Run Synopsis
[Will is absent tonight.]
The SS Archimedes II, charted by the Warp Research Center, leaves for the Oort Cloud to go comet-hunting. Aboard are various crew members whose IDs will not reconcile with Earth records (were anyone to check):
Amongst the regular crew, we will quickly come to recognize:
The officers bunk on deck 4; engineers, on deck 6; peons, on deck 7 where the mess hall is also located. The graduate students live on the science deck (deck 9) but Dr. Lanza has quarters on deck 4. The ship has 15 levels.
Our team manages to arrange work-habits to allow communication time. "Ivan" works 3rd shift, "Katherine" and "Val" work 2nd shift, "Jordan" works 1st shift, and "Melissa" - as supernumerary and most junior pilot - is on call on all shifts, including 4th (which is when we plan to do most of our communication.)
"Val" and "Katherine" notice almost immediately that one berth in engineering was not filled by the expected engineer. Instead the berth tag lists "J. Smith".
Boris, in establishing his "bribery kit" persona (as a drug dealer) discovers that he has a form of competition in Rizzo, another stevedore, specializing in porn.
In not all that much time "Val" also notes that there have been too many security checks on the computer. It seems likely that The Bad Guys are doing checks just as we are.
Each of us finds that some of our co-workers like us and some do not. For "Melissa" it is particularly hard as the ship has the full complement of 4 senior pilots. The two females, Ya and Me Lei (Chinese?) take her in dislike and spend all her time on their shift speaking Chinese (which she does not). Oklahoma Winston, senior pilot, seems neutral in his attitude and laconic by habit. "Melissa" would be learning very little were it not that Jesus ["Hay-zeus"] (on 3rd watch) has taken pity on her and explains how watch-sharing, and other ship-board procedures, (as well as technical procedures) should work.
Dr. Lanza's staff numbers 10. All are graduate students, 2 of who have been grad students for years (and, presumably, hate Dr. Lanza for the extra time they've spent.) The most significant of the other students is Jennifer who is stunning and has a cloud of young males trailing her everywhere. "Ivan" decides to attach himself to this crowd and finds that Jennifer appreciates his attentions.
Dr. Lanza himself has a tendency to hold court and hold forth in the mess hall, and can be very interesting as long as one has not caught his attention. It is clear that he is fairly hard on his students - and not particularly popular. His 6 security guards tend to work shifts: 2 "on" him, 2 "floaters", 2 off-duty.
EPs: 0
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