Dead Drop (audio story)

Dwarfed by the burning star of the Hyspero system, two devastating battle fleets face each other across the stars. On one side, the Dyarid Primary Vanguard, commanded by Admiral Salaron aboard the starship Custodian. On the other, a Chtzin battle cluster.

Bounty hunter Vienna Salvatori's latest assignment brings her aboard the Custodian – but completing her mission and earning some poldaks is the easy bit. When all hell breaks loose with the Chtzin and the Custodian is left crippled and plunging towards the sun, a simple assignment turns into a battle for survival for the galaxy's deadliest assassin.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Ensign Roaig calls Admiral Salaron to the Custodian's primary docking bay as the new executive officer is arriving aboard Transport Frigate Alpha-19, but Lt Paley informs him that Saloran is in a meeting with Supreme Commander K'lynn. Salaron explains to K'lynn that Captain Galazar sent three fighter squadrons into the Chtzin's territory without K'lynn's authorisation, leading to the fighter squadrons being destroyed and the Vanquish being badly damaged. For this, K'lynn kills Galazar with her mental powers, destroying his brain, and then releases Salaran to continue his mission of keeping the Chtzin from entering the Dyarid Protectorate.

Going by "Commander Arcadia Corinth", Vienna is welcomed to the Custodian by Salaron and passes a memory scan to confirm that she is not a spy of the Chtzin, who can influence people with their powers. Salaron introduces her to Paley and Roaig and has a service robot show her to her quarters where her memory box opens and she consults her assignment crystal, learning that she is to assassinate K'lynn, a psychic and former Monk of the Inside who sought asylum within the Dyarid Protectorate after the mass murder of novices, in return for 9 million poldaks. An opportunity presents itself when K'lynn summons her to her inner sanctum as the Chtzin fleet begins an attack and wipes out a cloaked squadron.

When Vienna draws a gun on K'lynn, K'lynn reveals that she sensed her despite the memory box and that she knows her true name. She is invulnerable to Vienna's attacks and uses her powers to choke her and probe her mind, finding a psychic bomb which washes back through the mental link and explodes K'lynn's brain. However, Vienna is unable to report this to her employer as her device cannot reach the Hyperspatial Data Network. Salaron runs into her on the way to the inner sanctum for K'lynn's advice on the Chtzin's attack and she pretends to discover the body with him. He accuses Chtzin spies and they return to the command deck where she helps shoot down the enemy devastators until two cruisers drift into the Custodian's line of fire. The ship's shields fail and the Chtzin land a hit.

Vienna orders a withdrawal, but the Armageddon drifts into the Custodian's warp corridor after warp has been initiated, resulting in the Armageddon's destruction and the Custodian's warp engines being taken out. As K'lynn's death has not yet been proven, Vienna's ship will not return for her per her own orders and she goes with Paley to get the warp engines working to escape the gravitational pull of a sun. They take a ventilation shaft to avoid Chtzin who have come aboard and reach Engineering, on the way to which Vienna kills a Chtzin-controlled Chief Belkin and kills a group of Chtzin by disabling and re-enabling local gravity to cause them to fall to their deaths. Roaig warns them that they have 17 minutes until impact and the engines will take 10 minutes to warm up.

Locking themselves in, Paley starts work on the engines and the elevator so that they can escape back to the bridge, but the Chtzin use their powers on her to get her to let them inside. Vienna punches her to bring her back to her senses and they get away in the elevator once the engines are online, also restoring the Hyperspatial Data Network. Salaron's data pad is on speakerphone when it transfers Vienna her fee for killing K'lynn and the announcement opens his memory box, reminding him that he ordered the hit because of his syndicate's distrust of outsiders. Because of the Chtzin's influence, Salaron forgets the warp codes and Vienna realises that K'lynn was using her array and nodes to connect the minds of those aboard.

Vienna uses K'lynn's array to find and delve into Salaron's mind, where she sees a white-haired man from her past before finding the codes and reminding him of them. The Custodian initiates warp jump, but the jump is corrupted and it only half-enters warpspace. Paley dies from wounds inflicted by the Chtzin and Vienna realises that Roaig has been under their control and sabotaging the crew with fatal errors the whole time. His error in the telemetry causes the ship to split in half as it falls out of warp, so Salaron calls for an evacuation whilst he intends to remain on board. Vienna punches him and forces him to give her the name of the white-haired man, Crevo Finn, before he dies and then takes an escape capsule off the ship.

The capsule overheats and Vienna passes out, dreaming about her time on the Custodian and seeing Crevo. The capsule is rescued by her ship before it can fall into the sun and it wakes her up, offering her new assignments which she refuses. She transfers her funds to the hospice on Miracle 3 and includes a coded message saying that she has found Crevo.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]

Under the guise of Corinth, Vienna states that she is from Webster's World, formerly of the Samaritan.
Jamela K'lynn is the Supreme Commander of the Primary Vanguard, installed at the behest of the Premier.
K'lynn was once a Monk of the Inner Place.

Technology[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Custodian is a hyperdreadnought, is thirty clics end-to-end, has thirty decks and warp propulsion.
Salaron places the Custodian on tertiary alert.
Vienna attempts to transmit the termination confirmation to the Hyperspatial Data Network.
Vienna has programmed her ship with 'extraction protocols', which state that her ship can only retrieve her from her location when she has proven that her assignment is complete. The ship cannot override these instructions.

Species[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Chtzin are arachnids with a hive mind.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Hyperspatial Data Network appears to be a futuristic replacement for the Internet.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Wrath Empire has since fallen, leaving a power vacuum, which the Chtzin and Dyriad Protectorate both wish to fill. (AUDIO: The Acheron Pulse et al)
Vienna uses a memory box to hide her true identity and pass a memory scan. (AUDIO: The Memory Box)
Vienna's mission is recorded on an assignment crystal. (AUDIO: The Memory Box)
Vienna once again sends her fee to Miracle 3. (AUDIO: The Memory Box)

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

Official Dead Drop page at bigfinish.com