Chapter 2: To the mining station and beyond...

The Sycorax II is floating in open space. West V is just a small blinking dot in the distance.
The hyperdrive is ready. Adonis only has to plot the course to the mining station and initiate the hyperdrive starting sequence and you are on your way to the mining station.

Where is everyone on the ship? In your quarters or do you choose a station where you are during the more eventful phases of your flight?

@Aldrusian/Adonis: I need a piloting roll from you. This will determine how well you plotted the course and how close to the station you will exit the hyperspace.

Dotty's awake by the time the cargo arrives and she ensures it's loaded properly and secured. She also makes sure that everyone in the crew has their new ID badges to make the ship as secure as possible and lock intruders out.

Once all that's done she sits quietly on the bridge watching gleefully as they depart the station.

"This is so exciting," Dotty says with a massive grin on her face. She splits her time between watching Adonis do his work and peering out the windows into space and back at the station. "How can you be so calm? This is like the coolest thing ever!"

Adonis smiles without looking"Maybe it's those long years of experience." He then turns to the controls and inputs the data necessary for plotting the course and then initiates the hyperdrive starting sequence. He opens the shipwide comm and says, "And we're off."

Dani is watching the engineering stations carefully, Listening to Nyan music on her personal 'phones.

K3VN is standing is plugged into a convenient power port. It's the closest thing he feels to relaxing. It's could be because the Organic Sentients leave him alone. Or maybe it's because he has an excuse not to think.

As soon as Adonis engages the hyperdrive the ship jolts backwards and suddenly the view of space you could see from the windows turns into something that looks like a dense purple fog. This is the view you are to enjoy for the week that it takes to the mining station. Sensors can't operate in the hyperspace and so you just have to wait and hope that the route was calculated correctly. After a week the piloting system gives the alert that it is ready to exit the hyperspace. Adonis takes the helm again, initiates the return sequence and after a shudder that runs through the whole ship you are back to the normal space.
Adonis did a very good job in plotting the course. The Sycorax II is nearly spot on to the coordinates of the mining station. An hour of flying with your normal thrusters should suffice to get to the mining station. If you want to you can already hail them.

Derek finds his way to the bridge and takes a side seat.

Dani spends the week puttering, tinkering, patching minor leaks and loose connections, cleaning, and trying to occupy her time exploring the nooks, crannies, and deadhead spaces inside the ship.

Dotty is sitting in the upstairs passenger lounge when the ship breaks out of jump, she glances about at the vast open nothingness of space and is vaguely disappointed that there isn't some nebula or ringed planet with an atmosphere filled with raging storms in front of the ship.

She looks to see if there's some kind of a local data feed she can link into to see about picking up a cargo from this location to their next one.

Even though he can hear everyone speaking on the bridge deck all the way back to the common room Adonis clicks on the ship wide comm and responds. "I see no reason not to hail them and request permission and a location to dock to deliver our cargo." He waits a moment in case anyone has a strong objection.

"I would think that would be what you'd do in this situation." Dotty says not entirely sure it is although most of the vids she's watched about space travel do seem to indicate that communication is particularly important.

I am surprised they have not hailed us yet. Usually a base wants to know who entered their perimeter but then some places are fairly lax. being friendly cannot hurt especially since we have a delivery for them.

@optimumsquare Yep that's a Mechanical/Sensors roll. 3d in your case
As you managed to jump quite closely to the station there is no meaningful delay in communications
Over wider distances you can communicate through the hyperspace and effectively communicate with a speed faster than light so that you can send messages with a delay of minutes to days, depending on the distance bridged.

Most stations constantly monitor the space around them with technologies like radar and lidar for flight control purposes.
Larger stations make complete profiles of the space around them while smaller ones usually don't even have a designated flight control operator and only have an automated system that looks out for possible dangers.

In the case of this mining station you can assume that they are more focused on mining than on flight control

K3VN doesn't get up. Why bother when you have total network access. Sure no one gave him the wifi password, but the Mushroom corporation really doesn't care about privacy rights. He scans the station

Dani carefully constructs a reasonable facade of cargo crates labeled "Genuine Dehydrated West IV Mud - Cosmetic Use Only" around the real payload.

K3VN makes a general scan of the mining station. It seems to be attached to an asteroid.
The scan yields nothing abnormal at first but at closer look K3VN can see some minor anomalies in the data. An irregular phase shift.
As if some kind of energy fluctuation is distorting the signal. The effect is very small but detectable.
He also can't see any kind of RADAR or LIDAR emissions from the stations which could be a sign that the station is having some kind of trouble or it could mean that the station just doesn't care to scan the space around it

From the bridge Adonis begins to hail the station relating the name of the ship and the cargo they have been contracted to deliver. He ends with a request for docking instructions.

Adonis hails the station but he gets no response. He repeats the hail on several frequencies and is about to give up when he gets a reply with a lot of static coming over the galactic emergency frequency

*static* Hello *static* ... you hear me? Are you the ore transport *static* You *static* earlier than expected.
*static* because of fluctuations in our energy grid *static* Do you have a technician to send over *static* docking port non-operational *static* need to do a spacewalk *static* probably the energy distribution unit near the docking port *static* Do you cop... *static*

Anyone in Dani's vicinity would be able to see her eyes gain that manic glee and her mind essentially go *ping!* when Technician and Spacewalk are mentioned. The weird little smile does not make it any less mildly alarming.

It seems like the station is having some kind of trouble. You could quickly approach it and look for damaged parts. Or you could try your luck with the communications system and establish a stable voice channel to the station.
Maybe you also want to do something else? You could just steer the ship in front of the docking port and shove the cargo out of the airlock. After all you are hired to deliver goods, not to repair mining stations...

Adonis jumps back into his seat and starts to maneuver the ship closer to the dock. He turns to whoever else is on the bridge and says, "See if you can raise anyone on the station. If we can't establish communications we'll just have to push the cargo into the dock or whatever is beyond that airlock."

Would you like to download the Mushroom Messenger App?

K3VN shakes his head. "Do not download the Mushroom Messenger unless you want uncomfortably targeted advertisements. Hailing the station." He speaks over the intercom. He still doesn't get up. "Attention Station. This is the Sycorax II. Requesting status update."

Dotty heads back from the passenger lounge, slides down the ladder to the crew deck and heads forward to the bridge.

She sits down in the one of the chairs near the back and looks at the sensor data.

@optimumsquare: Give me a mechanical/comm roll
@Emberskyes: You can have another look at the sensor data and try to extract additional information with a mechanical/sensors roll

I am going to grab some medical supplies and put my kevlar vest on. If we don't have communications by the time we are going to dock we will want to be ready for any surprises.

Dotty looks through the sensor data but ultimatively comes to the same conclusion as K3VN. There are some slight energy variations in the sensor data and other than that Dotty can't see anything unusual

K3VN cycles through the communication frequencies and can see that the station is in fact trying to respond to the hail but the response is weak and distorted. K3VN collects some data from the minor beams of the main communication frequency and can quickly calculate an algorithm that filters out the distortions of the main signal.
Transmitting algorithm to the Mushroom Corporation for evaluation Nonono don't do that! Abort!
Fortunatly K3VN is able to stop the transmission before it even starts

K3VN repeats the hail in order to see if its filtering algorithm improves the clarity of transmission

Helllo!? Can you here me now? This is foreman Jamal Holdswirth! Sycorax II!? Never heard of you guys. Your'e not the transporter scheduled to collect our ore. Are you pirates? I hope not. We don't have much to offer. Our energy grid collapsed due to.. well an accident. If you could lend us a hand and reroute the energy away from the main energy distribution unit we'd be in your debt forever. Maybe I could scrape together a little reward. There is an alternative energy distribution unit near the docking port but you have to do a spacewalk to get there. Do you copy?

Dani stands next to the Cap'n, practically vibrating with anticipation of his order.

Adonis can feel Dani trembling with excitement at his shoulder. "Up to you Dani. You wanta take a look? I don't think we should take a lot of time but an hour or two shouldn't matter if it's safe."

"Your description of the situation is vague and raises questions. Could you please elaborate on the nature of this accident so we can help you troubleshoot the problem."

She shouldn't go out alone just in case. K3vn would be a good choice as he does not need air. I could suit up as well but it is not my main area of expertise, I would be there to help hold the tools basically.

The foremen responds to K3VN's question
Oh boy. I had hoped that you didn't ask. It's a bit embarrassing. We ran out of beer and even though we placed an order for some more we weren't keen on having nothing to drink for the weeks until the delivery arrives. So we thought 'Ey, humans have been brewing beer since the stone age, we can do it too!'
Long story short. We built a makeshift brewery and used our food supply to brew something resembling beer.
So we wanted to celebrate our success and drank a whole lot of it. Dave, our mechanic, became piss drunk but also felt a bit sick. Before we could react he puked into our main energy distribution unit. Apparently that somehow caused our electric grid to collapse and we are stuck on emergency power. Only life support and emergency lighting. Nothing else works anymore.
We have an electrician for exactly this kind of situation but this beer we brewed apparently had some side effects and half of our crew, including the electrician are in sick bay and our medical computer isn't working. Our electrician can't move one foot without dry heaving but she said that we could reboot the electricity grid if we reroute the power to the other energy distribution unit near the docking port.
So yeah and that's where we are now. As said before: Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Adonis turns off the comm mic and says to those in or near the bridge, "I like to party as much as the next guy, but that's just flat out ridiculous. I'm tempted to just let them stew, drop off our cargo and get outta here."

"Wow, that is the lamest excuse since my dog ate my homework." Dotty says shaking her head. "I mean honestly."

Dotty moves the exterior camera’s slowly across the surface of the station looking for anything untoward.

"Having said that, don’t we has an obligation to render assistance? If we does, the would be in our debit, it’s nice when people owe you instead of the other way around."

Dani licks her lips. "So.. um.. Do I suit up or not?"

"Go ahead. Can't hurt even if it's only an exercise. I'll let them know that we are preparing to assist them. We'll see what kind of response we get." Adonis turns back and keys open the comm link to the station.

Dotty sees that the windows at the station are all dark. Through some windows she can see a faint red glow. Sometimes she can see a flickering, like a flourescent lamp starting up and then dying out again.

Adonis opens the comm link again
And? Are you ready to help us? We sure are quite desperate to finally be able to do anything else than to wait for rescue.

"We are preparing a team to both deliver our cargo and work on your problem. I would advise that you do not interrupt the team in their work, It may cause them to make an error and destroy the last hope you have of getting power back. Do you understand?"

Dani suits up.. making sure to grab the ICE suite drive. Never know what might be worth learning.

Aye! Thanks a lot. You don't know how thankful we are. We'll stay where we are. The foreman replies.
He gives a general description of the energy distribution unit and where it's located. Because the docking port is protruding from the station and partially blocking the unit Dani will have to make a short leap from the ship to it. Better bind yourself to the ship or a missed jump could result in an unexpected solo-travel into deep space

I'll need a Mechanical/Piloting-check from Adonis and an Agility/Zero-G-check from Dani.
Someone can slip into an exosuit too, grab the rope and help Dani maneuver to the energy distribution unit. This'd be a raw agility-check.

Dotty follow’s Dani to the airlock.

"So," she says adjusting her gloves and helping Dani into her suit, "be careful, hold on, have you ever sliced a powered down lock before? Please do not drift off into deep space."

Dani smiles brightly. "I've been on the outside of West IV lots, but this will be my first free walk!"

Piloting check to get as near to the lock as possible.

Adonis closes the external comm connection and opens the shipwide channel.

"Dani, do whatever needs done and get out of there. And, if you see anyone approaching you while you're working on it, just leave quickly. They promised they wouldn't bother you. If they do, it means they have ill intent. Good luck."

"If you need a hand," Dotty says handing Dani her helmet, "let me know and hurry back I have one more present for you and I can't return it so seriously, don't get hurt."

Dani secures her helmet, makes sure everything is sealed, and hugs Dotty again. "If I die, you can keep my stuff."

Adonis manages to steer the ship very close to the airlock without touching it.
You couldn't even squeeze your hand in between the station and the ship.
This gives Dani a very advantageous position to leap from.
Even without a perfect jump she should be able to reach her target

Dotty hugs Dani back then kisses the side of her helmet leaving a lipstick mark at the edge of her vision, "For luck, don't touch that it'll probably kill you."

Then Dotty steps back out of the airlock and closes the hatch.

She starts to put on her own suit just in case Dani needs a hand, she hasn't put it on in ages and it takes a good deal longer for her to get on than it should. When she's done she stands next to the hatch, helmet in hand watching what's going on on the other side on a nearby monitor.

Dani makes her way to the hull, mostly not almost missing the handhold, but gets there well enough. She begins the "diagnostic", using Dotty's special drive to see what she can see at the same time.

K3VN tags along. He doesn't need air. He does question the economic efficiency of saving these "sentients" who cannibalized their critical equipment to inhibit their operating parameters.

Dani has a look at the energy distribution unit. It looks like a pretty standard one and she can see that only the status light is on.
This means that the unit is ready to receive energy but is currently inactive or not properly configured.
Other than that it doesn't seem to have any obvious damages or unusual devices attached to it.

Dani opens the access hatch to the programming interface. Apparently the unit is for sharing energy between oncoming ships and the station and it should be strong enough to handle the station's energy. The only thing that bothers Dani is that as soon as she reroutes the energy the unit will suddenly spring to live and if she isn't careful she could be electrocuted.
But Dani is used to appliances like these from West V.
With a bit of programming and some some minor changes to the wiring she attaches the unit to the station's main reactor.

The whole station springs to life. Light begin to flicker and turn on, the sensors detect an energy rise in the whole station and the docking bay is powered on.

On the bridge Adonis receives an incoming transmission from the foreman
Ey! Whatever you did it freakin' worked! Wow. I can't tell you how thankful we all are. I'll send you the access codes to the docking bay. Come aboard!

Derek makes his way to the airlock waiting for the ship to dock. he does gather his armor and weapons just in case.

"Is it safe?" Dotty asks when Stitches shows up, "I mean I don't suppose it's never really safe is it given that there's a hard vacuum all around us." She's dressed in a vacc suit with the helmet off standing next to the airlock door.

"I ain't never really put much thought into just how much the universe wants us dead until this very moment."

Dani checks her air, decides not to take any chances with the gear they have to work with, and heads inside the .... station. Capn'll forgive her, right? She just wants to see if the damage is as bad as they say, maybe she can fix it.

The Sycorax II docks with the mining station. The airlock equalizes the pressure between the station and the ship and finally opens.
The docking port opens into some kind of storage facility about as big as a living room. A status screen beside the airlock indicates that the station is booting the main systems one after the other.

A door at the other side of the storage facility opens and a woman and a man enter.
Both look (and smell) as if they haven't showered in weeks. Their eyes are bloodshot and they walk a bit insecurely.

The man begins to speak Aye. Jamal's my name. This is my deputy foreman Christine. Wow thanks a lot. You really saved us a lot of trouble. If we'd have waited for the ore transporter a whole month of work would've been lost and I'd have lost my job.

He uncomfortably hops from one leg to the other and begins to speak in a voice that sounds quite high pitched for a man like him
You don't happen to have some medical staff on board haven't you? Half our crew is still sick and management saved a few bucks by not providing a doctor. I know it's a lot to ask from you after all you have done for us...
He looks at them in a way that somehow resembles a really dirty puppy

Adonis toggles on the comm link to the suit radios and says, "Cap'n Clemment here. You 'bout done with those repairs Dani? Don't forget to deliver that cargo. Clemment out."

Looking at the pair as they approach, Derek shakes his head as they let their other need be known.

Do you know the cause of the sickness? I am a trained medic but depending on what it is you may need more than I can offer.

Dani acknowledges the order with a crisp "Aye Cap'n. Get done and get out." She then begins to examine the power couplings and relays to see if she can find the real problem, as she suspects it goes deeper than a fouled regulator.

Dotty pulls out her pad and starts looking at the cargo lots from this mining station to see whether there is anything going in the direction that they’re headed. While she doesn’t expect much maybe there’s something.

Well I guess it has something to do with the beer we brewed. Since they drank it they have pretty bad stomach aches. Can't eat more than diluted nutrient paste or they vomit. Maybe you know how to treat this or at least which medicine to order..? the foreman replies to Derek's inquiry.
His deputy nods solemny with a concerned face. We brewed the beer using starch and some of the yeast from a growing bed for nutritional yeast. Maybe this information helps she adds

Dani has a look at the power grid and quickly finds the cause for the power outage. Apparently the control chip of the power distribution unit burnt out some time ago and the whole grid was controlled by the auxiliary one.
The auxiliary unit is crusted in what appears to be dried vomit and burnt out too. This sent the whole power grid in a permanent reboot cycle that was only broken when Dani rerouted the energy to the unit at the docking port.
She sifts through the supplies of the station and finds a broken auxiliary generator with a functional control chip.
She repairs the main energy distribution unit and it springs to life with a satisfying hum. Another job well done

Dotty scans the cargo hold. Unfortunately all crates are either supplies for the station or are labeled for shipping in the opposite direction. After all they are headed for a region of space with hardly any settlements.
One thing she notices is that while most crates are labeled with the code of a refining station she knows, there are two that are not labeled at all.
Maybe an oversight... or maybe not

Derek reaches over and hits the intercom button for the bridge. They got some sick people her as well, do I have time to go over and take a look to see if we can help?

While he waits for a response he asks them, I hope you at least have a medical bay here. Ours is fairly limited so if you have one it that may be a help. I will at least need to see one of the sick people to get some blood-work and see if I can find the problem. Just note I am not a doctor but a combat medic though I have some skills that may help.

Adonis responds to Holloway at the airlock. "You are all aware that anything you volunteer to do delays our primary purpose and it also give anyone with ulterior motives a greater opportunity to do us harm. Keep that in mind if you decide to get involved. You all can defer decisions to me even though I'm merely the pilot. I won't tell you what to do only remind you of the consequences that could result from your actions. And if you haven't done so yet, please send over the cargo that we were paid to deliver. Do you need my help to finish that?"

Derek calls back, I am going to check out what is wrong while we are unloading, Might just be a bad case of food poisoning but i will watch the clock.

He turns to those at the dock, Show me your medlab and I will see what I can find, though I only have limited time to spend as we are on another job that is somewhat time sensitive.

Once at the medlab he will run some tests and see if he can find what is wrong.

Dotty inspects the mystery crates in the loading area. Looking at the seals, any markings, that manner of thing.

Dani responds, "I did my bit, changed the fuse. After this, they are on their own. Heading back in."

The crates that Dotty notice are ore hoppers filled with a material that apparently was mined from the asteroid that the mining station is attached to.
There are a lot like them in the loading bay and apart from the missing label they don't seem to stand out at all. The ore doesn't look any different too. At least to Dotty's perspective as a layman.

Jamal leads Stitches to the sickbay.
It is full of sick people, some even have to lie down on foldable beds because of the limited medical beds. A strange stench hangs in the air as if something sweet is rotting.
The small lab in the sickbay is not very well equipped but Stitches finds enough equipment to pull some samples from the patients, colorizes them with chemicals and examines them under the microscope.
He quickly realizes that the beer was contaminated with Clostridium Cometicarii, a bacterium that thrives in space stations if proper hygiene is not maintained and enough nutrients are provided.
Just like in a makeshift brewery onboard a mining station in space.
There are good antibiotics against this and until they arrive a solution of epsom salt in water can help treat the symptoms.

You got to stop making your beer. Not only did it cause you to lose power but is also contaminated which is making everyone sick. You need to order the antibiotic, tricortical but while waiting a epsom salt solution can help treat the symptoms. Some may even make a recovery with just that., Derek says and puts the necessary information into their computer so they can treat those who are sick.

Momentarily a message comes across everyone's private comm channel from Clemment. "It's time to wrap it up and get on our way, people. We've got more serious business to take care of."

Jamal's eyes nervously dart around. It seems as if he is torn between gratitude for the medical advice and embaressment because of the contaminated beer that was brewed under his supervision.
Finally he begins to smile and shakes Derek's hand
Thank you, thank you. Oh my we won't repeat this mistake. I will order this tricortical from the mining company. So let me get you the payment and organize some folks to unload the cargo you brought us
He hurries away and for 15 minutes Derek is alone with the crew in the sickbay.
He comes back with his deputy and a cred-key in his hand and gives it to Derek.
So I talked with the folks and because you assisted us so much we thought a bit of extra payment is appropriate. We don't have much but instead of the promised 300 credits we loaded 400 credits on the cred-key.
Also my deputy noticed that your ship is a bit battered. We could give you one of our welding kits. I don't know if it can repair all the damage on the ship but it can certainly help to patch some leaks.
Once again thank you all for delivering the goods, fixing the power grid and treating my people here.
The folks are ready to help you unloading the ship and then you can proceed with your journey

Dotty helps with the offloading, once she figures out who the station quartermaster is she takes them aside.

"Look," Dotty says in full gangster mol, "I ain't suggesting nothing and it probably ain't none of my business but you got two crates that in your dock that don't appear on the manifest. They ain't coming they ain't going, and they ain't labeled."

Dani hears `Welding Kit' and smiles. "I'll definitely accept that. Thank you!"

One miner brings the welding kit. It contains a plasma welding lance as well as an assortment of metal sheets, pipe segments and rods.

Oh those two? They contain high yield beryllium ore. When we told the mining company that we found a vein of this ore they told me to set aside two medium hoppers and leave them unmarked. Guess someone will come and pick them up the quartermaster replies to Dotty's remark and shrugs

Derek heads back to the ship waits at the airlock to close it up once everyone is inside.

Dotty probably won't know it as it isn't her area of expertise but Adonis or Dani know for sure so you can roleplay that you message them or Dotty can just be ignorant about this

Once everyone is back aboard ship Adonis will formally announce their imminent departure to the station crew and alert the ship's crew that they are about to move away from the station.

Looks like everyone is back on the ship and ready to depart.
Jamal and his crew wave you good bye through a window in the airlock

Dotty heads up into her cabin and pulls a large black box out from under her bunk and then heads forward to the passenger observation room to observe their departure. She places the box in the middle of the main table before sitting down and making a careful note in her journal about the station and its rich beryllium vein. Astrid will no doubt want to know about this.

Dani starts making plans for the scraps and supplies.. and welding kit. Math and diagrams all over the cargo bay walls.

Adonis focuses on the instruments in front of him calculating their next jump. When he has it dialed in he makes an announcement over the shipwide comm. "Is everyone strapped in? We're about ready to jump. Holler if you're not ready." He waits about 5 seconds before he starts the jump engines.

Derek takes his place in the cockpit and waits until they jump before going anywhere else.

Adonis undocks the ship and steers it away from the mining station. It feels as if it is easier to fly with the reduced weight but this could also be an imagination.
He engages the main drive to get a bit of distance between the ship and the station.

With everyone ready to jump Adonis engages the jump drive. The ship jolts a bit left and right and suddenly the stars you saw through the windows vanish and are replaced by the purple color of the hyperspace.

The plotted course will take the ship three more weeks to travel to DS-Beta-3641.

If you want to do anything during the journey just say so. If not I will move us to the next chapter

Whatever amorous adventures the crew want to become embroiled in, Adonis will stay out of and turn a blind eye. A lot can happen in three weeks.

Derek will catch up on reading especially medical journals to keep his knowledge current.

He will also start trying to keep the small electrics on the ship maintained so that Dani can focus on the bigger equipment and helping her whenever she needs a hand.

Dani will be testing the materials we have and the tools we acquired with an eye toward patching at least some of the holes when we have time to. They do not keep her up at night, but the others have seen her muttering at the closed doors in resentment.

The journals that Derek study contain some valuable information about treating physical traumas. He thinks this knowledge will serve him well when he treats the injury caused by impact of or on a blunt object. He also learns a lot about the ship and will probably be able to locate the most common errors in the electronics as soon as they emerge.

Dani plays around with the welding kit and tests if the most common methods of welding patches over holes in the hull work with it.
It is a simple but sturdy welding kit and it should serve her well. Unfortunatly she can't go outside during the travel through hyperspace but she should be able to patch some of the leaks as soon as the ship jumps back into the normal space.

After three weeks of rather uneventful travel Adonis begins the procedure to exit the hyperspace. The ship jolts a bit to the side and you enter the normal space again.
It looks like Adonis, once again, jumped very precisely.
You arrived at DS-Beta-3641, just inside the orbit of the outermost planet of the system