A Gamma World® play-by-post adventure run by gammaworld_gm
[Green text below is new. See the Chronological Patch page. --ed.]
I hope I didn't post moves I should not have for other people. We did discuss it. If so, I apologizzze in advance, Leghorn.
Hooking Leghornz wing or arm (which ever), I escort the "Long" Island Red out of the room and down the hall. "Come with me Roosterz, wez need to talk in privatz."
"My! Aren't we touchy feely today!"
"I am a Gamma Girl; wez can't help it. Nice tail feathers."
"It's not much of a tail, but I'm sort of attached to it."
Finding an empty room, we stroll inside and shut the door.
"Uhhh... what's cookin' toots?"
With the touch of Jonn's hand upon hers, his emotions tumbling like a rapids from his eyes, Frieda's heart leaps, and she sighs. Her heart sings, and if that song should be translated into words, this ancient song would be the result:
Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses;And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety,
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer's day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.
And indeed, Frieda's voice does find words, and also from the very same song. "Look in mine eye-balls, there thy beauty lies; Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?"
And there Jonn sits, but frozen in place, eyes now of fear, loathe, and desire, neither able to deny her request nor to accept it. For his offer had come from generosity and responsibility, yet shaped by his dreaded desires. Never would he otherwise fall to them, but that he had just abandoned his responsibility to the whim of this most beautiful and vulnerable woman. And now what rule does he abide by? His word to Frieda, his promise to Lamia, his honor, his reputation, his home? He has placed more promises than he can keep, placed his honor in a debt he cannot redeem. So he has washed his hands of it, and placed his soul in the hand he now grasps and whose lips are ever nearer to his.
And those desires of Jonn's are not so loathed by Frieda, who longs for the peace of a safe home and the love of a strong man to protect her, yet she too has made promises, even this day. She owes her loyalty to a voice in a dream that has guided and protected her. Now, as in that dream, she must choose between two worlds, choose between unknown danger and a safe but self-serving life. That voice yet calls to her, but she only has to ignore it a moment longer to choose this new and much more tangible protector.
But, as her lips are barely a nose away from his, she stops their progress. "I... uh. No. I mean, you and Lamia," she breathes to him, and then the truth of Lamia returns to her and her eyes open wide. With a push against the hand holding hers, she is standing. She pulls her hand away, places her hands over her brow, and says, "What was I thinking? I was going to run away with a guy who just abandoned his girlfriend to kidnappers!"
Now, turning a much less lovely face to Jonn, who is standing with an undeniable look of guilt on his face, she shouts to him, "You creep!" and with a savage swing, kicks him in the shin. "Oww, sh---!" she yells as she grabs her throbbing foot, for Jonn's armor is proof from such simple attacks. His ears, however, are completely unprotected.
"You made me drop the locket! Find it," she says as she massages her foot.
A minute later, Twoducks Hardy watches the human female marching back toward the spaceship with a slight limp. Her left hand is closed in a fist and in her right is a stun ray pistol. Two steps behind her is a stammering Jonn. Twoducks can just make out some of the words coming from the female. "... tell her... Maybe I will... til it's my turn? ... run off with some... chick! ... stayed with Liz...."
A monitor in the cabin shows the last of the dust trail made by Bayla as the envirobot resumes its journey to the Oadesta Chicken Factory.
I had a simpler version of this post complete, Wednesday, then lost it when I hit the wrong button. I've not had a chance to reconstruct in until now.
The locket is in her left hand, the remote concealed once again in her clothing. She's not planning on shooting anybody, unless maybe it's Jake. ;-)
"Crikey! Stop the film! What a mess!"
"Hey, no way, Polly Pure Strain. You can't explain this one away! Duke's got himself in quite a fix. He should know he can't have his cake and eat it too. Hah! Only thing he'll be eating now is crow!"
"You don't see his real dilemma, Gene!"
"Ah for cryin' out loud, the guy's a creep! Frieda said so herself, right after nearly planting her smackers on the slimebucket! Now THAT would've been tragedy! Almost as sad as her gratuitous waste of Shakespeare---"
"Y-y-you have to understand the assumptions under which he's constricted his reality!"
<chokes on popcorn> "Oh, this I gotta see. Deconstruct your hero outta this fix and you should get the GWA!"
<wipes away popcorn shrapnel> "Right-o! Ok, here goes. Jonn's decision space is influenced, unconsciously or otherwise, by several factors: his loyalties (to Frieda, to Lamia, to Leghorn, to NARC, to the party), his emotions (the whole soul vs. heart tug-of-war he has going on), and the following four assumptions:
"That last one is the kicker: he never doubts it, and it allows him the moral leeway to make his proposal. I think he fully believes his intentions are chaste until Frieda socks him with her interpretation, possibly projecting her own feelings onto Jonn. This knocks him for a veritable loop, when he realizes how his actions can be so viewed, and he begins to wonder if his own hastily constructed logic is emotionally spiked---thus his guilty countenance.
"So, what do you think?"
<glazed look on face> "Wha-huh? I lost you at 'here goes.' Wowee, is that Xeva chick hot, or what?! Zoom-zoom, baby!"
<throws hands up, shakes head, presses "play">
Personal Log, Stardate 3000.4.: All parties (Xeva & Leghorn) are aware of the actions below and have given their united approval. Hey, I want to use Star Trek references too! In the end there will be fire and "brimstone" and no one will be there to answer the telephone.
[Secondary plot device kicks in like a bad habit]
"No I'm not here to have relations with you, I want to know more about Jonn and where these NARC people have their base of operations."
"Now wait, I say, now wait a minute there, if you rule out every guy with a Roosteroid body, a low IQ, poor comedic skills, and handsomely good looks, you're gonna' be one lonely Xeva.
Well I do know Jonn looks up to me for brotherly advice, plus I'm taller than he is, so that helps too. As for NARC.... w-w-well everyone knows they are based in Whore Town. Let me sum it up for you with a song." He whispers, "Damn that sexy Frieda for starting this."
Grunka Lunka Dunkity Doo
We've got a friendly warning for you
Grunka Lunka Dunkity Dasis
The secret to NARCs are on a need-to-know basis
So I keep my head down and I keep my beak shut
Grunka Lunka Lunka Dunkity Dutt
Gru---
"Shut the hell up!"
"Now wait, I say, now wait a darn minute there, I suppose me asking you for a lap dance about now would be out of the question then?"
A sudden left I-beam cross from Xeva sends the fowl Captain Leghorn into dream-land as he hits the floor unconscious, falling like a good sized hunk of chicken poop. Stepping over the prone Roosteroid, Xeva exits the room with a smile.
[Current theme resumes.]
Howard climbs into the captain's chair, Geo sits in the Helmsman's position, Liska sits in Navigator's position, Templeton sits in the Science Officer's position, and Kicker takes a seat in the Weapons Officer's position (filling the last empty seat). Myc moves up beside Geo to get a better view. K-11 exits the room and stops outside the room Jake entered (passing Xeva in the hall). Xeva enters the bridge and stands behind Kicker. A few minutes later, Jonn (followed by Frieda) enters the command area, with Jonn walking over beside Howard, eyeing Howard's new found command chair.
"I've never flown before. Well, there was that one time I was thrown out of that bar in Datil. They didn't serve my kind I guess, only warm bloods. I guess that doesn't really count though."
"You are a pilot Geo, right?!"
"Well, I guess I have the intelligence of one... probably more than most, technically."
"Technically...?"
"Technically no, I'm not a pilot. I'm a bartender, but that's close enough. All robots can make do with the slightest tools and experience! I saw it done in a movie once. Ha, ha, ha... <beep, beep> I always wanted to say that!"
"Let'th go! I mean... WHAT AM I THAYING?!?!? He spits several times. "And I thought getting shot at by that lamebrained Hampthshire wath painful! You knowth I've got more bruitheth than a tomato in a meteor th'shower!!!!"
"Aye, Captain... ahead full."
"I'm going to go have a look around. Waiting down here seems like a waste of time."
"Hey, quit complainin'... at leatht you're vaguely referenced. Thay no more!" After Ironcat leaves Twoducks quick draws his 2 Turbolock Mesa45 Enforcer pistols and says, "Alright, you bald eagle! That'th the latht thtraw! None of your little trickth will thave you thith time!"
Anyone in the cockpit sees a tiger head pop in the door. "Are we ready to take off yet?"
"Yethir! We'th are vacating the premithses asth I thspeak..."
Ironcat continues on down the hall, stopping near his fellow robot K-11, before continuing to stalk the halls.
Relaxing on the bed, Jake feels very upset with himself. What was he thinking when he agreed to become a NARC? Personally he feels he has failed Frieda on more than one level. The disillusionment pains him at the same time. And what was I thinking confronting Frieda? "Very stupid, stupid, stupid," he tells himself out loud as he looks up at the ceiling. "Maybe it's for the best," he thinks, "Out of sight, out of mind." She probably wants someone more like Jonn anyway, and he can't blame her. Jake closes his eyes for the moment and rests.
The spaceship lifts off easily, its quantum high force noble particle fusion engine having much more power than needed. The landing area in the desert quickly disappears far below, lost in the distance and the approaching night. The entire trip takes but only a few minutes. The Albuquerque Starport dome opens just before the ABQ-Starport XJ1 ship arrives. A large landing area within the dome is lit up by landing lights, and no one but a few robots can be seen moving around. Slowly the XJ1 lands.
"Has anyone thought about naming this ship? ABQ-Starport XJ1 sounds like an idiotic name."
Ironcat turns the corner and approaches the engine room door. His highly tuned senses pick up excessive radiant energy use and he focuses on it.
Already prepared, Fence (his name), presses a button and shuts off the portable techion field cloaking him, and turns on the portable dampening field with his other hand. Ironcat slumps helplessly to the floor, its entire robotic system shut down. Fence attaches the magnetic device to Ironcat's skull.
The soldier is a survivor, well-trained in the arts of war, and has a multitude of scars on his body to prove it. Lighting a cigarette, he puffs on it and readies himself for part two. Walking over to the corner (a straight corridor to the command center), Fence leans out and fires one shot, not trying to hit the robot (K-11) standing in the corridor, but someone beyond. The high caliber rifle shot rings out. With a thud, the armor-piercing bullet enters the back of Liska's chair, her flak vest, and exits her chest, spraying blood all over the navigator's console. Liska gasps in surprise and pain, trying to stop the sudden explosion of blood. K-11 turns and charges Fence, and the soldier calmly backs around the corner. Pistols drawn, K-11 charges around the corner and enters the dampening field, collapsing helplessly to the duralloy floor.
"That's three down, several to go." Fence puffs on his cigarette and peeks around the corner, his weapon ready.
Pushing a button on his console, Geo closes and locks the door to the command center. Liska will require medical attention immediately if she is to survive. As the shot rings out, Jake leaps from his bed and opens his door, waiting.
What do you do?
Myc, having no assigned position and no seat to restict his movement reacts to the sudden shots and seeing Liska hit by jumping out the door before it shuts, hitting the floor and rolling to present a difficult target to whoever shot his friend. After regaining his feet he activates his forcefield.
"My new aquaintances sure find themselves trouble easily enough, and here I am putting my body in the line of fire too," he thinks. "Must be that Roosteroid's fault; he has corrupted me."
I've conferred with the GM on the existence of cameras on the ship, and use them with his blessing.
"WAUGH!"
You knew he'd say that, didn't you?
"Gtheo, you didn't menthion thisth sthip having any terroristhsth on board!" Howard exclaims as he ducks (naturally), then hops down to stand on the bridge's floor.
"Howard, please refrain from attempting to say 'terrorists' in the future. I am afraid my translator unit has a difficul---"
"WAUGH!" Howard interrupts Geo's observation of his speech patterns and their adverse effect on his processor while he searches the monitors and controls. "We got any camerasth on thisth rocketshthip?"
"Yeah, who the frak is shooting at us?" Jonn chimes in, drawing his weapon and backing away from the doorway to the bridge.
"Aye we do, Captain Ducky, look at the forward monitor!" Geo presses a few controls and the main viewer is filled with static. "Looks like the closest camera is out of commission. I'll bring up the one at the far end of the hall!" he emits quickly, adjusting the controls.
The screen changes from all static to partial static. Down a hallway, a humanoid shape can be seen holding a large rifle, with his back to the camera. He is leaning against the corner bulkhead, presumably looking down the corridor that leads to the bridge. The prone forms of K-11 and Ironcat are visible on the floor just past him.
"That's our guy!" Howard squawks, stating the obvious and pointing his fingers at the viewer. "Jonn," Howard suddenly says. "Sthomebody just crasthed your party. What'sth the plan?" He pulls off his bacpack and unshoulders his grenade launcher, loading his last stun grenade into it." <CHICK-CHACK> Howard Dodgers of the 23rd½ Century readies himself for battle, but realizes a battle with no plan is going to be one-sided. He looks worriedly from Jonn to Liska, who is slumped in her seat grasping at her chest.
The Roosteroid remembers hearing the words of his sexy friend, and another sexy voice in his dream echoes again in his head. Leghorn finds himself in a dream, in a house by a seashore along Chickpea Bay, seeking shelter from an approaching hurricane. He's standing beside the front door nude, looking through a glass wall at the growing storm, wondering how safe this home is, and if he has time to do it once more. A voice calls him and he turns to see Frieda in red. Frieda beckons, and he follows her through the house and out into the back yard near the chick coop.
Looking about, he sees that Frieda is on the edge of another world, one completely unaffected by the storm. It is a Boris [Vallejo --ed.] painted world, with nuked cities of rusty brown hills. In the horizon, a painted pink mushroom rises high in the sky. "Come and take me," Frieda in red says. "You are safe here. You can do what you want, here, and never worry. No consequence, no cause and effect, no GW rules." Frieda flies up into the sky, joining other sexy women who urge Leghorn to follow.
Leghorn feels the pull of this strange land, but as the pull grows, he begins to fear it, then recoils. He can feel that in this (irl) ["In Real Life" --ed.] land, no consequence means nothing matters, and nothing could be real. There would be no truth without Webster, and therefore no right, no wrong, no love, and no life, no posters. "No! This is wrong, this cannot be, dam'nit, I'm a rooster, roosters don't fly, WE GLIDE," Leghorn squawks, then turns and runs into the chicken house in search of Penny.
Fitfully my bulbous eyes pop open, my head throbbing and my gizzard filled with a strange sense of fraud and plagiarization.
I have made it with a woman! I must inform the men. At least I think I did. Yes I must have. Moving my feet I remain stationary. Maybe the ship has hit the fan and I missed it. Or maybe someone has turned the ship upside down.
A still pause follows while his bearings return...
"Must be that Roosteroid's fault; he has corrupted me."
I heard that, 'Sroom Hero! A protégé never questions their master, Myc, except when it involves copulation or mutant ducks.
Jonn follows Frieda back into the ship, but she stops short of the stairs and waves him ahead, exasperated. Jonn balks, then proceeds, avoiding eye contact and with his tail between his legs. Everyone is waiting on the bridge, save Jake, Leghorn, K-11 (whom they pass in the hall), and the two newcomers in the cargo bay. When Jonn enters, the silence is deafening. Without a word, he drops his pack and rifles by the door and walks over to Howard in the captain's chair. His look says, "Don't ask."
Later, when the sniper shot explodes Liska's chest like a blood sausage, Jonn races over by his pack at the side of the bridge's entrance, and pulls out his trusty auto rifle as Geo shuts the door. "Who the frak is shooting at us?"
When the door shuts, he rushes over to Liska's side. Frieda is already there, talking in her ear, reclining her seat and trying her best to prevent Liska from going into shock. Jonn applies pressure to try to stem the bleeding. For a brief moment, he meets Frieda's gaze as she continues to keep Liska engaged and lucid. For now at least, they are back on the same side. "Geo," Jonn says, wary of the answer, "tell me this place has a medical bay."
"Jonn," Howard suddenly said. "Sthomebody just crasthed your party. What'sth the plan?"
Still overtaxed emotionally, Jonn is amazed at his actions, which seem to come unbidden. "Take out the sniper, fix Liska, rescue Joshua and Ironcat before their brains die. Not necessarily in that order. Geo, scan for any others on board, and find Jake and Leghorn. And give me a map of this ship on the main screen. Howard, take us back out of here; if this guy's a Mystic Mage, we may have just waltzed into a beehive. Everybody else, lock and load." He redoubles his efforts to mitigate Liska's bleeding. "And pray, if you have a god," he utters.
Hearing the door shut behind him, I quickly activate my chameleon powers to augment my protection and try to blend into the background, trying to find the assassin. I slowly ease down the hallway, hugging the wall.
He is floating in utter blackness. "Dammit! I didn't have time to attack. That guy is good." He pauses in his thinking. "I have a half hour backup battery to keep my brain alive, and I can't do anything to increase it. Usualy I could just divert power from my other systems, but I have no systems to divert from. This sucks. This realy sucks." He floats in nothingness until he can get saved.
"Thatz Fence, Jonn. I would recognizzze hiz scar face anywhere. We girlz just know him as Fence. He'z a real bad ass like me," I offer Jonn my best girlish smile. "Somebody needs to get some ballz around here. If not you, then me." Stiffarming Jonn out of the way, and pushing Frieda back on her ass, I take Liska into my arms and head to the door. "Open it, Tin-head."
"As you well know, Gamma Girl, I am composed of silicon and duralloy with a positronic matrix of a standard issue K1B-Service Robot with MP1 modifications," Geo says matter-of-factly. "Very little of that is tin, and very little <beep, beep> of the tin is located in my cranial attachment."
When the door opens, I run to the med-bay. More blood on my leather, how nice.
Miffed by Xeva's comment (as only an emotionally scarred PSH male can be), Jonn picks up his auto rifle as Xeva grabs Liska like she were made of styrofoam. Jonn meets the buff Gamma Girl at the door. Her Liz-like scowl demands a response. "What? Even Gamma Girls with 'ballz' need their asses covered."
Jonn assumes her destination is within the corridor---one of the doors he thrice passed must have been to the sickbay. "Pick a side and leave the opposite open for my firing lane. I'll cover you from right here." He saves his other question (How does she know Fence?) for later. And he hopes there is a later.
Seeing the sentient mushroom dive out into the corridor and then disappear, the heavily scarred human simply smiles and takes a drag from his cigarette.
In full rooster flight and with much unintelligible squawking, Leghorn charges out of his room into the corridor and slams headlong into the nearly invisible Myc, who was making his way toward the intruder using his chameleon power. At the same time, Xeva bolts out of the command center (i.e., bridge) door and sprints down the hall, leaping over the prone Roosteroid and Fungoid who are rolling around on the floor in a non-sexual entanglement. Using his mental mutation, Jake creates a large invisible hand that reaches out and grabs the odd couple and pulls them into his room. Jonn crouches down near the command center door watching, covering Xeva and smiling at the unfortunate collision.
"Are you two trying to get yourselves killed? Who do you think you are? Dodgers?" he berates Leghorn and Mycinod.
When he spots the Gamma Girl, things change very quickly. Time to haul ass. Fighting Gamma Girlz is not on his menu, and he knows Xeva personally. Dropping his cigarette, Fence takes a photon grenade from his belt, pulls the pin (on a 7 second delay), jams it beneath K-11, grabs the dampening device (shutting it off), and runs. Entering the engine room, he jumps on the ladder and slides all the way to the lowest deck in one smooth motion. Opening the engine room escape hatch, he jumps out. The moment his feet hit the landing area, Fence is in full sprint.
"I'll stop your pain forever Liska, I promise. And you won't be competing against me for Jonn's favors... see, he loves me, not you!" Xeva places her hand over Liska's nose and mouth and clamps down tightly. Xeva's other hand easily holds down the very weakened Liska. Xeva's heightened strength is far beyond what any normal human would have.
"Don't do this, I don't love him," cries Liska, the words garbled beneath Xeva's hand. Liska's eyes reveal terror as she looks up into Xeva's smiling face. Quickly everything goes black and Liska's body goes limp.
Removing Liska from the table, Xeva carries her across the room and places her in a cryo-tube. Closing the lid, Xeva pushes a button. Almost instantly Liska is frozen in cryo-stasis. Smiling, Xeva licks the blood from her slick leather gloved fingers, all the while knowing Jonn will be very proud of her for being so brave.
The corridor explodes, shaking the ship for a moment. The photon grenade tears K-11 into useless bits of scrap and heavily dents the floors and walls of the corridor. Ironcat suffers more than half damage to all of his systems as his power flickers back online.
Faster than the PSH eye can track, Xeva zooms out of the medical bay after the explosion rips through the corridor. The explosion has the slimy bastard's name smeared all over it. Since Fence showed her around the XJ1 (in exchange for certain favors) during the Mages' frequent trade visits atop the Datil UPS building, Xeva knows where he could make a quick getaway. But she has to be sure he is off the ship. The Gamma Girl drops down into the engine room without even bothering to take the ladder, and whips her massive coiffure around just in time to see the escape hatch recycling slowly shut. She smiles.
"No others are on board, Captain Howard. In fact, the one who was here has left the ship! That was a grenade explosion in the corridor. K-11 has been destroyed and Ironcat seems to be hurt badly. The landing area dome has been closed and seems to be manually locked. So we can't leave even if we wanted too <beep, beep>. What are your orders How(Kirk)ard?"
Instead of showing the schematics of the ship, the main view screen switches to an image of the Mystic Mage leader Nathan Caine. Beside him stands the disheveled-looking Lamia. From the doorway, Jonn looks toward the image of his lover.
"Now we will talk about the terms of your surrender. Lamia has asked for one request, and I have agreed to honor it. She wishes to speak to her lover, Leghorn. Send him out, and I guarantee his safe return." Lamia smirks. "You have five minutes to comply. If you don't surrender after the meeting, Lamia will be shot! Understand that I don't bluff."
"Althright, althright, SHATHDDAP althready, we're thinking!!!!!" Howard captainly motions for Geo to shut off the com.
"Now, what have you dethided Jonn?" Leaning on his elbow in thought. "We gonna haveth to uthe thome thtrategy!"
"Why would Lamia ask for Leghorn and not Jonn?"
"Because he's more expendable? Who's Lamia? The green-skinned woman?"
[Two groups have merged:
Mycinod stands up. "Thanks, whoever pulled me out of that mess. It would have ruined my day to die without even seeing my assailant."
He thinks, "Damnable Roosteroid, always jumping into my spotlight, could have learned something new, but oh well, at least I live to see another day. And what in the hell made me jump into the middle like that? Going to have to talk to Leghorn about corrupting me. Mama never raised a stupid spoor, but since being around him and Howard, I have definitely been acting less than intelligent."
"You realize that this is not going to go unchallenged, toadstool? Listen Mack... you've got no teeth... I've got no teeth, okay... forget that teeth part, stop stealin' my lines! Pay attention to me, boy! I'm not just talking to hear my head roar! And another, and I say another thing, stop talking like I can't hear you. My ear holes are plum good I tell you and I'm standing right beside you!
"You have made me very angry! VERY angry indeed! I wasn't the one acting all cloaked out there where people were running to and fro. Any coop rustler should know better! And another, and I say another thing, stop bad billing Howard. He's like a fowl brother to me and 'A Quack In The Quarks' to many! Any of this gettin' through to you, son?"
"Mack?? Who is Mack? My name is Myc, not this Mack person to which you refer. And I thought I heard a wind whistling thru here, but I never could have imagined it was coming from you. <innocently smiling> Do forgive me, friend Leghorn and Howard, the heat of the moment made me forget that my extremely dry humor is not appreciated by all."
First I look around for Mack, but see no one except Myc and Jake, who exits the room to leave us to our tender encounter. "You're about as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of oatmeal, 'Sroom, but I still love ya, dumb little vegetable." With tear filled eyes, I hug 'Sroom. Releasing Myc, I step back, admiring him. "Now here's what we gotta do. I say, I say let's go find that daffy duck, I ah, I ah can never get enough of his crazy speech impediment." Together we head to the bridge as friends, friends who handled each other very gropingly (in a non-sexual way as mentioned by our blimpy lactose intolerant temperamental GM).
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