Chapter 2: The Wayward Wind

"Much better," Zuni says, leaning back in his seat and stretching his batch with a satisfied grunt as they enter Jump space. "Nice job, ladies."

The journey wasn't boring. Zuni sought out Rroerrgh and had many long conversations with him that took up a lot of his free time which he didn't mind. The Varg was young, petulant, and arrogant and Zuni liked to think he'd be able to soften that a bit by telling his own tales of adventures along with his many mistakes. Zuni had learned important life lessons from those disastrous decisions and hoped that Rroerrgh would look upon him as a mentor as he saw something of himself in the youth.

He also thought about what Alexa Rozzario had said and wondered if he could one day put his diplomatic chops to good use with the problems on Datrillian, the independents, and the Imperium.

Naturally, he was drawn to Naushtee Ashtara. She reminded him of Barvinn and his matchmaking activities. He enjoyed being around motherly figures he came to realize.

As for Horace, the human cyborg was just plain annoying but Zuni tried to smooth out his anxiety seeing as he's a big customer.

Alerio brings the Wayward Wind out of Jumpspace into the Elixabeth system. This system is buzzing with activity. Hundreds of ships, both Imperial and independent, are coming and going. There is a ton of chatter on the public comms, and you see the system is being patrolled by a 3000 DTon cruiser. It's an old but proud and respected class of warship. Alexa comments on the Imperial presence here: "Elixabeth used to be under the yolk of Forine. Things got real ugly as the Elixabethans fought for independence - massacres, and worse. The Imperium sent in a peacekeeping force and saved a lot of lives. That was over a hundred years ago, but to this day, Elixabeth is a stalwart friend to the Imperium."

As you approach Elixabeth, you see Starlight Beacon, Elixabeth's famous orbital starport, one of the finest in the sector. It's design is a work of art, and a testament to the talent of the Elixabethan engineers and artisans.As the Wayward Wind makes its way to dock at Starlight Beacon, you get a priority message coming in from a Type-T Imperial patrol ship. This kind of ship is very common throughout the Imperium: fast, armed to the teeth, and meant to keep the peace in the trade lanes. The ship is twice the size of the Wayward Wind and just as fast. You see that they have locked in an intercept course. Their message: "Wayward Wind, your vessel is wanted for multiple violations of Imperial law. Power down all non-essential systems and prepare to be boarded."

Seally spent much of the time trying to convince Zuzu to sleep on the foot of her bed, and chatting with the passengers. That is, what time she isn't studying up on leadership techniques.

She's not a stalwart friend of the Imperium, despite her in depth Imperium training, but that's only because the Llewyn family closely guards a kind of rebelliousness that is necessary to explain their somewhat lawless yet entirely secret brushes with criminality. Still, she can't help but take pride in the sleep cruiser that safeguards Elixabeth space, up until the fast mover hails them.

Seally laughs. "Guess we should have stocked up on fuel, we could have jumped." She lounges in her station on the bridge, double checking their fuel reserves.

On a private comm channel to Fallon and Alerio, and Zuni who is sitting right near her, "Okay, we have documentation regarding the history of the Wayward Wind, let's not panic. Zuni, try and fly casual, and comply with their orders. I'll meet the boarding party at the airlock."

She replies: Imperium patrol craft, this is Seally Llewyn of House Llewyn. We are complying with your orders, and are ready to receive you on board. I'll meet your representatives at the airlock. I'm transmitting on a subchannel our documentation proving our claim to ownership of this vessel as of three weeks ago.

As she proceeds with that plan, she asks Fallon and Alerio for their thoughts on the private comm. "I've bought us a few minutes. Fight, flight, or roll over?"

"Fly casual she says. Ok give me a minute to change into something more comfortable," he says with a straight face as he starts to get up from his chair, then sits back down.

"I think we should let them board and explain everything and presume they are reasonable. They could always verify our story with Walston although that would take a while. I don't think we'd survive running or fighting."

Fallon spent most of her socializing time with Naushtee. The other members were more abrasive, foolhardy, or single-minded. Naushtee was old, she had experience. Fallon asks her stories of her childhood, what it was like growing up during certain solar-system changing events, folktales on Walston, and of course gossip.

When not socializing, Fallon read up on Elixabeth, its history, cultures, and peoples. She also kept up to date on tabloid news, a hard habit to break from her entertainment reporting days, even though she doesn't find the entertainment culture particularly compelling. Still, old habits die hard and gossip is gossip.

When they are hailed by the Imperium ship, she agrees with Zuni. "Running or fighting will just make us look guilty of something. We have every right to be here and if we have some kind of warrant because of those gerkheads who stole it, better to get the situation cleared up now rather than later. I'll go with you to greet them, Seally."

"We have a ship full of witnesses that can attest to our story. It’d be foolish to try anything else." she hesitates a moment then, before continuing.

"Plus… this is a nice ship and all… but that thing would have us meeting the vacuum in about three seconds."

"My thoughts, too, just don't want to make decisions for us without talking it through. I'll go give them the guided tour. Zuni, you best hide that dodgy sock on the floor of your cabin," she jests.

That gets her thinking, "Fallon, Alerio, do you want to canvas our passengers, make sure if they're carrying contraband, we find a place to stash it?"

She doesn't suspect that's the case, but heads for the airlock.

"Yes, Aliero but they have a vested interest in being witnesses to a tale. I'm not sure the powers that be would be convinced, but it's something for sure."

Zuni throws a playful side eye at Seally and smirks. "I never would have thought to check the passengers for illicit substances. That's a good idea. I'll help." He figures it's a good way to work on and improve his reconnaissance skills. If anyone is carrying something they shouldn't be, they might not be forthcoming with the truth.

The patrol ship siddles up beside yours, belly to belly. A docking tube extends and the airlock seals confirm a good connection. However, twenty long minutes pass before anyone comes over. You suspect they may be confirming your documents. You are, of course, certain in the veracity of these documents.

The crew confirm with the passengers that everything is on the up and up with their cargo as you are about to be boarded, and none have anything to declare. Horace seems anxious, but no more than usual, and everyone seems cooperative.

When the air locks finally open, you are reminded of the weirdness of artificial gravity, as the decks of the ship's are at 90 degrees, and you feel momentarily like you're in an MC Esher drawing. But this is nothing new to the three marines who board your ship. They are armed with both sidearm and cutlas and dressed in light battle armor, but their weapons are stowed and helmets open.

The leader, Sergent Chen, introduces herself to Dame Seally first, and then to any others who are present. She comes across as professional and pleasant. The other two men stand at ease behind her with stern looks on their faces.

"Thank you for your cooperation. Everything checks out on your paperwork. The Wayward Wind's previous owners engaged in illegal piracy and smuggling throughout this subsector for the last six years, so you might find suffer from mistaken identity in this subsector. We're updating our records and will push the change out on the X-Boat network so you don't get hassled every time you come out of Jump Space, but that will take time. In the meantime, I suggest caution when entering a new system."

"We've read your logs about the situation on Walston and appreciate you sharing that information with us."

"So, what brings you four parsecs to Elixabeth?"

Fallon relaxes as everything seems to be on the up and up. "Thank you for the advice. We are tracking down the previous owners. They left our ship much the worse for wear and damaged its reputation just as badly. We heard some rumors they might be somewhere in this system. Until then we are looking for odd jobs to help pay for repairs."

"Six years?!" Alerio let’s slip. Somehow, that information had eluded her until now. Then she quietens herself, apologizing for the interruption.

"Exactly. Passengers that need transport, that sort of thing." she adds. She rubs Zuzu, to break the tension she felt in these situations. He was beginning to fatten up nicely after a few weeks of steady meals. She looks up at the three, trying to get the measure of them.

"Don’t suppose there’s anything like that for us here?" she chances.

Seally is always a little on guard around authority figures, especially police and military. Is that her families healthy distrust of the powers of the law? Yes, yes it is.

"Sergeant Chen, you're just lovely for updating your records. We'll be wanting to make some headway on the repairs at port here, I'm sure you cringed when you saw the state of the ship in your scans, and hopefully get the ID updated in the Imperium databases."

As they walk around the ship, the inside thankfully looking top notch thanks to the Walston folk, she gets an idea.

"Is there any way to get a data dump on those pirate activities? I'd be happy to put in a formal request to your command. We understand that the captain was one Salvor Dreks, and we'd like to hunt him down, make him answer for his crimes. Would there be a bounty on him by any chance?"

Sargeant Chen responds to each of the crews' queries in a calm and professional manner, although you notice a slight delay in her responses sometimes. Is she receiving messages from a higher up through her helmet's comms?

To Fallon: "Those rumours are true, Dreks and his crew were detained here at Starlight Beacon. Unfortunately, some external accomplices blasted them out of his holding cell, and they escaped station authorities. His current whereabouts are unknown. When we saw his old ship enter the system, we hoped to get a lead from it."

To Alerio: "Some honest freight hauling, I respect that. These frontier worlds would be far worse off without people like you. Going to take a while to fix your ship up on that kind of income, though."

To Seally: "Sorry, Dame. You'll have to visit an Imperial member world to register the ship. In the meantime, you'll show up on scans as an independently operated vessel. Like most things in the Imperium, there'll be some red tape to cut through; hopefully they'll fast track you on account of your station."

"There's a reward out for Dreks, for sure, as well as other top pirates in the sector. Check in with the constabulary office in Starlight Beacon, they'll give you all the details on current bounties. Probably available on the planetary network as well."

There's another one of those pauses, then.

"Yeah, I think we can get you the data you're asking about. But maybe you can help us, too. We'd like to go over the Wayward Wind with a fine-toothed comb, see if there's any evidence we might use to locate Dreks or other pirates. Won't take more than three hours, and we can do it while you're taking care of your cargo. Sound like a deal?"

Zuni immediately clues into the fact that Sergent Chen is most likely receiving prompts from someone higher up in the command chain. This leads him to believe that she is not acting with much autonomy if any so if the crew wanted to ask questions that might be a little too probing there was a good possibility of a dead end there. From the details of Dreks' escape, it was clear that security wasn't buttoned up at Starlight Beacon or it was too easy to infiltrate the guard units. Zuni figured someone knew where Dreks was, but who?

In the meantime, they would go over the ship as the sergeant requested. He doubted the data would yield anything of use since it would have been analyzed already by the Imperium but perhaps something could have been missed and Sealy's idea was a good one.

"Sergent Chen, as two of the crew have already alluded to, we could use some work here. Something that would utilize our talents while the ship is undergoing repairs. Do you know of anything that would fit the bill?"

Then after she responds, Zuni will say, while looking to the crew, "If the others have no objection I think we have a deal. We will go over the ship in exchange for the data dump.'"

Alerio clears her throat, as Zuni gets caught up in the art of the deal.

"Ahem… I think it’s them that will be searching the ship. Not us. Is that right?"

She looks at the captain.

"Good thing you picked up those socks, isn’t it? That would have been embarrassing!"

Seally wonders about the hidden files in the computer core that they haven't decrypted yet and purposefully doesn't look at Fallon as she says, "That sounds like a good deal to us. The interior of the ship was completely restored by the thankful and gracious people of Walston but they weren't able to handle some of the more technological issues that we had. We had to overwrite the computer memory with our own software, so I don't know what evidence will be available. Still, if we can get Dreks brought to bear for his crimes, then maybe we'll be able to show our silhouette freely around here, someday."

She makes a note to help Fallon remove those modules, or at least mask them better.

The two other men burst into activity on a holographically projected interface from their forearms.

"Understood. We appreciate your assistance in this matter, Dame," and then to the others "Citizens."

"We will arrange a berth for the Wayward Wind. Once you land, we will let you clear out your cargo and passengers. We will need three hours."

"Regarding the data dump on Piracy in this system, I will refer you to the office of Commander Isaac Foster, deputy commander of anti-piracy in Subsector 268. Arrangements have been made. Good day."

The marines leave, their ship undocks, and waits to escorts you to your launch bay at the orbital starport.

Seally jumps into action. "Alright Zuni, you're cradling us in the station."

"Fallon, remember that scruffy bit of memory in the core? I don't want them seizing that for crypto analysis on a datamining expedition. Let's remove the damaged segments, and make it look like they've been gone for awhile. Let's even add the missing module part numbers to our wish list too."

"Fast thinking. Let's take a look at those cores then."

Making her way to the memory modules, she makes an inventory, noting the damaged ones they will remove and adding them to the list. She takes slightly longer than needed as she is nervous about screwing this up and procrastinates a bit. Her palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. She takes a deep breath, cracks her knuckles, and sets to work.

"I'm on it, Seally." Zuni does exactly that but slowly, buying what time he can for Fallon so she can remove the memory modules. "Ready for escort," he says through the comm to the marine escort after what he deems to be an appropriate passage of time.