Traverse (Tim)

[Bannanachair]

"And those who we ought to keep an eye on more than everyone else would be Drake and maybe a couple of other people?"

[Tikobe]

"Drake, Sunola, Andrea and hmm... Definitely more but I guess I'd put Howard on the watchlist. Nothing wrong with him as far as inciting panic and criminal behavior goes, but he's reckless, like he doesn't care whether or not everything, including him, burns. He doesn't even seem to have a reason for his actions, he's just going with the flow."

[Bannanachair]

"That could be dangerous, depending on what he does. What do you think we'll find in this system?"

[Tikobe]

"I think we'll be lucky if we find anything," Henry says, cutting into his fish. "I think we'd also be lucky if we didn't find someone out to kill us or that the Schall don't follow us here. God needs to pull better coin flips outta his ass."

[Bannanachair]

(How long do you think this will last? I'm hoping it'll last a while.)

"Do you really think the Schall would send someone out here after us? We don't have any plans to return to Keeper space and anyone they send after us would basically be stranded out here."

[Tikobe]

(Boy, I have a main story that we would be miracle workers to even see the entirety of. And then, I have some more stories forming in my brain to play out after that. This is probably gonna last until you or I (If not both) get bored of it.)

"Who knows? The Schall are meticulous about revenge. It wouldn't be a stretch to say they'd send a vessel of theirs on a suicide mission just to kill Andrea. And they wouldn't be the only race as well. I'm keeping an eye on our Ta friend Chess because of that. Seriously, the only things that could make it worse are having a Yrn or an Esurn on board. Those two races would really go after Andrea."

[Bannanachair]

"Chess thanked me for not turning Andrea over to the Schall and called her a great ally. We should keep an eye on him, I agree, but not for the reasons that you were thinking of."

[Tikobe]

"Oh really? Something not normal? Why does this not surprise me anymore? Next thing you know we'll be asked to clean a house or something just for the hell of it. Now that would really be off of the job description. Anyways, what do you want to do about scheduling for us three commanders? I'd say put us on eight hour shifts but Miranda's never worked this kind of a post before, has she? Personally speaking, I'd like to just put her on the backburner and have it rotate between you and I and keep her on call if we need someone to organize something somewhere on the ship or if one of us needs to do something away from the command chair."

[Bannanachair]

(Ooh, a main story? How many pages are you thinking? 150? 200?)

"Assuming that the average person is awake for sixteen hours a day and sleeps for eight, I think that eight hour shifts might be best. Four the first hour hours of my shift a tired-but-still-awake Miranda would be able to take over the command chair in an emergency, and for the next four hours you'd be awake and able to take over. We would all have four hours ahead of and four hours after our shift to prepare for it and to unwind, respectively."

[Tikobe]

(Who knows? I never complete one of these stories. I'm willing to bet it's gonna go on for a little longer than 200. Hell, odds are we're not gonna see the first big villain group until around fifty to seventy pages maybe (I wanna build on the crew of the Magellan first (There are other recurring casts of villain group like one I'm about to bring out but there are only two big ones (I can say their names as it wouldn't be a big spoiler but only if you want and I won't go further than their names))))

Henry sighs.

"Well, if that's how you want it. You're the boss. Well, I'm almost finished up here. If you need to talk to me about something best do it now before I step on the command deck. Otherwise, get some sleep. You've had a long day."

[Bannanachair]

(Oh, no, don't tell me their names, I was just wondering about the timeframe.)

I head off to my quarters and go to sleep.

[Tikobe]

And thankfully nothing disturbs you.

You wake up. According to the CEM, the com you'll be using for sending more private messages to members of this ship, it's 7:21 A.M., Earth Standard. You have a notification from Henry saying to eat a quick breakfast and head to the command deck for a debriefing of some kind of information. Henry explained that you'll find out at the debriefing.

[Bannanachair]

I get dressed and go to the kitchen to see if the breakfast is better than the dinner.

[Tikobe]

Unless your a fan of Zathrelle toast alongside bacon made out of some kind of pig-like animal from the Ta homeworld with a side of slightly burnt egg (Thankfully from an Earth chicken), not particularly. You didn't even want to know what the pink potato-like thing offered alongside it was.

There weren't very many people in the mess hall at this hour. You saw Kaminski, Sunola and William. Miranda must have unsealed his room while you were asleep.

[Bannanachair]

After eating as quickly as possible I arrive at the command deck where Henry requested my presence.

[Tikobe]

When you arrive Miranda and Henry were talking. Henry eventually notices your presence.

"Ah! Robert! Finally here. We found something big! And hopefully peaceful! Actually two. Ready for this one?"

[Bannanachair]

"Is it what I'm assuming you're alluding to - evidence of another sentient culture outside of Keeper-controlled space?"

[Tikobe]

"Uh... Sort of. Patching it through to your CEMs right now," Henry says as he sends you and Miranda two documents each.

"The first one doesn't need much of an explanation if you'd please."

Opening it up, you're shocked to find...

A slingshot. An actual Keeper slingshot.

"Was this behind those electromagnetic waves I was picking up last night?" Miranda asks.

"Pretty much. We investigated into it a bit and found what's in your second document."

Inside of this document was a picture of a colony. Standard Keeper colonization architecture. It was a relatively small one.

"What is this?"

"A colony named Far Beyond," Henry begins. "I've had several messages between us and them going on. They claim to be affiliated with the Keepers, but the Keepers aren't aware of them, and they don't get messages of what's going on over their very often. I told them about our mission and they asked for us to come meet their governor planetside."

[Bannanachair]

"What races comprise the colony? Given our recent scuffle with the Schall I'd rather not have to deal woth them again, if it can be helped."

[Tikobe]

"No clue. To get to Avesh-8 you'd need to use the slingshot within the Schall home system, and while they may have set one up this far out here, building slingshots are expensive and you'd need the backing of a major company to pull one off, and it's not something one can effortlessly do either so they wouldn't have made a backdoor out of here."

"But that tells us something," Miranda replies. "If what Far Beyond claims about the Keepers not knowing there's a colony out here then some company has to be in charge, and the Schall don't have a major company capable of building a slingshot in secret. Something like that would go to either the K'Talun, a race with no hate for Andrea, for their business smarts or the two major Keeper races: The humans and the Zathrelle.

[Bannanachair]

"I think it's still in our best interests to keep Andrea as much of a secret as possible on the off chance that their sympathies lie with the Schall."

[Tikobe]

"And it's for those kinds of interests that I took the liberty of assigning the landing crew," Henry says, sending a third document to your CEMs. "Another reason is that I couldn't get this approved unless I had a list ready within a certain time frame so I had no time to get anyone else to collaborate."

Here is the document:

Captain Robert Edwards
Lieutenant Miranda Greengrove
Officer Clare Hollis
Jakti Nem
Chess Kipo

"Why these five?" Miranda asks.

"Because three of you, Chess, Jakti and you, have the most experience with planetside combat out of the entire ship. Plus Monica was complaining to me last night about trying to find way to help out Jakti; Apparently the gravity on this ship is set to Earth standard, which is twice as much gravity as the Lakto are made to withstand, but the gravity down there is somewhat less than Earth Standard," Robert replies. "In addition I figured it would help to have a security officer down there just in case and Clare was the most available. Finally, Robert's going down because he's the captain. He should be the one to have these kinds of talks."

[Bannanachair]

(Sorry my writing's been subpar lately, I have a cold.)

"Right then. I'll head to the transport shuttle now."

[Tikobe]

(It's fine. I stayed up late last night as well. That how I didn't notice till just now that I called Henry Robert.)

"Very well you two. Have fun on your trip! Get me a souvenir while you're down there. Nothing fancy, just a rock or something I guess," Henry smiles as he reaches for the speakers control. "This is Lieutenant Henry Edwards. I need the following to report to the hangar bay immediately: Chess Kipo, Jakti Nem and Officer Clare Hollis. Thank you!"

"I guess that's my que," Miranda replies, and heads off to the hangar bay with you. There the three in question were waiting for you.

"Captain? Is something wrong?" Chess asks.

[Bannanachair]

"No. To the contrary, you three have been called here because something has gone right, for once. We have made contact with a previously unknown colony of the KOMC and the three of you were chosen to be the landing crew, in addition to Miranda and myself."