Cpok's Tale

Hey droogies - it was a rare time.

We were still glowing from the big caper - some cool cash had come our way, and the Captain had convinced us that investing in a better ship and some more deals was the way ahead.
So there we were, stopped off in Freeport Alex - a done deal with Honest Ron over a part-ex for the old 'Mat Girl' - we get a new-ish 5000 - which we rename 'Like A Virgin' - the capatin seems to like these early earth music references. Anyhow - the Cap has another deal on the boil - same as ever - than man is a real dealer (respect) - and me and some of the old crew are holding the fort on the LAV.
Now this 'new' ship is no prize to look at. Structurally as tough as a megadon's mother and a real tuned up engine - but the internals are a mess. I know Dessel isn't happy, but the Captain smooths him over. I guess, with Sharan's help it'll be fine. And on this ship I get a proper sickbay too. And my own cabin (about time).
Hands and I, being nosy sorts, decide to take a look over the cargo grid, because we're told the LAV was bought 'as is' with some old sealed containers aboard, kinda unwanted by the previous owners. Odd. Still we open em up, under my careful direction and find that we've taken on around 75 deep-sleep passengers from the destroyed colony of Matanzas - some Ideal-forsaken backwater planet in Q7 trashed by the Berserkers during the War. In managed to defrost one of them - turned out they were indentured servants. I'd heard rumour of this sort of thing - but never thought I'd meet a real megadon worrier out here.
Anyway - these root nibblers are no use to us - and we're still deciding whether to space the losers and sell the deep sleep equipment when Cong tell us that the Cap is in trouble. Now that's not good - especially when we find he has been arrested.
So, after a moment's thought I get a plan - we will go out to the M25 - change ping ID and come back 'legit' - go onto the station - find out what the deal is and kick butt as appropriate.
So this we do - as planned - we mix with the locals on Alex Station and keep our ears open. Turns out the local (dis)organised crims are behind the deal - they seem to have sold out the Cap. A bit of judicious datamining confirms this story. Then an informant tells us that some locals know the score - so a trip to the 'Dead Drunk for Tuppence' bar. Suzie picks up a particularly stupid gangster and we manage to get him somewhere lonely - whereupon she does what she does best and we find out that the Cap is in a high security lockup planetside.

Next stop - planetside. Look out groundhogs - Weiser's crew are coming and there will be payment due!

Well, another day, another killing…..
Eventually it was decided to open up the pods we inherited. They are labelled Frozen Meat, veg & diary products, but we all know that's crap!
Just as the robots were getting stuck in the customs guys came sniffing round, but after a few drinks in the bar they gave us the all clear & we got back to the investigation in hand.
The seals were registered as being from Esteeler, Quadrant 7. Not good as Matansas "disappeared" 11 years ago which is just after these guys were sealed… smells a bit fishy to me.
Sure enough, they are full of bodies, Cpok cranked one back to life. Well Jo Zogby isn't going to be lighting any of my fires. He is a farmer from Matansas who became an indentured worker to save his farm for the family.
It was decided not to tell him there was no farm or Planet any more… Ooops!
Well, Captain managed to get himself arrested while all this is going on and a rescue mission was eventually dispatched after a bit of "re imaging" of the "Virgin to be re born "The Mostly Harmless" … someone with a sense of humour then?
A guy was mouthing off in bar about Captain, so I made his acquaintance. We were alone in the observation dome & for a moment I thought we might have something…. Giles was listening in to more than he needed, typical, he has some serious hang-ups!
Well, Steve wasn't hot enough & I'd got the info I needed, so wasted him… well, tried. He was so drunk that his head flopped more than smashed… after 2 attempts & a lot of blood, one of the guys put him out of his misery & shot him. Well, at least he won't have a sore head 'cos he won't have a head! Never mind.
Just a thought about the "corpsicle boys" some of them might be useful as Jo mentioned 20 or so of them have fighting skills, so who knows they may prove to be entertaining after all! Things are looking up! Hope we can get The Captain out soon. Cong Li is a real bitch when she's in charge all the time, she needs to chill out a bit more! Maybe she should get first pick of the Frozen Warriors? - LOL!

Yehudi's Frozen Assets

Well, we'd just taken over the new ship, and what a piece of junk we'd bought. Half the light panels weren't working and we kept having brown-outs. Dessel was well pissed off. I reckon we'd only been told the first half of the name "Like A Virgin ... only after she's been broken in by the entire spaceball league". This ship had certainly seen better days.

A quick check of the systems using the diagnostics to see what we had to repair first showed that the pods in the cargo grid were using an unusually large amount of power. Me, Giles & Israel decided to go down there and take a look for ourselves. While we were on our way out the airlock we saw Captain Weiser go out with most of the crew. They were going to the station to do a deal with some people.

Anyway we stopped thinking about that as soon as we got round the crew decks. As well as using lots of power all of our pods had airlocks on them, highly unusual. We had a good look and realising that they were all sealed with very unusual seals we took some precautions before opening the first pod. I got my reliable Bodger 200 maintenance robot down to do the deed and we let Cong Li know what we were up to.

Just as we were about to breach the seals on the first pod we saw a customs shuttle burn out of the station towards us. We retired hastily to the canteen leaving the seals intact.

The customs guys weren't the usual customs guys and they looked a bit on the nervous side as well. Like they knew something but were trying to act cool. A couple of them looked like spooks, mean looking and not worried at all. Naturally we kept it straight, were very friendly and bought them all drinks. They still wanted to look at the grid, so I span them the line that we'd just taken over the ship and we'd not had a chance to check out all the pods. We showed them the manifest and they were pretty happy, although they did check the seals on the pods.

They told us the pods had been sealed by the Esteelers on Matanzas back in Q7 in 3190! Weird as hell, specially since Matanzas got plasma'd back to glass by the Exterminators in 3196. This made me more suspicious than ever about the contents of the pods.

Once the feds had gone we broke out a combat robot and got Cpok to direct control it from the crew quarters. I took the point and broke the seals on the door with the maintenance kit. The airlock was empty, so Cpok put the robot inside and we cycled the lock.

Inside was a series of locked drawers, a bit like a morgue (so said Cpok, he being familiar with them being a medic). It took me a moment to realise that it was a cryo facility for shipping people in deep-freeze. Cpok also realised this when he opened one of the drawers with the robot. One less to defrost!

It was at this point that Cong Li said she wanted to move the ship. She'd had a call from the Captain and he'd been unable to talk clearly but he was obviously in a spot of bother. She seemed to think that he might be arrested and if we didn't move away from the station then we too might be arrested.

Some of the lads were none to happy with this, but I could see the logic. No point hanging about within range of a pacifier squadron, we'd be better off if we could stay free and break the Captain out later.

While we moved out of orbit towards some asteroids I looked up the technical data on the deep freeze so Cpok and I could get one of the bozos defrosted so we could get some answers.

Turned out the big green button said 'defrost' when we wiped the ice off it. So me and Cpok managed fine. Joe Zombie didn't though, he was too shocked by it all to be able to tell us more than he was a poor farmer and had signed up for slavery rather than lose the farm to a bank.

While we were microwaving Joe we found out that Captain Weiser had been arrested, and that two other guys had been killed in the process. All our other guys were allegedly arrested as well.

A big conflab ensued. I was all for going in and rescuing Weiser, even if it meant taking on the Starguard. However Cong Li decided that if Weiser wasn't out within 48 hours we should burn for the M25 and then do a micro-jump and come back in re-badged as a different ship. This got the votes.

We got back onto the station and then began our information gathering. A trawl through the bars produced a lead in 'Drunk for Tuppence'. Me, Suzie Chiang, Giles & Ape went round there. I went in first and took up a covering position where I could see the door, most of the bar and the guy we'd identified who knew what had happened. Giles also came in and sat at the other end of the bar, then Suzie to persuade the guy to leave (we'd gone for subtle rather than my suggestion of beating the crap out of him when he went to the toilet). Ape stayed outside.

Suzie did her work and after a short time our man was ready to leave with her. Admittedly he was pretty damn drunk, but despite this he was still able to walk. As they got up to leave two heavies tried to stop him. I intervened as a casual passer by and said to leave him alone, if he want to go with the woman then they should let him.

It was all over in a second. The woman lunged at me with a knife and I broke her arm and put her on the floor. The bloke with her also went for a weapon and I made sure he went down too. It was clear to all the witnesses that they'd started it and I'd finished it. Giles panicked and ran, scattering some credit chips on the floor. Suzie grabbed the target and took him off to the viewing gallery.

I decided to make sure that we'd get no more trouble from the heavies. The woman stopped screaming and thinking I wasn't watching she went for a gun. No contest. I disarmed her before she'd even got finger on the trigger. She said I was playing a dangerous game and that she worked for the local Spacia chief. I wasn't impressed. I told her that if she or her goon followed then I'd certainly kill her, and her boss. They both looked scared.

I caught up with Suzie, Giles and our man. Turned out he'd spilled most of his guts already, some of it over the viewing area. Suzie got a fair amount of information out of him and then decided to dispose of him in an 'accidental' fashion. Looked to me like she was trying to give him a vigourous head massage using the bench. Certainly the guy was only slightly concussed after several blows to the head, and any forensic exam would show it wasn't an accident (at least not unless he'd fallen over on the up escalator and banged his head on every step on the way to the bottom). Despairing that Suzie was ever going to finish the job I gave her a little helping hand. Job done.

Back to the ship to plan springing Weiser and the rest of the crew from the special prison planetside. And to take out the Spacia boss that had arranged for Weiser to be arrested. Turned out Suzie's victim was one of his heavy squad, and I'd also made a new enemy as well.

Bring it on.

3201.022. Alexandra Station.

1130h Weiser and Dessel disagreeing about maintenance standards aboard the ship. I think D is being over-dramatic, maybe he thinks he can get more money by stamping his foot but I think he is misreading best way to handle W, who does not react well to tantrums, though he respects plain speaking.

1200h Dessel asks me for my estimate of malfunction levels and kicks my cabin door - what is up with this guy? I tell him I can see what everyone can see, a bit of untidiness, a lot of electrical duds and shortouts but nothing crucial. He goes off grunting. Says he will do some serious purchasing.

14.30h Weiser takes Assault Teams 1 and 2 off to 'a meeting' on the station and puts me in temporary command.

15.30 Sharan, Cpok and a bunch of others are doing some checks on the legacy cargo pods and they report unusual power drain from several of them, marked 'frozen meat and veg'. When I look I can see the pods [three of which marked 'empty' were used by Dessel and his techs to fit up the multicannons] are unusual design and have airlocks fitted. Hmm. I authorise they check them out, but at that point we get a visit from the Martian Customs - at least they claim to be and their papers seem in order - but they are an unusually tough-looking bunch. Everyone on best behaviour, and finally they go.

1700h When the Pods are checked out, it turns out they contain 224 cryogenically-frozen adult humans, naturals mostly, plus several dozen 'domestic animals' and ' crop seeds'. Marked cryo-sealed at Matanzas, an Esteeler world in Q7, in 3190, 11 years ago - and that world since destroyed by the Exterminators. Unusual legacy kit!

1800h Dessel returns and says I should let Sharan and his mates check out the 'Popsicle Colonists'. They defrost one, Joseph Zogby, who confirms the story and says he was sold into 'indentured labour' aka slavery to save the family farm for other relatives during a major economic slump. Download the names into our databases, but nobody it seems of any consequence. 65 of them have the same surname, Zogby. It seems 20 of them have GF Militia experience and may be worth defrosting as cannon-fodder.
JZ is kept tranked up while we decide what to do with it all.

2130h EMERGENCY. I take a brief call from Weiser. He says he has a major problem and I need to leave the station temporarily with 'Penelope' as there is a risk the ship will be boarded by security forces. He seems not to have time to explain more and I can hear gunfire on the line. A quick conflab, we decide to wait 48 hours to see if anything more from Weiser; we just have no ideas where he is. Several crew unhappy about this, but I see little alternative.

3101.023. On alert. Dessel and techs fixing things.

3101.024

2130h No more news from Weiser. So we buzz off to hide near a handy bit of space debris, rebadge and then 'reeappear' as one of our alter-egos, SS Mostly Harmless.

3201.031 Back at Alexandra Station.

Everyone tries to find clues about Weiser's whereabouts. No official news about any arrests.

2100. Furze calls in to report a drunk has mentioned Weiser's name in 'DDFT' one of the most disreputable bars on the station. I send a team to investigate; they report the guy, who seems to be 'Steev' a loudmouth Spacia thug, is claiming 'we stitched up Weiser good' - he says there was a shootout between Spacia working for local boss Joey Verazano and Weiser's team; the COPs turned up and arrested our people, but 'forgot' to arrest the Spacia, so far so corrupt. After a kerfuffle with what seems to be a small Spacia group, Steev tells Mahmood that Weiser has been taken to the planet surface and is being held at a Maximum Security Facility "MSF 'A' " in the Frodsham Desert of Alexandra, he indicates through the observation deck floor. Steev is then silenced.

What now?