In a respectable family home some thirty years
ago a young red haired boy about thirteen is stamping his foot in temper.
”Why can’t I go our and play with the others? You’re soo mean da.” the kid says
in a whiney Scots accent.
“You know young bairn that since that incident with Melanie
McRawn your not allowed out. That’s why you’re being tutored at home. Just get
on with yur work.”
“I was only looking pa, what’s wrong with that.” The boy
said sulkily.
“Well it was the girls locker room and you pulled her skirt
up son.”
“I weren’t doing na harm da. Let me go play with the gurls
again.”
“No son. No moor. You’re gunna stay here and study boy. Your
going to be a doctor just like your pa.”
“OK da. I’ll study and I’ll be the bestest doctor evah. I’ll
make all humans better da I promise.”
Cue Music …
The crew begin
to discuss what they are going to do when they get to Lilac and they start to
do some research on the planet and also Tetrix. It seems that Tetrix is a planetoid
around Lilac with a thin atmosphere. It has a mining colony run by the
Tetraphon Mining Corporation, an independent operation. Eleanor even joked that
they should space Dr Weir when they found him.
About a half day
out from Lilac Thomas spotted two Reaver ships about 10-15 miles behind. He
turned towards a nearby asteroid field and noted that the Reaver ships turned
to follow. They were catching so Thomas initiated hard burn and got them into
the field. Pretty soon one of the two Reaver ships crashed into an asteroid
causing it to be unbalanced and crash into a second asteroid. The other Reaver
ship was piloted better and soon started to gain on the ship as it emerged from
the asteroid field. Thomas turned the Serendipity round and started some more
risky manoeuvres back into the asteroid field. Just as the Reaver ship fired on
the Serendipity, the engines blew up no longer able to sustain burn and the
Reaver ship crashed into an asteroid. The blast from the Reaver ship took out
the Buckley’s Chance and damaged the hull where it was connected. Bau quickly
used the sealant on the hull to prevent a complete hull breach and then
inspected the engine. He said that he could fix the engine temporally to get
the ship to limp into Lilac, but the repairs would take a day and a half.
When they got to
Lilac the crew searched for the largest area of population and found a town
with a few Spaceport facilities by the dusty landing strip. There was a ship
called the Irrelevant Detail there that Thomas had sold to Nathaniel Grade.
Thomas mentioned this to the crew and Dr Wu decided to go and talk to his hero.
Nathaniel had 3
muscle guy minions in his ship with him and he told Dr Wu he had some
information for Joe. He told Dr Wu he was here chasing Dr Weir to bring him to
justice. Dr Wu told Nathaniel that they were here for a similar reason and that
they had got information that Dr Weir’s ship was seen going to Tetrix.
Nathaniel said he’d meet up with the crew in the tavern and they would share
information.
Nathaniel first
of all met up with Joe and told him that he’d seen his niece Alleyne and that
she was safe but was involved with some fairly powerful people. The others all
came to meet him in the tavern except Bau who was fixing the ship and Fey who
decided that she didn’t want to renew her acquaintance. Nathaniel related that
he had been given some information that led to some more information that said
that an Operative of the Parliament was being sent to Tetrix to deal with Dr
Weir. He thought that the Operative would not be here yet and that they should
go and administer justice beforehand. They decided that since Pinto had already
consumed a number of whiskies that it would perhaps be best to start out the
next day. It was decided that Nathaniel would take his ship since the
Serendipity was still being repaired.
Nathaniel had a
high-powered telescope and they used it to look at Tetrix. They saw a small dot
in geo-stationary orbit near to Tetrix. The plan was to come at Tetrix from the
far side and gradually sneak round and get a peak at what was above the
planetoid. As they inched round they saw the Utopia in orbit about the
planetoid. They decided to try and sneak round in low orbit but were spotted.
The ship was hailed by the Utopia.
“This is acting Captain Hunter of the AV Utopia.
Unidentified vessel, please identify yourself and your business here else we
will fire.”
“This is Nathaniel Grade on the SV Irrelevant Detail here.”
“Captain Grade you will proceed to dock with the Utopia
where you will come aboard and be questioned. This is an Alliance restricted
area.” Acting Captain Hunter said haughtily.
The crew decided
to concoct their story whilst they were cruising in towards the Utopia. They
decided to send a tight beam wave to Captain Flint to let her know what they’d
found. They asked her and Bau to bring the Serendipity to the dark side of
Tetrix.
When they docked
with the Utopia Second-Lieutenant Walsh and a number of other men met them and
searched them for weapons. They escorted the crew to Acting Captain Hunter who
was just making a wave requesting re-enforcements be sent here. Acting Captain
Hunter took a verbal swipe at Nathaniel Grade before sending them off to the
brig so they could be questioned individually.
One of
Nathaniel’s minions had been taken for questioning but after half an hour had
still not returned. Thomas and Dr Wu realised that the crew were behaving
slightly abnormally, much quieter than a normal crew. Nathaniel assumed it was
due to Hunter being in charge. They then came to take the second of Nathaniel’s
minions but the first one was not returned. When they came to take the third
minion and neither of the first two called out Joe called after the guards who
ignored them. A voice from a nearby cell asked who else was there and the crew
quickly realised that it was Captain Wildheart. Through the bars the crew could
see that she’d been badly beaten. The crew identified themselves.
“Hunter didn’t realise my medical history when he tried to
chip me.” She said laughing. “I have shrapnel in my neck from the war that
interfered with the chip.” Captain Wildheart then related how she’d sent the
Operative down to the planet with Hunter and a contingent of men. They had
failed to return and so she sent a second contingent down after them. Both
contingents returned together and overpowered her and told the crew that she’d
been relieved of command on medical grounds when the chip failed to take.
Hunter had been trying to beat the command codes out of her but hadn’t
succeeded.
The crew
determined they had to escape and when two of the guards came for Eleanor,
Pinto attacked them knocking one of them out. Eleanor grabbed for the gun and
missed the other guard, leaving Pinto to hit him again without a weapon. The
remaining guard shot Pinto whilst he knocked him out. Eleanor passed her gun to
Joe whilst she unlocked the cell door for him. The guard at the cell entrance
pressed the alarm whilst Pinto shot him using the other guard’s gun. They got
the others out whilst Pinto and Joe peeped round the door. There they saw three
guards coming down the corridor. Pinto and Joe shot them whilst getting shot in
return whilst Eleanor decided to distract them by taking her top off and
jumping out into the corridor. The guards maintained their discipline in the
light of this distraction whilst Pinto and Joe finished the other two guards
off. Dr Wu stripped off the guard’s uniforms whilst the battle was ongoing.
Captain
Wildheart told them that they needed to get to a communications station rather
than the bridge, which would be heavily guarded. The crew considered going back
to Nathaniel’s ship but Wildheart told them that his ship would also be well
guarded. They decided to go to the communications station where in addition to
sending a message to the Alliance Captain Wildheart also temporally disabled
the weapons systems and released the Cruisers fighters from dock to prevent
them following them. They headed straight for the nearest troop shuttle and met
little resistance.
Nathaniel
piloted the shuttle down to Tetrix and landed it near to the slagheap by the
mining community. On the way down they asked Captain Wildheart about the
Operatives orders. She told them she didn’t know her full orders but that she
was to come here and neutralise Dr Weir and close down his project. Joe told
Captain Flint that they needed her to come and join them in the mining camp,
but it would take about 45 minutes. There were about seven buildings there and
Joe decided to head for the first one near to the slagheap. As he ran across
three spiked balls flew up into the air and began firing needles at Joe. Nimbly
Joe dodged them and made it to the building. Pinto in the doorway was not so
lucky, a needle piercing his mesh armour made him woozy and then he fell
unconscious. Eleanor identified it from a case she’d worked that it was similar
in composition to a date rape drug. Nathaniel headed over to the building to
join Joe.
Inside the
building Joe had to deal with a couple of miners who he made get down on the
floor. He checked their necks and noted they were chipped. He asked where Dr
Weir was and was told that the Master was behind the end building. Joe tied
them up and helped Nathaniel take out the spiked balls and two cameras hidden
on the ground. The questioned Captain Wildheart about what the Operative looked
like and she said that Sinead Fitzpatrick was a normal sized brown haired
woman. Nathaniel wanted to wait and tell Captain Flint in person but Joe
surreptitiously told her on the comm link.
Just when they
thought they were safe 3 more spiked balls showed up and a mini tank began
rumbling towards the mining community. Nathaniel ordered the shuttle to take
off and circle away from the tank behind buildings whilst they found out how to
deal with it. Joe put on a helmet and thick mining gloves and make himself a
target outside whilst Nathan took out the spiked balls. Then out of the next
building there were six people starting to march out in line. Joe moved them down
with his assault rifle before being forced back in the building by two armoured
robots with assault rifles similar to the ones they saw on the Space Station.
Nathaniel and Joe escaped the building round the far side and saw more people
coming out of the nearby building. Joe mowed them down and they headed for the
explosives building. Using explosives they found in the building the building
two bombs that they used to take out the two robots in the buildings, setting
the timers just right.
Then they
decided to try and take out the tank using a similar method. Both Nathaniel and
Joe threw satchels with timed explosives but Nathaniel threw his short and it
ended up blowing up a large hole in front of the tank. Fortunately the tank
fell straight down into the hole immobilized. The crew were able to search the
other buildings now that all the opposition had been taken out and found Dr
Weir’s lab for making the spiked balls. It contained vials for the drug and the
antidote. They administered the antidote to Pinto who came round but was still
groggy.
The Serendipity
arrived and landed next to the tank. The crew found a large hatch behind the
building with Weir’s equipment. They estimated it was quite thick and managed
to only blow a tiny hole with the first batch of dynamite. The second and last
smaller bag managed to get a hole big enough for a man to get down. Captain
Wildheart was anxious to get moving as the Cruiser would have recovered their
fighters by now and would be onto them soon ……
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