Present:
- Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
- Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- MARMALADING: Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
- MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
- Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
- Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
- Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
- NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
- NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion
by Richard
We are in the system Plaven and near its main planet Plaven and are some six double jumps from Entrope, where we are endeavouring to return.
"We are a floating tin can!" an exasperated Riley exclaims wiping marmalade from his mouth. "Why did we fight them"?"
He was right, we had no jump drive, life support, manoeuvre drive and damaged fuel tanks.
And to top it off our best engineer Spanner, has just collapsed with marmalade everywhere [ Jeff is away ].
"It's up you now!" said Split pointing at Emerse. "You are our only remaining engineer"
"I'm pretty good too," said Riley. "I will give it a crack"
"No!" everyone exclaimed knowing Riley would give most things a crack irrespective of his skill.
Riley was in a bad mood. The marmalade had given him a nasty taste in his mouth, he hadn’t had a drink for a while and his precious ship was damaged.
Emerse, whose hair was strangely ruffled and carrying a 5 o'clock shadow, was also not himself since being brutally raped [ fed upon ] by the Zhodani. Riley had tried to point out that women can't rape you but that hadn't seemed to cheer Emerse up. Even Riley was worried.
Emerse quietly started work on the life support and within an hour had it up and running. Taking our vacc suits off, he then began working on the manoeuvre engines.
Whilst working away a radio signal comes in.
"Identify yourselves – this is Corvette Denpasar Ligature"
"This is Lost Crown. What are your intentions?" responds Gnostic
"Stand-by for Boarding"
"Ahh negative" jumps in Riley. "There is no way pirates are boarding this ship" he says looking at the others.
"I will call the space station," advises Gnostic.
"Plaven space station control, this is Lost Crown. We are damaged and being approached by Corvette Denpasar Ligature who wish to board. We need repairs, what are your instructions?"
"Cede to their demands," is the response.
"No fucking way" Riley says to the team.
By this time the manoeuvre engines are fixed and Emerse has moved onto the fuel tanks.
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| Corvette Denpasar Ligature |
"Get the jump drives fixed, Emerse" calls Split
"I can't. They are buggered and need replacing" responds Emerse.
The Corvette approaches – "prepare for boarding"
As it nears, Riley suddenly flips the Lost Crown to be above the Corvette and rudely gives them the bird. A single missile is launched, but Anton intercepts it with the cannons.
"Lost Crown, cede to our demands and prepare to be boarded"
This time Riley waits until they are within a 100 or so metres and pulls the same trick, rolling upside down and hovering above them. Of course, what he didn’t expect and what everyone else was concerned about was what happened. The Corvette opened fire and this time caused considerable damage to The Lost Crown's engines, fuel tanks and life support; redamaging everything Emerse has repaired. Everyone stared at Riley.
"I don't like these bastards," he replied defensively. "In fact, I don’t really like anyone at the moment."
"Lost Crown prepare to be boarded!"
"Who is your pilot?" they demanded.
"That's me you ugly bastards" Riley defiantly proclaimed just before he was shot a few times, stunning him.
The boarding party enter The Lost Crown and we are all gathered in the bridge.
"Is anyone missing?" Lieutenant Wayne Broachcask asks.
"Ah, where is Emerse?" asks Anton of Stasi.
Stasi shrugs her shoulders and two of the boarding party head off, and soon drag back a squealing Emerse, who had been looking at the life support, onto the bridge.
With our ship docked to them we move our way to the space station.
As we near, the lieutenant asks who is our representative.
"I am" steps forward Anton in his x-boat uniform.
"You are X-boat? Oh, that’s good."
"Yes, we are and we have a mochila to deliver."
"Here?"
"Well, no, we mis-jumped"
"You and one other come with me," the lieutenant points at Anton.
Split quickly agrees to go, and Anton and Split follow the lieutenant and two guards into the Corvette.
The sergeant and his men left on the Lost Crown quickly, in their lieutenant's absence, cause havoc.
"Why do you have a Zhodani whore with you?"
"Are you referring to me" questions Stasi
"Yes, you, you ugly whore."
Riley recovers a bit from being shot earlier. "Don’t talk to her like that, arsehole."
The sergeant looks to strike Riley with the butt of her weapon but Riley moves and lands a good blow of his own. He is quickly overwhelmed and held to the ground.
"Fond of her, are you?" the sergeant smiles and with that stretches Riley's left hand out and clubs it several times breaking most of its bones. Riley screams, and he quietly remembers every detail of his attacker.
We are then ushered into a small room on the Corvette, comfortable with several bunks, a table and a few chairs.
The men leave, locking the door behind them. Belle attends to Riley's hand and using her medical skills starts to mend the damage bones and restores hit points. The hand is bandaged and Riley insists that his knuckle-dusters must be imbedded in the bandage.
Meanwhile. Anton and Penny have been taken to the heart of the Corvette into what looks like a throne room. There is a wild looking man man sitting on the throne with two naked Zhodani women in chains standing behind. There are 10-12 armed men in the room. They all look like something from Mad Max, an ancient but iconic movie.
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| Wotan Skullcrusher |
The man is introduced as Wotan Skullcrusher and with his raspy voice states: "You destroyed two of my ships!"
"Ah, yes they attacked us" responds Anton nervously.
"Good – I like that" Wotan laughs. "My men tell me you are an x-boat, is that correct?
"Yes, that's true," says Anton, pointing at his uniform. "We mis-jumped and ended here."
"And why do you travel with a Zhodani whore?"
"She's an ambassador" states Penny.
"Even better" Wotan laughs "bring the whore here"
"Your eminence – you should probably remove the two chained Zhodani" recommends Anton.
"Yes of course" and they are dragged from the room.
Stasi is escorted in, and questioned by Wotan.
Eventually he states "I want diplomatic relations with the Zhodani and I want the x-boat corporation to start delivering to this system. In return for this I will fix your ship and jump drive. You should accept this offer or die. But before I do you need to deal with one problem I have. There are some trouble-makers on Plavia, the moon of Plaven, and I need their leader, Roger Coalpark, killed. Do that are you can go and fulfil my demands"
"I'm sure we can make that happen, your eminence," says Anton. "But we will need weapons, and perhaps our ship's missile systems upgraded."
"Of course," responds Wotan and with that dismisses Anton, Penny and Stasi.
Back in our room, Penny and Stasi debrief us. It will take several days for our ship to be sufficiently repaired and we use that time usefully:
- Riley and Emerse get drunk,
- Stasi gets several male volunteers to feed off,
- Anton manages to get himself a private room and several of Wotan's women/prostitutes to service him.
The more sensible of us, Gnostic, Penny and Belle, debate whether we should fulfil the task and kill Roger or whether we shouldn't trust Wotan and rather get Roger and his rebels to help us attack Wotan and restore our jump drive.
This debate goes on for some time with Riley chipping in between drinks and Anton between whores. Riley is firmly in the camp of killing Wotan whilst Stasi and Anton are firmly in the camp of killing Roger.
The more sensible ones don’t trust Wotan, and therefore it is decided to try and get the rebels onside.
A few days pass and we are all taken before Wotan again and briefed.
There is a prison on Plavia and Roger and his merry band of "woke tree hugging hippies" (to use Wotan's terms) live in the forest on the moon. We are provided coordinates.
We sensibly ask why Wotan and his men can't destroy the rebels themselves. It becomes clear that he wants to test us.
We learn a number of key things through talking to Wotan, and later through Emerse's Tamagotchi and Galactopedia.
- Wotan has ten remaining ships plus the Corvette
- The Corvette can fit two companies, some 200-odd troops, but we haven’t seen nearly that many.
- Plaven was populated 210 years ago and the moon 50 years ago,
- The moon is half the size of Plaven, has 1.1g gravity, has an atmosphere that will support life, and is forested. It is inhabited by "Wotan's prison" and its escapees – in fact it is a prison moon but has a population larger than Plaven.
So, the plan is set (albeit without consensus) – we will take our air-raft across to Plavia, and land at the GPS coordinates and hopefully find Roger. We will then spin a line that we are a mis-jumped x-boat and have escaped Wotan Skullcrusher and need their help to get our craft back.
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| Plavia |
And that’s what we do. We land and quickly are approached by armed men in the forest. We spin our yarn and are taken to a large tree with an opening that goes into underground caves. There we meet Roger who seems very excited that we are there to rescue them.
We endeavour to lay out our plan and seek their help against the "fascists", to use Roger's term, but initially seem to be getting little comfort. We question our plan while Anton and Stasi look at us with "I told you so looks"
Will we convince Roger and co to join us in assaulting Plaven and killing Wotan Skullcrusher?
Can we capture the Corvette?
Should we just kill Roger and take our chances with Wotan ?
We will see next time.
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