u/sharkeyandgeorge

Bob was getting a bit frantic as he pulled himself hand over hand down the line. When he reached the small craft he quickly stowed and secured his gear. He couldn’t close the hatch with the tow rope now trailing out the back so he was just going to have to stay exo, he aimed for Geverine and hit the engines, full.

He didn’t move.

This was not that surprising he was still glued to the deckplates, and ceiling he supposed, of the corvette via the attached nets and tow line, that he didn’t move at all... well the line must have been pretty darn taut.

He killed the engines and edged backward on his three remaining grav plates, once he reckoned he had sufficient slack he hit the engines again, this time he moved, briefly, the twin thrusters screaming through the hull as they reached the end of the rope again.

Ow.

Accelerating to, oh, several hundred miles an hour in a couple hundred metres was a lot of G. Decelerating from several hundred miles an hour in zero metres was a lot more. Bob felt like someone had just pushed his skull out via his front teeth.

Ow.

Fortunately this crash broke neither his wrist or the tow rope, seriously he needed to buy stock in Xitti, he reversed again on his thre, nope make that two, remaining gravs. The one he was fucking sitting on started to spark and arc madly as he fed it power.

Ow.

Add a couple more electrocutions to the list, he kicked it hard with his heel until it finally quit and then used the last two to reverse.

Ok, more slack this time, which meant this hit… he slammed the engines full, was going to be even wor…

When Bob awoke a few minutes later he was certain of three things.

One, he was free of the corvette and, glancing back, he had retained most, if not all, of his loot.

Two, the Petty Bitch was still at full excel, but no longer pointed anywhere near Geverine, he adjusted his course and allowed it to continue.

Three, his testicles had fully detached from his body along with his spleen and a bit of spine, and now orbited his head in a lazy circle, that didn’t seem possible, but he was absolutely fucking certain that was what had just happened.

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

When he blacked out, and rewoke again, he was glad to see that both Gerverine loomed in front, and that his balls had successfully reattached to his junk. All the other pain was still there though, he wasn’t that lucky, he could feel the medic system fucking burn away inside him.

He was gonna deal with all that later. Right now he had shit to do, checking his clock it was about four hours since his foam mines had detonated, they would either be out the shit by now or damn close to it, and while their scanners couldn’t follow him here he had no doubt he had crossed a dozen sensor bubbles on his way out.

He dove the Bitch deep into the planets atmo, thank fuck the sensor pod still worked, and found Jojo drifting darkly in the soupy gas. Once maneuvered abreast he started to strip out his panel and yoke. He intended to drop most of the shit, like the washer and the solvents down, deeper into the gas giants atmo, but some shit he had to keep.

He paused for a moment as he left the craft and moved across to Jojo, should he keep the pod?, the sensor package was extremely expensive… he shouldn’t leave it here anyway, he opened Jojo’s cargo hatch and shuffled into it.

After that it took forty minutes or so to swap what he needed to from one craft to the other, in the end he kept the pod, it gave off an identifiable signal so he had at least got to get it out the system. He returned the drive grate bolts and reattached the fuel pods engine grate, The two engines he kicked down deeper into the clouds. He moved a couple empty fuel pods into the Bitch and closed her up the best he could with the tow rope still attached.

He wasn’t taking her, wasn’t taking any of the loot either. He finished up and kicked away from her, he was going to let her drift here, she was less buoyant so she would ease her way deeper but she should still be gettable later on, by someone in a C’Eede ship at least, not many others would take the pressure down there.

It irked him to go away empty handed but he had to be realistic, he couldn’t sell any of the presumably rare and very traceable shit, and it was not beyond possibility there was a tracker or something similar amongst the wares. Bob considered this the best he could do for right now, take that prick’s shit and hopefully stash it here for later, the main point wasn’t for Bob to have it really anyway, it was for that cock to not have it any more. It was possible he would come here, somehow find it and retrieve it, but maybe not. Either way he would hopefully spend the rest of his life on edge lest it was taken again, if it took just an edge of pleasure from Dear Dewiv’s day, Bob considered it worth the pain. He was sure that arrogant prick had considered himself untouchable, well Bob had fucking touched something hadn’t he?, he hoped it was a nerve.

He buttoned Jojo up, brought her back to life and dove deeper, he flew some arbitrary distance round the planet and up and out, racing out the gravity well toward the systems edge, as soon as he could jump he did so.

He came out in completely the wrong direction, of course, he wasn’t going to point right back at Collp. It took a bit to reorient himself and start back, lets finish up.

Bob was giddy and giggled madly to himself as he grabbed his supplies from the back of the Bitch and clipped them on to the line back to the corvette, he pushed them out one at a time and each bundle slid away in the vacuum.

Happy he had everything he followed them down the rope and into the cargo bay, legs drooping down as the crafts grav reasserted itself. He dumped the tools and unclipped the line, reaffixing it to an exterior belay point. He tugged the heavy door closed and jammed it tight, waiting as the ships enviro struggled to repressurise the space.

It didn’t sound like it was going to manage it, the damage Bob had done on entry was pissing out atmo as fast as it got pumped in, didn’t really matter, as long as there was something a little denser than pure vacuum he was pretty sure this would still work. He cracked open a couple containers and dragged out the pressure washer and the rest of the solvent, now in a fuel tank to help it survive his rough insertion. He connected it up and started spraying, in the low pressure the volatile chemical vaporised almost instantly but if he got the pressure washers wand right up on the foam it lasted long enough to carve a deep gash in the puffy mound.

He certainly was not going to have enough to clean off the boxes, but he never intended to anyway, instead he simply carved narrow passages up and down the aisles of the stacked crates, he wasn’t going to be able to get absolutely everything, but the vast bulk of shit?, fuck yeah. He hoped the message pod would be secreted amongst his booty but there was no way of knowing right now, hopefully dear Deviw didn’t have it amongst his personal effects or something.

He began to wrap the large netting down the lanes and around foam encrusted groups of boxes, in less than ninety minutes he had everything he was going to get and should leave, but some part of him had to know… not that he gave a fuck or anything.

He dropped Annabell again and moved over to one of the remaining large piles of gray green foam in the bay, against one wall where the brace handle that any crew in the hold would have likely grabbed pre jump, he carved it open, if there was someone inside he was past hurting, the foam was not airtight, Bob had breathed just fine when he was trapped in it. Nothing, he moved over to the other grab handle and checked it too, clear….

Bob felt a rush of relief he hadn’t expected, he didn’t mind killing someone trying to kill him, but absent active danger he would, apparently, be glad to avoid doing so, even if they were Arressi pricks… huh, the crew would likely be low level from poorly regarded families anyway, unlikely to be directly responsible for any of Bobs many grudges. He briefly considered trying to hack his way to dear Dewiv, but quickly wrote it off as a bad idea, this was already taking too long and he had no way to know where the fuck actually was, never mind how long it would take to tunnel there through all this shit.

He cracked the door open again and retrieved the tow line. He clipped it to the gathered corners of the nettings and reclipped on his gear pushing it out the grav and letting it float back to the Petty Bitch.

Then he climbed out over the hull and scampered round the hundred metres or so to the ships prow, he reached the primary sensor array and slammed Annabell into it, wrenching from side to side until he was sure it was fucked, he moved round and did the same to the auxiliary. He couldn’t do anything about them seeing the Bitch arrive, but he could stop them seeing where it went.

He would have liked to do something about the scanner data it had already cached, but Arressi ship comps were heavily armoured and had no fixed location aboard, to prevent a targeted strike presumably, he hadn’t even seen it during his prior skulking.

What the fuck ever, it was a bit late to worry about it now, he turned and ran down the hull towards the Bitch.

Part 43 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1x0njo0/bob_was_bored_part_43/?

Wuqa was both the system and the name of the lone rocky planet. It was very close to a binary, a dull red star, Wuqa in the middle and a huge gas giant, just a little mass sort of fusion. The system boasted no moons or asteroid belt, presumably all long gobbled up by the massive Jupiter or the dwarf star.

The two massive stellar objects had shown their influence on the planet too, it was oddly misshapen, tugged between the two. Somehow though a tenuous balance had been achieved and then maintained for billions of years, but as Bob examined the bizarre arbitral dance the three engaged in it was clear it would not hold forever, but then he considered, what did?

The planet hove into view as he burned in, purple green and largely vast oceans that rippled madly with enormous waves. Bob couldn’t not remember ever coming across a purple planet before, whatever their version of chlorophyll was certainly stood out, though since it was the water that glowed brightest perhaps it was a salt or some other adulteration that gave off the hue.

He connected to the planets system and was guided down, passing large Vie Corp freighters both coming in and leaving the surface.

He landed in the indicated spot and trotted over to the large low building he presumed to be reception, inside he saw something else new. Behind the desk were several Wurriks, the native sentients, they looked a little like star moles coloured deep blue, and were refreshingly small, only nine or ten feet tall. He had read a little about them over the years as he formulated his plans, they were almost entirely subterranean, the weird mechanics of the system played merry hell with things like solar flares, and sub surface development had been far more conducive to species success.

Nor did they roam much, Bob suspected there was some biological or environmental condition that largely kept them home bound, certainly he had never come across one in his travels. Still the planet thrived, the contract with the Vie may be restrictive, but the partnership had also clearly been fruitful for both, the reception clad in tastefully expensive imports wares. He noted that more care had been given to furnishing textures rather than colour matching and he wondered what vision spectrum they saw in.

Regardless he moved to the seated area several Wurrick milled in and waited for a moment to introduce himself. A pair turned to face him as he approached and clearly saw his hung badge, the Guild delivered here pretty frequently, they bought a lot of expensive shit.

‘’Guild Master, welcome, which one is your target?’’

Bob parsed the sentence.

‘’No target Sir, I am here to issue a commission if possible.’’

The two were joined by several others and muttered softly.

‘’We have no deliveries required at this time, but will issue an alert that you require purpose, perhaps purpose can be created.’’

...uh.., Bob thought he got it, he tried to be more specific.

‘’Apologies for my lack of clarity, I am here to request a commission of your filter tech for my craft, I would like to order a custom solution for my environmental needs.’’

Several of them wandered away and only the original pair continued to address him.

‘’This is not possible, we cannot oblige.’’

Bob pulled out his pad and flicked to the salesman’s signed note.

‘’I have received permission from a Vie Corporation representative to make the request does this change your position.?’’

Bob had noticed over the years that he was pretty darn good at locking into the speech patterns of other species he encountered. The scattered group reassembled at that and passed the device around, more muttering ensued.

‘’Clarity will be sought, please wait’’

The group left the large reception in a mass and Bob was left alone, he plopped down on one of the firm low benches, even by his standards.

Ten minutes later a non Wurrick was hustled in, Bob didn’t recognise his species either but presumed he was some sort of Vie liason. The large reptile surrounded by a sea of blue fur, the group had grown.

‘’Uh, Guild Master, apologies what seems to be the issue?’’

It spoke in a sibilant whisper but with much more standard grammar, at least according to Bob’s translator. It was a large but also low slung being, on all fours and maybe forty feet long, twelve high, Bob suspected one of the reasons it had it position was its ability to fit under the relatively low ceilings the Wurrick clearly preferred. As it left the short corridor it came down it straightened slightly in the taller reception area.

‘’I have an introduction and exception from a Vie Corporation representative on Joota,’’

He offered up the pad again.

‘’He was unable to supply a system for my needs but recommended I come here directly to see if I could be accommodated by vfFebiri directly.’’

He had not, but Bob had badgered him into writing down something vaguely similar.

‘’We can supply a complete system for any craft, I apologise for the miscommunication but you should see another representative at a retail location, sorry again.’’

It thrust the pad back at Bob, clearly trying to deter him from pushing the issue, but Bob was well prepared to counter and did not retrieve the device, you’re stuck in this conversation till I say we’re done. He cast a hand back to the parking lot.

‘’My craft is unsuitable for any Vie system on offer, hence the need for a custom order and my long travel here.’’

The large gator like alien craned his neck to look out the large windows at Jojo.

‘’Is that a C’Eede craft?’’

‘’Yes Sir, unfortunately its hull cannot be modified to fit one of your excellent systems otherwise I would have of course purchased one.’’

The fuck he would have. The rep crept just over the edge of exasperation and landed at not giving a shit, the tiny spaceship would only be one singular small order, what did he care.

‘’Very well.’’

It handed the pad to an adjacent Wurrick as Bob was clearly not going to retrieve it, and addressed it.

‘’You may take his order, I will note an exception in the record.’’

He turned back to Bob.

‘’If you will excuse me Guild Master.’’

And disappeared back down the passageway.

The large group milled round nonplussed, one seemed to be nominated and addressed Bob.

‘’Yes, what is it that your needs require?’’

Bob smiled broadly behind his mirrored visor, this was gonna get weird.

The basic plan was simple, the details got tricky.

One, go pick up his hold full of whatever shit it was that construed currency on this occasion, twenty bank stacks would pretty well max him out.

Two, swing by Collp, Bob had no real desire to ever got there again but he hadn’t been able to come up with a better idea for a stash and staging post.

Three, pass through Pwitic’s sector and send the crier a message to ask when the last time he thought he would be able to come through for a visit to Dewiv dear’s collection was, whenever it was be sorry he wouldn’t be back in time.

Four, swing by vfFebiri and place an order.

Five, go to his drop off, pickup whatever shit was coming back presumably other bank stacks filled with other shit. The order gave a volume and a weight but no details on the return cargo.

Six, Pick up his order from vfFebiri.

Seven, come back and rob that prick blind in transit.

Eight, drop off his cargo and go home, potentially with enough points banked for Master First Class.

Done.

It was all doable, barely, he was going to have to hammer the engines to carve out the time he needed, but it was possible.

He would also need to get some shit, stash some shit, just generally prep, but he could sort all that as he went, he would need plenty of refuel stops at the burn rate he was going to use and could certainly pick up the stuff he needed at some combination of them.

The pickup itself was at an inner core world, there might be a chance to pickup a bunch of his list right there. He needed, in no particular order,

Ship gun, preferably C’Eede but others were available to fit the same mount system, this would hopefully be entirely superfluous, Bob would prefer a more stealth approach but you never knew.

Sensor package, his was fine but G’s expensive gift was not being fully utilised with it and he would love to squeak out additional comm and sensor range.

Battery bank, he wanted a spare eventually and the plan required one he could retrieve after, so two birds.

General supplies, it would be a long trip with just the prescribed route never mind Bob’s additions, it was time to see what he could actually cram aboard.

He landed in HoccaKel Secundus’s system ten days after he left the Guild world. It was a banking world, or as they called it out here a ‘financial nexus’, whatever it was rich as shit and certainly wouldn’t have anything he needed or could afford even having kept aside much of the Bocca’s bonus. Bob wouldn’t spend a second more there than he need to, after calling in and telling the client he was in system and ready for pick up, he had been given a handover slot in about thirty hours. He headed instead to one of its moons Kel, which was a bit more his speed and rented a cheap dock slot for the day. He scanned the systems markets for a while but didn’t find much apart from a dry bulk store, he called and got a rep, arranging for a tasting, Then he locked up, checked, checked and headed out into the busy streets.

No high road unfortunately, the inhabitants seemed to prefer sheer slab faced buildings with limited protrusion over the packed roads and alleys. So Bob slogged through ankles and knees for an hour till he arrived at the cash and carries warehouse. Entering he introduced himself to a worker who paged for the rep he had been talking to. Bob glanced around the gargantuan expanse of the building as he waited, when he lived on Earth he remembered the local buzz when a supermarket had opened a mile long logistics centre nearby, you could have fitted thirty of them in this space.

He hadn’t known he remembered that and it filled him with bone deep sadness that that had stayed, but he couldn’t remember the colour of Jo’s eyes.

He pushed it back a bit as the Higgit rep came over the vast concrete floor dragging a thirty foot scale covered tail behind him.

‘’Master Courier?’’

Bob confirmed and was led several hundred yards to where the big T-Rexish rep had prepared a low tray of samples. Bob began trying them as the rep reeled of the nutritional details, price per thousand, planet of origin, etc. Two of the rations gave what Bob recognised as an allergic reaction, and one set off his adrenal dump, must be hella toxic to get that response, Bob had to take a moment and a palette cleanser to remove the acrid taste of adrenaline out his mouth.

In the end he selected a half dozen acceptable options and ordered, ouch, fifty thousand total, split up fairly evenly across them, there goes half his cooried bonus. They were all much larger than the Arressi rations, reluctantly he also ordered several boxes of those as well, much to the reps surprise who hadn’t even offered them, considering them, Bob presumed, too vile to suggest. They had some in stock however and he dutifully added them to the list.

Bob had taken the opportunity when cleaning up after epoxying Jojo to flood the lower level and work out the rough volume available down there, he reckoned he had about nineteen hundred and thirty cubic feet, but some experiments with the cleaning bot suggested only about eighty percent would be realistically usable. This order should work out a little less than thirteen hundred cube and in theory should provide rations for nearly two centuries if you, sigh, included the puke cubes.

It would take a long time for the little bot to stash them all and he would have to cram the cabin space to the ceiling until it made a dent. Whatever, he needed to be sure this could be done and now was as good a chance as ever.

Next he headed to a fitters shop and haggled a second hand battery bank down to a reasonable level, though by the imprecations the owners had fired his way Bob was pretty sure he had made an enemy for life.

He had oooonnnne more stop he wanted to make, and called a cab. He got out in a more down area and walked into a very nice audio store.

The salesperson, a Vett’w of indeterminate gender call Dooliat, spent over an hour taking Bob through various range tests and reverb responses before recommending a high end set of canal audio expectorators, though Bob recognised them as earphones, as long as you had external acoustic meatus they could fit in.

Bob did not, but he figured a little machining time would let him knock up a headband they could fit to. He also bought a set of soft silicone fitment adapters for them that were absurdly oversize but he reckoned he could carve something suitable out the pliable material, after consideration he bought two more sets, he might not get it right the first time.

He would have to get to all that later. When he returned to Jojo the ration delivery and the battery was waiting at the dock office. He grabbed a grav trolley from the ship and spent an hour getting them stowed away.

He went back to orbit preferring to save the cash of the dock rental, and went to sleep, he needed to be fresh for the pickup.

Jojo technically had three decks amidship, but the upper and lower were too tight and circuitous for Bob to fit in, even unarmoured. He had considered using them as fuel cells, but couldn’t get it to work.

It irked him to be unable to use the space, so he had come up it an idea and this time scale was on his side. Cleaning bots were a little larger than the Terran ones he remembered but would fit in the low passages just fine, and because everyone was way bigger than humans their dirt was bigger too. They still wanted dust and stuff removed, but some detritus would be large enough to necessitate a far larger machine if it was to be vacuumed up, instead many of these bots came with grabbers, suitable for picking those items, after all a galactic resident might have traipsed in things melon sized or even larger in the tread of their shoes.

Bob had originally considered a small remote control drone or something similar, but they already made something that floated on grav plates, could manoeuvrer its self around a maze, and could easily be told to pick things up and deposit them at a specified location. They were also pretty cheap, though Bob intended spending a bit extra on a brand name model, they would be a prick to retrieve if they broke down somewhere inaccessible.

It wouldst be the most versatile solution but he could tell it to, say, pick up a pile of ration bricks and stash them under the floor, then retrieve them at a later date by simply reversing the command.

If he chose something like the puke cubes, though he intended better, he could store decades and decades of supplies in those spaces, should he need to.

First he wanted one of the bots, so he browsed through several catalogues on his pad as he ate something green from a street stall, yum, tasted like anaphylaxis. Eventually he narrowed down his options and went to a store that stocked several, then he had an argument with a prick of salesman, then he took the train forty five minutes to another store and bought the one he had liked from the first one.

Then he took the train back just to show the prick he had bought it elsewhere.

It was a nice, not horrendous on price and the company had been making the same model for over a millennia so he figured it was pretty well proven, though he did also get several service kits and a couple spares of what the reviews said were the most common breakages.

Nice, next up he wanted to have a chat with someone from Vie Corp, he called their offices and arranged a meeting with a rep, god bless you Guild Master Certification, he presumed he would have been told to get bent otherwise, they did not do the pissy little system he wanted.

Bloke was nice but clearly only taking the meeting because of the Guild, he was very sorry but they simply didn’t take projects of the size, as Bob expected, and desired, Vie shit suuuuuccckkkeeeddd.

They did have one thing that Bob wanted though and he managed to pressure the rep enough to get it, an introduction to the company that made the splitters for their shit enviro systems.

Bob had been on hundreds of ships and talked to hundreds of engineers responsible for keeping the inhabitants of said ships breathing, and across all those ships he had heard the same complaint again and again, Vie systems sucked shit, the software was horseshit, bullshit motors, dogshit build quality, every single one that actually used them had to be semi regularly restrained by the rest of crew from beating the rusting rotten shitboxes to death.

Bob had heard tirades based on a similar theme constantly, and every time he had asked why the fuck they ran them he got the same answer, over and over.

The splitters are incredible.

It seemed like the only reason that Vie was a galactic powerhouse in the enviro market was because at some point many centuries they had tied a company called vfFebiri to themselves with a sole provider contract, they couldn’t provide any of the exceptionally durable, efficient, nigh unstoppable splitters they produced with out the express written permission of Vie Corporation, which Bob had just obtained.

They were not local so Bob would have to select a commission that took him to their neck of the woods, but when he got there, well he had ideas about what could go in Jojo’s ceiling.

That was plenty, he went back to his bay, the Bocca had kindly provide him the use of one at their facility for free, and plotted the course back to the homeworld.

Bob resolved to put the future heist out his mind for the moment, but you could be fucking sure he was gonna circle back to it. He still had shit to do first.

This leg out to Kilither Station at dg3645 was a looong fucker, fully ten weeks at pretty high drive, and he intended to use the time productively.

Firstly he had to, absolutely had to, fire up the steam cleaner, it still fucking stank in here and he was not spending two and a half months huffing rotten protein. He dug it out and tried to read the instructions, then tried to translate the instructions, then tried to understand the mangled instructions.

None of these endeavours were particularly successful, but a half hour of examination got it up and running, the threats probably did not help but they made Bob feel better, briefly. He quickly stopped feeling better when he shoved the things nozzle in a goo filled hole, turned it on, watched as the goo lump whizzed away, up the wall, the ceiling and shot out spraying Bob directly on his following face with a mush of hot, steamy, slime.

Huh, that was where that tube went.

Bob and Jojo had an argument then, unlike his marriage it quickly turned to violence, but like his marriage Jojo won. He continued cleaning, interspaced only rarely with goo showers and violence. It eventually occurred to him that largely what was happening was that the various fluids were being diluted by the steam and then distributed into other holes, where it would presumably continue to decompose.

Thusly at the next cool down he depressurised the cabins, flash freeze drying all the liquids. He also took the opportunity to climb out the top hatch and smash the fucking steam cleaner off the fucking hull and throw its remains into the void as hard as he fucking could.

Upon repressurisation he found a length of cable, a rag, and snaked them through each worm hole clearing them of of their mummified remains.

This took two weeks.

Secondly he wanted to figure out this whole fighter tank thing. He bodged up a very long extension to fit, basically, an impact driver and slipped it into the wiring looms nexus amidships, it took three full days to scrape out and clear the silver/carbon alloy that filled the small tube, pulling the drill end in and out, in and out. Finally he heard it pop through and a loud whistle piped as Jojo’s relatively high pressure equalised with the mostly empty fighter.

His plan was simple feed a thin tube down the channel, a little smaller so that it had a gap surrounding it and pipe it directly into the ‘fuel room’. Then cap the channel tightly and set up one of the enviro systems outputs to pressurise it, just a little more than one atmo.

In theory the fighters should still get at least a little gravity from the plates glued to the lower hull, therefore the fuel sitting in the relative ’bottom’ of the tanks should be pushed up the new inner fuel line and trickle into the room. More air pressure would mean more flow, in theory, but Bob was worried that there would be a hard limit to what was possible, and if he reached it, seals and lines would start to pop.

He wanted to avoid a pool of radioactive slime if possible, the medic system took care of cancer, eventually. He still didn’t want to Marie Curie it if he could avoid doing so.

It worked, incredible slowly, but it worked. The weak oozing would take days to empty the tank but that was fine, that was why we had the buffer. Doing the other side went much faster now he had it down, within a week he had both hooked up and dripping away. There would be a point if he let it run that the pressurised ‘tanks’ would reach equilibrium with the sealed ‘room’, but as he used fuel the differential would return.

As a bonus he could set an alert of the enviro so that when it registered a sudden pressure drop on that output line, like when the tube cleared, and voilà, empty tank sensor.

This was a big step, Bob had massively, massively, increased his potential range… and he could always run with two more if he removed the sensor pack and the, currently unobtained, weapons system. If he did that he could criss cross the galaxy several times before running dry, pretty slowly sure, but… he had plans.

Thirdly he set up his new mill thing, it was not complicated. It gave him some machining capacity and that was all he really wanted, if he could find a small surface grinder, maybe a lathe, a little shaper would be great… whatever… he was happy just to have the mill and took a few days for himself, just making chips out of some stock he’d bought, learning her ways.

When he was reasonably comfortable with her operation he turned out a tray he could glue on his forearm that the flare things clicked into, there wasn’t an obvious way to hook it up as a suit function, the tendon release was staying with Annabell, but the piton hadn’t had one either, he would just had to smash the button with his left hand. He had checked, carefully removing the flares before hand, the force needed, and it would be a smash, the button took a hell of a lot to actuate, and the flares would fire in sequence right to left.

Fourthly he stripped down his new pistol and gave it some love. It was in pretty great condition but had sat a long time, a little scrub and some strategic greasing would go a long way.

As a plasma caster it did not have a lot of moving parts, basically when you pressed the button, which Bob spent a few pleasant hours making a trigger like cover for with his new toy, an internal valve released a burst of gas, that was then started spinning in the ‘chamber’, energy was pumped in to energise it, and the whole shebang accelerated down the ‘barrel’.

It didn’t really mater what gas it was so there was an internal sensor that sensed when the surrounding atmo had enough pressure to refill the internal supply and a tiny compressor filled it up. Course in a fight you might not have the time for it to top up so there were three spares in the case so you could ‘reload’ the gas. Bob doubted he would bother carrying any, the one carried internally should have enough capacity for around one hundred shots, he could count on the fingers of no hands the amount of gun fights he’d been in that had needed more than that, though several had had plenty extra. In his experience if a fight was heading into that kind of stalemate you were way better to change the fight than the mag.

Of course it wasn’t the only ‘mag’ the gun had, it took standard size k weapon cells, basically just capacitors. Each of those should be good for thirty to forty rounds, so he would carry a spare or two of them.

He examined the matching holster, rigid sides and fabric connecting them and continuing over to a flap style cover with a snap, seemed fine so he glued it on to his armour, over the breastbone and horizontal for a left to right draw, he would have to practice and build up some muscle memory. If he didn’t he was going to find himself trying to cap someone with a water bottle, again. He attached two cell pouches to his bum bag belt, that would be fine.

He went to put it away in the gun locker but hesitated and stared at the weapon in his hand, it just didn’t hit the same as his service weapon… in a good way, he didn’t feel the need to sequester this with time, he couldn’t imagine hurting himself with it and almost removed the timer from the locker.

Then he sighed, a lot of shit he couldn’t imagine happened all the time, he left the lockout on and stashed the weapon.

The rest of the trip was fettling and maintaining the systems, he thought he had figured out what was wrong with the main enviro system and made a little list of seals he would have to try to pick up, probably not a bad idea to just pick up a full seal set he could keep in the spares as required.

Right on ten weeks after setting off he dropped out and burned to the fringes of dg3645, soon enough Kilither Station appeared in the distance, a grey green mass that loomed every larger as the gap closed.

Wow, thought Bob.

What a shit hole.

He spent the day and a half left until his pickup in orbit, he didn’t want to breathe that same air as that prick one second longer than he had to.

Still a gig was a gig, so he returned to the surface, far more comfortably landing at a factories loading dock rather than some gobshites manor house, sadly a gobshite was waiting for him, though at least it was the crier and not the cunt.

‘’Good afternoon Sir, didn’t expect to see you here.’’

Bob could be politic if required.

‘’Oh I just had to come.’’

Did he?

‘’I wanted to give you a parting gift, I know how much you must ache being parted from your precious cargo, I imagine you spent many hours admiring it as you travelled here…’’

...sure

‘’Oh yes Sir, but I’m pleased to know how treasured it will be in your care, I wish you many happy years with it.’’

Man I hope the gift is cash.

The fucker looked like he might cry again.

‘’I will, I will, I swear to you I will. Please take this as a token, I had it made to ease your heartache’’

Bob took the small box and opened it up.

‘’An exact scale model, I didn’t want it too large, I thought this was a better size to be carried on your delightful craft.’’

...ok, this was definitely a buttplug.

He closed the box and clasped it to his chest.

‘’Thank you Sir, I’ll keep it safe. Now I should really help the dockworkers load up, I don’t want to clog up your bay.’’

‘’Of course, of course, you must tell me though, did you enjoy dear Deviw’s collection?’’

Bob froze mid step as he tried to extricate himself, cunts name was Deviw was it, didn’t ring a bell but it wasn’t like Bob had been around much of the brass, he spent his time fighting mainly taking orders from a computer. He unclenched his teeth, this poor bastard probably had no idea what that guy was really capable of.

‘’Wonderful, full of pieces I had never seen before, a real treat… I hope I get the chance to return one day and spend more time there.’’

Yeah as soon as he could figure out how to evade the inevitable ensuing murder investigation.

‘’Oh well I hope your travels bring you back here soon then, you wont have many more opportunities I’m afraid.’’

‘’Really Sir, whys that?’’

Bob thought he was watching dismay, but who could tell.

‘’He’s returning to the confederacy next winter, I will be so desolate to see him leave, there are so few true art lovers here that the loss of one is a grievous wound.’’

He kept going but Bob had tuned out. A minute later he was aware the crier had stopped complaining.

‘’Sorry Sir, did you say he was moving back to the confederacy?’’

‘’That’s right so you have barely eighteen months to return if you would like to see the collection again, though I’m sure Deviw would extend an invitation to his main estate if you were passing through the confederacy after he returned.’’

Bob thought about that, he certainly wasn’t going anywhere near Arressi space, but there were a lot of other thoughts too.

‘’A shame then Sir, I’m booked out for at least two years’’

He wasn’t.

‘’Ill just have to pop by if I’m ever in the area as you say’’

He wouldn’t.

‘’I must be off Sir, thank you again’’

Bob lifted the gift in salute and hustled back to the, computers or something, that were being loaded.

He kept thinking as he completed the paperwork, gravved out and to Jojo up to orbit.

He thought hard as he calculated the first jump to his next destination, and he kept thinking on the second, third… he went to bed after setting off the fourth, still thinking.

When he woke he had one overarching thought, he thought about Dewiv dear, he thought Dewiv dears prized possessions, he thought about Dewiv dear going home, mostly he thought about how all those possessions would have to be loaded on some sort of transport, he thought how unlikely it was for that transport to be Guild, he thought about how much Dewiv dear and his friends had taken from Bob, and he thought about how, once home, Dewiv dear would likely be beyond Bob’s reach forever.

And the overarching thought that covered all those other thoughts?, Bob thought about how he was gonna steal all Dewiv dears shit.

Part 24 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1wbm0oh/bob_was_bored_part_24/?

Once Bob had got everything haggled out he walked away with the weapons, down eight grand, three boxes of dirty movies, and the three Arressi weapons he had had to add to sweeten the deal, Vuyuy had been happy to bargain, he had a mate who ran a media store and had called him to get values and arrange their sale.

So Bob walked out with the pistol, and the flares would be delivered to the dock when Vuyuy’s kid came home from school, he just had to give him the guns and porn in return.

It wasn’t going to fit the holster fixed to his right thigh, but he used that for his water bottle anyway, he was considering just glueing the holster that came with it to his stomach and wearing it tanky style.

He’d deal with it later, when he returned to the Jojo he pumped the code in the locker and made a few calls, when the kid came they swapped and he packed it all away with with the machine and the supplies he’d ordered delivery of.

He booked a refueling stop for the morning and headed to his bunk.

When he woke up he had a couple more hours to burn so hit up a store and bought a steam cleaner, he figured that would work for the goo holes and he couldn’t find a pressure washer.

He cancelled the dock rental on his way back and moved Jojo over to the fuel station, had a small argument with the guy about how to refuel his new fighter fuel tanks, he’d checked both out and they were empty. He had the worker only stick about ten percent in each, lets test this out before we drop fifty grand on fuel he might not be able to use.

Once complete he headed out to go to the C’Eede collector guy, his estate was a few hundred clicks away but Bob had to go to orbit and back down, Jojo didn’t have the slave circuit the planets automated traffic system required, so he couldn’t legally use airspace, and didn’t want a fucking ticket.

He landed at the palatial estate a few minutes early and bustled out, hitting the tarmac and chatting to the attendant that hustled over. He was expected of course and should head up to the house, the staff there would show him to a waiting room. He did, admiring the spectacular gardens and was ushered to a simple but elegant reception room. He spent a few idle minutes inspecting the room wondering how much this simplicity cost.

Then the Arressi walked in.

Bobs adrenal gland dumped every single atom of its engorged capacity, his teeth bared in a rictus grin and his lips pulled back so hard he could feel them crack and bleed. Bobs body did something very smart, the instant he clocked the axe faced fuck, before his brain had caught up, it locked his suit.

That first instinct had been excellent, because the next wasn’t. He tried to dip and draw his weapon, that he hadn’t carried in years, and couldn’t. Then he flicked the tendon release to drop Annabell into his waiting hand, and couldn’t, then…

A series of a half dozen actions were tried and thwarted in less than three seconds.

Which was good, very good, some analytical parts of Bobs mind recognised that there was no way he could get away with icing this pr..

‘’Are you a human?’’

FUCKING CUNT FUCKER

Another few squashed attempts, the condescending tone spiking through Bob.

He stayed silent as the cunt waved a pad in his direction, Bob had no idea what the fucker saw, it didn’t have eyes, but clearly some information was transmitted to him.

‘’Scout Sergeant Baits I see, oh you were in a couple of my actions. I haven’t seen a craft-world suit in years, shame about the modifications, and the helm.’’

FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU

‘’Unfortunately I don’t have the time to show you my collection today, this servant is the curator.’’

It imperiously waved at an alien standing meekly to his side, Bob hadn’t even seen him.

‘’He will show it to you.’’

And the fucker left, just like that, Bob wasn’t sure it had even noticed he had never said a word.

The crash that instantly followed buckled his legs, but one last time the lock saved him, he shook with the coursing chemicals but felt sane again, enough to disengage the suit lock.

What the fuck just happened…, and what the fuck had that pad been reading, Bob was damn sure there wasn’t any chips in the suit, which meant there was something inside him. His stomach roiled and he would have vomited if it was still physiologically possible for him to do so, one more thing cunts like him had taken away.

‘’If you’ll follow me sir’’

The fuck was he talking about?, oh fuck the collection, yeah ok, fuck…

Bob took an unsteady step towards the servant, servant…. who the fuck calls a servant, servant, what a cunt. He took a few more dealing with the shakes as best he could.

He was taken to a large hall, and there was a bunch of C’Eede shit, who cared. Bob couldn’t focus on anything, but eventually one thing caught his eye, it looked like half a tic tac, or maybe one side of a pill. It was in a glass cabinet, and it was clear, unlike every other milky white thing on display.

Bob beckoned the curator over.

‘’What is this?’’

The Alien beamed with pride.

‘’An exceptionally rare piece Sir, current thought in academia is that this is a message pod, though sadly we only have one half of course.’’

Bob was confused.

‘’Its clear, is it C’Eede artifact?’’

‘’Oh yes Sir, made of the same fused quark material as all the other C’Eede made items.’’

Huh, Bob knew they could make clear shit, Jojo had a big forward window after all, but he had never seen, or even heard of an artifact that was completely transparent like this, even his windscreen was a little foggy, if they cou…. wait a minute…

‘’Sorry did you call it a message pod?, I though they hadn’t written anything down.’’

The curator pursed its lips.

‘’Oh they didn’t, but several years ago a researcher found a contemporaneous account of an item described exactly like this piece, though it was complete of course. The report details that the artifact was dropped on the planet approximately twenty three days before the invasion attempt, which was easily repulsed. It was only after material examination many years later that the two incidents were linked.’’

The curator unlocked the display and handed it to Bob, who noticed the bottom edge had a screw thread cast in it.

‘’The report also details the contents as a thick liquid, filled with swirls that changed but never mixed. Current thought is that this is a C’Eede method of information recording, but as the liquid is long gone from the two known examples it is a tenuous hypothesis at best.’’

He took it back and locked it away again.

‘’There are more of these?’’

This smile had a bit of gloat to it. ‘’Only one other, it has both parts and resides in the Golotta National Museum, this is the only other known and of course the only example in private hands, its my Masters most prized exhibit.’’

It tried to guide him to something else but kept talking.

‘’It’s suspected that one may have been dropped on every world where invasion was attempted, but if true all other examples were either never found, or lost to antiquity. Now this is an excep…’’

Bob wanted it.

He didn’t know if he wanted it for the sake of having it or to take it away from the Arressi cunt that owned it, but he wanted it.

He considered the curator, who was wittering on about something, it would be so easy to kick the shit out him, take the key and be away… but he wouldn’t get far with it, and if he was going to the jail for anything it would be definitely involve finding that Arressi fuck and carving his heart out.

The whole thing gave a sour taste, he needed fucking out of here. He interrupted the skinny alien and made his excuses, and after some flustered discussion was shown back to his ship.

She rose up on grav and Bob scowled at the immaculately laid out gardens under him, he slammed the throttle forward, fuck the tickets, fuck this place and fuck that prick, maybe he would only be mildly perturbed by Jojo’s supersonic crack as she passed over, but to Bob it felt a telling blow.

I don’t follow your fucking rules any more.

The lanky fuzz covered alien was crying, Bob was nonplussed.

This drop point was at the clients home, fucker was rich enough to have an actually dock on property. When they pulled the cube out the dude had started bawling… Bob hoped they were good tears, and not that he’d fucked up the thing in a way he couldn’t spot, he was well aware that different species had wildly different versions of vision, he hoped it didn’t look all smashed up in ultraviolet or something.

‘’A masterpiece, never before have I seen its like.’’

The alien whispered between racking sobs.

Really?…. The buttplug?

‘’The symbolism of the ‘untranslatable specific item’, the grace of its curves echoing the shore of ‘hj76678’’’,

Bob assumed the aliens word for whichever planet that was was more evocative,

‘’It’s rage, its violence… incredible…’’

Ok, not a sex toy then.

‘’Thank you, thank you, you are an angel for bringing it to me.’’

In one fast movement the alien dived on Bob and hugged him tight.

‘’It completes me, thank you, thank you’’

Bob was on his tip toes still squeezed and receiving, he was pretty sure, what were its version of kisses on his helmet, whatever, he let the dude finish and release him.

The client hit a few buttons on a pad and Bob heard his own in his bum bag beep, he fished it out and looked, bonus paid, nice.

The alien clasped Bob’s hand and tugged him towards the door as a few servants started guiding the sculpture out the room on a grav sled.

‘’You must see it in its place, you deserve to see it in all its glory after bringing it all this way.’’

Bob let himself be pulled along, now that he was pretty sure it wasn’t going inside someone he was pretty curious.

He was dragged down several long corridors, this place was fucking huge, and into what seemed to be an art galleria, cool, he was pulled past several weird items to an intersection with a cleared area, presumably where the buttplug was going to end up, but in his excitement the client had beaten his staff to it.

It wittered on about the artist and his importance to some art wave a few centuries back, it all kind of washed over Bob. It started crying again as the servants arrived and manoeuvred it into place.

Bob looked around some the other exhibits, maybe give him few minutes to enjoy the thing… there was a lot of pretty and expensive looking stuff, he didn’t know what any of it meant but he a had a rough notion that the area shared a theme.

‘’Sorry?’’

The client had said something Bob didn’t catch.

‘’Are you a collector yourself?’’

‘’Uh no, lovely pieces though.’’

Politeness to a rich client cost nothing... well actually?…

‘’I do have a lot of C’Eede items, not sure that counts…’’

The alien beamed

‘’Oh of course, I have a friend with an extensive collection, I’m sure he would be interested in seeing your ship, quite a rare specimen I believe…’’

Oh, cool

‘’Uh yeah, pretty rare.’’

‘’Ill call him immediately, I’m sure he would let you see his collection, and I’m sure he would love a tour of your craft.’’

Uh, well this guy was pretty small, if the mate was the same species maybe he could crawl in.

‘’Sure, that sounds great’’

After a servant had produced a phone the client had called the guy, arranged a visit for Bob and then burbled on about how the friend absolutely must come over and see the new piece, it was a triumph of something, Bob tuned out and rode the rest of the long conversation in a quiet dwam.

Eventually the client let him leave, with an address and a time tomorrow to go to the other collectors estate. Bob considered just getting refuelled and chilling in orbit till the appointment, but eventually decided to cadge a dock and have a look around, Pwitic wasn’t a forge world or anything, but was heavily industrialised. With his bonus this time he could set a bunch aside for his loan and still have some cash to pick up some gear. Replacements for the shit broken of course, mainly dishes and the like, but he might be able to find a few cheap tools too, or flog some shit. Either would be good. He had to hang about till week end anyway, the art loving client had a pickup booked, but from one of his businesses, not his estate.

The planet was clearly the industrial hub for the scattered fringe sector and it had not been difficult to find a machine tool rebuilder. Bob had been a machinist during life and fancied a small shop on board the Jojo, he had used the Guild tool room for what he needed during the rebuild and had set aside a little room when he laid out the floorplan.

He wandered around the sellers shop he had found online, scale remained an issue, he basically had to buy the equivalent of watchmakers tools to have any chance of fitting them aboard Jojo and there wasn’t much here, hadn’t been in the others he checked out before this either. Eventually he found a sort of manualish millish thing he thought he could probably do something with and chatted with the proprietor, the equipment was beyond archaic by galactic standards so not valuable, and it came with a trunk of tooling. For just a handful of creds the guy would have it sent to Jojo’s dock, fine, Bob considered it cheap enough that he could tinker with it in transit and if it turned out useless he’d just dump it.

He was a bit fed up as he left and tromped down the street, he had hoped for better. Shortly he noticed a shop that intrigued him, gun store, huh. Weapons were frequently restricted items, especially in the core, Pwitic must be far enough out for the rules to loosen a bit.

Bob, thanks to his Master status, technically had a licence to carry pretty much everywhere, sometimes it was even a commission requirement to do so, though he hadn’t had one of those yet.

He wandered in and after a brief argument with the owner about his adulthood, began to browse, as it had been with the machines, as it always fucking was, scale remained an issue, weirdly they tended not to make toddler size guns, who could have guessed.

Bob had a couple weapons aboard, his service pistol, which was probably out of charge but he hadn’t checked in years, and a couple surplus, neither of which was really usable by Bob.

He didn’t really like guns, especially after decades of heavy use, but it would probably be a good idea to find something, He considered it odd he didn’t feel the same way about Annabell, she had done way more damage than any other singular weapon Bob had used.

There was nothing much, he was about to walk out when the owner piped up.

‘’Man, I feel like a shit about the whole kid thing, you probably have to deal with that all the time.’’

Bob faced him.

‘’Its fine, you’re right happens all the time and you’ve got to be extra careful in a gun store I suppose’’

‘’Still I feel like a shit, anything catch your eye?, I’ll cut you a hell of a deal’’

Bob panned round again, but he’d seen all of this stuff already.

‘’Not really, sorry, everything’s a bit too big’’

‘’Hmm…’’

The alien looked pensively around.

‘’Yeah I guess…’’

He opened a cupboard behind the counter and started pulling out boxes.

‘’How about a concealed carry piece, much smaller’’

It also lifted a stool over the glass top and put it down on the customer side, then started undoing clasps on various containers.

Bob hopped up on the stool and began looking at the unveiled items as they appeared.

‘’Thanks, Bob by the way’’

‘’Vuyuy’’

The alien held out a chitinous appendage, huh a shaker that’s an uncommon gesture, Bob grabbed it and shook.

‘’I got this one, its an old kinetic, gauss, and fires these’’

It was much smaller, and had no handle just a tube with what looked like an old revolver cylinder fixed to the bottom, but it was still the size of a two litre.

‘’Still a little too big I think’’

They both looked over the others, one way or another non were suitable, but Vuyuy seemed undeterred.

‘’Give me a minute’’

He wandered through a bead curtain behind the counter, beads the size of Bobs fist incidentally, and he could hear the sounds of banging and scraping.

‘’Listen you really don’t have to bother’’

‘’No, no, I’m certain I have something, I remember buying a crate of, Oh, that might work too.’’

Bob saw a small box be placed of the floor behind the curtain.

‘’...and I’m sure I have…. got it’’

The owner came back pausing to pick up the first box and put them both on the counter.

‘’These are Ketti flares’’

He dug a couple out the box which had ‘contains 48 items’, each looked about the size of a VHS tape.

‘’Got these years ago, never did sell any, not really needed round these parts. They’re hiking gear basically, if you go hiking anywhere with wild Ketti, you have to carry one of these.’’

Bob looked it over there were five giant holes in one end and a big red button on the top.

‘’What do they do, and what’s a Ketti?’’

‘’Big insect, hates fire, you squeeze that button, hard, and burning magnesium comes out. Not much distance, maybe forty feet, but it’ll burn anything in that general direction.’’

Huh, Bob test fit it in the space his piton firer had been, plenty room.

‘’How much?’’

‘’You can have the whole box, fifty creds, cant be reloaded mind, disposable only’’

Fifty creds was nothing why not.

‘’Sure I’ll take them’’

‘’I hope they serve you well, take a look at this too’’

He span round an incredibly dusty gun case and opened it.

‘’This is a trainer target gun, for kids, a nice one too.’’

It was pretty big but Bob lifted it up, yeah not horrendous.

‘’What’s it fire?’’

‘’Plasma, takes a standard cell on the back there. Real small rounds, but with the right placement it would be lethal, you’d have to aim pretty good though.’’

Hmm, Bob guessed it was probably the galactic equivalent of 22 short, the majority of it was basically a cell slot he moved around with it a bit, seemed ok.

His service weapon was a gauss caster, and it had worked fine, he’d had many as they got lost or broken across campaigns. So there was no particular bad memories with that specific gun, but the sight of it skeeved him out.

This thing was angular, a bit desert eagley but maybe twenty percent bigger all round, in contrast to the Arressi weapons smooth rounded lines. He read the name down the side, ‘Helizofi Manufacturing’. He had heard of them, which in a galaxy this big was probably a bad thing for his wallet. He winced internally as he asked.

‘’How much?’’

‘’Well its old stock… fifteen thousand, and I’ll throw in the flares and a couple cases of cells’’

Fuck me, annoyingly Bob knew the guy was trying to give him huge deal, but still, fuck that was definitely outside his price range, if he could get it down a bit… a thought occurred.

‘’How do you feel about porn?’’

He spent the, entirely fucking uneventful, weeks traveling to the Kedar system fettling bits and pieces aboard, what did he use and where, sorting thing from cubby to nook and generally kerning all his shit appropriately.

He did other shit too of course, going through a maintenance cycle on his suit, it was fucking delightful to be able to walk around a properly pressurised and stoichiometrically correct ship, he had even dialed the grav plates to a perfect 1G. He only needed them pushing out for docking manoeuvrers, in flight he could have them pull ‘down’.

It was phenomenal, his bowel movements were back to normal after decades of being fucking aggravating, yeah you kinda need a full G for all that shit to work properly.

He had also went through a bunch of the entertainment chips and now wished he had taken the time to translate some of the rental shops signage. He seemed, as far as he could tell, to have purchased a couple thousand credits of variegated porn.

The conversation had replayed several times in his head and he couldn’t quite figure out if the pile of shit had been a piece of shit, or whether this really was the newest and most popular porn going and there was just a miscommunication.

His natural suspicion edged to the former, but a lifetime of incredibly bad luck and completely avoidable fuck ups, barracked strongly for the latter.

Whatever, as long as it sold who the fuck cared.

Jojo worked fine, there was no reason she shouldn’t, and there was only a small issue with the primary enviro, but that was why he had spares. All in all it was a good trip.

When he touched down, exactly on schedule, in the receiving dock, he was greeted by a hell of a view.

Bob hadn’t ever been on Kedar 6, though he had been to its much more urban neighbour 8, or as the locals called it, Median. It was fine, same as a bunch of other semi core worlds, 6 on the other hand was largely an agri world and the endless grass billowed in front of the open docking bay, Bob didn’t recognise whatever the plant was, grass like sure, but copper in colour and tall.

The strong winds billowed the crop like an ocean with huge fifty feet or more ripples and waves coruscating the light that shone over it madly.

He took a moment to stare after climbing out the top hatch, and lowered a makeshift rope ladder over the side, it would slide about when he climbed up but at least it was something to grab.

Handover went smooth as silk, save a couple odd looks when the hatch irised open, and a chat with the guards while unloading had proved fruitful. The outer system had several mining operations that might take the Ssoooyio lump off his hands, a shield of that size would do them more good than Bob. One of the guards, a nice elfin fellow called Duyus, was going to call a few mates out there and let Bob know what they said.

That was fine, it was almost three weeks until the assigned pick up on Median, he could run out to the system edge, drop it off, and still have a couple weeks on planet to find something else. Even if he couldn’t he was more comfortable with Jojo’s legs now, and would simply try to flee any conflict if it came up.

He had tried out the sublight engines extensively on the way here, using the frequent jump drive cool downs to spool them up and see what they could do, they were thirsty at full chap but they had a bunch of beans to them, add in his low tonnage, especially with the genny gone, he was fairly sure he could run faster than anyone would care to chase him at.

He did want to be ready to go immediately upon reviving the package, some sculpture or something, he was going to try to squeeze a minor detour in on his way to Pwitic after.

The system itself wasn’t in the area the C’Eede had tried to invade so long ago, but it wasn’t that far away and there were a couple grave systems within a few days travel of his route, over the couple months travel time he could probably eke out ten days to get to one and back if he was a bit heavier on the jump drive throttle.

Till then, shift the genny or dump it if required, he would need the space even if he couldn’t find a buyer, then scrounge a replacement if possible, bits and bobs as required, pick up, fuck off, simple.

Bob had long made peace that he was going to have to stomach long layovers like this one, if he was any other Master Courier it would have been a criminal waste to have him mooching about a system for weeks waiting, but Flitter’s had had to take jobs that would fit inside the Jojo and that cut out a bunch of commissions. Frankly it was surprising she had managed to be as efficient as she had been, Bob had expected way worse and resigned himself to dead legging, no cargo trips, but there really wasn’t much of that in his route.

Anyway, signed off, bonus confirmed, everything was cool and he was a bit liquid again. He wanted to squirrel it away against his loan but he feared he was going to need to spend a wad to prep for the rest of the schedule.

Duyus came good a day later, he had a boy on a mining station that would take the shield off Bobs hands, he was going to stock it as a spare and didn’t want to pay much over the scrap price, so it was a loss, but one Bob was just gonna have to eat.

It took a couple days at sublight to get out there, if Bob had had a better uncertainty cone on jump exit like the more modern drives had, he could of cut that in half, but he could pop out anywhere in like, a 30 degree arc, so in theory even further than he currently was from the station, then the cool down wouldn’t let him try again for a few hours, and repeat, repeat... easier just to spend a bit of fuel burning out.

Bob had no idea what principle the jump drives actually worked on, he had tried to read some stuff up about them but the math quickly went way over his head, they did work, he guessed that was all that really mattered. What he had understood was they worked better, or were more accurate at least, the deeper you went into a gravity well, on the way back he could be fairly sure on coming out within a few planetary diameters of a world, but on the way out of a system or even worse between stars the radius of possible exit location increased logarithmically.

New drives shaved every possible variable in the drives down as low as possible, consequently the factorials took much longer to get out of control.

The ancient C’Eede one Bob could fit in Jojo though was a ‘raw’ drive, you took your chances and dealt with it. In practice it meant way shorter jumps and way more cool downs, and sometimes like this a long burn, but Bob had to take what he could get.

The stations maintenance guy was waiting at the station dock when Bob arrived, so the offloading was quick and the meager monies paid. Annoyingly Bob had arrived at the very end of an open traffic cycle, his exit would be delayed for almost a full day as the returning mining craft tickled in and unloaded, clogging all the routes up.

Bob resigned himself to waiting and wandered down to the few shops and multiple bars the station boasted.

He wandered into one, and after a brief discussion with the barman, plopped himself on a tall stool brought out from some dusty cupboard. It let him peek over the edge of the tall counter at least. He ordered a drink, which arrived in a giant tumbler he suspected was supposed to be a shot glass.

He drank deeply with his helmets mouthpiece removed, it tasted like shit but he could feel the, oh so transient, buzz of ethanol. Fucking medic system would be trying to purge it as fast as Bob could drink it, only solution was to slam the booze back and briefly overwhelm its ability, so a liter and a half of galactic everclear it was.

After a few he could almost hear the fucking Arressi system scream in outrage, nice, he was definitely getting a little toasted, he swam in the drinks warm waters and enjoyed the dull fuzziness.

‘’Its a fucking Gokkel.’’

Bob had his translator piped directly into his helm, often it was left loud, the other guys translation system wanted to hear yours so it could determine if yours had got it right, but Bob had his looped in so as not to disturb the other patrons with its squawking.

Fuck me he hadn’t heard that one in a long while.

It was a slur, he thought, one of the species he had fought against used to call the Terrans that. He turned and scanned the other drinkers… yup… he recognised one of those fuckers at the back left table.

Whatever... he turned back, that shit was so long ago. He didn’t come across many people that could spot humans and the few he did rarely liked seeing one, especially in Arressi armour, another reason the helm was aboard Jojo. Bob understood, humans had very much been the stabbing point of the armies attacks, often the only one an enemy would actually see face to face, no wonder the little rep they had was not great.

He flicked a request at the barman for another and hunched in his cups, if Bob could forget every single second of his ‘service’ he happily would, he wished everyone else would too.

Sadly others refused to, and a couple minutes later after some more muttering between those at the table he heard the slap of soft soles make its way across the bars floor.

‘’Fucking Gok’s aren’t welcome here, get the fuck out’’

The barman tried to make a few placations, but Bob, and he knew he shouldn’t, span slowly round anyway. In fairness he tried to get out the situation, pulling out his badge.

‘’I’m Guild, no trouble wanted.’’

He tried to turn back but was yanked by his left arm, nearly off the barstool, he clenched hard on the counter with his right.

‘’That’s too far, let go of me.’’

The hairy alien, Bob thought the army slang for them was ‘squatches’ after, well you get it, snarled, exposing a mouth full of needle teeth.

‘’Fucking Gok, you on Hillitaa’’

Bob laughed sharply.

‘’How the fuck would I know?, not like we were in on the planing sessions.’’

It shoved him roughly letting go and nearly tipping the stool over, only Bob’s grip saved it from falling.

‘’You know Ettas, though, I see you spot me.’’

Bob was getting really annoyed, and worse, the medic system was starting to win.

‘’I do, so what.’’

It leered.

‘’Then on Hillitaa, I there too’’

It slapped its own chest with one of its four arms.

‘’We eat you there, cook you slow…’’

Bob took a deep breath this was all ancient history there was no…

‘’Females taste best, soft meat’’

…

Bob slid down to the floor, his right hand snagging his glass on the way, and he started to pound it back.

‘’What think that Gok?’’

Bob dropped the glass and it fell heavily, then looked up at the things twisted visage.

‘’I think you’re gonna need new kneecaps.’’

And then hit him as hard as he could, he recalled these fuckers being tough.

The alien screamed in pain as its joint bent backwards, and all his mates, apparently most of the bar rose to their feet.

Ah, fuck.

Bob was bored, or at least fed up he yearned to get off planet and take on some fucking work.

Six months on and Bob had his ship, the Ploppers, minimally viable. The name came from his wife of thirty five years, she had passed too long before first contact to be revived as he had, and she had hated the nickname when alive, but it was really her own fault, one, she shouldn’t have had that bout of food poisoning based diarrhoea a couple years into their marriage. Two, she shouldn’t have let Bob know she hated it, and three, she probably shouldn’t have married an arsehole like Bob, or as she had affectionately nicknamed him, Dickmunch, maybe they had been perfect for each other.

Bob missed her terribly, there was a gap inside him he knew she used to fill, but he had little idea how she did so. He remembered so little of her, the dementia he had suffered in his final years of life had stripped away so much of his past, but could recall a few moments, and the love.

He wondered briefly how much it would have annoyed Ploppers that her reviled soubriquet was was one of the handful of things that had stuck with him, he assumed with deep irritation, but as he had the feeling that most of their relationship had been based on, lovingly, annoying the shit out of each other, he thought it a fitting epitaph.

Regardless he was ready to go, a couple shake down orbits had got the worst of the kinks figured out and he really needed to be getting some cash flow going.

He strode through the Ploppers, there was shit crammed in every nook and cranny, only the large rear cargo hold remained unstapped. Most of the gear would turn out unneeded or not fit for purpose but he didn’t really know yet what it took to keep the ship running, so, take everything.

He clocked a bunch of boxes crammed under a seat, in Arressi Navy lime livery, he was not happy about them, or any of the other multitude of green boxes strewn about the craft.

He had reluctantly bid and won a couple auction lots of war surplus, mainly for the pack of sixty Medmec rods, though he would begrudgingly concede there was some other useful shit too.

The Medmec rods were the heart of his implanted ‘Medic’ system, he hated it, but all investigations into a replacement had come up short. There were two basic issues with the stuff available for commercial sale. Firstly they were all too big, Bob was basically infant sized and they didn’t make implants for kids, preferring to use an external solution until they were fully grown, he had investigated getting something custom, but he could have refitted another half dozen ships for the price quoted. Secondly, there was the software issue, Bob was no programmer, even on Earth, and he assumed that that all the human shit was baby’s first book to galactic nerds. There was no issue getting a civilian program to scan his DNA and figure out how to fix him up, they were designed to work with hundreds of disparate species, but Bob didn’t just have his shit inside him, the Arressi had crammed so much crap under his skin that he had no fucking clue about, indeed he often played a fun game in the shower whenever his hand moved over an unfamiliar lump, was it shrapnel, implant, or cancer, play at home with the kids!.

He did not want a new system trying to force an unrecognised object out his body, especially as he knew there were several in his skull, it seemed like it would both be incredibly painful and deleterious, presumably he needed some of that shit.

So he had bought the rods, they were as far as he knew, the core of the system, both factory and power source, and fit a socket implant he had in his chest under the right side ribs. He had no clue how long they were supposed to last, he never recalled having it replaced, but he was sure a spare would be needed eventually.

There were mounds of other old gear in the job lots and most had went straight to the trash, but rations, a couple small arms and a half dozen grav sleds had made their way aboard, the sleds would be particularly handy helping get cargo in and out the iris style rear loading hatch as it came with no ramp.

Everything seemed right enough so he slipped into the command seat he had fitted and began powering up the various systems. Gently rising on a few grav panels that he had been able to fit on the inside of the lower hull, whatever the material the ship was made from was no impediment to the gravitic wave based propulsion, he span the craft and punched in the co-ords for Main Admin, located half way round the small planet.

He sat the ship down in one of the four new ‘disabled’ spots right by the building, he had accepted an invitation for drinks from one of his seniors of the Guild Council a few weeks ago, well drinks for him, gas vapours of some sort for them, and they had somehow got to chatting about human disabilities.

The whole concept had needed a fair bit of explanation, they obviously understood injuries and prosthetics and the like, but the more natural ailments that often plagued humanity had largely been sorted in most species with various medical interventions, often pre birth. The conversation went off the rails quickly and somehow the large lobster/kelpish Council member had come away determined to install several accommodations for those unfortunates like Bob, Bob wasn’t quite sure, the whole evening was a bit hazy, but he thought he might have inadvertently given the impression that he wasn’t just a few inches shorter than human average but like a quarter the normal size.

Either way when he had radioed down he had been guided to the new, bright yellow, painted square.

Whatever, its not like he minded skipping the walk across the large parking area. He hit the controls to switch everything off and made his way rear, another oddity of the craft was it had only two exits, the rear cargo hatch and a small hatch on top, he had made sure when configuring the space to maintain the upper hatch as usable, but couldn’t imagine when he would every need it. Neither exit was air-locked but at least a strategic wall and pressure rated door had managed to successfully section off the cargo hold. He did not want to equalise the whole fucking ship every time he entered or exited, his preferred pressure being far higher than the galactic average.

He trotted the short distance to the building and exchanged a few pleasantries with those he passed before making his way to the assignment desk, he could have done all this shit on the computer but he had needed to bring the Ploppers over to get filled up anyway.

He rocked up to the counter and hopped onto a low stool, just able to peek over the wide and well worn top.

‘’Morning Flittie’’

The giant, and giant even for giant aliens, pumpkin looking being made absolutely no motion, noise or anything else Bob could spot, yet his translator box started babbling furiously.

‘’Bobby!, how are you my darling, you look so well, I hope yo…’’

It went on for several minutes, she, well Bob thought of her as a she, she was lovely but in stark opposition to her largely inert body her mouth never seemed to stop moving, they had become friends in the last few months of his irregular visits to the office.

When he finally tuned back in she was finishing off.

‘’Yeah all good, yourself?’’

Cue several more minutes…

‘’Nice, this’ll be my last visit for a bit it’s finally the day Ploppers takes me to the stars’’

They both knew that already of course, she had been keeping an eye out for any juicy commissions for him.

‘’Oh, uh, sorry Bob…’’

Fuck?

‘’The registration got returned, potential profanity.’’

Awwww, bullshit... some fucking auto filter somewhere was set a bit too strict.

‘’Fine, the Jojo it is then’’

They had discussed a few alternates when he had asked her to do the paperwork for him, names could be rejected for any number of reasons, though he hadn’t expected profanity to be one.

‘’Already done,’’

A vine like tentacle produced a small but dense box, the transceiver that would identify his ship to any computer that pinged him, and laid it heavily on the counter.

Bob pulled the silvery cube closer.

‘’So anything good?’’

Ultimately he wanted to take one of those jobs that had been pinned to the board in the hallway outside, many of which were actively disintegrating from centuries or millennia spent there, they were proffers never taken but that still remained active on the books, gathering dust long after their issuers were probably dead.

He would need his first class certs, which were only a matter of time and points banked, G had got his within a year, to take one of those though, or any of the Alpha level commissions that were current, still they were very expensive and relatively rare, so having his pick of everything else was plenty.

‘’Gotta near perfect loop worked out for you, babes’’

Seriously how the fuck was she speaking?’

‘Start on Deither, currency pickup for Keder 6, next pick up Keder 8 from the big auction house there, then onto Pwitic, drop off and pickup there, same client, then long haul out to, dg3645, that’s a station, then a short hop to the new Bocca colony on iju873, pick up there, then back to Joota Prime and you’re just ten or so systems out from home!’’

I mean its not like she even took any breaths, was it pheromones or something?.

Bob gave himself a shake, didn’t matter, the route was fucking amazing. Maybe eight or nine months round trip, but nowhere so off the beaten path you couldn’t call for help, might be clutch, and super efficient, barely any empty time with small packages so he could top the hold off with local merch and make a little on the side, noice.

‘’Phe-fucking-nomenal, Flitters, what’s the pay like?’’

‘’SHY SMILE’’

Bob near shit himself as the loud declaration blared in his ear, we’re translating fucking gestures now are we. The box had had a software update recently off the home network but he hadn’t known that was part of it, fuck me, he was going to have to dive into the menu when he had a moment and turn that shit down.

‘’Well, I had a chat with a few of the clients for you, and managed to work out something pretty fair…’’

Holographic numbers popped into the air and Bob scanned them, fuuuuuccccccccckkkk.

She was not messing around, that would pay off like half his loan…, he asked hesitantly.

‘’Any bonuses?’’

More numbers, all his loan, all his loanallhisloan, fuck. She must have squeezed these fuckers dry, holy shit. Mental note, always bring sweeties to the large gourd women who negotiated the contracts, hard and fast rule for life.

‘’Flitters…, I don… thank you’’

‘’COQUETTISH GRIN’’

FUCK!

‘’Anything for you babes.’’

Bob shuffled out the office with the large cube, time to fucking go.

Bob was bored, the kind of lovely wistlessness you could only get from a long break from your normal schedule.

It had been a very pleasant few months, digging through half remembered piles and sorting out the usable shit from the trash, Bob had not been very discriminating when he had come across cheap or free ship components on his travels, and the shit pile was pretty goddamn high.

Still plenty of the stuff was perfectly usable, or at least within the range of a cheap refurb, including another two environmental systems he was sure he could get running and both were better than the gerry rigged one he currently had installed.

He was short a few things, some easy stuff, some less so… the one that irritated him the most was size 2 nuts of all things, he had fuck all of them and though didn’t really need them on anything critical it fucking irked him that he could not get even fucking one of the most produced C’Eede parts

He knew why all too well, and it made sense he supposed, but he fucking hated it.

The problem was standardisation, C’Eede parts were nearly atomical identical and the smaller the part the less variation there was part to part, that meant… well have you ever heard the kilo problem?,

The kilo was produced in France to be a true independent measurement, not based on a bean or foot of horse width or whatever, a kilo was to be a kilo everywhere. So they picked a size, made it, then duplicated it exactly and sent those to major treasuries, weights and measures bureaus, etc in countries all over Earth, and then they used them as the ultimate reference for a century.

Then one day they brought a couple back to Paris, for some celebration, and put them on a scale.

….Uh oh, they didn’t match….

The basis of so much scientific sharing between nations and at some point they had started to drift apart. There was a bunch of theories why, but Bob couldn’t remember if they had settled on one, they had eventually determined a new kilo that was an exact number of atoms in a sphere or something, whatever, the issue was the same on a galactic scale.

How did you know that the, cloth or something, that was measured at, say, a thousand units, in the system you picked it up would still measure the same in the unit you arrived in?, if it didn’t had the cloth changed?, was the reference, whatever it was, wrong, how the fuck could you tell?.

Bob had some idea that the metre was the distance light travelled in a certain time or something?, but he had also read in the years since that no one out here was quite sure light had a consistent speed, or time a regular enough passing to depend on, he hadn’t quite understood it but he thought there was probably some scientist on Earth tearing their hair out that their preciously calculated standards meant fuck all to the galaxy at large.

Anyway what did you do? Well take the most consistent and durable thing you could get and base it on that, like an indestructible nut perhaps?, you could pick a size 1, it was the smallest and therefore most identical C’Eede part but they hadn’t been widely utilised.

The size 2 though?, hundred of billions, and you could set a lot of references from the one item, length of course, how big was it, and weight, hardness, electrical conductivity, angles from its shape, refraction, because it was semi translucent like all C’Eede alloy, tonnes of other shit as well, so every shop, workshop, lab, etc, etc had one if they could afford it, and they were expensive as shit.

Mainly because, and they became a large part of the cost of, jump drives. As far as Bob knew every drive produced for thousands maybe millions of years had a size 2 stuck in the middle of it. He didn’t really understand how the drives worked, but it had something to do with being real made unreal, or something… he did know that after every jump the drives needed a certain percentage of the time spent jumping to like, ‘reset’, to make sure all the unreal parts were real again. And they way they all checked they were fully ‘real’?, check the nut of course, when it measured right everything was fully reset and you could jump again, try doing it too soon, or in the wrong order and you could quickly become a smear of atoms drifting through space.

He had considered at the time of nicking the slavers nut, but they couldn’t have fitted the full drive in the freighter and the thing was buried deep in its guts under layers and layers of shielding, realistically ungetable, but it had irked him to leave it behind.

He wouldn’t even get one when the drive he had bought arrived. He highly doubted the C’Eede had stuck one inside their own drives… I mean they could have Bob supposed, but its not like you could crack one open to find out.

He had taken a Guild loan, a large loan, a huge loan, a gigantically big, massive, huge, ruinous loan. He hadn’t had much choice, he had a bunch of spares listed on various markets, but no bites so far and time was ticking. So, borrow a small cities running budget at, thankfully, an inflation only rate, god bless the Guild, and buy a brand new Ticod corp jump drive, and pay to have it fitted to the ship of a very decent Bocca who Bob had run with during his security days.

In return he expected to have a drive that would actually fit his ship delivered in a couple days, even paying Guild rates to make sure it fucking turned up.

To pass the time until it came, he continued fitting out the main internal structure, parsimoniously only using proper original bulkheads where he absolutely had too, and his cabin of course, and wincing every single time he pulled the ad for the used section down off the various markets he had it posted to, this fucker was getting pricier every single fucking day.

He had also ordered a bunch of misc shit as he realised he needed it and that shit had been coming in in dribs and drabs whenever, the decidedly not Guild, deliveries arrived.

He was happy though, she was really starting to come together, and he could start to see all those idle thoughts about what would go where finally coming good, that would be a perishables store, spares go there, a little machine shop tucked in that corner, etc.

He was a bit worried about his ‘fuel room’, the sizes of shit he had and the space he was trying to fit were not really meshing... he wanted an N12 for the passageway wall, but he had three N7’s… did he wait? He hadn’t any leads on an N12, but if he used what he had it was either going to be too small or way, way too big. He had a few ideas in that area but was still wittering about it.

The ship was weird, that was the main problem, almost offensively organic looking it didn’t have a straight line or a right angle on it, you would think that would make standardisation on it absurdly difficult, but once again the C’Eede hadn’t given a shit about what you considered common sense.

Top down it was basically a fat bottomed oval, not quite, but trending in that general direction. Front on it looked a bit like a planet with a wide ring, but bend the rings side down, like a frown. Side on was the weirdest but also the easiest to describe, it was a just a stretched teardrop, sharp end forward.

Overall it gave the impression of some kind of stuffed pasta, maybe a tortellini with flatter, but still wavy edges. Add in a slightly moist sheen and a pale white semi translucence, and it definitely looked like some Italian goliaths lunch.

He had never flown it obviously but all C’Eede ships had a rep for being pretty damn aerodynamic and handling atmo flight well, though since they were probably originally designed for cruising the depths of gas giants maybe hydrodynamic was more applicable.

Bob considered that truly the weirdest thing the C’Eede had ever done was to try to invade rocky body planets, the fuckers could never have even used them… why not just take over any Saturn or Jupiter they had wanted, he wasn’t sure anyone would have even noticed.

He shook his head, it was time to make a few decisions. It would be extremely annoying to try to change the layout once installed, every thing had to be basically built out from the nose back, if you decided you hated the placement of that fore hatch in six months you would have to gut everything rear of it just to move the fucker.

Yeah, he was going small, the larger size was just sacrificing too much cabin space. This kinda sucked taking fuel capacity down to thirty or forty jumps, but he did have a workaround.

As far as he knew the C’Eede never made auxiliary external tanks, nor did he really have a good way of attaching some anyway even if he had some fabbed up, however, he had, oh five or so years ago, been surprised when a transport he was travelling on had taken a debris hit that punctured a fuel tank, and the crew had swung by a nearby C’Eede ship graveyard. They had scooped a fighter into the cargo bay and pumped the fuel from the damaged tank into it, using the entire thing as a holding container while they had repaired the main tank.

The scoutship hull had four latching points, two a side, presumably for some weapon or sensor package, and he still intended to use the front pair for that, the weapon systems were still pretty available, fitted as they had been to every fighter, and they used a pretty damn simple connector. If he picked up a couple fighters he could flip them upside down and backwards and connect them to the rear two mountings.

There was no open piping connection to the mounts, but there were ‘wiring’ lines, really just thin tubes filled with a silver based alloy. It would not be impossible to drill, even melt, the metal out those lines and be left with direct tubing to the internals of the ship.

It wasn’t ideal, the passages would be far too narrow to pump fuel through at the rate need to power a jump or even sublight, but, if you had them constantly filling up an internal tank you would probably be able to have a kind of buffer system working, worth a try certainly.

If it worked even a bit it would massively increase his possible range, by like a thousand x… still that was a thought for later, even a small ‘fuel room’ would get him up, running, and earning.

Part 13 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1w4m4bc/bob_was_bored_part_13/?

Bob was bored, or sad, it was hard to tell, the sudden absence of a close friend filled him with a malaise he abhorred.

Collecting himself Bob placed the box in an out of the way corner of the bay, he was sure it was a pretty robust piece of kit but there was no reason to knock it about unnecessarily.

Well, Bob guessed now was as good as time as any to get back to work on his hull, technically he was currently unemployed. As a Master, even a second class one, he would get to pick his own commissions if he wanted, though he could ask the Guild to stick him back on a standard route, and plenty Masters did that, not interested in running their own ship.

Bob wanted to though, no he needed to. This was the whole point of joining the Guild in the first place, to fly where he wanted, when he wanted, and, lets be one hunner, to make some fat fucking stacks.

Commissions came with heavy paydays, two in fact, you got the commission fee paid upfront, but you often also got a big bonus on completion, offered to encourage a Master to take the job. The commission fee was never ridiculous, it made you a profit sure but nothing life changing though you could negotiate it with the client if it was a bit less than you wanted to take for the gig.

But the bonuses….. oh fuck yeah… a couple of good ones could make your year easy, and they were almost always paid out, barring some real egregious shit happening, cause if the client stiffed you then they lost Guild access permanently, and no one wanted to risk that.

He stood and looked at the large, to him, craft that did not at all fill the giant bay, again giant to him, it was basically the smallest dock the Guild had.

Technically it was space worthy as it sat, in that it would hold pressure and the environmental system worked, but it wasn’t taking you anywhere in a hurry, or at all in fact.

The hull had been basically free, he had just had to have it towed from its eccentric orbit of one of the planets the C’Eede had tried to invade, in fact the planets government had paid for part of the tow with a grant, there were millions of the fucking ships, 99.9999% were pretty fucking useless fighters, clogging up the spacelanes. All of which including this one had been long stripped for parts, but the hulls themselves were worthless.

The bigger stuff was also long gone of course, you could strip the decks and stuff from a battleship and the like and make it usable to the galaxies oversize inhabitants, and an indestructible hull was worth it even if refitting them always made the layout bizarre as shit.

The small stuff, even a more midsize like his scout ship hull, no, not worth bothering, strip it and dump it.

Bob imagined as more and more humanity ventured forth even the fighters would become at least worth the trouble of collecting, it was a tight squeeze for him and would be worse for almost everyone else, but they were free, or very cheap, and there were billions of the fuckers, both humans and ships, after all.

The problem the fighters would have is lack of jump drive, he didn’t have one either, but the ship was set up to suit one it had just been nicked in antiquity. The fighters however had never had one, they were called scale ships because, one, they looked a bit like scales, organic and curved, but two that was how they had jumped systems, clinging all over their larger brothers, tens of thousand layered on top a battleship and then on top each other as they conglomerated larger and larger. Then peeling off in system and firing up oversize sublight engines to approach planets.

He was sure some corporation would start a line of drives suitable to be retrofitted to them if the demand was there eventually, but right now there wasn’t one able to fit in the small shells. He couldn’t even get one even to fit in his much larger craft, though he had a line on a couple original C’Eede drives, they weren’t in as much demand as they used to be, they were fast, and unkillable but not anywhere near as accurate as the modern stuff requiring more time in sublight at journeys end.

Bob didn’t give a fuck about that, and had a line on a couple freighter Captains that would be happy to swap out for an ‘upgrade’ if Bob paid for it, and if he could sell some of the shit he couldn’t use, and maybe take a loan from the Guild, another Master perk, he might be able to do that right now.

It was incredibly fortunate that the C’Eede had only made one type of jump drive, he doubted he would have ever been able to find a scoutship specific one, he always assumed it was a scoutship, that made sense to him but what had passed for common sense among the C’Eede has died with them, for all he knew it was a pinnace or a lancer, shit maybe it was a garbage truck, whatever, he couldn’t have ever tracked down a numbers matching drive.

Consequently, since the drives were powerful enough to drag a whole damn armada FTL, they were ridiculously, absurdly over the top for the tonnage of his ship, easily able to push it to the very upper edge of what was thought to be FTL top speed. Course it couldn’t actually carry enough fuel to get there for more than a second or two, but Bob had a few ideas about, lets say, additional fuel capacity.

One of the ideas he was going to have to use immediately, its inbuilt tanks were really small, good for only a handful of jumps, in fact he had already done it, kinda. He had bought a few cheap repro bulkheads with the plan of basically making a fuel ‘room’ inside the ship. He had never like the idea much, not wanting to trust the reproductions to hold back the tonnes of radioactive goop that passed for fuel here, plenty ships did though it wasn’t like they weren’t made of the same same shit as a million commercial ships fuel tanks, still it had itched at him.

And well, lookie what we have here, actual factual C’Eede walls, floors, ceiling, oh my, he would still have to line them with anti rad shit but he was feeling way better about the whole shebang.

He did have sublight engines, in fact he had a bunch of them in a haphazard pile to one side of the bay, way more than he needed, but it had behoved him to collect as many as possible since there was a fair bit of variability in each engines output and he really wanted to try and get a balanced set.

Fighters took two, his took twenty and battleships could take thousands, again one size only, God bless their interchangeable hearts, and they had been pretty well used over the years, but, and there was often a but with C’Eede products, though they were very powerful, unbreakable, even pretty efficient, they had one giant caveat that came with them, you couldn’t hold on to the fuckers.

A lot of the vacuum facing parts that had been cast in the stellar forge so long ago shared a similar, flaw?, trait. They were, and this included his hulls outer skin, damn near frictionless, this had its pro’s and cons.

Pro’s were obvious, the con’s less so, and in his reading it had become clear to Bob that it taken a lot of time and money for the galaxy at large to spot them.

Let’s use the engines as an example, it was apparently obvious to all when the huge surplus of them arrived on the market back when the C’Eede died off, that these were the future, and everyone grabbed all that they could to fit to their own species craft.

However, being near frictionless you couldn’t glue, weld, drill or bolt them on so how did you attach them?, well just do as their creators had, carve a socket out the crafts rear drive plate and jam them in place with, oh I don’t know, an engine grate?, like the one lying at the bottom of the pile in the corner.

Ok but you have to use an original grate because these fuckers run hot, insanely hot, and you cant make anything that’ll take the heat.

Fine that works but you can only have you’re engines in the same pattern as they were on the fighters, cause otherwise the lumps and bumps in the grate wont mesh properly, and its not like you can grind a bit off till the do. OK, fine not the most efficient layout but whatever... then a little time passes and they start drifting out of alignment, what’s going on?.

Well…, try this experiment, take a ball bearing and squeeze it in a vice, what happens?.

Its held incredible firmly but when you release it you see two dimples in the vice jaws, plastic damage that does not spring back, the ball bearings just fine. Now do it again, and again, and again, see the point?, every time you fired the engines they crushed the socket they were in just a little, and then they could move a bit more because a little space had been created, sub micron, but every time you fired them, again, and again, and again until they rattled and pointed any fucking way they liked.

Fine, make the sockets consumable parts and replace them regularly, the engines were still worth it… and then the backs of ships started falling off.

Ok… now what, well imagine another scenario, imagine an anchor chain on a big ship, one of those really fuck off tankers, and replace one link in that chain with a far better quality one, what happens?.

The new link is great, it lasts way longer than any of the other ones, especially the two that attach to it because they wear down fast, make sense if the new link cant wear down then the two it attaches to must wear down twice as fast to compensate, except they don’t, they wear down much, much faster than that.

Why? The connection never gets to a low wear state, if they were the same material then soon enough they would wear into each other, mating the surfaces. When that happens the rate of material loss plummets, but if one of them doesn’t wear? Then you never get to that lower rate and it breaks in a tenth the time it should.

So say you you took an engine grate that has no yield, bolt it on with bolts that, you guessed it, don’t yield, what happens to the very strong very tough thing you bolted it to?, no matter how strong and tough it is something’s gotta give, in micro cracking, in fatigue, wallowing and then, well the back of the ship falls off.

You see how this goes, a workaround for the workaround for the bodge and on and on, fairly quickly there was a lot of shine off the apple of cheap engines, and slowly they drifted out of use. Not entirely mind you, if you were mooching about in a converted C’Eede ship then it was all gravy, and they still got used a bit on infrequently used craft, lifeboats and the like, some in industry too.

Not used enough to stop Bob to grab grabbing a few for pennies at basically any scrapyard on any planet, and he had done so liberally, he must have a hundred plus in that pile and was convinced he could get the matched pairs and quads he needed out of them.

He had accumulated mounds and mounds of other shit too over the years sending them back a box or two at a time and neatly stacked up by someone at the far left of the bay which constituted his ‘mail box’, so much in fact it was probably time to see what the fuck he could piece together with it all.

Part 12 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1w45z0y/bob_was_bored_part_12/?

Bob was bored, or at least he was trying to be but the internal tension that had been building for days was sending his mind racing a mile a minute as he sat, feet swinging, waiting to be called into the council meeting.

The whole situation was fucking with him, there wasn't any increased security or even anyone acting particularly off. There was a very good chance that he hadn't been called in for anything bad… but in almost thirty goddamn years he had never been called in for anything good.

The Guild, as a profitable going concern, didn’t usually fuck around with any more meetings or briefings than it had to. Generally you picked up messages in port, rarely they beamed them to the ship you were in, that shit was expensive… but they’d beamed that shit to G, shit.

I mean fuck me, there was a bunch of shit that Bob could have been called in, some fucking weird stuff, some fucking minor stuff… and maybe a major fuck up or two mixed in there. Like fucking hell, you send a guy like Bob out to do a fucking job and you give him carte fucking blanche to do whatever the fuck he needs to to get the fucking job done and there’s gonna be the odd fuck up and fucking complication, fucks sake.

Ignore the recent bullshit, he wasn’t gonna get shit for that, for one there was no goddamn way that the Guild would have heard shit about that yet. Fuck G was was probably offloading all that shit in the fuc…

He interrupted his own thoughts. Chill, just chill Bob there was no point in driving yourself up the wall about this stuff yet…. breathe…. just breathe man.

Think about this logically, if it was any of the stuff he’d done Guildwise he could justify it all, they were way more interested in you following the spirit of getting shit done that every ticky tacky rule they had.

As fine print bull went the Guild was actually pretty good, they had tons of ‘guidelines’ and a bunch of ‘best practice’, but there was an overarching theme of ‘if you can’ do it this way, otherwise get that package to where it goes, and if it goes weird on you, do what you need to.

And if that need involved fucking some shit up?, so be it.

Bob had perhaps explored more of the edges of that framework than the upper ranks may have liked, but he was sure to never really cross the line… just a toe or two as required.

No he wasn’t worried about the Guild shit it was the other shit, the Arressi shit that had him all fucked up, he’d done some real fucked up shit in that shit.

...chill…

There were big chunks of his ‘service’ that he did not remember at all, and quite a few more he only remembered at three in the morning…

Still… there were plenty of bits he did remember that he suspected would not go down well in even the most sympathetic of company, and some of those he wasn’t even ashamed of, though he knew he probably should be.

He’d been a scout, first on the field often weeks or months before any large action, dump trucked in and drop podded at high speed down. Most ASSholes had called the ‘Direct infill craft’ dump trucks because that’s exactly what they did, you loaded up in a drop pod on a carrier on on planet or whatever, and then that got clamped into a dump, and the dump jumped to system edge, whatever system you were getting inserted in, built up some speed, went engines off kinetic, and then dropped you when it skimmed past atmo. You needed atmo to slowdown otherwise you were proper fucked when you ‘landed’.

After that you were on your own, no comms, no backup, just a tightbeam schedule to transmit up to a passing receiver whatever it was you had found out, topo, troop count, battery locations, whatever. You did what you needed to to survive, it wasn’t like you were gonna blend in and infiltrate, nah, you were there to get data and, where possible, sabotage the shit out of shit.

You were heavily encouraged to make the sabo as effective as possible, after all, if the planets did have any cracks for the knife heads to exploit they did not send a breach force and you could be stuck on the fucking rock for years… that had happened twice to Bob, four years dodging spidercunts and two on a shitball planet, both times he had to get off world himself by stealing ships, one unattended and one hijacking.

The first time, the four years one, it had happened, was absolute hell, hunted non-stop with only brief relief. The spidercunts, he had forgotten their actual name years ago, big arachniddy fuckers with wings and fur, had been smart and real fucking tenacious.

Bob had discovered quite quickly that the only way to get a bit of space was to make enough of a mess his pursuers had more important shit to deal with.

Making a situation big enough to distract them had proved tricky, no legitimate targets held them up long and were hard to pull off anyway, so… he may have resorted to fucking up… softer targets…

Look its real easy to poison a well or two, maybe cause a BLEVE at a fuel depot, maybe blow up a hospital, than it is to attack a hardened army base, and Bob was fucked if he was gonna die on that shithole, so… he did what he did.

In the sort of summery record that the Arressi had sent out when the Guild first requested his records all that sort of shit was like, ’effective action against enemy’, but if they read the full reports… Bob was pretty sure he was fucked.

The Guild had a hard nose rep sure, but, he didn’t think they were gonna be super cool with like, chemical weapons set off in city centres, shit like that, cour…

‘’Bob’’

Fuck.

‘’Yeah’’

‘’They’re ready for you’’

The Poccil that was talking to him wasn’t one he recognised, but he had only been here a half dozen times, that wasn’t a surprise.

‘’Yeah… alright’’

He hopped down and followed the alien down a short corridor and through double doors. There was a weird energy when he entered the council room, this wasn’t some arena where you stood on a dias and got judged by some stern jury of your betters, nah this was more like the meeting room at a used car dealers, filled with flustered beings drinking coffee analogues from paper cups and annoyed they weren’t doing other shit, he’d been here before.

He was tense… but they weren’t… what the fuck…

A couple even waved to them and he limply returned the gestures as confusion dumped the panic from his diminutive frame.

There were a few moment of shuffling as people returned to their seats and cleared various throats or chatted quietly to their neighbours, seriously what the fuck?.

One rapped the tabletop and there was a general quieting.

‘’Bob, thanks for coming’’

...ok…

‘’No problem Sir’’

The large squidish being sorted through a couple things on his tablet screen briefly before addressing Bob again.

‘’Okay first thing first, congratulations…’’

Huh?

‘’ow its a bit overdue, but we’re glad to confirm your promo…’’

… the fuck?…

‘So as of end of week, last week, your certification has been elevated and you are now a full Courier Master, second class.’’

……………….whut?

‘’Thanks?’’

The squiddy dude probably smiled.

‘’It’s well deserved’’

Ok, fuck, well this was fucking fan-fucking-tastic, fuck!.

‘’We also wanted to have a chat with you because as you may know the Arressi have declassified their reports for the Hoolie conflict, and your records were included in that.’’

Ah, heres the other shoe, stupid fucking knife head cunts were gonna fuck him one last time.

‘’They were, pretty difficult reading.’’

Fuck.

‘’So the council has had some discussions about them and we think it would be bes….’’

FUCK!

‘’If you restrict your commissions to non Arressi confederacy, and non Corpo Union space…’’

...whut.

Bob got the feeling that they were bracing themselves for an objection or a tirade, as a full Master, even second class, he had the right to take whatever jobs he wanted and go wherever he liked…. Technically he supposed it was a bit bad form to ask him not to take certain deliveries, but on the other hand he had, absolutely positively, no fucking desire to go within a parsec of any of those cunts.

‘’Uh yeah, thats no problem, I’ll just avoid the whole sector.’’

A slight tension in the room released and suddenly he was surround by giants clapping his shoulder and congratulating him, calling him Master Bob and shit.

Bob was flustered but a part of him noted that going by his mononym was finally paying off.

He was fucked if he was going to be called Master Robert Baits.

Bob was bored, maybe tired, it had taken half a day or so for the pair to strip all the shit out the container and cram it into Geviths ride, a decent size cruiser called romantically, Rentaship146389, how evocative.

Bob had meticulously written down every cubby, nook, storage compartment and any fucking where else they has stuffed his stuff, and still knew he would be combing this fucker before it got handed back to the broker. No way were those chiselling bastards getting even a single fucking washer.

It had been hard grunt work but also super satisfying, it was the first time he had been actually able to pore through what he had, and, well look at that, several flares and a T and well as several odds and sods he could swap out with the Arressi components of his suit.

It was going to be about ten days before they hit the core proper and another couple after that to get to the Guild world and he couldn’t think of a better thing to do on the journey that strip out more of the fucking knife heads bullshit out his suit.

It was weird he supposed the way he divied up what parts of the suit were his and which were the axe face fucks. He didn’t care about the basic structure, didn’t care about the armour plates, joints were fine, fabric stuff was fine… though he had replaced that a few times, but for some reason it was the mechanisms, the hydraulics, all the clever little things that did all the functions of the suit for some reason they were all Arressi and he hated them.

At this point he had replaced pretty much everything he could, save a few fugitive items, some of which he clutched tightly right now.

He caught a flash of reflection as he walked down the passage and was surprised, as he so often was when he caught sight of himself, that the helmet he wore wasn’t the knobby grey black lump with the exaggerated nose bridge that protruded like, well, an axe, aping its Arressi creators, that had been one of the very first things he had swapped out when he could afford to have one made. Now it was a slightly dull metallic grey and a bit of a rip off of Fett again if he was honest… in shape at least it lacked the T shaped visor cut out, the entire front was like a one way mirror he could see out but no-one could see in…

That was more for Bob himself than any other reason, he hated the sight of his own face and avoided it whenever possible. It was bad enough to see the young face when his bones felt so old, but as the war had progressed and the theaters changed more and more shit had been stuffed under his skin, and though everyone swore none of that stuff was visible, he saw the lumps and bumps, the hairline scarring, pigmentation change and wanted to vomit, to him every thing was printed through the skin, like a bad armpit holster in a cheap suit.

Mind you sometimes when he talked to people he saw blood pour from their eyes, so maybe his peepers weren’t to be trusted.

He especially hated the sight of himself in the suit, the extended collar… gorget? Whatever… the ring that surrounded his face up to the top of his lip, with opening flap on the front for eating and grab handle at the nape, all the better to drag your corpse by.

It was a wall, four to eight inches high over the top of his shoulders, round the back and the front, about six inches distant to the helmet in every direction. Many soldiers had cracked that it made them all look like Kilroy was here, and they had scrawled that in the dirt an every planet humans had fought on, but to Bob it looked like he was treading water, just managing to keep his nose clear, but surely he would soon give out, and drown in the blood he swam in…

He shook himself and continued fore opening the bridge hatch and entering.

‘’All stowed and proper G’’

Gevith gave him a nod and began punching in the commands for lift off, the delay in Bob arriving and then the whole packing fiasco had put him well behind schedule and he wanted to be off planet ASAP, docks cost money.

Bob popped onto a jump seat and strapped himself in as best he could, no booster seat available, as Gevith chatted with the port authorities about take off and exit lanes. Bob stayed silent and out the way as the ship rose and left atmo, G Money was no fan of backseat pilots, but once they reached far enough out for the computer to begin running jump numbers he couldn’t stop himself.

‘’So nothing at all on the recall order?’’

‘’Nothing, just pick you up’’

It had been a long time but… there was something in the way the hunched shoulders seem to crowd away from him.

‘’And you don’t have any ideas about it at all?

G let out a sigh, I think he knew I knew he had something…

‘’I don’t know, really’’

He turned to face Bob directly.

‘’But I heard the Arressi declassified all their files about the Hoolie war last month…’’

Oh.

That might be bad.

‘’All of them?’’

Gevith turned back to his screens.

‘’Probably not everything, you know how those fucks like an edit or two if it makes them look better.’’

Oh yeah they did, some of the old news stories he had seen after he de-mobbed told a very different version of the war than he remembered.

‘’I think the personnel records were just data dumped though…’’

Fuuuuuuuck…..

Bob sank deeply into the plush seat, he had done a lot of shit in forty years of fighting and the council already weren’t sold on him much. This might be a real issue… they might think that one scouts creative solutions might technically be a warcrime or two… or twenty…

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

Bob was bored, of course he was bored, why wouldn’t he be bored, there was no reason, if you thought about it, that he shouldn’t be bored by yet another customs line, so of course, …. of course… he was bored, why you so curious anyway huh?, you a cop?

And as long as no questions were asked about the shipping container that had mysteriously appeared on the ships manifest between the last port and this one, under his name, he would fucking remain bored…

He had considered fudging the Guild manifest briefly, to account for the giant fucking pile of C’Eede parts he had somehow lain his hands on, but he couldn’t do it. It was one thing to interfere in the boarding, it was another thing to fake a ships manifest to explain the appearance of half a fucking ships worth of shit, both those risked demerits and pushing his Master cert down the road, but if he fucked with Guild paperwork and got caught…

Well... people didn’t fuck with the Guild for a reason let’s put it that way…, if he survived he would spend the next few years looking for his legs, presuming they hadn’t been crammed up his ass.

Plus it wouldn’t have sat right with him even if he was sure to have gotten away with it… Bob had taken an oath and dammit that fucking meant something.

If it was the oath he had forced into making to the Arressi well... fuck that and fuck them.

But the Guild had been good to Bob, they had accepted him as an individual of talent and honour when the hadn’t really had much reason to, and even if he had been slow rolled on his promotion he kinda understood why.

Humans were new, and if Bob was any template, kinda nuts.

He paid attention to the line as it moved forward, this was a semi-core world and the end of the freighters route, so the systems were way smoother and quicker than in the fringe sector he worked. The Captain and crew had offered to take him straight back after that whole thing, but schedule alterations would definitely be noticed and he figured a mysterious crate was easier to explain if anyone asked. Plus the Guild expected him here, they would have their own plans for his route back to Velta.

The line moved again and he entered the first sequestration box, this port split everyone into their own as they moved to the head of the line. Each box would pass through a scanner and anything weird would be flagged for investigation by customs, Bob wasn’t worried about that, he didn’t have any contraband on him nor did any of the suits systems or his cludged on additions count as weaponry, though he considered as he looked over them you could have asked those fucking pirates about them and got a very different opinion.

He glanced over himself just in case he was actually toting a plasma pistol or a virus bomb he had forgotten about, it was ridiculous of course but OCD didn’t have to make sense, he hadn’t need to check the oven five times after he used it either, or walk to the car and back to his front door to check they were locked. A shame really the Arressi hadn’t classed minor mental illness as a combat detriment and fixed it, he was positive they could have, they fucked around in his skull plenty anyway.

He looked at the additions, translator glued to shoulder, badge glued to chest. The thigh holster that had carried his sidearm now fitted a custom canteen, Journeyman like himself weren’t supposed to travel armed, well firearmed anyway, two other glued additions on his arms didn’t technically count, they were slim rectangular boxes, rattlecanned grey and black in camo.

He had them made yonks ago, basically just gravity sheaths for his blades, and glued them on to the underside of his forearms, he had considered at the time trying to do the wolverine thing but it had been impractical, his… outer?… forearm, top?… look put your palm on your chest, the side facing out.

That side had thick armour plate too slick and tough to attach anything to, the ‘top’ side had the controls for the various systems of the suit, all analogue and not to be fucked with if possible, though he had spent the first ten years of guild employment replacing basically every valve and hardline with genuine C’Eede parts a bit at a time as he could afford it.. At this point he was missing like two flare fittings and a T junction to completely finish the theseus upgrade… fuck he might have them in the container… he had been more concerned grabbing every milky white thing, even the shit nailed down, than sorting or checking sizes.

The blades the sheaths contained were not weapons technically, too small and not considered dangerous enough, though if you asked his opinion he would say that the one that dropped out his right had carved up ppppplllllllenty enough cunts to deserve a more violent designation.

He had picked up the monomolecular blade on his third, ...or fourth?, tour, and carried it ever since. The fucker that had taken his arm off with it not being in a position to argue after Bob had used his remaining arm to crush the cunts head with a rock.

It was also definitely not called Annabell, because Bob wasn’t the kind of fucking loser that would name a fucking knife, even if the cloudy surface of it had swirls that kinda, if you squinted at it right, looked like they spelled something close to Annabell, he wouldn’t be caught fucking dead calling it that.

Anyway Annabell had been a constant companion, trusted and proven in many a sticky situation so when he had had to leave his gun in a locker back on the Guild homeworld he had brought her with him and had the sheath made to fit.

The other blade, a chain of flat sections with sharpened corners had just seemed practical and he had it made to fit in a similar container. Unlike Annabell who dropped loose into his right hand when required the left stayed attached, tethered to the back of the box.

Fully extended it would trail about nine feet but could be partially retracted to about five with its internal pulley system, hooked up to one of the bracer control spaces Bob hadn’t used much, it would only take a few minutes to hook it up to its original purpose if he really needed it but, where possible, he preferred not to drink his own recycled piss.

In five foot mode, it became a pretty delicate serrated sword of a sort, though the combined length of actual cutting edge remained under the legal limit. He almost never used it that way, it was far too easy to break when its fragile joints were locked in tension, as a floppy flail it was much more robust.

Beside Annabells sheath on the forearm, in the place where bracer controls were on the left, he had glued on a little firing piton line, Boba Fett style, a thin line shot out under a compressed gas powered spike, useful in so many ways… he had assured him self when he glued the device on… in reality he never fucking used it, it was almost impossible to aim and fucking useless even if you managed it, next time he was at a proper workshop he was going to have it pried off and the glue cleaned up, he had a couple ideas to replace it but hadn’t settled on anything quite yet, maybe something flechettey.

Apart from all that his suit was pretty standard, not much on the legs or back, he wore a ‘utility belt’ but it was pretty much a bum bag with the galactic version of his wallet and keys in it… and he had glued a strip of cloth high on his stomach, but that was basically the closest he could get to a hoody pocket and was mainly for giving him somewhere to rest his hands.

There was a bunch of shit in the suit of course, and even more shit crammed actually under his flesh but nothing that would raise a peacekeeper eyebrows.

The box moved along the ground and into the scanner and a bright multicoloured spectrum flashed over Bob, he hoped whatever the alien scanner beam was it wasn’t giving him some form of super cancer or something, but even if it was he presumed the ‘medic’ system would take care of it.

He cleared, and flashing his badge at an officer, he was whisked through the last of the officialdom and out into the concourse proper, now he just had to pick up the Guild crates, his engine grate… and cross his fingers about the other one…

Vienilith had no idea what the crude burbles the creature spoke meant, but was mildly impressed by the things daring.

It had been another delightful hunt for the band of fae nobility he had lead through the waygate, great sport had been had as they had rousted a nest or two of the beasts and bagged a few of the runners.

There were few things better in his long life than a crisp winter hunt and a feast of the catch roasted slow over an open fire with a bottle or two of good wine, his lips pursed a little as he thought of the tipple he had waiting for him at the camp, a delightfully complex white from the forest of the Satyrs, given to him in gratitude for another fine romp through the waygate a few seasons back and kept preciously for such a clear and clean night. He imagined the first kiss of the cold liquid as he brought the goblet to his lips... but was drawn out of his reverie by the barking of the shuddering savage.

The things boldness was certainly unusual, his kind generally fled in fear from the masters of the hunt, as they should, but this one seemed to have followed their trail back through the waystone.

His first thought was that perhaps the thing wished to serve them as a hunting dog in the same way the wolves would often track behind a party to feast on the scraps, helpfully flushing the runners onto clear paths, better for a good spear charge, but the rage that seemed to vibrate the savages entire being made it actual desire clear. The foolish thing wanted to challenge its betters...

Vienilith glanced at the dressed carcasses draped over the horses of the various underlings that facilitated the hunt, perhaps one of them had been something to this animal. It was unfortunate it didn't have the intelligence to understand that whatever fleeting connection it had felt with one of the prey was completely pointless, certainly not worth rushing to its death for.

He sighed in pity and nudged his horse in a tight turn to face the animal, taking a moment to catch the hand of a fae maiden he passed and quickly pressed his lips to the back of her hand then drew his weapon, it would be effortless to have a beater put an arrow through the savages head but he supposed such suicidal bravery deserved a little more, he would finish the beast with a blade and graciously deign to grant it a good death.

''Be honoured beast'', he flicked the thin blade of his rapier out in front and advanced, a quick slash would part the flesh of the neck and cleanly drop the skull to the grass.

The incomprehensible guttural screeching of the thing continued as his magnificent steed trotted towards it, sliver buckles and oiled leather glistening on its harness and he moved through the moonlight.

He moved to come abreast for a quick downward slash, but with still a step or two to carry he halted in surprise... the thing actually produced a weapon!, a stubby crude leaf shaped copper blade but still...

Chortles spiraled round the circled hunters, a sinister murmuration.

Vienilith himself rocked his head back and let out a cruel bark of laughter,

''What say you all, shall I honorably duel with this fierce warrior?''

The guffaws burst all around him.

''Yes my Lord''

''But of course, it will surely be a battle for the bards to sing of!''

''Dare you my Lord?, he seems a canny foe...''

He watched the things eyes dart around the fae, unsure and trembling at the high lilting tones.

''Enough.''

The silence was instant, though the proposition was ridiculous Vienilith wouldn't mock the beast too severely, even a culling should be done with dignity and to face him with a weapon, even one it clearly had little idea how to use, deserved at least a mote of respect.

In one graceful movement he leapt off the horse, every movement a graceful ballet.

He flicked a bare salute and faced the animal, he saw the beast focus and gird its self for a charge.

As it clumsily ran towards him he side stepped and rapped the flat of his blade off the wrist that clenched the crude blade, the impact dropping the weapon that skittered away on the packed snow.

The others laughed as the beast flailed after it trying to pick up the ungainly blade.

It turned back with it in its hands and charged again, this time as he span away Vienilith applied the rapiers edge to the same spot and smoothly parted the joint, dropping both sword and hand to the ground.

It gawped stupidly at the gushing stump where its hand once was and stuffed it into the pit of the other arm then picked the dull metal up once more, half gripping atop its still clinging fingers.

Vienilith sighed as it took one last rush and simply turned, avoiding the strike and driving his own straight through the beast chest, a mortal strike.

The beast burbled something but a slight discordant note of the battle flow irked Vienilith and he ignored it, turning his head to try to spot the sour note he saw that the savages copper had fallen in the wrong place... as if thrown, not dropped...

He was jarred back round as he realised that the filthy beast had clutched the front of his doublet, grime and blood staining the white silk.

He sneered in revulsion and instinctively moved to break the hand free but found his own trapped by the stump of the beasts other arm, as it drove its way down the blade until its chest crammed the hilt.

It reared its head back, straggly hair falling free in the cold air and screamed something, then convulsed forward.

Vienilith tried to consider but all thought was smashed from him as the first strike of the beast head crushed his nose.

The second drove both to the ground.

The third echoed an audible bone crack through the air.

The fourth was the last thing to pass through Vienilith's mind, ten pounds of a primates skull.

Hi guys, my board game group plays Catan a lot and in order to change it up have come up with a few rule variations.

Mill, the game does not play to score but until the development card deck is milled with used cards either on the table or in a discard pile, really changes the flow an tactics probably my fav variant.

Blockade, knights and pirates can block routes stopping trade, the blocked player can't trade with other players or the bank and must either move the pirate or use a knight card to chase away the blocking night card. knights played for these purposes get discarded and do not count towards largest army. blockades can also be used to break up longest road until they are cleared but you must have a road that gets your army to where you wish to blockade. Pretty good but not quite right we're still tweeking the rules on this one.

High quality, if you have majority ownership of resource, i.e. you have settlements on 3 pastures and nobody else does you get a bonus resource everytime those pastures are rolled. This one is great, it really changes up placement and encourages racing to special ports, still feels like it could use another tweek or two but we haven't been able to figure it out, suggestions welcome.

I don't know if we came up with these variations or they're already well known but I find them a welcome change, I would be interested in hearing all the homebrew rules you guy might use.

Hi guys, my motherboard just crapped out and I need recommendations for a okish build to fit my 1080ti and 4 slots of ddr4 ram into 300 quid or less please