The night is spectacular, one for the ages. The long starfall that accompanies sunset is brilliant as rocky debris from asteroid mining in orbit falls into the sky, just caught by the remote red dwarf stars heady glow. The music played by the synthcore latin-fusion punkska band is somewhat derivative, but swells nicely as the starfall climaxes.
The Governor of Adranus City, Maro Rendar raises his hand in acknowledgement as if he was solely responsible for the celestial display. The assembled guests clap quietly. Afterall, he is the king of this particular hill, and has been an increasingly tinpotty dictator. He could deny a permit for better parking, or worse!
The guests include: Xavix Bryce, zero-G golf pro to the stars; Jadirel Arnaf, anchorman for the Galactic Nude News Network (thankfully not in 'costume' as the years have not been kind); Malakye Gayel, chief engineer for weapons conglomerate
Elastic Penguins LLC; Arthir Graeyam, capo for the Peaky Blinders
(tm); Bradger Chindlr, attorney general for the city of Adranus City; and a host of lesser beings.
Following the starfall, just as Governor Rendar is about to start a speech, the PA system goes haywire, and then Damak saunters in, with the screens lighting up with:
And Guess Who Is Here at the Party! Damak is wearing a stylish number, a knockoff of a vintage Chelsssey "With-3-Ss" Bates' SBD. She twirls and flashes her smile at the bemused guests.
Rik and Mina stumble in shortly thereafter. They're familiar with the grounds, and Mina may still have some leaves in her hair even though she's showered twice. Rik flashes his smile and a small man in a lederhosen swoons. Don't judge.
Meanwhile, out back, Grego lunges into the out-of-the-way service entrance he found but unfortunately, collapses on top of the guard that was given the supposed-to-be boringest assignment of the night, until he was suddenly and shockingly teabagged by the cybernetic trooper, and suffered some chipped teeth for further indignity. They both roll to the ground, Grego's foot trapped in a metal bucket, when Ash drops down and unloads radiation hell, disintegrating the chipped-tooth guard and freeing him of having to deal with his unsightly woes.
As Rik, Mina, and Damak circle the crowd, getting close to their weapon stash, and Grego limps with his metal bucket clad foot toward the ambush point, Rhugo wakes up.
See Rhugo was deep into the trivid show
Smoking Neutrons, working on last few episodes of the riveting, dare I say groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece that was season 3 -- really, who else would dare say "57 is the right number of episodes for a series" -- and very nearly forgets to go to the party, or wear pants. Due to the go back and get pants dilemna and terribly slow service at
Fried Shrimp Bucket(tm), he is going to be terribly late.
As Rhugo scrambles for pants or keys or keys in the pants, and Mina and Rik head for the bushes (for weapons, presumably) and Damak twirls endlessly in her vintage SBC, and Grego and Ash clank their way to the distraction/ambush point everything goes pear-shaped.
Enter Sergeant Tanau.
Sergeant Tanau
he says, his hands on (the hilt of) his vicious monofilament blade he's named
Fan-C-Cutz, he steps toward Damak.
What do you do? You have the initiative in whatever order you post. Rhugo misses the first round unless he choses to come with neither pants nor a bucket of fine fried shrimp.
Chaos Factor Pool: 6
