the proconsul's private airfield. Latte also sends a small list of annoying requirements, including squid from "The Laughing Squid". Bnarch contacts to say he was unable to launch before security clampdown, and, as it doesn't look like things will be moving again anytime soon, is going to go look for Ziva. DMH-3 lands a airfield outside the city. Essentially a fortified military compound, looks to be in considerable uproar. Evidence is that the compound has been heavily reinforced and fortified in the last few hours. Squid is delivered by Captain Ery, along with a request to meet the proconsul at the party's "earliest convenience", with a strong emphasis on "earliest". Latte, Tsaijix & Shar go off to meet the proconsul. Compound is very busy, lots of patrols going out and so forth. Latte takes time to further annoy Captain Ery (delibrately incorrecct salute and similar fun), and party goes off to meet proconsol Zenfiri. From orbit, Nikchub & Utan monitoring activity. There is much military activity around the city, and some agitation in orbit, but no signs of planetry defense activation or anything like that. Trouble appears to be currently largely planet bound. Whole operation has feel of trying to track a specific person or thing, with the search area widening over time to account for possible movement. Party meets Zenfiri in her office on the compound. She is talking to a number of military officials when the party arrives, sees party and says "please sit down, rest of you, get out", which they do. Zenfiri explains that it has been discovered that the groom ("Fradly") at the wedding was in fact a body double of the true groom, who, according to reports, had decided to switch places for a little fun. Switch happened shortly before the wedding. The body double has been interrogated, and has been most cooperative. Explosion is unrelated to this, and Zenfiri is, as is to be expected, completely unfased or concerned about the explosion. Fradly appears to have used the body double's invitation and card to enter the VIP party, but vanished without trace sometime before the explosion. Zenfiri wants the matter settled with discretion, and would strongly prefer to be responsible for finding Fradly, rather than the consul's forces, and thus wants to enlist our organisation's aid in the matter. Party agrees to help. Much work and examining of survellience footage happens on the Embassy, thanks to Nikchub's cracking of the military databases, and Utan's willingness to put a bunch of Mugorakans at puring through newly uploaded video footage of wedding and related incidents. Based on info of when body double's card was used, we can find a figure of the right description (correct build and hair colour (blonde)), wearing a red and blue cape and a mask enter. Further digging shows the same figure (we think) leaving with Ziva. Tracking through uploaded footage shows the pair several times on the route to the Bell House, where Ziva said they were going. Latte and party head to the Bell House, landing in the street. Attract considerable attention as DMH. Head into resturant. Tsaijix shows matre-de picture of Ziva, and party is led to the private booth Ziva and companion took. Party finds Ziva along - Ziva says that companion went to the rest-room 5-10 minutes ago. Frantic dash finds restroom empty. Mask and cape have been pushed into a waste basket. One of the sinks shows evidence of a dark hair dye being used and of shaving (Fradly is described as having a beard). Video footage from near the back of the Bell House shows two likely suspects (approximately right build and dark hair), although view isn't good. One, wearing a green jacket, heading down the street, and another, wearing a brown jacket, heading in the other direction. Latte and Tsaijix split, with Ziva joining Kuna and Shar on DMH-3 to try aerial survellience. Tsaijix goes after the brown jacket. Heads into a likely motel and manages to identify the candidate as the motel's bell-hop, and not our suspect, so heads back to join Latte. Latte heads after green jacket. Latte finds a street urchin and engages in conversation. Grren Jacket is identified as going into a dodgy area and presumed to be going to talk to dodgy people. Latte pays for directions and is led to the right place. Nikchub and Utan look up details of area - known mob area, with interest in human trafficing (general stupidity of this plan seems right for Fradly, so looks like this is our man). Latte pays urchin, and then goes and knocks on door. Answered by gangster. Latte asks from Fradly back and says the Imperial Forces are looking for him and likely to track him down quickly, which will be unpleasant for the gangsters. Door gangster goes to talk to superiors. Latte shoots of the lock and Latte and Shar enter, armed. Follow voices to an argument in a closed room, debating about the person being "hot". Latte knocks. Gangsters are startled, and shoot through the door, but Latte is able to avoid this. Gangster who shot (door gangster) is jumped on by one of his companions. Latte and Shars enter room and quickly subdue the gangsters. They find Fradly, and head off. Fradly has shaved, and dyed hair. Is also heavily drugged and liable to all sorts of entertaining outbursts of unmoderated honesty. Utan arranges to exchange Fradly for a future favour and some current office space for DMH. Fradly's hair is redyed, and he is returned, rather the worse for wear, to the proconsul. With the proconsul's help, we arrange suitable office space (in a reasonably historical old mill in the city centre). Arrange receptionist, and arrange lawyer (via mob connections) and reliable mob broker to shuffle money around and ensure DMH looks like it's somewhat activie. Arrange for more DMH ads, and also start a couple of sideline businesses: event management and booking handling, and also a line of DMH branded lingerie, to capatilise on effect of first ad. Fallout from explosion is surprisingly limited. Successor to proconsul Mergen is a friend of Zenfiri's, so she seems to be consolidating power nicely. Lots of "two provinces brought together by tradegy" speeches, and official mourning for the accident. News is still dominated by the wedding and pictures of the "happy couple", altough it as to be said that Fradly does not look that happy with the setup. Captured woman in stealth armour has now healed, but feeling is it's unwise to remove her from the tank with Ziva. Decide not to interrogate the captured woman, since there's likely little new to be learnt, so Bnarch and Latte conduct an elobrate scheme to leave her in a isolated barn somewhere, mostly naked, with a smiley face image glued to the ceiling above her. Utan takes the oppurtunity to gather more random genetic materiel for the Ambassador, to maybe help with the spy drones (in this case, some fertilised eggs). Decision is to depart the system and head for Gephke. |