Ye Faerie Queene

 

 Present:

• "Liz" Holmes. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
  
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
  
• Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• MARMALADING: Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• MARMALADING: Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston

 by Jeff 

The above crew were summoned into the large family boardroom by Contessa Ende - Belle, Itzy, Hoff, and Penny's mum. Everyone had been staying for the weekend at the Ende mansion in Ravens End for the Ende family cocktail party to celebrate Contessa's successful "de-aging" treatment. Dressed as a nurse, she now had the body of a 16-year-old with plenty of curves in all the right places.

And as Itzy had noted at the party last night, "Money vell spent!"

Contessa was dressed as a schoolgirl

This morning, Contessa was dressed in a schoolgirl outfit as she strutted into the boardroom.

"Ve av vound Ye Faerie Queene" she announced, "And vou shall retrieve er!"

Belle, who had been taken sick with the dreaded Marmalade affliction, was looking to increase her influence within the Ende family, and Contessa had promised to give her some meaningful assignments. Ye Faerie Queene was an old Ende family scout-class starship, one hundred tonnes, fully equipped with two SABRE engines and a Jump-1 drive, that had been stolen from the family docks some month ago while awaiting deconstruction and component recycling. Everyone had suspected the rival Montrose family, but there had been no sign of the Queene since she had been taken.

"Da Montrose scum av da Queene at their outer estates" Contessa revealed, "So go get er back"
"Can't the Militia do that?" suggested Emerse.
"NO SOLDIERS!" yelled Contessa.
"Vou arn't from ere, so I vill forgive you dis once. Know dat dis is personal!"

"Hard to take her seriously ... dressed like that," muttered Emerse to himself.

The Montrose estates were about ten klicks out from Ravens End, so we were provided with an old farm van that we all squeezed into. Equipped with a looking-glass and Spanner's droid Scurry, we jumped into the van.

"Can anyone else drive?" asked Riley, as he leapt in behind the wheel.

The countryside was quite flat around Ravens End, predominately farming lands, and we blended in well as we puttered down the dirt road towards the Montrose place. Riley drove.

"Pull up about 500m from the estate" suggested Spanner, "Scurry's range is only one klick"

Riley pulled the van off the side of the road and got out the spare wheel.
"What?" asked Riley, "It's an excuse to be parked up here"

"Scurry, go get a good look at the Montrose estate," instructed Spanner.

"Is that what you want?" the droid asked.

"But don't get spotted," added Spanner.
"Yes mother," the droid replied before it shot off down the road, wings buzzing quietly.

"Did that just answer you?" asked Hoff, "How did you manage that?"
"I could make one like that," boasted Emerse.

We watched Scurry's progress on Spanner's hand-held monitor as she travelled up the road towards the Montrose estate. The estate was at the end of the road, so it was a good thing we hadn't decided to drive past for our recce. That would have been quite suspicious! 

Scurry passed over a gatehouse about 50m in front of the estate compound, which was enclosed within a high chain link fence. A couple of guards could be seen in the gatehouse building, and a couple wandering about inside the compound. There were a few small houses scattered around outside the compound, and most interestingly, a large camouflage tarpaulin was draped over something at the rear of the compound, inside the fence line.

"That'll be the Faerie Queene" noted Spanner, "Under that tarpaulin at the back"

Once Scurry had returned, we packed up and returned to town to await nightfall. Both suns would be down tonight, so it would be nice and dark for the "recovery".

"And" stated Anton, "I can see in the dark just fine"
"I've got a sweet set of low-light goggles" added Emerse, "Made them myself"
"Mum will have a set in the stores too" noted Itzy.

The Montrose compound

Equipped with Emerse's low-light goggles, the Ende family night-vision goggles, wire cutters, and some weapons, we returned down the Montrose road around midnight. Switching off the headlights about two klicks from the compound, Riley, wearing the low-light goggles, drove us up to within 500m of the gatehouse, and pulled off the road. The gatehouse was fully lit, and a couple of the other buildings also twinkled with lights.

Anton, Liz (wearing the low-light goggles), and Split (wearing the night-vision goggles) crept off into the darkness to circle left around towards the rear of the compound and get a closer look at the fence. 

Keeping low, they skirted round the gatehouse lights, past the lit house to the left, and approached the fence near the rear of the compound. A large ship glittered faintly from below the tarpaulins at the rear of the house. Two large, insulated storage tanks were located between the house and the ship, radiating coldness.

"That'll be the Faerie Queene" pointed out Anton, "And those look like liquid hydrogen fuel tanks"
"Good" whispered Liz, "Wait, that is good right?"
"What's that really hot thing on the fence there?" asked Split.
"Hmmm" grunted Anton, "That looks like an insulator, a malfunctioning insulator"
"Is that good?" whispered Liz.

"No" replied Anton, "That's bad. The whole fence is electrified. We better report back"

Anton, Liz, and Split retreated back around the lit building and the gatehouse to the van.

"The good news is that there is fuel" reported Anton, "But the bad news is that the fence is heavily electrified. There will be no cutting through that baby without some serious measures"

"Simple" suggested Emerse, "Just isolate a section of the fence before you cut it" 

"Any suggestions on how you isolate a 10,000-volt chain-link fence?" sneered Anton.

"Throw one of those goats at it" suggested Split, "That'll short the fence and let you cut through"

"Yes, but that will also bring the guards" countered Anton.
"Then we just shoot them" declared Itzy, "A nice crossfire kill zone for those Montrose bastards"

"We should keep the killing to a minimum" instructed Hoff. "None, if possible"
"You should be able to get over the fence with a ladder and a decent insulating mat" suggested Hoff, "We have some appropriate mats back in town at the workshop"

Riley started up the van and we took a quick trip back to the city to gather some ladders and insulating mats from Hoff's workshop at the Ende family mansion. Within an hour we were back, parked off the road about 500m from the lit-up gatehouse. This time was the real thing, we were going in!

Riley, Spanner, Anton, and Itzy gathered up the gear, donned the googles and set off. (Spanner had to travel without vision, she just hung onto Anton's arm as he led the small group through the darkness to the fence)

Arriving at the electrified fence, Anton tossed the insulating mats over the top and Riley leaned the ladder up against the mat, and quickly climbed to the top. With a quick look around, Riley leapt from the top of the ladder and rolled to his feet, now inside the fenced compound. Spanner quickly followed him, landing lightly beside him and grabbing his arm as he led off towards the ship. 

Anton recovered the ladder and pulled back to the van. Itzy backed off a way, found a comfortable spot, and set himself up in a prone firing position with his rifle covering the whole compound, front to rear. 

Cautiously climbing the access ladder to the personal hatch, Riley activated the hatch mechanism.
The door panel hissed, clicked back slightly into the ship, and slid silently open.

"We're in" he quietly called down to Spanner, "I'll get the fuel lines and get the fueling underway"
"I'll give the ship systems a quick check" replied Spanner, "In case they, you know, booby trapped it"

The process required to start up the engines wasn't a quick one. First the fuel tanks needed to be filled, or at least partly filled, with the liquid hydrogen. Then the auxiliary jet engine needed to be fired up, to prime the SABRE's compressors before they could be ignited for flight. We had figured about a twenty-minute process if we short cut the fueling and didn't full the tanks completely. 

No problem though, provided we were quiet and got the fueling done without alerting the guards. Itzy was out there to provide cover fire in case that plan didn't work out, and once we had the fueling done, we could seal ourselves in the ship and use the ship's armour plating to keep the inevitable bullets out.

Spanner gave the Queene's systems a once-over as Riley coupled up the fuel lines and started the electric fuel pumps. No visible issues with the Queene, and all running to plan! But, about ten minutes into the fuelling process, a shot rang out from the darkness. Startlingly loud in the quiet night, the boom echoed around for what seemed minutes. A bullet ricocheted off the roof of the house and a startled shout was quickly followed by the patter of footsteps from the side of the house as someone retreated back towards the front. 

Itzy had spotted a guard exiting the front door of the house and heading round the side towards the back, where Riley was working on the fuelling process. Fortunately, the Montrose guard had gone around Itzy's side and been in his sight the whole time. Once it was obvious that the guard would have walked right into the middle of the fuelling, Itzy let off a round, just to scare the guard off and keep him away from the Queene.

Things were getting complicated now though, and there was at least five minutes of fuelling still required. Spanner leapt down to assist Riley with the fuelling process, standing by to decouple the lines, while Riley clambered into the Queene to prep the combustion engines and check the amount of fuel in the tanks. A few more shots rang out from Itzy's location, and a few return shots were loosed by the guards, blindly firing into the darkness in Itzy's direction. 

After five minutes Riley called down to Spanner that sufficient fuel had been transferred. Spanner shut of the hydrogen valves, decoupled the lines, and quickly coiled them up and stored them back on the Queene. As Riley stated up the auxiliary engine with a roar, Spanner ripped down the tarpaulins, throwing them to the dirt, slipped in through the access hatch, and sealed it shut behind her.

Ye Faerie Queene

A few minutes to prime the SABRE's, and bullets started to ping off the Queene's hull. Lots of yelling and shouting from the compound as Spanner and Riley strapped themselves into the pilots' seats. As the twin SABRE's roared into life, the jet wash picked up the discarded tarpaulins and wrapped them around the few guards still taking shots at the Queene. They were thrown off their feet and tossed into the compound fence as the Queene slowly lifted off the ground and headed skyward.

"YEEHAW" yelled Riley, hands clasped firmly on the joystick controls.

Meanwhile, Itzy had retreated back to the van and was picked up by the rest of the crew. With Split nervously in the driver's seat, they cautiously made their way back towards town, where they were redirected to the Ende family docks. The docks were where the Queene had been stolen from, and where Riley was to return her to. 

Running a full system diagnostic enroute, Riley and Spanner spotted an unusual software patch installed in the Queene's computer system. Activating a system quarantine protocol, Riley deactivated the patch for latter analysis and flew the Queene back to the Ende docks.

"Probably a tracking code" guessed Spanner.

Riley gently landed the Queene onto the waiting pad at the docks, and the crew were soon reunited.

Contessa appeared just after dawn with her retinue of guards and sycophants.

She set her computer experts to analyse the rouge software code, congratulated us on our slick operation, and told us that we were to stay here at the docks.

"I av some udder tasks for vou" she explained, "And vou can guard the Queene" 

"Assuming they have tracked us here" suggested Spanner, "Let's take the Queene elsewhere"
"Ya, das goot" replied Contessa, "Ve have other facility at Bitter End. Dat's four thousand klicks away"

The Faerie Queene had four state rooms. The women (Liz, Spanner, Split, and Belle took one) and the men spread themselves into the other three. Some additional weapons (five rifles and a collection of handguns), including three extra grenades, and some general supplies were loaded into the 6-tonne cargo hold, and Riley plotted us a course for Bitter End.