# Spacemaster Space Opera : Running the gauntlet (updated 10/28/05)



## Dougal DeKree (Jul 21, 2005)

I have had fun reading story hours for quite some time, improving my english over the course of time and now want to try writing down the adventures of our group. It may take some time from update to update, since we don't play this campaign periodically. I hope you enjoy it and comments are welcome!

The players characters are Boris (criminologist), Martha (Armsman) and Rico (Pilot) later to be joined by two others.

(1) The Blip

Contact +00:00:06
Dodging violet balls of energy that are burning members of his platoon to charred heaps of dead flesh. 2 casualties.

Contact +00:00:18
Fighting creatures half dog half insect tearing other marines around him to shreds with their muzzles and claws. 6 casualties.

Contact +00:00:54
Panicked flight through thick jungle chased by…something. 2 casualties.

…

And now he sat here in a clean room in a space station built inside of an asteroid, still alive, drinking cool beer of exceptional quality and chatting with the others.

“There is no place like home! There is no place like home! There is no place like home!” Boris thought to himself with a cynical grin on his face. Somehow the present situation really reminded him of that old movie he watched so many years ago. Only a couple of hours ago, everything had been normal. He had been wealthy by corporate standards and close to making it into the upper levels of his company.

In the terms of civilization when politics still ruled humanity and not the five mega-companies (*) that did so now, he would have been a diplomat. Well, a kind of diplomat, actually. Attending social events and conducting small-talk with other representatives was the visible half of his occupation. The other half consisted of covert operations involving industrial espionage, sabotage and the occasional assassination.

Maybe the training he had received over the years to fulfil these tasks helped him cope with the current situation. Most truths of his life had been turned upside down in the last few hours.

No one has access to better equipment than his company’s Security Force – wrong.
When an ambush is set up properly it can not fail – wrong.
There are no manned spacecraft – wrong.
There is no way to travel to other stellar systems – wrong.
There are no sentient beings on other planets – wrong.
There is no other sentient race than humans – wrong.
If there were aliens, they would be very different from a human – wrong.

Right now he was talking with three large humanoids, two a mixture of panther and human, the other being half wolf and half human. The fourth being also happily chiding in the conversation was even stranger – resembling a 4 feet tall furry egg with arms and legs. “Guess I will call you cousin It” Boris chuckled to himself. 

But now it was time to stop socializing with his companions. After all he had a duty to do and that means: file a report for the company. How he hated the paperwork. Sighing, he sat down and began to relive the last day full of experiences a part of him still deemed impossible.


The sparely decorated room was filled with the smell of adrenaline and chemical cleaning fluids. The murmuring of the assembled men and women provided a steady background level of noise interrupted by the opening of a door. The man who entered wore a suit that looked more expensive than the average years’ wage of those assembled, his hair grey and a face telling of 60+ hours of work per week. He might be in the late forties, maybe he was younger, drained by stress. Without hesitation he climbed the small pedestal and addressed his audience in a tone used to giving orders and accepting no backtalk. 

“Good day! I am August Huber, security manager, Rank 28.” Everyone of the team was a veteran – and none of them had ever met someone with a rank that high before (**).  “This mission is top secret and of utmost importance. Two hours ago our radar displayed a contact near one of our most secret research bases. The contact disappeared immediately afterwards. Even if it might be a coincidence, a weather balloon or a technical malfunction, we need someone to go there immediately to see if everything is as it should be. Since we rather believe that it is one of the other big companies going for our property here, we are sending you. Everyone on this team is a hand-selected specialist of our elite SecForces. So much for the introduction. Now.” With a nod, a beamer was activated, projecting a map of the mission terrain on the wall, showing several points of notice. 

“Here are the details.

Mission Objective: Secure landing perimeter; investigate coordinates x32’2,y44’6,z08’7; contact research base ASTRA; report status; await following orders.

Mission Terrain   : Tropical Jungle.
Mission Start      : Immediately. You will be guided to the transport which is currently being fuelled.
Mission Duration : Unknown. Expect some days, a fortnight at most. Rations are provided.

In charge of this mission is Boris, Special Ops (Rank 38). Your pilot will be Lt. Rico (Rank 46), he is currently preparing the departure. The platoon leader is Gunnery Sergeant Martha Dodger, a heavy weapons specialist.

If you encounter hostilities, you are permitted to use all means necessary to enforce our interests. You will be provided with combat armour and weapons of your choice. Proceed to equip yourselves and gather at hanger D14 in 15 minutes. Is there anyone here who feels unfit for this mission in a jungle?” He let his gaze sweep the room, his hard grey eyes fixing on each member of the team for an instant – maybe looking for a sign of unstableness. “No? Then good luck.”

Without as much as a murmur the assembled soldiers filed up, left the room and prepared for their mission.

14 minutes later everyone was seated inside of a strange combat helicopter clamped onto some sort of rails inside of a huge cargo-jet awaiting the takeoff. Looking around, Boris thought about how much noise a metal detector would make if they were to be scanned – certainly their armament was sufficient to beat anything short of a heavy brigade of the Coloss Corporation. And only Coloss would be bold enough to enter Devons territory unbidden (***). Well, everyone knew that their own company, the Devon Inc., was technically slightly more advanced if it came to hit and run skirmishes in a jungle. His team had laser guided optics, night vision gear, as well as sneak-suits that could be sealed to avoid IR-sensors – sadly in a jungle these suits were only good to cooking yourself alive, since they stored all heat inside). For armament they had the standard assault rifles along with HE-Ammo (only accessible for military personel) and attached grenade rifles. Then there was Sgt. Dodgers Heavy Flamer (which had stickers all over it “Want to know something about Propane? Or Propane accessories?”), and even one of the brand new portable laser cannons that could stop a tank.

“Well, a holiday with a fine incentive…” he thought.

---

The take-off felt like a bear pushing him down into his seat. What did this stupid pilot do? He remembered reading about a strange note in the dossier of Lt. Rico mentioning his “effective but unorthodox style of piloting” – but who cared with someone who had virtually all driving/flying/boating/whatever-licenses that could be had along with quite a number of decorations. The description of Lt. Rico’s daily business was “testing the strain limits of new vehicles”.

The speakers interrupted his thoughts.

“Welcome aboard, Ladies and Gentlemen! This is your pilot speaking. We are set for our destination, the flight duration will be 6 hours and we will be travelling at an altitude of 15000 feet. Please stay seated with your belts closed and be careful when you are moving your overhead luggage – this will help to avoid any injury prior to the mission. You will find peanuts and beverage in the little bar that was the co-pilots seat, help yourselves to it – although I can’t recommend getting drunk before taking part in this little roller coasting we are going to do. In case you have to hurl chunks, please use the vomit bag in front of you. At our arrival we will leave this flying brick with the helicopter you are already seated in – which is composed entirely of special composite materials making it a stealthy little toy, just in case you wondered – drop to about 5000 feet, where we will start the engines and see if we can land without getting all of us killed. Ah, before I forget it – because of schedule issues we will be flying right through that hurricane you all surely heard about in the media. Thank you and I hope you will enjoy the trip!”

“This guy is nuts!” the whole team grumbled in unison - except for Sgt. Dodger, who began sleeping soundly (and noisily)  right after entering the chopper. Of course the first impression of their pilots mentality lead to a very precise assessment of the situation. Thanks to the storm everyone on the team needed the bags that had been pointed out earlier and when the pilot entered the helicopter sometime later, his passengers looked quite unhealthy.

Lt. Rico seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit, which got him more than one frown in response. Rico in response only smiled broadly, buckled himself up, grabbed the controls and pushed a big red button lettered boldly with the words “Don’t Push!”. The rear cargo-door of the plane began to open and the air was sucked out violently.

“At least now we will get that stench out of my baby!” Rico told the group over his shoulder – no one noticed, however, since everyone was trying to grip one of the oxygen masks dangling down from above.

What everyone did notice was the roar of the booster packs applied to the skids of the chopper, as they accelerated it with 5G along the rails inside of the cargo bay and out of the plane. Immediately the roaring stopped again and was only being followed by the eerie sound of air rushing by as they plummeted towards the ground.

At 5000 feet altitude exactly, Rico started the engines and recovered control over his craft, which took a while – in height: 4940 feet exactly. After that, landing was a routine task and they touched the ground gracefully and softly. This was Rico’s view of it – the others only saw the ground race towards them while the horizon circled their view madly.

Directly after touching the ground Boris jumped out, rolled to his feet while turning to face the cockpit, Assault rifle ready and pointed at the pilot. “Out! Now!” he growled. As Rico left the helicopter with upraised hands, the rest of the team got out on shaky feet. Boris was fuming. “Rico, kneel down! The rest: line up and someone wake up Dodger! All here? Ok, now each of you has one kick for free – have fun with a little spanking for that little horror show, you aerobatic pilot!” With that and a shark-like grin Boris took his term first, joyfully kicking Rico in his a**. This example was followed by everyone except Dodger, who watched the procedure seemingly irritated. “What are you all doing? He told us we would land here without getting killed and that was correct, right?” Boris head swung around, fixing Dodger with a burning gaze “Sergeant?” “Yes, Sir?” “Shut up.”

While the medic took care of Ricos backside, Boris had the marines secure the landing zone and began defining their position before deciding on the actions to take.

“First off, we will deploy one of those drones to see if we can get a glimpse of what is going on at the destination where that blip was. At the same time we will move there, but a little to the west – we will go around that position and try to get in from behind. Just in case someone took notice of our arrival.”

“The scouts: up ahead, stay 50m in advance. Heavy weapons in the middle, two teams guarding the flanks and one the rear. Rico, you stay with me – and no fancy stuff! Everyone keep radio silence except for important observations. Keep your eyes open! If you see something, draw back silently and report – no fire without permission!” “Indeed!” Dodger answered grinningly, patting her heavy flamer.

When the team departed, the drone was already on it’s way. Contact with it was lost suddenly about 400 feet from the designated target. The last view it had transferred was a reflecting metallic surface. 

“Okay, now we know someone’s here and they will know about us, I guess.” Boris motioned the group to halt and went around, giving every team new orders without using the radio. “We proceed as planned, weapons ready and as silent as you all can! In case of contact, we fall back a bit, take up positions in a wide line and defend appropriately.” In the middle again he also beckoned Sgt. Dodger to him “Any chance you will be taking that damn bright red armour of yours off?!” “No, Sir – the propane tank for the flamer is build into the back part of the ceramic breastplate. Even if you order it, I will not go without either my armour nor my hot friend!” Sighing Boris turned away and gave the sign to proceed.

The team moved on as silently as could be expected from a team of professionals. In this silence the sudden menacing crackling sound was all the louder. It was accompanied by violet balls of energy and followed by the pain filled screams of one of the two scouts. The other scout managed yelling “CONTACT!” before he, too, was hit by a ball of burning hot plasma and incinerated completely. The two had been 50m apart from each other.

As the others sped up to cover each other, the source of the attack became obvious. The figure was an approximately 2,6m-2,8m tall thing looking like a mantis that carried two long metallic tubes pointed at them.

Without hesitation everyone opened fire at a distance of about 100m. Several full projectile bursts and beams of the laser hit the opponent – just to be deflected or absorbed by a shimmering energy field around the figure – obviously wearing some kind of combat suit.
Taking in these impressions in the first seconds, Sgt. Dodger acted untouched by the screams and shouts of the other marines around her. She levelled her Flamer but rather used the grenade rifle that was attached to it. The first probing shot bounced off of the barrier of energy, the grenade exploding some meters away from her opponent, sending debris in all directions.

“Some wooden splinters weren’t deflected. Maybe indirect fire will do the trick!” she told the rest via their headsets. “Joe, help me fell that tree behind him!” She indicated a spot low at the trunk of a large Tree behind the…thing…with her targeting laser. Joe acknowledged the target. “Fire!”

The Tree shuddered and groaned, accelerating towards the lone figure. As it was mere centimetres away from the insect-like head, the shield activated again, this time shining in a bright violet light. The trunk fell to the ground in two pieces, while the part that had touched the barrier had turned to smoke completely. For an instant the team stared unbelievingly at that sight. “Impossible!” someone whispered hoarsely.

A fraction of a second later two more marines fell, hit by another burst of violet energy those strange weapons produced. “Verdammt, what kind of thing is that?! Never saw that kind of technology before! Must be Colos!” Boris thought while shooting at the thing. Suddenly his motion tracker picked up two, then four, then six signals rapidly closing in from the sides.

“Julio, Michael, to the left! Frank, Steve, to the right, we got company! Cover our flanks with grenades! Everyone fallback to the landing zone, now!” Boris shouted as the new arrivals came into view.

Six creatures came into view rapidly closing the distance. They had the size of large dogs with a wet leather hide laced with chitinous plates. Also obvious were their razor-edged double forearms and their sharp fangs gleaming inside of their drooling maws.

Only the marines covering the right flank of the team managed to react fast enough, throwing their grenades to stop the onrushing beasts. From the left flank screams could be heard that were immediately drowned out by the sound of Marthas heavy flamer. After she released the trigger the immediate vicinity was blackened, the attackers a twitching mass of burned flesh. Julio and Michael however, one pinned underneath such a monster, only had their exposed hair burned away, the other wounds were scratches and bites (****). They stared unbelievingly at the woman that had activated her burner right at them, without actually hurting them. Martha winked at both of them. “Smokin’! Come on, we gotta fall back!” Already turning, she strapped her flamer to her side, pointing the muzzle behind her towards the ground. After making sure, no one stood near, she set the switch to “steady fire” and began to run towards their vehicle – leaving a trail of burning flora behind her. “Just to slow followers down, Sir.” She let Boris know.

Boris meanwhile grabbed one of the creatures corpses shredded by the fragmentation grenades, shouldered it and began jogging towards their landing zone. The rest followed with the two singed marines lagging behind – the wounds they suffered from the surprise attack were slowing them down part because of the pain those deep scratches generated, part because of the resulting blood loss. When they heard new pursuers, they looked at each other, nodded and turned readying their weapons and switching to automatic fire.

When the chopper came to sight, the rattling of two assault rifles could be heard from a distance, interrupted by detonations of several grenades - then, suddenly, silence. Without looking back the small band of survivors – the team had lost more than 50% - entered their vehicle. Immediately Lt. Rico prepared an emergency start, while activating the sensors, too. “There’s dozens of those dog-things, Sir – and something else!” “Ok, let’s get the hell out of here – fly towards ASTRA!”

As soon as they took off, Lt. Rico went to maximum speed towards the secret research station. At the same time his radar indicated a large object. After pointing that out, the others could see it. A huge, ugly object, gleaming like metal and roughly 500m long and 100m high. “That thing must weigh roughly 20000 tons, if it can be compared with our navies ships” Sgt. Dodger thought aloud. “And I can see no thrusters, jets or engines or such a thing!” Rico added. 

“Lt. Rico, try to contact our headquarters. They have to know what’s going on here!” Boris decided.

Which seemingly was a mistake. As soon as Rico activated the COM-System of the helicopter, the big object opened several hatches revealing turrets and opened fire at them – big violet balls of energy, nearly the size of their chopper. The COM-System, however, only produced static noises. “Damn, those bastards are jamming our radio!” Rico shouted, while executing wild evasive manoeuvres, ripping off treetops every now and then. Also he noted that he would have to increase the number of vomit-bags he had on board – those marines sure weren’t that tough when it came to their stomachs.

Meanwhile Boris observed something else. Near the big “ship” as he now called it, the jungle had disappeared. It was replaced by something looking like a big patch of…purple mushrooms? Or was it purple slime? He couldn’t make out details on this distance. Anyway the patch was stretching towards the base they were flying to – and spreading visibly! Also the hundreds of dog-sized critters left purple patches of the stuff while pursuing them, which began spreading, too.

“Rico, hurry up, I get the feeling our time is running short!”

As if to emphasise his words, one shot came dangerously close to their craft, damaging the back rotor. Spinning around their own axis, they went down in a small cleared ravine, which was sealed on the far end by a bunker. “Ah, sorry for the landing, guys, but at least we reached our destination. That building over there is ASTRA!”

Shaking off the drowsiness caused by the harsh landing, everyone grabbed their equipment and began running towards the building that promised safety.

---

(*) : After several uprisings of the populace against corrupt regimes and bureaucracies aloof towards the peoples needs, several companies began accumulating power and soon taking over important functions regarding healthcare and provisions for old age for their employees only. Two decades later, politic governments had all but lost their influence, giving way to the reign of the companies. The companies then grouped together to become even more influential, dividing their territories roughly by continental boundaries. So it came that 50 years after the switch to the companies reign, only five Mega Corporations still exist – Devon (which is leading in high-tech equipment), Coloss (leading in heavy military equipment), Zatoichi (which is leading in software), Burr (leading in extracting raw materials and mineral resources) and MDBK (providing food for literally everyone). Leading only means that the company has a slight advantage here, but still every company dabbles in every aspect.

(**) All jobs are rated on a scale from 100(being lowest) to 1(being the boss) – tied directly to the apartment one is assigned, the luxuries, the payment as well as the liberties one has. While a boss can literally shoot someone else with but a grin and no consequences, doing so with a low ranking leads to forced labour.
35 and up is management, so Boris is actually very close to the upper third of the pyramid, when we started playing.

(***)While conflict rarely is resolved openly, the companies soon learned that doing so on their terrain can lead to extensive damage to both the trust of their employees as well as their economy. Thus special areas were designated, in which conflicts are now resolved. These areas range from arctic over jungle to desert – with the agreement, that no conflict is settlted outside these areas. Most of the time the companies stick to that rule. Thus the “Blip” Devon is wondering about, is likely to be a illegal covert operation by another company.

(****) Some serious luck while rolling the dice for Martha: The player made an E-Critical, rolling above 90 for each attacker and 01 and 04 for her own guys. Lucky them!


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Jul 21, 2005)

*Races available for players*

There is something obtrusive about the galaxy – there are horses on every inhabited planet and each of these planets is invariably inhabited by one of the seven known sentient races: 

The Feline - extremely self-centered and proud predators. The Falar don’t know remorse or patience, pouncing on any other being that is obviously unaware or seemingly weaker.

The Ape – curiosity incarnate, these cursorial hunters are fascinated by the unknown. Humans naturally feel impelled to investigate every unknown thing without thinking about the consequences twice. “Only a human would stick their hand into a hole just to see if it will get bitten” is a common saying. 

The Ursine – herbivores by cultural choice this is the most pacifistic of the races due to their natural abilities to ward of any natural predator. This fact also affects the Kagoth’s racial development with social concerns and philosophy having top priority.

The Braat – The most intelligent of the species. The Oorts are driven to develop their resourcefulness - on every planet their race evolves there are always huge predatory dinosaurs.

The Lupine – These cursorial hunters have a strong sense of community and an even stronger sense of honor and loyalty. The Tulgar are the only race not mistrusted by any of the other races – it is unthinkable for them to break their word once given or to go anywhere without their sword.

The Raptors – of dinosaur stock these warm-blooded reptilians are totally without emotions, calculating their benefit in every situation and placing their own survival about anything else. Naturally, the Valiesians are good at surviving…

The Insect – The only race where every member is psychically talented. All Xatosians are connected by a psychic group consciousness.


----------



## ragboy (Jul 21, 2005)

I have this game, and have never been able to play it. Now I get to vicariously. Looks great so far. Keep it up.


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Jul 22, 2005)

Welcome, ragboy!

About the start, which looks not like Space Opera at all: All players (except one) have no idea, how Spacemaster works or how the universe looks (unlike a vanilla Starwars game where all players in our group immediately begin to look for a chance to join the rebellion without the character even knowing the tiniest bit about it) and that is why i let them start on a technically 21st century planet with no idea what is going on in the galaxy - which will change _very_ soon. The part i have posted is halfway through the first evening of playing and at the end each player was dizzy with the new knowledge they had to cope with. That means inside the campaign as well as for the gaming system. They really were irritated how fast one can be killed. Even a players char, since we roll openly, _especially_ for critical hits. Expect the first casualties within the next update.

A clarification for those familiar with Spacemaster: I started designing my campaign when i bought SMrivateers. I liked the idea with the architects and the "planted" races ( especially the options that leaves for planting adventure seeds), so i included that. But then i read the supplement books - which disappointed me a great deal. I mean, a robot manual without even one fully detailed robot included? Or a blaster manual referring to another book for weapons - thus combat is not playable without the other book? 

Then came the killing blow for Privateers: The skill system. I hate it. Fleshing out a character takes ages (up to six hours!) and then the char is either too powerful or a loser. Another issue: the mechanics how psionics are supposed to work. Really, a first lvl telepath, who is able to "cast a spell" regardless how complex it is? Also another minor point: my all-time favourite weapon, the plasma repeator rifle, is missing. Sure you can build the table for it all by yourself *chuckle insanely* - if you have centuries of leisure time!

That's when i decided to switch back to the old Spacemaster ruleset (2nd ed.) only taking the basic ideas of the Privateers setting with me, i.e. "bad" empire, "good" ISC etc. After all i have very little free time to prepare gaming at all - so everything looks black'n'white at first glance but will develop very much towards many shades of grey lateron and include quite a bit of "space horror". (Hint: I will be using Monte Cooks "Dark Space"  )

Dougal


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Aug 3, 2005)

*02 – Game of hazard*

02 – Game of hazard

From the speakers a friendly, almost sensual female voice could be heard, counting down “…three, two, one, zero”. After an audible click there was a bright flash, centered at the main booster of the craft and suddenly the whole hangar was filled with blue acrid smoke.

Unfazed, Frank was thinking. He sat at his desk, staring at the drives schematics, undisturbed by the technicians running towards the prototype to extinguish the fire and repair the damage done by the malfunction. He was the leading scientist in regards to the ships modified drive and it should have worked. This had been the third test – and all failed. Where had he been wrong? It was only a matter of time to make the drive work – time they didn’t have. This was a rogue project that, if another company found out, could have serious negative effects on his company. His mind began to wander.

All began with the latest study about the worlds resources. They were dwindling rapidly because of the ever increasing exploitation by the major companies in their mad race for power. Every one in the higher ranks knew that. But not, how close the end was. The prognosis was far worse than anyone had thought. Within 34 months some important lines of production followed by a breakdown of traffic and trade. Civil unrest would follow for sure.

For the first time the companies had joined together in a project aimed to conquer space. So far there had only been short trips to install satellites and a visit to each of the two moons. Other planets, let alone other stellar systems had always been out of reach. 

Changing that was the main goal of the project. Every company had diverged as much money and as many scientists and technical personnel as it could be managed without the people noticing. To ensure maximum security (and secrecy, too!) a station had been built in a stationary orbit, where the prototype that was being built around the “jump drive” (based on theory alone until now) was assembled. Sadly inter-company animosities began to slow down this vital project after the first initial successes as everyone tried to gain the most out of it. Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.

When Devon Inc. had had enough insights into the functionality of the jump drive, they decided to secretly build their own prototype, outsmarting the other companies. While Devon, as rich as it is, couldn’t afford their own space station, they hadn’t contributed any of their rocket scientists and no drew them together. ASTRA was called to life. An old bunker in a dense, untamed jungle was perfect – too small to draw notice easily and with more than 500km too far from the next human settlement for easy espionage. Everything needed was transported there in secrecy and the project began. Modifying a conventional shuttle usually used for transporting satellites to orbit, the were gaining rapidly on the joined project, getting ahead of it after only two months.

That had been half a year ago and now they were so close to their goal. The team had recently been reduced to him, his assistant and three techs, since only one thing was left to do. If only that booster would operate successfully, the prototype could be sent into space to make a first test run. The latest malfunction could only be hidden within the control mechanisms, Frank thought. His was the last part: modifying a standard drive to enable getting off the ground without emitting so much energy that the other companies could detect the prototype until it was too late. As soon as that modified drive was working, his company would win the race for the first manned FTL flight.

“We’ll have to exchange those relays again, along with the electro-hydraulic controller!” he told his assistant who was waiting patiently for Frank to react. They were working together for two years now and he had gotten used to Franks way of solving problems. He could sit for hours without reacting to his surroundings at all, consumed by the “riddle” he had to solve. Then suddenly he would give orders to noone in particular, which would usually solve the problem. The issue with this was that Frank tended to forget the orders soon thereafter, already consumed by whatever new obstacle had to be overcome.

“Right away, Frank!” he said, already turning to get some technicians that would do the work needed.

“How long will it take?” Frank asked one of the techs after they had begun dismantling the various covers. “About 20 minutes, Sir.” “Ok, get on with it.”

Then the alarm went off, indicating intruders in the outer security perimeter.


Some seconds after Boris and his team had begun scrambling towards the bunker, six armed and armoured marines emerged from it, ready to fire. At seeing the insignia they relaxed a bit, but tensed again when they caught sight of the crashed helicopter.

Before any of them could say anything, Boris took the lead in a voice obviously used to giving orders. “Two of you, stand guard for pursuers. The others, do you have any mines or explosives here? Good, start to mine the whole area as good as you can. And prepare to blow the helicopter. If you have any barbwire, spread it. Execute NOW!” After a short exchange of glances the security personnel saluted and began to execute the orders given joined by the rest of Boris team. Only he, Rico and Martha entered the bunker.

The complex had been build after the example of the bunkers of the second world war – to make the intrusion of enemy infantry as hard as possible. This included a trench on the outside, a drawbridge and several well shielded automatic guns at strategic positions. It had also been refit with several heavy airlocks one could only pass if authorized or well versed with explosives.

“This is much larger than it seems from the outside!” Martha mentioned loudly, when they came into the hangar after passing 6 manned and armed security stations where Boris status granted them the clearance necessary to pass. Immediately Franks assistant came towards them asking about their intents. “Top security. Take me to your boss” Boris barked stony-faced. After a brief look on the rank insignia of the newcomers the assistant shrugged and led them to Frank.

“Sir, here is…” “You are in charge here? You were. This is now a military emergency situation and you and your team will follow my orders. Now, can that shuttle get us out of here and when?” interrupted the assistant again. Frank turned with a puzzled look on his face, seemingly unable to cope with the rapidly changing situation.

“Who are you?” Frank asked doubtfully.

“No time for that crap, geek! We need to go as soon as possible!” Boris took up the dialogue.

“Well, there is the door…” Frank tried. 

“Listen, I am in _no_ mood for games right now, when can we _fly_ away using that shuttle of yours?”

“We can attempt a new take off in about 10 minutes. But there is no way you are going with it, since we have personnel trained for that flight and…”

“Martha, go and secure places for us! Rico, have a look if you can fly that thing.” 

“You can’t…”

“Ok, contact headquarters and ask about instructions.”

“Good idea!” Frank turned towards his comm.-unit but all he got was static noise. “What the hell?”

“That is what I tried to make clear, egghead, we are under attack by unknown forces and need to escape since all communications is jammed. All I tried to do is shorten this conservation because we have no time to chat.”

“Wait, what game are we playing? What is this about? What skills am I to use in this situation?”

Boris stared at Frank unbelievingly at those three sentences that didn’t make any sense at all. The assistant that had waited patiently at the door threw in “Sir, my boss believes we are all some characters in kind of a game where other people decide what we are doing – and that there are different rules for this game, provided by what he calls “systems”. He only mentions this when he is confused though…”

“What a wagonload of crap.  Well…”

“Sorry to interrupt you, Sir, but there are only four seats in this shuttle – and no steering mechanisms at all!” Rico called over the noise produced by the technicians, repairing at high speed. They had gotten news of what was about to happen from the security personnel and wanted to get away quickly.

Boris turned towards Frank again “No steering – how did you plan to fly this thing?”.

Again the assistant stood in “Because of security reasons we have room for four people to partake at the flight, but controls as well as computers and sensors for physical measurements and performance tests are not accessible. After the test flight this shuttle will head towards headquarters directly, where all gained information is to be analyzed.”

Sighing deeply Boris turned to have a look at the people assembled.
“How many people can fit in it if we throw out those seats, Rico?”
“If we also dump some useless stuff, we can get eight people in without worrying about total weight.”
“Do it. You two listen up” he turned towards the two security guards left inside the hangar “Your job is to delay the enemy as long as possible, else everyone you know will suffer. Understood? Good, now go outside and prepare your defenses. Techs, make sure your job is flawless, you are flying with us.”

The techs exchanged happy glances, a feeling the guards didn’t share. 

Martha stepped up to Boris “You are sacrificing them and my men. You know that, right?”

“Yes, but if we don’t get away, no one will come to know what happens here until it is too late. Plus there is only room for eight and they can buy us time.”

“Yes, Sir. I only wanted to know if you were the wasteful type of superior or the calculating type.” Turning away she smiled over her shoulder “Oh, and thanks for the ride - I like to live.” 
“You should wait with that until we are away from here”.

Right then the first explosions could be felt from outside. On the surveillance-monitors showing the outer perimeter, a mass of those doglike creatures could be seen. They were numbering in the hundreds and closing in fast. Row after row of anti-personnel mines detonated, barely slowing the advancing mass of bodies. The barbed wire was simply overrun.

At 100m distance the automatic guns opened fire, joined by the stations defenders, both security and the remaining marines from Martha’s team. Nearly every bullet hit the throng and dozens of the creatures were wounded or killed. This in turn stopped several others that started to feast on the fallen – dead and alive.

Still the swarm was closing in. When the crowd reached the crashed helicopter, the explosives that had been hidden inside it detonated, ripping a gaping hole in the advancing horde. A gap that was filled again instantly.

Meanwhile the technicians had finished their repairs and climbed aboard the shuttle, followed by Frank and Boris, who closed the airlock. From the bunkers speakers came a warning and then a countdown. Inside the ship everyone was using ropes to tie themselves to the various attachments, left over by the seats that had been removed. When the countdown reached 30, the ceiling of the hangar opened. 

About the same time as the attackers reached the defenders.

25 seconds. The drives began to heat up, while the computers ran a last diagnosis.

The front door of the bunker was shredded by claws obviously harder than steel. The inner defense system activated, filling the entrance with burning napalm and HE projectiles. Still they kept coming and one by one the defense stations were overrun and the airlocks penetrated.

When the countdown had reached four, the last door was breached, instantly passed by the first of the creatures. They immediately sped forwards, only to be burned to ashes when the drive ignited.

Roaring, the shuttle took off, unreachable by the pursuers.

Frank smiled silently – so the idea had worked. Good, he had given it a 40 percent chance of success. But better not mention that to anyone…

Out of harms way, the passengers with a window seat looked out. The entrance of the bunker was a mess of purple slime and a mass of those creatures struggling to get some of the “food”. Mercifully they gained height quickly so this gruesome sight only lasted for some seconds.

“Rico, try to contact headquarters, when we are about five kilometres up in the air.” Boris said through clenched teeth. The acceleration of 6g was hampering any movement bigger than speaking or lifting a finger.

“Sure thing. Oh, just in case you want to know, that other ship is in sight. It’s huge!”

“I know that, just let’s hope, it doesn’t view us as threat.”

“No, it seems it’s not reacting to us. I’ll try to contact someone now. This is…damn!”

“What?!”

“We have no contact, but as I opened a channel, one of their turrets spun towards us. Now it’s firing. Sh**! Prepare for impact!”

One violet balls of energy grazed them, thoroughly rocking the craft and sening showers of sparks into the cockpit.

“Shut down all comm-units! I assume that was only a warning shot. Else they could have blasted us to oblivion right after the start.”

“Communications are offline anyways. Let’s hope you are right. And let’s hope that those red LEDs don’t refer to any vital systems…”

“No, the life support is undamaged” Frank remarked from the back of the cabin. “On the other hand it could be hindering that we seem to have lost our outer hull. Reentry into the atmosphere can not be done without the thermal protection shield that had been applied to it. Also that other red light indicates a malfunction in the autopilot. We will have either a short experience or a fascinating voyage.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the program starts when we are in zero gravity. The idea was to do several short spacejumps with this shuttle, validating the calculations as to how fast this drive will bring us how far. If all runs well, we are back at the starting position about a week from now.”

“You mean, we will fly somewhere, can do nothing about it and it will take a week before we are back?”

“Oh, that would be the case, if we had no malfunction in the autopilot, I can assure you. The calculations have been done several hundred times…”

“This has never been done before?”

“This is a prototype, remember? But no worries this will not happen.” Frank said with a smile lost in thought.

“No worries? You were talking of “a short experience”?!”

“Oh, right. Well, we have three options. First, we could jump into an object, like a planet or a sun. Second, all could turn out right and we are here in a week – sadly we are all suffocated by then, the life-support system is designed for four people, not for eight. The last option: the autopilot uses a malfunctioning coordinate system for the several subsequent jumps and we come out somewhere no human has ever been before. That would be thrilling…”

“Thrilling? Stop those comments or we are only seven people soon” Martha bawled at Frank.

“Now, now, we have to think this through.” Boris interfered. “We are dead instantly or we suffocate, right?

“Yes.”

“What about those environmental suits in the lockers?”

“They have air for eight hours. But we only have four.”

“Martha, Rico, do we have any tranquilizers or something like that?”

“Oh, we have stuff to cause artificial coma aboard!” Frank said merrily. After noticing the looks he got from the others he added “For emergencies, just in case!”

“Ok. So I say, four of us use the suits, while the others are put to sleep. This way we save the most oxygen, which may keep us alive long enough to survive this. I need Frank and Rico awake, Martha and of course myself. So, Martha, help the techs and Franks assistant with going to sleep.”

“Wait!” Franks assistant blurted out “Why us? Why me? You can’t…”

“We are the ones who have weapons, so shut up and keep still.” Boris retorted icily.

Less than a minute later, four passengers were kept comatose, while the other four had put the suits on.

Another minute later the shuttle had aligned itself to a vector directed by the autopilot and the biggest part of the ship, the jumpdrive, began powering up. Again a countdown began, this time at ten seconds.

Rico stared at the stars, fascinated by the view. Martha checked her gear one last time. Boris wished good luck to everyone. Frank tried to compare the stars he could see with the stellar constellations he knew from the astrogation meeting.

“Three, Two, One…”

Without a sound, the ship disappeared in a bright yellow-white globe of light.


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Aug 4, 2005)

*A Rant About Frank...*



> “Wait, what game are we playing? What is this about? What skills am I to use in this situation?”




I moved that rant to the Off-Topic subforum of the general forum.

Comments about the SH are still welcome, off course.

Dougal


----------



## Infernal Teddy (Aug 30, 2005)

Damn. I need to get to Stuttgard.   :\


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Sep 8, 2005)

*An Update for my Infernal Teddy!*

03 - When First Contact is Full Contact

Suddenly there was a loud crash and the hangar rocked like a shyer. Chraron staggered and could barely avoid falling over. Then the lights went out and the ship started vibrating so hard that it could be felt to the bones. But the screeching was worse - the air was filled with the screaming noise of metal scratching over metal. She could barely stand the pain. Sometimes her excellent sense of hearing, that reached into the ultrasonic range, was a burden. Gladly only a moment later the noise ebbed away to a dull groaning resounding throughout the corridors.

When the red emergency lights came on, she cursed and switched her helmets visor to a visual display mode that allowed her to see properly. Red light didn’t really help when your vision was monochrome, which was the case for all members of her race, the Tulgar (*).

“That was no asteroid!” the Falanar Captain shouted over the ships communications-system. “That was a small ship massing a little less than 100 tons that rammed us. Section 4 is leaking atmosphere. Security Officer, get someone and investigate the damage!”

Chraron bared her teeth to a wolfish grin. Three days ago Prrl’mur, the Falanar security officer, had challenged the captain for leadership of the Rapid Claw, the imperial raptor class gunboat they were doing their duty on. He had lost the duel and now the captain in return was using each opportunity to bully him (**).

She knew what would happen now and began to count in secret. If the captain called for the security officer via intercom, Prrrl’mur was not present on the bridge, again. That meant that in all likelihood he would be hanging around in the galley, again. Just thinking about his bull-headed habits made her growl in distaste.

On his way to section 4 he would have to pass through the hangar. That meant it should take less than fifteen seconds for him to come to sight. Naturally Chraron did not think it necessary to play the doormat for Prrl'mur, but she was both bored and curious. So she would permit the Falanar to take his anger out on her in exchange for accompanying him to section 4.

Nine, ten, eleven...

"You! Tulgar! Come along to section 4. I need someone to clean up the mess!" The large lionman was standing in the door, his tail twitching condescendingly in her direction. Chraron stared back for the fraction of a second, her dislike towards the cat boiling up inside of her. She had barely been able to suffer Prrl'mur from the first moment they met, even less than any other Falar. She hated him with a passion since they first met in the space port of Siloris ten days ago...

---

Chraron shouldered the heavy leather bag and walked down the gangway of the transport vessel. After those close, grubby ship bunks the space port appeared even more clean than usual. All public ranges of the empire ruled by the Falar were clean, because the cats loved cleanliness. Especially if they did not have to do the cleaning themselves. Dozens of human slaves ensured that every footpath of the port were freshly waxed and shining at all times.

If a Falar was annoyed about refuse on the floor, the next attainable ape, as humans were frequently referred to by the other six races, had to suffer for it. Thus they tended to nearly panic every time something fell to the ground.

Chraron was nauseated by the brutal chicaneries of the Falar. Just thinking about this honourless behaviour, exploiting the weak, made her lower her ears in decline. She lifted them again, however, when she saw Nuri. Like always the delicate Falaris woman already was expecting her in front of the customs clearance control.

"The complete loot from the robbery. Sadly the thieves damaged the crystal star, but the rest is in prime condition. The museum can count itself lucky", Chraron said while she carefully placed the bag onto the small cart beside Nuri.

The Falaris bowed thanking and wrote something into her journal. By demonstratively not examining the recovered artefacts she honoured Chraron. She was her supervisor for over a year now and respected the sense of honour the Tulgar followed in their traditional way. If the compulsory labour would not inherently be a dishonour, Chraron actually would regard the Falaris as a friend. 

However she knew that Nuri would never let her go. Like all Tulgar in the empire, Chraron was bound by her word of honour to carry out the tasks the Falar rulers gave her. If a task was settled, each Tulgar was reminded that a remainder of a debt existed towards the empire and was directly bound to fulfil the next task, to lessen that debt. Else there was no way to be released. One had to pay all debts back before moving on. Of course the cats had learned very early to use the lupines sense of honour to spin an indestructible net of duties around each Tulgar. From these duties Tulgar could not free themselves without loosing their honour – which, of course, was intolerable.

"What about the thieves?" Nuri asked. "They have been uncooperative," answered Chraron and regretfully spread her hands. "Two Valiesians smugglers working for a Falaron dealer. They worked on their own account and were still looking for buyers."

Nuri nodded her head and checked something off in her journal before closing it. Then she pulled out another journal, opened it and began the traditional rite of binding. “The empire thanks you, Chraron. Yet your debt…”

“You! Falaris! Is that Tulgar any good for protecting things?“ a big Falanar suddenly interrupted Nuri and pushed her aside with enough force to bring her to her knees. The humanoid lion was clad in an exoskeleton combat armour and bore several weapons. He placed himself between the Falaris and Chraron, measuring the lean Tulgar women with obvious contempt in his gaze.

The fur in Chrarons neck ruffled up and she barely suppressed a challenging snarl. A conflict between Falar was not her concern. Even if it was a such an obvious imbalance - the soldier was one and a half times Nuris height and more than three times as heavy. And she liked the Falaris. Technically, though, they both were Chrarons superiors.

"I need a watchdog for my freight. Is the wolf good with weapons or does she only carry them around?" Chraron chose to overlook the insult. "I am quite experienced in handling the sword." "The honourable Chraron is a stage two Legionnaire", interfered Nuri and sleeked her fur, that had been tousled by the fall.

"Ok, she should suffice" the Falanar said dismissively and handed Nuri a datapad for verification of his proof of authority. "Dismiss her or how you bureaucrats call that."

"Sir, if you do not know the proper procedure, I will gladly ..."

"Dismiss her! Now!", the Falanar hissed. "I don’t have time all day long!"

Nuri stared at the soldier, calculating. Since the empires military generally had higher status than the bureaucratic middle management level, the Falanar was her superior.

The delicate feline from leopard stock tightened and turned towards Chraron. Without twitching her ears or tail or showing any other sign of emotion, Nuri formally announced: "Honourable Chraron of Honorrock from Talisia on Korgur, you kept your word as promised. Your duty for the empire is fulfilled."

That was it. No word that she had to settle a remaining debt towards the empire. She was free. 

Chraron bowed towards Nuri rigidly, looking her in the eye. The small cat answered the bow from behind the back of the soldier with only the tiny hint of a smile.

„Stop dancing!“ the lionman scoffed. “Tulgar, follow me.”

Without paying attention at Nuri the Falanar retrieved his datapad and began to walk towards one of the ships in the hangar. Chraron followed him, still completely dazed from the exchange and its meaning.

When they came closer to the vessel, the Falanar mentioned over his shoulder: “I am Prrl’mur, the security officer of that ship, the Rapid Claw. It is a Raptor class gunboat on a courier mission. This artefact over there is our freight, keep a close eye on it.” He pointed towards a massive block of metal that was just being loaded into the ship, guarded by four imperial soldiers. “Guard it, so my men can take care of more important things.”

Chraron nodded and walked over to the object. She couldn’t think clearly. The Falanar had missed the last chance to bind her to an oath. That was the chance every Tulgar in the Empire longed for. She was free! Free to do, what she wanted to do! She was completely intoxicated by all the possibilities that she now had. Free! And aboard a ship, that would bring her off of Korgur! Maybe even close to the empires boarders.

She had a new task now – to find a way to get away from the empire. For this goal she would even endure the proximity of this repulsive cat.

---

Free!

Chraron blinked her eyes and returned herself to the here and now. "If that are pirates, they are very stupid", she said to herself and put her hand on the hilt of her sword. Then she hurried down the corridors towards section 4. On the way she sealed her armours helmet hermetically, just in case the ships hull broke in other areas and lost more atmosphere.

Prrl'mur followed her without making a sound. In section 4 smoke of charred lines drifted through the corridors. Some walls had buckled under the load, and the middle bulkhead had closed in order to prevent a decrease of pressure in the rest of the ship.

Chraron closed the main bulkhead behind them, in order to use the remaining section 4 as air lock and started the pumps to suck the air from the area. Less careful fighters had been sucked out of ships by a sudden decrease of pressure into vacuous space and were still drifting through outer space. When the pressure had decreased sufficiently, she walked towards the emergency bulkhead.

When she looked through the window, she could see the strange ship that had bored itself half into the Rapid Claw. It looked primitive and was apparently made of cheap metal. It’s hull had was nearly molten away completely, as if it had been too near to a Nova, or flown through a malfunctioning jump gate. It was a miracle that this heap of scrap metal was capable of flying through space at all.

The collision obviously was an accident. If the navigation systems of the strange ship were similarly desolate, the strangers were castaways, floating through space rudderless. The only strange thing was that the ship sensors of the Rapid Claw had discovered the small vessel so late. Too late. And there was no jump gate near, so they could not have jumped right into them.

Interpreting the data that was coming in from the bridge, Prrrl’mur relayed to her that a solid object massing a little less than 100 tons had appeared out of a bright yellow-white flash of light. The distance had only been 500km starboard, and it had closed in very fast. Only two seconds later it had collided with their ship. 

“I am sure that this is a ramming attack from an ISC ship! Prepare to fight their boarding crew!” the security officer broadcastet via the tactical channel.

In Chrarons opinion that certainly wasn’t the case – the wreck was far too small for a ramming frigate and had no adequate reinforcements. She assumed that the crew had likely been killed by the impact. Anyway she drew her monoblade (***) as she put her other hand on the controls of the door.

In this moment she noticed that there was movement on the other side.

She paused for a moment before she switched the monitoring camera of the air lock onto her helmet visor. Behind the bulkhead three humans stood in space suits, a fourth was just making his way out of  the rubble of the strange ship. The figures obviously had problems to move in the archaic looking bulky suit they all wore. But they all had weapons.

Chraron examined the ape standing next to the door. It, too,  looked somewhat clumsy, with its helmet, which looked like an inverted gold fish glass. In order to recognize its face under the reflecting surface, Chraron switched the optics to infrared. If she interpreted the images and sensor data correctly, the human was male and completely confused.

Prrl’mur motioned her forwards, so she opened the air-lock and advanced towards the humans, taking a neutral combat stance. The Humans were obviously astonished by their appearance and examined them from top to bottom. Chraron often experienced this behaviour, when she wore the combat armour of a Tulgar knight, which she had inherited from her father – non-Tulgar usually only came to see those on battlegrounds.

“Surely this is a new chicken-hearted trick of the ISC!” Prrl’mur growled. He used the multi-frequency-mode of his headset and broadcasted “Surrender! Lay down your weapons and put your hands behind your heads!”

There was no response from the figures and hardly any movement. They seemed like they were waiting for something.

“Maybe their communicators are damaged?” Chraron proposed. She pointed at the arrivals weapons, then the ground and then held her paws above her head. One of the suits nodded and they all put down their weapons and held their hands up.

Prrrl’mur was enraged. “How can that be? They must be kidding us! Everyone has a radio unit!”

Chraron simply shrugged in. The weapons on the floor didn’t look like anything she had ever seen before – and certainly were no ISC equipment. They also sported no insignia the ISC usually used. How interesting!

Surely this laser-brain of security cat wouldn’t care about such details. He was all snarl and pounce, but good with his hazzok – a sword with a viciously curved blade, designed to tear flesh rather than cut it. A dangerous weapon, but inferior when compared to her sword, of course.

The foremost human turned towards her and stretched out his empty hands pleadingly. The palms upwards in a gesture searching for assistance. A sight that reminded her of the training hours with her father...

---

"You may never reject someone in need of help", her father lectured, while the twelve year old Chraron balanced on the thin trunk. "What is the meaning of honour for a knight?"

"It is his blood, his life, he breathes it, eats it and drinks it. Without honour a knight is nothing, he never existed ", Chraron answered fervently.

"How does a knight live his honour?" her father dug deeper and  at the same time attacked with a casual movement.

"Keeping his word till death, defend the weak and respected the wise and the elders!" Chraron recited and pranced backwards over the trunk. Her father followed her and swivelled his exercise sword to a feint. Chraron parried the strike and tried a counterattack.

"Very good! But pay attention to control your ears, they betray your plan!" Rorchor of Honorrock(****) said as he put forth his hand to help her get up from the ground. 

Chraron nodded and resumed the basic position again. Covertly she wiped off her hands at her  fur that already was wet with sweat. Since her litter brothers and her mother had been killed in the accident, her father concentrated on her training obsessively. However Chraron didn’t object – she had always been an atypical Tulgar girl. As a puppy she preferred brawling with her brothers over doing house work with her mother, like the traditions demanded.

Thus Rorchor had allowed her from the beginning to partake in the training of her brothers. He knew that she would strain his nerves too much, if he didn’t - in addition of being proud of her. She seemed to be a natural talent with the sword and was usually faster than her brothers at adapting to new situations.

But he did not challenge her like he did her brothers. After all, Tulgar women did not become fighters, but mothers, who passed on traditions and cared for the children. But his sons were dead now and he wouldn’t father others (*****). His first children had solely been girls, who would marry soon and, brought up traditionally, were neither interested in the hard life of a knight, nor in leaving the place they had in society. Also it was out of the question for Rorchor to take a second woman - Tarach of Redsand had been his true love.

Thus only  Chraron remained, in order to pass on his knowledge, his skills and his reputation in the knighthood. And she would have to be outstanding, not only very good, to become an accepted female member of the knighthood and take up his position.

---

What would do her father do now? No hard question – she must offer the stranded assistance. They obviously were incapable of protecting themselves. From the corner of her eye she saw how Prrl'mur pushed slid beside her, an expression on his face as if he just had discovered a wing-lame sparrow. Chraron slightly shifted her weight, in order to intercept him, when he chose to assault the monkeys.

Right then the average alarm was sounded on all channels. Prrl'mur immediately lost his interest in the strangers and hurried back to the bulkhead.

„This is the captain speaking. The collision threw us off course, into the gravity field of a nearby planet. We will be entering it’s atmosphere in 4 minutes. The technicians estimate they can repair the energy system in time. Hold your positions and follow your orders. Anyone acting otherwise will be accused of treason against the empire! This means you, too, Prrl'mur!”

Chraron weighed her duties – guarding the artefact and protecting those humans. Coming to a decision, she beckoned the humans towards her and gestured them to take up their weapons (after unloading them). Then she led them to the exit. They barely managed to reach the main bulkhead before Prrl’mur closed the outer door and began building up pressure so he could get back into the ship. He was hammering the controls impatiently  like that could speed up the process.

The Humans seemed to be oblivious to the state of emergency they were in. They gaped around, admiring the interior arrangement as if they would be on an excursion. So Chraron tapped the obvious leader on the shoulder, pointed to the planet that could be seen through window, lifted her hand emulating a tumbling airplane and then clapped it into other hand. Then she formed an explosion with both hands.

The Monkey stared it her for a moment, then his shoulders sagged downwards and he nodded in understanding. Like one the other humans turned towards her  - this meant that they must have functioning radio units built in their suits. Interesting.

When Chraron was sure that her proteges understood the gravity of the situation she started running after the security officer. The Falanar ran back to the hangar where the only shuttle of the Rapid Claw was parked. The Captain was still transmitting commands to hang on, but Prrl'mur ignored the instructions and disappeared inside the small ship.

Chraron threw a glance inside, ready to see a grim fight. But no other soldiers had obviously dared to disobey their captains orders. Only the vessels Falaris pilot and an Oort technician were on board. That meant that there were still enough places for her and her monkeys. When Chraron pushed them in, Prrl'mur only turned one ear towards them, otherwise he concentrated to help the Falaris powering up the systems.

„Help them to buckle up!“ she commanded the Oort and left back into the hangar.

Still her order was clear - guard the artefact. So she dashed to the cargo crane, activated it and reshipped the metal block into the payload bay of the shuttle.

“Dammit! Hurry up, snail! We are running out of time!“ the Oort tech shouted over the security channel.

Chrarons only affirmation was a growl. She unlocked the gripper, dove over the cranes arm, hammered the safeguard latch over the crate in one fluid motion and slipped along the flank of the shuttle to the hatch. Just in time, because the Oort was about to close it, swearing loudly. He was brilliant at fixing things but couldn’t otherwise utter any sentence without swearing. When she frowned at him, he retreated into the rear row, constantly mumbling into his fur.

"And off we go!" the Falaris announced and took off. Before Chraron could ask about the air-locks, the pilot fired and gave full thrust forward. The shuttle swept through the blown up air-locks and immediately began to roll as it hit the atmosphere. Chraron was hurled into her seat and fumbled for the safety belt.

She was not afraid - the pilot had the best reflexes she had ever seen. Another indication of the stupid arrogance of the captain, disregarding someone with such potential. But the pilot   was built lankly, was physically weak and with only 140cm height small even for Falaris standards. All this reduced his reputation in the large cats opinions even more.

Ranking was usually determined by unarmed duels and a smaller kitten needn’t even think about to compete against the average Falanar with 2,3m body height and more than 200kg body weight.

As the descent calmed down, Chraron opened her visor and looked about for her proteges. They were staring at her. Then the leader shrugged and opened his helmet, too. He took a deep breath, gasped and twitched and collapsed in his seat.

Chraron examined the other humans who were rigid with shock and bared her fangs in a broad grin. After some seconds the prankster sat up again and laughed out loud.

---
(*)  The two things Tulgar live for are honour and warfare. Their attitude is centred on protecting and defending those they deem in need.
They are a lupinoid (wolf-like), upright walking humanoid race. Some aspects of this origin are still evident to this day, like e.g. the loyalty of the pack to the pack leader.

The Tulgar males average 2m and 100kg, the females 1,8m and 70kg. Their hearing ranges into the ultrasonic, they can see as good at night as they can see with daylight and their sense of smell is unequalled by any of the other sentient races.

While they physically a well-rounded mix of strength, endurance and agility, they do have a couple of shortcomings. Most notably the Tulgar are completely colour-blind. Also they despise heat – Tulgar usually inhabit planets with cool climates.

Other restrictions are self-imposed. They follow a strict chivalric code, which means they will not attack someone from behind, use a weapon on someone who has none or just dropped it or not helping someone in need to save their own life. In this they are the opposite of the Falar – in fact they believe that the Falars’ interpretation of honour is a travesty and thus despise them.

Traditions are valued above almost anything else, which can best be seen in their equipment – a Tulgar dressed for battle looks like a knight of old, with his armour fashioned as likely to the old armours as possible, a sword and a buckler. They still are a very practical race, so the old-looking armour is usually made of the best material possible and highly polished to reduce the effect of laser weapons (e.g. “chainmail” is made of condensed ultralight polymers with reflective ceramic coating with a ballistic undercoat beneath it). Also they of course use ranged weapons, but never a weapon they find dishonourable (like nuclear mass destruction devices). Every knight bears a sword and will not part from it – it is given to him during the ceremony when he is accepted into a knighthood as a squire.

Thus their lifestyle is a strange mix of middle-ages and modern life, with hunting and falconry as frequent hobbies. Arguments are often settled with duels of honour, which are satisfied at disarm or first blood.

Tulgar society is led by the knighthood, which every Tulgar male aspires to. The knighthood covers every aspect of conflict, be it infantry, tanks or space fights. Each tulgaran planet has it’s own knighthood and is ruled by the knighthoods inner circle (which can be compared to a senate) and the knighthoods grandmaster. Tulgar women are very rarely knights, but those few are not frowned upon but rather pitied, since they can’t fill the role they should by tradition (the males traditionally are the providers and the women are the homemakers unless circumstances forbid it).

The nickname used by the other races is either “_wolf_” or derogatively “_doggie_”


(**) Falar have evolved from great predatory cats. All Falar walk upright, but tend to drop to all fours before pouncing an opponent. There are three races of Falar.

The Falanar is the largest and physically superior of the three races, averaging 2,3m and 250kg. Prrl’mur is one of them, descended from lion stock. 

The other two Falar races were the Falaron and the Falaris.
Falaris, having evolved from cheetahs and leopards, are the smallest and lightest of the Falar, but are extremely quick and agile. They average 1,5m and 60kg.
Falaron are somewhere in between the other two and derived from panther, cougar or lynx stock. They average 1,9m and 140kg.

The Falar culture is brutal. The lions are firmly on top of the strict racial hierarchy in the empire. With this comes exaggerated arrogance, but also deadliness. Putting yourself on top of anything makes you a target, and the Falanar, from both lion and tiger stock, are all vicious.

They know just as little honour among themselves as they demonstrate it to other races. For them it is permissible to take anything one has the strength to take. All that does count for them is physical power, pride (which is (mis)taken for honour) and courage. This combination usually decides the ranking order. In that order the superior rules the inferior ruthlessly but it is far from static, since positions can be gained by challenging the superior, or gaining reputation and prestige in battles. In  principle, all races other than Falar are by definition inferior.

To avoid misunderstandings, the Falar use a special kind of gloves without openings for the claws. If those gloves, called “prait-zar” are worn, they signal that the wearer doesn’t intend to make a challenge, whatever mistake in behaviour he might make in the eyes of his superior.

Other equipment the Falar use tends to fall into two categories: things that help them kill people and things that help them get to a place where they _can _kill people.

The derogative nicknames the other races use for them are “_cat_” for the Falanar, “_kitty_” for the Falaron and “_kitten_” for the Falaris.


(***) When a squire is promoted to knight he is presented a masterwork sword and upon joining the inner circle of a planets knighthood or upon performing an outstanding deed he is presented a monoblade. The monoblade is the mightiest melee weapon in known space. Its’ edge is only some nanometres thick and thus it can cut through nearly anything.

These blades are never given to non-Tulgar and if one was found in possession of such a blade, he would be asked to return it or suffer the consequences.
The swords are extremely valuable and, once received, are passed down from generation to generation. The owner leaves it to his most talented son, grandson or great-grandson.

Chrarons sword has been in the family of Honorrock for five generations. Her father promised it to her due to her bravery during an assignment for their planets Tulgar community. On his last assignment for the empire he did not take along his sword and his armor, because he felt the task, rounding up some peaceful Kagoth, unworthy for a knight. When he did not return, Chraron took the Monoblade and used her remaining credits to have his combat armour refitted for her.


(****) For Tulgar each knight is a noble and each noble a knight. The knights dedicate their life fully and completely to the protection of the community. They get a part of the municipality yield as life annuities in exchange.

In earlier times a Tulgar pack settling a new area assigned a fighter for protection. This fighter accepted the place name as his last name, e.g. “of Honorrock”. Soon it became custom that a fighter was only then recognized as a fully-fledged knight, when a pack selected him as protector. The "of" was equated with the accolade.

The established knights educated their sons as successors, that were again committed to their community and thus resumed the last name. As the settlement wave ebbed a knighthood established, which examined every child at a certain age. The promising ones were taken to the knighthoods estates, became squires and trained to become knights.

Meanwhile the "of" in the name only indicates that a Tulgars father is a knight. However he can only succeed his father by achieving knighthood himself. Thus all Tulgar can apply to become squire and maybe knight lateron, thereby gaining the “of”, regardless of his heritage. On the other side a Tulgar must take on great dishonour, to have the "of" revoked.

If a Tulgar selects an occupation other than knight, for example physician or craftsman, then he replaces "of" by "van" to indicate that he abandoned the title voluntarily.

After the Tulgar found out that there are more planets populated by their race, they also discovered, that each of these planets had created some similar order. They resolved to extend  their names in order to specify their origin. Now the country and the planet, from which the knight originates, are included additionally, e.g. Chraron of Honorrock from Talisia on Korgur.

Tulgar women are regarded equals to the men, they simply have to fulfil other tasks. They adopt the same "of" in their name as their brothers. When they marry, they assume the name of their husband.

However there are exceptions: outstanding women, who attain so much honour, that their men choose to assume their names. There are few, yet one of the best known Tulgar heroes is Taron of Torbis. A mining colony on the moon Torbis was assaulted by a group of Valiesian pirates, who killed the knights and forced the rest to slave labour.

The young Taron not only managed to hide and survive, but also to bring all surviving children to a safe hiding place. Again and again she sneaked into the pirates camp to extract the last whelps from their hiding places and steal food. By the time the moon was recaptured by the Tulgar, who had learned of former attack two years later, Taron had lost none of the children. She was made a knight immediately and earned so much fame that years later her husband assumed her name.

(*****) Tulgar couples, who mate for life, usually have many children. They usually have between two and six whelps per litter and a healthy Tulgar woman can give birth every three to five years. The children of a litter are litter brothers and sisters and have a closer relationship to each other than to their other brothers and sisters.

---

This update introduced two new player characters, Chraron (obviously), a Tulgar explorer and the Oort tech (the player first designed Frank, then wanted to change to play an Oort and then wasn't there, when we introduced him. All i knew that he wanted to swear all the time...thus no name given)


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Sep 9, 2005)

04 – When ones velocity equals “ramming speed”

The ship had executed jump after jump, following the pre-programmed course in the navigation computer. On a display to the left, a program indicated how many jumps were still to be done, along with a countdown, when the next was to be.

“Hey guys, looks like we get home in a few minutes!” Rico said merrily.

“A wonder we are still alive. Any chance we can figure out, where the hell we are?” Martha retorted. “I should have stayed in that bunker! At least that would have saved me the boredom of this.”

“Yeah, you would be dead by now, hottie!”

“Bah, if we had enough oxygen in here you’d be toast.” She patted her flamer lovingly.

“And the ships interior, too. How long ‘til we jump, Rico?” Boris asked.

“Two minutes. Then, if we are really _really_ lucky, we are back home.” Frank said from the back. So all four were awake for the  crucial moment.

“About time, my indicator for air is in the red range. Yours, too, I guess. So what do we do, if we jump somewhere that is not home?”

They fell silent again, thinking about that situation, that was all too likely.

They would suffocate and couldn’t do anything about it but pray. It would be their last jump, one way or the other. Frank was weeping silently.

“Cut it out, sissy!” Martha whispered hoarsely.

The clock ran towards zero and Rico couldn’t help but count loudly “Three, Two, One…”

The four terrans closed their eyes as the ship disappeared in a bright yellow-white globe of light.

For the last time.

---

When the feeling of vertigo subsided, they opened their eyes.

They had arrived in an unknown galaxy.

But there was no time to despair.

In front of them they could see a star ship of unknown design, easily twenty times as big as their tiny shuttle.

And it was close – too close to do anything about the imminent collision. They were too fast for that and the other ship was likely too inert to pull out of their way.

“Prepare for impact!” Rico shouted over the proximity alert.

At the same time Boris and Martha were already fastening themselves to the back wall and frantically piled up the comatose technicians in front of them.

“What are you doing?!” Frank puzzled, as Rico jumped to the back and followed their example.

“We have no airbags and when we hit that thing the ones without suits are going to die anyway. That way they may help us survive the crash!” Boris answered, while he helped Rico. Frank managed to fasten himself, too, just in time before they hit the other ship in its midsection with full force.

---

“I live!” Martha was overjoyed. Debris was floating all around her, just like the corpses of the technicians and Franks assistant, who had had no space suits. She didn’t inspect them any further, the way the corpses looked they were beyond any help, even if they had had air.

Looking around, she could see the others move, too. Shrugging, she stood up, looking out for sharp metal parts that could damage her suit..

“It seems our engineers were right to include the possibility of a crash into their concept. Good that my objection for weight reasons was overruled.” Frank thought loudly.

So even that sissy scientist had survived. Martha could not like him. For him things seemed to be more important than people. On the other hand her business was killing people, so she stopped thinking about the issue any further and began finding a way out of the wreck.

About a minute later they were standing in front of a bulkhead. The controls of it bore strange signs, but apart from that it looked like a keypad. While Frank, being the last, still climbed out of the rest of their vessel, Boris began to hit keys on the pad at random.

So they weren’t scared, but rather amazed, when the door suddenly opened.

Their amazement turned to alarm, when they perceived two humanoid figures on the other side of the airlock. The closer one was about 1,9m tall and lean, wearing some kind of …chainmail, a …buckler and a …sword? It’s visor was closed so they could not see it’s face, but if their anatomy was not too different from their own, it was female. The other figure was even taller, about 2,3m and appeared to be massier. It wore some kind of ceramic armour and held a device in both hands that could only be some type of weapon. But most frightening were the figures legs. The legs looked just wrong. Below the knee, there was another joint, just like a dogs hind legs.

So, this was it.

The first contact with an alien race, the moment hundreds of fiction authors had fantasized about. This situation had something in common with most of their stories. They were standing face to face with a technologically superior species.

Sadly it seemed to be one of those stories, where both sides were pointing weapons at each other. And Boris had read enough of those stories to know the outcome of this.

So when the figure in the chainmail pointed at his weapon, then to the ground and then gestured holding ones hands up, he was rather relieved they weren’t killed immediately. He obeyed the order without making fast movements. 

“Martha, Rico, put down your weapons. With a bit of luck there is breathable air in their ship. And we do have lots of luck lately!”

“Sure, but remember that when it rains it pours! One could also see our whole odyssey as bad luck and now this. Rico, do you think they are happy we damaged their ship?” Martha answered sarcastically, while slowly putting her weapons to the ground.

“Oh, it could be worse, I guess. Maybe they want us to pay for the damage – and that means they have to bring us back home, so our company can compensate for the hull breach!” Rico sounded happy, while he toyed with his weapon belt that was fashioned like in some wild west movie.

“Or they experiment with us before we are enslaved and have to work in some mine.” Martha couldn’t help but paint a bleak picture. She hated being in the inferior position. What good was her flamer in space? She had to change her armament. Later.

“Martha, what kind of stories do you usually read? Your ideas sure sound grim.” Boris asked her as he stood up again. “Frank, what about you?”

Frank was weeping again and whined about them all being tortured before dying.

“Oh, well, thank you for lifting our spirits.” Boris switched to a private channel with Martha “You are right, he is a sissy.”

They all turned towards the two figures again, holding up their hands. Boris, who was still standing nearest, stretched out his hands with his palms upwards to show he was unarmed and willing to follow further orders.

The larger figure began to move towards them, it’s weapon still pointed at Boris head but suddenly spun around with amazing speed and began moving inside the ship.

“The knight” as Boris had titled the female (without knowing, just how close that image was to reality) motioned them to unload their arms and take them up again. Then she led them towards the next airlock, where the larger figure was pounding at a control panel impatiently.

Once inside they couldn’t help but gape. So this was like a star ship looked like from the inside! The knight caught Boris attention again and began gesturing. He pointed to the planet that could be seen through a window, lifted his right hand emulating a tumbling airplane and then clapped it into his other hand. Then he formed an explosion with both hands.

“Oh great, we are f***ed!” Boris couldn’t help but let his shoulders sag downwards in despair. “We have survived all this just to plummet onto that planet.” All four terrans turned towards their guards, hopelessly waiting for what would happen now.

The moment the inner door opened, their microphones picked up a sound that sounded alarming. The large figure began sprinting through one of the passages that could be seen. The knight nodded at them and started running, too, directly followed by a panicked Frank. The others couldn’t think of anything better, so they followed through a maze of corridors until they came into a hangar.

The knight ushered them inside the shuttle that was parked there and left immediately after everyone was aboard.

Looking around Boris couldn’t believe his eyes. The pilot had a cheetahs head, while the large figure from before had removed it’s helmet and had a lions head! Standing between them was a big egg. A furry egg with arms and feet, over a meter tall. And it seemed to produce noise without pausing. Then it helped them fastening some seatbelt like device. At least someone was trying to help them…

“Looks like there are different species aboard this ship!” Martha stated the obvious.

“Yeah, some cats with their living furry toy. The universe is more funny than I thought!” Rico replied with a grin that could be heard.

As the engines started, the female jumped inside the shuttle again and the door was closed by the furry being.

Immediately they were pressed into their seats, as the ship accelerated at a speed Rico was amazed at. When they started rolling he knew they had entered the planets atmosphere.

“Guys, no worries, the way this shuttle is shaking we entered into an atmosphere. So, if we are lucky again, we  can breathe there. If that planet belongs to them” he motioned towards the cat-people in the cockpit “the atmosphere in this shuttle should be the same as on the planet.”

The discussion about breathable air suddenly fell silent when the descent calmed down and the knight opened her visor. 

Expecting to see another cat, they were again taken by surprise. They stared at the head of a Wolf!

“Okay, that does it! Enough coincidence and luck and stuff. This is fate and I am sure we can breathe their air, too. At least my own supply is empty, so I’ll be the guinea pig.” Boris said and took off his helmet, taking in a deep breath. Then he gasped and twitched and collapsed in his seat.

Rico and Martha were sitting there, motionless and silent, while Frank again started to scream in despair.

Suddenly the wolf girl bared her fangs…and Boris sat up again, shaking with laughter.

Relieved, the others took off their helmets, too and joined in.


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Sep 29, 2005)

05 – Shipwrecked

The surface of the third planet in the Kale System was lit by the small blue star in the centre of this star system, accenting every contrast due to the hard light it emitted. The air was a breathable mix of nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases. The radiation level was just slightly above standard, but not dangerous.

Kale 3 also had water. 

That was the original reason, why the Rapid Claw had come here – to refuel it’s supplies of air and water. Usually the ships recycling systems would have spared it such a stop, but only military equipment was maintained in prime condition. So the systems were working at only 30% efficiency and the captain had arranged with it.

Aside from that the short shore leaves were good for his troops morale, since there usually was some animal life on the planets he chose for scooping air and water from. This allowed him to pursue his hobby – hunting.

Actually the captain of the Rapid Claw had gained his command by using the skills he had learned during his countless forays in the wilderness. He had developed a level of patience rarely found in the ranks of the Falar. 

Two years ago, after he had endured a low position for the same time span, they had landed on some border planet where he had talked the prior captain to go hunting with him. Lacking the equipment, M’rrol borrowed him one of his skinning knives. The contact poison was taking effect more than a day later and reduced the former captains reflexes. 

M’rrol had seized the chance and challenged him, before anyone else could notice anything. When they came back to their empires base, an autopsy failed to indicate the toxin, that had already dissolved days before.

Thenceforward the new captain had been watchful bordering on the paranoid. And he never took of his gloves.

---

“Send a distress call!”

“I am sorry, Captain, but our emergency power is insufficient to do so.”

M’rrol growled angry at his recent bad luck.

Naturally he had responded poorly to Prrrl’mur’s challenge and wasn’t surprised by the insubordination his security officer showed during this case of emergency.

“Can you track our shuttle at least? I want to know the exact location where they land.”

The small Falaris pilot smelled afraid. “But Sir, we will not survive the crash! All escape capsule were removed in exchange for torpedoes…”

“Silence!” thundered the large Falar. He was disgusted by the obvious display of cowardice. “We are aboard an imperial warship. Certainly hitting the surface will not destroy it completely. We will fill the bridge with the hard foam we have for such a case – that should help us survive the impact. Then we will recapture the shuttle and call for a rescue team. Assemble all experienced soldiers on the bridge, armed and armored. I don’t care for the rest.”

“Yes, Sir!”

---

The shuttles landing had been unspectacular. After leaving the shuttle they could see craggy terrain, covered with grasses and brushwood. Slowly the humans took their helmets off and began removing their bulky suits, without making any fast movements. Finally they stood there, three males and a female. Three had a short haircut, like usually met in the military, while one male had a ponytail.

Also they were smelling like they had been in those suits for more than a day. Chraron was wrinkling her snout involuntarily. Poor humans, she thought, with such a smell, hunting must be really hard. 

“I told you to disarm them!” Prrrl’mur bawled out. He strode towards Chraron shaking with rage. “Why can’t you dogs follow simple orders?”

“Considering the emergency…” the Tulgar woman started, but the Falar cut her short.

“I do not want you to think.” He picked up a stick from the ground, and snidely proceeded “I want you to obey! Fetch!” and threw the stick into some brushes.

Instinctively her hand fell to her swords hilt. If only she wasn’t…she wasn’t! She was free to teach that moron a thing or two! Chraron still hadn’t accustomed to her new freedom. But he still was her superior in rank, so she needed a reason to draw her monoblade against him. And a simple insult was no reason. 

So she did what she had to do – carry out the order.

---

The Terrans watched the scene.

“Looks like they have a heated argument! I just hope that the wolf wins!” Martha commented.

“Listen up! Our feminist speaks!” Rico replied as he stepped away from her.

“Please, stop it. And I prefer to call her “knight”. What do we do?” Boris interrupted the two.

“How about cleaning ourselves? We smell horrible!” Franks answer came from behind a brush next to them.

“Sure, step right into some ditch so that an unknown kind of animal can bite in our behinds…”

This comment from Rico was rewarded with a shrill yell by Frank.

“Wait, is that some giant tick on your cheek?” Martha continued the age-old tradition of playing games with the teams’ greenhorn. 

“Ok, that’s enough, you two. Frank, calm down. No, there is no tick. I repeat my question, what should we do now?” Boris interfered. Both Martha and Rico sulked like school kids, but had to admit that they had no time for that. Even though Frank was the perfect victim.

“I say let’s be curious. And curiosity kills the cat. So let’s kill that cat.” Rico still was too playful in Boris opinion.

“Martha?”

“You’re the boss, so it’s you decision.”

“What do you mean kill one of the aliens? You can’t be serious? When their rescue ships arrive and you have killed one of them, we will all die!”

“Frank, this is a military decision, so stop talking. We will ask you if we need your opinion.”

“But you asked, what we should do?” Frank persisted.

“Yes, I asked the members of my team. You are a guest. We need to act quickly, maybe someone survived the crash of the big ship and we can’t afford to fight them with someone at our back.”

“Why do you think they will attack?” Frank didn’t hold out.

“If I were the captain of a ship and someone damaged it so that I crash on some planet after seeing them fly off in my own shuttle and I survive – believe me I would do anything to pay them back!” Boris tone made clear he would not discuss this topic any further.

Martha eyed the display of her ammunition. “My flamer is still half full and the machine gun still has some bursts in it. I say we shoot the cat, because I don’t like it and see what happens.”

“Yeah, it certainly looks too dangerous to kill it unarmed!” Rico replied.

Boris had made up his mind. “Still we better go near first, so we do not miss our initial attacks. Looks like our path is set. Rico and I flank him to prevent him from fleeing. When I nod, we attack.”

“You will get us all killed” Frank whispered, sat down, head between his knees and started into a crying fit. 

---

As Chraron was looking for the stick her thoughts were racing. How could she challenge the Falar without violating the knighthoods protocol by disobeying the ranking order.

The solution presented itself as soon as she turned around to bring back the stick.

Her human fosterlings were approaching Prrrl’mur, carrying their arms casually. Too casually for her liking. They were up to something. Certainly the Falar would have noticed it, too, and had come to the same conclusions. She was sure that he was faster than those monkeys, which would mean death for at least one of them.

But after protecting the artefact, protecting them was her next priority, higher even than following military ranks. So she had to intervene. Chraron quickened her pace and arrived at Prrrl’mur’s right side before the humans were too near.

As she presented the stick, the Falar refused it with a short flick of his ears. His eyes were fixed at the trio that had been delayed by the Oort technician who was swearing and gesticulating wildly.

“They will attack. Stupid monkeys!” Prrrl’mur said with low voice while he shifted his weight and lowered his hand towards his hazzok.

“I will not tolerate any harm to be done to them.” Chraron informed him.

“I don’t need your help, dog, I can take them on my own.” Obviously he hadn’t paid any attention to the exact meaning of her words. Not her problem, she had been almost too fair to warn him in advance.

So the Tulgar, too, layed her hand on her swords hilt and took her favourite stance for drawing it as fast as possible. She had to wait for the cat to move first, after all and being too slow would result in one human being killed.

---

Finally the three humans took positions around Prrrl’mur and, much to everyones surprise, addressed him in the basic imperial tongue. Or rather the translator, the Oort had filled with every accessible information and modified to learn their variation of the human dialects had given them, did. The translation given was awkward but getting better over time.

“Cat, me Boris, who you?” the box snivelled as Boris nodded towards his opponent and Martha pulled up her gun.

As soon as her shoulder started to move, the Falar already had his hazzok halfway out of the scabbard. He aimed for her right shoulder, with the intent of severing the arm and torturing her later when he was done with the other traitors. Suddenly, just as Marthas barrel had started to rise, his vision tilted to the side and became red. The last he could see was the ground falling towards him. Then there was nothing.

---

Martha could not believe her eyes. That cat was fast – far too fast for her. As soon as she realized this, the situation was over. Her guns barrel had barely moved 5 cm when the Tulgaran blade was in it’s sheath again.

Martha’s jaw dropped. Rico stared. Boris was awestruck.

He was experienced in knife combat and had done Kendo for several times, but never had he seen anyone moving or striking as fast as that cat. And the knight had been faster still. She must be a master of  both Iaitsu and swordplay. In the blink of an eye she had drawn the blade, used the motion to cut through the massive lionman starting from his lower ribs up through his left shoulder (effectively cutting him in two) and resheathed it. *

He dropped his rifle and bowed deeply towards Chraron. “We owe you our lives, please spare us.”

Out of his translator he could hear metallic laughter.

“Of course I will spare you. I am Chraron of Honorrock, of the Tulgar race and I will protect you.”

-----

*: This was some tremendous rolling of Chrarons player. I asked for quick-draw to see who was faster, after she had a better initiative than the cat and readied for it to strike. She rolled open-ended here (something like 190+). Then, when it came to the attack, she rolled open-ended again, attacking with a total of over 150. When asked to roll for the criticals, well, you expect it, the E critical was over 90. With a series of rolls that perfect I could do nothing but applaud (although i would have liked to use Prrrl'Mur as the first example fight showing that melee can be dangerous, too. Well, on the other hand, that goal was achieved...  )


----------



## N' Scur rah (Sep 29, 2005)

*A question to the readers*

Hello, I am Chrarons player.

Although I like the traditional ways of the Tulgar and their paladin-like honour, meanwhile I am a little bit unsure of how far I can stress that point when playing my character, without lessening the other players fun.

Basically I don't want to interfere with the other players plans, but then sometimes they come up with ideas I feel Chraron has to intervene. 

Should I interfere when the others e.g. are setting up an ambush, like in the latest chapter?

Does anyone have any advice for me in the regard of playing a honourable character and still not reducing anyones fun?

N'Scur


----------



## Infernal Teddy (Oct 3, 2005)

Das ist IMMER das Problem mit Paladinen und ähnliches...   Either they understand that you're playing the character, or they don't...


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Oct 6, 2005)

06 - Harm set, harm get.

“Let me introduce us, Chraron. These are Rico, our pilot and Dodger, our weapons expert. I am Boris, a diplomat of our company.”

“An armed diplomat? You are used to heated arguments then, I presume?” 

“I can care for my own in a conflict, but heating things is really Martha’s field of expertise…” Boris replied with a glance at the heavy flamer they had left back at the shuttle.

“Oh, and that picture of misery is Frank, a scientist. He is crying since we saw your ship – he believes that the universe is out to kill him. Which brings me back to topic number one. I think that the survivors of the crash will come here to take control of the shuttle.”

“Oh yes, and there will be survivors. You stained their honour and that is something they will never forgive. It’s them or us now.”

Boris nodded in agreement, relieved that his instincts seemed to work, too, when it came to aliens. On the other hand every new race they had met yet was not too different from his own. But that was something he could ponder about later. First of all, they had to prepare.

“I say we set up a trap for them. They’ll come from the side and try to surprise us…”

“No.” the Tulgar interrupted. “When their anger is burning, they won’t go about this logically. They will come here directly.”

“Boss, she’s the expert, so let’s prepare for a direct assault. It’ll make things easier.” Martha spoke out on that.

“Very well, you two are my fighting experts. We’ll dig in grenades in their direction, one every ten meters. Everyone keeps two grenades for emergencies. Then we’ll improvise some cover and then we wait for someo… thing to appear. Frank, you are on watch, so that we won’t be taken by surprise. Everyone got that? Go!”

They worked frantically for the next couple of minutes, digging holes, camouflaging grenades and building makeshift cover.

---

“Freeze!” M’rrol roared.

His plan had worked perfectly. He had known that choosing patience over instinct would be the key for success here. 

He had split his team into three groups of 3 Falar each, and ordered them to sneak to a designated position to wait for his signal. His team was on the starboard of the shuttle, the second team had crept near from portside and the third had snuck up from the rear. All were armed with assault blasters and wore combat armour.

“You have vanquished Prrrl’Mur. Impressive, for monkeys. Thank you for doing my work for me. Now, lay down your weapons and…”

A large detonation ripped the next words from his maw. One of the buried grenades had exploded as a Falaris of the second team had left his position in anticipation of their victory and stepped on it. When his torso fell to the ground, twitching, the dying soldier pulled the trigger of his blaster.

Chaos ensued.

Two humans dove for cover,  one fiddled about with a grenade and one turned in his direction and opened fire with a machine gun. At the same time the Tulgar – M’rrol couldn’t remember the name, but it certainly would include honour at some spot – turned towards the team at the shuttles rear and charged with her sword held high.

His troops, however, were experienced soldiers and lost no time to return fire. Some of their shots managed to hit the humans despite of their cover, and the one wielding the machine gun was hit twice.

Still they were standing and fought back. The Tulgar had already disarmed two opponents, literally, the second team was covered with suppressive fire and his new security officer lay dying in front of him for all the exoskeleton combat armor he wore. Obviously this machine gun was loaded with HEAP* ammunition.

“Enough is enough!” the imperial captain thought as he lost his temper.

“FOR THE JERONAN EMPIRE! CHARGE!”

Another explosion cracked in his ears, accompanied by a huge ball of flame near the shuttle. That stupid human had dropped the primed grenade at his feat, close to the flamer – the result tasted like BBQ with napalm. Well, he wouldn’t pass on his genes, for sure. M’rrol couldn’t help but be amused by this display of inferiority.

---

Lt. Rico felt the immense heat at his back. When he turned around, he saw the charred corpse of Frank fall to the ground, immolated in the flaming liquid Martha’s flamethrower used.

“Frank is dead! Wait what’s that…” he saw something small and white speed into the shuttle, but before getting a closer look, a blaster shot tore apart his left shoulder. “Medic!”

“We have no medics, Rico, keep shooting!” Dodger replied as she felled another opponent with a burst from her gun. “Look at that charging cat, it’s huge! Must be the lea…” 

The captains blaster shot perforated her right lung and Dodger fell, unconscious and bleeding.

For Boris time seemed to slow down. His team members out of action and a huge charging lion he needed to decide fast on what to do. “Chraron! Behind you!” with that, he turned and threw his last grenade towards the attackers coming from port.

---

Chraron heard the shout and finished her duty. Three cats unconscious, three weapon arms severed. These would pose no more problems. She turned and saw the captain slow down 30m away from her. He grinned and raised his assault blaster. She could see right into the guns barrel. “He’s too far away” she thought.

---

The pain! It felt like some red-hot crowbar plunged into her chest. Martha could see the ground fall towards her and then - she was standing upright, an assault blaster in her…claws(?!) and could see the captains back. Also she could see herself lying on the ground, her blood flowing freely.

“What the f***?! Ah, if this is my last dream I must savor it!” Martha Dodger said aloud, aimed at the lionmans exposed back and pulled the trigger. The weapons switch was set to “automatic fire”. He had no chance.

---

Rico grew weaker with every second due to blood loss. When he heard Dodger uttered something that sounded like “meow” he blamed his blood loss. Then he could see two feet – obviously not human. When he looked up he could see a grinning tigers head. The Falaron aimed at his head and...suddenly Rico was sitting behind the shuttles flight controls, throttle in his…claw? A glance in the mirror above him showed the Falaris pilot that had brought them down, but he knew that was him now.

Whatever had happened, Rico was quick at adjusting to new situations. He checked the sensors, floored the throttle and let the shuttle leap forward. In the process one Falar standing near the shuttles exhausts was turned to ashes before Rico squashed the cat (that had just shot him) with the shuttles landing gear.

---

“So you say you are Martha?”

“Yes” answered the lynx stock Falaron in perfect Terran. “But please call me Dodger, Martha is lying over there, dead. I always knew I would die when my flamer explodes!” Dodgers new grin was even more unnerving than her old one. Those fangs!

“And you are Rico?” Boris looked at the small Falaris pilot.

“Yessir. I don’t know what happened, but I think it’s cool – my reflexes are far better than before! Plus I now know how to speak Falar!”

Boris sighed and turned towards the Oort. “Then you are Frank, I guess?”

“Hairless monkey! Why should I call myself Frank? You talk as stupid as your species usually is!” the translator told Boris.

“Hmm, well, I’m ok with that. So we only have one loss and defeated all survivors of that ship. A good result I’d say! Well done, team! Let’s fly to the wreck.”

“After arming yourselves and collecting the trophies of this skirmish, of course?” Chraron asked. “You wouldn’t leave military equipment behind, would you?”

Boris shook his head. “Of course not! Let’s get to work then. Oh, is looting okay for your codex, Chraron?”

“Since we defeated them in battle, their equipment is now rightfully in our possession. Apart from that I will not use Falar equipment, but I don’t mind if you do.”

“Please tell us, if there is anything you would like to have. We are in your debt!” Boris bowed towards the Tulgar and began collecting everything of interest.

After retrieving the remaining grenades and looting the fallen they buried the three human corpses and left for the site where the Rapid Claw had crashed.

---

* HEAP = High Explosive Armor Piercing


----------



## Dougal DeKree (Oct 28, 2005)

07 – To set the ball rolling

When the group arrived at the site of the crash, their morale sank. The Rapid Claw was obviously beyond repair and would be of no use for leaving the planet. Parts that had been ripped off by the force of the impact lay scattered in a radius for up to two miles around the wreck.

As soon as they had landed and left the shuttle, they noticed that the place also began to reek of death. Several corpses and torn off body parts could be seen lying around in the debris. When they searched the wreckage, they found some tracks leading away for about 200m. At the tracks end they found another crash victim. A bear-like humanoid had obviously survived the crash, crawled away and died later due to severe internal injuries.

“This is a Kagoth.” Chraron informed them “He was the doctor of the Rapid Claw. Despite their immense physical size the Kagoth are extremely pacifistic, without exceptions. She had great honour for serving on a military vessel only to care for the wounded. I will bury her.”

After rummaging the site Boris made an inventory of the usable things they had found. Several personal weapons, ammunition, grenades, digging charges, energy cells, suits of personal armour, food that would last them for several weeks, survival kits and tons of trivia. And they had found the wreck of their own jump ship. The drive seemed to be beyond repair however.

When he was done, Rico motioned him to come into the shuttle.

“What’s up, Rico? You could have used your headset, you know?”

“No, I don’t think so. Before I…switched bodies, I think I saw something white speed inside the shuttle. Now I took some time to search it and I think I found something.”

“Well?” Boris grew impatient. A mad pilot that now started hallucinating. Wonderful.

Rico led Boris towards the large block of metal, Chraron had brought aboard the shuttle before they had left the Rapid Claw. But now there was an opening at one side of the cube.

“Don’t touch it!” Boris whispered. “Chraron? Please join us in the shuttle! Boris over.” “Acknowledged”

A minute later the three were inspecting the artefact.

“Any idea what happened and why?” Boris asked. “What is this thing good for anyway?”

“I don’t know” the Tulgar woman admitted. “I only had the duty to protect it. Let’s see what’s inside.” She went to her knees to reach inside.

Suddenly she could hear panting from the inside, like from some small animal. She made a noise she hoped to be soothing and looked inside.

About 20cm away from her face sat a small white dog, wearing a blue shirt, smiling broadly. * (I included a picture of him at the end of this post)

Wagging his tail he stood up, walked towards her and licked her cheek.

Chraron stood up again, carrying their new acquaintance on her arms. A large “1” was printed on the back of his shirt.

“Looks to be friendly. Where did he come from?” The dog raised his right paw, pointing towards the sky.
“Oh! You understand us?” The dog nodded.
“Did you help us?” The dog nodded again.
“How?” The dog pointed at the artefact.
“Can you help us get away from this planet?” Rico threw in jokingly.

The dog turned to look at him, nodded slowly, jumped from Chrarons arm and sped inside the cube. A moment later he reappeared and the block of metal changed. It seemed to melt, forming a silvery puddle on the shuttles floor. Then the floor dissolved.

“Everyone out! And take our “friend” with us!” Boris shouted as he fled from the shuttle. When Dodger arrived about two minutes later, the shuttle was half gone and parts of the silvery puddle were flowing uphill, towards the wreckage.

“What the heck is going on here? I leave you alone for some minutes and you destroy our shuttle?!” she yelled at Rico.

“Actually that dog did it!”

“Ha! Hiding behind some small animal, that’s typical for you!”

“I would say we all calm down and wait to see what happens. How about some lunch?” Chraron interfered. “By the way, his name is “Wusel”.”

“Wusel, eh? How do you know that?”

The Tulgar just shrugged.

“Well, I think Chraron is right. It seems to be getting dark and we all need some sleep. We’ll have one watch, two hours each. Maybe tomorrow things look different.” Boris agreed. They put up some tents and soon snoring could be heard.

---

The next dawn came and with it a small miracle. The debris was gone, as were the corpses. But nobody really cared for these facts, they were all focusing on something else. In the middle of a plain part of earth stood the lower third of some kind of star ship. And it was getting more complete with every minute.

“By the emperors a**. That must be frickin’ nano-technology! It’s only known as an insane theory!!!” The Oort exclaimed. Dodger had to lift him up to stop him from entering the silvery puddle that was swashing around inside the partial ship.

Boris turned back towards Wusel and gave him a close look. The small dog was all grins.

“Very well, good that I suppressed my first urge to shoot you, when our shuttle dissolved.” He mumbled.

Wusel tried to hide between Chrarons arms, whining.

“Leave him alone!” Rico stepped between. “I can’t wait to see what I get to fly here! Thank you, number 1!”

“I think this dog is suspicious!” Dodger growled. “He is running around the whole time and he is still white. Look at his paws! That’s too strange for me. I say we lock him up in some crate.”

“When he has technology that builds star ships from scrap metal, he can also have something that cleans him constantly.” Rico reasoned.

---

At dusk the ship was complete. Most parts were identical to those of the Rapid Claw, but some others were unknown to the Oort scientist. Aside from that it had everything a star ship needed and even had the guns of the imperial ship. Very peculiar was the fact, that also the jump-drive of their old ship was installed, but in an appropriate size.

But again no member of the group cared. They only wanted to leave as soon as possible, just in case some other imperial ship could drop by and discover what was going on here. So they hurried to stow away their salvage.

“We are ready for take-off.” Rico told the others, when everything was done and started the engines. Without any problems they took off and left the atmosphere.

As they were flying away from the planet, Rico took some time to inspect the ships systems more thoroughly.
He had taken a liking to the small dog and had him sitting on his lap while toying around with the touch screen in front of him. 

“Hey, look here, we have a starmap on that screen and some green  and yellow lines between star systems! And four are highlighted, two green ones and two yellow ones.”

Chraron, who had some experience in flying star fighters, took a look at the map.

“The green lines are obviously jump-gate connections between star systems. I know some of these routes, the highlighted green lines go through the jump gates of this system. Both lead into imperial space. I don’t know what the yellow lines are, though.”

“Ok, we can find that out later. Any idea where we should go?” Boris asked.

Wusel turned his head and nodded towards Boris.

“Ah, our saviour speaks” Dodger suspected. “You can’t let that dog do everything that it wants! None of us knows what it is up to!” 

“Well, so far he has gotten us away from that planet. So, what do you propose, Nr.1?”

Wusel touched one of  highlighted yellow lines. The ship began to alter it’s course and a mere second later they had entered hyperspace.

Boris had been caught off guard. “If I ask you something, dog, that is no free license to *do* anything. I wanted to know what you wanted to do, and not that you do what you did!”

The dog looked at him and Boris could have sworn he heard it chuckle. Of course dogs can't chuckle.

“Seriously, dude, where are we going?” Rico asked Wusel.

Some paw pads later the screen showed an asteroid field, highlighting one of the bigger ones.

“Ah, that’s his home!” Rico exclaimed.

“How do you know that?” Boris inquired, but Rico just shrugged.

“Ok, can’t do anything about it now. We will use the time until we get there to become familiar with the ships controls and functions.”

---

Twenty hours later their ship dropped out of hyperspace, exactly five minutes after a humming sound had awakened all those who were using the time to catch some sleep. They could see an asteroid field that looked nearly like it had on the screen. Only that there was another spaceship at the outer rim of it.

“I am scanning a second ship inside the field. It masses about 600 tons, the one we can see weighs a little more than 1000 tons. Both are armed. They look like pirate ships to me.” Chraron informed the others. “Space is beautiful. Oh, I really love this big screen! Middle sized imperial ships don’t have those, they fly solely by their sensors.”

“Really? Why is that?” Rico inquired.

“It’s considered unnecessary luxury.”

“Ok, anyways, I will now call them to see what they are doing here. Can you open a channel, Rico?”

“Right away, Sir.”

“Hello, my name is Boris! Can you tell us, where we are?”

After a short static noise a cold voice told them “Nice trick, imperial scum, but we won’t fall for that. Prepare to die!”.

The bigger of the two ships turned towards them and the smaller one made it’s way out of the asteroid field.

“No, really, we are not imperials! We only want to talk!” Boris tried again.

“Hah! Sure thing! Do you think we are idiots? Your ship is equipped with blaster cannons – the like used by imperial gunboats. Thus you are imperials.”

“Listen, if you give us time, we can explain how we got to these weapons. We really don’t want to fight!”

“Ah, let me guess, you only want to dock with us so we can talk?”

“That’s a good idea! Exactly! Talk, that’s what we want!”

“Mhmm and as soon as we open the airlock your boarding crew will storm my ship. No, thank you, I prefer to kill you and take your stuff or what’s left of it! Or you could surrender…”

Boris took a deep breath and turned towards Rico, switching off the radio.

“Can you shoot their engines without destroying their ship?”

Rico shrugged. “I don’t know these weapons, but I can try.”

“If we aim properly, they should survive” Chraron mentioned as she sat down at a gunnery console. “But we should do it right the first time. You know, space fights with ships like these don’t take long, usually.”

“My screen indicates they are entering our fire range in 3 seconds. Permission to fire?”

“Granted.” Boris acknowledged.

Rico, Martha and Chraron opened fire simultaneously. Rico’s shot destroyed the ships forward manoeuvring thrusters, Martha vaporized the other ships gun turret and Chraron hit a vital spot – the energy distributor. Thus the other ship drifted on, weaponless and running only on emergency power.

(The group really was astonished by their success, disabling the other ship in the first round completely. They first cheered but then someone asked, what might have happened if they had not won the initiative roll. I only grinned and they discussed about how to avoid future space fights. Hehe.)

They were hailed.

Boris motioned Rico to accept the call.

“Damn you, imperials! We will not become your slaves! When you try to board us we will self destruct!”

“As I told you before, we are not imperials and we have no notion of boarding you…” Boris tried again.

“Lies! Only imperials shoot that precisely!”

Boris cut the transmission again. “These guys really are morons. Call the other ship, Rico.”

“Listen, maybe you are not as stupid as the other captain, we are *not* imperials and we do *not* want to fight or board anyone.” 

“Yeah, whatever. Mind if we just take the others into tow and leave?” a female voice answered.

“Permission granted. Just tell me one thing - what were you doing here?”

“Oh, we had a look at the roids, but they are no good for mining. Thank you for letting us go – if you ever come to the station in the Fortress-system and need something, contact Klaus in the Marina-Bar, he can help you find us, Boris. Bye!”

Some minutes later the small ship had dragged the damaged vessel out of close sensor range and another thirty minutes later, the energy system obviously had been repaired,  both were accelerating away from them.

“Mark their course, Rico. Now, I say we wait until they leave our sensor range and then we look for that “home” of yours, Number 1.”

Wusel nodded and smiled broadly.

---


----------

