And now SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT for serious RP-Writers

[Xenobia]

CAN YOU DO IT TOTALLY ALONE?

Imagine a future world full of civil strife and unrest.

Land based countries are barely holding out against Mega-Corporations both on our own world and the other planets and moons we have colonized. They can bomb a city, but where can a nation retaliate? A PO Box on the Moon?

North America has broken up into seventeen different countries and/or city states and to be the King of California is a risky business, since the last four were assassinated. B.A.F.’s (Ballistic Air Flights) make hopping over to Kenya for lunch easy, and the accident rate is low.

Drone class constructs are genetically engineered for the task at hand and live in their own subcultures. Even human form Doxie Class for sexual use are considered property with no rights other than those that fall under the 2452‘s “Cruelty to Animals and Constructs Act”.

To the nicer planets the rich immigrate and set up their own governments (such as no one under 50 can vote on Vera 9), to the raw planets the middle class immigrate and try to cut a life out for themselves away from civil conflict, and to the hellish but lucrative planets the unwanted and criminal are send to work and die.

Your role is that of a combat courier, when something has to get somewhere discretely, swiftly, and barring no obstacle…your hidden organization is hired via blinds to do it. Closed boarders, spies, unfriendly fire, friendly fire, and people who just don’t like you bar your way from completing your missionsoff and on planet, but you and you ALONE get the message through.

Game play: You create your solo character, could be a unregistered genetic human construct, an enhanced human or a highly trained human being who works for the Shadow Steppers, a covert organization who you suspect has many fingers in many pies, but because your smart you don’t go poking into your bosses business. The courier headquarters is (currently) a hotel on Maui that never receives any other guests other than employees of Shadow Steppers.

You get your assignments via many routes, and it’s up to you alone to write out how you carry them out. Details and obstacles will be PM ed to you and MUST be written in to your posts. Interaction should be only at the hotel with other PC’s except in the rare instance that you bump into them on duty.

CAN YOU WRITE ON YOUR OWN? That’s the big question here, and what makes this unique. Can you tell your PC’s story when he/she is acting on their own and not godmod it? Can you make it exciting and believable? It’s a challenge, I know…..

So, who’s up for it?

 

[Mantra]

Game on!

I'm here huckleberry.

Let me know what you want, and I'll see if my lowly RPing skills are up to task.

 

[Xenobia]

Yay!

Build a PC with skills such as lockpicking, hand to hand, you know...all that good black ops stuff along with a personality that will shine through.

It's to be written in first person, so we can hear the mental gears grinding.

When your ready I'll post you getting your assignment at the Hotel and PM you your first set of hazards.

*claps her hands* OH thank you, thank you for saying yes!

 

[MilkManDan007]

You've got my interest. I'll work up a rough outline of a character and try to get it to you in the next few days.

Any limitations on the characters?

 

[Xenobia]

You can be gentically, medically, or pharmasucally altered, but not grossly so, since you'd need to blend in with humans.

You would have combat skills in armed and unarmed combat naturally along with other skills.

The company issues you several ID's, cash, and at least one credit card but cash is the way to go since it leaves no e-trail...and this time frame is so wired up it's easy to track people via electronic means if someone is smart enough.

And your person can't be perfect, can't always win, can't always be right. It's a serious writing RP so get hurt, confused, banged up. Without conflict there is no story.

If you've read Hienlein's Friday you'll see what I mean..


Read this for an excerpt.

 

[Mantra]

A Start

OK, let me give this a try....

Mark Wallis wasn't anybody. He didn't even exist, at least not anymore. Mark Wallis used to be a Colonial Marine and a 'technology specialist' two years ago on Gideon Prime. All that was bullshit however, or at least as fake as Mark was. Just a fancy name for the local militia, caught on the wrong side of an insurgent uprising against the Federate Monopoly, one of many 'super-corporations' who owned damn near everything, including Gideon Prime.

What was real was the amount of money and resources that the Colonials had invested in Mark and some of his fellow specialists. Mark was quite knowlegable in the electronics and techniology fields, but he had been augmented with a series of neural connections and other cerebral enhancements. To say he was a 'hacker' would have been crude. After all, hackers were so....21st century. Obsolete, just like the internet was. Now, there was the inter-planetary Hypernet connecting everything in a virtual reality, intergalatic, super highway of faster-than-light data streams.

And to go along with the hypernet, there were the cyber-jackers.

Mark could literally 'plug-in' and surf the virtual world of the hypernet from the inside thanks to his training and cybernetic and neural interlinks. Using his skills, Mark Wallis simply ceaced to be. Every transaction and record was wiped clean, but that was only half the reason why Mark Wallis didn't exist.
He was dead.

Not literally of course, but the Colonials had been on the wrong side of the uprising. That is, they lost. The Monopoly had ended the uprising by making an example of the Colonials. Three tac nukes had broken the resistance as well as vaporizing much of the leadership. Supposably, Mark had been vaporized as well, but pure luck had had him off world for further augmentation. Seeing the writing on the wall, Mark simply disappeared, hoping to make his own way. Fortunatly, there were many people and organizations who had use for a dead man with highly specialized skills.

Knowledge is power, and the Hypernet was pure information, pure knowledge.

And there were many who were willing to pay for the little slices Mark could turn up.



Good?

 

[Xenobia]

Sounds good, so your taking a Johnny Memonic sort of angle?

You can hack in and upload info and download it at another site?

I can work with that.

 

[MilkManDan007]

Capt. Michael Druhard

While the need for information, and faster-than-light (FTL) communications, had grown substantially over the past decade, the need for hardened goods had never dwindled. Massive cargo shipment companies had formed their nets across the stars, forming mega-corporations that had the might to buy and sell entire planets, just as smaller corporations had done with factories on Earth in the 20th Century. Transporting food stocks from fertile planets to those being colonized to running mining machinery from factory planets to the open-continent mines on the frontier, nearly every corner was touched. But even with these nets of cargo ships crisscrossing the galaxy, some good were just too hot to handle.

That's where Capt. Michael Druhard came into play. He had been specifically designed to fit into the captain's chair in the cramped cabins of the transports. He was short, only five foot six, but was well toned from the isometric exercises performed on the flights. At age 28, his pure white hair seemed out of place, but few ever said anything. His eyes were a faded blue, much like the color of an afternoon sky.

Druhard was originally constructed and trained to run the 180,000 ton grain ship Hercules, and had made 32 successful runs from Gnesh, a planet which produced vast amounts of wheat and other grains, to Earth. The runs had been mostly quiet and routine, load, run the route, unload, and repeat.

They had been routine up until four years ago.

The Hercules had been on the first leg of the mission when it came under attack from a group of rebels who wanted the 60,000 tons of wheat on board for themselves and their fledgling and unlicensed colony. The firefight had been short, and with only the Hercules' point defense guns to protect itself, the ship was quickly overwhelmed. Druhard managed to find his way into an escape pod and jettison himself from the ship. He was not ready to be butchered by the rebels or sold into slavery on their planet to cover up the attack. The pod had come under fire before it was able to jump to FTL speed, and crashed on a small, inhabited moon.

Druhard was nearly killed in the crash, and had to have a cybernetic right arm, right leg, and right eye grafted into him to keep him alive and functional. He still looked human, except for the artificial blue of his right eye that did not quite match the natural left. He spent two years rehabilitating and training himself to fend off attackers, both in simulator environments for space combat, and in hand to hand combat in case he was ever boarded again. But the two years on the ground nearly killed him. He had been constructed to be in space, to pilot those ships, yet he was stuck on the ground.

Unable to pilot a craft in any of the major corporations due to his new implants, Druhard decided to go underground. He made his way to a smaller trade center near the frontier, the edge of explored space, and had managed to find employment with a small band of mercenaries who called themselves the Bulldogs. They were a simple outfit, one ship, one cargo at a time, much like many of the small and fledgling shipping companies that were trying to break the stranglehold of the mega-corporations.

But the cargoes they ran were far from ordinary. They were part of the market no one spoke of and ran cargoes that officially didn't exist. They had been hired for a number of jobs that were never officially recorded, and unless something went terrible wrong, no one ever knew about. Governments hired them to run weapons to begin coups against other governments, slave traders purchased their services to run prisoners to mining and prison planets , and the drug trade was always a big moneymaker.

After two years in the Bulldogs, much of the original crew of the Iron Dog had either left the trade to retire or had been killed. This left Druhard in charge of the operation.

The Iron Dog, from the outside, looked like any number of small, intrasystem transport ships, almost like a cargo container with stubby atmospheric tail guidance wings and a pointed nose. However, the Bulldogs knew that their cargoes meant risk, and risk meant that they needed protection -- and a lot of it. The Iron Dog had been gutted to begin with, and its cargo capacity had been diminished by half. Filling the space were several modules fitted with high-end military and commercial communications and jamming equipment, ship-to-surface 70mm cannons, ship-to-ship 120mm high-magnetic tungsten rail guns, and the original engines had been stripped out and replaced with military-grade units. An auxiliary reactor was also added to power the additional gear, and the ship if needed. The armaments hid behind false sides of the ship that could be rotated into position quickly if needed, but remained hidden enough to fool most main port inspectors. It ran with a skeleton crew, 2 men who he had worked with the past two years, and all told, Druhard could control the ship himself. Even with the modifications, the small Iron Dog was still outmatched by military models and most shipping company escort vessels, but it could hold its own in a skirmish with rebel ships or the occasional scout patrol.

Capt. Druhard was between runs at the moment and enjoying himself on the warm sandy beach. He was just biding his time as he knew contracts were always out there, waiting to be picked up.

 

[Mantra]

Never saw Johnny Memonic, or read Friday....*shrugs* guess I just think along the same lines.

 

[Xenobia]

Ok, I'm going to wrap my mind around what you've given me and post your assignments in the next day or so, Dan's a little harder since I'd been thinking single person RP, not a whole ship sorta deal....

So don't think I'm ignoreing you, just working on good stuff for you, I promise!

 

[MilkManDan007]

Xenobia:

I will be playing only Druhard. My posts will be through what he can see and do.

I may add a line or two here and there about what the others are doing just as supporting details, but the other two crew members will be considered "anonymous and disposable crew members one and two."Their main duties will center around communications and maintenance, nothing spectacular. Piloting and gunnery are controlled from the cockpit. They may also be used as ship security when docked. As in "You two stay here and secure the ship. I'm going out."


Hope this helps.

 

[Xenobia]

That's what I assumed, so don't worry, be happy....Or at least relax as much as you can on the beach til your assignment arrives.

 

[MilkManDan007]

Since I haven't heard of my assignment yet, I thought I would post and just set the stage on how he ended up on the beach...

Enjoy.

Capt. Michael Druhard

It was nice to just sit for once, Druhard thought, sipping on the chilled drink as the sun dipped quietly behind the horizon. The soft breeze rolling off of the Pacific was warm and gentle and helped to draw the stress of the last mission from Druhard's bones. He rolled the perspiring glass on his forehead and leaned back in the wicker deck chair, the aged weaving groaning and crackling under the strain.

Behind him sat the Iron Dog. The scarred paint had been tended to and the gaping holes caused by the Starline Industries escort ships had been patched with the molded polysteel patches that always seemed to be in short supply. The final glow of the sun was replaced with the soft cooling glow of the polysteel welds, still cooling in the open hangar. It would be several hours before the ship was space-worthy again, and Druhard knew that the night would be his. He would wait until morning to search for a contract. Tonight, he would simply enjoy the fact that he had survived another contract and collected another paycheck.

And it hadn't been by much.

The contract had called for Druhard and the Iron Dog to run a small container of military grade satellite/station thrusters to the main planet in the Curie system, which had been under civil unrest for decades. The thrusters would most likely be used to upgrade the orbiting weapons platforms so they could be moved to geosynchronous positions over the various battlefields. Druhard didn't care. It wasn't his war, but it was going to help bring him closer to buying himself out of the Bulldogs and moving on to retirement. Someplace quiet where he wouldn't always have to carry a loaded magrifle for protection.

The load had gone smoothly. Druhard simply showed up at the manufacturing plant and the cargo container, sealed in the same polysteel the exterior armor was made of to protect the components from accidental damage, was quickly loaded onto the Iron Dog by an unmarked forklift. Better to leave no trails, Druhard had thought, especially for the video surveillance that was no doubt going on.

The Iron Dog was no stranger to port facilities, often running legitimate cargoes within the system to make money on the side. However, it was the illegal cargoes that really paid the bills. The unmarked containers that did not officially exist that were carried by the undercover ship were what drove the business. But to the overhead surveillance, this load would simply like another standard shipping container being loaded for a short flight. And once the Iron Dog left port, the security facilities would dismiss the footage as non-threatening and it would likely be recorded over or sent to the off-planet records section within 48 hours. Either way, it was highly unlikely that anyone would ever suspect what was really in the container.

The mission had proceeded smoothly until Druhard entered the Curie system. Two of the familiar orbiting weapons platforms were gone, reduced to smoldering hulks of twisted metal slowly succumbing to gravity as their orbits decayed. The De'Morn faction, always considered the underdogs in the fight, had somehow managed to hire, or bribe, Starline Industries into sending in several of their medium escort ships to destroy the platforms.

The snub-nosed escort ships were already closing on him. The three ports on each of their noses carried two of the same tungsten rail guns that the Iron Dog carried, each capable of popping a grapefruit-sized hole in the hull of a ship from more than half a system away. The three came in an inverted "V" formation, allowing the two side ships to cover the center ship's flanks while advancing.

The lead ship had hailed Druhard, and demanded to be allowed to board and personally inspect the cargo. And true to fashion, Druhard had simply told them to go to hell. No one was boarding his ship, especially not some cut-rate, second-class hired security force. He had calmly started the second reactor, allowing the primary core to recharge the ship's FTL drive for another jump. The secondary reactor only provided half the power of the main drive, but it would be enough to get him out of range of the escort's guns. He hoped.

He had pushed the throttles to full military thrust, the emergency setting that would get him the most acceleration possible from the engines, and aimed the pointed nose of the Iron Dog just above the lead ship's nose.

The first salvo from their guns missed as their gunners did not anticipate the sudden acceleration. The second salvo however, from the smaller turret-mounted cannons, tore into the ship with their full might. Druhard had sealed the cockpit off from the cargo bay, in case there was a depressurization that the automatic door did not respond to, but he still felt the sucking force of the gashes in the ship's sides. Several caution lamps flashed in the darkness, alerting Druhard to the hull breaches and secondary systems that had been disabled during the attack.

Druhard checked the main systems and praised himself for armoring them, just in case.

He opened the safety cover and pressed the "Cargo Jettison" button just as he passed over the nose of the lead ship. The 92-foot long container was propelled out the back end of the ship and slammed into the reinforced plating of the escort ship just in front of the bridge. The Iron Dog swept over the escort's communications tower and Druhard pushed the control yolk to the right, sideslipping the ship in a wide arc so it faced away from the system's twin suns. The primary reactor had recharged the drive and Druhard quickly ran a computer navigation check so he knew where he would end up after the jump.

The Iron Dog shuddered again as the escort ships swung their turrets and began to fire at the two bright blue exhaust vents of the engines. More warning lights flashed, but Druhard paid them no attention. It was now or never if he was going to survive this one. He pressed the blinking "Engage" switch just to the right of the yolk just as the 90-second timed fuse in the cargo container wound down.

Druhard made sure that each container he took on board had anti-theft and anti-pirate safety devices installed. For this run, a simple timer tied into the 90 pounds of uranium fuel on each of the 242 thrusters made sure no one would, other than the intended target, would ever receive the cargo.

The lead escort ship, captained by a shorter man sporting a graying beard, disappeared into the nuclear fireball that erupted only a half-kilometer off its stern. The Iron Dog's FTL drive pulled the ship out of the system before the Litho-Fusion drive of the escort ship erupted as part of a chain reaction of devastation that, in the end, would destroy one of the remaining escort ships and send the other into a powerless spin into the void of space.

Druhard had seen death that day. He had walked up to the man with the scythe, stared into the empty blackness of the skull, and calmly punched him in the stomach.

"At least they paid half up front," Druhard said to himself as the first stars began to appear in the night sky. "Always half up front, just in case…" And with that, he drifted quietly into a deep and resting sleep.

 

[Donsehan]

about posting

I got a question so there would be no GM in this game? Like all that happens to our characters would be made up by us?

 

[Xenobia]

Yes, with just some plot starters and twists provided by me. Which I am going to do as soon as my Soc paper is done, I have it all plotted out in here *taps head* but been to busy to put it out here *taps screen*

Sorry Dan, I know you're waiting, I'll do it tomorrow at the very latest!

 

[Xenobia]

Michael Druhard's messenger beeped.

"Please report to room 441."


Room 441 was spartan, with a buffed steel desk and steel chairs that didn't look comfortable and blue walls. Behind the desk sat Keys, a woman who generally gave him his assignments.

"Druhard, good to see you again. Your looking well." She smiled at him, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes were always all business, even though she was a pretty woman.

"I have an easy one for you." She set a case on the desk. It was about two foot by two foot by three inches and also a buffed silver. It was also sealed at all seams, and he didn't see a latch.

"Simply take this box to Prime, undetected, and give it to the Minster of Home, without anyone knowing, and without anyone knowing you've contacted him, which you can't do publiclly."

She spread her hands wide. "Now how simple is that? Any questions?"

 

[Xenobia]

"Is that Mark Wallis?" Dr. Jones asked. "So it is, I was just going to have you paged. Will you come with me to the lab please for your assignment?"

As they walk down the twisted underground hallways that weren't on any map Dr. Jones chatted about his grandchildren, even to the point of pulling out photos. But as soon as the step into the lab, the older man is all business.

"Mark, you know about Denver. To recap it's been sealed off as a bio-hazard area with Valentine's Disease, which is incurable. Roll up your sleeve." With a quick injection Dr. Jones nods his satisfaction. "Well, we've discovered that the entire incident is a testing phase, no need to concern you with the details, and I've just innoculated you with the vaccine."

He steps over to a 'jack console. "So, what we are going to do is upload clues to the culpruit and the vaccine specs into your brain, and you have to get into Denver and download it into the mainframe of the Disease Control Center. It has to come from inside the zone, or our operation will be blown in another sector."

He holds up the cord to Mark.

 

[Mantra]

Mark followed but only half listened to Dr. Jones's comments. The pictures were nice and all that, and his conversation was plesant enoughh, but noone in the organization talked to anyone unless they wanted you to know...or at least wanted you to know what they were telling you anyway. Shadow Steppers were so secretive, Mark doubted half the Shadow Steppers knew anything about anything.

"Denver? Yeah, I know a little bit about it. It's quarantined i'm sure. So why doesn't the government just cleanse it via thermonuclear detonation? That's their usual M.O."

Dr. Jones shrugged. "Don't know. I just know you need to get this into their mainframe. Ready yet?"

Mark shrugged and laid down onto the reclining table and relaxed. The doctor clipped the reciever jack into a port at the base of his skull. A second jack plugged into another port hidden his hairline just above Mark's left temple. There was a soft hum as the data was translated and uploaded. Mark has the flickering image of dozens and dozens of images flickering just behind his eyes.
The human brain was capable of tremendous abilities. Your typical human used less than a quarter of it in day to day life. Cyberjacker technology had tapped and augmented the unused portion of the brain into storage and data prossessing units so fast that Mark himself could not analyze or even comprehend it as fast as his brain could. It made the Cyberjacker a walking super computer in a way. But the real power a Jacker had was in the electronic grids and sub-routines which connected everything together in this modern age. In the Hypernet, a jacker could almost become the grid. An electronic mini-verse where thought and action were the same thing, cyberjackers could be lords of creation...or destruction. Thats why there were so few outside of some government or megacorp control and why someone like Mark was so precious.

The upload was done in just under a minute and Mark sat up, feeling a touch disoriented as the jacks were removed. He took a deep breath before pushing himself up off the table.

"You have what I asked for?" Mark inquired. Dr. Jones used a key to open a locked counter top. Withdrawing a few items and naming each as he laid them on the stainless steel counter.

"20,000 credit mark card, seperate bank data transfer card, half your payment's alread deposited, minus the cost of all this stuff of course. A supply of stims as per your specs, top of the line stuff of course, the myomer optic cable and recorder you requested and your skiff's being fueled as we speak. That all?"

"Yeah." Mark said, scooping up his new belingings into various pockets. "See ya, Doc."

He left without looking or talking to anyone else. Once outside, he caught a transport shuttle which passed through the Maui resort and over to the Honolulu areospace port. The Hawaiian islands were still a hotbed of for both legal and illeagal activity. It's stratigic location made it a natural base of operations for everything from agro farmers, to network comm relays to anti-California insurectionists. It was a good place to get lost in a crowd of humanity too.

Mark made his way to his space skiff. His own personal mode of transportation and roving base of operations. It had no name, just a identity regristration number. (which had a tendancy to change from time to time and place to place) Privatly, Mark called Memorex, as a joke he'd learned from a fragment from an age old derelict computer core he'd been hired to salvage in old capitol D.C. A fragment from an old 20th century comercial asking; 'Is it real, or is it Memorex?' Mark loved it.

Mark closed the door, heading down to the heart of the ship, the control room. Contrary to standard ships, the bridge was not the control room. On the Memorex, the sick bay was.
Mark removed his clothing, replacing them with a less conservative set of briefs. with a set of tubes set in seemingly uncomfortable places. He also stepped into a pair of lounge slippers, seemingly out of place given the rest of his meager apparel. Opening the door to the sick bay, anyone else might have been intimidated to enter what seemed to be a mad scientists lair of mechanical arms, tubes, consoled and God knew what else. More disturbingly might have been the reclining couch in the midst of it all. Mark felt no aprehension at all, in fact, he'd built it just for him. He took a moment to ste the stims on a counter before plugging the tubes from his briefs into their propper receptacles. He also checked what could only be an IV drip before settling onto the couch. The IV needle was incerted into his left forarm and after a moment of checking the drip, Mark reached over his head, taking a pair of jack uplink cables and inserted them into their proper ports. He took a deep breath again, relaxing before finally setting a resperator mask over his nose and mouth. A series of neural sensors build into the couch came to life as he lay down and there was a whirr and click underneath the couch. Reaching down on either side and into a 5-holed slot for each hand. A neural clip was set on each finger as Mark brought his arms up to rest at his sides. At the same time, a scrolling probe crept up from over the right side of his head. With a click, a pair of LCD optics unfolded, gingerly lowering themselves until they were set over Mark's eyes. As a final act, the chair automatically restrained Mark about the waist upper torso, wrists and ankles. There was a hiss if oxegyn, and Mark lost consiousness as the uplink began....

...or gained consiousness as the uplink began. There were always stories of out of body experiences here and there. From old Earth or some other worlds. Near death adventures or some such, so one might understand in theory what Mark was experiencing, but his had nothing to do spirituality and everything to do with science and electronics. Mark was aware of his body below him, looking like something out of a medical experiment, but that was due to the tiny camera built into the sick bay bulwarks. In fact, Mark was aware of everything, through every camera, sensor and system available to the Memorex. Using his body and brain as a conduit, Mark had integrated himself with the computer and electrical systems of his skiff.

A few years ago, Mark had been hired to infiltrate and aquire a detailed schematic of the Reaver areospace fighter system. A Reaver was a top of the line, no, a better than top of the line fighter craft, which was doninating their sector of military and trade protection markets. What Mark had found was amazing.
With a sort of variation of cyberjacker technilogy, the Reaver pilots had actually merged their own contiousness into the Reaver fighter's battle computers. The result was a living, thinking and responding combat system which was superior to any A.I. system out there. The Reavers were both man and machine, a cybernetic weapons platform. Amazing.

Mark had been facinated, but had noted a major flaw. The 'Reavers' were literally hardwired into their ships and as such, found their lives greatly limited. Needless to say, their owners did not let them out to 'play' much. Hence, the pilots suffered 'cerebral degredation'. Wether from their high risk missions or because of their metal prisons, Reavers didn't live very long. Mark had been able to one up the Reavers however. With his own augmentation and capabilities, Mark was able to duplicate the Reaver's intigration system, but was still able to download back into his body. It was not as effective as a Reaver fighter, but it was better than any human pilot's hand-eye coordination.

Now in the ship, Mark, through the many mechanical arms and instruments on board, analyzed the items Dr. Jones had given him. Mark didn't expect anything shady, but it wouldn't be the first time that a Shadow Stepper had been eliminated for 'knowing too much'. Fortunatly, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. His next task was to review and analys the data about the Denver situation. An incurable disease but he was given an innoculation with a pre-arranged vaccine. The Valentine's Virus was fishy. Time to see what was really in the water.

 

[MilkManDan007]

Capt. Michael Druhard

The mission had seemed easy enough. A simple case delivered to Prime, to be delivered discreetly. There may be some complications with the infiltration into the Minister's home, but that was to be expected. No job could be simple or easy.

Things had gone to hell, and fast. The Minister was dead. A clean and damn near impossible shot had been taken from a mile out while he was eating his morning Danish and drinking his daily cup of imported coffee. With no additional contact, the case should have been returned to Room 441, and the completion bonus for the contract would be forfeited.

Then the case was jacked. Druhard had been reading an article on the King and Queen's inability to bear an heir to the throne in the the Prime newspaper, Tomorrow Today, when a boy no older than 14 had run into Druhard after coming out of an alley. The move in itself was non-threatening, but it was a set-up for the other boys lying in wait. The seven of them sprung and knocked Druhard down, and the slim case had barely touched the soiled pavement before the gang had taken it and disappeared into the slums.

The small microtransmitter Druhard had attached to the case, for just such an occasion, was still working, but the slums were no place for a lone figure at night. Druhard returned to the ship and broke the news to the Nate Weeding, the ship's first officer for the mission. Weeding took the news almost as if he had expected it, a reaction Druhard was troubled by. Weeding knew that without returning the case, they would also have to forfeit the 50-percent advance they had received prior to the mission, meaning both would go home with nothing to show for their troubles and no cash to pay the fuel and repair bills for the ship.

Druhard brushed it off, Weeding had been working hard overhauling the drive coils for the main guns, and had been putting in some long hours, especially at night. The two settled into the ship's small aft cabins, deciding that they would retrieve the case tomorrow. There was no way a group of punk kids were going to break the thermo seal and the lodestone mag seal the case was equipped with.

Druhard slept uneasy that night. Visions of the gang and their coordinated assault. It was almost as if they knew he was going to be there and had expertly planned the ambush. And for what? A case they knew they could not open and could not be sold on the street? It didn't make sense. Druhard rose and checked the small clock he kept next to his bunk. It was just past 4 a.m. Perhaps Keys could shed some light on the case and its contents. He tried her on the secure line at the office, doubting she would be in so early on a non-standard business day.

However, she picked up on the first ring.

"Keys here," she said, the deadpan tone of her voice suggested she had either just gotten to the office, or just woken up, perhaps both.

"Keys, it's Druhard. I need some info on that case. You know the one I am talking about," Druhard said, avoiding reference to where he was or the specifics of the case, because even secure lines could be tapped into now with the hackers on the loose. "It's been jacked and I need to know why."

"Damn it, The Minist..," Keys sighed and corrected herself on the line, " …the ordering party just said that it was something that had to be delivered to him by ten today. It's perishable, and there is some genetic material involved."

"That gives me six hours. What kind of material?" Druhard knew he was pressing his luck, but maybe fortune would smile on him today.

"He didn't say exactly, but it had something to do with a throne. Something about the next generation," she said. "That's all I know. Just remember, if you don't deliver, or bring back the case, the contract is void." The tone came almost immediately. She had hung up.

Druhard sat and pulled a prepackaged ration from the cramped galley and began to chew on the stale freeze-dried bar while he thought. What would the Minister of Home be doing with genetic material? And what the hell did the next generation mean? He sat on the aft jumpseat and pulled the tattered remnants of the previous day's newspaper closer. Maybe the puzzles would help clear his head.

The photo on page three froze Druhard in his tracks. The King and Queen were making a public appearance, doing some meaningless public endorsement of a new tree planted, but it was who was in the background that caught his attention. The Minister of Home stood to the left, speaking with a man in a long, grayed trench coat. Druhard had run into the man once before on a delivery. He was Dr. Otto Graham, one of the system's leading experts in genetic manipulation and cloning technologies. His work was centered not around cloning genetic copies that merely had a physical resemblance to their originals, but to copy the mind as well, allowing people to continue life even after their original bodies had given out.

The Minister must have commissioned Dr. Graham to clone the King so he could rule again. The next generation. It made sense. The lodestone mag seal on the case would protect the genetic material in the case from outside magnetic fields that may disrupt the growth of the cerebral net. But what would thieves want with the case?

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud pounding at the main bulkhead door.

"Captain Druhard, we wish to speak with you." The voice did not identify itself. Druhard activated the ship's internal security camera system and saw three men, wearing the uniforms of the Secret Police, who served as the planet's private security force and army, standing outside the bulkhead. "We have information that connects you with the assassination attempt of the Minister of Home and the plot to overthrow the King by the People's Party. Comply, or we will have no choice but to use force to take you into custody."

Druhard switched over to Weeding's bunk and flicked the intercom. Weeding was not in his bunk. He had left the ship. Things were falling into place. Weeding must have been in on the ambush. His folks were from this planet and must have been sympathetic to the people's cry for a democratic republic and the need to oust the king. Knowing that the case, which would be used to continue the monarchic rule, was on the ship and would be delivered to the Minister, who would use it to duplicate the King, Weeding had set the ambush to steal the case long enough to spoil the genetic print it contained.

He had five hours left to find and deliver the case to the King personally, again without being spotted, and the Secret Police were going to be hounding him every inch of the way because they thought he was in on the assassination. Terrific.

(Part Two, the conclusion of this exciting and daring tale, will be seen tomorrow, or maybe this afternoon…

 

[MilkManDan007]

Capt. Michael Druhard

Druhard knew that he couldn't take off if the outer door was open, and he couldn't fly the ship without getting to the cockpit. These were both serious problems with the three Secret Police standing outside the main bulkhead. Druhard did not like to kill, and only did so as a last resort. He needed some way to drive them from the ship, make them want to leave.

The fire suppression system. He could activate it remotely, prep the ship for launch, and seal the outer door from his sop at the security station. The pounding was becoming much less friendly, and Druhard noted that one had returned to the ship with a heavy rifle, probably anticipating a resisting captain.

Druhard flipped open the Halon valves and flooded the compartment with the fire retardant gas. Halon was designed to quench fires by removing oxygen from the air, something that the Secret Police could not do without, especially since they were not outfitted with the hazardous and biological oxygen filters. The three quickly ran from the compartment, coughing against the onslaught of gas. Druhard worked quickly turning on the ventilation system to vent the gas outside to further push them away from the ship, and began the pre-launch sequence that would warm the engines in preparation for take-off.

Less than 30 seconds later, Druhard was airborne. There was some small-arms fire from the Secret Police below, but none of the small-caliber weapons had the punch to penetrate the ship's armor plating. The tracking device was still active, and Druhard heeled the ship around sharply and aimed the nose towards the slums. Keeping low and avoiding breaking the sound barrier kept the ship from drawing attention and helped it to blend into the everyday traffic above the city. The tracking device was leading Druhard to the edges of the slums that bordered the wasteland, and area that had been stricken by an alien virus and obliterated to avoid contamination. Druhard set the ship down near a grouping of ramshackle buildings that the tracer had narrowed the search to. Druhard stepped into the main compartment and donned a flak vest before grabbing his personal-portable rifle and exiting the ship. He set the ship's security systems to seal the doors and ports and armed the exterior anti-personnel mines scattered across the ships' surface.

The small transmitter Druhard took with him helped to narrow the search. A dingy, tin-sided shanty was where the signal was coming from, and where Druhard hoped the case would be. He edged into the darkened building, careful not to allow himself to be silhouetted against the light, and saw them. The group of thieves, just boys really, was crowded around a barrel in which a fire was burning. There were nine of them around the barrel, including one facing away from Druhard who seemed older and in charge.

"I believe you have something that belongs to me," Druhard said, raising his rifle and taking aim at back of the taller boy's chest. "And I want it back. Now."

The taller boy stood and turned slowly. Druhard felt his heart sink as he recognized Weeding.

"I can't let you have it," Weeding said, motioning for the other boys to move back away from the barrel and into the shadows at the back of the small building. "The contents are too damaging, we'd never survive."

Druhard did not lower the rifle. The hatred for this man standing in front of him, the hatret for this man who had used him, the hatred for this man who had deceived him and set him up, was overpowering. His finger tensed on the trigger.

"I don't give a rat's ass how damaging it is. I was hired to deliver it and I damn well intend to. And if I have to go through you to do it, I will," Druhard said, advancing to within five feet of Weeding. It was 8:30. Only an hour and a half until the case had to be delivered. "Now where's the case?"

Weeding didn’t answer, but his eyes flicked momentarily to his right where a pile of old and tattered clothing was piled. Druhard could see the outline of the case under an old coat, and also made out the outline of a pistol near the edge.

"Don't…" Druhard began, his voice dropping to lower tones, almost pleading with Weeding not to reach for the gun. Weeding sprung to the side and grasped the gun as he fell to his knees. He wheeled and aimed the antiquated and rusted gun at Druhard. Druhard recognized the piece. It was an older model gunpowder-primer pistol that was used by the Earth military prior to the development of personal and portable magnetic rail technology. Weeding was pulling back the hammer and taking aim when the quarter-inch diameter tungsten rod from Druhard's rifle passed through his skull, just above his right eyebrow, at nine times the speed of sound. His body dropped quietly to the ground, still clutching the ancient weapon.

Druhard stooped over and retrieved the gun, noticing there wasn't even ammunition in it before tossing it aside. He retrieved the case from under the pile of coats and turned towards the door. The eight boys showed almost no emotion as they stared at their fallen comrade from the shadows. Their only reaction was to step back into the light and gather around the warmth of the burning barrel.

Druhard stepped back into the light and began the slow walk back to the Iron Dog. He had been used, deceived, framed, and had been forced to kill a man he had worked with for nearly eight months. This case had been nothing but trouble and he would be glad to be rid of it. The Iron Dog rose into the Prime sky and banked slowly towards the Imperial Palace.

Druhard kept the ship low and subsonic to avoid detection. At the altitudes he was flying, he would be lost in daily traffic and most likely not followed or tracked by the Secret Police. However, breaking into the Imperial Palace and delivering the case to the King personally within the next hour was going to be more difficult that it seemed.

Druhard set the ship's automatic pilot to fly over the east grounds of the Palace. The numerous landscaping features, fountains and hedges, would provide cover to get close to the palace and perhaps reveal a secondary entrance used by the gardening and maid staff. The ship dropped to within five feet of the palace grounds and Druhard jumped from the cockpit door. The ship continued on its preprogrammed course and set down in a field nearly three miles distant.

Druhard clutched the case, tucked securely in an interior pouch of his flak vest, as he rolled to a stop near a row of hedges. The alarm had not yet been sounded. Druhard crept along the hedgerow until it ended, 70 yards short of the palace itself. 70 yards. It seemed so short on the map, yet the distance looked like 20 miles from his hiding place. The guards patrolling the rooftop overlooking the grounds had eyed the ship carefully when it flew over, but Druhard had shielded himself from view with the wings as he jumped. The guards were used to such overflights and several companies offered tours of the city that included close viewing of the picturesque grounds for holo-photography opportunities.

It was 11:15. Time was running out and Druhard needed to enter the palace quickly. He gathered an armload of dried branches that had fallen from the hedges and stood. He walked slowly, looking bored, as he strode towards the door to the palace. It was a gamble he hoped paid off. He was completely exposed. Any guard that suspected Druhard of being a thief or intruder would likely shoot first and ask questions later. The branches helped to obscure the bulky flak vest and, from nearly 60 yards above, helped to make him look like any other gardener.

The door was unlocked and Druhard quickly stepped inside. The interior of the palace was immense, and Druhard had less than an hour to deliver the case. He began to run, hoping the padded carpeting would muffle his footfalls and keep the guards from catching on to his presence. The King's chambers were on one of the uppermost floors, and Druhard began to climb the first staircase he found. Twenty minutes later as Druhard continued to climb and work his way through the maze of corridors, he noticed the walls were covered with a plush fabric. The décor told him that he was on the correct floor. Now all he had to do was find the King himself. He rushed ahead and turned a corner, coming face to face with the Secret Police. Druhard had failed to notice the pinhole cameras mounted throughout the palace. It must have been easy for them to pinpoint his location once he entered and track him to an ambush point.

"Well, we meet again Captain," the lead Officer said, smirking as a hunter who had successfully tracked and cornered his prey. "And what, pray tell, are you doing here?"

Druhard reached under his vest and drew out the case.

"Delivery for the King. And if he doesn't have it in about," Druhard stopped to check his watch, "nine minutes, I'm betting that you'll all be fired or shot."

The Officer pulled out a portable radio and spoke into it, apprising his superiors of the latest developments. There was a near instantaneous reply that even Druhard could hear.

"Bring the case immediately. No delays."

The four began a run through the final corridors to the King's chambers. Two more flights of stairs and nearly a mile of corridors. Three minutes to go. The group burst through the final set of oaken doors and stood before the King. He was a short man, standing no taller than 5 feet, and looked quite frail even in his relatively young age.

"Give it to me, immediately," he said, reaching for the case. The officer handed the silvered case to the King, who produced a small magnetic-coded keycard from under his robe. Waving it over the case, the seal parted and the case opened. The Kind removed the web-like material from the lined interior and placed it on his head. A single cable ran back to the case, which began to emit a high-pitched whirring noise.

"Thank Horace you got here when you did," the King said as he sank into a nearby chair. "Dr. Otto Graham designed this case specifically for me. It will exactingly copy the coherent part of my brain so he will be able to transfer it to a genetically modified clone of myself. Finally, we will be able to conceive and continue the bloodline."

Druhard stood silently, wondering if he had condemned these people to another lifetime of suffering under the heavy fist of the monarchy. He turned and began to walk from the chamber, but was stopped by the officer once again.

"You were lucky this time," he said. "You showed us a weak point in the security. However, unless you are invited personally by His Majesty, the next time I see you even look at the palace grounds, I'll kill you myself." He stepped aside before continuing. "I will give you an escort to your ship, and then I want you to leave Prime immediately. Understood?"

Druhard began to head fro the door, rubbing his temples at the approaching headache that always seemed to come after a successful drop as he began to relax and take stock of the risks he just took.

"Yeah, I understand," he said. "I could use a stiff drink and some time on the beach after this one."

 

[Xenobia]

OCC: Mission completed, well done!

 

[Mantra]

Mark's mind disected the information regarding the virus and serum. He wasn't trained enough to understand the medical details or bio-chemical analysis, but he understood the virus's symptoms well enough.
The virus shut down the body's ability to absorb nurishment from food, and a person slowly starves to death before your eyes. Not an overly pleasant way to go. Denver seemed to be the spontanious center of the outbreak and was currently quaranteened. Damned convienient that, both the sudden 'spontaneous' mutation of a disease that had a 100% contractability and 97% fatality rate. Lucky that only Denver was affected..... damned convienient.

...Bullshit. Pure and simple.

Sadly, the disease itself wasn't bullshit. Much of Denver was either infected or dead already. Mark hated the idea of bio-chem weapons or their ilk, which is what he suspected the Valentine's Virus really was. They were filthy and indiscriminate....and had a nasty tendancy to get out of control no matter what the 'controls' in place were. He had taped into satalite imagery showing several bonfires burning in the city. It was ugly down there.

The skiff was finally ready and the fuel lines were disconnected. Mark electronically paid the bill and with a thought, charged the engines. After a moment, the skiff lifted off the tarmac, slowly hovering away from the spaceport, waiting for clearance to depart. It wasn't long before the Memorex lifted up and easilly sped off, away from Hawall and towards Denver.

Mark's satalite snooping was also cross refrenced with maps and other pictures of Denver, all of which were downloaded as Mark considered a way into Denver and to his objective. He also managed to tap a military commline, which confirmed his worries. Denver was indeed quarantined and completely locked down. Government troops had standing orders to fire on anyone or anything trying to pass through Denver's quarantine zone. Moreso, troops were actvly inside the city and enforcing a strict curfew. Denver was a proverbial death camp.

Getting in was only half the problem. Getting back out would be the real hard part.