Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Saturday we played Confed again, continuing the race I refer to as the Cannonball Run in Space. This included my character, Carmella Maylock, a cheval trader (or gypsy); The Paper as Katy Swenson, a 21-year-old adventurer from a rich family; The Martial Artist as Taiwan, the idiot savant ship's engineer and my character's second cousin, twice removed; The Dormouse playing Liang Tze, a Shaolin monk who is strongly opposed to deadly violence; and The Gryphon as security and espionage master Steve.

The first leg of the journey, the Vandervecken was in glimmer space for three days, traveling to another part of the galaxy to perform the next stunt required by the race. Anyone on the crew with any mechanical abilities was working on repairing the ship. While not everything was perfect, the ship was now functional and capable of continuing the race. The Vandervecken did, however, lose an hour of their lead on Komachi in the Halprin.

Steve did a scan of the nearby planetary bodies to try to determine what possible dangers might await. This particular area of the galaxy was known for pirate activity, and he started making disparaging remarks about pirates.

"Watch what you say about pirates," Carmella said. "Our people" -- meaning the cheval traders, a gypsy sort of people who travel around the known universe, and the heritage of both Carmella and Taiwan -- "are often mistaken for pirates. And you don't like it, do you, Taiwan?"

"Actually," he admitted. "I was traveling with pirates for awhile."

"Really?" Carmella said. "Is that we were getting letters from you with a weird signature on them for awhile? My mom thought that you had applied yourself and joined the naval academy. Well, what she doesn't know won't hurt her."

The Cheshire Cat, the GM and creator of this game, liked that exchange so much that he told me to mark on my character sheet that I'd get 50 XP (experience points) for "finesse." This is something he gives out to people for, he said, quick thinking or bon mots.

Katie was just preparing for the next stunt when a ship materialized out of glimmer jump far too close for comfort. This, incidentally, was a violation of the rules of the race, and it soon became clear who's be willing to play so dirty. The sensors were at a much lower resolution than normal after the repairs, but even with the blocky screens, Steve could detect Axinn's ship, the Sunside. These were the same pirates who had attempted to board the Vandervecken the night before the race began and been humiliated by the Vandervecken crew.

We knew something bad was coming, and sure enough, missiles started to head toward the ship. This time, luck was not on the side of the crew. Carmella got off one laser shot that did some serious damage to the Sunside, but the Vandervecken's missiles were not hitting their target. This was primarily because of the way they had to be fired. Since the Vandervecken no longer had the mechanism to shoot the missiles, Taiwan had rigged them up so they could be dropped from the cargo bay instead of being fired. Unfortunately, two attempts at this failed.

Taiwan's attempts to shoot the incoming missiles out of space also failed, so there was nothing to do but brace for impact.

Sure enough, the first missile hit the gravity mirror and didn't do much damage. It did, however, spill Taiwan's beer. Taiwan is never sober; in fact, once a long time ago he was sober for awhile and people decided he was much less pleasant that way. He was outraged.

The second missile slammed home and all the sensors on the left-hand side went dead. It was impossible to tell what damage had been done to that side of the ship or what was coming. Now, if possible, Taiwan was even madder.

When a boarding pod attached itself to engineering, they were just plain asking for it. A cylinder extended from the boarding pod and attached to the ship, and someone on the other side began using a torch to cut a hole in the ship. Taiwan was ready for them.

The crew were all wearing their environmental suits, because they had been expecting a move like this from somebody in the race, Axinn being one of the likely candidates. If someone boarded the ship by cutting a hole in it, it would be possible to lose pressure to a dangerous level. So Taiwan strapped himself in, put on his helmet and gloves and overpressurized engineering.

This had the effect that as soon as the person in the boarding pod finished cutting away a portion of armor plate, the plate was forced outward at an incredible speed, squashing him like a bug.

While Confederate citizens tend to be nonviolent and opt for non-lethal combat methods, they were dealing with Taiwan. And they had spilled his beer.

Just a short time later, somebody on the boarding pod began the process again. This would have been unbelievable if that crew weren't so stupid. But because they were now cutting through the inner layer, the effect was negated. The hole allowed the two compartments to reach a pressure balance instead. When Taiwan realized his method was no longer working, he began lowering the pressure to normal levels.

This entire time, the crew from the bridge had been waiting in the hallway. They'd rushed down as soon as they realized something was going on and had been standing on the other side of the locked door. Fortunately, he let them in just in the nick of time. As soon as the piece of metal clanked out of the boarding pod, a grenade sailed into engineering.

Liang, the Shaolin monk, used his fighting staff to bat it back into the boarding pod. There was an explosion, and then silence. Three members of the Vandervecken stepped up to the entrance. Taiwan shouted, "Counterboard!" and rushed inside. Carmella followed her cousin inside but almost lost her cookies at the gore that met them. Liang followed, as well.

At this point, because the rest of the crew couldn't see what was going on, The Cheshire Cat took us three into the kitchen to tell us what we saw. There was only one somewhat befuddled looking crew member inside, in the section where one would pilot the pod. Taiwan, without hesitation, shot him in the chest, and not with a stunner but with a real laser weapon. After all, he was after payback.

Lucky for the henchman, the shot wasn't fatal. Taiwan called out, "Clear!" and the other two crew members boarded the pod.

At this point, it became clear that when Taiwan called out "Counterboard," he didn't just mean the boarding pod but, instead, the Sunside itself. After all, the Vandervecken was now desperately in need of parts, and Axinn's ship was the best place to scavenge those parts. Katie, who owns two-thirds of the ship, was more than happy to participate. The two of them started flipping switches and preparing before anyone else could really think of whether or not this was actually a good idea.

Meanwhile, Liang was patching up the henchman. After a little arguing, he got his way and kept the henchman conscious so he could provide security codes. Liang was the one who talked to him, starting with, "Your first mistake was spilling my friend's beer." The henchman nodded, blankly. Liang realized the guy wasn't following anything he was saying in the Patois that is the language of the Confederation. Instead, he was speaking Empire German, so Liang switched. The henchman soon was happy to comply, after Liang convinced him that otherwise, the Sunside would shoot them down and kill them all.

When the ship radioed over, Liang had the henchman do the communicating. Of course, The Vandervecken had reason to expect a boobytrap, so instead of just stepping outside and taking fire, Taiwan stunned the guy almost to the point of unconsciousness and pushed him ahead of him, where he toppled over onto the deck while Taiwan stayed behind his shield.

But only two men greeted the pod, and while they did fire on the Vandervecken, some good stunner work rendered them unconsciousness soon enough.

Taiwan barely paused and strode out of the landing bay at full speed, heading for the engineering room. The rest of the crew shrugged and followed his lead to whatever lay ahead.

(continued in October 12 entry, below)

Further adventures from Confed:

Confed adventures index

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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