Preparations

STARLIT immediately began an expedited outfitting that would take two and a half weeks.  Turret #2 was swapped out with a triple turret with three missiles racks, armed with nine missiles and six sand.  The Anti-Hijack system was completed.

45 tons of weapons (auto-rifles) was taken aboard for the Minot family on Feri, disguised as farming tech tools.  Pytor bought three tons of silver to trade at Roup where it could be used to set jewelry.  Hefry is a mining world and the cargo was purchased at a discount.

Each of the crew members had some personal time, and each headed to their apartment.  (John may not have an apartment on Hefry yet…but might have looked for one.)  Pytor sent a message to his father asking if there was public news about Scath Vornif.  His father is a retired Imperial Navy Captain on Regina, and also a Knight.

John and Rachel are the two Gunners on STARLIT but John was very useful as Marine and Pytor asked Blast about the possibility of an additional Gunner.  Blast looked but could not find one whose skills exceeded John’s.  There was also the need to find one not too directly connected to GSbAG, nobility, the Imperial Navy or Scouts…and none of the retired people on Hefry currently fit.

Late in the outfitting, Pytor had to bail Rachel out of jail.  It was only 5kCR and she quickly and sheepishly paid him back.  The charge against her was Assault despite her black eye and ripped sleeve, but her attacker was in worse shape (fortunately not killed).  There had been harsh words at the start and Rachel was very embarrassed.  When Pytor restricted her to the ship she was grateful it was nothing worse and took to stowing cargo and cleaning the ship.

Also on Hefry, Pytor met a woman and went on two dates.  Her name is Marianna Adalyn (6858B5), a thirty four-year old scientist who attended University on Regina at Credo, a world she misses very much.  She now leads the Mining Division for Sternmetal Horizons (Mining, Power Generation, and Food Synthesis Equipment) in their Hefry office.  Her metallurgy computer data is supplied to GSbAG for ship building as ore on Hefry is analyzed and supplied by Sternmetal to GSbAG.  Marianna wears a .357 magnum revolver when not in the lab, has a wide variety of skills, and is a natural (and trained) leader.  She is not a noble, but she is attractive.

As STARLIT completed preparations Pytor visits Tom at ISS Intelligence and asks how one might use anti-matter to set a bomb.  Tom is delighted and was prepared for the question.  He produced just such a bomb that was about the size of a coffee mug inside a heavily reinforced “shoebox”.  The system was very simple.  The anti-matter was inside, held in stasis through a small generator that kept it from touching anything.  To detonate it, a timer was set (seconds up to days) and a safety switched off (which deactivated several battery backups and connected the timer to the generator).

Note: Pytor will detail his family before the next adventure and complete his will and 100,000CR insurance policy.