Penny

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

It was amazing how useful maintenance closets could be. Large enough for a person to fit comfortably, never surveilled, rarely visited, and with access to most of a stations system. Jocasta watched through a spliced fiber feed as marines headed to the bank and then to the Huntsmen, locking down the ship and beginning a methodical search. The moved crisply, rifles at high port, sweeping methodically and professionally. It was a sight to see, and one that made Jocasta's lips turn up in a sad smile. The day was not long coming when the UNSG would abandon this sector as it strove desperately to keep itself together in face of powerful nobles and fiscal cut backs. She carefully counted the number of marines at the ship and at the bank, then slipped out.

Another benefit of maintenance closets was they usually had some spare clothes, and no one paid attention to a maintenance worker dressed in slightly ill fitting coveralls and a construction helmet. She carried a tool box and moved with no particular purpose towards the docking arm currently occupied by the UNSG Cartagena. The destroyer bulked large beyond the view port, a slender dagger shaped vessel bulged out at the end to accommodate massive engine farings. It was a battered old tub, two generations out of frontline service but still being made to work out here in the bundu.

Jocasta bought a pastry from a street vendor and took a seat where she could unobtrusively watch the ship. A single marine currently stood guard, the rest of the compliment having been dispatched. Opening her tool box she watched the progress of the rest of the marines on a hand held flatscreen which she had repurposed from a multimeter. She needed a distraction, but given that a platoon or so of marines had just commandeered and impounded the Huntsman-come-Artemis, she was fairly sure that just such a distraction would arise very soon.

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

The wealth of the Caliphate worked in Jocasta's favor, despite the fact that the disguise was paper thin she waltzed into the banking house of Garibaldi Stellar Credit without challenge. She provided an identification code to a teller and was immediately ushered into a plush office in which a woman sat in a blandly expensive tan suit. She looked up in surprise, scanning Jocasta up and down. The clerk stapled her fingers, revealing a manicure that would have paid half a first class fare to Capella.

"What can I do for you miss..." the clerk began.

"Ap'Glynn," Jocasta supplied. The clerk arched an eyebrow at that but made no further comment.

"I'd like to access some accounts," Jocasta said, scribbling a series of instructions onto a piece of paper and sliding it across to the clerk. The woman took the paper and began tapping away on a virtual keyboard, her eyes widening briefly.

"Have you been here long Mistress?" the clerk asked as the computer whired and fired requests into the communications arry.

"I only just arrived," Jocasta admitted.

"I didn't realize there had been any liners in the last few weeks," the clerk replied with offhanded interest.

"I actually came on a private yacht, the Huntsman, or the Artemis, I hear its being renamed," Jocasta confided.

"Your own ship?" the clerk asked enviously. Jocasta shook her head.

"Turns out I was just super cargo," she replied bitterly. The computer chirped and an armored panel extruded several stacks of high denomination dabluntz in plastic wrapped tubes.

"Please consider us for your future banking needs mistress," the clerk said with an expensive smile.

______

"Sir!" Lieutenant Edwardo Cruz snapped as his console lit up. Conversation on the bridge of the UNSGS Cartagena cut off abruptly, military training stressed quiet during combat conditions so as not to overwhelm the bridge with noise. Captain Ricardo, resplendent in a gray and silver dress uniform turned to his intelligence chief, his mustache bristling.

"Report Lieutenant," he snapped in a thick Mars accent.

"Someone on the station is accessing admiralty accounts," he reported, turning his screen omnidrectional so the crew could make out a pirated security image of a woman in a jumpsuit and a headscarf. Ricardo leaned forward his mouth dropping open in shock. It couldn't be. Not out her in the back of beyond. With the cut backs, it was hardly even in the patrol area these days.

"Master at Arms! Get a squad together and get down there, she is to be taken alive," he grated, "and find out if she has a ship and seize it at once!"

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

Jocasta eyed Markus for a long moment. The humor that normally sparkled in her eyes drained slowly as the green of her eyes turned from sparkling emerald to glacial ice.

"You know what? Thanks for the drink," she said, reaching out and deliberately knocking her glass over so the remainder of the beverage spilled out and ran over the slightly uneven surface of the table to drip to the ground. She stood up, ignoring the arched eyebrows of several patrons who probably assumed she was rejecting Markus on wholly different grounds and walked out of the bar smoldering.

This whole thing had been a waste of a perfectly good fusion beamer, Jocasta thought as she rode an elevator upwards into a more commercial district of the station. It would teach her to intervene in a perfectly fine assassination which was none of her concern to begin with. The upper levels of the statin were, inevitably, nicer than the others. Despite the fact that upper was arbitrary in space, humans hadn't yet been able to shake the millennia old association between height and power. Of course nicer, was a somewhat relative term. She passed the heavily guarded office fronts of several shipping houses, located cheek to jowl with a nicer cut of bars and drug dens. The thugs were better armed and of a better cut, and UNSG officers enjoyed their shore leave, strutting among the colorful civilians in austere splendor. That increased her risk somewhat. She pulled the sash up and wrapped it around her head in something close to the hijab of a Neo-Muslim then headed for the cluster of banks and trading houses located around the central copper spire of the communication ansible.

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

Jocasta's eyebrows raised.

"Have you got a second ship?" she asked sweetly, "because I know you aren't offering me a place on my own yacht."

"You got your sword back, I get the ship," she pointed out reasonably, "it is a fair distribution of loot based on the sentimental value of the blade." Come to think of it, she hadn't gotten her fusion beamer back either, not to mention the loss of her favorite dress.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Johann did indeed have something cooking. The bandit chief was eating a breakfast of a boiled egg and a length of sausage at a writing desk that was probably worth a months rent in a decent house in Altdorf. If his goal was to look sophisticated the fact that he was eating with a dagger rather than a knife and fork undermined the effort.

"G'mornin'," he said around a mouthful of half chewed meat. He swallowed before going on.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, with a chuckle.

"Tolerably," Emmaline replied, refusing to be drawn by the bandit. Emmaline picked a piece of sausage of the chief's plate and popped it into her mouth without evident embarrassment, earning herself an arched eyebrow from Johann. Neil stepped in before the situation could deteriorate.

"The brains trust back there said you were cooking something up," Neil said, pulling up an upholstered seat which he turned and straddled so he could cross his arms on the top of it. Emmaline leaned back against a side board which had tragically been denuded of alcohol by the bandit gang during the night.

"Aye, aye," Johann said, taking a sip of ale from a tankard. He waved it at Emmaline.

"If you sit on my knee you can have a sip," he wheedled. Reached into a pouch and withdrew a leather flask then popped the cork and took a drink of the cherry brandy within before sticking her tongue out at the bandit who shrugged in a 'you win some you lose some' motion. He gestured with greasy fingers to a cloth map he had unrolled.

"There are a number of noble estates closer to the city," Johann began, gesturing to several marks on his maps. "We looked in on a couple of them and they were already burning. Beast men, local peasants settling grudges, whatever." Emmaline could well imagine peasants setting fire to their masters property in the few moments before they fled, even though it would mean being squeezed even harder when the authorities returned. Vengeance, even small vengeance, was beyond price to the small folk.

"I figure that all the rich and fancy folk bugged out to...." he tapped a finger on the map "Strumburg."

"There will be some on the road, and some in the town, laden down with everything gold and sparkly they own," he breathed all but rubbing his palms together in anticipation.

"Well we can..." Emmaline began but before she could speak there was a sudden smell on the wind. Something reeking and animal, she saw a glint of something brassy off in the woods.

"Down!" she yelled, yanking Neil off his chair as the leaded glass of the window exploded inwards, blasting the chair he had been on to a spray of splinters and goosedown. A half dozen more shots crashed through the window in quick succession. Ale splashed everywere as Johann's tankard shattered. Miraculoulsy the bandit chief was unhit and he threw himself to the ground beside them.

"Ranald's bloody balls..." he breathed as Emmaline crawled to the lip of the window and raised her head to peak over. Hunched rat like figures were emerging from the woods. Some had long brass guns that looked like Araybian jezzails though they glowed with fell energies. More of them were emerging from the trees now, scuttling up to the walls with disgusting rodent like movements.

"Boss!" Hef called from the other room, "whatever these things are they are surrounding the place!"

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

Jocasta took a sip of her drink the tingle of alcohol warming the back of her throat even as the chemicals made it sparkle in her mouth, far more than simple carbonation could. It was an oddly solemn moment, as Makus finally made good on the debt he had incurred a selective lifetime ago and it was deeply satisfying. Jocasta hunched her shoulders slightly as a trio of UNSG spacers entered the bar. There was a UNSG cruiser docked on the arbitrarily named 'western' arm of the station and its several hundred personnel were taking leave. Technically this was UNSG territory but these days their writ didn't run much beyond the core systems and the Hundred Duchys. The spacers weren't exactly unwelcome, no one whose credits spent was unwelcome, but they took care to move in small groups rather than going alone.

"But Markus," Jocasta protested, "I simply haven't a thing to wear!" When they had first met she had been dressed in a flash silver evening dress, but that dress along with her few other possessions had been left on the God's Eye when they fled. There was a shopping trip in her future, at least once they sold of some of the pretties they had found aboard the Huntsman. It had been Lord Gallanis' personal yacht and was well stocked with small art objects, expensive booze, and various other fungible assets. She was dressed in a dark green flight suit that was a few sizes too big for her, the name 'Huntsman' was stenciled across its chest, but she had tied a red silk sash from shoulder to hips to cover the name. Her feet were sheathed in her combat boots, the only footwear aboard that would fit her.

"Besides, Black Eyes there isn't doing too badly," she admitted, knocking back her drink and waving for another.

"You think there is any chance your Lordly friend comes after us?"

Penny's Pencils

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline glanced around, relieved that the thrust of the conversation was moving away from murder and rape. She knew that Neil could handle himself, and she could probably manage something with magic but they were literally caught with their pants down. She held up her hands and shrugged in a very distracting manner to focus the eye on her.

"It's a long story," she began, then cast a remorseful look at the chocolate, "one best told over wine and chocolate I suppose. A cheer went up from the bandits and their group cohesion broke appart as they rushed to tear off chunks of the sweet confection. Johann looked annoyed at this but he stopped actively pointing his blunderbuss even if he didn't put it down.

Emmaline started from the beginning, editing the story as she went. She doubted whether these men would be reassured by their other encounters with the ruinous powers, or the skaven for that matter, and she certainly knew better than to mention their association with the Order of the Fiery heart. Emmaline became acutely aware that she had saved her Justicar outfit for a special occasion and that if these bandits rifled her pack she was in real trouble.

"Things were getting rather chaotic so we just took our chances and looted what we could," Emmaline explained making a gesture to the casket of warpstone.

"I don't know if its magical, but every time we open it we seem to be struck by bad luck," she went on, eager to encourage the thieves not to look too closely.

"I'm from Altdorf and I know some people close to the college," she continued, aware of the irony of the statement. "We are betting they will pay us a pretty penny for it, even if it is just to dispose of it safely." Johann nodded along with her explanation.

"The problem with con women is you don't know if they are conning you," he opined, "but you lad seems to have the bones of a thief."

"I'm not conning you," Emmaline said with deadly earnest, then her expression slowly turned from innocent outrage to sly wickedness, "... or am I..." Johann laughed at this and finally set his weapon down.

"Fine, I suppose there is no harm in at least camping together," he grudgingly admitted.

"I wouldn't mind doing more than camping!" one of the band called with a wolf whistle.

"Sorry boys, already been more of a free show than I intended," Emmaline replied, not quite managing to repress a blush.

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

"You’ll admire it once it’s in," Jocasta mocked. "That’s what he said." Further witticisms were stifled as Markus grabbed her by the elbow and propelled her down the boarding tube. The hatches behind them hissed, and deck plates rang with booted feet as security rushed to cut off their escape.

"Eew! Eeew!" Jocasta protested as they reached the boarding hatch, and they were forced to tramp through the tacky blood of the thoroughly dead honor guard. Markus slapped the hatch control, but it responded with a uniform red light and a squawk of denial. The honor guard had locked the ship out before their messy demise. Plasma bolts began to snap down the boarding tube, and Markus turned and began to return fire, dropping a pair of overeager troopers with impressive headshots that sprayed brain matter and burning hair over their companions.
"Get the door open before they return the favor with grenades!" Markus called. Jocasta put her hand to the panel. It was a biometric lockout designed to prevent exactly what the two mercenaries were currently attempting. Her implants linked her, and she entered the system, flashes of plasma and sharper discharges of slug throwers fading from her mind.

"Any minute now!" Markus shouted as a grenade bounced down the boarding tube. He kicked it like a soccer player, sending it back down the tube to burst with a flash of orange-white fire. Pieces of shrapnel pinged and keened down the tube, and for the second time in a day, the fire suppression system cut in, showering sticky foam from overhead.

The air stank of cordite, ozone, burnt blood, and fire suppression chemicals as Jocasta furiously tried to find a way past the lock. She irritably tried to wipe water from her eyes as Markus continued to fire down the tube, the falling droplets flashing miniature contrails along the plasma bolts' paths. Water. She pulled up the shuttle’s emergency landing protocols. These were hard-coded into the operating system and were relatively undefended, as their purpose was to preserve the lives of the crew in the event of a crash. She activated the water landing subroutine.

The locked hatchway exploded outwards. The hatch combing careened down the boarding tube, propelled by the four explosive charges meant to blow it clear in the event of a crash. Sparks flew in a fireworks display that would have done a Federation Day parade proud. The edges struck and rebounded, scoring bright orange lines in the hot metal as the hatch rocketed down the tube like a pea in a whistle. It crashed into the antechamber that the security troopers were flooding into like a bandsaw, cutting men in half and sending weapons and limbs flying in all directions.

"Solid," Markus remarked laconically. Jocasta wondered if he would be quite so sanguine had he known she had no idea how violently that plan would come to fruition and that if he had been popped out to fire at that instant, he would be splattered across half the space station. She decided not to mention it.

"Time to go," she said, noting with alarm that streams of gas were already escaping the boarding tube, freezing in long icicles where they managed to clog the holes the hatch had opened. As she watched, the gaps grew larger as the boarding tube began to tear itself apart, each seam taking double the strain as the previous one failed. Litter, dust, and droplets of blood began to fly to the breach points, in some cases held in ghastly stasis between two or three.

"Agreed!" she half-yelped and leaped through the hatch and into the interior of the ship, a second or two ahead of Markus. There was a sudden mechanical siren sound, and then the inner airlock door slammed shut as the sensors registered a vacuum outside, another feature of the oh-so-useful emergency system.

"Well," she breathed as she felt the docking tube crack and the ship begin to float free, still attached to a half-dozen meters of metal gangway.

"That went well."

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug moved through the pleasantly alcohol-hazed evening. She had spent the day visiting hangouts and haunts of her youth, most of which were now frequented by a much younger crowd. The few acquaintances and friends they met engaged in the same formulaic, empty small talk—chronicling their lives: who married whom, did you hear what so-and-so is doing, etc. Such conversations invariably petered out because Junebug wasn’t adept at concealing her lack of interest. When asked what she had been up to, she could only respond that she was a starship captain now, which was impressive in a way, but follow-up questions tended to lead to awkward silences.

For Sayeeda, this was not unexpected. After her first five years with the Armored, she had been given six months' leave to come home and had felt the same jarring disconnection from everything. After years of artillery strikes, night attacks, street fighting, and every other permutation of killing for profit, it was impossible to muster interest in who had married whom or where so-and-so was working now. It was easier with Neil by her side; he was not only much more charismatic but also gave a familiar shape to her life, at least by their standards. "She has a boyfriend" was much easier to digest than "she used fuel-air explosives to burn a rebel company to death in a tunnel complex."

The beach, at least, had been pleasant, and they had soaked up some radiation while drinking and swimming in the cool, clear waters. Taya had attracted more than her share of admirers, two of whom she had gone off with to find more nocturnal entertainment. Sayeeda was thinking of the same thing as she half-stumbled into the doorway of a bar with Neil in tow.

"ID, please," a gym-muscled bouncer asked, not quite rude but not exactly friendly either. Junebug laughed and pulled out an ID card—an old skimmer license with her picture from a decade before.

"This is out of date," the bouncer stated flatly. Junebug chuckled and began to square up with the man when a sudden voice chimed in her ear.

"Aunty Sayeeda?" Junebug missed a step, surprised beyond words to hear a voice in her mastoid implant.

"Madge?" Sayeeda responded, startled half-sober.

"Ma'am, if you don’t have ID..." the bouncer started, but Junebug held up a finger in a 'wait one' gesture that made the man flush with anger.

"Madge, how did you..."

"There are men here with guns. They are yelling and they grabbed..."

"Don’t stick your finger up at me, bitch, or I’ll..." The bouncer’s eyes bulged as Neil suddenly stood behind him, bending his arm back at an unnatural angle that made the blood drain from the bouncer's ruddy face.

"Maybe shut your fucking mouth for a minute," Neil suggested mildly, twisting the limb even further to emphasize his point.

"Men with guns? Madge, find somewhere to hide, and I'll be right..."

"I’m already under your bed, I’m using your helmet," the girl said, frightened and proud of herself at the same time. And just how in the seven hells had the girl learned to use a commo helmet?

"Good girl, stay there. I’m on my..." The bouncer swung his free hand at Neil. The pilot danced back and drove a beaked fist into the man's kidney. The bouncer roared and tried to spin to kick at Neil, but Junebug drove her foot into his leg just below his right knee. There was a crack of tendons audible even over his scream of pain as he went down, howling and grasping his leg.

"...way," Sayeeda concluded, the alcohol all but burned from her system by the sudden surge of adrenaline. Other patrons were backing away, and another bouncer was on his way forward. A sudden low-key babble of sound filled her ears, and she realized that Madge must have switched the mic in her old helmet to omni-directional. Clever. Very clever. Sayeeda could hear voices raised in anger as well as heavy boots striking the floor.

Neil didn’t bother asking if there was trouble; he just reached down and plucked the bouncer's keys from his pocket and thumbed the fob. A hoverbike a dozen meters away lifted from the pavement, its turbine clicking then spinning up to a low rumbling idle. He leaped onto the bike, and Junebug followed, throwing her arms around his waist as he accelerated away.

"Where to?" he demanded.

"Home, and see if you can find some way to call the police," Sayeeda called, trying to sift through the information she could gather from the broadcast noise.