Heist the Colours 2: Now in Space (RP)

Continued from Heist the Colours.

There was a sense of unease on the roads from the city to the spaceport, but no sign that people were properly aware of what was happening or about to happen. Perhaps this distraction helped, or Perhaps Bob was responsible, but the guards at the spaceport gate and hanger did not ask many questions or bother to give your gear or paperwork more than a cursory glance. And you put significant effort into that paperwork.

Bob's bright orange Gig --what did you expect?-- is apparently called 'Ginger' (six-one-hotel-six-echo-romeo) --again, not unexpected. He proudly shows it off when you arrive and Abby tries to look impressed, but mainly looks scared.

Abby quickly locks herself in her room for the launch, nodding at Bob's suggestion that she take anti-nausea meds, just in case. It is only after this that you realise there are only two cabins --though they each have a double-bunk-- and one shared Fresher. Bob assures you he prefers to stay in the pilot's seat, though you suspect he is being uncharacteristically chivalrous with this lie. There are not enough seats for everyone, and Bob insists everyone needs to be strapped in for the initial launch, at least one of you will need to strap into a bunk for now.

With the demand for speed, Bob tries for a high-G burn, but after a day everyone is feeling ragged, and Abby insists she is going to die, --and looks like it too, in a non-goth way-- so you are limited to slightly over 1-G with 2-Gs while everyone is asleep even though this is uncomfortable and probably not worth it.

At first Abby is amazed by all the stars, she has never left her planet before and all the light-pollution reduced their splendour to a mere few twinkles in the night sky, she had no idea there were so many and is excited to get to see them all. But, over the days of unchanging travel she ends up spending most of her time with her face in that new computer. That still makes her happy and she has transferred the software from the cube to the computer and futilely begged Bob to let her try it out on his ship. As she points out, she has no experience here, and does not know what to expect from a real ship. As he points out, Ginger is the only thing between them all and horrible death in the vacuum of space. Do you take sides?

What do you each do over the (unspecified) days on your way to the Depot?

The Depot caretaker is less interested in your papers and purpose for being there than in any news you have from the surface. Apparently things have gotten bad down there and the News Networks have been shut off or appear heavily censored, even from before you left. He has his immediate family up here, but has other family and friends still on the planet, and is worried.

Something in his questions implies that he is expecting (official) people to be arriving up here to mobilise the fleet, and he possibly assumes you are part of that first wave. This could be to your benefit, or come back to bite you later, depends on how you play it.

Arriving at the coordinates of your Far Traveller Ship, you can see from some distance away that there are problems:

Where you would expect a Launch or Shuttle to be mounted there is an extra Turret instead.

The ship is sealed up and powered down and locked down. But you were expecting some level of this. Airlocks can be powered from the outside in case of emergencies and for mothball situations like this.

What do you do?

- Ronny -

"'Extra'? Compared to what?" Abby replies. "I don't know what level of security to expect, so it makes little difference to me." She is trying to sound confident, but knows that the time is fast approaching when she has to prove her worth.

She is scared, scared of failing and letting everyone down --a bigger problem than she expected, now, with the nascent rebellion down there and the less-than-legal activities they got up to getting away-- and scared that she won't be able to cope with the new environment with all its new dangers and considerations, and scared of the Vacc Suit she has learned she will need to wear till they get the ship running enough to turn on life-support.

"Is it true what they are saying on the news? That someone assassinated High-Prince Ferdie? I liked him, he was better than the other 'politicians' who will inherit now. It's bad, right?"

- Ronny -

Abby tries to look stern --because she is sorta 'in the media'-- but has to smile and agree --because she is sorta in the media. "I suppose so." She replies, still looking vulnerable. "This is already the furthest I have ever been from home." She says wistfully. "With each step I take it just gets further. Leaving the system is just another 'step', right?"

- Lio -

Abby had her own meds --the expensive ones-- and only really needed them for the nausea for the first day or two. You suspect it was mainly nerves and being in a new situation after that.

'' Good to go Ronny, do we just walk up to the ship? Will our handyman cover work you think? I mean, it was quite easy to get here, maybe it can help us get inside the ship without too much fuzz? Nobody ever bothers the workers with the helmets and high-vis shirt.''

Your target ship is hanging in space, quiet and cold, powered down for storage. Bob expertly attaches to the airlock docking ring, Ginger providing the power needed to light it up from the outside.

The central observation hub where the caretaker is lives visible in the middle-distance, but you can not make out details with the naked eye. Presumably the caretaker would need to take an active interest before he would notice anything strange going on over here. But you are the only other people around, and he seems chatty and even inclined towards coming over to help if you don't take steps to avoid that.

The caretaker treats your approaching the ship as a normal thing, that is why you said you were here. He will not be suspicious unless you do something suspicious...

"It's locked." Bob says. He does not sound all that surprised, not all mothballed ships are locked, but all airlocks have locks with a code to prevent people from getting in at the wrong time. If there were people working outside one's ship it we be unconscionable to endanger them by requiring a code in an emergency, but this ship was not active. Presumably the expectation is that the rightful owners would have that code.

---

What was your plan to deal with this problem? Did your contacts somehow get ahold of the code? Did you bribe someone for it? Must Abby hack it before you can enter? Is this a surprise to you? Do you try another airlock? These are just examples.

What do/did you do?

Abby looks at the numeric-keypad-lock. "Possibly." She says. "It is just numbers. It should not be too hard to bruteforce the combination. Do you know how many digits? Does it lock you out if you get it wrong too many times?"