Very well, then. Let us begin.
From one of the bar's curving panoramic windows, mamajama sees a retooled Helian, repainted in swirls of psychedelic colours, launch from the truly dangerous levels of Freeport Station.
The garish paint job, the massively enhanced drives, the additional Blaze Cannons and Needle Launchers all add up to one thing- the criminal known as the "Hand of Joy" has just left the station.
Pulling her plasma squirt pistol from it's holster, mamajama stretches and stands.
"My prey just left dock." she tells the bar en masse. "Anyone up for a hunt?"
Half a dozen of the captains in the bar immediately clamour to chase the Renegade drugrunner.
In the excitement everyone ends up running for their ships, making the regular Freeport Renegades think that there's some kind of UE prescence on the station.
Shade quietly walks after them -well, as quietly as one can in steel-capped boots, anyway- and reaches the ramshackle docking bay just as the last ship, Gazza's " The Devil's Kiss ", leaves.
Shaking his head at the primitive technology employed by everyone else, Shade sketches a complex sigil in the air with one gloveless, glowing blue hand.
Before him appears a small ship only ten meters long; It looks similar to a Crescent Fighter, but is constructed entirely of a single huge multifaceted crystal.
Blue sparks shimmer over it.
Pressing a hand to the forward facet which is positioned where a hatch control would be on a normal Crescent Fighter, Shade morphs into the crystalline structure of the ship.
Minutes later, the fighter, trailing blue sparks like a cometary tail, catches up with the other ships.
The modified Helian belonging to the "Hand of Joy", identified as the " Fuzzy Bunny ", is still in the lead, racing to reach hyperspace before it's pursuers catch it.
The bargoers chase the Fuzzy Bunny through the Gorky, DSN-3587, and DSN-6253 systems. They are deep into the Proxima Nebula. The Fuzzy Bunny races through DSN-463, DSN-7887, and DSN-5495.
At the edge of known space, in the heart of the Nebula, the Fuzzy Bunny continues to flee, beyond the known starcharts.
Tracking it's hyperspace entry route, OV leads the way into terra incognita.
The prey leads them through an unknown system containing a few asteroids and a blue-white star, an equally mysterious system full of tiny planetoids, and into orbit of an ugly red dwarf.
In high orbit of the single lump of rock which passes for a planet out here sits a monster of a ship.
Like Freeport station, it has been constructed of a myriad of ships. Reworked Freighter cargo pods sit as ramshackle fighter bays between an array of UE Carrier fins and Cargo Transporter solar panels.
Bits of Voinian Cruisers and their armour jut like steel scars from the buckled monstrosity of the ship.
Around it orbit a variety of ships, from old colony ships to nearly new hijacked UE Destroyers. All have been reworked into powerful fighting vessels.
The Fuzzy Bunny darts for a small docking bay near the ship's vast engines.
Minutes later, commscreens on all the bargoer's ships crackle to life, revealing the face of a rather pretty comms officer.
She lifts manacled hands to the viewscreen.
"We are all slaves here." she tells them. "please, please, rescue us."
The viewscreen's image flickers as the slave is pushed roughly from her seat.
The face which now fills the viewscreen is far less good-looking; one good eye looks out of a face crisscrossed with scars.
The other eye socket is an empty crater, cyborg wiring trailing from the masses of scar tissue.
"Enough o' tha'." He growls. "Th's here is my ship, the Acid Trash. You're all mine now, alla youse!"
Three retooled ships gather to lock tractor beams on a single bargoer's ship, dragging them into the docking bays of the Acid Trash.
Each ship is isolated and pulled into a seperate docking bay, where they hit the deck with a jolt.
Outside the various ships, there is a hissing as primitive life-support systems refill the bays with oxygen, and in their seperate bays, the hatches of the patron's ships are forced open
Okay, people, we have to get the "Hand of Joy", probably kill the captain of the Acid Trash , possibly free all the slaves, and get out of here.
The rules are, as usual;
- no resolving the situation in one post.
2)no weapons of ultimate destruction.
Enjoy!
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(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/shades_shipyard")Shade's Shipyard(/url), the source for your ship needs.