Week 11 Summary (August 19-25, 2002)

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"Bogey," Vice Valkurie started, deliberately mispronouncing Panoz' nickname, "can we talk for a second?"

"Booger!" Panoz said emphatically. Coming closer, ignoring Tanaka's continuing protests, he added, "And yeah, we can talk. What is it?"

"Hey! No fair giving him advice!"

"Loogie, will you give it a rest!? Back off for a minute and let us have a man-to-man. Sheesh!" Booger growled.

Loogie looked as though he'd just had his knuckles rapped. "Uh... sure, Booger. I'll... I'll just be over here," he sniffed.

"Oh, quit the drama!" Booger said with an eye-roll. "Anyway, Lieutenant Valkurie, you were saying?"

Vice gestured for him to lean in closer to the healing tank. "Booger. It is obvious to me that you are the brains of the outfit here. Loogie follows your every lead. The mark of a good leader. And a good leader does not mistreat his subordinates. That being said, it is not wise to ignore Loogie as you are doing now. Is he not more than just your follower? Is he not your friend? When the crew of the Fierce think of Booger, do they also not think of Loogie as well? The team of Booger and Loogie cannot exist without Loogie. If you continue to ignore him then you may lose his friendship -- and no one wants that."

Panoz frowned. "Sure Loogie's my friend -- but I don't see what that has to do with anything. Only one of us has a chance with Babette, and that's me."

"I can only blame myself, Booger," Vice continued. With nothing else to do but float in his gel filled tank, he decided to have a little fun with the pair. A little misdirection in conversation might be entertaining. "I did not realize that the discussion of pursuing Private Young would put such a strain on your relationship with Loogie. Please accept my most humble apologizes. Now I must do more to make up for the rift that I have caused. I will stop my pursuit of Private Young as of this moment. Her happiness is up to you two now."

"Seriously?" Panoz asked with surprise in his eyes. "You're going to give up on her, just like that? And wait a minute... did you just say--"

"You have made a strong case and I respect that," Vice continued. "Because of this I will no longer attempt to date Private Young. You have my word of honor. Perhaps you would rather we duel to decide?"

"Private Young? No no no. We're talking about Private Moore, Babette Moore. You know..." Booger gestured with his hands to form an exaggerated -- and accurate, in Babette's case -- likeness of the female form. "Private Moore."

Vice gave Booger a confused look. It was a fake one but he hoped that Booger wouldn't be able to tell through the thick gel. "That's what I said," the pilot said slowly, then mimicking Booger's hourglass gesture. "Private Young is very attractive. I know that."

"Moore," Booger corrected again, then asked, "Did... did she ever mention me? I think I have the inside track, but every so often Loogie'll do something to gain her favor..."

"Actually I have not spent a lot of time talking with Young. I haven't been on the ship for that long. If you like I could talk to her and see what I can prod out of her. But it would look awfully suspicious of me to inquire about both you and Loogie. I can only get away with asking about one of you. But how to decide which one? I certainly don't want to play favorites. Both of you will have to decide which one I will ask Private Young about."

Panoz's thick black eyebrows knit. "Moore! Private Moore, you mean, and I'm the obvious choice for which one of us to ask about." Making sure his friend couldn't overhead him, Panoz lowered his voice. "What's it worth to you, Lieutenant? I have some connections... booze? Bootleg trivids?"

A number of very nasty pranks slipped through Vice's mind. He could just imagine these two trying to acquire all manner of interesting materials... naked pictures of La Rue, for example. She probably wouldn't take it as a joke, however, and would come after him. After seeing Everett's La Rue-induced bloody nose, Vice let the idea pass. These two would most likely spread wild rumors about how much of a pervert the exo-pilot was. It would just give Everett more ammunition to use against him. Vice thought for a second. He might be able to have these two pull something on Everett. It wouldn't be the first time that the two pilots had used proxies in their continuing rivalry.

"I am really surprised at you two," Vice started as he finished his plotting. "In a way I should be flattered that you consider me a bigger threat to Young than Lieutenant Gunther. Given his reputation as a real lady killer I would concentrate my efforts on keeping him as far away from Young as possible."

"Moore!" Tanaka said from behind Booger, where he'd obviously been eavesdropping.

Panoz scratched his head. "Do you mean Private Moore or Private Young? I thought Gunther was sort of after Young... is he interested in Moore as well?"

"Sure he is!" Loogie broke in, coming forward again, sensing that it was safe to rejoin the conversation. "Who isn't?"

"That Fiend!" Vice said, rolling up a fist. "I could not see his master plan until you just pieced it all together. For the first time it is all clear to me. First he will seduce the unsuspecting Young, and then innocent Moore. No woman on this ship is safe. His influence will spread and grow until even the bulkheads silently speak his name. How insidious. Booger. Loogie. It is up to you to stop him. I shudder to think of what will happen to poor Young should the claws of Gunther sink into her."

"No!" Loogie exclaimed. "We can't let it happen!"

Booger narrowed his eyes. "You may be right," he said dramatically. "That guy went through girls on our last tour like he was changing socks. Young and Moore could be next on his hit list."

"You're right!" Loogie agreed. "If he gets Young, it'll only be a matter of time before he goes after Babette!"

"Leave this to us," Panoz, said, a slight smile spreading across his face. "I think I know how to handle Lieutenant Gunther.

La Rue merely smiled as Mandrake peppered her with blows, and then tightened her grip and started turning the man's leg. "Time to say uncle, chicken legs," she laughed.

Mandrake attempted to rotate his body as well, trying to find a position with sufficient leverage to break La Rue's hold. The pair sweated and strained on the ground for almost two minutes, but finally the bulging muscles in La Rue's legs won the battle, pressing down on Harry's shoulders and neck, keeping him from turning over to stave off the woman twisting his leg. When she started to apply serious pressure, the sergeant finally capitulated. He was already going to come out of this with bruises and scrapes -- there was no reason to risk serious injury with the mission only hours away. "Alright, La Rue... that's... it. Nice... hold," he managed, his face pressed to the mat.

After La Rue unlocked her legs and let go of Mandrake's limb, the two marines awkwardly disentangled themselves from one another, each moving to lie flat on the mat, side-by-side, gulping air and recovering. Most of the small crowd that had gathered clapped and whooped briefly before moving back to their other activities.

La Rue turned to look at her squad leader, her cheeks flushed. "You're... tough, Sarge. Very hard to... keep down."

Drawing deep breaths, Harry forced himself up into a sitting position and looked down at the corporal. After a moment he had recovered enough to speak. "Well, I have to be able to keep up with my squad's more energetic members after all." Standing, he inspected himself for damage. Hopefully, the bruising would go away quickly. "Not bad, La Rue. I think you need to work on not overextending yourself, but otherwise solid. Just remember to keep the fight on the mat and that insulting a superior's legs can be a court-martial offence."

La Rue, still on the mat, grinned from ear to ear.

Grabbing two squeeze bottles of water from a wall dispenser, Harry tossed one to La Rue. "That was a good session. I'll have to make sure there's time on my schedule so we can do this on a regular basis."

Catching the bulb, La Rue squeezed it, drank deeply and nodded. "For sure, it's a good workout."

"And you'll have to try me next, Sarge," Private Brinks declared, butting into the conversation from his standing position at the edge of the mat.

"Okay Brinks, but it will have to wait until another time," Harry replied after half emptying the water bottle. "We'll be having a briefing shortly and I have to do some prep."

"And what about you, Ellis?" La Rue asked the young woman next to Brinks directly, finally standing up. Pulling her tank top down to cover the hard muscles of her belly, she added, "To be a true member of the squad, you've gotta go a few rounds with me."

Ellis merely smirked at the much larger woman. "Kerin, let's get into our Deckers sometime and we'll talk. Level playing field and all that."

"Yeah, whatever," La Rue said derisively. Taking another long drink, she motioned to Mandrake. "Sergeant, can we speak privately for a minute?"

"Sure, what is it La Rue?" Harry asked as they walked away from the others.

Moving over to the gym's large window, La Rue lowered her voice somewhat. "It's nothing big, sir, I just didn't want to put you on the spot in front of Brinks and Ellis. You interested in some rec sex?" she asked frankly.

"Uh, that sounds great La Rue," replied Harry, trying to cover up his surprise at the suddenness of her question. "There's just two problems. I do have to do some prep work before the briefing and the regs are pretty strict against such relationships. Sorry."

La Rue shrugged her broad shoulders. "I'm not talking about anything serious. Just messing around a little. I figured blowing off steam and loosening up before the mission is more important than worrying about bending a reg that gets broken all the time anyway, but it's no big deal. I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable -- I tend to be direct with this sort of stuff."

"Well, it's a tempting idea, but I really do have some work to do. Some other time, maybe," replied Harry, who was uncomfortable -- La Rue was putting ideas in his head he wasn't currently at liberty to entertain. "As you say, no big deal."

La Rue was oblivious to Mandrake's discomfort with the subject, and stayed on topic as her squad leader reddened slightly. "Yeah, some other time," she repeated. Making a face, she added, "Does that reg mean that you can't bang anyone who isn't a Sergeant? If you can't do subordinates, and your superiors can't do you, you're kind of left in a tough spot, aren't you?"

In discussing her Sergeant's possible sexual exploits La Rue had dropped her voice further and leaned even closer to him to keep their conversation private, and Harry was forced to take a half step back. "I think you'll find that only applies to direct chains of command," he replied in a slightly strangled voice.

"Oh," La Rue said, understanding. "Well, I won't say anything if you won't," she added with a raised eyebrow. Tugging slightly on the bottom of her tank top, she straightened her back and brought attention to her full breasts. "So if that's what's stopping you..."

"You're missing the point of..." began Harry.

"Sergeant?" another voice called out, saving Mandrake from further embarrassment. It was Ellis, and Harry had never been so happy to see her. "Can I see you for a minute?" she asked.

"Certainly," replied Harry, giving La Rue an apologetic look as he turned to face the intruder on their conversation. "What can I do for you, Private?"

Walking away from Corporal La Rue with Mandrake, Ellis' voice was a whisper. "You looked pretty trapped back there, sir. Just thought I'd throw you a lifeline. Was she really hitting on you?"

"Certainly not," said Harry with as much dignity as he could muster. "The Corporal and I were merely discussing regulations in regard to the maintenance of chain of command. The Corporal had an imaginative interpretation of the regulations that I had not come across before." Harry gave Ellis a small smile. "Thank you for rescuing me from what could have been a very involved argument though."

It was Ellis' turn to look embarrassed. "Oh -- sorry for misinterpreting, then. I didn't mean to... imply anything."

"No need to apologize, Ellis," replied Harry, if anything more embarrassed than ever for making Ellis uncomfortable. "Truth is, she was hitting on me, but that information need go no further than you and me, eh? It's not something the world needs to know about."

"Right sir, understood. Anyway," Ellis returned, "I do have some stuff to talk to you about. It can wait until after you get changed if you want, though."

"Right, I'll meet you in Ob A in ten," said Harry, making for the door. "Thank you so very bloody much, Corporal La Rue." he muttered under his breath.

"We've got visual," Sergeant Cortez said lowly, his eyes on the massive space vehicle that sat in the middle of his crosshairs.

"Got it," Gunther returned, also spotting the sled. "You're sure we have to get as close as this flight plan has us, Lieutenant?" he said to McGregor.

"Yes," the woman answered curtly, busily preparing the pod's systems.

Gunther sighed and flipped his telescopes to maximum. The sled looked to be intact, and under power -- a lot of power. The usual thrusters that were used for course correction had been supplemented by several huge thruster arrays, and they all burned brightly against the backdrop of stars.

Cortez narrowed his eyes as he scanned the sled. "I'm not seeing any hostiles," he declared.

Gunther nodded in agreement, also not seeing anything too alarming. "Roger that, copy control?"

"Copy," the Fierce's controller responded. "We've got Starling One, Grackle Two and Oriole One all airborne, standing by to move in should you need assistance. Proceed with the scan, Swallow One."

"Thanks Flight Control," Gunther called back. He watched as the autopilot fired his Lancer's verniers repeatedly to make final adjustments to the approach. "Lieutenant McGregor, Susan's now starting her first pass, just as you ordered. You can begin your scans. I'll monitor our vector. Alert me if you need any changes or corrections."

"Will do, Gunther," McGregor replied. "For now, I think we can sit back and sip coffee. And watch out for the sled's PDS -- if it's as hostile as we think, its defenses might have been programmed to turn on us. On the other hand, since it's Jovian and the perps are wackos, they may not have adjusted -- or indeed known how to adjust -- the ship's IFF database and we're safe."

"Already on top of that," Gunther affirmed. "I've got Susan's standard sensor suite programmed to look for any changes in PDS status. Wackos or not, they aren't dumb to have refitted the sled with those thruster modules. That's some serious looking hardware. What do you make of them?"

"I know you're going to hate this, Gunther," McGregor replied, "but that's classified at the moment." She shook her head in annoyance. Gunther was at the meeting where she'd divulged her hypothesis, but he wasn't present for the confirmation and was thus not clear for that information. How annoying. "Sorry," she amended.

"Classified?" Gunther exclaimed. "So JAFI is classifying fancy, Venusian thruster modules that attach to Jovian Circuit Sleds nowadays, huh?" Before McGregor could answer, Gunther continued. "That was meant to be a playful poke, so please don't answer that. I'm just beginning to enjoy our professional relationship, and I don't want you to have to kill me."

"Well, I'd wait until you had us safely landed back at the Fierce before I liquidated you," McGregor admitted. "Anyway, it's not the thrusters that are classified -- it's what I make of them that is."

"Ah, I figured as much and no alarms as yet," Gunther admitted. "Looks pretty quiet. I'm not sure I like that." Gunther's eyes scanned over the sensor and navigational displays then out the small cockpit windows. The sled now blocked out the starscape off the port side. "Well, here we go."

Swallow One glided silently over the sled, bombarding the thing with sensitive listening lasers. The sled was awesome. Utterly massive, it's surface was dark and lifeless; aside from some winking running lights, it almost appeared derelict -- which was normal, of course, for a fully automated Hanson sled. What wasn't normal was the huge thruster array that was driving the sled relentlessly -- so it appeared -- out of the solar system.

Hundreds of transport pods lined the sides of the sled, each presumably containing a person in cold sleep, a person with a life, a family, hopes and dreams. A person who might be in grave danger, who might have been kidnapped, killed, or worse.

"Wow," Gunther exclaimed. "I've never flown so close to one. What a monster."

"Swallow One, report in -- what are you seeing?" the Fierce's flight controller's voice sounded on the radio.

"I think I'll let you answer that question Lieutenant," Gunther called down to McGregor over the comm. "I'll just gape at the view."

"Roger, G.," McGregor replied to her pilot. "McGregor here, Fierce. We see the ship. It's very big. Think of the biggest thing you can think of. It's bigger than that. Anyway, switching over communications." She flipped a switch and dialed in the cipher seed. When she got confirmation that the signal was scrambled, she continued. "No sign of any external hostiles -- exo-suits, etc. -- and we've yet to be fired upon. Getting some nice data here, though we lack the deep scan bombardment data and it will take a good half hour to reduce into a meaningful and hopefully non-farcical map of internal activity. D2 and D3 are reconnoitering the drive section."

The sudden appearance of stars on her monitor indicated they'd reached the end of their first pass. "Okay, Gunther, bring us around for another, but bring our pass plane up above the pods. I'd rather avoid bombarding those passengers. Keep us pointed at the long axis, though."

"Got it Lieutenant," Gunther replied. The Lancer slowly spun 180 degrees and applied pulsed thrusts to change direction. "Swallow One coming around for second pass. Autopilot is reading in the changes you requested."

"Coming up on our second pass, Fierce. Beginning the deep scan..." McGregor unlocked the firing mechanism for the neutrino gun and set her dead-man's cutoff switch. "Now." She pressed the firing trigger.

"Hopefully this won't overload our reactor," she added.

In the fiery heart of the Lancer, hydrogen atoms whipped around at near-relativistic speeds. With nowhere to go, trapped inside an unlikely magnetic bottle as they were, it was inevitable that two would collide hard enough to overwhelm their intense nuclear repulsion. The result was something new and alien -- helium, of all things, right here in that sea of pure once-pure hydrogen -- but smaller than the sum of the two atoms that had made it.

The discrepancy was what ultimately powered the ship, but the collision created another phenomenon, one that had proven very difficult for humans to detect. Virtually without mass and entirely without charge, the neutrino sped away from newly formed hydrogen nucleus and into a curious device whose exact principles may as well have been magic for all present at the event.

Slowed drastically as a result, the neutrino raced out into open space and into the massive craft looming over the buzzing Lancer. The particle ignored almost everything it encountered as it passed through the larger craft, slowing occasionally and changing path minutely as it collided with the odd atom here, in the water tank, or there, in the food supply. Each collision produced a photon, a pixie of light visible to observers for only a brief moment.

Finally, the neutrino reached the other side of the ship and emerged once again into open space.

On the other side, a small, unmanned drone observed the cascading photons boiling off the hull and silently made note of their passing.

"How could it overload the reactor!" Gunther exclaimed. "I don't see anything on my status display. What's the wattage on that thing? It can't be that high."

"Just a joke, Gunther," McGregor replied. "Don't worry. It's perfectly safe. And here we are, back at the aft. Fierce, this is McGregor again. We've completed our second pass and have the deep scan data on-hand. So far, so good. We'll make two more passes and meet up with you in an hour."

"Good work, Swallow One, carry on," control came back.

"Joke indeed," Gunther taunted playfully. "Did anyone ever tell you, Lieutenant, that you have an irresistibly strange sense of humor?" Not, Gunther finished off in his thoughts.

Private Arianna Cyan groaned loudly within the VR chamber where she was working and then reset her simulation. As she was quickly learning, it was nearly impossible for her to try to get a feel for how the sled might maneuver with so many variables still unaccounted for and so many things being kept secret for the sake of "security." At best, she was working on guesses and assumptions, which didn't do much to offer her any practical advantages over just winging it once she got there.

Still, she wanted to be prepared. This mission could be very important to her, important to her career, and would certainly give her more time at the helm during some of the ship's more exciting maneuvers if she managed to pull it off. Of course, doing well would only do her career some good if she was able to tell anyone about it when the whole affair was over.

On the other hand, secrecy or not, she was being given the opportunity to fly a craft that no one else in the JAF would ever get to lay their hands on. At the very least, the challenge of being something like a test pilot was enough to keep her interest -- regardless of how it might affect her career.

"A little thrust here," she mumbled while adjusting her simulated sled's controls. The ship shuddered and she watched the acceleration and course displays adjust to the change in applied thrust. She smiled, satisfied in her small maneuver, then watched as the thrusters attached to the hull of the sled snapped off and hurled themselves into deep space. "Oops!"

Once again, she started to reset her simulation.

"Private?" she heard from behind her.

Arianna didn't bother looking back, just mumbled, "In a minute..."

"Private!" the voice demanded.

Cyan turned around quickly, nearly jumping to attention, and saw the ship's head helmsman standing in the small room with her while peeking out from under her VR helmet's wide visor. His expression wasn't a pleasant one. Fumbling with the heavy headgear, she found herself caught up in the various equipment she needed to wear for the simulation while asking, "Yes, sir?"

"What are you working on, Private?" Poulo asked.

"Nothing, sir," Arianna answered.

"You were running a simulation," Poulo insisted. "What were you working on?"

"Just running some numbers for the Captain, sir," Arianna said, finally freeing herself from the heavy helmet. Working on removing her gloves, she waited for Poulo's reaction, sure it wasn't going to be a very positive one.

Poulo frowned. "For the captain? Does this have anything to do with why you got selected to go over to the sled? What's that all about, anyway?"

"How did you know about that?" Cyan asked, setting down her VR helmet. "I was under the impression that everything was supposed to be hush-hush."

"It sure as hell is!" Poulo exclaimed. "All I know is that we're sending a pilot to the sled once the marines have it under control, which makes sense, and that it's you they're sending, which doesn't make sense. You're a rank amateur! Why do you get to go?"

Private Ellis looked at her squad leader with her eyes wide. "So, while I'm really excited, I'm also really nervous. I've been on a couple of dangerous missions that involved real hostiles before, but nothing like this. Nothing like a boarding action where we don't have a clue about the opposition's force composition, morale or frame of mind. Do you think we'll find any of that out in the briefing?"

Harry nodded, having expressed his own concerns to Tucker earlier. "I'm sure everyone feels the same way, Ellis. It's only natural to be worried when there are so many unknowns. But the investigation team on board the cruiser and the Fierce's own reconnaissance is finding out all they can for us. I'll be reviewing all the information we have before the briefing as well. And when it comes down to it, going into difficult situations is what we're trained for. I know we can handle it."

Ellis allowed herself a small smile. "That's good to hear, sir. I don't want you to think I'm reluctant or that I need my hand held -- I just like knowing as much as I can about a dangerous situation before diving in. Kerin seems like she kind of revels in just plunging into this stuff, but I think preparation is half the battle."

"Well, Gunther," McGregor began as the Lancer completed its fourth end final pass, "I think we have plenty of data now. Hopefully this will help the marines do their job safely. Let's get back to the ship ASAP. I've got an appointment I can't miss."

"Roger that," Gunther replied, opening a channel to Cortez. "Thrush One, we're all set. Let's get the hell out of here."

"Lead the way," Cortez replied, taking up a position on Gunther's wing as the pilot fired his engines and broke for the Fierce.

McGregor sent the commands to the drones to rendezvous with the fighter.

Behind them the sled rumbled inexorably onward.

End Week 11 Summary (August 19-25, 2002)

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ALL SYSTEMS GO is set in Dream Pod 9's Jovian Chronicles universe. Jovian Chronicles, the Jovian Chronicles logo and Silhouette are trademarks of Dream Pod 9, Inc. Exo-armor, Jovian Confederation, CEGA, Silhouette and all other names, logos and specific game terms are (c)1993, 2002; all Jovian Chronicles art and designs are Copyright (c)1994-2002 Dream Pod 9, Inc. No challenge to these copyrights and trademarks is intended.

Except where noted, all original content is copyright 2002 John Guilfoyle, Alistair Gillies, Chris Schaller, Robb Neumann, Dennis Kirkpatrick and Bryan Lee. Page last updated on September 30th, 2002.