Plan: Transport — approaching as independent salvagers on a public beacon. Detail: Thornwall beacon frequency, filed as standard salvage claim with the Starsmiths registry.
Engagement modifiers:
Three clocks:
Rack — flight recorder. Study: 4/5. Last log entry dated six years ago, normal operations. Then repeats. Same entry. Forty-one times. "That's a loop. We're in a loop."
Loop triggers when Sable steadies herself on the navigation console. Node fragment on the Vagrant Star responds. Click. Galley light cycles. Cooking smell disappears and returns.
Reality Collapse opens: ░░░░░░ (0/6).
Juno — med bay. Invokes Dr. Strange (always handle Precursor artifacts safely, ask one question). Study: 6.
Dr. Strange question: What could this do, and why is it dangerous?
Cutter — cargo manifest. Study: 4/5. Sealed container, no contents listed, private dock on Amerath.
Rack — finds the container. Skulk: 4/5. Ship makes a sound when he enters the cargo hold — structural, not mechanical. Like the ship registering his presence. Reality Collapse: █░░░░░ (1/6).
Container present. Ur script on the outside — same characters from the node fragment's surface.
Sable reads it. Node study project is at 5/8 — she knows enough. Study: 6. Script is a label and a warning: "The Record of the Convergence." Warning: "For the next ones."
Written by the Ur. Left for whoever came after.
Decision: Loop again, build a tool to safely extract the documents without collapsing the stasis. Last 10 minutes: move as much Guild cargo to the airlock as possible. Salvage: ██░░░░ (2/6). Loop resets.
Reality Collapse: ██░░░░ (2/6).
Everyone remembers. The cooking smell returns.
Juno — long-term project: "Stasis Breach Tool." Rig: 6. Five segments on 8-clock. Needs one more loop.
Cutter and Rack — cargo runs. Fast and systematic. Salvage: ████░░ (4/6). New Cargo Hold upgrade is the only reason they can move this much.
Sable attuning carefully — tight focus, no broadcast, spending a gambit. Attune: 4/5. Asks container: What would happen if this opened incorrectly?
Sable tells the crew: "When we open this, it's going to ping something. Be ready to move."
GM ticks Hegemony Recovery Corvette: ██░░ (2/4). An hour has passed.
Loop resets. Reality Collapse: ███░░░ (3/6).
GM ticks Corvette: ████ (4/4). FULL.
Rack on the Vagrant Star — hears the hail. Uses the Fake Transponder to broadcast a secondary signal, implying the claim is being transferred.
Rig: 4/5. Buys time. Consequence: Steadfast logs both transponder signatures. If anyone cross-references this with Warren berth logs, the fake identity starts to crack. +1 heat in Iota.
Inside the Thornwall: seven real-time minutes.
Juno finishes the Stasis Breach Tool. Rig: 6. Clock complete.
Opening the container:
Sable handles it with Dr. Strange. Guides Juno's tool into the stasis boundary. Rig: 6. Boundary yields cleanly. Documents slide out — handwritten pages, perfectly preserved.
Container stays sealed. Stasis field stays intact. Loop continues.
Reality Collapse ticks for the disturbance: ████░░ (4/6). Stressed, not collapsed.
The Way-pulse goes out. Sable attuned to brace for it. Attune: 4/5. Absorbs most of it. Level 1 harm: "Way-Echo." Pulse crosses the Iota system. Every Way-sensitive being feels a door opening somewhere.
Salvage: ██████ (6/6). Complete. Crew moves through the docking tube.
Rack calls the Steadfast back: "Thornwall claim complete, departing now." Sway: 6. They're cleared.
Payoff: Guild cargo sells for 4 cred. Documents not sold. After upkeep: net 0 cred. Broke again. Second consecutive job where crew chose information over payoff.
The Stardancer's Cargo Eye ability means the crew always knows what's most valuable. They used it to keep the most valuable thing off the market. This is a character pattern emerging from a mechanical ability.
Heat — Iota: Quiet job plus transponder issue. 2 heat in Iota. Tracker: ██░░░░░░
Entanglement (Wanted 0, Iota): 1d → 2 → Unquiet Black. Wanted 0 = magnitude 0. The Way-pulse left a resonance echo in the Vagrant Star's hull. Not a creature — an impression, a sensation of being watched from a directionless location.
Sable attune: 6. Identifies and clears it in an hour. But Vess — brought back aboard — walks to the spot Sable is working and stands there. Both voices, quiet: "That was me. Partly. When the documents came out, I remembered something. I don't know why I have this memory. But I knew those documents existed."
Downtime activities:
Three are already active.