Xanthal
30-05-2006, 20:53
“Living as an outlaw does not mean living at war with authority; it means living as though authority does not exist.” -Sarena “The White Falcon” Jovis
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Cody Polovin’s father had always urged caution. Cody grew up on sage advice: “Look before you leap,” “Discretion is the better part of valor,” “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.” It was once pointed out to him that his current line of work could be attributed to a rebellion against his parents, but Cody laid them respectfully to rest ten years ago, when they both died together at the hands of pirates while on a vacation cruise through the Sagittarius Arm.
The outlaw life, he always points out to his small crew, does not require reckless behavior. Though nobody would call Cody a coward, he is a planner. This operation has been planned meticulously. Cody had insisted on it. Since the Lexx, his beloved ship, was impounded and scrapped by the Einherjers following an unfortunate clash with a patrol ship there three months ago, they have been largely planet-bound, doing odd jobs to come up with the cash they needed.
Omar Gibbons, his intrepid first mate, devised the idea of stealing a new ship. Between them, they decided that Xanthal was the best choice; their ships are small and fast, equipped with a rare FTL drive that facilitates escape in a pinch, and reasonably powerful, though they lack peripheral function. They settled on a type, a location, and a strategy (though, honestly, Cody did most of that) and briefed the crew. They had all worked hard to get enough money for the trip; and now that they’re here the feeling is quite anti-climactic. With the monitoring equipment rigged up to feed false data to station security by his brilliant young engineer, dispatching the two guards had been a simple matter of utilizing the element of surprise. With them locked in a maintenance closet and two of his own people changed into their uniforms, they have been left alone for the last half-hour while Sandra, the aforementioned engineer, busies herself wiping the affiliation and user data from the small attack ship's computer.
Cody hovers about the entryway of the cramped engineering section. His substantial height of 195 centimeters gives him little clearance through the doorways. Though he doesn’t quite have to duck, he is compelled to do so anyway, just to be safe. He is a strong, fast, and charming man, intelligent and suave: the type who manages to get laid no matter where he goes. His dark brown hair is clean-cut and thin beard stubble adds a dash of character to the picture. Earlier, he procured some clothing from a storage locker on his new ship, so he now wears a Xanthalian military uniform. It doesn’t suit him, but it’s better than the smelly, worn-out articles he was wearing before.
Omar, by contrast, is quite short and stocky at a mere 156 centimeters. Despite being much scrappier than Cody, he is ten years older; already in his forties and balding to boot. He has been anxiously dashing about the ship since they first boarded, trying to get everyone to work faster but really only managing to be distracting. It is one of his trademark qualities that he has a knack for mismanagement. Not to say that he isn’t worth having around. Omar’s brawn and intuition, as well as his considerable skill with money, when they have it, earned him his place as Cody’s right-hand man. The two men balance each other out nicely, and the whole crew recognizes it.
“That’s it,” Sandra nods, crawling out of her metal prison and closing up the access panel to the computer core, carrying a handful of parts from the machine with her. “I had to erase most of the security programming, and remove some of the hard-wired stuff,” she tosses the set of chips and wires on the console surface. “As far as KLZ-204 is concerned, anyone is authorized to command her now.”
Omar looks as if a great weight has been taken from his shoulders. “It’s about time! I’ll go tell everyone to prepare for departure.”
“Make sure they keep it quiet,” Cody reminds his mate gently. “If station security sees the ship powering up, we’ll have an army of military and police crawling all over us.”
“Yes Sir,” Omar assents, then leaves through the hatch.
“You know everyone already knows what to do,” Sandra says, adjusting her neck after her uncomfortable stint jammed into the core housing. “We went through it four times on the way here.” She is satisfied by a dull cracking noise as her joint falls into its proper place. She unties her long hair and ties it again, recapturing the errant strands.
Cody smiles, at the comment and at the beauty of his subordinate. “It can’t harm anything. Besides, if Omar wasn’t busying himself with everyone else, he’d be back here.”
“Ha!” Sandra crosses her arms. “One thing about working in the box; it’s comforting to have a metal wall between me and him.”
“The first mate is well aware of the standards of etiquette. You know that he’s invaluable to this crew.”
“That may be,” Sandra eyes him mischievously, “but it’ll never be easy to work around him.”
“Quite so,” Cody moves closer, running a hand along her arm. “However, I have the utmost confidence in your abilities.” They engage in a short kiss, interrupted by the ring of the intercom and the amplified voice of one of the guards outside the ship.
“Hey, Skip! We just had to zap a patrol out here, and their radios are coded. I think we can expect company soon, and I’m not talking about that girl you had those drinks with!”
“Hmm,” Cody backs away from his engineer. “Hold that thought, my dear. It seems we have work to do.” He hits the intercom switch after a brief search across the control panel for the appropriate button. “Alright, Nolan. Get aboard and seal the airlock. I think it’s time we made a discreet exit.”
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The organized chaos of the traffic lanes outside the mega-station YLZ-23 is reduced to plain chaos as the doors on one of the main docking bays blow outward like wood hit with a cannon. From the twisted wreckage of the entryway, a small attack ship designated KLZ-204 rushes out into space, cutting off a transport fifty times its size. Inbound traffic grinds to a halt as debris from the station drifts into the arrival lane, and frantic radio traffic jams the airwaves as police and military vessels alike peel off their courses in pursuit of the rogue ship, which sets a course directly for the sord; its gateway to freedom.
The chase is eerie to watch, simply because of the vastness of the void. It takes fifteen minutes for the ship to reach the sord, but as the fastest ship type in the area pursuit is hopeless. A group of ships, on patrol around the sord, stands between the escapees and freedom. It fires on the outlaws, and scores a few solid hits, but it is too little, too late. The hijacker flicks the controls and barrels past and across the barrier between dimensions. The other ships try to pursue, but they can’t accelerate fast enough to keep pace, and KLZ-204 fades from sensors. Millions of eyes stare in disbelief at their computers and televisions. A Xanthalian ship, a warship... has been taken from under the noses of the police and military. Forty-five hundred metric tons of Xanthalian government property... gone.
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“Oh yes,” William Crichton, their pilot crows. “We define intense! We are the gurus, the masters of intensity. Shine on baby, boom! Damn, did you see those moves? I f***ing own you!”
“Your humility, as always, is an inspiration to us all,” Jennifer, the operations specialist, checks him. “Sir,” she addresses the captain, “I’m having a lot of difficulty trying to conduct repairs and figure out where we are at the same time. This whole planespace business is sweet, but normally officers would train weeks to navigate effectively. It would be really keen if you could get someone to staff navigation. I’ll bet the computer is way better at this than I am.
“Yeah, no sh*t,” Bill agrees. “I hardly know if I haven’t turned around to head right back to where we started. I am the epitome of manly piloting prowess, but without some sort of instruction this is more of a learning wall than a learning curve, if you catch my drift.”
Cody, relaxing at the rear of the bridge, which is tiny and cramped like everything else in the ship, sighs. “We took some damage in our getaway, Jen. Has Sandra figured out repair estimates yet?”
“Yeah, looks good for the most part; but our port sensor grid is messed up. What’s worse, we really need to be docked to fix it, and I don’t think we’re gonna be welcome in the more straight-laced sectors after this. Not to criticize Sir,” she directs this at Omar, “but you really pissed off the Man with this idea.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cody Polovin’s father had always urged caution. Cody grew up on sage advice: “Look before you leap,” “Discretion is the better part of valor,” “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.” It was once pointed out to him that his current line of work could be attributed to a rebellion against his parents, but Cody laid them respectfully to rest ten years ago, when they both died together at the hands of pirates while on a vacation cruise through the Sagittarius Arm.
The outlaw life, he always points out to his small crew, does not require reckless behavior. Though nobody would call Cody a coward, he is a planner. This operation has been planned meticulously. Cody had insisted on it. Since the Lexx, his beloved ship, was impounded and scrapped by the Einherjers following an unfortunate clash with a patrol ship there three months ago, they have been largely planet-bound, doing odd jobs to come up with the cash they needed.
Omar Gibbons, his intrepid first mate, devised the idea of stealing a new ship. Between them, they decided that Xanthal was the best choice; their ships are small and fast, equipped with a rare FTL drive that facilitates escape in a pinch, and reasonably powerful, though they lack peripheral function. They settled on a type, a location, and a strategy (though, honestly, Cody did most of that) and briefed the crew. They had all worked hard to get enough money for the trip; and now that they’re here the feeling is quite anti-climactic. With the monitoring equipment rigged up to feed false data to station security by his brilliant young engineer, dispatching the two guards had been a simple matter of utilizing the element of surprise. With them locked in a maintenance closet and two of his own people changed into their uniforms, they have been left alone for the last half-hour while Sandra, the aforementioned engineer, busies herself wiping the affiliation and user data from the small attack ship's computer.
Cody hovers about the entryway of the cramped engineering section. His substantial height of 195 centimeters gives him little clearance through the doorways. Though he doesn’t quite have to duck, he is compelled to do so anyway, just to be safe. He is a strong, fast, and charming man, intelligent and suave: the type who manages to get laid no matter where he goes. His dark brown hair is clean-cut and thin beard stubble adds a dash of character to the picture. Earlier, he procured some clothing from a storage locker on his new ship, so he now wears a Xanthalian military uniform. It doesn’t suit him, but it’s better than the smelly, worn-out articles he was wearing before.
Omar, by contrast, is quite short and stocky at a mere 156 centimeters. Despite being much scrappier than Cody, he is ten years older; already in his forties and balding to boot. He has been anxiously dashing about the ship since they first boarded, trying to get everyone to work faster but really only managing to be distracting. It is one of his trademark qualities that he has a knack for mismanagement. Not to say that he isn’t worth having around. Omar’s brawn and intuition, as well as his considerable skill with money, when they have it, earned him his place as Cody’s right-hand man. The two men balance each other out nicely, and the whole crew recognizes it.
“That’s it,” Sandra nods, crawling out of her metal prison and closing up the access panel to the computer core, carrying a handful of parts from the machine with her. “I had to erase most of the security programming, and remove some of the hard-wired stuff,” she tosses the set of chips and wires on the console surface. “As far as KLZ-204 is concerned, anyone is authorized to command her now.”
Omar looks as if a great weight has been taken from his shoulders. “It’s about time! I’ll go tell everyone to prepare for departure.”
“Make sure they keep it quiet,” Cody reminds his mate gently. “If station security sees the ship powering up, we’ll have an army of military and police crawling all over us.”
“Yes Sir,” Omar assents, then leaves through the hatch.
“You know everyone already knows what to do,” Sandra says, adjusting her neck after her uncomfortable stint jammed into the core housing. “We went through it four times on the way here.” She is satisfied by a dull cracking noise as her joint falls into its proper place. She unties her long hair and ties it again, recapturing the errant strands.
Cody smiles, at the comment and at the beauty of his subordinate. “It can’t harm anything. Besides, if Omar wasn’t busying himself with everyone else, he’d be back here.”
“Ha!” Sandra crosses her arms. “One thing about working in the box; it’s comforting to have a metal wall between me and him.”
“The first mate is well aware of the standards of etiquette. You know that he’s invaluable to this crew.”
“That may be,” Sandra eyes him mischievously, “but it’ll never be easy to work around him.”
“Quite so,” Cody moves closer, running a hand along her arm. “However, I have the utmost confidence in your abilities.” They engage in a short kiss, interrupted by the ring of the intercom and the amplified voice of one of the guards outside the ship.
“Hey, Skip! We just had to zap a patrol out here, and their radios are coded. I think we can expect company soon, and I’m not talking about that girl you had those drinks with!”
“Hmm,” Cody backs away from his engineer. “Hold that thought, my dear. It seems we have work to do.” He hits the intercom switch after a brief search across the control panel for the appropriate button. “Alright, Nolan. Get aboard and seal the airlock. I think it’s time we made a discreet exit.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The organized chaos of the traffic lanes outside the mega-station YLZ-23 is reduced to plain chaos as the doors on one of the main docking bays blow outward like wood hit with a cannon. From the twisted wreckage of the entryway, a small attack ship designated KLZ-204 rushes out into space, cutting off a transport fifty times its size. Inbound traffic grinds to a halt as debris from the station drifts into the arrival lane, and frantic radio traffic jams the airwaves as police and military vessels alike peel off their courses in pursuit of the rogue ship, which sets a course directly for the sord; its gateway to freedom.
The chase is eerie to watch, simply because of the vastness of the void. It takes fifteen minutes for the ship to reach the sord, but as the fastest ship type in the area pursuit is hopeless. A group of ships, on patrol around the sord, stands between the escapees and freedom. It fires on the outlaws, and scores a few solid hits, but it is too little, too late. The hijacker flicks the controls and barrels past and across the barrier between dimensions. The other ships try to pursue, but they can’t accelerate fast enough to keep pace, and KLZ-204 fades from sensors. Millions of eyes stare in disbelief at their computers and televisions. A Xanthalian ship, a warship... has been taken from under the noses of the police and military. Forty-five hundred metric tons of Xanthalian government property... gone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Oh yes,” William Crichton, their pilot crows. “We define intense! We are the gurus, the masters of intensity. Shine on baby, boom! Damn, did you see those moves? I f***ing own you!”
“Your humility, as always, is an inspiration to us all,” Jennifer, the operations specialist, checks him. “Sir,” she addresses the captain, “I’m having a lot of difficulty trying to conduct repairs and figure out where we are at the same time. This whole planespace business is sweet, but normally officers would train weeks to navigate effectively. It would be really keen if you could get someone to staff navigation. I’ll bet the computer is way better at this than I am.
“Yeah, no sh*t,” Bill agrees. “I hardly know if I haven’t turned around to head right back to where we started. I am the epitome of manly piloting prowess, but without some sort of instruction this is more of a learning wall than a learning curve, if you catch my drift.”
Cody, relaxing at the rear of the bridge, which is tiny and cramped like everything else in the ship, sighs. “We took some damage in our getaway, Jen. Has Sandra figured out repair estimates yet?”
“Yeah, looks good for the most part; but our port sensor grid is messed up. What’s worse, we really need to be docked to fix it, and I don’t think we’re gonna be welcome in the more straight-laced sectors after this. Not to criticize Sir,” she directs this at Omar, “but you really pissed off the Man with this idea.”