Linus' handlebar moustache curled with his mouth into a grin as he hauled the last of his bags from his old Rhino onto the Transport. It was a used ship, but now it was HIS, and that's what mattered. "Honey, I'm home!" A single black cat answered his call, trotting happily out from its little den beneath one of the control consoles on the bridge. Linus chuckled and stroked the cat a few times before continuing to his cabin. Down a steep ladder, through a door, and there it was.
It was a surprisingly spacious cabin, because it'd been made for a whole merchant crew. "Five people, they said. Ha! Who needs 'em?" The cat, which had followed him, mrrrrrfed, looking up at the man's coattails; apparently, for the moment, resisting the urge to use her claws to climb up on them. "Yeah, Kali, I've got a bed for you. Better'n mine, you ought to be grateful...betcha want food, eh?" In response, the black cat rubbed against his legs. "Okay, okay, just a minute."
In his mind, cats were the virtual embodiment of Eris: headstrong, chaotic, and fiercely independent. Thus he figured a cat was an appropriate pet for a Zoner; and the black cat's golden eyes almost looked like a pair of apples in the dark...more to the point, the cat had a way of getting into the most unexpected places. He'd once found her in a locked room, with no indication as to how she'd gotten there. Kali wasn't the only cat he had; others would often board his ship when it landed, as if they could sense he'd give them food and a place to sleep. They all came and went; all except for that one little black cat.
Linus always had Kali with him. He wasn't sure how old the cat was; he'd found her in the Rhino's cargo hold when he bought it. Sometimes, another cat or two would sneak onboard from a station; usually the cats would leave a stop or two down the trail. Linus had named her "Kali" because somebody told him it meant "dark-colored". Someone else had told him the name also had something to do with some religion on ancient Earth, but Linus liked it, and the kitty seemed to as well.
He rushed back to the bridge, and began powering up the engines. Kali hopped up on the control panel, meowing insistently. "Hold on, I gotta launch; two ships're waiting for me." She finally hopped back down, but not before stepping on the cargo jettison button.
During the hour it took to recover all his cargo, Linus fed Kali. When he finally lifted off, she was purring contentedly, asleep on his lap. Damn cat...I swear, Eris must've sent you. Heck, maybe you ARE Eris for all I know. Heh. "So, kitty..." he mumbled. "You a crazy chaos goddess, hmm?" He scratched between her ears, and she just yawned and went back to sleep.
The other two ships - the Veranda and the Millennia - were already entering cruise. Linus jabbed the proper button, and leaned back in his seat.
A lucrative week later, and Linus found himself back on California Minor to go ship-shopping. With Kali perched on his shoulder, he soon picked out a shiny new Mammoth...though the smarmy salesman kept trying to sell him something else. "So, whaddya think, Kali?" His voice echoed through the ship's empty corridors, startling the cat off his shoulder. "Ya like it, eh? How's about I make this deck the cat deck? Little walkways an' stuff? Yeah..."
Already thinking about the parts of the Mammoth's three decks that he didn't want to keep, Linus descended to the lower deck, just above the secondary cargo hold. It wasn't a terribly large area, and there were no adjoining cabins. Just a small engineering space where the four lower turrets could be monitored and controlled, and stowage for the CM dropper. "Bah."
On the top deck, the superstructure which contained the bridge, Linus finally found the cabins. There were two of them; he whimsically designated one of them Eris', in case She ever decided to pay him a visit. And so that he could deny passengers its use and take in the confused looks on their faces like an elixir. With a smile, he set up the other cabin as his own, making sure it also had a little cat bed, and a hammock for any other critters that decided to board his ship at port.
A decent ship, he thought to himself; but all the while, he was still thinking about which trade routes to ply to earn enough money for a Border Worlds Transport...
And the BWT turned out to be everything Linus had hoped it would be. Spacious, shiny, well-armed, hard to disrupt, and not bad to look at, either. The first couple of weeks of happy hauling, he got stopped by more than one admirer who wanted to know what the gorgeous ship was and where they could get one, too. Aaaaand they did. Within a month, it seemed every smuggler and his grandma was flying a BWT...which wasn't itself a bad thing.
However, in time, the excitement of flying the pretty new machine began to wear off, and Linus started to get lonesome for his good 'ole Mammoth. The Liberty heavy transport couldn't hold as much Plutonium as the BWT, didn't have as many guns, was easier to disrupt, and wasn't as pretty...but in the time it'd taken Linus to save up the money to buy the larger ship, the smaller one had come to feel like home.
Finally, on a routine run of goods from Rheinland to Bretonia, Linus sat back in his chair and looked over at Kali. "You miss 'er too, don'tcha?" The black cat looked up from the warm console upon which she was sleeping, and yawned with a soft "mrrrf". "Yeah, me too..." Well, an' what's to stop me from gettin' her back? With Eris' room an' everything. I have enough money, an' I'll be passin' near Cali Minor anyhow.... "Yeah! We're gonna do it, Kali girl."
The cat got up and went to her litterbox.
"Yeah, we're gonna get the hairy 'ole Mammoth back..."
Two days later, they were happily situated again. As fickle fortune would have it, nobody had ever purchased Linus' Mammoth...of the two prospective buyers that'd expressed interest, one was violently allergic to the cat hair in the filtration system, and the other had suddenly come into an inheritance that allowed them to buy a Whale instead. So, Linus did indeed get his hairy 'ole Mammoth back in the end.
Quote:Crew
I'm sorry, Linus, but this is all I could get together for you on such short notice. Then again, being a Discordian, maybe that's how you like it...anyway, here's what I know about them.
Mathias Vilhelm: a former Rheinlander, Mathias was rejected by the military for various reasons; nonetheless, he insists upon acting as if he were in the Navy...all the time. Served briefly as a cabin boy before the ship was sold. He comes with the gunboat, unfortunately. He does at least know how to shoot, though. He'll be your gunner.
Dhalia: last name unknown. A former Gaian who joined the Zoners to see the rest of Sirius. Says she used to work on an NLH gunboat, so she SHOULD actually be fairly knowledgeable. She'll be your first mate.
Graham Dalton: Former Junker from Trafalgar. Quit out of frustrating inability to actually fix things. Insists he's "getting better." Sorry bud, but he's your engineer. All I could come up with.
Ship
She's a Liberty Gunboat, alright, but other than the ship class she shares little in common with her front-line relatives. This bird probably hasn't seen any real combat in decades, though possibly as recently as the Nomad wars. She's been the Tar Baby of the Virginia system, and the techs there are happy to be rid of her...but I assure you she IS spaceworthy. I'd just keep her out of combat if I were you. But, knowing you, you'll find some way to get yourself in trouble. May Eris help you, because you'll need it.
Sensors: Faulty. No other way to describe it. You can scan things, but what you see may not always be what you get. If a name seems suspicious, ask them, because it's probably been scanned wrong. One of the reasons this bird patrolled Virginia: no need to scan. If it's not Liberty, it gets shot at.
Guns: Stripped. Well, there's one Liberty turret on her, plus the forward gun, but all the others were actually so corroded they couldn't turn. So they had to tear them off...pretty messy. You'll have to fill in the gaps with your own guns.
Shields: One of the few bits of the ship that still works as advertised. Be careful out there, though.
Reactor: I don't trust this powerplant as far as I can throw it, and I can tell you that's not far. Whatever you do, DON'T put any high-drain equipment on this ship! Because if you do, it'll overload and you'll make a nice new star in Sirius for about a second or two. It runs....usually.
Life-support: It's solid, amazingly enough. Climate control is iffy, though. Expect irregular "seasons" aboard. Bring clothes for every occasion.
Quarters: Dirty, dusty, and smelling of old bedsheets. Needs a serious workover. I highly recommend a stop on Curacao before any long trips.
Summary
I don't know why you need this thing, Linus, and I won't ask. What I will tell you is that I hope for your sake it's nothing serious...but if it is, I've done the best I could to get you the best ship and crew possible. Note that I said "possible"...they're not the best, but I expect you'll find a way to make it work. You always have.
"All hands, prepare for jump!" Mathias bellowed, unnecessarily close to Linus...the unexpected noise was enough to startle the black cat off his shoulder, hissing at the noisy creature. Kali had still not taken a liking to the stern-faced Rheinlander...and for that matter, neither had the captain.
Linus removed his hand from his ear, grimacing. "I gotta ask ya somethin'...why you always gotta do that? Ya can't even feel it when we jump."
"Sorry sir, it's a habit from my military training."
"Well, in case ya haven't noticed, this ain't the Navy."
"I..." Mathias glanced at the litterbox in the corner of the bridge. "I noticed, sir."
Linus almost spoke up and asked him - again - not to call him "sir", but the Discordian thought better of it with a resigned sigh. "Hey Dhalia, this bird still holdin' together?"
"Yep!" The cheery response came from a surprisingly tall brunette who'd just walked on the bridge. She wore pastel colors...it was all she ever seemed to wear. Or at least, it was all Linus had seen her wear since she boarded the ship. "She's twittering just as nice as you please. Still running dirty, though....ugh, that Liberty MOX is nasty! Can we please stock up on some decent, regulated fuel before we go mess up any more star systems?"
"Yeah, needed to purge th' tanks anyhow. Shasta's got some good stuff. Say, uh...you heard from 'ole Cracker Boy lately?"
Dhalia's brow furrowed for a moment, then her face brightened with recognition. "Oh! You mean that Junker guy? Graham's still below. I don't think the guy ever leaves the engine room!"
"Alrighty. Now, I gotta tell y'all somethin'...I dunno what we're gonna wind up doin', but Mal told me it was probably gonna be kinda messy, an' all kinds of important. So....uhh....well, I ain't too good at speeches. Set cruise fer the Geode, will ya? I'll be back in a jif."
"...Geode, sir?"
Dhalia giggled. "The planet, silly! It's, like, Zoner-talk or something."
Linus looked around the bridge for Kali, only to find her crouched beneath a console. "Comin', girl?" The cat curled up and started licking her paws. The Zoner shrugged, and left the bridge. Liberty Gunboats were well-known for having spacious living quarters and cramped working quarters...after descending a narrow staircase to the central corridor, Linus reached the aft portion of the ship, where the crew quarters and galley were. And, incidentally, the windows, which had taken no small amount of scrubbing to make them transparent again.
Built for long patrols, the gunboat's captain's cabin was much larger than what one might expect on such a relatively small vessel, being roomy enough for a full-sized bed to replace the military bunk. Linus had done so first thing, using the ridiculously stiff standard-issue Navy mattress as a base for the larger, more comfortable bed he'd purchased at Curacao. The rest of the crew had similar beds, of course.
With a deep sigh, he plopped down on his bed and stared out the window on the opposite bulkhead, watching the stars go by. What're you up to, Mal? What's Shamus gonna ask us to do? You're makin' me nervous, bein' all serious-like... Kali chose that moment to leap onto Linus' chest, purring. He chuckled and stroked the feline behind the ears, and she nuzzled his hand and curled up to take yet another nap. Psychic kitty...heheh. And disembodied minds...
Wonder if this has anything to do with the Uli Rouge? Lord almighty, what a mess it might be if it does...read the logs like he said, an' sure as pie it's one heckuva tear-jerker. Never knew the Fnordettes'd been through so much. But, Mal said ta bring somethin' that can shoot...why? We Temp Zoners ain't known fer bein' violent. Linus removed his crumpled fedora, and set it atop his face. Guess we're all gonna find out soon enough.
While Linus slept fitfully, the Ravenhurst docked with Shasta Station. Well, on the fourth try, anyway. One of the gunboat's docking clamps jammed repeatedly, and a Zoner technician had to do a spacewalk to free it.
Scientists from the Cambridge Research Institute doing field work on the surface of Gaia in the Edinburgh system last week were shocked when they discovered the remains of a crashed Liberty gunboat half-sunken in a coastal swamp, having been led to the location by a faint radio signal. They were rather more surprised to find that not only had the captain and crew survived the crash - the dense plant matter floating in the shallow swamp likely cushioned their fall somewhat, the scientists said - but they were found a short distance away, not far from the crash site and in reasonably good health.
In an interview held onboard the orbiting liner Shetland, the captain - Linus Koios - told us the cause of the crash. "My first mate [Dahlia] wanted to see Gaia on our way through Bretonia en route to the Omegas. So I told her, 'sure, no problem'. We didn't bother putting the 'ole Ravenhurst in proper orbit 'cuz we didn't expect to be there long...BIG mistake. She's an old boat, and of course she chose just that moment to lose her main engines. Our maneuvering thrusters were too weak to maintain orbit, an' the aux power system failed anyway. It was pure dumb luck, or my black cat's voodoo, or divine providence what-have-you that we survived the crash."
The ship's former engineer claims it was his homebuilt radio, made from spare parts that hadn't been twisted or sunk, that saved them. "It worked! I made something, and it worked!" he exclaimed. The first mate claims her knowledge of Gaian flora and fauna is all that allowed them to survive until the engineer's radio brought help, and the gunner insists his military training maintained the discipline that kept them together throughout their two-year ordeal on the surface of this hostile world. The truth of things is, perhaps, that it was simply the wide-ranging skills possessed by this bizarre crew - combined with a healthy amount of good fortune - that carried them through.
When asked about future plans, all four crash victims replied that they wanted to get back into space as quickly as possible, and that they planned to stay together as a crew. They have their work cut out for them - they had all been declared dead, and their money - and Linus' other ship - were distributed as requested in their respective wills. However, it's likely that a crew able to scrape together a living alone on the surface of an alien world will find a way to forge out an existence, somehow, now that they're back in space.
