01 - Beyond The Frontiers

Ages - Age of Expansion - Deuces Wild

Rampage >>

When Nickie accidentally activates her special functions and finds herself with a stolen ship full of hostile Skaine, she has no choice but to figure out what to do with the cards she has been dealt. A by-product of her activation, her internal computer system also finds her Aunt Tabitha’s diary in her memory banks. In these accounts, Nickie finds a long-desired link back to her favorite aunt, whose recounted stories help them both to accept the trauma they’ve survived. Join Nickie, and The Kurtherian Gambit’s original Ranger 2, Tabitha, on a rip-roaring, bar brawling adventure to save the frontier from slavery, arms dealing and the ‘Skaine’ of the universe.

Chapter Prologue

Nickie, John Grimes’ grand-daughter (TKG20 Capture Death/22), “back in the saddle”, after a five year hiatus in which she rejected her born world, then got back into it, due to circumstances beyond her control.

Chapter 01

NICKIE finds herself on the bridge of her recently stolen ship, with Grim and Meredith. Grim had been looking up the job listings for the ship they had just taken – finding slave trafficking, weapons dealing, drug- and people-smuggling,etc. Federation probably hadn’t known of its existence, so had done nothing about it. Meredith suggests they drop off all of their extra Skeins at the Minerva Trading Outpost, but the might just get taken for bad guys, for stealing the ship. Might not be a clever idea. Nickie suggests that they not dock, and that Grim go to the Outpost and restock as needed, while she would get whatever ships supplies they would need. Meanwhile, they might feed their “guests”, as it had been twelve hours since anyone had eaten. And now that Meredith has been activated, Nickie will have her in her thoughts at all times. Nickie will have to figure out something to fence in her “adult thoughts” from view.

Meredith finds a Diary left for Nickie, once she gets “back in the fold”, that she will read, in time-delayed segments. Meredith sent her the cover letter, to start, while they were traveling to the Outpost. Meredith also releases the first segment, for Nickie to read in her quarters.

Chapter 02

TABITHA Submit, Never Surrender Bar, QBS Meredith Reynolds. Angie was grieving upon having lost her husband, Manny, who had been her friend, companion and lover. Also Chef for their ship, the Carda. He had been killed in action, on the Recalcitrant. According to Lilah, one of the bartenders there, there were three steps to recovery. shock, Wallowing, and recovery. Angie was wallowing, so Lilah would listen. Angie was trying to get drunk, to forget. Even months later, it hurt too much. Lilah, the bartender, takes her to meet with Tabitha, also in the bar, in a booth at the back. Tabitha tells her one of her stories of loss, that of Shin. Others in the Bar, Dan, George Danvers (Brown hair, lively black eyes), Kelly, Terrence (His brown hair was cut fairly long and fell across his forehead in a long sweep, and his eyes had a hint of green to them. He had an open, easy manner about him that she liked.) Margie come over to hear Tabitha’s story again, always a little different, depending on what people need to hear.

Chapter 03

TABITHA, Memories The Tontos and Tabitha fighting Skaines, who went wild. Shin killed by debris caused by lack of gravity during fight. “When I came back, I was in a black hole of grief. The rest of my friends, my Tontos, supported me as best they could, but how do you get support from five Japanese vampires who’ve seen centuries of life when you are less than fifty years old yourself? I was such a baby then.” She had gotten lots of advice, but none of that advice had helped at all. To lose someone so suddenly was something that the mind couldn’t make sense of, and grief wasn’t something that followed any rules about how to behave. Nothing Tabitha could say would make things better for Angie. The first thing we have to learn is to be patient with ourselves. Tabitha went on, recounting her story. All she wanted to do was to kill Skaines. ALL of them!

Minerva Trading Outpost Grim and Nickie leave ship, go into Outpost. Will meet back in two and one-half hours.

Chapter 04

NICKIE Nickie is overwhelmed and joyous at the Outpost (See Locations, Minerva Trading Outpost), even though it would not compare to what the Federation had to offer. But she had become used to much less during her sabbatical. First purchase was some cheap house bots, for cleaning the ship. All items delivered to ship, half up front, rest on delivery. Will also be looking for more crew for the ship, as she and Grim were not enough to run it well. Fuel cells? Check. Console covers? Check. Wireless network extenders? Check. Holobrighteners? Check. Auxiliary radiation dampeners? Check. Shielding capacitors? Check. A high-quality deck of playing cards? Check.

Chapter 05

GRIM Grim picked up a bot to carry his thigs for him, including a few knives, and shopped mostly for food supplies. Quantity over quality, so they’d have enough. He began cooking when he got everything put away on the ship. Starts a fire in the kitchen, and all the fire alarms go off in the ship, the Skaines, being locked into the rooms, making a GREAT deal more noise. Security alerted.

The Skaines: Selvin and Barqx instead hurled themselves at the wall, hammering at it and body-slamming it ineffectually. Across the room, Drell and Herz were slamming themselves into the door as Grets tried to short out the door. Krask, a bully, apparently the strongest in the group. Trying to break out, escape. Picking on Durq.

Nickie Hiring: Nickie stopped in a bar she had seen earlier (flavored smoke, music drifting out), asked bartender for recommendations for crew to hire. Three names offered. Not acceptable.

Chapter 06

NICKIE Meredith alerts Nickie to problem at ship, and not wanting dock security alerted, so she needs to get back ASAP. She does, comes to kitchen, gets fire suppressant materials, puts out fire. Alarms stop sounding. Nickie alerted that the Skaines in the next room might start eating one of them, so she fought them all, rescuing the smallest one. Ship needs to get off-station, so Meredith by-passes security, and ship pulls out of dock.

Nickie unwraps the cleaning bots, cute- In front of her sat four little house bots. Fully assembled but not yet activated, each was a different metallic color. They were neatly bullet-shaped, with several little arms recessed within their plating and an array of circular sensors around their tops and bottoms that looked like eyes. They were almost absurdly adorable, which made perfect sense for commercial bots designed for household use. They didn’t come any higher than Nickie’s knees in their powered-off state, and already she couldn’t help but think they looked like they were napping. Nickie turned them on, Meredith connected them to the ship, and they began cleaning up the mess Nickie had made in unpacking therm. Adorable!

Will read another of Tabitha’s diary entries before she starts serving the Skaines their dinner.

Chapter 07

TABITHA Entire chapter concerns a bar-fight on Farha Station that Tabitha and the Tontos had starting with Okk, a particularly obnoxious bastard. Currency used was edru, weighted metal, easily verified, and so were easy to acquire and get rid of again.

Chapter 08

Fight continues, and Tabitha finds a snithch (information broker), who gives her news of Skaine activities that she can interfere with, and kill the Skaines.

Chapter 09

Fight continues on ships, Tabitha and the Tontos killing, liberating slaves. Want to get back on the Achronyx. THEIR ship!. The Achronyx is home!

Chapter 10

Grim wants help in feeding Skaines, so Nickie introduces him to the new bots. He names them immediately. The copper-colored one is Brandy, the silver one is Lefty, the gold one is Lucky, and the red one is Bradley. Nickie to make sure none of the Skaines escape as they are fed. Two hours until they can drop off the Skaines. Nickie and plan what their future will be. Vigilante work. So then we get paid to ship a bunch of slaves or whatever it might be at the time, show up, free the slaves and start a revolution(Meredith to hide ship’s ID and call signs. , and then we fly off into the night,” Nickie concluded. “And no one will ever be the wiser about who we actually are.” “The plan is foolproof,” Nickie assured him, “Or at least fairly - workable, and that’s good enough for me.”

Memento Luna, dropping off the Skaines. Nickie announces her intentions to the captive Skaines – to drop them off there. (See Locations, Memento Luna). Durq would rather stay on with them. Better chance of surviving. The Skaines being unloaded weren’t pleased about the conditions of the colony, and they made their thoughts known as they shouted and raged and picked senseless fights with each other. The gaggle of Skaines was milling about in irritated bemusement. The continued chatter of the dock workers made it seem like a scene straight out of a really bad comedy. Lucky and Bradley were patrolling the corridors. They had both acquired their own tasers. Nickie wasn’t sure where the tasers had come from, but she decided it was probably good they were armed. Saved her the hassle of stepping in. Durq was watching all of them unload.

Nickie was looking around on the job database meaningful (payable) activities in which to engage, and found something. There’s a slave shipment that’s supposed to be picked up not far from here,” she observed eventually, glancing in Grim’s direction. “Headcount of at least a few hundred, and a pretty hefty payout for transport.” She paused for a split second to see if he had any sort of reaction to the news. “We’ve got plenty of time to interrupt them. The planet is in this quadrant.”

Chapter 11

ACHRONYX Tabitha and the Tontos made a big deal of all the new upgrades. The ship had been cleaned inside and out, and many improvements had been made beyond new paint and giving the ship a new hull. Tabitha’s fight with the Skaines continues, in all its detail. She is still grieving for Shin, and hasn’t come to balance with it yet. Guildert, their informant, told them to go talk to Don Guido for more information. He refused to deal with them anymore. At the bar Even.

Tabitha goes off to use the lavatory, and Angie starts to talk about one of her ventures. “There.” Terrence patted the table. “See? You’ve been doing good stuff.” “I have.” Angie was buoyed by their cheer, but a moment later she remembered why she was here listening to this story and her face fell. “But I lost Manny—my boyfriend—and I just don’t know what to do with myself these days. My work doesn’t seem important anymore. He made everything come alive, and without him, things are…a bit gray, I’d have to admit.” Tabitha returned. “Hey, now.” She nudged Angie with her elbow. “No calling yourself boring. Manny made the world interesting because that was the world he saw. You said he cooked, right? It’s like that. You see the ingredients. He saw the dish.” “I like thinking of it that way.” Angie nodded. Was it possible that the best way she could remember Manny would be to see the world as happily and as interestedly as he had?

Tabitha goes back to her story, the meeting with Don Guido.

Chapter 12

THE TRANSPORT Nickie gets ready to land on Themes, at most five hundred colonists,” Meredith replied, taking the cue from Nickie and speaking out loud. “The colony is operating at level-two terraforming.” Raynard, Communications tech for the colonists. Adelaide, his wife. Keen, the colony Leader. One Meredith talked to, before Tabitha landed.

Rebus Quadrant, Skaine Ship Boh’Locks 881 ship two hours out. Looking forward to a half-hour load, the sell to buyers, a nice profit.

In the colony. Meredith has radio contact with Adelaide and Raynard, and Keen, the colony leader. Gave them instructions to let them handle all fighting, to just lay low and not interfere. Adelaide tells the other colonists, by code, the time of the meeting. Skaines think they are bored, and just tapping the tables.

Chapter 13

MORE OF TABITHA’S STORY As she and her group attack aliens in the bar, thinking the big blue one is don Guido, Hirotoshi finds the real Don Guido, and they sit down a talk.

Chapter 14

Nickie lands, and prepares to disembark. The Skaines will know it’s not good when she steps off – not a Skaine – and - ??? Nickie fired first, taking down two. The others dove for cover, and began fighting. Nickie toppled a stack of fuel barrels, and one ignited, sending more Skaines out of the way The colonists cleared out into the mines, taking cover. Nickie keeps finding more Skaines to attack. . Eleven dead surrounding her, and many more than that in her back-trail. She finished the job with the last six, in a barricaded office.

Chapter 15

TABITHA’S STORY AGAIN. Tabitha and the Tontos take Don Guido to another bar, cleaner, and quieter, where they can talk. Don Guido tell them of another bad criminal, named Rotciv, and a ship named the Gegward, which collected stolen medicine. The Inspector finds Hiritoshi, not the rest, and lets him go. They all go back to the ship and take off, without clearance.

Chapter 16

THE THEMIS COLONY After Nickie had killed all of the Skaines, they met with the colonists. They were made aware of the incoming Skaine ship, and Nickie took care of the landing party, ending up with Karvar, the Captain, as the last survivor of his crew, killing him with a knife slash across the throat.

Chapter 17

Tabitha after the medicine stores thief, Hlith’ven. This alien is not very good at any of this. He rented the ship for more than necessary, meaning he did not have his own ship in the first place since we could find nothing about him outside of this effort. All of these actions are highly unusual for a criminal.” But he can lead them to Rotciv, so keep him alive! They did, he gave them information on a gunrunning venture, and Tabitha let him go, with warnings.

Chapter 18

Themes Colony. After everything has somewhat quieted down, Nickie takes Keen aside, and tells him what has to be done. Get defensive weapons for colony. In fact, Nickie and Meredith might just be able to intercept a weapons exchange with the Leath, as a way of getting them. She told him, “You just stay focused on getting the colony back up and running and keeping all of your people in order. All right? I’ll handle the weapons. I’ll be back once I have them. I’ll handle getting you those defensive measures and you can keep everything here calm in the meantime.” She had trouble getting Grim away from the crowds, as they had never seen a Yollin before. She had also “liberated” a main generator cell from the Skaine ship, so the mines also had power again. Back on the ship Grim made dinner while Nickie took a short nap.

Chapter 19

BACK TO TABITHA’S STORY Tabitha and the Tontos meet with Rotciv, ascertaining that he indeed had future plans for Hlith’ven, so will kill him to abolish his debt. But she changes her mind, and takes him back to Farha Station, turning him in to Inspector Borven, along with supporting documentation that will assure his anticipated promotion.

Chapter 20

Grim talks to Nickie about Borderline Personality Disorder, is what happens to a person when someone is pathologically afraid of being abandoned,” he explained. “They either cling way too much to people they have, or they push them away to get it over with and have some control over it. Or they just refuse to reach out at all, so then no one gets a chance to leave. It can be pretty self-fulfilling, but it doesn’t actually have to be.” Nickie’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What are you getting at?” Grim sighed with exaggerated patience. “I’m saying that I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to just up and leave you.” There was silence in the room for a moment. Nickie frowned as she turned that thought over in her head as if trying to examine it from every angle. She jumped slightly when Grim leaned across the table to point a finger at her nose. “Which means,” he continued, “that you can stop being such a monumental jackass.” She thought about what Grim had said, and about Tabitha leaving her the diary – and begins to realize some of her truth.

Chapter 21

TABITHA’S STORY After she had turned over the two to Borven, life quieted down, and she began to have fun with Okk, and with the Tontos. She still missed Shin terribly. She regretted his death. The pain hadn’t gotten any less since they had come to this sector. In fact, she could almost say his loss hurt more than it had before. But she wasn’t covering the hurt with anger anymore. She wasn’t on a blind quest for revenge. She was beginning to heal at last. drained her beer and smiled at Angie. “And that was how it happened,” Tabitha finished. “In the end, what it took was…” “You had to learn that no one could grieve for you,” Angie replied. She looked at Tabitha. “If you had taken their advice at the start, you wouldn’t have grieved. Grief is something you can’t skip.” Lilah had set a new beer beside her, and she lifted it to clink it against Angie’s glass. “To Manny.” Angie didn’t hesitate. “To Shin.” People die in war, Lilah had said, and it was true. You became accustomed to it in a strange way, but Angie realized now that you never got over it. The idea of moving on with her life had seemed like a terrible betrayal of him. But she saw now that she was never going to forget him, and that her grief was killing her while she tried to keep it from running its course.

Beside her, Tabitha considered as she drank, and now she said, “Sometimes it’s about who you share the story with that helps you get past the painful parts.”

Angie laughed and watched the regulars. She wondered what had brought each of them here to listen to Tabitha’s story. What loss had Terrence faced? What about George? She saw an older woman with streaks of gray just beginning to show in her blonde hair. The woman nodded at Angie and smiled. She had been inducted into a small club, she realized. “We’d love to hear about Manny,” Terrence suggested, “if you wanted to tell us.” Angie felt the instinctive desire to close everything off and stop speaking, but she forced her way through it and nodded. She held up one finger as she fought for composure. And then she began to talk. Tabitha smiled at Terrence, and the two of them nodded at one another. Another soul was starting to heal.