Ambrosia Software Web Board: Try Again - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Piemur1 was busy handling complaints from the freighter captains. They couldnt understand why he was leaving them with one of his friends. After bickering for a while, he simply replied, "You guys used to respect my decisions, and now look at what you're doing! Oh all right! You guys follow my lead and I'll see if I can make a couple extra deals. Prep cargo holds for ores. Sensors? have you located my cargo pods?"
"Err...sorry sir, perhaps they've been destroyed by the asteroids. Or a lucky shot by a pirate."
"Oh drat! Ok, scrap that anyway...I may need extra maneuverability anyways. Helm, lock on to jumpgate Alpha_348 and feed the waypoint computer the station rendezvous coordinates. So what if we arrive way before the Rift? We will need the time to buy the ores and load up the ships. By then, he will arrive to handle things. Attention cargoships! Make sure to get a full manifest including ore type and concentration! Engineering? Get the hyperdrives ready for a long trip. And see if there are any engine upgrades for our ships. Oh, and see if they are going to provide us with a jumpgate kit for a faster trip home. If not, I will have to buy one. Hope this trip will be profitable! Because I see our funds are going to drop quite a bit before this is over."
"Sir, approaching the jumpgates now."
"Sir! Incoming transmission!"
"On screen."
- Incoming Transmission [Channel 28] -
Source: Toros System Mining Station
Subject: Orders
Your orders were to rendezvous with the rest of the ships. You are violating a direct order and you may be held off the mission. And I won't get into how many bounty hunters will be on your tail when you exit the gate. Get that ship turned around and rendezvous with your specified coordinates! Unless you can explain why you require an early start.
-Transmission Ended-

"Ok, respond with the following message on the same channel:
Subject: RE: Orders
Sir, with all due respect, I am going to the station at the Bezant System to load up my frieghters with ores and that will take some extra time. Mag Steelglass will be handling all of the affairs for me. I will be using my freighters for additional cargo space for the missionm, free of charge, of course. I will also be looking into some possible goods which may be of interest to our possible alien allies. But I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to equip us with a jumpgate kit in order that we may have a faster trip home that we could locate into a heavy traffic area. This would increase trade to the Toros System Mining Station and would increase profits to you immensely. If you will not provide us with one, I will be more than happy to purchase one which I will transport myself. Of course, the gate's default setting will be set for my home station, in which you will lose a lot of profits to prospective merchants willing to take risks. All damage fees to your cargo ships will be taken care of by my corporation, if you would be so kind as to give me clearance to the jumpgate. Thank you.
-end message, store and transmit. <sigh> You always have to show your money in order to get your way. And send this message to the Rift:
Subject: Unavailable to join
Dear Captain Mag Steelglass of the Rift. I am afraid I wont be able to join you on the cruise ship to handle my affairs. I will be leaving immediatly to the Bezant System to load my frieghters with ores for trade. If you would be so kind as to handle it for me, I would appreciate it greatly. Thank you so very much!
-end message, store and transmit. Any response from the station?"
"Yes sir! We have clearance to the jumpgate...well done sir, if I may say so myself! And yes, they are providing a jumpgate kit...under the condition we handle it ourselves, and if it is damaged or destroyed, we will have to pay for it in full."
"Accept it. Now, Helm, you may enter the jumpgate. Attention cargoships! You may each enter the jumpgates 10 minutes after the one in front is cleared through. Understood?"
The captains of each freighter affirmed.
The SA.SC.Pern-3 entered the jumpgate's swirling maw and gradually seemed to disintegrate from the nose as it entered. In seconds, it was gone...and the frieghters soon followed after on the first day of the adventure...

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"At ----- , bullcrap is our most important product"
-graffiti on the lavatory wall of a major consultancy (from The Wizardry Consulted)

[This message has been edited by Piemur1 (edited 06-21-2001).]

[Note: Please do not rescue me, as I am going on holidays for a week, I will rescue myself at the end of that period.]

Someone found a torch, and handed it to Perneas, who grunted, trying to find the switch. He turned it on. And there was light.

He shone at the viewscreen. Hmm... he was definately in the hold of some kind of vessel. Quite a large one too if it could hold the 5 kilometre long Prometheus. Then the bay doors began to open, and tiny ships flew into the docking bay alongside the Prometheus. They grabbed it with some kind of energy field, and towed the Prometheus out into the stars. Perneas' joy was brief.

Next to the carrier ship, was an awesome creation. Atleast 100 kilometres long, and 30 kilometres wide, it looked like a huge broadsword. On the side facing Perneas, an infinitesimal docking bay opened. Surely they're not going to try to put is in that? He thought.

But they did. As the tugs moved the ship closer to the hole, it actually wasn't so small after all. Now, inside of it, Perneas realised that they had plenty of space to spare.

'I advise all crew members to grab weapons, oxygen canisters and food.' Said Perneas. 'You, and you' He pointed to 2 crew members, 'Run down to the other sections of the ship, and tell everyone to come to the bridge.'

'Righto Sir.'

They ran off into the darkness, carrying lighted matches to guide their way.

For several moments, people talked, exchanged food supplies etc... loading weapons. Perneas sat down in his captain's chair... wondering how aliens treated prisoners of war.

Hissssss...

Perneas sat up. Oh no, he thought. I know that sound! Someone has made a whole and we're losing oxygen! With power, the automatic cleaners on the hull would move off and cover the whole with a thick kind of plasto-plast. But perhaps falling inside the carrier scratched the thick hull sufficiently... If so, then he had to rely on the mercy of the aliens to stop up that hull very very quickly.

The hissing stopped suddenly.

There was a crashing sound. And marching feet started moving towards the bridge.

'Form up behind anything you see.' Perneas whispered. 'Discharge weapons immediately.'

The crew did so.

The marching feet stopped outside the bridge. Perneas did not dare shine his torch in the darkness and find out who it was.

'Humans listen.' Said a voice, using what seemed to be a damaged translator. 'You are our prisoners. You are under our jurisdiction. Follow me if you want to survive. All dissidents will be executed.'

The being walked into the room, well 'walked' didn't quite cover it. It had no legs. What was it's form of transportation, Perneas could only guess. It floated along over the bridge. Other followed.

'Now!' Perneas yelled.

They shot hundreds of bullets at the naarad. Taking it in the stomach, in the legs, in the arms, but such was the strength of their exoskeleton, that they did not bleed or appear injured. Then, with a common accord, shields went up all over the naarad. The bullets, instead of hitting soft flesh, hit a barrier carrying it's kinetic opposite, and rebounded with incredible violence. Perneas ducked behind his chair in order to avoid a hail of bullets from his own crew.

'Stop shooting!' He yelled.

Their were moans and the cries of the injured everywhere.

He stood up and approached the naarad speaker.

'I am captain Perneas.'

It rotated to face him, head lolling around as if trying to fit him into some kind of microscopic picture.

'Captain? Tell your officers to follow me.'

The naarad began moving out of the bridge.

'What about my injured men?'

'They will die.' Came back the cold reply.

Perneas felt he had to make a decision.

'No' He said, feeling immensely foolish.

The Naarad made no comment, but turned around and headed at very fast speed back to the bridge. The others grabbed every single abled officer roughly, and began dragging them out of the ship. One of them tried to grab captain Perneas, but at a signal from the leader, desisted.

And with that, the Naarad began moving out of the ship. Perneas felt duly obliged to follow, but extremely guilty that the men on the floor were in such extreme pain.

He ran after the naarad, matching pace with the 'leader.'

'Excuse me?' He said to it.

No answer.

'What will happen to my injured men?' Perneas asked.

'They wll be cared for, and treated.' Said the Naarad.

Perneas was sure the Naarad was lying. Deciding that he wasn't, he marched in step with it.

Oh my, he then realised. The docking bay is still open! He walked outside of the hole in the ship, and beheld open space. Like no other human had beheld it before. The only thing seperating him from incredible decompression was a bubble's thickness of electromagentic purpose.

The oxygen in the hold smelled unusual, like a planet without a natural atmosphere.

He marched along side the Naarad. Until they stopped at the wall.

The other naarad, began moving the officers into an opening. The other naarad said to Perneas: 'Follow me.'

He followed.

'Where are you taking me?' He asked.

'Reconditioning Lab 392.' Replied the Naarad.

Oh.

'Who are you?'

'Naarad.'

'No, I mean you are you? What's your rank?'

'You appear to be asking me 2 questions' Came back the leaden voice. 'Though they do not make sense, Naarad has been provided with answers.'

They continued walking.

'The first question: Naarad is a collective consciousness, and the term I has no meaning. To the second question: I am your temporary escort. I have no individual rank.'

He came to an elevator.

They got in.

[This message has been edited by Count Altair El Alemein (edited 06-21-2001).]

With the confusion at the initial strike from the Naraad, noone seemed to notice the four Union ships that dropped into Low orbit right near the surrendered Union vessels. They were surrounded by transports and tugs, hauling engineers up and prisoners down to and from the planets surface. The Union ships were all technologically superior to those of the Federation, and the scientists were itching for a chance to get inside the Union ships.

The first thing that the Andalusa did upon leaveing Ether was to open her missile tubes and start firing. However, she did not aim directly at the vessels, she aimed her missiles ahead of them, so that the shockwave knocked the ships out of orbit. The Heavy Battlecruisers felt it first and hit the atmosphere hard. The damaged ships would never have made it out of the system without a struggle, and the four ships were not in any position to stand in a prolongued engagement.

With the Battlecruisers in terminal orbits, the Andalusa forced itself into the middle of the tugs that were carrying the captured corvettes and fighters. When the plasma tubes began venting, the unarmoured tugs quickly disintegrated, and the fighters didn't take many more hits before they too were nothing but wrecked hulks in terminal orbits. The light destroyers paired off on the one transport that had not lost cabin pressure and nudged it into the docking bay on the Xerxes. As the blast doors sealed off the hull, the Xerxes began a deorbit burn to achieve escape velocity. The Two destroyers were close behind, and Captain Harrison only waited around long enough to kick out a few extra nukes to finish off the wreckage. He didn't have to worry about the planet. Several hundred trillion tons of battlecruiser tends to be pretty destructive when it falls onto a planet from orbit.

The four ships quickly Ethered to catch the end of the furious battle that was going on in higher orbit.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

Darkk watched the battle unfold, as though from a great height.
The Naarad had sent a carrier away with Perneas. Though Darkk missed his human friend, he knew what this meant.

He could win.

A second Warpship was en route, as the first one couldn't make another fold now, and would need to be towed home. The Naarad were starting to take losses from his inventive tactic. Humans were more flexable, but Vylae were more analytical. Darkk had seen what had to be done and did it. His duty was completely occupying his mind. He had to keep everything else out.

Darkk's attention turned from the totality of the battle to the support unit he was attacking. It had begun to aim at him. Darkk fired all weapons into it, and it started to drift as the last of its shields gave way, and the phased stream projectors went to work. A destroyer fired an antimatter pulse, and the foe exploded in a brilliant flash. Darkk's mind returned to the totality of the battle.

His fighters and corvettes had almost cleared the area of hostile fighters. The heavier ships could concentrate fully on the heavier enemies - which were now taking massive damage, as more of their shields went below the halfway mark, allowing troopers to teleport in and plant charges. Although few ships exploded under the force of the charges, it generally nocked their shields out of commission completely. His attention returned to his immediate ship.

A Union cruiser, missile destroyer, and 2 light destroyers had knocked the battlecruisers from orbit and was heading this way, light destroyers in the back. This must be Pharris. He could do one service for Perneas... Darkk's ship moved toward them. The cruiser and missle destroyer fired nukes. Darkk's phase beam intersected them en route, detonating them brilliantly but harmlessly. The light destroyers did a hyper-hop behind Darkk, into minimum range. Darkk unloaded with all weapons. The nearer one caught the main brunt of his weapondry and exploded. The further one had begun to loose power and leak innards. A nuke smacked into Darkk's ship, jarring him and doing a significant bit of damage. He'd have to fully allocate the phase stream projector to those nukes. No time to admire the beautiful blue-white shockwave now. He'd watch it later on film.

Suddenly, the cruiser came sweeping in from above, firing its close-range weapons. Darkk countered with psueadomatter and swarm missles, but this other ship was fast enough to dodge the psueadomatter and shoot down most of the swarm missles. Darkk would need the phase beam, but he couldn't take it off the nukes. He knew if he used swarm missles there they'd proximity-fuse them and take out his swarm with the nuke blast, allowing other nukes a shot at hitting him. A very nice trap, he had to admire it, and recall it for later use. He was, however, not going down anywhere near that easy. An Acting Vice Admiral of the Vylae didn't need to fight alone. He ordered a second dreadnought to aide him, and it dropped out right on top of the missle destroyer harassing Darkk. The cruiser and missle destroyer immediatly ran, not daring to face two dreadnoughts at once.

Darkk turned his attention to the larger fight once more. The Naarad had pressed together, and made a short jump away, as though waiting for reinforcements. Darkk looked at the red-brown swirl on the planet growing from the impact points, and knew nothing could be done for it. There were no remaining friendly forces in the area. "Carriers - beam everyone off the planet you can, starting with surviving high officials. We'll send them back, as a token of our friendship!". The carriers did so, until they were full up to capacity. Darkk noticed something big approaching, the Naarad's backup.

Time to leave. Warpship 019 had just arrived, and folded Darkk's fleet out.

------------------
Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

Perneas' head smashed back against the iron bar. His sweat was streaming down his face, and he mumbled incoherently. Lightning flashed across the nodes in his mind, assessing finding weakness. Finding a crag in his mind to stand on.

He found himself a little baby, playing with toy spaceships, bashing the Union one's, and making mock-battles with his friends
--he found himself with his friends at school be taught about neutrino theory
--he found himself at university teaching physics to a particularly annoying class
--he found himself signing up for ESF service at news of his father's death
--He found himself mourning his father as his coffin was lowered into the ground
--He found himself playing with his father as a baby
--He found himself carrying his first baby with his wife Jane
--He found himself mourning his wife's death via radiation poisoning
--He found himself shaking from his first encounter with a neutron missile
--He found himself teaching physics and neutrinos at Universitry
--He found himself receiving his university degree from the teacher
--He found himself teaching at University
--He found himself receiving his university degree from the teacher
--He found himself teaching at -

He found himself on the floor of a room, with needles strapped to his head. He was shivering with cold. His body had been sending him warning signals for some times about that, but ... where had he been? In his mind, reliving his memories. His brain felt like someone had taken a rather heavy hammer and smashed it's liquid like form.

A figure approached. With his blurred vision, he could only make out a dark figure standing over him.

'Stand up.' It said. A rod extended out of it's hand.

'Whhh-' Began Perneas.

Kzzzz!

He recoiled at the electric shock, and found the strength to stand up. He backed against the wall, as now his vision returning to him, made out an insectoid alien.

'Follow.' It said.

'Wh -hoo are you?' Perneas said shaking badly.

'Follow.' It moved close this time and extended the rod in a threatining gesture.

Perneas got what he meant, and allowed himself to be pushed into the next room. What he saw surprised him.

This must have been out of his dreams. In the corner was a pristine white bathroom. A shower, a bath towels, just like on the ESF Prometheus. In the corner, was a full-sized luxury class holovid, which Earth movies, and historic vid-battles piled next to it. On the table in the middle of the room was various delicacys, even the S'Ban Delicate Crab. He sat down and gouched food, ignoring his coldness, and paying attention only to his hunger. It was then he realised he was covered in sweat.

He went to the shower and then put on some clean cloathes. A voice somehow kept repeating in his mind:

'Your receptive mind deserves such rewards... your receptive mind deserves such rewards..'

Dulles had just recieved his blue pennant. He was now Admiral of the third fleet and the Xerxes was his flagship until the Union finished rebuilding the shattered third fleet with brand new equipment. Not just that, but they had ordered Pharris to quit his post on the Xerxes and report to some distant stageing area at the opposite edge of Union space, so he was now a guest aboard Captain Harrison's USS Andalusa, raceing at maximum Ether for a rendezvous at a stageing area that all rosters reported as being deserted. Pharris did not know what to expect.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

[Typical. I go away for a week, and the whole RPG collapses.]

[well you know how it is on the summer holidays. People are going on vacation. well, this is a bit long because i had a lot of time to think and decided to post it all at one time]

Piemur was in the officer's mess when he got the signal that they have exited the jumpgate. He contacted helm and told him to proceed to dock with the outpost. A few days later, Mag and the other escort ships arrive.
In the meantime, Piemur had ot bargained the station's controller and had his freighters full of very high quality ores at a very minimum of costs. Amazingly enough, the controller kept whimpering every time Piemur mentioned "the mission" and was easy to goad into lowering his price well beyond the norm. In the tech department, the chief engineer, also trained in merchantile ways, bought a high quality hyperdrive upgrade unit that consumed less fuel and added more thrust. Again at a very low price.
The jumpgate kit was preprogrammed and ready to deploy. Piemur didn't have much idea what jumpgates did and how they worked, but realized that in order for it to function properly, he would be expected to maintain it. That meant he had to learn and learn fast. He never realized that when packed, the thing was so small by comparison. When fully deployed and working, the jumpgate was designed to handle huge ships up to 3000 kilotonnes. Well it figured, since massive cargoships were expected to come through and initiate trade. But the dammed thing was so small! It only took roughly the size of one of his fuel pod modules. A small fuel pod module at that. He got it fitted into the small docking bay on the belly of the cruiser.
After all was done and prepared, Piemur and the crews of his fleet had nothing much to do except wait and buy luxury items and several holos. When Mag finally arrived, Piemur was almost all set to go. When the escort ships were fully loaded, they set off. Jumping to one of the most desolate systems on the very edge of explored space, they initiated the hyperdrives and sped off to their possible new friends...
---------
"...of course dear, I'll get the barbeque up and running in just a jiffy." Covered from head to toe in soot and smoking in places, Piemur bent back tot eh barbeque with a will. The children were still playing hide-and-go-seek. A soft breeze blew over the countryside. Their house, finally paid for, seemed perfect. A little picket fence, half-painted (he needed to get it done sometime), surrounded their property of beautiful wildflowers and endless dreams. It seemed so great to be poor! He had squandered all of his father's money gambling (only for fun) and sold the shipyards. A bird chirped nearby. OK, now to get this barbeque started again. He lit the match. He tossed it into the glistening coals smothered in lighter fluid. Suddenly a bright flash of red and and explosive tone blared at him...
Waking up suddenly from waht had been such a blissful dream, he realized the red flashes and explosions were the ship's alarm. Clamboring our of bed and hurriedly dressing, he contacted the bridge.
"Sensors, what is it?"
"5 unidentified hostiles sir! They appeared when we entered this nebula and are blocking us. We have tried to establish contact, but none of our translators can handle their language. Even the other ships done know what they are saying. However, they keep repeating themselves so the gist of it is that we are tresspassing and we need to leave like now. I thing that this is their nebula."
"Is there any way past the nebula?"
"The only way around it safely is along the widest portion. The other ways are blocked by incredibly dense starfields and a couple of neutron stars. And the so called "safe" way is a veritable maze of corrosive gasses. We would have to go by conventional drives and this would put us behind scedule by several months. Not to mention a severe increase of our fuel expenditures. However, the nebula could provide a fuel source, but there is the problem of our guests ahead of us. But going straight through it would keep us on scedule. The nebula's gasses are only slightly corrosive and our shields should hold us through"
"Any idea how large their forces are in it?"
"Scanners can't penetrate far into the nebula, sir."
"Contact Mag and give our report. And open a channel with the Rift."
"Aye sir."
"Mag, as you can see by my report, we are in a sticky situation. What would you suggest we do?"
"Well since we can only see 5 of thier ships, an no data on their capabilities, we don't know how we would fare against them. But that may be the same with them. They don't know what we can do. Our scanners say that there are no torpedo ports, but extremely heavy shielding, from living in the nebula probably. Each of the smaller ships have some kind of dual weapon, unknown strength. The larger ones don't have any visible weapons of any kind. Strange. No turrets, no torpedo ports, no nothing. But a strange interlocking pattern. We'll have to watch those two. They could do anything. Perhaps suicide bombers or something. Like designed to blow huge chunks of itself out to us. I think..."
Just then, the channel with the aliens came on and the seemed angry. Screaming unknown insults, the ships spread out and aggressively approached.
"Hostiles are engaging sir!"
"I can see that well enough myself, thank you very much."
The small ones fired at various ships, including Piemur's and Mag's.
"Shield damage report!"
"Err...none sir...evaluating the beam weapons...heh...ahahaha...they're just normal visible light beams. No infrared...no UV...no superheated plasma...They could fire repeatedly indefinitly and we could just flick them away without a scratch."
Realizing their attack had no effect, the aliens started screaming more obscenities with greater vigor and a small hint of panic. The two large ships faced them and opened up into a large 8 pointed star shape.
"Ready yourselves" Mag cautioned.
The ships started spinning, faster and faster. The aliens watched warily.
"Any energy readings on those ships?"
"None sir."
"Then what are they doing?"
After a short time, the aliens seemed very scared and disappointed, and the ships stopped. Suddenly, the small ships accellerated towards them on a collision course.
"Open fire!" Mag screamed.
The first few volleys hit them square on. Their shields held, but wouldn't hold for long. Piemur could see the shields on one of them starting to buckle. All of a sudden, a gargantuan ship came out of nowhere and planted itself inbetween the attacking aliens and the convoy. Another channel opened and a huge alien came on. It seemed the same species, but was still a log bigger than the ones he had seen earlier. It spoke in a deep menacing voice to the smaller ones. They recoiled, and put their heads down in what seemed to be shame. Then it looked over at the screen and spoke in a courteous voice, words still incomprehensible, but the meaning was clear. They were allowed to continue. It then turned back to the small ones and barked in a universal tone of punishment. Meekly, they turned to the screen, bowed their heads, and mumbled waht seemed to be an apology. Just then, Piemur understood.
"They're kids!"
"Huh?" Mag gaped.
"Look at the big one! I think they were trying to just scare us away, but I think they're not supposed to do that. The big one is probably their parent. They're grounded for a long time I'll bet."
Sure enough, the ships docked with the huge one and the channels clicked off. The giant ships then turned and courteously moved aside for them to pass.
Piemur bowed in turn. The big one nodded at the nice manners. Piemur then turned to the console and brought up the ore manifest. It frowned and shook its head. They didn't need ores. Piemur bowed again and said to helm "Proceed through the nebula." The convoy moved on...unaware that they were discreetly followed, but didn't run into any more ships...they were followed only until they left the nebula...

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"At ----- , bullcrap is our most important product"
-graffiti on the lavatory wall of a major consultancy (from The Wizardry Consulted)

[Very good Piemur, but we have actually stopped this RPG to move on to chapter 2, which is easily accessible on the same board. On a side note, I just scratched my tooth and a bit of it came away with my finger. Very worrying.]

[err...does that mean that this post could go on the other one? its just a continuation? everything that happened here happened there? and does that mean i should repost it on the other one? and where is mag anyway?]

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Captain of the SA.SC.Pern
SA.SC.Pern=Shadowcat Alliance, Star Commander, Home port
Shadowcat Alliance = merchant clan
Star Commander = rank in clan

[This message has been edited by Piemur1 (edited 07-18-2001).]

It's a continuation of this. Mag is on holiday.

I'd just like to advertise for more players to enter the RPG.