Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

This past weekend, I participated in a session of Confed, the role-playing game that was created by and is run by our friend, The Cheshire Cat.

Our group was bigger this time. In addition to me, playing my character, Carmella Maylock, a cheval trader (or gypsy), The Gryphon was playing a character called Steve, who is an engineering marvel and something of an espionage expert.

Once more, The Martial Artist was playing Taiwan, the idiot savant ship's engineer who is Carmella's second cousin, twice removed.

The White Rabbit was playing Alauzhi, who is a large female cat creature skilled with weaponry. The Dormouse was playing his Shaolin Monk, Liang Tze. There were also a couple characters who hadn't participated last time I played. The March Hare was playing a character called Fader, who apparently has a reputation as a reckless adventurer.

Two other friends were also playing. A friend I'll call The Punster was playing his character, Kilroy, a math and engineering whiz. And this year's Otakon con chair was playing a character called Fingers, who was a long time ago let go from the military because of his habit of stealing plans for Confederation warships.

And of course, there was also The Paper, who is The Cheshire Cat's wife and was playing her character, Katie Swenson, the youngest of the party, a 21-year-old adventurer from a rich family. She also owns two-thirds of the ship.

This time we were beginning a new adventure. Katie had been invited to participate in an intergalactic race which had very a complicated course consisting of performing stunts at various locations throughout the galaxy and then jumping to a finish line. The Cheshire Cat described the route, and added that there would be little monitoring throughout the race and that there had been shady goings-on during the race in the past. Then there was the fact that, while the race was being officially run by somebody, it was not, shall we say, legal. I burst out, "It's The Cannonball Run in space!"

The first thing the crew did was put their heads together for strategy and the best way to win the race. Fingers suggested having a contest to decide which person should pilot the ship for the race. Fortunately, he suggested doing this in a simulator, using one of his handy discs of specs on a modified Princess class ship, like their ship, the Vandervecken. It's a good thing it was a simulator, because some people didn't do so well. Kilroy managed to strike something in such a spectacular way he shaved off half the ship. Carmella didn't do so hot either: out of four stunts attempted, she only succeeded at one.

Fader was actually leading the pack, having received only minimal damage in one of his stunts. Everyone was praying Katie would do better, and fortunately, she did and was chosen as the pilot for the race.

Then the crew got into other details, such as sniffing around to find out something about the other contestants. While other crew members were using their computer skills to see what they could find, Carmella slipped out to a local bar and used her underworld contacts to find out all she could. As it turned out, at least two or three of our fellow contestants were definitely ne'er-do-wells. One was a suspected smuggler. One had shown up for this race in the ship used by a contestant last year who had disappeared during the race. She was such a cipher nothing showed up about her anywhere. Two seemed fairly innocuous. One seemed to be a rich adventurer and another a first-timer like ourselves with little of a rap sheet.

Fingers, meanwhile, donned a military informant and showed up at the outpost of the local military to request information for "security purposes." He took copies of the rap sheets of some of the members of rival ships, including our own, which was mighty extensive.

After the crew shared this information, they got ready for the formal party that night which would kick off the event. They all put on their best game faces, but Carmella had no social graces in high society, so she used a little of her skill in disguise to pick an outfit out of her trunk. As The Cheshire Cat said, "This looked good on Mom."

At the party, the crew spread out to see what they could find out about the other contestants, but they were pretty tightlipped. Taiwan got lucky by sidling up to a cutie at the bar who just happened to be one of the captains. Steve did not have such great luck, trying to get close to the captain who had shown up in someone else's ship.

I almost forgot. There was a new player this time who was pretty quiet most of the evening. He hung around the edges to see what he could find out from the underlings.

Carmella spoke to an engineer to find out what she could about how the other ships were functioning. He told her that, aside from the Vandervecken, the most beat up was the one piloted by Axinn's crew. Apparently, it was a miracle it was still flying. Axinn, the crew had discovered, had a crew even more ethically challenged than that of the Vandervecken.

As the others tried to get closer to people who could give them information — Kilroy and Alaujah were having a good time talking to the rich adventurer, despite Allaujah's discomfort at being made to wear a dress, and Steve continued to get closer to his captain — Carmella and Liang Tze performed a duet, her on vocals and him on flute, hoping someone around them would let down their guard and start talking.

Sure enough, she heard some of Axinn's crew say they were going to be boarding a ship that night. So after the musical performance, Carmella went over to the boys from Axinn's crew and used her fast talk and lying skills to convince them she was actually a plant on the Vandervecken, sent to spy for one of the other contestants. She'd heard they were also up to something and wanted to find out if they could use her help.

Not being the sharpest knives in the drawer, they did admit they were planning to break into a ship but didn't say which one. They tried to be sly, saying, "Well, you know, the lion always picks off the weakest gazelle in the herd."

So Carmella, hoping to make them angry enough to slip up, said, "Oh, so you're going to break into your own ship?"

At this point the Axinn goon stood up... and continued to stand up. He was one big goon. Liang Tze, who Carmella now affectionately refers to as "my monk," as in "don't mess with my monk," was standing by at the ready in case something should happen. He grew closer just in case. Fader, who was also unoccupied, also made himself ready. All attention turned towards that corner of the room.

Not getting the response she'd hoped for, Carmella thought on her feet. "Aren't you with Minchla?" she asked, naming a captain who's considered a long shot in the race. This diffused the situation, and the anticipated fist fight didn't happen. I think some crew members were a little disappointed about that.

Back at the ship, Carmella informed the crew, "The bad news is that ours is one of two ships Axinn's crew may be planning to break into tonight. The good news is, they ain't that smart."

Carmella, who had acquired a great knowledge of the Vandervecken in her brief time on the ship, searched for possible points of vulnerability and then suggested crew members be posted at those locations. She took the fusion reaction tubes, which was possibly the stupidest place to enter and so therefore, she fully expected them to arrive that way.

Sure enough, she and Fingers, who was also waiting in the room for Axinn's men, soon heard telltale noises in the tubes. Using communicators, Carmella and Fingers let the rest of the crew know. Taiwan asked why they hadn't shown up on the scanner. "Because you weren't scanning for stupid," Carmella responded.

It was taking Axinn's goons a long time to remove the bolts from the plate at the top, and Alaujah grew impatient. She walked outside the ship to the other end of the tubes and started firing, without looking, inside the tube with her Gatling stunner, spraying the hapless ninnies. Perhaps she was still dealing with pent-up rage over being made to wear a dress.

Finally, one of them called for parlay. "Well, there's your answer. They are definitely pirates," Carmella said. Ineffective pirates. Morbidly stupid pirates. But pirates, nonetheless.

Fingers asked them what they wanted and delayed them while the crew came up with a plan. The idea was to stun them all and put them in the ship's brig. They'd wake up next to Carmella, who'd claim she'd also been made but that she had managed to convince the ship's crew she was on their side. She was going to offer to help Axinn's men escape, thus gaining their confidence and finding out anything else of value.

Instead, Taiwan, who was on the bridge next to the ship's communication system, jumped the gun. He hailed Axinn himself and said, "We've got four of your men. We'd be happy to return them to you for just $10,000 apiece. Either that or we'll turn them over to the police." The ship's crew happened to know how long their rap sheets were, and $10,000 bond was a bargain. Surprisingly, Axinn agreed almost immediately.

Soon, a shuttle came by and dropped a bag of money. After inspecting it to make certain it was actually legal currency, the crew dropped Axinn's four men out the door, after stripping them to their underwear, taping their I.D.'s to their forehead, their rap sheets to their chests and writing "Stupid" on them, just for good measure.

The crew split the booty evenly, at $4,000 a piece, and then immediately bet $4,000 each on the Vandervecken to win the race.

With that, we called it a night. Something tells me this race is going to make The Cannonball Run look like Chicken Run.

Further adventures from Confed:

Confed adventures index

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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