Episode2Prelude

CAST

• Michi Nom
• Karl
• Dorota Kowal
• Sarah Lee

THIRTY MINUTES FROM DARCKE

It's about sixteen hours from Kuan Lo to Darcke, a moon around Newhall. Darcke has an odd rotation cycle causing portions of the moon to be in total darkness for days at a time. Felix Gary gave instructions to dock at the town Yong Yewan, a staging ground for corporations wanting to shuffle cargo to and from their facilities on Newhall and beyond. Once there, the crew can contact Jin Dong to find out where Felix's shipment is and hopefully retrieve and bring it back to Felix.

The Kobukson is about thirty minutes out of sensor range from the planet and its moon.

Dorota has spent a good chunk of the trip in the engineering room, adjusting things, getting everything tuned up so the Kobukson is running at optimum. Because, she won't tolerate anything less. As they approach, she pokes her head out to see where they are and how close to landing. Or is it docking?

Michi hasn't been in the cockpit the entire time. Just most of it. The ship is perfectly capable in flying a vector once its entered without her hand on the wheel. Otherwise, long flights would be tedious and impossible. But about half an hour ago she grabbed a cup of ramen and settled back into the pilot's seat. Thirty minutes before approach, she reaches up to flip the intercom switch and speaks to the entire ship.

"We're half an hour from Darcke. Sometime between now and then, people who arm themselves should."

Since they will be taking on cargo someone has to be sure that there will be suitable space for it, and since that is part of Karl's job he has been at that for at least part of the day. When he wasn't taking care of other duties as assigned that is. At the annoucement from the captain he pauses in his current task and goes to weapon up..well weapon up more that is and do other prep work for docking, etc.

Sarah was keeping herself busy in the medical bay, such as it is. Though she has been ducking most people, after she pretty much admitted what she did before winding up as a small town doctor. However, once she hears Michi's announcement over coms, she checks to make sure her pistol is seated properly in its holster. You paged Michi with 'world question for you. When they are traveling between places in Firefly, did they have access to the cortex and stuff? I keep thinking it depended on where they were traveling that they might if they flew by "beacons" or whatever they were called.'.

Not really the weapons type, Dorota nods and ducks back into engineering for a moment. Then her head emerges again. "She's running real good at this point." A satisfied mechanic, it seems.

"Good. I don't want to get stuck on another planet." Michi calls back. It isn't too far from the cockpit to the engine room, after all, and the doors are open. She begins running through systems herself, making sure everything runs green for atmospheric entry and landing.

As Michi is running through system checks, she notices they are close enough for connection to the cortex at a fairly respectable speed. As the system updates, her newsfeed pings.

"Huh." Michi makes a mental note as to where she is on her list, then does the tapping, clicking, and key punching required to access the Cortex through the console on the ship's control console.

John Silver of Cortex Station Gao Fei stares at the camera, his eyes seemingly making contact with anyone watching the feed.

Well met travelers. Have I gotten news of the exciting variety. Yesterday you received soliciations announcing Gao Fei's first annual "Race to the Finish" Competition where the grand price is 100,000 credits and bragging rights as the best race team across the verse. You may be wonderin' what it takes to be a part of this race.

John Silver Clears his throat.

First you must assemble your team. How you might do that is up to you. Remember you'll need a variety of skillsome folk as there will be some fun challenges ahead. Once you have your team, go and find yourself a sponser. You might be saying, John, where do I get a sponsor. Gao Fei has made it easy for you. Visit our traveler's node for a long list of sponsors. Convince one of them to be yours and you're almost there.

Lastly, you'll need to register. Since we only accept thems that are right serious about joining, you'll need to pay the entrance fee. Then the real fun begins.

John Silver gives a devilish smile and winks to the camera before fading out.

Curious, Michi navigates to the traveler's node for Gao Fei. "Don't even know what sort of race the damn thing is yet."

"It's a race. I'm getting the impression you find those hard to resist." Sponsors required, though. That makes Dorota wary.

Sarah steps out of the medbay and moves up towards the cockpit, hearing the tail end of the race offer. Then she looks over at Michi, "Why do I think we're about to be doing a race...?"

"Would be nice to know what sort of race it is. Ships? Bikes? Cars? Boats? Worth checking out, though. After we do this job." Michi adds the node to her marked list so she can go back to it and read later. "Can't go back on our word."

Karl has been moving around the ship so has heard bits and peices of the race announcement. He looks at the ship radio a bit perplexed about something, possibly in the wording but doesn't comment about that "Does it matter what they are racin' Captain? As long as it's fast and you win?"

"I can't sail a boat." Michi says, simply. "Never done it. I couldn't race a submarine. And this ship wasn't designed for racing. There are some that are." She returns to her checklist. "Knowing the what would help me prepare. Half of racing is prep."

"That comment about skillsets...and challenges...implies this might be a bit more than just a fly as fast as possible race," Dorota points out.

"Might be. But being fast will be part of it." Michi says with a sigh. "We'll find out. I'll look through the sponsor list, see if anyone looks decent. They might have more information."

Sarah nods, "I'm sure." She smiles a bit, "It does seem like it would be an interesting change of pace." Which is probaby about as enthusiastic as she sounds about anything, from the way it's been sounding.

"We'll see." Michi's trying to play it cool for the crew. Carina would be able to see her palms itching, though. "We're almost there. Once we do we get the cargo and we leave. Any shopping needs doing?"

"I don't think so from my end." Now if Dorota sees something for herself, that's another matter."

An eyebrow is lifted but Karl refrains from further comment about the race. "Yes. I need to pick up a few things." he doesn't say what, but he isn't the most open person around.

"Good." Michi knows the pantries are stocked. Which is a big part of things. Tank's mostly full. All in all, good to go. "We're almost there." She turns on the sensors and preps the ship to start receiving telemetry date.

As the Kobukson arrives at Darcke a warning beacon beeps on the ship's sensors. Looming in orbit around the moon is an Alliance Cruiser. It is huge and it's obviously well armed.

The message on the beacon announces the following repeated message: All ships exiting Newhall Moon, Darcke are required to dock and submit for inspection all loaded cargo. Crew manifests and permits must be submitted upon request.

Sensors indicate there are two smaller fighter ships circling the larger cruiser. Michi swears. And then she swears some more. "Alliance Cruiser in orbit. We'll have to dock for inspection on our way out. I hope none of you have outstanding warrants." She mutters as she sets a course for landing on Darcke. "I hope this job don't turn out to be something illegal, neither." She flags Darcke landing control, requesting permission to land.

"Joy," is all Dorota says. She doesn't swear, she doesn't curse. "Nothing outstanding that I know of." And hopefully, yeah, the job won't be illegal. And hopefully...well...

Sarah blinks, "Well, don't look at me." She shakes her head a bit, looking at the Cruiser and letting off a soft whistle.

Well that is some not so good news to hear. Especially that bit about crew manifests, Karl meets it with his usual silence and stoic demeanor as he looks to the other crew and takes in their reactions to it. Why does he get the feeling that this isn't going to go well, for any of them.