Family ties, part 2

"Hey, when did you get back?" Seren enquired, standing at the door to her father's workshop, a long factory-like structure with panelled windows the length of each wall and an odour of various mechanical oils and concotions.

"Oh, not very long" said Ulyssees trying to hide he'd been asleep."I came in here to finish up some work on the new coolant and ended up picking up this book.". He stood up and smiled at his daughter. She'd aged since her last visit to the planet, not so much physically but something about the way she carried herself. A new toughness layered over older scars of hardship. It was unsurprising given the hard life they'd endured. That wasn't how Ulyssees had wanted to raise his daughter, hidden away on an obscure colony on a struggling planet mired in poverty, criminality and corruption.

He motioned for his daughter to join him on the sofa at the end of the workshop.

"You get more like your mother every time I see you."

"I wish I remembered her enough to tell."

Ulysses nodded and smiled, "She'd be proud of you. Getting the company back up and running. Seeking the old ship and getting it back. You're making a tidy amount judging my the amount of credits you're sending my way"

Seren leaned forward and clasped her hand "Not doing too badly. I'm getting lucrative one off contracts here and there. Some more interesting than others."

"Interesting sounds like a way of saying illegal to me...."

She turned to her father smiling "I couldn't possibly say.."

"Yes, well....be careful. I am the local Justice of the Peace don't forget."

Seren put her hands forward as if expecting cuffs and her father shook his head half repressing his smile.
He sat up forwards and paused for a few moments before speaking "I've been channeling my share of the company's proceeds to a few different things. Hiring a few hands around the farm, repairing the hoverwagons, that sort of thing. Anyway....I play the occasional game of Kah-tiki and well, wouldn't you know I happen to have won a few games."

"For money?"

"Yes, for money and various other things. Turning the occasional blind eye to more minor infractions of the law for example  But in this instance, I happen to have won a new boat."

"A new boat? What sort of boat?"

"It's old, needs some work but it's a classic design.  I've got it parked at the Kerner City land dock. I'll take you down tomorrow and we can have a good look if you'd like?"


*****************************************

 "There she is!" pointed out Ulysses, the overcast dampness doing nothing to disrupt his enthusiasm.
"I called her Persephone's Folly - Gulgus thinks I'm a bit senile wanting to take her off his hands."

Seren looked the ship over from afar. "You got this from Gulgus? Are you sure it's not stolen?"

"Now, now Seren. Give me some credit. As it is, the ship doesn't cover the debt he owes me but refitted and working it'll repay me many times over. I've got some engineers working on it now. Come on."

He jogged excitedly to the ship. Keeping pace with him, Seren noticed how ships seemed to inject youthfulness into her father. He'd been the same when she brought the Persephone One home. Tinkering with every little circuit, his fingers dancing over the panels, his mind entirely focused on getting the vessel ship shape. He'd been born for it, of that there was no doubt. They reached the landing ramp and climbed up into the innards of the ship.

"This here", Ulysses exclaimed excitedly, "is a dual entry port. The ramp extends when you're planetside, the airlock opens when you're docking with a space station. Score one to the Folly because Persephone One can't do that."

"And this here, is your cargo bay. Lots of room for anything you're carrying, your hovercycle, even a buffalo-yak. All at the same time, no need to keep swapping and changing at the PTC station"

"It's very nice" Seren eyeballed the dimensions of the ship, "has potential"

"Come on in here. General operations - over there is the navigational computer and analytical systems, over there is a work table and look here. You know what those are? Beds. I spoke to Elena, she said you were sleeping on boxes. Boxes?  All that buying and selling and it never occured to you to get a bed. Really?"

Ulysses bounded into the cockpit "Oh, this brings back happy memories. Flying the space routes, avoiding pirates and other rogues making sure the delivery got there on time.Those were great times. Great times indeed."

There was a forlornness to his speech, an aching to revisit the past.

"The ships yours if you want her, Seren. You carry on making me and your mother proud."

Seren put her hand on her father's shoulder, sharing the view of Kerner City as it sprawled out beneath them.

"It's your ship, dad..."

"I brought her for you. I'm too old to make use of her. "

"I don't think so. You could teach people a few things I reckon.", she said cuddling close to her father.

Family ties.

Kerner City, Planet of Nena.
City Population 78,984


"You're sure you want it?", the rotund, greasy haired and obviously perspiring man enquired, addressing a senior, greying but still impressively built man in brown slacks with red suspenders over a white shirt. The two men were hunched over a small table in a busy, neon lit bar.

"Of course I want it. It's mine"

The greasy figure smiled, revealing several missing teeth."I feel like I'm robbing you Undercroft. She's a wreck, c'mon let me play you again."

"You seem awful keen to keep her, if you don't mind me saying. To me, that says I'm onto a good thing. Besides, I have the skill to repair her. I used to do it all the time." He sipped from his drink, a orange concoction with a slightly red head to it.

"Thirty years ago! The Concordium was a different place then my friend. Parts were plenty, the capital was copious and the ladies were lusty!" He laughed with a snort. "Talking of ladies, I hear your daughter is back onworld?"

"Gulgus", he pointed a finger, "Don't even think about it."

Gulgus Machydon, the greasy ball of flesh that resembled a man, laughed heartily. "Ulysses, I am many things my friend. I may be a loan shark and a businessman of ill repute but I know where the line is drawn. Your daughter is entirely safe. Say hello to me for her. I haven't seen her since Magnolius Grinch ended up with a knife in the back!". He stared at his friend letting a wicked smile contort his face before gulping his beverage down and struggling to his feet. "The ship is yours. You enjoy her, yes?"

"I will. Thanks Gulgus. Stay out of trouble."

Gulgus nodded, resting a hand on Ulysses shoulder before leaving. Undercroft took another sip from his drink and looked down at the document in front of him that transferred ownership. He rummaged in his trousers for a pen, flicked it on and scribed the ship's new name down. '"Persephone's Folly", he muttered with a smile, "Welcome to the family."

[Log] The Narstrom Incident.

I attended the third day of the inquiry into Novara Narstrom yesterday. I hope she gets off.

I think the charges against Novara are spurious at best. An abandoned ship, no distress signal, no life signs for hundreds of miles. Any scavenger would have a case for believing the ship was abandoned. Nothing can survive for long out there in the desert. Well, that's not strictly true because there's one thing that can - the sandworms. Now come on, between the impact of the crash, the hostile environment and the man-eating sandworms the likelihood that there would be any survivors is tiny. And let us not forget a very key word in what I just said : abandoned. If a ship is abandoned, it's open for scavenging. That's always been the way I've known things. And if the ship wasn't abandoned, there's no way she could have known about it. After all, let's not forget that she sent out a message on the public channel - why did the pilot or the STC not immediately respond? No, the more I think about it the more I think it was a set up. 


I've known Sisko for a while, but I never thought he was capable of this.

 I witnessed some of the events that led to the trial and left her space station just hours before it was destroyed. As I recall the sequence of events, Novara sent out a message on the Al Raqis public channel that there was an abandoned ship deep in the desert and asked for help salvaging what was left. I arrived shortly afterwards and was subsequently joined by several others all of whom witnessed the very same thing. An STC shuttle craft firing phaser streams at Novara's ship. She was lucky to get her shield up in time otherwise we'd be talking about a fatality. After several minutes of sustained phaser fire, we heard a huge thunderous roar and looking up we saw one of the STC's starships had entered the atmosphere and was now firing round after round of photon torpedoes at the shield. Shortly afterwards her defence barrier collapsed but not before Novara was able to power up her engines and subsequently she escaped to the supposed safety of her space station.

As it was, I had business of my own at her station and when we entered standard orbit we were greeted with the STC ship lingering menacingly outside of the station shields. Having the shield code frequency, we were able to successfully dock with the station. As we unpacked the goods into the landing bay, I noticed Novara talking to a Myrmidon. Thinking nothing of it, I left the same way we'd arrived and we only later found out that Novara's station had been destroyed when its shields failed, fell planetside and burned up in the atmosphere. 

If anything, I'd say that the STC should be facing a count of attempted murder and possibly terrorism charges. I suspect they won't. They have a knack of getting themselves out of trouble. Meanwhile an innocent trader much like myself faces the wrath of the Al Raqis legal system. It's a crying shame. 

Log Update - I recall Novara mentioning on the public channel that she'd seen STC officers on board her station shortly before planetfall. More fuel for the fire. 

Droid misbehavin' (Apocryphal)

[IMPORTANT : This post refers to a pre-retconned version of the Elena Galewind character and no longer forms part of the "canon" of Persephone One. However it does reference an important event - raising the funds from the Orchids to secure funding for a Spice trading licence.]


"Oh, I know there's a good reason you're wearing my clothes"

The captain stood exasperated at the top of the ramp leading to the Persephone's hull with her hands on her hips. Elena stood at the bottom, her eyes looking somewhat surprised as she looked up towards the Captain."And where did you get that hairpiece? Orange I mean really."


It was true. Underneath the khaki Stetson was a orange bob of hair that would have done a wonderful job of masking the cyborg's visible parts had there not been two sensor arrays and radio antennae projecting outwards. Adorning the droid's person, Seren had recognised her long brown jacket and matching trousers and....no, she didn't recognise the boots.
"I was merely attempting to acquiesce to the social norms of the planet. Some organic lifeforms find artificial life distressing. Your instructions were to "fit in" more, were they not?"
"Yes, but my clothes?" the Captain strode down the ramp shielding her eyes to the bright Araxian sunshine, "You still haven't explained the orange wig".
The cyborg raised her holographically generated eyebrows. "The hair weaving was located in your wardrobe mistress?"
The Captain looked uneasy, ruffling her purple hair "I don't know what you mean. I'm sure I never had hair like that. Ahem, anyway, where have you been?"

"My sojourn took me to the area known locally as the Water's End. Upon my visitation, I encountered a male of youthful years. Attempting to test the new aesthetic, I engaged in meaningful conversation introducing several of the planet's customs, factions and geographically important installations. To my surprise, he was unaware of my cybernetic origin for much of the conversation."
The captain looked surprised "What, even with the pointy out bits?"
"If you are referring to my sensor array, yes. I presume he believed they were a removable attachment."
"Not very smart then?"
"Captain, I believe you are jumping to conclusions. The individual showed above average levels of intelligence. Indeed, I believe he is a pilot and swordman of some skill."
At this point, the cyborg realised that the Captain had been deep in concentration reading a cargo manifest and in all likelyhood missed the cyborg's rebuttal."Would it be out of place to ask what activities you have involved yourself in, mistress?"

Without looking away from the datapad, the captain muttered "Getting us out of a very difficult situation. You know, for a while I was one of the Orchids."
"Orchids - the privateer organisation. They do not seem to fit your activities mistress"
The Captain looked up and signalled a "heavy drinking" movement with her hand.
"That explains a lot mistress. You should drink less, your faculties would not be so often impaired"
The Captain chuckled a little. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were being a tad cheeky there. But in all truth, you have been acting a little oddly lately", She walked back up the ramp checking the crates off the manifest "I should probably clean your servo systems out, it's not smart having your head open like that...mmm, maybe that orange wig will keep the sand out eh?"

[log] Bonanza!

[initialising log]

901,600 credits

901,600 credits. 200,000 up front.


Fair to say, it's been a good day. Of course, now the hard work starts. I have to secure what I've been asked to get. First part of the order was easy, food stuffs, 20 kilos of this, 6 kilos of that, easy stuff to ship in. I've run it through the stock manifests and we have most of it already. I've got Galewind and Bob loading up the Persephone now at our loading station and I've told Salome to secure the rest. That should be here within a matter of hours.

No, the difficult thing will be getting my hands on medical equipment. I asked Salome to price it up, she's the science boffin after all, I have no idea how much this stuff costs. Top of the range comes in at well beyond what I think they could pay so we settled on 900,000 for the lot. That should get them high quality equipment, after all, they don't need a hospital.

Now with only 200,000 credits paid and 150,000 in reserve, that still leaves me short. I'm hoping to make a sizeable profit but it looks like I'll have to speculate to accumulate. I'm going to have to pull out all the stops to make this one work.

I'm not sure what the Orchid organisation actually does yet but I'm guessing I'll find out soon.

[log] Rum on the rocks with a sprinkling of Orion.

[Log Initialising OK]

There are times I wonder if I'm in over my head.

Take yesterday. On another visit to Araxes, I decided to take a cross world transport to the new colony in the south : Botany Bay. They have a great bar, really excellent alcohol and fantastic service. Okay, some might call it seedy, I have myself but the people there seem to be my kind of folks, you know?

Anyways, I settled down for the evening with a bottle of the finest rum and was well on my way to finishing the bottle when I was approached by an Orion male. I found out much later that it was Barbosa. Yeah, the Barbosa. Not being aware of this at the time and being the worse for wear with my favourite alcoholic beverage, we discussed my work and his work and it seems we had areas of work where we could be of service to each other. In exchange for spice, he wants to trade me some sort of new super drug he's developed. I tried it myself and I can vouch for the effects.

He wants me to dispose of my sample and meet him to exchange spice for this new "Neurotoxin Nebuliser". I can't sell it under that name so I'm calling it Dust until another name crops up for it. There's a lot of money to be made out of this "Dust", of that I'm sure. But you know...it's Barbosa...this guy has a reputation that strikes the fear of heck-knows into me.

We'll see how it goes down. Maybe this is how I make my fortune? I can hope eh?



Seren out.

[Log Terminated]

An unexpected addition

Seren and Elena stood atop a dusty plain in a desolate mountainous canyon. The wind ruffled their clothes and the rain pecked at their bodies.This was Athens, the ninth planet of the Georgia system. A world reknowned for the level of marble mined in its quarries and the four terraformed moons that provided the majority of the populace. They were a beautiful sight to behold, visible during the day and night and even behind storm clouds the visible ones maintained an awe of majesty.

"Are you sure this was where we're supposed to meet?" asked the captain, shielding her eyes from the wind.
"If we are to believe our source, yes".

It had been an unexpected journey that had started with a unexpected departure from Araxes. The mysterious Orion stranger forewarning them of the Myrmidon invasion fleet, the rendezvous with an even more mysterious Browncoat in a sensor blind spot behind the Order's armada and the long journey to the Outer Rim of Alliance space - all of it leading to this point. In truth, Seren was at a loss to explain the events that had led her here but as always she believed the reason would eventually reveal itself.

"Captain, detecting movement a few clicks ahead"

Seren nodded and pulled her binoculars from her shoulder bag. She put them to her eyes and let the automatic sensors do the rest of the work.

"I see. All terrain vehicle. One rider."

She motioned for the mentat to hide behind a large boulder and threw her a pistol that had been strapped to her leg. The standard Persephone procedure for first contact with unknown persons.

The ATV roared up the rugged terrain throwing mud around as its tyres bit into the wet earth. Seren kept a close eye on it, wiping the lens as the rain came down even stronger. Eventually the vehicle found its way up the final hill and ground to a halt, the engine ticking over as the pilot dismounted. Dressed in a black figure hugging outfit, with a dark oblique helmet, it was now easy to tell that the figure was female.

"You can tell your companion to come from behind that rock. I mean you no harm", the voice was slightly muffled behind the helmet.

Seren faked ignorance. "No-one here but me."

"Really?", she laughed. "Who's that behind the boulder then? She accompanies you everywhere. C'mon Elena, out you come."

Seren could fake ignorance but she couldn't hide consternation.

"Oh I know lots about you. More than you know yourself I suspect ". The stranger lifted off her helmet revealing a youthful tanned complexion and long blonde locks. "I'm Salome Chiantelle and I'm going to be your new first officer"

Seren raised an eyebrow and turned on her heel, pointing at the young woman. "That's a bit presumptious. I'm the Captain, aren't those decisions mine?"

"Oh very presumptious. I chose you for a reason Captain. I've read the Alliance files on you. It was very....enlightening."

Galewind appeared from behind the rock, her head tilted to one side, her eyes unusually deep and penetrating. Almost angry. The stranger noticed that.  Seren did not as she lifted a weapon from her backpack and approached the young woman.

"No-one but Alliance reads the files on their database. So you're either telling porkies or you're one of them."

"I've no reason to lie to you Captain. If I were with the Alliance, I wouldn't be wasting my time talking to you. You'd be in cuffs and heading to the nearest rehabilitation centre. No, I need safe passage out of Alliance space and yes, you're right to think that  I could get that with any number of browncoat ships but I would really prefer to travel with you. I went to a lot of trouble to get you here. I can pay you a small amout upfront and I'll work the rest"

"Okay.." Seren lowered the pistol, "Pandering to my ego works and since you're a paying customer with obvious connections, I'll fly you out. But if I get the feeling for one moment you're not trustworthy, I won't think twice about firing this weapon on you."

"Agreed. That won't happen though". Salome strode confidentally past the Captain. "Which way to the ship?"
"About a click north, north west" replied Seren uneasily, following the young woman, "Not taking the ATV then?". Salome dismissed it with a flick of her wrist. Galewind stood a moment, her mind attempting to determine the possible consequences of this meeting, her head tilted from side to side. She looked at the pistol in her hand and then at the blonde. Her deeply intense eyes narrowed. A slight twitch of the head and then she followed her captain.