Lasers and Feelings - Story Notes

Background

The Consortium is a human-dominated alliance of worlds focused largely on trade and defence. Planetary cultures are linked by a common language, currency and set of trading conventions, based on a common worldview that individuals of any sentient species matter and exploiting or actively harming others is wrong. Its capital and commercial centre is the eco-metropolis of Eternis on the verdant planet Sargo IV.

• Zecunov (Raidan system), a heavily industrialised world, home of the Atmos Mining Corporation
• The notorious pleasure planet Drembuie (Kenat system), ruled by the self-styled Plendis the Magnificent
• Hyperion Station (Arkab system), the main shipyard of the Consortium fleet
• Torus (Shofa system), a ringworld that is a giant shopping mall and financial centre

• Krol - friendly telekinetic serpents. Good with electronics.
• K'kefni (singular: k'kefnan) - large, parrot-shaped aliens with brightly coloured headfeathers
• Nelengu - Space hamsters about half human height with large black eyes. Highly inquisitive. Think Rocket Raccoon, but more cuddly.
• Zefronians - Human height aliens that walk on four long tentacles supporting a squid-like body and head. Surprisingly sexually compatible.

• Zorgon the Conqueror, an alien overlord determined to rule the galaxy
• Bold, charismatic and ruthless space pirates, of whom the most well known is the dread pirate queen Ukara
• The Mycelium, a biomechanoid fungus that creates cyber zombies from tech
• The V'zub, a race of hostile hornet-like aliens
• A rival trade consortium known as the Vorderan Sodality
• And last but not least, the Flying Brain Worms of Hapnak, a vicious alien species that co-opts neuronal material. They find human ganglia particularly delicious.

Technology: Star Trek but more grubby. Somewhere between Firefly and Star Wars.

The Characters

Farwood Farnworth IV (they/them) - Cool Envoy. Into aliens and alien artifacts. Number: 4

"Crazy" Anna Belinda - Hotshot Explorer. Steampunk attire, big blond pigtails. Likes aliens. Keep being awesome. Number: 2

"Dr" Feelgood Dan - Savvy Doctor. Lanky. Medical qualifications have gone missing. Good with "tea" (administered nasally). Interested in space diseases. Number: 2

Professor Banzai - Dangerous Scientist. Likes new science. Number: 4

Buck Frain - Dangerous Pilot. Wants own spaceship. Number: 2

The Raptor

The Raptor is a former asteroid mining ship that Captain Darcy re-purposed as an exploration vessel. Quite how Darcy managed to persuade Fleet Command that a battered ex-mining ship would make a suitable addition to the exploration fleet is not entirely clear, but he's got the papers to prove it.

Advantages: Nimble, cloaking device, ship's cat (name to be determined)

Weakness: Horrible circuit breakers

Episode 1: Out of Gas

What happened to Captain Darcy

• "Rate my Captain" reviews are mixed. Into alien artefacts. Secretive - cabin door is locked.
• Visited the dead planet Zikander. Got zapped with purple lightning by an alien artefact.
• Carried back unconscious to the ship (artefact left behind). Appeared to recover. Ordered a jump to the Hedek system, which Buck thought was strange because there's nothing there.
• Sent the crew off, then went and fiddled with something in Engineering.
• Came out and shot at Farwood in the corridor with phaser set to kill. Eyes were glowing purple. Others came running and managed to stun him. As he started to come to, Feelgood tried to knock him again out with tea, but it didn't work, so they stuffed him in a medical stasis pod.

Hedek system

• Banzai tries to work out what Darcy did in engineering. Big flashing red light on the Warp Drive. Asks Buck what it means - amazingly, Buck knows, having helped Darcy with modifications. The ship is out of dark energy crystals. Darcy must have jettisoned them.
• Banzai asks AGNES (Autonomous Global Navigation and Engineering System - the ship's AI) why the crystals were jettisoned. AGNES refuses to say, on the orders of Captain Darcy.
• Farwood tries to persuade AGNES to assign an under-captain (AGNES refuses to assign another captain as it can detect Darcy's life-signs). Feelgood joins in, suggesting that it is necessary for the ship's survival. AGNES is persuaded, but somewhat randomly assigns Anna Belinda as under-captain. Anna Belinda fails to get into the Captain's captain, but is directed towards some bottles of cheap wine in the junk room. She and Farwood work on getting drunk.
• AGNES says that Darcy ordered the dark energy crystals to be jettisoned because they were "contaminated". There is an emergency procedure for creating a new one by filling the hold with a gas giant's atmosphere and distilling it, but it involves using the air scrubber from the life support system. Banzai tries to modify it with the help of Feelgood, but it does not go well. The life support circuit breakers go off and everyone has to switch to space suits.
• Buck manages a critical success on skimming the surface of the gas giant and gets the hold full of atmosphere without burning up the ship. As Banzai's jury-rigged scrubber starts processing, Farwood and Anna Belinda get the scanners working. They determine that they are one jump away from the Raidan system (Atmos mining corp). They spot a cloud of something approach their position. Buck activates the cloaking device and takes evasive action. - Meanwhile Feelgood tries to diagnose what's wrong with Captain Darcy, using a meditation technique. He figures out that Darcy brought the ship to Hedek as an out-of-the-way place to kill the crew. Darcy has not done anything like this before, but the alien entity possessing him has.
• The cloud proves to be the remains of a scoutship, The Hopeless Dreamer, which has been blasted apart. Farwood had travelled on it and knew the captain, Adrian Kirel - they went looking for alien artefacts together, but Farwood left when Adrian was assigned to patrol duties on the borders of Consortium space.
• Feelgood and Anna Belinda prepare to do a spacewalk to see if there are lifepods or evidence of what happened among the debris. They are in the airlock when the scanners pick up a huge ship emerging from behind the nearby moon. It is a bulbous irregular thing made of columns of hexagonal prism-shaped cells stacked on top of each other. Individual cells are attaching and detaching from its extremities and flying around using small rockets attached to three of the vertices on one side. Buck hastily activates the cloaking device again.
• Farwood and Anna Belinda recognise the vessel as a V'zub hiveship. The cellships are piloted by drones and the whole thing is controlled by a V'zub queen. Distillation is only 75% complete, so the crew decides to sit quiet and wait it out.
• One of the cellships drifts across to inspect the wreckage, making discovery inevitable. Buck waits until he can see the facets of its drone operator's ommatidia, then blasts it with both lasers, scoring a direct hit, and makes a run for it, diving through the gas giant's rings. The cellship explodes. Immediately a dozen other cellships detach from the hiveship and come tearing after the Raptor. Distillation is at 90%.
• Feelgood attempts to commune with the Entity, trying to work out if it can be persuaded to leave Captain Darcy and possess something else. He doesn't get far - the alien's motives are obscure. The suggestion of firing the possessed Darcy's pod at the hiveship is quickly vetoed.
• Buck makes it to the gas giant's other moon with the cellships in hot pursuit. He slingshots round it and performs a handbrake turn, pointing the lasers back the way he came. The cellships scatter anticipating an attack, but instead Buck points the lasers down at the moon's surface, blasting out a cloud of dust and chunks of rock. One boulder hits a cellship and it explodes.
• Banzai announces that the distillation is complete and the dark energy crystal is ready. He nervously but successfully transfers it into the warp drive. Anna Belinda gives the order to get the f out of here. Buck accelerates away and hits the red jump button. The Raptor vanishes in a hail of laser fire. Everything goes spacey for a moment, then the very welcome sight of the Atmos Terminal space station appears.

Unanswered questions

• What's in Captain Darcy's cabin?
• What was the V'zub hiveship doing in the middle of nowhere?
• What was possessed Captain Darcy's plan after killing the crew?
• Can the Entity be persuaded to jump out of Captain Darcy into the ship's cat?

Episode 2: The Great Space Rock Heist

Atmos Terminal

• Atmos Terminal is an old, fully automated space station in the outer reaches of the Raidan system, close to the innermost edge of the Ganimec asteroid belt. It consists of two bicycle wheel-shaped rings, one inside the other, joined by spokes. The docking facilities are in the inner ring.
• The Raptor's life support system is still fritzed and the ship is out of dark energy crystals, so the crew decides to stop off and make use of the spartan facilities. Anna Belinda, Banzai and Farwood will go shopping for spare parts, while Feelgood and Buck try to figure out how to get into the Captain's cabin.
• Buck gets AGNES to perform the docking manoeuvres, which happens without incident (luckily, the V'zub hiveship that the Raptor escaped seems unwilling or unable to follow it through warp from Hedek - yet…). As the crew are about to disembark, however, a proximity alarm sounds on the control deck. AGNES reports that a number of beings in military gear have assembled on the dock. One of them has a loudhailer.
• "Jorgo Darcy! Come out and talk to me or I'll blow your miserable ship to smithereens!"
• Anna Belinda replies, saying that Darcy is sick. The figure introduces herself as Stormy "Goldentooth" Vossler, and says that Darcy owes her a million credits. She suggests finding the nearest equivalent that this miserable station has to a bar where they can talk. Anna Belinda's counter-offer - that she hands over Darcy's body as a hostage - is rejected. Stormy doesn't want his germs.

Negotiations with Stormy

• Anna Belinda, Farwood and Banzai accompany Stormy, her two orglon bodyguards Yez and Yalk, a geeky-looking guy called Zagrid, and her boytoy Kem (great pectorals, not much conversation) down to the outer wheel, where they get sinfully weak coffees from the machine and sit in the excruciatingly uncomfortable seats (apart from Stormy, who sits on Kem).
• Stormy explains that she and Darcy did a deal - she gave him some information, and he said he'd pay her the next time she saw him (she brushes off Anna-Belinda's objection that strictly she hasn't actually seen Darcy yet). She claims that Darcy offered the Raptor as collateral, so she is within her rights to strip the Raptor for parts and reclaim the debt that way, leaving the heroes stranded on Atmos Terminal. When asked to prove it, she brandishes a set of papers and suggests looking at the Raptor's current bank balance.
• Farwood suspects that the fact that Stormy is talking suggests that she wants something from them, and subtly tries to determine what this is. Stormy sees right through his little ruse and cuts to the chase. An Atmos tugship is towing a small but valuable asteroid towards the nearby gas giant Sovak with the intention of using a gravity assist to slingshot it towards Zecunov for processing. Stormy wants the Raptor to steal it for her.
• The details: The tug, which is called The Cozy Catastrophe, is crewed by nelengu. They are towing the asteroid on a cable which is harpooned into the surface. Stormy has arranged for a technical malfunction to happen to the Atmos sensor satellite near Sovak, so there is a dark area that Atmos cannot monitor. The Raptor will have about half an hour to detach the cable and nudge the asteroid back out towards the asteroid belt, where there is a secret pirate base with facilities to handle it.
• If the crew does as she asks, Stormy offers to pay for the repairs to the Raptor. She even throws in a dark energy crystal when Anna Belinda objects that they won't be able to jump out of the system if something goes wrong. She will give them the papers that give her salvage rights on the ship in the event of Darcy's failure to pay, though she freely admits that she had Zagrid fake them up when she saw that the Raptor had jumped into the system. Anna Belinda gets the impression that Darcy and Stormy had an oral agreement, perhaps because a Consortium captain doing a deal with a known space pirate would not have looked good.
• Anna Belinda says that she will have to go back to the ship and plan with her crew. Stormy says not to take too long because the asteroid will reach the dark zone in just a few hours. She warns the crew not to double cross her or they will have every pirate in the Consortium on their backs.

Planning the Heist

• Back at the ship, Feelgood is suspicious about the lack of station interference. He calls up the station's public manifest, which records one other docked vessel, a Consortium scoutship called the Home Sweet Home. What he can see out of the window however, is a sleek battlecruiser that is spiky with weapons. The name on the side is The Ornery Bastard and below it are a number of stencils of crossed out spaceships. He considers asking AGNES to interrogate the space station AI, but realises that whatever Stormy has done to it could affect AGNES too.
• Instead he has another go at asking AGNES to open up the captain's cabin, on the grounds that there might be more information about the deal that Darcy made with Stormy. AGNES still refuses.
• Anna Belinda, Farwood and Banzai return to the ship with their purchased supplies. As Banzai and Buck carry out the repairs, the crew discuss their options, which are limited. Anna Belinda suggests leaving Darcy's stasis pod on the dock for someone else to deal with and jumping away, but Farwood and Feelgood want to have another go at communing with the Entity to determine its intentions, and Banzai reckons that with sufficient time he could create a little robot to enter the captain's cabin through the air vent. They reluctantly decide that getting Stormy off their backs is the top priority, and the easiest way to do this is to carry out the heist.
• The crew eventually hit on the dangerous but ingenious plan of cutting the cable with lasers from stealth and disguising this by launching a small asteroid filched from the belt at the harpoon on the asteroid's surface. They realise that the nelengu ship will probably have a backup harpoon, so a similar asteroid strike on one of its manoeuvring rockets will also be necessary to destabilise it sufficiently to prevent its use. A quick ablation of rock on one side of the asteroid should then be sufficient to send it towards the coordinates that Stormy has given them.

The Heist

• As they speed towards the asteroid belt to pick up their missiles, the crew debate their getaway plan. Stormy's papers make clear that the payment was for the location of the hidden temple on Zikander where Darcy got zapped, so following this up with her could be worthwhile. Farwood is for remaining in the Raidan system and investigating the inner planets - perhaps there are hospital facilities where Darcy could be stashed. Alternatively, jumping out of system to a quiet backwater would allow Banzai and Feelgood to carry out their respective plans. No final decision is reached.
• Remarkably, the asteroid billiards plan goes without a hitch. Buck skillfully picks up two good-sized rocks using the tractor beam and manages to get to the dark zone without losing either of them. He lines up and launches one at the base of the ice cream cone-shaped nelengu ship, then accelerates the other towards the anchor point on the 200 metre-diameter asteroid, swooping in and cutting the cable just before it hits. A quick burst of laser fire on the other side of the asteroid is enough to send it on its way back to the asteroid belt.
• Meanwhile, the Cosy Catastrophe has lost control and is tumbling over and over. The Raptor receives a panicky emergency transmission. Anna Belinda looks at the rest of the crew. "Why don't we go and be the good guys for a change?"

Unanswered questions:

• What are Stormy and her fellow pirates planning to do with the money and materials they will get from the asteroid?
• Why was Darcy willing to pay so much for Stormy's information?