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Without a Schrade of Luck
After leaving his spot on the [ITAN] council and returning from some personal business, Waffles acquired the position of Head of Research and Maintenance at Deneb Meditation. He always thought that was an odd combination, but he figured one always led to the other. Actually K-5 was once designated as a research station, but it now held the incredibly large Hanger Bay C used for the sole purpose of housing and repairing the aging Trident class frigates. The Morgue as it was so affectionately called by her staff could hold five of these beasts and enough spare parts to build two more.
The Morgue was home to a select group of mechanics from all over Blue Space, the worst of the best some might say. They could care less what other thought of them, as long as the Fish keep swimming they are happy. The Morgue was full of spare parts and half scavenged hulls, and for that reason the crew of K-5 has become known as the Wrench Rats. They prided themselves on their hard work and the fact that they can play hard as well. Few other maintenance crews could hold their own against the Rats in a game of beer pong or flip cup. That was a well known fact.
The Trident’s systems tend to lend themselves to need constant exchanging and replacing. Luckily they were used mainly for in-system patrols and hive suppression. Their old long range scanners were perfect for the job, even the newer systems had less resolution. Few if any saw front line duty these days. Ironic that the best facility for the old Fish was located right on the edge.
In the far corner of Hanger Bay C was the Rats little project. A beat up Trident that had seen much better days, as well as 5 tours of duty, set patently as the Rats restored her. The Pride of Deneb was to be the diplomatic embassy to the systems of the Itani people. In her day she was the best there ever was, twenty seven confirmed kills and she even took out a new teradon by herself, quite a feat to be sure. The restoration had become more of a obsession really, she was even given a pet name by a number of the crew. Baby was coming along quite nicely.
Waffles had been working on Baby when a message of the hanger’s comm unit interrupted him. “For crying out loud,” he thought. The message informed him that he was needed in his office. He climbed down from the old hull and made his way to a large office over looking the Morgue. When he got there no one was waiting for him. He looked around a bit puzzled but noticed a file lying on his desk. “Finally” he said out loud to no one in particular. He had requested the eleven page report over a week ago and it held all the details to an incident that had happened just a hair over a week before. The Metana Sun was on its way to battle when everything went to pot. The Sun was called in to repel a group of hive collectors harassing miners near the Eo - Deneb worm hole. Her main reactor had locked down during the jump in and even though she fought off the collector she had to be towed into orbit around K-5. Now that the report was complete room could be made in the Morgue for yet another corps. It took Waffles about three hours to scrutinize the report. “Well I’ll be…”
The Metana Sun was docked and Waffles made his way over to take a look at the problem. It was determined that a schrader valve failed, used to check the pressure of the coolant for the reactor. A very small and simple piece of work, same thing used to check the pressure of the tires on the dock carts. But when it failed it failed completely and instantly. The sudden release of pressure caused the coolant to change from liquid in the lines to gas in the new found space. The valve cap’s o-ring was no match for the sudden pressure change and drop in temperature, it failed an instant later. Without a schrader valve or an o-ring to stop it, the coolant surged into the cap, freezing it, then exploding it. The shrapnel from the cap ruptured the line even more. When it was all said and done a hole two centimeters wide was left in the main coolant line on the high pressure side of the compressor. This was just like cutting a hole in the aorta just above the heart. The Sun bled out in about 30 seconds. This could have been repaired, the compressor shut down neatly as designed, and could be restarted with out much delay after the hole was patched and coolant was piped back in, about a ten minute affair. But as luck would have it, all this happened the same second the reactor was charging up for the jump in to the sector. The sudden increase in reactor output and the drastic drop in coolant pressure toggled the scram. When the secondary control rods fell into place the reactor had built up so much heat that the rods wielded themselves into place, shutting down the reactor. A 2 credit part was now going to cost the Morgue about as much as a moth xc full of helio.
Waffles was heading out across the hanger when he crossed paths with one of his senior techs. “Change out all the schrader valves in these three fish,” he orded, “we don’t need to have another Sun.” The tech replied with a simple “Yes sir,” and went on his way. Before Waffles could take another step the hanger comm unit announced that another Trident was being towed into the system.
“Now what…”
After leaving his spot on the [ITAN] council and returning from some personal business, Waffles acquired the position of Head of Research and Maintenance at Deneb Meditation. He always thought that was an odd combination, but he figured one always led to the other. Actually K-5 was once designated as a research station, but it now held the incredibly large Hanger Bay C used for the sole purpose of housing and repairing the aging Trident class frigates. The Morgue as it was so affectionately called by her staff could hold five of these beasts and enough spare parts to build two more.
The Morgue was home to a select group of mechanics from all over Blue Space, the worst of the best some might say. They could care less what other thought of them, as long as the Fish keep swimming they are happy. The Morgue was full of spare parts and half scavenged hulls, and for that reason the crew of K-5 has become known as the Wrench Rats. They prided themselves on their hard work and the fact that they can play hard as well. Few other maintenance crews could hold their own against the Rats in a game of beer pong or flip cup. That was a well known fact.
The Trident’s systems tend to lend themselves to need constant exchanging and replacing. Luckily they were used mainly for in-system patrols and hive suppression. Their old long range scanners were perfect for the job, even the newer systems had less resolution. Few if any saw front line duty these days. Ironic that the best facility for the old Fish was located right on the edge.
In the far corner of Hanger Bay C was the Rats little project. A beat up Trident that had seen much better days, as well as 5 tours of duty, set patently as the Rats restored her. The Pride of Deneb was to be the diplomatic embassy to the systems of the Itani people. In her day she was the best there ever was, twenty seven confirmed kills and she even took out a new teradon by herself, quite a feat to be sure. The restoration had become more of a obsession really, she was even given a pet name by a number of the crew. Baby was coming along quite nicely.
Waffles had been working on Baby when a message of the hanger’s comm unit interrupted him. “For crying out loud,” he thought. The message informed him that he was needed in his office. He climbed down from the old hull and made his way to a large office over looking the Morgue. When he got there no one was waiting for him. He looked around a bit puzzled but noticed a file lying on his desk. “Finally” he said out loud to no one in particular. He had requested the eleven page report over a week ago and it held all the details to an incident that had happened just a hair over a week before. The Metana Sun was on its way to battle when everything went to pot. The Sun was called in to repel a group of hive collectors harassing miners near the Eo - Deneb worm hole. Her main reactor had locked down during the jump in and even though she fought off the collector she had to be towed into orbit around K-5. Now that the report was complete room could be made in the Morgue for yet another corps. It took Waffles about three hours to scrutinize the report. “Well I’ll be…”
The Metana Sun was docked and Waffles made his way over to take a look at the problem. It was determined that a schrader valve failed, used to check the pressure of the coolant for the reactor. A very small and simple piece of work, same thing used to check the pressure of the tires on the dock carts. But when it failed it failed completely and instantly. The sudden release of pressure caused the coolant to change from liquid in the lines to gas in the new found space. The valve cap’s o-ring was no match for the sudden pressure change and drop in temperature, it failed an instant later. Without a schrader valve or an o-ring to stop it, the coolant surged into the cap, freezing it, then exploding it. The shrapnel from the cap ruptured the line even more. When it was all said and done a hole two centimeters wide was left in the main coolant line on the high pressure side of the compressor. This was just like cutting a hole in the aorta just above the heart. The Sun bled out in about 30 seconds. This could have been repaired, the compressor shut down neatly as designed, and could be restarted with out much delay after the hole was patched and coolant was piped back in, about a ten minute affair. But as luck would have it, all this happened the same second the reactor was charging up for the jump in to the sector. The sudden increase in reactor output and the drastic drop in coolant pressure toggled the scram. When the secondary control rods fell into place the reactor had built up so much heat that the rods wielded themselves into place, shutting down the reactor. A 2 credit part was now going to cost the Morgue about as much as a moth xc full of helio.
Waffles was heading out across the hanger when he crossed paths with one of his senior techs. “Change out all the schrader valves in these three fish,” he orded, “we don’t need to have another Sun.” The tech replied with a simple “Yes sir,” and went on his way. Before Waffles could take another step the hanger comm unit announced that another Trident was being towed into the system.
“Now what…”
OOC: Edit: I changed the size of Hanger C from seven tridents to five. That seemed a little excessive.
Also, this is kinda a therapy thing for me. I'm mildly dyslexic and I have a hard time putting my thoughts into writing. So I started doing this, hopefully every week I'll add to the story. We'll see how time permits.
P.S. Most of the characters are people I know, didn't even change their names. And some of the technical things are things I've had to deal with.
Also, this is kinda a therapy thing for me. I'm mildly dyslexic and I have a hard time putting my thoughts into writing. So I started doing this, hopefully every week I'll add to the story. We'll see how time permits.
P.S. Most of the characters are people I know, didn't even change their names. And some of the technical things are things I've had to deal with.
Field Trip
The week had been long and the work had been tough, but Waffles’ crew had come out strong. Two of the tridents were repaired and sent on their way to patrol the interior systems. The repairs on the Sun would have been finished if they didn’t have to send off to Pherona Garden for a new compressor, regardless the Metana Sun will be out the first of next week. In the mean time she will receive a much deserved fresh coat of paint, an untraditional burnt orange. The new Fish that arrived right after the Sun, the Sprint, was docked. All that ails her is that the life support isn’t keeping her crew cool. She should be out just after the Sun, with a simple coil wash and quick check of the systems.
The Pride was coming along nicely as well. He reactor was started for the first time in over 20 years. A little coaxing from a hammer and Waffles had her purring like a kitten. The life support was over pressurized to check for holes in the hull. There was no surprise when none showed up. K-5 and the Morgue were rolling along quite nicely, top efficiency. Time to change that.
Each of the Rats had a nickname. Many held a name of honor, one that symbolized a great triumph in their past. The young tech Waffles was about the pass in the hall was no exception. “What ya got there, Booger?”
“Just a trophy sir.” What Booger did have was the mangled piece of reactor coolant pipe from the Sun. “Gona add it to the Wall O’ Fame.”
The Wall of Fame was located in the mess hall attached to Hanger C. A piece of every major repair, rusted out piece of scrap with each hull number, or embarrassing picture from the company Christmas party was posted on that wall. Waffles wished he could remove a few pictures himself, but the Rat King held the Key, the only key, in fact, to the case. Each year at the Christmas party a new King is elected, their sole duty was to insure no one removes a single picture or item from the Wall and to add new ones. King Booger was on his way to do his royal duty.
“Well hurry up.” Waffles yelled from down the hall. “And meet us in Hanger B!”
Hanger B was of normal size and held the crew’s personal ships. Today the Rats needed a break, they have worked hard all month. Waffles was going to take them on a field trip. Every so often they’ll make a run into Geira to see if they can come across a convoy that might be holding anything they could need. Mostly they just cause the Strike Force to get all upset.
There was only four of them this time around as they closed in on the worm hole. Waffles, Booger, and Bones were all in X-1’s. The fourth, Peaches, was in a hog TD. She said she had a new toy to try out.
<group>Waffles - Alright, y’all know the drill stay close, head to O-7, J-3, then C-8.
<group>Peaches – Can I try my toy out first?
<group>Bones – Lets lose the SF first, then you can do what ever the hell you want.
They made it to C-8 with out a hitch, the SF came in a little close but didn’t get a shot off. After some debate they decided to not head to the Betheshee worm hole, but to turn on a commandeered comm unit instead. A storm was reported in F-8 by a convoy.
<group>Waffles – F-8 it is.
They arrived only moments before the storm dissipated. Luckily they literally jumped in on the convoy. Booger nearly crashed into a moth upon exiting his jump.
<group>Waffles – Bones, Booger. The escorts.
<group>Peaches – Finally, watch this!
Peaches fired off the new toy loaded in her large port. The chaos swarms launched like normal, but after only six meters all eight of the missiles flew off in different directions.
<group>Waffles – Broken?
Peaches didn’t even need to reply as all eight homed in the on the same target from all directions. Even the best pilot couldn’t dodge then all, especially in a moth XC. The moth exploded in grand ball of fire.
Booger took out the first serco vulture and was being tailed by a second. He turned to face his new foe, hit the boost to quickly change vectors and swooped in for the kill. They were flying head on when Booger hit his vertical thrusters and pointed his nose down. For the entire but brief moment the vulture was under him a constant stream of neutrons poured from his ship. In a single pass the vulture was history.
<group>Bones – BUG OUT!
<group>Waffles – Done, you heard him. Form up.
When the dust had cleared and the four were docked back at K-5, three serco vults, two moth heavies and a single moth XC where tallied up. “Hey Bones, why the early bug out?” Booger asked.
“Simple,” Bones replied, “I found a very important cargo and we needed to make sure we got out before they figured out that we had it.”
At this point Waffles was curious as well, “What did you find?”
Bones’ only reply was his trademark “eat shit” grin and the two cases of beer he set on the table.
The week had been long and the work had been tough, but Waffles’ crew had come out strong. Two of the tridents were repaired and sent on their way to patrol the interior systems. The repairs on the Sun would have been finished if they didn’t have to send off to Pherona Garden for a new compressor, regardless the Metana Sun will be out the first of next week. In the mean time she will receive a much deserved fresh coat of paint, an untraditional burnt orange. The new Fish that arrived right after the Sun, the Sprint, was docked. All that ails her is that the life support isn’t keeping her crew cool. She should be out just after the Sun, with a simple coil wash and quick check of the systems.
The Pride was coming along nicely as well. He reactor was started for the first time in over 20 years. A little coaxing from a hammer and Waffles had her purring like a kitten. The life support was over pressurized to check for holes in the hull. There was no surprise when none showed up. K-5 and the Morgue were rolling along quite nicely, top efficiency. Time to change that.
Each of the Rats had a nickname. Many held a name of honor, one that symbolized a great triumph in their past. The young tech Waffles was about the pass in the hall was no exception. “What ya got there, Booger?”
“Just a trophy sir.” What Booger did have was the mangled piece of reactor coolant pipe from the Sun. “Gona add it to the Wall O’ Fame.”
The Wall of Fame was located in the mess hall attached to Hanger C. A piece of every major repair, rusted out piece of scrap with each hull number, or embarrassing picture from the company Christmas party was posted on that wall. Waffles wished he could remove a few pictures himself, but the Rat King held the Key, the only key, in fact, to the case. Each year at the Christmas party a new King is elected, their sole duty was to insure no one removes a single picture or item from the Wall and to add new ones. King Booger was on his way to do his royal duty.
“Well hurry up.” Waffles yelled from down the hall. “And meet us in Hanger B!”
Hanger B was of normal size and held the crew’s personal ships. Today the Rats needed a break, they have worked hard all month. Waffles was going to take them on a field trip. Every so often they’ll make a run into Geira to see if they can come across a convoy that might be holding anything they could need. Mostly they just cause the Strike Force to get all upset.
There was only four of them this time around as they closed in on the worm hole. Waffles, Booger, and Bones were all in X-1’s. The fourth, Peaches, was in a hog TD. She said she had a new toy to try out.
<group>Waffles - Alright, y’all know the drill stay close, head to O-7, J-3, then C-8.
<group>Peaches – Can I try my toy out first?
<group>Bones – Lets lose the SF first, then you can do what ever the hell you want.
They made it to C-8 with out a hitch, the SF came in a little close but didn’t get a shot off. After some debate they decided to not head to the Betheshee worm hole, but to turn on a commandeered comm unit instead. A storm was reported in F-8 by a convoy.
<group>Waffles – F-8 it is.
They arrived only moments before the storm dissipated. Luckily they literally jumped in on the convoy. Booger nearly crashed into a moth upon exiting his jump.
<group>Waffles – Bones, Booger. The escorts.
<group>Peaches – Finally, watch this!
Peaches fired off the new toy loaded in her large port. The chaos swarms launched like normal, but after only six meters all eight of the missiles flew off in different directions.
<group>Waffles – Broken?
Peaches didn’t even need to reply as all eight homed in the on the same target from all directions. Even the best pilot couldn’t dodge then all, especially in a moth XC. The moth exploded in grand ball of fire.
Booger took out the first serco vulture and was being tailed by a second. He turned to face his new foe, hit the boost to quickly change vectors and swooped in for the kill. They were flying head on when Booger hit his vertical thrusters and pointed his nose down. For the entire but brief moment the vulture was under him a constant stream of neutrons poured from his ship. In a single pass the vulture was history.
<group>Bones – BUG OUT!
<group>Waffles – Done, you heard him. Form up.
When the dust had cleared and the four were docked back at K-5, three serco vults, two moth heavies and a single moth XC where tallied up. “Hey Bones, why the early bug out?” Booger asked.
“Simple,” Bones replied, “I found a very important cargo and we needed to make sure we got out before they figured out that we had it.”
At this point Waffles was curious as well, “What did you find?”
Bones’ only reply was his trademark “eat shit” grin and the two cases of beer he set on the table.
Taleen’s Heritage
Waffles leaned back in his chair with his feet propped up on the window over looking the near empty Morgue. Things had begun to calm down a bit, the repairs on the Sun were finished, the Sprint was back out and a number of other Fish had come and gone over the past week. A new trident would be arriving this afternoon for a scheduled preventive maintenance work through. No more reports of breakdowns and no catastrophic failures of any kind, life was good, life was easy. Just to pound home the point, activity on the border has also slowed down a good bit.
He gave a solid push off the window in an attempt to spin his chair around and roll the remaining few feet to his deck. Seamed to perfect in his head, a smooth move, a simple push and roll right into place. Waffles had miscalculated the angle of his lean and just ended up flipping himself over. He was still on his back when Bones walked in with a stack of paper.
“Sir, what the hell are you doing?”
“Taking a nap, Bones!”
“Ok.... Well, here’s the requisition forms for the week. Same ol’ stuff as last week. Oh, I did throw in a few more cases of beer and a case of rum. Think they’ll notice?”
“Lets hope not.”
With a smile and a salute Bones was out the door and on his way to do whatever the hell Waffles paid that kid to do. After an hour or so the forms where all filled out and the beer and rum was strategically hidden with in an order for degreaser and sawdust. Waffles grabbed for his stapler, but only found an empty section of desk. “That’s odd,” he thought to himself. A missing stapler and a clean spot on his desk were two things he didn’t expect to come across today. He stood up, walked to door and leaned his head out. “Anyone seen my stapler,” he yelled at anyone who would listen. A simple reply came in the form of a giggle and “In your top left drawer!”
Waffles walked back to his desk, sat down and opened the drawer he was directed to. Inside was in fact this stapler, as well as a green gelatin mold. The green giggly object seemed very out of place, except that inside was his red Swingline. “Peaches!”
A stapler was borrowed, the gelatin was placed in the mess hall to be eaten, and a reward was to be given to who ever freed the prisoner trapped inside. With in an hour of the all the excitement Aeron’s Sword jumped in to the sector for her check up. Another hour passed and the ship was docked and the crew handed her over to the Rats to do what they do best. A simple run through was all she needed. They check coolant pressures, greased bearings, check the wires for any wear and tear, checked the life support for any problems, etc, etc. And of course they changed out all the schrader valves. If no problems were found she would be on her way in less than two days.
Nothing major was found, however the life support needed a bit of cleaning and a few terminals had shown some discoloration and were replaced. They only kept her for one extra day, then all was quiet again and work could resume on the Pride. After the reactor was started up and she was running on here own power things started to pick up pace. The hull had been completely stripped of any rust, which is rare in space, all nicks and dings were buffed out and the painting had begun. When the navigation hardware was updated and the new software package was added the old drive management system rejected the whole set up. After some time a tech stumbled upon a piece of code in the drive system, updated it and all was well. Outside of that things were running smoothly and they were on schedule for the inauguration ceremony.
The stapler had been liberated and a beer was paid in tribute, more requisition papers where filed and more beer and rum were delivered. All was good. Then a report came in that had the whole of K-5 talking. Some young new captain pulled off a perfect Taleen Spiral. The commander of the Pride had developed that maneuver some years ago to combat the newer more powerful teradon. The trident, although a fine and powerful ship, was no real match for the teradon in standard ship-to-ship combat. The teradon had more firepower, more armor, stronger shields and was more maneuverable, that is until she spools up her anti-capital ship cannons. The easiest way to take down a trident is too hit it a few times with the large cannons, it was the easy way out, and most captains will opt for it. This is what the Taleen Spiral counts on. The rotational inertia created by the cannons only cuts down the maneuverability slightly, but enough to give the trident an edge.
The idea is to get the teradon to start the spooling process then move in real close. While moving in change your orientation so that you are bridge-to-bridge facing aft, or toward the teradon’s engines. Then comes the tricky part, also the most important. The trident has to point her nose at the teradon’s engines so that all turrets have a line of fire, they must fire in sequence so that at any given instant the shield of the teradon is being depleted, giving the ship no chance to replenish even the slightest bit. Since the trident is positioned so that only about a quarter of the teradons turrets have a firing solution the standard procedure is to bring the main cannons to bear. This involves pulling the nose up to face the trident. However, the trident moves down, essentially orbiting the teradon keeping the orientation of nose to aft. The commander has to be care not to fall out of position, if he over shoots the teradon it will be unlikely that he can regain his position, and he must not slow down too much and allow the teradon to bring it’s cannons to bear. This process continues and the spiral speeds up. Under normal circumstances the ships computer calculates a turn so that the ship is pivoting around a point in space. This allows the artificial gravity wells to dampen the excess centripetal force created by the turn. But as the spiral increases speed the pivot point should draw closer to the teradon. The key is to make the pivot point no longer a point in space but instead at the ships center of gravity. Then the gravity wells can’t properly dampen the force and they actually increase the force on one half of the ship and over compensate of the other. This causes the crew to become disoriented and the ship to be put under more stress than necessary.
At this point the spiral will speed up even more, and the rotational inertia of the cannons keeps up the speed even if the crew tries to stop the spiral. Once the critical point is reached the shields should be depleted and the trident can pull away, the crew then has a moment to get their bearings and then finish off the teradon as it hopelessly spirals to its demise. It is a tough maneuver to me sure, many captains have tried it, few have perfected it.
Waffles ran down the control tower to listen to the report being spewed over the comm. net. “Who was it?” he asked the comm. tech. The tech was busy copying the report over to the station’s memory drives but had time to turn around and grin at his commanding officer.
“D Law, Sir”
“Damn, I haven’t heard that name in awhile. “
Next time he sees his little brother he’s going to have buy him a nice big beer, Waffles thought, now grinning himself.
Waffles leaned back in his chair with his feet propped up on the window over looking the near empty Morgue. Things had begun to calm down a bit, the repairs on the Sun were finished, the Sprint was back out and a number of other Fish had come and gone over the past week. A new trident would be arriving this afternoon for a scheduled preventive maintenance work through. No more reports of breakdowns and no catastrophic failures of any kind, life was good, life was easy. Just to pound home the point, activity on the border has also slowed down a good bit.
He gave a solid push off the window in an attempt to spin his chair around and roll the remaining few feet to his deck. Seamed to perfect in his head, a smooth move, a simple push and roll right into place. Waffles had miscalculated the angle of his lean and just ended up flipping himself over. He was still on his back when Bones walked in with a stack of paper.
“Sir, what the hell are you doing?”
“Taking a nap, Bones!”
“Ok.... Well, here’s the requisition forms for the week. Same ol’ stuff as last week. Oh, I did throw in a few more cases of beer and a case of rum. Think they’ll notice?”
“Lets hope not.”
With a smile and a salute Bones was out the door and on his way to do whatever the hell Waffles paid that kid to do. After an hour or so the forms where all filled out and the beer and rum was strategically hidden with in an order for degreaser and sawdust. Waffles grabbed for his stapler, but only found an empty section of desk. “That’s odd,” he thought to himself. A missing stapler and a clean spot on his desk were two things he didn’t expect to come across today. He stood up, walked to door and leaned his head out. “Anyone seen my stapler,” he yelled at anyone who would listen. A simple reply came in the form of a giggle and “In your top left drawer!”
Waffles walked back to his desk, sat down and opened the drawer he was directed to. Inside was in fact this stapler, as well as a green gelatin mold. The green giggly object seemed very out of place, except that inside was his red Swingline. “Peaches!”
A stapler was borrowed, the gelatin was placed in the mess hall to be eaten, and a reward was to be given to who ever freed the prisoner trapped inside. With in an hour of the all the excitement Aeron’s Sword jumped in to the sector for her check up. Another hour passed and the ship was docked and the crew handed her over to the Rats to do what they do best. A simple run through was all she needed. They check coolant pressures, greased bearings, check the wires for any wear and tear, checked the life support for any problems, etc, etc. And of course they changed out all the schrader valves. If no problems were found she would be on her way in less than two days.
Nothing major was found, however the life support needed a bit of cleaning and a few terminals had shown some discoloration and were replaced. They only kept her for one extra day, then all was quiet again and work could resume on the Pride. After the reactor was started up and she was running on here own power things started to pick up pace. The hull had been completely stripped of any rust, which is rare in space, all nicks and dings were buffed out and the painting had begun. When the navigation hardware was updated and the new software package was added the old drive management system rejected the whole set up. After some time a tech stumbled upon a piece of code in the drive system, updated it and all was well. Outside of that things were running smoothly and they were on schedule for the inauguration ceremony.
The stapler had been liberated and a beer was paid in tribute, more requisition papers where filed and more beer and rum were delivered. All was good. Then a report came in that had the whole of K-5 talking. Some young new captain pulled off a perfect Taleen Spiral. The commander of the Pride had developed that maneuver some years ago to combat the newer more powerful teradon. The trident, although a fine and powerful ship, was no real match for the teradon in standard ship-to-ship combat. The teradon had more firepower, more armor, stronger shields and was more maneuverable, that is until she spools up her anti-capital ship cannons. The easiest way to take down a trident is too hit it a few times with the large cannons, it was the easy way out, and most captains will opt for it. This is what the Taleen Spiral counts on. The rotational inertia created by the cannons only cuts down the maneuverability slightly, but enough to give the trident an edge.
The idea is to get the teradon to start the spooling process then move in real close. While moving in change your orientation so that you are bridge-to-bridge facing aft, or toward the teradon’s engines. Then comes the tricky part, also the most important. The trident has to point her nose at the teradon’s engines so that all turrets have a line of fire, they must fire in sequence so that at any given instant the shield of the teradon is being depleted, giving the ship no chance to replenish even the slightest bit. Since the trident is positioned so that only about a quarter of the teradons turrets have a firing solution the standard procedure is to bring the main cannons to bear. This involves pulling the nose up to face the trident. However, the trident moves down, essentially orbiting the teradon keeping the orientation of nose to aft. The commander has to be care not to fall out of position, if he over shoots the teradon it will be unlikely that he can regain his position, and he must not slow down too much and allow the teradon to bring it’s cannons to bear. This process continues and the spiral speeds up. Under normal circumstances the ships computer calculates a turn so that the ship is pivoting around a point in space. This allows the artificial gravity wells to dampen the excess centripetal force created by the turn. But as the spiral increases speed the pivot point should draw closer to the teradon. The key is to make the pivot point no longer a point in space but instead at the ships center of gravity. Then the gravity wells can’t properly dampen the force and they actually increase the force on one half of the ship and over compensate of the other. This causes the crew to become disoriented and the ship to be put under more stress than necessary.
At this point the spiral will speed up even more, and the rotational inertia of the cannons keeps up the speed even if the crew tries to stop the spiral. Once the critical point is reached the shields should be depleted and the trident can pull away, the crew then has a moment to get their bearings and then finish off the teradon as it hopelessly spirals to its demise. It is a tough maneuver to me sure, many captains have tried it, few have perfected it.
Waffles ran down the control tower to listen to the report being spewed over the comm. net. “Who was it?” he asked the comm. tech. The tech was busy copying the report over to the station’s memory drives but had time to turn around and grin at his commanding officer.
“D Law, Sir”
“Damn, I haven’t heard that name in awhile. “
Next time he sees his little brother he’s going to have buy him a nice big beer, Waffles thought, now grinning himself.
This is very, very good. Great job, Waffles!
Major issues with tense. Often wrong and almost always several mixed within a sentence. Very odd.
Hey man. I'm good at what I do. I live in the now, even if that means yesterday or tomorrow at the same time. :)
Aye , a good storyline.
I like it a lot, Waffles!
Duce Ex Machina
Lt. Baylen set quietly in the cockpit of a specially equipped atlas at the Deneb-Geira worm hole trying to absorb as much information as he can. Every time a ship jumped through the worm hole more information poured out, his job was to simply record anything that came his way. Some of it was useful, most was not. He now knew last weeks lotto numbers, a request for pest control, maintenance small talk and some encrypted codes that will be deciphered later if possible. But all in all space was quiet tonight, a border skirmish was waging well over seven kilometers away, other than that she wasn’t giving up much. Three Serco pilots returning from a border patrol happened to jump within three kilometers for the atlas. Fortunately, Baylen had his proximity detector set to four kilometers to give him an advanced warning. He instantly started to shut down his surveillance gear and warm up his drives. The whole process took only eight seconds, but that was long enough for the first Serco pilot to come into range and squeeze off a single round of depleted xith.
Mr. Burney was laying on a packing crate with his arms crossed soaking in the IR radiation that was streaming in through the window from a near by star. He had completed everything he had set out to do. He made his rounds, checked things out, and found that everything was the way it should be in his opinion. He had poked his head in rooms looked around and no one had paid him a lick of attention, life was good. So he climbed up on top of the packing crate, propped himself up against another, found warmth in the light and started to fall asleep. In the last moments of cognitive recognition he noticed a figure heading his way. With out any prior notice, no announcement of any kind, Mr. Burney was restrained. He put up a mild and ultimately pathetic attempt at escape, but in the end he figured that whatever the reason he was probably just as guilty as the next guy.
Peaches came strolling down the hall and ducked into Waffles office just in time to miss a cart full of mail. “Waffles, Sir.” She said to notify her boss of her presence. “Yes, Ma’am” He responded with out even looking up from his paper work, he also wondered if they were ever going to use his real name.
“Your presence has been requested in the comm. center.”
“Can I ask you why?”
“Of course you can, sir. But, I don’t rightly know.”
“Ok, tell them I’m on my way...” Waffles paused as he finally looked up from his papers. “Where in all the words did you get a cat!?”
“Oh, Mr. Burney? He just showed up.”
“Showed up?”
“Yes, Sir. Found him earlier this week after that shipment from Itan.”
“He’s been here for almost a wee… and you haven’t reported him yet… AHHH! Get rid of him, now.”
“But, sir. That means we need to order poison for the mice.”
"Dear Lord, mice?” Waffles paused once more. “Ok, you can keep the damn cat, but you need to report him to HQ.” He returned to his papers.
“Sir, if I report an animal, HQ will have him removed.”
“Report him under Section 24.5b then”
“What’s that?’
Waffle’s smile returned to his face as he stated matter-of-factly “Pest control.” The look of concern left Peaches face as she responded “Thank you Sir.” and turned for the door. As to say he agreed Mr. Burney head butted Peaches in that affectionate way only cats can pull off and began to purr. Before she could leave the room Waffles told her to inform the comm. center he was on his way.
Lt. Baylen was pulled out of his jump early and the uncalculated deceleration was gut wrenching. He looked at his nav. display to see where he was, but the screen was dark. He looked around at his other instruments for any signs of life and found none. Fear began to creep in to his heart. In a desprate attempt to make himself feel better he did a complete restart of all systems. Only his comm. unit came to life, that was a start he thought out loud. He was still drifting and his momentum was about to bring him a little to close to a roid, with out even thinking that his systems were down he tried to maneuver away from the roid. As soon as he hit the vertical thrusters he escamed out loud “Idiot!” But much to his surprise they worked, as a mater of fact he had full maneuverability. Comms and thrusters where good enough, time to use both.
Waffles walked in to the comm. center as Bones was running out. “Duce has it covered. But I’ve got to pee, umm, Sir.”
“You don’t need to broadcast every time your body performs a function” Waffles yelled after Bones as he made a mad dash to the head. “Can’t wait for these kids to grow up.”
Duce was at the head station with headset on and total command of the situation. “…going to triangulate you position now, hang in there.” Duce keyed off the mic and look over at Waffles. “One of our recon atlas’ got hit and lost all nav function. We were going to send him to I-12 but they are surrounded by storms and O-3 is just that much farther.” Duce paused listened to the incoming transmistion and responded. “Ok, we’re going to patch into your diagnostic system from here since you monitors are dead, go ahead and run a full diagnostic and we’ll relay it back to ya, hang in there buddy.”
As it turns out that single shot by the Serco was a damn good one. The round penetrated the atlas’ hull and had enough momentum left over enter the powercell hold. There was enough heat generated to spot weld the round to the casing shorting out the powercell and causing major fluctuations. These fluctuations where the cause of the early jump exit and would probably cause more. Eventually the stress could cause the cell to explode. They were trying to avoid that scenario.
“Ok, we have your position.” Duce finally responded, “Sending it to you now.” Since Baylen’s monitors were not responding everything was being redundancy checked back at K-5. A word of concern was subdued by “Everything look good here, go ahead and engage your jump, see you on the other side, where ever that might be.” A few seconds later Baylen came back on the air reporting that his nav monitor was back online but his radar and system positioning system were still off line.
After making a few jumps and each time being pulled out early, Lt. Baylen was getting fatigued. “I’m just going to bail, this isn’t worth it.” Duce responded with “ Hey now, take it easy. That ship is on of the most expensive we’ve got, they aren’t just going to let you ditch it if we can get both of you home safely. Tell you what your getting close, we’re going to send out an escort to help out. Just hang out there for a bit and rest up.” Baylen was allowed to rest for a full thirty minute before his new coordinates were uploaded to his nav system. “Ready, buddy?”
“As ready as I’ll every be.”
“Last one… maybe. Cross your fingers.” Baylen spooled up his drives and his two escorts did the same. Baylen hit the button….
Waffles looked the window at where Baylen should have entered the sector, but only two ships were spotted. “Where is he?” Waffles wanted to know. Duce was scrambling to raise Lt. Baylen on the comm. “Can’t find him, sir.”
“Got him,” called out an tech on the other side of the room.
“Where is he?” Duce wanted to know.
“Just one sector over.”
Balyen was finally raised on the comm. The last exit was the roughest yet and had knocked poor Baylen unconscious. “I can’t take another, I’m bailing.”
“Just one more, that I promise. Your only one sector away, hell I could spit on ya.”
At that Baylen grinned, “Bet ya a case that I can spit farther.”
“Your on!”
It took four minutes to calculate the jump numbers and make sure his systems could take another jump. When all was ready Lt. Baylen spit into the mic the instant before he hit the button. Upon reaching K-5 he declared “Told ya so, now pay up sucka!”
Lt. Baylen set quietly in the cockpit of a specially equipped atlas at the Deneb-Geira worm hole trying to absorb as much information as he can. Every time a ship jumped through the worm hole more information poured out, his job was to simply record anything that came his way. Some of it was useful, most was not. He now knew last weeks lotto numbers, a request for pest control, maintenance small talk and some encrypted codes that will be deciphered later if possible. But all in all space was quiet tonight, a border skirmish was waging well over seven kilometers away, other than that she wasn’t giving up much. Three Serco pilots returning from a border patrol happened to jump within three kilometers for the atlas. Fortunately, Baylen had his proximity detector set to four kilometers to give him an advanced warning. He instantly started to shut down his surveillance gear and warm up his drives. The whole process took only eight seconds, but that was long enough for the first Serco pilot to come into range and squeeze off a single round of depleted xith.
Mr. Burney was laying on a packing crate with his arms crossed soaking in the IR radiation that was streaming in through the window from a near by star. He had completed everything he had set out to do. He made his rounds, checked things out, and found that everything was the way it should be in his opinion. He had poked his head in rooms looked around and no one had paid him a lick of attention, life was good. So he climbed up on top of the packing crate, propped himself up against another, found warmth in the light and started to fall asleep. In the last moments of cognitive recognition he noticed a figure heading his way. With out any prior notice, no announcement of any kind, Mr. Burney was restrained. He put up a mild and ultimately pathetic attempt at escape, but in the end he figured that whatever the reason he was probably just as guilty as the next guy.
Peaches came strolling down the hall and ducked into Waffles office just in time to miss a cart full of mail. “Waffles, Sir.” She said to notify her boss of her presence. “Yes, Ma’am” He responded with out even looking up from his paper work, he also wondered if they were ever going to use his real name.
“Your presence has been requested in the comm. center.”
“Can I ask you why?”
“Of course you can, sir. But, I don’t rightly know.”
“Ok, tell them I’m on my way...” Waffles paused as he finally looked up from his papers. “Where in all the words did you get a cat!?”
“Oh, Mr. Burney? He just showed up.”
“Showed up?”
“Yes, Sir. Found him earlier this week after that shipment from Itan.”
“He’s been here for almost a wee… and you haven’t reported him yet… AHHH! Get rid of him, now.”
“But, sir. That means we need to order poison for the mice.”
"Dear Lord, mice?” Waffles paused once more. “Ok, you can keep the damn cat, but you need to report him to HQ.” He returned to his papers.
“Sir, if I report an animal, HQ will have him removed.”
“Report him under Section 24.5b then”
“What’s that?’
Waffle’s smile returned to his face as he stated matter-of-factly “Pest control.” The look of concern left Peaches face as she responded “Thank you Sir.” and turned for the door. As to say he agreed Mr. Burney head butted Peaches in that affectionate way only cats can pull off and began to purr. Before she could leave the room Waffles told her to inform the comm. center he was on his way.
Lt. Baylen was pulled out of his jump early and the uncalculated deceleration was gut wrenching. He looked at his nav. display to see where he was, but the screen was dark. He looked around at his other instruments for any signs of life and found none. Fear began to creep in to his heart. In a desprate attempt to make himself feel better he did a complete restart of all systems. Only his comm. unit came to life, that was a start he thought out loud. He was still drifting and his momentum was about to bring him a little to close to a roid, with out even thinking that his systems were down he tried to maneuver away from the roid. As soon as he hit the vertical thrusters he escamed out loud “Idiot!” But much to his surprise they worked, as a mater of fact he had full maneuverability. Comms and thrusters where good enough, time to use both.
Waffles walked in to the comm. center as Bones was running out. “Duce has it covered. But I’ve got to pee, umm, Sir.”
“You don’t need to broadcast every time your body performs a function” Waffles yelled after Bones as he made a mad dash to the head. “Can’t wait for these kids to grow up.”
Duce was at the head station with headset on and total command of the situation. “…going to triangulate you position now, hang in there.” Duce keyed off the mic and look over at Waffles. “One of our recon atlas’ got hit and lost all nav function. We were going to send him to I-12 but they are surrounded by storms and O-3 is just that much farther.” Duce paused listened to the incoming transmistion and responded. “Ok, we’re going to patch into your diagnostic system from here since you monitors are dead, go ahead and run a full diagnostic and we’ll relay it back to ya, hang in there buddy.”
As it turns out that single shot by the Serco was a damn good one. The round penetrated the atlas’ hull and had enough momentum left over enter the powercell hold. There was enough heat generated to spot weld the round to the casing shorting out the powercell and causing major fluctuations. These fluctuations where the cause of the early jump exit and would probably cause more. Eventually the stress could cause the cell to explode. They were trying to avoid that scenario.
“Ok, we have your position.” Duce finally responded, “Sending it to you now.” Since Baylen’s monitors were not responding everything was being redundancy checked back at K-5. A word of concern was subdued by “Everything look good here, go ahead and engage your jump, see you on the other side, where ever that might be.” A few seconds later Baylen came back on the air reporting that his nav monitor was back online but his radar and system positioning system were still off line.
After making a few jumps and each time being pulled out early, Lt. Baylen was getting fatigued. “I’m just going to bail, this isn’t worth it.” Duce responded with “ Hey now, take it easy. That ship is on of the most expensive we’ve got, they aren’t just going to let you ditch it if we can get both of you home safely. Tell you what your getting close, we’re going to send out an escort to help out. Just hang out there for a bit and rest up.” Baylen was allowed to rest for a full thirty minute before his new coordinates were uploaded to his nav system. “Ready, buddy?”
“As ready as I’ll every be.”
“Last one… maybe. Cross your fingers.” Baylen spooled up his drives and his two escorts did the same. Baylen hit the button….
Waffles looked the window at where Baylen should have entered the sector, but only two ships were spotted. “Where is he?” Waffles wanted to know. Duce was scrambling to raise Lt. Baylen on the comm. “Can’t find him, sir.”
“Got him,” called out an tech on the other side of the room.
“Where is he?” Duce wanted to know.
“Just one sector over.”
Balyen was finally raised on the comm. The last exit was the roughest yet and had knocked poor Baylen unconscious. “I can’t take another, I’m bailing.”
“Just one more, that I promise. Your only one sector away, hell I could spit on ya.”
At that Baylen grinned, “Bet ya a case that I can spit farther.”
“Your on!”
It took four minutes to calculate the jump numbers and make sure his systems could take another jump. When all was ready Lt. Baylen spit into the mic the instant before he hit the button. Upon reaching K-5 he declared “Told ya so, now pay up sucka!”
I know, I know. It's almost been a month. And my dear loyal readers I'm sorry. No excuse other than i've been lazy. Busy and lazy. More to come. I hope......
Stocking Stuffers
The year began to wind down and things amazingly slowed down for the crew of K-5. Slowed down enough in fact that the year end celebration to end all celebrations, except perhaps last years, was finally planed. The guest list was formed and invitations were sent out. The first of the RSVP’s had just begun to arrive.
“PEACHES!” Waffles shouted at the intercom.
A simple reply returned, “You have to hit the button first if you want it to work.”
Waffles dramatically pressed the ‘talk’ button and repeated, “PEACHES!”
Instead of wasting her time with the intercom she calmly walked to the Waffles’ office.
“What can I do for you, Sir.”
“I’m getting RSVP’s for the Christmas party.”
“Ok, people are supposed to do that.”
“I never saw the list. You know I’m supposed to approve the final list. Why…” He stopped asking because he already knew the answer.
“We knew you wouldn’t approve of all the people on there so we sent the invites out with out you.”
“Peaches, I wonder why I put up with you.”
“Only because you don’t sign my pay checks, Sir.”
Waffles responded with a deep sigh, “True, well better get some stuff done. Lets go over the party, umm… provisions.”
They spent the next hour or so insuring that an ample amount of beer and liqueur would be present at the party. When they were satisfied that they would like go dry Peaches returned to her desk to do whatever it was she was paid to do and Waffles put in a few calls up to O-3. There was an understanding that some of the O-3 crew would come down each year to work the station for 24 hours while the party went on, and in return they would work during the 24 hour bash up in O-3.
The day finally came and the Rats were rearing at the gates. It had been a good year, the Pride was now finished, all the refits for the new missile turrets completed and they were actually caught up with their maintenance work. For the last week the Rats had the arduous task of electing the new Rat King for the year. Each of the crew wrote down their pick and put it in the Vault, and old helmet with a slit in the top welded to the floor in galley. The galley consequently would be ground zero for the disaster that is every years party. This year’s theme was to be something about the beach, but that was about all the planning that went in to it. There was some bamboo stuck in one corner and unlit, for now, tiki torches in another. God only know where the sand came from.
Things started off smooth. A beer pong table was set up and a heated bracket was forming. Tohasandra Chi stopped by and was siting at a table with Peaches and Arlina drinking martinis. Duce was entertaining Mr. Bean, Omega and Spidey. Leber, upper case and Waffles were discussing pseudo politics with Booger. Bones, iry, Harpo, and RentaGhost were all involved in an amazingly loud game of moose. Things in fact did start off smoothly.
The crowd grew, and as more and more people showed up things started to pick up steam. The beer pong touney was drawing quite the audience and moose ended in favor for watching the ball tossing beer chugging excitement. The team to beat was of course Waffles and Peaches, team ‘Breakfast of Champions’. As it turned out pretty much every one was invited, as long as they were not Serco or pirate. But undoubtedly a few of each stopped by, no one can resist the biggest party of the year. The touney ended and team ‘BoC’ took home the trophy, again. Cheers, laughter, and drinks were passed all around. Then things started to go down much like last years party.
An ‘official’ announcement was made stating that Duce had received a medal from the Senate in regards to the Baylen incident. They received a copy of the flight recorder and thought that Duce did an outstanding job keeping Baylen calm and collected enough to return home safely. Well, Duce was nowhere to be found. After some detective work, Waffles discovered that Duce was in the ‘drunk tank’ as the bring was being called tonight. The MP’s picked him up running around the corridors in cowboy boots, just cowboy boots. More cheers arose out of the ever growing crowd, more drinks were passed around and a toast was made for hero of the day.
The time had come and King Booger arrived with the ceremonial angle grinder to open the ballet box. After a few moments of drunk cutting, the ‘lid’ was removed and the ballots placed on the table. A panel of whoever decided to sit down and count tallied up the votes. There was some discrepancy and a new rule had to be written down. As it turns out Mr. Burney won the vote by 6. It was decided that he would do a fine job as King, but the lack of thumbs would make it hard for him to post pictures on the Wall of Fame, so the runner up became the new King. Well Queen actually, twice in one night a precedent was set. First time there ever was a Rat Queen. The crown was passed down to Queen Peaches. A speech was made and yet more drinks passed around. The party was really picking up steam.
A few more hours passed with out much incident, Duce was allowed back in. He was now wearing pants and a cape that read ‘Super Nude’. “I think this is a good time to show you something Leber. Follow me, but play it cool.” Waffles said in only loud enough for Leber to hear him. The two make their way from the craziness and headed down the corridor to a spare munitions locker. Waffles fumbled with his keys for a second before unlocking and opening the heavy door. A bright light fell upon the otherwise empty corridor. “What the hell…” blurted Leber as the light hit his drunk eyes. As they stepped in Waffles shut the door behind them. The air was warm and humid and the sound of water running could be heard from somewhere farther inside. “Welcome to Hot House, Leebs my old friend.”
“Ok, let me ask again. What the hell”
“Well a few of my guys have taken a liking to the synthetic tequila that’s been circulating. But they wanted something a little more..”
“Better.”
“Yeah, more better. So Bones and Duce did some, umm.. heavy research and found that there are a few examples of Agave tequilana left. But they are all owned by, well, very influential people of the Senate. This and that, you don’t need to know. Any who we acquired a clipping.” Waffles added with a smile.
“So your raising your own blue agave here in Deneb’s Meditation?”
“That’s the plan, for now. There is talk of retiring and starting a farm.” At this Waffles’ smile became contagious and Leber could no longer retain himself. “But you understand why no one can know yet, right?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“I just had to show you, well lets head back to the party.”
“My lord, I was gone for 20 minutes tops!”
In those 20 minutes all hell broke loose. Booger had flipped over one of the tables and collected a gang of rowdy miscreants that had some how acquired water guns full of beer. Waffles and Leber just made it in to the galley when a group of 4 MP’s entered. They had stopped by only to check out the scene but Booger and his band of revolutionaries thought they were after their freedom and opened fire. The Queen jumped to her feet and ran to the MP’s yelling something about a mistake, but right as she was coming up on them she pulled a water balloon from who knows where and nailed one right in the head. Oh course this only encouraged the Revolutionaries even more and more casualties of war were swept up in the insurgence. Beer was everywhere and everyone was soaked. The MP’s it turned out had just gotten off duty and didn’t take the time to change, so they charged Boogers fort. Booger and his crew help off the invaders and they retreated only to return with their own beer guns. The battle raged on and on, back and forth for near an hour when Waffles got an idea. “Cover me!” He yelled as he made a mad dash to the store room. When he returned he had a giant latex glove filled with powdered sugar. He jumped onto one of the remaining upright table and flung his grenade into the crowd all the while yelling “Viva la Revolution!” The explosion promptly ended all motion, not a word was said, everyone was afraid to move. The entire room was covered in cloud of white sticky victory.
After a few moments Peaches finally spoke, “Well, I guess that means it’s bedtime."
The year began to wind down and things amazingly slowed down for the crew of K-5. Slowed down enough in fact that the year end celebration to end all celebrations, except perhaps last years, was finally planed. The guest list was formed and invitations were sent out. The first of the RSVP’s had just begun to arrive.
“PEACHES!” Waffles shouted at the intercom.
A simple reply returned, “You have to hit the button first if you want it to work.”
Waffles dramatically pressed the ‘talk’ button and repeated, “PEACHES!”
Instead of wasting her time with the intercom she calmly walked to the Waffles’ office.
“What can I do for you, Sir.”
“I’m getting RSVP’s for the Christmas party.”
“Ok, people are supposed to do that.”
“I never saw the list. You know I’m supposed to approve the final list. Why…” He stopped asking because he already knew the answer.
“We knew you wouldn’t approve of all the people on there so we sent the invites out with out you.”
“Peaches, I wonder why I put up with you.”
“Only because you don’t sign my pay checks, Sir.”
Waffles responded with a deep sigh, “True, well better get some stuff done. Lets go over the party, umm… provisions.”
They spent the next hour or so insuring that an ample amount of beer and liqueur would be present at the party. When they were satisfied that they would like go dry Peaches returned to her desk to do whatever it was she was paid to do and Waffles put in a few calls up to O-3. There was an understanding that some of the O-3 crew would come down each year to work the station for 24 hours while the party went on, and in return they would work during the 24 hour bash up in O-3.
The day finally came and the Rats were rearing at the gates. It had been a good year, the Pride was now finished, all the refits for the new missile turrets completed and they were actually caught up with their maintenance work. For the last week the Rats had the arduous task of electing the new Rat King for the year. Each of the crew wrote down their pick and put it in the Vault, and old helmet with a slit in the top welded to the floor in galley. The galley consequently would be ground zero for the disaster that is every years party. This year’s theme was to be something about the beach, but that was about all the planning that went in to it. There was some bamboo stuck in one corner and unlit, for now, tiki torches in another. God only know where the sand came from.
Things started off smooth. A beer pong table was set up and a heated bracket was forming. Tohasandra Chi stopped by and was siting at a table with Peaches and Arlina drinking martinis. Duce was entertaining Mr. Bean, Omega and Spidey. Leber, upper case and Waffles were discussing pseudo politics with Booger. Bones, iry, Harpo, and RentaGhost were all involved in an amazingly loud game of moose. Things in fact did start off smoothly.
The crowd grew, and as more and more people showed up things started to pick up steam. The beer pong touney was drawing quite the audience and moose ended in favor for watching the ball tossing beer chugging excitement. The team to beat was of course Waffles and Peaches, team ‘Breakfast of Champions’. As it turned out pretty much every one was invited, as long as they were not Serco or pirate. But undoubtedly a few of each stopped by, no one can resist the biggest party of the year. The touney ended and team ‘BoC’ took home the trophy, again. Cheers, laughter, and drinks were passed all around. Then things started to go down much like last years party.
An ‘official’ announcement was made stating that Duce had received a medal from the Senate in regards to the Baylen incident. They received a copy of the flight recorder and thought that Duce did an outstanding job keeping Baylen calm and collected enough to return home safely. Well, Duce was nowhere to be found. After some detective work, Waffles discovered that Duce was in the ‘drunk tank’ as the bring was being called tonight. The MP’s picked him up running around the corridors in cowboy boots, just cowboy boots. More cheers arose out of the ever growing crowd, more drinks were passed around and a toast was made for hero of the day.
The time had come and King Booger arrived with the ceremonial angle grinder to open the ballet box. After a few moments of drunk cutting, the ‘lid’ was removed and the ballots placed on the table. A panel of whoever decided to sit down and count tallied up the votes. There was some discrepancy and a new rule had to be written down. As it turns out Mr. Burney won the vote by 6. It was decided that he would do a fine job as King, but the lack of thumbs would make it hard for him to post pictures on the Wall of Fame, so the runner up became the new King. Well Queen actually, twice in one night a precedent was set. First time there ever was a Rat Queen. The crown was passed down to Queen Peaches. A speech was made and yet more drinks passed around. The party was really picking up steam.
A few more hours passed with out much incident, Duce was allowed back in. He was now wearing pants and a cape that read ‘Super Nude’. “I think this is a good time to show you something Leber. Follow me, but play it cool.” Waffles said in only loud enough for Leber to hear him. The two make their way from the craziness and headed down the corridor to a spare munitions locker. Waffles fumbled with his keys for a second before unlocking and opening the heavy door. A bright light fell upon the otherwise empty corridor. “What the hell…” blurted Leber as the light hit his drunk eyes. As they stepped in Waffles shut the door behind them. The air was warm and humid and the sound of water running could be heard from somewhere farther inside. “Welcome to Hot House, Leebs my old friend.”
“Ok, let me ask again. What the hell”
“Well a few of my guys have taken a liking to the synthetic tequila that’s been circulating. But they wanted something a little more..”
“Better.”
“Yeah, more better. So Bones and Duce did some, umm.. heavy research and found that there are a few examples of Agave tequilana left. But they are all owned by, well, very influential people of the Senate. This and that, you don’t need to know. Any who we acquired a clipping.” Waffles added with a smile.
“So your raising your own blue agave here in Deneb’s Meditation?”
“That’s the plan, for now. There is talk of retiring and starting a farm.” At this Waffles’ smile became contagious and Leber could no longer retain himself. “But you understand why no one can know yet, right?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“I just had to show you, well lets head back to the party.”
“My lord, I was gone for 20 minutes tops!”
In those 20 minutes all hell broke loose. Booger had flipped over one of the tables and collected a gang of rowdy miscreants that had some how acquired water guns full of beer. Waffles and Leber just made it in to the galley when a group of 4 MP’s entered. They had stopped by only to check out the scene but Booger and his band of revolutionaries thought they were after their freedom and opened fire. The Queen jumped to her feet and ran to the MP’s yelling something about a mistake, but right as she was coming up on them she pulled a water balloon from who knows where and nailed one right in the head. Oh course this only encouraged the Revolutionaries even more and more casualties of war were swept up in the insurgence. Beer was everywhere and everyone was soaked. The MP’s it turned out had just gotten off duty and didn’t take the time to change, so they charged Boogers fort. Booger and his crew help off the invaders and they retreated only to return with their own beer guns. The battle raged on and on, back and forth for near an hour when Waffles got an idea. “Cover me!” He yelled as he made a mad dash to the store room. When he returned he had a giant latex glove filled with powdered sugar. He jumped onto one of the remaining upright table and flung his grenade into the crowd all the while yelling “Viva la Revolution!” The explosion promptly ended all motion, not a word was said, everyone was afraid to move. The entire room was covered in cloud of white sticky victory.
After a few moments Peaches finally spoke, “Well, I guess that means it’s bedtime."
Finishing Touches
The order for the refurbishment of the Pride of Deneb came in well over a year before Waffles took over the Morgue. Things had started slowly but picked up steam as Waffles finally got the Rats in order. As close to order as one could get them that is. The hull had been left in orbit round K-5 for almost 17 years and those years of neglect and micro meteors had paid their toll on the old ship. Just finding some of the original parts took months all too themselves, not to mention choosing a color scheme. But that was all done now.
Peaches walked over to Waffles desk and placed a offical looking envilope on top of the “incoming” pile that took up half of his deck. “What’s this?” he asked. “If I knew then it wouldn’t still be in an envelope.” She responded with her regular amount of sass. Waffles snatched up the envelope and used a piece of shrapnel from the Sun to cut the seal. He removed the letter and read it aloud.
“…. has hereby gratefully requested that the crew responsible for the restoration of the Nation Monument to the service of our armed forces be responsible for the transportation and delivery of the Pride of Deneb to the following:”
The letter went into great detail about schedules and orders and other equally boring official things but the exciting part was the list of planets and stations attached.
“Looks like we’re going on a little road trip.” Waffles said with a smile.
“Where we going first?” Peaches asked excitedly.
“Looks like in orbit around Risma!” Waffles added even more excitedly.
“Where….?”
“One of the most beautiful planets in the whole universe. It’s in Jallik.”
“Oh, what’s so special about that place, I’ve never even heard of it.”
“I guess you’ll just have to find out then.”
The order for the refurbishment of the Pride of Deneb came in well over a year before Waffles took over the Morgue. Things had started slowly but picked up steam as Waffles finally got the Rats in order. As close to order as one could get them that is. The hull had been left in orbit round K-5 for almost 17 years and those years of neglect and micro meteors had paid their toll on the old ship. Just finding some of the original parts took months all too themselves, not to mention choosing a color scheme. But that was all done now.
Peaches walked over to Waffles desk and placed a offical looking envilope on top of the “incoming” pile that took up half of his deck. “What’s this?” he asked. “If I knew then it wouldn’t still be in an envelope.” She responded with her regular amount of sass. Waffles snatched up the envelope and used a piece of shrapnel from the Sun to cut the seal. He removed the letter and read it aloud.
“…. has hereby gratefully requested that the crew responsible for the restoration of the Nation Monument to the service of our armed forces be responsible for the transportation and delivery of the Pride of Deneb to the following:”
The letter went into great detail about schedules and orders and other equally boring official things but the exciting part was the list of planets and stations attached.
“Looks like we’re going on a little road trip.” Waffles said with a smile.
“Where we going first?” Peaches asked excitedly.
“Looks like in orbit around Risma!” Waffles added even more excitedly.
“Where….?”
“One of the most beautiful planets in the whole universe. It’s in Jallik.”
“Oh, what’s so special about that place, I’ve never even heard of it.”
“I guess you’ll just have to find out then.”
Home Coming
Waffles reached out for consciousness. The dull ache in his left shoulder slowly became a sharp pain, a point of light to draw him out of the darkness. He pulled himself back to reality to find himself leaning against the root ball of a massive and ancient tree. The smoldering tree had seen it’s last season under the hot sun of Risma. Waffles surveyed the scene, three of his crew were lined up laying on their backs about four meters away, another one, Bones perhaps, was attending to them. He looked to his right, relieving some pain, to see the smoking wreckage of the Pride not fifty yards away. “…didn’t end well…” was all he could quietly muster. He tried to stand but the pain in his shoulder was enough to cause him to become nauseated. “Guess I’ll just stay right here.” He said aloud to no one in particular.
Bones heard Waffles and made his way over to attend to his captain and boss. “Glad to see we didn’t lose you sir.” Bones said with a smile. “How many did we lose?” Waffles responded. “Three, sir” Bones replied in a whisper, “Steve, Carl, and Dove.” Steve was the comms officer, Carl was the weapons officer and Dove was on her first tour as an ensign doing whatever was asked of her. Waffles left out a slow sigh “Shame” was all he could bear to say. There is an old saying; if you don’t know what to do, do what you know. That’s exactly what Waffles intended to do.
“Where are the others? Are they injured?”
“They are over there,” Bones answered pointing in a direction Waffles couldn’t look. “They are alive. Peaches, isn’t doing so… well, sir.”
“Ok, First, how are you.”
“A little beat up but ok. Let me look at that shoulder.”
Bones leaned over to take a look at Waffles swollen shoulder.
“It feels broken, or dislocated, I can’t tell. How does it look?”
“Dislocated, probably not broken, but a lot of muscle damage. A piece of bulkhead hit you pretty good. That’s going to swell really bad if we don’t do something about it soon.”
“How do you know that? You just made that up.” Waffles said with a half hearted smile.
“Actually, I used to be a triage nurse on one of the front line hospital connies.” Bones replied while digging around in the Pride’s massive first aid kit. “I found it easier to look at the broken and beat up ships than people, so I asked for a transfer. Well, here I am.” POP!
“Son of a…! Geeze could you at least given me some warning! For crying out loud… AHHH!”
“Sorry sir, if you had some warning you would have been too tense.”
A few moments past as Bones crafted a sling for Waffles’ arm and gave him a shot of butorphanol to ease the pain. After the patching up was done the two made their was over to access the damage. Duce, Booger and Baylen were all beaten and bruised but could manage. They had just exited the wreck. “The reactor?” Waffles wanted to know. “Locked up, the control rods are jammed and the coolant is frozen solid.” Replied Booger.
“Good, how long will the coolant last?”
“About 72 hours or so we figured.”
“Again, good. I know it’s hard, but we need to move the bodies in there as well.”
When an old type Q3 reactor is used to generate power it produces heat that is in turn used to boil off a liquid that then turns a turbine. The system is old school, actually based on the original reactor designs from all earth. But this system used the coolant as the pressure liquid as well, once it runs through the turbines it’s collected then compressed. Compressing the gas in to a liquid lowers the temperature to near freezing. This is in turn pumped around the system keeping it cool. If the reactor gets too hot the reaction can not be controlled and it will hit a critical point and melt the containment unit. Control rods are used to stop the reaction if it does hit this critical point, however a severe force could cause the control rods to malfunction. This was the demise of the Eo’s Quest during the first generation of the tridents. A redundant safety feature was added immediately after. In the case of a prolonged radiation spike, about 4 tenths of a second, a reactant is dumped in to the coolant. The reactant causes the coolant to go endothermic. Dropping the temperature well below freezing keeping to reactor from going critical. Also when coming into contact with any moisture the liquid freezes, very useful in plugging any holes that might have formed in the system. During this time nothing works, all power must be produced from the emergency generator, which is not powerful enough to engage the jump drives.
This system is deployed in moments of true mechanical desperation. This so happened to be one of those moments. “Ok, lets lock it down. Then seal it off to keep it as cold as possible in there. Also, has any one checked out the emergency gen?” Waffles organized the troops. “I’ll check the e-gen.” Baylen stated. Baylen had come along as a nav and sensor specialist, he was hoping for a relaxing trip.
“Ok, I want to see Peaches.”
“She over here, sir.” Bones led the way to where Peaches had been laid out. She was on an emergency stretcher under a thick grove of trees near where Waffles woke up. As they approached she turned her head toward them and smiled. Bones immediately ran to her side and checked her vitals, Waffles on the other hand took his time. “When you said I had to find out why you liked this planet so much I didn’t expect you to shove my face in it. Oh by the way this place sucks.” Her face did look like she had a whole planet shoved into it, her left orbit was crushed and most of the sinises on the same side were shattered. “How does it look, sir? At least it’s not my good side.” She added with an attempt to smile. “My dear Queen,” Waffles finally responded, “It’s a crown only you are worthy of wearing.” With that she did muster a smile. As it turned out she also had 3 broken ribs and one had punctured a lung.
After spending some time with Peaches, Waffles and Bones returned to the Pride to see how things were going with lock down and a full damage report. “Well, I got the e-gen up and running, looks like about a weeks worth of fuel. No engines and all.” Baylen reported. “Otherwise it would last only 45 minutes.” He added with a grin. “Also, the comms are smashed, I can’t get enough juice out of them to get past the planet’s ionosphere. So short wave only, IF I can rebuild that unit.”
“Ok, that’s not a problem. We can get someone to bounce a signal for us. We landed on the north west corner of Eden, the largest of the three continents. But we need to figure out exactly where we are. Duce and Booger see if ya’ll can’t tap into the old GPS satellites in orbit. They use the old IDF frequencies and encryptions, 7-3-6 if I remember correctly.”
“Sir, how do you know so much about this planet.” Duce wanted to know.
“This is where I grew up.”
“Well, welcome home, sir.”
Waffles reached out for consciousness. The dull ache in his left shoulder slowly became a sharp pain, a point of light to draw him out of the darkness. He pulled himself back to reality to find himself leaning against the root ball of a massive and ancient tree. The smoldering tree had seen it’s last season under the hot sun of Risma. Waffles surveyed the scene, three of his crew were lined up laying on their backs about four meters away, another one, Bones perhaps, was attending to them. He looked to his right, relieving some pain, to see the smoking wreckage of the Pride not fifty yards away. “…didn’t end well…” was all he could quietly muster. He tried to stand but the pain in his shoulder was enough to cause him to become nauseated. “Guess I’ll just stay right here.” He said aloud to no one in particular.
Bones heard Waffles and made his way over to attend to his captain and boss. “Glad to see we didn’t lose you sir.” Bones said with a smile. “How many did we lose?” Waffles responded. “Three, sir” Bones replied in a whisper, “Steve, Carl, and Dove.” Steve was the comms officer, Carl was the weapons officer and Dove was on her first tour as an ensign doing whatever was asked of her. Waffles left out a slow sigh “Shame” was all he could bear to say. There is an old saying; if you don’t know what to do, do what you know. That’s exactly what Waffles intended to do.
“Where are the others? Are they injured?”
“They are over there,” Bones answered pointing in a direction Waffles couldn’t look. “They are alive. Peaches, isn’t doing so… well, sir.”
“Ok, First, how are you.”
“A little beat up but ok. Let me look at that shoulder.”
Bones leaned over to take a look at Waffles swollen shoulder.
“It feels broken, or dislocated, I can’t tell. How does it look?”
“Dislocated, probably not broken, but a lot of muscle damage. A piece of bulkhead hit you pretty good. That’s going to swell really bad if we don’t do something about it soon.”
“How do you know that? You just made that up.” Waffles said with a half hearted smile.
“Actually, I used to be a triage nurse on one of the front line hospital connies.” Bones replied while digging around in the Pride’s massive first aid kit. “I found it easier to look at the broken and beat up ships than people, so I asked for a transfer. Well, here I am.” POP!
“Son of a…! Geeze could you at least given me some warning! For crying out loud… AHHH!”
“Sorry sir, if you had some warning you would have been too tense.”
A few moments past as Bones crafted a sling for Waffles’ arm and gave him a shot of butorphanol to ease the pain. After the patching up was done the two made their was over to access the damage. Duce, Booger and Baylen were all beaten and bruised but could manage. They had just exited the wreck. “The reactor?” Waffles wanted to know. “Locked up, the control rods are jammed and the coolant is frozen solid.” Replied Booger.
“Good, how long will the coolant last?”
“About 72 hours or so we figured.”
“Again, good. I know it’s hard, but we need to move the bodies in there as well.”
When an old type Q3 reactor is used to generate power it produces heat that is in turn used to boil off a liquid that then turns a turbine. The system is old school, actually based on the original reactor designs from all earth. But this system used the coolant as the pressure liquid as well, once it runs through the turbines it’s collected then compressed. Compressing the gas in to a liquid lowers the temperature to near freezing. This is in turn pumped around the system keeping it cool. If the reactor gets too hot the reaction can not be controlled and it will hit a critical point and melt the containment unit. Control rods are used to stop the reaction if it does hit this critical point, however a severe force could cause the control rods to malfunction. This was the demise of the Eo’s Quest during the first generation of the tridents. A redundant safety feature was added immediately after. In the case of a prolonged radiation spike, about 4 tenths of a second, a reactant is dumped in to the coolant. The reactant causes the coolant to go endothermic. Dropping the temperature well below freezing keeping to reactor from going critical. Also when coming into contact with any moisture the liquid freezes, very useful in plugging any holes that might have formed in the system. During this time nothing works, all power must be produced from the emergency generator, which is not powerful enough to engage the jump drives.
This system is deployed in moments of true mechanical desperation. This so happened to be one of those moments. “Ok, lets lock it down. Then seal it off to keep it as cold as possible in there. Also, has any one checked out the emergency gen?” Waffles organized the troops. “I’ll check the e-gen.” Baylen stated. Baylen had come along as a nav and sensor specialist, he was hoping for a relaxing trip.
“Ok, I want to see Peaches.”
“She over here, sir.” Bones led the way to where Peaches had been laid out. She was on an emergency stretcher under a thick grove of trees near where Waffles woke up. As they approached she turned her head toward them and smiled. Bones immediately ran to her side and checked her vitals, Waffles on the other hand took his time. “When you said I had to find out why you liked this planet so much I didn’t expect you to shove my face in it. Oh by the way this place sucks.” Her face did look like she had a whole planet shoved into it, her left orbit was crushed and most of the sinises on the same side were shattered. “How does it look, sir? At least it’s not my good side.” She added with an attempt to smile. “My dear Queen,” Waffles finally responded, “It’s a crown only you are worthy of wearing.” With that she did muster a smile. As it turned out she also had 3 broken ribs and one had punctured a lung.
After spending some time with Peaches, Waffles and Bones returned to the Pride to see how things were going with lock down and a full damage report. “Well, I got the e-gen up and running, looks like about a weeks worth of fuel. No engines and all.” Baylen reported. “Otherwise it would last only 45 minutes.” He added with a grin. “Also, the comms are smashed, I can’t get enough juice out of them to get past the planet’s ionosphere. So short wave only, IF I can rebuild that unit.”
“Ok, that’s not a problem. We can get someone to bounce a signal for us. We landed on the north west corner of Eden, the largest of the three continents. But we need to figure out exactly where we are. Duce and Booger see if ya’ll can’t tap into the old GPS satellites in orbit. They use the old IDF frequencies and encryptions, 7-3-6 if I remember correctly.”
“Sir, how do you know so much about this planet.” Duce wanted to know.
“This is where I grew up.”
“Well, welcome home, sir.”
Uninvited Guests
Risma was one of the planets chosen for the third generation of Itani terraforming. Most of the planets in this phase were used to elevate the stress on other planets by creating more space for the ever increasing population, but Risma was different. Perfect in fact, for one very specific task, a giant greenhouse to produce vegetation to ‘landscape’ the other planets to increase turnaround time. Its rotation creates an ideal cycle for growing plants, but the 16 hour day cycle is hard for most people to get used to. The 8 hours of light doesn’t provide much time to get things done. The planet is therefore left relatively unpopulated with only a few pockets of communes and settlements. Many are giant farms or forestry camps or fisheries. The three island continents also spread out the populous even more. The largest of which is Eden, the first to be planted and the only one in the northern hemisphere. It is also the least populated, strict logging and farming laws limit amount of goods removed for the area each year. The continent is also a breeding ground for poachers.
“Peaches Gonzales Please Report to Hanger Bay C!” blared over the public comm. Waffles, Duce and Booger were waiting quite patiently next to the Pride. Peaches Came running around the corner pulling behind her an assortment of bags suitcases and other loose unpacked items. “What the hell…” Booger said aloud. “Sorry I’m late, I was packing.” Peaches explained. “Pack? Did you leave anything behind?” Booger added. “Ha, funny.” She retuned, sticking out her tongue. “Come on you two, we have a schedule to keep.” Waffles ended the battle.
**************
After a few minutes of reprogramming the handheld GPS unit Duce had a good fix on the Pride wreck. Since the unit was not programmed with this particular planet all they had was numbers and no map. “These will do.” confirmed Waffles. He looked up at the sky as if to confirm they are correct. “How long was I out for?” He asked. “25 minutes, maybe.” Replied Bones. “..only been 45 minutes then. Ok, the other one couldn’t have landed more than a couple of miles away.” Waffles said this time pointing to the sky.
He was pointing at the two rather large black streaks that scared the otherwise clear sky. They left the tail tail signs of a ship entering the atmosphere wasn’t designed to do so. One was of course the Pride but the other one ended farther to the west.
“Duce, Bones, go to the small arms locker and see what’s there. You two are going to take a hike.” Waffles started to give orders, “Baylen, lets see what we can do about that comm. unit.” He walked over to Booger, “You gotten to talk to her much?”
“No really, sir”
“Ok, well go spend some time with her.”
“What about the…”
“It can wait I’m sure.”
“Thanks sir.”
Boogers walked over to Peaches and set down beside her. “How you feeling?’ He wanted to know. “Better now that Bones gave some shot. Dad is going to be pissed.” She responded.
“Hell yeah he is!” Booger added with a smile.
About that time Duce and Bones come out the Pride arguing.
“Dude, serisiouly we don’t need it.” Bones objected.
“Don’t need it? It’s vital! And it’s cool as all hell!” Rebuttled Duce.
“Plus, why is it even in there?”
“Beats me, but it’s was there, so we HAVE to use it.”
“What is it?” Asked Baylen.
With a huge grin Duce slung a rocket propelled grenade over his sholder and mock aimed at a tree.
“No.” was all Waffles said, with out actually looking.
After Waffles made sure each were properly armed he gave them instructions. “I’ve copied our coordinates down, so take the GPS. Follow the streak as far as you can. If you can’t find it in an hour start heading back, it’s going to be dark in two and half hours and I want both of you back by then. And keep you distance, stay hidden. Oh, and Duce, side arms only you won't need that flash bang.”
“How did you.. ok”
After a few minutes of walking Duce looked down at the GPS. “You know, why in the world would we have a hand held GPS unit if we are supposed to in space?” All Bones could come up with was, “Same reason we would NEED a RPG.”
“True.”
After walking about two miles they came to the top of a hill. “There, there it is.” Bones said pointing about 100 yards down the other side of the hill. “Told you it was a SkyCommand!” Duce added. The prom was nearly ripped in half. The debris had started a small fire but the fact that prom landed in a pond kept in under control. “Looks like there’s a body in there.” Duce added lowering his binoculars, “Lets go check it out.”
“Dude, you know what Waffles said.”
“Come on, no way he survived that landing. Besides, have you ever seen a Serco up close?”
“Oh, good point. Ok let’s go.”
They made their way to the crash site cautiously. Trying to stay hidden as best they could, which meant running from tree to tree, shoulder rolls from Duce whenever he could and other typical spy nonsense. When they got with in ten yards of the wreck their moods changed, and they became serious. The port side of the hull had a nasty gash exposing the hold and cockpit. After wading through the shallow pond Duce was the first to stick his head in. “Hey there’s two of ‘em in here!” Duce squeezed in being careful not to cut himself on the exposed metal and Bones followed. “Hey this chair is empty. Three people to pilot a prom?” Bones asked.
“Dude, check this out.” Duce said pointing to the pilot.
“What the hell? He’s not Serco!”
Risma was one of the planets chosen for the third generation of Itani terraforming. Most of the planets in this phase were used to elevate the stress on other planets by creating more space for the ever increasing population, but Risma was different. Perfect in fact, for one very specific task, a giant greenhouse to produce vegetation to ‘landscape’ the other planets to increase turnaround time. Its rotation creates an ideal cycle for growing plants, but the 16 hour day cycle is hard for most people to get used to. The 8 hours of light doesn’t provide much time to get things done. The planet is therefore left relatively unpopulated with only a few pockets of communes and settlements. Many are giant farms or forestry camps or fisheries. The three island continents also spread out the populous even more. The largest of which is Eden, the first to be planted and the only one in the northern hemisphere. It is also the least populated, strict logging and farming laws limit amount of goods removed for the area each year. The continent is also a breeding ground for poachers.
“Peaches Gonzales Please Report to Hanger Bay C!” blared over the public comm. Waffles, Duce and Booger were waiting quite patiently next to the Pride. Peaches Came running around the corner pulling behind her an assortment of bags suitcases and other loose unpacked items. “What the hell…” Booger said aloud. “Sorry I’m late, I was packing.” Peaches explained. “Pack? Did you leave anything behind?” Booger added. “Ha, funny.” She retuned, sticking out her tongue. “Come on you two, we have a schedule to keep.” Waffles ended the battle.
**************
After a few minutes of reprogramming the handheld GPS unit Duce had a good fix on the Pride wreck. Since the unit was not programmed with this particular planet all they had was numbers and no map. “These will do.” confirmed Waffles. He looked up at the sky as if to confirm they are correct. “How long was I out for?” He asked. “25 minutes, maybe.” Replied Bones. “..only been 45 minutes then. Ok, the other one couldn’t have landed more than a couple of miles away.” Waffles said this time pointing to the sky.
He was pointing at the two rather large black streaks that scared the otherwise clear sky. They left the tail tail signs of a ship entering the atmosphere wasn’t designed to do so. One was of course the Pride but the other one ended farther to the west.
“Duce, Bones, go to the small arms locker and see what’s there. You two are going to take a hike.” Waffles started to give orders, “Baylen, lets see what we can do about that comm. unit.” He walked over to Booger, “You gotten to talk to her much?”
“No really, sir”
“Ok, well go spend some time with her.”
“What about the…”
“It can wait I’m sure.”
“Thanks sir.”
Boogers walked over to Peaches and set down beside her. “How you feeling?’ He wanted to know. “Better now that Bones gave some shot. Dad is going to be pissed.” She responded.
“Hell yeah he is!” Booger added with a smile.
About that time Duce and Bones come out the Pride arguing.
“Dude, serisiouly we don’t need it.” Bones objected.
“Don’t need it? It’s vital! And it’s cool as all hell!” Rebuttled Duce.
“Plus, why is it even in there?”
“Beats me, but it’s was there, so we HAVE to use it.”
“What is it?” Asked Baylen.
With a huge grin Duce slung a rocket propelled grenade over his sholder and mock aimed at a tree.
“No.” was all Waffles said, with out actually looking.
After Waffles made sure each were properly armed he gave them instructions. “I’ve copied our coordinates down, so take the GPS. Follow the streak as far as you can. If you can’t find it in an hour start heading back, it’s going to be dark in two and half hours and I want both of you back by then. And keep you distance, stay hidden. Oh, and Duce, side arms only you won't need that flash bang.”
“How did you.. ok”
After a few minutes of walking Duce looked down at the GPS. “You know, why in the world would we have a hand held GPS unit if we are supposed to in space?” All Bones could come up with was, “Same reason we would NEED a RPG.”
“True.”
After walking about two miles they came to the top of a hill. “There, there it is.” Bones said pointing about 100 yards down the other side of the hill. “Told you it was a SkyCommand!” Duce added. The prom was nearly ripped in half. The debris had started a small fire but the fact that prom landed in a pond kept in under control. “Looks like there’s a body in there.” Duce added lowering his binoculars, “Lets go check it out.”
“Dude, you know what Waffles said.”
“Come on, no way he survived that landing. Besides, have you ever seen a Serco up close?”
“Oh, good point. Ok let’s go.”
They made their way to the crash site cautiously. Trying to stay hidden as best they could, which meant running from tree to tree, shoulder rolls from Duce whenever he could and other typical spy nonsense. When they got with in ten yards of the wreck their moods changed, and they became serious. The port side of the hull had a nasty gash exposing the hold and cockpit. After wading through the shallow pond Duce was the first to stick his head in. “Hey there’s two of ‘em in here!” Duce squeezed in being careful not to cut himself on the exposed metal and Bones followed. “Hey this chair is empty. Three people to pilot a prom?” Bones asked.
“Dude, check this out.” Duce said pointing to the pilot.
“What the hell? He’s not Serco!”
ITS AN ALIEN!!!
But seriously, all these installments have been higher quality than Grade A meat!
But seriously, its all really nice.
Also are Peaches and Booger siblings or is he making a move? The "Dad" reference through me off, although I could just not be reading closely enough.
But seriously, all these installments have been higher quality than Grade A meat!
But seriously, its all really nice.
Also are Peaches and Booger siblings or is he making a move? The "Dad" reference through me off, although I could just not be reading closely enough.
Waffles, your writing is worth pure Samoflange. Don't you dare stop writing, or else the suspense will KILL me! Who is in the Prom, if not a Serco? Akaneese? An Itani double-agent? A Pirate? A UIT saboteur? I simply MUST find out! I shall stay tuned for your next installment.
A few notes:
Yes, Peaches and Booger are siblings. Making a move? She got punched in the face by a planet! Not a good time to move in. :)
Also, i've been rethinking the three dead crew members and it doesn't really fit my style and I have a hard time keeping up with the downer tone that usually follows death. I'm going to leave it in there, but sorry if it doesn't coincide with the actions of the other crew members (I don't want them to seem inconsiderate :P ).
More to come! I promise.
Yes, Peaches and Booger are siblings. Making a move? She got punched in the face by a planet! Not a good time to move in. :)
Also, i've been rethinking the three dead crew members and it doesn't really fit my style and I have a hard time keeping up with the downer tone that usually follows death. I'm going to leave it in there, but sorry if it doesn't coincide with the actions of the other crew members (I don't want them to seem inconsiderate :P ).
More to come! I promise.
You've been reading my story too much :P
Where are we now in the casualty count? Hmm one, two, three....ten million...
Where are we now in the casualty count? Hmm one, two, three....ten million...
OH SHI-!
ITS PANCAKES!!!
*Dramatic music*
ITS PANCAKES!!!
*Dramatic music*