Where is Jade, Scene 1

Commander's Office
This oval office has slate grey walls with pale gray accents and thick elbony deep pile carpeting covering the floor. An ornate Indian Rosewood desk with a rubber tree standing to one side and a small gunmetal gray wastebasket at the other presides over the room while a plush, supple black leather chair sits behind it and a few comfortable looking lounge seats sit across from it.

Close by, a small conference table surrounded by padded swivel-chairs stands ready. One wall is covered entirely by a grand bookcase, while another features a reinforced titanium filing cabinet and a trophy case, fitted into a third wall is a huge reinforced titanium gun safe, and the last wall is claimed by a humongous flatscreen plasma monitor.

Briefing by Paul Van Sterran
The word goes out to SGG members; Toby is there by chance, he's thinking of joining SGG.

Paul wants to see you all in the commander's office.

Dorian is still a reservist for SGG...and has some time off. He steps inside, and looks around, waving quietly to those already assembled.

Paul is in the office talking to another man who is probably unknown to those turning up. As the heroes arrive Paul nods over to a side table, "Coffee and cookies. Help yourself. I'll get started when everyone we're expecting has arrived."

Star Girl is humming a pop song to herself as she comes in the room. "Hey, everyone!" she says, brimming with cheer. She helps herself to a chocolate chip cookie before finding herself a chair.

Total Babe is here in good time - it's actually not too inconvenient, as she can go on to her job afterwards. "Hey Star Girl. You seem in a good mood!"

Dorian takes a seat without getting anything to drink or eat.

Toby is in fact interested in joining SGG. Toby comes in a while later, smiling and happy. "Hello." Toby smiles, taking a seat herself.

Total Babe gets herself some coffee and sits.

Paul nods as Toby arrives, "Hi. Thanks for turning up. Before we start, does everyone know each other. If not, maybe some introductions are in order?"

Star Girl nods. "Hey, TB! Yeah... you could say things are going well. We can catch up after the meeting..."

Total Babe says to Toby, "I don't think we've ever actually been introduced as such."

Star Girl waves to Toby. "I think we've run into each other a few time, but I don't know that we've been formally introduced. I'm Star Girl."

Dorian waves in general to the room. "I've met some of you. I'm Dorian Perrault, also known as 'Spirit'. I'm a reservist for SGG."

Paul waits for Toby to introduce herself to the other heroes before continuing.

Toby looks around the room, glancing at everyone, and nods. "I've seen some of you before, but yeah, we haven't been formally introduced. My name is Toby Marn, no other names. I'm looking to join SGG."

Total Babe says, "I'm called Total Babe, thanks to an idiot news anchor. But call me Babe or TB or Total or just about anything.... what was the other thing people were calling me? I forget now. I'm with SGG, part time."

Paul nods, "I'm sure you'll be an asset for the SGG team, Toby. Unfortunately Kay can't be here today but I'd like the rest of you to hear what my visitor has to say."

Star Girl whispers over to Toby. "Welcome aboard!"

The other man by Paul's side nods. He's late middle aged, looks competent, more of a worker drone that office type, tanned and weathered in appearance.

Toby nods to Paul, and smiles at Star Girl, after which she turns her attention to the visitor. She remains silent for the time being.

"Hello. I'm Robert Kitcher. I work as a flight systems tech at the Transport Nexus." he introduces himself.

Paul interjects, "Robert contacted me about an hour ago. I'll let him explain why."

Star Girl straighten up in her chair and pays attention. She crosses her legs.

Total Babe leans forward. Presumably this is more important than it sounds if everyone's been summoned.

Robert nods again, "I've mentioned where I work. What I didn't mention but it's relevant to my tale is I'm a twenty year veteran of the USASF. That's the Air and Space Force, if case you're not familiar with the military."

Dorian nods, listening quietly.

Robert looks at Paul briefly, and then continues, "Well, a orbital cargo shuttle came into our workshop this morning for an upgrade to... I guess the details don't really matter. But anyway, I was assigned to do the job. I didn't see any of the crew. The only contract I had was with this young girl. I guess she was about twelve or so. Had a cap on but I noticed one time when she took it off, her ears were pointed. Like a cat's, you know..."

Total Babe frowns and glances at Dorian, as the most experienced hero present, to see if he recognises the description.

Toby nods, and hmms, thinking of her own pointed elf-like ears.

Dorian furrows his brow a bit as he thinks about it. "Any other defining features? Her skin tone? Hair color?"

Robert continues, "Anyway, I do the upgrade and for that I have to work in several areas of the shuttle. That craft had military grade wiring throughout. That made me a bit curious, cause for a civilian vehicle that's just a waste of money, and I poke around a bit. I don't get to see much, because that kid stays with me and most of the hatches were locked. But I do get to see the engine room. It's got a set of engines from a Destroyer class craft and some heavy duty shield generators. I know my way around a USASF ship. If the shuttle had weapons to match it could take on a Liberator heavy frigate."

Robert answers Dorian, "Her skin was a bit pale, like she doesn't get out much. And she was bossy, like she was the captain and not just some crew person's kid. Give her credit though, she knew her way around the shuttle systems. Oh, and she had some device on the back of her right hand. Like a flat parallelogram, gray, with a tube sticking out above her forefinger.

Total Babe says, "You means it's USASF hardware? Or something equivalent?"

"I'm assuming that a Liberator heavy frigate isn't an easy thing to attack head-on?" Toby asks, looking a bit confused.

Dorian rubs his chin, "The description reminds me a bit of Serendipity. But she was quite a bit older."

Robert nods, "The engines were USASF issue. I'd recognise them anyway. The shield generators as well, but the power looms supplying them were thicker than the usual."

[To Dorian] Total Babe says, "Who's Serendipity?"

Star Girl looks over to Dorian. "Cool supernym... who is that?" Before she finishes the thought, another one pops into her head. "Paul, is there any way to run Robert's description through some kind of database search?"

Robert beams proudly, "Sure ain't, Ma'am. Those Liberator class frigates pack a lot of punch for their weight."

Dorian says, "She was a teleporting supervillain who operated here in Colonial Bay when I first started out as a hero."

Paul nods and sets up the search. A screen lits up and starts showing a series of faces... Robert looks, and then says, "Hey, that's her."

Total Babe looks at the screen.

Toby looks to the screen too.

The screen is showing the face of a pointed eared girl seemingly quite young, except her eyes are cold and hard. The name underneath the portrait is 'GHOST.'

Dorian takes a look at the screen. "Any description of her? Affiliations, and the like?"

Paul calls up the file. There's a brief delay... and the screen shows a scrolling message... I'm on your side. Maybe one day you'll realise you should be on mine... and then clears before the file starts to display.

"Ghost," Star says with wide blinking eyelets. "I've heard of her before. She broke the news about the Guild Olympiad being a giant kidnapping plot."

Paul reads from the file, "Alien. Unknown origin. She was involved in a death soon after arriving on Earth. Apparently arrived via a TransMat malfunction..."

Total Babe says, "What's her.... I mean, whose side is she on? If anyone's."

Dorian nods as Paul reads from the file. "Is she wanted for anything?"

Toby hmms, and simply remains attentive for the moment.

"According to the file she was seen with Jade a few times. Also, that's interesting. Seems Kay had a meeting with Ghost, and Ghost warned of an attempt being made to intercept our communications. Kay followed up and the tip-off was legitimate... She's not actually wanted from what I can see,"

Paul muses, "That might change. An alien of questionable motivations with a heavily armed orbital shuttle does not sound good."

Star Girl asks Paul, "Can you bring back that message about 'you should be on my side' again? I don't think I caught it."

Paul works on the computer for a few moments, then shakes his head. "No, Star Girl. It's like it never existed. It's not even recorded in the log file."

Star Girl says, "Hunh. Creepy."

Toby asks, "Is there anything known of Ghost's powers, if any?"

Dorian says, "It makes me wonder where she got the parts in the first place."

Paul is still letting the file display and scroll, "Wait. Oh. What? It seems... There was an attack on TransMat before we returned to this building. We took over the computer and they left most of the non-proprioritory data. There's a record here that Jade and Ghost defeated a hostile takeover of the TransMat computer."

Total Babe says, "Maybe we could ask this Jade about her, then?""

Paul nods to Star Girl, and checks on Jade. "She's disappeared. Hasn't been seen since shortly after she published that book, the one attacking the Guild policies. Her apartment was broken into and trashed and Jade vanished."

Total Babe frowns. "That doesn't sound good."

Dorian says, "So...it would make logical sense that this Ghost is perhaps a renegade from the Guild. The Guild's policies and actions have been...questionable at best."

Star Girl says, "Not good at all. Who handled the break-in, Paul? Local PD?"

Dorian grimaces, "After all, the Guild effectively wiped Wasp's memories."

Total Babe says, "Oh, wait - this is the Jade who wrote that anti-Guild book?"

Paul nods, "No. It doesn't look good at all. The local police handled the break in with assistance from UEMS. Jade was, oh my, the technical director of one of TransMat's most important projects. Yes, TB, that was her."

Toby sighs, and thinks, then asks, "So, what should we do?"

Star Girl says, "For starters, we need to take the case over from Local PD and UEMS and get their case files. Start at the scene of the break-in. It'll be cold, but maybe we'll see something that the others missed."

Star Girl looks over to Paul. "That's the right procedure, right?"

Total Babe says, "Presumably either she was abducted or she fled... I wonder if they worked out which...."

Total Babe says, "Well... abducted or worse."

Paul sums up, "This seems to have more ramifications than first appeared. One line of enquiry might be to trace where the engines and shield generators came from. It looks like Jade's disappearance was quietly dropped by the local PD and UEMS. That should be looked into. So, yes, Star Girl, that's absolutely right."

Total Babe says, "Oh, and this shuttle - is it still at the Transport Nexus?"

Paul says "I'll start the process for officially taking over the case. It will be informative to see if there's any resistance to Starguard becoming involved. As for the shuttle, no, Robert didn't get a chance to contact us until after the shuttle had left. He was kept on board until the work was completed and the shuttle left immediately afterwards.

Total Babe says, "Did it file a flight path? Do we know where it went?"

Dorian says, "It's possible...that Jade was on board. Working directly with Ghost."

Paul contacts the Transport Nexus control tower. He talks briefly and then looks back at TB, "Yes, it did. And no we don't know where it is. It was tracked into orbit... and then it Jumped. It went Hyper. And that's impossible. You can't get hyper engines that will fit in a shuttle."

Total Babe says, "So for all we know it's not even in the solar system. I don't know if that's good or bad."

Dorian says, "Can we tell at least which direction it jumped? Toward Guild space?"

Paul talks more to the control tower, then says, "It jumped out on the orbital plane. It could have gone out of the system, or it could have jumped short and ended up near Jupiter, Jupiter's moons, or the asteroid belt."

"'That's Impossible', not when you live in this city." Toby giggles, shaking her head. "But if it went into hyperspace...and if that should be impossible, that shuttle probably has some pretty advanced technology. And what type of system do we have to actually track such space ships?"

Dorian smiles. "Well...sure. But can we tell in which direction? Toward the Guild? Away from them?"

Paul talks more to the control tower. Turns back to Dorian, "Not in the direction of Guild Space." he tells him.

Dorian nods, mulling that over.

Total Babe says, "Ok, fine. So she's gone to the other half or so of the universe. That narrows it down."

Paul grimaces as he answers Toby, "A few deep space radar stations, the main one being the Farside station. Not much in all honestly. You know yourselves how little attention space has had in the last forty years."

Star Girl says, "Paul, Jade worked with Transmat... maybe they have some new kind of technology, like a super compact hyperspace drive."

Dorian shakes his head, "It might not be Transmat's doing. It might just be Jade herself. She's one of the smartest people I ever met. I mean...I was training to be a nuclear scientist, and she made me feel like a dummy."

Paul asks Dorian, "You knew Jade?"

Dorian says, "My gut is telling me that Jade was on that vessel. Or at least working with Ghost directly. She's probably realized that our organizations may have been compromised, and dealt with it on her own." He looks to Paul, "Yes, I know her. Not terribly well, though."

Star Girl says, "I met her once or twice..."

Star Girl adds, "Her book is kind of controversial in the field of Alien Studies."

Paul asks Dorian, "Is she really that good? Good enough to invent a new smaller type of hyperdrive?"

Dorian says, "The three possible 'locations' for Jade that I can think of would be first...with Ghost. Clearly, she trusts Ghost. More than we do. Secondly, she might have been abducted by the Guild somehow. Thirdly, she might have been killed by the Guild."

Dorian nods to Paul, "I think that's a very real possibility."

Dorian says, "Especially after she gets her hands on alien technology to study and adapt."

Star Girl says, "I'd like to take a look at her apartment, and maybe talk to the people involved in the investigation."

Total Babe says, "Seems the best place to start - especially given we can't trace the spaceship."

Dorian nods. "Seems like a good way to start...with the case files from the PD, and on the ground."

Star Girl says, "But honestly, most of my investigation experience comes from watching CSI:SVU on tv, so I should probably get some backup..."

Total Babe says, "Better than mine - I don't watch that."

Paul nods, "I think we should investigate this further. We have no direct evidence that the shuttle is actually armed. I'm sure you have your own option, as do I, but there's no law against owning a fast heavily shielded shuttle. Jade's disappearance, and the seeming lack of interest and effort in that investigation by the local PD and UEMS raises questions. Furthermore, if she's not engaged in illegal activities, Jade sounds like the exact type of person we should be asking to join us. Go ahead. Start your investigation. You may want to speak to TransMat too. Janet Farrel, TransMat's head of secuirty, was one of us before she retired. You ought to get some help from her."

"You're more qualified than I am." Toby shrugs, look to Stargirl. "