The Thargoid and Fer-de-Lance

[illu Minti]

"Its been awhile" Agent Illu thought to himself, as he had sneaked into a dark quiet booth at the far corner of the bar, very heavily disguised as none other then Susan Boyle! "Agent P would have been proud of that one" he reminisced. He looked fondly about the bar remembering the good, the bad, and the indecently outrageous antics that had happen here.

Agent Illu waited and watched the old Miner slip off his stool and trundle to the bars notoriously smelling toilets, not a problem for Frank he thought, nose blind due the amount of years he had lingered here!

Illu took the opportunity to move to the bar quickly, he passed the jukebox and pinned a Christmas card there addressed to all the old patrons old and new and simply signed "Thanks for the fun times, still fondly remembered" .. then Illu placed a bottle on the bar where Frank was seated, he smiled to himself tapping the bottle and with one last look he pulled up his Susan Boyle skirts and whisked out of the bar "Enjoy the beer Frank" he laughed quietly "i know you just love Jinx beer!" with that the agent was gone.

 

[Frank]

Frank left the toilet hobbling, and a bit out of breath. It had been a good one. He'd noticed the Christmas card pinned to the jukebox. It wasn't a surprise to him that there'd be a Christmas card in November. Back at the turn of the second millennium Christmas had already started sooner and sooner. By the turn of the third millennium the only day that was free of Christmas was the 7th January

"Thanks for the fun times, still fondly remembered". Frank smiled at the sentiment; two hundred and forty five pages of puzzles, puns, shenanigans, and times gone past

He looked over and saw sitting on the bar next to his stool was a glass of Janx. He could swear he heard an angelic chorus accompanying this vision, but then that might just be his ears ringing after his recent physical exertion

He sat down, took a swig from the glass, and then immediately rasped it out. It was Jinx

 

[Frank]

The docking controller for the fleet carrier watched a battered old Anaconda approach his ship. "Attention unidentified craft. You do not have permission to dock at this vessel. Please leave the vicinity immediately or we shall fire upon you"

"What is the meaning of this!? I am Commander Frank. I am the owner of this fleet carrier. You will let me land. Or I swear I'll sack you and replace you with someone with less of a Napoleon complex"

"Welcome back Commander Frank. Now please leave the vicinity and request docking or we will be forced to fire upon you"

"I shall do no such thing you officious little..."

The Anaconda exploded into a fireball of plasma before the unidentified voice could say his expletive. The docking controller lifted his finger off the fire trigger. "I'd better send a Galnet-Mail to Commander Frank to tell him what happened"


Frank was sitting velcroed to his stool at the Thargoid & Fer de Lance. He was beckoning to the barman, Sven, for a refill when his wristphone sounded a new message alert. He looked more than a little puzzled after he read the message, but he waited for Sven to finish the job of replenishing his glass before he said anything. "Apparently I've just been vaporised by my own fleet carrier 80 light years away"

 

[Frank]

The gangster burst through the cabin doors and pointed his blaster at Oswald's head.

Oswald glanced over at the gangster and looked slightly miffed "Ah gawd, Cecil. I might've known. Here I was having a nice normal standoff, and you have to come in like the Cavalry and turn it into a Mexican standoff. You're not getting away with what you done. None of yer gang's getting away with it

I still got the upper hand here. You think Gloria's ever gonna forgive you if I melt off Eugene's head? Gloria probably gonna kill you if anything happened to her lover boy here. He won't be much use to her if he dead. Or maybe she still find a use for him. Maybe she's developed a taste for dead lovers, after all in yer gang that's an easy taste to develop."

"Hi Eugene. How are ya doing?"

The gang's newest recruit was controlling his breath. His blaster was only swaying slightly and firmly aimed at Oswald. He kept his voice calm. He wanted to impress the two gang members with his bravado. "I'm looking down the barrel of an Annihilatron 645 TI. I've had better days."

Cecil took his eyes off Oswald for a second to check Eugene. "You doing great. Yer gonna come out of this will all yer heads intact. What we have here is the worst of the Randoga Rats. He can't shoot straight for toffee. And he got the widest cowardly streak you've ever seen. Isn't that right Oswald? Me and Oswald have had previous encounters, and they didn't end well for our friend here.

Hey Oswald, remember Isaac?"

Oswald's eyes boiled with rage. He started to swing his gun over Cecil and there was a laser light show with plenty of pewpew, and the smell of burning meat.

 

[Frank]

Fingers and Bert were in a sleazy bar celebrating their latest haul. Fingers waved to an auld bloke at the other end of the bar who was velcroed to his stool. He explained to Bert "An old work colleague. Speaking of which, I gotta ask... Frankenstein?"

Bert grimaced a bit, "My old boss? Yer askin' why he's called that? Well my old boss was a bit of a do-gooder. He didn't want to kill anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. You know MRI scanners? Standard bit of medical equipment kept next to the nanostitcher in most sickbays. It works by wiggling the water in yer innards and seeing how they wobble. Frankenstein got one of his engineers working on the magnets of his MRI scanner to wiggle the water a bit more fiercely than usual. Basically he got himself a very very precise microwave oven.

He was always banging on about witnesses. If you could only get them to forget what they've seen yer laughing. So he got to work on them, seeing if he could burn out the bits of their brain where they remembered stuff they shouldn't. Turns out memories are quite elusive things. He burnt through all the witnesses he had in his brig. That was no big loss 'cause we woulda had to do something about them anyway.

But he got a wee bit obsessive. He started asking us to abduct innocent folks so he had subjects to work on. Eventually he managed to pull someone outta his death MRI whose brain hadn't been completely fried, and he yelled 'He lives!!'

So that's why we called him Frankenstein. Well that and the fact the poor devils that had been MRI-ed stomped and stumbled when the walked, and could only talk in moans. Frankenstein always said they were fine and they were better off that way than dead, but you shoulda heard the way he screamed and yelled and clawed when we strapped him to his own MRI machine."

 

[Frank]

Sven always watched customers coming through the bar's entrance. This was a weird one today. Frank came in with a tall lanky bloke who had an arm draped around the old codger, and Frank didn't appreciate the familiarity

"Drinks all round!", declared the lanky chap, "And especially drinks for Frank! Get him a bottle of whatever he wants. This guy's a hero!"

"No really you shouldn't bother, well Janx then", as he saw Sven had already fetched a bottle, although the barman looked a little perplexed. This is not how Frank usually behaves

Sven asked "So what's the celebration?"

"This guy", Frank received a hearty slap on the shoulder, "This angel saved my life. I was stuck on the surface of a moon for six weeks in an escape pod. Goodness knows how much longer I'd have been there if Frank hadn't come along"

"It wuz nothin' really. Anybody else woulda done the same. Seriously, I'll get the next round"

"Nonsense. Tonight your money is no good here, and get one for yourself, barman". The tall bloke slapped his wallet onto the bar and stared at Sven with a wide, gormless smile. And then while still wearing the same smile he searched the bar for the toilet before heading off in that direction

Sven snatched up the wallet to keep it away from Frank, but the auld miner didn't seem too interested in it. "What's up with you tonight? I've seen you with escape pod rescues before, and you've never seemed bothered about taking advantage of their hospitality"

"Well", Frank stared at the bottle of Janx in his hand, "You know how you get these tasks you intend ta get round to? You kinda get sidetracked: remember yer limpets, remember yer ammo, remember ta cash in yer bonds... That bloke wasn't stuck on a moon fer six weeks. He wuz there fer under two weeks"

 

[Arkadi]

Entry of a battered pilot. He looks around and aknowledges the regulars. On his face is a joyfull expression. He walks to the bar and orders a round of lavian brandy for all who care. "I just returend from the Thargoid War Zone beyond Cornsar and that with good news!" he says with a hint of an Imperial rim-world accent. Then he finishes one drink and orders another. "One for the living and one for the dead." Then he takes a seat and forces the bartender to listen to his tale:

I quit my enlistment with AXI more then a year ago. Combat activities with my Anti-Xeno Krait in the Witch-Head Region overstressed my nerves. With a severe burnout I retreated from the Thargoid War and led a peacefull life on the lush meadows of LP 581-36: A 5 next to McKay Gateway.

But recently the reports of Thargoid activity near Cornsar started to worry me, since my homesystem is not far away. After a year of therapy and a calm life I decided to enter the pilot seat once more. My old friends at Axi gave me the latest insights how to deal with this in the best possible way. And it turned out, my Krait was just the right ship for this endeavour: cold-running and fast, but I had to strip it off it's shields.

I took my long range Hauler to the Witch-Head Region, where my Krait still waited for me on some remote planetary port. There were only a handfull of human settlements left. Most of the Witch-Head Region was crawling with Thargoids. However I made it back to the bubble with my old Krait.

Now I fitted my ship for Titan-Deathcloud investigation. After my first explorations to the Titan Raijin in Pegasi Sector ON-S b4-8, I found that I could dive easyly through the deathcloud until the energy surge of the Titan threw me back. But extracting samples from the emitters was another story. So I made for another meeting with my old AXI friends to get some instructions how to deal with this. In between I could call in my T9 to help restore the starport in my operation base Nibelaako.

Next problem, I needed a full size corrosion resistant cargo rack. I only had access to those small grade 2 ones. I did some fast missions to aquire necessary materials and then I went back to to the Pleiades to the Barnacle Forest at Hyades Sector AQ-Y d81 : C2. I had the impression the Forest had grown and become a lot creepier then the last time I was there. In the end it was quite easy to extract the necessary Meta Alloys. The scavangers were no real threat for my SRV luckily.

The "short" story starts really to get longwinded, I can tell of your looks buddy. I'll try to keep it short now.

After many trial and error attempts I finally got the hang on it, how to extract the Caustic Tissue Samples, whilst evading the caustic gas clouds.

And now the dramatic end:

With my last embarkments to the Titan I found that independent pilots have been successfull repairing Oramus Orbital in Nieblaako - what a good omen.

As I harvested my last Caustic Tissue Sample, setting course to the Rescue Ship Yoshida in Cornsar to turn in my harvest - I was worried of Thargoid interdiction - but what happend is this: as I entered Pegasi Sector NN-S B4-4 I was greated with an Inbox Message from the AX-Fleetcommand, that told me that the system has been cleansed of Thargoid Presence!

What a joyfull return to the Yoshida Rescue Ship.

A hearty o7 to all you brave and tireless commanders out there!

There is hope.

And now wish me luck for the next step: Getting close to the Titan...

 

[benoakster]

Cmdr Oak walked up to the door to The Thargoid and Fer de Lance. It looked old and unused. He pushed against the door with his hand, seeing if it was open but it seemed shut. He looked around but no one was here on the platform. There were no signs that anyone had even been here for months. He hadn't seen anything to say it had closed though. He pushed a little bit harder and the door opened a few millimetres and then jammed again. He wasn't convinced it was open. What bar isn't teeming with pilots and station staff?

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a flyer that he had planned to put up inside. Looking around again, he stuck it to the door and looked at it.

The Elite Realists
A place to get away from the doom and gloom. A place where pilots can just be pilots.

The address for the Discord and Squadron were at the bottom under his Inara link. He wanted people to know that there was a place for pilots that just wanted to be themselves and not have to talk about all the other stuff. A place where a pilot was a pilot. He hoped that this bar was going to be a place that could help him with this goal but it didn't seem that way.

He pressed the flyer against the wall again, hoping it would stick. He adjusted his flight suit and headed back to his Chieftain. He'd stopped off on his way to meet Broo Tarquin and he needed that laser upgrading.

It's a shame, he thought to himself. This bar used to be something.

 

[Frank]

It was a Tuesday. The bar was quiet. Sven watched the doors open. He saw a familiar white-haired old man enter, hobble over to the bar, and settle himself on top of a Velcroed bar stool, moving around a bit to ensure the Velcro stuck. "You've been away for a while. Where have you been?"

"Janx please"

"It's been weeks... months even"

Frank swirled the spirit in his glass before taking a sip. "I wuz off taking stuff ta Hutton Orbital."

"That might account for an afternoon, but you were..."

"You know the Engineers? Galaxy famous. They all ask fer weird stuff ta do up yer engines.

So there I wuz heading fer Hutton. And I'm thinking this is gonna take a wee bit of time. What them Engineers do is nothin' special. It don't take skill ta muck up yer injectors ta burn through fuel quicker, and run hotter, and run faster. So's I drops back ta normal space. It don't take no time ta whip off the injectors and widen the nozzles. I didnae even need ta leave the ship

So ta cut a long story short, I wuz lucky Hutton's such a busy trade route. It wasnae too long before someone answered mah distress call."

 

[Frank]

There was only Frank and Sven in the bar. Frank was watching "Science Fiction Fables" on the Holotelly with the sound turned up...

The Octopoid's slimy tentacles writhed and wriggled as it communicated with the Human ambassador, "We're from another universe, and our planet doesn't exist in yours. We can't go forwards or backwards in time, but the ability to travel sideways is how the sideslip drives in our spaceships allow us to go faster than the speed of light.

We thought it was going to allow us to see the galaxy, and in a way it did. We got more interested in the few star systems that were within easy reach. That's how we discovered you monkey men and your frameshift drive spaceships. Of course I'm not talking about you you's. I'm talking about another universe of you's. It was part of our cultural exchange agreement that we help all Humanoids and all Octopoids in whatever universe we find them.

So the cultural exchange: we are of course going to give you all the details of our engineering accomplishments. The medical advances of some of your counterparts from other universes will be of more interest to you than they are to us. But your universe in particular is going to see quite a few of us turning up as tourists.

We have a saying on our planet that given an infinite number of monkeys, one would produce the complete works of Glak Bnrhabbrr, our most acclaimed poet and playwright.

Where can I find out more about this 'William Shakespeare' of yours?"