Thank you, Captain Beefheart of the Bongo Fury, for signing on to mission 1.
I hope you’ll do a set for us- perhaps with a surprise musical guest – at the victory party.
8:00 pm PST update.
We’re looking good.
We are successfully executing Plan 1 Don’t Tread on Us.. I think we need a flag.
9 ships committed to Mission 1 - Kill Don Mondo
12 ships committed to Mission 2 - Disrupt the coalition.
4 active ships uncommitted (including mine, the Muddlin’ Through )
The tactical summary for both missions shows a hard fight in which we hold the clear upper hand. Mission 1 is a less of a sure thing than this star trader would like, but I am confident at least one more ship will commit to mission 1.
Misson 1 tactical summary
The Badass Space Dragon has 975 hit points with 120 FP, EN, and LK, with 80 EN and a mere 20 ST. With 9 ships committed, our cumulative stats are approximately 180 for FP, SH, EN, and ST, and 150 for ST and LK. We will hit first, hit harder, and suffer less on the counter attack. However, we only have roughly 900 hit points. Don Mondo’s slight edge it hit points will buy him a little time, but not much else. If one more ships joins mission, our flotilla will have superior hit points as well. Victory is heavily favored for our side, but Don Mondo won’t go quietly into that good night – he has more grit than we do.
Misson 2 tactical summary
The I.C.U.P. Advance Squadron is meant more for long distance police work than close in brawling. Those 1200 HP are formidable, but our twelve ships match that HP to HP. All I.C.U.P. stats are only 100, except for 50 luck. With 12 ships, each of our cumulative stats approaches 200. Also, we have a HUGE advantage in grit. This is not a fair fight. Monday morning there will be a lot of shocked and upset brass at The Dodecahedron.
(The Dodecahdron is the massive orbiting office complex that houses I.C.U.P.'s military bureaucracy.)
The Flotillas
Disrupt the Coalition: *
Pusillanimous Patty* (putative flagship), *
Senescent Wanderer*, *
I.M.V. Flatulent Deity*, *
Cepheus Maiden*, *
Aluminum Mallard*, *
Nordstjärnan*, *
Nitimeistheritetime*, *
The Slightly More Than Ordinary*, *
Mistaker II*, *
First post1*, *
Jewel of the Desert*, *
Insane1*
Kill Don Mondo: *
Quisquiliae sStruem* (putative flagship), *
Ironclad Cochrane*, *
Grey Mouser*, *
Iron Giant*, *
TARD-iss*, *
Dracarys*, *
Das Boot*, *
Zhe Shadow Pacifist*, *
Bongo Fury*, *
Mark II*
No one gives orders around here. We fight for our own reasons. The Quisquiliae sStruem and the Pusillanimous Patty were the first to volunteer for their respective missions, so the honor of being called the “flagship” passes to them – if they want it.
3 Likes
For the last few hours Jameson has been sitting in the docking bay of Charbidys Orbital playing what appears to be some form of Patience with a set of Tarot cards. He carefully replaces the cards in their box, wraps them in a ragged piece of cloth and puts them in an inside pocket of his waistcoat. Jameson tips the last dribble of rot gut down his throat and throws the empty jug behind the crates where it bounces off the wall. He get’s unsteadily to his feet, takes off his glasses and holding one of the earpieces in his right hand turns both hands into fists and rubs his eyes. He replaces his glasses and massages his head with the fingers of both hands. He stands up straight, squares his shoulders and walks off in the direction of Pete’s at a brisk pace.
Hi, Pete. You got the repairs done?
Ta.
Load some of that moonshine onto the old lady. You not got any Sand Fish for sale?
No.
OK give us a a cask of Moonshine. I think I’m going to be thirsty.
Dunno if I’ll see you again Pete…
…So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Jameson counts out a grubby bundle of $tarbuck$ for Pete. Shakes his hand and leaves the yard, turns left out of the gate and heads for Ella’s
Hi Ella. I think it’s about time I got myself a hat.
Nah. Nothing fancy.
Just give me that sweat and grease stained Base Ball cap, of indeterminate colour, with what might be an engineering company logo on the front.
Jameson swipes his card in Ella’s reader. Put’s the hat square on his head, pulls the peak a little lower over his eyes and winks at Ella as he leaves the shop and heads back towards his ship. Only stopping at a corner shop for a couple of packets of cigarettes. Once aboard the Cobra he pours himself a large glass of Rot Gut from the barrel, lights a cigarette and makes himself comfy in the pilots chair, then thumbs the com’ switch
This is Commander Jameson of Cobra II calling I.C.U.P. local…
Cash $24150
Repairs -$5720 HP = 102
Moonshine -$8000 = +10LK
Cask of Rot Gut -$300
Hat -$1000 = +2 Grit
Spent = $18300
Balance = $130
Mission: 1 - Kill Don Mondo
3 Likes
The day grows late. Captain Nixon is well through an ancient bottle of Old Pulteney, ‘liberated’ from a Caledonian wreck in the Antilles nova.
The Patty did not ask for the honour of being flagship; we do not seek to be leaders, nor do we particularly want a target painted on our head, but today, if someone is to take that role, we will. The cause is right.
But what say you, Captain Falkayn?
Are you going to open Box #1, or Box #2?
Ship: DubDub
Moonshine: 1 cask – 8k (luck to 34)
Hull repairs: 63 – 6.3k (HP to 100)
Homing missiles: 5 – 6k (FP to 18)
Nightshade: 1 – 1.2k (ST to 16)
Total: 21500
Mission #2: Disrupt the coalition.
1 Like
Ship HP FP SH EN ST LK CASH
Taurean Mule 34/100 13 15 15 18 17 $12900
Hull repairs – 66 *$110 each = $7260
Double mint gun upgrade - $2000
Lucky Penny -1976 – Bicentennial Lincoln baby… $2000
And throw in a flak burst as well - $1200
2 cans of cat food – one before battle and one for a celebration $60
Total spent - $12260
Mission #2 - Disrupt the coalition
1 Like
“self-interested cooperation is the basis of all success.”
Each of you has a stake in your mission succeeding. But not in the other mission succeeding. Today, for our own reasons, we co-operate. But we are still competitors.
As the most visible organizer this revolution, my self-interest is more subtle. To thrive, I need both missions to succeed. If only one mission succeeds, the mission that failed will leave a powerful adversary without a counter-weight. That adversary, be it a wounded but dangerous Don Mondo or an ever strengthening I.P.U.C. will have an obvious agenda: David Falkayn.
Thus, I was always committed to joining the weaker mission. Last night, I thought I was joining the Patty, Senescent Wanderer, and a few others in a suicide run against the I.P.U.C. This afternoon I thought I would be the equalizer against Don Mondo. But tonight, both missions have the strength to succeed on their own. I am free to choose.
Thank you.
Turning to my crew, I see Chee Lan is a flurry of activity at the weapons’ consoles, spewing elaborate, Baroque insults at our ship’s computer in forty different languages. She is furious at Azdel over many things and made up things. She saves the profoundest insult her predator mind can conceive for me: she ignores me completely.
Chee has not been this happy in months, thrilled to go from hunted to hunter. She doesn’t care which mission, she cares that we strike first.
Azdel is completely calm. He abhors violence, but understands oppression. He is willing to suffer loss of Budhhist Merit for seeking violence, that we might lift the heel of authority and the reek of corruption from the trillions of sentient beings scattered across Charybdis.
I seek Azdel’s opinion as he calmly preps the sensors. Before I can speak, he looks up from the radome he is polishing and says five things:
Nitimeistheritetime
The Slightly More Than Ordinary
Mistaker II
First post1
Insane1
He stares at me, unblinkingly. Because he knows.
He knows that before I was Captain of the Muddlin’ Through and a representative of the Polesotechnic League, before I was drinking in scum holes and dicing on Crania, before Terra, I was a Baron’s son on Hermes. A boy drilled to Principle of Command, inculcated with Noblesse Oblige, and all the other dreck El Esk has raged against for her long existence that is spoon fed to aristocratic children.
Nitimeistheritetime
The Slightly More Than Ordinary
Mistaker II
First post1
Insane1
Until yesterday, these ships were honest toilers here in Charybdis. They have families, responsibilities, lives. Maybe they were the dependable freighter that kept some colony from starving in the darkness. Maybe they are a farm boy from a dual-sunned desert world who has never targeted anything bigger than a womp rat. Whoever they are, they heeded the call to freedom from the Astral plane of BoingBoing messaging. Today, on their very first mission, they are going straight at an I.P.U.C. squadron.
My commercial instincts say: “take I.P.U.C.'s tech & money and let others take the thankless, unpaid task of ambushing and entire I.P.U.C. squadron”. Look at the Mission 1 flotilla roster. It’s full of savvy operators doing exactly that. Smart. I respect that.
But Azdel knows.
Beneath the Saville Row tunic and the Venusian Malt and the hardened gambler and the harder space trader, there still beats the heart of a Baron’s son who used to read Poul Anderson.
I remember my tutor-sophist walking me into my father’s info vault. She extended one of her eight shoulder-patched arms to a high shelf and brought down an musty organo-polymer “book” filled with Archaic Anglic. I groaned, anticipating another day of dry, pointless memorizing. Instead she pointed an antenna at a single passage and said through her chitinous rasp: “Learn this. You’ll need it someday.”
Today is that day.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
They that outlive this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse at the name of Crispian.
They that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will they show scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of Sentients:
For those to-day that sheds their essence with me
Shall be my Sibling-Sohpont; be they ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle their condition;
And every being in Charybdis now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their processing cycles cheap whiles any speaks
Of those that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Muddlin’ Through
Make full repairs 41 x 110 = $4,510
Moonshine $8,000 (+10 luck)
Mission 2 - Disrupt the Coalition.
Godspeed to us all. Time to move out.
4 Likes
…Saccharine, Falkyn. Once more unto the breach?
Compelling the soon-to-be-dead with posthumous glory?
Actually, I’m a little worried that you now have a little pocket army at your beck and call. If any of them survive the encounter.
3 Likes
+++++ ULTRA-WAVE TRANSMISSION BEGINS +++++
OPEN CHANNEL ALL FREQUENCIES BROADCAST.
PUSSSSILLANIMUSSSS PATTY TRANSSSSMITTING.
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ALEA IACTA ESSSST.
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THIS REMINDSSSS ME OF THAT FELLA BACK HOME WHO FELL OFF A TEN-SSSSTORY BUILDING. ASSS HE WAS FALLING, PEOPLE ON EACH FLOOR KEPT HEARING HIM SSSSAY “SSSSO FAR, SSSSO GOOD”…
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SSSSO FAR, SSSSO GOOD.
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IF WE DON’T ALL MAKE IT BACK, IT’SSS BEEN EMOTIONAL. SSSSEE YOU ON THE OTHER SSSSIDE. CRY HAVOC! AND LET SSSLIP THE DOGSSS OF WAR!
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FAREWELL AND ADIEU TO YOU FAIR SSSSPANISSSSH LISSHARDSSS
FAREWALL AND ADIEU TO YOU, LISSSHARDSSS OF SSSHPAIN
FOR WE’VE RECEIVED ORDERSSS WE’RE TO SSSHAIL TO OLD ENGLAND
AND WE MAY NEVER SSSHEE YOU FAIR LISSSHARDS AGAIN
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.
+++++ ULTRA-WAVE TRANSMISSION ENDS +++++
5 Likes
Jameson rummages through the CD cases littering the console of the Cobra. Finds the one he’s looking for, presses eject on the player and pulls the disc from the slot, half heartedly glances around for its’ case, then places it shiny side up on the nearest flat surface and slots the new one into the player.
There are still a few fingers of Rot Gut sitting in the dixie cup that’s wedged in the cup holder on the dashboard. He gulps it down, Slides his chair over to the Cask, re-fills the paper cup, returns to the controls & jams the cup back in the holder.
He reaches under the console and brings out a small ziplock bag with some blue crystals in. Looking at the quantity left in the baggy he hesitates for a moment. Decides. Then tips the whole lot out onto the CD case.
With his Cred Card and a $tarbuck he grinds the crystals and chops out a big fat rail. Rolls the note, snorts the line, licks his finger, wipes it across the shiny plastic of the case, then sucks it.
He chucks the CD case onto the dash’. Takes a cigarette from the pack in his waistcoat pocket. Lights it.
He sits for a moment as he starts to feel better than James Brown. Turns the key in the ignition to fire the engines and says:
Auto-Pilot. Disengage from docking bay. Exit Charabdys Orbital. Stand by for further orders.
Jameson presses play on the CD player and rolls the volume knob all the way over to the right, so the music fills his ship
he pushes the chair back, puts his feet on the dashboard, takes a long drag on his ciggy and watches the forward view screen as the ship leaves the station
2 Likes
Bring it on you hatless bastards!
-Don Mondo
Missions are Locked.
Results will post late Sun or early Mon.
Psst! Hey, Dussssty! Dusssty the Sssspace Cat! Captain Ssssskipper here. Yesss! Oh, yesss it iss! Who’s your favorite sssspace lizard? Who? Oh, yesss it’ss me!
Um. Ahem. Yes, well. I thought I’d take advantage of thiss brief moment while the fleet jumps through hyperssspace to our fateful engagement with the I.C.U.P. forcesss to congratulate you on getting that Organ Replicator up and running. The only repayment I’d like is if, Gods of the Sssacred Orificessss willing, we manage to sssurvive thiss engagement, you could use the Replicator to whip up a batch of human ssspleens for usss to share in a convivial victory cccccelebration. All the Sssspace Lizardss will be invited, of courssse, as well as the human and android contingent, and sssince (as you may have heard) we Ssspace Lizards traditionally enjoy munching on human vital organsss at the conclusion of a successsssful raid, I feel it would be only politic to have a sssstore of freshly-replicated organsss on hand to avoid potential ssssocial tension should our celebratory appetitess begin to outweigh our recent intersssspecies alliances. Even I was was brought up to believe that disssembowelling one’s co-conssspirators can be perceived as a major party foul. Sssso if time permitsss and you could fire up the Replicator… that’d be cool.
Oh, and one more thing. Dessspite Lt. Gilligan’s asssurancess to the contrary, I find myssself holding a few doubtss as to the actual efficacy of the Arcturan Cone of Sssssilence. I’m beginning to sssusspect that our encrypted communiquess have not been 100% sssecure. Ssssome of the other captainss have been looking at me ssstrangely. And I ssseem to remember the Arcturan credo transsslated roughly as “Information Wantsss To Be Free,” or maybe it was “Total Information Awarenessss,” or ssome ssimilar. I dearly hope thiss is not the cassse. It would be truly awkward should the humansss disssscover our tassste for their ssssweetmeatss, essspecially sssince they’ve been ssso very nice to uss this week. But what can one do? Your last transssmission contained the faintessst of echoess, much like I hear whilst sssoftly sssinging to myssself in the head, but I know you wouldn’t be ssso crasss as to call while engaged in sssuch a private (and unutterably foul, if the rumors about your ssspecies are true) activity, sso I apologize sssincerely for having mentioned it. No doubt the echo is sssimply an artifact of the encryption.
Whether it worksss or no, I think I’ll keep mine. I’ve grown accusssstomed to the itch, and I rather enjoy how it makesss my bridge officersss nervouss. Anything to keep them on their toess.
Ssssee you on the other ssside, Dussssty!
Ssssskipper out.
3 Likes
Im gonna go With Dub Dubs Rig
Ship: Insane1
Moonshine: 1 cask – 8k (luck to 34)
Hull repairs: 63 – 6.3k (HP to 100)
Homing missiles: 5 – 6k (FP to 18)
Nightshade: 1 – 1.2k (ST to 16)
Total: 21500
Mission #2: Disrupt the coalition.
purrrrrr purrrrrr purrrrrr yes, you’re my favorite space lizard purrrrrr purrrrrrr
Ahem… purrrrr..... I used my Space Arduino-powered robot hand and I’ve got this baby pumping out spleens non-stop… purrrrrr..... going to be one hell of a victory feast. I doubt most humans know what a spleen looks like so I’m sure they won’t know. We’ll tell them it’s sushi… purrrrr......
Hmm… hope all this blood doesn’t stain the captain’s hardwood floor.
9 Likes
Ixsssnay on the eenssssplay…
2 Likes
Go kick those Coalition stooges in the teeth. I’ll patch you up if you get back and… if you don’t make it… we’ll spill some Moonshine for you.
- Scrapyard Pete
I experienced positive signals in my emotion sensor when I heard the government was taking an interest in Charybdis. Business will be, statistically, much safer to conduct when Don Mondo and his gang are eliminated. Please be safe out there.
-Ella
Shop at Ella’s Backwater Boutique.
1 Like
Interstellar!
This makes me so hungry.
1 Like
