Captains Log #8

Captain negotiates about getting a convenient array of different fake transponders for our ship. The Zhodanis say they will allow this, but don't think it is useful, and are not eager to help us do it.

While we talk, the planet is continuously being bombed.

Jose wants to raid some small, fleeing Imperial ships during the fight. Captain is not entirely against the idea...

We notice seven large Vargr cruisers nearby. Captain tight-beams to them, introduces ourselves as semi-official, independent co-operators of Zhodanis, who might have useful information to share with the Vargrs for money. The Vargrs laugh at us.

Then we tight-beam to the Zhodani commander and try to convince him that the Vargrs are planning to attack the Zhodani and rob everything. The commander laughs at us.

One yacht flies from the planet towards the Vargrs. The Zhodanis try to shoot the yacht, but it enters inside one of the Vargr ships.

We decide to start going towards Regina to get our new ship. But the Zhodani commander kindly asks that we not leave yet. All possible help is needed here, they say. Captain talks about the reward. They tell us that we could be allowed to take a max. 400-ton ship from the planet after it has been conquered.

We ask for somewhat larger, and suggest that we might hire a couple of new crew members from the planet. "Oh well, okay, take a 800-ton ship then. And then you won't leave the planet within two weeks."

While we wait, Captain and Dick practice some shotgun shooting outside the ship. The target is one of our old TL9 spacesuits, remote-controlled by John.

While we are practicing, a huge fireball is seen approaching the Zhodani ships (and us) from the planet. It appears to be about 500 missiles and some small ships.

Two of the missiles are locked to us. We try to hide behind a big Zhodani ship. John, who is appointed to manage our tactics in 3D, asks Captain to inform the Zhodanis about our plans. Captain doesn't.

When the missiles are quite near, the Zhodani ship does a surprising maneuver, but gets hit quite badly. It is missing a large part of its hull, and loses its maneuverability.

We make a desperate attempt to flee, with Jose overriding all safety limits and squeezing the engine to 240 % of its maximum power. Still, two missiles hit us and our ship is badly damaged. The engines are definitely out, and there are large holes in the hull. One of the two engines is simply missing, and the other is out of order. Everybody is shaken, but not really hurt. What a luck! What's more, our weapons seem to be still functional.

Meanwhile, six Zhodani ships are also destroyed. We report our damage to the Zhodani commander, and asks for immediate help.

Jose finds to his surprise that it may be possible to partially fix one of our engines and use it somewhat. He starts repairing. We are spinning wildly. The small Imperial ships are approaching.

Captain switches off all electricity, trying to play dead. A little later, Jose notices that somebody is lasering our hull. We get some more holes and our turret jams. We continue to play dead.

Dick goes to retrieve the mining laser. John is sent outside the ship with a plasma gun to keep guard.

Then we notice that a Vargr cruiser tows us inside their cargo bay, obviously planning to rob us. Jose finds that our jump drive is quite functional, and starts to prepare for a jump.

The Vargrs demand us to switch off the jump drive, and keep immobile. They plan to sell us to the Zhodanis or the Imperium, whichever pays more. Jose continues to warm up the jump drive.

Some Vargr guys are approaching. Jose lets out a cloud of fuel. Captain shouts that he will shoot them with a plasma gun, exploding the fuel cloud, if they do not retreat. They start to retreat. Captain shoots them with a shotgun! Some of them drop down, some succeed to take shield. They start pointing us with guns.

Everybody back inside the ship. Dick goes in the fighter.

Now, the Vargrs start approaching again, this time in combat dresses. Jose throws a few bombs out, and Captain does an emergency jump, to somewhere else in this solar system.

The jump is very harsh, apparently the enclosing gray matter touches our hull at some points and damages it. Also, Jose sees the gray matter curve somewhat inside the engine room from the hole. Our ship is crumbling and rattling all the time.

Jose somehow manages to get back to the bridge, however. We spend most of the time sleeping with pills.

***

The jump takes a whole 15 days. Then, to our enormous relief, we return to normal space. We see a dim star far away.

Captain goes to the fighter, and its sensors say "Location Unknown". At least we are not anywhere in Spinward Marches. Besides, the dim star is so far that it would take years to go there with the fighter. Our main ship's engines and sensors are still out of order.

In about 12 hours, Jose manages to get the engine somehow working, and Captain and Dick do the same to the main ship sensors.

The sensors indicate that we are far east of Spinward Marches, somewhere in the Domain of Deneb, some 60 parsec from Kinorb. Within this parsec, there is a dual star, three gas giants, and several planets. The nearest gas giant is 5 days away, and we start going.

Everybody is mentally rather shaken, so Dick commands a heavy dose of alcohol for everyone during the 5-day trip. We send occasional SOS signals.

***

Near the gas giant we receive a radio message. We respond immediately.

"This is Captain Dhazarrou. Could you please tell where the hell we are?"

"grfffdddh you are approaching Erita II Delta Ay scrhhhppt. scrrfssstt your coordinates are Deneb sector 2259 ffft."

Later, when we come nearer, they friendly send us a star map of this region. We talk with them. They tell that they are five refugees, living on an isolated moon alone, after they were repelled from their home planet because of their uncontrollable powers.

Captain is eager to meet them and perhaps hire one of them to come with us, among other things to study the psi powers. Dick vehemently disagrees. The guys warn that they are dangerous.

However, Captain takes the fighter and decides to fly there, to exchange some food etc. Halfway there, he somehow feels extremely bad, and turns back.

Captain: "I decided not to go after all, the weather was too bad."

John: "So you got scared of their powers?"

Captain grabs John's nostrils with his nails, and explains very clearly: "The - weather - was - too - bad."

We refuel, and engage a jump to sector 2521, Geniishir.

***

The jump is as bad and uncomfortable as the last one. After 10 days, we return to normal space.

The computer crunches a while, but does not find our position. However, our sensors are working all right, and we are actually near a star. There are inhabited planets, a starport, and some traffic nearby.

The ships are very strange-looking and decorated. They respond to our radio message in a completely unknown language. Our weapon&armour database says that they look like Aslan Ihatei ships.

We meet them. They look rather like lions. One of them talks some bad Galanglic.

"Who you fight?"

"Mmmm... we unfortunately found ourselves in the middle of a battle between the Imperium and the Zhodanis. We had to escape."

"You Vargr?"

"Yes, I, captain, Vargr, the crew is humans."

"Oh. Vargr far from home. How you here?"

"When escaping in a hurry, we misjumped."

"Yes, yes, Vargr technology."

"Hrmp. Grmph. Well, anyway, we would like to make some trade with you."

Another Aslan comes here, this one female. She talks much better Galanglic. We tell that we would like to buy food, life support, and quite a few repairments for our ship.

"What will you pay with? Do you have land?"

"Sure, we own one solar system."

"Hrmp. Are you really allowed to sell it?"

"Umm, well... we could also pay with some precious materials."

We land on the planet and meet more Aslans. One of them, female, is obviously of quite high rank. She interrogates us about the battle where we got hit, about the Imperium, the Zhodanis, and the war.

They also mention that somebody was supposed to be buying one of Regina's outer moons, but we think that that hasn't happened yet.

Captain offers to help them buy some moons; he says that John has good connections to people owning moons. The female Aslan gets very suspicious. We obviously do not know why they are so eager to buy land. They do not understand that somebody would willingly sell any land.

But Captain and John show them some papers and convince them that we are indeed empowered to join Arrassag to any civilized empire of our choosing. We also are able to arrange the sale of some moons of Regina. They begin to sound very interested. As a commission for the deal, they would be willing to give us a 20000-ton ship of their very high technical level.

We think twice, and consider selling the other planets in our solar system, but not Arrassag itself. Also, we ponder whether we ourselves should stay here and just send the Aslans there. After all, we would be much safer here, so far away from the psi-using Zhodanis.