Personal Log for Silver "Quicksilver" Hawke
[["Scruffy Traders" group]]
IF YOU'RE PLAYING IN THIS GAME, DON'T READ THIS!
(This goes for Judd, John Moore, Vince, Mike, and anybody else who has
played or might play... Go read the Albatross logs!)
[Back to Gaming War Stories page]
Cast:
Milliken@io.com: Main GM; Awoloomarra (Sparrial pilot);
(runs Captain Parvari, & T'Kik/T'k'k, Hive Beetle engineer for a couple
of games)
mca@christa.unh.edu: T'k'k (Hive Beetle engineer [Hive
Beetles are group minds: the not-too-bright-but-trainable drones are controled
telepathically by the "queen."]), another fellow later.
DDumont@christa.unh.edu: Warren Pheral (trader).
JadaO@aol.com: Kelly M'Buto (Swiss Army Psi, TL4 human)
knk@christa.unh.edu: Derek Jethro/Dirk Jet (split-personality
security officer)
Arcangel@io.com: Silver "Quicksilver" Hawke (hot
pilot & presumed smuggler); & [UNKNOWN TO THE OTHER
PLAYERS -- DON'T TELL THEM!] also Sherinford "Sheri"
Holmes, Scherazade Harami, Shannon Hood, Serena Hedoni, Sandra Houston,
Simone Hospitalliar, Solome Houri, & Sadie Hawkins (among others).
[[Things in several brackets are notes from the player only.]]
**October 1, 154; written on Oct 4, 154**
Woke up, two people (male) walking out of the room. One asked something
about why the other was dispensing with the restraints, the other replied,
"She's not dangerous anymore, Doctor. We'll finish the procedure tomorrow."
Room looks like a sort-of hospital, has med equipment, hospital bed, even
a patient, in a friggin' hospital gown and nothing else. No name, no memory
of anything but this... Then the voice in my head -- "You have to get
out of here. Your equipment's in a room three doors up, on the right."
Lovely. Feel woozyish... Peek out the door -- secretarial station-like place
to one side, doors to the other. Go padding barefoot and bare to the door.
There's a lock-pad. Voice tells the combination, it works. Looks like an
office area. Biosuit and stuff! Grab biosuit, put it on. Lots of comm gear
here, put that in the utility belt, etc. Some sort of diagnostic equipment
-- voice says to pull the back off, voila, lots of stuff... Electronic lockpick.
(How do I know what that is?) Holdout needler. Some blue pills, some red
pills, a couple of hypos, one each color.
Voice tells to take a red pill, wait 30 minutes. Right. Whatever you say,
guardian spirit. Poke around. Yup. Executive office. Disks... Grab a handful,
rearrange the rest. "Not dangerous" my friggin' hospital gown.
Voice again, says to get out the electronic lockpick, and the pilot's license
from the back of the belt -- bioplastic back, opens when I run my finger
over it. I've got *how* many IDs? Oh, my. Voice gives very detailed instructions
to get to the executive shuttle... This place feels like a space station,
not a ship. Nobody's around -- it's quiet. Night cycle, too, but more than
that; this place feels empty. At the airlock -- this will set off an alarm
when I pick this lock, according to the voice and ... and my own knowledge
that I can't bypass the alarm, so I'll have to hurry. No problem...
Get to ship, there's a beeper in there, and sounds of a person. Get in,
shoot person with needler. He's still breathing. Push him out the airlock
into the passage tube. Hotwire shuttle, slot in pilot's license [["Silver
Hawke." The ID that was with the rest of the equipment openly was
Sandra Houston, InStelCom
Tech. Same person, just blurry, and with darker hair than Silver...]], disengage
without blowing the air out of the tube. Drat -- can't pilot and shoot at
the same time, can't answer the comm and pilot, either... Two other shuttles,
coming from other side of station, and shooting at me. Friggin' unfriendly.
Try to get them to hit the station, friggin' hell, doesn't work. *I* get
hit. Time to run. Ha, overpowered thing, Warp 7!
An hour out, free & clear. Voice again: "Go to Seth Henderson on
New Garavar. He'll get your memories back. Good luck." Last I hear
from the voice... 12 hours till the powerplant and/or engines go. Only planet
in range is a friggin' waterworld called Pelageos, with a bunch of human
barbarians on it. Xenophobic, too. Oh, well. Let's head out for there. Strip
everything portable out of the shuttle, get it ready on the life raft, shoot
the emergency beacon with a laser pistol, monkey with the flight recorder
-- oh, looks like someone was here before me, the battery's "worn out."
Take that too, never know what might be on it. Play with biosuit, change
it to the green&silver design that's on Silver's ID (but not the bright
silver on her license), rather than the InStelCom design with Sandra's name
on it. Nap. Feel woozy again.
At waterworld. (Friggin' waterball.) Enter atmosphere, heading about a mile
away from large collection of small powercells, equator. Oh, goody. Now
about *5* friggin' minutes till the engines fail! Atmosphere must be doing
something through the hole in the hull... Toss raft out, retrieve license,
hit in emergency "find continent and land" instructions, and *jump!*
Looks like I can swim. Shuttle gets about 10 miles away, flares, goes down
and makes a steam cloud. Row, row, row the raft... Uh-oh, another ship.
Heading towards where the shuttle went down. Row... Heading for an island
that looks fairly uninhabited -- maybe one person. A longboat started out
from a bigger nearby island, but veered off for some reason. Goody. Island:
inhabited by one person. "Witch."
Am I a witch? I hear(d) a voice in my head.... Wait a while. Damn, the other
ship is coming back... Toss activated "distress beacon" from raft
overboard. Need to check them out. Feel sick again. Two men come out from
ship, one with blaster, one without. Climb tree, aim rifle at the one with
the blaster. Negotiate -- they don't seem to be with NovaTech (the insignia
that's all over the shuttle, the station...). Make up vague story, get on
board -- hire on as pilot, get native to give me a hand rowing over.
[[Needing some fast cash, the Albatross
went to Pelageos -- kilgar oil is used in antiagathics, and a vial of it
can be bought for tens of credits worth of stuff, and sold for tens of thousands
of credits -- if it's fresh. As they got within range, they saw a shuttle
go into the atmosphere, and flare and "die." The words "salvage
fee!" sprang to mind, and they went to investigate. They hauled the
sinking shuttle over to a submerged mountain top (a few miles beneath the
surface, rather than several) and investigated it, finding that the emergency
beacon had been shot out, everything portable in the shuttle was *gone*,
and that so was the "black box" flight recorder. They took the
computer out for T'kik to work on, hoping that some clues might be found
there and left a salvage beacon to mark the sunken ship. Then they headed
for the nearest tribe -- on the equator. As they neared there, they picked
up another "distress beacon" that had just been activated -- it
was about fifty or so meters underwater off the "shore" of one
of the floating islands. The Captain
set the ship down rather hard and damaged the seals in the lower gun --
T'kik complained. Warren
and Derek went to investigate. They found one native woman there, and after
a little while, were confronted with the question, "Where are you from?"
from a person up in a tree, with a laser rifle aimed at Derek. A few more
questions later, mostly along the lines of who might be employing the Albatross,
and the new woman came down the tree. She wanted passage to New Garavar,
instanter. Parvari wants to know if she any useful skills? Yes, she can
pilot. She admits to being the pilot of the shuttle, but is not mentioning
it very much... Is it stolen? Not really, she says. Uh-huh... Well, the
Albatross needs another person who can fly the ship, and definitely someone
who can fly the ship better than Parvari! Derek can probably keep an eye
on her. Her name is Silver Hawke, "Two words, 'e' on the end of 'Hawk.'"
Something about that name bothers Parvari. Well, bring her on board.]]
Met by a hive beetle with a laser pistol. click-click-click. "Don't
pretend you're not sentient -- you'd be trying to eat the gun if that were
the case." Doesn't want the native on. *I* can't haul all that cruft
to my room! I need to hit an autodoc or something -- I feel sick, and there's
no telling what that red pill really was.
The bug doesn't believe she's a "witch" -- says that witches don't
exist.
"Witch" is right, and bug is wrong! -- she knocked the bug's pistol
out of aim without touching it! (Bug says to Security guy, "Witch!")
Right. Could be useful when I go after NovaTech... Hire her. I'll pay her
passage -- one of my IDs has a nice bank account. Go to autodoc. Bug plays
around with the autodoc blades. Cute, real cute. Ignore, ignore. Does tests.
Tell it to watch for strange drug reactions. Finishes. "Not sick. {click}
Feel bad." Whatever *that* means. Go to 'fresher, quarters, drop off
stuff, go to bridge and fly the friggin' ship over to the bigger island.
No friggin' problem. After enough irritation to make me glad they took my
weapons, (I have to admit that I've got a memory problem -- "hit my
head") I finally get told I'm addicted to Dex-boosters... That's what
the red pills are. Lovely. I run out of those, I won't be good for anything
at all... The blue pills -- get the bug to run a test -- are IQ-adders.
But I don't seem to have *them* in my blood...
[[T'kik finds that Silver is addicted to Dex-adders, tells Warren and Captain
Parvari. Oh, well -- that's not uncommon among pilots. What *is* strange
is that she doesn't seem to know it! She says something about thinking "it
was some kind of stimulant!" Parvari allows as to how that could be
one way to look at it. Silver finally says that she has a touch of amnesia
-- yeah, right. Parvari tells her that it was a Dex-adder she took, and
that she's addicted to them. She looks minorly stunned for a moment, then
recovers and hands a blue pill to T'kik, asking what *that* might be --
IQ-adder. The name, "Silver," is still ringing bells with Parvari,
but he's not sure -- something just doesn't quite match.]]
Captain wants to hire the Witch, Kelly, too, when he finds out what she
can do. Me first. She keeps saying she "Saw" that she belonged
on the ship. These people don't normally leave their world. Whee.
[[Wanting a larger guard on Warren and Derek, who have gotten *three* vials
of kilgar oil (!!!), Parvari drafts Silver to go with him. Sometimes these
natives try to jump the off-world traders instead of being content with
what they've got. Silver has a dino-laser from that shuttle, and can use
the thing, she says, so that ought to be impressive enough. On the way down
to where her weapons got put, they find that Kelly, the native "Witch,"
has gotten locked into her room by a short in the door-control panel. [Kelly
had been pushing buttons at random when she got left in the room -- she'd
turned the lights on and off, the temperature down several degrees, and
made the beds fold up & down. And she'd hit the "fire!" button,
setting off an alarm down in T'kik's area -- T'kik comes back and tells
Kelly not to push buttons! If they'd been in space, that fire-alarm could
have evacuated all the air in the room... A small confusion about "which"
and "witch" (referring to buttons, I think) occurs, and T'kik
goes chittering around "Which witch!" Left alone again, and this
time locked into her room, Kelly uses her electrokinesis power to accidently
fry the door panel -- the lights go, it starts getting cold (from the temp
change earlier), and she uses her photokinesis to make a light in the room.]
Opening the door, Silver and Parvari find that there is a glowing ball of
light in the room! Silver pokes at it -- insubstantial -- and Kelly admits
that it's her doing. Parvari wants to know what else she can do. Move things?
Yes. Know things? Yes. Read thoughts? {Telepathically:} *Send them, too.*
Now *this* is a nice sort of "edge" when trading with primative
alien races!!]]
We've got some kind of liquid antimatter, or better, from these waterballers,
and are headed to Unar at highest warp. Unars give me the creeps, for some
reason... Scaly things like that should *not* be allowed to evolve intelligence!
(Kaa {shudder} are even worse...)
**Oct 6, 154**
On to Unar. Bet everyone's wondering why someone in a biosuit spends all
her time in the fresher... (Had to wash out the dye on my hair pretty quick,
to start with.) Cranky as hell most of the time -- trying not to take those
little red pills until I'm driven to it... All my weapons from the NovaTech
shuttle are locked away. I haven't volunteered my holdout needler.
Check NovaTech -- they deal in biotech: bionics, etc.
I've got a bit of scar tissue where an implant comm might have been. *sigh*
It probably had several different frenquencies, so the different people
wouldn't all have the same comm code. Drat. That would have been useful.
I can't afford to get a normal one now, either.
I've got a most entertaining assortment of equipment. Sonic screen, comm
tap, nanorecorder bugs. Gah. Spend most of my time piloting -- even when
I'm on the down side of the pills, I'm still better than Captain Parvari.
Security fellow is nice, Derek ("Dirk") Jethro ("Jet").
Trader fellow, though cute, doesn't seem to like me much -- Warren Ferel.
Avoid him. Kelly M'Buto, of course, resident Witch. And last but not least,
T'kik, the Bug engineer.
I wonder if the ID pouch is finger-print locked -- hand to Kelly, "Anything
witchy about this?" She just holds it, gives it back a little later,
looking spooked. Argh -- meant to see if she'd find the secret pouch! She
says something about "it was really strange, I saw all these faces,
but they were all the same face, only with different hair, different eyes..."
Aie! At least she didn't say, "they were all *your* face"....
Maybe she didn't See clearly enough... Have to make sure that she doesn't
do that with anything else of mine too soon.
**Written Oct 7, 154. 1300 shiptime**
Two days from Unar -- in comm range. Read the news... Oh, hell. Some friggin'
idiot firebombed Seth Henderson, who, it seems, was a dealer in the shadier
sections of biotech, illegal braintapes, etc. No wonder I was headed there.
But he's presumed dead (wouldn't bet against him having a clone & tape
of his own, but there's no way I can root him out anytime soon, especially
with no memory...), and his stock destroyed -- news seems to think that
the Organization was moving in on freelancers. Pound solid things and curse
loudly. Luckily, there's no-one else on the bridge right now.
More news... Oh, my, that's amusing -- some "ShadowHawk" person
managed a 500,000 credit jewel heist off of the luxery cruiser _Pathfinder_.
I wonder... Check story -- an interview with a Serena
Hedoni... Right. If I had longer sparkly-black hair, and those black-with-silver-cat's-pupils
contacts, and a bit of makeup... I don't have an ID for her, though. Who
named ShadowHawk... Scherazade
Harami. Heh. I wonder. Huh? I've got *mail*... Lessee, something to
Serena Hedoni -- mining colony wants her to come give a show. Right... Uh,
"Maybe." Two others, with a funny symbol... "Verify Decode"
the computer says... Uhhhhhhhhh -- is that a sensor off to one side? Put
finger on it. Presto! To Shadow from Flare,
and to Quicksilver from some Thral boss, in Thrallian. Wow. Let's see what's
on the computer secretly. Ah. "Reminders" folder! Pounce! Oh,
my. 10 blind Email account numbers on Byte -- 3 of them the ones that I
got mail to just now -- and a blind credit account that pays for the Email
accounts automatically. $150 a month. Scherazade bought this computer from
Artemis Enterprises for *how* much? Well, I guess it's worth it, custom
work, that sort of thing. Anyway, that's $400 a month.
(Check out Artemis -- the Pres. is ... Selene
Holmes? Huh?? But no, get a promo, different face, different body-type.
Makes sense -- I wouldn't be paying off this computer if I were the company-owner
in my spare time. Entertaining coincidence -- I wonder if that's why I got
the computer from Artemis in the first place?)
Three station lockers -- one at New Garavar, one at Thral, and one at Kintara.
I wonder -- Hedoni said she, I, whatever, was going to be touring Kintara
for a while. And I don't have an ID card for her. Maybe her stuff is there?
I wouldn't mind getting that cape of hers, mine, whatever. And I really
wouldn't mind getting the money for doing a show as her! Those lockers are
about $15 each per month.
Nearly $2000 a month total-debt! And that's not even counting the friggin'
pills! Augh! I'll be lucky to make much over *one* thousand credits a month!
Even if the royalties on Harami's photo-documentaries are going into that
blind Byte account, that's not much! Still... 500,000 credits from the ShadowHawk
heist, that's 50,000 on the black market (I just love how I know these things...
Grrr.), and even with the stuff that I've got, that's probably a fair amount
in the Byte account... (*If* that was me and not just me being cute with
the friggin' nickname.) I need to know how much is in there! But I don't
know which ID I established it in. Hm. I can go and revalidate myself genetically,
I expect, and I might be able to bluff my way down there and not mention
my name until I'm there -- I'll give the number, and my finger or something,
and with luck, the person will say, "Ms. So&So" and I'll have
a clue who I'm supposed to be. But that takes going to Byte. *sigh* Having
this job is better than having no job, of course. Right. First order of
business, get to Kintara -- that mining company wanted to see Hedoni, and
they'll pay 500 creds for her, and I can use the money. I suppose I can
tell the others that it's a stage name or something.
**Oct 7, 154**
At Unar. Huh. Guess people know me as Quicksilver... Some sort of smuggler,
I seem to be? Figures. Find doctor, slip him 100 creds for "examination"
{No, I don't really need to be examined, stop drooling...} Get prescription
for 6 months. Must make a note to look this fellow up next shore leave here
(maybe) -- see if I can get the prescription renewed cheap. Ha! I'm getting
the pills *cheap* here! Argh. Friggin' debts... 2 months of pills, pay dues,
etc. Dump as much of my cash as I can into the Byte account -- the money
goes in, but it can't come out for me. *sigh* Down to 8 creds on Silver's
acct.
[[Parvari sends Derek checking to see if Silver's wanted for any crimes
-- looks like she's not. Parvari sees Silver (going out to "get her
prescription filled" -- i.e., get more Star Fire {DX Adder}) in the
mirror-reflective silver biosuit (she'd been in a green biosuit before,
with silver trim -- the pilot's license had had the silver suit, but Parvari
hadn't looked that closely), and adds that in with the white-blond hair
and blue eyes and very-nice body and profession... QUICKSILVER! Small rep
as a smuggler (never caught), will outfly anything (or crash trying, probably),
and has a quirk -- one does *not* ask *her* for, ah, favors; *she* insists
on doing the asking! Bother her, and you're liable to get the "family
jewels" stunned at close range, or worse. Some rumors say that if she
does ask one, one had better say "yes" or else. Other rumors say
that saying "yes" to her is a good way to die happy, aged before
one's time. Focus of several songs, numerous stories, and something of a
budding legend! ON HIS SHIP! Oh, well -- at least she's supposed to be a
hot pilot, and she does seem to be half-way decent.]]
**Oct 9, 154**
Arrange a cargo to Kintara for 20,000 creds and only a couple of cy. Talk
everyone else into it, especially Warren, who takes a lot of talking....
He's not controllable/trustable... Go to Kintara Station. Find out that
Kintaran flight paths are most amusing. Kelly goes drinking with the Customs
Officer. Discover that Derek is scared of open spaces! And he flips personalities
from nice to obnoxious! Woops. Oh, well. Get Hedoni's trunk. Come back.
(I owe Derek 40 credits for rental of the cargo-hauler -- the flight-path
for *that* was even *more* entertaining! Didn't even think to use the autopilot...)
Friggin' bug cuts the gravity while I'm trying to get the trunk to my cabin!
Well, it *is* easier this way... Get it to the cabin, strap it down, tell
bug thanks and can you restore the gravity now. NOT THAT HIGH! Friggin'
1.5 Gees! Fall down. Inform snickering bug that if I break an arm or something
then the *Captain* will have to pilot out. {click} From Kintara station.
{fear-click!} Bug promises not to break my anatomy. Later, see bugs hauling
the dinolaser somewhere. Peek around the corner at the Kintaran Liberation
Front (KLF) (!) who is escorting Kelly back, presumably to hijack the ship
for a while. Scherazade did an interview with the KLF once! Oh, I hope I
wore friggin' perfume then, or else he might blow my cover! Let the Bug
play backup with the dinolaser. Oh, my. Kelly did something and the KLF
fell asleep on his furry feet. He was going to use pheremone spray on us?
Oh, my. *sigh* Leave it with him. I woke up without my stuff once, can't
bear to do that to another person, even if it would be valuable.
Flight out is *really* nasty -- there's this friggin' huge ship in our flight
path (The _Hell_ -- wasn't that ship mentioned in the Artemis promo? No
*way* I want to hit that!), and the station AI is insisting that we undock
*now* or pay a fine... I think Dirk ticked it off. Call up the Hell's pilot,
apologize to the Sparrial, and just barely make it out with minor scratches
on the paint. Sparrial says it wishes "she'd let me fly the other one."
I don't think there's *anything* I wouldn't rather fly than a white elephant
like *that* ship!
Looks like we're heading back to the friggin' waterball, to make the salvage
beacon they put on the shuttle into a respond only to code thing -- guess
they don't want NovaTech on their backs for helping me... *sigh* They all
think I stole it. The shuttle's computer might ought to lose a few bits
of itself sometime...
Two million credits that ship was worth, new? Oh, the friggin' *irony* of
it! A two million credit aquarium ornament. And I don't get to touch *any*
of it! *sigh*
On and out to the rest of the run....
**Oct 11, 154**
Computer, computer.... Runs a bit...fast. Too expensive. Even if there were
an AI in here, it should only cost *half* as much as I'm paying! Take the
thing apart... See what I get. Drat -- computer hardware is not my forte.
Too much circuitry? All unlabled -- only Artemis is going to be messing
with it... ("If you are reading this label, the warranty on this machine
is void." Thanks heaps.) This thing is the *next* generation up of
computers! *Fine* manufacture! Most of the parts are...idle? Houston, you
idiot. Past the "bland" exterior... 3x hard memory?? More sophisticated
user interface. The ISC logo is holographic! "Change Icon." {Insufficient
privilage} "How do I get sufficient privilage?" {Enter Chameleon
mode} "Enter Chameleon mode." {Enter password} Argh. Not SH. Not
ShadowHawk. Not Quicksilver. HOUSTON YOU FRIGGING IDIOT! I can change the
outer "shell" (currently InStelCom, registered to Houston) from
Cam. Mode too. *If* I knew the PW.
**Oct 23, 154**
Evaded Pirate-trap -- a distress beacon from a small prospector. We were
nearly there when Kelly came in asking what we were doing, and saying we
shouldn't -- she'd Seen people aiming things at us, us being locked in small
rooms. I've been locked up once too many times; never again! The prospector
-- bait? Warren scanned, picked up some kind of anomaly a little ways away
from the prospector, which drifted to one side when I tried to be on the
total opposite side of it, straightline with the prospector between us.
Prospector claimed it had a power-plant problem -- T'kik didn't think so,
thought it was bogus. We *ran*. Stealthed ship and prospector started chasing!
About to be overtaken, fired on cloaked ship -- ha, the frigging thing went
visible! It took out our fresher, we fired all our missiles at it, it veered
off (minus one life-sign) and we got *out* of there!
[On to November, 154]