IN OUR LAST EPISODES: Blips, Foegarth, and Jaana were conducting the crew of the CONSTELLATION on a tour of the SOULSTAR, ending up in lounge. Darcie had just given the crew of the WEIRD, a stealth-capable ship which had destroyed three attacking stealth-warp fighters, permission to dock and come aboard. --- --- --- --- --- The lounge was actually very close. It was just down the hall a little ways, and around the corner in fact. It was a fairly large room, easily having room for everybody on the ship to gather in at once. There was a bar on the far side, and a large vidscreen on the wall. Too, there sat a poker table in the corner, and there were other tables as well. Foegarth headed straight for the bar and hopped over, then poured himself a very strong-looking drink. "Anybody want anything?" he asked after he had downed half of his own drink. He turned and began to pour drinks for the guests, then drew a round of beers for Blips and Jaana. Blips had meanwhile walked over to a chalkboard beside the bar, and changed some of the numbers that were on it. He then added another name to the bottom of the list, right below his own. Arla realized what it was. Down the left side were names, callsigns actually, and beside the names were two colums, the first labled Sorties, and the second labelled Kills. There were some other things scribbled beneath the name list. Records. She chuckled. Fighter jocks were fighter jocks the universe over, treating the whole thing like it was some kind of game. It was an attitude she could appreciate. The board looked something like this: Name Sorties Kills Cain 253 867 Moondog 124 243 Whirlwind 89 140 Cowboy 76 102 Mikado 85 100 Sunset 92 96 Lianna 63 54 Blips 13 12 Presto 1 3 Most kills in one: Cain 35 Longest dogfight : Cain Two hours, twenty minutes vs. Nolgath the Hunter. Most capital ships : Cain 240. --------------------------------------------- There were other records too, and this last Blips added on almost as if on an afterthought: Most kills in one day : Foegarth 38, in two sorties. It seemed that whoever the Cain fellow was, he was their best pilot--he held almost all of the records. A black look came across Blips's face as he slowly picked up the chalk and wrote something else beside two of the names. When he turned away and picked up his beer, Arla saw a look that might have been extreme sadness in his eyes. She looked to the board and saw that he had written "k/a" beside Sunset and Cowboy, and then she understood. Blips pulled a few tables together and the group gladly sat down to relax at long last. The mood was light and happy, and Blips was right back into telling jokes the way he always seemed to, but there was a dark light to his eyes that hadn't been there before. Somebody turned on the vidscreen to see if they could pick up any channels from the planet, but the LRC was apparantly still offline. A minute or so later, Dr. Talon walked in, looking a little weary, his brow still furrowed in a disapproving frown. He muttered as he shook his head and walked by the table on his way to the bar. "Thanks, Troy, thanks. You know, you've made me out to look the bad guy, and I know I'm never going to hear the end of this. He's already calling me a 'foul vivisectionist' and a 'cruel malpractitioner" for not letting him come up here." But there was a bit of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he poured himself a scotch and introduced himself to Blake, Steel and Edward, for things had heated so quickly in the landing bay that he had not yet had a chance to meet them. After they'd been there for about ten minutes, Blips excused himself. "I'm starting to feel the time I've been up," he explained. "If I can just make it to my room to pass out, you'll see me in twelve hours or so." He waved, and staggered out through the door. At about the same time, Darcie walked into the lounge. He went straight to the bar and poured himself a drink. It was a double, Arla noticed, and he belted it down rather quickly. Then he smiled as he poured another, waved to those at the table, and took a seat. "We've just had a couple of rather interesting encounters," he remarked. "Oh? How so?" Jake asked, sipping at his scotch and water (light on the scotch, heavy on the water). "It seems that three fighter craft, with stealth AND warpdrive capabilities, were just about to attack us." Darcie paused to let the import of this statement sink in: stealth AND warp drive. "Who would want to send something like that after us?" Foegarth wondered. "Who would even HAVE something like that?" "Between those fighters and your Imp-class cruisers, I would say that there is probably someone out there who doesn't like you," Jake remarked sagely, taking another sip at his drink. Darcie, in midsip himself, nearly snarfed his drink. "That's for sure. If you can tell us just who that IS..." He trailed off. "Wait a minute," Jaana protested. "Why weren't we alerted?" "The damnedest thing happened," Darcie replied. "Another stealth ship decloaked and destroyed two of the smaller fighters. It tried to take the third one in tow, but it got away." "But it could be back. There could be more of them. Why aren't we on full combat alert?" Foegarth asked. "Oh, we are," Darcie assured him. "Or, rather, all of us are except for you, Jaana, and Blips. We didn't really need you, and you deserved the time off, Blips especially. I was going to tell you after the tour was over, but since it seems to be almost over now, I thought this might be a good time." "What about this other ship?" Mako asked. "The one that stopped those three fighters?" "It called itself the WEIRD," Darcie replied. "We got some strange sensor readings off it. It was coming in to dock, but at the last moment they decided they might as well go on to Serendipity and meet us later. Last I heard, they were on a planetbound trajectory. Since we don't seem to be in any more danger for the moment, I decided to come down here and get something to drink." Jaana nodded. "Okay. I might as well finish my drink and get on down to Engineering, then. Just to make sure everything's combat-ready." She put down her empty glass and strode out of the room. The conversation gradually moved around to lighter subjects... Darcie laughed out loud as Sir Blake told them all how he and Hiroshi had mistooken each other for the enemy in the Imperial destroyer's landing bay and nearly fought. His laughter died in his thought however, as the door to the lounge opened and the red haired object of his misery entered and took a seat at the far side of the table beside Foegarth and Edward. Dandra didn't look quite so hostile anymore, and if Darcie hadn't been so blinded by his anger and smitten state, he would have seen that something was troubling her. He shrugged and tossed back the rest of his drink, then turned to listen to Sir Blake's tale again. He didn't have to look at her, he noted happily, when he was talking to Mako, Sharon and Blake. At last, the conversation wound down. As everyone was about to get up to leave, a beeping sound came from Sharon's pocket. She reached into the pocket, pulled out her portable headset, unfolded it, and clipped it onto the VR display visor. "Computer uplink, on," she ordered. An instrument panel appeared to be reflected in the glasses, and she reached up to the air in front of her and pressed imaginary buttons. "What is it?" Darcie asked. "I'm receiving two signals, on what are apparently this universe's common ship-to-ship shortrange comm wavelengths," Sharon announced. "One is from a spacetug that has just arrived; the other is scrambled, I can't read it." "The scrambled one must be Cain," Darcie realized. "He'll probably be worried...I'd better get back up to the bridge. I'll see you later." He bolted the last of his drink, got up, and ran for the door. "What about the spacetug?" Sharon asked. "Uh...it's probably here because of your arrival through a Rift. Why don't you talk to it yourself?" he asked, dashing through the door. Sharon shrugged. "Hmm. That's not a bad idea. Okay, I'm heading back to the, uh, CONSTELLATION's bridge to make the call." "I'll come too," Mako said, rising from the seat. "The rest of you can stay here if you want, but don't get into any trouble. We'll contact you on the commsets if we need you." "You got it," Jake answered, leaning back in his seat. "I could use a little R&R in earth-normal gravity." "I think I shall stay here as well," Sir Blake decided, glancing over at Dandra. "All right. We'll see you later," Mako said over his shoulder, as he and Sharon walked out the door.