I admit that this version of Pixie (Hitech port in on the road from Regina to
Gvurrdon, with a naval base added as an afterthought) dosen't match the official
DGP one (Naval Base out in the middle of nowhere) but we like our Pixie the
way it it is:)
===============================================================================
Copyright (C) 1990,1991 Bertil K K Jonell, All Rights Reserved, Permission is
hereby granted to the TML to distribute and store this document on the TML and
associated ftp-sites and to the Members of the TML to store it if they should
find it interesting enough:)
Written and Directed by: Bertil K K Jonell
Corrected by: Olof Dahlberg and Tomas Eriksson
Starring: Olof Dahlberg, Tomas Eriksson, D J Fredrik Granholm, Mikael Rubin and
Henrik Sjo"strand.
Rating: R (Still no mention of Belgium)
Ships and Vehicles provided by the IISS, Medical facilities by Naasirka,
Catering by the TAS and Legal Advice by Sohn, Sohn & Sons, Regni,
Regina.
Voyage of the "Gamla Bettan" part Two
The Lawyer:
Time: 070-1112 0230 hours Imperial Standard Time
Location: Pixie/Regina/Spinward Marches
The Gamla Bettan and Crew:
Gamla Bettan (Old Betty in the language of some ethnic worlds of the
Imperium, Swordworlders might understand it too) is a tech 11 Scoutship about
35 years old. She is of a variant class and is shorter and thicker than the
standard Type S, but has the same performance. Gamla Bettan lacks armament.
Preben Moeller, Scout, 26 years old. Smart but with great lapses in
education and behaviour in a civilized environment. Trained as pilot and
navigator. Born in the absolutely worst slum district of Efate. Ran Xboats
between Regina and Rhylanor for 8 years.
Werner Schmallhaussen, Major in the Roupian State Security, 26 years old.
Very good with all kinds of slugthrowers. Werner has been trained in various
military areas, including infantry tactics, using a SMG, and as a corpsman.
Born on Roup and currently on extended AWOL.
James P Troop, ForceCommander in the Imperial Marine Corps, 34 years old.
Strong, smart and agile, but with a behaviour and language fitting a Sergeant
Major. Born in the Shionthy belt, and managed to get out. Trained to lead
marines in combat, but little else useful.
Excerpt from an interview with John Ichiwara after his visit to his 1000th
world: "Pixie? Yes, I've been to Pixie. A very curious world indeed. Did you
know that it's been continually inhabited by the same family from the days of
it's discovery back in the 350's until today? They are quite sensitive about
what you call them. Remember to call them 'pixians', never 'pixies'."
Three men came walking down the access-tunnel connecting the Scout ship to
the Eldritch down Starports main terminal. Or rather: Two men walked and
dragged the third one along rather effortlessly in the low-gee environment.
"Easy, Werner, The left foot now, and the right one, that's right, and left,
and right, " Preben instructed him, "Hang in there for a few minutes, there's
got to be a medibooth in the lounge."
"A month from now you will laugh at this story, Werner!" Troop said
cheerfully as they stepped out of the tunnel and onto a green carpet of grass
stretching down to a quiet brook a few hundred meters away. Scattered trees
stood outlined against the deep blue sky, where the clouds formed the words:
"Welcome to Pixie, Gateway to Gvurrdon" and in smaller letters: "Eldritch
Starport Authority, Pixie/Regina/Spinward Marches". After a few more steps the
hologram dissolved and revealed the Starports' main mall.
Troop cast a glance around the silent surroundings, "It's pretty dead here.
What's up? A local holiday or something?"
"No, It's just that they are going by IST and looking at that clock," Preben
indicated a large globe bearing the insignias of the Eldritch Starport
Authority, "it's well past midnight." There's the booths!" Preben pointed.
"It's never this empty at Regni, no matter what time a day. And I thought
that Pixie was on a trade-route. Hold Werner, will you?"
"Sure," Preben held Werner while Troop opened the booth. Even though it had
indicated that it was currently unoccupied, a semiconscious sentient in Scout
uniform fell out. Troop felt the smell almost immediately.
"Shit! Does every scout always drink pangalactic gargleblasters like it was
tap-water?" he said as he dragged the scout out of the booth and propped him up
against a convenient wall.
Preben put Schmallhaussen in the booth and explained: "Yupp, it's our
'National Drink'. Just like Marine 'Pufferfish Parties'."
"Yeah," Troop grinned "One got to have guts to eat pufferfish."
"The pufferfish got to have it guts cut out, you mean, I guess?" Preben
closed the booth that activated automatically. After observing that Werner was
in no condition to answer questions it prompted Preben for a case history and,
most importantly, money.
"<Beep> Please state full name and homeworld for you and the patient."
"Preben Moeller, Efate, and the patient is Werner Schmallhaussen, Roup."
"Please put five credits in the slot and state the patients symptoms."
"Nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach pains and light fever." Moeller
answered as he put the money in the machine.
"Now preparing diagnosis..." The medibooth began to hum and buzz as it
busied itself. After a few minutes it was ready.
"The Diagnosis for patient Werner Schmallhaussen is severe food-poisoning.
Do you wish a treatment?"
"Stupid soda-can. Schmallhaussen said the same thing himself when he began
to feel ill, and he has corpsman training." Troop muttered.
"Yes, we want treatment."
"The patient is unconscious and can not give his consent. Do you take take
the responsibility?"
"Yes I take the responsibility, just get on with it!" Preben signed the
paper that the machine presented for him.
"Thank you, the treatment will begin when you have put fifty credits in the
slot, and will take approximately thirty minutes."
"What? I've already put five credits the damned slot you stupid piece of
junk!"
"That was for the diagnosis, Please put fifty credits in the slot for the
treatment."
Preben gave in, and paid up "Very well, just hurry!"
As the medibooth hummed and the intoxicated Scout began to snore, Troop made
a recon-tour around the mall. It looked like every other type A Starport mall
that he had seen. Built as a big, four stories high hangar, two hundred meters
long and fifty wide, and with a big houselike structure in the middle. The
floorspace was covered with various sofas, chairs and billboards, and the
banks, shops, bars, and offices for the various freight and passenger lines
was located in the middle 'building'.
At the far end big signs indicated that the starport administration could
be found to the left and the hotels to the right. The only thing moving was
the occasional janibot that was sweeping the floor.
After spending some minutes peering through the show-window of a
Interstellarms outlet, Troop went back to Preben and the booth, his steps
echoing emptily in the big mall.
"This place is dead!" he said, "But I found a ironmonger that seems to
have a good selection, better than on Efate, at least."
"Don't blame me for the curfew, I had no chance of knowing that Ine Givar
had planned a major bombing-campaign just when we arrived." he continued
ironically, "They don't consult me, you know.".
"Look, we've got company."
When Moeller looked in the direction that Troop indicated, he saw that a
man was walking in their direction. Clad in a strict suit and tie and carrying
an attache case, he seemed very out of place in the Starport environment. He
obviously also felt out of place, because he kept looking over his shoulder
all the time.
"You want to know what I think, Preben? I think that the booth has snuffed
Werner and that that clown in the suit is a Naasirka lawyer coming to nail you
for it!"
The man was clearly heading for them and Moeller glanced at the booth to
make sure that Werner's values was in the green.
Troop put on his best 'Macho Marine' posture and made sure that Werner's SMG
was easily accessible in his duffel bag. The man in the suit almost stopped
when he saw this, and came up to them hesitantly.
"Good evening, gentlemen." he began "Let me introduce myself. My name is
Eric T Sohn, and I'm a senior partner in the law firm Sohn, Sohn & Sons from
Regina, and I would like to ask you a question."
"Shit! It was a lawyer!" Moeller exclaimed.
Mr Sohn jumped a meter backwards "I beg your pardon?"
"No, eh, I'm sorry, we, eh, we, eh, had made, eh, yes! When we saw you,
Troop thought that you looked like a lawyer and we made a bet! yes, that's
what it was: a bet."
Mr Sohn looked very confused.
"A question, you said." prompted Troop.
"Uh, Yes, a question. I would like to know if it was you three that arrived
with the Scoutship about half an hour ago."
"What if it were? We haven't done anything illegal, Have we Troop?"
"Shaddup Moeller! Let me handle this!" Troop hissed in answer and turned to
Mr Sohn, "I guess that we should introduce ourselves. I'm ForceCommander James
P Troop, Imperial Marines Retired, and this is Preben Moeller, IISS detached
duty." They shook hands.
"As answer to our question, Yes, we came in that Scoutship."
"Do the ship stand to your disposition or are you presently on your way some
where?" Mr Sohn looked disapprovingly on the unconscious Scout.
"No, we are totally free to go wherever we wish in it."
"Good, good. You may be the solution to my problems. I'm trying to locate a
certain person that has disappeared and I wonder if you would be interested in
finding this person. There would, of course, be a substantial reward for a
successful conclusion."
"That sounds interesting, Mr Sohn. Can you be more specific?"
The lawyer hesitated and looked behind himself to ensure that nobody was
listening before he continued. "I'm truly sorry, but due to various reasons, I
cannot go into specifics at this time and place. Could you come to the TAS
Hostel in one hour, then we could discuss the mission in more detail."
"In one hour? Isn't it enough to do that tomorrow?"
"I'm afraid not. I'm already booked on a flight to Feri which leaves in
five hours. It is essential that everything is arranged before that time."
"Very well, then. We have to get hold of a few friends first, but we will
be there in one hour.
When Mr Sohn had left Troop began lecturing Preben "In the future, Preben,
you keep your mouth shut and let me handle all situations like this. If you
insist on behaving like you'd come directly from the slums of Efate, we'll
never get a decent assignment."
"Oh yeah? What's wrong with the slums of Efate? I was born there you know!"
"Yeah, tell me about it. And even if I hadn't known I could have guessed
after listening to your accent and watching your table-manners!"
"Don't blame me for disliking lawyers. We weren't afraid of the cops at
home, there are no cops at Efate, but the corporate lawyers with their squad
of bodyguards unloading from their G-limo outside was a major storm-warning.
They usually show up to evict you or give you a summons and if their hired
muscle 'happened' to bump somebody off they would get you to pay damages to them
for it!" They were interrupted when the door to the medibooth opened and a very
pale Werner Schmallhaussen stepped out.
"<Beep> Treatment successfully completed. Have a nice day and welcome back!"
the booth blipped enthusiastically.
"I guess I ate a little to much at Efate?"
"A little!" Troop laughed "You stuffed yourself around the clock for three
weeks!"
"We have got a mission now," Preben explained as he walked towards the
nearest public terminal "there is a lawyer," he pronounced it as an insult,
"that wants us to look for someone. It didn't sound too hard." he put a
quarter cred in the terminal and called up the naval base.
A sleepy marine guard appeared on the screen "Imperial Navy, Pixie Naval
Base, Good evening!"
"Hi! I want to speak with Master Chief Petty Officer Zod Miandwhypt of the
'Monsoon', that's a StrikeCarrier."
"I know what class 'Monsoon' is," the marine guard answered irritatedly,
"but do you know what time it is?".
"Just connect the call will you? He's expecting us to call."
After several signals Zod answered, at last. "Who the bloody... Oh, it's
you Preben, " he looked at his watch, frowned and shook it. "I'm going to nail
the bastard who sold this watch to me. Do you have *any* idea what time it is,
Preben?"
"Sure, a quarter past three in the morning." He proceeded to tell Zod about
the mission and the lawyer that they were supposed to meet at the TAS Hostel.
"Can't it wait until tomorrow?"
"No, he's leaving in a few hours. We are to meet him there at four.
Remember: the early bird get the largest worm and it sounded like this will be
a very, repeat very, profitable deal."
"OK, OK, I'll try to get there in time. By the way, have you found an
engineer yet?"
Moeller answered that there were nobody on the Gamla Bettan that was
trained for engineering so Zod continued. "You see, I know this Lieutenant
Commander that was Chief Engineer on the 'Monsoon'. He's an engineer and he's
also quite good at electronics and stuff. He's mustering out today."
"Bring him along then," Preben said "Remember, The TAS hostel in forty-five
minutes."
"Ok, I'll be there, Bye!"
"Bye!"
Erik T Sohn waited until the waiter had left before answering Werners
question: "I want to hire you and your ship to locate a certain person that,
shall we say disappeared, twenty one years ago."
"How much?" asked Moeller.
Mr Sohn looked perplexed "How much I want to locate the person?"
"No, How much you want to pay us"
"Eh, Rather a direct fellow, are you not? The payment is not in money."
"We don't want another ship." Preben cut him short. "And we can't transport
a lot of goods."
"The payment is not in goods or something like that! What do you take me
for? A mere merchant?" Mr Sohn looked almost insulted and both Werner and
Troop furiously kicked Moeller on his shins under the table. "The payment is
in securities."
"In what? Zod asked.
"I cannot disclose the identity of the company until I know if you accept
the mission or not. I'm very firm on this subject for various reasons which I
cannot disclose either."
"I guess that we have to know some more thing before we can decide, "
Werner asked, "for example, how big will our compensation be?"
"About one and a half megacredits.."
"Each?" Troop asked quickly.
"Certainly not! One and a half megacredits total, give or take a few
hundred thousand. The exact amount depends on the stock market, and the faster
you find this person, the more it will be worth. This is non-negotiable."
"Hey, We can buy a turret for that!" Zod exclaimed loudly "I demand that we
buy a turret!" He began to wave at the waiter. "You there! I want a turret"
"A turret?" The waiter asked when he reached their table.
"Yes, a turret, don't you know what a turret is?"
"I'm afraid that I've never heard about a drink named 'turret', sir"
"Not a drink, damn it! A turret! The kind with lasers in it!"
"This is a restaurant, sir. We do not sell turrets with lasers in them
here!" the waiter answered testily.
"Please forgive my friend, he tend to be a bit excited at times." Werner
apologized to the waiter while Troop rapidly quieted Zod using very harsh and
vulgar language.
Preben asked if there were any megacorps involved and Mr Sohn assured that
there were not.
"Any other corporations involved?" Preben persisted.
"There is a Reginan corporation that would like that you didn't find this
person, but they are only active in this subsector. They won't resort to
violence, since that would cause them to lose anyway."
Troop immediate caught on to thread "Any other violence?". He looked
almost disappointed when Mr Sohn said that he didn't think so.
"I can imagine that the Marine Corps might be a little irritated, but the
mission is in no way illegal by Imperial laws."
"This is unfortunately all I can say, Do you accept the mission?"
"Well, what do you say?" Werner asked them "It sounds good to me. Anyone
have any objections?". When nobody protested he turned towards Mr Sohn and
said "Yes, we accept the mission."
It was very visible that Erik T Sohn felt great relief when he heard that
they accepted. He looked like all his troubles were gone and a positive outcome
guaranteed.
"Could we get the whole story now, please?" Zod asked impatiently. "I want
this over with so that we can buy a turret."
"If you mention that word again I'll tie you to a Yresish ant-hill!" Troop
threatened him.
With a worried look at Troop and Zod Mr Sohn began: "We, that is Sohn, Sohn
& Sons, have since many years represented the Scofeld family of Regina and the
company Scofeld Investments LIC, that was founded by the late Desmond Scofeld,
and several minor partners, in the 1070's. It growed during the aftermath of
the Fourth Frontier War and were, in fact, one of the financial backers behind
Sergei hault-Oberlindes.
Desmond died last year without heirs. His wife died in the 4FW and his son,
John, died in a pirate raid in 1093 along with his wife, Melissa U Chorral and
their daughter, Desmonds grandchild, Tracy Everlyn Chorral-Scofeld. According
to his will, the same clause is in all the original five partners wills, the other partners would have the option to buy his part of the shares if he died
without leaving any direct heirs. The money in this case would go to Desmonds
closest heirs, a bunch of distant cousins of his totally without interest in
Scofeld Invest LIC.
However, in a late addition to the will, Desmond stated that a certain part
of the inheritance should be used to finance a last attempt to locate John,
Melissa and Tracy. When this fact was made public the other two surviving
partners immediately filed a complaint against the will on the grounds that
Desmond was mentally incompetent we he wrote the addition. This case will
begin in a few weeks and I have no idea how long it will take.
The task of locating his heirs fell on us, the Sohn, Sohn & Sons, since we
were the law firm that he usually had employed. To avoid any conflict of
interests we had to refuse any other assignments from Scofeld Invest LIC.
We began the search with a big advertising campaign all over this and the
neighbouring subsectors with pictures and fingerprints of John, Melissa and
Tracy, computer-generated pictures of how they would have looked ten years ago
and today and promises of large rewards for information about their
whereabouts. Initially we met with little success, but two months ago the
first reply came in. It was from one of the pirates...
The pirate, who naturally wish to be anonymous, had settled down on a world
in this subsector claimed to have served with Captain Belit on the 'Barracuda'
between the years 1088 and 1094. He told us that he remembered a strange
episode that took place in 1093."
"Belit" Troop laughed. "Do you know how many pirates there is that use that
name?! The Corps have at least fifteen 'shoot to kill's out on pirates that
call themselves 'Belit'. It's fifth on the top ten list!"
Mr Sohn asked irritatedly if he could continue, and when Troop fell silent
he did.
"They had been cruising for several weeks without attacking any shipping,
slowly working their way coreward from their usual territory between Regina
and Turedad on the Spinward Main towards Feri. According to Belit they were on
a special assignment that would be very profitable.
When they reached Feri they waited for a few weeks before attacking a small
Oberlindes liner enroute from Regina to Efate. Belit ordered them to
concentrate their fire to the crew and passenger part of the ship. Just
minutes before the liner exploded a smallcraft was launched and tried to
escape from the pirates.
Since all space vessels are expensive they captured the fleeing craft
intact. The pirate claimed that the three persons on the pictures were among
those aboard that craft, but they were using different names!
According to him Tracy had not been related to John and Melissa!
Belit had interrogated all the survivors from the liner who subsequently
had been spaced, all except John, Melissa and Tracy. The first two had been
murdered, put in a freezer and flown to Ruie, and the latter lived because the
crew had refused to space her.
"Most of us were veterans from 'fourth'," the Pirate had said, "we were
only in this kind of work because we had no choice. Some of us had been
commerce raiders, others had taken 'extended AWOL' from various units. Zapping
fat traders, and spacing witnesses is one thing, but the suggestion that we
should space a seven year old kid almost caused a mutiny. But Belit said that
contract specifically said that ALL persons aboard the liner should be killed
so we put the girl ashore on Knorbes on our way to Ruie."
But on Ruie Belit had returned to the ship without money but in a terrible
mood. They had immediately blasted off for Knorbes and turned the planet
upside-down for two weeks until the Navy had arrived to chase them away.
The Pirate's career had taken a sudden end the following year when the
Barracuda was pounced upon and destroyed by another pirate ship when he was on
shoreleave.
We, speaking as the Sohn, Sohn & Sons, thought that the matter was solved.
Tracy was living on Knorbes and it was their low level of technology that
prevented her from getting in touch with us. But, sadly to say, all our
investigations on Knorbes came to nought."
Zod interrupted him irritatedly "What's wrong with Knorbes? I was born
there and look what I am today!"
"Yeah, a navy geek that would run if he saw a Zho eye to eye!" Troop
laughed.
Von Tjaikovskij almost dropped his monocle when he protested "Excuseth my
humble opinion gents, by what hasth thee against our glorious Empire and it's
equally glorious Navy?" Preben just listened to the accent and groaned.
"Hey, have your exaltedness ever heard about the Galanglic language?" Troop
retorted. "No speaken galanglic, eh?"
Preben felt forced to intervene "Calm down Troop, If Tjaikovskij..."
"Von Tjaikovskij if you may." Roshel said as he polished his monocle.
"On my ship you ain't von. On my ship you're Tjaikovskij!"
"Oh dear!"
"As I was saying, Tjaikovskij may be a noble, but don't hold it against him.
If he is a good engineer he's good enough for me!"
"You amaze me, Preben" Werner said ironically.
Mr Sohn almost regretted hiring them but said "Gentlemen! Please! I must be
on a ship in two hours time and you bicker about accents." In the embarrassed
silence he continued:
"To recapitulate..."
"Capitulation? Never!" Zod hollered but the rest of the crew shut him up.
"To recapitulate, " Mr Sohn continued, "we had traced Tracy to Knorbes but
there she had disappeared. Then came our second lucky break. We got a letter
from Boughene.
The letter was from a certain Leonides Chubhelm who was working as an
electronics engineer for Ling Standard on Boughene. He was born and had gone
to school on Uakye and he had some interesting things to tell us.
He had recognized the computer projection on how Tracy would look ten years
ago and gotten interested enough to compare the fingerprints to the ones in
the old yearbook from the Uakye City Polytechnic Highschool."
"They have fingerprints in their yearbooks?" Werner asked amazed "Why?"
"Standard practice to help catch juvenile delinquents" Troop answered.
"We didn't have that on Efate," Preben remarked, "But I never went to
highschool!"
"He further told us that she had gone by a different name then. According
to him she called herself Kiiara Travernier and were supposed to be the
daughter of a cousin of a captain of a free trader that plyed the routes
between Efate and Regina."
"Passing Knorbes!" Troop exclaimed.
"Exactly! We naturally did a thorough investigation about this 'Kiiara'
person and found that all ID's fitted Tracy exactly, All documents identifying
her as 'Kiiara Travernier' was forgeries. Quite bad forgeries, actually. The
trader had died five years ago, but we could confirm that he didn't have any
cousins.
Mr Chubhelm also told us that 'Kiiara' had signed up with the marines, and
that he had got a holo from a publication that Uakye City PolyHigh published
and sent out to all old students every five years with the latest news about
what all old students did. The holo," Mr Sohn passed around a holo depicting
ten persons in IMC uniforms standing around a Trepida AFV, "shows the 1108:5
OCS class of newly graduated marine 2nd lieutenants here at Pixie."
Once again it seemed that our work were finished. We thought that Tracy
served in the marines somewhere in the subsector and that all that remained
for us was to inform her about the inheritance and clear all legalities. Then
we ran into a wall, again.
Our message to her, care of the Imperial Marines, was returned with a
'Addressee Unknown' label. I immediately travelled to Uakye and checked with the
IMC enlistment office there and they confirmed that she were in the marines
after all. They claimed that she had been assigned to Pixie for OCS and that I
should check there. I got here and made inquiries about her on the naval base,
but they said that they never had heard about anyone named Kiiara Travernier,
or Tracy Everlyn Chorral-Scofeld either for that matter. They compared
fingerprint- and retinal data with what we had and said that they were 110%
certain that they didn't match any person in the IMC living, dead or
lowberthed, either in the IMC now or retired or MIA or KIA or POW or anything.
They said that she didn't exist.
I want you to find her!"
===============================================================================
- - -bertil-
- - --
>From the foolfile:
"The Baltic states are not occupied" - Swedish Foreign Minister Sten Andersson