We finally gave up on acquiring a rock hopper and took a escape pod to the Resolute. Now Ash, Widget, and I are on Venn’s ship, along with at least eightf Swarm Corrovox. They aren’t happy to see us, and the feeling is mutual. And Widget is, well, distressed that he’s in my encounter suit. He has to stay in for a bit, as engineering has a hole straight out to space– not something I would try to fix unless necessary. I mean, it’s necessary, sure, but difficult to I do while trying to fight of Swarm coming from two directions. We made it to a working lift, but Triune only knows what we’ll find. I think we should have convinced Lexx and Sresaka to come along. I hope Venn is okay. I hope I’m okay. I don’t like bugs!
Rae
Ysoki Mechanic / Xenoarchaeologist
I’m outta my head without you
And… Venn’s boss told us he received a distress signal from Venn in the Chiatus system. Near space, binary stars, class G, and class M for the 2nd star, a red dwarf. Five orbits, with the only remaining planet in the third ring, and that with a terraformed moon. Population should be a quarter million independent miners. Venn’s ship, the Resolute, is in an asteroid field.
We leave immediately, just the regular crew and Celi, and take the 4.5 day journey through driftspace. We spend the second half following a dreadlancer, keeping back enough that our excellent sensors can track it without being seen ourselves.
When we get there, we drop out near the asteroid field. We look for an asteroid big enough to hide a ship. There are plenty. We keep finding derelict RC-HPRs — aka rock hoppers, used for mining — crashed on many. We stop for each as we find it. After many hours, we find Venn’s ship. And we see his dilemma. He can’t move with the also-crashed dreadlancer on the same asteroid. Ash and I are going to try to move a rock hopper towards the Resolute, hoping to get close enough while looking like space flotsam. We don’t want to alert any Swarm collecting here. Widget is going along on what he’s calling Operation Rescue Daddy.
I pity the fool!
I tried to get Venn’s boss to admit he has some idea what’s happening with Venn. He did say he’d get our concern about the Swarm to him (was that code?). So, alive, most likely.
I can’t believe we are continuing this increasingly unsafe ambassadorial romp through the Pact Worlds. At least Amber and Mez’chef are joining us for the next leg. To Castrovel! Hopefully.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I have a hard time with bugs. I like Mez’chef, but she’s really an acception to my rule. I do not like thinking Venn is anywhere near the Swarm. But he is on a long radio-silent mission. He thinks I’m on a “safe” mission. Hah! We finally get away from Abollon, and found ourselves silently creeping through driftspace after encountering one swarm ship after another, including five dreadlancers. I can only assume our ship wasn’t worth the bother, as we saw them meet up, along with some smaller ships, in Drift. We were fortunate that Brock was able to keep our calculated route home, as we kept looking for large fields of asteroids to hide in. Once back in our space, we’d barely docked on Absalom Station before we rushed to the Stewards’ offices to have them warning, well, everyone.
I’m drivin’ all night, just to keep the rat in the race
Addendum to previous entry: try salt water on the suits. I just keep remembering the Vesk ambassador when we visited Vakpod, trying to breathe in an atmosphere suits that had been tampered with. And we should check each suit, just in case only one or two have issues.
The suits can be stored in an airlock. Unless they are reactive to drift….argh! Wish I could talk to Venn. Anyway, it’s clear that tampering is occurring all around us. The transport vehicle for the four suits has completely different logs than what local cameras show (Widget spent half the night/day sifting through them). We can only keep backtracking, and may never find the gift giver. We’re out of here. It will take 1.5 days in drift to get back to Absalom Station. Hope Venn is there, but he’s likely still on a mission.