The party spent their first few hours on the starport resting and having a meal cooked by a master chef to introduce the visitors to the cuisines and delicacies of Vorito. After this the shops were opened and they spent some time shopping, before returning to their sumptuous quarters.
Not yet tired enough to sleep, and with at least 12 hours until the opening ceremony, Sparrow and Unter decided to have a bit of a look around. The purpose of this was twofold. Not only did they want to get a feel for the layout of the place, but also wanted to test where their cards could take them.
From their vantage point high on the outer wall of the station, they could see out over the planet Vorito, but on the other side of the immense lounge could see into the inner cavernous spaces of the port. A central sphere was connected to a number of modules, each massive in their own right, which seemed to have different functions. One looked like it might be for trade and commerce, another looked like it might be for passenger liners, a third was likely shops and entertainments, and so on. The part they docked in looked to be for VIPs, and had a few ships they did not recognise.
Moving round the station they could leave the VIP area and enter a concourse for smaller ships, and also had access to some other areas nearby. What they could not do is enter any areas under construction and some other areas for reasons they could only guess at. They did form a pretty good picture of the station although many guesses were made as to where the vault might be, and where the opening ceremony might take place.
Going to the Ceremony
At the appointed time, Ammun Ko and an honour guard arrived to take them to the ceremony. They made their way through areas already known to those who explored their surrounds, but eventually came to a door that they had not been able to pass through, and made their way deeper into the centre of the station. Their destination was the central sphere, which up close had openings at top and bottom and was hollow.
The room that the ceremony would take place in was, as with most things on this station, very large. Already many guests were mingling and there were GeDeCo employees and waiters moving from group to group. In the middle of the room, surrounded by the best buffet table in the sector, was a curious sculpture of alien design. It looked vaguely like a tree made of glowing tubes and fist-sized nodes of what appeared to be marble. It was quite grotesque, and exactly the sort of corporate-funded art project one would expect to see a starport like this; its deliberate ugliness made the rest of the place seem even more polished and streamlined.
Sparrow spent some time looking at the statue, which surprisingly did not give him a headache, but did make him wonder who would create such a monstrosity. Suddenly Sparrow felt a vice-like grip on his arm and he looked to see Jaggad staring at a person some distance away. She swore. And Sparrow recognised him as Purser Vaughn from the imperial treasure ship. Oddly Vaughn was dressed in GeDeCo uniform, but the party agreed that they would steer well clear of him.
Meeting the delegates
Taking food from the buffet and starting to mingle, the travellers were first approached by a Vargr, dressed in GeDeCo corporate uniform. She appeared to be cybernetically augmented - some seemingly to repair damage taken in more than one injury. She sniffed at the party and said in growling tones "I am" GROWL "Security Chief Brule" RRGH "Have a nice day." And with one more sniff she departed.
Next was Olais of Marduk who was a lord of one of the more powerful domes. She hoped to attract GeDeCo support to defend her people from the raiders of Oghma. Given that was all she complained about, the party quickly extracted themselves from that conversation.
Shortly afterward, an GeDeCo aide brought up the next guest for the Drinaxian delegate to talk to. The young and pretty girl was introduced as Eridani, niece to the Duke of Tobia. She turned out to be polite, in the way that someone who considers themselves very superior might behave. Upon hearing that Lady Nitrane was from Drinax she became a little less haughty - after all Drinax was important enough to have an Imperial Ambassador - but after a few awkward sentences of polite conversation she was taken away to another group. The one interesting piece of information she let slip was the presence in the Byrni system of a fleet of imperial warships.
Gerret Hodol of TechWorld approached the party. He gave a wan smile and said how wonderful it was to be on the GeDeCo space port. He looked slightly longingly at Lady Drinax and Admiral Slayed and asked cryptically if there was any progress. He smiled sadly when told no and asked the party to please keep him in mind.
Following Hodol, although possibly not literally, was Fae Borshune, who introduced herself as the highport administrator. She had a military bearing, so the travellers surmised that she had an Imperial Navy background. Slayed and Sparrow said nothing about their experiences, and after some conversation Fae left for another group.
By this time the party had moved back to near the buffet, where they saw a Hiver, who noticed them looking and, waving tentacles around, came over and introduced himself as Jim. Perhaps the most exotic guest at the ceremony, Jim added that its real name was untranslatable. He explained that he was a ‘consulting artist’ for GeDeCo and had created the sculpture. (All the while it was throwing back wine and cheese. Lady Nitrane knew that Hivers did not metabolise alcohol like humans,
but it was getting a terrific buzz off the cheddar.) The sculpture apparently symbolises the ‘invisible connections of historical necessity’ and ‘incorporated the observer into the art.’ Getting more buzzed by the minute, and starting to grope the travellers’ hands with its manipulator, Jim gave birth to a few larvae in an entirely inconsequential way, pushing them aside with its feet in an uninterested way. (Lady Nitrane remembered that Hivers treat their larvae as unimportant vermin).
An Aslan trader was next. She called herself Takhweirl of the Company of Profits That Rise Like Mist. She was not representing any planet or system, but was on the look out for trading partners in the reaches. She gave the travellers her business card and suggested they meet to discuss mutually beneficial trading agreements.
Following that was a familiar if sad face. Keeper Malos of Clarke gave his best impression of a smile before intoning that it was, even if his face did not show it, a delight to meet them. Before Malos could start talking about death another figure appeared.
Grand High Provist Falx came over with a drink in his hand and a cheery smile on his face. He was delighted to see the party, and regaled them with the news that he'd been promoted because he had been instrumental in getting a GeDeCo development contract for Torpol. He and his planet were apparently delighted with the terms and outcomes, and enthused that Drinax should do the same.
A friend is well
When Falx left a gap in the crowd showed a beaming Tiznee Zazzle, who was holding the hand of Rannib, the child-warden of Number One. Smiling, she told Rannib to wait with Lady Nitrane who would tell her a story. Fearing that this was a ploy to offload Rannib on the party, Nitrane started half-heatedly telling the story of helping an Aslan find his spaceship when a figure burst out of the crowd and gave Nitrane a huge hug. It was Lady Yemar, who looked very well indeed.
Yemar gave Nitrane kisses, then turned her attention to Slayed, Sparrow and Unter giving each in turn a huge hug and kisses. All the time she was smiling, crying, and saying "thank you, thank you" over and over. Using their powers of deduction the party guessed that the medical treatments had worked.
Drawing herself back, and smoothing her dress, Yemar told them quickly that the scientist had been able to help her, and she felt better than she ever had. Tiznee and the scientist, who had been standing a little way back, were drawn into the group. Tiznee proceeded to thank the party and give numerous air kisses to all and sundry. It seemed that she had been worried sick for years about her good friend Yemar.
After that Yemar, Tiznee and Rannib joined with the Drinaxian party. Yemar pointed out the Byrni delegates, who were apparently very upset that the Imperium had given no notice at all about the arrival of the fleet. Also the representatives from the Florian League and other systems that the party had not visited.
At that point the ceremony itself started.
For those used to the wild excesses of King Oleb or the endless, dusty ceremonies of Drinax, the GeDeCo ceremony was dull but mercifully brief. To polite applause, Borshune addressed the crowd from a floating podium. She thanked all the delegates for attending, and gave a brief description of how GeDeCo’s investments and partnerships had improved trade and technology across the Trojan Reach. Holographic displays around the room echod her words with charts and friendly diagrams.
Brightly coloured arrows pointed to the future; curves climbed joyously skywards showing how the Outrim Void was slowly becoming less of a war-torn wilderness, and more of a valued adjunct to the Imperium, and a safe and secure highway for trade with the Aslan and Floriani. The re-opening of Vorito Highport, she claimed, will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for the Trojan Reach.
She continued to say that the coming years would put an end to piracy and raiding, as GeDeCo intended to invest in more System Defence Boats and patrol ships to drive out these twin scourges. The coming years would unite the disparate worlds with trade links, and raise those planets that had fallen backwards to ever-higher levels of technology. GeDeCo Standard Development Contracts were, she claimed, the future for the Trojan Reach, and the highport was a symbol that the company was here for a very long time to come.
At this a light show outside the inner window of the hall displayed the GeDeCo logo as lasers and particle beams were fired into a gas cloud in a similar way that the party uncovered the last location of the Sindalian treasure on the planet Ace.
Contact
After the ceremony, a crowd of GeDeCo employees swarmed out of a side room and engaged all delegates in a conversation about the GeDeCo and the benefits of the contracts they proposed. Lady Nitrane's representative was engaging and cheerful, setting the right tone, but as Lady Yemar's representative introduced himself as Lando Nairr Sparrow's ears pricked up. This was Rachando's contact. Sparrow inserted himself into Lady Yemar's conversation and at an appropriate moment asked Lando about two planets; one being Rachando's homeworld, and the other Drinax. Lando clearly noticed and responded that it would be very interesting to talk about that once he was finished. Lady Yemar, noticing something had happened, said that she needed to think on the topic a little and that Lando and Sparrow should have their little chat now.
Lando took Sparrow over to the huge window overlooking the centre of the sphere. After some preliminaries in which Sparrow and Slayed, who had come over as well, made sure Lando knew they were friendly allies of Rachando, the GeDeCo man nodded out the window and asked that they consider the 'heart' of the matter, and waited them to respond.
Looking hard, Slayed first, then Sparrow, noticed that at the centre of the work going in in the core of the space station there was a cube of black metal, scarred in places as if it was once hit by laser fire, and obviously much older than the rest of the space station. A pair of robot maintenance pods were working outside it, attaching power cables. Before the station would be opened to to other traffic, the
Vault would be walled away behind thick slabs of bonded neutronium, and no outsiders would ever know it was there.
Getting into the vault
Having seen that they had noticed what he was pointing out to them he told them that there were two keys to the vault. One was a data pass, and the other DNA that was on a register. Sparrow knew that the party had been handed Red passes, and remembered that Ammon Ko had had an Orange pass which had opened doors that they could not. Thinking back, other people they had seen had had Yellow and even a Green pass. He asked Lando who said that the Green pass would open the door easily, but others might take a little on the fly tweaking.
Regarding the DNA, Lando knew that the security chief was not on the list but that Fae and Hiver Jim were on the list. At this point he wished them well and moved to another group so as to not appear suspicious. When Lady Nitrane was told of the DNA key she remarked that Jim's larvae should have enough DNA similarities to act as the DNA key. As for the pass card, perhaps rather than steal someone's card they should trust their computer skills.
At this point Lady Yemar, who had been with them and watching their conversation, asked what they were up to. She knew them well enough to know something was going on. The travellers briefly explained what they needed to and Yemar suggested that if they needed to get away, she and Tiznee could pretend that Jaggad was Lady Nitrane, and that the scientist might pass as Slayed if they changed clothes (being approximately the same size). The party agreed and at an opportune moment went to the facilities and changed clothes. Jaggad, dressed as Nitrane, and the scientist, dressed as Slayed returned to the party. The travellers went the other way deeper into the station and towards the vault.
To be continued.
