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Big Trouble at Lunar China: Episode III, Moon Quakes


The Characters:

Andrew Staunton, Captain, USAF Space Command: [Played by Phalanx] Captain Staunton is a Gadgeteer Agent working for the American Space Intelligence Agency (SIA) under the cover of a USAFSC Military Diplomatic Attaché and NASA test pilot. He has an on-body computer with a head jack and knows Tae Kwon Do. His real skill, however, is piloting and is able to pilot just about anything that drives, floats, flies, or travels in space (including the Astronaut/Cosmonaut military skill program from my Rifter 25 article). He has been assigned by the SIA to visit the Chinese Deng Xiaoping Lunar Complex (a.k.a. “Dungville”) to investigate claims that a revolution may be brewing among the beleaguered peasant population.

John Hudson, SIA: [Played by Thorowendain] Agent Hudson is a Wired Agent working for the SIA as a Deep Cover specialist and Information Gathering Agent. He has several cyber disguises and implants and knows Aikido (I allowed this MA selection even though it’s Exclusive). He too has been sent to Dungville under cover as a translator and diplomat to explore rumors about the revolution.

Jeff King, (a.k.a. Marc Jordan a.k.a. “Captain Kirk”): [Played by Mattbaby] Jeff King is a Tinker Gizmoteer with a specialty in Computer Hacking and Forgery (using the Forgery Giz skill program from my Rifter 25 article). He is a free-lance master hacker (under the “Capt. Kirk” moniker) and rogue hired via the web by the U.S. Government to assist Hudson in things involving computers and forged documents.

Huang Shu: [Played by DarklordDC - NPC Mode this week] Huang is a Commando Merc and former Chinese Special Forces Space Commando skilled in Military Intelligence and Deep Cover Infiltration who has gone “freelance”. He knows Pao Pat Mei (Leopard Style) Kung Fu with Arts of Invisibility (Stealth and Vanishing) and is trained in zero-G combat. He was hired freelance through the Manpower International mercenary company to assist the U.S. team at Dung Station. He assumed the identity of a Chinese peasant sent to Dungville as one of the many peasants involuntarily sent to there to reach colonization population quotas.

Episode III, Moon Quakes:

Another “day” begins at Deng Xiaoping Lunar Station, a.k.a. ‘Dungville’. The American team is seeking to confirm the rumors of a growing revolt among the crowded peasantry at China’s moon base and have so far seen what amounts to the tip of the iceberg. Huang Shu has found the people U.S. Intelligence believes to be the ring leaders of the brewing revolution and is set to infiltrate them. He has also joined the station security via a group of corrupt “bad cops”. Matters have been complicated, however, when a bomb goes off in the crowded marketplace of the “Little Shanghai” slum of the Dungville peasant side. To complicate matters Huang Shu has encountered a Cyborg he believes is involved in the bombing.

Back in the “Diplomatic complex” dome, the two American agents Hudson and Staunton and their freelance hacker “Marc Jordan” (a.k.a. Jeff King) are attempting to deal with the situation when they have no information to go by. To compound matters they have lost contact with Huang Shu. As a cop he may be involved in an investigation of the “Moon Quake”…or worse, he could be compromised, and therefore so could the American mission and all the agents!

King has finally gotten the U.S. computer network up and running and has found something of concern: the U.S. system was hacked and sabotaged! This was no second-rate hack either. It took a serious professional to pull this one off (he/she’d covered their tracks so well it was practically dumb luck that King found the evidence). Which brings up the questions who and why? The Indians gained the most from the hack, but any number of other nations could greatly gain from alienating the U.S. and India, so it could be a frame-up.

Such investigations will have to wait, however, as the greater issue of the “moon quake” looms. Since there is no tectonic activity on the moon the official cover story is a dud. Huang had delivered the one word “bomb” to Staunton, but no more details (including the cyborg) are known to the diplomatic side group. Hudson, seeking more information, sets up a meeting with Sheng She, the Chinese military attaché and de facto security chief. Sheng admits to Hudson that it was not really a “moon quake” that caused the tremor felt earlier, but a shuttle crash and explosion due to a maintenance error. Not buying the story Hudson sends an encrypted request to Washington asking for satellite photos of the station before, during, and after the “moon quake”. When the photos arrive they show no such shuttle crash but do show a “heat flare-up” from the peasant side at the exact instant of the quake. This data backs up Huang’s claim that a bomb was to blame, but an accident or decompression could also be responsible.

Meanwhile Staunton meets up with Sergei, a Soviet pilot and friend of his. Earlier they had broken in to an off-limits section of the station and found the Koi pond, cache of Chinese archeological artifacts, and other signs of overt wealth. Now they hoped to investigate the maintenance corridors of the station. By Staunton’s calculations the station would have to have at least six feet of “basement” level and he hoped to find an underground path to the other complexes. Using some computerized breaking and entering equipment Sergei and Staunton explored the labyrinthine under-level, but found no path to the other domes. The maintenance sections turned out to be just that: maintenance sections. 25 experience for “clever but futile”!

Meanwhile Hudson makes contact with Bahandar Singh, the Sikh Indian attaché whom he had contact with from before. Hudson shared the spy-sat photos of the “moon quake” incident with Singh and in exchange Singh gives Hudson photos and information on the “resistance cell” members which mostly confirmed the names they already had, but also had a couple of other members. Plus these were the first photos they had to go with the names. Very useful information and a big score for Hudson.

Meanwhile Jordan a.k.a. King has been busy. He’s hacked back into the Chinese system and this time does some “shopping”. He breaks into the Accounting area of the Chinese main frame and finds an increase in Chinese Security supplies and hours immediately after the “moon quake”, supporting the bomb theory. He hacks the Communications section and finds the email traffic area. Carefully logging out while covering his trail he sets out for the next two days to write special programs: “sesame.exe” to run through cryptographic permutations for password finding, “butterfinger.exe” to bypass a password gate’s “limited number of password attempts” security measure, and “doozer.exe” as a “spyware” program to inconspicuously download large volumes of data to be sorted later. He later, for the hell of it, creates “cornholio.exe”, a program designed to speed up a system to x5 its rated speed and play a sound file of Bevis saying “I am Cornholio!” over and over as the system speeds up to terminal velocity and crashes.

The next day King goes back into the main frame with his new programs. He goes back into Communications and uses doozer.exe to download in bulk all the email messages from around the time of the moon quake and afterwards. He also hacks into the Maintenance section and uses doozer.exe again to download all the station maintenance maps and schematics. Sorting through the maps and schematics Staunton discovers that there are no other passages between the sections other than the guarded passageways or via outside airlocks. The schematics tell Staunton (an electrical engineer) what he needs to know about the power distribution network of the station. Though there is no “central control” to hack and exploit he can now find any junction area he needs to sabotage to cut power, air, water, etc. to any section of the station!

King meanwhile sorts the emails. Many are encrypted, particularly those to and from Sheng She. Some go to Beijing and some go to a generic-looking alphanumeric email name on-base or to similarly random email addresses on Earth. Searching the non-encrypted emails from the day of the moon quake by the key word “bomb” King finds a handful of references by people such as “did you hear about the bomb in Little Shanghai today?” and such. He searched also for Bing Mao, the shady Vietnamese associate to Sheng She, and found no messages with that name in them. Knowing he’d need to break the encryption before he could get much real data he set aside the email filtering and begun to try and break the cipher. This would prove difficult and take days.

More to come...

Continues...

Meanwhile things at Dungville are starting to return more to routine normal now that a week has gone by without incident. Still no word from Huang Shu, but the place has gotten into a relaxed, if strained calm. Hudson decides to try and relax a bit and goes looking for feminine companionship (“Are there any girls there? ‘Cause I want to DO them!” – Sorry, Thor ). He finds an Indian girl sitting alone in the park area, but her nose is pretty large so he moves on. In the lounge, however, is a new arrival: a gorgeous blonde Ukrainian woman sitting in a booth with a Soviet Colonel. She seems bored with him, so Hudson decides to send her a drink. This gets him a smile from her, and a seriously evil scowl from the Colonel. Thinking he’s gotten a bite Hudson sends another drink, this time with his room number on the napkin. She hides the napkin from the Colonel, but she can’t hide the drink. The Colonel calls over a Soviet Captain and has a talk to the Captain while closely watching Hudson.

About this time King stops by for a cup of coffee and a chance to get away from the cryptography that’s confounding and frustrating him. Once there he sits next to Hudson to talk, unaware of the brewing situation. He quickly catches on only to find out that the woman in question is the same hot Ukrainian girl he saw with a completely different older Russian man at the Casino on Enterprise Station. She gives him a knowing glance. King immediately senses things might get ugly and rushes to find a table out of the way. The Soviet Captain moves in and takes the seat next to Hudson and “politely” suggests Hudson look elsewhere for his women. Hudson pleads ignorance claiming he thought she was the Colonel’s daughter. The Captain remains calmly vehement that Hudson stay away, his tone suggesting bad things could happen to Hudson if he doesn’t, and leaves.

Staunton is, as always, over at the big table with the other pilots and sees what’s going down. He asks Sergei about the Captain. “Oh,” replies Sergei, “That’s Captain Dimitri Yakov, former GRU [Soviet Military Intelligence].” Staunton immediately goes over to warn his colleague. Hudson finally gets the hint and backs off. 50 experience points for “Daring, clever or not” to Thorowendain!

With things as tense as they are and everyone on the station stressed out from too much work, claustrophobia, the “moon quake”, and the eternal darkness of the new moon Staunton decides it’s time to throw a big party. Not only will this help break the tension, but it will also give them the chance to either wheedle some intelligence out of the others or at least get some good “incriminating evidence” for later. Enlisting Sergei, an Indian pilot named Vikram, and others to the cause they go about setting up the best Lunar Bash one could ask for. Hudson secures speakers and gets his acquaintance the bartender to set up the drinks. Staunton and King set up the music with the help of an Indian computer geek named Vikas, whom insists on being the DJ. They also set up a network of computers with “Ace Combat 5” for the pilots to play. King sets up a cheat code for himself and decides it will be fun to embarrass the pilots at their own game. As a final touch King sets up a hidden web cam in the corner of the room for “dirty laundry”.

The party goes well. Hudson is annoyed to find that the “plain” Indian girl he ignored in the park is dressed up nicely in traditional outfits. She looks and dances really hot. Chalk up one in the “opportunities missed” category. He retires to the bar, but keeps things non-alcoholic. The Ace Combat is a great time for the cooped-up pilots, and also for King whom holds his own quite well (video game nerd and all). When he tries his cheat program, however, his ship immediately explodes embarrassingly (rolled a 00% on the programming!). The dance is going well with Vikas playing techno-remixes of Indian folk tunes and the Indian girls dancing in bounding spirals in the low gravity. Staunton later hits the floor himself and dances well enough to attract the attention of a blonde Russian girl named Tatiana. Staunton eventually joins the floor where he manages to hook up with a brunette co-worker (member of the American Diplomatic team) named Rachel. Meanwhile the Colonel and the mysterious Ukrainian femme fatal have arrives. They have a seat and she proceeds to get him seriously drunk.

King, however, has a bad case of “white boy syndrome” and stays away from the dance floor. He notices Bing Mao enter and goes to talk to Bing, attempting to get him to “loosen up”. Bing gets a fine cognac from the bartender (a hidden bottle), says “Party on” to King, and retires to a seat below the web cam where he merely watches everyone else menacingly. King gives up on the “hard ass” Bing and is having his 15th cup of coffee when a drunk and chunky coworker drags him onto the floor. As he awkwardly flails to the music the mystery Ukrainian woman and the GRU Captain escort the passed-out Colonel to his room. Minutes later she returns alone. By this time the drunk coworker has passed out herself and the mystery Ukrainian woman comes up to dance with King. She looks good, smells nice, and is dancing with him alluringly in the low gravity. It’s all King can do to keep from going into a seizure! After a heart-pounding few minutes she leaves King. Suddenly the other girls start to pay attention to King now that this gorgeous blonde has paid so much attention to him, but with King’s M.A. of 7 they don’t stay long.

Staunton and Hudson don’t leave alone. Neither does Sergei, whom has two plain but friendly Indian girls with him. Sergei makes no attempt to remove or hide his wedding band. As King helps to clean the place up Bing Mao, still there, gets up from the corner seat, tells him “Great party”, and leaves. King returns to his room where he promptly passes out.

After an unknown amount of time King’s door opens and in comes the Ukrainian femme fatal wearing a sexy negligee. His heart pounds as she slides into bed beside him…puts her arms around him…leans in passionately…and he’s jerked from bed by his supervisor Ambassador Wu, whom demands that King get the network up and running NOW! Wu drags King away from the waiting arms of the mysterious woman as King struggles to get away…and wakes up alone in his bed. A dream.

The next morning comes, still dark in the Earth’s shadow. King spends the days decoding the email encryption and eventually gets the code broken for the older messages. He also pours through the web cam footage and gets some interesting footage, particularly of him dancing with the Ukrainian, but nothing incriminating. The encrypted emails, however, have some useful data: Sheng’s security correspondences detail an investigation of the terrorist bombing of a bar and prostitution den frequented by the corrupt security of Little Shanghai. Beijing is aware and demanding the perpetrators be found and quickly brought to justice. Also, emails detail the sighting of the cyborg by Huang Shu, and also detail Huang’s recall to active investigatory work, hence why he’s been out of contact. There is still no mention of Bing Mao by name, and Sheng She seems confounded by the crash of the U.S. computer network and is suspicious of the Indians. Also, messages among the random alphanumeric email addresses are simple and cryptic even when decoded. Messages such as “items acquired and delivered” or “visiting tomorrow, be ready”. A mystery within an unknown wrapped in an enigma.

As for the others Hudson sleeps in late enjoying his time with Rachel. Things are a little awkward at work now, as is to be expected from relations with a coworker. Staunton has a leisurely breakfast with Tatiana, but gets to work quickly sorting through and decoding the station schematics. He notices, however, that the Chinese guards are back on full alert. During the party, cloaked by the noise and tumult of the party itself, there seems to have been a second “moon quake”!

That's it for now...might not play again until January. We'll see...Slag