The Voyage of the Joyous Venture

Part 29

The Karelia, Robert's little trouble II – is it catching? the Kostromo Pacific, the Karelia files – who is Shammy anyway?

Monday 28^th March

The Karelia is in orbit around the sun, out of the ecliptic, distances in AU are mentioned. Obviously Antonio decides the only way to get there is an in-system jump.

The Joyous Venture arrives near the Karelia which is on a slight tumble, it starts manoeuvring so that Andi can space walk across. While she is suiting up a warning is received from Gaia asking the Joyous Venture to desist trespassing. The crew send back an apology saying they will leave as soon as practical.

The crew agree that instead of Andi correcting the spin and then connecting an umbilical both she and Robert will Vac Suit over. This they do, opening the air lock on manual.

While this is happening a further message arrives from the OTS, identifying the ship. The crew send back a message saying they are having systems problems.

Andi is unable to access the computer from her Vac Suit. The crew agree to power up the Karelia but take down the Comms first. While Andi does this Robert "pokes around". Suddenly Robert has a fit of some sort. His head camera shows him drifting and then suddenly clenching a hand in front of him as if firing a gun. When he recovers he reports that he thinks he saw a ghost. A man called him Shammy and then he shot the man. After some discussion the crew agree that Robert's footage could be used as proof of a "systems failure" and they can claim an away team was already aboard the Karelia when they got the first message and the delay in leaving the area was caused by a need to power up for Robert's safety. They also agree it will take a security ship two days to get to them unless they attempt an in-system jump. As far as they know there are no ships in the area in which such a jump could be safely undertaken. They agree to power up the Karelia. Miho keeps an eye on Robert's camera. Life support comes on without a hitch.

A message is received from the Kostromo Pacific, a colonial cruiser demanding the Joyous Venture depart. Antonio confirms the cruiser is near Gaia and is an older model, therefore it is unlikely to attempt a jump to their position. The crew repeat the message about systems failure.

The temperature inside the Karelia rises to tolerable levels. Robert opens his helmet at which point Andi has a fit. She goes rigid, screams, floats to the ceiling and remains there in hysterics. Eventually Robert sedates her. She reports that she saw a weird light, explosion, people screaming. She is certain it was one ship colliding with another. A debate follows about what to do. Antonio and Miho believe they have enough evidence for their "away team in trouble" story so long as nothing has obviously been stolen from the Karelia, such as the CPU, and are in favour of downloading the ship's memory. Andi is not in a fit state, after sedation, to do this for some hours but wishes to leave the ship as soon as possible in the strong belief that something bad is going to happen. She is in favour of removing the CPU. A compromise is reached, Robert starts cycling the airlock while Andi starts removing the CPU. It is agreed that the situation will be reviewed once the airlock is open. When this point is reached Andi reckons she needs five more minutes and sends Robert ahead to the Joyous Venture. Andi takes the decision to remove the CPU and get away from the Karelia. Meanwhile the crew contact OVM to say the situation is almost resolved and they will be gone in 45 minutes. Andi takes the CPU and heads back, the Joyous Venture starts to move away from the Karelia.

Meanwhile Robert has become more lucid about his "vision" and is now convinced that the shooter was Komiko and that she said 'both of us' before shooting. He believes it is possible the man was 'fluenced' in some way and Komiko's actions might count as self-defence.

Seconds before the Joyous Venture jumps the crew see a flash and Robert and Miho feel a 'disturbance in the force'. Antonio notices nothing, being engrossed in the jump details. The rest of the crew do not have time to prevent the jump taking place. On discussing things, they are all convinced that the Kostromo Pacific must have in-system jumped and collided with the Karelia. Miho writes a report on the incident using the "away team in trouble" story while Andi alters the time stamps on the helmet video footage to record that she and Robert were on board the Karelia before the first warning message was received. In discussion the crew agree that the missing CPU will now no longer be detected but that the stakes are possibly considerably higher now that lives and a cruiser have been lost than they were when it was a matter of some trespass/low-key industrial espionage. A lot depends on whether OVM chooses to make a complaint to Trilon and, if so, whether the crew will have allies of sufficiently high status in Trilon when this complaint catches up with them. They note that their last message to OVM will clearly have been sent before the cruiser jumped. This may or may not help since although they were now complying with the OVM request they may get accused of booby-trapping the Karelia. They agree it is imperative to access the contents of the CPU, if Komiko cannot protect them if Trilon decides to make an example of them then they may need evidence they can hand over to her enemies on the Trilon board.

Andi notes that the CPU has already been scanned and wiped but one section of memory has been set aside and protected by what, at the time, was state of the art software. This section can be accessed by a password which starts with 7 letters and 4 numbers. They copy this memory and then initially try a guessing game at passwords when Miho notes that Karelia has 7 letters. On the second attempt they correctly guess Karelia2211 (Karelia's birthday) and find Carl Bengtsson's personal files.

They get the number for four different bank accounts in different names; two in the Sol system, one in the Galcarb colony (almost certainly now worthless) and one in Alpha Centauri. They reckon the combined worth must now be in the region of 2,000,000 and agree that some of this at least should be communicated to Karelia.

They also find love letters to "Shammy" who they learn is a low ranking Gal Carb employee called Charmian Hayakusa. Carl it seems arranged for a new identity for Shammy after she "died" when a survey ship was lost. Charmian was born in 2246 in Hawaii. She graduated with a double first in a BA in Geography and Geology from the university of Hawaii. In 2267 she joined Galcarb as a system surveyor and in 2277 went missing with the survey ship New Worlds. A few months later she was testifying to some board at which point Carl took charge. The New Worlds was lost in the Berthier System (coincidentally where the Joyous Venture is now heading). This is now called Virgin Paradise - when it was a GalCarb colony it was called Asimovjand. Charmian/Komiko's testimony to the inquiry is also in the files. She testifies that they were investigating the system when the ship must have collided with an object. The inquiry was able to view footage from the survey ship's "black box" which comes from a cockpit camera. On the footage you see Komiko nearest the camera, then Chandragupta la Roche, the captain and Olowu Mahendra. They are obviously performing searches and looking from some object they can not find. Meanwhile collision warnings are going off which the crew completely ignore. As far as it is possible to tell Gupta deliberately steers into the object they are being warned of. At the last minute Komiko clearly puts on her helmet. She is unable to account for this in the inquiry. In the end the inquiry concludes that the ship hit a large asteroid which it was supposed to be charting.

More files remain to be scanned...