Deep Space, The Dead Zone
Thrynn Frigate Kryssthoggr
Hthssbr seized the moment, shouting, "hard to port, reverssse left engine well!" The ship was already moving as she continued "axial rotation..." she paused for balance while the inertial gyroscope fought to compensate for the sudden shift "...on a counterssspin for ninety degreesss." The Thrynn frigate jerked hard to the left and the maneuvering thrusters started rolling the warship onto its side. Halfway into the roll, a time of roughly two seconds, the Kryssthoggr was rocked violently. A whole panel of warning lights lit up on the navigator's warning console.
Captain SshT'k was grasping for control and managed to screech "lasers target the object and return fire!" The starboard laser cannon took a small eternity to process the targeting data then belched a volley of amplified plasma light at the oval object. It disappeared in a fleeting white light and quickly cooled into a scrambled mass of debris. Captain SshT'k leaned over onto his chair near the tactical display, thinking the crisis at an end. Hthssbr knew it wasn't.
"Power to rear sshieldsss," she ordered. SshT'k snapped his head in Hthssbr's direction in time to hear her next outrageous utterance "object off the port ssstern quarter, target and fire!" Again a laser cannon unleashed a volley, this time from the portside battery. The result was the same. "Illuminate rear viewing ssscreen," she concluded. The glowing metal posed no further threat. Captain SshT'k knew he had committed a grievous error. His duel with Captain Hthssbr caught him in the wrong frame of mind when the proximity alarm had tripped. Instead of sizing up the tactical situation, he looked to preempt some treachery on Hthssbr's part. He chided himself. She was far too clever for that. In those same instants, Captain Hthssbr had managed to grasp what was happening and achieved a remarkable feat of tactical mastery. Captain SshT'k could feel his grip slipping. The damage reports started coming in.
Deep Space
Near the Staff Constellation
ISS Hix'Pvrilla
The Interstel Corporate Police had a charter to patrol the well-traveled lanes along the Arth-Heaven-Staff route and there was some talk of extending it back to Earth. It wasn't an especially wide jurisdiction, not compared with blank check the "stellies" ran around with back in the twenties. Chief Inspector Biv Lugg was on the bridge when ISS Hix'Pvrilla pulled over a stray Spemin vessel. Lugg hadn't fired a warning shot in a while. The Spemin Captain had scarcely come on the view screen before he started blubbering about his remorse and guilt for some 'nefarious sale.' Something about Hoss'Vnn making him do it. Then, in typical fashion, the Spemin captain did something stupid. He loosed a missile attack. A few moments later his ship was a cold wreck in interstellar space. Lugg didn't suffer Spemin especially well. Nefarious sale?
Kerhman Bilrie, acting director of VBN City, would have been shocked and angry to know that Boz Grabow's number was in Chief Inspector Lugg's personal address book. But then, Dr. Bilrie didn't know. Back in his quarters, Lugg keyed the number.
Baddick Palms
Native Fauna, New Mobio
Hoob Taroobio worked like an ant to pull the ripe stalks from the top of a giant baddick palm. Two things: Hoob worked like an ant because, well, she was an ant, though somewhat larger--a Taroob. Also, by giant, we do actually mean giant in this case. The baddick palm, found only by the coastal plains of New Mobio, is just under a kilometer in height. The Taroobs harvested the stalks, chopped them into small pieces and sold them to the Veloxi via the Humna Humna. Hoob sawed off a rather 'small' stalk and dropped it to the beach below. It hit the ground a few whiles later.
----------
Next: "A Local Matter"
Munch, munch, munch. Hack, spit, slurp. Mmmmmm. Nothing like a baddick stalk to celebrate the end of the Casualforums G'Noon Crisis. Talk about "Darkness and Chaos." The show's back on the road, sports fans! Stay tuned to the Nebula Lounge.
"Hilsfar & Company: Because Biggs, Arella and Mack are feeling strange."