Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and goodbye to: Foghairal ke’Coille

The team can’t sort out what to do with the data right away, so they decide to finish up all their missions and then sort it out. Most of the team head for Zurich Orbital after leaving basically all their gear in a rented hotel room at Artemis base on Luna. Kit, refusing to participate in a hit, luckily gets a call from Fagus Sol while monitoring the gear, and heads to Darkside Junction to investigate an astronomer’s mysterious death. The team on ZO gets a tour after Foggy uses the local STV branch to rep her as a visiting dignitary (not really even a lie), and then do a bunch of research on Fentin. With the help of a comatose technomancer who works for STV and spends her entire life in the ZO matrix, they plant some falsified and altered evidence of nefarious activity on Fentin’s part, and also publicize a statement he posted on Jackpoint when he got membership some years ago. Hotkey helps with some hacking since he’s also on the line with the Tan Robes to get this done.

They stir up a scandal by making it look like GOD is trying to cover up creepy behavior and abuse of power on Fentin’s part, and station security uses the opportunity to seize some power in their ongoing competition, and gets Fentin sent downwell in custody to face charges. He likely would have gotten his named cleared from the investigation had he survived the trip, but the Tan Robes mash him into a fine mist inside his transit cell as soon as he enters the manasphere. So that’s job done, and Carol gets a creepy smiley face text from an anonymous number, so he figures they’re good.

Foggy announces that’s she’s headed back downwell and to the Seelie Court, after convincing the team to give her the Spirit of the City info re: Chicago as payment for helping with the hit. She invites them to visit sometime, but Carol’s not sure he’d be welcome since he did some major work for the Unseelie last time he was there. However, Foggy has sworn to ensure that both STV and ARES get at least the opportunity to establish a successful presence at Court, and will likely be a useful ally given the nearly sure rise through the ranks she will be able to engineer upon her return given the info and artifacts she is bringing with her.

Meanwhile, on Darkside, Kit begins their investigation- they link up with a local info broker, Maxine Omega, who they found on Asgard Data Haven. Asking some questions, Kit is socially out-maneuvered and agrees to share their investigation info. Kit heads to the astronomer’s lab, and finds evidence that nanites and an EMP were used, implying tech-savvy attackers but not Monads. The data has all been trashed but some various scattered notes give Kit the name of another astronomer and some Tarot cards the astronomer was looking into.

Checking back in with Omega, Kit gets a tip as to some strange folks who just came through seemingly posing as miners, flying a salvage ship in mediocre shape. Checking their purchase logs, Kit finds that they bought up a ton of unprocessed high-magnetism metals from various brokerages around the station before leaving- so not real miners. Plotting their trajectory, Kit determines that they’re headed towards Jupiter. Calling the other astronomer, Kit finds out that the dead man, Ivan Orloff, was worried about Tarot hints about 5 meteors speeding into the outer system. She says she took a look due to his concern but they aren’t on an impact trajectory so she isn’t sure what the issue is.

Kit takes another look, and realizes that with a mining ship full of highly magnetic material, and Jupiter’s dense magnetosphere, and the fact that the ship and meteors will intersect just before the meteors would otherwise bypass Jupiter, implies that they are planning to try to divert the meteors. Kit confirms that this would result in them slingshotting into a new trajectory on an impact course with Earth in about 1 year. They call Fargus Sol and report in, and Sol confirms that there is a new Logos spinoff cult called “Call of the Void” dedicated to destroying human life on earth, which matches some graffiti Kit found at the murder scene.

This all also seems to line up with the info in Prophecy 10, and Kit manages to buy one of the 2 missing cards from Orloff’s list off of Omega, and Sol gets a painting of another from the seer Emily Llanfrechfa. They start planning how to intervene based on Kit’s know-how and info in the Prophecy. Kit also arranges to sell the plants they rescued from the ARES station to Sol, who arranges for an agent in space to pick them up, and quickly reports back that it’s good they sold them to him- one of the plants is from Vhortas, and likely explains their rapid growth, the shaman’s corruption and the rapid corruption of the staff, and the fact that the plants seemed to be eagerly drinking blood. Disturbing.

The team links back up and figures out what to do with the rest of the pay data. They sell info on Null Sect/Hitsec Burn/Isabella Boone to Holmes/EVO, and pass on some info about mana on the Moon to Dr. Dyna Mite, who seems excited about the info, and says that she is investigating other astral transit possibilities involving spectral trains. Having read about some of these in the team file from Denver, some of them are a little concerned but others are excited… The team also loses some loyalty with Sarah Silverleaf as they tell her they can’t tell her what they found at the NeoNET abandoned moon base, and assume she will be sending another team out ASAP.

They decide to tell Vogel what happened on Daedelus station, and he thanks for sharing the info and gives Carol some more positive reinforcement, and suggests that under his leadership, there will be a good space for Carol and other people who help him. They sell the info, as well as the recovered data drive, to Candice, to maintain that contact and try to get the max pay, assuming that ARES likely had backups of most/all of the data anyways. They get a significant payday, and prepare to head back downwell via the space elevator to head to Seattle for some of the various work they’ve been offered there.