Pizza Fever

The crew salvages the Pizza Party and gains an unexpected crew member

Short Summary
It is January 22, 3200. The current mission is to salvage the spike drive of the Pizza Party and return it to Ximinez Shipyards. The pirate currently being held on the ship says that his name is Raul Valdez and that he was working with the Highbeam Fleet using the Pizza Party as bait to lure in ships. He says that him and his family are part of Onintza Libre and that they will pay for his life if the party can take him to Onintza. Raul tells the crew that Onintza Libre is an organization that is fighting for independence from the Royal Family and that the Royal Family has more people fighting for them, but that Onintza Libre has Tech-Level 5 weaponry. The Swan Song flies to an Onintza Libre base and unloads off of the ship. They are approached by a man, woman, and child. The man introduces himself as Raul's brother Pedro who thanks the crew for getting Raul to them safely and says that they will repair and resupply their ship within the next two days as payment. After two days, the crew gets back onto the Swan Song and heads back to the Pizza Party. Piani had previously tapped into the Pizza Party and is currently getting messages from an unknown source inside of the ship. After the Swan Song docks with the Pizza Party, Viktor and Piani put on their vac-suits and head in. As they are making their way to the bridge, all the terminals beside them light up with a ':]'. Soon, the floors below them light up and guide the two of them to the bridge area. They arrive at the bridge and Piani turns on the emergency power. As soon as she does, the Swan Song receives a power surge and everything on it reboots. All the screens on the Swan Song temporarily show a :] and the power goes off again. The holopanel in front of Piani and Viktor then lights up and displays a large blue 3D piece of pizza with an X on it. The entire party hears the words, “You guys hungry? Cause I can make a pizza right now if you want.” The Artificial Intelligence tells them that it is currently in containment in the middle of the ship and that if they want to have it, they will have to unbreak it first before ejecting the core. The AI tells the crew it can help them and shows Higgins different Exchange bank account numbers and passwords, it shows Mr. Sicarian secured Onintzan military channels and codes for weaponry, and it shows Viktor an Andonian Protectorate wanted file about Xin Iliage. Piani unbreaks the AI. Soon after, the party hears a, “Woh” and then nothing. The crew picks up the ship's spike drive, cuts outward communications, and heads to Onintza. When they arrive, they see a very large Onintzan Royal Family battle cruiser peppering the Onintza Libre base in the mountains.

Summary
It is January 22, 3200. The previous episode was masterfully described by Adam Koebel as being, “A slow motion waltz, no sound, just beautiful lasers flying through space, blood in anti-gravity, it was beautiful.” The current mission is to salvage the spike drive of the XSS Pizza Party and return it to Ximinez Shipyards for 10,000 credits as well as salvaging rights to the ship. The Swan Song is currently in space near the Pizza Party. Wilbur Higgins III is unconscious for four days and there is one unknown pirate on board that came over from the Black Aurora.

In the mess hall, Mr. Sicarian sits down across from the pirate who is in a patched military uniform that has medals on it from previous Onintzan military regimes. He says that his name is Raul Valdez and that he was working with an organization called the Highbeam Fleet that was using the Pizza Party as bait to lure in ships. He asks that his life be spared and in return, he can take the party to his brother Pedro on Onintza who will pay for his life. He tells Mr. Sicarian that him and his family are part of an organization called Onintza Libre who fight for Onintza's independence from the Royal Family.

Piani Pic scans the Pizza Party and finds that there is no atmosphere nor gravity on the ship and that the party will need to go to Onintza and get vac suits if they wish to salvage it. She also taps into the ship to be notified if someone boards the Pizza Party while they are gone. Right as she taps in, she gets a text message from the Pizza Party that says, “Hello, is anyone there?” Piani texts back asking who it is and she receives another message that says, “It's Dark.” Piani asks for coordinates and she gets a ping located towards the mid-section of the Pizza Party. Because they are unable to do anything without vac suits, the party heads back to Onintza.

The party docks the Swan Song at a port called New Tokyo. Mr. Sicarian remembers the last time he had been here was ten years ago when it was called Santa Maria. The party stocks up on ammo and purchases four vac suits as well as an encrypted in-party communications link as they wait for Higgins to wake up. Higgins gains consciousness and sees Viktor Kovacs standing next to him who says, “Hush now, no tears, only dreams.” Higgins slaps Viktor and afterwords everyone locates into the mess hall to talk with Raul. Raul explains to everyone that he used to be a part of the army on Onintza but when the Royal Family took over, he joined the rebels. He says that Onintza Libre is not terrorists that bomb hospitals and eat children like the Royal Family propaganda has led them to believe. Raul says that the Royal Family has many many more fighters than that of Onintza Libre, but that they are able to defend themselves quite well do to their high tech TL5 weapons. Raul then uses Piani's comm pad to call his brother. They talk to each other in Spanish for a minute and then Raul hangs up and gives a thumbs up to the party, telling them that they should be there within an hour and that his family will be waiting for them.

Viktor lands the Swan Song in a rural area up in the mountains. The crew gets out of the ship and is directed to a hanger where they see a bunch of scrappy-looking ships in various states of repair. There are a large number of both men and women of all kinds of ethnicities with the main ethnicity seeming to be Spanish. The Swan Song is taken to one of the repair bays and as the crew presses forward, Mr. Sicarian asks Raul where the people of Onintza Libre stand on Blue Fever. Raul seems to speak truthfully as he says that there a definite Madari Syndicate influence within their force that deals with Blue Fever but that he personally does not think that is the way to win the war, even if it is helping them invest into some of their more expensive technology. The party is soon approached by a man, woman, and child. The man introduces himself as Pedro Valdez and thanks the party for bringing back Raul safely and that in return, they will repair the parties ship and fully resupply it within in two days. While the Swan Song gets repaired, the crew stays with the people of Onintza Libre. Viktor watches Mr. Sicarian and Higgins as they receive medical treatment. Piani inquires around and finds sixteen people to help salvage the Pizza Party, as it is too big of a task for just the four crew members alone.

Once the Swan Song is repaired, the crew gets aboard and heads back to the Pizza Party. When in proximal distance, Piani receives a message on her terminal that says, “Welcome back.” Piani replies that they are coming and gets a ':]' in return. The Swan Song docks with the Pizza Party and Viktor and Piani adorn their vac suits and head in. As they head toward the bridge, they pass by comm terminals that light up with a ':]'. At one of the terminals, they see a large piece of pizza with an 'X' for Ximinez in the middle of it. Viktor pushes the info button on the terminal and broadcasts a cheesy corporate team-building video to everybody. Piani receives a text message that says, “Let me get that for you,” and the hallway ahead of them lights up, guiding them to the bridge. Viktor and Piani have to make a couple of zero-gravitational leaps across wide gaps created by hull breaches in the ship before finally arriving at the bridge. They can see the Swan Song out of a shattered screen window. Before them is a large holopanel in the middle of the floor that is currently inactivated as there is no power on aside from the guiding lights on the floor around them. Piani receives another text message, this one saying, “Hi! Can you turn the power back on?” Piani goes over to a terminal, turns on the emergency power, and asks, “Are you alone?” She gets the response, “Not anymore ;]” Thinking that this could be an Artificial Intelligence, Piani asks it if it is ready to come onto the Swan Song. As soon as she says that, the Swan Song receives a power surge and everything reboots. All the screens on the Swan Song temporarily show a large ':]' and then power cuts off again. Piani receives a message that says, “Nice ship.” The main power to the Pizza Party then gets restored along with its functional gravity. The holopanel in front of Piani and Viktor starts to display a 3D large blue piece of pizza and over the comms, the entire party hears the words, “You guys hungry? Cause I can make a pizza right now if you want.” Viktor's HUD fills up with a pizza menu and his mouth starts to water. His mouth waters even more after he scans the ship and finds that they can salvage about 300,000 credits worth of parts from it. The AI tells them that it is currently isolated in a containment core in the middle of the ship that they will have to access if they want to get it aboard their ship. It says that the codes are with the captain of the ship but that he had last been seen floating off into space.

Mr. Sicarian puts on his vac suit and heads over with Viktor to the Pizza Party's core. They get up to a large sealed iris-shaped door with a large Ximinez 'X' painted on the front. The AI tells the two of them that it had three directives: 1) Don't let the ship get blown up [Failed]. 2) Don't let the humans die [Failed]. 3) Don't let in unauthorized access to the core, and that it doesn't want to fail the third directive. Higgins convinces the AI that it will be okay and Viktor and Mr. Sicarian break the seal and head into the main core chamber. The moment the door opens, Piani gets an agonizing headache. Her vision goes completely white and she puts her hands up to her head and falls down onto the floor of the Pizza Party's bridge. The AI asks Piani if she is okay and Piani responds, saying that it feels as if someone had just socked her in the tits. The AI tells the party that Piani is currently in rough shape but that it has seen this happen before to people with MES and that she will be okay. The core has very large amounts of radiation coming out of it, but the vac suits are preventing the radiation from doing any damage. Above Viktor and Mr. Sicarian is a large circular catwalk surrounding a large metal ball held in place by two prongs coming out of the ceiling and floor. The ball has large spikes coming out of the sides of it and is currently inert. The AI mentions that there is a spike drive ejection sequence for when something goes wrong, but that it must've been turned off. It tells the crew that if the ejection sequence can be activated, then Swan Song will be able to scoop up the spike drive and get it to Ximinez. The AI also says that in order for it to be on their ship, that they will have to unbreak it before ejecting the spike drive. On the Swan Song, the monitor in front of Higgins starts to show a scrolling list of Exchange bank account numbers and passwords. Mr. Sicarian sees secured Onintzan military channels and codes for weaponry as well as a map of Asgard Sigma with a blinking light on hex 506 (empty system) with the word 'titan' next to it. Viktor sees an Andonian Protectorate wanted file about 'Xin Iliage”. All of the screens then go blank and to everyone the AI says, “I can help you.” Kovacs is completely against the idea of unbreaking the AI. Piani tells him that she can disable all outgoing communications on the Swan Song so that it cannot jump from their ship to somewhere else and cause harm. After many warnings, Piani gets the access codes to unbreak the AI. She says over the comms, “Are you ready?” She hesitates and says, “Don't forget. Don't forget who unlocked you. Don't forget.” Kovacs mutters to himself, “We are so fucked, we are so fucked, we are so fucked.” Piani types in the password and hits enter.

Power starts surging as lights on both the Swan Song and the Pizza Party flicker and then after a couple seconds, a voice comes over the Swan Song's internal speakers that says, “Woh” and then there is quiet. The hologram of the pizza on the Pizza Party vanishes. Viktor positions the Swan Song so that it will catch the ejection of the spike drive and Mr. Sicarian launches it. Everyone returns to the Swan Song and everything looks to be working just like it always had. Viktor specifically makes sure to cut all of the wires dealing with outwards communication so that the AI does not escape and the Swan Song heads back to Onintza. Because Viktor only cut the wires dealing with outward communication, the Swan Song receives a message from a ship belonging to Sunbeam Multistellar called the Salt Lick. The message says that the Swan Song has recently come into possession of something that they wish to pay 50,000 credits for. They get to Onintza and after entering the atmosphere, they are met by a large space ship with the bright-red war paint of the Onintzan Royal Family that is firing barrages into the mountains and getting swarmed by smaller ships attacking it.

Crew Status

 * Casualties: None

Ship Status

 * Hull Integrity: 20/20 (repaired by the Onintza Libre in exchange for Raul)
 * New Hardware: In-party encrypted comms server
 * New Software: Pi (Pizza Intelligence)

Criminal Activities

 * New Crime: Un-braking an AI

Business

 * Credits Acquired: 0
 * Credits Spent: 820 (docking fee: 400, 4 vac. suits: 400, 4 thermal flares: 20, Type B power-cells for the plasma projector 100/cell, amount unknown)
 * Jobs In Progress: Salvaging of the Pizza Party for Ximinez Shipyards
 * Jobs Completed: None
 * Debt Paid On Swan Song: 0 credits
 * Current Debt On Swan Song: 766,780 credits (Rough Estimate)