K-047: Previously on Dominion Space – recap after hiatus

Previously on Dominion Space

Oliver crosses the threshold from Spanial to the Separatist ship. A woman in a vacc suit holds out a steadying hand if he needs it. He winds up standing on a metal catwalk just inside the cargo bay doors of the Separatist ship. Conversation is audible; there is atmosphere here, and Oliver’s respirator mask is more of a precaution than anything, he could breathe with it off, though he might feel like he’s on a mountain top. Additionally, high tech design allows for mostly-clear speech even with the mask over his nose and mouth.

“I’m Channing, Chief Steward of the Welcome Wagon. So, welcome, Stranger.”

“Thank you,” Oliver pauses, “Strangers?”

He looks for any sign of approval or disapproval.

“My name is Oliver. I was lead to believe you could help with… migration.”

Oliver remembers Jennie said: “Where we’d call each other ‘Mer’ they refer to us as ‘Stranger’, though they tend to use our titles when they know them, to be polite. I got called ‘Executive Officer Senth’ a lot. They refer to each other as ‘Elector’.”

He says, “right, sorry. I was told you call each other Elector. Wasn’t sure if I shared the right.

Chief Steward Channing responds, explaining not unkindly, “We,” she indicates herself and the others in the cargo hold, “are ‘Electors’ – we’ve taken franchise. People who haven’t taken franchise are ‘Members’ of the Electorate – similar to Dominion ‘Mers,’ like you. You’re neither at this point, so your honorific is ‘Stranger’. Stranger Oliver. And, yes, we can assist with migration.”

She looks past him into Spanial’s hold, “it’s just you, is that right?”

“It’s just me.”

Channing responds, “so this trip must have cost you plenty?”

“I worked most of my fee off as comms officer.”

Chief Steward Channing narrows her eyes slightly, “did you now.”

“Well, come along and we’ll let your Dominion friends,” she gestures toward Spanial’s interior through the cargo doors, “be on their way.

“Anything in that backpack we ought to know about?”

He nods, seemingly unphased but wary of the scrutiny, “I did.”

He moves further in to the ship.

“I have an elecrolaser pistol, it’s currently unloaded but I have a full battery. A portable computer and a little electronics project I’ve been working on.”

“You have any issue with handing over the weapon for the duration of our trip? I’ll give you a receipt, of course, and you can discuss its return with the Militia when we arrive at our destination.”

“Sure. Do you need the cell?”

Oliver removes his backpack and pulls the weapon out in a safe handover grip.

“You can keep the cell,” she says, taking the weapon, and inspecting it briefly with a ‘huh’ noise and a raised eyebrow of approval. She begins leading Oliver along the catwalk towards an internal door, her vacc suit boots making metallic clicking noises.

“What’s the electronics project?”

“Just a little hobby project, nothing actually useful. More flashy than anything else,” he says dismissively.

Channing is interrupted by a voice in her helmet – Oliver can hear it faintly: “Abbey, we’ve detected a new jump signature in system. The Dominion freighter is keen to close up and move on. Are we good to go?”

Channing responds, “Affirm Claudia, we have one new soul aboard and are just exiting the hold now. Close it up.”

A few seconds later the external cargo doors begin to close, sealing Welcome Wagon off from Spanial.

A female voice, possibly the same one Oliver heard from Channing’s helmet, comes over the ship’s public address system, “All hands, brace for undock.”

Channing seems to have forgotten about the content of Oliver’s pack. She leads him through the internal door to a small room outside the hold.

The three other men who were there follow them out. The first is a short young man – younger than Oliver – with dark skin, the one holding the rifle; the second, solid and swarthy – handsome – with a goatee; the third, tall and skinny, pale with dark shaggy hair starting to go salt-and-pepper grey.

An unfamiliar alarm rings through the ship, there is a clang and vibration Oliver can feel through his boots and a lurching sensation that would cause him to fall upwards to the ceiling were he not secured to the floor with his gecko overshoes.

The PA voice: “Undock completed.”

Channing goes to a nearby workstation, fishes stationery out of drawers and with a stylus hand-writes him a paper receipt for his electrolaser, carefully copying out the serial number. She hands it to him.

“Questions, or shall we give you a tour of the ship?”

“No questions at the moment. I would welcome a tour.”

Obliging, Channing begins the tour from where they’re standing.

  

     

   

“This,” Channing indicates the small room off the cargo hold’s airlock, “is my office and doubles as cargo operations, and where we do intake for migrants such as yourself. If you need anything else kept secure let me know. We’re pretty empty at the moment, you can come and buzz at the door if you need anything during your stay.”

“These are Electors Santos, Allan and Hill,” Channing introduces the three men, solid and swarthy, tall and skinny, short with rifle, respectively, “there here for everyone’s safety and they’re also our cargo stevedores.”

She leaves, beckoning Oliver to follow. Outside her office is the internal airlock to the cargo hold; it’s quite large, though the doors are only standard size.

“You can see the hold’s been depressurised now,” she indicates the red lights on the door, “so we go this way.”

She heads through a third door off the airlock to yet another small pressure-sealed room with two more doors. A graphic on the left-hand one indicates it is a ladder well.

“This ladder way is usually secured, if you need to move between decks use the elevator I’ll show you shortly. Welcome Wagon has three decks, we’re on the upper deck.”

She goes through the door on the right, into a circular ring corridor.

“This is the ring corridor. Everything comes off here.”

Oliver has been paying close attention, noting all doors, hallways and so on. So far Welcome Wagon seems a lot less stylish and has a lot more bare metal and exposed pipes and conduits than Dominion ships that Oliver has been aboard. In particular, where most Dominion ships have a slightly soft, rubberised waterproofed and non-slip coating over most of the floors, Welcome Wagon is bare metal alloy. The walls have a worn look about them, as if many hands, bodies and items have brushed past them over time.

Channing turns right and moves anti-clockwise around the ring. Allen follows silently, Hill and Santos remain behind in the cargo airlock.

She stops in front of two doors. The one on the right is labelled as the access to the cargo hold, and is festooned with warning stickers:

Cargo Hold Access Hatch

THIS IS NOT AN AIRLOCK

No Access Unless Hold Pressurised!

The door on the left is the elevator she mentioned earlier.

“If you need to go to sickbay you can talk to one of the other stewards, or use the elevator to go to the Mid Deck. Sickbay to just to the right next to the elevator as you exit. The Lower Deck is off limits.”

She continues around the ring past the elevator to the next door, opens it.

“In here is the Mess and Rec room.”

She proceeds down a short corridor past a door labelled ‘Passenger Cabin 7’ and into a large space, shaped approximately like a quarter circle with the corner cut out. In the corner opposite the door are various cupboards with labels like ‘Games, Sports Equipment, Crafts.’ A couple of pieces of exercise equipment are nearby. In the middle of the room, leaning against the corner-cut wall are stacks of tables, secured in racks. Two tables with chairs are set up in the middle of the room, legs secured into floor slots, looking lonely in the large space. Around the corner of the room is a servery counter with galley equipment and food storage lockers behind it.

Behind the counter, an attractive blonde woman is cleaning and stacking things.

“We don’t have many people aboard right now – it’s pretty quiet as you can see. That’s Steward Moloney, she serves breakfast and is one of our medics. All the stewards are independent contractors and you can negotiate with them to provide various personal services for a fee.”

Indeed, there is no-one here but Oliver, Channing, Allen and Moloney.

At the sound of her name she turns and waves brightly to Oliver, “Welcome aboard, Stranger!”

Oliver waves back to Moloney.

Channing continues, “Meals are every six Ultrads starting at 6. We provide basic meals at those times, or you can purchase upgrades.”

She gestures to a device on the wall showing the digits 07.13 – presumably it’s a clock.

“You’ve just missed breakfast.”

However, by Oliver’s body clock, he’s late for dinner. According to his PDA it’s BG03-8-30; that is, Blue Shift, Green Job, 3rd Task, 8th Moment and 30th second.

“If you get hungry between times, you can buy a meal from the stewards or use the vending machines for a snack.”

She points at some machines in the Galley area.

“Do you want to discuss currency exchange?”

“I think that would be helpful.”

Channing says, “Well, I’ll finish the tour, get you settled, we can talk currency and then I’m sure Moloney would love to catch up with you. How does that sound?”

Behind the counter, Moloney nods to indicate that this is so.

Oliver nods. “Do you think you could break down the clocks for me when we talk money, too?”

Channing indicates that won’t be a problem and continues the tour, Allen following. She leads him back out of the mess, turns right around the ring to the next door.

“You’re in luck, with us being quiet, and you being a solo drop-off, you can have a cabin to yourself.”

She leads him down a corridor, past doors labelled ‘Passenger Cabin 4’ and ‘Passenger Cabin 5’ and a T-intersection.

“I’m going to put you in six.”

She fishes in a pocket, hands him an access card with characters ‘6B’ hand-drawn on it.

Oliver finds that touching it near the door sensor unlocks his cabin. Inside is a sparsely furnished room with two bunk beds on the left (marked 6T on the top and 6B on the bottom). There are two lockers, two tiny fold-down desks each with an old-fashioned-looking vid screen and an archaic manual keyboard, two fold-away chairs and a single water spigot with a tiny basin in the wall.

“The head, shower and laundry is back up the corridor to the right. Say, would you prefer the top bunk? As I said, we’re pretty empty right now, but there’s always a chance we could get full and I have to put someone in with you, so better pick the one you want now.”

She holds out card ‘6T,’ questioningly.

Remembering past nightmares causing unfortunate crash awakenings in the past, Oliver takes the 6B Card. “No, I would prefer bottom, thank you.”

With that settled, Channing leads Oliver out of the room and up the corridor, pointing out the bathrooms as they pass the T-intersection. Returing to the ring corridor, she leads him around to the right, pass in a door labelled ‘Passenger Bunk Room’.

“Big bunk room in there, got a family over in the far corner. Effectively a private room for them at the moment.”

She doesn’t open the door but keeps walking past, returning to the cargo airlock and leading Oliver back to her office.

“So, time and money…”

She briefly looks like she’s going to make a joke and then doesn’t.

“What have you got, Dominion Money? Coins or cards? Or something else?”

“Yes, Dominion Money, mostly on Cards.”

Channing says, “so, I’m ‘encouraged’ to exchange Dominion Money for Standards at 1 Money to 10 Standards. I’ll pay 2 extra standards on the Money for coins and 5 for Unauthorised cards if you have any. However, in addition to Standards, I also have Bank Notes from several banks at the latest available exchange rate, in particular the Bank of Gateway is exchanging at 1.15 Standards at the moment. I also have some Commodity Notes in various denominations that I’ll trade for various rates. Gold Commodity Notes are 1.21 at the moment, which is unusually good. I have some Produce Notes at 0.95 but produce is volatile. I can show you the list if you like? Plus I have a limited amount of specie coins, mostly in 10g and 50g ingots – gold, silver and palladium trading at different rates if you’re interested. I have some others too – Freebies, Barts, Stones – but they’re not going to be useful to you.

“We find it’s easier to use cash aboard ship. I can store anything safely for you if you need.”

She looks at Oliver processing her information dump, “Do I need to give you the standard briefing on our currencies, or are you familiar?”

“I am not familiar, my decision to come was not very rehearsed.”

Channing nods, “so in the Dominion, you have one bank right, that issues all your Dominion Money?”

It’s rhetorical, and Channing doesn’t wait for Oliver to respond, “Well, here we have many banks, and any of them can issue their own money. Those are Bank Notes, and they’re a promise for that bank to redeem the note for legal tender or specie. Most banks accept other banks’ notes but the exchange rate varies, and most merchants accept most banks’ notes, but they may haggle over value.

“I mentioned the Bank of Gateway earlier because that’s where you’ll eventually be getting off, and Bank of Gateway Notes are widely used there.

“In the early times, that all got a bit confusing, with different names for different notes and different exchange rates, so the government created the Standard – a common currency against which all the different bank notes could be pegged, and then created a central bank to issue it. That’s a whole other story I won’t go into.

“The Standard is the default trade currency against the Dominion Money at 10:1, or one Standard to one of your Deci’s. Lots of people use the Standard, and merchants are required to take them at face value. Doesn’t mean they won’t haggle over the value of what they’re selling, but they can’t haggle over the value of the currency.

“Commodity Notes are issued by banks, but also commodity traders. A Commodity Note is backed by something tangible – usually a fixed quantity of something that the bearer can redeem, but often just the notes are traded. Again, value is measured against the Standard. There’s usually a notional value at issue, but people often haggle based on current value of the commodity.

“We also have specie coins, which are usually precious metal and derive their value from what they’re made of. Again, they’re usually issued by banks, but anyone can mint a specie coin and use it in trade as long as they mark it according to law.”

“Banks will issue you a card denominated in their Bank Notes, or sometimes Commodity Notes, if you want, like your Money cards, but we don’t use them aboard ship.”

She looks at Oliver, inviting questions.

He responds, “While the exchange seems quite clear, how much does an Elector usually spend per decaCycle? Do you have a suggested value that someone travelling should start their journey with?”

“DekaCycle – that’s ten Circads.”

Channing does some quick mental math.

“Eight or nine thousand Standards maybe. Plenty of people get by on half or less of that. Twice that ought to keep you comfortable.”

In light of that information, Oliver does a quick mental review of his finances:

• Cash = ʄ202.3
• Authorised Cards, subtotal = ʄ45,793.0
  • Oliver’s main personal authorised Money card (limit ʄ50,000) = 15,793.0
  • 1x Money cards with pay from Karmen (limit ʄ20,000) = 20,000.0
  • 2x Money cards with pay from Karmen (limit ʄ5,000) = 2 x 5,000.0 = 10,000.0
• Unauthorised Cards, subtotal = ʄ131,484.0
  • Money card with Vizierate pay from Melody (limit ʄ75,000)† = 52,716.0
  • Money card with Vizierate pay from Dicard at Zargonia (limit ʄ10,000) = 8,832.0
  • Money card with Vizierate pay from Dicard at Pristine (limit ʄ10,000) = 9,936.0
  •  25x Money cards with pay from Zayaire (limit ʄ2,000) = 25 x 2,000.0 = 50,000.0
  • 5x Money cards with pay from Zayaire (limit ʄ1,000) = 5 x 1,000.0 = 5,000.0
  • 2x Money cards with pay from Karmen (limit ʄ20,000) = 2 x 20,000.0 = 40,000.0
  • 1x Money cards with pay from Karmen (limit ʄ5,000) = 5,000.0
• Total = ʄ217,479.3

  

Oliver nods and does some thinking himself, wondering how long he might be here, what he might need to purchase on a whim if possible.

He answers, “I have 25,000 money I can give you. Can you do the exchange for that much?”

“I can.”

Oliver swiftly reaches into his backpack, opening it more than necessary and withdraws one of the ʄ20k and ʄ5k unauthorised money cards he obtained from Karmen. Noting now it’s come to his attention that his pack is stuffed full of money cards at the moment (the unauthorised cards in their authorisation sleeves are bulkier than the authorised ones).

“And you want that in Standards?”

Oliver confirms that Standards are acceptable and Oliver is passed several rolls of coloured paper rectangles, secured with elastic bands. The paper seems thick, durable and possibly woven with some sort of metallic identifying strip.

  

     

   

“Count it, and sign here,” Channing proffers Oliver a clipboard – stylus attached – with a form for his signature. The form alleges he has been given ʂ375,000 Standards in exchange for ʄ25,000 Dominion Money. Oliver counts the unfamiliar notes and makes a mark in what seems to be the appropriate box on the form. Channing gives him a copy – an archaic carbon from a multi-layered paper form.

Channing asks, “any more questions about currency? Do you want me to put anything in the safe?”

She eyes his backpack.

“No, I’m good, thank you.”

He casually readjusts the bag on his back.

“And you wanted to know about how we measure time?”

“Yes, I would, please.”

She nods, gestures at a display on the wall, which now reads ‘7.29’.

“Ultrad 7, Minad 29, or seven-twenty-nine for short.

She begins reciting something that sounds like she has repeated it numerous times, “The base time unit – our Secad – is the same as the Dominion Second; apparently too many standard measurements rely on that to change it, though I’m told that was proposed shortly after the Treaty of Separation was signed as part of our calendar reforms. There are sixty Secads to the Minad and 60 Minads to the Ultradian.

“Twenty-four Ultrads make a Circadian, which is equal to a Dominion Cycle, though the standard Circadian doesn’t match the standard Dominion Cycle. Your Red-Red-One occurs at eleven-forty-five, and our Ultradian Zero occurs at the start of your Green-Green-Seven. Apparently they started counting our clock and calendar from the exact time the Treaty was signed, which was about midway through your Green Shift on Cycle 10,382. For us that’s Circad One of Gestad One.

“Seven Circads to the Infradian – equivalent to your dekaCycle but shorter. Then four Infrads to the Mensadian – I know the Dominion uses a period of thirty Circads – Cycles – for a lot of things but don’t have a name for it; we do, but it’s 28 Circads to a Mensad not thirty. What we don’t have is an equivalent for your hectoCycles – we’d say about three and a half Mensad’s instead.

“Then there are nine Mensads to the Gestadian, which is culturally equivalent to your kiloCycle but only a quarter of the length. If people ask your age you may want to multiply by 4.”

“Also, while people often use numbers for Infrads and Mensads, they also have names. Infrads are called Ba, Di, Ko and Ai. Mensads are called Menspaoli, Mensburke, Menstokvil, Menskemal, Menssolon, Mensyatsen, Menswalesa, Menshuntington and Mensakeeno.”

She pauses to fish around in a drawer and comes out with a couple of pamphlets, “Here, take these.”

The first pamphlet is obviously written for children, with friendly, cartoonish letters and graphics, but it does contain some useful tables. The second is a simple conversion table, and does not have the cartoonish style of the first.

She gives Oliver a short time to glance at the pamphlets, meanwhile hunting around in the same drawer again and retrieving a cheap Dominion wrist clock, which she consults.

“So in the Dominion it’s 211.491 BG05-1-62, but here it’s 799-1-2-7 7.31.”

Oliver skims the pamplets and hands them back.

She takes the pamphlets back, “you don’t want to keep those? You can.”

Pamphlets “No, I’ve got it down, thank you.”

Channing asks, “any other questions?”

“Thank you. I am surprised the need for distance included being away from the clock.”

“The First Separatists – that’s what we call the people who founded the Electorate – had a profound hatred of the Dominion and everything about it. They killed the second Overlord to make their point, then left Dominion space, abolished the Dominion’s class system, established a representative government to replace the dictatorship, changed the Codex legal system for our Constitution, separated the proctors from military, did away with the Vizierate, changed the monetary system, the clock, the calendar, the concept of house names and just about anything else that reminded them of the Overlords and the Dominion approach to anything and everything.”

Oliver recalls from his history lessons at school that, indeed, Overlord Christos Argyropoulos was killed in the destruction of his flagship during the Separatist Rebellions. His son, Overlord Nicos, abdicated immediately, and title passed to his younger brother, Overlord Santos, who signed the Treaty of Separation three hectoCycles later.

“Yes, I remember. I suppose if you are that opposed to someone you see as an oppressor you would want to change everything about how life is lead.”

That pretty much sums it up.”

She files away the paperwork, chaning the subject, “So, an unrehearsed decision to join those free from oppression. How does that happen?”

Oliver goes to give some vague answer; but may end up staring off into the middle distance.

“It wasn’t exactly unrehearsed. Unplanned, sure. When I was younger I joined a group of independently minded people trying to weed out the corruption of certain officials.”

He looks back to her and shrugs, “It didn’t go well, it just took me a while to make the jump after the failure.”

Channing looks like she’s about to follow up when there’s a broadcast across the ship’s PA system with an accompanying alert tone.

“Attention all passengers and crew, stand by for hyperspace jump.”

Channing and Allen exchange glances – this is clearly unexpected.

Channing says, “you might want to head to your cabin, or secure yourself in the common area.”

Oliver nods and heads to his cabin, with Allen trailing as far as the door off the ring corridor leading to the cabins, watches Oliver enter number 6.

Oliver settles in and a short time later, hears more alarms. As a trained starship Comm Officer, Oliver recognises these as different to what he’s trained to sound, but it’s not difficult for him to match the tones to the equivalent of what he knows about starship operations. Then he feels gravity drop to about 0.3G and then the gut-and-brain-churning impact of a ship going into hyperspace.

Unlike any Dominion ship he’s been on, which maintain artificial gravity at 1G in Hyperspace, Welcome Wagon maintains the gravity at about 0.3G for the entire hyperspace journey – Oliver’s gecko overshoes will likely prove useful.

Being his usual dinner time, once safely in the hyperspace jump he makes his way to the passenger mess to see what he can eat. Arriving, he finds Steward Moloney, who he met briefly earlier, is loitering dejectedly. She brightens at his approach.

“Welcome again, Stranger! Can I get you something?”

“Thank you, Moloney. I’m actually due for my… late, meal. Is there anything I can eat available?”

She smiles warmly, “I can make something up for you – 400 Standards.”

She winks.

“Special service for the handsome young Stranger.”

Lithely, she slips a menu into Oliver’s hand.

“What would you like, sweetie?”

Oliver assesses her demeanour as putting on a welcome act, and a flirtatious one at that, but considers it may be partially genuine.

“Got any recommendations?”

“The grilled chicken and vegetables is good, and I make the sauce with extra hospitality,” she winks at him.

“Maybe you’d like to start with a drink?”

“Sure, that sounds appetising. Something sweet to drink?”

“Try this,” she says, and pours him a sweet Basi wine in a low-G-safe cup. Oliver finds it pleasant.

Moloney sets about the area behind the counter, soon creating cooking smells. She chatters to Oliver as she works preparing his meal, peppering him with questions.

“So, you’re from the Dominion right? How do you like us so far?”

“I am. You all seem pleasant, so far.”

She smiles at the comment, and winks, “and I plan to keep it that way!”

“What’d you use to do back over the border?”

“I shifted between private and public work. Just came out of a contract with the Dominion Government.”

“Oh, sounds exciting! What were you working on?”

“I was mostly just an electronic repair and comms man. I’m also pretty good with digital systems. How long have you been on the ship?”

“This is my third trip out, the other two worked out alright, but we’re heading back so soon this time. Hardly anyone aboard.”

She seems briefly disappointed.

“But hey, means you can hog all the personal service!”

She smiles at him.

He gives a polite smile. “I mean if you’re telling me I don’t have to eat meal packs the whole way, I won’t say no.”

“You just let me know – I don’t just cook either; all sorts of things I can do for you,” she says – conspiratorially and seductively.

She lets that sit brielfy, and then changes topic, “Are you leaving anyone behind?”

“Other than family, no.”

“Aw, that sad…”

She pauses, “Or is it? Some people love their families, others, not so much?”

“My family were very kind and diligent with me. They aren’t why I left.”

“Good and bad then, do they know you’re here? Coming later maybe?”

“They know I’m gone and I won’t be contactable. I doubt they’ll come.”

“Ah,” she makes a sympathetic noise, and lets that line of questioning drop, “Do you like much spice in your sauce?”

“Moderate amounts is fine, I don’t cope well with heavy heat.”

Once Oliver has waded through the above barrage, this is near the end, as she’s adding seasoning to his meal as the finishing touches.

“A man of moderation?”

Spice in your sauce? “You might say that. Until you saw my coffee.”

She laughs, “what, big and strong?”

He laughs too, “No, no. Sweeter than a baby fuzzferret.”

He tongues a wisdom tooth. “I’m amazed I don’t have any cavities.”

She jokes, “well, seems to be rubbing off!”

As Oliver has indicated he’ll eat in the mess, Moloney lays out his dinner on a table. Oliver doesn’t seem to object to conversation so she continues, “Ever met anyone from the Electorate before?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“So I’m one of your first?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer but continues, “well, there’s all sorts here, most nice, some not so, but people who come through here seem to think we’re a lot more, uh, ‘free market’ than you folks. They say it can take some getting used to, especially the ones that have only worked for the Dominion government.

“Though if you’ve done private work, it might not be so bad?”

“Free market?”

“Your – the – government seems to provide, and control, most of the things in the Dominion. Here private individuals and companies do so much more. It means everyone has to negotiate and work together a lot more to get things done, but there’s so much more freedom here to have and do what you want, and the colour of the tag around your neck doesn’t dictate your opportunities in life.”

Oliver’s curiosity is piqued at her comment, though after a few moments his face drops, “who tells the strongest individuals and companies they can’t just ruin it for everyone else?”

“Well, we have a government too, but the people get to say who runs it, not ‘you get to be Overlord because one of your parents was Overlord.’

“We vote to elect our leaders. That’s why once a person takes franchise they’re called ‘Elector’. So, if you don’t like the way people or companies are doing things you can elect new leaders who feel the same way you do. Besides which, we’re a deliberative democracy, we can petition the Parliament or our Deliberative Council member for changes.”

Their conversation leads on to some further chat about Electorate politics and government structure, though Moloney is nowhere near as articulate nor structured as the information under Separatist Life.

Oliver is trying to be a chameleon, and over the course of their chat he has a distinct sense that she is too – she seems keen to ingratiate herself with him.

Having eaten, Oliver rises to go to his cabin. Moloney winks and waves as he leaves, reminding him she’s available to service his needs if required.

With more time to study the space, he notes that the room is clean, even smells faintly of chemical cleaning products, but the walls are grey-painted metal, with wear and scuff marks. As noted previously, it’s a sparsely furnished room with two bunk beds on the left (marked 6T on the top and 6B on the bottom). There are two lockers, two tiny fold-down desks each with an old-fashioned-looking vid screen and an archaic manual keyboard, two fold-away chairs and a single water spigot with a tiny basin in the wall. A single central light illuminates the room’s floor in an oval spot, but mostly illumination comes from fixed task lighting in key positions like bed reading lamps and desks work lamps that throw shadows everywhere. A bare metal floor instead of the softer, slightly rubberised flooring he is used to. A couple of pipes and some sort of conduit, all wrapped in cushioning foam, run along the roof, where there are also several handles. Air comes from small vents near floor and ceiling. Gravity is about 0.3 .

Oliver being Oliver, he sits down at the archaic terminal and begins to explore the ship’s cyberspace.

He finds it weird initially – the keyboard layout is different from what Oliver is used to, and standard shortcuts in the Dominion’s standard STADDODEL interface just don’t exist. Oliver understands the idea of a mechanical keyboard interface – it’s not dissimilar to the dynamic holo- or touch-based interfaces he’s used to, but it doesn’t dynamically reconfigure itself based on context like the interfaces with which he’s familiar. Plus, it makes an odd clicking sound as he types.

On one side of the keyboard is a free-rotating ball that he quickly figures out controls a cursor that can be moved around the screen to interact with different parts, and replaces the direct touch interaction that he is familiar with. It’s a different paradigm for interaction and it takes a little time for him to adjust.

Even the aspect ratio of the screen is different to what he is familiar with; though there’s a vague alert in Oliver’s excellent memory…

Exploring the content, he finds a menu-driven interface titled ‘Welcome Wagon Welcome’ that covers a lot of the items on which he’s already been briefed, and adds a few operational details such as locations of emergency vacc suits and how to operate the fresher. It also fills in a detail that some crew are permanent members of the ship on a wage, and some are independent contractors, reliant for income on what they earn from the passengers the ship carries.

There is a basic section on environmental controls and an entertainments and library menu, which has vids for watching, audio for listening and docs for reading.

If he wants a hardcopy of anything, he can send it to the Chief Steward’s (Channing’s) office.

Also, mag boots are available for hire or purchase, should he need them, as are cabin upgrades – if available – from the dorm room to a private cabin, which he seems to be in already.

Though initially cautious about testing the security, he explores and assesses that he will be at a disadvantage until he becomes used to the different paradigms of things, but this tech feels less sophisticated – if a little divergent in some ways, to that with which he is familiar. It reminds him of the ‘history of computing’ unit he took early in his studies, but he assesses that many items in his hacking toolkit will be broadly applicable.

He decides that he will see if he can quietly get into some sort of internal comms system for the ship. It takes him quite a while to get his head around the weird interface – well past his usual bedtime. He decides to try and shift his body clock slowly to the Separatists’ clock and remains awake a bit later than is usual for him.

Before he can get very far with his snooping, and just as he’s getting ready for bed, there’s a tap on his door; that’s an actual knock, not a door chime.

He ensures there’s nothing suspicious on his screen and answers the door to find Moloney. She’s changed into something that is probably less comfortable, but more revealing. She has done her hair and applied some make-up.

“Oliver, I hope you’re not in bed yet? I just wanted to see if there was anything you needed before you bedded down? Anything I can do for you?”

He’s obviously surprised to see her.

“No, I was just getting settled before I lay down.”

He takes a moment.

“Is there some event I’m missing?”

“Naw, no event just checking if there’s any service I can provide for you? A snack? A cool drink? Something warmer?”

She glances suggestively down at her cleavage and Oliver tries to play genuine obliviousness in response.

Cheerily, he says, “Oh, thank you. But I think I’m good, I might just get some sleep.”

Moloney nods, smiles at him, “Alright then, you let me know if you need anything.”

She leaves him be.

Oliver then tosses and turns for some time before dreaming of approaching gunfire while he tries to escape the flames.

He awakens on 211.492 at GR06, or 799-1-7 21.00 on the Separatist’s New Beginnings clock.

Feeling a little washed out, he starts in earnest with his hacking, commencing by searching to see if there was any previous mention of Argyle/Lozenge-Sok on the system and if there’s any particular mention of ‘selling the Dominion cur into slavery’ or similar. After a while he comes across a lightly secured passenger manifest, on which he finds an entry:

  

Name:  Argyle, Willard.

Origin:  Dominion

Identity:  Dominion ID Tag Verified

Boarded:  Nonoop, 798-3-4-6

Assigned:  (paid upgrade) C3T

Disembarked:  Gateway 798-4-4-5

Reimbursement:  Received – Double Bonus Dominion Bounty.  

  

Recalling that Channing said in his orientation that, ‘I mentioned the Bank of Gateway earlier because that’s where you’ll eventually be getting off…’, he is satisfied that he is on Argyle’s trail for now.

With that settled, Oliver decides to focus on adjusting his sleep schedule and getting back into a usual routine of study, engineering and making sure he isn’t about to be sold off to slavers. Once he’s sure nobody is suspicious of his poking around he will check external comms.

   

  

Independent Transporter Welcome Wagon, Oliver’s Cabin (Hyperspace)

So, is hacking Welcome Wagon’s external comms still the plan?  Any memory refresh questions?  If he does try and hack the comms, what’s he looking for or trying to achieve?