The Heroes picked up their new crew on Bozu-Zok Quintus. Zara did a crash hyperspace exit behind the moon and slid into orbit in a slick maneuver before landing. Takane Kingston pulled Kurgan aside and gave him 200kg of yellowcake as trade goods. The two week trip to Clak'Dor VII was spent evaluating the new crew. It was decided that Kishan would be a pilot-in-training and so she bunked with Zara while Noven was saddled with astrogator's training as he had suffered through three semesters of calculus in college. Trice and Tara ended up as gunners.

Once in Clak'Dor space, they arrived in the Unified Traffic Control Zone and were directed to *faction* space to inquire about the grain purchase. Their queries were rebuffed, and they retreated to the UTC. Subscribing to a Corellian expatriate newsfeed, they checked in on system events. Without any other major leads, they proceeded to dock with the Republic embassy and let Vandur inquire about the research on TCV from rumors they had heard. He was told to wait until the next day when they could arrange for a team representative to meet him, and so the rest of the crew went to the Corellian embassy, which had a CMG and entertainment complex attached. Karthad investigated the necessary parts and supplies needed to build an uninterruptible power supply for the Improved Minifac on the Blood Price while Zara looked into making some friends and drinking. She encountered Chovil Rossik, a reporter for the newsfeed. He was intrigued by her story about the TCV, and reciprocated about a story he had heard about this Rogue Jedi who was fond of using Pocket Nukes. Later, it was revealed that his source for the story had been Nerra Oreru, Vandur's friend from Station Four. Meanwhile, it was observed that *faction* had received a convoy of 30 bulk freighters of foodstuffs.

On the Republic embassy station, Vandur got into a debate about the merits of the Resurrection Parasite with Castin Valton in the canteen, and learned that the Jedi considered TCV to be contained, and otherwise a solved problem. First thing in the morning, the TCV team arrived, led by Master Varen Rill with two Bith assistants, each wearing a different uniform -- obviously from two different Bith factions. Unfortunately, they weren't just the team representatives, they were the entire team. And they only worked half-time on it. Over breakfast, they discussed the TCV mutation and use of tactics, technology, and language. Vandur put forth the hypothesis that the Dark Swarm was using TCV to create a distraction for the Jedi to deal with, lessening their ability to focus on the Swarm, and therefore had controlled the mutation and was seeding the Fourth Quadrant of the galaxy with a Depot Population to launch reinfections of the inhabited galaxy. They called for the samples stored on the Blood Price, and were met by Zara with them at the airlock. She followed them to a Jedi shuttle, which only had seats for one additional person, so Vandur was going to be it. Zara overheard one of the Bith mention Project 67, and handed Vandur a datapad as a blatent clue to keep his eyes open, which he totally ignored for a while.

VANDUR IS A MORON!

Once at the lab, Vandur watched as a net-warfare team reconfigured the lab for biological operations from high-energy physics. He discovered the datapad, did get clued in, and wrote down what he could tell. The net-warfare team was available for preventing TCV from spreading into the machinations of the lab, which was much like a minifac -- totally reconfigurable as needed. They sequenced the virus, and found a 30% variation, mostly in areas that would have attacked higher brain functions. This was much different than the 5% variation that had been seen in previous samples. They also brought in some Dark Swarm samples and were unable to find any communication between the swarm and the TCV, only proving that it could be a singular swarm family that had the ability to do it, if at all. Eventually, Vandur left with samples of the TCV anti-serum and met the rest of the crew at the Corellian embassy.

Zara had been almost ready to pick up a guy at the embassy the night before, when Oreru had found her and totally messed up her game. He did, however leave a note for Vandur. Another convoy was observed delievering food to *faction* Upon boarding the ship, Vandur discovered that Zara wasn't talking to him, so he brought a six-pack of beer from the embassy on board as a peace offering. He also got the note from Oreru and they called an all-hands meeting where they discussed options for proceeding. First, there was research on what *faction* was doing with their grain shipments. Second, the Monestary may be able to generate a better manufacturing process for the anti-serum. Finally, the idea that one of the factions could modify the Blood Price with the latest stealth technology was discussed.

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