#plus it’s easier (and faster) to make multiple stories in established universes

[malbontesmrs]

Of the two (ABH and HSR), I prefer ABH being connected to the HS universe. I can buy angels and demons on Earth in context of HS, but I don’t get where the “infected” came from. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Plus tbh, the angels and demon in HSR look too young, and Lane is too young to be connected to Vicky in any way. Audrey, however, could totally be Vicky’s age if ABH takes place pre-Apocalypse, post Malbonte. 🤷🏼‍♀️

My theory tinglies are tingling 😂

[gamethyme]

Let's Talk About 5E, Shall We?

I eat a lot of Mexican food. Probably too much, actually. But when I go to a new place, I'll generally order either something I've never seen before or chicken fajitas.

"Something I've never seen before" is pretty obvious. Those are likely to be the specialty of the house and will set them apart from the tacos and burritos that are ubiquitous on Mexican menus. Chicken Fajitas are a little less obvious - it's because chicken is a good platform to highlight unique or special spice blends. And I've never had two chicken fajitas that tasted the same. My wife, by contrast, orders enchiladas. Most of the flavor of an enchilada comes from the sauce, and - much like fajita spice - that can vary wildly from restaurant to restaurant. Most Mexican restaurants have more than one enchilada sauce (and many of them allow you to mix and match sauces on your enchiladas). So what does this have to do with Dungeons & Dragons?  Especially the fifth edition of same? A lot, actually. I've been playing D&D since I was ten. It was 1e at the time, and we played it on the playground at recess. I didn't get to play a lot, as my parents were part of the satanic panic of the eighties. This means I definitely wasn't allowed to own any books or dice. Because of this, I played the simplest class. The one that had the fewest complex rules. In 1e, that meant I played a fighter. Why? Because the fighter's only real decision was "Which foe do I want to hit?"  Mechanically, 1e fighters were (and continue to be) super-boring. By the time 2e rolled around, I was familiar enough with the rules that I was able to play something different. I dabbled with Wizards and Rogues before settling on (don't laugh) Bards. Because Fighters continued to be boring. When Wizards dropped 3e on us, Feats made some interesting changes. Suddenly every class had interesting customization options (and Fighters were more interesting). Some of the fighter feats meant that there were occasional interesting decisions to be made. I only played a tiny bit of 3e (I was much more a DM than a player at that point).  By the end of 3e's run, however, it'd turned into an optimization game. "The best fighter takes and and ." Or "Check out this broken Feat combo!" Pathfinder took the optimization aspects of 3e and turned them up to eleven. The game's power curve was structured so that players who didn't optimize were left behind. It also highlighted those parts of 3e that I didn't like, turning them into the focus of play. Note that I'm very carefully not saying "Pathfinder was bad." I'm saying, "Pathfinder wasn't for me." Then we hit 4e. Suddenly every class was equally interesting. And theoretically balanced. Fighter powers/abilities hit harder or applied status effects (stun and knockdown were pretty common). Wizard powers/abilities did elementally-flavored damage and applied different status effects to foes. Feats were less-important than power selection. And now we have 5e. For those of you who are wondering, I haven't broken my self-imposed boycott of 5e. I received a copy of the Player's Handbook (PHB), Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG), and Monster Manual (MM) as gifts from a friend.  I spent the next few days following that gift reading the 5e PHB and ... meh.  I don't get all the love it gets. One friend, when he saw that I had 5e in my hands, asked if I was "finally tired of that tactical combat simulator" that 4e was. I've got news for you, Matt: All editions of D&D are tactical combat simulators. And 4e is the best/most interesting of the bunch for most classes. Every edition of D&D has fallen desperately short when it came to mechanically rewarding non-combat encounters. Which means that 5e is - for what I want in a game - significantly less-good than 4e. Because it's a less-detailed tactical combat simulator. Reading through 5e, it's like a bizarre cross between 2e and 3e. There's good in there, mind you, but for the most part it strikes me as a huge step backwards. The only real "killer app" of 5e is the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanism. And possibly "Inspiration," which lets you trigger Advantage. I did what I often do when I confront something that is so popular that I just plain don't understand: I went online and asked my friends. Here's what I heard from them:

Combat in 5e is faster. This is both bug and feature, as you can have multiple small combat encounters in a single session, but big set-piece battles are less interesting.

Classes in 5e have three sub-classes that characters move into at 3rd level. Only one of the Fighter subclasses is boring 2e Hit 'Em more/better.

There are fewer ways to apply fewer status effects in 5e, which is cleaner and easier to understand for newer players.

Combat in 5e supports "theater of the mind" better than 4e and 3e. While you can use a map and grid, it's not as strictly required as it was in those editions.

DIY players have an easier time tweaking 5e, as 4e was so tightly interconnected. Creating a power here-and-there for 4e was simple enough, but creating new classes was a lot of work.

Even a lot of 5e players expressed frustration with how boring and limited it felt after a very short time. One friend said, "Loved 5 E at first, got bored with it after a couple of years." And that was pretty close to consensus.

5E hits on more cylinders than 4E for me and also has some good ideas. I have played it several times and will likely play it again. 

All things considered, I would still prefer to play OSRIC, Advanced Labyrinth Lord, Blueholme, or Low Fantasy Gaming.

Other games came up, too. Both OSR retroclones and newer branches of the d20 tree (Pathfinder and 13th Age especially). And games that aren't from that family (Fantasy Age got a lot of love).

Indie gaming legend Ron Edwards left a long comment that I'm going to quote in full, here:

I just played 5E for the first time, just a couple of days ago, as a player. It struck me as a very 2000s game, maybe even 2010 on the nose. That's not a slam, but identifying it very much as of its era, and not any kind of old-school whatnot which in this case makes most sense as precise marketing.

More importantly, as a game, it is caught like a writhing insect in what I called The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast. If I play my character, in the sense of all this characterization and agency that the creation process fires up, then the DM cannot create the story, as everything about DMing and especially the published scenarios and campaigns emphasizes. And vice versa, perhaps especially, vice versa. Everything for the player presumes a DM who isn't actually the DM as written/encouraged, and everything for the DM presumes players who aren't actually those players as written/encouraged. The net effect is almost always the same: the players are reduced to posturing, establishing and repeating tropes, and (eventually) goofing in order to enjoy themselves, as the DM waltzes them through fights that lead to clues, and clues that lead to fights. 

Exalted, all over again, and that's merely a refined point of reference among a sea of game texts of this kind. 

As with so many of these games, the solution is obvious: pick one or the other, and ignore, as in obviate, reject, abandon, defy, reverse the text and most of the rules concerning the one you didn't pick. But that solution is not arrived at very often. The more usual one is to play while insisting loudly online that this is the most awesome thing ever, then to limp along wondering about or resigned to the necessary outcomes of the Impossible Thing, and eventually to shift into lonely fun with one's extremely expensive purchases.

 There was also a ton of nostalgia for 3.x.  Publisher/designer Cam Banks said (in one of his comments):

When I moved to 4E, I hit a wall with the way the game was designed to centre around powers/techniques/etc. As a 3rd edition designer, I knew that system back to front; I could come up with stats and monsters and spells on the fly, and I even ad hoc'd a prestige class for a player (and wrote the whole thing up the next day). 4E was an inscrutable black box by comparison. I ran it like I ran 3E, and stumbled. I couldn't make my own classes easily, I couldn't eyeball anything, even with the famous page 42. It was extraordinarily frustrating because I liked what they were doing with the game, but the game didn't let me in.

 Peter Darley said:

It seems like D&Ds primary strength, in any edition, is to be a lowest common denominator. I don't think I would ever chose to run or play it given the universe of games available, but since not everyone likes the same stuff, D&D is often something that people can agree on.

 I had more than fifty comments on that post.  I'd link to it, but it's on Plus and Google is shutting that down next week, so the link would be useless.  There was disagreement, but not much. And it never got heated. So the long and short of it, for me, is this: If I am forced to play D&D and am given a choice of edition, I will still choose fourth edition. I can see some of the appeal of fifth, and I might play it a bit to see how it compares to second and third, but I don't see anything there that I can't easily find in a dozen other games.  Realistically, though, I'm more likely to play something else. I didn't get into it here, but it's worth mentioning that the DMG for fifth edition is quite good with some solid advice that applies regardless of the game being played. It's a shame that the game itself is so uninspired. from Blogger https://ift.tt/2Ulyp0F via IFTTT

[starcitizenprivateer]

On The Run, pt. 2

Part One of the story can be read here.

Alex leaned over the railing to look down at the sprawling plaza below. Streams of Banu flowed in and around the stalls and shops that crowded the marketplace. The near deafening noise was a constant presence. Sellers shouted proudly about their wares, shrewd traders loudly haggled over sips of sloma, while young runners darted about trying to lure potential customers back to their Souli’s Merchantman where the finest fuel cyclers or crog berries or whatever it was they happened to be selling was waiting for just the right buyer.

And even over all that noise Alex could still hear her stomach rumble.

It seemed the one thing that wasn’t for sale on the Bacchus flotilla was a decent breakfast. After a harrowing experience with a ‘Human Breakfast Special’ that had resulted in a shallow dish filled with sliced hot dogs and popcorn covered in what she could only describe as very thick orange juice, Alex had sworn off eating till she could get back to the few ready meals still safely tucked away inside the Belligerent Duck’s stores.

That would have to wait though. Pushing her hunger aside, Alex searched the crowds below for anything suspicious. Which, when you’re inside a Banu flotilla, is sort of like looking for uptight swegs when on Earth. More specifically, she was looking for any undercover Advocacy Agents or bounty hunters who had the gall to follow them into Banu territory.

Typically, the Advocacy would pursue a thief for a system, maybe two, before they called back their resources and left it to the Bounty Hunting Guild to chase the culprit down. It wasn’t that the Advocacy weren’t eager to see justice done, they just had more important things to spend their time and efforts on (like vicious outlaw gangs and crazed serial killers). It was why the Empire relied so heavily on the bounty system in the first place. Doubly so when the jurisdiction crossed into the Banu Protectorate. With a high enough price, you could have hundreds of bounty hunters searching for free and only have to pay the person who collected. It saved time and credits.

The Advocacy’s focus was on big fish, and Alex had worked hard at staying a medium fish at best.

Yet, her and Mas’ escape from Terra had proven to be anything but typical. Instead of having to deal with the normal gaggle of cocksure guilders fumbling all over themselves to get paid, the Advocacy had mobilized dozens of Agents across multiple systems in one of the biggest dragnets she had ever seen. Every jump point had been swarming. Plus, there had been the daily dispatches encouraging citizens to share information with the authorities. Why was it that law-abiding types were always so bored they couldn’t just mind their own damn business?

The Duck could barely stop to refuel without some good Samaritan recognizing them from the wanted posters plastered all over the spec. Mas had to work overtime blocking or delaying comms until they were away, and even then, they still had to fight their way free more times than was healthy. They had always pulled through, but only by the slimmest of margins. Their Mercury had the scars to prove it.

On top of that, Alex had been forced to call in just about every outstanding favor she had. In Pyro, a crew that owed them for a records wipe had agreed to tangle with the bounty hunters who had cornered them there. Though, to be honest, she suspected they would have done it for free with the amount of joy they seemed to take in the fight. In Tram, Alex not only had to wipe Old Mac’s debt clear to get him to help distract the Advos tailing them, but now they owed him a favor. And knowing the gummer, he was likely to milk it for all its worth. A problem for another day.

All in all, they had been pursued across seven systems and hadn’t been able to rest for a moment. Well, Mas barely slept on a good day so he seemed relatively unperturbed by the whole experience. In fact, having the chance to coordinate an intrusion on the Meridian Transit network in Garron had the hacker humming louder than she had ever heard him. And admittingly, Alex had laughed herself watching the hacked starliner routes stymy their pursuers. But that had been days ago. Now, here she was in Bacchus, tired, hungry, surrounded by a hive of Banu, and she could tell that her brain was far from firing with all thrusters.

Something about this job wasn’t adding up. Being paid to delete files at Behring instead of stealing them was strange enough, but now with the way the law had been after them? Even with a big player like Behring involved the response had been above and beyond. Alex felt like she was staring at a big red warning sign, but she was so exhausted she couldn’t read it.

What she really needed was about a month on Cassel with nothing to do but float, drink, flirt with Navy, and spend all her hard-earned credits.

Speaking of which, Alex brought up her mobi to check the time. Only a half hour until they met with Mr. Grouse and received the rest of their payment. Pushing herself up from the rail, she turned and headed towards the docking tube that connected Donosi Souli to the rest of the flotilla structure. Hopefully, Mas had been able to make progress on untangling the project data they had secretly downloaded from the lab.

A few steps behind, Mr. Grouse quietly followed.

To say that Donosi was Mas’ old Souli was a bit misleading, but it was easier for Alex to think of it that way. A programming guild, Donosi had been formed when the previous guild leader, Essosouli Olosso has died. Mas had used the turnover to buy his freedom, while most of the other guild members had joined Olosso’s heir Donosi when she established her ‘new’ Souli. So basically, all the same people working out of the same place, doing the same thing.

Fortunately, while Mas was no longer considered family, Essosouli Donosi was inclined to temporarily hire them both whenever they needed a place to lay low for a while. In exchange for Mas doing some work for them, he and Alex received the protection that being part of a powerful Souli brought, keeping would-be Bounty Hunters at bay thanks to the intricacies of Banu politics.

Alex arrived through the old airlock that marked where the Donosi’s ship connected to the flotilla. Not that it was much of a ship anymore. The thing hadn’t flown in decades and was so hemmed in on all side by other structures it was unclear if it could take off even if it had wanted to. Carefully stepping over thick cable bundles, she made her way inside. It was cluttered for sure, but compared to some of the other Souli she had visited, Donosi was neat and organized. Rather than the usual overflowing collection of odds and ends that most Banu seemed drawn to, the computer guild’s wealth was all in data. Racks and racks of drives of various makes and models lined the walls, some of them older than her. In the center of the room, several Banu half-reclined at terminals pouring over lines of code. Over the sound of typing, she could hear Mas happily humming to himself.

“Any luck, Mas?” asked Alex.

“Oh, yes. Much,” replied Mas with a wide smile. “We have confirmed that Project Stargazer is particularly worthless.”

Alex turned to see Essouli Donosi enter the room. You could always tell when Donosi was approaching because the dozens of mobiGlas that she wore clacked together as she walked. “Oh, yes,” said Donosi. “Complete garbage.”

That red warning sign in Alex’s head started flashing a little faster. “What do you mean? We got paid a fortune to wipe this stuff.”

Mas walked over to Alex with a datapad and gestured to the screen. “This is Project Stargazer.”

“Looks like a targeting reticule.”

“It is a targeting reticule. Part of a design that was supposed to help gunners recalibrate their weapons if the sighting was off during combat. The project was shelved last year when it was proven in tests to only be slightly more efficient than not using it.”

“The datapod you stored it on is worth more than this terrible information,” said Donosi. “Total refuse. Utter trash. No one would ever pay anything for such a thing as what you have brought.”

Alex’s stomach sank when she realized that Donosi was repeating herself. A sure sign that the Essosouli was negotiating. Part of the agreed upon price for the Souli’s protection had been the info they’d stolen and now it seemed that Donosi was no longer satisfied with that deal. This was not good news considering that both her and Mas were technically indentured to the guild currently.

“You can keep the datapod then,” replied Alex. “Let’s go, Mas.” She pulled on his arm, trying to get him to follow her.

“Mas, stay where you are,” said Donosi in a firm voice. “Your debt has not been cleared.”

Mas stopped and Alex found herself uselessly pulling on what might as well have been a brick wall.

“What are you doing? Let’s go.”

“I am sorry, Alex,” said Mas. “I cannot leave until Essosouli Donosi approves.”

“Are you serious?”

“I will not break a given bond. I am not like a Human.” With that, Mas winked at her.

Alex had been the one to teach Mas to wink and it had quickly proven to be a terrible idea. More than a few deals had gone south thanks to him winking when Alex was attempting to stretch the truth a bit. However, since none of the other Banu knew what winking meant, the skill might finally have payed off. Mas wanted her to find a way out of this.

“And what do you think our debt is?” asked Alex.

“A month of labor. Mas will gain access to some difficult locked drives we have acquired and you will clean.”

Even if they hadn’t needed to make their rendezvous, there was no universe that existed where Alex would have taken those terms. A headache began to grow behind her eyes. Like she didn’t have enough on her plate without becoming a Banu slave for a month. Actually, Alex thought, why am I having to deal with this?

“And I say there is no debt. You agreed to take the info on the datapod and that’s what you got. A deal’s a deal.”

“Information that is worthless.”

“Yeah, that sucks for you. Next time negotiate better.”

A smile broke across Donosi’s face. “Very well. You are free to go.”

“Oh,” Alex responded a bit taken aback by the sudden shift. Even though she lived with a Banu, she still could be surprised by how alien the aliens sometimes felt. “Thanks.”

“Come on, Alex,” said Mas, getting up from the terminal. “We don’t want to be late.”

Mas worked the star runner’s scanner as Alex guided the ship towards the rendezvous coordinates the courier had delivered to her a few days earlier.

The relative quiet of the Duck proved to be unnerving rather than the relief she had expected. And even though she should have been able to take a break from looking over her shoulder now that she was back aboard her own ship, Alex still felt on edge. Nothing about this job was sitting right. Why would Grouse want them to purge useless data? Why would the Advocacy be treating them like the Empire’s most wanted? Why did Grouse want to meet again rather than just sending the credits. Why couldn’t she figure out what the hell was going on?

“This is a trap, yes?” asked Mas, having similar thoughts.

“Yeah,” agreed Alex. “You want to forget the credits and bail?”

“It is a lot of credits.”

“It is so many credits.”

Mas thought for a beat. “We can always get more credits. I am a very good hacker and you are also good at things.”

“Yeah.” Though she was sad to be losing the money, a huge sense of relief came over her now that the decision had been made. “Where do you want to go? Spider? Maybe finally check out Kayfa?”

“Neither, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Grouse from behind them, the energy pistol in his hand trained at Mas’ head. “You will maintain your current course.”

Alex, cursing herself, swore that from now on she and Mas were going to search all the berths for stowaways before taking off.

“Let me guess, Advocacy are waiting for us at the rendezvous?” asked Alex.

“Correct, Ms. Dougan. You will be arrested, tried and convicted. Of course, there is a chance I will be forced to kill you both before then, but I would prefer not to.”

“You know we’ll tell them about you, right?”

“That has always been the plan. The only surprise was you managing to evade capture this long. I was certain they had you at the Davien jump point. It was most impressive when your Mercury gave them the slip once again.”

“Wait,” said Mas. “If you wanted the thieves arrested, then why did you hire us? Why not hire bad thieves?”

“The job needed to be successful. A lesser team would have been caught before deleting the project.”

“But the files were worthless!” protested Alex.

“Enough, Ms. Dougan. We should be arriving at the ambush any moment now.”

“What about Prairie Lightning Delta?

“What?”

A moment after she had uttered the phrase-key, the EMP rigged under the main console went off.

With a sickening lurch, the ship powered completely down.

Mr. Grouse, unprepared, tripped forward off balance. Mas, very prepared, slipped his knife from its sheath and slashed at their captor’s arm. The pistol dropped to the floor and Alex dove, recovering the weapon before Grouse could.

“An EMP. Clever,” said Grouse, breathing hard, the deep gouge on his arm dripping blood onto the floor.

“Mas’ gets full credit,” said Alex. “Now, if you don’t mind, why don’t you start explaining what in hell it is you’re up to.”

Before Grouse could respond, bright headlights suddenly shone into the cockpit. An Advocacy Vanguard flanked by two Banu Defenders was quickly approaching their ship. The Agents must have negotiated their way in with the Security Souli in this sector.

“I am afraid it’s too late,” said Grouse.

“Comm them and tell them we’ll kill you if you don’t stand down.”

“Why would they care about a corpse?” asked Grouse, reaching his fingers inside the wound on his arm.

“Mas! Stop him!” shouted Alex.

Mas reached out, but not fast enough.

“Your Empire thanks you for your service,” said Grouse as he used his fingers to sever his brachial artery. The trickle of blood turned into a gushing flood. Grouse collapsed to the floor unconscious.

Alex was certain that the memory of what Grouse had just done would hold the top spot for the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen for a long time to come. “Crap! Do you know first aid?”

“No.” said Mas, looking down at the body and its widening pool of blood. “Did we ever buy more medpens?”

“Crap. Crap. Crap. Help me get some pressure on him or something.”

It was then that the ship’s power kicked back on.

“—gent Duck. This is the UEE Advocacy. Prepare to be boarded.”

It seemed Alex and Mas had a choice. Either tend to Grouse before he died, or try to avoid capture. It was a very easy choice. “Mas, dump his body in the lock and strap in!”

Alex threw herself into the pilot seat and opened up the throttles to max. The Mercury burst to life and hurtled towards the Vanguard, rolling to bring their port side to the Advocacy’s ventral. The shields flared as the twin Sawbucks on the Vanguard’s turret scored a direct hit. They held for now, but a few more hits like that and the Duck would be done for.

A head to head fight wasn’t an option here. They were outclassed. Emergency escape maneuvers were the order of the day.

Gaining a bit of distance from the pursuers as they rushed to turn around and give chase, Alex quickly opened up the rear ramp and turned off the cargo grid.

“Mas, special delivery!”

Alex pulled hard on the controls and Mercury flew straight up, leaving the ten crates in their hold floating behind them. She grabbed the blackout helmet she kept nearby for just this moment and quickly slipped it on, giving all new meaning to the phrase ‘flying blind.’

Mas began counting down, “Three… two… one… “

Alex heart skipped a beat before she remembered that Banu counted down to zero.

“Zero!”

Behind them, a small new sun burst to life as the crates exploded. Or at least that’s what it looked like. Or would have looked like if Alex could see anything.

Each of the crates had contained the equivalent of a hundred flares. The ten crates combined was enough to overload any nearby sensors long enough for them to clear range. And forget trying to track them visually. Those poor pilots would be lucky if they got their vision back any time soon.

Alex pulled off the helmet and lined up a QT towards the Bacchus asteroid belt.

“If we are going to be on the run again,” said Mas. “I think I would like to go visit Leir.”

“Sure, Mas.” said Alex. “It’s your turn to pick anyway.”

Alex let out a deep sigh and for the moment tried to ignore the pool of blood at her feet by concentrating on flying.

No answers. No money. But for now at least, they had their freedom.

THE END.

[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: On The Run, pt. 2

Part One of the story can be read here.

Alex leaned over the railing to look down at the sprawling plaza below. Streams of Banu flowed in and around the stalls and shops that crowded the marketplace. The near deafening noise was a constant presence. Sellers shouted proudly about their wares, shrewd traders loudly haggled over sips of sloma, while young runners darted about trying to lure potential customers back to their Souli’s Merchantman where the finest fuel cyclers or crog berries or whatever it was they happened to be selling was waiting for just the right buyer.

And even over all that noise Alex could still hear her stomach rumble.

It seemed the one thing that wasn’t for sale on the Bacchus flotilla was a decent breakfast. After a harrowing experience with a ‘Human Breakfast Special’ that had resulted in a shallow dish filled with sliced hot dogs and popcorn covered in what she could only describe as very thick orange juice, Alex had sworn off eating till she could get back to the few ready meals still safely tucked away inside the Belligerent Duck’s stores.

That would have to wait though. Pushing her hunger aside, Alex searched the crowds below for anything suspicious. Which, when you’re inside a Banu flotilla, is sort of like looking for uptight swegs when on Earth. More specifically, she was looking for any undercover Advocacy Agents or bounty hunters who had the gall to follow them into Banu territory.

Typically, the Advocacy would pursue a thief for a system, maybe two, before they called back their resources and left it to the Bounty Hunting Guild to chase the culprit down. It wasn’t that the Advocacy weren’t eager to see justice done, they just had more important things to spend their time and efforts on (like vicious outlaw gangs and crazed serial killers). It was why the Empire relied so heavily on the bounty system in the first place. Doubly so when the jurisdiction crossed into the Banu Protectorate. With a high enough price, you could have hundreds of bounty hunters searching for free and only have to pay the person who collected. It saved time and credits.

The Advocacy’s focus was on big fish, and Alex had worked hard at staying a medium fish at best.

Yet, her and Mas’ escape from Terra had proven to be anything but typical. Instead of having to deal with the normal gaggle of cocksure guilders fumbling all over themselves to get paid, the Advocacy had mobilized dozens of Agents across multiple systems in one of the biggest dragnets she had ever seen. Every jump point had been swarming. Plus, there had been the daily dispatches encouraging citizens to share information with the authorities. Why was it that law-abiding types were always so bored they couldn’t just mind their own damn business?

The Duck could barely stop to refuel without some good Samaritan recognizing them from the wanted posters plastered all over the spec. Mas had to work overtime blocking or delaying comms until they were away, and even then, they still had to fight their way free more times than was healthy. They had always pulled through, but only by the slimmest of margins. Their Mercury had the scars to prove it.

On top of that, Alex had been forced to call in just about every outstanding favor she had. In Pyro, a crew that owed them for a records wipe had agreed to tangle with the bounty hunters who had cornered them there. Though, to be honest, she suspected they would have done it for free with the amount of joy they seemed to take in the fight. In Tram, Alex not only had to wipe Old Mac’s debt clear to get him to help distract the Advos tailing them, but now they owed him a favor. And knowing the gummer, he was likely to milk it for all its worth. A problem for another day.

All in all, they had been pursued across seven systems and hadn’t been able to rest for a moment. Well, Mas barely slept on a good day so he seemed relatively unperturbed by the whole experience. In fact, having the chance to coordinate an intrusion on the Meridian Transit network in Garron had the hacker humming louder than she had ever heard him. And admittingly, Alex had laughed herself watching the hacked starliner routes stymy their pursuers. But that had been days ago. Now, here she was in Bacchus, tired, hungry, surrounded by a hive of Banu, and she could tell that her brain was far from firing with all thrusters.

Something about this job wasn’t adding up. Being paid to delete files at Behring instead of stealing them was strange enough, but now with the way the law had been after them? Even with a big player like Behring involved the response had been above and beyond. Alex felt like she was staring at a big red warning sign, but she was so exhausted she couldn’t read it.

What she really needed was about a month on Cassel with nothing to do but float, drink, flirt with Navy, and spend all her hard-earned credits.

Speaking of which, Alex brought up her mobi to check the time. Only a half hour until they met with Mr. Grouse and received the rest of their payment. Pushing herself up from the rail, she turned and headed towards the docking tube that connected Donosi Souli to the rest of the flotilla structure. Hopefully, Mas had been able to make progress on untangling the project data they had secretly downloaded from the lab.

A few steps behind, Mr. Grouse quietly followed.

To say that Donosi was Mas’ old Souli was a bit misleading, but it was easier for Alex to think of it that way. A programming guild, Donosi had been formed when the previous guild leader, Essosouli Olosso has died. Mas had used the turnover to buy his freedom, while most of the other guild members had joined Olosso’s heir Donosi when she established her ‘new’ Souli. So basically, all the same people working out of the same place, doing the same thing.

Fortunately, while Mas was no longer considered family, Essosouli Donosi was inclined to temporarily hire them both whenever they needed a place to lay low for a while. In exchange for Mas doing some work for them, he and Alex received the protection that being part of a powerful Souli brought, keeping would-be Bounty Hunters at bay thanks to the intricacies of Banu politics.

Alex arrived through the old airlock that marked where the Donosi’s ship connected to the flotilla. Not that it was much of a ship anymore. The thing hadn’t flown in decades and was so hemmed in on all side by other structures it was unclear if it could take off even if it had wanted to. Carefully stepping over thick cable bundles, she made her way inside. It was cluttered for sure, but compared to some of the other Souli she had visited, Donosi was neat and organized. Rather than the usual overflowing collection of odds and ends that most Banu seemed drawn to, the computer guild’s wealth was all in data. Racks and racks of drives of various makes and models lined the walls, some of them older than her. In the center of the room, several Banu half-reclined at terminals pouring over lines of code. Over the sound of typing, she could hear Mas happily humming to himself.

“Any luck, Mas?” asked Alex.

“Oh, yes. Much,” replied Mas with a wide smile. “We have confirmed that Project Stargazer is particularly worthless.”

Alex turned to see Essouli Donosi enter the room. You could always tell when Donosi was approaching because the dozens of mobiGlas that she wore clacked together as she walked. “Oh, yes,” said Donosi. “Complete garbage.”

That red warning sign in Alex’s head started flashing a little faster. “What do you mean? We got paid a fortune to wipe this stuff.”

Mas walked over to Alex with a datapad and gestured to the screen. “This is Project Stargazer.”

“Looks like a targeting reticule.”

“It is a targeting reticule. Part of a design that was supposed to help gunners recalibrate their weapons if the sighting was off during combat. The project was shelved last year when it was proven in tests to only be slightly more efficient than not using it.”

“The datapod you stored it on is worth more than this terrible information,” said Donosi. “Total refuse. Utter trash. No one would ever pay anything for such a thing as what you have brought.”

Alex’s stomach sank when she realized that Donosi was repeating herself. A sure sign that the Essosouli was negotiating. Part of the agreed upon price for the Souli’s protection had been the info they’d stolen and now it seemed that Donosi was no longer satisfied with that deal. This was not good news considering that both her and Mas were technically indentured to the guild currently.

“You can keep the datapod then,” replied Alex. “Let’s go, Mas.” She pulled on his arm, trying to get him to follow her.

“Mas, stay where you are,” said Donosi in a firm voice. “Your debt has not been cleared.”

Mas stopped and Alex found herself uselessly pulling on what might as well have been a brick wall.

“What are you doing? Let’s go.”

“I am sorry, Alex,” said Mas. “I cannot leave until Essosouli Donosi approves.”

“Are you serious?”

“I will not break a given bond. I am not like a Human.” With that, Mas winked at her.

Alex had been the one to teach Mas to wink and it had quickly proven to be a terrible idea. More than a few deals had gone south thanks to him winking when Alex was attempting to stretch the truth a bit. However, since none of the other Banu knew what winking meant, the skill might finally have payed off. Mas wanted her to find a way out of this.

“And what do you think our debt is?” asked Alex.

“A month of labor. Mas will gain access to some difficult locked drives we have acquired and you will clean.”

Even if they hadn’t needed to make their rendezvous, there was no universe that existed where Alex would have taken those terms. A headache began to grow behind her eyes. Like she didn’t have enough on her plate without becoming a Banu slave for a month. Actually, Alex thought, why am I having to deal with this?

“And I say there is no debt. You agreed to take the info on the datapod and that’s what you got. A deal’s a deal.”

“Information that is worthless.”

“Yeah, that sucks for you. Next time negotiate better.”

A smile broke across Donosi’s face. “Very well. You are free to go.”

“Oh,” Alex responded a bit taken aback by the sudden shift. Even though she lived with a Banu, she still could be surprised by how alien the aliens sometimes felt. “Thanks.”

“Come on, Alex,” said Mas, getting up from the terminal. “We don’t want to be late.”

Mas worked the star runner’s scanner as Alex guided the ship towards the rendezvous coordinates the courier had delivered to her a few days earlier.

The relative quiet of the Duck proved to be unnerving rather than the relief she had expected. And even though she should have been able to take a break from looking over her shoulder now that she was back aboard her own ship, Alex still felt on edge. Nothing about this job was sitting right. Why would Grouse want them to purge useless data? Why would the Advocacy be treating them like the Empire’s most wanted? Why did Grouse want to meet again rather than just sending the credits. Why couldn’t she figure out what the hell was going on?

“This is a trap, yes?” asked Mas, having similar thoughts.

“Yeah,” agreed Alex. “You want to forget the credits and bail?”

“It is a lot of credits.”

“It is so many credits.”

Mas thought for a beat. “We can always get more credits. I am a very good hacker and you are also good at things.”

“Yeah.” Though she was sad to be losing the money, a huge sense of relief came over her now that the decision had been made. “Where do you want to go? Spider? Maybe finally check out Kayfa?”

“Neither, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Grouse from behind them, the energy pistol in his hand trained at Mas’ head. “You will maintain your current course.”

Alex, cursing herself, swore that from now on she and Mas were going to search all the berths for stowaways before taking off.

“Let me guess, Advocacy are waiting for us at the rendezvous?” asked Alex.

“Correct, Ms. Dougan. You will be arrested, tried and convicted. Of course, there is a chance I will be forced to kill you both before then, but I would prefer not to.”

“You know we’ll tell them about you, right?”

“That has always been the plan. The only surprise was you managing to evade capture this long. I was certain they had you at the Davien jump point. It was most impressive when your Mercury gave them the slip once again.”

“Wait,” said Mas. “If you wanted the thieves arrested, then why did you hire us? Why not hire bad thieves?”

“The job needed to be successful. A lesser team would have been caught before deleting the project.”

“But the files were worthless!” protested Alex.

“Enough, Ms. Dougan. We should be arriving at the ambush any moment now.”

“What about Prairie Lightning Delta?

“What?”

A moment after she had uttered the phrase-key, the EMP rigged under the main console went off.

With a sickening lurch, the ship powered completely down.

Mr. Grouse, unprepared, tripped forward off balance. Mas, very prepared, slipped his knife from its sheath and slashed at their captor’s arm. The pistol dropped to the floor and Alex dove, recovering the weapon before Grouse could.

“An EMP. Clever,” said Grouse, breathing hard, the deep gouge on his arm dripping blood onto the floor.

“Mas’ gets full credit,” said Alex. “Now, if you don’t mind, why don’t you start explaining what in hell it is you’re up to.”

Before Grouse could respond, bright headlights suddenly shone into the cockpit. An Advocacy Vanguard flanked by two Banu Defenders was quickly approaching their ship. The Agents must have negotiated their way in with the Security Souli in this sector.

“I am afraid it’s too late,” said Grouse.

“Comm them and tell them we’ll kill you if you don’t stand down.”

“Why would they care about a corpse?” asked Grouse, reaching his fingers inside the wound on his arm.

“Mas! Stop him!” shouted Alex.

Mas reached out, but not fast enough.

“Your Empire thanks you for your service,” said Grouse as he used his fingers to sever his brachial artery. The trickle of blood turned into a gushing flood. Grouse collapsed to the floor unconscious.

Alex was certain that the memory of what Grouse had just done would hold the top spot for the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen for a long time to come. “Crap! Do you know first aid?”

“No.” said Mas, looking down at the body and its widening pool of blood. “Did we ever buy more medpens?”

“Crap. Crap. Crap. Help me get some pressure on him or something.”

It was then that the ship’s power kicked back on.

“—gent Duck. This is the UEE Advocacy. Prepare to be boarded.”

It seemed Alex and Mas had a choice. Either tend to Grouse before he died, or try to avoid capture. It was a very easy choice. “Mas, dump his body in the lock and strap in!”

Alex threw herself into the pilot seat and opened up the throttles to max. The Mercury burst to life and hurtled towards the Vanguard, rolling to bring their port side to the Advocacy’s ventral. The shields flared as the twin Sawbucks on the Vanguard’s turret scored a direct hit. They held for now, but a few more hits like that and the Duck would be done for.

A head to head fight wasn’t an option here. They were outclassed. Emergency escape maneuvers were the order of the day.

Gaining a bit of distance from the pursuers as they rushed to turn around and give chase, Alex quickly opened up the rear ramp and turned off the cargo grid.

“Mas, special delivery!”

Alex pulled hard on the controls and Mercury flew straight up, leaving the ten crates in their hold floating behind them. She grabbed the blackout helmet she kept nearby for just this moment and quickly slipped it on, giving all new meaning to the phrase ‘flying blind.’

Mas began counting down, “Three… two… one… “

Alex heart skipped a beat before she remembered that Banu counted down to zero.

“Zero!”

Behind them, a small new sun burst to life as the crates exploded. Or at least that’s what it looked like. Or would have looked like if Alex could see anything.

Each of the crates had contained the equivalent of a hundred flares. The ten crates combined was enough to overload any nearby sensors long enough for them to clear range. And forget trying to track them visually. Those poor pilots would be lucky if they got their vision back any time soon.

Alex pulled off the helmet and lined up a QT towards the Bacchus asteroid belt.

“If we are going to be on the run again,” said Mas. “I think I would like to go visit Leir.”

“Sure, Mas.” said Alex. “It’s your turn to pick anyway.”

Alex let out a deep sigh and for the moment tried to ignore the pool of blood at her feet by concentrating on flying.

No answers. No money. But for now at least, they had their freedom.

THE END.

http://bit.ly/2pljOAW

[sad-ch1ld]

via RSI Comm-Link

Part One of the story can be read here.

Alex leaned over the railing to look down at the sprawling plaza below. Streams of Banu flowed in and around the stalls and shops that crowded the marketplace. The near deafening noise was a constant presence. Sellers shouted proudly about their wares, shrewd traders loudly haggled over sips of sloma, while young runners darted about trying to lure potential customers back to their Souli’s Merchantman where the finest fuel cyclers or crog berries or whatever it was they happened to be selling was waiting for just the right buyer.

And even over all that noise Alex could still hear her stomach rumble.

It seemed the one thing that wasn’t for sale on the Bacchus flotilla was a decent breakfast. After a harrowing experience with a ‘Human Breakfast Special’ that had resulted in a shallow dish filled with sliced hot dogs and popcorn covered in what she could only describe as very thick orange juice, Alex had sworn off eating till she could get back to the few ready meals still safely tucked away inside the Belligerent Duck’s stores.

That would have to wait though. Pushing her hunger aside, Alex searched the crowds below for anything suspicious. Which, when you’re inside a Banu flotilla, is sort of like looking for uptight swegs when on Earth. More specifically, she was looking for any undercover Advocacy Agents or bounty hunters who had the gall to follow them into Banu territory.

Typically, the Advocacy would pursue a thief for a system, maybe two, before they called back their resources and left it to the Bounty Hunting Guild to chase the culprit down. It wasn’t that the Advocacy weren’t eager to see justice done, they just had more important things to spend their time and efforts on (like vicious outlaw gangs and crazed serial killers). It was why the Empire relied so heavily on the bounty system in the first place. Doubly so when the jurisdiction crossed into the Banu Protectorate. With a high enough price, you could have hundreds of bounty hunters searching for free and only have to pay the person who collected. It saved time and credits.

The Advocacy’s focus was on big fish, and Alex had worked hard at staying a medium fish at best.

Yet, her and Mas’ escape from Terra had proven to be anything but typical. Instead of having to deal with the normal gaggle of cocksure guilders fumbling all over themselves to get paid, the Advocacy had mobilized dozens of Agents across multiple systems in one of the biggest dragnets she had ever seen. Every jump point had been swarming. Plus, there had been the daily dispatches encouraging citizens to share information with the authorities. Why was it that law-abiding types were always so bored they couldn’t just mind their own damn business?

The Duck could barely stop to refuel without some good Samaritan recognizing them from the wanted posters plastered all over the spec. Mas had to work overtime blocking or delaying comms until they were away, and even then, they still had to fight their way free more times than was healthy. They had always pulled through, but only by the slimmest of margins. Their Mercury had the scars to prove it.

On top of that, Alex had been forced to call in just about every outstanding favor she had. In Pyro, a crew that owed them for a records wipe had agreed to tangle with the bounty hunters who had cornered them there. Though, to be honest, she suspected they would have done it for free with the amount of joy they seemed to take in the fight. In Tram, Alex not only had to wipe Old Mac’s debt clear to get him to help distract the Advos tailing them, but now they owed him a favor. And knowing the gummer, he was likely to milk it for all its worth. A problem for another day.

All in all, they had been pursued across seven systems and hadn’t been able to rest for a moment. Well, Mas barely slept on a good day so he seemed relatively unperturbed by the whole experience. In fact, having the chance to coordinate an intrusion on the Meridian Transit network in Garron had the hacker humming louder than she had ever heard him. And admittingly, Alex had laughed herself watching the hacked starliner routes stymy their pursuers. But that had been days ago. Now, here she was in Bacchus, tired, hungry, surrounded by a hive of Banu, and she could tell that her brain was far from firing with all thrusters.

Something about this job wasn’t adding up. Being paid to delete files at Behring instead of stealing them was strange enough, but now with the way the law had been after them? Even with a big player like Behring involved the response had been above and beyond. Alex felt like she was staring at a big red warning sign, but she was so exhausted she couldn’t read it.

What she really needed was about a month on Cassel with nothing to do but float, drink, flirt with Navy, and spend all her hard-earned credits.

Speaking of which, Alex brought up her mobi to check the time. Only a half hour until they met with Mr. Grouse and received the rest of their payment. Pushing herself up from the rail, she turned and headed towards the docking tube that connected Donosi Souli to the rest of the flotilla structure. Hopefully, Mas had been able to make progress on untangling the project data they had secretly downloaded from the lab.

A few steps behind, Mr. Grouse quietly followed.

To say that Donosi was Mas’ old Souli was a bit misleading, but it was easier for Alex to think of it that way. A programming guild, Donosi had been formed when the previous guild leader, Essosouli Olosso has died. Mas had used the turnover to buy his freedom, while most of the other guild members had joined Olosso’s heir Donosi when she established her ‘new’ Souli. So basically, all the same people working out of the same place, doing the same thing.

Fortunately, while Mas was no longer considered family, Essosouli Donosi was inclined to temporarily hire them both whenever they needed a place to lay low for a while. In exchange for Mas doing some work for them, he and Alex received the protection that being part of a powerful Souli brought, keeping would-be Bounty Hunters at bay thanks to the intricacies of Banu politics.

Alex arrived through the old airlock that marked where the Donosi’s ship connected to the flotilla. Not that it was much of a ship anymore. The thing hadn’t flown in decades and was so hemmed in on all side by other structures it was unclear if it could take off even if it had wanted to. Carefully stepping over thick cable bundles, she made her way inside. It was cluttered for sure, but compared to some of the other Souli she had visited, Donosi was neat and organized. Rather than the usual overflowing collection of odds and ends that most Banu seemed drawn to, the computer guild’s wealth was all in data. Racks and racks of drives of various makes and models lined the walls, some of them older than her. In the center of the room, several Banu half-reclined at terminals pouring over lines of code. Over the sound of typing, she could hear Mas happily humming to himself.

“Any luck, Mas?” asked Alex.

“Oh, yes. Much,” replied Mas with a wide smile. “We have confirmed that Project Stargazer is particularly worthless.”

Alex turned to see Essouli Donosi enter the room. You could always tell when Donosi was approaching because the dozens of mobiGlas that she wore clacked together as she walked. “Oh, yes,” said Donosi. “Complete garbage.”

That red warning sign in Alex’s head started flashing a little faster. “What do you mean? We got paid a fortune to wipe this stuff.”

Mas walked over to Alex with a datapad and gestured to the screen. “This is Project Stargazer.”

“Looks like a targeting reticule.”

“It is a targeting reticule. Part of a design that was supposed to help gunners recalibrate their weapons if the sighting was off during combat. The project was shelved last year when it was proven in tests to only be slightly more efficient than not using it.”

“The datapod you stored it on is worth more than this terrible information,” said Donosi. “Total refuse. Utter trash. No one would ever pay anything for such a thing as what you have brought.”

Alex’s stomach sank when she realized that Donosi was repeating herself. A sure sign that the Essosouli was negotiating. Part of the agreed upon price for the Souli’s protection had been the info they’d stolen and now it seemed that Donosi was no longer satisfied with that deal. This was not good news considering that both her and Mas were technically indentured to the guild currently.

“You can keep the datapod then,” replied Alex. “Let’s go, Mas.” She pulled on his arm, trying to get him to follow her.

“Mas, stay where you are,” said Donosi in a firm voice. “Your debt has not been cleared.”

Mas stopped and Alex found herself uselessly pulling on what might as well have been a brick wall.

“What are you doing? Let’s go.”

“I am sorry, Alex,” said Mas. “I cannot leave until Essosouli Donosi approves.”

“Are you serious?”

“I will not break a given bond. I am not like a Human.” With that, Mas winked at her.

Alex had been the one to teach Mas to wink and it had quickly proven to be a terrible idea. More than a few deals had gone south thanks to him winking when Alex was attempting to stretch the truth a bit. However, since none of the other Banu knew what winking meant, the skill might finally have payed off. Mas wanted her to find a way out of this.

“And what do you think our debt is?” asked Alex.

“A month of labor. Mas will gain access to some difficult locked drives we have acquired and you will clean.”

Even if they hadn’t needed to make their rendezvous, there was no universe that existed where Alex would have taken those terms. A headache began to grow behind her eyes. Like she didn’t have enough on her plate without becoming a Banu slave for a month. Actually, Alex thought, why am I having to deal with this?

“And I say there is no debt. You agreed to take the info on the datapod and that’s what you got. A deal’s a deal.���

“Information that is worthless.”

“Yeah, that sucks for you. Next time negotiate better.”

A smile broke across Donosi’s face. “Very well. You are free to go.”

“Oh,” Alex responded a bit taken aback by the sudden shift. Even though she lived with a Banu, she still could be surprised by how alien the aliens sometimes felt. “Thanks.”

“Come on, Alex,” said Mas, getting up from the terminal. “We don’t want to be late.”

Mas worked the star runner’s scanner as Alex guided the ship towards the rendezvous coordinates the courier had delivered to her a few days earlier.

The relative quiet of the Duck proved to be unnerving rather than the relief she had expected. And even though she should have been able to take a break from looking over her shoulder now that she was back aboard her own ship, Alex still felt on edge. Nothing about this job was sitting right. Why would Grouse want them to purge useless data? Why would the Advocacy be treating them like the Empire’s most wanted? Why did Grouse want to meet again rather than just sending the credits. Why couldn’t she figure out what the hell was going on?

“This is a trap, yes?” asked Mas, having similar thoughts.

“Yeah,” agreed Alex. “You want to forget the credits and bail?”

“It is a lot of credits.”

“It is so many credits.”

Mas thought for a beat. “We can always get more credits. I am a very good hacker and you are also good at things.”

“Yeah.” Though she was sad to be losing the money, a huge sense of relief came over her now that the decision had been made. “Where do you want to go? Spider? Maybe finally check out Kayfa?”

“Neither, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Grouse from behind them, the energy pistol in his hand trained at Mas’ head. “You will maintain your current course.”

Alex, cursing herself, swore that from now on she and Mas were going to search all the berths for stowaways before taking off.

“Let me guess, Advocacy are waiting for us at the rendezvous?” asked Alex.

“Correct, Ms. Dougan. You will be arrested, tried and convicted. Of course, there is a chance I will be forced to kill you both before then, but I would prefer not to.”

“You know we’ll tell them about you, right?”

“That has always been the plan. The only surprise was you managing to evade capture this long. I was certain they had you at the Davien jump point. It was most impressive when your Mercury gave them the slip once again.”

“Wait,” said Mas. “If you wanted the thieves arrested, then why did you hire us? Why not hire bad thieves?”

“The job needed to be successful. A lesser team would have been caught before deleting the project.”

“But the files were worthless!” protested Alex.

“Enough, Ms. Dougan. We should be arriving at the ambush any moment now.”

“What about Prairie Lightning Delta?

“What?”

A moment after she had uttered the phrase-key, the EMP rigged under the main console went off.

With a sickening lurch, the ship powered completely down.

Mr. Grouse, unprepared, tripped forward off balance. Mas, very prepared, slipped his knife from its sheath and slashed at their captor’s arm. The pistol dropped to the floor and Alex dove, recovering the weapon before Grouse could.

“An EMP. Clever,” said Grouse, breathing hard, the deep gouge on his arm dripping blood onto the floor.

“Mas’ gets full credit,” said Alex. “Now, if you don’t mind, why don’t you start explaining what in hell it is you’re up to.”

Before Grouse could respond, bright headlights suddenly shone into the cockpit. An Advocacy Vanguard flanked by two Banu Defenders was quickly approaching their ship. The Agents must have negotiated their way in with the Security Souli in this sector.

“I am afraid it’s too late,” said Grouse.

“Comm them and tell them we’ll kill you if you don’t stand down.”

“Why would they care about a corpse?” asked Grouse, reaching his fingers inside the wound on his arm.

“Mas! Stop him!” shouted Alex.

Mas reached out, but not fast enough.

“Your Empire thanks you for your service,” said Grouse as he used his fingers to sever his brachial artery. The trickle of blood turned into a gushing flood. Grouse collapsed to the floor unconscious.

Alex was certain that the memory of what Grouse had just done would hold the top spot for the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen for a long time to come. “Crap! Do you know first aid?”

“No.” said Mas, looking down at the body and its widening pool of blood. “Did we ever buy more medpens?”

“Crap. Crap. Crap. Help me get some pressure on him or something.”

It was then that the ship’s power kicked back on.

“—gent Duck. This is the UEE Advocacy. Prepare to be boarded.”

It seemed Alex and Mas had a choice. Either tend to Grouse before he died, or try to avoid capture. It was a very easy choice. “Mas, dump his body in the lock and strap in!”

Alex threw herself into the pilot seat and opened up the throttles to max. The Mercury burst to life and hurtled towards the Vanguard, rolling to bring their port side to the Advocacy’s ventral. The shields flared as the twin Sawbucks on the Vanguard’s turret scored a direct hit. They held for now, but a few more hits like that and the Duck would be done for.

A head to head fight wasn’t an option here. They were outclassed. Emergency escape maneuvers were the order of the day.

Gaining a bit of distance from the pursuers as they rushed to turn around and give chase, Alex quickly opened up the rear ramp and turned off the cargo grid.

“Mas, special delivery!”

Alex pulled hard on the controls and Mercury flew straight up, leaving the ten crates in their hold floating behind them. She grabbed the blackout helmet she kept nearby for just this moment and quickly slipped it on, giving all new meaning to the phrase ‘flying blind.’

Mas began counting down, “Three… two… one… “

Alex heart skipped a beat before she remembered that Banu counted down to zero.

“Zero!”

Behind them, a small new sun burst to life as the crates exploded. Or at least that’s what it looked like. Or would have looked like if Alex could see anything.

Each of the crates had contained the equivalent of a hundred flares. The ten crates combined was enough to overload any nearby sensors long enough for them to clear range. And forget trying to track them visually. Those poor pilots would be lucky if they got their vision back any time soon.

Alex pulled off the helmet and lined up a QT towards the Bacchus asteroid belt.

“If we are going to be on the run again,” said Mas. “I think I would like to go visit Leir.”

“Sure, Mas.” said Alex. “It’s your turn to pick anyway.”

Alex let out a deep sigh and for the moment tried to ignore the pool of blood at her feet by concentrating on flying.

No answers. No money. But for now at least, they had their freedom.

THE END.

[andrewromanoyahoo]

While you were tweeting: Seven overlooked stories from 2017

In the 1985 cinematic masterpiece Back to the Future (and its sequels), teenager Marty McFly often relies on a simple but effective method to escape unpleasant situations.

“Whoa, whoa, Biff,” Marty says nonchalantly, pointing over the shoulder of his nemesis, Biff Tannen. “What’s that?”

Again and again, Biff, or one of his equally loathsome relatives, wheels around to see what Marty is pointing at — and again and again, Marty socks him and runs away.

In 2017 America’s collective news feed was like one Marty McFly after another: a nonstop succession of tweets, insults, novelties and transgressions, many of them coming from the current occupant of the Oval Office, that compelled us to look this way and that way and this way and that way.

Meanwhile, the deeper story of the day often receded into the distance, cast aside by a news cycle struggling to churn through all the conflict and chaos created by our Disrupter-in-Chief, President Donald Trump.

Now that 2017 is coming to a close, however, we thought it would be useful to look back on the year with some perspective and highlight some of the most important stories that didn’t get the attention they deserved the first time around — usually because America was too distracted by whatever that was over there.  

In no particular order:

_____

Trump’s campaign to reshape the courts

President Trump (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos; AP (3))

Amid all the punditry and prognostication about the administration’s fumbling attempts to advance its agenda on Capitol Hill, the press and the public largely overlooked how successful Trump has been at leaving his mark on a different branch of government: the judiciary.

When Barack Obama took office in 2009, he had 54 judicial vacancies to fill; when Trump took office, he inherited twice that number, thanks in large part to Mitch McConnell’s strategy of halting the judicial-appointments process during Obama’s last two years in the White House. The new president has proceeded to fill these vacancies at an unprecedented rate, and his nominees have been “the youngest, whitest, male-est, and most conservative in modern memory,” as the New Yorker’s Jeff Shesol recently pointed out. As a result, Trump has brought about “a wholesale change among the federal judiciary” that will “have a significant impact on the shape and trajectory of American law for decades,” says Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware. “This will be the single most important legacy of the Trump administration.”

And the president may only just be getting started. Last month, the founder of the influential Federalist Society unveiled a plan that would allow Trump to add “twice as many lifetime members to the federal judiciary in the next 12 months (650) as Barack Obama named in eight years (325)” — and would ultimately leave the courts evenly divided between judges appointed by Trump and those appointed by the previous nine presidents combined.

_____

  Mike Pence prepares for Trump’s downfall — just in case

Vice President Pence at the White House on Dec. 6. (Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)

In public, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s staunchly evangelical No. 2, is the very picture of deference and loyalty; he has repeatedly demonstrated that he will defend the president no matter what he says or does.

But behind the scenes, Pence is reportedly thinking ahead to a time when he may no longer have to play the good soldier. In May, Pence became the first sitting veep to form a national political action committee at the beginning of his term, a move that will make it easier to campaign for other Republicans now — and later, perhaps, for himself. (Pence’s PAC has gone on to raise more money than President Trump’s.) In July Pence installed Nick Ayers, a sharp-elbowed political operative, as his chief of staff. Pence has traveled to important political events in Iowa, the first caucus state, and opened the vice presidential residence to key conservative activists. Finally, “Multiple advisers to Mr. Pence have already intimated to party donors that he would plan to run if Mr. Trump did not,” according to the New York Times.

Pence rarely surfaces in the headlines; his boss sucks up all the oxygen. But he’s worth watching. Earlier this month the Atlantic reported that after the “Access Hollywood” tape threatened to derail Trump’s presidential campaign, Pence was “contemplating a coup” — and he immediately “made it clear to the Republican National Committee that he was ready to take Trump’s place as the party’s nominee.”

As Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation digs into Trump’s finances and closest confidants — and as a potential Democratic wave builds in 2018’s House and Senate races — it’s easy to imagine Pence himself preparing for a post-Trump future that could come sooner than expected.

“It’s not a matter of when Republicans are ready to turn on Trump,” one senior GOP Senate aide told the Atlantic. “It’s about when they decide they’re ready for President Pence.”

_____

All talk — and little action — on the opioid crisis

President Trump greets New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the White House after speaking about the administration’s plans to combat the nation’s opioid crisis on Oct. 26. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

It was one of 2016’s signature campaign issues: the opioid addiction crisis ravaging small towns from New Hampshire to New Mexico. Every candidate, Republican and Democratic, vowed to do something about it once in office, including Donald Trump. “[T]he people that are in trouble, the people that are addicted, we’re going to work with them and try and make them better,” Trump said. “And we will make them better.”

As president, Trump issued an executive order to establish the Presidential Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, a five-member panel tasked with proposing solutions to the drug epidemic. But the commission missed its first deadline, in June, and its second one, in July, before finally releasing its report in August. Then, after insisting that “we’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis,” Trump repeatedly promised that he would declare a national emergency “next week” — and repeatedly missed that deadline as well. When the president finally got around to making a declaration, in late October, it was as a public health emergency and not as national emergency — a distinction that meant no significant new federal funding, even though experts inside and outside of the administration argue than tens of billions of dollars would be needed to even begin to combat the epidemic.

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  The unprecedented surge of Democratic candidates

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images

Democratic victories in Virginia and Alabama have already gotten a ton of attention. Less noticed, however, is the fact that Democrats already have 400-plus candidates running for the House in 2018. That’s more than twice as many as either party has previously boasted at this point in the election cycle.

Political scientists say there’s a strong relationship between the number of candidates a party recruits and the party’s win-loss record on Election Day, as we’ve noted before.

In a recent analysis for the data-focused FiveThirtyEight website, Seth Masket of the University of Denver plotted the Democratic share of viable early House challengers — that is, candidates who raised more than $5,000 by June 30 of the year before the election — against the number of seats Democrats eventually gained or lost on Election Day.

He found that in every election since 2004 in which Democrats fielded more candidates than Republicans, they also wound up gaining seats — an additional 2.5 House members per each additional percentage-point advantage in early House candidates, on average. The most extreme example was 2006, when nearly 70 percent of the early House candidates were Democrats. That year, the party netted 31 seats on Election Day.

Apply the same formula to the 2018 cycle, Masket noted, and Democrats will be on track to pick up 93 House seats — the third-largest gain in U.S. history.

Will Democrats flip that many seats? Unlikely. But the party only needs to net 24 to retake the House. That’s much more plausible. The only way to lay the groundwork for a wave election is by fielding solid candidates for as many flippable seats as possible, then waiting for the national mood to turn in your favor. That’s exactly what Democrats have been doing.

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  Trump’s behind-the-scenes effort to sabotage Obamacare

The enrollment page for the Affordable Care Act on Nov. 1. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Republicans have made no secret of their desire to end Obamacare. They spent much of 2017 repeatedly trying — and repeatedly failing — to get repeal legislation through Congress. But while that drama was unfolding on Capitol Hill, the Trump administration was quietly doing everything in its power to set the system up for failure — regardless of whether or not it was ever officially repealed.

Over the past 12 months, Trump & Co. have cut the open enrollment period in half, from 12 weeks to six weeks. They have slashed funding for Obamacare advertising by 90 percent, from $100 million to $10 million. They cut funding for in-person assistance by 40 percent — then let the budget run out entirely. And at the last minute they pulled out of state-level open-enrollment events and stopped federal payments to insurers, driving up premiums by as much as 30 percent for some plans. All of this while hinting that the individual mandate — the fine on people who don’t have insurance — would not be enforced.

Despite these efforts, 2017 Obamacare enrollment proceeded at a faster pace than in previous years. And even with less time to sign up, the total number of HEATHCARE.GOV enrollees — 8.8 million, according to figures released by the White House on Thursday — nearly matched the figure for 2016. For now, that unexpected result seems likely to stave off the  self-perpetuating cycle of falling enrollment and price increases known as a “death spiral.”

But Republicans are still in the hunt. The party’s new tax bill eliminates the individual mandate altogether, which could wreak further havoc on the otherwise stable system in 2018. So  the next time Republicans claim Obamacare is failing, it’s worth remembering why — and who’s responsible.

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America’s neglect of Puerto Rico

In this photo from October, Arden Dragoni, second from left, poses with his wife, Sindy, their three children and dog Max, surrounded by what remains of their home destroyed by Hurricane Maria in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Ramon Espinosa/AP)

The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, whose residents are American citizens, was devastated earlier this year by Hurricane Maria. This didn’t exactly go unnoticed at the time. When President Trump traveled to San Juan and threw paper towels to survivors, or got in a Twitter war with the city’s mayor, or accused Puerto Ricans who criticized the federal response of “want[ing] everything to be done for them,” the mainland press paid attention.

But since then, the spotlight has moved on — while the island continues to suffer. The official death toll is 64, and Trump has bragged about how it’s not “in the thousands.” But a recent New York Times investigation has found that it very well may be. According to the Times, 1,052 more people than usual died on the island during the 42 days after Maria made landfall on Sept. 20. Many of these additional deaths are likely attributable to delayed medical treatment or poor conditions in homes and hospitals — consequences of the power outages and water shortages that have afflicted Puerto Rico since the hurricane.

Even now, three months later, only 64 percent of the power grid has been restored; clean water is still scarcer than it should be. At the same time, the U.S. House has included a 20 percent import tax on products manufactured in foreign jurisdictions in its tax-reform bill — a tax that could cost the “foreign jurisdiction” of Puerto Rico tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs. The island still receives only a fraction of the Medicaid funding for which it would qualify if it were a state. And so far Congress has approved a mere $5 billion in aid — far less than the $94 billion the Puerto Rican government says it needs to recover.

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  Defeating ISIS — but backtracking in Syria

Members of the Iraqi federal police dance with children and a national flag during a celebration in the Old City of Mosul on July 2, when the grueling battle to retake Iraq’s second city from ISIS fighters was nearing its end. (Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)

On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump famously pledged to “bomb the s*** out of [ISIS].” That’s largely what his administration has been doing. Then again, it’s largely what the Obama administration was doing before Trump.

Trump has made some changes, loosening the “rules of engagement” and allowing war planners at the Department of Defense more autonomy. But those are tactical shifts. In 2017, under Trump, the United States’ overarching anti-ISIS strategy continued to work — to the point that the Islamic State has basically been defeated, at least for the time being.

This welcome progress on one of the world’s most dangerous situations has gotten lost amid headlines about ISIS-inspired attacks, whether in London, New York or elsewhere, which lone wolves continue to carry out. The operation to take back Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq and the place where ISIS had first declared its “caliphate,” began in October 2016  and concluded in July; in October, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces captured Raqqa, the Syrian city that had become the caliphate’s de facto capital. These successes followed earlier wins across Iraq and Syria, and have led Iraq, Iran and Russia to declare victory over ISIS in recent weeks.

U.S. military officials warn that the jihadi group is resilient and could always stage a comeback. But with ISIS on the run, the question now turns to the larger Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 400,000 and displaced more than 10 million. Under Obama, the U.S. supported the Syrian rebels in their efforts to oust dictator Bashar Assad. But the Trump administration has backed away from that commitment, allowing Russia to fill the void. It now looks as if the war will end on Vladimir Putin’s terms — with Assad still in power.

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