Travellers' Tales

[Disembodied]

Inspired by Eric's bug report of a hostile cargo cannister (also encountered by Liquidator), I'd like to encourage people to report any wild and far-out happenings from the murkier corners of the spacelanes. Anything a sceptic might feel is inspired by too much Hoopy Juice, or an overdose of Medicinal Megaweed, or just another case of Anaconda Piloting Boredom Syndrome... but which you insist is true...

(Please note this is NOT for genuine bug reports! Fiction only -- although that's not to say they couldn't incorporate some kernel of truth.)

After all, it is a pretty strange ooniverse out there. I was on the end of a long run to Reenus once, in Galaxy 2. A looong run: 14 jumps, skimming fuel half the time because I'd sunk so much dough into the contract (a sweet little deal to ship in a stash of gemstones for the coronation of the latest year-king... impact rubies the size of your head, guys). There wasn't much change left out of a hundred grand, so I was keeping costs down to a minimum. Me and the old Radio Maru were both pretty well cooked when we dropped out the Witch into Reenus space.

It's a Feudal world, so I upped the taps on the adrenalin feed a couple of notches, just to stay sharp, 'cos it's not like you can expect any help from the local Blues, right? Anyway, there I was, out by the beacon, lining up for the final run into the station, and I get this squawk: "Help! We are assailed by brigands!" A Moray Medical, it was, out on the fringe of scanner range. Now, I got a soft spot for the Medicals: I guess we all do, right? I didn't have much more than a sneeze of fuel left, after the trip in from Qucedi, but I lit up the injectors anyway and hustled on over to the Moray. He was flipping and twisting all over, and was being pretty well fried by two Mambas and a Krait, with a big Black Dog Python just lazily cruising in to pick up the pieces.

Well, I evened up that fight pretty fast. Mamba one, he never even saw me coming; and Mamba two was dead before he could think to blink. The Krait swung around and targeted me, but I ignored him and got his daddy's attention with a well-placed burst up the tailpipe. He popped a missile at me but I'd hit the ECM before it had cleared his ship, and I guess that spoiled his day. He rolled around and scuttled sunwards.

By this time the Krait was making a bit of a dent in my back end, so I slammed the anchors, flipped around and pushed my laser into the red all over his nose. That was enough for him; he fired his injectors and shot off like a scalded Ramazan. I turned back to chase down the Black Dog: I don't like pirates at the best of times and besides, the Radio Maru had an empty belly...

I was homing in on him, with my laser ticking down cool again, and was just about to give him a dose when there was a... a shudder, right there against the background of space, and all of a sudden this Imperial Courier just materialised in front of the Dog. Imp ships give me the willies most times, but seeing one pop out of nothing like that just about made me purge my tanks. I swear to Giles, one moment it was just me and the Python, the next, there it was all leggy and silver and looking like a hungry vulture. It opened up on the Python and in no time flat turned it into a ball of dust and cargo pods. One cannister -- machinery, it was, tractor parts or some such -- even shot out straight down the Radio Maru's neck.

I got out of there fast, I can tell you. Empty belly or no, I wasn't going to hang around playing catch-the-cans with that thing. I poured what little fuel I had left into the pipes and pushed off in-system. When I looked back: nothing. No debris, no Courier, nothing at all. I hope that Moray Medical made it out: I blipped off a "Good night, and good luck" into his last general volume, but man, I wasn't hanging around to check.

The rest of the run-in was as empty as you could wish for. Which was probably just as well: I was so itchy I nearly launched a missile when the station pinged up on the scanner. I barely noticed the droids unshipping the cargo, and damn near forgot to check the credit statement, too.

I told the story to the station-master. Stupid, I know: he thought I was crazy and I think was all for locking me down, but my psych-license is up-to-date. I calmed down a bit anyway and started to think it was just starstroke, or maybe a dodgy valve on the adrenalin feed or something. But later, when I saw the two Mambas and their bounties in my killfile, and sold off a ton of machinery that I absolutely, positively never bought, I knew something screwy had happened. You ever hear of anything like that? The Imp Courier's a pretty damn big ship, and makes a good-sized dent on the scanner -- which, by the way, was just newly serviced before I made the run -- so there's no way I could have missed it. There's no way the Python could have missed it, either, so why the hell did he run slap bang under its guns? I dunno, man. Still, all in all it was a good run, and I got a taste for Thitle brandy... what are you having? It's my shout, I'm sure...

[Captain Hesperus]

Very nice! I like a bit of flavour in this game, it gives our player characters, well, character. If it were my place to do so, I'd run a regular forum specifically for short fan-fic pieces (nothing on the scale of the EBBS's HPA Sagas, obviously). 255*8 worlds with however many millions of pilots, passengers and whatnot is sure to churn out a massive repository of Tales from the Black....

Great writing.

Captain Hesperus

[Disembodied]

Cheers, Captain H! Incidentally, did you ever bump into Bad-Weather Heather? Python pilot, from Inera? Claims she can forecast solar storms with her lower knee-joints? I think she once maybe had a thing going with your guy Rus: either that or he owes her money. Or maybe both. Anyway, she swears up and down that she was hauling in to Ceedra one time, and came across an asteroid carved into the shape of a huge eyeball, with a forked tail dangling off it. She flew in to get a closer look, and the whole thing swivelled towards her and -- her words -- gave her a glare so hard she ran on injectors all the way in to the docking port. No-one else on her crew saw it, though, and she was pretty far down her seventh helping of Za brew when she told me, so... I did mention it to her again, later, when I bumped into her in a Wolfit stall on Arazaes, but she just rolled her eyes and said there was a big flare on the way and she had to hustle.

There are some pretty crazy lizards on Ceedra, right enough, but I don't know if any of them are far enough off-beam to want to do something like that, while still being capable of actually doing it, if you see what I mean, but I've always wondered... Anyway, if you see her, you could ask her. Except maybe don't bring Rus along when you do.

[Commander McLane]

I was homing in on him, with my laser ticking down cool again, and was just about to give him a dose when there was a... a shudder, right there against the background of space, and all of a sudden this Imperial Courier just materialised in front of the Dog. Imp ships give me the willies most times, but seeing one pop out of nothing like that just about made me purge my tanks. I swear to Giles, one moment it was just me and the Python, the next, there it was all leggy and silver and looking like a hungry vulture. It opened up on the Python and in no time flat turned it into a ball of dust and cargo pods. One cannister -- machinery, it was, tractor parts or some such -- even shot out straight down the Radio Maru's neck.

I got out of there fast, I can tell you. Empty belly or no, I wasn't going to hang around playing catch-the-cans with that thing. I poured what little fuel I had left into the pipes and pushed off in-system. When I looked back: nothing. No debris, no Courier, nothing at all. I hope that Moray Medical made it out: I blipped off a "Good night, and good luck" into his last general volume, but man, I wasn't hanging around to check.

Hey, why are you telling this to everybody here, man! I knew I made a mistake when I let an eye-witness get away! (Note to self: First finish them all, then start scooping the left-overs!) And, if it makes you happier to know it: The Moray Medical did not make it out.

[Disembodied]

Hey, why are you telling this to everybody here, man! I knew I made a mistake when I let an eye-witness get away! (Note to self: First finish them all, then start scooping the left-overs!) And, if it makes you happier to know it: The Moray Medical did not make it out.

Ho, Commander: that's a pretty twisted sense of humour you've got there! I know you fly an Imperial Courier, right enough, but I can't see you hanging around a dead-end joint like Reenus, without having some pressing... er... business...

OK, maybe someone put a marker down on that Black Dog, but I don't see you as the type that gets his jollies popping Moray Medicals. I'm sure I've seen you drop them a few creds whenever they come round the bars, rattling their collection tins.

Anyway, what about the whole now-you-see-me-now-you-don't trick? Nah... the more I think about it, the more it seems likely that there was some solar fluctuation, some kind of ion pocket maybe that the Imp was sitting in, messing with the scanners, mine and the Dog's. Either that or... um... something to do with marsh gas?

In any case, aren't you hanging around in Galaxy 5 these days? Is it true that you can go magma-surfing on Geesla's volcanoes?

[Cmdr. Maegil]

Speaking of black dog Pythons, I recall one time I was attacked by one - or the wreck of it, at least!
When I saw it first, I thought it to be just a battered renegade hulk, turrets bristling on the severely breached, rusty hull... It was unpowered and appeared ancient.
I didn't give it much attention, we've all crossed such perennial corpses of a million battles, right?

But I should have, as when I was passing within range the thing suddenly powered up and started firing at me with all it had, hitting me hard. It took me a lot of sweet flying to clear the turret's range, but then I managed to shoot back at the ambushing pirate.

Or not!!!

To my great surprise, the lasers went right by the hulk as if it wasn't there!
"Naa, you just missed", you're thinking, right? So did I, and shot it again and again - to no effect - until I received an audio haling; a deep and sinister voice mocking me and saying that such a plucky fellow'd fit nicely in his crew.

And his name was... no, I cant!

Oh, how considerate, a drink for the nerves...
...all right, the Captain's name was... Ghost Pirate LeChuck!

Well, as for how it ended: all I wanted was to get away from that thing. I fed my Asp's injectors and the Python kept up easily, I fired my missile to try and slow it down but just got this blood-curdling snickering; finally that got me so shook up I forced a mis-jump on low fuel.

I got lucky and survived, and now I always shoot at any hulk I find before approaching it. And if you kids have any sense, you should, too!

[Dr. Nil]

@Disembodied: Very nice. A well written tale. Pearls like this deserve to be saved somewhere. Perhaps someone could make a collection of Tales from the Space Bars and put them on the wiki or on some separate Oolite page.

[Disembodied]

Thanks, Doc -- glad you liked it. And Maegil: pretty eerie, right enough!

Did you ever hear the story of Herman Seven Thursday? Old Herman, he was a green furry rodent from Cediza, and he flew a Cobra 1 called the Magic Fish. By all accounts he was a solid guy, a good pilot and a sharp trader too. Back when the Cobra 1 was still a pretty mean ship, Herman racked up some fat deals before the lanes got all cluttered up like they are now. He took the Fish all over, and wasn't afraid to run through a dozen Anarchies if there was money to be made.

So the story goes, one time Herman took himself to Ladibe. I don't know if you've heard of Ladibe: probably not. It's a low-rent dirtfarm in the north-east corner of the second quadrant. You know some Anarchies, however hairy they are above the atmosphere, down on the ground things seem to tick along okay? Well, Ladibe ain't one of those. It was settled by human colonials way back, but they've never got their shit together. They're still just banging the rocks, when they're not banging heads. But that was nuts to Herman: he flew in there with a hold full of top-end computers, and was looking to clear near on fifty credits a ton. A good haul even today, but back then a credit was worth something, you know?

Anyhow, Herman made it in unscathed, and sold his cargo, and bought up a load of furs at a price that would make an Isarinian whistle. He sealed the deal with a quick spike of Cea'allo Water, then went back down to the docking bay to check the loading and give the Fish a once-over. He wasn't no quarksman himself but when you're in a hick dump like Ladibe it pays to make sure the locals haven't fuelled up the cesstanks, or bent the baffles with a bull-hammer or some damn thing.

The docking bay was deserted when Herman got down there. It was local 4am or thereabouts, and not much trade passed through Ladibe anyhow. Not that there wasn't work to do; the bay was skanky, all slimed up with some sort of vacuum-hardened lichen. Great streaks of rust ran down the walls, making big red puddles on the floor; the lights were mostly out, and it was as cold as the Witch's tits. Herman checked around the Fish, eased off the clamps a little and was just contemplating the profit he'd make selling little furry hats to the commissars on Edsodi when he heard a scrape and a clang from the side airlock.

Some scutter, coming in from a stint outside, he thought. Herman glanced over to the airlock's inner door, peering through the porthole to see what kind of sadsack pulled a shift like this. Three things he noted, straight away: first, it was a Sosolean; you couldn't miss the big crocodile jaws, with those thin black lips peeled back from about sixteen rows of needle teeth; second, he was looking bad, with three-quarters of a duct-reamer sticking out from the back of his skull; and third, he wasn't wearing no EVA suit.

Herman took one step towards the airlock. I don't know why: neither, truth be told, did Herman. The telltale above the door still showed hard vacuum. But the figure inside the lock twitched, and its long head swung round to look through the glass. The eyes were black, folks: black as a hole and three times as hungry. Suddenly the red streaks on the walls, the liquid on the floor, didn't look to Herman like rust no more. That lizard stared at Herman, and he could feel those black, black holes pulling him in.

I don't know how long Herman stood there, gazing into those abyssal eyes; but he sure as shit moved fast enough when he saw a bony, frozen arm reach up inside the lock and start to scratch at the controls. Herman was up and over the nose of the Fish, slapping open the clamps and firing his engines before his canopy had even swung shut. The Fish went barrelling down the station pipe like a Nexaca Sidewinder, and Herman was screaming to the dockmaster to open the damn gates before he blew them apart. Well, they're not too hot on protocol in Ladibe and maybe it's just as well; the dockmaster must have heard something in Herman's voice anyway because the next moment the gates were swinging open and the Fish shot out on top of a screaming dockload of air, debris and ice.

It's said that Herman jumped near on thirty light-years, scooping sunshine all the way, before he could bring himself to dock at another station. When he did, he got all kinds of hassle, partly from his unconventional exit back on Ladibe, but mostly because he didn't match the clip on his license no more: his fur had turned sky-blue from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, and it stayed that way for the rest of his days.

Now, I don't know if I credit this, really; but old Herman, he never was up to much after. He sold the Fish, and ended up on a work-crew, building one of those See-Zed-Gee-Effs in close orbit around the star at Arorar. Said he liked the light there, and the warmth. But anyway, if you're ever in Ladibe, trawl through the archives: there's a report there of a missing scutter, a dock-jockey from Sosole who disappeared one shift, years back -- before Herman's day, even. No-one ever did find him, inside the station or out of it. Or so the story goes.

[Captain Hesperus]

Ohhh, that one made me shudder.
Disembodied, for a brain in a jar, you've a very fertile imagination!

Captain Hesperus

[Captain Hesperus]

It's one thing to encounter a ghost on a station, or even an entire ghost ship. But what about if you're actually flying a ghost ship?

As you may or may not know, the 'Dubious Profit' is a very old ship. What you probably didn't know is that she's actually several very old ships all welded together. Yeah, the underpinnings and superstructure are original in the most part, but the rest has been replaced due to structural failure, battle damage and more than my lifetime's worth of space travel.
Now, I'm not a superstitious person by nature, but us felinoids have an innate kind of 'sixth sense'. It's, I don't know, some sort of danger sense and supernatural sensitivity rolled into one. It's helped me out often enough, though is all I can say. But even not being scpetical to ghost stories and all that jazz, there's a place on the ol' 'DP' that really make me shudder. It's Corridor 12 up on Deck Two. The corridor runs alongside the outer hull and has a boarding airlock halfway along. The original was condemned by the GalCop Inspectors a few years before I bought her and the last commander replaced it like I do with salvage from scrapped ships. Every time I have to go up there, it's all I can do to stop my fur standing on end and my tail from fluffing out like a squirreloid's.

Last time I was up there, I got this horrible feeling someone was following me, right on my heels they were and when I heard and, yes, felt a breath on the back of my neck I sprinted the length of that corridor, locked the blast door at the other end and checked the internal sensors. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Quirs*. I put it down to an overactive imagination and an upset stomach, since Gazzack had surprised us all with a truely hideous Goat Soup Vindaloo, so I thought nothing of it. Not until I was flying us in-system at Rabedira with a sweet load of 'machine parts'. I had, unfortunately, drawn the dog-watch shift and had to lose sleep while everyone else got some rest. There was only me and D'vlin on the bridge, because that good-for-nothing bug had just eaten and couldn't rest until he'd digested the nameless slop he'd sucked down. So there he was going on about his exploits as part of the Galactic Navy Starship Maintenance Cadre. Just as he was getting to the interesting part of his story involving a pair of Green Fat Bird prostitutes on Erlage, the internal sensors chimed up an alert. Apparently sensors in an area of the ship that was rarely used were detecting movement and sound. D'vlin checked the location and my heart fluttered as he told me it was Corridor 12, Deck Two.

Suppressing the sudden urge to yowl, I told him to put a visual up on the auxilliary screens. He tried, but the screens showed nothing but static. The audio feed, however, was picking up just fine. We sat in horror listening to the sounds of screams and raging combat. It was possibly a couple of minutes before I managed to order the entire corridor locked down and for D'vlin to run a life sign scan. D'vlin, for his part, actually performed his task quickly, sealing the corridor off from the rest of the ship and initiating the scans. Even as the results came up on screen, the sounds on the speakers abruptly stopped. The screen said, "Life signs: 0".
That night was the longest D'vlin and I ever experienced and neither of us decided to leave the bridge 'til we docked. Hell, we nearly leapt out of our seats in fear when Stepan came to relieve me at the helm.

After we docked, I checked up the ship's service record and found the entry for the replacement of Corridor 12, Deck Two. The record showed it had come from a Python called the 'Derceto', which had belonged to a slaver who posed as a passenger liner captain. This man was the lowest of the low, changing his ship's name and registry and taking on paying passengers, then way-laying them mid-journey, bundling them into cryo-pods and selling them as slaves. To make things worse he was a confirmed Brabenite, believing that the Universe was some complex computer program of his god and that the lives of his victims didn't matter, because they didn't really exist. As the man continued his evil trade, he found that combat-adapted slaves garnered more Credit from those individuals who ran exotic show-fighting companies or private armies. So on top of drugging and cryo-suspending his slaves, the commander started modifying them with combat bionics and implanted stim-dispensers. As you can imagine, the Credit started to roll in and all was well for the 'Derceto's' master.

It all came to an end when he was at the end of a lucrative run. He'd just jumped into the system where he intended to sell his slaves and was in the process of switching over his ship registry from the assumed identity he'd been using to the actual ship registry. Just at that point, a GalCop Viper Interceptor came on-scanner and found that his ship registry didn't match his ship's IFF transponder. The Blues demanded that he stop engines and prepare to be boarded, and the commander had no alternative but to agree. However, he had a plan. He directed the Interceptor to the airlock in Corridor 12, Deck Two and at the same time had his crew and a choice number of the stimmed and adapted slaves waiting either end of the corridor. As the Coppers boarded, the crew and slaves attacked, slaughtering them within seconds. But it didn't end there. The slaves realised that if they allowed themselves to be taken alive, they would remain slaves forever so they attacked the 'Derceto's' crew.

Now the Python's crew were veteran spacers, well armed and wearing good quality armour, but they were nothing against a rampaging horde of angry, desperate combat-slaves. Almost all the crew in Corridor 12 were killed, the rest fleeing to all ends of the ship. The slaves didn't stop there. They went straight to the cargo holds where the entire bay was full to bursting point with cargo pods full of their own kind. Within moments, hundreds of crazed cyborg killers were racing through the corridors of the Python, killing every living thing they encountered. The commander of the 'Derceto' tried to escape using the docked Interceptor as a means of escape, but even as he tried to close the airlock, a slave dragged him through and held him in the doorway so that the door crushed him to death. The surviving slaves piloted the blood-soaked Python into dock and managed to be returned to their home worlds. The 'Derceto' was decommissioned and broken down for parts and the 'Dubious Profit' got that corridor.

Now that's pretty scary, but it's nothing to what happened recently. I was pretty low on Creds and the crew were looking daggers at me, so I decided on a bit of 'Black Trading' to bolster the wage funds. The best way was to buy some best Ararusian narcotics, 'Nose Candy' as the locals call it and ship it to Ensoreus, where the rich Corporate bosses lap the stuff up by the tonne. We'd just dropped out of Witchspace when the threat alerts went off and we saw a handful of pirates powering towards us. A Krait, a Mamba and a Moray. Bad news was that I had skimped (again) on missiles and I only had one Hardhead and the other was a standard Copperhead, so I decided to pop the standard at the Mamba, while capping the Krait with the Hardhead. Just my luck these guys really like working together, 'cos the Moray hit the ECM even as my missiles left the bays. Scratch one Krait, but that Mamba was damn illusive, while the Moray stayed on my tail, grinding down the aft shields. By the time I finally vaped the Mamba, the aft shields were toast and the engine section was taking a real hammering, so I flashed out a "we ain't got anything worthwhile" message. The Moray cut the laserfire and messaged us back, "Power down and prepare to be boarded".

That looked like the end, so I ordered everyone to standby to repel boarders. The Moray docked, setting her soft-seal airlock over one of the 'Profit's' upper airlocks. I barely noticed which until the computer flashed up an internal motion detector alert on Corridor 12, Deck Two. I quickly checked the external sensors and with a mounting sense of fear noticed that was where the airlock the Moray had docked with. I was about to order the crew up there, when the sound of fighting and screaming filled the internal com-system. It was coming from just outside the airlock and as the computer registered the external and internal airlock doors opening, the sounds took on a higher more feverish tone. I noticed my hands were shaking as I set about sealing the corridor and ordered Rus and his Lobstoids to the aft end of the corridor as I lead Stepan and D'vlin to the fore end. When we got there, the doors were still shut. No-one had attempted to override the locks, nor was there any external signs of the being cut or forced. I checked the sensors and was greatly disturbed by the fact that there was no sound, no movement and no readable life signs. I gave the order to unseal the doors and my crew flooded into the corridor, lasers ready for anything we encountered.

What we actually encountered, nothing could have prepared us for. Everywhere we looked there was blood. It was pooled on the floor, it was splashed across the walls in crimson, blue and green arcs. It even dripped from the ceiling. And then there were the bodies. Slumped on the floor were maybe half a dozen humanoids of different descriptions, a Large Red Frog and a Large Fat Black Bird. They were all dead, torn apart by who knows what. I investigated further, trying to avoid slipping on the blood-slicked floor plating, going up to the airlock itself. Just as I reached the inner door I found a Human, still alive but fading fast. He was clutching at a gaping wound in his abdomen which pumped bright red blood in ever smaller amounts. His eyes were wide and had a haunted look about them and his hair was pure while, although he looked quite young. He looked at me and whispered, "We shot them, but hit nothing. Our lasers had no effect, it's like they weren't there.". Even as I called for Rus to help, the man's blood stopped flowing out of him and his eyes went blank. By the time Rus reached me, the Human was dead. It was then that Rus drew my attention to the airlock, which I had not noticed while the man was alive. I looked and gasped as I saw, trapped between the outer airlock door and the door frame, the crushed and barely recognisable figure of a Large Yellow Bug-Eyed Lobster.

We limped in-system still with the Moray attached to the outer hull and the pirate corpses stored in the ship's med-bay. A GalCop Viper docked with our underside airlock and a pilot came aboard to take possssion of the Moray and the bodies. Rus took him up to the ship, as I didn't want to go anywhere near that corridor again. When Rus returned to the bridge, and the Viper and Moray had gone, he told me that even though the internal heating had been at standard ambient temperature, Corridor 12 of Deck Two had been noticably colder than everywhere else. Once we were docked, I went up to the corridor one last time. I disconnected the internal sensors and com-systems to the entire corridor, used a plasma welder to seal both the inner and outer airlock doors and then finally sealed the blast doors at both ends of the corridor. After that, I though no more about Corridor 12, Deck Two.

Captain Hesperus
*Universal Translator: Quirs is the Orriraian purr-word for 'absolutely nothing'.

[Disembodied]

Eech, Captain! If I were you I'd save up for a major overhaul... or at least pay the Happy Eye to flood that corridor with Holy Juice or something. Although I can see how carrying avengers from beyond the grave -- or at least having the reputation of carrying avengers from beyond the grave -- might be useful...

[Captain Hesperus]

Eech, Captain! If I were you I'd save up for a major overhaul... or at least pay the Happy Eye to flood that corridor with Holy Juice or something. Although I can see how carrying avengers from beyond the grave -- or at least having the reputation of carrying avengers from beyond the grave -- might be useful...

Let's put it this way, other ship's captains are very cautious when I invite them aboard, especially when its ship-to-ship transfer. They tend to make sure they've paid any debts they owe before they accept my invitations....

Captain Hesperus
....Whooooo! Scary......

[Commander McLane]

Hey, why are you telling this to everybody here, man! I knew I made a mistake when I let an eye-witness get away! (Note to self: First finish them all, then start scooping the left-overs!) And, if it makes you happier to know it: The Moray Medical did not make it out.

Ho, Commander: that's a pretty twisted sense of humour you've got there! I know you fly an Imperial Courier, right enough, but I can't see you hanging around a dead-end joint like Reenus, without having some pressing... er... business...

OK, maybe someone put a marker down on that Black Dog, but I don't see you as the type that gets his jollies popping Moray Medicals. I'm sure I've seen you drop them a few creds whenever they come round the bars, rattling their collection tins.

Anyway, what about the whole now-you-see-me-now-you-don't trick? Nah... the more I think about it, the more it seems likely that there was some solar fluctuation, some kind of ion pocket maybe that the Imp was sitting in, messing with the scanners, mine and the Dog's. Either that or... um... something to do with marsh gas?

In any case, aren't you hanging around in Galaxy 5 these days? Is it true that you can go magma-surfing on Geesla's volcanoes?

You know, I have pressing... er... business wherever I am. And perhaps you should know that my original signature was slightly different from the current one. It went like this: "I wouldn't consider myself a pirate. When I see a lone Armoured Transport strolling along the corridor, I just do what everyone would do." So, now try to figure out what I would do to a lone Moray Medical... And yes, isn't it fair to once in a while return a few credits into their collection tins? I mean, prescription drugs can bring you a serious profit, if there was no need to purchase them in the first place. You know what I mean?

And as to my whereabouts: Actually I haven't yet proceeded to Galaxy 5. I'm still very much hooked up in the events of the aftermath of the deposal of the tyrannical former president of one of Galaxy 4's systems. (Speaking of which, wasn't it a shame that I had to destroy that drug factory? It would've been so much more fun to milk it instead. )

Anyway, at the same time there are people, scared pilots, angry policemen, agitated Fierce Horned Black Birds, who would swear to have seen my Imperial Courier in some of the more badly reputed Anarchies in Galaxy 3, or in the vicinity of the Bixein system, where it was seen close to the sudden appearance of a mythical huge ghostly ship ; or even back in Galaxy 1, performing some dangerous manoeuvres, riding the hot-spots of the Tianve Pulsar (it might be from there that the tale of magma-surfing has originated; you never should give too much credit to all the details of the tell-tales told in shady ZeroG-bars under the influence of too much Bibeian Lethal Brandy). The investigation is still under way, and the files in GalCop's Fearless Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are marked as "classified" (the so-called "X-Files" ), but word has it that all witnesses in different galaxies speak of a "mighty Imperial Courier, incredibly fast", some even say that it "just materialised", and "it was all leggy and silver and looking like a hungry vulture", and then "it opened fire on [put in any ship], with its unique, frightening white laser, hammering its shields to oblivion and its hull to dust in no time", which I would accept as a quite accurate description of my ship (although for instance you in your description left out the distinctive colour of the laser). Some particularly geeky scientists would perhaps say: "White laser? Impossible in the realms of physics!" I say: "Pah! What do you know?" Some other scientists I hear saying: "Appearing out of nothing and disappearing into nothing? In different galaxies? Impossible!" or "some solar fluctuation, some kind of ion pocket, messing with the scanners. Either that or... um... something to do with marsh gas". I say: "Pah! What do you know?" And then I say: "Stay and stare. And wonder! And fear!!! And watch your back, whenever you see a mighty Imperial Courier out of a sudden closing in to you as a hungry vulture!!!!! Wherever you may be, whenever you may be, whoever you may be!"

And one last medical warning: Inhaling marsh gas is not good for your mental health. And if you happen to be a brain in a bottle: saturating your brain-holding bottle with marsh gas isn't, either!

[Disembodied]

Ha-h'm... well, forewarned is forearmed, as they say! Anyway, after that little escapade on Reenus, I've always made sure I carry an extra fuel tank -- and the Radio Maru can move faster than a greased gamma ray when circumstances arise...

As to marsh gas, I'm happy to say that, after a thorough refit of my internal recycling systems on Tezaeded, I don't have that problem any more. Improved my social life no end, I can tell you.

[Captain Hesperus]

As to marsh gas, I'm happy to say that, after a thorough refit of my internal recycling systems on Tezaeded, I don't have that problem any more. Improved my social life no end, I can tell you.

My 'marsh-gas' problem is a little more complicated, since it tends to emanate from my Navigator! He blames the Goat Soup cuisine, but it never seems to affect the rest of the crew in that manner....

Captain Hesperus