Adhan padded his way down the ladder to the galley, where the smell of fresh kawah alone gave him a burst of energy. He prepared cups for everyone - by now he knew how everyone preferred their first cup after a jump - sealed them, and racked them in a carrier. He poured the remainder into a small extra cup for himself, drank it with a satisfied sigh, and started another pot. Then back up the ladder to start handing out the precious drinks.

Kira smiled to herself at the kawah notification. Her fingers danced over the comms console as she transmitted the ship’s data to Kua Portal Station. She put on her ‘professional pilot face’ and addressed the monitor in front of her.

"Kua Portal Station, acknowledging your hail and wishing you a most illustrious day! This is Kira Cerise, Free League trader on the courier ship Nameless Star, heading to Coriolis Station. I'm transmitting our license information now, along with cargo and passenger manifest. Requesting flight plan and landing clearance. ETA about 40 hours. Over.”

She flipped off the transmitter and took a moment to admire the welcome sight of Kua ahead. It had been a long flight and she was looking forward to breathing real air for a while.

Knowing that it would be a while before the portal station responded, she stood up from the pilot chair and walked to the floor access hatch, following the siren call of fresh kawah.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:03, Fri 10 June 2022.

About a minute after Kira had sent the message to Kua portal station, a reply came back. "Nameless Star, this is Kua portal station, acknowledged. License information, cargo manifest and passenger manifest received, please stand by." One more minute went by, and the screen came to life once again. "Nameless Star, this is Kua portal station, you are clear to proceed. We have transmitted your ETA to Coriolis station, and are now transmitting flight plan data, please acknowledge. Over."

Several seconds later the console confirmed the receipt of flight coordinates. "Kua portal station, this is the Nameless Star, flight plan data received. Over." "Acknowledged, Nameless Star, welcome home. Have a good flight. Kua portal station out."

Done with the pleasantries, Kira stood up from the pilot's chair, walked to the floor access hatch and started down the ladder. She almost bumped into Adhan halfway down, as the man came up from the galley, a carrier of kawah in hand.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:54, Fri 10 June 2022.

"Your kawah, my lady," Adhan grinned as he handed over Kira's cup. "Everything as it should be?"

He began circulating among the crew, handing out drinks and friendly commentary. Aisha was clearly troubled, so he stopped and hunkered down next to Farah to address the engineer. "Are you okay? Bad jump?" He offered her a cup. "Kawah?"

Somewhat surprised by that reaction, Farah said nothing the first second, and simply put her arms around the girl, combing her hair with her fingers.

"Ukhti, hush child, it was just a bad dream. You're safe now." she said in her slightly husky, yet strangely motherly voice. As Adhan approached, she looked to him, nodding approvingly. If offered a cup, she would take one too, holding with one hand and consoling Aisha with the other.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:23, Fri 10 June 2022.

Adhan's attention was focused on Aisha, but he lifted the carrier and its remaining cups towards Farah with his other hand.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:23, Fri 10 June 2022.

"Now there's a sight for sore eyes!" smiled Kira and eagerly grabbed a cup from him. "Yes, everything looks clear." Savouring that first sip, she accompanied Adhan back to the crew's stasis room.

Seeing Aisha shake with fear, she inspected the open cryopod and checked the readouts as Adhan and Farah tried to soothe the engineer. She glanced over at Asa's pod to see if everything was okay there.

"A bad dream??"

Aisha pushed back out of Farah's arms, knocking Adhan's kawah to the deck in the process.

"What do you mean a bad dream? Half the lower deck's torn out! That, that, thing was about to eat me! A man is dead, for Icon's sake!"

She looked around wildly at the blank, peaceful, normal expressions on everyone's faces, the raised eyebrows and bemused smiles. The sheer weight of their inanity knocked her back a half step, and the fire left her.

"Isn't he?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:28, Sat 11 June 2022.

Asa had come to from cryosleep as she always did: feeling like absolute shit. Still, she gathered herself and said a prayer to the Icons as soon as she was able, for a safe passage that saw her alive on the other side. Alive another day, with jobs to do and profits to be reaped, the Merchant be praised.

She joined the others, as having some kawah would set her right for the day. It was a ritual at this point. She preferred in system travel when possible, but sometimes the best jobs required portal jumps, and she would not turn those away.

"Aisha," she said in a tone that was meant to be soothing, and reassuring, though it would gradually grow a bit more authority as she wore on. "Is this your first bad dream during a portal jump? Sit. Steady yourself in the present moment and thank the Faceless One for seeing us through what lies between the portals. It happens to all of us in time. We are alive today and the ship is as well as it might be. For this day at least, we have places to go, birr to make."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:17, Sat 11 June 2022.

As the entire group gathered around the distraught Aisha, Asa used the moment to think about what needed to be done.

Although the crew often worked for Mukhtar Sawalla, they were seldom contacted by him directly. In all this time Aisha had met him personally only once, in addition to a couple of video and audio calls. The other members of the crew have never even seen the man. Due to the sometimes delicate nature of their dealings, the group's main contact was Muwakkil Naser, Mukhtar's agent who handled cargos, payments and job details. It was usually Asa who met with the man, but at least he had met the crew on several occasions and wasn't a complete stranger to them.

Asa made a mental checkbox to inform Muwakkil of their arrival in the system. She would also have to contact him on the day of their arrival on Coriolis station to arrange the meeting details.

Kira saw the worried expression on Aisha's face and headed down to the passenger cryo beds to check on them - just in case.

Adhan looked sadly in the direction of his kawah cup as it revolved slowly on the deck, the last few unspilled drops sliding out onto the metal plating. I had one sip, maybe two. Then he turned back to Aisha, speaking calmly and clearly.

"Aisha, if we were missing part of a deck, there would be alarms going off everywhere. I was just in the galley; everything is fine down there, I promise you. We've all just come out of stasis; no one is dead and nothing is going to eat any of us. We're all safe, and we're all right here."

Asa poured two cups of kawah, handing the first to Adhan and taking the second one for herself. Drinking deeply, she shifted her mental focus on the need to contact Muwakkil. There would be time for that, but in the moment she needed to make sure that the crew was alright. Had Aisha been damaged in their jump? Before they headed out again, she would need to know that. There were places here she could get help.

"Tell me if you need anything. I have to tend to the delivery of cargo and the receipt of payments. That should put a smile on everyone's faces, eh?"

She moved back to her station, where she sent an outgoing message to Muwakkil. It was short, and to the point, with no need for extraneous detail.

The job is complete. When should we make the delivery?

OOC: Assuming she knows where as they do this somewhat regularly.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:30, Sat 11 June 2022.

Something is Aisha's horrified expression got through to Kira, so, just to be on the safe side, she decided to take a walk to the lower deck and check on the passengers personally. She left the rest of the crew, went down the ladder to the mess hall, through the crew area and finally down one of the companionways. Once on the lower deck, she went into the passenger stasis room and examined the three occupied cryobeds. Everything seemed to be in order, all vitals humming along nice and slow, no notable causes for concern.

Meanwhile, Asa went up to the bridge, brought up the comm interface and sent a short message to Muwakkil. She knew it would take about forty minutes for the message to reach Coriolis station and forty more minutes for a reply to come back to the ship, so she didn't see any point in sticking around and waiting for the answer.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:27, Sat 11 June 2022.

Kira nodded with satisfaction as she checked the readouts. Poor Aisha, she thought. The Dark can really mess with your mind sometimes. Well, no need to wake these good pilgrims yet. Don't want them underfoot until we're nearly there.

She returned to deck two and headed into her cabin. She put on some music, shrugged off her tank top and shorts, took a quick shower, and then dressed in the comfortable green flight suit she normally wore on the ship.

She wandered into the galley and started to prepare dinner for the crew, taking out various pre-cooked meals from the freezer and heating them on the small stove. As she checked and seasoned the food, she lit the small lanterns/heaters on the tables, giving the mess a warm, welcoming glow.

Walking over to the wall intercom, she flicked on the ship-wide channel. "Okay, lads and lasses. Dinner's ready. Come and get it!"
This message was last edited by the player at 11:12, Sun 12 June 2022.

Emotions warred within Aisha. It had seemed so real! She'd never had a dream like that, not in dozens of portal jumps. Adhan was right though... everything seemed so normal. There was no hint of the troubles befalling her what felt like seconds ago.

"I... uh..."

She looked at Farah, who still stood awkward and unsure, arms half held out to Aisha. Heat rose into her cheeks, and she gulped. Her eyes found the floor.

"Sorry."

She fled the room. A watcher would have seen her turn slightly to go down the ladder to engineering, hesitate, and then head into the chapel.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:39, Sun 12 June 2022.

Adhan stood, staring after Aisha as she fled the room. After a few moments, he blinked and sipped from the replacement kawah Asa had brought him. "Is she...okay?" he asked no one in particular.

At the dinner announcement, Asa decided to pay a visit to the chapel to give thanks before taking her meal. When she saw Aisha there, she waited for a quiet moment.

"Do you want to talk?" Asa could occasionally be too focused on the business before her, but it was important to her that all were well on the ship.

One by one the crew gathered in the mess for dinner. Adhan came first, followed soon by Farah. Asa and Aisha came down a bit later, having spent some time in prayer and in conversation.

Kira had tried her best to make the food taste good, but it was obvious that everyone looked forward to spending time on shore leave after several novenas on the ship. Frozen meals were certainly an acquired taste, no matter how fancy the names on the packaging were nor how much seasoning you put into them. At least the kawah was a solid four out of five, although Kira did make a mental note to clean the kawah machine, or, better yet, pay someone else to do it once they were in port.

Conversation flowed lazily around a variety of nondescript topics, when Asa's communicator notified her of a long-distance reply from Coriolis. Muwakkil's response was as concise as the captain's initial message. Message me two hours before arrival, it read. Will advise on meeting time and place.

The crew spent the remainder of the day performing mundane tasks around the ship, relaxing in their cabins or whiling away the time in each other’s company. Eventually their circadian rhythms signaled the end of the 26-hour cycle, and one after another everyone headed to their cabins, bidding each other good night. Tomorrow would be a new day and the last leg of their journey back to the station they thought of as their home.

Aisha was slowly walking between alcoves, bearing a ship's-candle and singing softly. She went first to the Messenger, crushing a slip of paper amd leaving it for the icon. Her voice grew as she approached the Dancer and she gave a spin before moving on to the Gambler. There, she poured from the Gambler's wine while moving, spilling a few drops for her risk. At the Deckhand, she took a cloth and washed the altar; at the Traveler her fingers added knots to the rope; at the blank wall she left twin stones of black and white. She finally stopped at the Lady of Tears, carefully placing the ship's candle and bowing her head for a long moment as her song came to an end.

She jumped when Asa spoke, looking around and then quickly standing and wiping her eyes.

"Oh, Asa! Uh, no, I'm...fine." the words tumbled out of her hesitantly.

She looked down for a minute, then back up. The older woman intimidated Aisha, with her composure and worldly-wise manner. A moment passed, Asa waiting and Aisha growing uncomfortable in the silence.

"Uh, well, I mean, actually yes. I just... I've never..."

Suddenly the words just blurted out.

"I'm not going insane! I'm not, I swear! I don't know what that was, and, and, I don't know what it means but I'm not insane, I can't be, and that wasn't a dream either, it just wasn't, it was too real, so, I mean, I know it's crazy, I do, but, it could be possible too, you know, it's not the first recorded case, and there's some pretty solid evidence behind it, when you look at it, though it's of course anecdotal, but still..."

Her hands, which had been wildly gesticulating, came to a stop, and her eyes came right up to meet Asa's with an intense, almost childlike determination. Her whole demeanour pleaded with and demanded Asa take her seriously.

"It could have been a vision."

Before she went to bed, Kira decided to head down to the cargo bay and check on their 'special' cargo. She had heard the fables and tales of mystical energy stones possessing people and forcing their crew mates to take a quick stroll outside the ship without a suit (and worse!)
This message was last edited by the player at 01:56, Wed 15 June 2022.

Before heading to her cabin for the night, Kira went to the section of the cargo bay that housed the hidden compartment reserved for the more objectionable goods. She pushed aside several crates that served a purely decorative function, kneeled by the junction of wall and floor and ran her fingers under an inconspicuous panel, looking for the twin secret buttons. Once she located them, she pushed both at the same time, and the panel sprang loose.

Raising the panel and moving it aside, Kira peered into the dark and dusty compartment that it had covered. The wooden box covered in Miran ornamental carvings was still there. She pulled it out, undid the latch and lifted the top, uncovering their main cargo. Resting in a depression padded with black velvet was a metallic cube roughly four inches to a side, covered entirely in grooves the meaning of which Kira couldn't fathom. She carefully lifted it out of the box and held it up on the palm of her hand. Judging from the weight, it was a piece of solid metal. Noticing nothing out of the ordinary, Kira returned the cube to its place, closed the box and pushed it back into the hidden compartment. She made sure that the faux panel clicked back into place and dragged the crates back into position before dusting herself off and returning to the deck above.

* * *

Meanwhile back in his cabin Adhan lay on his bunk, tabula in hand, scanning the Bulletin for anything noteworthy. It was a painfully slow process, given a response time of almost half an hour, so he was thankful for the script he had written that would gather all the interesting tidbits and send them back in one package.

Half an hour later he had a tabula full of news and happenings from Coriolis. Market Plaza became the latest target in the constant turf war raging between rival gangs running the station's underworld, as a fire engulfed several shops and cafes in the area. There were rumors circling that one of the Foundation's research stations received strange signals from the depths on the gas giant Xene. Several cargo shipments disappeared from Stevedore Central, located right under the Neoptra spaceport. There was a large article about several people vanishing without a trace in the station's Student district, which, frankly, wasn't that surprising, given the wild and rowdy reputation of the place. The Coriolis Guard performed another purge of the Cellar. Finally, in the latest episode of "The Plantation Owner's Daughter", Mustafa found out that Fatima's father was connected to his brother's death, while Lila finally gathered enough courage to inform the family of her pregnancy.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:26, Wed 15 June 2022.

She studied Aisha for a moment, choosing her words carefully, and speaking with a measured, reassuring tone.

"Some dreams seem real. You aren't the first to experience strong dreams in the journey through portal space, that is true. Only the Icons know what is in there. I hope it wasn't a vision, for if it was, it portends ill for our ship. If it was a vision from the icons, perhaps that wasn't the fate for our ship and for some other, though by your description I would not wish that ill upon some of my enemies. But it is what you believe it to be. Let the Icons wisdom guide you.

I have full confidence in you, and I want you to know that. If there is anything more that comes of this...that reminds you of this...and this is in fact some vision or portent, I ask that you let me know so that we can have the Icons' guidance in this matter."
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:40, Thu 16 June 2022.

Aisha's hopeful face hardened as Asa answered. She tried to keep her poker face up, but the translation in her own brain was clear: Not enough data to support your hypothesis. Come back and tell me when you have some actual data to back it up.

Aisha took a more formal stance, and nodded to Asa in what she hoped was a professional manner.

"Of course Captain. The safety of this ship is always my priority. I'll leave you to pray in peace."

She moved past Asa, and headed for engineering, ready to run a diagnostic over the reactor before the meal bell.

As she neared the companionways leading to the lower deck, Aisha was overcome with anxiety, the dream still vivid in her mind. She had to take several deep breaths to calm herself before heading below.

The short corridor leading to engineering and the passenger stasis room looked completely normal. Aisha approached the statis room, and the door slid open with a quiet hiss. Inside everything was in order, the three passengers sleeping peacefully in their cryobeds. With a sigh Aisha turned around, left the room and headed through the cargo hold and into engineering.

She felt some of the anxiety recede once she reached her workplace. First and foremost, she ran a reactor diagnostic check and, much to her satisfaction, saw that the reactor was humming along smoothly and by the numbers. The graviton projectors were running at almost a hundred percent, with the difference easily explained by the minor wear and tear of having spent several novenas in flight. There were glitches in the sensor array, but that was expected of the older Tilides model. Aisha made a mental note to have a chat with Adhan and see how they could patch things up.

Satisfied with the state of the ship, she headed back upstairs to join the rest of the crew for the meal.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:11, Thu 16 June 2022.