Our intrepid band got wind of a potential market in Katchelli tomb figurines and Thunder-Eggs from the planet of Khassandhra. According to Fenella's source, an anonymous collector was offering 10,000svu for verified figurines in good condition, and 150,000svu for thunder-eggs. How could they pass up an opportunity like that? They got Sutton Hoo spaceworthy, and headed out for the source of their well-deserved Enormous Wealth.
Arriving in Khassandhra space, they hailed the planetary authorities and were given coordinates for the starport and granted permission to land. On his landing approach, Sutton noticed what he had thought to be a group of communication satellites breaking orbit and moving on to an intercept course. He queried Ground Control about the situation, but they could see nothing on their scanners and asked for confirmation of his data. Things started to get very hot, very quickly. Sutton squealed "Look at this you morons!" and sent them a direct video feed of the approach of the mysterious hostiles. Ground Control sent back a rather sheepish acknowledgement, and said that help was on its way.
The fighters (of course they were fighters, what else did they expect?) came in on a fast attack run, plastering Sutton Hoo with ion cannon which took down his shields and then blitzed all of his on-board electrical systems. Left without scanners, shields, weapons, or engines, the Sutton Hoo began an uncontrolled descent into the atmosphere. Without inertial dampers, the ride got very rough very quickly, and without shields the hull started heating up rapidly. Sutton and Eve worked frantically to try to get the shields and fuel systems back on line and the thrust engines re-ignited; things were getting critical when Sutton managed to restore electrical power. He brought up the shields and in a superlative display of emergency piloting, used the attitude thrusters to flip the ship around so that the main engines could be used for a deceleration burn. Of the five engines, three burnt out on re-ignition — fortunately, the two remaining engines were numbers one and five and Sutton could burn them evenly. By the time the burn hit, the ship was dangerously low and screaming over the volcanic plains of the surface at far too great a velocity to kill completely. Sutton made contact with the ground while still travelling at over 500 kilometres per hour; the shields held just long enough to keep them from being turned into white-hot shrapnel, but cut out before the ship came to rest. The volcanic rock of the surface ripped all hell out of their belly, but thanks to Sutton Hoo's magnificent piloting they stayed more-or-less in one piece, and eventually came to a stop at the base of a long valley without any serious casualties.
I'll let Captain Joe carry on the story in his own words:
We are in some pretty shit now, shot down on Atmospheric entry to recently rediscovered recontacted mining planet. Original human inhabitants there for thousands of years.
We crashed miles from anywhere comms out hull breached, feul gone considerable structural damage to the Sutton Hu (ship, not AI). Information that we had said native inhabitants were degenarated savages, in preindustrial society, on the path to extinction.
This information was provided by the company that was mining the planet for its abundant and readily availiable heavy metals.
(Actually, the information came from a standard tourist guide, available from good book-stores everywhere — GM)
We got the ATV my character had fortuitously purchased earlier working, loaded it with water and concentrated protien mush and set out. two days latter we spotted some gunships just before they spotted us.
Being a suspicous soul I got the ATV under cover before we attempted to atract there attention on my Vacc suits radio. Being an even more suspicous soul I switched my radio off when I detsected the characteristic whine of a radio guided missile on my open channel
Serious shit, all I had was a crappy pistol and a usually (but not in this case) adequate assault rifle.that was when the concealed native village opened up and blew one of the gunships out of the sky, with an energy weapon.
They did quite well until they were greased by the white phosphorous bombs. We laid low until the gunships left.
That night we had a fire fight with a group of natives, grenades flying everywhere, they were allot better equiped than we had been led to beleive. We won of course, and did not kill the wounded, did give them medical treatment and left them water and basic weapons.
Captain Joe's version of events is not entirely accurate. In fact, Talya managed to furtively kill most of the wounded and fleeing, but Fenella and Eve saved one who hadn't been seriously wounded. They did leave him with water, and the 'basic weapons' referred to consisted of a survival knife. As it happens, he did survive, which later caused all sorts of problems for Our Heroes.
Things went Ok until we got a bit closer to civilisation, allot of napalmed babies etc, but hey maybe the natives were inhuman murdering savages. We didn't know for sure...
Those babies had probably been really, really naughty.
We came across a gunship on the ground about 40 klicks from the mining station we were making for, and decided to attempt contact once more. Everyone else hid while I switched on my radio once more and said "Hi".
They said to come out into the open and drop my weapon which I did, then they said "Open the face plate of your Vacc suit" and tried to shoot me in the face. being a Space Marine with absolutely inhuman speed I said "Now, is that nice) and shot first (with my hold out pistol), we trashed the crew on the outside, but two made it inside and switched the force field on.
The crewman in question was trying to hit him with a neural scrambler, possibly because Captain Joe looks like a huge vicious mean nasty dangerous combat cyborg who would just as soon rip your arms off as look at you. We all make these little errors from time to time.
At this point I ran for the ATV loaded 1.6 tons of supplies into a (strong) sack and sprinted for cover. The rest of the party were standing around going HUH, until the Gunship turrets opened up and I shouted out that they probably had a radio in that thing, and hadn't we better be going.
Incidentally did I mention that as well as being Inhumanly quick I am Inhumanly strong.
But not that strong; in fact, he ran off with about 350kg of supplies. Still a fair load for your average schmuck, mind you.
Having no other option we decided to keep on heading for the mining station, fortunately, the Resistance, got to us before we got there...
Ok. When last we left the intrepid band of proffessional grave robbers, they were in deep shit, but had just made contact with the
Dramatic Drum Roll
Resistance.
Ok. Punk kid approaches us all in the shanty town that surrounds the mining settlement we were heading for (later find out that 200 000 people live in this "settlement" ). Says "Mister, Mister. You want come see Uncles shop right now." We ignore him, but he gets more anf more persistent, one might say exceptionally persistent. "Mister, You come see shop RIGHT AWAY" he says looking terrified, we follow him down an alleyway which suddenly dissapears behind us as stall holders set up etc right in front of it, and a AEGIS Company patrol walks past.
Having just been in a fire fight with AEGIS Company personnel, we are understandably glad we were not seen.
Fenella thanks the kid and asks him why he helped us where upon he replies "Cos My Father, He Kick My Ass If I Don't".
We get taken to a tunnel that leads us in to an underground complex of earthern bunkers. we are disarmed and questioned by the locals, and guess what, none of us volunteer the information that the reason we came to this place in the first place was to loot the tombs of their revered ancestors and remove all the religeous artifacts present for a quick sale at an offworld auction!!
As the only male present I am of course identified as the leader of our band, and treated with all due defference and respect.
The resistance leaders wished to discuss our story and withdrew into secret conclave.
It was at this stage that the AEGIS Company Stormtroopers hit. Remember we had been disarmed, and locked up as well. At first all we heard was a sort of a rumbling sound, but being a combat specialist I recognised a dangerous situation. The cell door seemed like a Handy and usefull sort of weapon, so I gently ripped it of its hinges (Obscenely Strong you see) and stepped out into the corridor.
The cell door proved to be usefull when the satchel charges were dropped on our heads, 50 meters down the corridor, I managed to kick them away and get the door in between us and the blast.
Light plastic door versus 2-kilo satchel charge; I leave the results up to your imagination.
Now I kind of fill most corridors I am in, so I took 95% of the blast that got past the door, and ouch it stung, I was even temporarilly stunned!!!
Two storm troopers opened up with automatic weapons in an enclosed space. This was enough to cause the rest of the party to beat a hasty retreat. I decided that lying on the ground looking like a blown up thing was my best option. One of them emptied a full clip into me at a distance of six feet while I was lying prone on the ground in front of them, and missed.
Big Mistake.
Assuming I am dead, he walked forward. I grabbed him, turned him round, and used his gun to waste a goodly number of his comrades, eventually going down in hail of bullets, but manfully holding the line as long as I could.
Then someone dropped allot of High explosive down our particular part of the hole. I decided to have a longish cup of tea and lie down as a result of this.
Sniff Sniff, all my neato techo boys gear got Sniff BLOWN UP.
That proved to be the last THruST of the Storm Troopers. The locals got control of the corridor again, six of them picked me up and we bugged out.
We were taken to Resistance Headquaters where we were informed that the AEGIS Comapny, apparently, really really, really wanted us to be dead.
"Gawwann" we said, and "Shucks, Honestly" etc.
We were then introduced to William, who was an offworld anthropologist, who had been hiding out for the last twelve years from company assassins.
It was then that we found out about the indigenous intelligent species. Which the AEGIS Company was busily exterminating along with the local human intelligence, before the ECKUMENI (like the U.N.) investigation which was to ratify AEGIS Company possession of this planet, took place.
He had tapes, documents etc. Heaps of evidence. Heaps of valuable Prime Time viewing. All we had to do is get it of world and to the Courts/Tabloid press.
Did I mention that our spaceship (the Sutton Hu) had been trashed by AEGIS Corporation fighters when we got here??
We needed a plan. More specifically we needed a space ship without an AI core, the equipment necessary to install an AI core in a space ship, and the space ship and the equipment to be accessible to the AI core in the imobilised Sutton Hu.
And the opportunity to use the equipment, take off, avoid the fighters and get back to civilisation. Which of course meant a feulled, supplied space ship that happened to not have an AI core and.....
Its easier just to say we needed a plan.
We decided that as a first step towards stealing a starship we needed to get to where the starships were. About 8000 kilometers away as it turned out. No roads, no transport. Two years on foot, minimum, through a toxic frigid wasteland. Gosh that was an attractive option, but we decided to try and hitch a lift on an AEGIS corporation transport instead.
Just one problem, that was exactly what they would expect us to do. The resistance was able to get us into the AEGIS compound proper, and provide us with some equipment. But that was it, (too busy squabling with each other you see).
Now being a Bio Engineered Superman, I is Somewhat distinctive looking. Stealth skills are also Zero. It was decided that I would wear a cargo lifting robot, that is, a cargo lifting robot would have its control module emptied, and I would be stuffed into the control module (with the aid of numerous local anasthetics) and have the cargo lifter plugged directly into my Neural Implant. This wasn't as dumb as it sounds, as I had all the appropriate, suit handling, industrial vehicle skills necessary.
The the cargo lifting robot would carry our other droids aboard in a box labled "Droid Parts". The Human party members (refererred to by all as Pale Fleshy Ones) would steal id's, and use sneaky disguise skills to get onboard a transport, with the cargo droid as luggage.
We had just sat down to discuss this wonderfull plan when the Sutton Hu, (Hu as you might remember is a fantastically intelligent AI core, currently attatched to an utterly trashed space ship 1200 klicks away, but present through the use of Bobbie the Remote Drone.....) said "ATTENTION PALE FLESHY ONES. Aegis corporation gunships have landed one kilometer from my current location and soldiers are approaching on foot. How Do You Wish This Unit To Respond"
Fighting wasnt an option, no hull integrity, limited weapons, no ability to move. Your classic sitting duck (quack quack). Well I was all for getting the Sutton to open fire, all weapons, because so far the AEGIS corporation's approach to the party had been to shoot first, shoot hard, shoot indiscriminately. But Sutton wasn't keen, He Was Yeller.
Considering Captain Joe's supposed talent for Tactics, this analysis of the situation is, to say the least, surprising.
As it turns out his approach was the correct one. Firstly he warned the approaching soldiers to "STAY CLEAR OF THE PLAGUE SITE" which was amusing. And worked for about 15 minutes. But eventually they entered the ship and Sutton adopted a "Yessir masser" attitude, (which is only appropriate in an AI core when dealing with humans). We kept on getting telemetry from the Sutton, for quite a while, while they were questioning him. This meant we could use High priority imperative commands to stop them from accessing vital data, such as Where The Rest Of Us Were!!!
Sutton had managed to hide a teeny tiny remote drone in his brain module, and managed to keep this secret as well. But eventually they just told him to shut down all ship systems. And then they shifted him, we lost telemetry shortly after, so we had no Idea where.
As a matter of fact, Sutton (who had spent his time repairing his attitude thrusters to the best of his ability) had limped a few hundred klicks from his original position to a system of ravines designated by the Resistance. Aegis Security were alerted to his position by the family of one of the freedom fighters the team had brutally murdered in cold blood with nary a second thought in their night-time contact, a couple of days after landing.
Well we did really, after all there was only one starport on the planet and that was where we wanted to go. We infiltrated the AEGIS Corporation compound as planned, and I was stuffed into a cargo droid while Tallia the adolescent's wet dream, went off in search of victims with an appropriate physical profile to match Fenella Spindrift, and herself.
The first victim was a middle aged man, about Fenella's size and build, who couldn't beleive his luck when Tallia seemed to find him incredibly interesting, and expressed a desire to see his chess computer.
The second victim was found in Lesbian night club, it was to have been a woman who by chance was a dead ringer for Tallia, but she proved difficult to pry away from a throng of admirers so Tallia selected another match.
One of these admirers — Sparky the Dyke — kicked Talya's butt without raising a sweat, and inspired her to take up martial arts just as soon as possible
Both these victims were later found, horribly mutilated and Dead. We have no idea if Tallia did it or not....
Fear not, gentle readers, it was all a frame-up. Remember the passionate and vengeful freedom fighter they let get away earlier, and the families of the deceased? "No-one considers the effect on the family of a henchman", to quote that fine drama "Austin Powers, Man of Mystery."
After all she may be a genetically engineered mutant assassin sex goddess, who shoots fleeing natives with her sniper rifle gratuitously, but dos this mean shes a sadistic perverted psycopath as well?????
We don't really know.
I am just glad that I've decided I dosn't fancy her. At all. Not even a bit (well maybe a bit....).
The news of the discovery of the supposed "victims" was released while the team were en route to the starport at Glastonbury. The first any of them knew of it was when Fenella and Talya saw a news broadcast on their Passenger Entertainment Terminals, and the news naturally came as something of a shock. (everybody else was in the cargo hold, and remained blissfully unaware). Talya, of course, knew that she hadn't done the dastardly deeds, but Fenella had no idea and assumed that she was travelling in company with a sick perverted soulless psychotic with all the compassion of a blood-crazed wolverine. Talya protested her innocence of course, and they put off the problem of her guilt (or lack thereof) to consider the more pressing situation, which was how to get off the transport alive.
Fenella came up with the brilliant idea of creating panic amongst the passengers by causing a bomb scare, and in the confusion they attempted to get to the bridge with the intention of hijacking the transport. They got through the on-board security without too many problems, but had to go through the First Class compartment to get to the bridge. Unfortunately, the VIPs in First Class had their own bodyguards, and one of them zapped the two of them with a neural scrambler. That was all they knew about it until some indeterminate time later, when they woke up separately, alone, in bare cells, wearing nothing but grey paper coveralls, and covered in vomit.
And now, some more of the story from the unique viewpoint of Captain Joe...
Well, i must admit it was boring being stuffed inside the control module of a cargo lifter droid. Fortunately when my vacc suit got trashed in the fire fight down the hole (see message 2), elements of the personal entertainment module survived, including a partially usable copy of "The oikumeni's thirty favourite militaristic marches" played by Cpl Bob and his New Amsterdam Militia Brass band. So I was absolutely ok as far as entertainment went.
So I clomped on board the Aegis Company transport carrying EVE and bobbie the remote drone aboard in the "Droid Parts" box. Fenella and Tallia boarded using their stolen identities, shortly after they boarded an entire section of twenty or so off duty security personnel boarded as well.
This caused Fenella and Tallia to break out in a cold sweat, meanwhile I listened to my music and pom pom pomed along with it with vigour!!!
Quater of an hour into the flight, the news broke that two people (Tallia's Victims of the previous night) had been found brutally murded, tortured etc.
It was then that Fenella and Tallia decided that without weapons and entirely surrounded they would have to hijack the transport.
A jolly fine idea which deserved success for the simple fact that well, nobody could be expecting it. Surprise would be total.
And absolutely the only thing in their favour.
They manged to lift a gun off a gaurd and gave it their best shot before they were (shot I mean). It was their only option but they never had a chance. (Rack up one for the GM). When Fenella awoke she was completely encased in foam, apart from a helmet like arrangement which let her breathe, but that was OK because they let her out to be tortured etc every so often....
Meanwhile I pom pom pommed away in my cargo droid until we landed.
I was shifted to a storage area and had a tag affixed to me. And was promptly not picked up by Tallia and Fenella. After i had not been picked up for SOME TIME I began to get a little concerned and swapped my tag with another cargo droids.
My situation was fairly dire, my anasthetics had worn off, and various bits of me would soon start to die, unless I could get out of the cargo droid safely. Fortunately EVE was a medical droid, so she would be availiable to minister to me, but it was still getting damned uncomfortable and smelly in that box...
I decided to have a look around, fortunately a cargo droid carrying a box is fairly unobstrusive, and I manged to get most places, and familiarise myself with the layout of the starport. During this walk around I noticed the shattered remains of our ship, the Sutton Hu, (sans the AI core Sutton Hu).
The ship's hull had been gutted and the remains trashed, ready to be melted down and recycled. The Captain found it in one of the junkyards adjoining the maintenance hangars.
This interested me strangely and I set out looking for him, but could not find him.
The starport was a busy place, and I didn't want to lie around for hours groaning anywhere too public after I got out of my box, so I tried walking out.
Gate control checked me for documentation on the way out, and didn't find any. They issued instructions to me to stay still, I immediately started walking, doing a good impression of a malfunctioning droid, they issued an imperative command to stop which I did, and then told me to come back here, so I kept on walking the way I had been going (this will sound familiar to people who deal with computers I am sure...) any way this went on for quite some time until gate control decided I was definitely malfunctioning and sent me off to maintanence. Which was an area I hadn't been able to get much of a look at earlier.
At this stage Bobbie the Remote drone switched on, meaning that he was within 200 meters or so of the Sutton Hu (ai core). But I didn't notice because he was in the box I was carrying.
After every one from maintainence had gone home, I unlocked the box that contained EVE and bobbie the remote drone and extracted myself from the Cargo lifter droid.
PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN.
An hour or so later, after intensive medical care, I was able to notice that bobbie the remote drone was up and running. EVE had noticed earlier of course, but I had been distracted. Sutton, bless his little silicon heart had managed to infiltrate some of the non core functions of the starports LAN, and was busy finding out lots of interesting things, like where the security sensors were in the building I was in, and kind of switching them off. He located a hanger that was not in use, retagged it as being used, and I went there to hide and rest.
Over the next few days, Sutton, EVE and I had Fun At The StarPort. This mainly involved ripping the Aegis Corporation off left right and centre, stealing Lots of neat toys, including (drool) powered combat armour for Captain Joe (me) (dribble).
Sutton had found an old police scout suit which was in for a routine maintenance check. Of course, once the Captain heard about it, he simply had to have it. Pavlov's dogs have nothing on him when it comes to conditioned responses.
Unfortunately, most of the weapons racks on the armour were empty, so I had to make do with just the basic building demolisher blast auto whizzy zapper that was built in as standard.
Oh yes and we found Fenella and Tallia, they were in prison and scheduled for termination. Which was admittedly inconvienient, but hey Powered armour makes a pretty good lockpick. I was willing to give it a try.
Sutton had a better Idea. He intercepted the termination order and instead ordered them to be transferred aboard the fast yacht he had selected as our next new home. It was the only interstellar craft with an AI core currently uninstalled, it was brand spanking new, and through a dreadfull mix up the Sutton found himself assigned to it instead of getting his mindwiped. My cargo droid also received a movement order to carry a box labled "Droid Parts" onto the ship.
In fact, although Sutton Hoo did manage to rewrite the termination order and get himself assigned to the space yacht currently in dock, it was some other agency which arranged to have Talya and Fenella transferred on board instead of being shot and fed down the waste disposal. Sutton couldn't identify the mysterious benefactor, though the orders were tagged as being from somebody pretty important.
So there we all were, on the ship. Sutton newly installed, me climbing out of the cargo droid and into the power armour, and Fenella and Tallia, doped to the eyeballs and locked up on board.
It was then that the wheels started to come off........
Let's back up a bit:
While all this had been going on, Sutton's AI core had been installed in a secure bay in one of the maintenance hangars. He was provided with power, but otherwise was completely isolated from contact with any local networks. Fortunately for him (and for the others, as will become apparent) his captors were unaware that he was equipped with effector fields which he could use as manipulatory appendages. He plugged himself into a network port and began sneakily investigating the LAN to see what he could get away with.
Moving carefully and with discretion, he managed to infiltrate the system to the extent that he could monitor insecure traffic and interfere with moderately secure stuff without any serious danger of detection. In fairly short order he managed to track down what was happening with Fenella and Talya, and found out where they were being held. At about this time, Captain Joe wandered within range of Sutton's fields, and enabled him to bring his drone back on line without being detected by the station's security systems. He mapped out the surveillance systems for the hangar they were in, and arranged for secure quarters for Joe, Eve and the drone. It was during this survey that he found the scout suit mentioned above. He also swapped assignments for himself and an AI core in an adjacent booth, getting himself assigned for installation in the space yacht.
The order for Fenella and Talya's termination came down, was intercepted by Sutton, and altered to order them held until further notice; almost immediately, this order was superceded by another which cancelled it and ordered them transferred on board the space yacht to which Sutton Hoo had just assigned himself. This confused him slightly.
Anyway, everyone (including the AI in the neighbouring booth) got loaded on board and the VIP who owned the yacht boarded along with twenty bodyguards... a tight squeeze for a yacht with only four staterooms. In the hold, Captain Joe was frantically struggling into his new power-suit, and the VIP was giving Sutton Hoo the codes which revealed himself as his actual, genuine owner. Fenella and Talya were awake and free, there was no sign of the bodyguards, Joe was armed to the teeth, and Sutton was taking them off-planet under the orders of this mysterious person. Everyone (except the GM) was confused. What the hell was going on?
Fenella confronted the stranger on the bridge and demande to know why he had stolen their AI. "Call me... Ishmael" he said, from inside his body-suit. "Sutton Hoo: Have I stolen you?"
"No master" replied Sutton, confusing Fenella even further. Out in the passage, Joe was on the rampage, pulling off the doors to the staterooms to get at the bodyguards... which he found standing motionless, crammed into two of the staterooms. They were all androids. He threatened to blow them all to kingdom come anyway, until somebody pointed out that it may be unwise to start shooting wildly inside a spaceship currently hurtling through vacuum. Unable to kill anything, he became upset, and tried to shout contributions to the conversation on the bridge from the corridor. He discovered the major disadvantage of powered armour in confined spaces, which is that you don't fit through doorways quite as easily as you used to.
"Who am I?" asked Ishmael. "You are my primary owner and master" replied Sutton Hoo. Fenella carried on being puzzled and confused, and now started to get angry, since she thought that she was Sutton's primary owner and master. This came as something of a surprise to Talya and Joe, who had thought they all had equal shares in the ownership of Sutton.
Recriminations flew thick and fast, but little could be achieved in the face of Sutton's unswerving loyalty to his actual owner. Ishmael offered to drop them all off at Pontefract, on Aloysius in the Vega system. He agreed that the team still had some rights to the services of Sutton Hoo, since the original ten-year lease on him, originally taken out by Fly-By-Night Express (and transferred to SHESC) remained valid for another eight years, but pointed out that they were responsible for the replacement of the ship in which he had originally been installed. They have eight years to find the money for it, since they hadn't had it insured.
Perhaps you'd like to read some more from the perspective of one of the players, from the personal logs of Captain Joe:
When last we left our intrepid band, we had just suceeded in boarding a luxurious interstellar yacht. Captain Joe had carried EVE and Bobbie the Remote Drone (an physical manifestation of the Sutton Hu Ai Core) on board in a somewhat large box labeled "Droid Parts" which just happened to contain POWERED COMBAT ARMOUR as well.
The armour is an elderly, but still serviceable, Zephyr Mk.III Battlefield Scout Suit. It's not quite as potent as a genuine Battlesuit, but it's still a hell of a lot more frightening than your average double-breasted dark pinstripe business suit. Unless the business suit is attached to a trained attack-lawyer, of course.
I finished climbing in to the armour, and ran a diagnostic check, everything was A Ok so I was ready to rock and roll. Boy was I ready. I asked Sutton (via Bobbie) for the position and status of the pale fleshy ones, (Fenella and Tallia) and was informed that they had been left in two nearby state rooms, and while sedated appeared to be returning to conciousness.
Sutton also informed me that the registered owner of the yacht we were "borrowing" had boarded along with an even dozen unarmoured body gaurds. The odds were only twelve to one, just enough to make it interesting without being at all dangerous...
Or, in fact, twenty to one. But heck, what's a few lethal killers between friends?
As soon as we reached orbit I decided to neutralise the body gaurds, and exited the cargo bay. I did not manage to do this in a particularly subtle fashion, as manuvering what is basically a small personal dreadnought inside a space ship is a touch challenging. Inside the corridor leading to the bodygaurds quaters I met an extremely suprised looking Tallia and Fenella. I think they were reasured to find out that me and my Plasma cannon were on their side.
They concurred that we should neutralise the body gaurds and accompanied me to the appropriate location. The doors to the body gaurds quaters were locked and I asked Sutton to open them. I was suprised that he hadnot already thought to do this. I was even more suprised when he said "I regret to inform you that I am not authorised to comply with your last request".
This was interesting, as , as far as I knew, I was one of Sutton's owners. And could pretty much ask him to open any door I wanted too. Sutton informed me that while I was listed as being one of his secondary owners, his primary owner had forbidden him to open the door. At this point Fenella looked extremely embarassed and said "Spindrift Imperative Command, open the door".
Now I may be a little naieve in matters legal and so forth, but at this stage connections were made. You see Fenella is a Legal / Beauracratic expert, and had drawn up all the establishment papers for our company....
Including the ownership papers for the Sutton.....
I filed that piece of data.
You should have seen her face when Sutton said "While you are registered as my primary secondary owner I am unable to respond to your imperative command as requested due to a conflicting command issued by my primary owner."
It was at this stage that we realised that the Sutton, who controlled absolutely every system on the ship was no longer on our side.
We established that at some time in the last six hours or so Sutton had been mind fucked big time. I had a cool idea and got Sutton to tell us when he had last backed himself up, and where the hard copy was. But we had a problem getting the hard copy to the AI core housing...
While this was going on Fenella was getting MORE and MORE PISSED OFF. After all, she had thought she was the owner of the Sutton Hu, (and there was a considerable dollar value attatched to the installation...) only to find out that someone through SNEAKY UNDERHAND methods had ripped her off.
Rough Justice as far as I'm concerned. Ho Ho Ho.
She decided to storm up on to the bridge and have it out with whoever was up there while I trashed the bodygaurds. I was going to just blast the door down, until I realised that I would probably shoot right through the inside of the hull as well, so I kind of leant (a bit) on the door and it, well, just broke off in my hand. That sort of thing happens to me all the time.
Anyway the body gaurds were in there but they were no fun. Just mindless automatons really. I hit one a little until it fell over (one hit only) and decided it was pointless to hit any more.
Captain Joe will be getting a sizeable bill for the damage in the very near future....
I then had a little thought.
So what we have here is someone who obviously knew all about us, at least he probably knows everything the Sutton knows (which is everything).
He also isn't frightened of us (no body gaurds, and me wearing a personalised dreadnought....).
He hasn't killed us.
He has helped us to escape.
I took the armour off and went up onto the bridge to introduce myself to a man who said "Call me Ishmael.." with an expectant pause afterwards. Not knowing what else to do I said in a puzzeled way "Call me Captain Joseph Abraham Lincoln the third, New Amsterdam Militia (retired) SIR" and held out my hand. He sighed, and shook it.
Then Fenella started waving her lawyers at him, going into more and more detail about the nature of the ownership of the Sutton Hu.
Gosh it was interesting. Apparently I didn't actually own anything at all really, but then again neither did Fenella and Boy was she pissed I mean majorly pissed. It was an education just watching.
Fenella retired in disgust, and I spoke cordialy with Ishmael. It turns out that we owed him allot of money. As the actual owner of the Starship Sutton Hu (and the AI Sutton Hu), we owed him for the value of the (trashed) (uninsured) ship. He was prepared to be reasonable, but basicaly owned us for the next ten years or so.
That was fine with me, I respond well to authority and a properly established chain of command.
Besides all we had to do was come up with 8,000,000 - 10,000,000svu to buy him out....
We were dropped off at Somewhere (which is a planet in the Oikumene) and told that he would be in touch.
Aloysius, actually. It's still a planet in the Oikumene, but in a completely different star system. I suppose it's easy enough to make these little errors when you're unused to space travel.
We dropped the evidence we had against the AEGIS coorporation off at the Worlds Court.
We had no ship, (Which meant that Sutton had no body), bugger all cash, and were over 8,000,000svu in debt. We had also just made an enemy of a major Terracorp.
Pretty good result for the misson so far I thought...
They landed at Pontefract, on Aloysius in the Vega System. Fenella is fuming, and is threatening to sue everyone in sight.