Penny

The Sunday Group

Well Leon is away collecting supplies at the moment. So the question is what do we want to happen next? It is a foregone conclusion that the cult will come upon us but we can wait on that for an hour or two. @FantasyChic What would you like to happen specifically for Kennedy, I know it isn't easy in the group of action jacksons we have going.

What things do we want to happen over the next hour or so?

The Sunday Group

Well Id say that makes a quorum :)

The Sunday Group

@POOHEAD189@ihinka@FantasyChic@jasonwolf

What say you?

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The Golden Nebula was not what Sayeeda had imagined from a dingy crime world, though perhaps it should have been. Neoclassical dance music thrummed like a thunderstorm as they stepped through the security checkpoint and into the interior. Just as Taya had said the establishment employed sophisticated biometric scanners, though the expensive units were almost completely recessed into large palatial columns. The security was well armed and obvious but also clean enough to hint at respectability. Also, just as Taya had said, neither the Aestimobium nor the pair of pistols concealed beneath it triggered the sensors. One of the metals many properties was the release of energy in the form of radiation. The radiation was poorly understood but seemed to have no harmful effects on humans. Apparently it was also enough to smother the electronic signatures of the hardware. Sayeeda kept her face pleasant but she really wished they could have bought more hardware. In theory the weapon restrictions applied to their ‘business partners’ too, but Junebug was to familiar with breaking rules to put much stock in that slender protection.

“I still say we should have pulled a last minute move, somewhere I could have covered with a rifle,” the mercenary griped. She was dressed in a skin tight body suit of dark gray, almost black synthetic polymer. It was the sort of thing that a jet bike rider might wear and was judged by Taya to be not too far out of the ordinary for the Nebula. The plus was that it let her wear combat boots, those these were new, black and buffed to a high sheen rather than her worn tan favorites. A band of black enameled metal encirled her brow, keeping her now almost shoulder length hair out of her face. She really needed to find time to get it cut, or at least buzz it so that her helmet would fit properly again.

“Will you give it up,” the long suffering Neil responded as they ascended a broad stairway. The interior of the casino was massive and open. Games of chance of every conceivable sort ringed a huge central space. Not only the ground but the walls and ceiling were covered also. Antigrav plates had been installed to allow a guest to walk up the walls or over the ceiling. Bars and drinking establishments stood out like barbs on the wall and celing. THe central space was a vast zero gravity dance floor. Launch points were marked on the floor where the gravity was low enough that one could jump into the field. Smaller grav points flashed in and out of existance as bars of neon lights. Hundreds of people flipped and spun overhead, gyrating with wild excess that would have been impossible in normal grav.

“Whoa,” Junebug said, impressed inspite of herself.

“Also what is this like nine dimensions of fire arcs to worry about? Remind me to kill Taya.”

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations: A Modern Fantasy Adventure

Alternate universe Ellie Tregellan!

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations: A Modern Fantasy Adventure

Hah I just bumped the sunday group :P would love to do this!

The Sunday Group

Been thinking about this. ANy interest in picking back up?

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene slipped out of bed, reluctantly leaving the warmth of Solae’s body behind. It felt bizzarley surreal, like a weird dream in which you get what you want but it is all twisted up with your fears. He carefully pulled the covers over Solae, the recycled air of the Bonaventure was not cold, but it was cool and dry compared to the sweltering tropic sunlight of New Concordia. For a moment he gazed at her face, it was still luminous in its perfection despite the hard few days behind them, the losses and the pain she had to be feeling.

“I will get you back safe,” he vowed quietly to himself, “by the Stars I will.”

No living spacecraft was every truly silent. Thousands of systems from complex navigational processor to simple fluid pumps thrummed and throb beneath bulkheads and access plates. Rene rifled through the possession of the former owner with millitary organisation, first he swept all the trash up, piling old food, machine parts he judged beyond repair and anything else he judged to be useless into the aft airlock. Given the filthy state of the place, that ended up being about as much as the airlock could hold. He wiped at his brow sweating from his exertions. It wasn’t really safe t vent the airlock while they were in jump, the carefully computed jump state was a fragile thing and ejecting a bunch of matter moving in excess of the speed of light was at best foolish and at worst deadly. Resolving to do it the moment they returned to the sidereal universe, Rene began to empty boxes, chests and personal effects from the dead crewmans quarters. It was not alot to rave about. Dirty clothing mostly jumpsuits stained with grease and other unfamiliar but equally soiled civilian garb, a few personal keepsakes, tablet computers and porno holos of unlikely and imaginative subjects. A few weapons, pistols mostly and a sawed off mob gun that Rene wasn’t sure would function without putting the user at more risk than the target. There was food, mostly dried stuff that would last forever and an electrolyte replacement mix that seemed to have crystalized into sedimentary rock.

In the cockpit he found a small and poorly concealed safe. Though it had a numeric keypad, Mia was able to over ride it with trivial ease using security cam footage to recreate the key sequence. Rene punched in the alpha numeric code and worked the release lever. Inside he found a hand full of Imperial Soledii, coins with wire rims in integral diffraction gratings which held their value. Each world struck its own currency under imperial auspices and coins varied slightly in shape and design from world to world. It wasnt a fortune, maybe the equivalent of half a year of Rene’s salary, but it had the attraction of being available and more or less untraceable.

The starscape shimmered as Rene sat down at the pilots station. Though he was glad for the sudden lull it also made him uneasy. The plan he and Solae had settled on was vague. They either needed to reach a PEA and transmit their warning, or win their way back into loyalist space. The didn’t even know where saftey might lay. The rebellion was clearly wider than New Concordia, possibly sector wide in scope. If that were the case they would need to pass through the central jump point at Casta Mirandila, the only system close enough to the coreward reaches to make a safe jump. Gulfs of interstellar space were transversable so long as there were large gravitational bodies linking them via gravitic distortion. While it was theoretically possible to jump from anywhere to anywhere, the practical mathematical and power requirements restricted routes to known and charted points. Dedicated exploration vessels could make longer jumps but they were rare and expensive, especially when astronomical data was easily attainable to plot new routes. If the rebellion was sector wide, they would certainly have seized Casta Mirandila in the opening moments, interdicting traffic through the vital jump point to stop the spread of the news. Rene wasn’t a naval officer but he wasn’t fool enough to think they could run the blockade in a tramp freighter.

That left the PEAs. Panopontus was too minor a world to warrant such an installation but it was as good a place as any to gather information. Enemy forces on New Condorida would certainly mount a pursuit but they had no way of knowing where the Bonaventure was headed once it entered jump space. The selection had been random and thus difficult to predict and Rene doubted there were enough rebel vessels on New Concordia to cover all the possible options.

“Mia is their any data on Panopontus in the ships computer?” he asked after a desulotory attempt to find the information himself.

“Pilotage data only Master Quentain,” Mia whispered, her tone implying that this meant their were wonderous and sensual discoveries to be made. The marine shook his head wryly. The AI was almost a friend but he doubted he would ever get used to it.

“No visuals or transaction data?” he pressed.

“According to the diagnostics most of my eyes are blindfolded,” she confided breathilly. Rene frowned as he pulled up the pilotage data, a series of meaningless vectors punctuated by a radio landing beacon frequency. Not a lot of use, he doubted either he or Solae wanted to land wherever the Bonaventure's previous crew had done business.

“Your eyes? You mean the external visual sensors?” he asked frowning, Mia was used to interpreting data from a wide variety of sensors, why should she have a preference for optical?

“Yes, there are no records of scheduled maintence,” she went on, a little sulkily. Rene cracked open one of the protein bars he had bought from the plantation and put it in his mouth. It tasted like sawdust and beef stock but he chewed with stoic determination.

“When we get on the ground I can take a look,” he offered. The chronometer wound down with the majesty of an hour glass, twelve hours till the broke out of jumpspace. After that they wouln’t be able to reenter until their positronic load rebalanced, four or five hours at the earliest. If there were rebel warships in orbit, it would require fast talking and no little luck to get past them. Rene watched the star scape for another minute before admitting to himself he was stalling. Reluctantly he set down the protein bar and thumbed the console live.

Dear Father, I write to you….

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Sayeeda gestured Taya back into the ship, the girl was quick to take advantage of the chance to get out of the potentially dangerous situation, all but running up the ramp. She might tell herself that she would be more useful inside the ship and maybe that was true, but truthfully Junebug just wanted her out of the way. There were a million ways this exchange could go wrong and shooting the Highlanders crew to save the forty million was both the most likely and the most difficult to avoid.

The aliens in the armor snorted and yipped at each other their communication undecipherable to human ears. Junebug watched them with studied boredom her plasma rifle cradled casually but within only a few degrees of the armored killers. In the ancient struggle between weapons and armor, weapons were currently in the lead. Nothing a man could carry would do much to stop a plasma bolt. Even ablative armor would transmit a bone shattering shock as the superheated plasma detonated on its surface. Powered armor was more effective and could be plated heavily enough to withstand the shock, but it sacrificed movement. Mechs and the like were more akin to light vehicles than armored infantry. Sayeeda figured if this went south she could take at least one and probably both of the alien gunmen down but it didn’t mean she was eager to try conclusions. One of the creatures, sensing her regard made a crude leer running a purplish tongue over its fangs. Sayeeda winked without allowing her face to lose its bored expression, gannering another burst of garbled alien chittering.

Further by play was interrupted by Neil returned carrying the small chest in which the *BLANK* was stored. The guards and the young woman who was apparently going to perform the assay quited in anticipation. The pilot set the case down on the grease stained floor and flicked both the latches open with a theatrical flourish.

“Behold!” he cried, throwing the lid open and posing dramatically. The soft glow of the *BLAN* pulsed from within the chest, illuminating falling dust motes in its pure light. Neil looked a little crestfallen.

“No one appreciates a show,” he muttered. Sayeeda noticed that his revolver was tucked into his belt, within easy reach for a quick draw. Apparently she wasn’t the only one concerned about the number of ways things might go wrong. The woman, Junebug never got her name, pulled a bulky but portable scanner from a bag and ran it over the *BLANK*. For an endless minute the machine beeped and whired before the aide, or whatever she was, finally tucked the scanner away.

“It appears to be genunine,” she said, her voice a little to netural to be believable.

“Where did you say you got it from?” she asked. Junebug rolled her eyes.

“We stole it from the Pirate King and he is going to sail his fleet of dreadnoughts in here and wreak horrible vengeance on whoever holds the cursed treasure. Anyone who toucheth it wilt surely perish excetera and if this is the part where you try to talk us down from our price because its soooo dangerous, then you can just be on your way and we will find another buyer,” Junebug sneered. The aliens stiffened, gripping their weapons. Junebug negligently lifted her rifle to point at the closes gunmen though her face still appeared bored rather than threatening. The aides face was dark with an unpleasant emotion.

“Very well, we will pay your asked price, but you should know that…”

“Yeah yeah, no one disrespects the boss, we get it,” Junebug finished, lowering her rifle as the aliens took their own hands away from their weapons.

“Take the goods,” the aide told the aliens.

“No,” Junebug and Neil spoke simultaneously, paued to look at each other and then turned back to their guests.

“I know we are all friends and everything, you know you being infamous gangsters and we being some randoms who never made port here till yesterday, but just for the hell of it, lets assume we want to see the money before we hand over the goods.”

“You are a very irritating woman Captain Cyckali,” the aide said, clenching and unclenching her fists. Junebug smiled toothily.

“And just to be sure no one gets any weird notions, lets do the hand off somewhere neutral, one of those casinos should do fine.”

“The Golden Nebula,” Taya’s voice sounded in her mastoid implant. The girl was good, listeninging into the conversation and doing her own research as she went.

“THe Golden Nebula, lets say three hours from now?” Junebug went on as though she had come up with the name.

“That is hardly enough time to get the money toge…” the Aid protested.

“Well then I guess we will have to take our bussiness elsewhere after…” the aide through up her hands in disgust.

“FINE!” she snapped and whirled on her heel, practically storming out of the building flunkies in tow. Junebug grinned, Neil gave her his ‘what the fuck was that’ expression as he pulled his revolver from his belt. She shrugged a little sheepishly.

“Sorry, it has been days since I shot anything, guess I’m a little tense.”
@POOHEAD189

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla felt her blood turn to ice at the bizarre and otherworldly transformation taking place. The air suddenly had the scent of spices and jasmin, a heady and aromatic mist tugged at her nostril. The smell should have been delicious and all but irrisistable but she could scent the subttle undercurrent that had been there during her abuction, the slavering abhorrence which was only hinted at at the very edges. Grimly she took hold of the knowledge and forced herself to focus.

The majority of the guests began to give themselves over to the revel enthusiastically, shedding clothing and embracing across the table. One woman lay herself on the table like a dish, spreading her dimpled thighs and even going so far as to press an apple into her mouth to complete the simulation of a suckling pig. Others grasped each other and fell to the floor with orgiastic enthusiasm, wine and fine food fell to the floor or was poured over naked bodies. Worst were those who enthusiastically reached for the demon women who came from the tapestries. While the revelers were an unlovely bunch for the most part the demon things were almost painfully beautiful. Where they grasped lover, the flesh of both parties began to meld together bubbling and popping like a pot of hot pitch.

Some of the others screamed in horror and a couple darted for the door. THe women seized them and kissed them, though truthfully the motion was closer to a bite. The man and woman struggled for a moment before slowly settling and then enthusiastically returning the attention. It suddenly occurred to her while the cult was so easy to penetrate, anyone not already initiated would be converted. By force. A leering paunchy man, bald save for a salt and peper mustache reached for her hungrily. With no time to draw a weapon she snatched a bottle from the table and whirled it in a whistling arch that ended in the mans temple. THe bottle didn’t break but rather offered a musical tonk, which almost but not quite drowned out the crunch of bone. Three of the demon things turned to look at her, their lovely faces seemed all the hungrier for the sight of death. Screaming a Tilean curse she hurled the bottle at the thing. The projectile hit it just below its breasts but rather than slow it the missle seemed to slip into the flesh as easily as a stone into a pond.

“Uhhh…,” Camilla looked around trying to find some way out.

“If you have a bright idea…”