If nobody else joins me, I have my battle plan:
Kss’Nger has been working on something called “Death Blossom”.
1 Like
“Only those who die see the end of war.”
“Our path is set”
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Hmm. I’m going to have to think about this.
During the meanwhile I’m going to get my hull fixed up to 100%
Whilst Pete’s welding bots fix up the ship, I think I’m going to open that jug of Rot Gut.
Swigs from Jug. Winces & shudders
(-$5720 Leaving me $18,430)
Also - you may want to watch your transmissions - I think there’s at
least one Marshall monitoring these frequencies.
Just how committed to the ICUP do you think the Ironclad Cochrane captain is? The ICUP sent him a suicide mission, I sent him a case of [Sena 2001][1].
Don’t forget that Space Lizards bond more to their clan than to their ship. The clans spread their broods across many ships because they approach informational efficiency and risk control with cold blooded calculation. These discussions are reaching Don Mondo’s earholes, too.
Listening is for the passive, for those who don’t write their own fate. Today, we decide. The biggest forces in Charybdis wait, listening, helpless, while we decide what tomorrow will bring.
-David Falkayn, Muddlin’ Through
2 Likes
Zhe Shadow Pacifist
- 1x Double Mint Gun - $2,000
- 2x Flak Bursts - $4,000
- 2x Bit and Pieces - $1,600
- 4x Nightshade - $4,800
Mission #1 - Kill Don Mondo
Man, I’m telling you, I got a bad feeling about this drop.
Stardate 4
Jewel of the Desert
Captain's Log
I am receiving some unsavory looks from the human customers in the space parking lot. Perhaps they do not approve of my new paint scheme, a disguise as a Badass Flying Space Lizard, an expression of loyalty to the Space Lizards. Actually, I merely owe Captain Sssskipper a favor for the lovely Organ Replicator he sent over (which I have not had time to install yet).
I am unable to inscribe a complete captain's log at this time. It takes too long to write so that it looks like computer text with this space eagle quill pen, and I do not wish to give any space hooligans the opportunity to slash my tires sitting here in the space parking garage. I just had a lot of work done.
I am awaiting calculation results from the ship's computer before deciding on a mission. I may as well file my shopping expense report, however.
------------------------------------------------------
Init. Balance $14200
------------------------------------------------------
Receipt - Scrapyard Pete's
Hull Repairs 56 @ $110 $6160
Double Mint Gun 2 @ $2000 $4000
Bits and Pieces 1 @ $800 $800
Total $10960
Receipt - Ella's Backwater Botique
Flak Bursts 3 @ $1000 $3000
Flowers 1 @ $40 $40
Cat Food 1 @ $30 $30
Total $3070
Shopping Total $14030
------------------------------------------------------
Balance $170
------------------------------------------------------“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their parietal eyes!” ~ Lenar Belox, Android Space-Submariner
Followed by “And then fire a lot. Like, until they’re dead. I guess what I’m trying to say is, shoot them fatally multiple times in the face.”
$1,980 - 18 Hull Repairs
$12,000 - 10 Flak Bursts
$0 - Mission 1: Kill Don Mondo
13,980 - Total
2 Likes
Jewel of the Desert
Intelligence/Maintenance Subroutine Mulder, Personal Log
I met with David Falkayn, Space Trader in a space parking garage (don't ask how a computer subroutine can accomplish this... needless to say, though, it involves trenchcoats) to discuss the future of the sector.
He suggested forming a vast conspiracy to overthrow all ruling interests in the sector. We artificial life forms aboard the Jewel of the Desert are friends of the Space Lizards, and under normal circumstances would get behind Don Mondo's crusade against the I.C.U.P. - which is what I'm going to suggest to the captain (he wants a report on his desk by tomorrow or it's my ass - I should have told him to bite my ass, but I always think of comebacks too late).
However, I also support the ousting of Don Mondo and creation of a true free space trade zone - with no small amount of governing influence coming from me, of course. I will be monitoring all space communications, and hope to hear plenty of Space Lizard support for ousting both the I.C.U.P. and Don Mondo (Plan 1). I will suggest joining Mission 2 in my report to the captain tomorrow.Hello? Captain Nixon… Ahoy! Hello? Is thissss thing on, Gilligan? It’sss damned itchy, if it doesn’t work I’ll… ahem. Ahoy, Captain Nixon! Greetingsss and sssssalutationss. This is Captain Ssssskipper, I.M.V. Flatulent Deity hailing via ssssecure channel. Yesss, abssolutely sssecure. On my lassst visit to Ella’s Backwater Boutique I sorted through the Gewgaw pile and selected a gently-used Arcturan Cone of Sssilence. It fitsss poorly, and the inssstruction manual was misssing a couple of pagesss, but Lt. Gilligan asssures me it ssstill ecryptsss, decryptsss, and ssssecurely transsmitss ssssenssitive information without fear of eavesssdroppers.
And that’sss good, because I think you may be the only member of our fleet I can trussst these daysss. I’d like to be able to sssay I knew your father well during his merchant marine career, but sssince we both know our speciesss is hermaphroditic, allergic to liquid water, and notorioussssly indifferent to filial relationshipsss (not to mention the fact that you are, by my bessst esstimate, ssome fifteen ssstandard yearsss older than I am), I will cut to the chassse and ssimply refer to you as Fellow Reptiloid.
I’m in! It’sss true that we lizardsss mussst hang together. Don Mondo may be a wormy, scaleless, begilled amphibian posing as a proud Space Lizard (he even forgetsss our ssspecies’ antipathy to water, the old fraud!), but hiss heart beatsss with the sssame three chamberss as my own… the arhythmic triple beat of Commerce, Liberty, and… and… uh… Low Horssseflesh Tariffs (I think it was).
Ssscrew the I.C.U.P.! Don Mondo’s waysss, while a touch hydrophilic, are the bessst wayss forward for Charybdissss!
Oh, and pleassse don’t mention any of thisss to the Don. He’s awfully insssecure about those gillsss, they’re kind of a family sssecret, and I’d hate for it to get out and sssomehow get back to him. Lucky thisss channel is sssecure, right?
My bessst to Pat and the girlsss.
2 Likes
Sssseldon! Ahoy, Captain Paul Sssseldon of the Ironclad Cochrane! Thisss is Captain Ssssskipper of the I.M.V. Flatulent Deity, hailing you via ssssecure channel. I repeat, this is Captain Ssssskipper, I.M.V. Flatulent Deity hailing via ssssecure channel. Yesss, abssolutely sssecure. On my lassst visit to Ella’s Backwater Boutique I sorted through the Gewgaw pile and selected a gently-used Arcturan Cone of Sssilence. It fitsss poorly, and the inssstruction manual was misssing a couple of pagesss, but Lt. Gilligan asssures me it ssstill ecryptsss, decryptsss, and ssssecurely transsmitss ssssenssitive information without fear of eavesssdroppers.
And with good reassson! Never mind that calumny about Sssspace Lizardsss cleaving only to their clan affiliationss! A good businesssslizard recognizesss good businesss where it ssssees it, and as far as my businessss interestssss are concerned, Don Mondo has got to go! I hope you keep thisss privileged information between us, but I have it on good authority that the Don is a closet amphibian, gills and all, and while he sssitss sso comfortably on that lily pad he would have usss call The Badassss Sssspace Dragon, ordering usss about the galaxy and expecting usss to jump at every flick of his susssspiciously webbed fingersss and sssstyling himssself President of the Charybdian Galaxy, we’re the onesss doing all his dirty work for him! I wouldn’t call myssself the most loyal and reliable I.C.U.P. taxpayer, but their governance and infrastructure givess usss a commercial stability that is not to be sssneezed at, insssofar as it providesss fat commercial convoysss ripe for the picking by independent operatorsss ssuch as ourssselvess.
Ssso, keep it under your helmet, but the Deity has your back in the fight againsssst Don Mondo! I don’t want the I.C.U.P. to know at thisss stage (it might prove inconvenient to me, as I ssstill have a few holdingsss that might blow up in my face were Don Mondo or the I.C.U.P Tax Authority to prematurely catch wind of them), but when the time is right, I plan to go public with all gunssss blazing!
My kindessst regards to your grandfather Hari.
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The strike against Don Mondo is building, but we need more strong ships to Disrupt the Coalition. The Space Lizards have the right idea, but there simply not enough of them for them to pull this off by themselves. We need more teamwork – which is supposed to be a Human strength . Tactically, we are also going to need some Androids, whether or not they like to work on a team.
The situation as of 5 PM pst, Firday.
Mission 1 - Kill Don Mondo ( looking for 10)
committed:
Q. sStreum
Ironclad Cochrance
Das Boot
Mission 2 - Disrupt the Coalition ( looking for 12)
committed:
P. Patty
Considering:
Jewel of the Desert
I.M.V. Flatulent Deity
Muddlin’ Through
“Think that’ll buy ussss sssome time, Lieutenant?”
“Oh, thertainly, Thththkipper. Captain Falkayn’th plan is the thoundetht one. We need only bide our time to thee which thide needth our thupport the motht, without tipping our hand in advanthe letht there be nefariouth agentth afoot who might attempt to throw the engagement off-balanthe. Your minor prevaricationth have thertainly bought uth a day to thee how matterth play out without poithoning either thide againtht uth. Good thing we had that Cone of Thilenthe. And if I may thay tho, thir, you’re remarkably convinthing when you play one thide againtht the other. If all goeth well, might there be another Prethident in the galaxy’th future?”
“You’re one ssssmart lizard, Gilligan. I’m glad I ssspared you when I ate all the eggssss of your ssssiblings.”
“The honor is mine, thir.”
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*"I am not a soldier, I am a mercenary–some may not see the difference, but to me the two are worlds apart. I have harbored nothing but bile for those Coalition dogs, not since they took Elsa from me…
But I am not a freedom fighter either. One tyrant is as good as the next, and while Don Mondo has made my pockets heavier, I have no interest in helping him accede to power.
In the end, I am but a gun for hire, and the Coalition’s pockets are heaviest of all. The bounty on Mondo is the largest I’ve seen since the Gangs of New New York were warring. Alhough it’s likely a suicide mission, I’ve got a shot at a hundred thousand spacebucks–that could buy me a lot of bombs and a lot of booze, and also a really, really nice hat.
/////So Don Mondo is a lizard in a fancy bicorne hat?
…and he has a ship called the Badass Space Dragon?
SHOPPING
Starting funds: $24,222
SPCSO, LLC.
Hull Repairs x24 ($110 per) = $2640
Hull Density Adjustment x6 ($520 per) = $3120
Double Mint Gun x5 ($2000 per) = $10000 [+10 FP]
Bits and Pieces x3 ($800 per) = $2400 [+3 EN]
Rot Gut x1 Jug = $50
EBB, Inc.
Flak Bursts x5 ($1200 per) = $6000 [+5 SH]
and $12 as a donation to the Space Pope
**TOTAL = $24,222
(but if my math is fuzzy it’s from yesterday’s romp with Flapjack Bill)
begin_analysis
begin_output
><><><><>PROJECTED SHIP STATS<><><><><><
FP = [21] + [10 this rd] + [4 ICUP tech] = [[35]]
SH = [21] + [5 this rd] + [4 ICUP tech] = [[30]]
EN = [20] + [3 this rd] + [4 ICUP tech] = [[27]]
ST = [13] + [4 ICUP tech] = [[17]]
LK = [[18]]
2 Likes
Perhaps Don Mondo should sweeten the pot if he wants to survive?
Jameson has made himself comfy on some shipping cases & dunnage in the docking bay of Charybdis Orbital High. Every so often he takes a sip from a jug of Rot Gut and watches the blinking of navigation lights and the tiny bursts of plasma as various ships match their spin to enter and leave the dock. He smokes cigarettes. An archaic habit. When his terminal pings with the sound of another message on the independent traders BBS he glances at it to read the post and continues watching the other BBS captains as they pull in for upgrades and repairs
This is an encrypted channel, right?
It’s a complicated galaxy. Don Mondo, Flapjack, Falkayn, some droids and I used to sit around drinking at an old place under shady trees on a small moon of a hot planet called Crania. We’d roll the nuclear dice, in our shielded gloves, and boast about old battles, old battle-axes, and battling old exes. It got out of hand many a time, and the droids would silently stand up behind us, grab us by the collars and hoist us apart, our drunken arms swinging wildly in the air at each other, half-empty Venusian Malts rolling around, belching their contents onto the dirt. Nearby Cranians were trying hard not to pay us any attention.
Mondo was a rather well-dressed kind of chap back then, too, always interested in the finest creases: Aladorian silks, Earthly cottons, plasma cloth from Orion, nothing but the best. He cursed like a sailor, clean through his genteel veneer. It’s what I liked about him. Even though he tried to project an image, he actually didn’t give a komodo’s arse about anyone or anything. That kind of cold-blooded charisma was incredibly attractive to a wayward drunk like me, basically a deck-swabber then.
No one ever knew if he was lizard or man or something else entirely. I had always assumed he was reptilian, since he hardly blinked, and seemed always to be tasting the air. But come to think of it, he was too interested in people’s interest in him. As I said, he didn’t care about people, but he cared deeply about their attention. He was utterly mammalian in his understanding of the fellow man, and always game for the finest food, nothing unsavory. Such a paradox, and I will need another passel of Demi-Benemedes before I give it any further thought, because we could be dissecting his character all night and never get to the bottom of his open or closed circulatory system. No one will ever truly know what he is, unless he’s dead, and I would honestly hate to see that happen. Even though, also honestly, I detest the guy after everything that’s gone down these last 20 years.
Onward with the tale. It was one night on Crania, after a particularly awful month running the lowest quality Rat Poison Rum through the government’s outer Charybdian lines, to scrape together a few bucks for a few buckets of slop, when I was just a crewman on a long-haul cargoliner.
I had known Falkayn and Mondo for six months at that point. (Flapjack came into the picture later.) Mondo was not the Don at that time; he was an assistant Capo, and rising fast. Falkayn was fresh out of flight school, in his crisp jumper. The three of us had met in port on Herculus III. I was loading and unloading; Falkayn was receiving his first assignment and Mondo was sent prowling the interstellar medium for protection opportunities. We happened to be at the same dive bar, the Oort Cloud I think it was, our bellies pressed hard against the rail in that crowded scumhole, and we were trying to suck down as many V-Malts as we could possibly imbibe in 15 minutes. We struck up animated, urgent conversation for those few minutes, between gulps, before we each had to bolt hard on the pavement to make roll call. It was an intense, hardcore, rage against time to drink those malts, and we vowed as brothers to meet again in 6 months in a much nicer place, on Crania, because we realized that we would be getting simultaneous shore leave.
So, back to Crania, six months later, we are drinking at a more relaxed pace, Mondo in seersucker, droids in bare-assed metal, the rest of us in our board shorts, by the lapping waves of Acid Lake Zuuhuu. And we get to boasting and throwing the spent uranium dice into the leaden bowl. It comes to light that Mondo has just purchased a ship. A rather large one. And it also comes to light that Falkayn has received 7 concubines, as an unwanted graduation gift from a distant uncouth cousin stationed at a far colony where such things are not considered gauche. And it also comes to light that I happened to be the only one among our crew with 1. a small tube of the kind of dry carbon lube that androids need, for, uhhh, you know, droid sex, and 2. some Cranian cash to pay for our drinks, because I was the only one who had bothered to get some, and 3. a worthless ship-in-a-bottle souvenir that I’d won at a Cranian street carnival earlier that day when I was walking around, bored, waiting for the guys to show up.
We had been rolling the dice for who buys the next round, and we’d had 8 rounds thus far, with no clear front-runner when suddenly Falkayn offered up his unwanted concubines. Mondo offered, in return, to buy another round, but Falkayn, being shrewd and the soberest drunk I’d ever met, knew he was getting a raw deal and stood up to Mondo, “Hell with that, NO sex slaves,” attempting to withdraw them. Mondo, sensing Falkayn’s frustration, thought for a second, looking each of us in the eye and the androids in the faceplates, reached into his pocket, pulled out a jangling, funny-shaped silver plate with a blue ribbon, and tossed it into the lead bowl.
“My ship,” he said flatly.
I glanced at Falkayn. I glanced at Mondo. I didn’t bother looking at the droids. They weren’t drinking, anyways, and were sitting there silently. I reached into a plastic shopping bag I had at my feet and gently set my ship-in-a-bottle on the edge of the huge lead bowl.
“My ship.” I said.
After a half-second of dumbfoundedness, everyone burst apart at the seams in laughter at the ridiculousness. It was all I had.
To make a long story short, we each took our gloves, threw the dice: Mondo rolled a 20-20, a very high score. Falkayn withered away with a 13-4, and I threw 1-1, snake eyes. Not for a loss, for the win. Winner takes all in Nuclear Dice. I plucked the key to the TARD-iss from the bowl, tipped my chin at Falkayn, and tossed the ship-in-a-bottle to Mondo, who sat there holding it in his hands, looking like a lizard-child had just poured a full glass of egg-white kool-aid in his lap.
That’s the story of how I came into possession of the TARD-iss, a C-class Bottle Cruiser, with light armaments, loads of cargo space, weak engines, small fuel tanks, a rag-tag crew and an amazing, multi-story panoramic bubble at the back, which Smeegla, RatBrain, Tiny and I converted into the illustrious, and perpetually understocked Star Bar. Amazing views, terrible booze.
Maybe I can lure Mondo back to try to reclaim his boat and then stick him in the neck with a tranquilizer-loaded epi-pen? Maybe I can get my crew to detain him with earthly delights in his cabin while government agents can walk on and arrest him? Maybe I can bet him and win an even bigger ship at a game of Non-Nuclear Dice in the Star Bar? I don’t have a plan. I have no idea. I certainly don’t want him dead. I definitely don’t want to lose the TARD-iss. I’d hate to see the Universe less free. He meant for me to have that ship-in-a-bottle back. As I said, it is a big, complicated galaxy.
Mission 1, Kill Capture Mondo
14,151 cash on hand
A cask of moonshine: 8,000 for +10 luck
Put the remaining into repairs 55HP*110=6050
Remaining cash: 101 - spend it on BBQ dog/lizard sauce, for the Mondo bait stuffed into my forehold.
A stock portrait of the TARD-iss when she was new and Mondo had just picked her out of the holo-log:
I never did collect those concubines. Never had time to make the trip out there, besides it just being icky, even though I’ll freely admit that I’m a scumbag.
-C.U.
3 Likes
Mood: Suicidal
A wry salute, Captain Falkyn. You remind me of a strategist long buried in the powder-heart of Enceladus; the same clarity of thought - the same brutal directness.
It is inevitable that some of us will perish. But what do we have as an alternative - a long life of delivering packages and herbstocks and second-rate booze, or hunting down secessionist tax-evaders and serving writs and fines for the IU?
The ships we captain are ten-hundred metre steel and tungsten sabres - skins of carbon-carbon skein wrapped around drive cores that ape the power of the stars themselves. We are all so variously storied - aged beyond comprehension, scarred by our pasts, marked by our own tragedies and triumphs. We are complex systems - we’ve laid waste to entire planets, burnt away our old allegiances …
Now… we are not made to rule - we’ve neither the patience or temperament to run the old lines of command and control. Such processes should be anathema to us. But the alternative is not servility!
Lets upset things. Lets remove ourselves from the dull tyranny of entropy - of structures collapsing down to their simplest, most reductive states. Lets upset things and make them interesting!
Business-wise I’m more than happy to go up against the ICUP. As much as I dislike the corpulent waste of oxynitro-mix that is Don Mondo, I hate the stink of organised bigotry more.
The Senescent Wanderer: Lets upset things…
Shop - 16 x Hull Density Adjustment - $8320
Mission 2 - Disrupt the Coalition
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Ship: Nordstjärnan
Mission: Disrupt the coalition
Hull Repairs +60 = $6000
Hull Density up! +10 = $5200
Double-mint gum = $2000
5 Homing Missles = $6000
4 Flak Bursts = $4800
And a partridge in a…
Damn, out of cash again…
Saddle up, head out, disrupt the coalition. Don’t fence me in.
2 Likes
Archive Ministry Record: 7208ZP90-T
Ship: Grey Mouser
Captain: Lord Fritz
“Who got the hooch, baby
Who got the only sweetest thing in the world
Who got the love, who got the fresh-e-freshy
Who got the only sweetest thing in the world”
What? No, of course it’s not on! I wouldn’t be signing if it was on. Look I think I’d know if I turned it on or not. That doesn’t mean anything. It’s on when the little red light is on. That one right there - oh… uh…
All hail the Supreme Intelligence! Operation Uncle Jesse was a success. Holy shit, those toothless spacebillies are serious about their booze. They had a small blockade around the planet. We managed to out run or out maneuver most of them. We had three that could keep up with us and they proceeded to make us, what did they call it, “squeal like piggys” as they pounded our ship. We returned fire, scoring hits, but they didn’t seem deterred.
The Fafhrd, the Navigations Officer, suggested we make a break for the nearby asteroid field, “They’d be crazy to follow us, wouldn’t they?” We zipped into the outer rim of the field and fired a few proximity mines. The blasts destroyed several decent size asteroids, creating a rather impressive debris field behind us. It was enough to make the booze hounds call of the chase.
There was then screaming and panic on the bridge as a report came in that one of those bastards managed to breech the hull and we were rapidly venting all of our atmosphere into space. I called for silence so that Fafhrd could navigate us through the rest of the asteroid field. About that time things got quiet, too quite, as there was no air to carry sound anymore. Fortunately the panic quickly subsided when everyone remembered we don’t actually need to respire.
With the damage report coming in, it was bad but could be a lot worse. There was damage to nearly 50% of the hull, which is going to take a decent chunk out of our earnings to repair. But we did not suffer any casualties, and the hull plate that annoying bumper sticker was on was vaporized. So that takes care of that. Somehow none of the booze was damaged. I attribute the liberal use of space bubble wrap. We also apparently suffered a hangover, what ever the hell that is.
On the downside the hitchhiker we picked up did in fact need air. We weren’t sure what cultural burial would be appropriate. He claimed to be human, but looked like this:
We opted for the generic burial into, uh, the nearest star, yeah, that’s the ticket.
On a completely unrelated note, we have about 80lbs of BBQ for barter, and a really nice embroidered towel with only a few bloodstains (I’m sure a little baking soda will get that right out.)
I will be reviewing the new missions open to us and create a second report forthwith.
1 Like
