Marko

Growing Up
Marko's parents are both mid-level horticulturists from the Tyr system and they raised their son to follow in their footsteps. He spent most of his time, however, in the company of the mechanics and technicians who worked on the hydroponics and the mirrors. Once he went to school, it was clear that he was destined for a life outside the agra collectives.

Aspects
 * Machines don't get parasites
 * Natural light is too bright

Starting Out
Marko distinguished himself in mech school and got a job with the Trade Guild. He worked his way into the division that enforces the guild's rules as a tech on one of their patrol ships. By keeping his head down and doing his job, he became chief engineer of Diplomacy's Failure, the enforcement division's flagship. Marko became known as a guy who could hold a ship together no matter what condition she was in. It was also noted that his people skills were not the equal of his mechanical ones; he rubbed more than one superior officer the wrong way.

Aspects
 * Everything is a system problem
 * I will finish what I start

Moment of Crisis
Chief Engineer's Personal Log - Diplomacy's Failure - 1639222 (old reckoning)

We've put into Eden Station around Bayou IV for a recharge and a comp-comm synch. The shopmaster at the station has encrypted the feeds but, as usual, forgot to scramble the backups so I routed a dump of the data into my handheld. This gets me one step closer to reverse engineering their protocols. We're moored to the station for a couple of local days. I'll use the down time to run diagnostics on the ship.

1639248 (old reckoning)

The diagnostics are going slower than expected due to the majority of my staff taking the Captain up on his offer of shore leave. Caid and a couple of others have stayed aboard to assist but I'm doing most of the work myself. I have already submitted my overtime request with the Guild HR Directorate.

1639297 (old reckoning)

I can't even find Caid, now. This is just like that time he joined the custodial staff. He's always downplaying his competence. I don't think anyone else has noticed this.

I found a discrepancy in our manifest and reported it to the shopmaster.

1639482 (old reckoning)

It turns out the discrepancy I identified was, in fact, a lie on the part of the Captain. He intended to receive money from the station in exchange for fewer goods than we reported. I did not discover this immediately. The Captain ordered me to oversee the loading of some medical supplies from the station and I had barely set foot on Eden when my former ship began making the turn to leave the system.

A friendly fellow by the name of Ritter explained to me what must have happened regarding the manifest discrepancy. He also agreed to show me around the station as he is quite familiar with Bayou and has recently returned here for some sort of surgical procedure. Over drinks, I admitted my anxiety over being suddenly unemployed. Ritter assured me that the cluster is a big place and there are always opportunities for those who are willing to seize them.

Besides, I sent my severance forms back to Tyr on the Bifrost which will be home long before the Failure is able to make a report. I also included a copy of the shopmaster's side of things. My backpay and overtime should be in my account soon.

Connection: Ritter

Aspects:


 * Former officer of the Trade Guild


 * Can't leave well enough alone

Sidetracked
 Chief Engineer's Citizen Marko's Personal Log - Diplomacy's Failure Eden Station - 1639463 (old reckoning)

I've had a lot of free time on my hands since my ship left port. I'm not used to this. I got in the habit of keeping backups of the core files from the Failure on my handheld so I've been going over those mostly to have something to do now that the station's engineering staff have been given orders to keep me out of the lower decks. I was just asking a few questions. And making some improvements.

1639549 (old reckoning)

This can't be right. I've been going over the maintenance logs from Diplomacy's Failure and there are some irregularities. It seems that the command crew was hiding something from the rest of us and it started around the time we began patrolling Loki VII. There's a gap in the scanning schedules for the cargo modules. I've only got the backups so I can't investigate this further but my current hypothesis is that the cargo section of the Failure is larger than I'd been told. This explains the intermittent decreases in engine efficiency. I knew my calculations were accurate!

There is another flurry of irregularities around the time we assimilated Caid and his crew. Data were being moved around to hide something heavy. Possibly several things. Now I need to get access to the Failure. What have they done to my ship?

1639588 (old reckoning)

The command crew's attempts at subterfuge may work against them. The 'invisible' areas of the cargo modules should be blind spots in the sensor array. I need to find Caid. He was all over the ship and he must have noticed something. If he's still on the flagship, that could be a problem. If he's on Eden Station, he's blended in so well that I won't recognize him. Either way, I accept the challenge.

Connection: Caid

Aspects
 * These are my engines.
 * Idle hands are not an option.

On Your Own
Aspects