THE KETHERIC-HIVE AFFAIR (Balder's Gate 3 in Space! Quest)

"Get em in the brig, Astarion!" you shouted, jerking your thumb over your shoulder. The pale elf scowled at you.

"I don't even know where-"

"Down the ladder four times, two lefts, there's gonna be....a...fuckin' nerdy ass ecotech elf in there, man!" you said. "Keep up!"

Astarion blinked at you, then held up his hands and made an expression you were fairly sure that he had made a lot back in whatever boring white collar office he had worked at before being kidnapped and dragged across the solar system and thrown into a black market ceramorphosis laboratory by criminals. The kind of face that drill knights would bellow at you about if you pulled in boot. The okay manager, whatever you say face. You scowled at him while blood dripped around your palm. You had been shot in or near the face several times, and you were pretty sure the eye wasn't too badly fucked up. Just the parts around it. And right now, you were on too much adrenaline to care.

With Astarion picking up the Arachne and aiming it at the captured Adventurers, you turned to Lae'zel.

"Help him, man," you said.

"I am no man...but I will do as you say," Lae'zel said, her little cute nose flaring.

"It's just an expression," you said.

"Help him or man?" Lae'zel muttered, while you turned to the communication console. You started dialing through frequencies - the blatting, confused scrambled sound of the redcaps and the panicky shouts of the Kith supremacists both weren't what you wanted - and then heard Gale saying.

"This is a remarkable change back to pre-Fall combat techniques, considering right up to the Fall, before the FAll, that is, Arcanite weapons had a similar-"

"Hey!" you said, cutting into the conversation. "Get to the ship! I'm opening her cargo airlock and we're burning till we see orbit."

"Got it!" Wyll said.

You weren't a pilot. Fortunately, you didn't have to be. These ships could practically fly themselves in certain situations - for example, when the pilot was dead as hell. Orbital launches were some of the easier maneuvers out there. Gone were the bad old days of chemical rockets where you had to launch at specific times, in specific directions, or you might run dry on delta-V and end up tumbling in space forever. With a Zevar drive, you just had one place to go and that was up. You watched through a pitted, thick as fuck window as you saw Wyll, Shadowheart, Gale and the Cambiot, Raphael.

The battle wasn't quite over, but the redcaps and the racists were so stuck in that only a few even noticed.

Those few started shooting. Bullets kicked up puffs of red dust, as Wyll and Shadowheart both ran to either side of Gale and held onto him, because his 1G adapted legs kept sending him in ungainly, dangerous arcs. They all got under the Short Sword and then...you heard a rumble, clunk, and saw a red indicator on the dash go to green. You flicked general frequencies and shouted.

"Brace for burn!"

You hit a button.

The ship didn't do anything.

You looked.

Oh.

That was the...the, uh, that was the radio off switch.

You swung your head left and right - and heard clattering and plinking sounds, most of them coming from lower. In your mind's eye, you saw a bunch of very angry racist Kiith shooting at the drive done, the most fragile part of the hull. Even small caliber rounds could fuck that up, if they shot it enough. Shit. Shit. You found the right set of toggles. Flicked them. A plastic box sprang up around a red button and-

Your weight doubled. You staggered and the entire world seemed to quiver and shake as the ground visible through the pitted window was washed in brilliant white steam. You stumbled back, fell into a chair, and grunted as you leaned back, trying to take the burn with grace. Something grated and crunched in your head and you hoped that there weren't any bones broken in there. You didn't feel the shooting, screaming pain you'd expect from that. Maybe the tadpole was helping?

The curve of the horizon spread out below you. Then...

Space.

The Zevar drive cut off and microgravity started to pull you away from the seat. You sighed, quietly.

You'd made it.

You were off planet.

You were off Mardok.

You needed a doctor.

The Short Sword had a doctor. It was a cramped little cubical of a medical facility, which had two wands on a gimbled mount that could be swung between three beds, for triage and recovery. There were some standard healing, if the wands were low on juice - each had a glowing LED indicator that showed their number of charges, which were all at a nice, comforting six. There weren't any replacement wands in the cubbords, so if you ever burned them out, well...the USAF would have to issue a new one.

Yeah. Right.

"This one is a Cure Light," Shadowheart said, levering the left wand down with one hand, the articulated arm whirring softly. "And this one is a..." She narrowed her eyes. "Cure Disease."

"No shit," you said, then hissed as the wand sparked with actinic white light and something crunched in your head. You blinked and could see out of your right eye again. "Aye, nice!"

The wand's LED had dropped to 4 charges.

"Hmm," Shadowheart said. "These recharge between one to six charges a day, so, no one get shot." She turned back to the others, who had all clustered into the room. Lae'zel looked as if she was taking detailed notes on every part of the chamber. Gale was whispering.

"How...can this...how many...ships like this does your, ahem, navy have?"

"What the fuck is a navy?" you asked.

"...a...a navy? It's...a collection of ships, on water?" Gale asked.

You blinked at him. "AstroForce don't go on water, man," you said. "Though, I mean, they use a lot of water, like, the Zevar drive pumps tons of that shit through the reactor for reaction mass." You jerked your thumb down, towards the tail of your ship. Gale, who was still looking a little green, gulped slightly. He was holding onto the doorframe with a white knuckle grip.

"Astro...Force..." he said, slowly.

"Anyway, the USAF-"

"The...Us-aff?" Gale asked.

"No, U. S. A. F. It's an acronym," you said. "The United States AstroForce."

"Riiiiiight." He looked enlightened and grav-sick in equal measures.

"I dunno, a few hundred," you said.

Laz'zel jerked her head so hard she almost started spinning.

"A few hundred? And each one has two wands aboard!?" Gale asked.

"Nah," you said. "Usually they have five, six spares, what if you burn one out."

"A...a...bu..." Gale spluttered.

You pushed yourself off the bed, then stopped yourself on the ceiling. "So, you find the guy in the brig?" you asked.

A huge hand grabbed onto the inside of the doorway and an equally huge head on a huge body peered in. Dr. Halsin was a pure fractured elf, as close to pure as you'd ever seen, with nut brown skin, brown hair, green eyes, and a huge smile to go with his huge everything else. "I take it you're the indominable Karlach," he said. "A pleasure."

"Uh, yeah, no problem, man," you said, taking his offered hand. It felt weird to meet a guy as big as you were. You weren't sure if you should be impressed or trying to find a way to...like, get taller somehow. His grip was strong and dry.

"Everyone!" Wyll's voice echoed down the corridor. "We have a problem!"

You blinked. "Come on, uh, Doc, Lae'zel, Gale, you three? you find a chair, strap in. Do not get out until we say all clear. I know you wanna do shit, but-" Halsin was already pushing down the corridor. Gale and Lae'zel, though, both started to argue. You grabbed onto them and shook them both, all three of you starting to slowly tumble in the microgravity. "-listen, I'm fuckin' serious. If we have a problem like what I think we have, the ship is going to be maneuvering all sorts of crazy. I don't want you to get hurt. So you strap in. Got it?"

Lae'zel looked furious. But she nodded, curtly.

Gale nodded, looking more somber.

THey started to inch down the corridor - using the handrails rather than push and glide. You grabbed and flung yourself, twisted, caught with your feet, then pushed up into the bridge. Your palm slapped the roof and you saw that Wyll had strapped himself into the pilot's chair and had actually done a damn good job setting up the LIDAR, RADAR and IR scanners screens. He pointed at a bloom of white on green, then pointed at a camera view. He had aimed it down and you could see it: A pinprick of light and tiny cloud of smoke, coming from Mardok's surface.

"The ampersand dickheads have launched," he said, dryly. "I think they managed to beat the Redcaps."

The radio crackled and a sing song voice.

"Auntie, Auntie, Auntie, says die, die, burn, die!"

"...or the other way around," Wyll said, frowning.

"Okay, well, that's good for us," you said. "I doubt those redcaps have ever flown USAF property before."

You pushed yourself into the guntech's chair strapping in. "Ever flown in combat before, Wyll?"

"On TV," he said, quietly. "Before I got cast as the Blade of the Frontiers, I did a run on Sergeant Draper as panicky dropship pilot #2."

You blinked. "In the pilot?"

He shrugged. "I also had private flying lessons for my family's racing pinnace."

"Your family has a racing pinnace?" you asked.

"It was that or golf," Wyll muttered. "I hate golf."

Shadowheart swung into the comtech station and strapped herself in. "We just need an engineer and we're good to go," she said.

"Okay, lets not get shot then." You frowned. HOw best to do that...

---
Spaceship combat?

Since it is complex and more easily played face to face, I will run the whole combat - but I want to know your tactics.

[ ] Attempt to flee - aim to just disengage. We can fight again once we have a fully trained up crew.
[ ] Attempt to be aggressive - park in optimal firing range and hose them down with whatever guns this bucket of bolt has
[ ] Use torpedoes - we are a torpedo ship. Stay at range and use torpedoes on them
[ ] Try and board them. We have one ship. What if...we had two ships? Also, considering redcaps, they will actually be trying to board us, so both ships cooperating to board one another would be less dangerous. From a piloting perspective.
[ ] Write In

You frowned, pulling straps tight. "All right, Wyll, you are currently on three hundred tons of warship, of which, almost three percent is Zevar drive. We can pull three whole gravities in this thing and do not be afraid to cut the mass limiters on the decanters, we are going to want to spit steam so quick you might as well be a fuckin' tea kettle."

"...right," Wyll said.

"The enemy ship is coming into orbit," Shadowheart said, clicking on her keyboard. "Zeus Chiste, this...this...system's amazing. What's a dazzler?"

"Tiny laser. Pings their cameras so they can't get a scope lock," you said. "You also got LIDAR, RADAR, chaff, infared, there should be some flares."

"Two thousand flares," Shadowheart muttered.

"Yup," you said.

"Will we need two thousand flares?" Shadowheart asked, nervously.

"Maybe!" you said. "Not sure if that other ship is another Drizzit class. It might be a-"

"They're coming in hot!" Wyll said.

On your gunnery camera screen, the angular shape of the redcap's ship started to swell. They were matching your orbit and coming in close - and they had a really big cannon mounted along the spine, clearly visible. "Shit they're a GF," you said. "Gunfrigate."

"And we are?" Wyll asked, his fingers flying across the console. The seats creaked and your weight crushed into you. You clenched your teeth as black circles started to sweep into your vision. Your felt consciousness starting to fade...fade...then it snapped back as the weight reduced with a lurch. You gasped, panted, then continued.

"SGF..." you gasped. "Silo-Gun Frigate."

"So, we have guns too?" Shadowheart asked, her fingers playing along her console. "They're trying to ping us! Launching chaff...flares!" You said. The loud CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK of the auto-launches rang through the hull. "I think they're still training a targeting laser on us, I can't tell. But I've got a targeting laser on them!"

You nodded, firmly, your hand going to the big switcboard. The CRT monitor above them showed grainy wireframes - the tubes were hot with fish. You grinned. "We have tone...Archer-1." You flicked a switch. "Archer-2. Archer-3." The switches were all in the up position and the rasp of metal in the tubes made your heart skip a beat. You looked over to Wyll and Shadowheart. On her screen, you could see that the enemy ship and your orbits were both starting to go on wild tangents: You had picked up speed, which meant you were now orbiting higher. They remained on a lower orbit. Ironically, this meant that they were starting to gain on you now. Fuckin' orbital goddamn dynamics.

You were glad you just had to fire the missiles.

Shadowheart started to tap at her console, then yelped as a spark hissed and spurted from under the console. "Shit!" she exclaimed.

"Short?" you asked.

"A blown transformer, I think we got too much of a charge from the reactor, fuck," she said, reaching down. She started to tug at components, smoke wafting into the air. Acrid. Thick. Heavy.

"Uh, they're burning to try and intercept," Wyll said. "Brace!"

Shadowheart slammed the console shit and-

WHAM.

You were slammed back into your chair, gritting your teeth. The acceleration eased off before you blacked out - barely. You panted, softly, then frowned hard as you saw that you were definitely at escape velocity. The only problem was that the redcaps had managed to draw their tangent alongside you. At the same time, Archer-1, 2 and 3 had streaked towards the enemy ship.

It was a truism in space combat.

Ships were fast.

Missiles, always, were faster.

But you had never seen, from the vaunted position of a missile commander's chair, just how much faster. On your screen, the ranges ticked up and down so wildly quickly that the enemy ship might as well have been standing still in comparison. But at the same moment that the missiles started to draw clear, Shadowheart hissed. "They're hitting my cameras with dazzlers," she said. "Shit, I'm losing the lock-"

A blaring tone filled the room. BRRRRRT.

"They have lock, that gun must be-" You started.

The fore mounted cannon on the redcap's ship fired. At the same time, their ship tumbled. Your missiles followed their simple, bloody minded programming - they arced, bunched, dove in. Tracers swept through space, intersecting on one missile, two, three. In a single flash, you saw Archer-1 go dead. Then ARcher-2 and 3 both threw up warning indicators.

The entire Short Sword rocked hard to the side, spinning fiercely.

"Correcting!" Wyll shouted. The ship's spin started to ease. Your eyes, though, were locked on the indicators for Archer-2 and 3.

Both had registered contacts.

"Shadow, baby, please tell me we got a good kill!" you said.

"Uh, uh," she said, using a trackball to swivel cameras. "Their dazzlers aren't hitting us...but..." She laughed, throwing up her arm. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Direct hit on the bridge!"

You whooped.

The redcap ship was tumbling slowly in space. You unstrapped and swung yourself over to Shadowheart's side. You peered over her shoulder, having to read upside down for a few seconds before you swung yourself around properly. You whistled quietly. "That's some good armor," you murmured. The armor plating had buckled, but not been taken out. The superstructure was intact, but the other missile had blown off two of their radiators. Their high energy systems and their reactors would start cooking the ship soon. But as you watched, you saw a few correction thrusters hissing and puffing. You pointed.

"They still have someone alive in there," you said. "They build these ships tough, you know?" Your finger tracked down. "but it looks like we damaged their Zevar engines too - see that water vapor escaping."

Shadowheart nodded, her lips pursed. "Do...we finish them off?"

"Mardok might do that for us," you said. "No, we jet. Wyll, set us on a course away from here, at 1G."

"Won't need to tell me twice." He said, tapping his controls.

Your feet pressed to the deck plating and the Short Sword streaked away from Mardok. Soon, it would pass the Rust Belt and the USAF/RAF exclusion zone and enter into true intersolar space. You had a squid in your brain, an impossibly valuable dimensional fugitive in your hold, and a brig full of Adventurers. You were in what had to be a stolen USAF gunship, that might be carrying nuclear bombs.

It felt...great.

Dr. Halsin took it remarkably well.

"Well, obviously, we can't go back to Mardok," he said, firmly. "I have full confidence in Dr. Kagha - and once I transmit my survival, I can forward her request to the authorities in COM-Star." He smiled, warmly. "They can dispatch relief ship for those poor refugees, and she can get back to botany. But for now? Heading back would mean running directly into those redcap maniacs. They want this ship, not my coworkers, so, we keep this ship as far from them as we can."

"...okay," you said, shrugging. You were cradling a cup of pure Wyiot coffee that the mess had spat out for you and were enjoying it. It might be USAF issue, but good gods, it was delicious. Lae'zel's nose kept wrinking but she was a philistine space elf from another universe. She didn't get coffee. It was fine. "Everyone okay with that?"

"I'm never going to turn down the help of a ecotech," Wyll said. "But...you need to know we're all in a very dangerous situation."

"Yes, the black market ceratemorphosis laboratory, and the Kethrics," Dr. Halsin said. "It seems to be that you need to get to the bottom of this. I may not be a vigilante, but..." He paused. "Well, I'm also not about to walk away from what might be the most exciting thing to happen in the solar system for two hundred years." His smile was warm. "I didn't start my life as a PHD in applied ecological magic, after all."

"Fuckin' A, doc," you said, grinning broadly. "So, uh, lets run down what we got. We got a USAF siloship and gunfrigate. I did a check and, uh, there are five IPBMs in there."

"What are those?" Gale and Lae'zel said at the same time.

"Interplanetary ballistic missiles," Wyll said. "Armed with nuclear weapons."

The very, very grumpy looking Raphael perked up at that. "Nuclear weapons, you say?"

"Don't get fuckin' excited, Spook," you said, hurriedly. "These ones have their teeth pulled."

"Beg pardon?" Raphael asked.

"Their cores have been yanked," you explained. "They cannot go boom."

"Oh thank the gods," Shadowheart said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"...am I to understand that every ship in the USAF has missiles carrying these, uh, atomic weapons?" Gale asked, tapping his fingers together.

"No, just twenty percent," you said, shrugging. "We have tactical nukes like on this ship, and the rest are hab crackers on the boomers - Silonaughts that carry, like, hundreds of nukes. Then there are asteroid and orbital silos, and ones on moons and shit. It's a triangle, right?" you formed a triangle with one finger, drawing a line between point to point.

"A...triangle?" Gale asked.

"If they nuke our fleet, our asteroid silos and luanr silos nuke em. If they nuke our asteroid silos, or our lunar silos, our fleet nukes them. They can take out one, or two, parts of the triangle. They can't take out all three. Since the United States can always nuke every hab the Republic has into slag, and they can nuke any of our habs into slag, everyone's nice and peaceable!" You smiled brightly, then drank the coffee.

Gale looked appalled.

"I think we need to focus on getting these mind flayers out of our head," Wyll said.

"I think we need to focus on getting back to the United States," Astarion said. "Give them this ship back!"

"No, she's mine!" you said, hurriedly. "She's a nice ship, and...we...we did get her. Legitimate salvage."

"This isn't back country of Old Laturr, you can't just steal a ship because you killed the owners!" Astarion snapped.

"But they were evil," you said.

Astarion pinched the bridge of his nose. "Granted. However, I prefer to not be flying ships that will make the United States government think I've performed an act of piracy on the largest armed force in history. It seems like they would be a little teeny tiny bit upset about this, hmm? Yes?"

"Counterpoint: It's a fully armed ship worth hundreds upon hundreds of gold coins, with enough fuel pellets and DEW systems to get us from here to the Twins," you said, pointing in the vague direction of deep space. "And back again! That's freedom. That's money. That's never having to say nothing no how to no one!"

Astarion looked...tempted.

Shadowheart frowned. "If...we are not going to the United States, maybe COM-Star or the Republic are better choices?"

"They do got more magic," you said, nodding.

"COM-Star is home to the most advanced medtech and applied theology in the Solarium," Dr. Halsin said. "It's also quite beautiful."

"I thought..." Lae'zel said. "That COM-Star is the world of Aphroden. Which I was told was so hot that it melts lead. That the skies rain acidic death upon any who walk on her surface."

Dr. Halsin and SHadowheart both blinked slightly, and Shadowheart srkunkled up her nose in the cutest way. "Oh, no, no, no, Lae'zel. No one walks on the surface of Aphroden. COM-Star cities float."

"...with magic?" Lae'zel asked, suspiciously.

"Some," Dr. Halsin said, smiling. "But a breathable atmosphere is actually lighter than Aphroden's air. That plus large helium balloons and the cities just drift on the wind."

"Oh," Lae'zel looked rather intrigued.

"There's also Vaults and the Dragon Kingdom," you said, tail twitching lazily. "Lots of choices. But, uh, we may want to take a pitstop somewhere that doesn't ask many questions. Wyll, wanna tell them the bad news?"

Wyll nodded. "The bad guys managed to peg our outer hull with a pretty nasty cannon shell. The entire cargo hold is full of spalling and shrapnel, if we get hit wrong, we might lose half the exterior housings, and half the guns have minor damage. We need to replace the entire starboard armor plating."

"Oof," Shadowheart winced.

"But when we do, we can at least break up the lines of the ship. Try and make her look. Ya know." you waggled your hand. "Less, uh...illegal."

"And get a new transponder?" Shadowheart asked.

"Yeah...can we do that before we get there?" you asked.

Shadowheart sighed, slowly. "I regret ever taking a computer science elective. Yes, we can do it. The programming isn't that complicated - I just need to shut down our coms so we don't broadcast the alert signal when we change it out."

"Nice!" you said.

"What's the new name we're going to fly under? It can't be the same serial codes and ID," Shadowheart said.

Hmm.

Good question.


---
Name your ship

[ ] Withers
[ ] Mithranda's Ass
[ ] Not-iloid
[ ] Workhorse
[ ] Karlach's Koach
[ ] Fuck You Got Mine
[ ] The Mare Celeste (this one was Gale's suggestion)

Where do you want to go?

[ ] Hetes (Mercury) - home to fire giants and fracutious religious conflict. Railgun City, a long defunct and failed cargo railgun project, serves an excellent place to lay low.
[ ] Aphroden (Venus) - fabulously wealthy sky cities that are home to the Coalition of Magic/Star Cleric Alliance (COM-Star.) Best place for squiddies and you happen to have a valuable, uh...guest!
[ ] The Colonies (Asteroid Belt) - with the bubble-world of Centarus and countless independent asteroid states, you can find SOMETHING somewhere here to refit, resupply, and figure where to go next
[ ] Zeue (Jupiter) the Zeuevian system is home to the Republic, the biggest competition to the USAF. They won't mind your piracy, since it was on the other guys, right?
[ ] Vaults (Titan) orbiting the only ringed gas giant in the solar system, Vaults is also home to the largest number of dragons per capita. Dragons are very magic, they might be able to help!