Wrack and .............. ruin?

[Stoat]

Also involved in this story is Dashiell. Click here to link to the perspective from his characters
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DeVirgo looked at the data crystal in his hand. It was the one recovered from guildmaster Stoat's Bottlenose by the crew of the Mary Celeste. Flipping the crystal into the air, he watched the factets sparkle as it span.

"Jackson!" he bellowed, as he caught the falling crystal. A sharp suited young woman appeared at the doorway.

"Sir?"

"Get this crystal to Barnes. I want all the data on it transferred to my station within the next hour. No excuses." He threw the crystal at the aide, who caught it deftly.

"Yessir!" She turned instantly and headed out the door.


****************


Jim Barnes looked up as the door to his office opened.

"Morning Jim," said Laura Jackson cheerfully. "Got a job for you from the boss. He wants the data from this crystal transferred to his station within the next hour. I believe his exact comment was no excuses." She placed the crystal gently in front of Barnes, smiling broadly. "Don't screw it up like last time, eh? You'll be cleaning toilets if you do."

As Jackson left his office, Jim sighed deeply. He glanced at the crystal sat on his desk, wondering if he should delegate the work. He sighed again. DeVirgo had apparently specified he do it, and that meant he'd better do it if he wanted to keep his job. He picked up the crystal, and headed out of his office for one of the labs.

"Right, out you lot," he ordered as he entered the lab. "Got a job from DeVirgo to do, and that means it's classified." The two technicians nodded silently and vacated. Jim walked to one of the terminals, and inserted the crystal into a reader, settling down to recover what data he could.

Forty five minutes later he transmitted what he'd recovered directly to DeVirgo's terminal.


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DeVirgo looked over as the data feed from Barnes arrived.

It appeared that guildmaster Stoat had travelled out to Omega-56 to enable some repairs to the gunship to be carried out, and to fit the new line of turrets to the vessel. The return journey through Dresden, Omega-11 and Omega-7 was uneventful, until approaching Freeport 1 in Omega-3. An unidentified vessel dropped out of the trade lanes, and immediately took up an aggressive posture. A scan performed shows the following detail.



Recognisable energy spikes trigger automatic alarms within the gunship. Despite the outward appearance of a Rheinland military vessel, certain energy signatures associated with the Wilde are detected, alerting the guildmaster. As the two vessels move in an attempt to gain a tactical advantage, a second vessel appears within scanning range. This vessel is a known Nomad ship.



Visual recordings are lost at this point. Some sort of jamming signal, apparently emanating form the Nomad vessel, render the data useless. Audio appears to have been able to survive mostly intact.






Data retrieved from life support shows guildmaster Stoat suffering what appears to be an epileptic fit. Brain wave activity leading up to the incident becomes increasingly erratic, and adrenalin levels go through the roof. As the guildmaster passes into unconsciousness, the automatic distress signals are triggered. It appears that a number of vessels are detected by the ships heavily damaged sensor arrays, but none of them stop to provide assistance.



At this point the sensor arrays detect a single transport class vessel attempting to perform a docking manoeuvre with the gunship. Further data is irretrievable as power levels within the gunship drop off.

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