NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1463644" data-attributes="member: 515">Ian leaves the Bray Keaven shortly after breakfast and descends the stairs from the starboard airlock, where he finds a pair of guards at the foot of the airplane stairs. After a short conversation, the guards put him in touch with Lt. Marks. After another brief discussion, a sergeant shows up in a small hovercraft to whisk the former Marine to a meeting with Gen. Tilshire. After a considerable amount of skepticism on the General’s part, Gen. Tilshire agrees to allow the crew to proceed as long as it is clear that the Bromlian military will not mount a rescue operation if things go bad, and they will disavow that any adventure was at all condoned by the Bromlian military. He mostly seems to be concerned that the Bromlian military is not in any shape to repulse a conventional and biological attack on Bromley that may be triggered if the crew gets captured. Even if the crewmembers succeed, Bromley won’t publicly acknowledge the success. In other words, the same sort of set up that plagues covert ops everywhere. Ian does make a good contact in a member of Bromlian’s Special Forces (the Steppe Service): a Col. Rundell who readily agrees to talk shop. Seems that the Steppe Service was thinking along the same lines and also has been a little stymied for fear of KGL reprisals. The Colonel does provide a pair of likely target hospitals in a small city (Kingan) just across the border along with another likely target hospital in a town (Judithan) about 80 km from the border. The border seems to be relatively lightly guarded outside of the main roads and populated areas given that the area is not particularly hospitable except near the water. Ian also picks up more planning information that will be useful later. Unfortunately, the Colonel thinks it is unlikely that he’ll be able to arrange transport anywhere near the area. On the bright side, the Colonel does have a friend in the intelligence service who was preparing a few sets of border passes and visas just in case, and modifying them for the crew’s use should be relatively easy. After a fruitful day of talking shop and planning, Ian heads back to the Bray Keaven for an early dinner. -----Sometimes, the day just doesn’t start out well. Swann finds a local wireless connection, but rather than talking to Lt. Marks to get access to the local planetary network, Swann figures that he will just hack his way onto the system. Ought to be an easy job, and he figures that he can always tell the Bromlians that he was just testing their system for them. Well, the job was relatively easy, but Swann manages to spill Nuvo-Cola on his console. On most decent ships, the console would be sealed, but it appears that this console wasn’t properly sealed, and Swann then has to spend the next three hours quietly cleaning out the console and hoping that Martha won’t notice before he can get back to a starting point again. Once he is able to really get started, Swann is able to find some information of note. Alief does have a pretty decent low–tech net setup, and, luckily, most of the networks use low–tech computers with correspondingly low–tech countermeasures. Getting access to systems proves easier than sifting through which systems to access. By referencing fuel records, spikes in food deliveries, vehicle repair requests, parking records, medical records, and several other systems, Swann is able to ascertain that there seemed to be an increase in orders/shipments of syringes, filter mask modules, and biohazard suits to hospitals across KGL. All hospitals seemed to have these increases start a month or so before the plague first broke. However, there were no marked increases in visits to the hospital or to doctors’ offices or clinics. There were also no public pronouncements of vaccinations. The three closest hospitals are two hospitals in a small city (Kingan) right across the border from Bromley and one in a small town about 80 km from the border (Judithan). Another bit of interesting information is that a far trader, the Sanford, was allowed through the blockade with a set of spare parts for the Crown Prince’s Milk Formula factory and a shipment of Hava-Cola concentrate. There was much condemnation by the government press about the Imperium holding up the far trader. While wading through information, Swann does come across a series of ads, news segments, and references that indicate that the KGL government gave away a free case of King–Sour (some sort of national fizzy drink) to each King George’s Land citizen above the age of 2 and a case of Crown Prince’s Milk (a baby formula) to everyone younger than 2. The giveaway started about two months ago and was touted as a patriotic thanks to the loyal subjects of the King. "Frellin’ ingenious way to distribute the inoculations," Swann marvels to himself. Digging a little further, he finds some complaints from King-Sour diehards that the government had King-Sour Enterprises skimp on the sugar in the give-away formulation, but most of the populace welcomed the giveaway. His eyes tired from sifting through data on the screen, Swann heads to the lounge just as the others are returning from their days for an early dinner. -----Argent and Vargas leave the Bray Keaven to meet with Gen. Tilshire in order to find out more about the situation in Medway. Gen. Tilshire, while appreciative, hands the two former scouts over to another of his aides, a Lt. Colonel Billings. The three spend the day examining maps of Medway and reports of people who are holed up in the capital and apparently surviving. There are about 80 odd groups that have called for help. The size of the groups range from a couple to hundreds in a sealed skyscraper. Rescuing all of them may prove very time consuming, and possibly dangerous to those holed up since they will be exposed to possibly contaminated air while they exit their buildings. Three groups are notable in that they are claiming at least one member suffered from AHV but recovered. Claim Alpha is a group of three people holed up in one of the middle class suburbs. Claim Bravo is a group of 10 who are holed up in one of the rich enclaves on the northwest side of the city. Claim Charlie is a family of four who is on the top of an office skyscraper. Most of the groups in the city have reported that they have run out of food. Claim Alpha and Claim Charlie also report that they have run out of food. Lt. Col. Billings arranges to have the portable building delivered by the Bray Keaven set up just inside the quarantine area. He also clears the Bray Keaven to go in to rescue people if the crew chooses, but the Bray Keaven will have to be thoroughly decontaminated each time (though Lt. Col. Billings agrees to arrange for help). The Bromlian military agrees to accept the people that are brought out as long as they are put into vacc suits or biohazard suits while in Medway, brought out to a decontam observation zone or the portable building (which is right next door), and placed under observation for 24 hours to make sure that they are free of the virus. In a burst of enthusiasm, Lt. Col. Billings does some checking with Gen. Tilshire, and the General agrees to purchase up to 10 dTons of the MREs from the Bray Keaven for 20,000 Imperial Credits per dTon. The General also agrees to pay the crew 200 Imperial Credits for each refugee brought out from Medway. Unfortunately, the Bromlian military is rather strapped right now for Imperial Credits, so the payment will be in the form of an equivalent amount of mined silver. -----Martha decides to start with patching and painting the scoring from the mining laser while waiting for the decontam shower supplies for the port airlock. The patching/painting is relatively relaxing and rather easy work, and she can observe the throngs of people around the airport as well as the steady stream of cargo aircraft landing at the airport to bring in humanitarian supplies. There seem to be more people around the airport this morning than the day before. After finishing the patching, she goes down to talk with the Bromlian guards and finds that her shower supplies have been delivered, and she then sets up a decontam shower in the port cargolock. Following a quick lunch and break, she decides that she’ll get that missile launcher installed and calls Lt. Marks to get some engineering help in the form of a couple of cranes and maintenance personnel to help with the external installation. The Bromlians arrive pretty quickly, and Martha and the personnel get to work, though some of the Bromlians look a little oddly at Martha’s vacc suit while others look wistfully at it. The installation proceeds smoothly, and the missile launcher is ready for power on, tracking tests, and test firings of one or two missiles in the atmosphere, and one or two missiles in space. The rest of the installation and tests will take between two and four hours, and will need to be performed somewhere that won’t unduly alarm the Bromlians. After cleaning up, Martha joins the rest of the crew in the lounge for dinner. -----Darishun spends the day helping set up the portable building and trying to help the Bromlians make the best use of the gear that the Bray Keaven has brought. In most, the initial fear is eventually replaced by wary deference to the large sophont, but Darishun does win friends through his easy going and helpful manner. Darishun returns to the Bray Keaven to report that the building has been set up along with decontamination stations. -----Over dinner, the various crewmembers recount what they accomplished and what they learned during their first full day on Alief.</blockquote>

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