ISS conversation:

Red, down in Engineering. opens a video window. Dern’s default ER (enhanced reality) script is still running the holo-display overlaying the power reactor with archaic valves and dials. The display puts a curtained window on the bulkhead. Instead of the starfield on the other side the window shows a view from a cross country locomotive crossing a darkened pine forest in the rain. The gently curving tracks laid out in a pair of semi circles reflecting back off into the distance. Red swipes her hand in front of the display and picks up the waiting ISS video feed eager to talk again with an old friend.

"WTF Frost!” The black man in the video is awash in the ambient light of his console which gives his complexion an orange cast. “The comptroller is breathing down my neck to park your boat on ISS property. And he says I am to keep the damn thing until Marshal Dredd comes in two cycles time.”

And that’s it. “Short and to the point.” Red mutters to herself. She considers for a moment before gesturing at the record response button now superimposed on Allen’s face. At this distance it’ll take half a K-second for her response to reach him out on his rock. A lot of people bitch about light speed lag in communications but Red thinks its great. *Hard to keep a temper boiling when you have to wait a full k-second before you can continue the conversation.

She looks at the face of her old friend frozen in his characteristic frown. He must want her to see how stressed he is right now by not face-tuning his image. *He certainly looks older and grayer* thinks Red. But then she gives a mental shrug, *time waits for no-man. Ever. And it has been several years since Jack’s wake. I’m sure I’m no spring chicken to his eyes.* Either way, Red figures she needs to lower the stress level to put him at ease, before she pitches the plan. So she puts her best face on and swipes at the record button.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend Allen? After all the last time I saw you was at my husband’s wake, and we, you, me, your wife, and even your kids lifted a glass to his memory then.” Red allows a genuine grin to warm her face. As she dwells on the bittersweet memory of celebrating her passed husband's life in the ISS officer’s club after committing his remains to the hydrogen seas of Bowman Prime.

That feeling of family, all those wonderful people there in support of her and James. It really had given her the strength to go on. Not to mention that It was the passing of a hat there that gave her the credits she needed to restart their life when the LSP vultures had taken everything else she had in the galaxy.

“How are the kids and Irenna doing? Clint should be just about ready to ship out to the Imperial academy. Is he going straight for the Scout Service. Or is he going to make the same mistake his old man did and join the Corps first?” Having reached the end of her tolerance for small talk Red shifts gears.

“Look Allen. Back at Jack’s wake you offered to help me in any way you could. Well now I need your help. My new new crew has run afoul LSP and have called the Marshall in to verify that they are in the right of it. ‘Course no one here, including the Comptroller himself-himself, expects those Megacorp tools to sit on their hands while waiting for the Law to arrive…” She lets that last comment dangle to let her friend know just how troublesome she thinks LSP is going to be in this regard.

“Fact is old friend, we need your help to protect our ship while we take care of some business for the Comptroller. We got all the evidence we need on this little ship to paint a pretty picture of LSP instigating mutiny in the crew of an independent trader. We also have dirt that implicates the local Imp Colonial Cruiser as complicent in this hijacking. We are talking piracy,” Red says .

Take the Free Fall Lass for us, for me. Keep her in your dry docks and out of the hands of the corporate drones and their pawns in the local naval patrol. Just until the Marshal arrives to clear our name in all this. Please, do this and I promise I’ll never ask for you for anything else,” Red says earnestly to her old friend.

Red stops the recording and hits send before she can rethink any of it. “Ok” she breathes to herself and mentally sorts through her todo list for something she can accomplish in a K-second while she awaits Allen’s response. *I need to get the Makerbot unbolted from the deck and ambulatory.* she decides...

Powell’s response on Red’s Screen.Red sets the robot head in a high nook of the engineering space. “I don’t know what Lass has in mind for you ‘little bit’ but I hope you won’t always be this creepy.” It’s optical sensors follow Red as she turns back to the work at hand which is researching the cabling needed for installing the Fabricator in a space on the Rockhopper designated as Holding tank #1. She has no clear idea what a ‘holding tank’ is and is researching how the Makerbot will be positioned in it when the alarm is raised for General Quarters.

After a couple D-seconds of scrambling for her vac-suit Cassidy’s voice, full of comforting command, comes over the intercom. Belay that order folks. As you were, as you were. The call to General Quarters was an automated response to a local distress call. Apparently a interstellar trader by name of Beowulf has encountered some local color and is requesting help. We are far from the trouble and a little late on the draw here so Lass is researching the trouble to see if anyone else has responded already. I repeat put those vac-suits away and untwist your knickers we are holding course until I say otherwise.

Its as Red is putting her Vacsuit back in her locker that Lass alerts her to another private message from Powell, this time encrypted using a secure key.

Red closes the hatch to her only ‘private’ space on the ship, the engineering console in the Engine room. After sitting down she watches a large black spider with green legs crawl under

the pipes of Dern’s ‘screen saver’ holo-display of the engineering systems controls. It disappears under the desk edge. Gwen sits bemused, Prattchet Dern was a curious little chirper and his ghost of an expert system is no different; bugs are not something she would have ever thought to add to any holo display. “Lass, please turn off whatever part of the holo-display is causing bugs to appear,” Gwen says.

“Red, there is no animated ‘bug’ parts of the expert system to turn off,” Lass responds quickly.

Gwen scoots back away from the desk, a little grossed out. The spider is real, and down under the desk someplace. She lowers her head and looks for the intruder, but it seems to have disappeared into any one of several gaps between panels. Having the holographic pipes still blocking part of her view close to the wall doesn’t help her at all. Reaching out she swipes her hand across the display portion of the holo-display and attempts to start the video playback using her public encryption key. It does not work. Things are not going her way today. With a flash of understanding she pulls out a set of ID tags she has been carrying for the last three years and presses the Ident key to display her husband’s secure ISS encryption key, one she has thought as being outdated, but after entering in the key, the slowly rotating 3D logo of the ISS shows up on her display, and a play button at the bottom. Still looking for her uninvited guest she reaches out and taps the play button. That little bastard is going to get squashed, she thinks as she gives the display the majority of her divided attention.

“Gwen.” Allen’s greeting is tired but not terse. “Sounds like you’re not coming along with your boat. If this is the case then you really owe me an explanation...” He pauses here meaningfully. “...but that can wait till after the Marshall has come and done his damage. The way I figure it, the less I know the less culpable I become in your mess.”

Allen takes a deep breath and shifts gears. “Thanks for asking after the missus and the kids. I swear if I didn’t think he would beat me bloody for it, I’d of hauled off and smacked Clint in the face when he told me he was joining the Corps. Anyway give my best to James and lets all plan to meet up at the Gas & Go after the smoke has cleared. I’m looking forward to meeting that grandbaby of yours.”

Allen’s face clouds again as if he just remembered to be angry about something. “And what in the black am I supposed to do with your boat’s pilot?! You want me to set him up in the imperial suite while he waits? I’m sure I can find a bon bon or two for him to eat while he takes in a fucking sonic massage.” The video missive ends abruptly freezing the Butcher of Bowman’s face into his characteristic scowl.

Red leans forward and clears the display removing access to the encrypted message. This time she will have to think about what Allen has said before replying.