There's nobody here to fool, so I settle into a routine: Spend twenty hours a day checking the ship, a few minutes reviewing readings on the gauges, review the entertainment archives for two or three hours a day, and largely let Stephanie Steel steer herself. And no, a virus check didn't show anything. I can't find any indication of where all that data WENT, though, which is weird and worrisome. I take to maintaining my Eidolon constantly, along with a Deceptive Facade spell (it’s from Complete Mage - like Disguise Self, but can also affect objects and other people; the big benefit for me is that it’s a 3rd level spell, so a better save DC) to hide the fact that I’m wearing it. I also take to wearing a cowboy hat (with some little straps that go under my ears, so it doesn’t drift off in zero gravity) to hide the glowing symbol on my forehead that's inherent to an eidolon. The extra thirty cubic centimeters of mammary tissue on each side doesn’t push me over the line, so it’s no big deal, and each casting lasts an hour.
About three days in, Stephanie finally gets concerned enough to take action: “You have been taking excellent care of me, Mistress,” which tells me this isn’t official, “But, ah… you haven’t slept or eaten in days… you need to take care of yourself.”
Ah, right, “It’s not a problem. I don’t need to eat, sleep, or even breathe. Have you noticed that the life support isn’t working nearly as much as it should with someone on board?”
She considers a bit, “No… I didn’t think to check that. So… you’re an android with an Impersonation Matrix, then?”
Hah, “No, I’m not an android,” but the Constructed trait does make me somewhat vulnerable to things that affect machines.
“Undead, then?” I can tell she doesn't really want a yes… but she IS my property, by her lights.
I chuckle, “No. I’m basically human. I get a bunch of abilities from a,” I pause here. Patricia did have a point, “soul symbiote. She grants me power, but the power is also slowly feminizing me. When I started all this, I was a guy, same as you were. When I use magic on myself, it pushes me further down along the path of becoming a woman… with no actual END to the path, as far as I can tell. On me, the extra feminization from my spells is minor, and wears off when the magic does. On anyone else, it's a lot more significant, and stays. That's how I…” I briefly pause to consider terms: I should stick with how Stephanie sees it for this talk, so I am not calling it how I see that one aspect, “blessed you.”
“Thank you Mistress, for sharing the blessing in your soul.” I still don't like the title, but I'll let her use it in private.
“You’re welcome,” I guess. I mostly did it because you were being a jerk, though. “Please don't let anyone know, all right? It's embarrassing.”
She lets it go with, “Certainly Mistress.”
We go about the rest of our respective days normally.
Drift travel is fundamentally boring. The other highlight of the trip? We pass a swarm of Teleliths, but they don't notice us… which is a good thing, as those things are spaceship-scale monsters equivalent to tier-2 starships that pretend to be asteroids (the cloud of plastics gave them away - they only eat metals), lying in wait to rip apart passing ships… we were well outnumbered, and while Stephanie is nominally rated at tier three… she's not geared up for fighting. It would have been a feast, and we would have been the main course. But the Advanced Gray Cloaking device is NICE, and combined with the Djezet-infused Ultra Long-range sensors, we see basically everything coming long before it sees us.
The combination makes Drift travel extra boring… and quite frankly, that is how I want it: Fighting for your life is only fun in games. When it's real? It's just scary.
Now, there ARE a few ways to bypass the combination we're using… but even with those, we'll usually have at least as much notice as they will. Basically, the method for beating us boils down to two requirements. One: Have Ultra sensors yourselfas you won't spot us at all without those. Two: Convince us to get close. The first is “just” an expense. The longer range, the better, but that’s not strictly required. There's a couple of ways to do the second.
The first method for item two is… a cloak of your own. However: This requires that your sensors be at least as long range as ours, and we have the longest range on the market. Any level of cloak will do, as all of them work perfectly until the cloaked ship is within the viewing ship's first range increment - and again: As we have the best range on the market, we're garunteed to see the spotting ship at the same time or before the adversarial ship going this route… which also means thrusters are my next priority: I have no qualms about running away.
The next option? Camouflage. The biocamouflage upgrade for biomechanical starships lets the ship pretend to be an asteroid or a geological formation. The holographic mantle or a reconfiguration system for regular starships can make a ship appear to be a different kind of ship. With any of the three, our scanners can maybe identify what the adversary really is, but if not, we may choose to get close enough for the attacker to pounce.
The last method that comes to mind is trickery: Hire us to go somewhere, send out a distress signal, tell us we won a lottery, whatever… and then ambush us when we get there, because we think you're friendly… note that this last one doesn't require Ultra sensors: They'd just need to convince us to drop the cloak.
There's probably other methods… I don't inherently know everything. And of course, I'll live. Stephanie's at risk, I'm not… my stuff is, though. It'll be painfully annoying to start over if I fall into a star or something… although there IS a ship upgrade for flying safely (ish) within a star: The Solar Shield Channel… it has some significant downsides, but it works.
As for solving the ways to ambush us… the first and second are why we have really high end sensors: They give us as much warning as is possible for the first, and a bonus on the second. For the third? Well… that's why I have Sense Motive: It's the defensive social skill. No, it's not perfect: Nothing is. But I will get the roll, at least.
Regardless: After the long trip (during which, yes, I fix the marks the forklifts left in Stephanie's cargo bay), we arrive at rhe section of The Drift currently corresponding to the real world location of the colony where we're delivering ore: Apparently it's cheaper for them to order ore and refine it themselves than it is to purchase it already refined.
We go through the checklist, and power everything down long enough to activate the drift engines and return us to the real world.
Once back in real space, we re-engage the cloak, and establish orbit around the colony world. We take some time to make sure we're basically alone out here (yes, there's a colony, complete with people and some active industry… and yes, I checked).
It's a nice little planet… ice at the poles, oceans covering most of it, the land having forests, plains, deserts… a nice, Earth-like world. Or Golarion-like, here.
Once I'm reasonably confident everything is in order, I hail the colony: “This is Captain Alex Abrams of the Stephanie Steel; I have a load of ore for the Jubilee corporation, order…” I take a moment to look it up, “Eight six three nine seven foxtrot bravo epsilon seven nine. Requesting clearance to land.”
No, I don't disengage the cloak, yet.
A few seconds later, I get a response, “This is ground control, Lieutenant Farris speaking. We may have an issue; we're not seeing you on sensors.”
I smile, I love this cloak, “I can have the ship's engineer take a look at that if you like after we land. Where do you want us?”
“Just set down in the open field a half-mile north of us. There's no traffic to worry about, the truck will meet you there,” says the voice on the com.
“Will do. See you soon,” I acknowledge, and the line disconnects.
“Stephanie, please take us down, but keep the sensors hot,” I pull up that screen and watch the sensors as we descend through the atmosphere, keeping an eye out for anyone else in the sky. Stephanie gets us down safely (she started out as a Virtual Intelligence, and piloting ships is a core function for them), but on the way, I notice this is a very recent colony: They certainly have buildings up, and are working on more… but they landed a small colony ship (I say small, but that's just ‘as far as colony ships go’: It's a triangular ship, seven hundred feet long, three hundred fifty wide, and about a hundred feet tall… scanners tell me it's a Heavy Freighter base frame with the colony ship framework… it supports a crew of twenty, plus a hundred eighty civilians), which is currently powering everything: Seriously, they have power cabling going into the ship, and it looks like they have people shuffling in and out carrying materials… I'll have to ask how this all works.
For now, though, we have a delivery to make.
There's nobody here to fool, so I settle into a routine: Spend twenty hours a day checking the ship, a few minutes reviewing readings on the gauges, review the entertainment archives for two or three hours a day, and largely let Stephanie Steel steer herself. And no, a virus check didn't show anything. I can't find any indication of where all that data WENT, though, which is weird and worrisome. I take to maintaining my Eidolon constantly, along with a Deceptive Facade spell (it’s from Complete Mage - like Disguise Self, but can also affect objects and other people; the big benefit for me is that it’s a 3rd level spell, so a better save DC) to hide the fact that I’m wearing it. I also take to wearing a cowboy hat (with some little straps that go under my ears, so it doesn’t drift off in zero gravity) to hide the glowing symbol on my forehead that's inherent to an eidolon. The extra thirty cubic centimeters of mammary tissue on each side doesn’t push me over the line, so it’s no big deal, and each casting lasts an hour.
About three days in, Stephanie finally gets concerned enough to take action: “You have been taking excellent care of me, Mistress,” which tells me this isn’t official, “But, ah… you haven’t slept or eaten in days… you need to take care of yourself.”
Ah, right, “It’s not a problem. I don’t need to eat, sleep, or even breathe. Have you noticed that the life support isn’t working nearly as much as it should with someone on board?”
She considers a bit, “No… I didn’t think to check that. So… you’re an android with an Impersonation Matrix, then?”
Hah, “No, I’m not an android,” but the Constructed trait does make me somewhat vulnerable to things that affect machines.
“Undead, then?” I can tell she doesn't really want a yes… but she IS my property, by her lights.
I chuckle, “No. I’m basically human. I get a bunch of abilities from a,” I pause here. Patricia did have a point, “soul symbiote. She grants me power, but the power is also slowly feminizing me. When I started all this, I was a guy, same as you were. When I use magic on myself, it pushes me further down along the path of becoming a woman… with no actual END to the path, as far as I can tell. On me, the extra feminization from my spells is minor, and wears off when the magic does. On anyone else, it's a lot more significant, and stays. That's how I…” I briefly pause to consider terms: I should stick with how Stephanie sees it for this talk, so I am not calling it how I see that one aspect, “blessed you.”
“Thank you Mistress, for sharing the blessing in your soul.” I still don't like the title, but I'll let her use it in private.
“You’re welcome,” I guess. I mostly did it because you were being a jerk, though. “Please don't let anyone know, all right? It's embarrassing.”
She lets it go with, “Certainly Mistress.”
We go about the rest of our respective days normally.
Drift travel is fundamentally boring. The other highlight of the trip? We pass a swarm of Teleliths, but they don't notice us… which is a good thing, as those things are spaceship-scale monsters equivalent to tier-2 starships that pretend to be asteroids (the cloud of plastics gave them away - they only eat metals), lying in wait to rip apart passing ships… we were well outnumbered, and while Stephanie is nominally rated at tier three… she's not geared up for fighting. It would have been a feast, and we would have been the main course. But the Advanced Gray Cloaking device is NICE, and combined with the Djezet-infused Ultra Long-range sensors, we see basically everything coming long before it sees us.
The combination makes Drift travel extra boring… and quite frankly, that is how I want it: Fighting for your life is only fun in games. When it's real? It's just scary.
Now, there ARE a few ways to bypass the combination we're using… but even with those, we'll usually have at least as much notice as they will. Basically, the method for beating us boils down to two requirements. One: Have Ultra sensors yourselfas you won't spot us at all without those. Two: Convince us to get close. The first is “just” an expense. The longer range, the better, but that’s not strictly required. There's a couple of ways to do the second.
The first method for item two is… a cloak of your own. However: This requires that your sensors be at least as long range as ours, and we have the longest range on the market. Any level of cloak will do, as all of them work perfectly until the cloaked ship is within the viewing ship's first range increment - and again: As we have the best range on the market, we're garunteed to see the spotting ship at the same time or before the adversarial ship going this route… which also means thrusters are my next priority: I have no qualms about running away.
The next option? Camouflage. The biocamouflage upgrade for biomechanical starships lets the ship pretend to be an asteroid or a geological formation. The holographic mantle or a reconfiguration system for regular starships can make a ship appear to be a different kind of ship. With any of the three, our scanners can maybe identify what the adversary really is, but if not, we may choose to get close enough for the attacker to pounce.
The last method that comes to mind is trickery: Hire us to go somewhere, send out a distress signal, tell us we won a lottery, whatever… and then ambush us when we get there, because we think you're friendly… note that this last one doesn't require Ultra sensors: They'd just need to convince us to drop the cloak.
There's probably other methods… I don't inherently know everything. And of course, I'll live. Stephanie's at risk, I'm not… my stuff is, though. It'll be painfully annoying to start over if I fall into a star or something… although there IS a ship upgrade for flying safely (ish) within a star: The Solar Shield Channel… it has some significant downsides, but it works.
As for solving the ways to ambush us… the first and second are why we have really high end sensors: They give us as much warning as is possible for the first, and a bonus on the second. For the third? Well… that's why I have Sense Motive: It's the defensive social skill. No, it's not perfect: Nothing is. But I will get the roll, at least.
Regardless: After the long trip (during which, yes, I fix the marks the forklifts left in Stephanie's cargo bay), we arrive at rhe section of The Drift currently corresponding to the real world location of the colony where we're delivering ore: Apparently it's cheaper for them to order ore and refine it themselves than it is to purchase it already refined.
We go through the checklist, and power everything down long enough to activate the drift engines and return us to the real world.
Once back in real space, we re-engage the cloak, and establish orbit around the colony world. We take some time to make sure we're basically alone out here (yes, there's a colony, complete with people and some active industry… and yes, I checked).
It's a nice little planet… ice at the poles, oceans covering most of it, the land having forests, plains, deserts… a nice, Earth-like world. Or Golarion-like, here.
Once I'm reasonably confident everything is in order, I hail the colony: “This is Captain Alex Abrams of the Stephanie Steel; I have a load of ore for the Jubilee corporation, order…” I take a moment to look it up, “Eight six three nine seven foxtrot bravo epsilon seven nine. Requesting clearance to land.”
No, I don't disengage the cloak, yet.
A few seconds later, I get a response, “This is ground control, Lieutenant Farris speaking. We may have an issue; we're not seeing you on sensors.”
I smile, I love this cloak, “I can have the ship's engineer take a look at that if you like after we land. Where do you want us?”
“Just set down in the open field a half-mile north of us. There's no traffic to worry about, the truck will meet you there,” says the voice on the com.
“Will do. See you soon,” I acknowledge, and the line disconnects.
“Stephanie, please take us down, but keep the sensors hot,” I pull up that screen and watch the sensors as we descend through the atmosphere, keeping an eye out for anyone else in the sky. Stephanie gets us down safely (she started out as a Virtual Intelligence, and piloting ships is a core function for them), but on the way, I notice this is a very recent colony: They certainly have buildings up, and are working on more… but they landed a small colony ship (I say small, but that's just ‘as far as colony ships go’: It's a triangular ship, seven hundred feet long, three hundred fifty wide, and about a hundred feet tall… scanners tell me it's a Heavy Freighter base frame with the colony ship framework… it supports a crew of twenty, plus a hundred eighty civilians), which is currently powering everything: Seriously, they have power cabling going into the ship, and it looks like they have people shuffling in and out carrying materials… I'll have to ask how this all works.
For now, though, we have a delivery to make.
