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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ao the Overkitty" data-source="post: 2816522" data-attributes="member: 9758">Synopsis of 4/17/06 session“Episode 6 - Mort's Bad 'Day' ” - Fourth SessionSynopsis of 4/17/06 session -subtitled God of MachinerySmoke made it hard to see.  Four men sat around a poorly lit table, littered with cards, shot glasses, chips, and ash trays.  The end of a cigar flared bright red as a bald, older man in the undershirt of a military uniform took a drag before tapping off the ashes.  He fingered the rank insignia on the jacket draped over his chair for good luck as he studied the cards in front of him.A distinguished looking man in his sixties chuckled at this sight.  He had on a blue dress shirt that went well with his peppered black hair.  He also had a uniform jacket slung over his chair.  He knocked back his white liquid before setting the glass back on the table and pushing his glasses back up his nose.  He glanced at the cards in his hand before looking across the table.Man with Glasses: Your bet, Jack.A bald, black man in his forties smiled back across the table.  He was handsome and wore a very nice looking black vest over a white shirt with a black neckerchief.Jack: I think I’ll open for three credits, Marcus.Marcus: Oooooo. Jack, Jack, Jack.  This is supposed to be a friendly game.  Here I think you might be trying to fleece me.  You know Lucas over there can’t afford the usual high stakes of your games.The bald man in his undershirt, Lucas, harrumphed and looked like he was going to respond, but a knock sounded on the door.  A short, dour looking man in his mid twenties wearing an Alliance fleet uniform entered.Marcus: What is it, ensign?Ensign: Um, sorry sirs, for interrupting, but we’ve received a distress call from the Heart of Gold.Jack laughed at this.Jack: Don’t worry about that, boy.  Maxx is just trying to give me an out if I was losing my shirt here.Ensign: I don’t think so, sir.  It sounded authentic.  It was a prerecorded message to be sent in case of emergency.Marcus: Alright, lets hear it.The ensign wandered over to a computer terminal in the corner of the room and played back the message.Jack turned to Marcus.Jack: Think they’re after Ruiz?Marcus: Ensign, respond we’re on our way and go to full burn.  And get me anything you can on this other ship. ************************It took Daniel some time of trying to figure out how to leave the Korv protected while he ventured into the Heart of Gold.  He seemed very afraid someone on board would take his ship while he was inside.While Daniel was being paranoid and starting searching, Asta sewed up Mort’s wounds.  The bullet seemed to have missed any major organs or arteries and had gone clean through, so she didn’t have to worry about fishing out the bullet.  Still, Mort was going to have to take it easy for a week or two to give the stitches time to do their work and help his wound heal.After all that fancy flying, Take was just plum tuckered out, so he took a nap on the bridge.  Campan sat in the dark mess area with Jenny and the cat.  He could have used a beer, but didn’t think he’d be safe trying to find his way down a ladder to the fridge.And, while all of this was going on, the shuttle was fairly rapidly draining of power.  After all, powering the life support system takes a lot of juice.As Asta was finishing up Mort’s back, Daniel piped in over the comm.Daniel: Uhh, we’ve got a problem over here.  We’re going to have company in about two hours.Campan: Yeah!!!! Air!Daniel: No yeah.  Alliance cruiser.  I’m going to wander around here some more.  I guess Campan is in charge.Asta: (not over the comm.) Oh dear god, we’re going to die.Campan tried ordering Jenny around, but she refused to do senseless things like spin around really fast.Paul: I want it on the record that Ryan is currently reading his torn-in-half character sheet, which he ripped when Campan almost suffocated last session.Asta analyzed their situation and Mort’s survivability and decided that she needed to pump some stimulants into him to wake him up.  He’d be in a lot of pain, but he could tough it out.  Pain never killed anyone.  Anything was safer than Campan being in charge.As an after thought, Asta told Daniel it would be a good idea to bring back any suits he found over there.  She then set about fixing Mort’s suit.  This took her a little while, since she had to remove a lot of duct tape to find the hole.Campan continued sitting in the mess area, a bit stupefied with the situation and being in charge.  He knew he couldn’t punch the engines into working, so he really wasn’t sure what he could do.  The best he could come up with was to strap both ships together and, between the two of them, they’d have one working ship.  If he could just have a beer, everything would be all right.After finishing Mort’s suit, Asta called up to Campan to have him turn off the gravity for a little bit.  Campan wandered up to the bridge and flipped the switch.  Take’s arms floated up, but the rest of him stayed in his seat, having been strapped in.  Campan had the impulse to flip the gravity back on again, but thought better of it.With a now weightless Mort, Asta had a better time putting him back into his suit.  She grabbed a fresh oxygen tank and hooked it in before sticking a needle in Mort to wake him up.Mort woke up in a LOT of pain and feeling like he had just had about twenty cups of coffee.Mort: I need a cigar.Asta: Sorry about the pain, but I needed you clear headed.  I just heard we’ve got about two hours til we got Alliance coming.  Our ship is not really working.  The engine room is in very bad shape.  There is a hole in the cargo bay and a vacuum outside the med bay, which is why your suit is one.  The XO is off doing something or other on the other ship.  Campan was in charge, but that’s part of the reason why I woke you up.  Be very careful, I don’t want your stitches to rip; your guts will fall out.Mort: (over intercom) I am awake! And in charge again.Campan: <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />!  But, I was in charge!  I could make decisions!Mort: (over intercom) Daniel, find the stuff we’re stealing.Asta: Oh, and we’re powering life support with the shuttle.Mort: Oh goodie.  We might have three hours.  Two hours before Alliance gets here.  Everything is going so slow…  Okay.  Step one, we’re going to go steal an engine.Asta: Okay.Campan: Sorry Mort.Mort: I need Campan… I need pretty much everyone in a space suit. Campan: Mine smells.Mort: I don’t care.  You’re going to be moving an engine for me.Take groggily woke up as his arm hit a panel above him.  He looked over to his side to see Campan floating next to him.Campan: I was… I was in charge.Mort: Anyway, Asta haul me outside.  Campan, meet us out there.  Bring tools… And rope.  You’ll find some on the floor in my room.  Oh wait, we’re in zero-G.  You’ll find it floating near the door.Campan put on his stinky and slightly squishy suit, grabbed tools and rope and prepared to mess around with doors to make airlocks.Asta, Mort and Campan assembled in the engine room.Campan: Here are your tools. (pause) I’m happy you’re not dead.Mort: Me too.The engine room didn’t look much better than it did during the fight, but there weren’t any miscellaneous spare parts floating about, since they had all been blown out the air lock.  Mort figured it would take him a day, maybe a day and a half to get the engine running at all.Mort: Yeah, we’re stealing an engine.  We’re putting the new one in the cargo bay.  That should speed things up.  We just have to worry about radiation within the exposed areas.Campan: I’m just going to start shoving hooks in my face now.Mort: No no, you’ll be in the shielded part of the ship.  We’ll just be flying around with the lower half of the ship leaking radiation. Take: So, we’ll look like a Reaver ship?Campan: I need to go start collecting bodies.Mort: Do we have any explosives?  Campan, have you seen any explosives around?Campan: Not lately.Mort: Okay.  I have to go to my room and get a cutting torch.  The one from the engine room is gone.After getting the cutting torch, he handed it to Asta.Mort: You are going to take this and get the stuff we’re here to sell.  I want mister psycho employer to be happy.  And I want to get paid.  Apparently Daniel can’t pull this off on his own, so you’re going to go do that while I go steal an engine.  Daniel!  We need a tow.  Get in the Korv and come back here.About ten minutes later, Daniel brought the Korv around in front of the cargo bay.  Mort tied off the rope on the Orasca and onto the Korv.  He then explained that Daniel was to fly very carefully over to the Heart of Gold’s airlock and drop them off.Mort: Okay. Everyone tie on.  Praying is optional.Daniel got them close to the ship.  From there, Mort untied from the Korv and pushed off towards the Heart of Gold.  Hitting it, he grabbed for something to hold onto and tie off on.Mort: Oww!  I need a spacesuit that allows me to smoke cigars.Lori: Dude. Chewing tobacco.Paul: No. Mort likes fire.Lori: Fine.  It’s your guy who’s stuck in a space suit for hours having a nicotine fit.Paul: I’d like to note that Mort isn’t addicted to nicotine, he’s addicted to smoking cigars.Ryan: I would also like to point out I’m not addicted to drinking, I just like how it tastes.Mort made his way over to the cargo bay airlock (which Daniel had blown a hole in) to find a blast door in place.  He moved up to the cockpit (which Daniel had also blown a hole in) to once again find a blast shield in place.Mort: They have the best security, anti-airlock hole system in the world. I so wish we could steal this ship.Mort marveled at what emergency systems looked like for a second, then headed around to one of the one-man airlocks at the back of the cockpit.Mort: Hey Jenny.  Look at that file on these people and find out who their families are.Take: Are you THAT mad?Mort: Yeah.  Clearly they need to die for this too.Mort entered the ship into a singed area.  Though mostly blackened, the control consol still had lights to it.  Mort ignored them and went up the singed and slightly melted stairs, ending up in the crew quarters area.Mort: No stopping!Campan: But grenades! There are more here, I know it.Mort: No.Take: I have a grenade.Campan: You have a flashy thing.  That won’t blow an engine.Asta started moving towards the cockpit to check things out in there.Mort: No! Stick to plan!Campan: But, if we can get something running, can we just hook this ship up to that ship or something and get the <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> out of here?Mort: No.Campan: No?Mort: No.Campan: But can’t we just chain them together?Mort: No.  The connector will not hold when you take off or stop.Campan mumbled something.  Mort whacked Campan’s suit upside the helmet.The others followed Mort into the crew quarters area and onwards towards the back of the ship.  They entered the upper section of the cargo bay and could see Daniel puttering around down below.Mort: Ok, you go find boxes.  When I call for you, come help.  Just ignore Daniel, just find the boxes.Campan: Cargo Bay Ho.Mort headed into the engine room while Campan and Asta headed down to the cargo bay floor.Ryan: I find boxes.  And grenades, if they’re on the way.Daniel was still puttering around when the two of them got down the stairs.Asta: Which boxes, Daniel?Daniel: I think it is the ones with the Alliance seal on them.Asta turned on the cutter and cut the boxes loose.  Comparing the size of the boxes to the size of the airlock they came through, Asta looked over at the blast shield covered cargo bay door.Asta: Mort, we may need to disable the blast shields.Mort: No no, I have a plan.Mort’s plan hinged on the ‘super emergency systems’ including an engine eject system.  Silly Mort.  He did find that it was possible to remove the hull casing around the engine room.  This could only be done from the outside, since it was intended to be done in a shipyard on a planet with a crane.Mort wandered back into the cargo bay.Mort: Campan, you doing anything?  Follow me.Campan: I haven’t found any grenades yet…Asta asked if she should work on the blast door and disabling the gravity to get the cargo out.  Mort told her that gravity wasn’t going to matter once he ripped the roof off.  Nor would the atmosphere.Asta: I just thought the tiny hurricane blast of air moving out of a small area might be avoided?[/i]Mort: No we don’t… we don’t have a crane to get the engine out.  Move everything into the engine room.  It soon won’t have a roof.Asta tried to lift one of the crates and found them to be very heavy.  She told Daniel to help her with the crates and to bring tie-downs.  Once the boxes were in the engine room, she tied them together and put them on a tether attached to the ship.  She then tethered herself to the ship as well.Take sat on the Orasca playing with his dinosaurs and waiting for orders.  He tried to get his spacesuit back from Jenny, but she wasn’t budging from it.Take: (over intercom) Oh yeah, get me a spacesuit while you’re over there.  Or better yet, get Jenny out of mine so I can have it back.Campan: That’s very funny, sir.  I don’t think enough people are unconscious for you to give orders.Outside, Mort instructed Campan on how to properly break things to get the engine room open.  Campan was offered a beer as incentive for doing a good job. His lines were a little crooked and there was a small Campan was here with the Campan crossed out and Jasp written above it, but it looked like he was doing what he was told.Mort saw Daniel head back to his ship to make sure no one had stolen the Korv yet.  He warned Asta when the hull was going to buckle and explosively decompress.  Mort pulled Campan out of the way in time.  Asta had been holding onto something down at the bottom of the cargo bay, but found it difficult to finely manipulate things with the suit’s sausage fingers.  She got blown up into the engine room and out the hull breach, hitting a few hard objects along the way.  Everyone was deafened by Asta’s scream as she flew out the hole and was yanked hard when she got to the end of her tether.  At least she was now floating next to the crates.Mort moved inside against the blowing air, closed the engine room door and started disconnecting the engine from its mooring while Asta moved the crates over to the Orasca.Asta asked Daniel if he had found any spacesuits yet.  Daniel replied that he had just gotten back from checking the Korv and all he had found was some fused ones.Mort finished disconnecting the engine.  The Heart of Gold powered down.  He then tied a rope between the engine room and the engine and a rope between the engine and their rope to the Orasca.  Mort opened the engine room door long enough to blow the engine out of the engine room.  He managed to hold onto the door and close it again.Mort: Campan.Campan: Yes sir.Mort: Take the engine and put it in the cargo bay. (pause) Captain, do we want to make up a cover story?Take: I don’t think there is an explanation good enough for this.Mort: It’s called Reavers.Take: They attacked both of us?Mort: Yes.Asta: We should leave a friendly radiation trail.  Don’t Reavers leave a radiation trail?Mort: I was just going to leave a friendly message on their recorder here.Take: Wouldn’t you know, there have to be mutilated bodies for that to be plausible?Campan: I’m on it!There was a brief conversation about where they would get the corpses, since there weren’t any on the Heart of Gold.  Mort then remembered that there were corpses in their brig.Mort: Campan, take the engine back to our ship.  Then collect all the corpses on our ship, bring them back here, and mutilate them.Campan: I thought you were supposed to be doing that.Mort: No, I’m going to be hooking up the engine.Campan: (sad eeyore voice) Campan don’t want to mutilate that…Mort: Campan don’t want to get left behind if he doesn’t do what he’s ordered.Asta: Hey Campan, did you see how that door got in the engine?Campan: (sad eeyore voice) Yes, I did.Asta: Yeah, how’d that happen?Campan: Can’t talk now, pushing engine.Dan: (imitating Ryan) Can’t talk now, violating corpse.Mort: Good.  Now I’ve got twenty minutes and three hours of work to do.Mort took a lot of shortcuts with the engine.  There was lots of open wiring and no radiation shielding.  There was also a distinct lack strapping the engine to anything.While ‘violating’ the corpses, Campan got the good idea to look around for security cameras.  Daniel popped up and took a video capture of his activities, but that was about it.  With the gravity and power off, Campan just chucked parts around the ship.Back on the Orasca, Asta was moving anything they didn’t want irradiated out of the cargo bay and behind radiation shielding.Just about the time Take thought the Alliance Cruiser should be showing up on the sensors, power started returning to the bridge.  The little ‘Loading Systems’ message came up on all the screens.*Paul, the bastard, rolled a whopping 43 on his Mr. Fix It roll, spending a drama point.  That is 3 success levels beyond God-Like.  His response was, ‘I’m Mort. I fix stuff.*Take ordered everyone back to the Orasca.  Asta started handing out iodine pills.  Campan untied the rope from the Heart of Gold to the Orasca and pulled himself back to the Orasca.Asta: Hey Mort, are you going to need a radiation treatment when we’re done here?Mort: Oh no.  I grew up on a planet with radiation.  I’m chock full of iodiney goodness.The engine started to slide a little as the ship got moving.  Mort worked on chaining the engine down.  He then worked on cutting down the amount of radiation leaking into the ship.The Orasca limped away.Roll Credits</blockquote>

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