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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy" data-source="post: 9364452" data-attributes="member: 1412">Gorram 301-1080On our way back from the ridiculous jump shadow hunt we spotted a ship on radar which was moving towards the station from the general direction of Gorram. It’s transponder wasn’t broad-casting, which isn’t unusual, ships often put their transponders on “respond only”. We pinged them and got no reply. We kept a radar on them and sent a secure message to Gabe to look at situation. Within a few minutes we were hailed by Derisson asking us why we were sending spurious messages to the security officer. Apparently we shouldn’t be harassing every ship with a minor fault in their communications and that we should be keeping people safe, not wasting time. Instead we should be collecting the data from the buoys in orbit round Gorram and collecting the data the faulty buoys have for the research team. Our recommendation that the incoming ship be searched was summarily dismissed and Derisson cut communications abruptly. We we stunned. A ship breaking Imperial law might have a good reason, such as a faulty transponder, but it was worth checking, especially in a restricted system!“Fucker! Okay, I’ve had enough naughty word. Let’s find out why intelligence recruited us to work here. Poly, when’s the next game?” - Helena.I didn’t know when poker night was but made a point of finding out and getting an invite as soon as I could. There was nothing clandestine about it and Harry told me that the next game was in a few days and Glee, Wolfgang, Alise and Gary had all confirmed. I told him that Helena and I would like to join if we are station-side.Gorram 304-1080In the end we joined Glee, Wolfgang, Gary, Uistilranian, Elise and Harry. Glee or Gleetheonale to give it its full name is a Bwap and hardly shuts up when they meet someone new. Glee is the station administrator and we hoped would be able to fill us in on some things. They bombarded us with questions, which the others, who were more used to Bwaps, found hilarious. ‘What is the average shoe size on Regina?’, ‘How many hairs do female humans have on their heads on Rhylanor?’, ‘Do you like to fish, if so why and what tools do you use?’. It was a bizarre range and it soon became obvious that they were not being flippant. Rather, they are obsessed with minutiae. We asked some questions in return, ‘Does the station hit its targets?’, ‘Is all the money accounted for?’, ‘Are they any problems with ships landing on Gorram?’, ‘What happened to the old crew of GR1?’ and more. It turns out that yes, the money is accounted for, that under Derisson all targets are met, and no, no ships had been reported landing on Gorram for as long as anyone here had been in system. As to the question about the old crew, that prompted some discussion. It appears that they had been sent chasing some sensor anomalies on the other side of the system on Derisson’s orders which had left them out of position to aid an A2 which had developed trouble after jumping into the system. It had been touch and go whether they would rescue the crew whose reactor had shut down taking life support with it. Derisson chewed them out and they saw their arses. Derisson had specifically ordered them on their mission to investigate the anomalies which the crew had argued were nothing - and they were correct. So to have the boss give them a verbal warning for something he had been the cause of was too much. But it wasn’t the first thing to have been a point of contention. The lack of replacement parts and spares had place unacceptable pressure on the crew over a period of months. Similar issues such as the one described had happened with the crew being blamed for the break down of buoys, a failure to repair some key satellite equipment for the research group from Mora, and a list of other grievances. The group round the table had a mixed view of Derisson. Bonus’s were paid promptly for hitting targets and it appeared that unless someone had had a run in with the boss people were inclined to not care so much. Those who had been the target of Derisson’s wrath did not like him. He was regarded as unpredictable and everyone agreed that spares never arrived and that there was little point in putting in requisition requests as they won’t all be filled on time. Just ask for the essential was the verdict. We got the impression that Derisson was trying to make himself look good by coming in under budget but wasn’t actually skimming anything off the top. Oh, and it lost 150 cds.Gorram 305-1080While we played poker the rest of the team were prepping the GR1 for a patrol run. We went as far as the orbit of OBG-07, checking buoys in orbit around “Peanut” (OBG-05) and back. It was a boring run which took just over a week. By the time we got back to the station the Amishi had left the system.Gorram 314-1080Just a few hours after getting back from the patrol we were woken by Sasha. A subsidised merchant vessel had jumped in system and was broadcasting a distress signal. We were up and leaving the station in minutes - we were pleased with out response time, which we had been practising. The Kusari had jumped into one of the designated jump “boxes”. We sent them a message to let them know we were coming and to ask for details. They responded that gravitics had failed shortly after they returned to realspace, both preventing any movement and making repairs difficult as they were floating around the ship. It took us a good few hours to get to them, which, apart from Peter, we used to finish our sleep-cycle. The Kusari was barely a step above junk. We took one look and decided to tow her back to the station. It was the first time we had made use of the heavy grappling arms and linkage apparatus. We stripped out some key components so we could begin work on repairs in our onboard workshops and attached the Kusari to the GR1. The return journey naturally took longer as we didn’t want to put undue stresses on our companion. I was a little concerned as it feels unsafe to be moving with another ship attached, but we had hooked her up correctly and things went smoothly. The other crew joined us in the GR1 and we got to work. They were friendly enough. They were typical “main-hoppers” slowly drifting along the main and hauling goods or engaging in speculative trade as circumstances allowed. They had been through Gorram a few times and asked about the previous crew of the GR1. Limping along considerably under 1g seemed to take an eternity, but in reality it was not much more than 3 days.</blockquote>

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