Penny

If...

Made up. Like God. Also like the works of Shakespeare so don't dispair.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene bowed his head in aquiecene, picking up a slice of bread and biting into it obediently. It was coarser than what humans would consider normal but it was still warm and strangely tasty. In an effort to combat the chalky texture he tried dipping it in a redish sauce which turned out to be some sort of fruit chutney, spicy and pleasantly sweet. Unconsciously his mind shifted to the dangers that lay ahead. His focus was on Solae but there was a bigger picture to consider. His jaw masticated the tough bread stoically as he thought.

“It isn’t just for you,” he said at last, referring to the risks he and others had run for her.

“If the Empire isn’t warned about what's happening in this sector, there will be more attacks like this. You are the only one who can do that,” the words crystallized in his mind as he spoke them. Solae represented a double edged sword. If the enemy took her, they could use her and her bloodline to utilize the PEA system. That would lengthen the war, inevitable once the Empire learned of the rebellion, by months or years. It was even an outside possibility that the existence of an organized and successful rebellion here would spark others and light a fuse that would bring the Stellar Empire down, paving the way for a second Collapse which might mean the end of humans as an intergalactic species. As a child Rene had read the surviving archives of the Collapse, a cataclysmic war which had spread famine and disease across human space and led to the death of trillions. It was only chance that humanity hadn’t stumbled into the darkness of extinction the first time around. The other side of the blade was that if Solae were able to get in contact with the Stellar Empire, over the PEA or in person, she would trigger a swift and decisive counterstrike. Only someone of her rank and position bypass the ponderous byzantine bureaucracy and galvanize the Imperial Leadership into action. In a perfect world that was the function of the nobility, to provide the exception to the rules that allowed the Empire to stomach crisis.

“When this is over, it will be your voice that speaks for New Concordia, maybe for the whole Eastern Cross. You can make it better for the Syshin, for everyone. The kind of attack that happened here will be happening everywhere the rebels are flying their banners. You can stop that. We can stop that.” Rene trailed off a little embarrassed to catch himself giving a speech. It occurred to him that escape through the Stars alone knew how many occupied jump points might not be the best move. The PEA on New Concordia had been destroyed in the attack on the embassy, but there were others. If he and Solae could reach one they could call for help and then hide out till reinforcements arrived. He swallowed the bread with an effort of will.

“You should eat, you need to keep your strength up,” he told her, taking a drink to wash the chalky taste from his throat. He plucked a mango from the platter and drew his knife. Rather than power the blade on he drew the steel over the peel in a long sinuous stroke. The greenish red peel curved away from the yellow heart of the fruit in a single long strip. As he finished the cut the peel curled up into the approximate shape of a rose, a little warped because of the not quite circular shape. Rene had learned to do it with an apple. It was the kind of gallantry which had been common at the Imperial court five years ago, though he doubted it was still current. Fashioned changed and he had been out of those circles for a long time. He passed the little rose to Solae with one hand and set the peeled mango down on her plate with the other, fingers tacky with the syrupy juice. Inspite of his training he grinned boyishly, pleased that he could call upon a skill which had lain dormant so long.

“And for the record, I think you would have made a great marine. Certainly you would have been a considerable boost to the morale of a certain Private First Class Quentain.”

Tombs & Treks: A Pulp Roleplay

Ok so that will be our plan then:

Go home with the intent of coming back for final preparations in the morning.

Discover that the manor isn’t safe. This can be in the form of a telephone call, a telegram or spotting that you are personally under surveillance. It can even be from another PC if you want to collaborate.

Characters should somehow get the word from the Baron (or Jack if you prefer an Australian accent) that the new plan is to meet at South Hampton at noon the next day to embark on the Steam Ship Demeter bound for Porto (Portugal) > Dakhar(Senegal) > Kinshasha (Congo).

How you get to the ship is up to you. If you want to have a brush with the Nazi’s (plain clothes gestapo types - actually Arhenerber operatives) you are welcome to do so. If you want to have an uneventful morning and do some shopping… knock yourself out.

Shoot me or post here if you have any questions/ideas.


@Amaranth Going to PM you.

Tombs & Treks: A Pulp Roleplay

I actually have a third idea. How about people head off with the intention of coming back in the morning but during the night or in the morning receive a telephone call or telegram warning them not to return to she mansion but instead report to the S.S Demeter in south Hampton. The idea is that the mansion is under surveillance and is no longer safe.

This will allow us to move the action forward and loop in the antagonists. One of the more action oriented characters could even be the one to spot it and put out the warning

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene reclined back on the grass. He took a piece of fruit he more or less recognised from the gardens and orchards of the peasants he had seen along his old patrol route. It was about the size of his clenched fist, bright red and covered with red tendrils that gave it a spikey aspect. None of the nearby Syshin were eating them so he took his best guess and bit into the fruit. The husk cracked beneath his teeth to give way to a translucent white flesh that was both tart and sweet in equal measure. Removing it from his mouth he peeled the thing and ate it, discovering a hard stone pit as he got to the center. It was always a good idea to take on calories when you could, particularly when you didn’t know when your next meal would be.

He wiped his hand on the grass and then reached up to take Solae’s smaller hand in his own, his eyes were sober and serious as he considered what she was saying. She was worried that he would get hurt because of her? Truely, Solae was not like the other noblewomen he had met. Cultured, erudite and beautiful they might be, but concern for others would have been an alien concept to them. He felt something in his chest he hadn’t in a long time, something that pained and thrilled him in equal parts.

“I got hurt,” he agreed, flexing his arm to reveal the bandage Lasha had placed over one of the vine burns he had picked up. His leg throbbed a little when he was thinking about it but truthfully he had been hurt worse in training and been expected to report the next day.

“But it wasn’t because of you,” he disagreed, looking directly into her eyes and trying to avoid being hypnotized by her lovely face.

“I could say it was my duty or whatever, which it is but truthfully I would have done the same thing for anyone who would risk their life to help these people,” he made a broad gesture to the Syshin as they feasted. Like most of the upper classes he had been bred to have a healthy suspicion of aliens but his fall from grace had provided him with educational opportunities his peers didn’t have. Or perhaps simply gave him more empathy for the downtrodden.

“Which is what you did Solae,” he assured the marqessa earnestly.

“You risked your life, more than your life, to save them. If it hadn’t been for you drawing them away the Stars know how many Syshin would be dead or enslaved now. Worse some of the others might have gotten away in the chaos and we would have an army here right now.” Every word he spoke was the truth, although it didn’t quite convey the whole story.

“I’ll trade a few bumps and bruises for that any day,” he paused considering his next words carefully.

“For a long time after… after I joined, I wished that they would assign me to combat,” he admitted. It felt like he was confessing a weakness which made him uncomfortable.

“I guess I hoped that… well you know, I could die gloriously on the field of battle,” he went on. It came out in a rush, an embarrassing, almost childish thing to admit to, but again the the truth. Unfortunately the marines made sure his assignments were in peaceful backwaters, no one wanted a disgraced aristocrat to have a chance to gain martial glory. Such men had led rebellions in the past, he was probably lucky he hadn’t gone out an airlock some dark night just to be sure.

“I don’t want that anymore Solae. I care for you. I want to live to get you to safety. The fact that you were willing to risk worse than death makes you special. To these people and to me,” he fell silent, wishing that all the oratorical lessons he had been forced to endure were of more use to him when he really needed them. To the void with it, sometimes clever words were no substitute for the truth.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla looked around in wide eyed awe at the landscape before them. From the warm plains of Tilea it was difficult to imagine that a place like this could even exist. Wavy grass seemed to extend off to the east in a vast sea that stretched to the horizon, in the west enormous peaks scraped the sky. She pulled her cloak around herself, suddenly feeling very small and very cold. Wind rippled constantly stirring the grass to dance in strangely hypnotic patterns. Her knowledge of geography this far north was rudimentary, most Imperial maps that even showed these regions were at best educated guesses, and at worst fanciful ones. Here be Monsters was the standard marking, although in Camilla’s experience monsters were a little too ubiquitous to use as landmarks.

“Maybe we should spend the night in the crevasse,” she suggested tentatively, though she didn’t have alot of enthusiasm for the notion of climbing down the vast chasm that ran across the land like a scar, much less climbing up again in the morning. Skaldi and Ivan both shook their heads.

“Za Linger Ve are Owut heree,” he said words seeming even more deeply accented than usual, “Za warse our Chinces.” Skaldi nodded his emphatic agreement as he ran his thumb over the edge of his axeblade. He was whispering to himself in Khazlid, repeated the same syllables over and over as though remembering some ancient grudge. Camilla shrugged unwilling to contest the point but viewing the sinking sun with concern. The long climb had dried her out but the bite of early evening promised a brutal night. Once again she promised herself that if she got out of this she would find some work in Araby or Ind or any cursed place that didn’t threaten immediate death by hypothermia. Dietricha remained silent, peering at the heavens in confusion. Even Yantz, normally to be depended upon for a wise crack, remained silent as though oppressed by the sheer scale of the sky.

“Well at least path finding wont be a problem,” Konrad said, sounding cheerful if a little forced. Camilla smiled at the greatsword causing him to suck in his chest and blush slightly.

“Right, head for the giant mountain,” she agreed, her hand clenching and unclenching around the hilt of her weapon.

The walked for hours in relative silence. Speech seemed a risk that no one wanted to take. The Empire was a land of forests where sight lines were bounded by trees or city walls. Tilea had its hills and manicured fields, and Skaldi, raised below ground had never seen anything like this place. Ivan, who might have been expected to deal with the vista better than the southerners, grew sullen. Camilla privately suspected that it might have been different had the Boyar been on horseback. The landscape itself was less uniform than it appeared, every now and then a shallow stream, only a few inches deep and with a pebble bottom split the landscape. Dietricha pronounced each fresh stream as clean of taint, whether anyone showed any inclination to drink. Once they saw a small hill off in the distance. Atop it rose a great standing stone carved with runes. Trees, the first they had seen, clung to the mound like skeletons, man sized objects hung suspended from ropes and ravens circled. The gave it as wide a berth as they could.

The sun fell quickly and the temperature plummeted. Camilla was hungry but they had no food to speak of and had seen no game bigger than a field mouse. The walked on into the night, illuminated by the gibbous moon and the strange auroral glow across the northern horizon. Breath steamed from their lips and each breath as a sharp discomfort to all save Ivan and possibly Skaldi. The mountain crept closer and the land began to gently rise.

They were about to call a halt when Camilla saw a slight flicker of movement on the horizon, she glanced around to see if any of her companions had caught it. No one appeared to have noticed. Cydric paused, looking down at her as she stiffened. She peered northawards against the gloomy half dark.

“Riders,” she breathed, her voice seeming to break a spell that had lain over the group through the endless afternoon. Skaldi peered in the direction of her out stretched finger.

“Well I’ll be buggered,” he muttered looking at Camilla with a new found respect, “You’ve the eyes of a dwarf, bless me if you ain’t”

“Looks like a few score of em, and riding hard.”

“Lay down,” Ivan suggested, suiting his actions to his words. They all crotched down in the waist high grass, watching the dark tide of horsemen boil up over a distant hilll, seemingly headed straight for them.

“We need better cover,” Konrad murmured, fingering the leather wrapped grip of his greatsword uneasily.

“Nyet, if ve move now dey see us sure,” Ivan replied. They pressed themselves lower into the grass willing themselves to be invisible. The riders came on, the thunder of their hooves audible as they approached. Camilla gripped her weapon and tried to hold her breath although there as no way the small horde could hear anything over the thunder of hooves. A horn split the half night, with a rending moan. Camilla saw another group of horsemen break from concealment and race towards the first. The chaos worshippers seemed to spring up out of the earth, but more likely they had been dismounted along a stream bed. War cries rang in the distance as both parties raced to intercept each other, the air darkening with arrows and hurled javelins. Even from nearly a mile away the impact was clear in the frosty northern air, horses screamed and men screamed as the two heretic forces tore into each other in what looked to Camilla like mindless and pointless slaughter.

“Let’s get out of here,” Camilla said quietly, “the sooner we are out of this cursed place the better.”
@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The Highlander descended towards Dioni III in a gentle dive. Bracchus Prime was gradually eclipsed as the moon swelled to fill the viewport. The plot position board was alive with reports, dozen if not hundreds of craft were lifting and landing at any one moment, each one captured and plotted by the Highlander’s sensors. The glut of electronic information only became intelligible when Sayeeda had Lonney filter for likely threats based on power to weight ratios. Even so a dozen ships ranked as threats capable of engaging the Highlander and one group of a half dozen fighter sized vessel ranked as a possible if operating as a unit. More interestingly the sensor data registered a heavy ship, cruiser size or larger, partially concealed in the icy rings of Bracchus Seccundus, a large and otherwise uninspiring gas giant several light minutes out. Only the Terran’s and a few other of the major regional powers built such warships and its presence, if the sensor read was accurate, was concerning but not immediately worrying.

The communications board was lit up too and Taya typed in a continual stream. Several docking options appeared in a sidebar of Junebug’s console, conveniently tagged with estimated cost and services provided. Junebug quickly eliminated those which were unbelieveabley cheap and unreasonably expensive. The Highander was in fighting trim after its refit on Dar’mond so she swiped away those options which had extensive repair facilities. From the remaining list, still more than a dozen, she selected the third least expensive. Despite the presence of a fortune in rare minerals, they were cash poor. The repairs on Beckett’s node, seemingly a life time ago had been expensive. Similarly the cola shipment that they had jetisoned in favor of saving Aiden and his men was a loss. They were low on food and ammunition and had only a few thousand credits in various forms of exchange to batter with. Well she supposed she and Taya coud sell their dresses for something but they were still going to need to make this happen quickly.

The Highlander rocked slightly as it entered the atmosphere, friction heat making the forward shield glow momentarily before they punched into the air below. The moon was in a geostationary orbit and their destination was on the side facing the primary. The only illumination it received was reflected from the Prime. The sea of light below them blazed in defiance of the natural darkness. The entire moon was covered with construction, vast canyons existed between levels, the result of happenstance rather than good planning. Air cars, many of them older than Sayeeda herself, buzzed up and down. Casinos, lit up in neon, or topped with holoprojectors battled for attention with a constant barrage of noise and light. The lower levels contained bars, shops, repair facilities and, presumably, homes.

“Looks like a fun place,” Sayeeda commented to no one in particular. Although her voice was noncommittal she was more serious than not. After the glitz and media attention on Dar’mond she was rather looking forward to some anonymity. Part of her was concerned that they were only three days from Dar’mond and that it was such an obvious destination for them to choose. The jump had been hard across a RIP current though and if Lonney was correct a major current shift should take place in the next twelve to forty eight hours. Current changes within the RIP could alter navigational time tables by weeks or months. Unless the Dar’mond authorities were especially quick to launch their pursuit, they would find their quarry long gone by the time they reached the Smuggler’s Den.

The Highlander jinked suddenly. There was no feeling of motion with the grav pumps running but the shifting viewscreen and the sudden whine of the compensators gave it away. Junebug looked up at Neil who was settling them back onto course for one of the artificial canyons. His sudden swerve had been to evade a string of air bikes which had boiled up unexpectedly from a building. She doubted that any of them could have dented the shielding, but she would rather not rack up a body count before she even touched the ground.

“I guess areospace control is sort of crowd sourced,” she commented mildly, eliciting a snort from Neil.

A few minutes later the Highlander set down in a broad concrete floored hangar. Three other ships, also small freighters shared the bay, though none of them were in nearly as good condition as the Highlander. One of them, a battered Xylar had holes in its hull patched with plastic sheeting and rivets. It must have been temperature stable enough to survive re entry but it must have leaked air at a prodigious rate. More likely than no the hold itself was open to vacuum and only the cockpit and engineering sections were pressurised when it was beyond and atmosphere. A good way to get yourself killed in anyone's book. Stevedores moved between the ships and low slung cargo sleds, shifting boxes that might be anything from innocuous food stuffs to highly illegal nerve toxins.

Sayeeda walked down the ramp before the hydraulic extenders touched it to the ground. She was wearing her ceramic chest plate atop a tan PT shirt and a set of combat pants tucked into dark tan combat boots. A submachine gun hung from an attachment point on her chest, her helmet clipped to her belt on the right side. In contrast to her previous policy she hadn’t opted to cut her hair, letting it hang halfway to her shoulders. The interior of the docking bay smelled of plasma burns and ancient lubricant as well as the sharp tang of ozone from a recent weld. In places oils dripped from leaky hoses, running in sluggish streams to a central drain of rusted metal.

“Well, at least it isn’t a crash landing in a river,” she remarked to Neil as he clambered down the ramp. A grease stained man in filthy coveralls was striding across the floor towards them, avoiding the streams of oil with casual familiarity. He waved and smiled cheerfully, though Sayeeda didn’t doubt he had cracked a head or two with the heavy hydraulic spanner that hung from his utility belt. The man was completely bald, his shining pate spotted with patches of dark melanin that he certainly hadn’t picked up on this moon. She held up a mesh bag containing the agreed upon amount of credit chips. The fellows grin broadened, teeth surprisingly white against his grimy skin.

“Ok, it is your show,” she told Neil, gazing around at the freighters with interest. Being in a place like this was why she had poured her life savings into the Highlander. Excitement and adventure were a drug, one you kept taking regardless of how likely it was to get you killed.
@POOHEAD189

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene stood unmoving as Solae and Enro departed. The prisoner grinned at him, clearly thinking he had won some sort of victory. Cages made some men brave, or at least so afraid that it came across as bravery. The Inyorin on guard continued to speak in their own language, though they cast occasional concerned glances at the two humans. Rene’s face was the same expressionless mask it had been since the interview began but it seemed to have hardened in some way that was difficult to describe.

“Gonna come in here and rough me up?” the prisoner demanded. Limping to the bambo bars and wrapping his work worn hands around the greenish strips. Rene considered it. Corp doctrine discouraged casual torture. It wasn’t a matter of squeamishness, low tech beatings rarely delivered reliable information, plus every now and then the interrogators grew over zealous and killed a prisoner. He didn’t doubt that if Bowie had been here instead of him, the big marine would have gleefully kicked the man to death. Right at this moment Rene could see the appeal of the simple release of physical violence. It would feel really good to open the bars and lash out, give physical vent to the pain, the fear, the frustrations of the last several days. In his minds eye he could see the man’s breath exploding from his chest, feel his ribs crack under his boots.

Nobility is the mastery of one’s self. How many times had he head that axiom? He could see old Chaipon, the grey haired swordmistress who had been in charge of his training at arms, sword up in a guard position after delivering a stinging blow. While only a minor member of the nobillity herself, she held her honor and that of her charges above her own life. The axiom had been her answer to any pain or misfortune that had befallen her student, when he had been wounded on a hunt, when his heart had been broken, when they had buried his mother. How would Chaiphon have handled a situation like this? Would she have given in to such an impulse. A cool clarity settled over Rene’s mind. He would beat this man to death if he needed to, but he wasn’t going to do it to gratify his own anger. A De Quentain didn’t lower themselves to such things.

“Well? How about it soldier boy? Not so tough without a gun in your hands!” the prisoner yelled, rattling the bars between whitening knuckles. Rene stood silent for a moment and then a slow smile began to spread across his face. It was an icy lupine grin bereft of fellowship, the kind of smile one might see on the face of a shark, unyielding and inhuman. The prisoner flinched back, more shocked by the expression than any explosion of brutality. Rene turned on his heel and strode from the room without another word. He wondered if somewhere beyond the bounds of life Chaiphon and Bowie were smiling too.

Rene caught up to Solae and Enro as they crossed the main hold. The space appeared to be filling with Syshin whose exuberance was obvious even to Rene. What he was coming to recognise as bonded pairs danced together among the irregular orchards of tropical fruit trees. Children climbed and capered with enthusiasm, scrambling through the foliage in games to informal to be given names. They were celebrating a victory and the safe return of those whom had been snatched away from them. Rene smiled wanly, wondering if they could count the nights events as the first Imperial victory of the Rebellion. Certainly elements of the Imperial Army had been present, the Supreme Commander of Imperial forces on New Concordia and the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Imperial Court, even if both those positions had been arrived at through attrition rather than more conventional methods of promotion.

“He must have a ship, if he is bragging about getting Syshin offworld,” Solae was saying when Rene fell in beside her. She glanced at him but he couldn’t tell what it as she was feeling. Anyone would be rattled by the events of the last several hours, he knew he was though he, like her, was trained to keep a lid on it. That was an astute observation that Rene himself had missed, it stood to reason though when he thought about it. Enro drooped a little at her words, doubtless the alien leader had hoped to recover his people, an all but impossible task if they had been taken off world and scattered the Stars knew where.

They reached the small cleared area at the base of council area where they had first been given an audience. Nari sat in the dirt, cross legged before a low table of greyish white soapstone. Atop the table were piled a variety of dishes unfamiliar to Rene, though the smell of spices was pungent enough to make his stomach grumble. Syshin cooking seemed to be mainly vegetarian in nature, though Rene was not enough of a judge to be certain. Lasha and her mate emerged from the council building as they approached. The healer did not look particularly happy to see her patients, for whom she had prescribed rest, still up and about though she was obviously unwilling to relitigate the point in front of Enro and Nari. The matriarch rose to her full height, the movement alien to human eyes as successive sets of joints straightened, and clapped her hands together with the sound of a miniature thunderclap. The revelers slowed and stopped, even the children obeying the signal without complaint, though a few took a last moment to tag their opponent or launch improvised missiles at each other. Nari began to speak in slow sonorous Syshi, unintelligible to Rene, but at the conclusion of the speech a weird rasping cheer sounded from the crowd.

“She is naming you friends and…Sy’nara,” Enro translated with a helpless shrug for the Syshi word for which he evidently had no Imperial equivalent. Rene, far out of his diplomatic depth, could only look to Soale.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene stiffend slightly as Solae seemed to shrink away from his offered support. His face stilled as his mind was unable to translate the mixture of motions that played across her features. A little pang of hurt sprang up inside of him but he ruthlessly smothered the emotion. Alot had happened in the past few hours perhaps it made her view him in a different light, perhaps being in something more like her traditional role had reminded her that by most Imperial standards, their relationship was inappropriate. Once he was certain she wouldn’t fall he withdrew his arm.

“I was able to get some rest while you were out,” he told her stating the facts without quite telling the truth. He had at least been sitting down most of the time. Pain pulsed in his leg with the beat of his heart but it seemed to be lessening, perhaps as a result of the Syshin ointment he had applied before bandaging it. He was a little scratched up, but it was nothing that would have excused him from even peacetime duty.

The followed Enro back through the low corridors. Their route took them back through the lush green garden that had once been the main hold. Rene tried to imagine what it had been like when the super freighter had been filled with containers of cargo but found the effort almost beggared his imagination. The Syshin transformation of the place as so complete that even the gentle curve of the hull had been terraced with river stone and adobe, alowing the trees and shrubs to climb partway up the hull. He wondered how many other Syshin settlements dotted across the face of New Concordia were suffering the same kind of attacks as the one this one had endured last night. Those settlements wouldn’t have the advantage of modern human weapons to aid in their defence. His knuckles popped and he realised he had been clenching his fists. With a deep breath he forced himself to relax. Rene had no illusions that the Stellar Empire were the forces of Right and Justice in the universe. No one who grew up in the halls of power did, but just he wished he could whistle up a platoon of Marines to teach the locals what was what. Not that he, with his background, would ever be put in charge of anything more complicated than a latrine detail. His eyes cut to Solae who was speaking to Enro in Syshi, a feat that still seemed amazing. He didn’t have a platoon, but he was going to see her safe no matter what. He tried to ignore the sting of her newfound distance.

They entered a series of narrowing corridors to the rear of the great vessel. The tangle of ancient pipes and gutted consoles made it clear that this had once been the engineering section. The Syshin had their own control systems retrofitted to the originals, mostly antiquated and simple consoles that would have been hopelessly insufficient for a star ship but evidently were more than satisfactory for operating the colony’s simple electrical and water systems. Not only were the consoles cheap but they were much easier to maintain without dedicated technical staff. The quality of the air differed sublty as the moved along the corridors, the earthy scents of dirt and plants giving way to the petrochemical tang of ancient lubricants and the plasticy smell of warm electronics.

The prisoner was held in what might have once been an arms locker. Two spear armed Syshin, black feathered Inyrio, stood guard over a woven bamboo lattice that covered the door. Wire ties, incongruously cheerful in red, blue and yellow, secured each cross piece. The original door had either seized or long gone unpowered. Rene could pick out the line of rust in the doors channels, though the panel must have been retracted or removed. Both Inyrio pivoted outwards as they approached, giving the trio a clear path. Rene smelt the prisoner before he saw him. The man was a little taller than Rene but lacked his defined musculature. He had a scraggly beard and mustache that still held river mud and twigs, despite evident effort to comb them out. A Syshin healer, less skilled than Lasha, had bound his legs with bandages of woven plant fibre. Rene remembered the way the plasma bolt had splashed up over the man's legs, he doubtless had burns as well as splinters of timber and iron from where the rail bridge had been vaporized. The fellow was lucky to be alive, though he probably didn’t appreciate that fact just at the moment. He wore no shirt and had several tatoos although time and slackness of flesh distorted them to unrecognisable blurs against his tan skin.

“You!” the prisoner yelled as Solae came into view. He leaped to his feet without thinking and the blood drained from his face as his injured legs took his weight. With a screech of animal pain the prisoner collapsed gasping to the ground. After a moment he pushed himself into a sitting position, teeth grinding against te pain. Rene’s face was as blank and cold as an insects. This man had abducted Solae with the intent of violating her and then passing her off into the vilest of slavery. For all the information he might provide, Rene couldn’t help but wish that his bolt had punched the man in the chest.

“You can’t leave me here with the chooks! They are animals!” The prisoner snarled. Rene had heard the word ‘Chooks’ shouted before and hadn’t thought anything of it, now he realised that it must be some sort of racial epithet aimed at the Syshin. Rene knew from interrogation classes that his unsmiling visage would be more use than any threat he could deliver so he stood stoically silent, allowing Solae to conduct the interview.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

“Well I suppose I have been on worse dates that didn’t involve going to prison or hacking satellites,” Junebug said, taping a slender finger on the glowing treasure before them.

“Besides…” she began, a strangely mischievous expression crept over her face and she leaned back and stretched, pulling her arms back to display her long lean body to best effect. She held the pose for a moment longer than could have been explained by mere chance. Her eyelids lowered and fluttered sultrily.

“If you are still feeling frisky…” she let the words hang for a moment, leaning forward seductively.

“Then you can take the first watch, because I am about to pass out” she concluded with a laugh which earned her a groan from Neil. She stood and lay a hand on his squeezing fondly and then sidled past heading for her quarters leaving the stunned pilot behind. Taya stepped from the galley where she had clearly been hiding to listen to the conversation, her face stunned.

“What…” she began, brining a spoonful of pudding to her mouth with a sour expression, “A fucking tease.”
@POOHEAD189