The one with Zap´s second turn..

 .. or rather, his feedbackloop.
See last post about what this series is about. The short version: One betatesters journey thru The Vagabond, a PBEM I am writing.

The Minnow, Zaps current means of transportation.

Feedbackloop -  Stardate 102025-10, sector 6:17

As S'Hatis crew begin work on The Minnow, eager to earn the extra Cr you are throwing their way, you hang out with them for a while. You try to keep up with their hectic pace for a while, but everything seems to be a fairly standard procedure so you start zoning out watching the Ungolainths. 

With their small rotund bodies they almost look like they would fall over when walking upright on the hangar floor, waddling and rocking their bodies from side to side in an seemingly uncomfortable gait. This changes completely as they start climbing and crawling around over The Minnow as their arms and legs seem to be more suited for climbing, their long fingers seem to find the smallest nook and cranny to hold on to. The crew of 8 quickly rip open the belly of the hull and the subfloor in a weird symbiotic dance where everyone seems to know exactly what they are doing without saying much to each other. You can´t help to think that they probably are more suited to a life in low-G than the imposed Stand-G produced by the stations generators.

You head into the cockpit and snooze off for a while in your chair to the humming of their busywork and a feeling of relief, even a sense of safetly, comes over you for the first time since you dashed into the escape pod that you have since turned into The MInnow.

When the UP wakes you up with a sensory vibration an hour later (as you have instructed it to do if it detects that you are sleeping during awake-hours), you feel refreshed and content. Stepping out of the cockpit the Deutrium Hold has just been fitted in the undercarriage and one of the Ungolianths points towards it and the surrounding hole, giving you a glimpse of the hangarfloor underneath; 

"Boss, you want the accessports on the inside of the ship or should we just leave a hole in the hull down there?" The Ungolinath grins, showing way to many teeth while waiting for the obvious answer.

While having access to load D-Cells from the outside would be very convenient, especially on more unsavory locations where you wouldn´t want outsiders stepping foot on your ship, being forced to seal yourself in the cockpit while in the Void isn´t very appealing. 

"Nah, just close up the hull. I can load D into the hold from the hatch in the floor. Oh, and speaking of bosses, S'Hati is some kinda Big Boss here on the station right?"

At an instant the Ungoliath stops in his tracks and turn towards you. The grin is gone and he all of a sudden has an expression of suspicion on his face.

Ohshitohshit.. You let your guard down.. Sloppy mistake.. Felt to comfortable around his own crew.. Your mind races and you manage to somehow gain some composure and spit out;

"Yeah, I mean, he has a really well-oiled and big crew of mechanics and engineers. That´s superimpressive. His buissness must be flourishing."

You let out a laugh followed by the biggest fake grin you ever have mustered. The crewman relaxes and laughs with you.

"For sure Boss, Big S'Hati has a good crew. The best. We can build, modify, improve and.." He pauses just a micro-second, his eyes narrowing almost unnoticeable.
"take out anything from a ship."

He goes back to work on the hull while you step out of The MInnow, as it suddenly felt really cramped. Crisis averted. Hopefully.
S'Hati probably isn't someone you should ask to candid questions about, and you are sure that the exchange with the crewman will reach his ears even tho you played the dumb offworlder convincingly.

You watch the crew bustling about and remember you haven´t brokered the deal with the Clothan, Azizos. Your UP's screen flickers as you send him a message to meet you in 3 hours, hangar 172, subfloor 8. A few flashes later, a conformation. "Ok, see you then Captain."

The crew finishes their work and give you a quick rundown of the systems they installed. The controls of the souped up mining-laser are conviniently placed as joysticks next to your captains chair, while the whole astro-nav computer and controls are placed inside one of the cabinets in the bunk-area. 

Hmm, maybe there is a way to jerry-rig something to the front of the ship.
You contact the hangar flightcontrol and after getting the clearance to undock, you push the throttle and with a few vibrations in the hull you are at a safe distance from the Gumgala station to do a couple performance-tests of the FTL-drive. 

An hour later you return to the hangar very pleased with the tinkering. You managed to find a datalink on the scavenged FTL-Drive that you could connect directly to your UP and while doing so, you inadvertently realised the whole Minnow runs on internal datalinks aswell. Dealing with computerproblems and doing Astro-Nav is both now accessible from the UP. (edited)

As you finalise your dockingprocedure and the baydoors open, in steps Azizos pushing his few belongings in a gravassisted case in front of him.
You say your hello´s and as you prepare the FTL-jump 07:17, Azizos makes himself comfortable in the sittingarea. 

Chatting a bit here and there during the 20-odd minutes it takes you to hax the Astro-Nav, you find out that Azizos works as a professor on the Planetary University on Clotho and has been to Gumgala to do a few antique-deals for the museum back home. You get a feeling that he is carrying something valuable in the case resting beside him.

With a blip and the familiar feeling of unexpectedly falling a few meters, you arrive at 07:17.
A quick scan reveals that the nearest star in the sector is named Agrax. At the same time you pick up an anomaly in the area, something huge is coming thru the void and will materialise in your vincinity in 15 minutes.

Damn, this will spell disaster. As you look down on your controls you realise you have 2 choises; Do an emergency FTL-Jump, ending up the Void knows where, or simply power away from the entrypoint towards the closest planet in the system, aptly named Agrax VII. It´s a barren rock, no atmosphere nor magnetic core.

-----

Minor Task: Underworld, Mind Roll 2D6 = 3, Bad Failure. Avoidance Roll 2D6+1 = 13 Beyond Critical Success.

Minor Task: FTL-Drive, Mind Roll 2D6 =  9, Solid success. 

RNG-triggered PoL-roll: Avoidence 2d6 + 1 = 7, mild success.

Notes: Remove 6 Cr. Remove 2 D. Raise FTL-Drive to 2, Raise Blaster to 1.

Note: Add; 'Hax: The Minnow +1' to your UP. Add; 'Astro-Nav' to your UP.

Note: Due to FTL-Drive 2, you will now have -1 cost in D to do FTL-Jumps according to the table in ⁠rules-encyclopedia. (ie. always 1 for the first, and then 2 for all subsequent sectors jumped)

---

Enforced Major Task next Order: Do an emergency FTL-Jump to a random sector closeby.

Or,

Enforced Major Task next Order: Run your thrusters to the max and fly away from the entrypoint towards Agrax VII.



Cheers!
/Fred

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