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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 2423268" data-attributes="member: 515">Chapter IXDate: 210-993Location: Aboard the Bray Keaven, approaching Kerin's TyrVargas keeps trying to push the Bray Keaven to close faster with the Blue Donovan. The Bray Keaven is already in an almost–ideal, near–zero–degree–deflection firing angle (almost directly astern), and Vargas manages to keep the ship steady and true in spite of considerable vibration from the overloaded maneuver drives. Looking at the fuel readout, Vargas notes that the Bray Keaven is consuming fuel at a truly alarming rate, probably because Martha has somehow combined a seriously abused plant and fuel directly routed to the maneuver drive to set up what amounts to an after burner. -----In engineering, Martha can hear, feel, and see the power plant and maneuver drives straining. Though she half fears that the engineering systems are on the verge of a total breakdown, she manages to route power and flow for a bit longer, maintaining the Bray Keaven’s acceleration and so far, avoiding a system shutdown or immediate apparent damage. -----Swann switches his fire control station over to handle the port turret, arms the missile launcher, targets the port maneuver drive on the Blue Donovan, and fires. The missile seems to slowly crawl towards the Blue Donovan about 15,000 km away since the missile only has a net 4G acceleration rate. Swann’s fire control readout estimates that the missile will impact in 14.5 minutes. -----While the missile is closing, Kevon, Ian, and Aidan suit up, grab weapons, and prepare to board the Blue Donovan. After a moment of hesitation, Saro suits up as well, grabs his medical kit, and prepares to follow the boarding party if requested. -----Vasilii also dons his vacc suit over diplo armor and grabs his magnum revolver. Then he returns to the bridge and lets Martha know he’s back on comms. -----Kevon also returns to the bridge while Ian, Aidan, and Saro wait in the improvised sickbay and the adjoining empty cabin. -----With everyone at least having one eye on Swann’s targeting readout showing missile closure, the crew waits out the minutes as the missile closes in on the Blue Donovan. The missile runs true to Swann’s targeting and slams into the Blue Donovan’s port maneuver drive. Scattered cheers ring out on the comms as the vids show the drive flickering and then go dark. On the bridge, the tracking plots show the Blue Donovan dropping to 1G acceleration. The Blue Donovan’s course still shows it impacting either the Warne Highport or Kerin’s Tyr, but now in 41 minutes rather than the original 31 minutes. -----In the starboard turret, Swann allows himself a self–satisfied — what his father would have called a "drek–eating" — little grin. -----After a minute, Vasilii sends a new message in system. "Bray Keaven to Kerin’s Tyr authorities. Be advised that we have destroyed one of Blue Donovan’s thrusters with a missile, and reduced her to 1G. Unfortunately this did not put her off course, but we have increased her transit time by 10 minutes. Details attached. We are docking to board. Please reschedule your firing to give us some more time to take control. Please confirm." -----The Bray Keaven closes on the Blue Donovan as the minutes pass by. As Vargas guides the Bray Keaven closer, he can see the Blue Donovan’s attitudinal thrusters firing to keep the damaged far trader on its course to impact the highport or planet. The Blue Donovan doesn’t seem to react at all to the Bray Keaven’s approach, even when the pursuing far trader passes into the range that should trigger collision avoidance systems if active. Martha, upon observing this, mentions over the comms, "She appears to be on autopilot, but since the message changed after it started flying, there may be somebody onboard, so it’s safe to say they aren’t at the controls. Be careful, boys!" -----The strained power plant and maneuver drives begin to overwhelm Martha, and the acceleration drops to 2.64G as minor systems begin to fail. Martha’s damage–control displays start blinking madly in red showing various pumps, capacitors, transducers, and other minor systems that have overheated, shut down, or otherwise fail. Martha winces as she very briefly considers the damage being done to the just overhauled systems. She comms the bridge. "Captain, she’s starting to shut down! I need to ease up on her soon, or we’re done for. I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up!" -----Despite the reduced closure rate, and the odd power fluctuations and the minor odd behavior the drives are starting to exhibit, Vargas still manages to dock the Bray Keaven’s port airlock with the Blue Donovan’s starboard airlock without any problems. The Blue Donovan doesn’t react at all and continues on her course. The astrogation plot shows impact with the highport or planet in 31 minutes though the mercenaries and highport will probably start firing in 26 minutes or so. -----Vargas begins to relax his concentration with the completion of docking. "Martha, we are successfully docked. You can give the engineering equipment a bit of a rest for the time being. Just have her ready for a quick breakaway if needed. "By the way, great job on diverting power and keeping the ship in one piece." Vargas looks back on the events of the past few minutes and is definitely glad that he put in the practice time in the learning of pilot skills. With the speeds matched and the ships coupled together, he reduces thrust to just enough to keep the ships matched in speed and direction. -----While the boarding party prepares for action, Martha starts running a level–one diagnostic on the system, in case there’s an immediate emergency need for repairs. -----During the docking procedure, Swann keeps an eye on the targeting sensors to make sure there are no more ships in the area. Once the ships are docked, he comms Martha: "I know you have enough things to keep you busy, but I need to ask you to do one more. I’m going to move to the airlock to provide the boarding party some backup if they need it. Can you keep an eye on the sensors for ‘visitors?’ If you pick up anything approaching, let me know and I’ll return to the starboard turret." -----"Damn!" Martha mutters under her breath. "Sure, Swann," she says as she pulls up the sensor suite and begins scanning the interplanetary neighborhood, leaving the diagnostic to run in the background. "I’m on it! Be careful in there!" -----Swann then moves to the area next to the port air lock, retrieves a shotgun from the ship’s locker, loads it, and stands by in case he’s needed. -----At the airlock, the boarding party prepares to board. "McConnell first, myself next. Mr. Silver behind me, and Doctor, stay near the airlock until we can secure the area," Kevon orders. "Understood?" Saro positions himself by the airlock, checking for the one-thousandth time that his medkit is handy. Nodding curtly to Kevon, "Sure thing. I’m not all that interested in finding myself in the middle of a firefight again iffen I don’t have to. "I’ll be here, so if y’all need a hand, gimme a holler and I’ll come a runnin.’ " "Mr. Vargas, sit tight for the time being and give us a moment to assess the situation, before we decide on what we need to do," the captain adds over the comms. Turning to Ian and drawing his laser pistol, he says. "Let’s go." -----"Roger, captain, holding steady locked to Blue Donovan, awaiting further orders. Good luck." Vargas continues to hold steady while the boarding party enters the ship. He now devotes his entire concentration on maintaining a perfect track with the Blue Donovan. Given that the Blue Donovan’s autopilot is on, the attitudinal thrusters are working, the Bray Keaven has been throttled back to 1G acceleration, and nothing has blown up — yet — keeping the Bray Keaven in position is relatively easy to do. -----Vasilii wonders what happens if they manage to change course on the Blue Donovan. Will it rip the airlock coupling apart? They only just paid to have it fixed. His 5 percent stake in the ship is not looking secure. Still, the spacer types should know what to do. The Vilani merchant contacts the Hue Mercenary Boat Botswann. The Botswann is actually quite close (for the moment), and starting to accelerate in pursuit of the Blue Donovan and Bray Keaven. The Botswann is ahead of the pair of far traders, but the far traders will pass the Botswann very shortly. The Botswann’s officer replies, "Good job on slowing the Blue Donovan down and docking. Please be aware that we have orders to fire on any ships approaching the Warne Highport or the planet at 50,000 km unless we see a significant vector change. Our plot indicates that you have 24 minutes to change course. We’re accelerating now to try and catch up to you, but we won’t be able to do so until after you are quite a way past the planet." "Acknowledged, Botswann." Vasilii passes the information to all the Bray Keaven crew. -----In engineering, Martha breathes a sigh of relief as the power plant and drives return to a more normal level of activity and usage. She starts her diagnostic routines, wincing at the red flashing lights that appear, and then switches to a scan at Swann’s request. Martha’s scan plot shows a 200–dTon ship identified as the Botswann (transponder signal) about 20,000 km or so ahead and starting to accelerate in the same direction. Martha also notes a 300-dTon ship that lies about 45,000 km to starboard and is accelerating at 2G. The 300-dTon ship’s transponder replies to her squawk request as the Ghaieul, a 300-dTon trader. The Ghaieul was headed inbound and decelerating, but she is now angling towards the projected path of the two far traders and accelerating. -----About this time, Vasilii receives a hail from the Ghaieul. The vid screen shows a black–furred Vargr with quite a scar across his snout. The Vargr says, "The Ghaieul pack is moving to . . . assist . . . you should you need it. We have notified the Warne Highport of our plan to assist. We can not catch up in time if you do not divert the ship, but we can help any survivors when we catch up." "Great," thinks Vasilii, "why is it always a soph with a scar on his face who offers aid at times like this? Oh well, with the authorities coming in we can probably rely on him to play it straight." He passes the message around the crew and acknowledges/thanks Ghaieul. He also lets the Botswann know what Ghaieul said, just in case Ghaieul gave them a different story. -----Shortly after the docking, Swann joins the boarding party, grabs a shotgun from the weapon’s locker, and wishes the boarding party good luck. The boarding party consisting of Ian, Kevon, Aidan, and Saro make their way into the port docking tube headed for the Blue Donovan. Only two of the Bray Keaven crew can fit into the airlock comfortably at once, so Ian and Kevon enter first. When the outer iris valve opens, the docking tube beckons beyond. The tube extends some seven or so meters to the hull of the Blue Donovan, and the indicator lights show a good seal and a pressurized docking tube. After Ian and Kevon clear the airlock, Aidan and Saro follow. Floating over to the Blue Donovan, Ian and Kevon note that Blue Donovan’s iris valve and controls show no sign of any damage. A moment later, Saro and Aidan join them outside the Blue Donovan’s outer iris valve. Readying their gauss pistol and laser pistol, Ian and Kevon key the iris valve open. The iris valve opens smoothly, and a perfectly normal looking airlock appears beyond. Ian and Kevon smoothly swing into the grav field, close the outer iris valve, look at each other a moment, and then key the inner iris valve open. The inner iris valve opens smoothly. Straight across the small crew lounge area, Ian sees a destroyed vid screen and a fair number of scorch– and pockmarks on the wall. On the floor, in a pool of blood, lies a human body dressed in a light blue jumpsuit. The upper torso appears to have been hit by a number of high–velocity projectile rounds. Even more notable is the rather large, gray lizard thing that appears to be noisily slurping on something in the body’s abdomen. At the iris valve’s opening the creature looks up, it’s mouth filled with entirely too many sharp–looking teeth dripping blood. The lizard is around three or so meters long from head to tail. The body is fairly squat and appears to be covered with tough–looking scales. The tail is about a meter or so long and fairly broad at the base. The lizard snarls and charges Ian. Over comm, Ian says, "What the frell is that? A giant lizard eating a dead guy!" -----Swann says to himself in a bemused tone, "A giant lizard? So is a gorilla piloting the ship?" -----Though a little surprised, Ian slides to the right (to give Kevon a shot) and fires his gauss pistol. Unfortunately, the shot misses. Kevon fires his laser pistol at the lizard and misses. The lizard reaches Ian and tries to chomp on Ian’s left leg. The lizard manages to briefly close on Ian’s leg, but the vacc suit is tough stuff. The lizard snarls louder as it appears to break a tooth or two on the suit. "Sonavabitch tried to take my leg off!" -----Swann's bemusement turns to concern and a feeling of impotence at being stuck aboard the Bray Keaven. "Why does all this weird drek keep happening to us?" -----Ian fires again at the lizard at his feet. The gauss pistol round smacks into the overgrown gecko on its back near its left rear leg. The scales are apparently fairly thick because, while the lizard snaps at the impact area, not a lot of blood appears to flow from the wound. Ian flips the gauss pistol fire selection switch to four–round burst so the next shots will have better results. He hopes. He takes the opportunity while the beast is distracted by his wound to step through the iris valve and to the left. A string of Vilani curses spew from Kevon’s mouth as he attempts to cycle the iris valve closed. "How the hell . . . " sidestep " . . . do we always get into . . . " fumble for control while keeping one eye on the reptile " . . . these insane situations!" tap the controls "Mr. Silver, Dr. Talbek, be advised we have a reptilian creature trying to bite Mr. McConnell’s leg off here," he warns the others. "Use caution when opening the iris valve." He starts to make his way towards the bridge. "Keep it busy," Kevon quips with a little morbid humor — very little. "Shouldn’t be a problem," Ian replies as he repositions himself in the corridor. "It seems to have taken a liking to me." A string of Marine–grade curses spew forth from Ian’s mouth towards the beastie. -----Listening to the curses and exertions of the two on the other side of the airlock, Saro groans. He leans back against the closest wall and slowly knocks the back of his helmet against the wall behind him. "Killer viruses," thud, "illegal cargoes," thud, "mysterious cubes," thud, "bloodthirsty brigands," thud "and now soph–eating lizards." thud thud thud "I’m beginning to think that no trip will ever be uninteresting. And I use ‘interesting’ in the ancient Chinese sense of the word." Saro sighs deeply and straightens up. "If you want us to help you out in there, you’ll have to let us through, Mr. Holland. We can’t do much from this side of the lock." He readies himself to dodge any man–eating lizards, flying monkeys and giant rabid basselopes that might greet him on the other side of the airlock. -----"Vasilii, good thinking about the message," Vargas says. "Please thank the Ghaieul for their concern and willingness to help, but we had better wave them off. The last thing we are going to need is another ship in the near vicinity in the event things go sour and we have to do some emergency maneuvering." -----"Ghaieul, Bray Keaven here. Our pilot advises that there may be some unpredictable violent maneuvers if we override controls on Blue Donovan or perform an emergency undocking with stress on the coupling. Please keep a fair distance once you match to avoid collision risk, or a swipe of the exhaust wash." Vasilii receives no reply from the Ghaieul. -----"Martha, if possible, I think we had better seal off the entrances to engineering and the bridge," Vargas says. "If that coal scuttle full of teeth manages to get aboard, it could generate a real problem. Incidentally, are you armed down there?" -----Martha seals off the entrances to engineering and the bridge. "Roger, Vargas, though I’m not sure what impact it’d have on the beast." -----Hearing this, Vasilii drops a message into crew comm. "Does Mr. McConnell have his ACR, or would he like it brought to the airlock in view of developments?" -----Martha continues her sensor sweeps of the area, monitoring activity as the ships hurtle towards Kerin’s Tyr at breakneck speed. She doesn’t pick up anything new. Yet. -----Vasilii again wonders briefly about the docking tube, but then remembers that the starboard docking tube was the one just replaced. The port one hasn’t been damaged. Yet. -----On the Blue Donovan, the fight continues. Cursing, Ian dodges left to clear the airlock and then fires his gauss pistol in burst mode at the overgrown rabid gecko. Amazingly, the four–round burst catches the gray komodo dragon–crocodile cross at the base of the skull in mid–snap at Kevon, and all four of the gauss pistol rounds strike true, nearly severing the skull from the rest of the body. Kevon, intent on running past the lizard to the bridge, makes it almost to the bridge iris valve before Ian manages to get out, "pant pant I think the motherfreller is dead pant pant." Ian then fires another burst into where he guesses the lizard’s heart might be to be sure. Kevon gets the bridge iris valve open. Immediately to his left past the iris valve are some laser scorches along the wall. Carefully inching forward, he spies a body slumped back over the right pilot controls, and a considerable amount of gore covering the controls on the right side. -----Meanwhile, Aidan and Saro make it into the airlock and open the inner iris valve. When the inner iris valve opens, Aidan strides out first with a curious and intent look on his face. He bends down to prod the now–dead lizard with his rifle briefly before commenting, "Good lord, I think that’s a Maherian Jawsenbek! Not something that you’d keep as a pet, and nothing that should be anywhere near here. I think that Cousin Gabriel hunted one decades ago when he took that extended safari down Sol way." Saro warily follows and easily verifies that the light blue jump–suited body is definitely dead. The impact wounds in his chest probably killed him, but if not, missing most of his abdomen definitely did him in. -----On the bridge, Kevon checks the left set of flight controls. The controls appear to be computer locked with the autopilot engaged. The autopilot does appear to be set to intercept the Warne Highport. -----Looking around the crew lounge a bit more, Ian sees that there is a large (about 3m long, 1m high, 0.75m wide) rectangular container of some sort lying in the corridor towards the crew cabins with the nearest side open. A quick inspection (from a distance) reminds Ian and Saro of one of the frozen beastie low berths in the Bray Keaven’s cargo hold. </blockquote>

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