Crew dinner and meeting...

On Crew-Comms:

"If you need either of us, just give a call. We've only got Shaky Telom and Thessa Ting here. Terry and Adriana are right where you left them. I can get them sandwiches, but I'll go check on them first."

[LC Rains, seated at the table near the wall along the port-side bulkhead, datapad flickering with an unsorted agenda]

"Well, now that we’re all present and plausibly accounted for — and assuming no one’s poisoned the canapés — let’s call this little soirée to order."

He gestures briefly at the comm panel where Kayla and Said-Ma’s message just chimed through.

"Ma and Kayla are attending to our guests — only Shaky Telom and Thessa Ting upright, but better eyes on than regrets later. That leaves the rest of us to discuss the business of keeping this rustbucket aloft and solvent."

He nods toward Bronz.

"Bronz, you’ve clearly got something to get off your chest. I suggest you take the floor first. After that, we’ll hear from anyone else with observations, and then Tharrok can lay out the shift schedule for Jump."


LC pours a measure of the wine that Kayla left for the crew into his cup, takes a quick sip, and eyes Bronz over the rim.

"Go on, then. Enlighten us. If you say the word ‘Zhodani’ before dessert, though, I reserve the right to leave early."

Bronz sat quiet for a beat, staring at LC across the table. Attention never sat well with him. Finally, he spoke, voice low and even.

"Something’s wrong with this ship."

He jerked his chin toward the deck, in the direction of Adriana’s cabin.
"Not sure if she’s what kept us on the right path… or what almost threw us off it."

His eyes dropped to the datapad in his hand, the engineering feeds scrolling across the display.

"Maybe I’m just stringing consequences together... Don’t like it... Don’t understand it... But it’s wrong."

He muttered, barely audible, "I'm missing something."

He let the words hang, shoulders tight, then went silent again, watching the monitors like they might give him the missing piece.

"We're missing something!" Leilani added without thinking, "I've known enough Chief Engineers and they like to take the blame for everything that goes wrong in their Engineering, but it's normally always a team effort!"

She looked a little guilty at the Captain before adding

"Sorry if I spoke out of turn, Captain, this is my first major crew meeting!"

LC at the meeting
"No you did not speak out of turn. But as your experience as a trained Naval Engineer, and you saw it. So, in your opinion what do you make of the holographic display by Andriana? And there are no wrong answers."

"Not much beyond it's a hologram of a reactor, it could be ours, it could be real time, but we can't tell without comparing between the two!" she gave a little shrug to emphasise the point

"But it's all a little hinky if you ask me!"

LC helps Leilani a bit on the computer offering what he saw. He updates the subroutines but avoids stepping on her toes
"Here is some minor updates in the subroutines of what I think you are doing on the computer based on what I saw in Andriana's cabin."

Tamm's scowl deepened. Bronz had already told him about the strange goings-on in the passenger cabin. Now, Leilani’s computer work uncovered a subtle Trojan Horse.

"From worse to worst," Tamm rumbled. "Tamm says stop Adriana from manipulating her hologram. She might be the root cause of all this!
In the meantime Leilani, can you remove the malware?"

LC Rains – Over Dinner: Reactor Ghosts & Code Gremlins

"You ever have that moment where you think you’ve solved the puzzle… and then wish you hadn’t?"

LC sets his fork down, pushes his tray aside, and glances toward Leilani with a small nod of mutual recognition.

"Leilani and I were working through the reactor feed from Andriana’s room — and for a moment, I thought we’d just caught a clever little monitoring tool. Someone doing system diagnostics from their quarters. Maybe weird, maybe nosy, but nothing catastrophic. Then it blinked."

He taps the datapad, which lights up briefly with a layered subroutine tree — complex, elegant, and hostile.

"What we found wasn’t just monitoring. It was buried command code. Passive. Trigger-based. Waiting."

He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table.

"This is a Trojan — probably built off internal system protocols. Elegant enough to look like internal diagnostics until you know where to look. Once the right condition's met — a jump, a system state, hell, a crew voice command — it activates. And if it had? This dinner would be happening in vacuum suits while the backup scrubbers try to keep us breathing."

He lets the silence stretch a second too long.

"So. I want your thoughts. I want your eyes. If anything has felt off, if any sensor pinged wrong, if you’ve seen a flicker on a console or a relay act drunk — speak up now."

Responses by any of the crew?

He looks around the table, letting the crew have space to process.

Then his eyes land on Decherrek.

"Decherrek — this ship was skip-traced when you found her, yes? You disabled traps, cleared data cores, checked for ghost circuits. But this? This wasn’t in the logs."

He straightens up slightly.

"I need your original debrief. Anything you pulled, anything you found and couldn’t explain — anything that might link to this. Was this part of the original trap suite, or was this laid in later?"

Responses by Decherrek?

LC exhales through his nose, pushing the datapad to center table.

"We’re going to have to scrub the whole reactor control net. Not just code — physical interlocks too. And this is important, we’ll need to spoof the system while we do it, or this thing might activate while we’re still poking at it."

He looks to Bronz, Leilani, and Tharrok in turn.

"Tamm — I know you’ve been elbows deep in power systems before. You willing to help crack open the primary housing while we guide you? I need hands I trust inside that conduit path."
Responses?

"Leilani, you’re already neck-deep with me. But I have the idea that seeing the hologram may give you better insite towards a solution without activation. Get with Said-MA as she is a wiz with computers."
Responses?

"Tharrok — you've got the sense of things others miss. If this was designed to be seen, but ignored... I want your instincts on every layer we peel back."
Responses?

He gives a nod toward Kayla and Said-Ma’s empty seats.

"Said-Ma will coordinate the scan queues and script isolation with me and Leilani. We need Kayla’s diplomatic skill set to go to Andriana and ask her for help to identify and solve this."

Then, more softly — a shift in tone.

"Now… about Andriana. This code was broadcasting in her quarters. Doesn’t mean she wrote it. Might not even mean she knew it was there. But she’s got insight we need — especially if that hologram was tied into deeper systems."

He nods again, more directly now.

"Kayla, Leilani, Bronz — I want the three of you to talk with her. Calmly. Make it clear we think it’s a threat to all of us, and we’d value her help figuring out how that projection ties into the virus structure. You’ve got the right touch for this. I don’t want her feeling cornered — but I do want her looped in."
Responses?
A pause.

Bronz, I am asking you to go directly with Kayla and Leilani as your experience with engineering and your past troubleshooting will help out in diagnosing the problem without having to set the damn Trojan off."
Responses?

Another pause.

"Speak now, sign up, or pass the Kaffe. But we deal with this before we lose power in JSpace, or we don't arrive at all."

Quote: "So. I want your thoughts. I want your eyes. If anything has felt off, if any sensor pinged wrong, if you’ve seen a flicker on a console or a relay act drunk — speak up now." EQ

"Tamm just said Adriana must be stopped immediately. No one outside the crew is allowed access to the ship’s systems."

Tamm rises to his feet.

"Tamm is heading to Adriana’s cabin. Who’s with me?"

Q: "Kayla, Leilani, Bronz — I want the three of you to talk with her. Calmly. Make it clear we think it’s a threat to all of us, and we’d value her help figuring out how that projection ties into the virus structure. You’ve got the right touch for this. I don’t want her feeling cornered — but I do want her looped in." EQ

Tamm's scowl returns. The Captain wants to handle this softly while Tamm wants to pick up the woman and put her in restraints.

"Tamm has his answer. Don't hesitate to call if you need to handle things physically."

Before Tamm returns to Engineering, he stops by his room to retrieve his revolver. "Just in case."

[LC Rains sets his fork down with surgical precision. Doesn’t look up, doesn’t raise his voice.]

"Tamm."

[Quiet. Just enough to stop the knives and words mid-motion. He leans back slightly in his chair, gaze fixed on his plate like the food’s suddenly less interesting than the mutiny brewing across the table.]

"You just declared Adriana a threat to ship security and recommended immediate action."

[Now he looks up. Not accusatory — not yet — but legal. Like someone flipping open a dusty statute book on a table full of soup bowls and wine stains.]

"Before you rally volunteers for a march down the corridor, indulge me a moment of due process. What specific system anomaly, crew behavior, or verified data point has led you to conclude that she — and only she — is the source of concern?"

[He lifts his glass, swirls it once, then stops — frowning as if he’s remembered something he filed weeks ago.]

"You asked for our eyes and our thoughts. Fair. Now I’m asking for yours. Walk us through it, step by step. Because if you’re right, I’ll back your move with signed orders and a sealed override on her console access. If you’re wrong…"

[He lets that trail off, sets the glass down untouched.]

"Then you’d best remember that false accusation during active duty is a reportable offense under the Guild Conduct Charter, Section 9.3 — right between 'disruption of morale' and 'reckless insubordination.'"

[Beat. He gestures slightly, open-palmed.]

"So. Tamm. Your turn. What did Adriana do?"

"Tamm jumped too quickly to the wrong conclusion, Boss. Tamm misunderstood you and Leilani. Tamm thought you had found the tri-D was tied into the ship's systems."

[LC exhales slowly through his nose, not quite a sigh — more like pressure bleeding from a locked valve. He taps a knuckle against his glass before speaking, tone measured, even.]

"Well. That’s a relief."

[He looks over the rim of his glass, eyes steady.]

"And a reminder why we don’t skip the explanation step before mobilizing the angry mob."

[He takes a sip, then sets the glass down gently — too gently — like it might explode if mishandled.]

"Misunderstandings happen. But had someone followed you down that corridor with a pitchfork instead of a spoon, this dinner could’ve ended very poorly, and not only us, but for our passengers."

[He shifts slightly in his seat, gaze flicking between the crew.]

"So. Let’s all be clear on what was actually observed. Adriana displayed a holographic schematic of the Miss Fortune’s power plant. Leilani and I concur — the structure embedded in that projection appears to be a Trojan horse. Present, but dormant."

[A pause, for impact — then he continues, slightly quieter.]

"We need Adriana’s help — not her containment. If she’s willing, she may be the best chance we have to isolate the infection, possibly disarm it, and gods willing, check that black box for other... gifts from our benefactors."

[He glances around the table once more.]

"So unless someone here speaks fluent ghost code or metaphysical diagnostics, let’s keep her in the loop and off the suspect list."