Issue #1 - Nth Degree

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P.S.—I st
…from our publisher
PUBLISHER/EDITOR
Michael D. Pederson
SUBMISSIONS EDITOR
Robert Balder
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Cate Twohill
WEB DEVELOPMENT
Brandon Blackmoor
R. Craig Enslin
Winter 2002, Issue 1
CONVENTION LIAISON
Lloyd Montgomery
CONTENTS
FEATURES
Small Press Picks by Chris Tompkins..................................................................2
Peer Pressure by Brandon & Susan Blackmoor...................................................4
Conventions ............................................................................................................6
FICTION
Beatles by Kevin Ginsberg......................................................................................8
Stuck in the Private Sector Blues by Lloyd Montgomery .............................10
POETRY/FILKS
Technobabble World by Talisman ......................................................................7
COMICS
Bob the Angry Flower by Stephen Notley .........................................................5
PartiallyClips by Robert Balder.............................................................................6
Cover Illustration by Doug Welsh
Nth Degree is a free publication, and may be distributed by authorized distributors only. We encourage you to
submit your manuscripts, illustrations, or photographs, but cannot guarantee the return of any unsolicited materials.
All contributors retain individual rights to their contributions. Nth Degree, 1867 Ivystone Drive, Richmond VA
23233, 804-754-2301, Fax 804-754-2302, email [email protected]. Nth Degree is ™ and © by Big
Blind Productions, March 2002.
Winter 2002
1
SMALL PRESS PICKS
Chris Tompkins
Mmmmm… Stinky cheese…
Welcome to Chris’ Small Press Picks, now
“Lessers”) to grab up as many provinces as they can reach.
in Smell-O-Vision! Smell the cheesy goodness of these litDifferent types of terrain confer varying amounts of treastle known and oft overlooked beer-and-pretzel jewels.
ure for every turn that you occupy them. Powerful superEvery issue I will be doling out a heaping helping of
natural entities (“Forms”) and lots of wacky spells are availgames—card, board, and computer—that we here at Nth
able in exchange for “Fury” points that you earn with your
Degree feel have been sorely pushed aside by the
victories. You can also invest in fortresses and temples.
Mainstream Machine and left for dead. Remember, all the
If Evernight was just another expand-and-upgrade
giants of the gaming industry started small. To look
contest, it would be pretty thin gruel; but after a few
towards the future of gaming means to look away from the
ticks the multi-player interaction kicks in. When you are
Mega-Advertising and look to the small gaming compafighting over a huge map with fifty or more competing
nies. Enjoy the cheddar!
players the possibilities heat up fast for deal-making,
For all those folks still
resource-swapping,
ducking the online-gaming
alliances, double- and
phenomenon, VR1 Entertriple-crosses, and some
tainment’s Evernight may
really fine misdirection
be your entry drug.
and duplicity.
Evernight combines plenty
Beginners can play a
of interesting human interfree game to see how they
actions with the leisurely
like it; registered users
chess-like pleasures of a
pay only five dollars a
solid turn-based fantasymonth, and can play up
strategy game.
to eight games simultaneEvernight simply uses
ously (about as many as
your internet browser as an
anyone could handle). I
interface. The game conurge you to give it a try at
A sample map from VR1 Entertainment’s Evernight.
sists of maps, statistics
http://evernight.vr1.com.
tables, and email communications—all presented in a
After only three days of play, you’ll be hooked, even (or
series of dynamically-generated web pages (interspersed
especially) if you’ve been skeptical about online games
with some high-quality graphic images).
before now.
You set your own pace for the game; taking as much
(or as little) time as you need to manage your empire,
Anyone who has ever played one of the classic-style rolestudy the maps, ponder the importance of emails, and to
playing games has been through the standard prototypical
execute each phase of your strategy. When you are finsmall village. You know the scenario… Adventurers casuished, click on “Done” and go about your business. Later
ally stroll into a small idyllic village and do as they wish,
on (usually in the wee hours of the morning), the system
while the villagers sit back and do little more than offer the
analyzes the maps and statistics, and the game advances
occasionally useful rumor. In the miniatures microgame,
by another “tick.”
When Good Villagers Go Bad (Inner City Games
Typically, each game begins with a land-grab rush, in
Designs), the happy-go-lucky villagers are not gonna take
which players deploy their non-magical units (called
it any longer!
2 Nth Degree
At the beginning of the game, players choose sides to
play either the villagers or the adventurers. The goal of the
game for the villagers is to convince the adventurers that
their attitudes and actions are
not appreciated in this
town—the townspeople have
the ever-popular tar-andfeathers option to fall back
on if the adventurers happen
to be particularly stubborn.
On the flip-side, the goal of
the adventurers is to teach
the villagers a lesson in hospitality by cruelly murdering
them, looting their homes,
and burning the peaceful litHoney, company’s coming.
tle village to the ground. The
Better put the tar on to boil!
adventurers are—of course—
much stronger, but the villagers have them outnumbered
by six to one, so the game isn’t weighted to any one side.
As the adventurers proceed with their looting, burning, and killing they must constantly be aware of line-of-
sight for all of the villagers. Every time that a villager witnesses a crime against anyone or anything in the village
there is a chance that the town will collectively become
increasingly angrier. The worse the crime, the greater the
chance. And as the villagers get more and more irate, their
stats increase until the adventurers find themselves facing
an angry mob.
The game is played using Victory Points to determine
the winner. Villagers earn points by removing Courage
Points from the adventurers; scoring the big points by running the adventurers out of town. Adventurers earn their
Victory Points simply by killing, burning, and looting
their way through town. The game ends when the last
adventurer has been run out of town or when the village is
burned to the ground.
If this strikes your funny bone in a particularly sick and
twisted way then go to www.fuzzyheroes.com. For other
good beer-and-pretzel laugh-riots, check out My First
LARP, (your name here) of the Jungle, and Who’s Your
Daddy? the game of paternity battles.
Chris Tompkins can be contacted at [email protected].
Celebrate your individuality,
your family, and your house!
Contact Doug Welsh to plan a working
sketch for your…
Por traiture in Oil
Black & white or color.
Matching prints and notecards available.
Great for gifts and invitations!
DCWelshArt.com
•
1-804-359-8151
Order Now!
Images © 2002 Doug Welsh, Richmond, VA.
Winter 2002
3
PEER PRESSURE
Brandon and Susan Blackmoor
Sometimes, dead is better.
Remakes nearly always fall into one of two
categories: bad remakes of classic movies, and bad
remakes of crappy movies. John McTiernan’s Rollerball
(2002, PG-13) is both: it’s a bad remake of a classic
crappy movie.
In the original Rollerball (1975, R), James Caan is a
star player of the eponymous roller-derby/demolitionderby sport. It’s not Brazil, but the dystopian vision of
the film is a convincing one
that still stands up reasonably
well today. James Caan, a talented character actor who
combines the meanness of
James Coburn with James
Garner’s easygoing charm,
was perfectly cast as Jonathan
E., and the endlessly imitated
John Houseman does a stunning job as the vile corporate
mouthpiece. It’s a bit talky by
today’s standards, but the original Rollerball is still a
fine evening’s entertainment.
In contrast, McTiernan’s Rollerball is far less talky, but
what dialogue there is makes little sense. Creative subtitling would probably improve it, although that might rob
it of some of its unintentional humor. The scenes of the
Rollerball game itself are, incredibly, even more frenetic
than those in the original, which means that the action is
impossible to follow rather than merely difficult. Jonathan
Cross, played with mayonnaisian blandness by the inexplicably popular Chris Klein, makes no impression at all.
Even L.L. Cool J. (Deep Blue Sea), Rebecca RomijnStamos (X-Men), and Jean Reno (The Professional) can’t
combine their powers to overcome the monumentally stupid script and choppy editing.
Don’t pay to see Rollerball in the theatre: wait for it to
come to video, and then rent something else.
Michael Rymer’s Queen of the Damned (2002, R),
however, is a movie that needs to be seen in a theatre to
4 Nth Degree
be fully appreciated. A loose film adaptation of a novel
by Anne Rice, Queen of the Damned will doubtlessly be
reviled by Anne Rice fans for daring to veer from the
holy text of the matriarch (the same sort of people who
decried the treatment of Farmer Maggot in Lord of the
Rings). Film aficionados will be more concerned with the
huge, gaping plot holes. But let’s be frank: it’s a vampire movie, of course there are plot holes (Blade, anyone?). We don’t go to a vampire movie for intricate plots
or a complex emotional landscape, we go to a vampire
movie for cool costumes, sexy protagonists, and some
spooky cinematography. Queen of the Damned delivers
these in spades.
The late R&B singer Aaliyah plays the title role of
Akasha, who is awakened by a disturbingly Crow-like
Lestat (played by Stuart Townsend) and proceeds to run
amok. Arrayed against her
are a number of fashionplate vampires who happen
to like the status quo. For
the next couple of hours,
they pose and stare with a
pleasantly goth-pop soundtrack. Aaliyah is simply deliAaliyah vamps it up in the
cious as Akasha, and Stuart
latest Anne Rice adaptation.
Townsend does as good a
job as the infamous Lestat as any mortal man is likely
to. Classic cinema? No: it’s a vampire movie, with all of
the silliness and melodrama that entails. But Queen of
the Damned is a fun “date movie” (if your date isn’t a
film student or an obsessed Anne Rice fan), and the
costumes and cinematography are good enough to warrant repeat viewings.
Pay to see Queen of the Damned in the theatre. When it
comes to video, see it again with Blade and really treat
yourself.
Brandon & Susan Blackmoor can be contacted at
[email protected].
SPACE IS
Your Zines Printed Cheap
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Winter 2002
5
CONVENTIONS
MarsCon 2002, January 11-13
Clarion Hotel, 500 Merrimac Trail
Williamsburg, Virginia 23185
MarsCon promotes themselves as
Southeastern Virginia's premier Science
Fiction/Fantasy/Gaming Relax-a-Con.
That’s a pretty narrow field of competition, but it’s still a fun con.
This year’s con had approximately
five-hundred members; counting staff,
guests, and dealers.
For a quiet little Relax-a-Con,
MarsCon had a pretty solid schedule of
events. Sci-Fi Win, Lose or Draw; four
LARPs, ranging from Machiavellian
Madness to Vampire and Werewolf
themes; filking by White Plectrum; a
skit and improv show by Luna-C, a
local comedy troupe; a charity auction
(more on that later); and their main
event, a performance by the Women of
Whimsey (teachout.net/WoW). WoW
have been performing at MarsCon for
six years now and they’re a constant
favorite with con-goers.
6 Nth Degree
Like all good cons, MarsCon had a
well-stocked Dealer’s Room. The
usual run of vendors were there selling
jewelry, music, comics, books, gaming
supplies, and the various oddities that
go over well with con crowds.
This year’s charity was the Heritage
Humane Society of Williamsburg, a
non-profit organization dedicated to
finding homes for dozens of dogs and
cats each year. The animals are not put to
sleep, but are kept until they all find
homes. The auction proceeds ($1800)
went toward purchasing food, kitty litter, chew toys, and upkeep of the facility.
As an added bonus, the HHS brought in
four cats and three puppies on Saturday
afternoon to show con-goers what the
HHS was all about. The animals were a
smashing hit with everyone present, and
the animals that were brought to the con
found homes in the days afterward.
Next year’s MarsCon is already
scheduled for January 24-26, 2003. For
more info, visit www.marscon.net.
CONVENTION
SCHEDULE
M A R C H - M AY
March 15-17
Stellarcon 26
Greensboro, NC
March 15-17
Technicon 19
Blacksburg, VA
March 21-24
Festival of Books
Charlottesville, VA
March 29-31
Madicon 11
Harrisonburg, VA
March 30
Gamecon 16
McLean, VA
April 12-14
OmakeCon
Roanoke, VA
May 3-5
May 24-27
Malice Domestic 14
Arlington, VA
Balticon 36
Baltimore, MD
“Technobabble World”
by Talisman
tune “Top of the World” by The Carpenters
I can boost a sensor signal gain.
I can even fix a positronic brain.
I know a core from a coil,
From a phytophillic foil,
But I hate it when they ask me to explain.
I was never good at being clear.
So I thought I’d be a Starfleet engineer.
Now when they ask me what’s wrong,
I give them a dance and song,
And I tell them I can fix it in a year.
I’m on the top of a pylon lookin’
Down on the station
And the only explanation I can find,
Is that the tachyon tube
Needs a hyperstatic lube,
’Cause I’m, living in a technobabble world.
I was testing quantum gravity,
When I opened up a subspace cavity.
And then I let loose a gas
That turned half the crew to bass,
So I guess the captain’s pretty torqued at me.
I installed a plasmatropic node,
But I think it
caused a cascade overload.
And now the crew on seven decks
Has had a sudden change of sex,
But I bet it makes a darn good episode!
I’m on the top of a pylon lookin’
Down on the station
And the only explanation I can find,
Is that the warp unit fits,
But the coupling’s on the fritz,
’Cause I’m living in a technobabble world.
I’m on the top of a pylon lookin’
Down on the station
And the only explanation I can find,
Is that the conduit we used
Blew a monatomic fuse…
[pause]
I mean the sensor array
Caused our leptons to decay…
[pause]
No, the
electrophonic…
sink
Turned the pseudo…
dampers…
pink?
[pause, covering face]
They’re all just lousy machines,
I don’t know WHAT the
hell it means!
I’m just living in a technobabble world.
Help!
Illustration by Dan Fahs
Winter 2002
7
Beatles
by Kevin Ginsberg
Illustration by Michael D. Pederson
I haven’t been able to find my “thing” in
life, although I know for a fact that is doesn’t involve
poultry. Not the biggest revelation in the world, but it’s
nice to rule things out nonetheless. For a long time I
thought I might become a musician. I read Paul
McCartney’s autobiography to find out how he did it
and tried to follow the same path. I met a fella by the
name of John, then met a guy named George, and then
a man named Raul. That was the closest I could get to
Ringo. None of these men could play an instrument,
but George did a very interesting interpretive dance to
the song “Lady Madonna.”
John and I would sit around writing songs, some
good, some not so good. Our best song was one about
John’s sister Martha who only had one ear. The song was
called “One-eared Martha,” and it’s chorus consisted of
Martha repeating the lines, “Talk to my left side, left
side, left side.” We couldn’t have been more pleased with
the song, but like all great works of art, it went primarily misunderstood.
Raul suggested that we make a pilgrimage to visit
the Maharishi. The entire group agreed that such a trip
would truly be following the blueprint laid out by the
Beatles. The difference between us and the Beatles was
our income. We were only able to come up with
enough money to visit The Spectacular Kirk, a self proclaimed prophet and taxidermist. There was a lot of
talk about The Spectacular Kirk not actually having a
taxidermy license, but to us he was the closest thing we
were going to get to the Maharishi. We set up an
8 Nth Degree
appointment with him and invited Mia Farrow, who
declined. We were able to bring along an agoraphobe
named Prusella, giving us much of the same effect. We
wrote a song about her too.
When we arrived at The Spectacular Kirk’s apartment he was in the middle of drying out a bald eagle.
We asked him if it were not illegal to hunt bald eagles.
He slowly turned his head to us and winked. That told
us all that we needed to know, we were in the presence
of greatness. The Spectacular Kirk asked us to remove
our shoes. George commented on how similar that was
to the great Maharishi; Kirk let us know that he just
happened to notice that Raul had stepped in dog shit.
Kirk excused himself to go to the bathroom and we
couldn’t help but to snoop around a bit. We found pictures of Kirk with many celebrities, including the musical groups Winger and Stryper, and Danny Bonaducci.
We all agreed that we were on the right path.
The Spectacular Kirk came from the bathroom and
invited us to meditate. We sat in a circle and hummed
as Prusella sat alone in a bedroom. When the meditation
was over Raul and John admitted to feeling very relaxed,
while George and I were looking for something more.
We couldn’t quite put our finger on what it was until
The Spectacular Kirk mentioned something about
drugs. Then the light bulb lit. The Beatles did a lot of
drugs, and it was said to have expanded their minds.
Kirk apologized for not having any drugs himself, but
suggested that we put on some coffee and drink “a
LOT” of caffeine.
We began drinking the coffee, and we were bouncing
off the walls in no time. This prompted us to write our
most intriguing song to date, “We Like Coffee a Lot.” We
left The Spectacular Kirk and all agreed later that he was a
fool. We couldn’t think of a good song to write about him
though, I doubt anyone could.
The band eventually broke up after John adopted a
Shar-pai. Most people think that they are ugly, but John
loved it. It was probably best that we broke up. We had
accumulated one hundred and nineteen songs and performed none of them. We were fortunate enough to have
one of our songs performed by a local bar band called The
Sofas. They did an outstanding job on our song, “Don’t
Waste Your Socks.”
To make a long story short, I’ve now ruled out being a
rock star. Currently I’m scooping ice-cream at a local dairy
shop, but I’m about two thirds into President Nixon’s
book, so look out Washington!
Subscribe Now!
Exciting New Fiction • Informative Reviews
PartiallyClips • Bob the Angry Flower
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visit www.fictionshowcase.com.
Announcing the all-new
Bob the Angry Flower book!!!
152 pages, Foreword by Keith Knight
With great book-only stuff such as: Lotsa color pages!
U.N. Field Guide to the Devices and Weapons of
BtAF! Special book-only strips!
Tons o’ Annotations! and much much in addition!
All this for only $11.00!
Shipping & Handling: $3.00
And of course, it is forbidden to forget
these other two fine books as well…
In Defense of Fascism, 144 pages
Foreword by Fish Griwkowsky
Bob Gallery and more
$10.00; Shipping & Handling: $3.00
Coffee with Sinistar, 140 pages
Foreword by Dan Harmon
Random notes, color and more
$10.00; Shipping & Handling: $3.00
To order, mail a cheque or money order to:
Stephen Notley, #2 8125 104 St., Edmonton, AB
T6E 4E4, Canada
Please send me…
❑ Everybody vs. Bob the Angry Flower ($14.00)
❑ In Defense of Fascism ($13.00)
❑ Coffee with Sinistar ($13.00)
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Address _____________________________________________________
City _________________________ State _________ ZIP ____________
Winter 2002
9
STUCK IN THE
PRIVATE SECTOR
BLUES
BY
LLOYD MONTGOMERY
Message Begins
Confederation Military Forces,
Bauer-Rim Worlds Theatre of
Operations
To:
Commander, Long-Range Explorer
Corps, Hellstrom Base
Special Orders RE:
Completion of Enlistment
Fandrill, Richard L.
(CSN 142-665-2973) Lieutenant
(Senior Grade)/Flight Commander
Confed LREC-2nd Battalion-Air
Support, attached to Task Force 4/2
Khan’shrr Mrenn, Feerann
(CSN 996-438-2975) Platoon
Sergeant/Scout-Sniper
Confed LREC-2nd Battalion-Recon,
attached to Task Force 4/2
Individuals listed will proceed via
Confed transport to Hellstrom Base,
Bauer-Rim Worlds upon completion of
current assignment, and will report
to Commanding Officer LREC for separation from active duty as per current regulations. Individuals are
to remain listed as Active Reserve
for a period of not less than one
Standard Year. All perquisites for
rank are to apply.
Message Ends
10 Nth Degree
It’s all about a fight. I can’t really say that all the important parts of my life have involved a fight; I don’t remember
my childhood being particularly violent, despite growing up
in a place called Ares. It just seems like several of the important bits later on always ended up in a fight. I’ve talked to perfectly normal people who go through life without the first hint
of conflict. I can’t really complain; it’s a damn sight more
interesting than being a groundhog, poor fools they. I suppose
that choosing a job like small-craft pilot for Confederation
might be the reason that violence always found me.
Everybody always shoots at the little guys.
I thought that would change when I left the Explorer
Corps. I was wrong.
After mustering out at Hellstrom Base, Khan and I got on
the first low-tech, low-life, low-class civilian freighter that we
could find. Destination unimportant. Khan, by the way, is an
Ithri, and falls into all the classic Ithri stereotypes—basically
stone crazy. And yes, her full name sounds like she’s coughing
up a hairball.
Our final destination was, of all places, Alpha Centauri.
AC was the furthest you could get from Civilized Space and
still be able to fly out when you wanted to. Granted, that isn’t
saying a lot. Most of what goes in and out of AC barely qualifies as FTL. Indie freighters—either one step above or below
the pirate line—bulk carriers from the major haulers, and the
occasional military craft are about it for there.
In keeping with the great traditions of the Explorer Corps
we did what any red-blooded (literally in our case) ex-military
beings would do upon mustering out; we got truly ripped. Keep
in mind that the Ithri, as a race, subscribe to a rather fatalistic
philosophy—they don’t care if they live or die. The whole race
understands that they’re going to check out eventually, so there’s
no sense in worrying about it. Whatever the excuse, this makes
for some memorable parties. Which is pretty much what we did
for about a week; blowing off the accumulated pressure of a
long campaign in places civilized beings didn’t dare to venture.
I am continually glad that the other prevalent species in the
galaxy, like the Ch’ and Sari, find alcohol as much fun as we do;
though every race finds its own way to get messed up. I’m convinced that those who don’t discover some method of recreationally killing brain-cells self-destruct before they get this far.
It’s a big headache being a civilized race; sometimes you have to
find a way to turn your brain off and act silly.
After the dust of a seven-day-long bender had subsided—
beer consumed, tail chased, bars emptied, fines paid, and hav-
ing dragged Khan’s sorry ass out of the third casino in a row
(gambling and death wishes seem to go hand-in-hand)—we
realized that our mustering-out pay wasn’t going to go much
further. You’d think that former members of the
Confederation Long-Range Explorers (the cream of Confed
military forces, just ask anyone) would be worth more. And
since everything there cost like crazy, it was time for us to start
exploring new career paths.
We were beginning to regret the choice of Alpha C as our
mustering out destination. We had been retired in the Rim
Worlds though, so our options were limited—the Rim Worlds
being a far-flung collection of old Imperial planets just recently rediscovered and admitted to Confederation. I’ve been told
by people who study this sort of socio-political crap that AC
has enormous potential to contribute to the rebuilding of CSpace, but at the time all I could see was a handful of gravitywells just barely out of the Dark Ages. It says something when
Alpha Centauri is the best of the lot. The rest were even less of
a dream choice. Who really wants to end up on some zero-tech
hole like Montclair? Step right up, the next starship will be
along any year. Most of those places didn’t see an FTL vessel
more than once a generation or so. At least at Alpha Centauri
you could see some movement outside the planetary envelope.
Y’see, AC had once been a major Imperial shipyard, a couple of hundred years ago, before the Empire did the big Crashand-Burn. I wasn’t there, but the history books make it out to
be one serious mess. Every planet in the Empire lost FTL
capability one way or another, mostly by having it shot out
from under them. It was over a century from the fall of the
Fraser Dynasty to the establishment of Confederation.
Looking at all the leftovers in the Alpha C system—orbital
defense bases, drydocks, and enough derelict ships to make
your own spacefleet—it made you wonder who, other than
themselves, could have brought the Imperials down.
Historically, empires have always been their own worst enemy.
This bunch had been no different, over-expansion, internal
dissent, and an annoying tendency to mess with peoples genes
had spelled the end of this Empire. At its height though, the
Imperial spacefleet must have been huge, if the remnants were
any indication. So there we were in the galaxy’s biggest junkyard, the remains of several centuries worth of Imperial expansionism all around us. Name your price and buy it by the kilo.
And everybody did; even Imperial junk was a quantum leap
higher than what most Free Traders try and fly with.
The vultures had been feeding off the carcass of Alpha
Centauri for almost a century now, with little care for what
they left behind. The smell off the shipyards and scrapyards
had become an ingrained part of the atmosphere; a combination of metal oxides and free radicals wafted through the stew
that they called air. The entire city surrounding the starport
smelled like a year-long tire fire. I’ve always preferred cockpits
to armpits like that one.
Checking the datanet for possible employment The Day
After did not improve my outlook on life.
“Khan, my love, I don’t suppose you know WinTenX data
processing procedures? There’s an Administrative Assistant
position open at Blueshift Passenger Lines that has your name
all over it.” OK, it was a poor joke, but the sun hadn’t even
cleared it’s way through this rock’s soup of an atmosphere yet.
From the response I got, a pillow to the back of the head, I figured she wasn’t up to learning to ride herd on an admin deck
this early in the day. She grumbled something in Ithri about
how I should go tell the God of War that he was having problems with his sexual orientation and rolled over, stealing my
pillow to cover her head.
“How about a couple of berths on an indie leaving for the Sari
Directorate? They’re asking for a co-pilot and a quartermaster.”
“Richard, you silly primate. The Sari are the most civilized
Sphere in this galaxy, no independent freighter has a reason to
go there. That bunch are pirate wannabes that will change their
flight plans before they jump and we will end up on Tortuga,
or running guns to some hole with a revolution to fight.”
“Here’s one for a company selling ’droid parts to the
Pleiades Far Side. They need a comptroller, two ’techs, and a
programmer.” I was just winding her up at this point, I still
owed her for the last bar fight.
“Fan, do not make me get up and kill you this early in
the morning.”
“Yeah, like you could find the floor, lightweight. I told you
not to drink Sari nectar and try and chase it with GathShemani ale.”
“Mraa, and who carried who back to the room this morning, you no-cargo-carrying flyboy?” She had me there, I had
to think fast.
“That’s only because some tiger-striped lunatic decided to
pick a fight with a member of her own species. Him and five
of his friends, just because he made a pass. Then she left me
no recourse but to stand up for the honor of the Corps while
she made like a ghost.” Actually, she had been teaching the
horny loudmouth some manners, but I wasn’t going to let
Winter 2002
11
reality get in the way of a good rant.
“Did we get in the same fight? As I recall I took down four
of them while you were kissing floor. Even the Tish… Besides,
that tan had it coming, asking me to sleep with him.” Tan
meant a normal Ithri, most of the race are light brown. Sports
like Khan have stripes, even other Ithri think they’re nuts. The
feline Don Juan last night must’ve been cruising for a new thrill.
“Bah, I loosened up the lizard-horsey for you and you
know it.” That was the Tish, they’re friggin’ huge, and covered
with armor plate to boot.
“Grrr, why am I talking to you at this hour? Even the Gods
do not know this time of day, truck driver.”
“Feh, low-life grunt.”
“Airedale.”
“Drop rat.”
“I bet all the monkey-girls just love you. Go to Rainforest
and start a new vocation as a gigolo.”
“I’ll drop you off at Wayside, you could do the freak circuit.”
“That does it, I am putting you down on my appointment
calendar: ‘Twelve-o’clock: Disassemble the loudmouth.’ Grrr,
maybe one-o’clock.” Khan is not a light sleeper. She can stay
awake for days if she has to, but when she crashes, she really
crashes. The only way to get her moving is to piss her off so
bad that getting up and thumping you seems like a good idea.
The dumbest or toughest person in her platoon always got the
job of waking her up. Most of them lived through it.
“C’mon, Kitty-Kitty. Time to get up and find a job, LREC
isn’t going to pay you to take up space any more.” By those of
us who are left, aka The Few, LREC is pronounced ‘el-wreck.’
“What do you want for an epitaph? How about; ‘He was
a good person despite his suicidal tendencies?’ or perhaps,
‘Most people will miss him?’” She was waking up, in Ithri that
last comment was a zinger.
“Half speed at best, General Issue.”
“Give me a moment, then I shall cut you apart verbally.
Right before I cut you apart physically.” Nope, she was still on
the killing me diatribe. She wouldn’t count as conscious until
she came up with a better line of bullshit.
“Big talk from someone naked, hungover and horizontal.”
“I would like to formally thank you, Richard. No matter
how bad the rest of my day is, from here on out it can get no
worse.” Better.
Even during the last exchange, I was still checking the
‘Wanteds’ for a new career for us.
“Darling-darling, how’d you like to get paid almost-serious
12 Nth Degree
money as a ‘Security Consultant’?” This one looked like a real job.
“Talk to me. Due to a certain person’s charm, I am almost
awake.” Her head was out from under the pillow, one ear up
and the other down.
“Konstantine Metalworks,” that meant a wholly-owned
subsidiary of Konstantine Shipbuilding, one of the Big Five
corporations that owned the starports around here, “is looking for beings, ideally ex-military, to act as—near as I can tell
from reading the ad copy—guards for shipments from their
scrapyard to the ’port.”
“Why should we be interested?”
“Because they are paying stupid cash for us to do so.”
“Define stupid.”
“Cr. 200 a day, offense/defense provided.”
“Reason enough, call them.”
So with our training, the only honest jobs to be found
were riding shotgun on truckloads of Imperial scrap going
from one of the bigger junk heaps to the starport. Sure, we
had our choice of illegal jobs, but we’d just gotten out of the
most legal gig in Civilized Space that lets you carry guns; who
wants to fall that fast? We might walk down the stairs of legality, we weren’t going to jump. Of course there was always what
the Employment Agency called “Unspecified Labor,
Unskilled.” Translation: grunt-work at the starport. Given a
choice between guarding crates and moving crates, I’ll take the
job with the sidearm.
Face it, neither of us would ever again fit into the groundhog mold; clock-in, clock-out, do your job, and don’t rock the
boat. That was the classic military trap. Take a person and give
them the best training in the universe, but at the same time
change their basic mindset so that they can never truly be a pure
civilian again. Make the military their only home and they will
never want to take the skills that you have given them and offer
them to another employer. Re-enlistment for the Explorer
branch has always been high. Hell, I did eight and Khan did
twelve for them. I was honestly surprised when our dates came
up and she chucked it in with me, no guarantees but my winning smile. Sure, there are the exceptions—pilots working the
cruise circuit, scouts signing on as executive security personnel
or as ’port cops—but most of them keep returning to the nest.
Some of us just can’t resist the lure of freelancing though.
Ok, I might have been able to land a job with the Star Pilots
Guild as a shuttle driver—ships came and went fast and furious
around here—but it would have been a solo, and Khan and I
had been through too much to break up the team over some-
thing as piddly as poor cashflow. She was good at her job, but
there’s never been a big call for snipers in the private sector.
What the hell. The guard job paid us good money just to
stand around with a gun and drink coffee for eight hours a day.
The worst grief we got was from starport security. The depths to
which we had sunk; being laughed at by ’port cops. Even the
lousy gear they carried was about twenty years up the technological ladder from what Konstantine Metalworks outfitted us with.
✧ ✧ ✧
Then came the day of the fight. I mentioned the fight, didn’t I? It seemed like a normal garbage run to me. Khan and I had
done this a couple times already so it was no big deal. We were
each assigned to a separate truck, kitted out in low-tech body
armor, and issued a riot-stunner, with our blasters for backup.
The two hovertrucks were each the size of a seventy-five
ton Main Battle Tank, sans guns, with the four cargo containers lashed onto them. The damn things were huge and
nobody was going stop one with anything less than an orbital
weapons platform once they overcame their inertia.
The only thing making that drive different from the run of
the mill garbage-haul was the large number of desk jockeys
hanging around the Konstantine Metalworks yard. I don’t know
how it is in your line of work, but in my experience critters wearing suits usually mean problems. They were all from the head
office at the ’port and they spent their time walking around,
looking at the load, typing onto keypads, and (you could feel it)
worrying that they were going to have to explain whatever might
go wrong. In their minds they were already trying to cover their
asses. The smell of their concern nearly drove Khan nuts.
“They are worried about something,” she mentioned as she
walked by me, growling softly in Ithri and twitching all over.
“About what? It’s a trash run.” I shot back, pissed not only
because she had just upset my hungover little world, but also
because she had spotted it before me.
“Don’t know, but it’s got to do with the cargo. I can hear
them talking about it. Sounds more important than usual.
Will not say what it is though.”
She still didn’t look happy, her striped fur was on end. The
only time I remember that happening was on a world in the
Disputed Territories—we were there to Reclaim the planet for
Confederation. The low-tech natives decided to debate planetary sovereignty with the duly designated members of
Confederation using shotguns and cannon. The odds that
time ran about six hundred to one, so you could see why I was
concerned now.
“Keep your pelt down, we run garbage. Y’know, scrap to
the ’ports.” I couldn’t think of anything that might have survived this long on a scrapped Imperial ship, despite their ohso-high tech reputation, that might get anyone excited. I knew
ships pretty damn well, not necessarily Imperials though. “All
the impressive stuff got claimed years ago. This crew is dealing
in power generators and conduits, maybe some fire control
systems. No big deal.”
“Do not tell me, Richard, tell them. They’re about to piss
themselves. (And they do not trust their Gods),” she came back.
The last part was pure Ithri. I had picked up that particular sentiment years ago; Khan’s people throw it around like we
use the phrase, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” It was
enough to make me wake up and forget the last six beers I’d
had the previous night. The Ithri have several sayings that
transcend normal bullshit. When they start using them it’s
time to find cover and check your gear. It means that they
are—well, I can’t call it scared, like I said they have no fear of
death—it’s more like they know that the fur is about to fly and
they want to share the fun with the rest of us. And she was
using my first name, which I hate. She only did it when she
was wound up.
If her instincts were giving her signals, I knew it was time
for me to wake up. I did a few mental exercises and went into
Almost-Full-Blown-Crazy mode, “Talk to me Khan, where’s it
coming from?”
I instinctively checked my weapon, realized it was a pisspoor riot-stunner, and wished that I’d saved enough cash to
keep my Explorer-issue Skorpion when I mustered out. You
can’t get a good multiple-duty weapon like that just anywhere.
“What am I? Esper? I’m just getting vibes and scents off
the targets.” Target being an Ithri slang term for anyone not
armed. She had slung her stunner and pulled out the autoblaster that I swear all her race are born carrying.
She wasn’t happy.
“All right then, Csi, wait C.” This last was some Confed
ground-pounder battletalk that meant, “If we can’t see it, we
wait for it.” It came out as “seesigh, waitsee.” I knew it would
calm her down, she lived to hear people talk to her in battlelingo, and the last thing I needed was for her to lose it on the
corporate executives simply because they smelled wrong. Like
everything on that planet didn’t smell funky.
Khan and I were up to full alert, the drivers were looking at
us like we had just grown wings, and the suits were dispersing to
do suit things. Maybe Khan was Esper, because suddenly things
Winter 2002
13
started getting weird. A glass crab—sorry, let’s be polite—a
Nossidar pulled up in a cab and sauntered across the flattop of
the junkyard, red sunlight flashing off his crystal carapace.
“Ok people! We need mag-lifts out here on the double!” he
ordered, like he owned the place. “And you,” waving a techpad at Khan, “I need a copy of the lading manifest. Let’s go!”
I thought he was toast right there. I could see Khan fingering her auto-blaster; her theory being, if you don’t understand it, shoot it.
“Come on, beings! I have one gross of Imperial crystalcard readers in this shipment, and I want them doublechecked before anything gets taken to the starport. Get to it.”
Maybe this guy missed the memo about heightened security. Maybe he was just a bureaucratic nutcase. Hard to say
with the Noss, they founded a star-travelling society about the
same time that humans were shooting rockets at the moon.
The Noss had taken a long, leisurely climb up the ladder of
interstellar civilization and had made few mistakes. It makes
them think the universe is a little less nuts than it really is.
“Is this a problem?” I asked Khan, hoping for some alien
insight.
“No clue,” she replied. Apparently I was on my own.
And then some dumbass decided to crash a starship on us.
✧ ✧ ✧
It happened literally that fast. One moment I was watching the Nossidar to see if he was going to blow up, draw a gun,
or go into a song-and-dance number. The next, there was an
ungodly crash as a civilian freighter did its best impression of
a stone thrown across a pond.
Skip.
Skip.
Crash!
Right through the middle of the damn junkyard. Straight
for us.
They drill it into you in the military, they really do. I
responded immediately, “Monitor Class Free Trader. Two Mk.
X blasters and two Mk. VI turbolasers. Single launch-tube.
Civ Delos shield generator, no armor.” I called out stats to
Khan as that multi-ton monster ceased being immune to gravity and hit the ground like it was trying to apologize to
Newton for all the grief we had been putting his laws through
for the past five hundred years. It hit a couple of hundred
meters off, skipped, hit again, tried to get lift from equipment
that had forgotten how to perform that particular magic, and
plowed through a couple tons of Imperial Era scrap. I could
14 Nth Degree
tell from where I was standing that they had suffered a major
malfunction in their atmospheric drives; you could hear them
screaming way out of tune. I could even hear the muffled
thumps as the engines’ power converters blew. Big problems.
They had the right idea, putting her down in a junkyard.
She’d never fly again.
“A-drives are out, converters are gone, she’s not getting
back up.” I let Khan know.
“Get the trucks out of here!” one of the execs was shouting, to no one in particular.
I didn’t care if the trucks were solid gold or full or
Astartian sex chicks; I wasn’t about to put myself between a
scraphauler and an out of control starship. Khan, the drivers,
and I were already hauling ass away from our rides when the
Free Trader hit. The trucks never stood a chance.
I hit dirt just before the truck closest to me burst apart.
Vehicle parts and Imperial electronics filled the air like a
swarm of Altarian Nightbats.
The Beast that Gravity Remembered slid on her stomach,
screaming like a banshee and throwing scrap to all sides, until
the main building for the junkyard got in her way. The two
met with a truly monumental crash. It took about a minute
for all the debris to hit the ground.
I yelled the immortal phrase, “Houston, we have a problem!” into my comm and drew my gun. Khan took cover. The
Free Trader had been headed our way when their drives blew;
I was sure they still had business with us.
I called out to Khan, “Two locks, port and starboard forward. No locks aft. Four cargo doors, two per side.” She was
on one side of the wreck and I was on the other. Normally,
communication would be a problem a hundred meters apart
with a giant flaming hull between us but, good soldiers that
we were, we had integrated our comms the minute we hit dirt
on this useless planet. Khan had forced me to do so on the
starport concourse while I was trying to find the first pisser
that didn’t belong to the scuzzy freighter we arrived on. She’s
the type of person who remembers to lock the door and check
her gun every night, dead drunk or not.
After less than a minute the two locks opened up and guys
with guns started rushing out. They were lightly armored in
combat/environment gear, carrying Scattershot SMGs and
hosing them around like they didn’t care who got the power
bill. I threw caution to the wind and assumed that they counted as the Bad Guys; our job description was a bit vague about
situations like this, seeing as how they had already destroyed
the trucks that we were supposed to be guarding. But then
again, I was on the ugly end of their fire.
I had shit-canned my riot-stunner as useless before the
Beast had finished its second bounce, so I was firing my blaster
at anything that moved. And there was a lot of shit moving.
The first man out my side stopped a blaster bolt with his
head and dropped dead in the airlock. There’s a safety tip for
you; don’t lead with your face. That stopped them. Briefly.
“Khan. Statchek,” I yelled into my open comm. The comm
hissed back at me. Either Khan was busy or something was
throwing out static interference on the commband. Like a
couple hundred tons of crashed spacecraft. Throttling back
my gag reflex, I moved through the foul cloud of smoke and
chemical fumes towards the ship.
And then he rushed me. One figure diving out of the
wreckage straight at me. I raised my blaster and unloaded
right into his chest. Two. Three shots. Dead on.
The headless body of the man I had killed about twenty
seconds ago fell at my feet. Through the smoke I caught a
brief flash of a laser sight and knew I’d been had.
I had just enough time to curse Konstantine Metalworks
one more time for not properly outfitting us. Given another
second or two I might have gotten around to cursing my own
stupidity as well. Oldest trick in the…
The air crackled orange around me as the shot screamed
past me from behind. From behind. Bad guy number two ate
it, no thanks to me.
“Damn, Khan. That’s one more I owe you…” How the
hell had she gotten there that fast?
“Yes, human. You do owe me for saving your life,” the
Noss said as he scrambled over the debris field, waving a holdout blaster the size of a pen. Apparently this was my day to be
surprised. I’d met Nossidar before and they weren’t renowned
for their bravery. The usual Noss response to a situation like
this was to dig a hole and hide, quietly muttering threats of
lawsuits. I figured he had some angle going. He was going to
steal something or sue somebody for this. And I was in his
debt. Just great.
Fire from two more, waiting in the airlock, sprayed down
the area I was hiding in as the Nossidar found some cover. The
scattershot hoses they were using had lousy penetrative capabilities—they were designed for use onboard space vessels—so
the rubble we were hiding behind took most of the abuse.
I crawled around the debris and, poking my head out from
behind a thick slab of sheared-off hull plating, began to lay
down cover fire for the Noss. In the space of about two seconds he had moved to a fortified position that gave him vantage on the two idiots left crouching in the airlock. Obviously
not big tactical geniuses; even when the Noss started firing on
them they refused to leave the airlock to find better cover.
After about thirty seconds of firefight they both went down.
I was heading for the entrance when the Noss stopped me,
“The door will be locked from the inside, let me go first.”
Someone willing to step in garbage before me? “Ok by
me,” I’ve never been burdened by guilt. “Get it open, we’ll
take the bridge,” I told him.
I knew where those hatches went; the bridge would be just
forward and to the left.
The Noss scuttled up to where I was standing. “These
civilian vessels have only rudimentary security,” he said, as he
pulled gadgetry out of nearly every pocket of his vest. “Watch
your ass left, human.” Using all four arms, he attached several of his toys to the lock and slid a fresh charge into his holdout blaster.
“I owe you one,” I mentioned as the lock cycled open.
“No, human. You owe me two now.” Wiseass.
Ignoring the Noss, I stepped into the ship.
The aft section of the ship was a wreck. I stepped forward,
looked right, and then turned left to the bridge—about four
meters—I could see the mess from where I stood. That first
skip must have taken out the grav-compensators. Anyone that
had been in the bridge at the time was turned to paint. A
frothy pink paint.
Gunfire erupted from the right side of the ship; Khan had
met the enemy.
Hauling ass for the starboard lock, I yelled to the Nossidar,
“Dump the ship’s computer to disk!” He had already pulled a
data storage cube from his vest and was starting his download
before I finished my sentence. Nossidar love playing with
other people’s computer systems; like Marines enjoy drinking
free beer. Give him enough time on the computer and he’d
own this piece of shit, and someone would owe him money
for parking it here.
I came out the starboard lock in time to witness another
group of hostiles learning the hard lesson not to attack a
Confederation Ithri Scout-Sniper without proper cover, like
maybe a tank. In under a minute, Khan had spotted them,
tagged them, and shot three out of four of them without working up a sweat. Well, I guess it’s a pant since Ithri don’t sweat.
I couldn’t make out the last man that Khan was squaring
Winter 2002
15
off with, dust and debris were everywhere. He had found
cover behind a heap of old comm panels that had survived the
near-destruction of the scrapyard and was spraying her position with flechettes. She was pinned down.
Old instincts kicked in automatically. Problem: Partner
trapped by hostile force. Could I take him out? Not while he
had cover. Solution: Provide distraction.
I ran screaming from the airlock, firing indiscriminately at
the comm panels.
As soon as I cleared the airlock, I could make out my
adversary. A H’sthai. H’sthai are three-meter-tall lizards with
bad attitudes that have built a reputation through not-so-civilized space as top-notch mercenaries. He was at least one step
higher on the evolutionary scale of gunfights than the guys he
was working with. He also had heavier armor, as I found out
the hard way.
Without bothering to get behind something, I snapped
two shots into his back. All he did was turn around to get a
bead on me. Make that much heavier armor. I dove for cover
as he filled the air with flechettes and could hear shots spanging off my armor. Fortunately, the suit I had on was designed
for stopping shrapnel and the occasional ricochet. Up close,
though, he’d tear right through me.
The H’sthai advanced quickly on me. He had me dead to
rights. Just where I wanted him.
Khan nailed him from the side. She put three shots in the
weak spot in his armor, right under his arm. He crumpled like
a ten-credit note left in the wash.
“Last down. Statchek bridge,” she asked, as I struggled out
from under the H’sthai.
Before I could respond, the Nossidar came scurrying out
of the ship. “This vessel is about to self-destruct, not too violently I assure you, but bad enough to render the immediate
area dangerous. The fusion drives are rigged to melt.” He
looked us both over with six eyes like cobalt blue marbles. “If
you have no other immediate business dealings here, I might
have an offer for the both of you.”
“Time to go then. Khan, the bus is leaving. Clear here.”
“Clear, my side,” she called back.
I needed no incentive to stop guarding garbage trucks, and
I didn’t want to stick around trying to explain this disaster to
the police or Konstantines squad of suits. One look at Khan
and I could tell she agreed. “Find out how well he pays and do
not sign anything,” she muttered into her comm as she broke
cover and walked towards us. Khan had stopped talking in
16 Nth Degree
battle-speak and had started using complete sentences again.
That usually meant it was safe to touch her without fear of losing a limb.
We made it, at a run, to the gate of the yard at the same
time the Free Trader’s engines went. More specifically; I ran,
Khan walked fast, and the Noss scuttled. It sounds like I’m
making him out to be a big hermit crab, but when he moved
fast he scuttled, his four crystal legs moving in different directions. It’s a tendency of the human race to oversimplify; Ithri
look like cats, Nossidar look like crabs, H’sthai look like
lizards, and Farthé look like demons. That’s ok, Khan jokes
that humans all look like meertuk—a small arboreal primate
they hunt for food.
The ass end of the Trader turned red and melted. Her
fusion plant’s containment field had failed and shut down.
As the Noss was signaling a cab I asked him, “What’s the
job? Konstantine Metalworks paid us well to ride herd on
their gear.”
“Also, do you have any damned idea what that was all
about?” my partner added.
“I can assure you that if I find what I’m looking for,
human, you and your partner will be rewarded with untold
riches.” He said it in an off-the-cuff blasé way that made me
figure he was either a nut or a serious criminal. Maybe he’d
just read too many bad adventure novels. “What you just saw
was a poor attempt to hijack the load you were guarding.”
“Yeah, that much I had already keyed into. All the lowpenetration weapons seemed to indicate pirates.” Dumb
pirates at that, I thought. Smart pirates keep their ships in better shape, making sure the engines don’t go crit on landing.
“What were they trying to steal anyway?”
“Old Imperial medical gear. It’s a pity it was destroyed.
One doesn’t often find Imperial medical equipment intact.”
That explained a lot—the nervous suits, the hijacking
attempt, and the Noss’ involvement—Imperial level doc gear
was in high demand; nobody’s been able to copy it.
“What do we call you?”
“I am Keethar.” The Nossidar like to keep it short in the
personal name department.
“Keeth, if you’re leaving this gravity-well, I think we can do
business.” I had seen enough of the planet to last me a while, and
I knew that Khan hated backwater holes like Alpha Centauri.
The atmosphere had to be driving her nose crazy. Even illegal or
semi-legal occupations were starting to look good.
Anything to get the smell off of us.
This issue of Nth Degree is dedicated to the memory of our friend
Dan Fahs
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