The Return of the Cap
Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 10:30 pm
<camera view: Deep space, a planet in the middle distance is partially eclipsing the solitary star of the system. Mid-screen text reads "Witchspace Beacon inbound to Riedquat". The camera view sweeps around to the Witchspace Beacon itself>
A jump cloud blossoms into life like the silent blue-tinted explosion of a orchid. The ship that coalesces from the depths of Hyperspace looks like a Python, except it's horrifically beaten-up appearance. Whole sections of the hull are missing, yawning gulfs of open space can be seen through the interior of the vessel. Running lights flicker fitfully along the exterior and the engines periodically gout large quantities of unstable plasma in the ship's wake. The remaining outer panels are criss-crossed by multiple high-yield energy weapon strikes and micro-meteorite impacts. One solitary panel bears an ident plate, almost completely obscured by carbonised waste and melted hull panel. It reads "DP-099 'The Dubious Profit'". Another panel near the back has a hastily-created message made by means of a plasma cutter "Running in - Please overtake"
<camera view: Interior, ship's cockpit.>
The interior of the cockpit is a scene from a disaster movie. Roof panels are scattered over the floor and bundles of blackened and burning cables hang down like high-tech jungle vines. The air is thick with clouds of acrid, white smoke. The cockpit is bathed in crimson from the emergency lighting rigs welded to the walls and what was once an aert klaxon has been converted to a humourous "SQUONK! SQUONK! SQUONK!" by a high velocity impact that damaged the speaker. Within the clouds, movement can just be discerned.
"Are we dead?", a voice, high and chittering asks.
"If we are, then I've obviously gone to Hell, because you're here, D'vlin.", a deep rumbling voice replied.
"Rus, I think we can all asume we're still alive. My back's certainly not going to let me die before it tells me just how bad it feels.", another voice chipped in, a smooth voice that should have belonged to a Tri-Vid star or even an intergalactic spy.
Instead it belonged to a small grey feline from Orrira, famed through all Eight Charts as the least liked and worst fated trader to ever ply the star lanes. Captain Hesperus waved the smoke out of his face, his pink nose wrinkling at the smell and tapped hopfully at the console in front of him. It responded with a negatory buzz and he summarily punched it. It bleeped and lights flickered across it.
"Looks like we've returned to Real Space, after all. That's a late watch you owe me, D'vlin.", Hesperus smiled, pausing to suck at his barked knuckles.
A tubby ginger feline picked himself up from the floor where he had thrown himself prior to their arrival in Riedquat and inspected the bundle of wrappers at his feet. Quick as a flash he extracted a much thumbed, unopened wrapper and wrenched it open. The chewy-chocolatey contents were rapidly consumed to the sounds of growling and whimpering.
"Stepan, once you've finished your 'last supper', would you mind figuring out where we are? The navi-comp keeps saying we are in Riedquat. And that, all things considered, would be a problem."
The ginger tom nodded and waddled over to the flight systems. He thumbed through the exterior view cameras, his eyes fixing on the established spatial 'landmarks' that the early astro-mariners had used to navigate and stood thoughtfully for a minute. he smiled and nodded sagely.
"Yep, yep, yep. Definately.", he said.
"Definately, what?"
"Yes, it's definately Riedquat.", the big feline smiled cheerfully.
At that moment, the threat alert siren started "SQUONK"-ing as a triangle of red blips appeared on the cracked scanner screen.
Hesperus sighed as he tried to muster something approximating to combat readiness from his ship's ruined systems.
"Looks like my luck's back to normal."
The Dubious Profit vainly tried to veer off to avoid the inbound squadron, but the damaged ventral thruster array treasonously misfired and sent the ship barrel-rolling back into the crosshairs of the pirates. Hesperus swore, Rus cursed and D'vlin went back to his prayers to Randomius Factoria, Giles the Creator, or whoever the hell else might hear them. A flicker of laser fire danced across the damaged nose of the Python, sending her already crippled shields screeching and chunks of molten duralium pinnwheeling lazily away. The damage control computer did the only thing available to it with the resources remaining to it and promptly exploded, scattering its console across the disaster area that was supposed to be the Profit's bridge.
"Okay boys, time to face facts.", Hesperus sighed as the emergency klaxon finally died, it's "SQUONK" silenced forever, "Ship's screwed, we're gonna have to bail..."
He turned his chair around and was confronted by a massed brawl as his crew struggled to force themselves into the one still-functional escape pod.
"DAMMIT! I'm the captain, I get first dibs on the escape pod!", he howled, hurling himself into the scuffle.
Had he remained at the viewscreen, he might have noticed a slight flicker off to one side, a few hundred clicks behind the pirates. As it was, he and the rest of the crew were taken aback by the sudden wideband com-mesage that echoed across the void.
"No-one performs piracy on my patch!"
Hesperus froze at the sound of the voice. It had a deep, gutteral sound, immediately recognisable as belonging to a reptilian. His response was automatic.
"Oh Giles, not him. Anyone but him. Even Maegil."
The pirates obviously recognised the voice, as they immediately broke off their attack run. But it was too late. Even as they peeled off, an area of empty space suddenly became a powerful-looking warship, its lines sleek and predatory. The ident computer aboard the Profit confirmed Hesperus' fears as it revealed the ship's callsign: "Persistence of Memory". The Omega-variant Caduceus swept past one of the hapless pirates, its broadside weapons filling the void between the two ships with ravening plasma fire. The pirate, a Cobra Mark III, lasted all of a couple of seconds before its shields, then its hull, were breached and it erupted in a silent cloud of super-heated gas and white hot debris. The second pirate ship, a nippy little Mosquito Sport, attempted to blindside the Caduceus with a salvo of missiles, but the mighty vessel ECMed or shot down the weapons with precision plasma fire. The Persistence heeled around on her axis, bringing her immensely powerful primary weapon to bear. The forward viewscreen of the Dubious Profit automatically cut out for a moment as the awesome prow weapon discharged and as it reactivated, it was apparent that nothing, not even wreckage, remained of the Mosquito. The final pirate, a Blackdog Python that was only slightly less the worse for wear than the Dubious Profit, had taken the intervening few moments from the Caduceus' arrival to the demise of its allies to initiate its hyperspace drives. Even as the archetect of its comrades' demise came about to fix the ship in its sights, the Blackdog formed its jumpgate and was gone.
Hesperus, indeed all the crew, had turned back to the viewscreen and thus had witness the terrifying display of raw destructive power that was within the hands of one of the Galactic Chart's most renowned bounty hunters. A light flashed on the coms console, indicating an incoming transmission on a visual channel. Captain Hesperus gingerly perched himself in the command chair and tried to master his face even as he thumbed the 'receive' button on the console. Instantly recognisable, the face of Derik Roh'i, the famous 'Commander Wyvern', filled the screen. His face was inscrutable as he peered through the static of the transmission and the smoke that still shrouded the Profit's cockpit.
"Either this is a rare, and frankly pointless, facsimile or I'm actually speaking to the commander of the Dubious Profit. That'd be Commander Hesperus, yes."
It was a statement, not a question. Hesperus bridled for a moment as the most hated word in his vocabulary hit him full on. He bit back the bile that he normally responded with and replied, "Yes, this is Captain Hesperus speaking, I take it I have the honour to be addressing Commander Roh'i. I'd like to thank you for you assistance in dealing with those pirates, but frankly it was unnecessary as..."
Hesperus was interrupted by a bellowing roar of laughter from the bounty hunter. The laughter continued for a minute or two before the big reptiloid brought himself back under control.
"Hesperus, you're a fool if you really expect me to believe that load of Trumble crap. Our scans reveal that you're out of missiles, your forward laser is out of alignment, sixty percent of your shield emitters are fused and your power levels are fluctuating alarmingly. The only way you could have possibly defeated those pirates is if you persuaded them to board, then self-detonated."
"Actually we couldn't even do that, Derik. The self-destruct system has been out of order for over a year.", Rus replied, roughly elbowing Hesperus aside to look into the viewer.
"Rus, I thought when you dropped out of sight you'd retired! Where have you been?", Roh'i asked, surprise obvious in his voice.
"Well, I had planned to retire a while back, but my previous commander jumped ship leaving me without six month's back pay. Hesperus kindly took me on as a thirty percent partner in his trading company. I'm still waiting on a return on his profits."
At this Rus glanced darkly at the feline he was leaning across.
"We've got to catch up. How about I escort that heap of junk back to space port and then you can explain where all that damage came from. No GalCop station would have allowed you to break from dock in that state and besides that, I know you of old, you'd never allow it, even if galCop did."
"It's a deal, Derik. In fact, if you guide us in safe, Hesperus'll shout for a couple of bottles of that Onatian Bloodwine you enjoy. Won't you, Captain?", Rus replied, the threat of impending violence evident in his voice.
"Of course.", Hesperus replied weakly, artfully regaining his composure beneath his chief engineer's glare.
Captain Hesperus
A jump cloud blossoms into life like the silent blue-tinted explosion of a orchid. The ship that coalesces from the depths of Hyperspace looks like a Python, except it's horrifically beaten-up appearance. Whole sections of the hull are missing, yawning gulfs of open space can be seen through the interior of the vessel. Running lights flicker fitfully along the exterior and the engines periodically gout large quantities of unstable plasma in the ship's wake. The remaining outer panels are criss-crossed by multiple high-yield energy weapon strikes and micro-meteorite impacts. One solitary panel bears an ident plate, almost completely obscured by carbonised waste and melted hull panel. It reads "DP-099 'The Dubious Profit'". Another panel near the back has a hastily-created message made by means of a plasma cutter "Running in - Please overtake"
<camera view: Interior, ship's cockpit.>
The interior of the cockpit is a scene from a disaster movie. Roof panels are scattered over the floor and bundles of blackened and burning cables hang down like high-tech jungle vines. The air is thick with clouds of acrid, white smoke. The cockpit is bathed in crimson from the emergency lighting rigs welded to the walls and what was once an aert klaxon has been converted to a humourous "SQUONK! SQUONK! SQUONK!" by a high velocity impact that damaged the speaker. Within the clouds, movement can just be discerned.
"Are we dead?", a voice, high and chittering asks.
"If we are, then I've obviously gone to Hell, because you're here, D'vlin.", a deep rumbling voice replied.
"Rus, I think we can all asume we're still alive. My back's certainly not going to let me die before it tells me just how bad it feels.", another voice chipped in, a smooth voice that should have belonged to a Tri-Vid star or even an intergalactic spy.
Instead it belonged to a small grey feline from Orrira, famed through all Eight Charts as the least liked and worst fated trader to ever ply the star lanes. Captain Hesperus waved the smoke out of his face, his pink nose wrinkling at the smell and tapped hopfully at the console in front of him. It responded with a negatory buzz and he summarily punched it. It bleeped and lights flickered across it.
"Looks like we've returned to Real Space, after all. That's a late watch you owe me, D'vlin.", Hesperus smiled, pausing to suck at his barked knuckles.
A tubby ginger feline picked himself up from the floor where he had thrown himself prior to their arrival in Riedquat and inspected the bundle of wrappers at his feet. Quick as a flash he extracted a much thumbed, unopened wrapper and wrenched it open. The chewy-chocolatey contents were rapidly consumed to the sounds of growling and whimpering.
"Stepan, once you've finished your 'last supper', would you mind figuring out where we are? The navi-comp keeps saying we are in Riedquat. And that, all things considered, would be a problem."
The ginger tom nodded and waddled over to the flight systems. He thumbed through the exterior view cameras, his eyes fixing on the established spatial 'landmarks' that the early astro-mariners had used to navigate and stood thoughtfully for a minute. he smiled and nodded sagely.
"Yep, yep, yep. Definately.", he said.
"Definately, what?"
"Yes, it's definately Riedquat.", the big feline smiled cheerfully.
At that moment, the threat alert siren started "SQUONK"-ing as a triangle of red blips appeared on the cracked scanner screen.
Hesperus sighed as he tried to muster something approximating to combat readiness from his ship's ruined systems.
"Looks like my luck's back to normal."
The Dubious Profit vainly tried to veer off to avoid the inbound squadron, but the damaged ventral thruster array treasonously misfired and sent the ship barrel-rolling back into the crosshairs of the pirates. Hesperus swore, Rus cursed and D'vlin went back to his prayers to Randomius Factoria, Giles the Creator, or whoever the hell else might hear them. A flicker of laser fire danced across the damaged nose of the Python, sending her already crippled shields screeching and chunks of molten duralium pinnwheeling lazily away. The damage control computer did the only thing available to it with the resources remaining to it and promptly exploded, scattering its console across the disaster area that was supposed to be the Profit's bridge.
"Okay boys, time to face facts.", Hesperus sighed as the emergency klaxon finally died, it's "SQUONK" silenced forever, "Ship's screwed, we're gonna have to bail..."
He turned his chair around and was confronted by a massed brawl as his crew struggled to force themselves into the one still-functional escape pod.
"DAMMIT! I'm the captain, I get first dibs on the escape pod!", he howled, hurling himself into the scuffle.
Had he remained at the viewscreen, he might have noticed a slight flicker off to one side, a few hundred clicks behind the pirates. As it was, he and the rest of the crew were taken aback by the sudden wideband com-mesage that echoed across the void.
"No-one performs piracy on my patch!"
Hesperus froze at the sound of the voice. It had a deep, gutteral sound, immediately recognisable as belonging to a reptilian. His response was automatic.
"Oh Giles, not him. Anyone but him. Even Maegil."
The pirates obviously recognised the voice, as they immediately broke off their attack run. But it was too late. Even as they peeled off, an area of empty space suddenly became a powerful-looking warship, its lines sleek and predatory. The ident computer aboard the Profit confirmed Hesperus' fears as it revealed the ship's callsign: "Persistence of Memory". The Omega-variant Caduceus swept past one of the hapless pirates, its broadside weapons filling the void between the two ships with ravening plasma fire. The pirate, a Cobra Mark III, lasted all of a couple of seconds before its shields, then its hull, were breached and it erupted in a silent cloud of super-heated gas and white hot debris. The second pirate ship, a nippy little Mosquito Sport, attempted to blindside the Caduceus with a salvo of missiles, but the mighty vessel ECMed or shot down the weapons with precision plasma fire. The Persistence heeled around on her axis, bringing her immensely powerful primary weapon to bear. The forward viewscreen of the Dubious Profit automatically cut out for a moment as the awesome prow weapon discharged and as it reactivated, it was apparent that nothing, not even wreckage, remained of the Mosquito. The final pirate, a Blackdog Python that was only slightly less the worse for wear than the Dubious Profit, had taken the intervening few moments from the Caduceus' arrival to the demise of its allies to initiate its hyperspace drives. Even as the archetect of its comrades' demise came about to fix the ship in its sights, the Blackdog formed its jumpgate and was gone.
Hesperus, indeed all the crew, had turned back to the viewscreen and thus had witness the terrifying display of raw destructive power that was within the hands of one of the Galactic Chart's most renowned bounty hunters. A light flashed on the coms console, indicating an incoming transmission on a visual channel. Captain Hesperus gingerly perched himself in the command chair and tried to master his face even as he thumbed the 'receive' button on the console. Instantly recognisable, the face of Derik Roh'i, the famous 'Commander Wyvern', filled the screen. His face was inscrutable as he peered through the static of the transmission and the smoke that still shrouded the Profit's cockpit.
"Either this is a rare, and frankly pointless, facsimile or I'm actually speaking to the commander of the Dubious Profit. That'd be Commander Hesperus, yes."
It was a statement, not a question. Hesperus bridled for a moment as the most hated word in his vocabulary hit him full on. He bit back the bile that he normally responded with and replied, "Yes, this is Captain Hesperus speaking, I take it I have the honour to be addressing Commander Roh'i. I'd like to thank you for you assistance in dealing with those pirates, but frankly it was unnecessary as..."
Hesperus was interrupted by a bellowing roar of laughter from the bounty hunter. The laughter continued for a minute or two before the big reptiloid brought himself back under control.
"Hesperus, you're a fool if you really expect me to believe that load of Trumble crap. Our scans reveal that you're out of missiles, your forward laser is out of alignment, sixty percent of your shield emitters are fused and your power levels are fluctuating alarmingly. The only way you could have possibly defeated those pirates is if you persuaded them to board, then self-detonated."
"Actually we couldn't even do that, Derik. The self-destruct system has been out of order for over a year.", Rus replied, roughly elbowing Hesperus aside to look into the viewer.
"Rus, I thought when you dropped out of sight you'd retired! Where have you been?", Roh'i asked, surprise obvious in his voice.
"Well, I had planned to retire a while back, but my previous commander jumped ship leaving me without six month's back pay. Hesperus kindly took me on as a thirty percent partner in his trading company. I'm still waiting on a return on his profits."
At this Rus glanced darkly at the feline he was leaning across.
"We've got to catch up. How about I escort that heap of junk back to space port and then you can explain where all that damage came from. No GalCop station would have allowed you to break from dock in that state and besides that, I know you of old, you'd never allow it, even if galCop did."
"It's a deal, Derik. In fact, if you guide us in safe, Hesperus'll shout for a couple of bottles of that Onatian Bloodwine you enjoy. Won't you, Captain?", Rus replied, the threat of impending violence evident in his voice.
"Of course.", Hesperus replied weakly, artfully regaining his composure beneath his chief engineer's glare.
Captain Hesperus
Where it should be!
). 
For this reason, I prefer long-range sniping.
