After being stuck in California for a duration of a week or two, as a major ion storm hit....
Thomas walked in, head hung low, mumbling something. He was drunk, and apparently depressed. "That bloody Liberty ale was horrible." He grumbled taking a seat at the bar. Charles walked over with a mug that was filled some freshly brewed rum and sat it down on the bar counter in front of Thomas. "Drink up lad. This should help you." He said smiling.
Thomas shrugged and took the mug, and downed nearly half of it. "Aye, that hits the bloody spot." Thomas said letting out a heavy sigh. "Can't wait t' be back in space doin' the job." He finished the rest of the rum and a large grin spread across his face. "Ten times better than that of Liberty Ale, and freshly brewed, Aye?"
'Calico' Jack Rackham strode into the Buccaneers' Bay looking very pleased with himself.
Certainly things had been looking up for him recently, he was no longer a Prospect, but a fully fledged Buccaneer now for one. Also he no longer had to fly around in that Borderworlds ready made coffin anymore, he had his absolute pride and joy standing out in the Hangar, "The Malevolent", an IR7 Raven's Talon.
Today though, he was smiling about another ship, one he had recently found floating lifeless in the far outreaches of the Southampton debris field and had subsequently had the Junkers tow back to Trafalgar and Re-pressurise. Today, the Junkers had sent him a message to say it was Fully operational and ready to pick up!
To be fair, most people wouldn't have been overly excited, as it was only a basic Clydesdale. But to Jack it mean another avenue of ill-gotten gains, which was always a source of excitement to a Buccaneer.
Marching up to the bar, Jack called over Charles the Barman, "Charles, you got any of that Champagne left, y'know the proper stuff?"
"The Dom Perignion you mean?" said Charles
"Aye thats the stuff" replied Jack
"What you Celebratin' Lad?" asked Charles
"Me new ship, gonna go Christen her the "Mischievous.Sylph" come down to the hangar and we'll make a party of it!" Jack said waving the bottle of Vintage Champers in the air "Drinks are on me"
the resulting scramble to the bar put 15 men in the Medical bay!
Two Waran bombers came shooting out of the Leeds Jumphole.
"King, we're goin' t' make it!" Thomas shouted over the communications. "Though, just in case we better strap in eh?"
"Aye." King replied back.
"This is Trafalgar control to Buccaneer vessels, we're experiencing a dark matter storm forming from the Leeds jumphole. You have one minute to land before we seal these doors." A voice came over the comms.
"Aye, copy that Trafalgar."
"Anderson! I see the station!"
"As do I! Haha! We're going to make it!"
"Control to Buccaneer vessels, you have thirty seconds..."
"Bloody 'ell! King, raise up the radiation shieldin'." Thomas shouted, scrambling and pressing an assortment of buttons. He glanced up to see the doors on the station slam shut. He saw King's ship pull up sharply just as the dark matter wave came through knocking out power to both Thomas's and King's waran.
Captain Morgan strolled through the door to the Bay arm in arm with Mary Read, the Leviathan's Chief Engineer. Every Buccaneer had known for some time that the two were an item, especially given how often the two were together. The noises coming out of the Captain's cabin were legendary, as well. Nobody had yet worked up the courage to ask the Captain to soundproof the walls, though.
It was a fairly typical day in the Bay, perhaps a little rowdier than most. As it happened, there was a bar brawl in progress at the moment. Morgan and Read made their way through the melee to the bar. Charles was cowering behind it, as he usually did in these circumstances. Morgan tried to get the crowd's attention, but he couldn't make himself heard over the noise. He considered for a moment, drew his sidearm and sighted down one of the light fixtures. Between the weapon's discharge, and the light fixture falling on some unlucky Prospect's head, he had grabbed their attention. Charles stood from his hiding spot.
"Lads an' Ladies, we've got an announcement fer ya!"
The last couple Buccaneers who hadn't already quieted down, did at this point.
"As ye all know, Me an' Mary have been together fer quite a while now, and we were talkin'. We're gettin' married, lads!"
A cheer erupted from the gathered Buccaneers. One of the Buccaneers spoke up.
"Congratulations, Cap'n! When are ye gettin' married?"
"As soon as we can find some poor sod to perform the ceremony! Charles, time to unload the good stuff! I don't want to see an unopened bottle once this night's done! Drinks are on me, lads!
An even louder cheer erupted this time. He knew that within seconds, every Buccaneer on the ship would be down here for the free booze, but that was alright with him. This was a day for celebrating!
Jack yelled out a cheer of congratulations with the rest of the Buccaneers, then ran and found the first bottle of Corsair Rum he could find(The OPG had sent a case to seal the deal over Leeds, which had gotten Jack onto it. Now they mostly got it from arrogant 'Sairs and Artifact smugglers.)
Jack grinned. This would be the best party since Thomas' promotion party.
' Wrote:This thread is so stupid that a bird sitting on a nearby tree just EXPLODED.
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King had been in the midst of the brawl, having himself provoked the third tributary scuffle that had helped form the larger estuary of violence through a snide comment about someone's mum. Some miscellaneous object thumped him over the back of his head, nearly causing him to fall over (which would have got him trod on) and making black spots dance in front of his eyes. Black spots be bad luck for pirates. He straightened up and smacked the offending party in the teeth for retribution, cutting his knuckles in the process.
Someone else lunged for him, so he grabbed a nearby prospect and used him to intercept the blow. Then there was the crack of laserfire and a stolen chandelier dropped from the ceiling onto the hapless meatshield. Grudges forgotten, all were quiet (save the muted crying of several trampled prospects) like a assembly of school children called to attention by their headmaster.
Then the Cap'n dropped the bombshell. Roars of celebration worryingly rattled the windows. Charles dived back under the counter as his small, insignificant barricade that stood between a mob of thirsty Buccaneers and free drinks was vaulted over and assailed. The mood was good. King had already found a syphon, a fuel pump and a keg. This was going to be a damn good night.
Mick would be the first to admit that he had been away from here for a while, but despite this it looked to be in exactly the same state as when he left. A Mob of sweaty men surging forwards towards a stash of booze and an overworked barkeep strugling to not get killed in the crush.
The turn of events however meant that the area neer the door was pretty quiet (Most Buccaneers sat near the door and got a downtrodden Prospect to wait on them, as time spent walking was time spent not drinking) and he dident need to press through many people to get to the Captain.
"Ah Capt'n, long time no see" Said Mick, stepping into the Captains path. His hand raised slightly as though he was holding up traffic. "Just wanting a bit of an update on the state of the engines on this tub. It just that I might need some Engineers for a..." Mick stopped to think for a second "Project, I kinda got on at the moment"
' Wrote:0-499 posts: Your posts will be completely and utterly ignored. 500-999 posts: People will read your posts, but will never care for the content. 1000-2000 posts: Your posts will be read, your points may be considered, if you're lucky. 2001+ posts and custom title:Your opinion matters.
Thomas wandered into the Bay and glanced around before grinning widely. "Alright lads!" he shouted, "It's about bloody time we start t' do somethin' 'round 'ere!"
"So, t' start off the New years late! We're havin' a bloody party! Drinks are on Charles!" He kept his grin as a few Buccaneers around cheered, more rushed past John Morris, the Buccaneer Bouncer, who apparently has a soft side seeing that he was holding Boris, the hot pink furred chimp. Thomas continued grinning, wondering how in the hell that peanut eating Chimp is still alive from all that salt intake, as it was the only thing they actually fed the bloody pink chimp.
As per usual around the bay, Thomas turned to see fists flying. Though this was between two prospects, two female prospects. One had brunette hair, and the other had red hair. "Charles, I bet ye two mugs of rum that the lass with the brunette hair will win."
"I don't make bets lad..but here you go." Charles said laughing lightly sliding two mugs on the table, Thomas gladly came by and gracefully picked them up and headed to watch the fight.
Jack walked over to where Thomas was watching the fight.
"'Ello Thomas, haven't seen you in space fer a while. Guess we just head out at different times. Got bloody unlucky today, all I got was Stoat, the Bunter."
Jack took a swallow of 'Sair Rum before continuing.
"Anyways, I'm bloody cornered. No way the Bounty can put up a fight with his bloody bomber, so I "surrender" and he'll "escort me back to Leeds". Tried ta make it out in the lane, but he went in right behind me, so he came out when I did 'bout 7 klicks from Leeds."
He paused to watch some more of the fight, then continued.
"So he tells me to proceed ta Leeds on Impulse. Since he failed ta specify the speed, I told Scotty ta head out as slow as the engines can go. This gets him pretty sore, so he tells me he'll scrag me if I don't hurry it up. So he figures the Derby will make short work of the Bounty when we finaly get there."
"Reminds me, I gotta buy a drink for Scotty later, he can fly the Bounty like a bloody Starflyer."
"Obviously he underestimated Scotty's flyin' skills, we dodge every shot from the battleship, and put in place some prototype technology I found on a military Con-Trans I pulled a few weeks back. Hard fight for it, but bloody worth it."
"I'm talkin' bout some bloody atmo-entry shields. That means I can land on a planet - without the docking ring. So we rocket through the atmo and land in that chopshop and hanger thing we got in the Sector NE-13 underlevels. No way the even best Bunter who ever lived could find us down there."
' Wrote:This thread is so stupid that a bird sitting on a nearby tree just EXPLODED.
Captain Morgan stormed into the Bay. It was clear to everyone around that he had not had a good day. Word from the docking bay was that he came in with his Barghest barely hanging together, maybe damaged beyond repair. Charles quickly pulled a pint of the house ale, which was usually the Captains preference when he was angry.
Morgan picked up the glass, and drained the contents without a word, though clearly his mood hadn't improved. After the glass was empty, he hefted it a moment, then without a warning he heaved it across the Bay narrowly missing a maintenance worker sitting at one of the back tables. He had everyone's attention.
"I've had it with the Joker! Him and a few o' his painted thugs are making a laughing stock out of us, and it stops now! I want him dead, or paying us to be in our space!"
Now that his outburst was over, the worst of his anger had passed, and he was able to think a little more clearly. He took a deep breath and continued.
"We been getting a little too sure of ourselves lately, lads, and we finally found a threat that isn't going to keel over easily. From here on out, I want you to avoid him if you don't have a good chance of winning. Let him call us cowards and every other name in the book, it's never bothered us before. Only challenge him if we can get some lighter bombers and fighters both on him. That means I want to see more o' you in fighters, understand?"
With that, Morgan ordered up another drink, and drank away the rest of his anger.