NationStates Jolt Archive

"'Ostile ship on radar, Cap'n," said a gruff, burly man sitting at the battered radar console of the ship which flew no nation's colours. Battered was a good word for the vessel. Ex-Imperial Navy, the trimaran corvette was looking the worse for her years. On the forecastle was a single gun that looked as though it has been looted from a U-Boat and along its exposed gangways prowled rough-looking men sporting AKs.

"Good..." the Captain drawled. His face broke into an evil smile.

"Plenty of plunder, I 'ope, cap'n! She looks a sturdy ship," the first man said, rubbing his hands together with glee. The corvette continued to cut roughly through the waves towards the unescorted frieghter. "We should be able to she 'er now," the radar operator indicated to his Captain, who took out his merticulously polished navy-issue telescope, and scanned the skyline.

He saw her! A mere prick against the twilight skyline. A speck of grey set against a canvas of blue and yellow. As his ship continued to plow on towards its prey, the ship emerged in ever increasing detail. He could see her colours - those of The Island of Rose. They were within a kiometre, and he scanned her deck for activity. No deck guns. No missiles. No marines. Pretty pickings.

"Raise the jolly roger!" The Captain roared, scarcely concealing his delight, "perpare to board, boys!" His shouts were greeted by cheers from the men on the bridge. "Tell 'em to slow and let us come aboard. Im sure they're not stupid now, are they." His orders were carried out, and the signal sent. Only time would tell how smoothly the following operation would go.

tag, this looks interesting (feel free to try to board an Imperial merchantman)

OOC: Is this open? If not, TAG

OOC: Is this open? If not, TAG
[OOC: Yeah, but if you dont mind I dont really want any warships etc turning up just yet. The pirates probably will inevitably be killed, but I'd like them to have a decent run first.]

didn't catch the message on MSN.

[OOC: Sorry, misunderstanding. As said in the post it's a TIoR ship that Im attacking right now (it was arranged beforehand). If you want to RP one of your ships being attacked then we can do that later though, or you could RP your ship being hearby when I attack another ship. Again, sorry for the misunderstanding.]

IMS Irrevocable

The IMS Irrevocable, IMS standing for "Imperial Merchant Ship" if you're not bright, and if you're reading this, you're probably and idiot. The United Imperial Merchant Fleet is a part of the United Imperial Armada, usually they were large freighters who went unescorted. Now, some may ask, why in the bloody hell are you letting large, slow ships go over hundreds of miles to a foreign country surrounded by hostile warships? I really don't know, but it is the perfect plot device don't you think?

The... "captain" of the IMS Irrevocable was a certain Angelo Certainee. He wasn't really a captain, not in the records of the Chancellory of Defence anyway. No, he was just a drunk who was hired. But apparently, he was doing good too.

Angelo Certainee was twenty two, very young. Young enough to star in his own video game... nah. He was Italian if you didn't know. And that's it. Now to the story.

Angelo, sitting on his chair, spotted the pirate. "Oy..." He thought about his crew... fifteen men armed with M92 handguns, and a spear. He thought he had good chances. He looked at his communications officer. "Hey, type this and send it a'ight?"

To: The Really Stupid Pirates
From: The IMS Irrevocable

You suck and yo mamas are fat.

Angelo Certainee
Captain of The IMS Irrevocable

The Izzy Class Littoral Destroyer RMV Defiant had been on a routine-ish patrol that was launched as a counter piracy operation but eventually, due to politics, turned into a "sit where you are and watch the waves" operation.

Not really moving much, all it did was sit there and launch its Spike recon-helicopters to train the pilots to the level they could actually hit anything.

The Captain had hoped for an operation or two where they could at least board a vessel, what they were suppose to be doing anyway, but so far it had been nothing but stalling.

"Just keep an eye out, make sure no one sneaks up on us."

The Captain gave the same orders as he had the day before, and the day before that.

(OOC: Basically a way of saying tag. I'm not going to do anything until Prae wants to allow a military to come in, i just want to go ahead and get set up though.)

The radar officer just stifled a snigger, largely because he feared for his life, as he passed the messaged from the Rosian ship to his Captain. Goodness knows how he'll take it, the man thought to himself, but it would probably end up bloody. The Captain grunted as he read the note. He sat stock still in his seat for several moments, and then sprang to his feet.

"Ready the deck guns! Give 'em hell!" He roared. The U-Boat gun was hand cranked up into position, aiming right across the deck of the now extremely close Freighter, and fired straight at the bridge. "We're alongside 'er now, boys! Death or glory!" He screamed, pushing down the metal boarding ladder next to him. The spikes on the end of the vicious metal implement smashed into the deck and securely interlocked the two ships.

"Charge!" The Captain shouted, running forward with his sword one hand, automatic pistol in the other. His men were behind him with AK74s, grenades and knives. "If yer find their cap'n, you arent to kill 'im. 'e's mine."

Angelo ducked as the round flew through the bridge. After the brief explosion he saw his desk and his favorite toy plush dog destroyed. How did he survive? I have no idea. "Gah! Stoopid idiots!" He yelled. He stood up looking at the deck below, watching the ensuing gunfight between the crew and pirates.

He spotted a rapier to his right, probably from his old high school days. He picked it up. "Pirates eh?! I'll cut them all down!" He opened the door leading to outside. As he climbed down the stairs he yelled. "Charge!" Iroinically at this moment he was struck down by the stray gunfire from an AK-47. Of course due to this, the now rogue sword flew towards a generic pirate, causing freak accidents on both sides.

The 1st Mate, George Hattensberry, shook his head. "Bloody Hell!" He cried in his pompous English accent as he returned fire. "Come my fellow crew, the pirates must not get this precious cargo for which we laid our lives on!"

"Hurrah!" The now numbering eleven crew yelled as they returned fire with their handguns. What a pitiful sight indeed, especially if you knew the cargo.

72 nautical miles North, North West of Contact Delta Four
"Ar...Contact Delta Five has approached and appears to have merged with Delta Five...Ar" The sailor at the Radar called out.

Captain Brach turned in the metal chair that was his station and looked at the youth. "Your not a Jiggdian Pirate Peter, you grew up in Terran Sphere not the Gonad Islands, so stop with the Ar...unless you want me to put my boot up your a** again." He stood up and looked down at the forward deck. The vast array of deck houses that had been built on the Westback forward deck made him shake his head. The Westback had once been an Alconian Naval Q ship, but due to her poor handling and several better hulls being laid, she had been mustered out of front line duty. The only signs she had once been a warship was the armor around her engines and the torpedo tubes.

The Westback had been leased out to a small company that wanted to explore for areas of high value materials in international waters. Eric Brach was sure they were just sophisticated treasure hunters but they did have some massive underwater rover with a front end that looked like a jumbo sized drill bit, and had been scanning and taking samples of the floor bottom.
As such they had turned the once clandestine warship into a floating assay labratory and housing facility.

Captain Brach couldn't care less. After all he was a washed up has been with a serious love for whiskey and loose women. "Well, likely just smugglers but keep an eye on them. If one turns towards us were going to have to pull up that whatever scanner thingy and turn tail..."

"Aye Aye Captain"

(OOC: Say something when it's ok for a military to run upon you. We can add a dozen marines to this comical firefight.)

:p

The Captain, in an almost unique moment of panic and fear, ducked behind a barrel for cover. It was not from the gunfire that he was cowering, but the falling corpse of his recently skewered ex-First Mate who had the unfortunate bad luck of standing in front of a sword whilst it just so happened to be flying through the air towards him.

The evil pirate Captain quickly regained his composure and surged forwards with a group of rowdy pirates. They blazed into the crowd of pathetic hand-gun shooting Rosians which fell pretty much instantly to the ground. A pirate, caught in the shoulder, spun comically for a few seconds before falling to the ground dead. The Captain rammed his sword into the belly of the only remaining man. He heard him mutter something about 'the bloody weather' and then collapse to the ground.

The Captain thrust his sword up into the air in celebration of his victory. He strolled leisurely over to where three pirates were pinning the only surviving crewman against a wall.

"Well, well, well," he said, leering at the man, "will ye be an honourable opponent and surrender yer ship to me... or will I be having to skewer yer too?"

The man opposite him looked outraged. He squirmed to try to release himself, but could not overpower the three men holding him back. He spat at the Captain, but missed. "I'll never surrender to you! I shall defend our cargo to my last breath!"

Behind the group of men, jubilant pirates were ripping open the first boxes of cargo brought up from the bay. "What the fuck is this?" shouted a pirate pouring out a box of the vessel's cargo - a large number of cardboard boxes each one labelled 'Adult Magazines. Not to be supplied to under 18s'. "We lost two good lads just to get our hands on this shit?!"

The Captain smiled at the one remaining Rosian, who had blushed. Any sense of honour had dissipated. "Make him walk the plank!" The Captain shouted, "and load that filth into the ship's hold. It'll be worth something back in Praextremis."

[OOC: Yes, this was arranged with TIoR ;)

Anyway I'm going to bed. I'll attack someone else in the morning.]

(OOC: Er then don't attack me since I appear to be inactive until 12:00 Pacific)

(OOC: I dare you to try and invade a destroyer. :p )

Can we destroy our OOC posts here? It'd be nice if this was a pure IC thread.

OOC:Prae, attack MEEE next!!! You know you wanna!

OOC: I offer a shoe freighter for the pirates. However due to my lax gun laws and massive automation, There are only 3 crewman wtih AK-104s. Expect them to piss their pants lock themselves in a windowless room with their AK's pointed at the wall.

Captain Bob Taggert of the merchantman HMS Pacifica peered through his binoculars at the open ocean. "Normally, big, fat targets like ourselves would have at least token military escort," he explained to the First Mate, "but what with the war and everything, the Navy's got nothing to spare for merchant ships." He hoped no one would bother the ship on their voyage carrying their precious cargo of...stuff pirates would want...like, you know, doubloons or whatever.

OOC: If you want bigger targets I could supply a containership or an oil tanker. Otherwise I believe we have a fat merchant ship carrying tungsten is passing through questionable waters...

tag for later response (ie 2 minutes)

OOC:
Oh, oh, oh, Goblin attack! ^_^
If I cant jump in at this point, consider this an intro post to be stuck in at the correct spot, edit all numbers and name/ship refrences accordingly.
And, of course, if you dont accept non-humans, feel free to disregard this post, just tell me so I know to stop refreshing this thread waiting for a reply :P

IC:
The GCS Yargngraflgark was in trouble.
Of course, as a ship, it was always in trouble, considering it was most likely older than the present government of Blood Moon. It was rusty, cranky, and created a smoke plume that was visible from space.
Captain Gerk was also in trouble, because his ship was no longer working. He himself had no idea how to fix it, and the so-called 'engineers' were baffled, so he had sent a few crew members down to the boiler room to hit things until something started working. Of course, at this point things had got a bit worse and one of the boilers had exploded, blowing a hole in the side of the ship and letting in the cold seawater, which, on contact with the remaining boilers, caused them to explode.
At present he had only managed to save himself by indicating that there were two ships on radar, just within range. The Yargngraflgark was still drifting at an appreciable speed, and the remaining few boilers could push it along for a while, close enough to try to raid the other ships, at least.
Once within a reasonable range the remaining Goblins had swarmed into the assorted 'lifeboats' around the ship after siezing various weapons, including the sharp pointy sort, the dull heavy sort, the lead-hurling sort and the explod-ey sort.
All in all about twenty Goblins in various states of concusedness were speeding (or at least rowing very quicky) towards the embattled boats. Captain Gerk's boat flew the Blood Moon flag on its bow, it was fluttering very impressivly and looked quite good with the shrapnel holes.
Gerk was proud of his captains yacht, it was more of a cigar boat than anything, but you COULD cram five Goblins into it with space for weapons, provided they were friendly and nobody pushed.
Gerk grinned widely, he looked the part of a 17th century pirate king, he even had an eye patch and a false arm that could be replaced with a sword-thingy. The held in his other hand a shortened blunderbuss, suplimented by as many pistols as he could scrounge up jammed into his vest pockets and straps. Looking at Gerk's vest was like looking at a timeline of pistol development. Amount other things he was in possession of a .44 magnum, a Five-seveN, three .38 calibur revolvers and a few old muzzleloading blackpowder pistols, simply on principal.
The remaining area was taken up by knives, both of the throwing and stabbing sort.
Gerk felt very prepared.

Yarrrr!
By way of bump.

Republican Merchantman Ganges

The Ganges was one of the most modern and well-built merchant vessels built by the Republican Merchant Navy. Its decks glistened with white paint, and the cargo containers onboard were perfectly aligned to the nearest inch. Smoke curled out of the back of the ship in a perfect haze; even the waves seemed to miss it slightly as it plowed through them at thirty knots. The crew themselves, all thirty of them, wore cleancut, pressed uniforms that did not have a speck of dust on them. The deck gun gleamed in the bright sunlight. It truly was a perfect vessel...

...In the catalogue. Captain Roalf Shpeers flicked over the pages of the catalogue on the bridge of the Ganges and closed his eyes in desperation. Maybe if he opened them now, it would be like the catalogue. Slowly, one at a time, he opened his eyes. He was treated to the same sight that had been there ten seconds ago. Quite possibly the opposite of the catalogue picture.

TBC...

OOC: I would have preferred not, but since you wrote a post and everything and I left you waiting...

IC: The pirates, as pirates tended to be most of the time, were drunk. There had been three stabbings already. The whole thing had kicked off with forcing the Rosian to walk the plank, and then they discovered the Rosians' copious supply of alcohol, and things just went from there. Drunk pirates weren't the most intelligent of people, but certainly ferocious fighters.

Once such man was at that very moment throwing over the side of the ship, when he caught sight of a few dots of light, moving slowly towards him. He took out his novelty telescope out of his pocket and staggered drunkenly side-ways as he attempted to force his eyes to focus.

"Wot the 'ell?" he said in a thick Somersettian accent, "'ere, mate," he continued thumping another pirate on the back, "waddya make of that?"

The second man was clearly more enebriated than the first, and just laughed hysterically. The first pirate turned around and, confused as to what it must be that was moving towards him and annoyed by the lack of that knowledge did the one thing a pirate did when faced with a strange thing on the horizon. He shot at it.

OOC:
Ah, Ill keep try to keep it short, then :P

IC:
The bullet whizzed past Gerk's head, making a FWWZZZZT! due to dramatic necessity. Normaly this would be unnerving, but there were not many other courses of action in any case.
Behind him there was a loud exclamation of "Ts'kavat! signaled that somebody had been hit, most likely in an ear, since ears tended to get hit alot in this sort of situation. This was followed by somebody jumping to the front of the boat and blasting away with what was generaly refered to as a 'Blastinator', a double barreled repeating blunderbuss.
The device was a) Highly destructive and b)Prone to killing its operator, like most weapons devised by Goblins.
Basicaly it was a pair ot tubes connected to a rotating drum divided into several compartments (these varied in number depending on how suicidal the wielder was, usualy there were six to eight pairs though). Into these a copious amount of gunpowder was forced, followed by whatever solid objects were at hand, including nails, rocks, and bits of former enemies.
It was not accurate, safe or even very effective beyond about three meters. It was higly intimidating and an excellent corridor clearance weapon.

Gerk cheered with the rest of the boat.
"Dat'll teach da bastids ta shoot back a' us! Shoot 'em all in da head!"
The Goblin on the bow had used the first cylinder for his blunderbuss and was frantically trying to cram the next one in backwards, while the rest of the boat was trying to shoot around him. Gerk fired off a few shots as well, while he wasnt dodging the OTHER Goblin boats in the area.
A loud CRACK! in front of Gerk was followed by a brief shower of green blood, indicating that on firing, the Blastinator had sparked into all the chambers at once, creating a small but very effective bomb.
The small cigar boat was still moving, but now it had a hole in the bow, as well as a bunch of nails, rocks and bits of Goblin.
Thankfully they were close enough to the enemy ship that this didnt matter much, they were simply moving towards their target at a reduced speed.