Admittedly if the story is going well and I DO die, I might work it that he doesn't die, but still manages to lose everything so I can keep going. Hell, I may have to do that anyway if I jump into 1.8 when it's released
On the bright side, now that you have that auto-eject escape capsule, the likelihood of your dying has dropped considerably..
Also, what CaptSolo said!
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
I leaned back in my chair in the station tavern at Rateedar or Anexbiza or maybe it was Biarge... some hole of a place. Honestly after I learned to program my tea brewer add a little something extra to my drinks from the liquor cabinet I've been having trouble keeping track of where I go... or how I end up there. God, not only have I written the book on poor life choices, I just keep on adding new chapters to it.
But this fresh faced kid sitting across from me didn't seem to care about that. He was only interested in sharing his sob story.
"So you see, Grandpa Behen doesn't have much longer, and before he dies he'd like to see his homeworld one last time."
"Great story kid. Hire a taxi."
"I... I thought I was."
That was when I realized I was wearing a yellow cabbie uniform. Where the hell did that come from? But even in my tea-booze filled haze a hint of logic crept through.
"You hire all your cabbies at private meetings in taverns?"
The boy shrunk a little in his chair and looked around. "Well, you see. This needs to be on the QT. He's not exactly allowed to leave his nursing home. But he's just so sad and this is his last wish. I was told you were the sort of pilot who took jobs nobody else wanted."
"Who told you that?"
"Um... you did? Five minutes ago? You were standing on the bar telling everyone how you were invincible and not even GalCorp could take you down."
That rang a bell. I'd just upgraded my pulse laser to beam laser, and as luck would have it I got bushwacked by some pirates in broken down fighters. I would have ran away, but I had a half tank full of fuel left and they didn't have fuel injection systems like I did. I got a bit of cathartic release zipping in and out writing my initials on their hulls, and then what was left of their hulls. I'd spent so much time being the galaxy's bitch that it was hard not to indulge a bit with the tables turned.
That's right. I came here to celebrate all that... But I don't remember much else. Still don't know where the cabbie uniform came from. Jeeze, I have really got to work out the tea-to-booze ratio better. This is going to get me killed. How am I not dead already? Taking out some broken down Kraits piloted by losers more desperate than me was hardly securing my place in the "don't mess with me" books. Hell, my official combat ranking was still Harmless.
"Look, kid, I was mouthing off, I don't think I can--"
"He's willing to pay 2500 credits for the trip."
"--possibly refuse a dying man's last wish. Call me an old softy. Where do I pick him up?"
***
Next thing I know I'm on route to Soladise. I decided to keep the cabbie uniform as part of my cover. And just because I'm still on spacer skid row doesn't mean I'd lost my natural charms. Wasn't hard to convince the attending nurse that I was here to take Behen's neighbour across the hall for a nice Sunday drive around the planet (courtesy of his loving grandson who paid for it) then "accidentally" go into the wrong room.
"Pack up, Gramps. I'm taking you home."
The wizened old man was sitting in a wheelchair looking out the window. He turned and looked at me funny. "Home?"
"Yeah, home. The place you hung your hat. Where your heart is. That place on the range where the deer and the octolopes play."
He continued to look at me funny.
"Your grandson said you wanted to go back to your home world one last time before you die, remember? You were willing to pay tw.... five thousand credits to do so."
The senility passed like a fart in the wind. "Nice try, sonny. It was twenty five hundred."
I waved a hand. "Details."
"Well, this is a surprise. I didn't think my boy would find anyone. How do you plan to get me out? I'm not allowed to leave the home."
"But your neighbour is." I pulled out a dufflebag. "Now, you want to do this with or without sedation?"
***
Next thing you know, my Adder is taking off from the landing pad and a very confused elderly man is still standing on the platform, probably wondering when I was going to come back for him after I'd said "I just need to put this bag in the cockpit first." I'm sure the home's staff will find him soon enough.
Once in orbit I unzipped the bag and unfolded Wrinkles McAncientPants from it and gave him the countersedative. Good thing I didn't hit any turbulence going up or it might have been like opening a bag of marbles. I could picture myself just leaving the bag back at the home in the middle of the night, pressing the doorbell and making a run for it.
Unlike my old Lance, this Adder didn't have any proper passenger accommodations. If I really wanted to I could have one put in, but that would kill my cargo capacity. Hell, an Adder doesn't even have a co-pilot seat, but I'd dropped a bean bag chair in the corner for him to curl up on and take a nap if he wanted.
The old man smiled at me. "Ahhh, it's so good to be free again. Look at all those stars! Why, it's like I can reach out and touch them if I wanted to."
"Great, gramps. Glad you're happy. Now, where are we heading? I was told it's just eight or so light years away." Twenty five hundred credits for a two jump taxi ride? Talk about easy money. And if the system in between had a convenience store I'd cut that travel time down in half.
"Yes, it's not that far. I was born on Qubeen."
"Qubeen. Got it." I switched to the Nav computer to set up a travel route.
What? No. You have got to be kidding.
"You said Qubeen, right? You sure you don't mean Qucerere or Quzadi?"
"I think I know where I was born, sonny."
"There is no way to get there!"
"Of course there is. You just pass through the Braxian system."
I frowned. "The Braxian system? You mean the system that went supernova during the Braxian Rebellion? The one that was completely wiped out and won't be stable enough to set up even a waystation in for another thousand years?"
"That's the one! Oh..."
"Yeah, oh." I checked the Nav computer for another route. Surely I could just make a little circle route to bypass this hiccup.
Turns out the only way to get to Qubeen was by going through the Galactic Center first. Well over a dozen jumps needed, and some of them through pretty hostile waters!
I tried to breathe and focus. I could do this. It was twenty five hundred credits. I'd get a bowl of water and kibble to set next to the bean bag chair and everything would be fine. I'd pick the safest routes, maybe make a few credits along the way. It wouldn't be so bad.
"You know, sonny, you remind me of myself at your age."
"Handsome? Charming? Still in possession of all his faculties?"
"Bored! It looks like we've got a long way to go, but lucky for you I know some of the best space shanties in the galaxy."
It was then I realized that I'd used the last of my sedative on the old man getting him out, and the side effect of that particular brand was long-term insomnia.
"One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer! Take one down, drink it all down. Ninety-something-something bottles of beer on the wall! Where was I? One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer..."
It could be done. May take some time but I've noticed the pro's getting colorful of late. There are avenues for the continuation of the epic and as the last "team up" went so well. (and gave oolite another ship to go with the story and the odd map as I remember) It would be unwise to surmise my days here have past their hayday.
It wasn't until the second ambush that I realized something was up and it wasn't just the old folks home wising up and coming after me for am-scray-ing with one of their commissions.
We'd jumped from Soladies to Usanat when the first attack happened. A cloud of ships was just hovering by the witch point waiting. They picked up on my scanner as having clean records and so I assumed it was just a well defended convoy.
That was when I got a ticker tape parade of laser and death. Fortunately, I had tons of fuel for the injectors and managed to outpace most of them, but one little bugger stayed right on my tail. That was fine by me. With the upgrades I'd given the rust bucket I knew I could take him. It didn't take long to turn the table on him and get him in my sights. Jackass was costing me fuel, which was cutting into my profits. Hey, every minute spent kicking in the overdrive means I'm that much further away from a buying a ship that doesn't smell like feet and wood rot. The former might just be my passenger, but given the lack of wood on board, the latter odor remains a mystery to me.
"The House of Panac will not let you live!" the pilot yelled. I noticed that for a pirate he had very un-pirate like markings on his ship. Then again, most pirate ships are stolen and a fresh paint job is often the last thing on their mind. Didn't matter much to me then. Seeing as I splattered him to the solar wind I figured ship decor was the least of his problems.
I envied him somewhat. At least he didn't have an old coot in his cockpit constantly singing old spacer songs and forgetting half the words.
With that situation dealt with I kicked in the Torus drive to the nearest station. Like I said, I didn't think much of it then, but a few jumps later, when I encountered another group with similar markings and shouting similar nonsense, I figured I wasn't just being chased down by the Annihilists faction of the Jehovah's Witnesses (seriously, those guys do NOT respond well when you refuse to take their pamphlets).
This time they ambushed me right outside a convenience store. Rather than making an in-system run for it I made a jump instead, using the station as cover while the countdown started then kicking in the fuel injectors to make the needed distance once I was decently blocked.
"So who the hell are the House of Pancakes and why should I be worried about them?"
Old man Behen shrugged in his beanbag chair and started singing a song about goblins. "See the little goblin, see his little feet, and his little nosey-wose, isn't the goblin sweet?"
I raised an eyebrow. He was far too unconcerned about all this. Either he was completely senile, which granted was where the smart money was, or he was anything but.
Behen... the name exactly ring a bell, but it did sound familiar for some reason. Some rich corporate family perhaps, kids getting tired of waiting for their inheritance? Maybe the doting grandson was just trying to get gramps out of the home's security and someplace safe for disposal... which given how crap it was really unnecessary. Maybe a cover story was necessary.
But the House of Panac? That had certain undeveloped world overtones to it, like feudal states or multigovernmental worlds. Granted some corporates named their organizations Houses, clinging onto those traditions, but...
"Excuse me, sonny. How much longer before we reach Qubeen?"
"About a billion years," I said.
"That's awful long. Why not just take a shortcut through the Braxian sector?"
I squeezed my joystick until I heard it creek. "Arrrrgh! The Braxian system no longer exists, remember? Supernova?" It was the fifth time I'd reminded him of this and by now we'd reached the Core Worlds, which rendered the point moot anyway.
"Oh right. Shame about that. All about that revolution they had, as I recall. That reminds me of another song. Oh they built the spaceship Tranic to sails the spaceways black, and they thought they'd built a ship that the Thargoids couldn't crack. But the captain blew a fart and it ripped the ship apart, it was sad when the great ship went down..."
The joystick snapped off in my hand. Ugh. Maybe I had some superglue in the emergency supplies...
I'd slipped through the Core worlds more or less unmolested, sneaking past some more House of Pancakes ships before they registered who I was. Once I knew their game it became easier to play to my strengths. Only zip to worlds with a high enough tech rating to warrant a witch-point station, fill up on gas and candy bars, zip back out. Avoid the corridor whenever possible.
Of course, it isn't always possible, either because of a lack of other stations forcing me toward the planet, or the lure of a great deal on goods being to hard to pass up. At least the profit making part of my plan hadn't been shot to hell, which was more than I could say for my ship. Most of my profit was going into repairs and maintenance. Last thing I needed was a hyperspace failure with a bunch of Pancakes flopping at me.
House of Panac... Orixan Behen of Qubeen... even the Braxian Rebellion... why did this all have a familiar ring to it? Probably because I'd spent days hearing the words repeated over and over in between annoying songs, and tales of Behen's youth. Never his adulthood when he might have actually done something interesting, but his youth when all he remembered were orange blossoms and his pet cat.
But the worst, the absolute WORST thing so far? The injection system had failed.
Oh, not the fuel injection system, that was working fine. The booze injection for my tea maker, which meant I had to drink the stuff straight again and fly sober. I tried sneaking a bottle of the good stuff in at a station so I could add it the old fashioned way, but the old geezer threw a fit and wouldn't shut up till I flushed it. So basically that added about a thousand years to the trip in a relative time and space kind of way.
At this point I didn't care. I just wanted this job done and over with, and fortunately I was getting close to the end. A few tricky jumps trying to avoid some anarchy type worlds and we were home free. But I was getting a bad feeling about this, and decided to spend a little something extra on my ship. It made it look even uglier than it was, but like all my additions to the ship it might just save my life. And my passenger's. I guess.
I sat on the floor of the pod, or the wall, depending on your view, staring at Orixan Behen who sat on the opposite side.
"Sorry about that," he said.
My eyes narrowed. I couldn't even have a cup of tea to pass the time. There was no gravity in the pod.
"I said I was sorry," he repeated.
I raised a finger to my lips, shushing him. It was the only thing that was going to keep him alive at this point.
We'd come into Qubeen into almost exactly the sort of shitstorm I had expected. The House of Pancakes were there ready to welcome us, and far ahead were the beams of an intense battle going on around the entire planet. But I had a plan.
"Okay, if we can skirt past these sentries we might be able to--"
At that point the old coot leaped up--not bad for a guy who had been in a wheelchair back in old folks home--and strode over to the console, pressing the wide band comm array button.
"Attention all vessels in the Qubeen system. I, Orixan Behen, rightful ruler of the seven houses, have returned to claim my rightful place to the throne. Set aside your differences and join me now in crushing this threat to our homeworld! To arms! TO ARMS!"
I looked at the man in shock. He looked upon me with the wise visage of a man who had played his part well, but no longer. A king in beggar's clothing, finally revealed.
"You.... goddamned idiot! You couldn't have waited until we got somewhere safe first?"
"The war for my homeworld is at a critical time. This war has been waging for months, but my sources informed me that now was the right time to reappear. These people need their King to stand along side them and fight and unite them once more. We shall come down upon them--"
"--in a rust bucket full of laser pockmarks? You do realize what you're flying in, don't you? How am I.... oh crap."
There was no time to chastise him further, because the House of Pancakes was upon us all. I engaged the fuel injectors, but it was too late. Space became the most intense disco party of all time for about five seconds, until my Adder was ripped to shreds. I didn't even have time to eject.
Thank god I'd installed a system to do that for me.
See, I had a bad feeling it would come to this. Oh, I didn't know that wrinkles here was royalty, but it was pretty obvious someone wanted him dead, and more than likely their most concentrated effort would be at his last stop. I also knew that if they wanted him dead they were not going to let an escape pod get away, either.
That's why I made a few modifications to it earlier, stripping out all but one of the thrusters and redesigning the outer hull so that it resembled a cargo canister. I'd filled up my cargo hold with frozen meat and other organics and made sure those canisters looked like my pod. One of them I had specially made to look like an escape pod, including a thruster that would burn for five minutes in a straight line if the ship were destroyed. It worked, since they trashed the canister before it got a klick from the wreckage.
Without the ship engines providing artificial gravity, Behen and I were stuck here drifting with the rest of the garbage, waiting for the attackers to consider us dead and call it a day.
It didn't take long for them to do so. It seemed they had a bigger war to fight.
Once they were no longer on radar I gently kicked in the sole thruster and aimed myself away from the battle. We'd take the long route around. The longer the better.
"But my people need me. I am a symbol to all that they are fighting for."
"Yeah, well, sometimes people fight harder when they think they've lost what they're fighting for and are just settling for revenge. We'll get you home... sooner or later."
"Thank you for keeping me alive," Behen said. "You've done a great service for my people."
"Great enough to double my fee?"
"Well, let's not get crazy here. Wars are expensive, and we had an agreement."
"Why you cheapass little raggidty boned fart weasel! You think twenty five hundred is enough to replace my ship?"
"Oh, I'm sure you have insurance."
"What about pain and mental anguish? Namely YOU."
"I had to keep my cover. If the enemy knew I was returning..."
"THE ENEMY DID KNOW YOU WERE RETURNING!"
"No, they suspected. I have no doubt they blasted dozens of other ships they thought might be bringing me back as well. It's why I insisted on my grandson to find the most unlikely possible person to carry me home in the most unlikely of ships. A clever plan, don't you think?"
I frowned. At that point I got the vac-suit out storage and put it on, spinning about in midair.
"What are you doing?"
"Just taking precautions. Might have an unexpected air leak. Stray beam hit. Micrometeorite. You never know."
"Um... do you have another one for me?"
"Nope."
I just sat there the rest of the trip in my vac suit, smiling. Not unsurprisingly, he didn't sing a single shanty the whole way.
Not all treasure is in silver and gold, you know. Sometimes it's just twelve hours of watching a man wonder if you plan to space him or not.
Last edited by mossfoot on Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
And hopefully, the replacement Adder will smell better!
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
still loving this...
mate this needs to be compiled into one volume and put in the oofic section!!
Arthur: OK. Leave this to me. I'm British. I know how to queue.
OR i could go with
Arthur Dent: I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
or simply
42
I have one question for the universe: where is my goddamn tickertape parade and cheering fans? I don't mean to be sexist or anything, but a woman draped adoringly around my ankles wouldn't hurt either. For once, I actually deserve it.
Let's set the record straight: a deposed king, exiled after the Braxian Rebellion and separated from his home world when that sun went supernova (under suspicious circumstances I might add... those things tend to give you a few million years warning) is forced to go into hiding on some old folks home for over fifty years.
Yeah, that's right, King Wrinkle Scrotum is something like a hundred and seventy three thanks to the best nanotechnology royalty can buy. Even I couldn't afford that shit back in the day. I guess the saying is true: it's good to be the King.
Anyway, there's peace for a time but the planet eventually factions off and what's worse, the Braxian survivors (the House of Pancakes who'd been attacking us every step of the way) have established a rebellion and seek to take over Qubeen as their new homeworld.
Cut to present day, where a poor drunk shlub (who happens to be devastatingly handsome and charming and thoroughly mistreated by the universe for no good reason) is tricked into an "easy fare" only to find out that everyone wants his passenger dead. Rather than accepting defeat, our hero rises to the challenge, outwitting and outfighting (and more often than not outrunning) his enemies half way around the galaxy until at last he bring the deposed king home to the middle of a massive civil war - one that will only weaken all sides and fall prey to an external threat to them all.
Outmanned and outgunned, our hero's ship is destroyed, but fortunately his cunning sees them through, and the King is returned to his throne. With the king back to unite them, the others rally and defeat the invaders.
You'd think a guy who was instrumental in bringing about such a victory would get a statue in his name. But nope. First off it just wouldn't do for the history books if it recorded that the King triumphantly returned in a cargo canister (well, that's what it looked like anyway). Even arriving in an Adder wasn't acceptable (they kinda have a point there, mind you). So instead they invented some BS of an experimental warship that rescued King Behen from a maximum security prison where he'd been in chains for fifty years and delivered him back to Qubeen just in time to ensure victory. Looks better when the movie is made.
Where's the justice I ask you?
It's probably for the best. This is exactly the sort of nonsense that would let my dad know I'm still alive, which is something I'd rather not have become common knowledge.
I decided to get off Qubeen before the executions started because, let's face it, executions are pretty much the next stop that this planet's crazy train is headed. I'm sure they'll gloss over that part when the movie is released, too.
I figured the one bright spot in all this was the fact I'd be getting a replacement ship. I figured a bright new Adder right off the assembly line would lighten my spirits a bit.
Unfortunately, while the King has the kind of money to get life enhancing nanotechnology implanted from a Tech 15 world a hundred light years away, but the local shipyard only carries last decades models.
The dealer lead me down the dry docks, past showroom models of Cobras and Morays and even a couple of Flure... Fer de Lances. Then we got down to the back end where there were Kraits resting on cinder blocks (no joke) and Geckos being stripped down for parts. And there, at the back, was a single green Adder, its wings deployed as if preparing to land on a planet.
"Isn't she a beaut?" said the dealer.
One of the retractable wings creaked and fell off.
The insurance covered all the extras I'd purchased so far, only most of them weren't available here. I'd get them installed for free once I reached a planet that didn't think the waterwheel was the next big leap forward in technology.
"Just get it space worthy," I groaned. "The sooner I'm out of this system the better."
mate this needs to be compiled into one volume and put in the oofic section!!
Seconded!
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
