[Alright, repairs are almost completed and Murynal has finally gotten the captain to stop by and visit and check how things were going. She did this without violence, I'll leave the specifics to her.] [So you're in the bay as things are finishing up.] [Just three of you at the moment.] [Awareness checks as you start. +4 for vision +2 for hearing.] [Okay, Neisis and Thalan hear a very timid polite attention-gain cough from the shadows next to a crate near the you. Almost seems like the person doesn't want attention. (Bay's big enough that you wouldn't likely have noticed someone enter)] (Mury hears the engines about to explode :P) * Thalan's ear twitches to the sound as he walks over to investigate. * Neisis blinks and turns towards the noise, "Who's there?" * Murynal looks up as she hears that and looks to Neisis. * Neisis waves a hand at Mury, "Thought I heard something." [A figure emerges slightly from the shadows, an exceedingly nervous-looking Ponce. He's managed to avoid you so far this trip.] * Murynal frowns. "What do you want?" Oh, it's him. Oh. You. * Thalan eyes Ponce. "Shall we play a game?" He grins. Where's the fun in that? He'll just loose again. * Ponce trembles a bit and speaks quietly. "The captain sent me to ask you if... well, if it's a bad time, I could." He edges back a little. Yeah, maybe we should just skip to the losing. What have you got to say, Ulb wannabe? * Neisis looks up at the ship, "It's not going to take long is it? Some of us don't have all the time in the universe." * Murynal looks at Thalan oddly. "Ulb?" We found a Jumper on an investigation. One in a fighter. And, since, well, you didn't like... ::quiets up as he speaks until basically inaudible:: We thought you might want her. * Neisis shrugs, "Does she want to go to a tropical planet?" I have no problem, as long as she doesn't mind where we're going. She's not awake yet, but maybe not so. I can see you're not interested. ::backs up some more:: * Murynal shrugs. "Let's meet her." Because we *are* interested, Greenie. Right. I'll send the information to your datapad. * Ponce goes to scurry off, unless stopped. * Neisis shrugs, "Here or there, it doesn't matter." * Thalan growls at Ponce as he scampers off. [Awareness (hearing) check +4 as he runs off.] (By... A lot.) (Ker-FAILED!) [Anyone who makes hears him comment something about hoping she'll be one of the anti-socials as she'd fit right in.] I heard that. * Ponce so doesn't stop scurrying. [You follow the instructions and without any elevator trouble reach your destination.] [There's a faintly crusty looking doctor with a large cabinet of medical supplies, just a little bit to the right of the larger wet bar.] So, you want her? What'll happen if we don't take her? (We'll make her queen!) Up to Ponce. Still his job. Although I'm quite sure he was joking about running a cost benefit analysis on supplying spacesuits for mining. * Murynal regards the doctor cooly. "Why don't we meet her first. Is she awake yet?" * Thalan nods. "Wake'er." * Neisis nods. * Doctor shakes his head. "Still asleep." He grabs a bottle of what looks to be a hard liquor from the wetbar and hands it to Thalan. "I hear this helps the introduction process." * Thalan frowns. "What is it." * Doctor then leads you to a door, which opens with a whoosh. Inside there's one woman in a freeze tube and a lot of empty freeze tubes. You can faintly see a colorful asortment of blood stains from the pre-mining days. Apparently cleaning staff hasn't visited the room much in the past few years, or green blood is just really hard to get out. (Is the freeze tube horizontal or vertical?) (30 degree angle. Go ahead and describe) A fairly inexpensive substitute for lost friends and family. Ick. ... You talking about a memory wipe? No way. * Murynal glances around, neutral expression still in place. * Doctor laughs darkly. "You don't have gin and tonic in your universe? Well, so much for that theory." * Justine appears to be a human being. Other than being extremely tall, pushing seven feet, she has no unusual characteristics to indicate anything but basic humanity. She's white. Her hair is reddish-auburn, cut quite short. Her eyes are closed. No, I just don't drink it. * Justine is wearing a flight suit / space suit outfit, which is clearly military in origin. It is very dark blue, with some minor military type trimmings for decoration and to indicate rank. Just press the cyan button that says 'Quite safe' It'll wake her. The big red button that says 'Danger, do not press, potentially dangerous Jumper!' Doesn't actually do anything. That's clever. ... * Thalan grins. ( Push the red button. You know you want to. ) Took me five assistants to figure that one out. ::He gets another bottle:: * Justine, just to complete the running physical description, is somewhat attractive but not very. In real life, she'd get hit on occasionally. On TV, she'd be the 'plain friend'. * Thalan hands Murynal the bottle and hits the button. * Murynal takes it, looks at it, and gives it to Neisis. :P (Tube opens, Greg?) [Yup, and you slowly wake up.] * Neisis holds a bottle...and lacking anything better to do with it waits for the new Jumper to wake up so she can pass it along. * Justine opens her eyes. They dart from side to side, taking in the odd looking group of people looming over her. (Or hit her over the head with it.) 'Hi.' (She has better things for hitting over the head with) [Doctor closes the door to the room with blood splatters and the freeze tube behind you. Better safe.] Hi. Good morning. * Murynal pulls out the extra translator she had and hands it to Justine, pointing at her ears. * Justine takes it, puts it into her ear. (Brave Dr. Robin bravly ran away o/~) 'Where am I?' (He's a drinker, not a fighter) Here. * Justine nods slightly. 'Thought I might be here.' (I recall vaguely from reading all the logs this afternoon, but not the specifics.) * Murynal tilts her head. "Do you know where here is?" (What both of them?) 'Not a clue.' (All three. Plus I read the description of the world Muryal's from.) 'Oz, possibly.' * Thalan 's sort-of cat-person, dressed in fairly standard clothing. Jeans, T- shirt, and black sneakers. His T-shirt reads, on the back, 'If you want some tail, look somewhere else.' He's covered in soft, short, orange fur, and has short black hair. The eyes he has are cat-slited and green, reflecting light like a normal at's. On his hands are a pair of gloves. He sniffs the air, taking in Justine's scent. * Thalan has a long cat tail, and definetly feline features on his face. * Murynal nods with that same neutral expression. She's very pretty and looks human, Asian, and in her mid-twenties, with matching, deep green hair and eyes. Her hair's long, straight, and loose, her clothing light and simple: easy to fight in. She has a hilt on her belt with no blade and what looks like a water bottle. * Murynal tilts her head for a moment, then just says, "You're not home anymore. And by 'not home', I mean 'not in your universe'." 'Oh.' Yeah. It's a little disconcerting. * Neisis stands a little under six feet tall, and looks like a failed atempt to make an elf, her ears rise up even with the top of her head, but she has violet cat slit eyes, she's wearing a suit of white armor, and has long, blueish-purple hair. And other than a large bottle, she doesn't have anything that looks like a weapon on her. (And RDM sucks at describing things.) (Justine's sitting up, I assume?) * Thalan shrugs. (NO.) (Okay then. ;P) 'Is this your universe?' * Neisis shakes her head, "We got here the same way that you did." 'Okay. Which is what?' Multi-versal space rift would be the scientific term. Or is it more of a sinkhole. * Neisis nods. * Justine nods thoughtfully. 'I didn't understand a word of that.' We fell through holes in the universe. 'Got it.' 'So... what happens to me now?' Ya got a few options. More than we did. * Murynal glances for the doctor. He still here? (Greg said he left.) (Justine gets to skip mining duty! Yay!) (he ran away back when Justine started to wake up) (It's tableishious) (Squee, I like Mury's fighter.) (Okay, was just checking to see if he was there. ;P) * Justine maneuvers her arms around to try to push herself up off the bed into a sitting position. She proceeds to do so, which takes about a minute and obviously is causing her trouble. She also has to keep her arms in place to hold herself upright, and you can see them wavering with the strain. * Thalan raises an eyebrow. 'What are my options?' she asks. You can come with us, or you can let an oversized green bug decide what to do with you. ' Or go where you want to. 'Well, I don't have anywhere to be at the moment. Where are you people going?' Jungle world. * Thalan types into his datapad, contacting Denal and finding the appropriate information. * Neisis nods quickly. * Justine nods. 'Well, as good as anyplace else to head, but I doubt I'll stay. I have trouble staying on planets for very long.' [There's a jungle world, bit of a distance away, you've got to stop to hit a space stations to refuel on the way there.] So long as you don't intend on causing trouble, I don't really care. We're doing this as a favor to you as much as anything. * Neisis nods again. 'I understand, and I have no intention of causing trouble.' (Neisis nods a lot.) (She does, it keeps me from having to correct my english when she speaks :P) Yeah. And greenie sucks. 'Greenie?' It works for me. Neisis, can you get her a chair? I'm going to let the doctor know. * Neisis hands the bottle back to Murynal, "I will." * Justine lies back down. * Murynal takes the bottle. She blinks at Neisis, then sets it down and just walks off to tell the good doctor. * Neisis then looks around for a chair, and not finding one in the room full of tubes opens the door and looks outside. [Door's locked but there's a bell to ring.] * Neisis doesn't get outside and rings the bell instead. * Doctor over intercom. "All still alive? Wait, I'll just check the screen." [A moment later the door opens.] 'I'm sorry. I didn't catch your names.' * Murynal turns to fix the calm gaze on Justine. "Murynal." She pauses, then, "As'Entaka." Thalan. * Neisis looks at the doctor, "For the moment." * Neisis then looks over her shoulder at Justine, "I am Neisis." 'Justine MacDuff.' * Doctor shrugs. "If it were a permanent thing, I'd be out of a job." That would be a pity. She's coming with us. Have fun. ::looks at the bottle:: So, you aren't going to need that? Nope. You can drink up. 'I hate to be a bother, but I can't actually get out of this tube. Well, I think I can if I really tried, but I'd just end up lying on the floor.' * Neisis walkes out and looks around for a chair. * Murynal blinks. Paralysis? 'Gravity.' * Thalan blinks. "Well, that's a problem." * Doctor looks to Justine. "We do have your fighter. Need transport to it?" (Reconstructive tissue surgery!) 'If you have my fighter, my chair should be aboard it.' (Justine's from a genetically engineered breed of humans designed to live and work in zero gravity.) * Neisis stops looking for one in here then, "Where is it?" (Good thing for you we didn't get the one with the stairs.) (Doesn't mean you can build up her lower body muscle tissues to accomidate for gravity.) (err, can't.) * Doctor nods and hits a button. "There should be a chair on the Jumper's fighter. And move the fighter itself to the same bay as the rest." (Yes it does, due to very important technobabble issues. :P ) ( It'd be real hard work ) (Ah.) [About a minute later the chair is brought up by an ensign and then brought into the room. The ensign then runs off.] ( I don't have the CP to buy off the defects :P) (You got it. Though actually it wasn't that much CP. I actually could buy it off, but it's a character concept, you know?) (Besides, how many players go for Reduced Ground Movement Level 2 for their character? Not many, I bet. :P ) (Well, we have a way to remove it if you ever care to. :P) (Yep.) * Justine's chair is a comfortable looking padded wheelchair. It's a motorized one, with little joysticks on the handrests to control it. * Murynal takes that in. "Stairs are out, then." She looks at Thalan and Neisis. * Thalan frowns. "Stupid ramps." 'Stairs aren't a problem, just so long as I don't ever have to go up them,' Justine says with a smile. 'I don't suppose someone could help me into the chair?' * Neisis nods, "The it was a good thing that we didn't go with the ship I wanted." * Murynal nods. "Sure." She goes about doing just that. * Justine is lighter than she looks. Low density bones. * Justine appears vastly relieved to be back in her chair. 'Thanks.' [Mury doesn't have any problems.] * Thalan nods. "I think we should get going, unless you have other business to take care of?" 'I just woke up in a tube five minutes ago. I don't have a lot of roots around here.' Justine smiles. The sooner we go, the better. Good. I don't, either. Session Time: Wed Jun 02 00:00:00 2004 * Thalan doesn't smile back. * Doctor waves a glass. "Try not to die." [So, you get back to ships, currently both fighters are docked beneath the nacelles of your ship.] * Justine's ship is a four sided pyramid, the same shape as a d4. Each corner extends into a thruster exhaust pipe, and each face contains a lazer cannon turret. It would be sitting on three of the thrusters, with the fourth pointing straight up. It looks to be about 12 feet tall. [There's a ramp into the lower level of the ship, that's presently open.] * Murynal looks up at the pyramid. "Hm. Never seen anything like it." ... Unconventional. I'll have to take a look at the schematics later. ...I don't think any of our ships looked like that. [Oh, and the ships are hooked to allow tubes hanging on the nacelle wings to access the entrance to each fighter.] [Your carrier ship is sleek and silver with two winged nacelles. Science/med facilities on the lower deck. On the upper deck there’s a bridge and engine room/ Good for atmospheric flight, rather speedy, cannons mounted on the nacelles, but to shoot something you’re not pointing at you’ll need missiles] [It has the capacity for fighters hanging under the nacelles, fairly easily accessible, still exterior.] [The lower deck does have fairly good facilities, although not that much privacy in the beddings.] [Engine room is fairly good, most problems should be fixable without going out to the nacelles, bridge has seating for four, no clear captain's chair.] [Mury’s fighter, looks fairly top of the line, got thrusters letting it rotate fast on any axel in space, with extendable wings for atmospheric flight. Twin auto-cannons (that fire as a single WA) and the possibility to carry missiles and mines.] (Exterior docking? Excellent. Means Justine can sleep in zero g and meet her Special Requirement quota.) [Thalan’s bike is kept on the lower deck, engine room. There's some storage space.] (My goodness we've screwed Justine over, worse than if we'd gone with the saucer.) (I suppose we could turn the gravity off, Neisis would have fun with that.) (It's okay. I want to play with Justine's defect, not make it pointless. Where's the fun in that?) [There's a series of rungs embedded in the wall that function as a ladder up to the upper level.] (wait, fighter access up above is a problem.) (The fun in that is not having the other three chars carry you up and down the ladder between the level with the bridge and fighters on it and the one with the door, food, and beds) (Yeah, true. Sorry, didn't mean I wanted to be a burden on the other chars.) (/me coughs. "If only you had some sort of mechanic that could work on solutions to this problem." (*whistles* Mechanic? Me?) 'Hm. I don't think I can get up that ladder, and certainly not in a hurry.' ...Yes... * Murynal eyes it. "We didn't get this ship with someone in a wheelchair in mind. I wonder if we can change that to a lift." * Thalan hmmms... "I could construct a system to move you up, if you need..." 'I guess I could stay on the top floor. I'd probably want to sleep in my fighter anyway, so the bed issue isn't a problem.' * Denal pipes up as you get in. "Hi guys! We ready to go? And whose she?" 'Who's that?' * Thalan smiles to Denal. "She's the ship's computer. Say 'hi' to Justine, Denal." Hi Justine. We saved her from the first ship we were on. * Justine pauses for a second. 'Hi Denal. Uh, no simple way to ask this, but I take it in this world Artificial Intelligences haven't been waging a brutal and unrelenting war on organic life for centuries?' * Disconnected * Attempting to rejoin channel #jumpers * Rejoined channel #jumpers ... I...don't think so? ... No. 'Well, that makes a nice change, then.' * Denal continues to sound chipper. "We got a labor agreement." 'Wish we'd thought of that where I come from. It may have saved us a lot of problems...' At least you don't have ageless lizards ruling the place. * Murynal chuckles, the first sign of emotion she's shown around Justine. "Oh, you have those, too? Ours are mostly hands-off." 'Why'd anyone engineer ageless lizards?' I think they got themselves that way. * Thalan laughs. "Engineer? No, dragons were around for a very long time." 'Dragons? Like in the stories? They were real, where you come from?' * Neisis nods, "Mine were not like theirs, just large, hungry and hard to kill." Yes, along with elves, dwarves, humans, and just about any other race your imagination could come up with. Trust me, it's not pretty when they actually get control of things. Did you have trets? I hate those guys. * Justine shakes her head. 'Weird.' Trets? Got a picture? 'What's a tret?' I belive we are about to find out. [Picture comes up on a side screen. A fairly bird-like looking people, wings and pointy ears.] 'We have something pretty similar, actually.' * Neisis shakes her head. * Thalan hmmms... "Looks kind of like a combination of aviaks and winged elves. " They think circutry is a delicacy. Ran low on food on one chip and he went through three of my piloting subsystems. Sure I got new ones, but it wasn't the same. * Gry2 is now known as Grysar Ugh. -> *nickserv* identify blofeld * Murynal tilts her head. "We have something like that, but... uh, they don't eat circuits." * Denal is quiet for a moment. "Oh, well, then I guess I don't hate them." 'I don't know of anything that eats circuits. It would have been an odd design choice, and I can't see why anyone would have gone that route unless it was absolutely necessary to obtain some highly desired trait.' That's... Weird. 'What?' * Neisis shrugs. So, let's get out of here. Yes, lets. Going to help her up, Thalan? * Neisis looks at...a wall, "Is there some other way to get to the rest of the ship?" (Justine can ride up the ramp into the ship's lower floor.) * Thalan winces. "I'd... rather not." (Yes, but all the important bits for the people who know how to work ships are upstairs) No. Might be possible to rig something, but there's no elevator or the like. * Justine looks apologetic. 'I normally have someone to help me. But... God, I guess I'm never going to see him again.' I can build a lift, but... If you want to take her up, I'd rather not assist. (True. Justine can stay up easily enough, but staying below makes less sense.) I can try. 'Uh... Denal, what source of gravity do you use on this ship?' Artificial. I can control it. 'Okay. So could you cut it, just for a couple of minutes, once we're out there? I can make my way upstairs, then you can turn it back on for everyone else.' Well, that's good. I'm plenty fine with going weightless. 'You don't have to just on my account.' I...will learn, and there is not much that you can do down here. Yes. Although it'd be easier if we first leave the ship, as we're effect by the Hyperbole's artifical gravity at the moment. * Thalan shakes his head. "No, it's the way I was raised. Pershala are at home in normal and no gravity. Always land on our feet and shit like that." * Thalan jumps and lands comfortably in one of the piloting seats. * Justine appears quite touched at Thalan and Neisis' accomodation of her needs. * Murynal mmms. (Up to the second floor and over to the...how many levels of jumping and acro do you have? @_@) Well, I guess I can tie things down. Though it will make showers interesting. (Body 9, acro 3, jumping 1.) (aah @@) (Justine, since she can't even stand up unaided, fails to jump halfway across the room too.) I think she said lower...not off. Showers in Zero-G are quite fun, really. I've never had the opportunity to try it. * Justine nods. 'Anything below point one gee is fine. Uh, that's about one ninth of what we're currently in, I think.' The effect is the same. At present I will have to counter the effect of the Hyperbole's gravity. * Murynal grins. "I guess we can sometime." She climbs up and heads over to the co-pilot's seat. * Thalan accomidates himself to the controls, as well as plugging his datapad in for faster file transferrence. * Neisis calls up to the upper floor, "Then go." [You’ve got four chairs for sitting in. And both fighters are still docked under the nacelles.] (Give me an electronics (circutry) roll) (Computers work?) (Not in this case. We're dealing with the connection.) (HA HA HA.) [Thalan almost successfully sticks in the dataconnector, only to bend one of the internal wires. He's got to take a little work to fix that. Meanwhile Denal sings a song about having a ship.] * Denal quietly. "Ship, ship, I've got a ship." * Justine looks worried at Denal's behaviour. ('Daisy, daisy, give your answer dear...') * Thalan makes a mean face. "I can fix it later. We ready to head out?" Yes! * Justine puts her chair into park. 'Ready.' Definately! * Thalan starts warming up the engines and checks for clearance to leave. [He gets it.] Let's get out of here. * Thalan nods and jets them out of there! * Neisis takes a seat, and grins. It's a very wide grin. [The shuttle bay doors open a forcefield protecting the bay from the vacuum.] [You're safely in space. You can see the fairly ridiculous ship Hyperbole from the outside again. It has like four nacelles and an excessive number of weapons] I can cut gravity now if you like. Damn, that ship is stupid. Oh, could you? 'Please.' * Murynal looks out a window and wrinkles her nose at the design again. [The gravity in the ship reduces dramatically, things don't just fly off at random though, as it's still at 10% standard.] * Justine looks like a great weight has been lifted from her, since it literally has. She bounds out of her wheelchair and sails across the room in the lighter gravity. 'Man, that feels good.' * Murynal lifts her hand up, then stands and walks around, trying to get used to it. * Thalan moves his tail around as he works on fixing his datapad. "You have piloting for now, Denal?" * Neisis tries to stand up slowly, but still goes too fast and launches herself a few feet into the air, "Whups!" * Murynal jumps up and sails a little, nearly running into the wall. "Oof." Bringing us to a safe distance from the Hyperbole, checking ship's systems one last time, then initiating Interstellar Drive. Watch it guys. * Justine quickly scampers up to the upper deck. * Murynal asks, amused, "What? I'm not going to break anything." She considers for a moment. "I'll need to learn how to fight in this." Aw, there's nothing down here to hit by Justine...and not even her anymore. Shutting down all control panels not currently in use to avoid accidental transmission of instructions. * Thalan jumps up a little, turns upside-down and crouches on the ceiling, slowy kicking himself back down and into the seat. * Neisis crouches down a bit and then jumps for the ceiling. * Neisis just barely hits the ceiling and pushes off with her hands, "Haha!" 'You guys sure you're okay in this gravity?' I don't mind. They don't have gravity on the ships back home unless there's a mage aboard. * Neisis gets back to the floor, "Give me a bit, this is fun." 'We do it through centrifugal force. Well, I mean, *we* don't, but other people in my universe do.' * Thalan laughs. "I know what you ment. We did it through ample use of reverse gravity spells." 'Magic really worked there?' The gravity was magic, just like everything else on the ship. I know that much. * Murynal mms faintly. "Magic works in my universe, too. Things with no scientific explaination, spells, and all." Worked? it was the backbone for interstellar travel. Though it wasn't *that*. I'd strongly recommend everyone strap themselves in during that period in which we accelerate to Interstellar speed. * Murynal jump/swims back to her seat and does so. * Thalan nods and straps up, still pre-occupied with fixing the plug. Aww. [Thalan has it fixed.] 'Accelerate...?' * Neisis aims her next jump twords the top of the ladder. * Justine grabs a chair and pulls herself into it, strapping herself in. 'Accelerate how fast and for how long?' * Neisis manages to make this one and lands right where she wanted to on the second floor, "Much better." * Neisis then heads for chair number four on the bridge and works at getting herself strapped in. The jump to a sub-dimension allowing interstellar flight cushins against much of the inertial forces. The ships systems weren't designed to compensate for these forces at this level of gravity. 'And what's that come out to? How many gravities of acceleration will I feel?' 1.5 gs. 'Okay.' (That should be well below the point where it would activate her Bane.) [The ship suddenly accelerates and the starlight twists itself into sort of a tunnel as the ship moves. The force isn't worse than a rollar coaster one.] * Thalan doesn't seem to mind. Whee! * Justine is totally pushed back into her chair by the acceleration. * Neisis gets pushed back, but doesn't loose her grin. * Thalan is grinning. [After a bit the acceleration eases off so you’re only feeling .8 Gs or so.] * Murynal smiles, relaxing. "That's better." If you like, I can burn much more of our feul reservers to get us to the planet quicker, but we'll definately need a full refuel at an intermediary station. 'Good thing I got up here to the bridge while I had the chance.' * Neisis unstraps herself, "So much for the ceiling." Too much for you now? * Thalan relaxes. That's fun. Must do it again. ^_^ * Justine shrugs. 'I can survive in this. I just can't really fight it.' Our current credit supply won't neceessarily cover that refueling, depending on the ownership of that station. 'But since I seem to be at a weapons console, I'm pretty much right where I should be in case trouble hits before we hit cruising velocity and can stop accelerating.' Mhm...Faster is better, but if it takes longer for us to get the money for the fuel than we saved by going fast it's pointless. * Neisis 's grin widens, "We'll just have to work hard." 'What do we do, exactly?' Well...last time we had to vacume up some mineral and then fight pirates. The pirates were stupid. They were pathetic. Absolutely moronic. Then we had some fun with the people who made us do the mining. * Neisis shrugs, "all the better for us." * Thalan grins. "That was fun." Really. You get to a strange universe, and the first thing they do is say, "Mine or you'll never see a planet again." * Justine laughs. 'Sorry. It's just... Man, life is so screwed up.' It is. nobody ever argued. It's life. You live it, then you die. Have fun while you do. As for Neisis's point; within Confederation territory, fuel prices are controlled to not outpace job costs. However, they are often manipulated upwards when a station owner is need of employees. Bah. So shall I prioritize speed over fuel efficiency? What do you guys say? 'I'm pretty doubtful that my money's good here. Not unless they accept Imperium Dollarpounds in this universe. So I'm flat broke.' I still say go fast. We'll just have to get lucky and find a station that doesn't need much help. (o/~ Dream on, dream on, dream on! Dream until your dreams come true o/~ (E.g. when the GM doesn't have any plans. :P) I feel the need for speed. * Murynal nods. "It doesn't matter so much." 'It's your ship.' We'll be maintaining the current level of acceleration for another few time units. (fifteen minutes) We'll arrive within fifty units. (about five hours) * Neisis blinks, "I like this ship." * Thalan nods. "Okay. Hey, Murynal, is there another drink dispenser here? I'm getting parched. 'So, you been in this universe long?' Nope. [There's one drink/food distributor on the upper and lower deck. The lower has more options, upper is just to keep pilots from having to trek downstairs every time they need anything.] 'How'd you all hook up?' We were 'stuck' together. All of us woke up on the same ship at the same time. * Murynal laughs. "Yeah. It was a little less than fun." What do you want, Thalan? Got milk? * Murynal rolls her eyes. "Some things cross boundaries." Bovine, if they have it. * Murynal unbuckles and heads off. Five or six legged bovine? Six. * Neisis blinks, "Odd number of legs? ...That shouldn't surprise me." * Thalan finishes work on his datapad, plugging it in. Does it work? * Murynal returns from the BOWELS of the ship. She has cup of milk in her hand, which she hands over to Thalan. I always thought the sixth leg was fairly redundant. (Okay, now the question is. Should he lap his milk or drink it? :P) [It does!] (She has mad one handed ladder climbing skillzors!) (See the cat... lapping the milk.) (Damn straight! Especially in lower gravity. :P) (Yep.) (Well, if it's a deep cup lapping is going to get difficult quickly) (He should pore it into an ear.) (Absorb the milk!) * Thalan laps once to make sure it tastes right, then drinks the rest of it down assuming it's not too bad. :P (Wrong play Justine. :P) (ALL OF THE ABOVE!) What did you do back in your universe, Justine? [It tastes alright.] [Nothing really special, but meets the task.] 'I was a fighter pilot for the military. Escort duties, mostly. I was just assigned to some sort of elite squad a few days ago.' 'How about you?' * Neisis stands up and starts to walk around the bridge and look at the various things there, being careful to not touch anything. * Thalan talks out of turn. Hah! "Cargo pilot, resistance member, spy, and fighter pilot. Oh, also led my team in the most recent Petrigren to victory." 'Petrigren?' It's a... sport. Utilizes hunting, tracking, speed, and stealth. * Murynal shrugs easily. "Sae'Kara training (it translates into something kind of like samurai or knight, but not really), and when I was considered one, I joined military, too. Everyone from my world has to go through it at some point or another. Fighter pilot. When my time was up, I left to help out with a small shipping company." She pauses. "They were a little unorthodox. I wonder if they're getting along okay." [Various things are in order. The upper floor is primarily the bridge, a mix of control panels which can spread ship tasks however you desire. There's also a sickbed with minimal medical facilities. Not really meant for surgery. Interestingly there is a control panel accessible from the sick-bed.] [Denal gets a little help from Murynal to configure her systems to work with the fighters.] * Neisis stops pacing and shakes her head, "I didn't get to do anything nearly so interesting, spent my life on a colony ship learning how to fight on the off chance that the planet we moved to was just as bad as the one we left and that I lived long enough to get there...which I don't seem to have. So I guess they're out a battery. So I'm going with these three to a planet they might like." Battery? * Neisis sits down, "One of the things the built into us Numen was stronger magic, and since everything on the ship from the air to the engines was magic..." Ah, would suck to be you if you were still there. "Genetically engineering magic into people. What a concept...' Not into, just stronger, and they aren’t very good at it yet, so if I suddenly explode or melt or something that's why. 'Huh. I've heard of problems like that.' * Neisis grins, "So we'll just have to get there before that happens." * Murynal looks up from the screen. She laughs a little. "You're so calm about it. Aren't humans usually a little more... agitated?" * Neisis grins at Mury, "I've been waiting for it my entire life, I'd have to be agitated about it the whole time, and that wouldn't get me anywhere." Who here is human? * Thalan grins. * Neisis waves a hand, "only mostly." 'Depends upon your definition of human.' * Murynal points out Neisis and Justine. "I'd guess they're genetically engineered, but human." She smiles. "But what do I know? All I *really* know is they don't have tails, and they're not Ta'Kara." * Justine frowns. 'And you're saying you're not?' Me? No. I'm not human at all. * Murynal takes a moment to have a drink of her water. It's not that obvious, but she doesn't give off the same scent. Something quite different, really. * Justine blinks. 'I've never seen an android as humanlike as you before.' * Neisis shrugs, "Lots of people here who arn't humans...or androids." * Thalan blinks, then laughs. * Murynal coughs and manages to swallow her water before she starts laughing. Do you think I'm an android too? 'I thought you were a heavy mod derived from feline DNA, probably engineered for a jungle world.' Nono. I'm not human at all. Completely different races. Even have different customs and languages. Oh, is it the humidity and the destination that gave it away? 'Uh, yeah.' 'Wait. Are you telling me you people are ALIENS?' * Neisis blinks, "...Yes?" * Murynal waves vaguely. "I'm from a jungle planet, too." She pauses. "Well, yeah." Uh. Yeah? * Thalan chuckles. "You sound like the first time I ran into an Ulb." You can take pictures and we can throw it down a hole or something sometime. But I think they'd be disappointed. * Justine seems stunned. 'Aliens.' * Murynal nods sagely. "Aliens." 'There aren't any where I come from. All the other planets are colony worlds. I mean, we had to genetically engineer all sorts of crazy humanoids to colonize some of them, but as far as we know, Earth is the only place life sprang up on its own.' * Murynal tilts her head. You know the funny thing about where I come from? Maybe you just didn't go out far enough. 'We went to the edge of the galaxy.' We went across the universe, but the races were all the same. There were almost always humans. ... You come from a strange universe, Thalan. Lots of colonies? Gnomes, elves, and the like were common too... There were slight variations, but for the most part they were all the same. Earth's your home planet? Not a very original name. Although apt. There are a few deeply confused races that come from 'Sky' or 'Space.' * Murynal snerks. * Thalan chuckles. 'Earth isn't my home planet. I was born and raised on a space station called Escher.' Where ever they went...they were home. Ah, that's a more orignal name. 'What are your home planets called?' Which one? 'All of them?' * Murynal smiles. "Taa." Pelenor IV and Mahavier V. * Neisis stares off into space, "I... ... can't remember. I remember hearing the stories about the disasters, but not their names." 'Sounds like there are some stories in there.' * Murynal looks at Neisis for a moment, then says, "It doesn't really matter." Great, my memory is is going to be the first thing to go. Guess I'll need to start a diary. I could scrape together some spare parts to make you a datapad, if you want. * Neisis grins, "Thanks." * Murynal shakes her head. "Anyway, my people didn't spend much time wondering about whether there's alien races or not." She chuckles. "At least, after we discovered space travel." We ran into our first alien race almost immediately. Aggressive, too. 'What happened?' They attacked. 'Ouch. I guess things went badly?' She seems to have survived. * Murynal stretches a little. "Not really. We held our own because they weren't expecting anything like us, and the moment we met them, we knew they would attack." 'Ah. That's good.' Then again, we weren't expecting anything like *them*, either. It was pretty rough. At least, until other races got involved. 'Other races?' Justine seems fascinated by the idea of a galaxy full of exotic aliens. * Murynal shrugs. "We're at peace with them now. More like a cold war, though, with "accidents" on both sides. You know." * Thalan shrugs. Yeah. The Galactic Federation got involved. Er... that's Humans, Dunmer, Malians, and Altmer. Mostly. 'Oh.' 'We just have the Imperium, which is pretty much everybody except the worlds the AIs control.' And they don't all look like me. Or Humans. Frankly, it's always been found odd that Ta'Kara look so much like Humans, since we had nothing to do with each other. Not even different ears. * Murynal blinks. "Worlds?" 'Yeah. They won early victories at the start of the war, seized a number of planets.' Ah. So... lacking other races, Humans just sort of squabbled over who had control? * Neisis shakes her head. Why doesn't this surprise me? * Murynal grins. "They're just a little ambitious." Some'd say we're the same way. * Thalan grins. 'Actually, after the Imperium reunified the human colonies worlds, we basically had galactic peace until the AI revolt.' * Murynal nods. The Forms of eXcellence Liminations theory is commonly used to explain the propliferation of humanoids of the type of these to name one example 'humans.' ::Denal also brings up some data on panel describing the F.X. limitations theory:: Their health plan wasn't good enough? * Murynal blinks, then takes a look at the data. * Thalan blinks and takes a look. This'll be good. * Neisis sits back down in her seat so she can read the data in her language. Took forever to get acknowledge that tech upgrades qualified as a form of health care. That's a shame. I can imagine. We'll keep you in perfect health, don't worry. ^_^ [The actual theory posits that self-aware creatures in some ways warp the multiverse. See: magic. As this incredible complexity and chaos can strain the fabric of the universe, ruts tend to evolve into which multiple species fall while moving towards self-awareness.] * Neisis reads, "...So if there's magic there are many species in space...and if there isn't...just one?" It's possible. But I'd think there would be variations with no magic and still the existance of multiple races. Not to mention the possibility of psionics and psychics. [The same is also true of certain patterns of thought and other far less visible factors. But the similar looking species are the most commonly spoken of similarities.] * Murynal tilts her head. "No psychics?" She looks at Justine. "You do have psychics where you come from, don't you? Maybe they were grouped with the rest of your race." 'Yeah. We could genetically engineer certain abilities into the brain's construction. It was tricky, but we managed it.' Psychics aren't as widespread as magic. Same with psionics. But they're still there... That doesn't necessarily hold. Not all species develop magic or even telepathic abilities. Complexity of thought and observation (see: sub-atomic) still screw things up. * Neisis nods like she has some idea what Thalan is talking about. * Murynal mmms, then shrugs. "I just can't imagine life without it, I guess." * Neisis grins, "I wouldn't be without it." 'I'm still trying to grapple with the idea of magic and aliens.' (Mmm, technobabble.) What I want to know is how you break the laws of physics. Without the use of magic, of course. All above me really. We usually used Fold Generators for long-distance travel, which... As far as I can tell, it switches the space you're in with the space somewhere else. * Thalan nods. 'You can't break the laws of physics!' Justine laughs. 'Not where I'm from.' * Murynal frowns a little. "But nobody knows how it works, which makes it like magic, though no magic's actually used to *make* it work. Someone just came up with the plans and then died from Brilliance, so nobody could ask him." 'They died from Brilliance?' * Neisis shrugs, "It's magic." Yeah. A drug. (Of course, what the laws of physics ARE where Justine's from is a different question.) We used either an astral drive, which used a stored spell to send you to the astral plane and back, or a starcaster, which, using complex logrithimic functions conducted long-range teleportation spells to keep from landing you in a star, or worse. 'We used... I dunno. Something about warpgates. I think it involved blackholes. All I know is that each trip had to involve careful mathematical calculation and detailed star maps, or you were toast.' [About now the gravity drops back to .1 Gs, as the acceleration cuts off.] * Justine stands up and stretches. Yay for being able to stand. * Murynal blinks as she suddenly gets lighter. She jumps a little and goes flying. Relatively. "I have to practice in this." * Neisis nods and grins. "Yes." * Thalan backflips and jumps around over the ceiling and the walls. "Why do you say that?" He almost purrs when he says that. * Murynal looks up at Thalan. "Because it's hard to make sure you don't cut your own arm off when you're not used to the gravity." * Neisis pushes against her seat with her hands and heads off twords the ladder, but doesn't quite make it before her feet start to scrape against the floor, "Drat, not hard enough this time." It's usually better to practice in complete weightlesness. Wouldn't you agree, Justine? 'Absolutely.' 'Though if you get too used to that, you forget you have to work with an orientation even in low gravity.' Is this your preferencee? * Thalan chuckles. "Well, we could try it out at least?" 'If Neisis and Murynal agree.' So long as it's not permanent. * Justine seems enthused at the prospect. * Neisis manages to stand up, "Why not?" * Murynal grins. "Never got the hang of zero gravity. I've always liked standing on the floor." [Gravity goes bye bye. The small numer of loose items in the ship float freely.] * Justine crosses the room, seeming much more graceful than she had in even the low gravity. * Murynal starts floating and her expression goes completely neutral for a moment before she laughs. (Because her Awkward Defect is gone!) * Neisis looks around and quickly discovers that long hair is a serios disadvantage without gravity to keep it place, "Ack." * Thalan jumps around without any center of gravity, innately bending so his feet/hands hit the ground first. * Justine smiles at Neisis and runs a hand through her own short hair. 'You'll want to tie it back.' * Murynal 's hair ends up flying all over the place, too. She reaches around and tries to grab at it so it doesn't get in her face. "Now she reminds us!" 'Sorry.' Justine grins sheepishly. * Murynal huffs. "Yeah, yeah. I think I have a tie in my bag." * Murynal starts swimming over to the quarters. "Want one, Neisis?" * Justine flips in midair to stand on the ceiling. * Neisis grumbles and tries to get a handle on her hair, after much stuggling to get it unwound from around her ears and floating across most of the room she manages to get most of it tied in a knot, "Next time." * Thalan 's fur waves freely in the environment too, although he doesn't care. Suit yourself. * Murynal heads off! To fix hair! * Neisis floats, and grins, and wait for a wall to come close enough for her to push off of. 'Oh...' Justine bounds off ceiling to wall to pass through the opening down to the lower deck, changing her spatial orientation crazily as she goes. Once there, she tries to spot where her chair is floating off to. Might want to tie that down. 'That's what I'm planning to do.' * Murynal returns, placing a hand against the wall to keep herself from running into it. "My hair? Already did that." And it turns out that she did tie it back. * Neisis puts a hand out to steady herself against a wall, or was that the ceiling, she's not sure, but instead she bounces off in a new direction. "That...didn't work." * Justine flips in midair to push off the ceiling above the chair, pushing it down to the ground. 'Hey, is there anything I can use to secure this with?' * Thalan jumps off the wall, grabs his cup, then plants his feet, jumps up, and while spinning upside so his feet land on the ceiling throws the cup in the garbage or waste disposal area. * Neisis waits for the next solid surface and winds up pushing off the floor with a foot, only to bounce off the ceiling with her back. "Nope, this isn't it either." I don't know. Let's see what we've got. * Murynal heads on down to help out Justine. You don't have a tail, do you Neisis? * Murynal looks around some, eventually coming up with a length of rope. She lets it float towards Justine. No, no I don't. (Unless I picked up a Panzer or Demon tail mag :P but thoes were things she had to leave behind) * Thalan nods. "I'm not sure how to help you then. A lot of my balance comes from my tail." * Neisis pushes off one of the chars with both hands and tumbles twords the ladder, "I'll just have to ask the other two, but for now this works." * Neisis proceeds to miss by more than an armspan, "Or not." * Justine grabs the rope and ties down her chair. 'Thanks, Murynal.' * Murynal smiles. "Sure." She heads back up, using the ladder to help her direction. * Justine waits until the path is clear, and shoots herself up the ladder shaft. She guides herself without apparent effort. (/me finally gets the Jumpers logo update on the webpage. Whoo!) (Thanks go to Gryph) (gryph rocks. :P (^_^) (RDM rocks!) (Woot!) [So, about four and a half hours later, you approach the space station in question.] (Nice new logo, RDM. Fit the new ellipse in nicely.) (Can I assume that either Mury or Justine, showed Neisis a bit about how to actually get around in Zero g?) (Sure.) (Thanks) (That is nice. ^^ And yup.) [It comes up on your long distance scanners. You actually have .8 Gs again as you're slowing down.] (I'd feel bad about the addition of my character having derailed the crucial stuff element of the session, but considering last time you spent the entire session buying a ship, I don't feel TOO bad. :P ) * Thalan adjusts to the new forces quickly, landing on his feet and getting quickly over to his seat. (Psh. Not at all. This is a good getting-to-know-you thing. We have to know each other's names before things start shooting at us!) (... And Justine fits in perfectly. ;P) (And she does!) (You know who doesn't fit in? Thalan, because he's MALE.) (Come on, with an open and accepting crew like us? ^_^) (We even like Thalan, and he's a GUY.) ('We're being shot at! Hey, you! In the shirt. Yes, you. Man the helm. And you, uh, guy, get the weapons.' [The station is actually a floating donut in space. Seems to be moderately well armed, four or five larger ships parked, ships your size seem parked inside.] (Yeah, we get along just fine as long as we don't try to touch him) (He's surrounded by three females and refuses to be touched. Oh, but there are jokes to be had.) [There doesn't seem to be too much traffic at the moment.] * Murynal looks out and can't help but ask, "Are we there yet?" No. I shall inform you when we are there. (Oh, question. Was I able to get a makeshift chairlift at least started, if not operational by now? * Neisis looks, "So are you a good station that'll let us have the fuel for cheap, or a bad one that'll make us work for it?" (Mechanics (ships) check) (Barely made it.) (Justine has spent five hours in zero gee so far this week. Yay. Only 19 more to make sure she gets so she doesn't die.) * Xivilai has left #Jumpers 'How much money do you guys have, anyway?' [Thalan figured out a way to add a lift. However you'll need to get some parts and tools from the station though to finish the job quickly.] * Thalan shrugs. * Murynal shrugs. "Currency in this universe is still a mystery to me, honestly." We got some. And then we spent it on this ship and my fighter. But there's more, so I figure we can spend it on fuel. Would you prefer to take it in manually, or allow the stations system's to bring us in? A megacredit and a half wasn't it? 'I don't even know what it's CALLED in this universe.' Something like that. 'And I totally can't believe how fast I got casual about the whole in- a-different-universe thing.' Credits. So *boring*. * Murynal thinks. Well, if you're stuck, there's no point in freaking out about it after the first few hours or so. The only really hard part is leaving everyone you knew behind, but you don't have a choice in that. Sure, take it in. Unfortunately, you only have .15 megacredits remaining. 'I think it's more that I've been ready to die for two years now, so really, if I'm still breathing, I'm ahead of where I should be and why worry about the rest?' Accepting auto-pilot if there are no objections. * Neisis grins at Justine, "I see we think alike." You sound like- yeah. No objections from me, Denal. [The ship is slowly guided in to one of the bays. It's a rather smooth ride. The bays aren't quite as sparkingly as the Hyperbole's but are fairly well maintained. The touchdown is gentle.] Murynal, we are now there. Which is now here. * Murynal nods. "And thus, we have proven that you can travel from here to there and make it here." 'Oh, I've been 'here' since I woke up. Haven't I?' Not only that. It's still now. No, you've been there. We are now here. In theory. But you were also there, and you can't be in two places at once. 'But, oddly, it's not JUST now, because just now was just then.' Such is the nature of travel. The station personel are requesting that we open a channel. This is apparently a full service station. * Thalan shrugs. Gals? We talk to them and find out how much they charge. Then we find out how hard we have to work to pay them. [The bay is actually fairly empty, but large enough to hold more ships, not too much traffic apparently.] Openning channel then. * Murynal snickers. "You're our communications officer, Neisis." * Thalan looks over at the others. "You talk." * Neisis blinks, "oh right." * Service guy is light tan, but about three meters tall. Yet oddly wirey given his size. Should be about 499.9 credits to fill her up with premium. Do you have any additional needs? * Neisis nods, "What'll regular cost us?" 'Uh... What's the credit to megacredit conversion rate?' A thousand to one. And O ...I'm surpressing all communication not from Neisis unless you are obviously addressing the agent. * Murynal frowns. "We likely don't have enough for fuel, then." She looks to the others. Lovely. 'If we have 0.15 megacredits, we have 150 credits. Not enough for fuel.' This is correct. We are 350 credits short. Yeah, but I was thinking if regular cost less, or something. If there *is* a regular. * Denal "Correction. 149.9 credits shorrt." 'Did the computer just screw up a simple subtraction problem?' Yes. * Murynal sighs. "We could... do odd jobs or something?" Damn Trets. Yeah, you're just still giddy over getting the ship. * Neisis is still waiting to hear back about the possibility of cheaper fuel. They were the ones who screwed up your cup-dropping capabilities too, I bet. It is, until you have to pay for repairs to your reactor. But if you don't care about your engines in this high performance stellar craft. Hmm.. uh, yeah, that was them too, right. Dammit, we need some money. Oh we care, we're just broke too. So what can we do for you that'll be worth a few hundred credits? We do have a delivery you can complete. Pretty straight forward, just a few parts to the engineering section of a different station. Should be worth a megacredit. ('Good news, everyone!' in the catchphrase of the Professor.) (Ha!) * Murynal rolls her eyes. "Now this sounds familiar." How far is it? We might need spend what we've got on us for fuel to get there. We'll include enough fuel if you sign a contract to accept the parts. (I was thinking. Wouldn't a megacredit be one million credits and a kilocredit be 1000 credits?) (Shh.) 'Anyone likely to try to attack us for the cargo?' Justine asks in a much more businesslike voice than she's been using so far. (Stop applying your western cat logic!) (Miya!) (So you're saying that we have a hectacredit and a half?) For the cargo? No. Not only that, the delivery includes free tickets to this quandrants center for Danger-Tainment." He grins as he says the last bit. (* Miya teleports in. "Yes? Oh. Um. Wrong game. Um. Sorry." *flicker*) (*quirks his head. "Nyo?") * Neisis nods, and leans back to talk quitly to Justine, "find out if it'll fit in here." (*throws Dejiko at Thalan*) 'Uh... How can I find that out?' * Justine's voice was equally quiet. * Thalan raps his claws on the dashboard. Whispering isn't really necessary. I control the audio, I control the visual, and could you tap a little lighter please Thalan, that hurts a little. * Neisis shakes her head, "first you ask how big it is, then Denal gets some subproccessors that can count to check the cargo." I didn't know computers had nerve endings. 'Okay. Uh... Denal? Could you let them hear my next question?' Justine clears her throat. 'How big is the cargo?' * Murynal watches the man. "He's hiding something." As that's the station you'll be visiting. Fantastic Park. We can give you the specifics in the office. * Justine can't help wondering why this question had to be relayed through her. * Thalan blinks, then retracts his claws. "Neisis, could you see about getting us these parts so I can build that elevator?" * Thalan hands her his datapad. Fairly small, well within your capabilities assuming you have any cargo space free. Less than a quarter of a cubic meter. * Neisis takes the datapad and looks at it, does the language change? [It does] (Hell, the language that's normally on there isn't even common. ^^;) 'And will anyone be likely to attack us for it?' 'Or just en route?' * Neisis looks over the list, "I shall see what they have." Well, en route, might happen. The parks visitors have been known to be a tad, excitable. 'Park visitors? Please tell me I can shoot back.' * Service guy laughs. "Of course, it'd hardly be danger-tainment if you didn't shoot back. * Murynal blinks. That's a very unusual park. ... It's entertainment, only with a lot more danger. Well, the original zoological park had chronic problems, so they went bankrupt, got bought out, and the new managment went with it. As in, you-can-die danger. * Murynal shrugs. "I don't want to kill any tourists, but they are asking for it." * Justine groans. 'If he says, 'It's DANGER-tainment'...' At least it's not X-treme DANGER-tainment. * Murynal grins. "You can't punch him through the screen, Justine. But Thalan..." * Murynal removes her sandal and throws it at him. Then shouldn't we be paying them to take part in it? Are you wanting this broadcasted? * Thalan catches it. "Shouldn't you clean these more often?" No...I don't think so. Yes, *please* pay me so I can shoot at you. It's brilliant. * Thalan laughs. * Thalan throws the sandal back. * Murynal catches the sandal and slips it back onto her foot. So. Are we taking it? So, shall we take a megacredit for getting shot at, or see if he has any other jobs that need doing? Well, if you're welcome to tour the station and I'll send instructions on where to pick up the parts and ask anymore questions. Thank you for visiting the SPACE DONUT. * Neisis turns to the screen, "We will." * Neisis searchs for the transmit off button. (So long as we get to play again!) [She finds it. It's big and labelled Transmission OFF] * Neisis pushes the button. [Transmission is concluded!] (Final comments? Make 'em) (PLAY MORE NOW!) (That is not a comment. :P) * Murynal blinks once, then looks at Neisis. "So. How do you feel about manning the weapons here?" * Thalan taps his foot on the 'ground'. "You're fine with the gravity here, Justine?" I can't aim them. * Neisis points at Thalan "he's going to have to. It's part of the reason I wanted the saucer." 'I'm a pretty decent gunner,' Justine says casually but in a way that clearly means that she has l33t gunner skillz. I know how to use the weapons system as well. But I'm usually avoiding getting, ya know... hit. * Thalan has some decent gunner sk33lz too. Yes, but you'll probably be in your fighter, since I figure you're a decent pilot, too. * Justine smiles. 'I'm not half bad.' So, Thalan will be not getting hit, and the two of you will be shooting back...and I...will be keeping track of the targets? 'You have to be, to survive in a Locust. Things don't stand up too well to being hit.' * Murynal laughs. "Don't tell me they have a habit of exploding." (Note: Get force fields) (and a turret) 'They do indeed. In one hit. It's why I call my ship 'Trap. Short for Flying Deathtrap.' * Denal speaks in a fairly deadpan voice. "Please be sure to travel a safe distance from the ship before your fighter explodes." * Murynal says, in a chiding voice, "Really. Her ship won't explode." * Thalan laughs. "Man, you guys would love the ships we have back home. Force shields, armor... Man, they could take a beating and keep piloting." Fields? We... ah, I guess it doesn't matter here. We found a generator, but it was too big to copy and install on my fighter." (I was expecting Murynal to comment on the odd coincidence of Justine's ship and her own former one.) (And yes, Arwen and I came up with similar ship concepts and gave them the same frickin' name completely independently.) * Murynal coughs into her hand. "So, we just kept calling it the deathtrap. Not its real name, but." She grins. "They tend to explode, too." (Mine wasn't a pyramid, though!) 'Huh. Weird. I wonder if they're some sort of bizarre inter- dimensional counterparts.' It's not a pyramid, I can tell you that much. I think it's a pretty common occurrence. Just so long as you don't name this ship that. I was thinking of just naming it after you. Aww. 'The pyramid structure was to mount the four engines so that it could move in any direction.' Makes sense. Also sounds volatile, but we already know about that. 'It is.' Most fighters in my universe had the tri-wing design. [End!]