Space Monsters

[sabredog]

See! I was right! There's your Wonder Book of Wacky Creatures!

hmmm...yessss....right, I'll let that simmer a bit and see if I can come up with something. Maybe if they live off of the ice asteroids and snack on a ship once in a while because they like the crunchy outside and chewy, juicy inside.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Sorry Aramis. Will keep the 800 figure in mind for future postings.

I can't seem to find good new pics for more space monsters, but I'm still looking.

 

[BeRKA]

Space Monster Game

I made a space monster game:

The board can be found here:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Gallery/images/801/1_3_board.gif

Counters can be made here:
http://zho.berka.com/rules/war/ship_counter.shtml

 

[Blue Ghost]

Very cool. What are the rules?

 

[Fritz_Brown]

hmmm...yessss....right, I'll let that simmer a bit and see if I can come up with something. Maybe if they live off of the ice asteroids and snack on a ship once in a while because they like the crunchy outside and chewy, juicy inside.

You know...... It might be that they are a little like Gremlins, too. They do fine in their natural habitat, but something a ship brings (high gravity, e-mag fields, heat, certain substances, etc.) turns them nasty and such. Heck, they might even make cool pets - just don't get them wet, or feed them after midnight!

 

[sabredog]

They could be a space gribble relative of Jump Borers. Visible and tangible pests of the spaceways found in realspace and the bane of belters everywhere. If they get in your suit they'll play havoc with the seals and metal parts. And you'll get a nasty rash.

When ships come out of jump with mysterious holes and pits from what the crew swears were Jump Borers, the shipyards just shake their heads and patiently explain, "It was only space gribbles. Look, we have some over here we keep in a vacc-tight vivarium. Kinda cute in a way but they really love to chew on lanthanum grids."

 

[Blue Ghost]

One of the interesting things is that nearly all of the space monsters I can think of come from classic sci-fi, much of which has been absconded by classic Trek. I think it would be interesting to translate classic Trek and SFB monsters to Traveller.

The few that I can think of;
1) the Doomsday Machine
2) the Vampire Cloud
3) the Sun Snake
4) the Juggernaut
5) the Space Amoeba as per BeRKA's post
6) Space Dragons (duh)
7) the rogue planetoid from SFB's "A Stone's Throw"
8) the Death Probe (another take on the rogue ship/monster)
9) The Moray Eel of Space
10) The Star Swarm
11) the Energy Monster from the combining of Arastoz

I can think of a few others using my imagination. I think it would be a tough proposition for a band of adventurers in a free trader or scout to tackle any one of these things. But it might make for a pretty entertaining night of gaming.

This sounds like a JTAS article to me.

 

[Blue Ghost]

They could be a space gribble relative of Jump Borers. Visible and tangible pests of the spaceways found in realspace and the bane of belters everywhere. If they get in your suit they'll play havoc with the seals and metal parts. And you'll get a nasty rash.

When ships come out of jump with mysterious holes and pits from what the crew swears were Jump Borers, the shipyards just shake their heads and patiently explain, "It was only space gribbles. Look, we have some over here we keep in a vacc-tight vivarium. Kinda cute in a way but they really love to chew on lanthanum grids."

Cute huh? Do you mean like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8imklDkUds

 

[Blue Ghost]

More Space Monster commentary;

The Trek monsters, by Imperial standards, would really swat those vessels out of sky and space rather handily. Trek's tech base presumes faster than light combat, with weapons of immense energy. Traveller being the generic RPG/war-game that it's tried to be, can emulate the feel of a Trek scenario, and there are provisions for its technology in the rules, but if we take, say, an Imperial patrol cruiser up against one of these beasties, by strict interpretation of the rules, we're hard pressed to give the players who are running that patrol cruiser much of a chance.

Of course, it depends on the monster, and the referee can dumb down the critters alleged capabilities such that the gaming session and story told unravel at a pace and level the players can grapple with. Example; a severe case; the Doomsday machine; a robot weapon whose lore has become legend. A solid "neutronium" hull makes all use of conventional Trek weapons obsolete. If that's the case, then what chance are missiles, LASER and MASER weapons? This is where the ref comes in and says; "John, your character is manning the sensor suite on your high performance 300-ton survey scout (a ship I just made up). You notice that there are various pores dotting the tail section of this thing. Large enough for a man in a vacc suit to fit into...."

If we go by strict canon from the episode, that means that the Planet Killer would rotating and attack the vessel before it could close. But, again the Ref comes in and says; "Okay, you guys saw it maul that Shivani Class Battlecruiser, but it's ignoring all of her lifeboats, fuelling ships and pinnaces launching from her side hangars...." So the ref drops the clue about smaller vessels are being ignored. "But, this thing is closing on His Majesties Ship the Takar, another Shivani Class Battlecruiser. You witness her open up with her spinal weapon, and sear a scar across this things mouth and skin. John, roll a standard task roll, don't forget your skill level....you succed. You witness the battlecruiser get totalled, just like her sister ship, but again, her smaller launches are able to get away from this thing without drawing attention. And, based on your roll, you note excess plasma being vented from those pores you detected on this thing's tail. Chris, you're the captain, what do you want to do?"

And so it goes. A die hard Trek grognard might insist that this thing was capable of defeating a tech base that included warp drives and personal disintegrators, but you remind him in an Out Of Character sidebar that you're making this thing playable. But, if he insists on fighting "the real thing"... :devil:

Some monsters don't care what kind of hardware you're packing. Shields? Armor? What's that? :smirk: And suddenly your ship is rendered academic as some energy thingy is wreaking havoc with your avionics and ship's computer. Here the players really have a chance to bring their skills and tools/weapons to bear. Ref; "Chris, you're said you were heading to your cabin when the ship made contact with this strange thing. You're what? Getting your ACR? Okay, roll to see if you make it to your cabin because you're feeling kind of weak, dizzy, and somewhat disoriented. You succeed. Okay, what do you want to do? Fire at anything that doesn't look like its part of the ship? With the 203 slung under the barrel? Are you sure you want to do that? What, because the ship's double beam LASER turret couldn't hurt it? Okay, roll away. You hit! Regrettably the grenade went right through the cloud you were aiming at, and smacks against the ship's bulkhead, exploding back on you. Roll for damage...... and you're knocked down......and unconscious regardless of what damage you take."

Okay, that's evil, and maybe you can give your players more clues as to what to do, but I think those are some ideas of incorporating the "Here be dragons" angle of Traveller. Remember the Kinunir? Remember how that ship went schizo and tried to kill your players? Maybe such a vessel, a larger vessel, goes rogue, and attacks the spacelanes. Okay, that's a standard ship action scenario, but, what if your players are trapped on board the ship, and it has all kinds of defensive measures to keep your players happy (or unhappy as the case may be as the Imperial Navy comes to try and turn ship and crew into cinders).

I know a lot of you laugh, will laugh, have laughed, and will always laugh at the Japanese Kaiju genre of movies. Yeah, they're pretty corny, but imagine such a beast that's capable of space travel, but minus the Japanese actor in the rubber suit. As an example, and to help your imaginations; take the rubber suit Gojira, and replace him with a CGI version.

Behold;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Sshv_DnwI

That little snippet is actually from a movie that is an intimate portrayal of a small lane in Tokyo. The film opens up with the story being written by a local author, which coincidentally is a Godzilla story. If you take a monster of that size, capacity, and vigor, but perhaps not in a shape of a bipedal mutated lizard, but in some other shape, capable of space flight, and a menace to the Imperium or whatever milieu/setting you choose using the Traveller ruleset, you might find an adventure you hadn't anticipated. A Sylean class battleship might make quick work of such a creature, but a research vessel, or a patrol cruiser or some other vessel would have more than its hands full with such a beast.

There are countless other possibilities, but they are doable, and probably fun in a gaming environment where you and your friends are trying to complete another adventure with an obstacle that is not from the Traveller norm, nor, indeed, the general science-fiction norm, but a staple of the genre nonetheless.

Have fun!

 

[sabredog]

Pacific Rim is coming out soon and is a kaiju / giant gundam-type robots movie w/out the rubber suits. Might have something to mine from depending on the explanation for the kaiju.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I think there is room for a space monster even in the OTU, but I'm just not sure how well it would work for more than a one-off thing, or with players that insist too much on 'realism'.

Godzilla.....I dunno, maybe Gamera or Giderah would work better for space. Gamera can seal up in his shell for space flight while flames shoot out his rear.

I have run a couple of games in the distant past (my more carefree younger days when nobody cared about how stuff worked - they just wanted fun adventure) with kaiju kind of beasts on some worlds. Giant monsters on low grav worlds that ate players who hunted them. None breathed radioactive fire, but there was plenty of caustic phlegm and venom to go with the stomped ATV's and chewed on cutters.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I love that the two threads with the most comments in Bestiary are the one on Jump Rats and this one. :rofl:

 

[Blue Ghost]

 

[Carlobrand]

I tried using a sort of 'space whale' once but just couldn't pull it off when the time came for the players to encounter one. ...

Space whales might actually work. I recall a short story where two cultures clashed in space: one was deep into machine tech, the other deep into biotech. The biotechs had modified whales to function as ships in space, with an ability to survive and - in some manner - propel themselves through space at reasonable speeds. Wasn't real specific on the how's, the focus was on the encounter. Maybe they figured a way to develop a biological fusion plant and gravitic drive.

So, you imagine a sapient species that favored biotech for their technological needs. Finds a way to, say, build a space lifeform that burrows into asteroids like plant roots, devours the asteroid's mass and hydrocarbons for food and fuel, uses photosynthesis for energy a la Niven's sunflowers, leaves air-filled passages and little nodes of fruit inside for the sapients to use. The life cycle has the lifeform maneuvering the asteroid into an elliptical orbit that carries them close to the sun for their energy needs, then back out to the asteroid belt where they shed spores to inhabit other asteroids - all the while carrying a community of sapients inside.

The players encounter the spore forms, which latch onto their ship and start trying to root their way slowly through the hull. More a pest control problem than a monster, but the easiest root channels are through the wiring between the external elements of your sensors and their in-ship components, so the spores can be somewhat destructive.

Or they encounter the asteroidal form, which reacts reflexively to their intercept course by focusing its mirror array on the players' ship as it would to change the course of an inbound asteroid.

Or if you're feeling really nasty, throw Niven's watchmakers at them: little semi-sentient creatures bred (or biologically engineered) with instinctive knowledge of engineering, used as workers by the sapients, carefully controlled in that environment by hormones in the air but nasty and aggressive in their wild form. The wild forms construct bizarre and dangerous spacecraft with which they navigate through interplanetary space seeking metal sources and hydrocarbon sources - and the players' ship looks like a prize catch.

The biotech sapients and their semi-sentient tame technicals breed cyborg ships, fusions of organic and mechanical technology with fusion plants, maneuver drives and weapons enmeshed in a biological hull, controlled by the biological's organic brain and nervous system. The asteroid forms instinctively view these forms as friendly and view wholly mechanical constructs as the products of wild technicals and therefore hostile - thus their reaction to your ship: technicals are unable to engineer organic life, so any ship that's inorganic must be a wild technical ship coming to raid.

 

[Blue Ghost]

*pulls out his ACR*

... what are the targeting modifiers?

 

[Blue Ghost]

The Dynasty class battlecruiser was a venerable design and a little outclassed by newer models, but her last refit saw her blistered and pock marked armor replaced with fresh plating, as well as her load bearing struts replaced or reinforced. Her avionics were brand new, her weapons and drives overhauled, she was as new as she could be given her age.

Captain James Cowlin stood on the plasti-steel white clean bridge dotted with lights, screens and the occasional holographic display as he looked over the shoulder of his sensor ops officer following a contact labled as "Chevron One" on one of the many screens unveiling space at BVR distances. With all the dust and rock in the this region of space, the lower rimward region of the Verge sector, it could be anything. Yet it was the exact same scenario that many a freighter and liner had reported—a “ghost” contact that seemed to move under its own power.

Cowlin looked out the forward window not really expecting to see anything, but wondering if any of the space legends that pervaded and stuffed the Imperial Navy’s contact files with a mountain of data that was classified as “Not Substantiateed”, or in planer language; junk—and that was putting it politely, merited the presence of he and his ship.

“Anything on that contact?” Cowlin blanketed the bridge with the question, waiting for anybody to own up with a morsel of information on what Cowlin and everyone else considered to be a ghost hunt. He had only himself to blame, or so he told himself having volunteered his command to investigate a variety of complaints in the less patrolled regions of Dulinor’s duchy.

“Sensors say it’s there, scanners say it isn’t.”

Cowlin stood there and digested the information. “What, is it radioactive waste or something?”

“Can’t tell, sir. Not at this range. But it’s moving. Almost erratically.”

That caught Cowlin’s attention. “Erratically?”

“Almost, sir.”

“Explain, mister.”

“I can’t, sir. It moves from one node to the next.”

“Can you get a visual on it?”

The sensor ops officer manipulated controls and touched the panel several times over to get the ship’s optics to have a look. When that failed he tried assembling a processed image from the collected data, but the computer only managed a green blob with no configuration whatsoever, though it displayed a couple hundred ships that might be possible configurations.

The young sensor officer looked up at his CO. Cowlin sighed out of exasperation. “I wonder if it’s a bunch of wealthy brats in their parents’ yacht scaring the locals.”

“Wouldn’t it show up on scanners?” the sensor officer innocently offered.

Cowlin had to admit that much, and wondered what it was that was bouncing around the screen. “Exec, launch the alert fifteen.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Launching the alert fighters.”

Outside on the small platforms flanking the battlecruiser’s superstructure, hangar bay doors opened after gushing their atmospheric contents to deep space, to reveal two Banshee Class attack craft. The cranes that held them in place silently moved the two craft safely away from the ship’s hull, then released them before retracting back into the ship’s side hangar bay

The two sleep craft with a tri-wing design ignited their drives and moved forward away from their home.

Lieutenant Val Caleb sat strapped in the cockpit streaking forward to an unidentified contact with a field of asteroids streaking silently under the belly of his banshee. Technical sergeant William Lang rode in formation with his flight lead in front of him and just off to his left, his two engines burning like miniature white dwarves in his sight, then suddenly shut off once the flight had reached the right closing velocity. Both men had been given a five minute briefing; an unknown contact dancing on the sensor screens on the battlecruiser’s bridge was more likely something crawling on the inside of the array.

The field of pitted grey and brown rock suddenly vanished to yield to blank open nebula colored space. Save one object. What, was it glowing? Caleb painted it with his fire control system, but couldn’t get a positive lock. It glowed, it surged, and pulsated, it undulated. If it was a ship, it wasn’t any configuration he had ever seen.

“What the hell is that?” Caleb hit the transmit button over the tactical channel.

“You got me. It’s like a piece of debris that’s on fire or something.”

“That’s no debris. It’s got no shape.”

Caleb kicked the side thrusters and aimed the nose of his banshee at the phenomena before him.

“Cross-star flight, can you give us a visual? What is it?” Caleb immediately recognized the captain’s voice.

“Negative, captain. It looked like a ship covered with plasma fire, but it keeps changing, like its vacillating in size and shape. Wait a minute…it’s sparkling. It’s changing direction. Moving towards us. It’s sparkling more….it’s getting really bright now, closing. I’ve never seen anything like it. Command, do you think, wait, … hang on. Holy mother of … is that thing alive? Holy sh-……”

The transmission went dead, and the two banshees vanished from the screen.

“Captain,” Cowlin already knew what the sensor ops officer was going to tell him.

Cowlin; “Sound general quarters. Helm, bring us in closer. Weapons, energize and stand by on all turrets. Ready forward battery.”

 

[Carlobrand]

Didn't that thing eat Sheboygan IV?

 

[Blue Ghost]

:smirk:

Serisouly though, you know, I hadn't thought of it. It's just a creature I made up. I was going to steal saberdog's manta, and turn it into a space-manta but begged off

I think the creature that ate Sheboygan IV was Steve Cole's homage to Trek's planet-killer; i.e. the Doomsday Machine. I still have the Space Capsule ziplock bag game "The Creature that Ate Sheboygan" as well as some of my old SFB stuff.

Here's another one;


Captain Marcus Samson sat reclined in his prospector with his feet kicked up on the dash, one hand draped over his belly barely covered with a grease stained t-shirt, his other hand occupied with holding a soft drink as he listened to the latest pop-tune from the other side of the rift in the Marches. Samson boasted he had lived in the Marches during the war years, and indulged in the half baked fantasy by importing all kinds of schlock merchandise and news feeds to show how involved he was. The truth was he was ordered to run some gear during his time in the scout service, but never got close to the front lines. It was a half truth that people were willing to tolerate as long as he did his job--in this case, man a small time prospector for a mom-and-pop operation that had five mining vessels in their fleet, and supervise the teenagers and twenty-something outside the ship lasing away at potato shaped miniature planetoids.

Marcus belched and took another swig of his over-sugared drink, then grunted with dissatisfaction as he tried to reach for the control to change the channel piping through the speakers. After a while one music band sounded like another, genre depending. After changing the tunes he reached for the floor and grabbed a bag of some delicate salty snack, grabbed a handful of them and stuffed them into his mouth before washing it down with more sugared carbonate.

Dissatisfied with being bored he reached for the com switch, "Are you guys done out there yet?"

Several moments went by before a panting response tinged by radio replied; "We almost got the hold full to capacity." came the official and overly concerned reply from Matt Gregor, the senior of the miners, age twenty-two.

Marcus swore under his breath, "Well hurry it up! I don't want to sit on my ass out here for another week."

"Okay, Marcus. We're nearly ready to pack it in." came Quentin's voice, the oldest of the four boys on this flight.

There was more, but Marcus tuned it out. Flying from point A to point B was what he was hired for, and that's all he knew and wanted, but the boys were lagging too much for him.

He grabbed another handful of salted snacks before getting up to relieve himself. Heading down the hall towards the head he could hear clanging against the hull, and swore under his breath again. Miners weren't known for being gentle, but any unwarranted dings on the ship, inside or out, would come out of his paycheque, and he would make sure it came out of theirs.

The clanging continued as he emerged from the ship's public head and headed back to the bridge. Marcus reached for the transmit button on the dash, "Would you idiots quit beating up the ship?! Just get that ore in the hold and seal the doors."

Marcus waited for a reply, but there was only silence. Marcus felt he'd made his point as the clanging stopped. He resumed his seat and snacking. Then the clanging again.

Marcus shot up, "Goddamit!" and he hit the transmit button as a new chorus of hull clanging resounded throughout the converted scout ship. "I told you guys to knock it off!" But the clanging persisted. Marcus walked to the forward window and looked ready to give someone a dirty look when he saw coil of rock in the form of a serpent of somekind. Next to it were the blood filled space suits of the mining crew. Then, from bad to worse the thing, whatever it was was feeding on the vessel itself ...

"What the hell?"

 

[Fritz_Brown]

The Dynasty class battlecruiser...

Captain Marcus Samson sat reclined in his prospector with his feet kicked up on the dash...

Oh, very nicely done, indeed.

(Oh, and do you mind if I steal that second one as an intro scenario for getting PCs together?)

 

[Blue Ghost]

Steal away

And yet another;

Susan Shriner left her cabin to commiserate with the rest of the passengers and crew, especially her new best friend, Patricia Janowski. She was Solomani, but seemed so even tempered and friendly that they had hit it off almost immediately after their first day in jump. She came to the circular lounge where the men were engaging in their stupid card game, letting egos fly over points and money, while the children indulging in their own version, only with louder shrill voices as they ran and played, yet with less profound consequences--no fortunes would be made nor broken by their aimless merriment.

"Hi Patty." Susan was all smiles as Patricia turned to return the same and gestured to the latest data feed on the lounge holo-table, showing a new line of fashions from the Core's top designers. "Oh, those are so elegant, where did you find them?"

Patricia was an ex-pat of the Terran Confederation, deciding that it was better to try and earn a living than waste time in geo-political matters that seem to erupt in military conflagrations every few decades. She had become a connoisseur of the finer things in life that catered to the upper classes, particularly nobles, and welcomed anyone who was interested in her endeavors to make life more pleasant for those who could afford it.

"I subscribe to a feed from a firm out of Vland, and they give me the latest in the fashion world. I sort, and pick the creme de-la-creme, and sell them." she laughed.

"They're so elegant and wonderful." Susan commented.

That's when the public address sounded with a calm reassuring voice that had occasionally given updates on their flight throughout the week.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. We'll be coming out of jump in a few hours, where we'll be spending another few more hours in normal space to get you to your destination. We hope you've enjoyed travelling with Com-Star these last several days, and we hope we've made your journey a pleasant one. We do offer advanced bookings and package deals for you frequent travellers, and invite you to travel with us again in the future."

Captain Gregory Withe clicked off the intercom address, and sighed. At the outset of their journey the navigational backup reported a misjump, but the regular avionics reported a normal week long trip in jump-space with no course deviation. It was an issue for the maintenance people back at port, but he would go ahead and spend from petty cash to have it fixed or replaced at the first opportunity. The backup was supposed to tell him when the ship's regular on-board computer was wrong, not the other way around.

"Captain," it was Daniella Bianchi, the chief of staff, "do we have an ETA for planet fall?"

"Not yet. When we come out of jump." Withe gave her a professional smile before she vanished back into the passenger area. A pretty woman, but Withe was already married, and wished he was back home for his kid's graduation. But duty called, and they needed the money to pay for this last semester's tuition which was currently being funded by a loan.

"Coming up on exit point, captain." Terrance Quinos, flight navigator also doubled as an engineer when necessary. He too was concerned about the avionics, and volunteered to poke around in the crawl spaces, but Withe turned him down on the offer, preferring he get the course right and double check that they were headed in the right direction as opposed to monkeying with mass of processing blocks and wires in the ship's underside.

"Okay, great." Withe replied. "Get ready to plot a course for the orbital facility."

"Don't you want to set us down on the surface?"

Withe thought about it for a half moment, then shook his head. "Mmm, no, I want to get back home as soon as possible. Well replace any computers in orbit."

"Okay. Coming out of jump, uh, now."

The space outside the windows streaked to a halt. But there was no sun. No planet. No moon. No complex off in the distance. Instead there was a massive curved wall that must have reached for several AUs, that was also several AUs in distance; it was so massive that it looked like it was broken and un-serviced, as if built and abandoned. Behind this colossal structure raged a blue and orange nebula, its light silhouetting the structure. But closer to them were hulks of thousands of starships; lifeless; no lights, no power--just floating free space. Listless. Silently and slowly rotating, or just hanging in space.

"Where the hell are we? Nav, cross check data. Get me some familiar stars!"

But the navigator could only stare out the window. "Sir, what kind of ship is that?"

One vessel. One mechanical thing with massive cranes for arms, and a mechanical maw that looked like it could grab something as bit as a far trader, turned to face them. To massive spotlights came to life on either side of its maw, giving it a kind of life of its own, or the appearance of something that was living.

"It's turning towards us! Get ready to jump!" Withe angrily ordered.

Terrance was already a step ahead of him as his fingers quickly danced over the touch control panel, keying in routines and formulas to take them anywhere but here.

"It's getting closer, jump goddamit!" Withe commanded.

Terrance hit the jump routine. Nothing. He did it again and again, several times over. "Sir, jump drive is not responding. It's offline for some reason." his voice quavered.

All the while the thing drew closer, its maw opening to grab the liner...

 

[Blue Ghost]

One more

Megan Kohler ran out of the office in her work getup, ready for another day of hunting down stories, one of the few white collar professions that AI hadn't worked too far into (though there were exceptions). Steve Tyler, her personal assistant, literally the boy next door she grew up with and whom she had put in a good word at the network to get him the job, had booked on one of the few ships headed for Efate.

The news was weeks old. The Zhodani were on the move again, and although she had never been much of a war correspondent, she did make quite a few friends during the armistice after the last so-called false war. She also new Norris on a first name basis, and knew she would be able to get access to talks once the shooting stopped. But the news out of Efate wasn't promising. If that was the case, then that's where the action was, and probably where things would come to a simmer--so she speculated.

The auto-cab soared and zoomed through the metropolitan corridors as it whisked Megan to the starport in the nick of time. She looked at her itinerary; the Go for Broke was listed under Imperial registry, but not listed as a passenger liner. She chagrined; she would be riding with crates, but at least she'd have a room.

The auto-cab hurriedly zoomed past a number of bright and well washed and finished liners and cargo carriers, then past a more worn group of independent cargo carriers, only to yield to larger vessels that looked a little better maintained. Then another group of vessels--military. She didn't know a patrol cruiser from a gunship, but recognized the brilliant ruby red insignia, but soon the military vessels yielded to another lot with the same Imperial Sunburst. Scout vessels. That she knew. But soon they vanished, and the cab kept streaming forward.

Past several empty berths, Megan began to wonder if her cab wasn't on the fritz, and was ready to call the company to ask for a new vehicle and her money back when the vehicle began to slow. Around the bend of yet another berth she saw it. The Go For Broke.

The Go For Broke was a dilapidated, rust marked, pock marked, battle scared, protective plates missing of a vessel, lurched on her port gear that looked like it was on the verge of buckling. Steam or some hot white mist occasionally sprayed from some port, smoke leaked from the section above her engineering spaces, and to cap it off, there was tape on the cockpit wind screen.

"You're kidding." Megan stepped out with her bag slung over her shoulder.

A tall man, leather jacket, khaki pants and ankle high boots, wiped grease from his hands as he looked at the woman stepping from one of the unmanned grav cabs that scooted around town. He grabbed more pumice from the open tub on the mobile workbench and wiped his hands some more.

"Hi." she asked, "Are you Captain Harlow?"

"Ayup." the man in the leather jacket replied.

"My assistant Steve Tyler booked passage for me on ... is this your vessel?" her tone was incredulous. "It doesn't even look space worthy."

The man in the leather jacket shrugged. "I'm the only non-military transport headed to Efate. The man said you wanted to go there."

"No." she said. "This can't be right. How does this thing make it past inspections?!"

Harlow shrugged, "The same reason the navy and scouts depend on me as a go-between." He turned MAX, the equally unkempt android with exposed metal limbs carrying his tools. "Max, pack it in. We're gonna lift off."

"Sir, you haven't finished all the mandatory repairs the warden personally demanded of you."

"Thanks for the reminder. Now load up. We're getting out of here."

Megan stared at him, then the ship, then at the android, then at him again. Harlow put a cap on his head and motioned for several more robots to seal the ship. The steam leaks, or whatever they were, began to vanish, and the ship seemed to level itself on its other strut. Harlow walked up the ramp, and it started to close. Megan ran for the ramp and just made it.

The week in jump was no more pleasant; the entire ship smelled of grease, grime and dust, the walls had dents and dings, some electrical panels and wires were exposed, the deck needed to be swept and mopped, but the galley was clean and well stocked. And in spite of the ship's other short comings, the food Max prepared was incredible. It was the one luxury that seemed to offset what Megan was sure to be a ride on a death trap.

The ship exited jump. In Efate. But so far from the central star and Efate itself that it would take weeks to get there.

"I might as well have stowaway-ed on another ship!"

Harlow made an off color comment about her sex before closing the door to the bridge. Just as she was walking back to the galley, which had become her favorite place, the ship violently rocked and rolled to port, her grav plates fluctuating, failing, then coming back on.

Megan slammed against the bulkhead as the Go For Broke defied all logic and physics as it shook violently. The ship felt like it was being violently hit by something. Had they jumped into the midst of a battle?

The bridge opened up. Harlow staggered against the forces the ship was experiencing. He tore open door to the ship's locker and grabbed a vacc suit and helmet. He tossed it to Megan.

"Here! Put this on now!"

Harlow, Then put on another vacc suit, his own. He stared at Megan as she clamped her helmet shut.

"Are you locked in?" He asked over the low powered radio that allowed men in space suits to talk.

"Yes!" she managed as the ship was tossed about again. "What's happening? Are we in a battle?"

"Of a kind." Harlow replied. He then reached into the locker one more time, and pulled out a massive weapon that nearly dwarfed him.

The Go for Broke was tossed again, as if a child were trying to smash it against the floor or a table.

"I thought the navy had cleaned up these bastards." Harlow retored as he warmed up the weapon.

"What is that?" Megan asked.

Harlow didn't reply. Just then a massive ivory triangle jabbed through the ceiling, and the ship began to decompress. The triangle quickly withdrew, but stabbed through the ceiling again, accompanied by other triangles, and soon the top section above the galley was open to space.

The atmosphere had gushed out in the first attack, and the grav plates, though iffy at best, were still holding Megan and Harlow to the deck. But what Megan saw when she looked up to see the cause of the mayhem defied all logic.

A head, several eyes, a mouth with teeth the size of swords. It bit into the Go For Broke one more time. Harlow squeezed the trigger, and massive brilliant gold beam sliced into the thing's snout....