Pontius decided to procure an espresso machine. It might come in handy on those heavy hangover mornings.
He'd normally not use elven magic but he was pressed for time. Poof. Pontius appears right in the MWC bunker. Knock Knock. Hello hello hello hello Anybody here? here? here? Hmmm deserted. The full bunker, just after breakfast. Ahhh there it is, an expresso machine. I'm sure Plephart won't miss it. Poof. Back to the Doom. There that will do fine. The mwc won't notice a thing. Come to think of it, they hadn't noticed much lately. Now back to tinkering with the Doom.

Quinn? Pontius here, can you clone Laura Ashley again.? Good. Have her ready tomorrow.

Pontius, when my ship is docked for repairs and so on I am forced to bunk in the Doom. The pirates have this procedure (introduced by the Spymaster) to build esprit de corp and (I guess, but it has never been said out loud) also so that pirates with their own ships don't start to get ideas.

Uneasy is the head that wears the crown.

AHhhhh. I just noticed the Laura Ashley reference. Has anyone ever told you, you have a mean streak? Well, I mean, told you and lived?

Ahhh well Dr. Quinn told me you used her place...

But I'll get you a bigger cabin.

Quinn, You might want to clone Alexandar Julian too.

With the Posse coming to rescue us out of a tight spot and becoming partners, there are a lot of ships in the fleet now. Who knows what is happening on all the other ships, and elsewhere on the Doom itself! It is a big ship, afterall.

My original main point for this thread was just to keep it active at least every couple of days with a new installment of my own. It was pretty slow back then, but now it is quite active. So if there is mayhem and misadventures elsewhere, please do tell.

killa: One of the Retox's mixers can easily be used as a high-powered expresso machine while we're docked with the Doom. There might be an alcoholic aftertaste, but not that much. Of course, we can pump all our drinks through the umbilical connections to the rest of the fleet.

bump

I like the story Gerakken is telling...

The brave band of invisible intruders were at a critical point in light of their tactical situation. Way behind them, but in clear sight, were two GROSS security details outside the airlock they dimension doored from. The only side passage in sight was back down the main passage, close to the airlock. Ahead of them was a closed door. Doubling back could be very advantageous, but if the teams started spreading out to do a radial search, the hidden party could well have security right on their heels. Opening the door ahead of them, though, might be spotted. It would be very suspicious if a door slid open and no one was seen using it.

While Naifir, the wizard and leader of the group took a moment to pondered his options, Nebel the bald scribe thought about how they got into this jam in the first place:

An elite Fellowship recon craft was surveying the last epic battle between GROSS, the MWC, and the Fellowship when their ship happened upon the large hole in the side of the Doom. The captain, hoping that his ship's chameleon cloak kept the craft hidden, swung back around and hovered for a few brief seconds at long range in front of the gap. The volunteers for the landing party assembled. These were some of the best covert agents the Fellowship possessed. These agents know the assignments they undertake can easily cost them their lives, but violence is not their preferred method. Investigate, evaluate, and evacuate is the usual drill. The Fellowship is no longer a sleepy, isolated civilization in the Tolkien star system. Their influence has grown greatly, and contact and potential conflict with other empires is now unavoidable. This makes intelligence gathering of primary importance. Most of the empires that could rival the Fellowship may be nearly clueless on the uses of magic, but they had an immense advantage in technology and experience in using it.

The pirates known as GROSS posed an extreme risk if total open warfare broke out. They had a reputation for being ruthless and efficient plunderers. This reputation, as well as the large size of the GROSS empire, made the Fellowship leaders nervous. Now there was an opportunity to infiltrate the mothership itself with a team of agents and see what made GROSS tick from the inside, if the team can infiltrate the ship and not be captured or killed in the process, that is. Inside that ship is a wealth of knowledge. Not in huge libraries of scrolls or magical oracles holding the wisdom of the ages, but in computers, a technology the Fellowship was uncomfortable with, but very useful for piloting a starship over vast distances or targeting these new-fangled beam weapons at long range.

The three volunteers, Naifur the wizard, Hulfar the blademaster, and Nebel the scribe, had assembled on the bridge. After casting a protection barrier on the members of the band so they could stand the rigors of space, Naifir, using some telescopic assistance via a large magical spyglass mounted on the bridge to better fix his target, teleported onto the deck inside the hole. From there, they had cautiously explored a couple of the side holds before Naifir used a knock spell to open the large door that led further into the ship. Then they entered this large hanger and quickly noticed the Doom's version of wizard eyes all over the place: cameras, as the other empires called them. Naifir protested about the amount of magical energy this journey was already costing him, but cast an invisibility globe on the group and knocked open the second door. It did not help matters when the group's presence was obviously detected and Naifir had to dimension door the party out of the way of the approaching guards. Now they were in a pickle, stuck between a door and doubling back into the guards. But they were inside the main part of the ship. That was a start.

Naifir continued to think about his options. Would a darkness spell over the whole area do? No. Casting a spell into a closed or inaccessable area requires some kind of beacon at the site to focus on or some sort of scrying magic to see the area from afar. The darkness could cover this side of the passage easily, but would not pass through the blocked door. The cameras on the other side would still see the door open and the guards down the passage would notice the dark area. Even if every guard on this ship were drunk (a common rumor in Fellowship circles about GROSS is that they are all drunkards), they would know where the intruders were for at least an instant. Enough time to get the searchers right on the party's heels or put more guards ahead of them. Could he teleport blindly to somewhere deeper in the ship? No again. Plenty of bulkheads in the way and no way to get a fix on the target area.

During these brief few seconds of contemplation and confusion, the boss, the dread pirate Pontius, was updated on the situation. "What are you lazy loonies doing?!", he shouted at the security chief on duty. "Seal every door in that section of the ship right now! Senior command passcodes only. There are four ways out of there. I want teams around all four doors out."

"Uh, sir," the security chief interrupted, "there are five ways out. They can theoretically go back out the way they came in if they can elude the two teams already there and Gerakken."

Part 5: Second Wind

“I love you. Yezzz I do.” Kit was cradling his modified electric prod in his arms. “I shall name you BUZZZZZZ!!! Not original... but how apropos.”

Slipping through space so effortlessly. It was like making love... at its best. His autopilot was on. The Doors was pounding through the cockpit. Dos Equis Amber flowed. Kit was nearly content, but at least two targets remained. And then the small voice returned.

“Have you forgotten yet?” it asked.

“You’re not welcome,” Kit replied.

“They’re dying. You’re comrades. One by one.”

Kit hit his head with the butt of his rapier, but the voice persisted.

“What are you always blathering about, Kit? Something about how the war was a mistake? That’s based on your “enlightened” ideals isn’t it? Yes, you’re plenty enlightened from sitting in class, day after day, while your buddies die.”

“I WILL kill you!”

“You know you can’t,” it stated in a smug voice.

“Where the heck have you been?” a different voice asked. “Kit?” Someone was hailing over the hypercomm.

Kit flicked the channel on. “Who’s that?” he asked as he powered up his shields and weapons.

“EBZ, you goober! I’ve been following your trail of... what’re you up to anyways?”

“Hehe. Join the party, my friend. It’s time for a booze run!”

The boss roared, "I don't want to hear about theory, you incompetent oaf! The intruders should have never been on the ship in the first place. Why haven't they been caught yet!?"

"We're moving people as fast as we can, sir. That whole section of the ship is under lockdown. No one can use any doors unless they are cleared by us or use a senior officer command code," the slightly intimidated security chief stated.

Back in the cavernous airlock, Gerakken had finally shed his encumbering space suit and was concerned that the unwelcome guests had not been spotted in the few minutes since he lost track of them. He knew about the lockdown from his earpiece and knew that they could not get far unless the crew made a mistake and let them out of the box or the trio had already escaped the perimeter of the box before the lockdown. Gerakken keyed his wrist communicator, "Security, I am leaving the airlock."

"Roger, Gerakken. We currently have you on visual and will log your code before you go sneaking around. Good hunting."

Punching in his complicated command code, Gerakken opened the inner door and walked out into the crowd of security guards that were on alert on both sides of the door. It was not quite yet time to go sneaking around.

Gerakken queried one of the team leaders, "And why is it you guys haven't started a search pattern yet?"

"Orders from the top, sir! We are to hold position until reinforcements arrive to cut off the enemy." The guard remained vigilant, his blaster rifle levelled down the passage he was securing.

Meanwhile, down the passage, the invisible trio were hatching a plan. Nebel used sign language to ask if the invisibility barrier also had a silence barrier as well. Naifir replied, "It is safe to talk. I cast an improved barrier that prevents sound from leaving as well. A warning though, fellows, if the boundaries of our small barrier cross into the perception range of one the inhabitants or their infernal cameras, we will be compromised. So stay in a line and close to the wall. The barrier will conform into an oblong shape that will minimize our risks."

Satisfied with the barrier situation, Nebel now wanted to address the obvious: "And what about disabling these cameras, magus? Surely you can do that. We would not want them to see this door open under suspicious circumstances."

"Magus? Aren't you being a bit formal using my rank when we are in such an informal pickle! Naifir will be fine, Nebel."

Nebel nodded. "As you wish, Naifir, but the cameras are the pressing issue at the moment. These cameras are not like our autonomous wizard eye mounts that report to a centralized location and need to be neutralized individually. Their cameras linked together into local networks that then report to a centralized security network. Therefore, a spell of sufficient power would disable every camera in the local area."

Hulfar the blademaster was clearly agitated. He hated hiding in a corner and not doing something, anything besides waiting in a trap. "Stop talking and start acting, smarty pants! Hiding in a corner is dishonorable. Look at them! I could run down that passage and cut all of them into ribbons if they didn't have those damn rifles."

"All eleven of them? Right." Naifir's lack of confidence in the frontal assualt was obvious. "Look at them. Two teams of five soldiers each, well armored and armed with blaster rifles. Then there is that strange man amongst them with some kind of pistol looking all around. I think we will wait for someone to open the trap for us and then act." Naifir resumed his watch on the door. By then, the extra teams were all in place.

The pirate captain Pontius had been pacing the floor and literally breathing down the neck of his security chief. "Those Ring-worshipping freaks will pay for this! It was bad enough when the ANZAC terrorists could board us every week, but now I can't even see what we are fighting here!."

Despite the anxiety in the room, the security chief actually was quite calm and composed now. Focussing on controlling the mission, he made his suggestion: "Sir, it would also be a good idea to lay down some preliminary suppressive fire down all four passages to draw them out."

Pontius seemed to relax upon hearing the idea of shooting the intruders. "Just shoot the Ringworms. I don't care how you do it. I am going back to my quarters and leaving this in your hands. Don't screw up, or I will have you guarding a garbage skow!"

Quickly and efficiently the orders were delegated down the line. Team one and team two started firing down the pair of side passages for a few seconds, hoping the invisible ones were there. After that, the two doors hissed open and a security team started to slowly advance down each passage to meet their fellow teams at the end, carefully trying to cover as much ground as possible so that the unseen ones could not slip past them. Two passages down, two to go.
[Message Edited]

bump

This is Gerakken's excellent story.

Hmmm...actually I justed bumped the G.R.O.S.S. recruitment thread...

Naifir quickly put two and two together. If he did nothing, his passage would be shot up as well and his team endangered. It was only luck that he picked a main passage going toward the bow of the Doom and the GROSS guards shot down the side passages first. He started to formulate his cunning plan, but was quickly interrupted.

"These pirates are savages! Who in the hell shoots first!?" Nebel complained.

Hulfar rolled his eyes and sighed, "They must have broke some rule about not shooting people who board your ship and sneak around until after they do something nasty. Get real! These guys don't just come flying by to collect money for the Galactic War Orphan Fund. Looks like I get to earn my pay soon enough."

Naifir paused a second, "Actually, they did use that line once on a Torian colony. They gave the poor Torians the choice of paying tribute to the 'war orphan fund' or they would create a lot of war orphans on the spot. Enough banter, though. Nebel, I want a missile shield right in front of us."

Nebel was not a very experience mage. He could not cast such a spell very well on his own, so he pulled a wand out of his tunic to assist him. Nebel spoke a few unknown words and made his gestures. "What are we going to do when the pirates see their blaster bolts being deflected by the shield?"

"I am on it. A simple illusion will make it appear as if the bolts pass through and hit the bulkhead. When the doors behind us open, be ready to move." Naifir then cast his spell.

By then, there were four teams of GROSS security near the airlock with Gerakken standing in the center. Normally the paranoid Spymaster would never present himself as such an open, obvious target, but he was sure that the motives of the intruders were obviously not to cause immediate harm. They would have been shooting from the start if it were. He was curious as to their exact motives, though. This was no simple recon mission. That could have been done in a far more discreet manner as Doom takes on visitors and passengers all the time. A covert operative could have came on that way and found an opportunity to try and stray off course into restricted areas.

Kidnapping was a thought. They could be here to take a prominent GROSS raider for various reasons like interrogation, ransom, or even rescuing a deep cover operative who was about to be exposed and activated the extraction code because he couldn't get out on his own. Assassination also loomed briefly upon his mind, but that was not the way the Fellowship worked in Gerakken's experience of spying on them so many times.

Sabotage was an obvious thought. The engines would be a good target, so would the battle control room and the bridge. That could leave the flagship of the GROSS empire open to attack. The ship was too big to destroy outright with any explosives a small team could carry, and there was not one huge engine or reactor to blow, but a series of parallel engines and reactors. The system was designed to handle the destruction of any individual leg.

Hijacking was an extreme probability. Unless there were more than three intruders, trying to rush the bridge or a couple of other places where the controls could be diverted to was folly. Even if they could take control somehow, that would result in a very quick death sentence. The "make one move and the crewman gets it or we blow ourselves up" scenario simply doesn't work when the pirates would force the hijacker's hand after taking a stiff drink and trying to eliminate the offenders in a hail of energy beams.

The thought of data mining did not enter Gerakken's mind. He knew the Fellowship had enough technological understanding to attempt the task and a precious few operatives who were trained to hack computers, but had never heard of them actually executing a real operation with that goal in mind. It was now Gerakken's turn to get his thoughts interrupted.

Naifir noticed the four GROSS teams were forming lines two ranks deep facing separate directions, one line kneeling, one line standing. Ten blaster rifles were pointed down the passage at the unseen ones. The missile shield was in place, the illusion was up, now it was time to play with those infernal cameras. "Nebel, stand close to me. Hulfar, give me a lift, will you?"

Hulfar knelt down and Naifir climbed on his shoulders. Hulfar slowly stood up, looking quite worried at the guards down the hall forming ranks and within moments of firing. Naifir touched the bottom of the camera, sending a surge of electricity through it, and then quickly slid down Hulfar's back. A few puffs of gray smoke vented from the fried camera.

A few seconds of utter chaos followed. Over his earpiece, Gerakken heard the frantic security staff alert the teams that almost every camera on H Deck was out. A barrage of blaster bolts hurled down both passages, and Gerakken quickly noticed the smoke coming out of the fore passage camera and, after quickly looking back, none out of the aft camera or the one right above him. Just then, a cloud of darkness started rolling down the passage, from aft to fore.

The cloud quickly swept over Gerakken and the GROSS guards. Firing ceased as confusion temorarily reigned. Some guards fumbled for portable lights that would not shine bright enough to cut through the blackness. Gerakken was very adept at navigating in the dark, his profession relied on it. Hoping no one moved too far and working from memory, Gerakken slipped by the front group of guards and whispered, "They are in front of us somewhere by the door. I am going to try and cut them off."

The Spymaster was in his element now, quickly but silently prowling down the nearby side passage in the darkness. His plan was to get to a passage parallel to one he just left and circle behind the hidden party. Hopefully, he could find them and reason with them somehow to leave peacefully without achieving their goals. Otherwise, he would have to try and capture them. He did not like that thought. If he faced them alone, he was outnumbered 3 to 1 and they had one pretty mean looking red shirt with them as well as a wizard.

Only a few seconds had passed since darkness fell on the passage. The team on the other side of the door had heard no more firing, so they opened the door. The security team was looking into the blackness and getting ready to cautiously feel their way from the lit side of the door into the dark side. This was the break the invisible agents had waited for. Naifir quickly mumbled his spell. His right hand was upon the door controls and the left arm was pointing in the general direction of the now open passage. He was firing blindly through the dark.

A surge of electricity hit the door panel while a bolt of lightning shot out of the darkness and into the light. One of the GROSS team was hit outright and dropped to the deck in a convulsive fit while another muttered an obscenity over a painful burn on his right arm. The unseen marauders made a break into the light. A third guard was now crouching at the side of the fallen comrade and was trying to help him when the intruders started to rush by. Entering their invisibility field, the guard shouted while trying to raise his rifle at the temporarily visible foes. Hulfar, sword already in hand, quickly smacked the guard on the side of the head with the pommel as he ran by.

The remaining team members briefly saw thier two comrades disappear, and while turning to face the sudden situation, saw them reappear, but now both were down. The wounded member and his two unhurt fellows instantly figured out what happened and guessed where to lay their blaster fire while hollering on the comm channel about where the problem was. The blaster bolts flew down the passage, while the invisible trio now ran all out hugging the right wall, trying to reach a nearby side passage about a hundred feet away to hide in. The missile shield in front of them did not cover the back or sides.

Gerakken was just reaching the door at the end of his long side passage when he heard about the commotion and the wounded guards. Worse yet is what he heard on his earpiece: "Door control sensors and remote door operation down, H deck sections 23-44." Gerakken winced at the thought. Any door on the starboard side of H deck could be opened or closed by anyone, and security would not even know it. The invaders were out of the trap and becoming too dangerous.

Luckily, a wise security chief wished to remain at his current job and did not want to guard a garbage skow. A second line of defense was ready, but except for reinforcements rushing to the general vicinity, it was the last line of real defense until the uninvited guests reach a critical area somewhere else on the ship. At the end of the section the invisible ones were traversing was another team already taking position, hiding behind the door. The single side passage the evasive visitors were fleeing toward also had a door at the end, but the team there had the extra few seconds necessary to booby trap the door with stun and tangler grenades. The last possible exit was right across from the side passage, a door into a cargo hold on the outer side of the ship farther down from the damaged section. Both the crippled team and the fresh team at the end of the long corridor knew there would be a dangerous crossfire down the passage if the door between them was opened too soon, so now the goal was to get the wounded team back into the darkness of the previous section, close that door, and let the intruders spring the trap.

"No, not that way! Go straight," said Nebel. "They expect us to dive for cover in the side passage."

Charging ahead, the three agents noticed that there are no more blaster bolts zipping by. A quick glance back as they reach the door at the end of the passage confirms the other team had dragged their wounded back into the previous section and closed the door.

Naifir wondered aloud, "I hope that was an unplanned withdrawl, else we are in another trap."

"Only one way to find out!" Hulfar the frustrated suddenly punched a button on the door control panel, half expecting nothing to happen. But the door sprang open, as the lock-out mechanism had been fried by Naifir's last surge of lightning. The five men in the GROSS team on the other side of the door reacted swiftly. Two lobbed grenades toward either side while the other three fired their blaster rifles roughly down the middle of the passage. As bolts of energy bounced off the missile shield, none of the agents were going to wait for the grendes rolling on by the edges of their shield to explode. They all reacted on instinct.

Hulfar dived forward into a rolling somersault, drawing a throwing knife into his free hand midway through the maneuver. As Hulfar stood up from the roll, he threw the knife at one of the guards and it hit him square in the chest. The now visible sword-wielding intruder quickly slashed at an adjacent guard that was taken aback by the sudden move.

Nebel leaped into the air, leaving the invisibility field as he landed a flying kick upon a third startled guard, the team sergeant, knocking him back. The sergeant staggered back a few steps, his arms flailing and his rifle still precariously clutched in one hand. Nebel landed in some kind of martial arts stance in front of the sergeant. The scholar was snarling, teeth bared, his arms slightly extended and his hands half-clenched more like claws. Nebel moved in for a strike, spitting out, "Taste my superior Feral Hobbit style kung fu, wretched pirate!"

Naifir turned around and walked backwards a few quick steps, confident his team would cover his back. It was important to get the battered, now barely functional missile shield facing the grenades. The grenades detonated, but the missile shield collapsed after taking the blast.

Hulfar was having bad luck. His throwing knife did not penetrate the body armor of the momentarily surprised guard, who ripped the blade from his chest plate. Hulfar's other opponent had managed to block the first sword strikes with his blaster rifle. Sensing trouble, Hulfar pulled another smaller sword from his belt just as the other guard had recovered from the knife strike and was now in the process of levelling a blaster rifle at the embattled blademaster. Hulfar was now in a two front fight, a whirling blade dervish striking at both guards at once trying to keep them blocking with their rifles instead of using them. This could not last long, though.

Nebel strike missed as the sergeant quickly leaned to the side. A blaster bolt narrowly missed both combatants, as there were still two unengaged guards taking shots. The sergeant was holding his rifle in one hand by the end of the barrel. As he recovered from the dodge, he quickly flicked his wrist to end up throwing the rifle butt first toward Nebel as a distraction. The scholarly monk dodged the flying weapon, but the sergeant then dove for his legs, knocking Nebel to the ground.

Naifir felt a searing pain in his left arm. Even though he was still in the invisibility field, one of the guards got lucky with a stray shot and a blaster bolt had grazed him. His instincts and injury told him his team was overwhelmed. He quickly uttered a strange word as he looked behind him to get the exact location of his comrades. The trio were quickly transported down the hall they had just came in from, the door to the cargo bay on one side and the side passage on the other. It was a very quick spell, so Naifir had no time to adjust the landing spots of his two comrades. They were still visible. The unengaged GROSS guards had reacquired their targets and were shooting down the passage at the visible two members. Naifir opened the cargo bay door. Hulfar quickly ran back toward the door, scooping up a now half-standing Nebel on the way and once again vanished from sight as they entered the invisibility field. They all hurried into the hold under a hail of now blindly aimed blaster bolts.

I'm on the edge of my seat...

Great story, Gerakken!!

Hate to disappoint theoden but the ending's a tear jerker... well for you guys... The Ringworms all die. Which is as it should be.

I know things are going badly for our heroes, but I'm still hoping for the best!

"Hulfar, hold the door, please," Naifir calmly stated. "This is always a real crowd pleaser." The wizard leaned around the corner as he weaved his spell. A tiny ball of flame shot from his hand, streaking down the hall and growing ever larger. The still prone sergeant desperately scrambled forward to push the button to close the door while the rest of the GROSS team frantically started the motions of diving out of the way. All of them knew it was an excercise in futility that would never be completed in the brief time they had. This looked like the spell even pirates with no inkling of magic heard stories about and feared: Fireball.

The sphere grew larger as it sped down the passage, growing from the size of a pea to a beach ball-like menace. Right before the door the security team had been holding there was a bright flash, but no searing explosion of flame engulfing the entire passage. The guards had hit the ground just in time to see a wall of fire burning brightly as it blocked the passage. The startled sergeant quickly remembered he had a job to do while the door slowly closed: "Intruders in cargo hold. Section 30, H Deck. A wall of fire prevents further engagement."

Gerakken had been in transit in the meanwhile. He had snuck into a parallel passage and quickly ran toward the bow of the mighty ship called Doom. He had entered the section where the other security team was lying in wait with their grenade traps at the ready and silenty dashed passed them. They had obviously not seen any trouble yet. He was about to advance into the next section just to the left of where the recently embattled security team had a brief scuffle and fell for the tricky Firewall Fireball spell when he heard over the earpiece where the foes truly were. The easiest path to the intruders to go forward and then take a right to enter the section 29 cargo hold and then go into section 30 from there. But events were still happening very quickly.

Naifir had ducked into the cargo hold and Hulfar closed the door after the spell. They were in a series of connecting cargo holds on the starboard side of the ship. There were plenty of barrels, boxes, and even large cargo containers stacked in neat four neat rows running the length of the hold from bow to stern. The invisible ones knew from their previous experience in exploring the breached section there would be an exit on both sides of the hold as well as the door behind them. Nebel was now examining the wound on Naifir's arm. It was a pretty large burn stretching all the way from his shoulder down to his elbow. Nebel was about to start some sort of magical treatment when Naifir interrupted. "I will be fine for the moment. We do not have time. They know where we are now. We have to make sure we are not here when they come for us." Naifir started to lead the team left, toward the bow exit when there was a continuous hissing sound.

Nebel was clearly worried. "They are pumping the air out of the hold!" The scholarly monk raced back to the nearby door controls and could not reach them. An invisible wall of force was in the way. "They have sealed the doors with force fields. We are trapped!"

Naifir was worried. The original protection spells that warded off the harshness of space had expired. He could cast a new batch, but the wise wizard knew he had already used a lot of magical energy and he was now fighting a losing battle. Mobility and stealth had been his key advantages during this engagement. Now that they were trapped in one room, the pirates would just keep playing enviromental setting tricks until the team was out of magic. Once that happened, they could be left to expire or the pirates could just start rushing the room and even the mighty blademaster Hulfar could not hold off wave after wave of foes forever. It was time to renew the protection spells and ready plan B. "Nebel, ready the transport disc."

Nebel dutifully removed the palm-sized disc from his pouch and examined the runes etched on the surface. The disc would be planted somewhere in the hold so a future group, perhaps this very agent team, could be teleported back to the scene. The transport disc did not have any teleportation ability by itself, but it does serve as both a marker and a power booster for future teleport spells. "How do I configure the offset on this model?" Nebel questioned his leader. The offset is very important. Transport discs are routinely planted in hidden locations and no team wants to teleport into a tight spot like inside a small box or even into a crack in a wall.

"You cannot," Naifir stated. "That is an old model. The casting wizard designates the offset during the teleportation. One of us has to plant the disc somewhere nearby and tell our supervisor what the offset should be during the mission debriefing. Even then it is guesswork. The disc sometimes gets moved around for various reasons, so I prefer to hide them in a normally immobile and ignored spot like under a floorboard. I have yet to see one of the newer models with the Wizard Eye feature that lets the operator remote view the site and determine offset right before the trip. Dastardly budget cuts!" Naifir then cast a larger model protection spell, an elastic barrier field much like the silence and invisibility shell that currently surrounded the agents.

Nebel saw no floor panels in plain sight and the hold roof was high overhead, requiring much effort to climb up upon all the various containers in the hopes of finding a ceiling panel. The agile monk hopped on top of a barrel, then a stack of boxes and finally onto large shipping containers almost like he was being pulled along with wires. He reached up toward a panel in the ceiling just to find the roof was also covered with the force field. It seemed that if there was any holes in the force field to let the air out, they would be toward the outer hull. Nebel was already outside the protection field and the air was thinning quickly. He jumped backward, falling a good thirty feet and made a perfect landing after a double flip.

"Show off! We don't have time for your gymnastics. Nebel, hide the disc!" Hulfar the impatient exclaimed as he eyed a barrel only a few inches away. "What's in here? Ugg! It's full of organs in some kind of brine!"

"Allow me," Nebel said as he looked inside the barrel. "Assorted pickled Torian organs. So the alien cuisine stories are true. It looks as if the tales of these pirates being violent savages even Drengin fear are not exaggerated. Hopefully these organs will not be consumed for a while. This will do in a pinch." Nebel plucked a Torian liver out of the barrel, motioned for one of Hulfar's knives, made a cut along the side and slid the disc inside. The organ was then reinserted in a spot at the bottom of the barrel.

Naifir produced a blue ceramic coin from the sleeve of his robe. The agents knew what this was for. This was their way back home: a Coin of Return that would teleport the agents to some remote spot in the Tolkien system. Hulfar and Nebel placed their hands on Naifir's good shoulder and the lead agent broke the coin in half. The boarders left as quickly as they came, in a flash. The primary mission of the raid was not accomplished, but a transport disc was in place and there were many tales to be told on both sides about the strange events that transpired.

And excellent ending, friend Gerakken! Kudos to a truly action packed story!

Well that sucked. The ringworms were supposed to die. Two thumbs down.

But just wait till they reappear inside a Kentucky Fried Drengin Fry vat along with that disk. That will be a befitting end.

Now, now folks. I have had the ending of this part of the story arc set for a long time. It was other people assuming everyone must die. Besides, that disc is a dead giveaway for later.

Several hours had passed since the intruders had actually departed. A slow siege had started after the invisible ones were sealed into cargo hold 30. While several security teams waited outside the exits, repairs were made to the cameras and door controls. An hour of observation after the cameras came back online revealed no objects moving around abnormally in the hold. If there were hidden infiltrators still inside, they were either staying still or being very careful not to manipulate or bump any objects. It came time to somehow search the hold thoroughly in a manner that would not allow any unseen parties to escape. Gerakken had his mind on fixing the hole in the ship, but he was stuck standing around overseeing the security detail during the siege and thought about his beloved scraper/painter robots.

Gerakken called one of his reprogrammed Yor espionage droids, "Fog, bring the painter robots down to H Deck, cargo hold 29, please. I have a job for them."

Fog soon arrived, followed by a formation of 24 hemispherical robots. The painters were based off Yor designs and were only a few inches high and about 2 feet across. Their flat undersides had both paint nozzles and anti-grav propulsion units, and each also had a long trunk-like hose mounted on their topsides for painting tight spots. Sensors of various types lined the rim of each robot.

"Go into the hold, paint every surface inside red, and fill the air with a fine mist of red paint from your trunks, but do not paint over the camera lenses," Gerakken commanded. "Fog, translate that into Yor, please. I want you to make sure there are no screw-ups." Gerakken knew that any invisible parties inside the hold would either be covered in red paint or, if they somehow avoided that, would step into red paint and leave tracks. It was not a pretty method for detecting the intruders, but it would work. The process took over an hour and no intruders were detected. The hold was clean, the danger seemed to have passed.

Gerakken happily punched his wrist comm and updated his captain. "Boss, all clear. They left."

"What? They left!? We don't even have one of them to torture. Not even a body to show for it. What kind of performance was that? I wanted those Ringworms dead, dead, DEAD!!!"

Gerakken squirmed a little and changed the subject. "I got to clean up this hold a bit now. The cargo should be alright. It was sealed pretty good in all those containers. So, our Rent-A-Drengin over on Hades have lined up a big job, have they?"

"Yeah," Pontius softened his tone a bit thinking about the pirate empire's share of this latest contract. "All the junk in that hold is for them. Some new clients who fancy themselves as evil warlords destined to rule the galaxy hired them as consultants. A lot of weird cargo in there. Some death furnaces, water tanks, and Torian body parts along with the usual supplies we take over there. No matter who they think they are, we're the ones making money off of them in the end. Bwah ha hah!"

"That is very reassuring, boss," Gerakken stated. "I guess it was a good thing we do not cook every Drengin we meet. We need some of them to work for us. So what exactly are the Rent-A-Drengin doing with all that junk?"

Pontius chuckled a bit. "Oh, it is all research and development. The clients claim the normal death furnaces kill too quickly. They want a slower burning model that is more painful. And the fish tanks are for a real piece of work. Apparently the clients have some kind of native super fish that eats anything. Our Drengin are gonna make those tanks hardy enough for the critters. The clients sent over some pet test fish and said to pamper them and only feed them Torians. Whatever. It's their money. Now, get those lazy repair droids of yours to fix my ship!"

"Yes, boss," Gerakken agreed, "right away."