The Cap – Branson’s Mark – September 17, 2517

Captain Ying Johnson watched from his perch on the overhead catwalk in Shenmue’s cargo bay as Jonah, Tulsa, and Worth walked out to meet the leader of the tiny settlement they’d landed at a few minutes ago.

He’d fobbed the negotiations off on his crewmates under the pretense of checking for further damage aboard the ship, but what he really wanted to do was make sense of recent events.

He leaned against the catwalk railing and issued a long sigh as soon as he was sure his crewmates were out of earshot.

Then he gave a sharp kick to the nearest rail post.

What in the ri shao gou shi bing had he gotten his crew into this time?

Read the rest of this entry »

The crew examined their options. Each of Shadow’s three moons were more heavily populated than the last, with only a thousand people scattered across the polar regions of Branson’s Mark. Worth explained that without more coolant, Shenmue’s reactor would go critical before she could break atmo. A shuttle trip to Summerfair, the third and most populous moon on Shadow would take a few hours each way.

“We could do a sweep of this moon and see what comes up here,” said YJ.

“Well, we’re here now,” Jonah agreed.

Worth booted up Shenmue’s sensor system. After a few minutes of pinging, the sensor system brought up a read on a thermal signature several miles to the northwest.

“Let’s check it out,” YJ said. “The ship’s okay to fly in atmo, right?” he asked Worth, who nodded.

YJ got Shenmue into the air, but it was obvious to the crew that she was still hurting. The deckplates shuddered more than usual, and the smell of overheated wiring soon choked the aft corridor. A loud bang issued from the engine room, followed by a profane oath issued from Worth’s lips.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Jao gao!” Worth said, his eyes widening in shock. He had all but written off Wild Sky after she had disappeared into the dead-end alleyways of the Eavesdown Docks back on Persephone.

Doc Tulsa cracked open his medical bag as he knelt beside Wild Sky’s prone form. “I need to stabilize her before she slips away completely,” he said to Jonah, who was staring at the woman’s grievous wounds.

Jonah stood and walked out of the hotel room, pushing past Worth’s bulk to cross the hallway. He found Ying Johnson staring at the window with a distant look on his face.

“Jing Chai, Captain,” Jonah said. “We’ve found Wild Sky.”

His revelation had a less than impressive effect on his captain. “That’s great,” Johnson said distractedly, not taking his eyes off whatever it was he was looking at.

Jonah stepped over to the window and followed YJ’s gaze. He stared blankly at the pall of black smoke streaming from the south end of the island.

“Is that the…yeah, it is,” Jonah exhaled sharply. He forced himself to rip his gaze from the smoke to the approaching hurricane. “Ai yah tien ah!” he exclaimed as he watched the roiling clouds make their steady approach. Jonah shook his head and called over his shoulder. “Worth, we need to check the ship!”

The burly mechanic poked his head into the room. “Why, what happened to her?”

Jonah pointed out the window. Worth’s face fell as he saw the smoke from the foot of the island. “Oh, Darla,” he muttered under his breath. Then he caught YJ’s eye. Without another word, the pilot and mechanic both bolted towards the elevator, leaving Jonah to gaze out at the gathering storm.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Mantis class ship hovered over the taller of the two hotel towers, dipping its nose down as if sniffing for prey amid the piles of rubble scattered across the courtyard. Over the drone of its engine pods, which were sending heat distortion waves down that blurred the lines of the hotel structure beneath them, Jonah, YJ and Worth could hear a high-pitched whine starting up. Their attention was drawn to the two chin-mounted autocannons slightly off set from the centre of the ship’s nose. It was the larger of the two that had begun to spin.

There was a sound like the tearing of fabric as the autocannon split the air between the ship and the ground. The Mantis was rocked back on its center of gravity as a tongue of yellow fire like dragon’s breath shot out from the spinning Gatling gun. The effect was instantaneous. Concrete was pulverized into dust that leaped into the air in a billowing cloud as round after round gouged bowling ball sized holes in the buildings adjacent to the hotel complex. Edifices and support pillars were stripped bare, revealing the rusted rebar within, and sparks began to fly as metal struck metal.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was a short hop from Osiris to Branson’s Mark, a detour that took them out of the Core and into the region of space known as Georgia. Strategic territory for both sides during the Unification War, the planets of Georgia were no stranger to the horrors of war: the Battle for Serenity Valley took place on Hera, and Shadow, the seat of Independent resistance, had been bombed back into a pre-terraformed state by the Alliance.

That spherical, cratered and scarred monument to the folly of war hung imposingly in the distance as Shenmue approached the first of its moons, Branson’s Mark. In contrast to the dead husk it orbited, Branson’s Mark was bright and colourful, its azure oceans wrapped with brilliant white clouds.

That was on a good day. On a bad day, none of the blue showed through, and instead the moon was blanketed by thick layers of chaotic cloud cover, giving it the appearance of an ice-planet confection one might purchase in a skyplex food court.

There were few breaks in the cloud cover, and it soon became apparent to everyone on the bridge that those breaks were actually the eyes of a number of swirling hurricanes blowing across the moon’s surface.

Read the rest of this entry »

Several hours passed as Shenmue made its way towards Osiris. The members of the crew did what they normally did on long trips – YJ stayed on the bridge, Jonah sat at the galley table working with his counterfeiting kit, Worth puttered around the engine room, and the Doc self-medicated in his quarters.

The quiet of the voyage was suddenly interrupted by the blaring of Shenmue’s proximity alarm. YJ snapped to attention on the bridge. Checking his instruments, he peered out the viewports and paled as he saw what had caused the proximity alarm to go off.

“What do you see, YJ?” Jonah called up to the bridge.

“Your tax dollars at work,” YJ sighed.

Read the rest of this entry »

“So I say we give Worth the Buhnder,” Jonah said. “And take out their vehicle first thing.”

“Sounds good to me,” Worth said.

Jonah hauled the anti-materiel rifle out of the hover mule’s bed and handed it and a bandolier of oversized shells to the mechanic.

“Now, the question is, do we kill them?” YJ said.

“Your call,” Worth shrugged.

“I say we shoot the vehicle, drive away and let Duster and his boys walk out. See how they like dodging the UR patrols.” Jonah said, a grin spreading across his face. “I’m thinking we don’t want to bother with the parts they’re bringing either. We wait until the exchange is done, and we’ll just take the money off them.”

“Okay.” YJ said. “Sounds less complicated.”

Jonah was warming to the subject. “If it looks like they’re going to leave at the same time, we pop a round in their vehicle, tell the customers to get lost, this is between us and Duster.”

“Ideally we’d wait until the customers have left, but it might not work out that way.” YJ said. He turned to the mechanic. “You’ve only got a split second to make that shot, Worth,” continued YJ. “Before they leave, that is.”

“You just say when and I’ll do my thing,” Worth said, testing the Buhnder’s heft.

Read the rest of this entry »

Meanwhile, Worth busied himself with replacing the shattered compression stabilizer. Disconnecting the broken components was a delicate task, and despite the cold of the cryogenic fuel tank that loomed above the stabilizer deep in Shenmue’s guts, he worked up quite a sweat.

“You know, I never did think the name Shenmue suited you,” Worth said to the ship’s engine core as he worked. “You always looked like a Darla to me.”

He got no response from the Firefly transport’s complicated inner workings. Worth sighed as he knocked out the last bent fragment of stabilizing honeycomb. Then he climbed back down the maintenance ladder, added the piece to a large pile of debris that had grown near the infirmary, and collected the new compression stabilizer unit.

“Okay Darla, let’s work together,” growled Worth as he got down to business. “I know I’ve neglected you.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Shenmue was rattled from stem to stern, bucking as if it was a seagoing vessel in the roughest of seas. The crew had to fight to maintain their footing, and Quinn lost that particular battle, finding himself thrown to the deckplates. Fortunately he was alone in his quarters so nobody saw his embarrassing tumble.

Inside his quarters, the Doc held on for dear life, hoping against hope that this was merely an unpleasant side effect of his latest round of medication.

By happenstance, Worth had been rearranging his tools in the engine compartment when Shenmue shook violently from side to side. He cursed as his toolbox upended and scattered its contents across the floor. A terribly loud groaning, straining, and otherwise worrisome sound emanating from parts aft and above blasted his ears.

Worth checked the diagnostic console in the engine room and quickly surmised that Shenmue’s fuel compression stabilizer had gravely malfunctioned. Worth gulped; this was bad news. Shenmue’s liquid hydrogen fuel was stored under pressure at -423 degrees Fahrenheit by a complex cryogenic control system, of which the compression stabilizer was the linchpin. Any significant disruption in the compression system could result in a fuel leak as the compressed hydrogen began to expand out of control, which in turn could lead to the flash freezing of vital internal components, or worse yet, an explosion. Worth had to fight the sudden instinct to flee, and judging by the rattling of the deck plating beneath his feet, he wasn’t the only one on board struggling to stand his ground.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Doc wheeled the stretcher containing Whitaker into the portable fold-out surgery module that served as Shenmue’s infirmary. His patient was bleeding quite heavily from a pair of deep wounds given to him by the late Mr. Chen. Tulsa scrubbed up and prepared his instruments for the task at hand. Picking up a scalpel, he expertly sliced away the bloody remains of Whitaker’s shirt, letting it fall to the floor in a sodden heap. Whitaker was drifting in and out of consciousness, moaning while face-down on the operating table. Doc Tulsa quickly ran an IV and inspected the stab wounds. He then rearranged the overhead surgical lighting to get a better view of his patient. As the lamp swung to its new position, the doctor’s keen eye caught a flicker across Whitaker’s exposed back.

Tulsa frowned. The skin on Whitaker’s back and arms seemed to have been treated at some point in the recent past. The doctor could trace the faintest of lines, almost like spiderwebs, beneath the outer layer of the man’s skin. He could discern no logical pattern to them, but they definitely reacted to the shifting light. Strange, the Doc thought to himself. Then he remembered that Whitaker was bleeding to death on his watch, and threw himself into his lifesaving work.

Read the rest of this entry »