RODOMONT 3

[Welsh Halfwit]

Thirty-Nine

Tarbeck was stunned. By doing something wrong, had he done something right? Now what was he supposed to… oh, yeah. He sat in the chair. “Maldak,” he ordered, “hail them. Makilla, keep us after them. Uh… Mayle,” he added, hoping he’d got the Canine’s name right. Why did he have trouble remembering it? It wasn’t like it was a hard name. “target them. Passively?”

“Passively,” the Canine queried, his tone showing his confusion.

“Yeah. In case they really weren’t trying something?”

“Right,” the Canine replied. “I’ll target them without targetting them.”

Tarbeck asked Sciences to find out what it was he’d stopped the ship beaming aboard and the Feline on the station complied, doing exactly what he’d been doing for the last minute anyhow as he’d expected to be ordered to do it. “Any response,” he asked Maldak.

“They’re blanking us,” the Quokkan replied, keeping one hand on her headphones as she so often did when she felt combat incoming.

“Uh, um, which one’s the lead ship of this Militia,” he asked. “Put us on with their Commanding Officer. Oh, and which ship just tried to attack us?”

“The Gorton, sir,” Maldak replied. “The ship that attacked us. The lead ship’s the Ydran. Line open.”

The Celican swallowed. “This is acting Commander Tarbeck, currently in command of the Rodomont,” he said, doing an impressive effort to keep his usual uncertainty from his voice and failing to do so from his eye, which was why Maldak had gone ‘audio only’. One of your ships, the Gorton, just tried and, uh, failed, to beam something aboard this vessel and, um, they don’t seem to want to talk to us about it. Can you assist?”

<“We can, ‘acting’ Commander,”> said an unseen voice that he assumed was Brockian. <“This is Captain Carramy of the Ydran. We will, of course, need a copy of your logs to confirm what you have said.”>

Tarbeck glanced to Makilla who, after mentally shrugging about being in command, nodded. “They’ll be made available to you, Captain. After the ship is stopped.”

<“Moving to intercept now,”> the voice told him as he moved across to the science station to see if there were any results yet.

Kridd slapped his hand away as he tried to adjust a sensor, then apologised for slapping it away as he was still working on it. He advised, under his breath, that it seemed to be some sort of biological compound that he’d never seen before that had been rejected by the ship’s shields and there were only traces of it and he wondered if it had ‘bounced back’ along the line and he was going to loop the Medical bay in on this… uh, with Tarbeck’s permission, of course? Tarbeck looked a little confused by this until he remembered that he was in command and authorised it. “I’ll not complain about low level engineering after this,” he added, thinking of his usual duties before this temporary boost.

“Ah, you’re doing fine, sir,” Kridd replied breezily.

“He would say that,” Maldak replied. “The others intimidate him.” She turned back to her work and listened in on the Militia as they moved in on the ship. She ignored his closeness as he crossed the bridge and stood over her, peering as though he could see radio waves in the visual spectrum. “They’re telling the ship to stop,” she announced, ‘accidentally’ prodding him in the ribs with her chair arm as she turned to report to the usual position a command officer would be in. “Sorry, sir,” she apologised, “wasn’t expecting you to be there.”

“Accepted,” he replied, backing off in case she decided to cross her legs. “No reply, I take it?”

She gave him a demure smile that he accepted to mean ‘I was about to tell you anyhow’ and told him that no, there wasn’t. The Ydran was ordering them stopped with restraint beams until the engine shutdown codes took effect and then they’d send over a party to see what had happened.

Tarbeck looked back to Kridd and was about to go back there when he felt a hand on his and Maldak informed him quietly that Kridd could hear him from here and, if he wanted to be heard by all, the centre of the bridge was best? He nodded and asked Kridd to scan the Gorton for life signs. Just in case. He’d heard of robot ships and remote controlled ones so was there actually anyone on the Gorton he asked himself. He new these clippers were supposed to have about thirty people on board. He gave passing thought to sending a message to Xarra or Postain but they were both dealing with things on the colony and he kew the Captain wouldn’t appreciate him being distracted in an active situation by communicating the fact they were in an active situation to him. He was resolutely sure there would come a moment that meant he was able to pass the bu… uh, send the request up the ladder. A moment that would come soon as the Ydran reported that they’d stopped the Gorton and were about to teleport over t…


“Do NOT send anybody to that ship,” a voice roared from the back of the bridge, practically making Tarbeck jump from the chair in fright as the voice on the screen demanded to know who had spoken. Tarbeck looked up at the spectacled Wolf as he laid down the medical law. “Doctor Eradimous Flakk, Chief Medical Officer of the Rodomont and senior USC medical Officer in this quadrant! Service number 10047657 Alpha Omega. I analysed the traces of the device that ship tried to beam on board and, based on that, the crew may well have been exposed to a dangerous biochemical weapon. That ship is now under quarantine on my order! Only myself and those known to be immune to this contagion are to go over there and, even then, we’ll be in FULL containment suits.”

<“You have no authority to...”>

“Article 17, subsection 4, paragraph three of the core colonisation articles gives me such authority, Captain. Your colony’s chief scientific advisor can attend if they like but in full protective gear. I’m the senior Medical Officer in play here so what I say? Goes. Not even your President can overrule me on this!”

There was silence for a moment as Tarbeck wished he could be Flakk when he grew up. Then the silence was broken. <“This will be reported,”> the voice said, before cutting off.

“You’ll assemble a team, Doctor?”

“Yes,” Flakk replied, wondering who the heck this was in front of him. “Where’s the Captain or Commander?”

“On the planet. I’m in acting charge of the ship.”

“Then stop acting. I need two people for this ‘party’. And I need command permission for one of them.”

Tarbeck didn’t feel he could say know to the perma-angry Wolf...

[Amazee Dayzee]

It probably is a good idea NOT to say no to a wolf that is always angry. They probably have no qualms about losing it and going after whoever upsets them.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Forty.


The last of the trio stepped out of the shuttle attached to the clipper’s airlock and looked forward to the lit ship’s hallway as the exterior door shut, keeping them away from the safety of their little ship and the interior door opened to allow them into the bigger ‘little’ ship. It had been Flakks idea to use the shuttle as he didn’t want to risk any contamination coming back in the beam when they returned. <“I thought things got disintegrated if they didn’t materialise on target,”> said a voice in his helmet and he noted Greedan’s name in Wolf script on his headset.

“Fantasies of space opera these days,” Flakk replied. “If a barrier is detected, modern systems often try to send the signal back to the sending device as a safety precaution.” He crouched down to scan the fragments of something that had exploded in here, sending shards of metal into the walls around. And the person, he noted. The figure was lying behind the terminal, clearly dead from where a shard had punctured his head and brain. Flakk could see the red floor through him. He ran scans. “This area’s heavy with the contagion,” he confirmed before pointing to an air vent on the wall. “And it probably got in there so it’s being pumped all over the ship. Greedan, do you have the stun gun ready?” The Mouse/Fox hybrid checked the device and indicated that he had it to hand and charged. “Good. I don’t reckon you’re going to need it but you’re not a fighter.”

<“Are you sure I am,”> Leigh asked from the other suit.

“You fought the Captain. You, like Greedan, have other qualities that make you useful to me here. And, don’t forget about the charge attached to your foot.”

<“It’s no fun having your foot blown off, trust me,”> Greedan admitted as Flakk headed for the door.

<“Hmm. What other ‘quality’ do we both share,”> he wondered.

<“We’re both… immune to this thing,”> Greedan answered, pausing in surprise as a body fell through the opening door. It’d been a Raitchian, he thought. Once. Now the fur was halfway to being mottled, the eyes were oval and bulged and there was a hole where her throat had been where, it appeared, someone had torn it out with their claws. Rivulets of drying blood seeped from her uncomprehending mouth onto the floor, joining several other pools evident in the passage outside.

“Don’t throw up in your helmet, Greedan,” Flakk warned. He looked out into the small passageway. “It’s what I feared, Leigh. What hit you was diluted stuff. The gel was diluted and the aggressor was diluted. What hit here was the pure stuff.”

<“More bodies, I take it,”> the prisoner said, stepping past the Doctor to see.


Three of varying species lay dead on the deck as a fourth, lying flat on it’s stomach, tried pulling itself towards them, the mania of rage still in its damaged Brockian eyes as the gel kept trying to work on fixing her. Him. Whatever. One of the dead was Equinna and Leigh hated the thought of what that might do to this creature. He thought he might recognise her but there was nothing to latch onto now. He stepped aside as Greedan shot her, the stun gun set to full power. “It won’t repair these wounds in time, I don’t believe,” Flakk said, checking her over. “It’s trying to fix the bones now,” he added with uncommon sadness. “but it doesn’t know what template to use.” Leigh felt hot and sick and this thing was airless and he wanted it off now and he started pulling at the restraints. “Don’t,” Flakk warned. “You may be immune to the gel but there’s still the aggressor in the air.”

This time, Leigh chose to ask. <“How come you’re immune, Gree… Greedan, was it?”>

<“Yeah. Same reason you are. This thing can only change you once.”> Deciding not to let this latest victim of the gel know he’d been involved in the creation of it yet, Greedan chose a sort of truthful lie. <“Worked at a place that was shipping it amongst other stuff. Crooked boss, donchaknow? IOC raided the place and some of it exploded. Took my foot off and there was some Celican DNA involved so I became a Celican/Mican hybrid.”>

Leigh hmphed and ignored Flakk telling them to shut up and concentrate. <“You got lucky. Alsan/Raitchian and Feline for me. And one of ‘em’s female.”>

<“Ow.”>

“You’ll BOTH be going ‘ow’ if you don’t shut it,” Flakk said stridently. “We’re at the bridge.”


<“You did what,”> Postain asked from the Police headquarters on the screen in front of Makilla and Tarbeck. The young Officer faced down his doom and took courage from the fact he wasn’t near the Rottian as the glower threatened to strangle him through the screen.

“I agreed that Doctor Flakk could, ah, take the prisoner, sir. With the standard, um, restraints. He… he seemed rather insistent on it happening, sir,” he finished, adding a little movement to put himself on tiptoes for a second before returning to fully standing.

<“You allowed him to intimidate you,”> Postain growled. <“Get this through your head, Tarbeck. Only I am allowed to do that to anyone on the bridge! And Xarra if I’m not present! No-one else! If they try? Get security to remove them from the bridge! Got it!”>

Tarbeck swallowed. Twice. “Got… got it, sir.”

Postain wrinkled his nose and turned his head slightly as he considered things. <“Well, your first stupid decision saved the ship so you might just be an idiot savant. Or a lucky charm. Or a fortunate pillock. We’ll find out, won’t we?”> He cut the line.

“I think he likes you,” Maldak offered, with a cheeky grin. “Sir,” she added. “He didn’t threaten to kill you, after all.”

“That’s progress, I suppose.” The acting Commander sat in the Captain’s chair. “I suppose I’d better relay what he told me to say to the Militia Commander. Put it on general, would you? This’ll go over well.” He waited until Maldak gave him the signal before speaking again. “This is Commander Tarbeck, in acting command of the Rodomont. It has now been confirmed that there is a major outbreak of a biological contagion on the Gorton. From the communiques received from our Chief Medical Officer it appears the crew had been displaced some time before launch as there are few Brockians on board. No-one is to be allowed aboard that ship.” He took a breath. “And, as that ship attempted to unleash this contagion aboard THIS ship, no Militia ship is to come near us. Our shields will remain up and any ship that attempts to come close will be disabled. Captains orders.”


He cut the line.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Why do I think that Postain is about to get a lot more angry in the near future? I can't shake the feeling that he will end up knocking someone's lights out.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Forty-one


Whilst Greedan checked the systems on the clipper for anything they might use, Leigh decided to do as he was told and try to access the security recordings for the bridge as these people were, as Flakk had pointed out quite sternly, not the original crew of this ship. Most of them weren’t Brockian and according to the crew manifest, most of them shoud have been. The Doctor thought it somewhat ironic as, if it had been the crew that was supposed to be here, the worst that would have happened is Brockian/Lappinean hybrids due to three bunnies aboard. Rather than this… hotpot of species and wounds they weren’t likely to survive. The gel couldn’t keep up with the damage they’d done to each other. He closed his hand around the throat of something that had once been Raitchian and was dying in pain as the gel forced his systems into change. The eyes bulged as what remained struggled to draw breath. Greedan had asked if he wasn’t going to try to save it.

“Too damaged and never going to make it,” Flakk replied bitterly. “I can’t save this one so I’m ending it as fast as I can.” But not painlessly, her thought This creature had just tried to kill his ship and deserved no more than basic mercy. He steeled his eye and increased the pressure on the carotid artery as the figure struggled against him ineffectually before relaxing back to the floor in death, hand slapping to the deck. He stood up as the changes continued, even in death. Would it repair the damage, he wondered. Could this filth turn back death or would it stop as the blood stopped pumping around the body? “Convict,” he said to Leigh, “any luck on the playback?”

<“Think I have it,”> the hoodlum replied, flicking through with the help of the control overrides he’d known from a former militia member who’d joined the clan. Apparently they rarely updated them. He brought it up on screen and they watched as the Brockian first officer showed her traitorous side by shooting the Captain a few seconds before Gallides clan teleported on board and took the bridge. Flakk appreciated the efficiency but not the sloppiness of the Militia, who’d allowed themselves to be taken in by the simple tactic. Not carrying weapons on the bridge in case of things like this. At least the helm could have reacted and holed the head of the second.


<“I think they’re being held in the storage bay,”> Greedan pointed out. <“The door’s secured and the air’s on low.”>

“Probably looking to suffocate them… Or someone up here chose to be merciful and tried to shut it off. If it’s them. Leigh, can you activate communications?”

<“I suppose,”> they grumbled. <“We’ll discuss payment later,”> they added, trying to find a tone that implied they might be joking.


“You really shouldn’t be doing this,” Kohlich said, leaning over the chair in which Kelly Cobalt sat, huffing. “You’re almost on the due date. Our baby could come anytime soon…”

“I can do this,” Kelly reminded her mate before detailing the nurses in their procedures by padd. “It’s just admin, Tarva.” She chuckled as he stroked her sides, running his fingers along the outline of the bulge. “Shouldn’t you be doing work, hon?”

“I am,” the Jestavanian protested. “I’m checking over the medical bay systems. Or is it a sick bay?”

“It’s many things to many people,” she replied, putting her hands on his and gently removing them. “But mostly,” she continued in mock admonishment, “it’s my workplace. You wouldn’t like it if I came to engineering and fiddled with your workbox in front of everyone, hmm?” She winked at him so he’d know she knew exactly what she’d just said.

“I get the point,” he sighed, straightening up. “At least tell me Jul’s on speed dial for emergencies.”

“First on the list,” she replied, waving him from the room to where Kerri was working through a check list.

She glanced at him as the padds synchronised. “Dataretrieval scanners?”

“Check,” he said.

She ran down the list of medical equipment. Scanners, check. Massspectromatographicanalysis machines? What? She repeated herself, slower. Check. Replication systems? Check. And so on, until the last one, where she smirked up at him. “Booty,” she asked.

He chuckled. “Checked for about five minutes, Kerri.”

“I won’ttell,” she replied. “If youdon’t. Nextis Darren’slab.”

Kohlich shook his head in agreement and followed on at best speed as Kerri zipped ahead. He had a feeling HER check for ‘booty’ would be about as long as his had taken.


Xarra laid out the plans for the Yayla River tunnel on the table in the surveyors’ office and cursed the fact that Postain had asked her to do it as it had, according to the communication he’d sent five minutes back, taken her off the ship at a time it needed her. An acting Commander in charge wasn’t a good thing at the best of times but one with no real command experience in a situation that was perilously close to combat? She recognised this was probably what Postain had thought when she arrived. It didn’t make it better. Anyhow, the plans. The surveyor, a Brockian called Garik, hadn’t been happy about being forced to work in the middle of the day and she’d needed to insist. They needed to see the physical original plans and didn’t mention that Kridd would be looking over the digital ones and, thanks to the spy-eye lens she was wearing on her left eye, he’d be able to properly compare the two. She started from the end Xarra said she’d gone in and looked over the figures and notes . “Why did it take so long to build,” she asked Garik.

“They wanted it unfashionably long,” he replied languidly. “Originally it only went under the river but then they added another five hundred meters in length. It halted the work for three months. Just before they were going to build the exit. And, in case you were going to ask, it was always to be a tunnel. A bridge would have been cheaper but the government back then insisted on it being a tunnel. Apparently the backers approved, according to the notes of my predecessor.”

From what Xarra could tell, Yarkin had stopped and seen the marks on the floor close by where the ramp would have started. “Were there any other large constructions going on around that time,” she asked.

“How would I know?” The Brockian shrugged and didn’t apologise for his lack of grace. “Nothing on the scale, of course. Tunnel’s the biggest thing built on the colony.


Xarra was thinking underground base.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I think I would be a bit too paranoid to go through a tunnel to be honest especially if it is underwater. Doesn't matter how sturdy it might be i would always worry it was about to collapse on me or flood and drown me.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Forty-Two


Postain and Kirrin both looked over the plans Xarra had sent over and they both nodded grimly at what they seemed to show. “Secret tunnel” the colony security Officer intoned. “Leading to a secret, underground base.”

Postain drank his coffee. “Probably linked up to a teleporter that can bring their pilots in from another location on the planet. The area’s quite industrial so who’s going to notice the surge out there?”

Kirrin looked at him. “Why from another..?” Then he got it. The Militia here was only a small one so it concentrated most of its efforts around the main city and surrounding areas. If their ships operated out of, say, Bartick they’d have a lot more chance of slipping in and out unnoticed. Although it was more likely they were talking shuttles than full size ships. Which meant… “Where do you think their capital ships are?”

Postain looked from left to right on the table, running over plans in his head. “There’ll be one close by,” he announced. “Possibly in the dark of the moon or, if they got any of Fawren’s aquatic tech, underwater.” He looked up. “Have your lot secured the Farrida clan base yet?”

“Just finishing,” the Brockian affirmed, checking for himself. “Apparently it alludes to a second base on the planet somewhere. Their main one.”

Postain glared into nothingness, looking roughly like he was staring at the wall. “You people really need a U.S.C. barracks here,” he told his old friend, “to help you root these filth out!”

Kirrin shrugged.


In the Rodomont’s astral cartography lab, Senny and Declan sat, looking at orbital pictures of the world below. Senny had come to much the same conclusion as Postain and had dragged the prisoner away from breakfast with a balding Human she’d never seen before and pulled him into the lab whilst he tried to eat something called a ‘cross aunt’ or something and made a mess of the hallway that maintenance would give her grief for later. She’d sat her reluctant associate down and pulled up all the pictures of the planet she could, focussing on places with barns, caves, overhangs… Anywhere a shuttle might be hidden. “Eat properly after,” she told him. “Work off sentence now.”

“Thank for chance,” he replied, using the same broken language style she’d just used. He flashed her a grin and set to work. “You know it’s needles in haystacks time, don’t you? I mean, how are we to tell what’s legit and what isn’t?”

“Each picture’s geostamped. Any legitimate travel can be traced. Others are going through the air and starport transit logs and Tarbeck’s tracking the teleport signature of the group that attacked the clipper.”

“Who’s checking the teleport of the group that attacked what clipper,” Declan asked, a little confused.

“Never mind. Just look for things that make you think ‘shuttle’.”

“Like the blast wave of a landing craft in the sand,” Declan asked.

“Yes, just like… You have such a thing?” She crossed around to look at what the Mican had found. She pulled up the data to run it. “Licenced landing zone for the Island of Sincon,” she told him. “Beach airport. Transit shuttles land there every day. Wave pattern puts it as a Tayberry 12, which is the main shuttle serves the island. Still,” she ruffled his headfur, “one for the ‘check’ list.”

“Gerroff… sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir, Declan. You’re not in the service.” He opened his mouth to speak and she put a finger up. “And don’t dare call me ma’am! Senny or boss’ll be fine.”

“You’re not the boss of me, Senny,” he said with exaggerated petulance. He got back to work.


“Can’t we just… seal off that entrance,” the Police Chief asked, gesturing to the blueprint on his table. “No,” he conceded, “that wouldn’t work, would it? They’d just go out the back and we don’t know where that is. Yet.”

“And it would tell them we’re on to them,” Postain added. “They might decide to forgo the inter-colony meeting and just hit an open air market.” He looked up sharply. “That house Treygar came out of..?”

“In Dayton,” Kirrin added, without realising the full danger of the location where many non-Brockians lived.

“I have specialist teams heading there now,” the Chief replied. “It’s in hand.”

“They all need to be in contamination suits,” Postain warned. “Sod the optics,” he added, knowing the Chief was about to protest. “It’s a potential target for the stuff we’re hunting.”

The Chief stood up and put his hands on his quite thick hips. He snorted once in frustration. “And you’re still not going to tell us what this thing is, are you?”

Postain regarded him coldly, keeping his tone low as he rested his jaw on an upturned palm. “Let’s just say the rumours are true and leave it at that. And,” he continued, “if you want to know WHICH rumour? The worst one.”

“Ah,” the Chief replied, fearing an inkling. “So we can’t stop them here. We also can’t make them aware of us. We have to let them try to attack the meeting.”

“We have that locked down as tight as we can,” Kirrin put in. “Trusted officers,” he added, glancing at the Chief, who looked affronted, then nodded sullenly. “Bioscans, Conduit runner drones. The works. Five Officers who were derelict in their duty are under investigation and off the site. The challenge is making it appear insecure, sir.”

“I don’t follow,” the Chief replied.

“If it’s too secure they won’t risk hitting it. They’ll go for the public targets.”

“Ah. I’ll go put the force on alert. At least things appear ready here.”


Tarbeck fed the results of his energy tracing into the system happily as he was back doing what he loved. Things to do with transporters. He knew the systems inside and out and he could repair one blindfolded with one hand behind his back and…

“Uh, oh,” Makilla said, making him turn away from the console at the moment of his triumph. He’d located the exact position the criminals had teleported up from and now there was ‘uh, oh’? He didn’t like it.

“What is it, Makilla,” he asked.

“Well,” the Shrewvian told him, “I only caught a glimpse of it on the long range for a second before they turned their transponder off but… I think I just saw the Badyear blimp. To quote a Human comedy movie.” He must have looked perplexed as Maldak said she’d seen that film. So Makilla took pity on him. “The Raicarran Cruiser,” she said. “It’s coming this way.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Its funny how Hawle and Postain have two different ways of running their ships but they both get things done in the end. Though I swear it takes Postain a HECK of a lot longer. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fourty-Three


Declan looked up from the vast array of pictures and rubbed his eyes. They seemed to have been doing this for hours, even if it had only been, in reality, an hour. The pair of them had worked out eight possible points but there was no way to narrow it down. He blinked. And blinked again. Something came into his photobombed mind and had taken root. “I think we need to concentrate on the area about 80 miles west of the capitol,” he said. “80-120 anyway.”

Senny grunted and brought the main screen up, showing the area he’d just mentioned. She looked it over. “Three towns,” she told him, “several ravines, a small coastline…” She turned to him. “Why here, Declan?”

He shifted, shuffling from cheek to cheek in the chair as he tried to think how best to answer that question. “It just… seems a good place for a base,” he tried. Yeah, he thought, even I don’t believe me.

Senny smirked, turned away, turned back and put her hands down on the table to lean across at him. “Why,” she said with an intimidating smile that spoke of eating you if you didn’t tell her what she wanted to know. “Come on, out with it.”

“Well, it’s…” He badly wanted to scratch his neck right now. He badly wanted the loo and regretted the coffee he’d had before she’d grabbed him at breakfast. “Gallides clan don’t want Farrida knowing they’re on their turf and that means they wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Creyton, where w...they have a decent sized base hidden. I’ve been there once?” He half grinned, then realised it wouldn’t work.

“We’ll go into that later,” Senny warned. “Not North and South?”

Declan shrugged. “Nothing there. Couple of villages. Teleporters take power…”

“Too much for portable generators,” Senny agreed, her Otacan tail swishing as she looked up at the screen. “So something would show up on the grid when they use them. This area’s got a couple of large industrial areas so a surge wouldn’t be so easy to detect. And a lot fewer possible landing zones. Declan,” she said, “I have one question for you.”

“Yes, Senny,” he asked.

“Why couldn’t you have thought this up forty minutes back?”

“Lack of food, boss.”


Kirrin looked worried. He had nothing against Raitchians per se but, in his experience, when they turned up in large numbers, trouble was brewing. When they turned up in large warships with advanced weaponry, it was time to panic and he wasn’t exactly reassured by Postain’s assertion that, when they’d dealt with the Farrida clan base on the colony, these people would go elsewhere. They tended to be closed minded in their attitude. He’d protest it further but he could see Postain was clearly looking to get back to the subject at hand. The search team sent to the house Treygar had been seen leaving hadn’t called in with any findings yet. Then again, they only had the approximate address and one of the oxymorons of the language was that approximate wasn’t exact. Apparently the telepath Postain had brought with him was going to be close by at the conference come sales event, scanning all who came into the building. Kirrin wasn’t happy about that, either. He remembered one from back when he and Postain had been cadets. Telepaths were not reliable as far as he was concerned. The centre was looking locked tight in Kirrin’s eyes. There couldn’t be anything they’d overl…

“Have the sewers been secured,” Postain asked twice. The first time Kirrin hadn’t seemed to have heard him and Postain recalled he occasionally got lost in his own thoughts during the planning stages. “They run right under this place. Well,” he conceded, “right TO this place.”

“Uh, um, yes. They were given a walkthrough yesterday.” He put his hand on the wall. “Are we dealing with two groups here, Marius? Two clans?”

“It looks that way,” Postain replied, keeping his shoulders hunched as he examined things. “Both planning attacks on the same day. Probably. One group’s planning to assault a major interplanetary conference with diplomats and envoys from across the sector and the other’s got the most dangerous biological compound created since the prey wars and isn’t afraid to use it. We don’t know where one will strike but we do know where the other will. So I’m focussing on that one whilst my senior crew works on finding the others.”


Yarkin sat at a cafe table with her feet up, boot off and rubbing her footpads. “I’ll have to ask Jak how he does it sometime,” she told Gilkes as he nibbled a pastry. “I haven’t walked so far in years.”

“My old boss used to tell me Command weren’t footsloggers,” Gilkes ventured. “They had to be close to too many comms at once.”

“Sort of smart Jestavanian,” she admitted, putting her boot back on.

“Nah. He just didn’t like us seeing how flat his backside was,” Gilkes joked. From where he was sat he could see the forensic vehicles around the house. He puckered his brow in a frown. “None of them have come back out,” he ventured. “Normally someone’s come back out by now. Even if it’s just to make sure the vehicles haven’t been stolen.”

Yarkin sighed, swung her feet down and paid the bill. “I suppose the phrase is ‘walk on, good sir’? And how come I keep having to buy?”

“Chief’s salary,” Gilkes told her, getting to his feet and leading the way.


The Brockian constable outside the residence blinked and tried to stop feeling sleepy as the pair walked towards him. There was something strange about the Brockian. A difference in the jawline and eye colouring that might mean he was…

“Security Chief Yarkin of the U.S.C. Rodomont,” the feline announced, sticking a warrant card in his face. “This is Officer Gilkes.”

“I...I’m sorry, ma’am,” the Officer said, trying not to be intimidated at how she seemed to grow after he’d said that last word, “but I’m not allowed to let anyone in until the team’s finished. It’s more than my, uh, job to…”

“Shouldn’t someone have come out by now,” Gilkes asked. “Have they called in? We’re the ones told you about who was here. Call them. It’s OK. If they answer, things are good. We go away.”

Uncertainly, the Officer called in.


A picture of a large warehouse was on the wall now. Senny looked it over. There were traces of landings around the building that you’d only see if you knew what to look for and deep marks in the surface that always led to the warehouse. The land would have a hard time recovering. She reckoned there could be about twenty fighters in a location that size. “Power readings are high for a seed company,” she ventured.

“How will you find out if we’re right,” Declan asked.

“Simple,” Senny said. “I’m going to get permission to take your fighter and shoot the place up.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

I honestly was hoping after they said that the power readings were high one would have said it was "over 9000" just as a throwback to my childhood. That definitely would have brought back a lot of good memories.

[Welsh Halfwit]

I honestly was hoping after they said that the power readings were high one would have said it was "over 9000" just as a throwback to my childhood. That definitely would have brought back a lot of good memories.

Nah. Wouldn't do that! Although there is an allusion to some 'teenagers with attitude' at one point later on.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Admittedly I do not know where that has come from and can't remember it. If it is another DBZ reference I would go with when Androids 17 and 18 appeared.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fourty-Four


Senny looked the fighter over in the bay and hoped she wasn’t taking her life in her own hands with this idea. She ran a hand across the main cannons, the stolen Raicarra tech that had been jerry rigged onto the Minta Catlina chassis in an unholy upgrade. There was also a Fawren V97 scanner system and a Witherington Lysetta shield generator. Not traditionally meant for space vehicles, she thought. More for land based vehicles like tanks. It was the sort of system you used when you didn’t want to spend money on a better shield. There were signs of repair work on the Monta Batallian engines, which the deck chief had clearly enjoyed working with as the Old Celican had been in Monta twenty years ago, as he often reminded the crews. “Ah’ve worked on th’ greatest fighters flown in the last thirty years,” she growled in impression, “an’ the thing makes ‘em great is…” She held off on the last part of the quotation.

“...my passion’s in the blueprints,” Chief Sulpan finished,” having realised he wasn’t sneaking up on her as much as he’d wished. He came out from under the atmosphere wings and pulled himself up, an old Celican in dungarees. She’d laughed the first time she’d seen him. But it wasn’t a joke now. He patted the fuselage before continuing in his colonial accent. “Ol’ hist’ry lesson for the young’uns. An’ a few new tricks for me. She’s a bit naff compar’d to your ship but she’ll do th’ job she’s suppos’d to. Oh, an’ I replaced the power core wi’ that of a Starlancer 9 I had lyin’ around.”

She glanced back at him when the words reached her brain. “Isn’t that your runaround,” she asked.

He shrugged. “Inspection tours around the ship? His core’ll be fine in m’ship for that. You’d need the extra boost of the Monta engine for that.”

“How’s the weapons?”

“Fine tun’d th’ scanners and left the Raicarra stuff as – ahem – I believe we received a request from the Raitchian government telling us to leave off any copyrighted technologies?”

“I never heard anything about that,”

“Really,” the Celican said, twitching his chipped and bitten ear. Senny had decided never to ask him about where he’d gotten those wounds and she was pretty sure he’d decided not to tell her. “I figured they’d be onto that post haste.” He gave her a wry smile. “Otherwise I’d have had to have it stripped from the fuselage and stored, wouldn’ I?”

“In other words you didn’t want to touch it in case something went off?”

“Not gonna claim that, am I? She’ll do for you, Flight Leader Appleby.”


Ten minutes later, Senny powered up the polished rustbucket and brought it out of the ship before angling towards the planet. She checked the comms. “Cat to big house, you hearing me?”

<“Big house here,”> Maldak replied, knowing the new terminology was due to the fighters transmission frequencies possibly being observed by others on the planet. It was another way they could hide from the Farrida. Foreknowledge. <“Good hunting, Cat.”>

“Well, I am looking for Pigeons,” Senny replied before cutting the link. She angled the fighter away from the Militia ships and engaged the satellite blockers to take her in.


The attendees were beginning to arrive at the centre now. Delegates from sixteen planets who’d been assigned to fifteen of he colony hotels as they weren’t looking to be totally communal with each other when they weren’t here. There were enough conference rooms for them to arrange private meetings and it was easier to keep them apart so their own security could handle threats and not need the Colonials expend their budget. That was how Sarah Keswick put it as she spoke to the Rottian who wasn’t in the conference room, which had been set up remarkably like a job fair, with tables and A4 posters stuck to flocked boards behind them. This, she told him, was just the formal section, designed to catch the floaters who just wanted to know about things on the colonies before the appointments began. She told him she’d already booked time with the Minister on Haldana and Pandera and had Micanna III and Rayvon book appointment and yes, Marius, she’d make sure they don’t meet each other in the passageway. They’d not gotten on, those two, and she wasn’t wanting it to blow up here. She wasn’t worried about the people here at the moment. It was the locals she was more worried about. The colonies best business types. Vetted only by the locals. And they could be corrupted. It was true of anyone, she admitted, thinking of the old transport minister and his goings on.


Yarkin stayed outside the building and called it in. The young Officer was retching from shock. They’d barely been in there five minutes and they’d been in protective suits. Old ones but… The team had ripped each other to shreds after something had gotten through the protective suits in a soundproofed room. Gilkes reckoned it had been some sort of fragmentation grenade they’d set off, loaded with what they could blithely refer to as ‘the weapon’ right now. They’d need Flakk for this as he had a full combat suit, not the fabric thing these people had that had proved so ineffectual. It had been confined to the one room, though. A trap set for them. Which had to mean Traygar knew they’d be coming. She looked around, wondering where his lookout was.


Xarra and Kirrin sat in a motorway rest stop, both dressed in undecoverwear that consisted of heavy trousers and shirts with shoulderstraps as they ‘enjoyed a small scall early breakfast on their way to the southern provinces to deliver their truckload of produce and, generally, waste waste some time before making their move. Indeed, before even knowing if they had a move to make. Xarra’s comm beeped in her ear and she slurped the last of her tea before returning the fake china mug to the fake wood table. “Gotta take a slash,” she said. “Five minutes, boss?”

“I’ll get the truck ready,” he replied. “Join me when yer ready.” They parted ways for a few minutes and Kirrin checked his rig. He checked under the main body and between trailer and truck. He’d have known if anyone opened the trailer…


Senny entered the atmosphere and swivelled towards the warehouse they’d identified, coming in from the west.

[Amazee Dayzee]

You know when you start to puke because you have seen people torn apart by something that you probably are in the wrong occupation. Maybe they should try to find an office job or something that doesn't involve seeing exploded people.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Forty-Five


The truck rolled into the tunnel as Senny’s borrowed fighter cut across the skyline from west to east, heading for the hidden fighter bay at a height that meant she was visible to those who were looking but not too obvious. An attack that had been planned would involve more than just one out of date fighter but an exploratory might just go unmentioned until it was too late. Possibly. She was about ten miles out as Xarra and Kirrin readied their part. Senny pulled around a local hill and arrowed towards the target area, dropping down to penetration scan range at best range for her first run, watching the reactions and the people running as she swept overhead at about a hundred meters up. She watched the group running for the alert bell as she pulled the craft up so she could pull it around, an action that covered several miles, half the town and an Aldin Squirrelmart that made her think these things were getting everywhere. She flicked on the weapons to charge and ‘reported in’ on an open frequency. “Cat to big house,” she said, “pigeon roost confirmed. Clipping wings as advised. Lauch full attack when ready, over.” No reply. Deliberately. They didn’t want triangulation this time. She narrowed her focus and stared ahead as the building appeared in the targetting sensors. They were putting up shields. “Nevermind,” Senny told herself, firing the shield breaker cannons at full strength. Even through the shields, glass and walls crumpled under the fire and she imagined the damage she was doing to the parked fighters as a hidden turret opened up on her. The message had been delivered, she supposed, weaving around the incoming fire and turning upawards, out of range of the turret.


The truck skidded on the surface of the road in the tunnel and skidded into the wall, sending electrical sparks flying after it jumped the ‘kerb’ onto the pavement and half topped , remaining on it’s wheels seemingly by force of effort but also by preprogrammed gyroscope. The screeching truck slowed and ground its way to a stop at a very precise location as the other base had fighters head after the Farrida clan raider, some way to the east. Xarra the co driver kept in contact with base as her teeth and ears kept ringing with the screeching metal. The automatic systems registered the crash in the tunnel and closed it in the direction they’d been heading. The detour was ten miles around. It couldn’t be helped. She had a feeling it would have detected an accident in the next hour or so, if there was one or not. She got out and wandered around, seemingly in a slight daze as people stopped to ask if she was all right. She assured them she was and it had been an error in the computer and they’d need recovery and so on. Kirrin, for his part, had stepped through to the back as his door was, allegedly, too damaged to open. Xarra turned down the offers of help from the locals and stressed, that help had already been summoned and didn’t mention that they should head on to clear the way for the emergency services. Mostly she just wanted them gone so they didn’t see what was in the trailer.


Feeling he was on overwatch and realising how useless that made him feel, Tarbeck watched from the bridge, head propped up on an elbow as the screen showed Senny’s fighter scrambling away from the Gallides’ base with a handful of their fighters in tow. He knew that meant part two of the operation would have begun in the tunnel and there was still the work going on in Dayton and the conference centre and he had the possibility of a Raicarra cruiser closing in to give the Farrida clan a clump on the nose and the Militia were spitting feathers about the fact the Rodomont had used a Pirate’s fighter to instigae a small scale war on their territory and he considered he really should tell them the Raicarrans were coming to do that anyway and the Gallides probably had a mothership worryingly close by and a bi-terror weapon in their hands. Oh, for the days he just had to worry about teleporting people. Still… “Any sign of that Raitchian ship, Makilla,” he asked.

“Not at the moment, sir,” she replied, “but they have stealth capabilities. They’re hard to pick up when they don’t want to be found.”

“I see.” He nodded behind her back. He quite liked her. She was helpful despite being annoyed by him. When he returned to his regular rank, perhaps he should invite her to dinner? He thrust the thought from his head. Not now. He looked to Kridd on sciences. “Most stealth ships have giveaway flaws,” he reminded them, “excess power or a distortion in the wake behind them. Anything known for this one?”

“Nothing much,” the Feline replied. “From the last meeting, we know the engines put out a slight variance to normal so I’m running scans to pick that up but it won’t give us much warning and… welll… It might have been done deliberately?”

Tarbeck had come to the same possibility but hadn’t had the confidence to venture it against his science officer. He mused on the possibilities.


Greedan listened as the air purge came to a crescendo and the atmosphere vented into space from the militia ship’s frame. He was really hoping the air would come back in quickly. The space suit was new to him and he’d never expected it to feel so… claustrophobic. He wanted the helmet off. And, he had to confess, he wanted to see what Leigh looked like. He loved Doris… and the thought of that shocked him as he found he really DID love her and his heart had jumped slightly at the thought of her name and her soft, giving, body but there was a curiousness about Leigh. The curiosity of the scientist, perhaps. He figured he’d not tell them he was involved in the making of the gel. It might not go over well. Flakk had ordered the ventilation to the bay the officers were stored in shut off to protect them from anything and he’d made it clear that they’d have to stay in afterwards. Apparently none of them were showing ill effects but, due to only being on limited air supply, the exposure might have been less extreme. As in heavily thinned out or diluted and they could still be infected. The Rodomont couldn’t help without lowering their shields so Flakk was improvising. He had a plan, apparently.


It involved him being in the cupboard that passed for a medical room here, searching through the cabinets for something he could use. He came across a small box of pills and examined them. In the absence of anything else, he supposed they’d do the job. He looked up as the air returned to the ship. His medical sensors checked the readings. “It’s clear,” he told the others. “Put air back into the cargo bay.”

<“Roger, Doc Dodger,”> Greedan said.

“You’ll be dodging my fist later, Greedan!” Flakk shook his head and headed for the teleport bay. He opened a commline to the cargo bay after putting the box on the dais. “Flakk to cargo bay. I’m sending you mood stabilizers. Get your medic to apply moderate doses to everyone. Then I’ll let you out.”


He sent the package.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I think that Flakk needs some mood stabilizers to be honest since he seems to be more violent than Postain! I didn't think that was possible.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Forty-six


Senny worked on the next part of her plan. The part she’d not told Wharfrat about as she led the pursuing fighters west, towards the Farrida clan base she’d located from the maps and Declan’s advice on where to look – or, rather, where NOT to look. Every so often she slowed up and risked taking shots to keep the Gallides’ interested in her. She opened up a commline. Not just to the ship this time. “Control,” she called urgently, “this is Cat! I’ve got the location of the Gallides secret base! The computer’s malfunctioned so I can’t send the information on! I need help! I have their fighters all over me! I know I’m not supposed to make contact but this is an emergency!” She kept the pretence up until she saw they’d launched.


Tarbeck watched on as the situation developed down below. “Time to add to the chaos, I think,” he muttered as the two sides engaged. “Tarbeck to Starlancer bay,” he said, Maldak working quickly to connect him as he hadn’t ordered. “You know which fighter not to shoot at,” he told them. “Go get your Flight leader back. Launch all fighters. Engage the enemy and destroy them or bring them up here.” He poked a finger to Maldak and she cut the link.

“Not half bad,” Makilla enthused. “Not like the others would have done but there’s some style there.”

“Commander Hawle of the Loper would approve,” Maldak chipped in. “So never tell the Captain, sir.”

“Noted,” Tarbeck nodded, having looked up the other Commanding Officers in the patch the night before and guessing who the ‘mad Rabbit’ Postain often grumpily referred towas by his profile picture. As just within uniform regs as he could get. He’d never get away with that uniform on this ship. Anyhow, he pondered, back to work. “Maldak, put me on with the Militia lot, would you?”

“Aye, sir,” she replied breezily, twisting a few controls. “You’re on,” she finished, a second before pressing the final switch.

“This is Acting Commander Tarbeck of the Rodomont.” He ignored the Militia Commander trying to cut in. “You’ve no doubt noted our fighters heading towards the surface. We’ve managed to trick the Farrida clan and Gallides clan into a shooting match which we’re about to intervene in to help and uncover. We’re fully capable of dealing with them in the sky but we will be trying to bring them up here where less civilians would be in danger. Secondly, you may have head that the Raitchians are in the patch, ruthlessly hunting down and destroying Farrida clan bases and the area around them. Our long range probes have identified a Raitchian cruiser that’ll be here almost imminently. I suggest we unite to turn them back. You may have heard what they did on Pallisa IV, despite the redaction of events.” He clicked his tongue. “Wasn’t pretty. Your call. Rodomont out.”

Maldak cut the line. “What attack on Pallisa IV,” she asked. “I’ve never heard of one there.”

“Haven’t you,” Tarbeck asked ‘innocently’ “Neither have I. Did say it’s redacted, didn’t I?”


Harmony Appleby pointed at one of the people entering the venue and Hadrian Jax, keeping his antlers low, approached the Brockian and advised him that the Cerridian trade delegate was waiting on him and would he come this way, please, to where local security and a couple of Yarkins could take him into custody. He may not actually be charged with anything, like the five others who’d been searched for weapons and put in a holding room, but it certainly kept him from doing the illegal things Harmony had known they were going to do. Hadrian called out as he spotted a maid going into one of the rooms and, to his slight surprise, she bolted. He called it in as he began the chase, wondering to himself why he’d called out to her in the first place. Ah, that was it. Housekeeping had been in there a few hours back. She headed into the stairwell and out the side door as Hadrian passed the room she’d started in. By the time he got to the side door, she was gone. Somewhere in the grounds. He alerted the outside units to her presence and headed back to check the room she’d been going into. Or was it coming out of?


They found it in the attic, underneath a skylight. Chief Yarkin had insisted on going up their first, scanning for any tripwires or beam detectors before using her Feline frame to snake around the top of the ladder and pull herself along the floor. “Dusting whilst up there,” Gilkes joked.

“Very funny,” the Chief replied. “Poke your head up and see what we got, Gilkes.”

He did so and cursed in his native language as he saw a long, slender, tube mounted at a seventy degree angle on a gyroscope that was perfectly capable of moving about its axis. “Retractable roof,” he ventured.

“Most of it, I guess,” she replied, looking up at the ceiling. “Operated by remote control. Then this thing fires. There’s a range of about two miles depending on power. Is the local with you,” she asked. He’d been there when she’d come up but he might have needed to punish the porcelain, as some put it. It that had been her first slaughterzone, she’d probably feel the same way.

“Here,” he replied, sounding shaky.

“Any large arenas within half a mile or so from here?”

“Well there’s, um… the Brockway sports stadium,” he replied, almost uncertainly. “One of the lower teams in the capitol plays there.” His ears pricked up. “They have a game tonight!”

“So we have time then,” Yarkin asked, knowing that would mean the end of the night, some ten to twelve hours away.

“No,” he replied quickly, “it’s being put on vid across the sector and, for some reason, probably demanded by the company, that means the game gets played early evening. Before breakfast for some!”

“So,” Gilkes finished slowly, “it’d mostly be the Dayton populace in the stands…”

“Multiple species. I better recall how to turn this thing off without detonating it,” Yarkin said.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Detonating a bomb would be a really bad idea regardless of if there are people around because it could cause a lot of damage. If they don't want a massive property damage bill slapped on them they BETTER be careful with disarming it.

[Welsh Halfwit]

It's not a bomb. It's a mortar aimed at a sports stadium. Firing bombs with the mutagen in them...

[Amazee Dayzee]

I would imagine though doing something that would detonate the mortar wouldn’t be a good idea though. Since it will cause the bombs to go off all at once and take out a massive chunk of where the mortar is placed.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Forty-seven


The lorry hummed in the quiet of the tunnel, the lanes having been closed off now. The humming wasn’t coming from the engine, though, it was coming from the cutter opening a hole in the wall. The system had detected warm bodies indise the wall now, showing the group inside were ready for them after having tried to open the secret door but failing due to having a truck mashed against the sensors. Xarra was in charge of the second cutting team, 8 Brockians and a couple of officers from the Rodomont in case the Brockians didn’t fancy taking orders from a Mican. Kirrin had the other eight, working a little further down. <“What if they go out another way,”> one of her charges asked.

“Good question,” she replied, having quick changed into light armour in the back of the lorry. “What if they DO go another way?”

<“We’ll still take their base and the drones should spot any fleeing groups,”> one of the Brockians told the Council Officer. <“We still score big.”>

<“Hope so,”> the Officer grunted, readying his weapon as the cutters stopped. Xarra stuck her arm in and placed an explosive device. They backed off before Xarra punched a hole in the wall with the press of a button that funnelled the blast back through the hole whilst punching through the remaining few inches of wall in front of it. The hole expanded and spat concrete and metal around the tunnel, cracking at least one visor on their way. Her team opened up into the passageway beyond, keeping their targets heads down as Kirrin opened up the main door.

“Team back,” Xarra called as she saw the missile ready to fly straight at them from one of the defenders. Kirrin spotted it too and his crew moved aside before the missile thudded into the lorry and threw it back over the carriageway onto the opposite lane in an explosion that cracked the tunnel walls. She could imagine the launcher’s officer calling him an idiot because he could have brought the tunnel down on them. It was a thought that comforted her as she could think of it, unlike many of the people she was with. The Brockian who’d spoken had covered her against the worst of the explosion. She’d felt the heat even through the layers. She wondered if he had as she pushed him off her and fired into the hole, taking the missile firer by surprise and taking his head off as her weapon must have been at full strength. She’d have to chide herself for that, she decided, leading the charge, of those who could currently move, into the tunnel.


An automatic rifle, Jak noted as he got into the room. Mounted on a remote control pintle with a digital scanner that was scoping out the area outside the conference centre. There were probably a number of faces loaded into the storage computer attached to the camera scope. Interesting, he thought. He cast aside the thought as the gun started moving, the scope having identified a target. He ran forward and pulled the weapon up by the barrel, the heat from the discharge scorching his hand pads as the bolt of energy cracked into the ceiling edge opposite. Recognising it hadn’t hit the target, the gun fought to reacquire and Jak struggled to disconnect the power as his other hand fought the weapon. The fight took a few seconds as the area below cleared into the Conference centre and Jak wondered it that had been part of the plan. It took him twenty seconds to disconnect the power and the gun power died. He tapped his comm. “Jak to Postain! The weapon is secure! Don’t let the crowd past the foyer!”


Postain thrust his headset off and headed out into the main area. He knew what Jak was getting at. Rather than the almost leisurely way people had been coming in before, now they were panicked. They were entering at pace and, frankly, Appleby couldn’t scan that many people at once. No security could stop that many at once. One shot to overwhelm all the plans. That was all it took. He caught someone fleeing towards the main auditorium and hoiked him back to the foyer over his protests as the security team tried to stop Brockians going everywhere in fear. Well, he thought, nearly all in fear. “NO-ONE LEAVES THE LOBBY,” he yelled, the voice of command overwhelming the shrill notes of panic in the majority of people. “The danger has been contained! But we cannot be certain it is completely finished. We need to know where everybody is so,” he finished, putting the one he was carrying down, “stay here.”

One raised his hand. “I...I need to go to my… office.”

Postain looked at the Brockian. He appraised her. “You’re the Hotel manager,” he reminded her. “You’ve already been cleared. And the same for your office. Why do you need to go there?”

“To… to use the hailer to tell people the danger is dealt with?”

Postain looked down at his comm. A single light flashed twice, the sign from Appleby that the manager was telling true. “In you go. Anyone needs the loo, a guard goes with you. And they’re to stay in the cubicle.” He headed towards the main event, in case some had gotten through first.


“So, what’s going on,” Sarah asked the Rottian as he stormed into the room and cast a baleful eye over the hundred or so already in the room.

“A distraction,” he told the Trade minister who served his Fiancee. “Has anyone just entered this room?”

She scoffed. “You joke, surely?” She caught his look and changed her mind. “I forget, you don’t know how to do that. Your speech at the local Militia commencement ceremony proved that.”

“There was nothing wrong with that speech,” he complained, distracted slightly by the inference.

“Twenty minutes long and no humour. I’m amazed the cadets survived.”

“Sarah…”

“I know, I know,” she replied, shrugging. “Three Brockians came through. And, if you think I can tell you who they are, you actually DO have a sense of humour!”

“I might be able to guess,” Postain remarked, seeing one slipping under a table. “Jam it,” he told his hand and a static whine filled the room, making most of the occupants put their hands to their ears. Sarah and Postain were the only ones who didn’t at least look like they were in pain due to the plugs both were wearing that filtered out noise over a certain level. Postain crossed towards one who was trying to draw a weapon. He couldn’t give him the chance. If he were using an energy weapon or a plasma, the jamming field would interrupt the firing mechanism but, if he was using solid core…


“Ah,” Yarkin said as the roof began to retract...

[Amazee Dayzee]

Better hurry up with whatever you are planning Postain. I am sure they don't know how fast that roof will open up...

[Welsh Halfwit]

Tarbeck steps up?

Forty-Eight


“I’ll arrange to have the game postponed,” the Officer downstairs told Yarkin.

She shook her head from underneath the mortar as the roof kept lifting back. He’d gotten the shell of the box open to reveal the wiring inside and considered herself lucky it hadn’t been set to blow immediately someone removed the cover. The automatic system was, it seemed, not set up for that. A small help. “Oh,” she grunted, checking out the diodes and wires inside. All the same colour. Of course they were. “Like they’d believe you,”

“They might,” he said plaintively.

“Ignore her,” Gilkes said casually. “She’s under pressure. It’s a good idea.” He shrugged. “Might work.”

The local gave a water full smirk. “You think it’s a waste too?”

“Tell them to get them inside the stadium’s inner workings.” He looked up at the creeping darkness. “As many as they can in two minutes anyhow…” He could hear the birds.

Yarkin thought back to the bomb defusing seminars she’d had to attend over the years and was thankful she’d spent time in the holoroom practising beyond the training as, if she’d relied on the classes, she might have gotten herself killed through uncertainty. As it was, she had more of a clue which of the wires to attack. She got a small pair of scissors from her pouch as opposed to her claws as she wanted to slice the wire rather than saw it. She still thanked the stars she wasn’t Human as the thought of body water getting in her eyes flitted across her mind as she picked wires two and four to clip as the mortar began to shift slightly, into firing position.


“MrHuman” Kerri said quickly, having not bothered to learn Charles’ name, “areyouable torun the diagnosticson the internalpower systems from here,” she asked, having taken command in engineering as Harra had decided to join the roving patrols for once, letting his deputy ‘put her feet up’ for once. He was testing her, she figured, seeing how she did in a combat position that, frankly, made her nervous. Not because she was in charge down here but because of the untested Officer up top. Having Xarra or Postain up top would make her feel so much better.

“Assuming you said ‘run the diagnostics on the internal power systems, I’m fine Chief,” he replied, stepping to the console. “A Darramatix Poletran console,” he stated, rather than questioned. “Have the same back on my freighter. Of course it was an expensive upgrade for us.”

“Well,don’tbreak it,” She chirruped. “Thisship’s abit biggerthanyours.” She let him familiarise himself with the station. It wasn’t an essential service as she wasn’t giving him one of those and the system double-checked everything anyhow. It was still important, though. Sometimes eyes caught problems before systems registered them. And it freed other, more experienced, engineers for the more important stuff. She swept down low to check the engines.


Postain lifted one assailant overhead as another punched him in the kidneys and he threw his hoisted competitor to the floor before swinging his arm to catch the other about the head. The third threw something at him and tried to back off with Sarah behind him. He dropped as something buzzed and the first tackled Postain to the ground. The odds, he reckoned, were even now that Sarah’s Tazer had taken the third out of the fight and the jammer had disabled their weapons. The Brockian with the grimaced face raked claws along Postain’s jawline as the Rottian counterstruck, bringing his arms up hard to each side of the Brockian’s frame. The figure backed upwards slightly, giving the Captain enough room to draw his fist back and smack it straight into his face. Where was the other one, Postain wondered as he thrust his attacker off and rose to a fighting haunch. He threw himself at the second, who was busy trying to break Sarah’s neck. To get the criminals’ hands off her, he put his own hands around the side of the head and under the jaw to simulate that he was going to try to break the neck. Might not be that much of a simulation, he thought as the hands released her and he felt something sharp enter his side. Pain didn’t make him release his grip but intensified it, making him press down on the skull of the owner until someone lifted the assailant off him and threw him threw a table from the sound of crashing. Postain blinked as locals took the one he’d been crushing from under his grasp, skin and bone being trapped on his clawtips and pulling streams of blood from the wounds. He’d never realised Jak was so tall. He was practically blotting out the light.


Xarra wanted to lead the charge into the base but, with the rearguard fighting, there wasn’t going to be a charge and, besides, it was Kirrin’s right. She was just after the Lappineans. She hoped they were still here. She’d hate to consider everything that was happening here a waste.


“Put them on,” Tarbeck asked as the Raicarran ship drew closer.

“And sound battle stations,” Makilla ‘advised’.

Tarbeck cursed silently. He KNEW there had been something he’d forgotten. “That too,” he added. Maldak sent the siren and the signal and told him he was on. The Raitchians weren’t responding but he was on. He shrugged. “This is Commander Tarbeck of the Rodomont,” he announced. “Your mission here is known and cannot be supported. The Pirate base you aim to destroy here is not an isolated one. It is close to several towns that would suffer damage under any ‘accidental’ blast. You cannot be permitted to proceed.”

The reply came audio only. <“We have the sovereign right to protect all patents and recover or destroy all stolen technology. It’s in our charter with the U.S.C.”>

Tarbeck swallowed. He wasn’t sure on legal matters. Did they have the rights to do this? He ws out of his depth here and… He looked at Makilla looking at him with imploring eyes. Eyes that told him that, somehow, he had to know the answer. He took a deep breath. “Then take it up with Sector command,” he said sharply. “As of now, I AM the United Security Council and I can tell you that this colony will not allow you to fire on their planet and, unlike in every strike you have perpetrated recently, where you have had superior firepower to the Militias, you do NOT have it here!” He growled. “If you attempt to move towards the planet, the Militia will fire upon you. If you fire back, we WILL come to their aid with all the firepower we can muster. And, with three hundred of you on that ship and fifty thousand in the blast range on the planet, you had better believe you WILL be stopped. So I say again, for the FINAL time. Leave. Or be destroyed.” He ordered Maldak to cut the line and instructed weapons charged.

[Amazee Dayzee]

It is really great that Tarbeck finally was able to dig deep and find his voice here to threaten the enemies here. A lot of death and destruction would have happened if the ship had fired on the planet as it seemed to have done regularly.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Forty-nine


Kirrin had the defenders on the run as the assailants gained ground in the tunnel. They were into the complex now, past the garage and Xarras’ group had joined them with Xarra still worrying about the concrete ceiling of the tunnel after the lorry had done serious damage to the wall. She fired into a passage, clipping a defender in the shoulder and spinning her around under the impact before they dropped to the ground, their torn arm some seven feet from the rest of them. She reminded herself she needed to dial down the power a bit. The Lappineans were ‘capture’, not ‘kill’. Setting 4 should suffice, she decided, changing the weapon to that setting before continuing on into the complex. Were they here? Had they gone out some other way? The Police Chief had enacted a teleport signal jammer as they’d started the physical assault but there was still the chance they’d headed out the back exit. If there was one. “Any sign of the Lappineans,” she asked. Several ‘nopes’ came back in her helmet. One commented that, in the current situation he couldn’t take his helmet off and sniff. There wouldn’t be much point anyhow, she thought as she swapped fire with an armoured Brockian, too much energy in the atmosphere.


Greedan twitched his ear as the Militia commander of the clipper tried to intimidate Doctor Flakk, protesting about the indignity of having had to submit to the medical procedure after the Doctor had refused his command to release them from confinement. Leigh, stood nearby, doing their best to keep out of it as the locals did their best to not look at them too much. It seemed Greedan’s ‘crossbreed’ status was more or less acceptable but Leigh’s ‘jigsaw’ profile wasn’t. The new prisoner stood next to the former and whispered to him. “Does he really think that’s going to work on him?” Greedan handed Leigh something to snack on. “I’ll never get used to this,” they replied, using the grain bar to chip away at the front teeth.

“You’d be surprised,” Greedan advised, realising he’d just given away his last bar. “And every Commander has to try. Every Commander has to learn,” he added as Flakk gripped the hand that had been poking him. “Professor Doctor is in.”

“Look,” Flakk thundered, “I KNOW what the contamination does to a person. I KNOW it makes them angry and dangerous as you should also know. IF you’ve been looking at what your people have been walking in these last few minutes, you should be seeing what it can do. You WERE exposed. To a lesser degree than they were. But you were exposed! Understand?”

“Lesson given,” Greedan asided to Leigh. “Don’t provoke the Wolf for he is grouchy and you are tasty on toast.”

“I’d hate him being exposed to the gel… gas. Whatever,” Leigh replied, glancing at their commonly converted associate. “You originally Mican or Celican?”

“Tell ya later,” Greedan replied, taking that moment to go and check the systems.

“You do realise I could use this time to try and escape,” Leigh muttered.

“I wouldn’t,” Flakk warned the convict. “Especially as I can hear you!” He listened to something in his ear and spoke again. “Helmets back on, you two! We’re headed back aboard the ship.” He looked at the Militia Commander. “Your command is returned to you. Don’t let criminals steal it again.”


Tarbeck almost whooped as it worked, four figures being teleported in during the four seconds Kridd had the shields down. The console dipped in power as the Feline put the field back up again. “Four people from two locations onto the one pad at the same time! Hah!” He remembered his decorum as Postain glowered at him. “Ahem. S-sir.”

“Back to the bridge, Commander,” Postain ordered. “I’ll be there in a moment.” He sagged slightly after Tarbeck left and held his reddening side as Flakk made to inspect the wound. He stopped, remembering in time that his suit might be contaminated and started removing it. “Want to explain why you took that with you,” Postain demanded, indicating the taller suit.

“Immunities,” Flakk explained, letting the second of his gauntlets fall off to the floor. “If I needed someone to take a suit off, who should I risk? This pair can’t be infected by it again. Greedan, take him back to the isolation room. I have to deal with this.”

“Deal with it on the way to the bridge,” Postain ordered as Flakk got the nearest medical kit. The Rottian strode from the room with the Doctor in tow.

Leigh turned to Greedan. “How did you get him to trust you?”

Greedan shrugged after removing his helmet. “He doesn’t. He just knows I’m not stupid enough to challenge him.”

Leigh thought about it for a moment before smiling with his odd mix of teeth. “Me either.” They playfully offered an arm. “Walk me back to my room?”

“I have a girlfriend but sure,”

“I wasn’t offering,” Leigh stated. They weren’t sure if it was a lie or not.


Senny twisted for the stars as the two forces fought over what her maps told her was the village of Sadrino, scaring the locals and making them run for cover as dead fighters and blown cockpits landed in the fields in a day many had been expecting. There was no way they couldn’t have suspected a major base somewhere in the area, she told herself as she changed her friend or foe system over to identify her as friendly to the Starlancers she could see burning down through the upper atmosphere.


Declan hoped his information had been of help as he sat in one of the seats in the secure zone, trapped with civilians, children, engineers and a couple of guards. He liked the Castoran. Tough but fair and from his background. Right down to being a fighter for money and being rather bad at it. Even so, he was a little offended that she’d taken his fighter for this mission. She’d not been tested in it. She didn’t know the ins and outs like he did. It’s little eccentricities that only a pilot experienced with the ship would know. That’s why they so often say a good pilot and the ship are one. A good pilot knows how to make the ship do what it doesn’t want to do and when to not even bother trying. He turned to a Canine girl child as he heard her crying. “My Daddy’s out there,” she told him. He didn’t know why she’d confided that in him but he used his left foot to try to hide the ankle tag under his right trouser leg. “He… he’s in a fighter,” she finished.

He held her close and reminded her the Rodomont had the best fighters in the area. He didn’t know what else to say.


Especially as, two weeks prior, he’d have been one of the people trying to kill her father.

[Amazee Dayzee]

What a difference that two weeks makes then huh? Looks like he isn't needing to go after her father after all or at least is going to postpone it until later. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fifty


Postain got to the bridge with Flakk still attempting to seal the wound in his side. Postain could feel the pain and the loss of blood and a general feeling of malaise. He figured there was some sort of toxin on the blade but he could get that sorted in a few minutes. Flakk had put in a general anti-toxin and he was needed here. Xarra was still planetside. Yarkin was still planetside. Tarbeck was untested and he didn’t have time to bring Kritch up to speed. Besides which, he couldn’t escape the fact that, if Kritch had been in charge, his ship would have been infected now. He sped up slightly as the alert siren sounded. Something extra to deal with?


Maldak looked at the bloodstained side of Postain as he came in and struggled to return her gaze to her work as she tried to ignore the wound that gaped wider in her imagination than in reality. There were communications being sent between the Militia ships and the Raicarrans to try to sort things out. The locals didn’t believe the denials regarding prior Raicarran attacks and she kept listening as Tarbeck updated the Captain on what had happened , up to and including the event that had needed the alert. They’d been wrong in suspecting the Gallides clan of having a ship hiding behind the moon. They had two. They were quite large and the Raitchians were negotiating with the Militia about rates for putting themselves in danger by helping out. Postain asked Maldak for an update and she told him. He frowned. “Put me on with them.” He turned towards the screen, knowing he was already on with them. “This is Captain Postain of the Rodomont to the Raicarra ship. If you attempt to withdraw, complaints will be lodged at the highest levels, making other colonies think twice about working with you. Mind you,” he added, “you notice how I say ‘attempt to withdraw’? How will you do that at fifty percent power?”

<“What are you talking about,”> the voice from the Raicarran ship replied.

Postain nodded to Maldak and she responded with a grin, transmitting the codes Djaka had given her earlier. The command codes for the Raicarran ship, along with the overrides and password changes that he’d set up after Postain had ordered him to. “Until we decide otherwise,” Postain declared, “WE now have override on your systems. If we want you shut off? You will be. And your communications channels have been locked open. No ‘lost communications’ ploy here.”

<“That would be in violation of our contract law with the Council...”>

“Complain about it after the battle. I’ve been stabbed fighting today. I’ve had two attempted biological attacks on this ship in the last week and I am, right now, without any pun intended, feeling decidedly Ratty. I’m about to shoot someone. Your choice is if you want to help or if you want to be first.” He struck for Maldak to cut the line as Flakk used his scanner to analyse what had been on the blade.

“A mild stimulant,” he professed, “designed to get your heart racing under stress to cause a heart attack.” He readied the antidote, using the medical override to have the replication machine at the back of the bridge – that never got used as no food or drink was allowed – to produce the fluid. He stepped back and injected Postain whilst he was talking.

“Wondered why my pulse was rac...OW!” Half the bridge turned to look as Postain bared his teeth and tensed his hand to strike back. He composed himself and noted that Tarbeck had actually looked like he planned to intervene as his manner and, indeed, pulse, returned to something approaching normal and Flakk began properly sealing the rip in his side. The two large Pirate ships came closer…


Xarra was getting tired. It was hard work, going from room to room as the enemy fought a holding action. They had to make sure there were no booby traps laid for the unwary or… <“Kirrin to all troops,”> said an urgent voice in her head, from the leader of group two, comprised of roughly five surviving officers, the same as her group. <“Hold on to something!”>


She was going to ask him what but then she could hear it over the speakers. She could see the pressure gauge rising. The wind beginning to rush past and she gripped the frame of the door as the river rushed through. The jammer was still on so she couldn’t call for teleport. She wondered how much air was in these suits. She worried about being thrown into traps or… She felt the frame snap away from her hands as the force of the incoming river broke her grip and carried her with it, looking for an exit or, possibly, a wall. She tumbled, head over heels, along the route, bashing into walls and fighting to stay conscious in the maelstrom of motion as she imagined those without suits crying out in terror until the water filled their mouths and lungs with its presence. She could hear the cries of those IN suits after all and they were safe as long as the seals held. Was that water she could feel against her body? Had it breached her suit? No, she decided, grimacing, it was too warm for that. She smacked her faceplate on a door frame, almost giving her whiplash, she figured. The visor was chipped. Quite an impact then, she reasoned as the crack began to spread across her H.U.D.


“You were involved in the making of this stuff,” Leigh asked Greedan hotly, making Greedan thankful the former was already back in the isolation room.

He hadn’t quite known why he’d told the captive the truth but he had. Now to deal with it in a certain way. Not lies. Not quite truth. “I didn’t have much choice,” he said with a sigh. “It wasn’t exactly one of those projects you were allowed to leave once you had even the slightest hint of what was going on. Back then I… didn’t have the courage to stand up to what those Lappineans were doing.”

Leigh thumped the clear wall, making Greedan step back in alarm. “And now,” they demanded. “Would you now?”

“I…” Greedan swallowed. “I think so. Although they’d probably kill me for it.”

“Well,” Leigh admitted, stalking back to the bed on the opposite side of the room. “that’d be progress. I suppose a Mican science assistant wouldn’t have a backbone.” Leigh lay down and stared at the ceiling before turning their head sharply to face Greedan. “Now you do. Now you have Celican blood in there. If you get a chance to avenge your victims…”

“...Take it,” Greedan finished. To his own surprise, he figured he meant it too. But now, he thought to himself as he imagined the ship shook, to the secure room. He took off, hoping Darren and Doris were already in there.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Never tell a captive about what some of your regrets are if you don't want them to stop being afraid of you. It looks like Greedan now has to do damage control and get the captive to stand down and not want to swing for him.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fifty-One


Kelvan sighed as he let others into the school secure room first. It almost seemed he spent as much time trapped in one of these rooms as he did in the ship schoolroom. There were about eighty in the school, all in all, and he was determined he was going to be amongst the last in. If he went in at all. He’d much rather give his space to someone who needed it and was slightly irritated that the alarm had gone some ten minutes before school end, meaning he wasn’t in with Hayseed or the scientists and was just in with his friends and school enemies. Mr Halvan, the senior school teacher, gently pushed him inside before one of the security members closed the door behind him, sealing them in. The youngsters’ Raitchian eye scanned the rest for the medical… ah, the Mican lady in the corner was wearing the medical band. Useful to know. He headed across to where Enzo and Ella were already trying to distract the younger class with games and play, helping out Miss Qwukk, the Quokkan teacher. Willa was staying off to the one side until he pulled her into the game.


Senny spiralled upwards, beginning to leave the complex triple directional, combat behind her. It was, more or less, anathema to her but this was an inferior fighter and the number of them falling showed that as one of the Starlancers twisted past her with a Farrida clan ship on their tail. Going faster than her due to the shorter range not needing to reserve thrust for the final thrust from the atmosphere, the two passed her by. She recognised the evasion pattern of Flight Officer Evrad and decided it might not take her too much effort to… Ah, heck. She altered her angle of ascent and came in behind the Farridas as it fired on Evrad. The enemy fighters fire sparked and scratched Evrad’s shielding but the advanced tech enabled a small percentage of the energy to penetrate the tail of the Starlancer, damaging the engine panelling before Senny opened fire with her weapons. She imagined the fighter almost shook itself apart when she fired but it was probably nowhere near that bad. She heard the Farridas ask her what the heck she was doing as her shots slammed through the shielding and into the fuselage of her chosen victim, making the ship shudder and squirm before twisting away for assistance. She contacted the other ship and tore him off a strip before declaring that he was her escort, being as how she’d just broadcast who she was to all sides and she’d really like the Militia not to shoot her.


Flakk relieved Kelly from her position – or tried to at least. He had to admit she was right in that he could soon be overwhelmed by casualties so he had no way to do the needed administration at the same time. Doctor Cobalt could keep the files and records going and make sure they were being stored accurately, including the ones he’d just logged regarding Captain Postain. He warned her that he had no time to act as midwife if she chose to drop the sprog here and now and Kelly had agreed it wasn’t the best time although that was, really, up to the baby. Or babies. It was possibly to do with her mate’s Jestavanian biology but the scans had never quite been positive if it was one or two in there. Flakk had hit the machine the last time. Now he was bossing around the nurses and making sure they weren’t spending too much time looking at the monitors as he washed Postain’s blood off his hands and got his surgical gloves on.


Tarbeck had the analysis of the two Gallides clan ships ready for the bridge and he reported they were Fawren Obitta class cruisers with modified Monta weaponry and double layer shielding from Witherington and Fastakker technologies. He didn’t quite know how they’d slapped the things together and Postain told him not to worry about it as Pirates had a slap and hold approach to technology. He was more interested in the moderat power weaponry they had. They had nothing the Rodomont hadn’t faced before but that didn’t mean they should underestimate them. There were, after all, two of them. He just wondered as to why they were showing themselves right now. He didn’t voice it but it didn’t make sense. This clan couldn’t have more than a couple of these capital ships so what was this about? He had a thought and sent a message to the Militia commander.


The river slowed its push through the base and Xarra figured it must have found the way out so she chose to follow the flow now she could stand up, with her feet just able to stand on the floor if she stretched. The water was almost up to her ears and things were still cracking in her H.U.D. It wasn’t a great thing as the suit was many things but it wasn’t buoyant. She moved forward as she hoped to find a slight, upward, slope. She swung an arm backwards through the water as someone gripped her sides to lift her up. The ruined H.U.D. wouldn’t tell her who it was but it was wearing one of the local suits, not one of the ships. It was probably Kirrin, she reckoned. He’d moved aside so her blow, weakened by the movement through the water, barely connected with his chest. He held her up as they moved through, any booby traps likely detonated already be the water flow. A face she didn’t recognise floated past, along with the rest of its’ sodden body. A Lappinean. Not one of the ones she was looking for. She engaged her helmet lights so they both could see as the base lights flickered and died.


Yarkin breathed a sigh of relief. She’d not been able to ensure the mortar couldn’t fire its grenades in time so she’d done the next best thing she could and opened the back of the device so the grenades dropped to the floor as the timer ticked towards zero. She pushed them towards Gilkes and the Jestavanian almost dropped them as she slid herself away from the machine in case, despite her sabotage, it decided to do something unexpected. Like explode. She flipped herself over the attic entrance and dropped down to where the Jestavanian and the Brockian were standing, both with two of the biologic grenades in their rather shaky hands. She apologised but told them it was the fastest way. She put her hands out, palms up, to indicate there was no way she was taking them when they offered them to her. Gilkes sighed and knew where he could get a container. He pushed his way into the sealed room and put them in a container the fallen forensics team had brought with them. Then he closed the door behind him, resealing it. Yarkin struck the door. He ignored her. He sat on one of the chairs and waited for Flakk.


The Gallides ships opened fire.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Looks like they have no choice now but to see this fight to the end. Hopefully their ship won't be too badly battered at the end of it.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fifty-Two


Makilla turned the helm to evade the second of the Gallides’ ships as they came in with attack pattern Alpha one. In other words, one of the basic tactics with one going starboard and low and the other port and high. Postain had ordered his seventh attack posture and she was manoeuvring for position. The Raitchians were hanging back, partly to spite Postain and partly to defend the Militia ships who’d get scragged if they tried to take on two cruisers themselves. As support ships they could survive the battle. The Raitchians were launching fighters and the Rodomont responded with Zeta wing, the eight fighters Appleby hadn’t used for her ambush. There were dozens launching from the cruisers. Postain ordered Maldak to tell the fighters to concentrate on clearing out the Pirates fighters, leaving the capital ships for the big guns in the battle. Maldak had sent the command as ordered and Zeta’s leader had acknowledged, the ships’ friend or foe systems recalibrated so the Raitchians didn’t get scragged by ‘friendly’ fire.


He checked in with Djaka, only to find out the Gallides had some pretty good software preventing them accessing the systems but, whilst keeping their programmers out, his team would do what they could against the foes. So long as intership communications were up, anyhow. The ship shook as fire impacted on her energy fields. Djaka opened up the secondary systems, reducing computer power by ten percent to allow more effective power distribution across the more important systems. Like life support, weapons control and shields. In battle there was less need for scientific analysis scanners and cleaning equipment. “Trya patchassault,” he told his team. “whicheverone you accessfirst,” he added when they asked which ship they should target. “so longas it’s not ours or the Raitchians,” he added, forcing himself to slow down so they could understand that bit. It was kinda important. He got back to work to see if he could isolate the frequency their fighters were using. Disrupting their communications could disrupt their coherence and allow the Rodomont’s fighters a moment or two of upper hand when needed. Even more if he could blanket all their frequencies…. No, he thought quickly, doing that would knock out all communications, even theirs. One frequency at a time.


Senny couldn’t help but see the combat ahead of her with just a little apprehension. Here she was, in an outmoded fighter that already bore some of the signs of combat despite the recovery work of the deck chief and there were dozens of ships in front of her, creating a light show that probably had people on the surface dazzled by the pretty, pretty, fireworks. Spaceship combat always looked dazzling at a certain distance. “Evrad,” she told her escort, “tell the others to get up here as soon as they can. Fight the fight to the finish but, if they can, bring it to the squabble up here.” She heard him understand and he switched to the inter fighter system that only his fellow Starlancers could access to relay the instructions before asking what they did now. “Now,” she replied, we wait here. Defend ourselves if attacked but we’re not going near that fight without the others!”


Declan had let go of the Canine child immediately after her mother had arrived and, from her expression, it was obvious she’d seen the tag on his ankle. There were no words of thanks as she tugged the child away from him and he thought he’d not really expected any. It spoke of him being a bad person when he really wasn’t, was he? Sure he’d had to do some rotten things and he’d been there when bad things went down and he’d profited from them but he’d been doing that to eat after being excluded from the flight academy for someone else's incompetence and corruption. He wasn’t dangerous although he couldn’t tell the Canine woman that and he certainly couldn’t tell how he’d helped with the current investigation as he was fairly crtain some of his involvement was going to be swept under the rug and, if he told anyone, it’d probably be a twenty five tonne rug made of titanium he got swept under. So he wiped down where her tears had struck and looked around. Mainly it was scientists here, he figured, although there were a few who looked like engineers in one piece coveralls so he ‘wandered’ over towards them. One, a Canine, was talking about how he’d just finished his shift when the alert had sounded so he’d been brought in here as he worked the fighters and they got repaired aft… He saw Declan and stopped talking. “You,” he said after a few seconds. “Why are YOU not in a cell?”

Declan chose not to smile. He didn’t think it would go over well, judging by the intense glares he was getting as the ship felt like another strike against it. “I’ve done all I can to assist,” he said simply.

“To save your own skin.” The Canine stepped forward so Declan found himself staring at his midriff.

“That’s what most people do what they do when they’re not fond of the life they’re leading, isn’t it,” he asked quietly. “What’s best for them? And now the only friend I have on this ship is out there. In my fighter. In a three way fight that I put her in. You saw the fighter she left in?”

The Canine breathed heavily and put his hands on Declan’s shoulders. “I did,” he told him, pressing down almost enough to buckle the Micans’ knees. “You didn’t do a bad job of keeping her intact. Senny might survive.” He leaned forward and growled. “That’s the only reason I’m not squashing you into the floor right now, you &%^$%£.” He thrust Declan away.

Declan didn’t hit the ground. Wondering why, he looked up into the gentlest Celican face he’d ever seen and reasoned this was who had their arms around their back and sides. “It’s not a long way down,” the gentle voice said, “but the stop in painful, I bet.” He lifted the Mican up to his feet as the Canine snorted. “I think we’d better move away, don’t you,” the newcomer asked the Mican.

“Fast,” the Canine snapped. “Before I forget my manners… sir.”


Darren Levan took Declan over to another corner of the room, near the emergency replication terminal. “You’ll be the pilot I heard about, then,” he asked, getting himself a Bludjoos and offering Declan his choice.

“Does everybody know,” Declan answered, taking a warm milk from the selection. He noted the power for the machine dropped to fifty two requests left and almost regretted it.

Darren laughed as they took seats. “Nah. I understand there’s three people in hydroponics know nothing about it.” He sipped his drink. “Small ship in many ways,” he told him. “Word gets around. “

Declan smiled, vry slightly. “Suppose so. You seem more at ease with me than the others,” he queried. “Why?”

Darren indicated the tag. “My best friend wears one of those. Senny Appleby used to wear one. It seems the chance for redemption is given to those looking for it.” He put a hand out. “Darren Levan,” he said. “Scientific assistant.”

Almost without hesitation, Declan took the hand of this predator and shook it. “Declan Jewell,” he said, “redemption seeker.”

“Now you have two friends,” Darren said.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Better to have two friends then to have no friends at all i would imagine. Especially in a situation like this.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fifty-three.


Xarra pulled her helmet off as she stood in the light of the sun at the exit to the Gallides secret base in the small industrial estate corpse to the south of the river, where the Police Chief was holding prisoners who’d tried to escape through the back door. She smelled the air that, for the first time in what seemed like an hour, wasn’t recycled and stung of freshness and water in her nose. Kirrin was stood with her as the Chief stormed over. “With minimum damage, I said,” he thundered.

“We didn’t bring the missile launcher,” Xarra retorted, hoping to get out of wet armour fairly soon and slightly irritable because of it. She, ironically, needed a shower.

“You should have been prepared for it.”

“You can’t prepare for someone so stupid they’d try to bring down the ceiling in a river tunnel,” Kirrin said, defending himself. “No-one, even on their side, I think, could believe someone would do something so stupid.”

The Chief waved his hands in frustration. “The tunnel’s broken! Thousands of litres of water is flooding the roads to either side! It’s coming up here!” He pointed to the entry way behind them, coming out of the underground vehicle park where the other troops were exiting, two of them carrying a half drowned Gallides trooper with them. Three down from each team, Xarra noted, counting. The Heads Up Display in the helmet had been too damaged to use to know who was here and who wasn’t. She’d find out when they took the helmets off. “Rescue put an emergency plug in there but this’ll cripple the colony repair budget…”

Xarra turned on him. “And six of our people will never get to pay for it, Chief! That’s…” She composed herself with an effort. “Did you get them?”

“Yes,” he replied, keeping his own manners with the U.S.C. Officer, his eyes displaying some acknowledgement of her losses to counter his annoyance. “When we worked out where their other exit would be, this old estate, we were able to take control when they started coming out. We have the Lappineans amongst the prisoners. They’re claiming they were captives.”

“Would have been better for them if they had been,” Xarra commented. “The clan would have left them to drown.” She strode off towards where they were holding the captives.


She heard them before she saw them, protesting loudly that they were nothing to do with these criminal types and they were just two innocent Lappineans caught up in all this. Their eyes almost lazered onto Xarra as she came into view and they started. “Oh, thank goodness,” they started, almost in unison, “Commander Xarra! You can sort all this out…”

“Ah,” Xarra said, clapping her hands, “of course! Dorra and Yulin Merca,” she called out. “Of course. We’ll sort out your release. As soon as our ship’s dealt with the Gallides we’ll get you back to Council space.” Her tone darkened. “And then, when we’ve confirmed your identities, we’ll take it from there, Doctor.”

“Who,” Dorra said, innocently. Too innocently for Xarra’s liking.


Tarbeck watched as Postain took command of the fight effortlessly, controlling the bridge like a conductor with an orchestra, firing on the Gallides cruiser that was venting gas from a damaged engine nacelle as the Raicarran handled the second ship. Postain had diverted two of the three Militia ships that had been assisting him to help with the other ship as fighters spun around like children dancing. The main weapons fired again, blasting chunks from the ship in front of them as a fighter scored a direct hit on the Rodomont’s hull before a Beta squad member destroyed it, shaking the hull again. That was why the bridge was three decks down and away from the front hull, Tarbeck knew. Too many bubble windows blown out in history. Too many entire bridge crews killed by aesthetics. He wondered if he’d ever feel this comfortable in command of battle?

“Their life support is failing,” Kridd reported from the science station. “We must have hit something important.”

“It’s all important, Kridd,” Postain grumped, putting a hand to his patched up side as though he were afraid it would reopen. “Summat to say, Tarbeck?”

“Shouldn’t we offer them, uh, surrender?”

“Not whilst they still think they can fight.”

“Uh, then we should strike that same point again,” Tarbeck commented, gesturing to the schematics he’d pulled up on his armrest monitor. “Unless they’ve moved them, there, uh..” He held on as Makilla swung the ship about violently to avoid ploughing through a swarm of fighters that rained fire on the dwindling shields. “There should be a major power conduit there. Blow that and half the ship goes down.”

“Weapons, you heard him! You have your target!” He wheeled on Tarbeck. “And you stop reading during combat! Get me a damage report.”

Tarbeck scrambled to get the departments to check in.


Flakk, sighed as he lost the fight to keep one of the technicians aboard alive. She’d been working close to the hull when it had blown out close by. They’d managed to pull her through a bulkhead door and seal it but she must have been unable to recall that she needed to breathe out steadily and there had been too much damage to her lungs from the decompression effect. An old lung infection hadn’t helped much, he supposed, pulling the cover over her face before taking the whole bed to the mortuary. He noted Leigh was standing by the glass, mouthing ‘let me help’ so he slapped the intercom. “You can’t help,” he grunted, “you’re not a medic.”

“I can push that as well as you can,” Leigh stated flatly. “And it means you can do the important stuff.”

“This IS important,” Flakk declared, closing the circuit off before continuing on his way to the storage room. He left her in there, on her own, and took another bed from there to head back out. He growled, typed a few commands into a computer panel and opened the isolation room. “That,” he declared, pointing at the tag, “will take you down if you don’t stay within 50 foot of the medical bay!”

Leigh practically bounced off the bed he’d just retreated to and followed the Doctor out into the bay.

[Amazee Dayzee]

You would think after losing a patient a doctor would be a lot more melancholy about it. It seems like anytime something happens with Flakk he just gets more angry.

[Welsh Halfwit]

He's a Wolf.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Just because he is a wolf doesn't mean he has to act aggressive and be hard to approach. A doctor should always have a good bedside manor. I can't imagine people wouldn't complain about him.

Plus he can act against his nature. I don't see Hawle who is a rabbit act skittish and scared and hop away from danger at the first site. He dives in right away even knowing that the end result will be a pie in the face and I am still waiting for a whole pie rather than a small slice.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fifty-four


The guns lashed out again, focussing on where Tarbeck had advised and the energy burrowed through the crashing shields and exploded through the hull of the ship in a stabbing motion that punctured three decks and several bulkheads before running out of force. Postain was about to remonstrate that the lights were still on when another blast shook the ship on the screens and the lights began to fade out, one by one. “If they seal off now they should be able to keep atmosphere,” he mooted, never one for seeing too many vacuum packed bodies. And dead privateers never tried to save their own skins by selling out their compatriots in arms. The reclaim project, he sometimes supposed, had its uses. Then again… “Boost forward shields,” he shouted to Kridd as he saw the fighter spiralling towards the snub nosed front of his ship.


Even in the schools secure room, they felt the crash of impact as the vessels force took it through the Rodomont’s shields, a singed, burning mass of charged metal that collided with forward observation scanners and the observation domes. The room, set towards the middle of the powerful ship, felt the air grow cold for several seconds as automatic and manual systems compensated for the strike. Enzo looked up, hopeful it wasn’t anywhere near his mum in the science department or Martin’s station to the tail of the ship. He wanted his own comm so he could call them but he supposed it was best he didn’t have one. Ella had told him the last thing the grown ups needed at a time like this was Enzo on the line, telling them that he was OK. It’d just distract them from things. He supposed she had a point. It had temporarily silenced the talk of the latest expansion to the KillRangers franchise anyway. He saw the appeal of the fighting show dropping the ‘Kill’ part of the name with the Blue one setting up a subteam of Micans, Felines and a Canine on Lapas and had mooted the possibility of further shows including Raitchians or Humans even. He’d been about to ask Kevin Stapleton why he’d hooted at that when the impact hit and the question had flown from his mind. He’d noticed Kelvans’ look, concern and silence, as his best friend kept a scared Mican comforted, the little girl putting her arms around his chest and hugging him as he had his hand on her back. When had Kelvan taken his shirt off? WHY had..? Oh, right. He’d given it to Darlan. The Canine boy was using it as a sling. He’d fallen against the wall on the way in here. Doris had treated the arm but they’d obviously preserved replication power by using fabrics to hand. Enzo grinned. He didn’t need to ask where the clawmarks on his shoulder had come from and he headed over as the ship stabilized. “You OK, Hazelnut,” he asked the girl and she took her face out of Kelvan’s chest and turned to look at Enzo.

“Hiya, Enzo,” she said, half happy to see him.”Just, uh, got a bit scared there. K...Kelvan was nice and…”

“Fair enough, sweetie,” he told the younger Mouse. “I think Miss Solva is gathering your class together?” The Mican stifled a small cry and nodded, heading off to her teacher. “You realise she just wanted to hug you, right?”

Kelvan looked unsurprised. “Can’t say I blame her. Good liar, though. Wonder if there’s a bit of Raitchian in her?”

Enzo decided to let that one lie. “Nice clawmarks,” he said, grinning.

Kelvan put a hand to the marks on his shoulders in haste before he realised he knew what Enzo was getting at. “Love hurts,” he told his best friend. “Especially with a Feline! Have you and Ella..?” Enzo looked shocked, putting his hand to his chest and professing that they’d never do that sort of thing. Kelvan just punched his arm gently. “Hazelnut’s a better liar,” he remarked.

Enzo chuckled and turned his head away slightly. “Couple of times,” he admitted before grimacing. “Don’t tell her parents, eh?”

“Never would,” Kelvan replied, heading over to see what some of their classmates were up to. Anything to not think about outside.


“We seal it off here,” Tarva Kohlich called, helping his team to seal off a bulkhead that was threatening to give way under pressure from the hole in the hull two corridors down. “I’m not risking anyone trying to get to the next door!”

“There could still be people in there,” One of his team reminded him unnecessarily. “We can’t just…”

“We have no way of knowing,” Kohlich called back, straining to shut the door, even with assistance. The power to the door was out so it had to be manually forced home, into the seallock. “But we… know the pressure’s building so… No-one’s going to make the next door so we don’t… go…” He knew what the other was getting at. Giving up on hope for the people in the area but they had to gain control. The energy fields were being rerouted by engineering but doors were often manual. Other teams were attending to other doors and Kohlich was relieved to see the subordinate put his muscle to the matter, helping the door thunk home before anything blew out, taking them and any potential occupants with it. “We’re just lucky the fighters engine blew before it hit us,” the Jestavanian told the Canine as he took a breath in the thicker air. He looked up at the sealed door. “Shall we run away from here, Koval?”

Koval looked at the same door. “I think so, boss. On two?”

Kohlich started on one. Koval ran after him, accusing him of cheating.


The Raicarrans and the militia now had the upper hand on the second ship now, their firepower too much for the ship that was running through their ranks in a bid to escape. The Raicarran ship turned with them, their firepower damaging the ships’ hull around the engines, which thrust into life, attempting to reach velocity speed before…


The engines blew, causing a cascade effect into the main ship as Makilla put the Rodomont between it and the crippled Gallides ship. Kridd redirected the shields so they were strongest facing the explosion but… The screen darkened as the Raitchian ship moved to cover the Rodomont, taking the impact directly on their shields.


“NOW we tell them to surrender,” Postain snapped.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I would hope they would surrender now since they are pretty much screwed at this point as if they don't Postain will have the ship blown to smithereens. Though sometimes denial can be strong in a lot of people even when the truth is right there in front of their face.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Fifty-Five


Declan wondered if he knew any of them, those under sheets in the morgue. He guessed he’d know soon enough. Those identifiable had been laid out in an empty cargo bay and he was being escorted down there now by the tall Cervidian. Mr Jak had taken him straight from the secure room with no little force and hurried him through, keeping him away from the maintenance crews repairing the ship. After his encounter with the flight crew members in the room, he was a little happy about that. If he were to go in for Reclaim, he’d decided it probably shouldn’t be here. But he still had work to do and he strode to keep up with the long legged Security Deputy. “Is, uh, the panic all over?”

“It seems to have subsided for now,” Jak replied, not exactly pleasantly but with no real malice. “Gallides down, the attack stopped and a number of your fighters killed as well. It might help if you can identify them. We can notify relatives and close books.” Hadrian spun about on his feet and Declan almost walked into his midriff. Hadrian poked his nose. “We’ll be confirming everything you say,” he warned, “lies will be very bad for you.”

“You’ll sentence me to work with the flight crews,” the Mican replied, half joking in hope.

“Well, you won’t leave this ship in anything but a prison vehicle,” Jak told him straight. “You’re getting a reputation for being repentant and helpful so don’t mess it up now.”

Declan saluted, looked at his hand, asked why he was saluting and put the hand down as Jak resumed walking.


There were almost two dozen of them, under sheets, as Flakk did the final checks for life. There was no chance but it was protocol. He had his fingers to the side of a Raitchian female’s throat, her eyes frozen open, ice diluting the blue part of her eyes, the red tinged whites blending in. Her mouth was open in shock. She wasn’t wearing the usual garb of a pilot so he thought she must have come from the cruiser. He wanted to close her mouth but she’d need to thaw for that. He’d seen someone try to do it too early once. He still heard the crack in his mind from time to time. He stepped in the room and tried not to breathe in the stench of silence that hung in the room. Most of these would be Gallides. He’d heard that the Farrida clan fighter battle part had mainly taken place in the atmosphere but there were still losses. To his surprise, he noted one. “Wharton,” he said, pointing at a Raitchian male. “Reever Wharton. Known as ‘Blade’. Think he was from Rayvon. Hated card games.” He rubbed his chin. “REALLY hated losing.” He stepped over and knelt by the Raitchian’s side. Jak put a hand out but didn’t stop Declan gripping a small object in the Raitchian’s pocket by his clawtips and pulling out the small, silvered medallion and putting it on his chest. “His lucky charm,” he said sadly, before continuing on his duty.


Senny brought the old fighter in and engaged the landing struts to come down in the shuttle bay, well away from the fighter bays the Starlancers were returning to. The energy seals came down, trapping in the atmosphere before the struts took the weight and Senny turned the power off. Things creaked and groaned as hydraulics stretched and breathed. She pushed the cockpit up and lowered the anacronistic rope ladder over the side so she could get out without anyone bringing up stairs. She thought she liked that. It was quirky and simple but made getting out and in on planet so much more a one person job. Especially, she considered as she scrambled down the rungs, if you were a Mican. More shuttles, their energy systems matched to the security fields frequency came through, having trawled for bodies, and she watched the pair land, taking her helmet off to salute the fallen before she sighed and opened the door to head down to the fighter deck and get changed and… Get hit by an Appleby missile launching itself onto her as the door opened. Harmony pressed her face to Senny’s and invaded her mouth with her tongue. All thoughts of sorrow and fatigue left the Castoran’s mind as she dropped her helmet and held her wife in place as her tongue returned the ‘attack’ for what seemed like several minutes in the blind capacity of having her eyes closed. She heard Harmony’s voice in her head say welcome back. She replied that she was happy to be back and thought of a few things she might like to try later but could Harmony let her breathe now? Harmony released the lip lock and took Senny’s one hand off her tailbase before turning, keeping one arm in Sennys’ and leading the way. “I have to go check on Annabelle anyhow,” Harmony told her. “To make sure the blocker’s still effective until the Jarron picks them up for the cells.”

“And I’m told we have ‘other’ prisoners?”

“We’re keeping those,” Harmony said severely. “They have a lot to answer for.”

Senny sighed and put her head on her partner’s shoulder, grinning slightly as Harmony pretended it was heavy enough to buckle her knees slightly. “You think it’s finally done again?”

Now it was Harmony’s turn to sigh. “I doubt it.” She kissed Senny’s cheek as they passed by the fighter bay. “Suppose you’d better get changed,” she said, before blushing slightly at the image Senny was sending of a striptease.

“See you later,” Senny replied, kissing her on the lips.


Xarra, freshly showered and changed, arrived on the bridge and saluted. “Reporting for duty,” she advised Postain.

“You’re late, Commander,” he replied drily. “I’ve been covering your station for the last hour. “

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” she replied automatically, “I had to wait until the shields came down and the teleport systems were ready. Then I had to make sure the Lapp…”

“I don’t need excuses, Commander,” Postain told her, levering himself up out of the chair and towering over her. “I just need to know ONE thing,” Commander.”

“Sir,” she asked, somewhat unsure of things right now.

Postain allowed a small smile. “You did have that combat suit vaporized, yes?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Good,” he replied. “Take it from me, some smells you never get out.”


Postain headed out, towards his rooms, but stopped short before he got to the first refreshment room. He could hear voices. Makilla and Tarbeck, talking about the last few days of his temporary posting. “So,” the Shrewvian asked, putting her teacup down. “I think you’ve done quite well but…” She took a breath. “Just wondering. If it comes down to it and you do get booted back to normal rank… What would be your final command?”

“Well, I think…” He paused and Postain strained his ear as he heard the nerve building in his subordinate. He had a vague idea what was going to be said as he wasn’t an idiot. He also didn’t really object. He might not even object if Tarbeck kept his rank. “I think…” Another swallow. “I think my final order would be to tell you to consider going out with me,” he finished. Postain appreciated the guts it had taken. It was far easier to kill something than build something, he knew.

“Then I won’t be breaking regs by kissing a superior officer,” she replied.

“Well, uh…”

Postain walked in and took one of the pips off Tarbecks’ shoulder. He put it on the table. “Put it back on and you’re a Commander again. Now, you’re the same rank.” He walked off, thinking he was getting soft from blood loss and pain as he heard Makilla shift to the next chair.

[Amazee Dayzee]

If the key to softening Postain up all this time is him losing some blood somebody should convince him to start doing some bloodletting. I do think a nicer Postain would get things done a heck of a lot more efficiently.