Emersohn Strange's page

"Turnabout is fair play," Scherzo said. "Can anyone figure out a way to slow them down?"

Emersohn leaned closer to his console and began voicing commands. "Let's see if we can't use this plasma to our advantage," he muttered. "Create a field to contain plasma. Use shield buffers to store it. All right, Shasta, pilot near the Wintergreen and get just ahead of it."

Shasta complied, saying, "I'll try, but that stuff is slowing us down."

When the ships were aligned, Emersohn jettisoned the plasma directly into the path of the Wintermourn creating a cascade of complications for the pilot. Shasta surged ahead.

"Booh Ya!" Emersohn barked.

A few times, when Shasta could not avoid flying particularly close to a pyrozoa, it would grab onto the hull. The plasma emissions and the interaction between the creature and the plasma fields began to slow the ship down.

Emersohn diverted his attention from dealing with the plasma to see if he could flush the beasts off the hull. He tried using the shields to send pulses of force at the locations where the slimy creatures lurked, but it wasn't working well. Emersohn made a sound no one had heard him make up to this point, a snarl that hinted at his lupine ancestry.

Shasta's route took the ship into the heart of the swarm where the creatures had ejected plasma, which floated in nearly invisible patches. Every time the ship passed through one of these patches, it lit up with arcs of electricity that was attracted to the ship's hull, swirling around until it was neutralized.

After hitting several such patches, the ship's performance began to falter, slowing and becoming less responsive to the helm commands. Monitors began to flicker as did the lighting.

Emersohn began frantically working his console, using stored electrical charge to neutralize the charge outside the ship and to keep the core from losing its finely tuned alignment.

He managed to keep the ship functioning and neutralized the problems with the helm. But he had to keep at it. As soon as he had things fixed, another zone of plasma would set him working all over again.

Shasta and Emersohn moved from the loading dock into a room filled with supplies, most of them mundane chemicals used in the necroforge. However, Emersohn noted one that contained a chemical he recognized as a powerful thermal solvent.

"This stuff would have caused the damage we saw on the drift engine," he explained to Shasta in a whisper. They took pictures of the container and moved into the next room.

This had a bank of lockers that would normally only hold a few corpses. When Shasta opened one, however, it contained a system of shelves that could be shifted up and down. It went underground and using null-space technology easily contained enough corpses for many tons of black hearts.

Emersohn accessed the index and scanned the names and images of the corpses. They were all from the Harlequin’s Prayer. He pointed to one to draw Shasta's attention. It identified a corpse Tremeshkan Carva. This was not listed as a passenger on the starliner.

"Didn't we hear that name when we were talking to dock workers?" Emersohn asked.

Shasta did not remember, but she checked the Infosphere and quickly ascertained the name was the same as an infamous pirate, Tremeshkan “the Razor” Carva, believed to be the pirate responsible for the attack on the starliner. Emersohn brought up the unit containing Carva and opened it to find a shirren. The markings matched the images or Carva on the infosphere.

"The evidence is piling up," Emersohn whispered as he took a picture of the pirate's corpse. "It's still circumstantial. We need proof he did this. There's a computer control room we can get to through here."

The two moved through a narrow hall and entered a small triangular room next to the necroforge.

It had a window that looked out to the necroforge. The lights were out in the room, however, so Emersohn and Shasta slipped in, keeping low and began to look at the computer. It was tougher to hack, but Emersohn bypassed the access codes and began to poke into files. It had Rygan's personal accounts and correspondence. It didn't take long to find the decrypted messages sent to Carva giving them the coordinates of the starliner's next voyage, curtesy of the ship's owner. It also had payments sent to Carva and more money sent to a band of assassins to infiltrate the pirate's crew and eliminate them after the attack. There were transactions with Rishae Tulvauran before the ship was lost proving Rygan and RIshae had advance knowledge of the ship's demise.

Emersohn made copies of all the data and sent a message to Scherzo. <All items on to-do list completed.> He appended a list of what they found that implicated Rygan.

After Zeph and Shasta emerged from stabilizing the drift engine, Emersohn entered the engine interior to inspect the mechanism. He was puzzled as to what would cause an engine to get such a leak.

After poking about, grunting at various discoveries, he took out his comm unit and took a few pictures of different parts of the engine innards.

When he emerged, Scherzo was negotiating with the goblins about the possibility of purchasing the engines. "Captain," Emersohn interrupted, "Take a look at this."

Scherzo did not know what she was supposed to see, so Emersohn explained, "The star metal housing of the drift manifold is normally made strong enough to prevent this sort of thing. But notice this line of melted metal. Something very hot was applied right along that line that weakened the housing and allowed the leak. That would be enough to cause the explosion that disabled the starliner. These pictures show residue of something that lines the gash. Looks like sabotage to me."

Emersohn initiated a furious attack on the elemental, missing with one swing of his sword, but then, taking advantage of an opening that miss created, he slashed straight through the torso region. The elemental imploded on itself amid a rush of air toward the spot. Then it was gone.

Emersohn remained en garde for a moment before letting out a deep sigh of relief.

Emersohn's ears twitched as he saw the verthani approach. He gave a similar hand signal to what the others had made and they shook hands.

Scherzo and the others looked askance at this, so Emersohn explained, "This is Jinx! We crewed together for a while."

He turned back to Jinx and said and signed simultaneously, "It's good to see you're still around." Jinx signed some response and Emersohn laughed.

Emersohn sidled up and asked, "So, what's a dazzling and very much alive dragonkin like yerself doin' in a joint like this?"

Emersohn shrugged. "You may be right. I think we may be buying more trouble down the line, but I'll stick with this."

Emersohn fired two laser rifle shots, but there was a crate in the way and his beams hit the floor instead of the robot.

Emersohn whispered to Shasta, who was just in front of him, "Dustar dead ahead." The small robot was next to a wall with some equipment blocking the view of it except from the direction Shasta and Emersohn were in.

Emersohn drew his last of the frag grenades from the arms shipment crates they raided and tossed it at the dustar's location. The grenade went off and the dustar was unable to move out of the path of the damaging shrapnel.

Emersohn broke toward the room with the guards, lobbing a frag grenade ahead of him. The blast damaged all three, but one guard had shrapnel damage several critical systems.

This guard stepped out from behind a wall and fired a numbing beam at Emersohn, which he took in the chest. It sucked energy out of his body, but did no serious damage. The weapons were designed to subdue without killing.

Emersohn's initial attempt failed, but he got through the firewall on the 2nd try. He transferred control of all the doors and security cameras to his personal comm unit. Then he looked through the cameras to identify other guards. He discovered another two android guards deeper in the complex, a couple of small janitorial anacite units.

Once they got through these, there was a large factory floor area and beyond that, the starship, the Oliphant. Other than another cleaning robot, the room seemed without any security units.

Emersohn was next through the door. He rushed to the guards left, club in hand.

It remained for Emersohn to use his special toolkit he had purchased just for such situations to unlock the door so he and the others could enter. After waiting for a moment when no one was in the hall, Emersohn and the others slipped up. His tool kit helped him find the locking mechanism and spoof it with a false signal to open. It worked first try and they entered with a final glance to make sure no one was watching.

"The Golden League?" Emersohn said. We're supposed to believe you have the best interests of the people of the Pact Worlds at heart? If you want us to steal this ship, I'm willing to try. But don't ask us to believe you want what's best for working class sentients like ourselves."

"Speak for yourself," Emersohn said. Of all the crew, he seemed the most interested in the job.

Emersohn again switched his combat tracking program to target the last trooper. He fired his laser, but just then the truck got bumped and his shot went way high.

"Thanks, Zeph," Emersohn said to the sylph. Then he focused his combat tracker on the other trooper near the back of the truck, and when he fired his laser rifle, the red beam burned the hobgoblin. Despite the laser burn and two hacks from Orion's doshko, he kept fighting.

He got off a shot with the laser rifle but his aim was all off.

Emersohn fires two laser shots at the one his tracking computer was highlighting, but his first shot hit a crate and his second missed high.

Emersohn waited until the next hobgoblin to descend was almost on the truck and fired his laser rifle but the truck jostled as he fired and the shot went wide.

Emersohn hit Gleka again with his club, but the hobgoblin proved tough enough to keep fighting, although his wounds were now serious.

Emersohn bashed his club into Glaka.

Once the truck was out of sight of the labor camp, Emersohn began the attempt to take out the hobgoblin troopers. He turned on his combat tracker focused on Glaka, who was positioned between Emersohn and Orion. Emersohn first looked at a rock outcropping up ahead, pointing and asking, "Is that supposed to be there?"

As the troopers looked where he was pointing, he gripped his club and hit the trooper in the chest.

Emersohn looked at Orion's wounds but could not do much except clean the wounds and let them heal naturally.

Emersohn's combat tracker helped him aim a shot on the same hobhound that Orion, Shasta, and Zeph had just tried to hit. His ice bullet hit the hound's side.

Emersohn activated his exocortex to track the nearest hobhound. But his pistol shot went wide.

Emersohn ran forward, drawing his Subzero pistol as he went. When he got up next to Zeph, he fired his pistol at the same one she and Orion had wounded, hoping to take it out of the fight before it could do any harm. His aim was good and his ice projectile hit the beast's heart and killed it.

Map at end of round 5

Emersohn cracked his club into Spirzaer's head and the drow thug finally fell.

Map at end of Round 4

Emersohn armed himself with a club and rushed at Spirzaer but his swing was rushed and missed.

Emersohn reassigned his tracking computer to the last crate fiend. Then he fired again, but the ice bullet glanced off a hard spot in the creatures shell.

Emersohn, swearing as he moved, jumped back from the crablike creature with a crate on its back, and redirected his pistol toward the new enemy. His tracking computer helped him correct his aim and he put a hypercold projectile into his body. It was a minor wound, but the third one. The creature was looking worse for wear.

Emersohn opted to keep shooting at the less wounded crate fiend, since he could see that they were vicious and could kill everyone if not stopped. His tracking program helped him aim, but at the last moment, the beast shifted and the icy shard splintered on the floor near it.

Emersohn activated his exocortex combat tracking on the crate fiend that bit Orion. He fired his subzero but the shot hit the floor next to it.

Emersohn waded into the fight, leaping the bar and attempting to hit Horizon with his truncheon. He missed, but Horizon was hemmed in on all sides.

"Me too," Emersohn put in. "Also goblin, which is what the orcs and half-orcs are likely to speak."

Emersohn engaged his exocortex tracking program focused on the nearest leech. He fired his pistol and struck a glancing blow but did not kill the pest.

Emersohn fired his Sub-zero Hail Pistol at the nearest leech as soon as he had one in view. The gun fired shards of super-cold shards of ice, but he had rushed his aim and had not had time to activate his exocortex enemy tracking ability. In addition, the gun was hindered by the energy draining aura put out by the leeches. The ice projectiles went past the leech several feet above it.

Emersohn sat up, flexing his formerly injured shoulder and feeling his ribs. "Amazing. I wish I could say, 'You should'a seen the other guy.' In this case, it was a 'bot that packed a fierce punch. It took several of us ganging it up on it to put it down. I'll tell ya 'bout it as we load the cargo."

Emersohn indeed was a sight. He sat slumped over, clutching his side. His face had bruises that showed through his fur and blood stained the normally white hair. He started to make a response but had to cough up some blood to clear his airways. "I've had worse," he lied. "I'll get out my medkit when we get back to the ship."

Emersohn closed in and fired another round, This one punctured the back panel and did more damage to the machinery keeping it going. Sparks were now visible at the points it had been damaged.

Emersohn rallied and stood, picking up his rifle and getting back in the fight. His rifle shot misses, but he cocked the rifle, ready to fire again.