Episode 2

Starting: Thursday, 2350-06-15
Ending: Monday, 2350-06-26
(11 days)

2350-06-15 (Thursday)

The Big Reveal

The morning following Episode 1, Kova assesses the damage to the ship and begins the simplest repairs, mostly able to use the supplies she gathered from her Shuttle. NoDot spends the morning hours streaming. The remainder have gathered in the galley to eat breakfast. Emilio, still barely able to walk after the gunshot wound, rests back down on his makeshift hospital bed, a crash couch, across from the Galley in the passenger couch compartment. [[User:Talula|] tends to him, as he asks to give a brief speech to everyone on the ship. At this point, everyone had convened except for NoDot. While they waited, Alfie asks Emilio for help with a crossword puzzle and pretty soon everyone is trying to solve it.

NoDot arrives after Nikki solves "cranberry", a nine letter fruit that pops when cooked.

First, Emilio thanks Lu for keeping him alive, and suggests to Nikki that the crew would be smart to take her on permanently as crew. He then says "Norville, you’re lucky I got shot or I would’ve caved your fucking skull in. You can thank Alfie for that one. You don’t seem as bad as those other two though. Now give me your fucking hand terminal." Norville complies and Emilio hands it off to NoDot, asking them to double check that the terminal couldn't be tracked by CPM, and also to disclose any information they find on it. He turns to Kova and apologizes that she got wrapped up in this. In one piece herself, she doesn't seem to mind. Seeing it as an excuse to leave Rhea.

Following this, he pauses for a moment, taking a breath, and then reminded the crew of what he said previously: that he's The Mechanic that CPM was looking for.

Emilio is (or was?) a real scientist who really worked with Antony Dresden, but this was not him. When describing the meaning of it, he said "I’m a fixer. And… I’ve re-arranged a face or two with a pipe wrench. Or maybe it was a pipe I don’t remember. Anyway it doesn’t matter. Point is, those freaks must have caught wind that I’m not Emilio, and heard it was an OPA mechanic. Only for some reason they thought the OPA was sending an actual mechanic."

He explains that Emilio was a real person, but that The Mechanic had assumed his identity in order to get a sample of the technology from Protogen.

Around now, NoDot successfully gains access to Norville's hand terminal. With NoDot resistant to provide him unfettered access, The Mechanic strains in his chair to see the unlocked terminal. He immediately notices that it belongs to Mack Silva, not Norville Rogers. Upon interrogation, Mack announces that he is a big millenaboo, a fan of millanime and that he had blurted out the name of his favorite character while under duress. "I find him relatable, please don't hurt me." He was afraid that it was too late to come clean without risk of punishment.

The Mechanic asks "what the fuck is a millanime", immediately regretting the question.

NoDot reveals that they are also a millanime fan and that their girlfriend (she goes to Ganymede, you haven't met her) changed her name to that of a millanime character.

The Mechanic reveals that he mistook them for a transport service but that he is impressed with how effectively they were able to adapt to the situation at hand and provide him a security detail. He mentions that things went pretty smoothly, and that a single gunshot wound was better than having no security detail and being dead.

NoDot reveals that she hacked into (actual scientist) Emilio Castille's hand terminal which The Mechanic was carrying with him on the Terpsichore.

"Nikki," he said, "nice ship." She revealed that the ship belonged to Alfie, but The Mechanic had already surmised this from a previous conversation. Finally, turning to Alfie, he said "Helluva pilot," referring to their initial landing on Rhea, followed by "Not much of a negotiator though." with a grin. "Don't worry. It wasn't the first time I was shot, and hopefully it won't be the last. Because in my profession, the last bullet you take is the one that does you in."

"The way I see it," he said, "there are two ways we can go from here. We can either go back to Vesta, I pay you, and we go our separate ways and forget any of this ever happened. Or, I fill in the remaining details and hopefully we... save the world? I'll still give you the second half of the fee but I can’t promise my pockets will stay so deep. Bossmang miiight cut me off if I keep spending money like this."

The crew, interested but hesitant to believe him, asks him for more details about the technology he is seeking. He says that he doesn't have much more information than he's already provided, and that the explanation he gave to the crew was a near verbatim explanation that he heard from his boss. The plan was to assume Emilio's identity and use it to get a sample of the technology. That Emilio works or worked for Protogen, the same company that operates CPM.

The crew asks what he meant by "saving the world", to which he replies that he means humanity, and that unethical human experiments have been performed using this technology.

The Decision

Nikki asks the Mechanic for his real name, and the man who formerly claimed to be Emilio said that for as long as he can remember, about 8 years old, he was using fake names and assuming identities, and that his only steady moniker was "The Mechanic". This nickname was given to him by the OPA, whom he'd worked for since he was about 14.

Nikki, unable to accept that The Mechanic has no name, suggests that we make one up for him. NoDot and Mack run through a list of millanime characters and settle on Zuko after nearly settling on Goku. The Mechanic says he will accept whatever name he is given.

The Mechanic explains that he is working on limited information and if they want to know more, they can discuss it with his boss on Ceres. Upon learning that he is referring to Anderson Dawes, both NoDot and Kova seem hesitant, but ultimately Nikki makes the final call.

The crew won't be parting ways with Zuko, for now. They might arrive on Ceres, hear Dawes's proposal and nope right out, but they would at least take him to Ceres.

The discussion wanders to what Mack knows, but he states that his boss, Ron, didn't tell him anything, that he was 19 years old, fresh out of security boot, and his parents sent him to work there telling him that it was the kind of job a Man does.

Final Preparations

First, the remaining repairs must be made, requiring Kova to go into town and trade her spare titanium alternator for a new Bremsstrahlung condenser for the fusion drive. Without this the Terpsichore will likely lose electrical power during the 18 day flight to Ceres. While in Nova Nexus, Alfie and Nikki visit The Atonement Speak Easy nearby to pregame before heading off to a night club at The Hive. Kova has a chat with Vance Watanabe in Nova Nexus, who has to go look in the back but eventually does turn up with the part she needs and agrees to the deal.

Back on the ship, before Kova returns, NoDot invites themself into her new room on the ship, and hacks into her pet robot, duplicating its sensor (camera, microphone, etc) data to their hand-terminal.

Then she goes out to meet up with Nikki and Alfie at the night club.

Kova takes a detour to her shuttle to grab the remainder of her personal belongings.

Lu does some job hunting for work on Ceres. Additionally she does some research to see if there is any public information on what occurred at the Rhea hospital, but nothing turns up.

Partying like it's the end of the world

NoDot shows up to The Hive Night Club in Nikki's dress. Each of them dance while get absolutely hammered on locally sourced fermented mushroom vodka and trying to push the uncertainty of the future into the back of their mind.

NoDot: Wants to grow the family on the ship but doesn't know how. They feel a little uncomfortable about the number of OPA members on the ship.

Alfie: Trying to mentally prepare for the danger ahead.

Nikki: Excited to have new people on the ship, nervous to be interacting with the OPA.

Kova (working on the ship): Also worried about working with OPA but glad it's Dawes and not somebody crazier.

Nikki expresses this with NoDot and NoDot says the whole point is that she doesn't ask.

NoDot ushers Alfie and Nikki into a photobooth and tells them about the secret room in the hospital. Nikki suggests they ask Lu about the room. Alfie and NoDot are both in disbelief.

2350-06-16 (Friday)

Waking up, and feeling it in their bones

The next morning, Kova is already up, has already repaired the seized maneuvering thrusters, and is in the process of making the final repairs to the fusion drive when the three partiers wake up more hungover than they've been in some time.

Nikki wakes up late, around 11:30, and skips her normal morning cardio routine. She's wearing yoga pants, an oversized hoodie, and fuzzy slippers. Alfie sits in the galley with his aching head on the table.

Lu reprimands them for guzzling ibuprofen after drinking.

Kova takes note of what else on the inside of the ship should be improved or repaired.

All Systems Go!

Alfie yells "Who's ready, let's hit it baby!" and pushes the launch lever and juice button on his personal crash couch in hopes of staving off some of the alcohol hangover.

After a 1G takeoff, the ship settles into a steady heading towards Ceres at a gentle 0.3g.

Kova and Lu sit on the Ops deck with NoDot, who standoffishly allows it, but complains to Nikki that they're touching her stuff. Until now, NoDot has been alone on the ops deck and preferred it that way. Kova doesn't listen, and instead monitors the ship diagnostics during lift-off, leading to a brief argument between the two.

Kova gives her heartfelt goodbyes to Rhea with a "Fuck you, stupid rock."

Upon standing, she realizes she will need to re-acclimate from the 0.026g of Rhea to the 0.3g thrust gravity of the ship. She seeks bone density drugs from Lu.

2350-06-17 (Saturday)

Nikki gets to know people

Nikki aggressively tries to get to know people.

She asks Zuko about his prior retirement plans were and he says mostly he just wanted to be left alone. He is far from wealthy so he planned to remain on Ceres until he died. Boredom and the urgency with which this request was made was the only reason he agreed to it.

2350-06-18 (Sunday)

Movie Night

They watch the space bachelor at the guest crash couches. There's seven people on the ship, but only six guest couches. NoDot bows out, uncomfortable with the social dynamic, but Mack mistakenly thinks its because there aren't enough seats, so he offers his to them, but she declines and goes to her room. Nikki texts them while they watch it sync'd up.

They ask their girlfriend, Hecate from Rhea to take Tuesday off and do a time-delayed conversation with each other, where each of them talk about a topic for the duration of the time delay and then respond to the other person's topic at the end of that time delay.

2350-06-19 (Monday)

Alfie makes significant progress on the sweater he began knitting on Friday.

Kova does a ton of interior ship maintenance including oiling all of the crash couches.

2350-06-20 (Tuesday)

Light hearted conversation

Time delay

Tuesday rolls around and NoDot spends the day having a discussion while on a 2-hr comm delay. They tells their girlfriend:

• NoDot tells Hecate everything that has gone on since the campaign started.
  • Hecate is really interested in the biological aspect of the technology and asks for the files that you got from Emilio's hand terminal.
• NoDot wants to be friends with the people on the ship but feels like she's fucking it up
  • Hecate responds with stories about her own troubles making friends on Ganymede
• NoDot admits they bugged the camera and mic in Kova's robot pet
  • Hecate tries to softly explain that this isn't ethical or appropriate friend behavior and suggests that NoDot should just talk to Kova if they want to get to know her.
• NoDot says "I don't know how, and I can't, and that seems impossible after what I did"
  • Hecate says that even though it's not very ethical, NoDot should probably never tell Kova about the bugged robot. Followed by a long message about how fun they are to be around and that they shouldn't have trouble making friends.

Spends the rest of the day apologizing and strategizing about gaining the courage to go to the next movie night.

2350-06-25 (Sunday)

Movie Night Two: Electric Boogaloo, they're watching Clue (1985) and also Aladdin (2350) It's a double feature.

Kova tries to decorate with some LED matrix light displays but doesn't end up having enough spare wire so it doesn't quite provide the atmosphere she was intending.

Alfie brings Clue, and then they watch Wlt's 57th remake of Aladdin, called "Aladdin". They have a bootleg copy with only Belter Creole audio dubs.

NoDot works up the confidence to participate this time, showing up half way through Aladdin (2350) giving each person a small bucket of cheesy popcorn and then staring at Mack until he gets out of her seat.

Lu watches the movie in quizzical horror but really appreciates the cheesy popcorn.

2350-06-26 (Monday)

Nikki begins training with weapons.