The cast:
- Brace (ex-Brainer Battlebabe): the ship's pilot and also a spook, that despised part of humanity touched by the weird. He has extensive psychic powers. The White Guard tried to violate him. He killed the crew of the Nevermore and claimed their ship. Now to get out from Bluejay's thumb he need to deliver the leader of Megaton.
- Midnight Storm (ex-Skinner Solace): teenage post apocalyptic rock star who wants to help people. He has begun to see Wolves of the Maelstrom around and they want to end the music. But first he needs to stop the garden ship from corrupting all he loves.
- Nightingale (a.k.a. "Gale") (ex-Angel Touchstone): the ship's doctor hunting her brother Bluejay. She has a vision for the world. A vision to hold the darkness of the void at bay. Too bad her brother intends to fashion an empire instead.
- Manfred (Faceless): A massive man who wears a mask fashioned from a stop sign. He used be a cook on a cattle ship and now cooks for the Starlight. He has shown himself to be brutally deadly.
- Switchblade (Maestro D'): acrobatic woman in a fool's motley who runs a traveling carnival and is handy with a knife. She's friends with Midnight and Manfred.
All Good Things, Part II
Midnight Storm stopped by the Carnival. He found Switch practicing on the trapeze."Hey! Switch! We need to talk!"
Switch swung down, hitting on the net and bouncing once before landing perfectly. "Sure, what's up?"
"It is about tonight. I've got Manfred coming. You don't need to come. In fact I'd rather there be someone around who can tell Farley and the rest of my crew what I tried if this all goes bad."
Switch shook her head. "I'm coming."
"You don't need to do this for me. This plan, it doesn't have good odds for survival. You have people who depend on you. I know the garden ship freaks you out. It freaks me out. Who knows what I'll find once I get to the heart of it."
"I do have people who depend on me but so do you. I think you feel responsible for even more people than me. I know you can't back out of this so I'm going to help you the best I can."
"Okay, if that is how you feel. Let's get going. Manfred should be waiting for us."
Cries of alarm reached them before Midnight and Switch arrived at the garden ship. The central stall lay toppled over and a few people looting it.
The pair raced up to the loading dock. Ganymede lay by the door, the insides of his head sliding down the dented metal wall.
"Oh no," Midnight said. "Manfred must have gotten the time wrong."
Inside defenders piled onto the giant. Manfred methodically plucked them off of him. At the far end of the corridor, a team of armed men fired at him. Bullets flew past him, impacted on his lead apron, and sliced his flesh. He advanced. Limbs snapped, bodies flew through the air and the occasional scream was cut short by his machete. Nothing slowed him down.
He was pretty much unstoppable by the lightly armed garden ship crew.
The fire team fell back as Midnight and Switch caught up to Manfred.
Midnight scanned the bodies for anyone familiar. "Manfred! Are you hurt?"
"Just scratched. You are late."
"You're early. Follow me, I think what we want is this way."
The trio wound their way through the ship, attempting to find a way up to the glass sky bridge above the orchard. As another batch of defenders open fire, Midnight ducked through a door into the orchard itself.
I forget the exact circumstances that led us to be split up but this seems plausible.
He dived into some undergrowth for cover. As the gunfire receded, Midnight Storm surveyed the orchard. The grove was almost deserted with the remaining inhabitants seeking cover. Switch and Manfred must have pushed through.
Midnight looked up. The trees here brushed the sky bridge. He climbed.
Elsewhere Switch hunkered down behind Manfred as he stomped up the stairs. Anyone who got close they cut down with a knife or machete.
At the top of the stairs however they found a crude barricade of wooden pallets. Behind them the crew of the garden ship hastily setup light machine gun stations.
Time for the big guns.
Switch turned and suddenly found herself exposed.
Manfred raced away from her and burst through the barricade, spraying splintered wood and people to either side. The crew of the left station struggled to bring the gun to bear on him. But the giant moved far faster than anyone realized.
Yanking the gun from its mount, Manfred turned and fired on the other station. Walls of bullets crashed through either side of the bridge. Both fire teams were torn apart.
Oh yeah gets him through the barricade and then he seized one gun by force. Unfortunately the next roll doesn't go as well for him.
Manfred relaxed his grip and exhaled a bloody mist. Looking down he saw his apron perforated like swiss cheese. He pulled on the apron off and let it land with a crash.
Not dead, just hurt and his armor is busted.
Switch watched the devastation and opened her mind to the void seeking some meaning to this carnage. Her mother's face swam up to her. She smiled then peeled off her face. Emma grinned from beneath and thrust a fruit into Switchbalde's mouth.
Opening your brain in this game isn't exactly nice.
Switch choked as the floor ahead her cracked. Midnight swung a final time, shattering the floor and hauling himself up into the bridge.
"Everyone okay?" he asked.
Manfred nodded. "Late again."
"I'll be fine," Switch said. "Let's end this place."
"I thought Emma should be up here," Midnight said. He looked out of the glass enclosure down at the grove. "There they are! Making a run for the aft."
Emma and her inner circle reached the edge of the grove. The matriarch panted as she pressed the code into the security door. The door slid open.
Manfred and Midnight stood there waiting. Midnight lowered a shotgun and fired while Manfred strafed the grove with his new weapon.
Bullets tore up man and tree alike. Emma dived behind a large sapling.
"Die!" a woman cried.
Emma looked up to see Switch moments before the young acrobat sliced her face and throat to ribbons.
The PCs unload a world of hurt. We had better weapons, good rolls for seize by force, and weak opponents.
Midnight pulled her off the mutilated corpse a few minutes later. All around him people moaned in pain, screamed in agony, and lamented the fallen. Switch sobbed at his feet. Bigs limped along the tree line towards Ula, bleeding in the green grass.
"This is a mandatory evacuation!" a voice boomed on the PA system. "You have two minutes to exit the ship before we vacc you."
"The White Guard," Midnight said. He looked over the fallen. Glory was tending to Emma's corpse. "Glory! Where are the escape pods?"
Switch looked over at the woman she murdered and her loyal defender. "Tell us! Or I'll slice your face off too!"
Go aggro isn't really necessary since she is an ally.
Tears filled her eyes as Glory pointed the way with her chin. Sobbing she covered Emma's ruined face.
Midnight led the others to escape pods.
The PA system boomed again. "You have one minute remaining to evacuate the ship and submit to the White Guard."
Switch and Manfred entered the pod. The doors slammed shut behind them. Switch ran to the porthole.
"Midnight! What's going on!"
"Sorry, Switch," Midnight said, his voice muffled by the thick glass.
He jettisoned the escape pod from the ship.
I consider this Midnight Storm's moment of awesome. He made a lot of bad choices, people got hurt, but in the end he chose to sacrifice himself to save those he cared about. At least that's what I thought at the time.
Brace and Gale wheeled their cargo out of the empty streets and into the lobby. Bluejay’s goons flanked the elevator before them.
"What's that?" one said.
Gale flipped the sheet from White's face. The goon slammed the elevator's button.
They pushed the gurney into the elevator. White twitched as they began their ascent then fell silent.
The doors opened. Bluejay smiled in the hall.
"Excellent. I knew we could come to a deal."
Brace stepped forward. "We are done with you. Gale and I are leaving."
"Goodbye," he said looking down at his prize. "I think I have more than enough to manage at the moment."
As Brace hit the elevator button, Gale called out, "Jay, make sure you keep him sedated. He's dangerous."
"All the best things are."
The doors closed.
Gale and Brace ran through the empty streets to the Starlight. The few people out seemed to be focused on closing up shop. As they arrived at their dock, a small crowd hurried past from the direction of the garden ship.
They ran around a large man carrying a silver box and headed up the gantry.
Gale pressed the comm terminal when they got inside. "Farley? Sun? Meet Brace and me in the Gallery. We need to move now."
Sun met them at the door into the book-lined room. "What's going on? What do you mean we need to move?"
"Gale's brother Bluejay has White, the leader of Megaton.," Brace explained. "I don't know what he has planned for him but it can't be good. We need to leave Megaton pronto."
Gale turned to her. "He's right, Sun. My brother, I think he's trying to take over. He's employing pirates, armed men. There could be violence. Even if the White Guard stop him there's another problem. White is turning into a reaver!"
"Shit!" Sun said. "What can I do?"
"We need you to cut the connections to Megaton," Brace explained. "We can't leave unless Megaton lets us go or we break their hold."
They barely succeed on Manipulate a Person, probably by helping each other.
"Those systems are intertwined with the link-flight network. Someone would need to fly us out manually."
"I'll handle that," Brace said.
"This is serious business. If we fail, Megaton will confiscate the ship."
"Sun, do this."
"Okay but you owe me a serious booty call."
Brace looks at Gale and then reaches into Sun's mind. "Sun do it."
He tries to go aggro using Direct-brain whisper projection. He fails.
Sun closes her eyes and stumbled back. "Don't pull those mind tricks on me, Brace."
Farley burst in with a bag of ice on one eye. "What the hell is going on?"
Gale pulled the ice from his shiner. "Captain what happened?"
"Some gorilla attacked me. On my ship!"
Gale recalled the man with the silver box. "That doesn't matter now. Captain my brother is planning to hold White hostage and take over Megaton. If we don't want to be drafted into his empire, we need to leave now."
"What!?"
Across all of Megaton and the ships docked with the station, the PA system burst to life. "Greetings Megaton," Bluejay said. "My name is Bluejay. I have White, supreme leader of this station, in my possession. If the White Guard want him to live, they will stand down and surrender themselves to my men."
Farley turned to Sun. "Can you disable the linkages?"
"I can but-"
"Good do it. Gale check that everyone is on board. Brace get to bridge and prepare to fly us out of here."
Switch and Manfred watched the garden ship recede. The radio crackled and Bluejay's ultimatum came across.
"Dammit," Switch said. "He could have come with us. Help me steer this thing. The Carnival should be a few hundred meets that way."
Manfred wrestled the controls. "What's that?"
Switch looked out the porthole. Her eyes widened and she grabbed the radio. "Bluejay before you get started on your glorious reign can you decouple the Carnival? I'd like to get started on my trip."
"Certainly Switchblade. My men are taking over the docks as we speak. You should be free to go within the hour."
Midnight strolled out of the garden ship. The White Guard stood ready, weapons leveled.
"I'm ready to surrender."
"Good," Commander Kriss said. "It is about time."
Midnight stopped as the wolf of the maelstrom stepped forward. He scanned the detachment of guards. Creatures buzzed eerily from within their faceless helmets.
"You're not working for Megaton," he said. "I'm not surrendering to you."
"Too bad miscreant. Men, grab him."
Midnight swung his guitar off his back. The armored men approached, he began to play fast and hard. The White Guard cringed and screamed in pain.
Kriss fell to one knee. "We. Will. Stop. You."
Midnight sang a song of hope and rebellion. He walked towards the troops. They screamed, clutched their heads and collapsed. Blood dripped from Kriss's eyes and nose. A few dying beetles spilled from his mouth.
Midnight storm seized by force and got a hard hit. The Wolves of the Maelstrom take 2-harm ap.
"Pull him to safety," a guard cried.
Two men grabbed Kriss and retreated from the musical assault. "Save the One."
Midnight stood over the fallen. The defeated guards breathed heavily and dying beetles spilled from their helmets.
"You!"
Midnight turned. Bigs limped from the garden ship, carrying Ula in his arms.
"Bigs, I'm sorry."
Bigs lay his wife on the ground gently. He stepped forward and punched Midnight. "You bastard!"
Midnight fell to the hard metal floor. The man straddled Midnight and pummelled him. "You hurt Ula! You destroyed our happiness. You murdered all of those people. You monster."
Midnight looked up at his friend. Already bruises began to rise on his face. "You are right."
Luckily fists do no harm. Midnight doesn't defend himself.
Bigs stood up and spat on him.
As his friend left, Bluejay's ultimatum boomed overhead.
Midnight slowly got up. Bigs and Ula were already gone and the crowd that remained skirted clear of him.
Painfully, he hobbled toward the Starlight. As he walked familiar faces appeared. Toa, Snaz, Wrech and others. His fans trailed behind him.
"What do we do now?" Toa said. "The White Guard were terrible but now Megaton belongs to a drug lord?"
"Follow me," Midnight said. "I know a place we can go. But first I need to say some goodbyes."
A muscular young man stopped Midnight at the cargo bay entrance. "Hey! Who are you? We are not taking on passengers."
"I'm not a passenger," the musician said. "I'm crew. My name is Midnight Storm. I need to talk to the captain."
"I see. Gale didn't manage to introduce me to everyone before things got crazy."
Midnight stepped inside. "You work with Gale?"
"Yeah, she is teaching me and my bud Adder about anatomy and drugs."
"So you are training to be a doctor. Cool." Midnight walked deeper into the space ship. "I'll be back in a moment."
"A doctor?"
In writing this I realized there was a whole side plot that never got written down. Gale took followers, junior medics, who signed up to learn from her. We met a few, Rat, Fang, and Nova, and heard of others, like Nova's sister Ruthless.
Farley turned to Midnight as he stepped on the bridge. "Great, I was worried you weren't going to make it. Where's Manfred?"
"Sorry Captain, I'm leaving."
"What?"
"I've kind of messed things up. Bigs and Ula should returning soon. I don't think it would be good if I was still here when they did. I just wanted you to know that I tried to help everyone."
Midnight left before Farley could reply. On his way out he stopped at the Medbay. Gale was inside.
"Gale, I just wanted to say I'm sorry. For hurting you and not being as good a person as I could be. Goodbye."
The musician ran out of the ship and back to his fans. "Okay everybody! Follow me to the carnival."
The Starlight and Carnival detached from Megaton within minutes of each other. As they blasted out of the wreckage surrounding Megaton they passed a large fleet of warships emblazoned with a blue bird.
Then Gale and Brace retired to safety. Taking the Starlight with them.
Next time we will follow the Carnival (and our remaining PCs: Midnight Storm, Manfred, and Switchblade) and meet two new PCs (Midnight's second ultraviolent character and Gale's replacement).
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