Chapter 2: The Wayward Wind

A lot of people turn up to Startown to wish you well on your way to the stars. The whole planet seems to take the day off in order to accommodate saying goodbye to you, and the day feels like a festival despite the dark ash clouds still hanging in the sky. Floodlights are set up; there's a band. Simi takes a scan of the four of you (and Zuzu!) in front of the Wayward Wind to put in a new exhibit in the Museum of Sand.

Not a single Barvinner is absent. Greener is there, and people are congratulating him on him anticipating the situation. Gino is there, too, telling everyone how his truck played a pivotal role in the Rescue of Barvinn - "Not a scratch, folks! Not a scratch! She can outrun a volcano!". On a more awkward note, two of Zuni's five prospective brides show up, one of them even in a wedding dress, hoping to sway Zuni to stay on Walston, or maybe take her with him.

The band, as if on cue, plays an old Terran classic.

Oh, I met him there in a border town
He vowed we'd never part
Tho' he tried his best to settle down
Now I'm alone with a broken heart

Oh, the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind



The crew boards with their passengers. Fallon, acting Chief Medical Officer, helps get folks into their low berth cryopods. Alerio and Seally set up in engineering to deal with plotting and executing the jump. Zuni takes his place at the helm, and fires up the Wayward Wind's M-Drive. By himself, he's a pretty good pilot, but with these enhanced controls, he feels like an Imperial fighter ace. The crowds wave and cheer enthusiastically, while the brides wipe tears from their eyes.



Seally is busy with the Jump calculations, working with Goldie to plot a course through Jump space. To get to Elixabeth, she needs to first chart a path to the Datrillian system.Alerio prepares the ship's Jump drive using Seally's charted course. As she diverts power to the J-Drive, the lights dim across the whole ship.

"Last chance!" Alerio says, through gritted teeth and smiling. She nudges Zuni, and points to the would-be bride, and waves. A second later, and she’s moved on to waving at somewhere else in the crowd.

It felt good to have her gun slung back over her shoulder. They hadn’t needed it, but some things shouldn’t be parted with too regularly.

---

"Alright. Moment of truth." she says, wiping a bead of sweat off her forehead.

"Lets give these folks a little confidence that they’ll get there in one piece!" she says, looking down at Zuzu!

Fallon helps the passengers and is secretly happy how much of the process is automated. It makes like she knows much more than she actually does. Once everyone is stored away, she heads back to the bridge where the action is.

"All right, off to the next adventure! I trust you to get us there Zuni. I wonder if the next planet will also have a lovely beach with clothing optional," she muses loudly, seeing if she can make Zuni blush.

Taking all the bride teasing in his stride it seemed that Zuni no longer blushed. His matchmaking stint with the vargr granny saw to that. His cheeks had reddened so often that he became desensitized. Or at least that's what he hoped.

"Now Fallon, you know that I'm more than up to the task of getting us to our destination safely. As to the beaches, well we can only hope."

Delighting in the sensitivity of the ship's controls, he tried a few light maneuvers but not enough to knock anyone off their feet. He beamed with delight and looked forward to their next chapter.

Seally welcomes the passengers in and personally makes sure they're comfortable and know which berth had been assigned to them. She checks off them as they enter, using her mobile comm like a checklist.

She chats with them lightly, too, but as soon as they're settled she heads to the bridge to lay in their final flight plan. She struggles a little with Goldie's interface, but manages to work it all out. When she's done, she locks the course in for Zuni to use.

She leans back rubbing her scalp, nerves showing.

"You'll be fine Sealy, relax. Haven't we stared death in the eye and prevailed?" he asks chuckling. "Isn't that from something? I didn't make it up."

Zuni double checks the course, and declares it good.

"Right. Who wants some coffee, or what feels like coffee?"

As Alerio tries to project the Jump field, she finds the old drive's defects to be punishingly difficult to work around. As she struggles to get a stable jump field, the lights on the ship flicker in protest. Fortunately, Seally's fifth-dimensional Jump equations provide Alerio enough tolerance to find a workaround (mostly by giving it a big thump on the top with a hydrospanner). As the Jump field solidifies and the bubble fills with liquid hydrogen, Alerio eases open Jump space, and Zuni takes you in. Just before you enter, the Wayward Wind seals all the hatches to prevent the crew and its passengers from accidentally glimpsing Jump space. Some things human minds just cannot comprehend.Once you've entered Jump space, you are completely disconnected from the rest of the universe for an entire week. Starship life definitely keeps you busy; from tending to your passengers' needs, maintenance routines, physical exercise, and honing your adventuring skills, it is impossible to get bored.

You get to know your passengers a bit, and learn a bit about the universe from their perspective:

Alexa Rozzario: A representative of Ling Standard Products sent to negotiate mining rights with The First Citizen on Walston. She claims they never met with her, and the whole Loudermilk family was on a retreat in an undisclosed location. She thinks that's bullshit and they just didn't want to talk to her. "It's getting harder and harder to find people willing to talk to anyone with Imperial connections out here. It's crazy; the people want the jobs that LSP can bring. This planet could become something big!" She's given up for now and is returning to Elixabeth for reassignment. "Datrillion is a great example of wasted potential - they could become the gateway to this sector. But their starport has seen no progress in three years. Investors want in - why don't these people want to get rich?"

Rroerrgh: A young adult Vargr who refuses to take an Anglic name and bristles every time anyone mispronounces it. He has worked since he was 14 to raise the funds necessary to depart Walston, and begin his journey to reunite with his civilization. He considers the Vargr of Walston to be completely disconnected from their heritage, and longs to see the six moons of Hiigara and join a true Vargr raiding band. He has a grudging respect for the crew the Wayward Wind, however, on account of your excellent heroics in Barvinn, and that is why he selected your vessel to travel on. "It is a good ship, but your armaments are pathetic. A warrior with a rusty sword commands no respect."

Naushtee Ashtara: A grandmother who came to visit her youngest daughter in Walston for the better part of a year, who just had twins. She's returning to her life on Elixabeth and leaves with a heavy heart. "That's some brave thing you did on Walston," she commends you.

Horace Symon: Horace, a human cyborg, is heading to Elixabeth to buy parts for the Walston aging submarine farming fleet and get a full checkup on his cybernetics. Most of the planet's foodstuffs are grown and harvested underwater, it seems. A lot of the freight you're carrying is his, and he is looking to trade it for parts. He's all business, and the only emotion he ever shows in anxiety. He's worried about arriving on time, especially since the initial Jump was not smooth. "I'm not paying for any rainbow trout that spoil in your cargo hold on account of avoidable delays! It's in my contract!"After the week ends, you exit Jump space and enter the Datrillian system. Even though the Wayward Wind is equipped with artificial natural light and virtual windows, it always feels good to raise the shutters and see real space again. You have enough fuel to make the next Jump to Elixabeth, but you'll be on empty when you get there.

Looking at your fuel gauge, you see you have enough hydrogen for one more Jump.

Some Options:
* Just skip Datrillian and keep on going to Elixabeth. You'll arrive with no Jump fuel, so you'll have to refuel there before you can jump again.
* You can refuel in gas giant Datrillian Prime, but sensors indicate it is experiencing especially strong storms across the entirety of the planet. Refuelling will be risky, but free.
* You can go to Datrillian itself, one of many moons orbiting Datrillian Prime. There is a single, domed city there, and plenty of oceans to extract hydrogen from. It is protocol to contact the Datrillian space controllers to ask for permission and a flight path first.


Datrillian City

Seally reviews the ships logs with Zuni as they fly closer to Datrillian. She calls the other crewwomen to join them.

"Fallon, from what you heard, Captain Dreks might have passed through here. Now I know we don't have a lot of extra time before our cargo gets fishy, so we need to jump for Elixabeth soon, but how about we refuel in the ocean, and maybe we can do a little investigating on the side. Might be we learn something, might be we don't."

Alerio tries not to get into it with the young Vargr. She’d seen dozens of scrubs like him get recruited into gangs back when she was on a task force to clean up the streets. All bark and no bite, until they did bite. And then Alerio bit back.

What would an untested kid know about a warrior’s respect…

She wants to ask, but busies herself with getting more familiar with this J-Drive.

When called to the meeting, she stands with her arms folded, rag thrown over her shoulder, and listens to the brains figure out the next step.

Fallon helps Seally with the passengers during the trip, hearing their stories, answering their questions, fulfilling their requests as best she is able.

To Alexa Rozzario: "Perhaps there are better things that money? Or perhaps they don't want to be taken advantage of by the rich and powerful?"

To Rroerrgh: "We aren't warriors. Does a wise woman or the village elder command no respect without armaments?"

To Naushtee Ashtara: "Thank you for your kind words. I would like to think others would do the same if they were in our position."

To Horace Symon: "Well lucky for us all delays were unavoidable," she smiles.

Once she has finished with the passengers she regroups with Seally. "Sounds like a great idea. Shouldn't take more than evening to get enough information to at least see if Dreks came though here and when."

Naturally, a wisecrack about the beaches of Datrillian is made by Zuni but his jokester demeanor becomes instantly serious when he sees the meteorological data which elicits a long and loud whistle. Shaking his head, brow furrowed with concern he knows an important decision must be made.

"Free fuel ..., " he says, one palm raised as if literally weighing the options in his hand, "but nasty weather, and we have the captain to find, or skip Datrillain and head straight to Elixabeth," he says, the other hand raised palm up but slightly higher.

He had learned the subtle nuances of piloting the ship by now but he wasn't super confident about handling it in high winds.

"What do we think? It's hard to turn down free fuel but then again it won't be much use if we are all dead, buffeted around like so many tin cans."

As the crew discusses their options, your comms light up. An automated message plays out in an artificial male voice, and is repeated in many languages:

All Imperial craft looking to refuel in this system, be warned that Datrillian Prime is experiencing global storms and is off-limits for refueling. You may request a flight plan for orbit around Datrillian where we will place you in a cue. A cutter from the surface will dock with you to supply fuel. Please check the current rates and have payment methods ready. Estimated wait time is 18 hours.

Datrillian craft and guests of the King of Datrillian, please present your ship ID and you will be provided with a flight plan to Datrillian City.

You notice that the price of fuel is 200% of standard rates. The comm channel is two-way, and you can transmit your response if you wish. Because your ship's registration has just been reset, and you haven't visited any Imperial ports yet, the Wayward Wind is not registered as an Imperial vessel.

Taking a look at your sensors, you see there are more than thirty ships in orbit around Datrillian waiting for refuelling. Most are small tramp freighters and a few scout type-s ships, the kind of ships that only have a Jump-1 drive and need to refuel after every jump. A single dilapidated fuel cutter appears to be the only craft providing fuel, which explains the bottleneck.You do notice a familiar ship in orbit - the Autumn Gold, Captain Keller's ship that brought you to Walston from the Imperial Space.

"Agh, fuck me sideways. That's bull shit."

Zuni let's out a loud exasperated sigh and turns to the crew.

"Now what?"

"I don’t suppose your family name can get us a scoop?" Alerio says, raised eyebrow at Seally.

"If not, I say we jump now and offload the fish!"

Seally shakes her head. "I agree. Let's get gone. This place is being shaked down and we look genetically engineered turkeys with triple sized breasts."

She starts looking at the others, Fallon and Zuni. "What say you? If we jump in Elixabeth and things are rough, we'll have to pay the piper then."

"I'm inclined to agree." This was serious stuff and no time for joking around. Still, Seally's joke about triple-sized breasts suggested a very comical visual and it was hard to remain expressionless.

Are we all agreed then?"

Alerio nods.

"I’ll get us ready to move!" she says, turning on a heel to leave. She stops suddenly then, and returns.

"Should we… tell someone about this? Is this against some law or code or treaty?"

"We're not contracted to spend credits here. I'll lay in our course for Elixabeth. Zuni, can you move us back into empty space?" They all know that the ship can only safely jump when it is more than one hundred diameters distant from any object large than the ship. Luckily they haven't ventured too close to the planets from where they jumped in.

Seally sits comfortably at her station in the bridge, and walks herself through the mad mathematics of J-space navigation. Luckily she can chew gum and talk at the same time. "Hey, I named our AI Goldie in the moment, but do you ladies want to pick something else?"

Zuni takes you out of Datrillian's gravity well. You dim the ship's lights, enter Seally's equation, close the hatches, and enter Jump space. This time, things go smoother, as Alerio is getting to know the Wayward Winds quirks and quarks.

The journey to Elixabeth is smooth. The passengers are getting to know each other and bonding. Rroerrgh continued to be a stick-in-the-mud at first, but he took a strong liking to Zuzu, which lead him into conversations with Naushtee. Naushtee reveals she used to be an officer in the Imperial Navy herself, and regales him with tales of battle from the Fourth Frontier War. She was there at the Battle of the Two Suns, where the Imperium smashed the Zhodani navy 31 years ago. At the end of the journey, she presents Rroerrgh with a red scarf she knit over the course of the voyage. "Remember this, young warrior - always wear a hat and a scarf on a cold day."

Alexa bristles at what she saw at Datrillian. "I bet Trexalon ships don't have to wait in the queue. I wonder how much the TTC paid the King of Datrillian to bottleneck Imperial shipping? People think the Imperium is the bad guy, but this is just going to raise prices on things people need to survive! Trexalon can't supply everything."

In response to Alerio's question about whether this breaks some kind of treaty, she explains: "I'm sure Datrillian claims these are 'safety Regulations' or something. Even if it does, the Imperium can't appear to be meddling in the internal affairs of independent worlds, that'll just play into Trexalon's propaganda."

Horace continues to fret about his fish, even though everything is progressing smoothly. He spends hours in the cargo bay, checking the pH and temperature levels. You do find out he's an excellent Jom'bak player, a Vargr game of chance and strategy. He defeats Rroerrgh 3-0, which is the only socializing he does over the trip.