In orbit, Stigma-Starport:

The Heavy Hand rested quietly in its slipway with nary a crewmember stirring, aside from an overworked technician as she fumed at the star-drive for not being nearly as precise as advertised, leading to yet another maintenance-inspection. The simplest answer was that the fuel was somehow becoming tainted; somewhere between the storage-tanks and the drive itself... but actually locating and purging this source of bad luck was going to be another matter, especially since she wasn't going to tear the ship apart just because they haven't jumped to within 200 km of their destination in over a year.

Meanwhile, deeper upon the station, she figured Isaac Dawes was likely trying to get another 'good deal' on refined drive-fuel from his usual sources while their glorious leader was off planetside getting her latest 'fix'.

a

Adria stopped working when her captain gave the subtle hint that she'd been working too hard at a problem that probably wasn't really a real problem, since the ship was fast enough to make being 200 km off a minor thing, and could (and has) in-fact drop them 200 km closer to their intended destination than normally regarded as 'safe'.

Shrugging-off the environmental-suit as she made a 'float' up the ladder and skipping across the cargo-hold in its reduced state of gravity was pretty straightforward as she quickly oriented herself for the normal-gravity of the cabins-area, where she quickly tried to brush the built-up crud out of her hair even as the discarded clothes still gently fell through the air of the cargo-hold like a gigantic sweat-soaked feather.

She then quickly made it through the commons-area by Musan towards her stateroom to finish cleaning herself up a bit. A quick face and hand-wash, followed by a long vest to decorate her otherwise bland computer-woven mesh-armor, which she still wore mostly because it was running diagnostics on sensor-data for all the plumbing in the power-room.

Now properly dressed to relax, she presented herself to Musan and collapsed onto the couch beside her captain and groaned at a frustrating morning in the power-room.

"*sigh* Still haven't found out why the J-drive is misbehaving lately. I'm starting to think we were ripped-off at the last starport with bad fuel. But running it through our ship's refinery still yields no difference."

She then saw what Musan was watching on the monitor.

"This again? Have the judges finally caught that prankster that threw a grav-belt into the 8th hole and made it levitate everyone's balls off the green for a week?" She smirked, hinting that maybe someone had told her who the culprit was.

a

Adria picked up the comm and leaned-back as she lazily began texting the other two with the simple messesge <Shipwide: Foooo_oooooooood...> and stapled a fog-horn noise to its ringtone as she explained her lead to Mutan.

"Guys over at the naval shipyards were talking about one of the sector-generals going nuts, took a bunch of tech with them on the way out. Even if these guys aren't the golfcourse-pranksters, I'm sure some people would be glad to know those people were brought to justice and all that military hardware were recovered... or 'destroyed' while apprehending the poor old general."

---

>Meanwhile at the scout-ship refueling bar and lounge

Isaac's comm vibrated, and was greeted by Adria's ringtone concurrent with the text before hanging-up.

He paid hi bar-tab and told the merchant he was haggling with that maybe he'd come back with some of his lady-friends very interested in what he was selling, and to stay out of trouble in the meantime.

a

"From one of the research-stations he was supposed to be guarding." Adria's temper nearly flaired-up, but quickly subsided; a side-effect of working with a person as laid-back and forgiving as Mutan, "Sounded like he defected to 'the program' and gave them some advanced technology."

The engineer paused to get herself a plate of fried rice and spam, "Could actually be one of their underlings trying to make a political statement against the rich, really. Just some punk thinking they're being clever."

She chuckled, "At least it was a good prank."

---

Mortimer, their medic, walked-in. He was a bit flustered but was holding a bag of drugs that he quickly set aside in the med-bay cooler before seeing the two girls relaxing on the couch and watching the latest reports of the People's Glorious Resistance Movement's recent "charitable" actions and various conspiracy-theories on how the grav-belt managed to get onto the golf-course... same boring news until there was talk about recent efforts to automate cargo-handling being met with resistance from the teamsters' unions.

Adria sighed at the idea of -aside from working as an engineer- of no longer having a competitive edge in the marketplace should their ship be laid-up for massive repairs.

---

On that depressing-note, Isaac finally arrived from clear across the spaceport in their 'lil armored-buggy. They could all hear as he drove it into a powerslide around a corner before quickly parallel-parking it in the ship's garage-bay.

A short while later their fearless pilot strolled-in and towards the smell of fried meat, whistling casually and acting like he'd done nothing wrong in his life before seating himself between Adria and Mutan.

"Found an amateur merchant claiming he found some long-forgotten alien tech. Looked a bit too shiny on the inside... more like garbage that survived re-entry recently. Still, it's high-tech garbage. Mind if I borrow you two ladies to convince him it's just garbage if it isn't?"

a

Dr Knell nodded, and then sighed when he was being relegated to being servant simply because Dawes was quicker to his ass, and fetched the can of orange-drink, and a beer for Adria, since ex-military techie looked like she'd need something to get her to relax after hearing Dawes talk about unexplored tech that could be bought for scrap-value.

"I'll prepare your treatment. In the meantime, Adria, I suggest you wear something neater than... that."

"Ah, don't worry about it. You'll both look fine." Isaac quickly responded while placing his arms around the shoulders of the two women.

It was then the stench from Mr Dawes's perspiration hit the two like a tidal-wave. Adria quickly got up to leave the room.

"He's right though, I should clean up the cargo-bay and reset the gravity to standard across all decks. And Isaac, take a cold shower."

a

Must be that time of the month again. Dawes thought to himself as he removed his arm from Mutan's vicinity about as calmly as he could. Surprisingly, Adria was giving him a similar cold-shoulder treatment while Mortimer simply grabbed a cup of coffee and went to hiding in the med-bay.

He then realized he was the only one left sitting in the lounge just as the PA blared from Mutan's stateroom:

>"Whomever is still in the mess should cut off the stove for me, please."

The starship's pilot, a former water-taxi pilot for a leaky seagoing boat, who had clawed his way from peasant to the personal-pilot and chauffer of the system's nobility; was also that same noble's personal steward on her bad days.

He slowly climbed back to his feet and flicked the gas off on the stove, just then it seemed as though a knot grew tight in his gut, movement difficult... then with a very queasy sensation, it was completely gone in such a way he could tell he'd just bounced off the floor for a second... Adria was playing with the gravs on him, and had he not been standing perfectly still, could likely have been jackhammered at three times the force of gravity until his legs broke.

Only one soft bounce, this was just a warning.

Some days those girls could be scary. One call to his contact back at the bar to meet-up on Stigma with the merchandise later and he was off to the showers to prevent himself from causing further mishaps this morning.

---

@Murasaki(compounding anagathics; req: Education; formidable, 10 minutes; phys and life sci)

Doctor Mortimer Knell sipped his coffee as he poured over the data on the resources he'd gathered for compounding Miss Godie's treatment this month. Making anagathics nearly from scratch was the practice of the day. Although it was simply a matter of finding the right parts of animals and mashing the right quantities together in under the right conditions, he was taking his time due to the risk involved. Like any life-saving profession, he'd only get one solid chance.

He had one hour.

---

Adria privately smiled a bit to herself at teasing Isaac with the gravs as she went to the clothes she'd laid-out for meeting Mutan's parents. Nobody else was in the room and he couldn't prove anything besides a minor stomach-upset; even if caught, she did tell them she was reseting the grav-settings on the entire ship... wouldn't be too hard to convince the others that she simply adjusted the wrong deck.

The ship's diagnostic on the fuel-pipes complete, yielding nothing... again... she wondered if she was a bit too reliant on the agent-program when she finally realized... the security-protocols for the J-drive computer-banks hadn't been updated in years. It would have only been a simple matter to hack her database through a comm-link to totally mess with the j-drive programs; since nobody here was an expert in J-drive operation, tiny mis-calibrations could easily be missed... she would have to get Mortimer to run a diagnostic on the programs and update the drivers...

With that done, Adria could take a sigh of relief as she peeled out of her working-clothes and took a much-needed warm shower, knowing full-well that Isaac wouldn't be using a drop of it if he knew what was good for him.

a

Mortimer finished Mutan's "fix" for this month without too much difficulty, with it she wouldn't age. Although he hoped this one wouldn't cause a bad reaction like earlier... which 'bleached' away her tan and dark hair when she was 21, also turned her eyes red; a sign of losing all melanin production in her body.

He remembered how her older sister would pick on her "gray hair" when she first learned of the condition. Although he insisted that going on a reduced dosage of anagathics for a few years would allow her skin-color to return to normal without suffering withdrawal-aging, Mutan was quite insistent to continue at full-dosage; that in a few decades, she would get the last laugh and her older sister would be the old-hag she truly is.

(fun trick, it's possible through anagathics to successfully go through 20-36 career-terms/80-144 years without aging a single day or being forced to muster-out, while building skill, however, if/when the supply is cut completely...)

---

Isaac eventually took Adria's earlier advice and took a quick shower while his commpad played something to keep him from falling asleep and missing Mutan's appointment before grabbing his semi-formal wear of a red long-sleeved shirt, grey pants, suspenders, tie, and a brown long-coat before snatching-up his flight-hemlet and heading for the hangar, double-checking for writing on the back to make sure it wasn't Adria's.

---

Adria took a bit more time to prepare, even managing to put her hair back in a ponytail. As usual, she dressed in layers to hide what little armor she would bring. The Flak-jacket was just too informal for trying to impress royalty, she was the ship's chief engineer, not some mindless kluge.

At the very basic level were undergarments to prevent chaffing and sagging while wicking away perspiration, her signature smart-mesh went on next and over that went her old blue dress-uniform topped with a black coat. Accessories included an officer's cutlass on her hip and a pair of knives tucked into each Wellington-boot.

Inside the ship's boat already sat a rather lavishly decorated interior pool-hall, while collapsible-furniture lined the hangar-walls.

Adria of course, did not forget her own helmet and breather-mask, which had scrawled on the back from her days in the Navy...

a

(minor retcon, landing the whole yacht [so pretty much disregard half of what Adria did and... yeah there's enough crew-seats in the yacht's 'pit])

With clearance granted to depart the starbase, Isaac gently eased the Heavy Hand out of its temporary docking-cradle quickly made for an intercept I orbit around where he believed would get Mutan as quickly to her father's island as physically possible without getting killed (can travel MUCH faster in space).

Arriving about 150 km directly over their destination, Isaac nodded to Adria and they cut the engines. The ship went into freefall and Adria turned-off the grav and inertial-dampers so Isaac could 'feel' how the ship was reacting... the ship was shaking rather violently as the atmosphere grew thicker, and a tiny sense of gravity returned despite being in essentially an express-elevator freefall from space.

At 75 km up, Adria spooled-up the engines again as Isaac checked his surroundings for anything to help get his bearings.

"Land, ho." Issac bellowed as he spiraled the massive 200-ton interstellar-boat around the Godie family's private island to make a terrific splashdown and cruise up towards a nearby anchorage, where Adria could see people already expecting them.

After landing, Adria set to moving the ship's boat (and the rec-room it contained) topside and fastening it down, where it could be accessed either by a set of stairs through a hole left in the hangar-bay doors, or the ladder affixed just outside the airlock.

Due to Adria's skill, she had managed to offload the hab-module onto the deck and prep the ship's-boat for launch in a measly 10 seconds, barely enough time for Isaac to drop-anchor and power-down the drivetrain while Dr Knells ushered Mutan towards the hangar and the awaiting ship's boat for a drop-launch into the sea.

All around, there were onlookers, cheering upon her arrival and hoping for her to acknowledge their existence while the media filmed nearly every second of it.

To assist in keeping-up appearances, Isaac left the bay-doors to the boat open, allowing the salty air to wash over the passengers as they motored towards the Godie-estate, a large French-colonial influenced bungalow; where upon the pier stood a duo of their most trusted servants to show Mutan's friends a crash-course in etiquette and grooming if necessary.

(@Murasaki note: I wanted the estate to look like this but scaled-up only to find that 90% of homes with that roofline don't look very good anymore)

a

The two servants bowed their heads gently and took Mutan's things, one of them pausing only to use the household intercom informing the rest of the Godie family of their daughter's arrival and her general mood summarized as one surprisingly polite word.

Adria seemed to rather enjoy the prospect of being treated with a mediocrium of respect via association with royalty, that and maybe a servant to boss around... The idea flittered through her mind only briefly, as the duties of offloading the ship still fell upon her, although not being tasking with bringing their baggage to their respective accommodations and back was no small blessing.

Isaac was temporarily more concerned over the cosmetic appearances of the ship's boat, since he may as well make it look presentable with so many onlookers; a task a number of servants set about right-away.

Meanwhile, Mortimer was right beside Mutan should anything embarrassing happen.

And with a degree of punctuality, Mutan's older sister -Erika- was the first of the family to step outside; the only one, in fact. The rest most likely stayed by the porch-side or were inside engrossed upon a multitude of files since they weren't exactly expecting her to arrive on-time. That said, Erika stepped out with open arms and seemed most interested in what odd company her little sister had brought along for today.

a

Mortimer gave a respectful bow towards Erika when introduced, noticing how much she had grown since they'd last met, but was too polite to mention it; he knew she was still doing anagathics.

She turns towards her crew, "This is my older sister, Erika."

Isaac probably didn't need a reminder to play it cool and not try to steal anything or engage in shenanigans with anyone he'd meet on her parents' island planet. This however, did not mean he was not to show-off and brag; especially towards her sister if she gave a willing ear. During the walk he quietly tried to brainstorm what could possibly impress Erika, or 'E' as 'M' had called her.

Adria on the other hand was thankful for the heads-up that this person was not a servant to be bossed-around like the others, since she was just about ready to hand-toss a large duffel-bag in her direction. Doing her best not to sigh at the lost-opportunity to get out of hauling any of the luggage, she re-adjusted the bag's shoulder-strap and followed.

A single thought that hit both crewmembers was how much older, and while following behind looked to Mortimer for answers since they looked almost exactly the same age. Mortimer quietly answered in the blind with a hand behind his back indicating several years difference.

Aside from this, the walk was not all too quiet, as the path was filled with onlookers who wanted to catch an up-close glimpse of Mutan's return -and the people she was travelling with these days- even if her stay was only temporary; a matter which her parents would likely wish to discuss in addition to whatever official business they had.

When they finally did reach the main-building, it was of course bigger up-close than it was outside in the distance.