Absolution - Printable Version

The Colonel chuckled as he listened to Ezreal speak, the captain seemed confident enough in the innocence of his crew.
Unfortunately, it was exactly that which made Nomad infection the threat it was.
"How kind of you to offer captain." Without wasting a moment he glanced at the guard escorting Ezreal and
said: "Please inform the men we'll be accepting the captains offer to investigate the vessel."

Solandros then turned back to Ezreal, mimicing the same smirk the captain had done earlier and said: "Rest assured no
property will be misplaced or damaged. The Order is quite professional. Now, you mentioned limited staff and the usage
of robotic personel. Do you have a crew manifest on hand, or will we have to access the Apahanta's database for that?"

As they walked and talked they arrived at the scanners. "Well then, moment of truth captain." The Colonel stated, raising his weapon.
"Just a precaution, should it detect any nomad DNA on you."

RE: Absolution - Sombs - 01-29-2020

"Access to the ship's database is something I cannot grant you, for multiple reasons." At the same time, he was retrieving the PDA he had prepared from the pocket of his jacket. He made sure everyone was watching his move so it didn't look like he would draw a gun or something else. "You'll probably understand that, as allowing you access to anything there could possibly strain your diplomatic standing with your allies. That being said, I doubt Wild agents would write down anything that could jeopardize their covert status." He handed Agent Solandros the PDA. The crew roster was already active.

"Same goes for the crew roster, obviously, but I trust that you brought enough scan power to this location to confirm that there are exactly as many human life signatures on the Apahanta, or now on Corinth, as listed here. Any other life signature originates either from our pets - some fish, three cats, a pet frog and some critters held in the medical laboratory - or soil-based microbiome in the hydroponics. For all I know, even a lone incubus or hidden Wild agent can't hide from lifeform detectors."

Crew Roster

Now that they were infront of the construction, it was time to prove he was not infected. If things weren't rigged, nothing should go wrong. Nodding at Solandros and his men raising their weapons, he made his move to enter the detector's effective area. There was a slight feeling of nervousity, just originating from the possibility of them tricking him or anyone of his crew to be marked as infected. But then again, they had come this far already, and if the Order was here to fuck with them, they would have done so already, probably. They had the upper hand here, and it was okay this way. Taking a deep breath, Ezrael waited for the procedure to begin.

RE: Absolution - Vitoniz30 - 01-29-2020

"Commander, this is Charlie leader. West part of the nebula is clear, over"
A cruiser was looking for any threat that might come from nowhere. Fortunately, everything looked silent at this moment.
"This is Delta leader, we've got movement from the Corinth backdoor. Signatures are similar to artificial drones"
"Gammuians? Why they are so far from the Gammu?" Drake muttered to himself and got back to the radio. "Delta, this is Mafdet. Keep eyes on them, but don't make any swift moves, over"
Miles was feared not only Nomad attack, but aggressive Amalgams too. They could appear anytime, anywhere and attack with no warning. And he kept hope for the best.

"I am afraid, my dear friend, you are in the wrong place and wrong time to point us what we are supposed to do or not to do. But the last word is following after Solandros". My words were quite edgy, but Vertiga obviously trying to reduce our control and fill our eyes with soap...Well, that's actually I thought and kept in theory.
"Anyway, you no need to get nervous. Just walk through the device and it will record your DNA. Activate scanner, mates, time's up."

RE: Absolution - Promotheus - 01-30-2020

The tension was clearly noticeable on the station as the crew of the Apahanta and its captain passed through the scanners one by one,
each time with Order guns trained on them should the scanner indicate malfunction.
The Colonel had accepted the pda from Ezreal though did not glance at it yet,
instead keeping his aim as it was the captains turn to enter the scanner.
If the Order had made a trap to frame infection, this surely would be the moment it would be sprung.

A few moments of silence passed as the captain passed through the scanner and the device started humming as it booted up.
Fortunately, the scanner soon indicated Ezreal was clear.
Solandros visibly relaxed some and lowered his weapon, instead extending his right hand towards the captain saying:
"Well, guess I owe you a handshake now, don't I?"

RE: Absolution - Sombs - 01-30-2020

This was good. This was not rigged, and he got confirmation that Maren's interest in his rear was apparently really just based on her weird preferences and not to put an incubus into him! Not that she ever got to surprise him with her strap-on.

Moving closer to Solandros, Ezrael took the invitation to shake his hand. Not that he really desired to shake his hand, but it was a good symbolic gesture. Maybe it was just that easy to redeem himself. "How are we going to proceed now? Are you really insisting on accessing my ship's database? If I remember correctly, this was not part of the deal."

Of course there was nothing left on the database that would get anyone of his crew or even himself into trouble. Any data on suspicious activities, especially regarding Maren, had been removed since the Aphrodite incident. The chance of troublesome information falling into the wrong hands was just too high, and the consequences possibly too heavy. Still, there were things like the old nomad database Ezrael once started to archive during his days in the Omicrons, to know which people and ships out there were known infectees. And the encrypted Cult of Technology data cache. Things he left intentionally in case of them actually forcing their way into the database.

RE: Absolution - Vitoniz30 - 01-31-2020

I had bad feelings about all of that. Everything was silent...I'd say, too silent. Apahanta's crew was clear, and I checked every person walked through the scanner.
"Commander Aguilar and miss...Mack, take my condolences for the tragedy on Gran Canaria". I was pretty aware, what bretonians did with the planet and Zoners themselves and after short acquaintance with each crew member, I decided to look ship inside to be completely sure, everything with Vertiga and his team is fine. And I talked to Colonel.

"Sir, allow me and two agents to investigate Apahanta from angle to angle. I just want to be sure, we won't face unexpected unshown troubles or entities."

RE: Absolution - Promotheus - 02-03-2020

Agent Solandros raised an eyebrow at the captains words and said:
"The deal was to clear your name and to have the vessel removed the bounty board,
surely you weren't naive enough to think a basic database check wasn't part of that?"
With a dismissive shake of his head he then turned to the agent that had spoken to him and added:
"Permission granted, though as I said, treat the posessions of the crew with respect.
They appear to be clear of infection after all."

"While they're doing that, how about we discuss the details of the Bretonia incident
and the bounty on your head captain?"

RE: Absolution - Sombs - 02-03-2020

The comment on Gran Canaria left Commander Aguilar rather unimpressed while Gwen rose an eyebrow. The annex of Canaria through Bretonia was not exactly considered as surprise, given the proximity to Bretonia. Gwen herself didn't even mind it. Some people simply didn't mind it.

The scanning process of his crew was done surprisingly fast, and Ezrael was quite glad there weren't any blind passangers around. The only possible issue now was that they might have forgotten to remove something troublesome from the database. Before this started, he was pretty sure about it. There were no traces of Maren, nothing about the Hoffungsschimmer, nothing about Valery. Nothing that would hint Sombra's affiliation with the Apahanta, and nothing that would tell them about his daughter. There were comms left in place, like those to Generalmajor Anna Heinrich and former Guildmistress Taruko Ishibashi. There were also some archived databank entries about weapons, research files and the outdated list of identified infected ships. At this point Ezrael had to continue his role as unprepared captain, and it demanded him to get upset about the intrusion.

"Maybe I am naive, but if I was an agent of the Wild, I wouldn't take a ship filled with dangerous information to the Order to let them simply take a look at it, so why bother. My crew is clean, and if anything you'd probably find some really good videos of me doing what I can do best," Ezrael sounded, slightly agitated. He watched the Order team walk towards the airlocks, then glanced over to Commander Aguilar. "Sherry, you should go with them before they accidentally trigger the defenses, or the self-destruction. That'd be an overkill."

The woman with the chestnut hair nodded and made a move to slowly follow the agents. Ezrael sighed, looking at Solandros again. Even with this bit of theatre, being at the mercy of these bold people was rather straining. "What is there to discuss about the battle in Tau-31? I take it you are aware of the scenario and what circumstances lead to it? Two of your capital ships found in New London, one carrying a Nomad Power Cell. The Captains refused to cooperate with the Bretonians and provoked a militaristic reaction. We were around, bound to a contract with Bretonia to defend them against common enemies, which at that point included the Order, because of the siege on Freeport 11, where we defended the Zoners as they were the ones supporting our desertion from the Core." The Curacaoan gave him a questioning look. "If anything, I'd rather like to understand what the hell the Order was doing with a Nomad Power Cell in Bretonia, why they refused to solve the issue peacefully and why the Order insisted in engaging the Zoners at Freeport 11 and Port Carthage. But I guess I'm not in the position to ask for more than your conditions on dropping the bounty, apart from stripping and watching you browse through our porn achives."

RE: Absolution - Vitoniz30 - 02-04-2020

I listened to Colonel carefully and was ready to go, but didn't expect a companion in a person called Sherry Aguilar and need to do something. And the solution just appeared in my head.
"Connor, McGregor, grab a plasma too and follow us to inspect Apahanta from inside. The vessel is large and I can't really inspect it by myself. Remember, Code-8 and report commander Drake whatever you find. Connor, the control room is yours, McGregor, check living modules for anything suspicious and remember Colonel's order about the crew's possessions. Understood?"
"Yes, captain."
"Fine, dismissed."
After two agents went inside the ship and disappeared in the endless amount of corridors, I and Aguilar followed them, but in another way and then switched a channel in my headset microphone.
"Drake, can you hear me?"
"I probably can see and hear you, my captain, what's up?"
"Code-8, Drake, that's all"
"For real? And you got a beauty-partner for that? Then I need to wish you to spend a good time together...I got you, Code-8. I'll wait for the signal".
Breathed out, I muted mic and turned to Aguilar.
"My apologies, if you had to hear this. So, miss Aguilar, tell more about yourself, what were you doing in the Apahanta. Since I heard you are going to arrive, I was impatient to meet one of the most mysterious ships I ever remembered. Not for a protocol, just to please my own interests."

Meanwhile, agent Connor was watching on panels in the control room in attempt to find something. Most of the documents and drives were strongly locked and looked empty. Connor tried to connect with his pad and found out, one drive was erased, but there were traces of data - might be inaccurate attempt to hide something. Then he turned on the transmitter and sent a textual message with few words: "Code-8, open receiver".

RE: Absolution - Sombs - 02-04-2020

While Agent Solandros and Ezrael kept each other busy, the gran canarian woman lead her companion through the hallways, down to the central data core room. The Order agents would notice quite a bunch of Kishiro Service Robots roaming around, doing what was usually done by human crew members.

"I'm the Executive Officer of this ship. I already was when we were still working for the Core." Her countenance was neutral, almost cold, quite the opposite of Ezrael's appearance. It was almost visible that she was the professional of the two. "I joined the desertion when the Core declared war against the Zoners, like many others. Since then my main tasks have not changed. I do the administrative and coordinational work here. The Captain focuses more on the representative and directive tasks." For a moment, she stopped, eyeing the Order agent. "And you?"