Incoming transmission...
Source: Jim "Ringneck" Blaine
After hearing our mechanics on Ouray were planning on modifyin' my Roc's powerplant to prevent overheating like the damn thing always does... I was pretty ticked off to say the least.
I mean... Do they want us to get killed out there or somethin'?
Anyways... I decided to take it out for a spin, see if anything good came of it. Boy, was I not in the mood to see an Outcast Gunship popped up close to Ouray... And carrying their filthy drugs as well! I decided to give the bastard an ultimatum: either drop the cargo, or get antimatter rained on his hull. He says to me "But I'll die if I don't have my Cardamine!" and I says... "Good! My point exactly."
*chuckles a bit*
He didn't say much after that, until a buddy of his flying a raggety-looking Falcata comes around. I was getting a bit antsy, my trigger finger started itching as well. I decided to hell with it... let's see what the little ****s are made of!
To my surprise, despite the reduced capacity of my powerplant... I managed to kill them with little effort. It felt good, too. I got rid of the drugs as soon as they hit space, and decided not to try my luck any further when a Hunter came to poke his nose in my business.
Nathan Williamson hit the comms button again and again until he heard the beep that signalled it had actually bothered to turn on. There were times he missed Navy technology and it's efficiency, but he never missed the corruption that came with that.
He hammered the kayes to get the message relayed properly.
CommID: Coachwhip
Location: Nome Base, Kepler System
Okay boys and girls I had an interesting encounter in Shikoku yesterday, yes Shikoku. I was up there chasing a trader who had tried to skip out on me, but when I got there I heard reports of the JNS- Naval Research Centre being in system, well to cut a long story short I was given begrudging permission to take my Roc up there and help trash the huge target the Junkers had given us, and I proposed a little something to the Kusari puppets, the Artisan's Farmer's Alliance. suffice to say there's been a concord reached. We can hunt Junkers as far as the New Tokyo gate and they can hunt Junkers as afr as the Ny gate in Colorado. But if we catch them in Ciolorado or Kepler or Galileo without good cause (i.e. junkers) we turn them into space dust. I'll attach the black box recording of the "negotiations".
He enters the comm channel whistling a tune from old earth
"Another one bites the dust,Another one bites the dust,another one down,and another one down, another one bites the dust", Guess what I found? Someone mining in our field! naturally, i told him to leave. He refused, And refused to drop OUR silver! His rheinland armored trans was destroyed, and the sliver recovered.THen when i went out, some navy i never heard of opens fire,For no reason other than i was a xeno! He cited no crime, He said" your xeno, die!" I advise having him courtmarshaled......With a widow
//Forum muckup ate the code for this one, can't be bothered to fix it. Bah!
His eyes fluttered open in a drugged state of panic; shallow breaths labored under a sensation which transcended the notion of a smothering pressure, his chest felt like a broken thing. Beneath some numbing agent every drawn gasp for air was accompanied by a sick twisting sensation as though his body was working against itself. He struggled to find his breath from air heavily laden with the smell and taste of chemicals and plastic.
The sensations brought him to the surface of consciousness, he was aware of a bright light, the walls were whi... A hospital. Something must have happened. He opened his mouth to attempt a sound only to find his lips taped to... Something emanating from his mouth, he must have intubated, which would explain the harshness of his breath and the taste of plastics. The notion of a tube being jammed down his throat should have added to his panic, but there was little feeling beyond detachment and a numb fatigue.
Mr. Chambers, please A voice spoke as though from a great distance as a hand was laid upon his forehead, both sensations feeling as though they took place in another room, to another body. Youve suffered extensive trauma, we were forced to crack your chest to perform several surgeries, so it is imperative that you remain still.
The voice had a curious lilt to it, a sing-song quality that felt eerily out of place. His mind was still grasping at the environment so he attributed the offness of it to the drugs. The doct... No, nurse passed by his side, cutting for a moment passed his blurred vision. She had a curious mask over her face, doubtless for contaminants... It looked like the grin of a feral animal was stamped over it.
The Doctor will be with you shortly and, oh, here he is! with a giggle the woman took a step back. David head slowly swiveled to gaze upon a man, swathed in the coated artifacts of his trade, head held within a pilots helmet. David felt a sudden burst of fear, of alien wrongness.
The man swooped over him, blocking the light as his eyes were cast into view. Faded orbs of swirling color set amongst the pale ruins of an ancient mask of flesh danced merrily in their sockets as they bore into his mind.
Corpse
With a squeal of delight the nurse slithered her hands between his fractured chest and tore him open, Davids feeble struggles only serving to further enunciate the spray of blood as the woman tore out his heart, The machine pumped another burst of air into his lungs, and so he screamed.
David awoke with a cry amongst the steady drone of Ourays medical bay. He cast about in panic and confusion for a moment before reaching over the side of his bed to retch The movement bore with it a terrible pain which only served to increase the tide of nausea flowing over him.
A hand touched his back, causing him to jump so violently that he nearly launched himself off of the bed upon which he was perched. The touch became an authoritative grasp upon his shoulder, both holding him in place and sending him into a panic. A soothing voice immediately followed, a welcome departure from the crawling singsong that haunted his, apparently, dream.
Mr. Chambers, youll need to lay back, you will need several more hours before the bonding agents have reversed the trauma. He raised a hand, breathing deeply over the bowl while waiting for the pain and sickness to subside. The tightness in his chest was excruciating, but moments after thinking it had been split asunder before his eyes to serve as a gory plaything of a madwomen he was willing to accept the stabbing with gratitude.
Finally, exhausted he lay back. He was administered a pill that he was too weak to wave off and quickly drifted back towards a sleep that he prayed would be dreamless.
The following day he emerged from the small freighter serving as Ourays medical bay into the dimly lit corridors of her asteroid passages, The gravity in this sector was extremely light allowing him to forgo the use of the cane he carried at his side. He traversed several corridors before, leaning heavily upon the stick for support, made his way to a lift that would take him to the heart of the station.
A catastrophic trade lane failure, onset by the destruction of his vessel mid transit. For almost two days straight he had been pushing the birds under his command to their limits. Running high on stims and rending a bloody path through Libertys lanes. He recalled the quick shutter as West Point became more than a computer generated point on his helmets hud. Then the almost instant appearance of a yawning rend along the side of his cockpit.
Then darkness.
He was told that he was beyond lucky to be alive. His pod had clipped West Point hurtling at speeds far beyond those capable by conventional cruise engines, crushing the mechanisms designed to protect him, spilling its cargo under the duress of the impact to go spinning through the void.
His ship a ruin, his pod a broken wreck, he would have been left for dead if not for a fortuitous rescue by, well, damned if he knew. He should have been a deadman, a body consisting almost entirely of shattered bones wrapped in tissue ravaged by exposure seemed a small price to pay to escape odds that didnt even fit on the chart.
He took a seat in the back of the bar, space floating lazily beyond a window surrounded by the hasty etches of centuries of pilots. Given that this base was employed during the silver rush of Libertys youth many of the names amidst the scrawlings of departing Xeno pilots were hundreds of years gone. Maybe it was the ideal place for dreams about hauntings.
He shuddered slightly as he pulled a small pad from a cargo pocket, smiling with a thankful nod as the waitress (a gal and a right pretty one at that, a massive departure from the norm) left a mug of steaming tea before him. His latest adventure didnt make him any prettier, but maybe there was a chance for his folks to have some grandkids after all.
And wouldnt they just be thrilled to hear that.
Taking a deep breath, luxuriating in the stiffness over wrenching pain, he began to enter his combat report, taking a long pull from a very not doctor subscribed flask fetched from his flightsuit. Stuffing the flask away with a grimace he retrieved a pad from an accompanying pocket, plugging it into the datasafe packet woven into the material.
Xeno black boxes he smirked. So long as you bring back the pilot in one piece you can figure out what happened to him.
To my chagrin some of the specific details of the last days have been knocked clear of my mind by my recent brushin with bad times. I will, however, attempt put context to what captures were salvaged from my personal data storage.
I opted to take advantage of the lull in security between the borders of Kusari and Liberty, interdicting traffic in the regions surrounding Ames, though maintaining vigil that my business not trespass into their sphere. I found myself involved in a series of altercations within Kusari space proper, resulting in the destruction of a Kishiro super transport and an exceptionally poorly armored Kusari Explorer.
My come uppance came in the form of a Bounty Hunter gunship, which was successful in knocking the face off of my Waran with a well placed trio of razors. Thankfully the safety of Nome and the dark matter cloud was nearby to receive my pod before I could end up on the wrong end of a Hunter's prison cell. Or gun, like as not.
Frankly, so it continued.
Notes of interest and worth from these past two days were a number of encounters, which frankly scared the ever living hell out of me, with a pair of Phantoms by the handles of Gloom and Dark Blossom. Their objectives were compatible with our own... But their methods, personalities and general unknown nature make me exceptionally wary of associating with them beyond ensuring that we do not make enemies of them. While their resources appear to be vastly more substantial than our own, I would strongly cautious against the most passing thoughts directed at forging any manner of association until such a time comes that our understanding of these agents becomes clearer.
I fear the day that I should find such ease in the act of killing.
On a more amusing note the [Cartel], a band of shiftless pirates seem to have come to the mind that they would be well served by declaring hostilities on us. This is a measure that will not serve them well, I'm of the opinion that our pilots would receive a good deal of experience from chasing these hoods out of Liberty, experience that may serve them well against real threats.
Debrief out. Uploading guncam footage and tally.
= Transports Destroyed =
Hitomi Nakano - Ryuujin - Kusari Passengers, a million and a half in untraceable credits.
Hitomi Nakano - Ryuujin - A million and a half in untraceable credits.
ATT-001,003,006,007 - Four Mammoth Class Transports - 4200 Super Alloy
Solar.Eclipse - Advanced Train - 4940 Cardamine
Ceza - Gull Transport - 1000 Boron
Leppy - Gull Transport - 1000 Boron
Aquillas - Gull Transport - 1000 Boron
SiriusLiner-III - IMG Transport - 4100 Cracked Software
Obi-One - Borderworld Transport - An idiot Outcast crew. Forgot to bring them in from the cold however.
Critial - Junker Salvager - 3300 Cardamine
Blubba_Squat - Slave Liner - 3985 Cracked Software
Mining.Express - Albatross Transport - 1000 Ship Hull Panels
Mining.Express - Albatross Transport - 1000 Ship Hull Panels
Amnion - Bumblebee - Ah... Boron? Maybe. Sure. That sounds good. Lots of it too.
Ceza - Gull Transport - 1000 Boron
Leppy - Gull Transport - 1000 Boron
Guther.Asitoz - Firefly Transport - 3500 Luxury Steaks - Now on sale in the Ouray Bar
ATT-003.Captain - Large Train - Boron?
KNS.Hakaisha - Kusari Explorer - Shikoku System
Karl.Skorzeney - Orca Gunboat - Hamburg System
LNS-Centaur - Liberty Gunboat - New York System
LNS-Aurora - Liberty Carrier - Critically Damaged - New York System
LNS-Brookstone - Liberty Cruiser - New York System
|Ageira|Mamblas| - Liberty Gunboat - New York System
Warfare - Trident Gunboat - New York System
"Discoverer" - Trident Gunboat - New York System
Jason.Cain - Greyhound - Nuke Mine City. Population? His face.
Ptv.Starkiller - ??? Gunboat ??? - New York System
[Cartel].Don.Buccaleto - Trident Gunboat - California System with a fun bit of banter. Looks like they want a war.
oh... and there was this synth foods fellow. i was to busy ta make him drop his cargo. so i let him serve us in another way... i recorded this audio file.
an' the best part is, i told him ta scream it in every house capitial system.
anyway, i need ta get o the bar, got someone waiting on me there.
john.
end of transmission.
' Wrote:<span style="font-family:Century Gothic">Violence is Golden</span>
They had asked how the controls felt after the ship was brought in. Its prior occupant had been on the business end of an extremely pissed lady luck, having the cockpit canopy of his vessel rent asunder by a spectacular razor strike. The Xeno pilots assaulting the planetform vessel had the presence of mind to hold their attack upon the vessel's spin out of control. If word was to be believed it had been a chase halfway across Hudson before the thing had been tamed and towed in.
When the freighter appeared on the barter channels David Chambers had jumped, quickly putting up his personal Bactrian loaded down with a recently captured shipment of Luxury Foods. That and a request to not touch a damn thing on the ship, he'd patch up the holes himself. The trip from Ouray to the Barrow was not a short one, but in his current condition he wasn't in a position to move anywhere quickly.
As he sat in the remnants of the vessel's command couch, restraints that had apparently gone unfastened by its prior occupant laying slack at his sides, he responded that the controls felt familiar. It seemed a good enough answer for the pilots who had brought the ship in. They spit, shook and the deal was struck. He was now the owner of the Heritage.
The question as to the feel of the controls was not an unfair one. The X-Shuttle was not coveted for its simplicity of use; the workstations crawled with the mechanisms that allowed it to function in both deep space and the harshest of atmospheric conditions. The vessel's ponderous attitude in space drew many critics to be fair, but in the right hands it could be trimmed to gently navigate the maelstroms of gas giants that would sweep vessels with ten times its power into the screaming maw of their gravity wells. Planetform X-Shuttles were top of the line, their use and piloting coming with ease after years of training.
But that, David mused, was another story.
His cane lay abandoned alongside one of the vessel's landing struts as he hunched atop her back, carefully laying down another coat of protective paint atop the scars burnt into her hull from Xeno Widows. The paint was designed to react to extreme heat and stress, another survival tool in atmosphere, demanding that many repair kits be stored aboard the vessels. A small favor for which he was thankful. The teenage son of one of the Barrow's maintenance chiefs was focusing on laying down a requested artistic flair, clearing aside the Planetform logo in favor of a choice piece of art detailing a bosom woman riding a flower, cowboy hat high in the air.
A small tribute to an old friend that he was glad his mother couldn't see. It also made clever use of the ship's access hatch, something he doubted he would be using with a straight face anytime soon.
As he supervised the instillation of a heavily re-enforced canopy for the vessel he couldn't help but break into a grin. It was a little piece of the past come to bring some comfort to the present and damned if he didn't know just the best use to put it to.
The brass'd been railing as of late about the bounty yielded in regards to the of the squadron's provided intel largess. The justification metted out for continued parts and fuel had become less contemporary and more historical. Past victories had already been covered, present ones were lacking. With those trumming words of wisdom ringing in his head Chambers looked upon the first report issued by his boys in weeks with something akin to distaste. "We're going to be riding seven strong in a starflea within a month at this rate" he mused. Scratching a day's growth of fuzz on his chin he proceeded to string up a reply to John.
*Attach Debrief - Message
Viper, you fall asleep at your computer son? Next time you think to hit the bar on the Serpentis tab I'm expecting you to throw something my way that the high command isn't going to spit on me for transmitting. Put a little back into your next report if you could, they don't much care for slideshows, they want context.
That being said, you did an admirable job nabbing that Luxury Liner and providing fire support against the trio of gunboats we encountered that evening.
Furthermore, that's the third synthfoods transport that's been willing to pipe our tune for the airways of Liberty. Granted we were in a bit of a hurry to nail our intended targets, but I'm starting to think that we're letting those boys off a little light. There's a possibility that we might be well served by re-thinking our position towards those particular gentlemen, either towards putting a little more hurt their way, or perhaps curtailing some support. Regardless, can't let them think that they can get sloppy around us. They're as guilty of engineering our plight as the rest of those backstabbing faceless corpy bastards, so let's give 'em fire and terror for it.
Good job flying out there, but let's not forget that we ain't being given ships to have fun, but to do a job. A job that the folks with their fingers on who gets what don't know is being done unless we tell 'em.
Incoming Transmission
Source: Jack 'ScarletKing' Swift
Location: Ouray Bar & Grill
Put my Starblazer back in to service, as requested. Found it dumped in a shed somewhere. On my way through New York I performed the usual services for the civilians. It seems, however, that they have forgotten who we are. http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/9969/xa1.png
Looks like we need to put more people out there spreading the word, the populace needs re-re-education something terrible.
Also, I hear next Tuesday there's a soup kitchen running down on Denver. Anyone gonna show this time?
Source: Jonathon"DeathAdder"Jones
Location: Ouray Bar & Grill
..Kicks back at the bar..and muses to himself..
Ahh.It felt good to be in the cockpit again, after all that paperwork. It appeared the GMG were doing some exploring in the Colorado system, dang foreignors. Who do they think they are? Coming into our area and all.
Well, the boys and I sent them a message that they are not welcome here..a message they won't soon forget.
![[Image: Del1.png]](http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a344/Spiderjerusalem1979/Del1.png)
![[Image: synth.jpg]](http://i663.photobucket.com/albums/uu360/darthbeck/synth.jpg)
