ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
Date: 3724.912
Today I killed my first Aslan. Two, probably, but it was hard to check the bits. No different to any other shooting match & followed by the inevitable SNAFU, which demoted us to infantry. We were marooned in some godforsaken hole full of fossils in uniforms called Drinax (?) - [No, me neither] It's two jumps past "I'd shoot myself if I lived here" & way too close to enemy territory. Apparently these guys used to have their own little empire, which was wasted big time by the cats some time back. What they have is a floating palace about 5k long, some small S.D.B.s lots of artwork and a shed load of medals and titles. The planet below is toast. The tech is shiny, about TL15 but a bit exotic, however their manufacturing base is a back shed. They think they are making a comeback, which in real terms means that twenty years back they invaded the farm next door. Nothing since and their crown prince took big ouchie to his paint job- that took twenty years to fix(!). Funnily enough, just before we were mugged by three Aslan scouts, these guys found a semi junked ship which they think will remake their empire. Now, as if by magic, they now have a pretty skilled bunch of (deniable) crew for it. Funny old galaxy innit? If I believed in odds like that, I'd sell my kit & back racing slugs. So, this king asks his captive audience to become a crew. We have the use of a ship (or
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37
maybe just a ship, depending) which would be pretty good by all accounts, if it hadn't taken a good kicking. The rest of the crew? Not sure yet. All navy or scout types. They drive a boat pretty well & talk the talk, lets see how they walk. Myself, I think they all look much happier on the boat than on the ground, leaving poor little Tania to get all wet & messy, again. As long as no-one asks that ****ing renegade Aslan along for the ride, it'll work out. (I mean, I ask you, it thinks that fighting is best left to males! As if.)
THAO POLOC IMPERIAL CONSU L Appt. 4035 153 Floor, Drinax City Comms Code: 7L3288#3
Stuck on this dump
When you are the anvil, be patient. When you are the hammer, strike -Anon (Aslan)
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37
This place is totally surreal. It's like taking an acid trip in a really posh museum bathroom during a fancy dress convention. Picture a flying building 5km long. Pack it with the most expensive collection of artwork you have ever heard of, the fanciest decorations, plus some serous hi tech facilities. Finally, populate it with people who seem to pretend the rest of the universe barely exists and dress them in gaudy outfits. When the planet got totalled, they left the palace untouched. Must have been an interesting few months until the dust settled & they had food to eat, but no-one talks about that. There was a ruling class but nobody to rule. The maid’s sitting room
Everybody, I mean
EVERYBODY has a title. Hell, they all seem to have a dozen or more. The only way to establish someones status is by just how many they insist on using eaach time you meet them, but in reverse. The king seems happy with just one or two, but the cleaner will keep you there for twenty minutes. The crappier the job, the bigger the snob doing it. The place is a real pig to navigate. You can only go by the hall of ..., the statue of ... etc and after ten or more turnings the brain seems to lose any reference. (Don't tag the statues or
Train hard, fight easy... and win. Train easy, fight hard... and die. -Gen ‘Mad Jack’ Gaboodah
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37
marble columns to mark your route, they get seriously frosty worse in the lower levels, I don't want to know what's wandering the service tunnels. My old squad would enjoy their military. They each
wear
more medals than an admiral's toyboy and their gear is
so shiny
it's a menace in sunlight. their weapons look pretty, just
don't
bet your pay if they work or not. Some of the barrels
lo
ok polished a bit thin to me. Their navy are a couple of
sc
outs and a few SDBs. Thers a small pace to land a
boat,
just no repair facilities. Don't plan on buying or selling much here. Apart from history
A child of 10 gave me this medal. He got it for eating his vegetables.
about that. The place is a maze. By all accounts, it gets far
and art, they have nothing. I gather the booze all get made in one fountain!! (Paddling is forbidden.) Of course, depending on their rank, they call it different names, but there's no danger of mixing your drinks! The food is edible, but it's probably best not to ask any what or where questions. By all accounts there is a university which has a very good rep. gar
n Hajust can't make They still know what tech is & how it works, they to ce
anything.
ran Ent
Ba
m roo ne
ro d th (Ol
om
llro
)
Lots of
artwork here
m Roo ne
o Thr
One floor of the grand palace. I gave up trying to map it - it’s just Too big.
An army of puppies led by a wolf is better than an army of wolves led by a puppy. -Vargr Proverb
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
Date: 3724.917 We picked up a couple of extra crew on Drinax, just before we left. The crew is now half female, so the average IQ went up a bit. The scientist and the steward seem fine, the doctor may be a problem. We got our first (passenger) corpsicle on our first jump, probably not a good sign A short hop Trailing Rimward from Drinax is Pourne, a star with two gas giants and a bunch of moons. Pretty messy daytimes, sunny, but cold. The attraction was the class A star-port. Sooner or later, this ship is going to need a serious refit, due to it's "pre-stressed condition" Semi tough defenses, some ships and a big bunch of SDB's. They got a bit antsy when their scanners lit up with a long unseen warship on the screens, but they generally seem a civilized bunch. They seem very grumpy about pirates. Once they cottoned we weren't a war fleet they got seriously friendly. Different departments tripping over each other to be best buds. The captain went off to "glad hand" (hope that's not some Navy euphemism, there goes a night's sleep!). Me, I found a bar, then a second one. There are quite a few people and they are quite well off, so it's not cheap. Pretty cold outdoors, but no need for more than thick pants.
ch proa n ap us pic o ing’ is t h r t o ‘esc Got BDs shot S f o 2 1 t The e ou t ar lane To p
The law are a bit tense and proper, generally, so no wandering the town with my favorite suit on or carrying any weapon I would be seen
A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. - General Melchard
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
dead with. For some reason they are mega hostile to psionics, a bit surprising since I doubt you can even see Zhodani space from here. Damned if I know where this attitude comes from, but I think you would be like totally made MBK quite quickly if you turned up waving brain powers. You'd think this close to the puss cats, they'd have better things to stress on. People are strange, and usually stupid.
The DCU Credibility Gap - our new ship Found this picture among the previous crew’s possessions. Obviously taken in better days.
Weirdness scale about 2-3/5, as follows. 1) The women wear some bizzarro outfits with three arms (one of which is definitely empty, I checked. Apparently I get a pass as an alien. Goody. 2) Religion (yeah, I know, it always is, but these guys are odd...) According to their tub thumpers, everything can be defined as "good" or "bad". EVERYTHING. When we turned up, we got defined as good, probably for the best, but the next thing there were crowds outside praying and asking to touch the ship. In addition to a kilo-tonne of religious texts, they have reading groups every month to review some aspect or other. Apparently we fall into some prophesy, doesn't everyone. Next Clarke
Courage is fear holding on a minute Longer. - Pvte G. Pyle (Hero of the battle of Peaceful Valley)
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
Clarke I Alpha (2322) I thought I’d been to some depressing holes in my life. Clarke is like the worst on a rainy holiday with your family when you’re broke, feeling sick and hung over. Most visitors just refuel and bugger straight off. I don’t blame ‘em one bit. No orbital traffic on scan, as you arrive. No
ole aus M r the Ano lith ono M in a
um
broad-
casts on any waveband you can pick up from orbit. The place is wet, grey, low tech, no cities worth a damn & less night life than a dead cat. The place is run by some form of church, based on a “one day everything will be great” philosophy. (Aren’t they all - Forget tomorrow, why is it never jam today with these guys?) Hundreds of years back, this place was supposedly quite pretty with lots of beautiful nature (Ttthhhppp!!!) and a high tech utopian capital. Then the current big bad in the area put a stop to all that from orbit. When the survivors stopped killing each other for potatoes, they went big time into a weird resurrection cult. Everywhere you look there are carbon monoliths stacked full of dead people, somehow frozen against the great day they get so teched up that they can all be revived. It’ll be a bit crowded – dunno where they’ll live and most will be decrepit, but that’s religion for you. Doesn’t have to make sense, they don’t do joined up thinking. The Clarkites(?) don’t like Drinaxi/Sindari much (*see under massive orbital bombing) but I bet the Crown Prince personally having returned from a long trip to the land of corpsicles would earn him beaucoup brownie points. I must remember to mention that, whenev-
Do not mock the Aslan in bars - Cprl Elmore Chaplain (deceased)
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
er we get back to the flying museum. Damned if I would have the place given, but it would double their kingdom up to twice nuthin. For some unknown reason this place was bounced recently by a small bunch of pirate ships. How they found anything worth stealing is beyond me. All they took was some really old hi-tech scrap in a warehouse, but I suppose they know where to shift it. After some confusion (Why do people never pay attention in an all out assault? Just because half your friends are wasted doesn't mean you can slack off). we worked out there were three ships – A vulture class salvage ship with a new paint job, a tooled up far trader and a Type S scout crewed by Vargr. It looks like the Merry Pirates hopped off towards Torpol, so that’s our next stop. With a two-three week lead and no clear idea where they are going, this could be an annoyingly long chase. (Bit tense this week. I really, really, REALLY, need to shoot someone/something after two months of flying a desk. Practise in simulated mode is sending me loopy) Harashon!
Strange recording device.
And where we found it
Field Manuals are no substitute for experience - Lt. ‘Stamper’ Zunder.
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37 Torpol I Alpha F
Torpol is much more like it than the last poor excuse for purgatory. The place is a water world with a fair amount of R&R entertainment, as it’s on a couple of trade routes. It all seems quite civilised, with a high law level and a lot of fit, open minded locals. Nice place to visit and let your guard down a bit, provided you've had your shots and have the cash.
BEAUTIFUL TORPOL
They like psionics a lot and have some dinky training centres. Cal was a happy bunny. Better still, there were no priests! I hear they don’t
WISH YOU WERE HERE!
have marriage at all, so it’ll be interesting to do some social field work when there’s time. Most people live at the poles, but there are a fair few resorts etc. built up wherever there are shallows. There are some dinky tourist traps down near the equator. The chow is rather good, but you better like fish a lot! If not, brace yourself for the prices, because all other food comes imported. The Merry Pirates popped by two weeks back. Only the Vargr ship landed to shift the stuff they nicked from Clarke. Meanwhile the other two ships arrived under false ID's They ripped off some orbital chemical facility and nicked about 40k worth of gear [I guess that pirates probably don’t get to pick & choose, but this looks like a lot of trouble for mid tech gear, unless they have a damn good use for it.] Rather puzzling, the Clarke attack was bloody and messy, while this was organised and quite clinical. Not so much no style, more like a handful. Bellamy & I were in the bar (dunno how that happened) talking to a kinda hard core merchant captain. He said some extremely rude words when If you truly want it, it will be yours. - Varg’r proverb
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37 he thought we were Drinaxi, turns out he came from Asim before the "great liberation", when Drinax stole their turnips. He says his “harmless” little ship tore the Vargr scout a new one as he came in-system. It tried to bounce him and discovered why pop up turrets are sometimes worth the money. The scout tottered away smoking a bit, possibly towards Borite. It might be separate from the other two and holed up for
The Torpol Tiger. Nice atmo, shame
repairs.
About the beer.
(Turns out there's an even deeper crappier hole than Clarke. How could we possibly miss going there?) After just three stops, we have spotted a pattern. Everywhere we go, people ask where we got the ship (naturally), then immediately add “Did you find anything else?”, sounding awfully interested. Hmm. I wonder exactly what went missing around the time this ship got wasted. It must be something that's seriously: a)shiny, b)famous, c) worth finding. I think it’s time to have a chat with our pet sociologist about legends, then hit the history books. Goody, more ******* paperwork. I'll waste a couple of rocks first, just to take the edge off.
More Imperial Marines are disabled by sexually transmitted diseases than By combat. - Imperial General Surgeon
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
Borite System Trojan Reach 2219 E655796-4 Somewhere to the left of who the hell knows, probably lost, in system. A double system with a lot of rocks. Damn little worth looking at on any of them. FFS they named the system after a mineral they mine on a big rock here. Stunning imagination. We loaded light, in case we needed to bounce in/out and took passengers for Palindrome. A High Passenger, Alyce Petrovya, (another Russian girl done good) took a shine to Belemy, so he's been earning his nuthin pay working double shifts this week. Hope she doesn't demand a refund!!! On her last night aboard, it may be funny to lend her my handcuffs as a nice surprise for him. :lol: Not much signs of life around either star(apart from a surprise, about which more later.) . Some guy on the main planet was bleating about needing an engineer, which we've ignored for now. It looked like he Merry Pirates came and left quite quickly, so can't have been as dented as we thought. Cleever showed her epic engineering skills by retooling a piece of hi tech surveillance gear into a drone missile. We quickly put the fire out after her first go, but the second try looked a success. She then showed why we should lock the door on the engineering area. Sooner than test her work with the engine disabled, she launched it off into the black. Perhaps a control system would have been nice? We never saw it again.
The first rule of combat: Spot them before they spot you - Gwan Lo
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
***Anyone who finds a strange piece of expensive surveillance gear within nearby systems, please return it to.... I Guess some archaeologist will enjoy finding it, assuming she took the warhead off. After the expensive 'firework display', a scan showed a rescue beacon somewhere near the gas giant. Turned out to be a severely roughed up old Sindari station. Someone had stripped their suit comms to power the old emergency array. One sign of life. Never get off the boat! NEVER GET OFF THE BOAT:insane: Everyone was rather antsy after four quiet jumps & still no-one to shoot at, so all the usual suspects barring Cleever tooled up and went out to play, with muggins on point. Slightly worrying that Belemy turned up lugging a PGMP - he says he "has sorta worked out how to use it". Bozhe Moi! Amateurs. I said I was bored. Be careful what you wish for. It's easy to forget that there are some truly horrid bugs out there. God knows how long it's been there, but we got bounced by a Telepathic, ECM equipped, long living, cold and vacuum immune, acid spit-
Q. How many marines does it take to change a light bulb? A. 50. One to do it and the other 49 to guard him. - anon
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
ting, very fast, stealthy, hard to kill, GIANT SPIDER. Not so fond at the best of times, but all the above made it lots worse. Fortunately, we got some warning after we found an old, severely melted vacc. suit, with very little of the previous owner in it. A resident 'thingy' pounced shortly afterwards. It went after Cal, fortunately missing, although he squeaked a bit, then spat at Lucian
-
taking some shine off his armour. Took an unnecessary amount of killing and, even then, the bugger nearly got away. Looking at the bits, someone called it a Chanax(?). Apparently they are renowned for scragging their home planet, wherever that was. It ain't on any map I've seen, I sure won't be going there. Not fond of bugs at the best of times, but those things are nasty. We quickly grabbed the stranded guy and got out of Dodge. Nuked the pace from orbit, it was the only way to be sure (sure there weren't a load more spiders, that is).
A PGMP will level the odds against anything except a starship. -Cprl Don Vandom
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
Turned out the stranded guy was the (now very ex-) captain of the Vargr Scout, Kirssh. The crew were less than radiant after the last "job" where they were bounced by a merchant, so dumped him for the Chanax thing or things to eat. Not a happy bunny, he has sworn loyalty to me! Quite cross with his ex mates as well. As a gesture of his 'honesty', hmm, he offered to give us access codes and secrets of yet another jump short cut. We'll see how he works out, he doesn't seem too bright, but they are supposed to be pretty good at taking orders and the codes will come in handy. (I think a guy at Pourne offered money for them) If he can navigate or manage jump power at all, he even may be an improvement!
Kirssh spruced up.
ful. hand a met only e w y Luck . x a C ha m
If you have a choice call in artillery Support. It makes a mess but it gets You out of trouble (if it doesn’t hit you) -Col. ‘Mad’ Mike Jackson
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
Borite System Trojan Reach 2219 E655796-4 There are days when you wish you were still somewhere to the left of who the hell knows, probably lost, in system. Landing there is worse. Bozhe Moi, what a Dyra. This place aspires to be a one horse dungheap, but appears to have lost it's ambition. When we landed, we were greeted by a nice, but terrified man. Apparently, this place is still run by some remnant of the Drinax Kingdom. Over coffee and ice cream, he told us they would be happy to co-operate, but have neither any tech or self defence resources, so need protection more than anything. A couple of hundred years back, this was a crappy mining backwater of a shiny empire. It's gone downhill since that high point in it's history. It's now a rather too radioactive rock with about 5 million people with no hopes and no lives, waiting to peg out- ideally as soon as possible. The Rad levels are seriously high, most people here look like they failed auditions as walking dead. Everyone lives underground because of the radiation, which may save time with burials. Otherwise there is nothing here, zero, bupkis, nada, nichego. About two or three times a year a freighter turns up, takes on a load of ore- paying buttons and buggers off. They can't even fix what low tech stuff they have. Apparently, they've been regularly hammered by raiders from a nearby rat hole called Oghma?. They don't seem to have any warships, but turn up, jump out and raid for loot or slaves. Worse than Cossacks, by the sound of it.
The Chain of command is what you are beaten with until you follow orders. - Drill Sergeants' chestunut
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37 (Sounds like these scum ought to be given a course in Modern Warfare 101.) We did a quick sortie to fix an atmo processor and I was deeply disappointed not to be hit by pirates. Better luck next time. The locals are very friendly
The place is a dump
but demoralised and desperate. They will be up for any political union that could give them protection. We'll have to see if there is a better market for their ore. With some income, they could improe the place to crappy. Cal has jumped the ship to help the locals. In a spirit of solidarity, we started a sweepstake for how soon he ends up in a slaver. They tell us there's a GeDeCo starbase on Oghma- my, these people get everywhere don't they? I'm getting some very itchy feelings about these Corps. Wonder who their dodgy agent is on Drinax. I think we may have broken our doctor. he's getting very iffy about his job, apparently something to do with the odd low passage death he gets. We'll have to try and make his job less grim. Swift couple of bounces via a booby trapped and mined secret dump took us to Palindrome. A settlement run by a very scary lady. Aside from being a mind reader, she was smacked down by some nasty bio weapon and the solution would give you the heeby jeebies. She's offered us a deal which will take us on a long haul into the Imperium, but which may be worth the journey. However, we have a pirate to catch, hopefully just up the road at Theev. I Gun safety: Use correct ammunition, it’s your mission -Quartermaster’s Sign
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
Theev2216 Blacksand Theev: Four gas giants, a couple of bare rocks and the highest tech, most expensive, nastiest, scariest planet I've ever heard of. Don't come here unless you have an express invite or the access codes. Ths starbase is on a gyosynched rock above the only city, which is aptly named the "Skull". If you aren't welcome, there are a whole shitload of missile and other turrets which will soon let you know. (I don't fancy the chances of the punitive raid that Pourne plans much, even if they get the access codes. I'm busy that week.) If you have the codes, they are very, very polite & you get parked in a private bay on the moon, after which a protective cover like a scarab beetle shell slides over the crater. We were met by a young girl, or vat grown ninja, if you want an official term. There are a lot of these girlie's and they look inter-changeable. Looking at her gave me a very uncomfortable itch behind the eyes. Wonder just how many people they kill each a week? The local laws are quite plain and simple. Break them and they kill you on the spot. Rule 1, no shooting of any kind in the city, no murder, no "breach of the peace" whatsoever. Penalty = death. We saw three of the pretty girlie's do a very neat execution - no mess or fuss. (If they sold these cheap, I'd take six, but then, what would I do for fun?) No communication, either they do this every day or they are grid-linked somehow. That's inside the flagged areas. Outside, it's pretty much a free fire zone, unless you tote anything that could damage the environment containment, buildings etc.. then see rule 1 for further details. Oh, and the flags move spots each day.
Blood is the best bond for a regiment. -Nam Sip Sklar
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FIELD NOTES
Blacksand must be at least TL15. No- one seems to run the place, at least officially. Damned if I know how it keeps running. Grud knows how they support that tech level with such a tiny city, or who pays for it. There is a small, state of the art shipyard, assorted arms dealers, some places that look like they deal in "conflict resolution technicians", assorted bars, hotels restaurants, but somehow it all leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. It's really weird, even though everyone makes a living from piracy/death/misery, you'd think that butter wouldn't melt! Half the time, no one watching could tell just what the hell people are talking about. Down-town, it's a bit more down to earth, slave pens, refugee camps, fences galore. Cleever heard mention of a scrap heap and was nearly off with a shopping bag before the reality of the place set in. We gather it's actually a pile of old wrecks with a resident feral population of some kind. It would have been fun to see just how soon she cottoned on and started running! For a change of pace, we bought some
Orders should be simple and easy to adapt when the mission goes FUBAR -’Red Eyes’ McKracken
FIELD NOTES
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decent clobber and booked a suite at the Grand Hotel. If you have to ask, you really can't afford it. Our Vargr chum proved invaluable, although we had to padlock the mini bar. He helped us link up with some contacts and saved some time. Step one. Block the bolt holes. If the guy we are hunting finds a new gang to join we are screwed. There are only a few gang leaders present right now and they sure aren't rejoining the Admirals merry band, whatever the reason, they are definitely
Vallis
unfriends. Lucian talked to a rather crazy guy called Vallis, as he knows
him of old and Belamy took point talking to an Aslan male called Hroal IronTooth. (No, I have no idea how a lone male ended up here, or what he's up to, but his pocket battleship gives him a lot of votes.) We were rather amused to find an Aslan lurking in the back room of a vegetarian bar, but his mouse-bots weren't loaded with lettuce, so he's not totally crazy. Hopefully a bunch of vague promises kept them both from playing nice with our quarry.
Hroal Irontooth
That left the Admiral. An initial request for an appointment sank without trace, so we decided to collar him at his favourite (horrifically expensive) restaurant. Like any of us would know if they served us boiled dog!
I’ll take ten privates over 100 generals. -Sgt. Silva McQuire (Hero of the Trojan Reach Wars)
FIELD NOTES
ImFM - 24/37 Cleever turned up in what I can only assume was fancy dress. Four foot five tall ANYTHINGS, shouldn't wear pinstripes, hover heels and a top hat. My mind just can't hold the image. [When I was a kid, I saw a character called Opus in a really old hand
drawn, static cartoon called Bloom County in a museum. Look up the data if you need an idea.] Although Admiral super tightpants ignored us in the restaurant, he sent an appointment at his penthouse in the "**** me" priced hotel! He pulls a lot of credits to afford that. I met him for a strictly business drink at midnight. Very up himself (aren't all navy types), but also impeccably polite. Can't work out if he's a mafia don, polite killer or an imperial stiff. Full navy dress uniform, but without the tabs, wearing pirate symbols instead "pretentious, moi?". 8) More of the weirdly polite "we aren't talking about bad things" chit chat, over some very nice vodka & salad, but we resolved the following. 1) He really, really, wants Ferris and his girlie gone, and not in a good way. Admiral super tightpants
Medals are for fools - Old Marine saying
ImFM - 24/37
FIELD NOTES
If we kill everybody else with them that's a plus. He doesn't want anyone back. (I was hoping to pull some personnel specs on the crews out of him in a return deal, but no go.) 2) He won't remotely explain why. End of. 3) He seems pretty sure that Ferris isn't on Theev anywhere. He has given me some co-ordinates where we can find Maria, somewhere in the 'scrapyard'. (If it's that easy, why is she still breathing?) Is she sat in a battleship, or are there other reasons why he won't use his own guys? 4) No cash bounty, but he will guarantee a credit line at the shipyard. (If we end up with one or two more ships, that'll do instead of chump change anyway. Besides, the bad guys haven't had the chance to spend their loot yet!) To do a hit in the scrapyard, we'll have to pop back to the ship and arm up, then hire something private to get us there & back. If Belamy tries to get us all killed, by taking his PGMP, I'll shoot him myself, before the nice girlies do the lot of us
Always leave one alive to tell The others not to mess with your unit Pedro Straminsky