8 Lightnings got up, went back to his ship, and headed off. "Now who can I terrorise and steal money from today..."
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"Anything that can be achieved using magic can be achieved using technology." -Salrillian Illegal Publicist ekt-Herna in his last message to the Salrillian public.
(If you come to the bar, come to the actual Officer's Club Bar thread. And DArekk, you could've at least given the Taeskor a Phylydion sounding name. And WHY is it that everyone thinks that Phylydions have short, explosive tempers?!)
------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo
"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
Quote
Originally posted by Taeskor Cicion:
**( And DArekk, you could've at least given the Taeskor a Phylydion sounding name. And WHY is it that everyone thinks that Phylydions have short, explosive tempers?!)
**
(OK, I'm don't have quite the concept of what a Phylydian name is. I'm not an english major. Gimme a name and I'll edit it in. As for the temper, they seem sort of on edge and I'm try to paint <insert name here> as objectionable. )
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Me: You ******* IDIOTS!! That planet was INHABITED!!!
Them: Ooops
Me: Let's resume this disscussion near airlock 13.
(immediatly following the first disrupter missle test)
Darkk listened to Pharris's XO and chief engineer's accounts of the battle while walking through the Barbarosa II.
"Pharris, I want to level with you." Darkk said quitely.
"I was wondering why you gave me a free ship." Pharris replied.
"You were a beta tester for that ship class. The final design is now finished, thanks to you. You were very important to our work."
"You had us risking our necks in your prototype?!?" the XO spat.
"Yes, I'm sorry, but I'll make it up. I'll upgrade it to the finished version. With the special weapons."
"Special weapons?" mused the chief engineer.
"Yes, we've developed our counter to the compression cannon. The fluctuation beam. It destabalizes shields like you wouldn't believe. Just my way of thanking you for your help. Anything else I could do to make up for this? Within reason, naturally."
------------------
Me: You ******* IDIOTS!! That planet was INHABITED!!!
Them: Ooops
Me: Let's resume this disscussion near airlock 13.
(immediatly following the first disrupter missle test)
"Don't worry about it Darkk, there were no casualties, only five wounded, they're being patched up as we speak. Now about your ship, as long as you're upgrading the design, X, the chief and I have compiled our own list of "improvements" to ship. We were going to do a total refit, armour, power supplies, sensors, the works. As well as some design points I think you'll find interesting. Most of them would be way too expensive to incorporate on a mass produced ship, but I think you'd find them helpful nonetheless. consider it our bug report."
Pharris handed a data disc to Darrk.
"That's two hundred pages of notes, ideas and concept diagrams of our own improvements. You might think about showing that to your design team."
Darkk put the disc into his padd and began scrolling through the pages.
"Wow... some of these look pretty drastic..."
The chief smiled "Well, we want the thing to work just right. You have to remember, we're almost always outnumbered, so we need every advantage we can get. Half of Pharris's legend was spot welded onto the hull of the hull of the Barbarossa by yours truly." The Engineer smiled, patting his chest proudly. Pharris interrupted his gloating:
"as I was saying, all we really need is an empty hangar bay somewhere and a cargo shuttle or two to scout for parts. I've got my engineering crew, so all I really need is parts and tools, and a place to sit tight for a few weeks."
Chief couldn't help laughing.
"Weeks?! try two months, skipper, have you seen this?"
He punched his fist through the armour that had been almost a foot thick before the battle.
"Holy ****, What did that?" Dark pushed on the mangled hull plate.
The engineer crumbled a piece in his fist.
"I think it was the plasma cannons, but I could be wrong, half the plate on the ship is corroded just like that. I think the armour doesn't like deuterium plasma... it's on our fix list"
"I guess we'll have to do some more to that final design.."
------------------
"Thanks for the data, Pharris." Darkk said. "I'll put it to good use. And, for services rendered, 150,000 from the Phylydian Treasury, Nijayias Protectorate Militia Account."
"This should pay for some tools and materials!" said the chief engineer.
"Oh, and I can provide a space for you to work. We've got some docks from the glory days that aren't in use due to the small size of the militia. They should be fully functional. We wouldn't mind one of our friends using them for a bit when we don't need them. If you want, I could take you there now."
------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: target is clasical scale yet Hiesenburg uncertain
"Trent, get your butt over here!" yelled an unseen voice from across the room. Sighing, Officer Trent pushed back a report to the select committee on interstellar terrorism, and headed to the 2D screen, where a group of his colleagues were watching something.
And in Galactic News today, the unveiling of the Slug Memorial on Salril Prime was interrupted by a shocking suicide bombing. As the ribbon was cut on the fifty metre long silversteel statue, a guest shrugged off heavy security and charged the unveiling party, detonating a nuclear device within ten metres of the statue.
Initial reports name the bomber as Lieutenant J. Whitmoor, retired Liberation War veteran and personal aid to the Human Ambassador to Salril. While his motives in the attack remain vague, surviving equipment records him as yelling:
"The Golden Dawn draws nigh! Crumble, cities of the arrogant! Only the angelic fire can cleanse your sins!"
The Salrilians have withdrawn their Ambassador to Earth in protest, and other Embassies have issued statements condemning the attack and the government "responsible for this atrocity". Social Security agents on Salril are investigating lead-ups to the attack, and currently suspect a concerted conspiracy. What becomes of this, remains to be seen.
In other news, surging Vanadium prices are causing power problems for isolated Luna mining communities...
Officer Trent sat down heavily
"What do you think?" queried a friend.
"It's them again. The Order of the Golden Dawn. And they've grown stronger..."
The drydock was massive, originally constructed to facilitate the repair and refitting of Nijayais Interstellar Navy's largest carriers. It was a gigantic structure, and it was entirely self mobile, designed to pick up disabled ships where they lay, and provide a stable platform for their repair in a controlled enviornment.
It was in a mooring orbit, along with several others like it in what used to be the third largest shipyard in the galaxy. The Ferapont system contained many Huge construction facilities, Spacedocks, Dry docks, docking hangars, fighter bays, everything. It had once been the home port of the entire western fleet. Now, it was shut down. The once thriving planets in the system that had at one time benefeited from the millions of jobs needed to run the facility were now deep in recession, the shipyards were long silent.
Stormbreaker sailed into the system, entering orbit alongside the mobile drydock.
"This should provide more than enough space for you and your crew. The crew cabins are probably still furnished, and it probably has more than enough fuel to provide power for the next few months. You're welcome to use any of the transports in its landing bay if you need to "go shopping", As long as you don't take it out of orbit, you can do what you like on board. Most of these havn't been boarded for at least a decade, Ferapont has become quite deserted since its peak. It used to be one of the most wealthy systems for light years. Now, it doesn't get much traffic. I doubt you'll be noticed at all. and even then, people are used to the militia useing these as repair bays sometimes too."
Darkk looked at the tremendous mass of starbases that sprawled across the entire system, escorted by entire fleets of mobile docks, huge resupply ships, tankers, all remnants of the navy that had once needed all of these vessels to support its fleets, that now could't afford to fly all of the ships in its arsenal, let alone the field resupply ships that had once allowed armadas to campaign for years on end. He sighed. Without needing to be ordered, Stormbreaker hailed the mobile drydock, starting its generators, computers and life support systems. The drydock opened its massive doors, the opening dwarfed the gunship that was lowered into the huge bay. Tractor moors locked it in place, and the huge doors sealed behind it.
The Stormbreaker slid up and docked with the drydock, extending a docking collar, Pharris's crew crossed into what would be their new home for the coming weeks.
"Thank you for all your help, Darkk. I don't know where we would have found a better place. Hell, I'd still be back on earth fighting contractors to build my ship! With this kind of facility, we'll have the ship back together real quick."
"Well, its not exactly like we're in desperate need of these facilities right now, though we may, someday. Until then this is yours. Feel free to call me if there's trouble. Sorry to run off like this, but I have some important business to attend to. See you around, Pharris"
"Goodbye, Admiral Darkk"
The hatch sealed, and Pharris watched just long enough to see stormbreaker jump to lightspeed. He turned around and began walking to the Crew Quarters to get settled. There would be plenty of work to do later.
------------------
Dark watched Ferapont reciede in the window. In his young years on a backwater refueling outpost, going to the nearest major system, Ferapont, had provided some of the happiest times of his life. He could feel the hatred of the renegade Phylydians. In him. In his people. In every Nijayias. He would find a way to make them feel the same loss.
In any case, Pharris had helped immensely. There needed to be a strong militia. What to name the new class of gunships... "Pharris" in Nijayias would be too obvious. Pharris backwards is "Sirraph", a Salrilian name, ... then translated into Eleejeetian, and then into Nijayias becomes "Riaxx". Perfect.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 days later on the Nijayias/Obish border:
The StarLance's attack on obain had left it almost totally open to the worst scum of the universe. The pirate fleet, crewed with all manner of villians from known space, that was now skirting the boarder was about the most obsolete group of near-derelicts in the galaxy. There were more than 30 of them, but they were in such poor condition the Gaitori wouldn't consider them fit for anything other than target practice.
A single gunship aproached.
"This is Captain Ahdriadd of the Nijayias Protectorate Militia. If you do not surrender and accompany me to our handling facilities at once, you will be destroyed." Said the warship's commander.
The pirates, feeling overconfident due to their numerical superiority, responded with all the guns on their ships.
The gunship promptly accelerated to superlight. At first, the pirates thought the ship was running: no ship they knew of could fight propperly at FTL speeds. Even the audemedon had given up on that. But this was ... different. Darkk had found a solution, using the collective skills of the crew's minds to set up the run - it would never work for turrets or weapons not FTL, but the new fluctuation beam, as good at killing as a compression cannon, was tearing the ships like wrapping paper on a birthday. It was over in 3 minutes. The pirates never touched the ship.
Ahdriadd slumped in the command chair. Intraveinous fluids had to be administered. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. The new Riaxx class was powerful, and useful, but the hyperfighting trick was next to impossible. Serving as a "subserver", as StormBreaker would put it, was too much for almost anyone.
Darkk felt this from afar, and smiled. He could do better. A fleet coordinated in FTL attacks could be 50 times as effective as an ordinary fleet. That was important, for the NPM could only field 500 major ships at any point in the future for which projections exist - currently, the fleet had 200 ships cruiser class or larger, and no carriers, destroyers, or gateships (except the StormBreaker ). This little trick would only get easier with time. Soon, there would a real need for it.
------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit
(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 11-10-2000).)
The Khada class fighter dropped out into a fleet of debris. 8 Lightnings looked out through the cockpit window at what had once been a pirate fleet. On long-range scanners he picked up a rapidly disappearing gunship running a NPM ID.
What in the quadrant is Darkk up to? he thought, and set course to pursue, glad that the Endurance was still flying as fast as usual...
------------------
"Anything that can be achieved using magic can be achieved using technology." -Salrillian Illegal Publicist ekt-Herna in his last message to the Salrillian public.
Darkk stretched out through the minds aboard Ahdriadd's ship.
Something ... was ... wrong ...
Darkk wanted no evidence of what really happened. If it got out, the Phylydians would want it, and the Salrilians would panic. Darkk didn't relish the idea of trying this on a so soon, which would be the ultimite consequense of the discovery.
Ah, he reasoned, there was no evidence hyperfight existed even if the remains were documented and the ship followed. A gunship flown by any really good pilot would win that fight. And Ahdriadd normally was a very good pilot. No one would find out.
(No one should find out. This is part of the uberplot, like Sargatanus's testing earlier.)
------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit
The scanner lit up with the specs of the gunship it had determined so far. 8 examined the weapons and shield systems carefully. So, the Commander is one Ahdriadd, hmm? Oh, well, let's see where he's going today. Better than going back to the bar and drinking myself to death...
(OK, I'll be careful not to find out then. But I still want to come to chase the gunship, having nothing else to do...)
------------------
"Anything that can be achieved using magic can be achieved using technology." -Salrillian Illegal Publicist ekt-Herna in his last message to the Salrillian public.
(This message has been edited by 8 Lightnings (edited 11-11-2000).)
The air over the Nijayias Imperial Palace seemed calm - seemed.
Suddenly, on the landing pad, hidden from prying eyes by the tube it had come down, the shuttle's stealth field disengaged and it popped into visability.
"Empress Kelyra, I bid you welcome." Darkk said.
"Darkk, I told you, I'm not able to be Empress!" she replied.
"I can fix that."
"What do you mean?"
"Genetics. A normal Nijayias has 22 gene sites that control powers, either making the necissary enzymes or not. Thus there are about 22 major divisions in the normal power scale."
"That's common knowledge."
"But that's NORMAL. The royal family has 120. I'm a mutant, I have 230 - and all are for power, no defective genes there."
"So you should be in charge. You've got more than anyone."
"Except, genetics can be altered. Come on. I've managed to clear some space for you, and no one will see you come in."
Kahlad came down, and they went in. They walked through empty corridors, then entered a series of mantinance acesses. Darkk removed part of the wall, and they stepped into a dusty room that hadn't been used in centuries.
"Here you go. This is the main room of a suite that got hidden in some rebuilding or another. I found it years ago, and kept some things in one of the bedrooms. I cleared it out, and you can stay here for the forseeable future." Darkk explained.
"What about the dust?" Kahlad said.
"Easy," said Darkk.
A screen lowered from the celing, creaking and groaning. It charged up, then the dust lept up to it (not antigrav or anything exotic, static electricity; how Swiffer™ works). It then moved back up into place.
"I've brought some of your old clothes up here, and I'll use the messege tubes to send you food. You could hide for years here." Darkk said as he stepped out, replacing the panel.
"Very well," Kelyra whispered.
Darkk walked back into the corridor. His "supervisor" was there to greet him.
"Darkk, where have you been?" he asked.
"Around." Darkk responded.
"I wanted to talk about the military situation."
"You always want to know when it will be necissary for the Phylydians to come and save us. Crime is practically non-extant, the militia is handling piracy, and nobody's invading."
"Darkk..."
"I'm sorry. Did I imply you were impatient?"
"Just go away."
"Very well."
------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit
The Endurance dropped out in a Nijayias system, close behind the gunship. The scanners lit up with sensors and small science ships that would penetrate the small Khada-class fighter in under a second. And then he'd have the resident fleet upon him. The wreckage of the pirate fleet came to his mind again. What to do now...
Blast, this is too dangerous.
8 Lightnings noted the location of the system in the navicomputer and made a note next to it. Then he set course for the Salrillian border.
I'm sure they'll have some patrol ships to terrorise...
------------------
"Anything that can be achieved using magic can be achieved using technology." -Salrillian Illegal Publicist ekt-Herna in his last message to the Salrillian public.
Darkk watched slowly as the computations slowly plodded on, deep in StormBreaker's core. Genetics was so tricky, not like quantum physics. That was natural. "Ah, well," he thought, "time to catch up on my reading."
As a natural consequence of having even a partial hive-mind, the Nijayias had no great literature. They didn't even have interesting literature. So Darkk grabbed a human book from his collection. He liked especially the roaring 20s novels of the USA portion of Earth, and so chose The Great Gatsby. While doing so, he found himself staring at another book, The Last Command. This usually ment that Darkk had detected something subconciously but couldn't figure it out. He'd have to read the book to find out what about it was so special...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Turik Nebula had been for centuries a place nobody went. The area was declared unnavigable, and even the audemedons never ventured in. Pirates, however, did.
For the Riksha , an ageing Gaitori frigate, not surprisingly run by primarily Gaitori, but containing the diverse mix of rouges from all species that pirates usually employ, it was a normal patrol. The 2nd watch had just ended and the 3rd watch was feeling bored. They wouldn't be for long.
Suddenly mass and magnetic readings began to spike. At first they thought they were about to hit a planet. Then the readings began to show more detail, and it became apperant that there was a fair-sized group of starships presant. Probes were dispatched, and 20 minutes later the ship's overlord was called via hypercom.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Darm, an ageing Cantharan, had managed to become a very self important pirate overlord without becoming an important pirate overlord. He was at first very annoyed with being called in the middle of the night (local time), but decided not to execute the captain of the Riksha or any of its crew.
He had a lot of men, but few ships capable of combat against a modern vessel on any terms. These ships would make him go down in history. If he needed more men, well, he could bully around some other pirate overlords. This would be grand.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Darkk flipped to a page explaining the Empire's use of the lost Katana fleet and stood bolt upright. He had suspected human sci-fi had been influenced by resident Nijayias, who were there all the way up to 3 years before the Cantharan invasion. In any case, there was a similar event in his history.
Slightly before Darkk entered the navy, there had been a massive shipbuilding and engineering project to create a large and completely redesigned fleet. There was a war with the Sals at the time, and it wasn't long before Salrilian sabatoge blew the whole plan out of the water. They used Mind Rippers to drive the crewers crazy during the ceremonial formation flying, and the gateship took them on an unknown course into the unexplored space.
Darkk was terrified at the prospect. Anyone finding it would have the necissary firepower to overwhelm Human or Nijayias space without any existing fleet. It would be horrible. Fortunantly, he remembered that it had split into five sections when it jumped. It would take time to locate all of them, even with the data from one group. Unless, of course, that group contained the gateship. Not much time to prepair...
(Let me get the next 2 posts on this. I want to get it fleshed out.)
------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit
The small Endurance , after disabling and stealing money from a few Salrillian ships, headed for the Sol system. There, he began to shift through the neccessary beurocracy to repair one of his fighters...
------------------
"Anything that can be achieved using magic can be achieved using technology." -Salrillian Illegal Publicist ekt-Herna in his last message to the Salrillian public.
Darm's gunship slowly edged up to the disabled Nijayias gateship. An immense ship, it could have accomodated the gunship through any of its openings. Darm marveled at its state of preservation: no hull breaches, no scoring, no damage at all. Why anyone would abandon a perfectly good fleet disturbed him.
The EVATs moved through the corridors with care. Various Nijayias skeletons were everywhere, and whatever killed them apparently happened fast. The ship's coroner examined the skeletons and determined they had been killed by energy fields.
What had made the energy fields was easy to find out: the computer logs showed that during the jump the containment field of the reactor core of the gateship had been destabalized, as had those of the other ships via command codes.
When Darm arrived, he knew what he had found. It was the lost fleet of the Nijayias. More importantly, it was his ticket to becoming not merely a pirate, but a conqueror. With this fleet and his men, he could take independant systems and form an empire. No, that was too small. He would take a nation. The UNS.
Unfortunantly, the four other groups of ships he had located with the gateship's data were in bad shape. First he would need the equipment to refit them...
(1 to go.)
------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit
(Its been a while since Sundered Angel, Sargatanus, and Mag have posted. A little too long...)
*Crimson and golden beams lit up the sky as the fleet that had been following a Gaitori transport for the last two weeks finally made themselves known. The transport exploded brilliantly, just outside of the long range scanners of the planet ahead. It never knew what hit it...
The fleet of 26 ships, led by a navy blue Ishiman HVD, cruised at full throttle towards the planet ahead. The recent battle with the StarLance had wiped out most of the Gaitori fleet so that now they couldn't even defend from pirates. It was because of the drastically reduced fleet that the head of the small group of mercenaries untied under the captain of the ishiman HVD had decided to raid a Gaitori planet on the fringe of known space.
The planet had nothing of strategic value, with the exception that it was out of the way and a likely place to hide something, and was usually ignored by the major empires. The Gaitori had been using it as a shipyard, and the skies around the gray planet were once filled with many transports bustling. Ever since the time of the Cantharan crusades, the shipyards have had very little traffic and productions. Huge platforms were left abandoned floating around the lifeless planet and there usually wasn't any traffic. Usually.
The fleet vanished into the distance as they engaged sublight boosters.*
*A disturbing feeling came over Avatara as he stared at the many ships that were currently traveling to and from this backwater planet. Appearantly, the Gaitori had started using the shipyards again. Realizing his huge mistake too late, the fleet dropped out right on top of the shipyards.
A huge black ship loomed in the viewscreen, structural supports hanging on like parasites. Transports hurried from the planet to the ship and back, with others coming from out of system. Global orbiting defense platforms were scattered about, luckily none were within range.
A hail was picked up from the black ship and directed at the commanding ship, Azurewrath blazed in letters on it's hull. Avatara ignored the request they pull out, he had already wasted enough money to make this operation happen. With a signal over the comm, Avatara signaled to fire. Might as well finish what we started.
Gaitori ships were now finally opening fire on the mercenary fleet, but many missed. One thing did hold Avatara in shock though...it was the fact that the huge black ship was of Sargatanus's design...*
------------------
Quote
Originally posted by Avatara:
**
A huge black ship loomed in the viewscreen, structural supports hanging on like parasites. Transports hurried from the planet to the ship and back, with others coming from out of system. Global orbiting defense platforms were scattered about, luckily none were within range.
Gaitori ships were now finally opening fire on the mercenary fleet, but many missed. One thing did hold Avatara in shock though...it was the fact that the huge black ship was of Sargatanus's design...*
**
(I hope that's not from my subplot. If it is, A) the ships are of Nijayias design, and 
the pirates don't have the refit facilities. What I had planned will need serious restructuring or fall apart if they have adequate shipyard facilities, but they shouldn't since I'd established he wasn't an important pirate (having your own planet and shipyard would more than qualify him for that). It relies on them raiding Ferapont. Email me if you want to work this out in detail.)
------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit
He looked at the huge hulk hanging motionless in the cavernous drydock. Catwalks reached out from the walls of the chamber and snaked around the Gunship that was being held in place by half a dozen tractor beams. The drydock made the repairs much easier. The catwalks were all manoueverable, and could place people wherever they needed to be on the damaged craft, which hung, weightless in the cavernous hangar, However, to make movement easier, the gangways all had artificial gravity enabled for just a few feet above them, so you could walk on the catwalk comfortably, but still manipulate heavy parts without difficulty.
Pharris walked along towards his ship, or what was left of it... the chief was performing a total teardown, stripping away everything, down to the decks and the frame. There were fleets of discarded materials floating aimlessly around the huge cargo bay, from hull plates to damaged consoles. Everything that was being replaced or could not be salvaged was just tossed out for the moment, and would either be destroyed or sold to a salvage yard, depending on how important it was to the Nijayais. The ship had been stripped down to her chassis. Pharris pulled himself through to where his chief engineer was moving the entire engineering rooms twenty feet aft.
"Hey Chief! How's it going?"
"pretty well, this drydock has really solid repair equipment. The teardown took less than half the time I though it would, which gives me a lot more time than I thought I had. The crew isn't due with the new equipment for another four days, so I can catch up on a lot of stuff."
"Hey, take your time, we're not going to get another opportunity to do a teardown for a few years, at least. I don't want to miss anything."
"Well, I'm trying to solve a pretty deep rooted problem here. The center of gravity is too far forward, helm was whining about it since he first took control. Of course, he could just switch the ballast tanks full aft, but I think it would be better to give him some more freedom to play with ballast, so I'm moving the heavy antimatter plants back, and putting the new fusion plant closer to the midline. Then the new engines are bigger, and I'm putting in an extra, so the nozzles will be further outboard, giving helm better control of engine steerage, but the fifth plant will let us compensate better for damage... unfortunately, it'll lower our range by a few days, unless we find room for more fuel cells. Unfortunately, I'm gonna need to reconfigure the bows too, i got a call today, ECM says it takes twice the power and is three times bigger than our old one... At least he's proud of it, says it makes Barbarossa's EQ look like a flashlight and a magnifying glass."
"Maybe I shouldn't have said money is no object..."
"Your fault for plundering so damn much of it. Look at it this way, you get a better ship, and worst comes to worst, we go and steal it back! all those teams have fake IDs are paying cash, and are flying Nijayais shuttles, nobody will know who the hell they are."
"Whatever you say chief, as long as you can make this pile of metal hold air, I'll be happy. It'd be nice if it could fight too, but I don't want to challenge your abilities, chief."
"Shut up and go do whatever it is you captains do when you're not hounding your crew."
"Chief, hounding my crew is a full time occupation, I don't do anything else, now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hound the galley crew. Want to come? I hear they brought back some fresh stuff from Ferapont Alpha"
"I'm always ready to sample local delicacies..."
------------------
