Lost

Zhil's hobby of making furniture from human bones landed him in hot water at Hilfer highport when he started telling folks at a local tattoo shop about it and attracted the attention of starport security. He ended up in an interview room being asked questions about missing persons on the station and his possible connection, while on the wall behind the interviewer a digital billboard flashed a wanted poster of Zhil and his compadres at Cr50,000 each. He had to pull out all the stops with his legal advocacy and even name dropped an influential merchant prince from Marduk before they released him.

Meanwhile Kaelan and Halfnir went to The Last Stop, a minor spaceport habitat ran for belters where Halfnir went cage fighting and went missing for a night and Kaelan had a good night out, but when he was picked up the next morning by Mila he noticed he was being followed by a couple of thugs and realised that he may have mentioned the hold full of weapons the previous night while imbibing.

Ernie decided the time was right to put the crystal artifact he had into his animatronic toy aslan which seemed to alter its shape to suit the toy and the voice of an ancient AI, Xyrrik, began to talk through the toy. When Ernie began to get hot he suspected the AI may be heating up the room or even him, but it soon turned out he had a fever. Xyrrik revealed that he was using nanites to "complete" Ernie, and after six days of delirious fever a scan by Kaelan discovered that an advanced neural comm had been grown in Ernie's brain and he could now "hear" Xyrrik's voice in his head, as well as the ship...

Maurice the new arrival had some catching up to do.

Zhil had sent a message to Khaefryo on Kteiroa to say that they had the "misplaced shipment" and "do you want to purchase it?" Upon jumping to the Pourne system and refuelling from a gas giant, they received a reply email over the starport datanet, "You're late!" A further jump later and the travellers found themselves over the icy planet of Kteiroa, with a tiny population of aslan and a basic starport.

Discussions amongst the travellers began as to how to approach Khaefryo with the hold full or arms.