Transcription on. >l The Captain's Quarters, on the HMCS Plagoo The big thing with the Captain's living quarters is that it currently doesn't contain a werewolf trying to gorge itself on any of the crew. That's fairly clutch. The Captain is wearing a long T-shirt, having just been roused out of bed because it's the middle of the night. Her quarters contains a dresser, a computer and (along the eastern wall) her bed. (We're in a space ship cruising toward Saturn.) There is a door facing west that leads to a long hallway. The Captain massages her temples. >i I'm not carrying anything. >x me I am a twenty-three year old Ethiopian male, I am 5'9" tall and I weigh 115 pounds. I have black hair and brown eyes. I am wearing a white T-shirt, blue denim jeans and black Doc Martins for shoes. My hair is buzzed pretty tightly against my head and I am clean-shaven. >x captain She is ten years older than me, but looks younger, what with being away from the sun for much of her life. She's six feet tall, has auburn hair styled in a 1920's bob cut and owns a jawline that reveals her position as the toughest person on the ship. I am 78% sure she is not a werewolf. >x bed She somehow fit a king-size in here. None of us have any idea how she got it past the door. My impression was that she cut away part of the hull. It's pretty old, but mattresses last longer when it's a single female using them. The rest of us got rack upgrades from a RestWell (TM) vendor on Mimas last year. >x dresser The Captain's dresser is a five foot-tall light aluminum storage container that she keeps her clothes in. It has a small dent in one side where it has been struck repeatedly. >open it (assuming you mean the dresser) Opening the dresser reveals the Captain's jumpsuit. >x jumpsuit So, it's a size 4 (US) single piece, bandeau styled for a size-conscious fit. It's got glitter on it, but I don't know if the Captain added it herself or what. >take it (assuming you mean the jumpsuit) I take it out of the Captain's dresser. >x dresser The Captain's dresser is a five foot-tall light aluminum storage container that she keeps her clothes in. It has a small dent in one side where it has been struck repeatedly. >search it (assuming you mean the dresser) I don't find anything. >search jumpsuit I don't find anything. >x computer The computers on the HMCS Plagoo are extremely old, as it's all the Captain could afford after she bought the ship. This one is a small circuit board with connectors jutting out. The Captain has an unread instant message. There's a message from my fellow crew member Finnian blinking on the screen. >read message It's from Finnian O'Connell, the ship's pilot. I have to steady myself before reading it: in order to protest the temporary pay cut the Captain enforced until things turn around, Finnian changed his instant message font to Comic Sans. foconnell : there's a were wolf on the ship foconnell : hello? foconnell : cap, r u there? foconnell : i woulda thouhgt that would have gotten more of a reaction tbqh foconnell : ok ill come over >use Be a little more specific about what you'd like me to use. >use computer Be a little more specific about what you'd like me to do with the computer. >x connectors You don't need to use the word "connectors". >talk to captain I try to tell the Captain about the werewolf, but I am not sure that she even recognizes me. "Who - sorry, I can't see anything, it's too early for this," she says. "OK, I know you aren't Grimes, since this conversation is taking place away from the cafeteria." "I know it's not in this room, but that's it, Captain," I add. >talk to captain I try to tell the Captain about the werewolf, but I am not sure that she even recognizes me. "Who - sorry, I can't see anything, it's too early for this," she says. "OK, I know you aren't Grimes, since this conversation is taking place away from the cafeteria." "I know it's not in this room, but that's it, Captain," I add. >ask captain about herself You don't need to use the word "ask". >about Enceladus by Robb Sherwin. Originally submitted for the 2019 Interactive Fiction Competition. You can talk to people just by using the >talk command, it's context sensitive. You can see current exits for the room you're in by doing >exits Try >help for version info, credits and other common commands. Please use the Hugor interpreter for Windows, Mac and Linux: http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Hugor To play other games by this author, go to https://www.joltcountry.com/games For Frobozz. >wear jumpsuit It would never fit m-- ... it would probably fit me, but I'm still not going to wear it! I should probably just give it to the Captain. >give it to captain (assuming you mean the jumpsuit) The Captain throws off her long t-shirt and shimmies into her jumpsuit. She produces a latte out of nowhere. (I mean, I wasn't looking when she got changed and everything. I am the only gentleman on this ship. I have a reputation, narmean?) "I'm ready to communicate with you now, Ja'Rod," she says, at last smiling. "About the werewolf -- " "Right." She sips from the latte. She seems much more alert. "With you now." She doesn't slurp her latte. She and the crystal 'Mouse Trap' game in the rec room are the only classy parts of this ship. "I don't know how it got on, but -- " Someone or some thing enters a passcode to the door from outside her quarters. >give it to captain (assuming you mean the jumpsuit) The Captain throws off her long t-shirt and shimmies into her jumpsuit. She produces a latte out of nowhere. (I mean, I wasn't looking when she got changed and everything. I am the only gentleman on this ship. I have a reputation, narmean?) "I'm ready to communicate with you now, Ja'Rod," she says, at last smiling. "About the werewolf -- " "Right." She sips from the latte. She seems much more alert. "With you now." She doesn't slurp her latte. She and the crystal 'Mouse Trap' game in the rec room are the only classy parts of this ship. "I don't know how it got on, but -- " Someone or some thing enters a passcode to the door from outside her quarters. >talk to captain I try to tell the Captain about the werewolf, but I am not sure that she even recognizes me. "Who - sorry, I can't see anything, it's too early for this," she says. "OK, I know you aren't Grimes, since this conversation is taking place away from the cafeteria." "I know it's not in this room, but that's it, Captain," I add. Someone enters the quarters, but it's not a werewolf, hell-bent on consuming us all. It's just Finnian, the pilot. "Dun-dun, dun-dun," he sings, doing the 'Werewolves of London' dance with his hands, giving us his profile on each side, mouth wide open to show his incisors. The song has been covered every few years since it came out so we know it, but neither the Captain nor myself react to this. "Hey Cappie, there's a werewolf on the ship. You banned us from wearing fur, otherwise I would have lasered it, pow!, between the fangs and made a coat out of the part where it didn't ink itself." "No," says the Captain, looking painfully at Finnian's chosen ensemble, "I tried to ban you all from wearing fur-lined banana thongs." I wiggle one of my teeth. It's extremely loose. "That's what you banned? I thought we were banned from eating bananas." "Jesus, Ja'Rod," says Finnian with a wince. He turns to the Captain. "Kid's got a mouth that's craggier than the road leading up to Pripyat Reactor Four. When the werewolf bites him, it'll actually be injecting vitamins into his bloodstream." >x finnian He's wearing a fur-lined banana thong, little else. Finnian clears his throat and addresses the Captain. "Look, do you want us to kill the thing or what? I don't want to get in a situation where it has cornered us and I'm trapped in the rec room with nothing other than that butt-fragile Mouse Trap game for six hours." >talk to finnian "What do you know about the werewolf?" I ask Finnian. "I assume it's a ship malfunction. Maybe you even did it. What is your job on the ship?" "X-ray Technician." Finnian gives me an unchanged look for five seconds too long. "Okay, you definitely don't have enough responsibility to have caused this." There's a horrible scream coming from the far, far limits of the hallway. "Let's go," says the Captain. Finnian rifles through her dresser for something proper to wear. "No more screwing around, you two. Let's get this off the ship before somebody gets killed." She unlocks the door. All business, Finnian turns to speak to me. "Why don't you open the door, kid, and I'll eff up whatever's on the other side?" >open door I open the door, but nothing jumps out at us. I can't explain the following feeling, but I am compelled to state the obvious anyway. "Nothing out there," I say. "But it's dark, and --" "No, look down, kid," says Finnian. "Grimes..." Grimes, the geographer we picked up just this week and added to the crew. His body has been ripped apart and slung ten meters down the darkened hall. He weighed at least three hundred pounds, which leaves a lot of biomass to be slung about the floor. "What killed the lights in the halls?" asks Finnian. "I mean, it was probably the werewolf. Grimes had a thing about conserving electricity, though." "He just got engaged," I whisper, avoiding looking at the wisps and entrails of Grimes's massive corpse. "He was gonna get married when we got back to Earth..." "Oh yeah," says Finnian, poking a flip-flopped toe into Grimes's extensive stomach. "What, were they gonna play Canon in Mickey D's when he walked down the aisle? Also: Captain. Captain? With Grimes not needing his share can the rest of us get a raise?" I'm not sure if the Captain heard that or if she did and just ignored it. >x grimes Grimes was a 300 pound middle aged white guy that was our geographer. He was going to help us find the right place to land when we took jobs, but that's over and done with now because right now he's dead on the floor in a pool of his own blood, his throat having been ripped out by the werewolf that got on the ship. "Let's get out of here," says the Captain softly. Whatever is out there could hurt Alexandra. (She is our life support technician and her quarters are nowhere near us.) >w Hallway Module There is a brief hallway module connecting the Captain's bedroom (which is to the east) to the hold, which is west. For some reason, the modules are all colored a deep burgundy, which nobody likes, but nobody dislikes enough to change. (The Plagoo has a red magnetic pole installed at the top of the ship, which is how we get away with these compass directions. No longer needing to know terms like port and aft really opened the solar system up to normal people who maybe shouldn't be out here.) "Not to be a pest, dear," starts Finnian to the Captain, "but do you think we should put some form of self-defense on the solar itinerary?" The Captain smiles at him without using her eyes. She doesn't directly address him, which is something she didn't used to do, but something I noticed her doing when I came back from shore leave. "I think Ensign Butler lowering his X-ray specs to give us some help on what's ahead would be the next best tactic,"she says, genuinely sweetly. Ensign Butler! Oops, that's me, and yes, as the X-ray technician of the Plagoo, I carry some specs with me. I can lower my specs and perform a scan with them. The Captain and Finnian are here. >lower specs Okay, I've lowered my X-ray specs. >scan "There's nothing out of the ordinary to report for the next room ahead, Captain - no werewolf, nothing particular crazy." >w Ship Hold The Plagoo has a small hold right off the Captain's bedroom, and this is it. The original owner of the ship didn't trust his crew with the cargo they ran with. Our Captain does, but the Plagoo can't exactly be reconfigured. The hold itself normally has poor lighting, it's even worse now that lighting systems have apparently been damaged. It's rectangular in shape, maybe ten feet wide and fifteen feet long. The walls were painted a deep maroon like much of the rest of the interior at one point. There's a great deal of pallets stacked on both sides. The Captain opens one of the packages on top of a pallet to my right. It's an unopened star pistol. She unboxes it, avoids cursing at the tight plastic grip keeping the pistol in place and inserts the battery into the grip with a solid 'thwack.' She hands it to Finnian. "Let me do the talking if it gets that far, I've got an idea what is going on," she says to Finnian. "I'd say don't draw attention to yourself, but, well." She gestures at the hammock. "Keep the pistol hidden." Exits lead west, further into the ship, and east, back down the hallway where we came. The Captain and Finnian are here. Finnian has the star pistol. (My X-ray specs just automatically went back up.) >x pallets Those aren't important. Those aren't important to me, I mean. I don't work with the merchandise we might be carting around. I'm an X-ray guy. "I can't hide this on me," says Finnian of the star pistol. "Wait. You want me to hide it on me? Where? Are we carrying duct tape in the hold?" "No," starts the Captain. "We aren't carrying duct tape in the hold." Finnian's face makes about four different expressions before he shakes his head. "Here, kid, you take it. And don't stare at me, I don't have a lot on to block the x-ray radiation, you know. Ha! Ha ha ha!" Finnian hands me the star pistol. >i I am carrying the x-ray specs and the star pistol. >x pistol There was a wave of retro nostalgia that hit laser weapons about a decade ago. This pistol looks like a atom-for-atom reconstruction of a French Navy pistol, with a curved walnut stock, brass fittings. Somewhere inside are the electronic components allowing it to produce steel-melting laser beams. They aren't the greatest build in terms of quality, the cooldown period is a really, really long time. >w I can't go that way yet. The Captain wants me to lower my X-ray specs and perform a scan so we can see what's ahead. >lower specs Okay, I've lowered my X-ray specs. "Please lower your specs and perform a scan, Ensign Butler," says the Captain. >scan I can see ahead that there's actually two people waiting for us in the next area. "Captain, I'm seeing two unknown forms and what I think is Alexandra." Alexandra is our life support tech. "Alexandra seems to be in the fetal position next to the air lock. One of the forms definitely looks like the silhouette of a werewolf. The other form standing next to it is taller, has lead boots. No weapons that I can detect. I also think that Grimes's robot is there." "Good work," says the Captain. "Let's proceed." >w Monitoring This is one room before the airlock, where I saw two figures next to Alexandra, who is part of our crew, and Mr Mailx, who is the robot that Grimes got working. "This is what I'd like us to do," says the Captain, "when we proceed to the airlock up ahead. Finnian, I would like you to accompany me as we talk to our interlopers on the ship. Ja'Rod, I would like you to stay hidden and shoot the hull behind them when I snap my fingers." Finnian nods, the disposition he normally carries about has left for a moment. After all, there are enemies on the ship and we can still save Alexandra. I have a few thoughts - why not shoot the werewolf and the other guy instead of putting a hole in the ship, but I just nod as well. The Captain and Finnian are here. (My X-ray specs just automatically went back up.) >scan My specs aren't lowered. >lower specs, scan I can't lower multiple objects like that. >lower specs and scan I can't lower multiple objects like that. >lower specs. scan Okay, I've lowered my X-ray specs. Nothing special to report here. >scan Nothing special to report here. >w Before the Airlock (I'm hidden behind some cargo crates, but nobody else is.) We are in a narrow hallway, there are monitors mounted a couple meters high in both directions. Inside our airlock is Mr Mailx and Alexandra. Outside of the airlock is the werewolf and someone I don't recognize. The Captain and Finnian approach. "Captain!" says the unknown figure. "How nice of you to join us. I plan on sending every member of your crew out the airlock." "How did you get onto my ship?" the Captain asks. "Through the airlock. The other way. It seems you sent the unencrypted wireless key to Grimes when you hired him, and Grimes failed to secure his communicator." "You came in through the airlock on the opposite side? Without that thing wearing a suit?" She points to the werewolf. The werewolf's head is still pointed toward the Captain, but it turns bloodshot, vacuum-afflicted eyes towards the man after that for a long second before settling back onto the Captain and Finnian. "It can take it!" the man hisses. He notices Finnian for the first time. Desperate to change the subject, he addresses Fin. "What are you wearing?" "Appropriate dress in this area of the solar system for shore leave, McGrathley," he says. McGrathley! I didn't recognize him in the spacesuit, but this is Riggs McGrathley, a pirate we've encountered once before. The werewolf, McGrathley, the Captain, Finnian, Alexandra, and Mr Mailx are here. >x werewolf This thing is a horrible result of an intentional genetic compromise. You can get DNA manipulation of your characteristics fairly cheaply on Phobos but some people take it too far. There are stories of people who have become mermaids and centaurs. I've never seen one up close. The werewolf stands about five and a half feet tall. Thick brown hair juts from every location that hair can grow on its body. It has yellowing fingernails emerging from furry, blackened hands. Two fangs are obviously visible, but they are bright, perfect white. It wears and needs no clothes due to all the hair. Its eyes look a bit messed up, they are bloodshot, cells just bursting with blood, and I don't think it was picked out by him when he did this to himself. "You look disgusting! Put some clothes on!" shouts McGrathley. We took a job a couple years ago to deliver two tons of mini chile rellenos from Earth to Mimas. We got the job because McGrathley and his crew couldn't get it done, they couldn't move the merch and we could. He actually fired lasers at us because he lost the deal. "We put out a distress call as soon as you killed Grimes," says the Captain. "The sector is going to be crawling with cops." "At light speed, no doubt," says McGrathley. "Which, out here in the middle of nowhere... means I have plenty of time to send you all into the icy, inhospitable darkness of outer ... space. The worst torture imaginable!" The werewolf again shifts just its eyes to look at McGrathley for a beat before settling back on the Captain. >x mcgrathley McGrathley is a mixed race unmodified human that has the world's worst facial hair, which dominates the scene as people look at him. It looks like his face is being slowly mapped for the rest of the colony by twelve fat ants. He wears photochromatic lenses that only sort of work, as we can clearly see his eyes. I'm just glad that someone on this ship has something stupider on their face than I do. The Captain snaps her fingers, very softly, her right hand having traveled slowly to her right hip. The lighting is very dark in the ship thanks to the attack, so it's really not seen at all by either McGrathley or the werewolf. Not that I expect the werewolf to be focused on signs. >shoot hull I emerge from behind some crates and take aim at the section of the hull behind McGrathley and the werewolf. I am shaking a bit, but luckily you don't actually have to be that accurate when blowing a hole in your ship. The star pistol takes a second to warm up after I squeeze the trigger. A ton of ping there. The werewolf probably had enough time to jump over the crates and rip out my neck, but I think it was about to bring up the fact that McGrathley got a spacesuit for himself and not it. Regardless - oh, there it goes. There is a horrible screeching sound as the air and everything else nearby starts to get sucked out by the small hole. The werewolf never had a chance. Being closest, it gets fired through and sent flying into the nothingness of space. McGrathley maybe had an extra half-second, but he was next. He definitely lowered his helmet before he was ejected. "Don't body shame me!" shouts Finnian towards our ejected interlopers while all this is going on. I then comprehend the Captain's plan - Mr Mailx was next, but was too large for the pistol's hole. He instead plugged the hole like a Dutch boy's finger. It was all over before Alexandra, clearly injured, even really moved. "Finnian, Ja'Rod," starts the Captain, "Get over to the bridge, we're going to perform an emergency landing." "Aye-aye," I say and get going. Fin does the same. [Strike any key to continue] Bridge Finnian and I run back to the helm on the Bridge. The Captain stayed to check on Alexandra. Finnian doesn't ever really start any conversations with me. After working with him for two years and then a year break and then the last few weeks I have no idea if he likes me or not. It always seems like I am bothering him working when I bring up non-work topics, and it always seems like he thinks I'm tedious when I bring up work at any other time. "That was crazy, huh?" I say. Why not, what can it hurt. "Well, the best part of that plan is that it would have also worked with Grimes's fat ass in the breach, not just his robot." Former employee bashing! I guess I'm off the hook for a bit. Finnian sits down and starts fiddling with the navigation controls. >talk to finnian "Hey, the Captain's been a little off since I got back from leave," I say to him. "Did something happen?" Finnian turns to me and stops fiddling with the console. "You really hadn't heard?" he says. But we hear people approach the bridge, so that is all he says for now. The Captain joins the rest of us on the bridge. She sits in the command chair. "How is Alexandra?" I ask, taking over the scanning station. "She needs a doctor," says the Captain. "Unfortunately, we don't have a safety valve when the Life Support Tech needs life support." She looks over at Finnian. "Take us down," she says. "Hmm?" he says, having not paid attention. >talk to finnian I have nothing to say to him. "We need to land on Enceladus," says the Captain. "It's the closest moon, closest landing site." "Where is it? asks Finnian. "You're the pilot, what do you mean 'Where is it?' Don't you know?" she says. "I don't just have the positions of all the moons of Jupiter memorized!" he says. The Plagoo inter-communications panel buzzes. "Saturn," adds Mr Mailx. "Not. Jupiter," he continues. "Right, that's what I mean," says Finnian. "Tilt us to port," I say. "Towards the southern cross." "Ahhh... the southern cross? The cross? Is that what you mean?" I don't think Finnian is joking. "The constellation," I say. "It's just The Cross. Ol' Crux." Finnian adjusts something on the ship's navigation console. "No, it's the Southern Cross. It's not visible in the northern hemisphere. Of the Earth. Thus the name." Now I'm certain he's not joking. "Wait," says Finnian. "You're telling me that God ... GOD, the all knowing and all powerful ... created this piece of religious iconography and then set it in a hemisphere that Christ never visited? What other star patterns are only visible from that side, diagrams on how to escape a crucifix?" >x mailx I don't see him. >l Bridge This is the Bridge of our ship, there's a chair in the middle of the room for the Captain. Finnian has a navigator's console before a large black high definition television. I have a station behind the Captain port side. The Captain and Finnian are here. Finnian sets the Plagoo down on Enceladus. A rather smooth landing, considering the hull breach that is plugged by the robot. "Ja'Rod, can you please pull Mr Mailx out of the hole in the ship and get Alexandra to the airlock, where it will be warm? Finnian and I will meet you outside where we can discuss the plan thereafter." I nod. The Captain seems to be all business, Finnian's joke(?) about the stars didn't seem to cheer her up. She gets like this now, pretty morose at times. There is an exit out of the bridge to the north. >n Port Side Hallway This is just a simple access hallway that allows me to get to different areas of the ship. I can tell that Finnian has completed the ship landing procedures, there is a whirring and clicking and sounds of orchestral strikes. (Some of the latter may simply be that Finnian is force-piping the album Big Generator through the ship's audio, however.) >w I can't go that way. >e I can't go that way. >n PortSide Hallway To the north is the airlock and to the south is more hallway. >n Before the Airlock I'm before the airlock again. Mr Mailx is here plugging the hole I created. Alexandra is conscious, but laying on a blanket that the Captain somehow produced. Mr Mailx and Alexandra are here. >pull mailx "All right buddy," I say to Mailx, "Let me get you out of there." "Understood. Agreed," says Mr Mailx. I count to three, kind of looking the power LEDs that make up his eyes in good eye contact and grip his wispy metal fingers. On three I yank him out and the cases that make up his backside pop out. "You okay, man?" I ask him. "Will. Run. Diagnostic." he says. I nod. "Alexandra, we gotta get you over to the airlock, okay? It's going to get really cold in a bit with that giant hole in the hull, but in the airlock we can at least control the temperature there." She doesn't say anything but grimaces a nod to let me know she understood. She's holding her hand against her spleen. Or her liver? Her kidneys maybe. I can't tell how bruised she is, but it's enough to keep her laying on the floor. >take alexandra Alexandra probably wouldn't be too big on that idea. >pull alexandra She doesn't need to be pulled anywhere! She is not plugging any holes, for instance. >i I am carrying the x-ray specs and the star pistol. >l Before the Airlock I'm before the airlock again. Mr Mailx is here plugging the hole I created. Alexandra is conscious, but laying on a blanket that the Captain somehow produced. Mr Mailx and Alexandra are here. >scan alexandra That doesn't make any sense. >scan Nothing special to report here. >pull blanket Pulling the blanket doesn't get me anywhere. >take blanket I can't take that. >talk to alexandra "Are you in a lot of pain? Can you move?" "Hey Ja'Rod," she says. "It's not great, the Captain gave me some dilaudid though. I think I'm allergic to it, but that's a problem for future Alexandra." "Time. Travel. Is. Impossible." chimes in Mailx. Alexandra rolls her eyes. "Shot in the appendix by two pieces of space garbage and I can still find software bugs," she says. "Hold tight, Captain said I should get you in the airlock where we can control the temperature until we can fix the ship and get you a doctor. I imagine we're going to go planetside soon." "Enceladus. Is. A. Moon," says Mailx. There's a green button and a red button on the control panel for the airlock. >x green The green button controls the transparent door on the 'ship' side of the airlock. The door is currently closed. >push it (assuming you mean the green button) The first door to the airlock is now open. Alexandra, still very much holding what I think is her lower intestine, crawls over inside the airlock. >enter airlock I can't enter the airlock. >n I can't go that way. >e I can't go that way right now. >l Before the Airlock I'm before the airlock again. Mr Mailx is here plugging the hole I created. Alexandra is conscious, but laying on a blanket that the Captain somehow produced. Mr Mailx and Alexandra are here. >x door I don't see that. >x green The green button controls the transparent door on the 'ship' side of the airlock. The door is currently open. (I need to have both airlock doors shut using the green and red button with Alexandra inside.) >push red button The door to the outside is now closed. (I need to have both airlock doors shut using the green and red button with Alexandra inside.) >push green The first door to the airlock is now closed. Alexandra nods at me. Okay, Alexandra is in the airlock and both doors are shut. I can head back to the Bridge with Mailx now. >s PortSide Hallway To the south is more hallway, but eventually the bridge. Mr Mailx is here. >s Port Side Hallway This is just a simple access hallway that allows me to get to different areas of the ship. Mr Mailx is here. >s Bridge This is the Bridge of our ship, there's a chair in the middle of the room for the Captain. Finnian has a navigator's console before a large black high definition television. I have a station behind the Captain port side. I hear the Captain via the communications system on the Plagoo. "Ensign Butler," she says, "How is Alexandra?" "Alexandra is inside the airlock, the temperature controls are active and she'll be safe there. That room is getting cold. "Very well. Let's meet outside for our next steps." [Strike any key to continue] Outside the Plagoo Finnian looks around before looking back toward the group. He changed before we came down, now wearing a real Lynx fur coat, a white dunce cap and new old stock original Air Jordans. "Crap, Captain, it's an ice planet!" She nods at that. "Intelligence indicates that there's a small town a kilometer east of here. There's a mine, which we need, and a kind of bar." "What's your source of that intelligence?" asks Finnian. The Captain grits her teeth. "I consulted Wikipedia. Okay? Is that all right?" "No it's not all right!" says Finnian. "Wikipedia's moderator and administration system is filled with duplicitous losers that turned the exchange of free information into a political battle where scumbags scuttle into tribes to spread their lies. Mr Mailx?" "Yes," he says. "Delete the Wikipedia page on Enceladus and replace it with a 10K image of a giant tarantula." "Finnian, stop," says the Captain. "Done," says the robot, presumably having fired off some API calls. Finnian laughs. It's a dry, hollow one. "Seventy one minutes from now, good luck to any kid trying to do a book report on Jovian moons. Cite that revision in your bibliography, you sniveling Webelo punks." The Captain walks east. Mr Mailx starts up to join her and after a shrug and then a replacing of his precariously-set hat, Finnian goes east too. >e Snowy Path "... I'm just saying, have you ever tried to edit something on it? No? Oh, hey Ja'Rod," says Finnian. "Our plan is going to be this," says the Captain. "There's a hot sauce bar up ahead. To the east. We ask around to find a doctor. Since we also need to repair the ship, let's see if we can find a mine." We all nod at this except for Mr Mailx, who just keeps treading east with a low whir. >e Snowy Path "... bring her back something to drink is all I'm saying, they can't just have hot sauce. Maybe a bottle of scotch to anesthetize her wound. Hey robot, does scotch kill the bacteria and germs around wounds?" "No," says Mr Mailx. "What does he know, he spends his free time vandalizing encyclopedias," Fin says. "What do you think the word anesthetize means?" asks the Captain, who is still walking. For the first time I understand what Finnian has been trying to do lately, he's trying to cheer her up. It isn't working, because he's a socially maladjusted narcissist, but he's trying. "Ja'Rod," she says, "Can you give me a scan of what is up ahead?" The Captain, Finnian, and Mr Mailx are here. In the distance, just before the horizon, a beautiful jet of water bursts from a warm fracture in the crust of Enceladus. The gaseous plume fizzles into outer space. >cheer up captain You don't need to use the word "cheer". >scan "I see giant spiders, tell Mr Mailx to take some on location shots for the next batch of edits," I say, trying to keep the conversation going. "No, for real though, there is, sure enough, a bar not too far away and it's across from the entrance to an underground mine. I'm not getting good readings on what sort of metals are down there, so I assume it's lead and something else." >e Snowy Path "Okay, so we need a doctor to come back to the ship," says Finnian. "D'ya think they'll just come because Alexandra is hurt? That would make it sort of a house call, wouldn't it? I don't know if doctors on this moon do house calls." "I don't think we should bring up payment until whoever we find does, " says the Captain. "And if they do, let's let them throw out a number first." "Ah-ha!" exclains Finnian. "So good to be on the other side of your negotiations for a chance. I see how it goes now. This mystery doc will be lucky to have an eighth share." "None of you are at an eighth of a share," replies the Captain. "The robot is. Hey robot, you getting an eighth of a share?" "No," says Mr Mailx. "There ya go. Too bad you look like three poorly stacked Commodores. If the type of machine you were was a Rug Doctor the Captain might have paid you for this." Finnian waves his hands. "All of this." I see now that we landed in just an enormous flat crater -- the crater's edge is just beyond this little section of town. I still have no idea where anyone around here lives. I'm hoping their homes are out of the crater and they all get around by jetpack. (There is what appears to be an abandoned snowmobile close by with tracks leading to the bar, so maybe it's just that.) To the east is the actual center of town. Finnian, the Captain, and Mr Mailx are here. (My X-ray specs just automatically went back up.) >x snowmobile I haven't seen anything like that. >x tracks You don't need to use the word "tracks". >x bar I haven't seen anything like that. >e Center of Town There is a large log cabin to the south. Pretty rustic. Trees don't exactly grow here, so the fact that it exists at all means that someone really wanted to have an earthly experience. To the north is a cave, my scan indicated that people can descend downwards. "I can do the talking once we g-- " starts Finnian. "I'll do the talking," interrupts the Captain. "I'll try the milder hot sauces," I add, helpfully. Finnian, the Captain, and Mr Mailx are here. Abandoned just a bit beyond us is what appears to be a broken snowmobile. >x snowmobile Arctic Cat was a company that made snowmobiles all the way back in the 1970s and I think somehow someone dragged one through space and time and then left it in barely running condition, from the looks of it, 70 light minutes away on a Saturian moon. >use it (assuming you mean the snowmobile) Be a little more specific about what you'd like me to do with the snowmobile. >fix it (assuming you mean the snowmobile) I couldn't imagine anyone being capable of fixing that old thing. >search it (assuming you mean the snowmobile) I don't find anything. >push it (assuming you mean the snowmobile) Pushing the snowmobile doesn't get me anywhere. >enter it (assuming you mean the snowmobile) I don't have any interest in that old piece of moon garbage. >scan My specs aren't lowered. >lower specs Okay, I've lowered my X-ray specs. >scan Nothing special to report here. >s Hot Sauce Bar The four of us enter the bar and we're greeted by a doorman. He is suited up in a caribou skin and fur coat. I don't think it was made for him as he's sitting on a stool and the thing falls all over the floor of the bar like a wedding dress. "You can't bring that thing in here," says the bouncer, but he is pointing to Finnian. Mr Mailx turns his entire body to face Finnian, which is the creepiest thing ever because of how long it takes him to do that on tread. "That's my pilot," says the Captain. "There's one room and a bathroom in here, you'll be able to make your way around just fine," says the bouncer. "Get that cap out of here before I throw you all out myself." "Oh, it's the cap?" asks Finnian. "This thing is the height of fashion far back around the outer moons of Saturn." The Captain looks skyward. "This is a moon of Saturn, dummy," says the bouncer. Finnian looks genuinely surprised at that revelation. "Huh," he says. "Mailx, please go with Finnian and wait outside the bar," says the Captain. "No!" shrieks the robot. "Come on, robot," Finnian says to Mr Mailx. The two of them leave, to presumably wait outside or try to find a print encyclopedia to assert the correctness of the bouncer's claim. Now that we're inside, this looks just like any other bar in the solar system, except colder and with a scent of chile peppers instead of old hops. There are a series of booths around the walls with the bar itself a square right in the middle. I'd say there's probably thirty or forty men, women and robots in here. The Captain points to a couple empty stools near the plastic bin of lemons and limes. "Shall we?" she asks. The Captain is here. On the bar is a small fruit tray. Sitting by itself on the bar is a bottle of Blair's Ultra Death sauce. >take all I can't take multiple objects like that. >take bottle I can't reach it, I'd have to talk to the bartender to order it. >talk to bartender I should sit on the stool near her first. >sit on stool I take a seat on the bar stool. The Captain joins me to my left. The bartender is a late-twenties Asian gal, I'd place her right in the middle of Los Angeles, California with her horn-rimmed glasses and all business body language. "Right, fancy a mite o Frank's eh come noe lurves?" (Nailed it, deep southeast L.A. near Baker, I think.) >talk to bartender "Hey, can I have the Blair's sauce?" I ask of the bartender. She gives me a look up and down. "Have you tasted hot sauces like that one before?" she asks with an arched eyebrow, having abandoned her accent. Or she adopted mine. "Oh yeah," I say. "All the time. Ja'Rod Butler, from Scoville, ah--" I look toward the Captain because I can't think of an American state right now, "Jersey, that's me. We grew up around it, it was everywhere." "If I give this to ya and you drink it and you throw up in me bar I'm going to be really upset," says the bartender. "Oh man. Do people do that? Just come on in here, taste some sauce and get sick?" "No. They don't. Because I specifically ask them and they answer me honestly and truthfully so it never gets that far." She hands me the bottle of sauce. I feel a little bad about constructing a lie that is about a million heat units, but I remember that I'm on a mission here, I'm working. (Then I realize she is too, but that's as far as I go.) >l Hot Sauce Bar The bar doesn't look that much different than normal alcohol bars across the solar system. It's got a bit more rustic feel because they had to make it out of logs, but it adds some charm, I guess. The bar itself is in the middle of the room, and there are shelves here with different kinds of hot sauces, arranged by color, manufacturer, scoville rating and how many people they've made puke up. The lights are fairly low and we don't have a lot of time to try to find a doctor. The Captain is here. On the bar is a small fruit tray. >i I am carrying the x-ray specs, the star pistol, and the Blair's Ultra Death. >drink ultra death I take the Blair's Sauce and turn 180 degrees on the bar stool. I unwrap it and drink the entire thing in one quick slurp. This was a terrible idea, probably the worst idea I've ever had. My eyes start to water, my x-ray specs inexplicably start scanning even though they are on top of my head and I start coughing and hiccuping. This is poison, there was a mixup or something, there is no way anyone could have ever put this into a bottle intentionally. It burns, it's burning through my face! "Aye pal, one milk then, innit, won ye done wit pure greeting," asks(?) the bartender. I can't respond. I'm hunched over dying. This is it, I'm $%^&ing dying. Even the Captain has gone from an arched eyebrow to actual concern. A man emerges from the far booth. "What did this flailing cretin do?" he asks. I assume I am hallucinating, but he has a white lab coat and a stethoscope. So great, while this sauce is killing me I ended up finding a doctor either in full Enceladus City Comic Con Cosplay or a porn. "He ingested a little too much of the hot sauce," says the Captain. She puts her hand on my forehead. At first I think she's trying to take my temperature and I feel like that was really motherly of her, but then I realize she was just trying to turn my specs off so I don't irradiate every living bit of tissue in the bar. [Strike any key to continue] The Doctor rips the two liters of milk that the bartender produced out of her hands and splashes me in the face with it. He forces me to drink about a quarter of the jug. It's not really helping anything past my throat, but I think I'm not dying any more. "Thanks, Doc," I try to say, but what comes out it something more akin to, 'Quaalude Farsase.' >talk to doctor I don't have anything to say to the Doctor. Oh god, god, the second wave is hitting me, I didn't realize there would be a second wave. This is awful, this cannot be how this -- I spastically throw my hands around and start bicycling while in the fetal position on the floor -- "I'm so - so sorry, I'm aaaaaghhhhh," I try to say to the bartender. She just shakes her head and rolls her eyes. >l Hot Sauce Bar The bar doesn't look that much different than normal alcohol bars across the solar system. It's got a bit more rustic feel because they had to make it out of logs, but it adds some charm, I guess. The bar itself is in the middle of the room, and there are shelves here with different kinds of hot sauces, arranged by color, manufacturer, scoville rating and how many people they've made puke up. The lights are fairly low and we don't have a lot of time to try to find a doctor. The Captain and Doctor Nahas are here. On the bar is a small fruit tray. "Give him some milk!" I hear someone shout from the far corner of the bar. "That won't help!" shrieks someone else. "That's a myth! Idiot!" "Give him a slightly mellower hot sauce," I hear from the opposite corner of the first guy. Nobody's doing dick to actually help me though, so I don't appreciate these suggestions flying around. >x tray I am not completely sure what the proper name for this thing is, it's probably not fruit tray. Maybe fruit caddy? Perhaps the name is regional, like water fountain or bubbler. I think I'm okay ... for now. I stand. I take a quick glance around the bar to see if anyone has ordered wings, if that's a thing here. I pull on the bottom of my T-shirt to show everyone I'm back and all business again. I'm not sure if that point has been made. "I'm all business, Captain," I say, eliminating all doubt. "You're telling me she almost went through an airlock?" asks the Doctor. The Captain nods her head, one professional to another. The Doctor sees that I am standing. "Ja'Rod," he says. "My name is Doctor Milad Nahas." He is speaking really slow in perfect Americanized English, which he doesn't really need to do. "You ingested too much hot sauce, okay? I'm going to ask you some questions to see if we need to stay here or not. Can you tell me your favorite game?" "Yes, it's Mouse Trap," I say. The Doctor gives a concerned look to the Captain. He looks back to me. "Okay, Ja'Rod," he says, speaking even more slowly. "I'm afraid you may be currently suffering from temporary yet severe mental retardation --" "It's all we have on the ship!" exclaims the Captain. "He's fine, he's no different than any other member of my crew. Look, I have no idea what the criminal that was on my ship did to my life support tech, but as far as I know she's dying in --" I mime like I am shivering to try to guide the Captain through her speech -- "Dying in my airlock that was disintegrated open. We absolutely need your help." Doctor Nahas stuffs his stethoscope into a pocket. "Take me there immediately, please ma'am." The Captain is talking to the bartender as I stagger to my feet. I get rid of some stuff I don't need. After about ten seconds the bartender slips the Captain something. It's not this huge mystery or anything as to what it was, as the Captain immediately gives me a black key. >x key I think it's made out of solid brass or a similarly heavy combo of metals, but it's painted black, the paint having started to chip. >talk to doctor I don't have anything to say to the Doctor. >w I can't go that way. >n Center of Town The Captain sees Finnian, Mr Mailx and Doctor Nahas about to leave. "You're all set?" she asks Finnian. "Yeah, we're huffing it back to the Plagoo." "I need Mr Mailx, but I have a suspicion that Grimes programmed it to not listen to women," she adds. Nahas looks at the two of them like they are crazy. "He ... Grimes told me why he did it. He didn't do it because of anything other than he didn't want his fiancee back on Earth to have it open up his stash of --" I make the 'cut him off' gesture at Finnian and look towards the Doctor. Him getting weirded out is the last thing we need. "His, ah, stash of um ... er ... women's socks," says Finnian, finally. The fact that it took him ten seconds to come up with something worse than if he just told the truth isn't helping. "Do you need the robot, Cap? Mailx, go with the Captain," says Finnian. "Okay," says Mailx. Finnian and the Doctor each head back to the Plagoo. Mr Mailx and the Captain are here. Abandoned just a bit beyond us is what appears to be a broken snowmobile. >n Mine Entrance "How did you get the key, anyway?" I ask the Captain. "When you were flailing about, I just explained the situation to her and promised her no more theatrics. I guess the mine is owned by the same company that owns the hot sauce bar. I guess they own everything around here." "Well, they are doing a great job, they put in air, they put in a little more gravity, they put in... well..." I can't really think of what else this company did to make it nice here. "Yeah," says the Captain, out of compliments for Enceladus as well. "I think we might be the only people in a decade to land here as opposed to crash land here and be stuck." The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. >n (unlocking the door with the key first) Unlocked. (and then opening it) Opened. Mine "So we need some metal for patching up the ship," says the Captain, just reiterating the plan. I don't quite know how a chunk of metal is going to help, but then it's unlikely to be my job to fix it, anyway. This area of the mine extends about fifteen feet north. There is a (wooden) beam overhead and a rope leading downwards. "Shouldn't there be a cart or something to get us along?" I ask. Mr Mailx moves slowly to the edge of the hole. "There, Is, One, Aaaaah," he says, having gotten a little too close to the edge, and fallen. The Captain just shakes her head. "Let's go get him," she says with a sigh. >n I can't go that way. >d Mine Level Two The Captain and I, having descended from the rope above, come to rest on this level of the mine. We don't really see any metal that can help us out here. It also appears that there hasn't been much digging, as if there was something interesting further down, but they wanted a base here in case of future expansion. The rope continues to lead downwards. There is some installed blue neon lighting below that I can see. It appears that there's just one more level to the mine. The Captain continues by going down. >d Mine Level Three Luckily, the rope is close enough to the sides of the mine that I can sort of steady myself and kick until I descend completely. The mine shaft ends here, in terms of going into the center of Enceladus. Carved out from the rock and snow is a path to the east. Mr Mailx and the Captain are here. The mine cart is here. >d I can't go that way. There's an exit east of where we are now. Entering the mine cart can also, in theory, bring us up. >e Bottom of Mine We have come to the bottom of the mine and the farthest anyone has dug. Nothing allows any further passage. It's a bit dark, although there is some neon rope providing a bit of light. There is icy rock on all sides of us. The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. >e I can't go that way. >x rock You don't need to use the word "rock". >x ice I haven't seen anything like that. >talk to captain I don't have anything to say to her at the moment. I can hear something going on up top, I think we all can. But we're down here in the depths of the mine and can't really get back up. The 'something' is quickly revealed as a cave-in. A giant chunk of rock-hard ice falls down the shaft and comes to rest at the exit. We're trapped. Something triggered a terrible cave-in, or ... it seems pretty intentional. Someone doesn't want us getting back up. The Captain taps her jacket to try to raise the Plagoo but just gets static. She lets out a sarcastic laugh and sits down, her back up against the far eastern end of the mine, far from the boulder. She closes her eyes. She looks as I would imagine someone looks who has had one disaster after another and just can't take it any longer. >talk to mailx I think he's sulking. >talk to captain I think she is having a nervous breakdown at the moment. >l Bottom of Mine We are in the bottom of the mine here in the city. A small piece of neon rope that is powered from who-knows-what gives us a little bit of light, but that's it, really. It's cold in here as we are surrounded by icy rock on all sides. The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. There is a boulder of ice here that is preventing exit from the room. >x boulder It's impossibly large and dense, too big for me to manipulate or chip away at without freezing to death. It covers the entirety of the way we came in. >talk to mailx I think he's sulking. >push boulder It's too heavy for me to personally manipulate. >l Bottom of Mine We are in the bottom of the mine here in the city. A small piece of neon rope that is powered from who-knows-what gives us a little bit of light, but that's it, really. It's cold in here as we are surrounded by icy rock on all sides. The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. There is a boulder of ice here that is preventing exit from the room. >i I am carrying the x-ray specs, the star pistol, and the key. >shoot boulder That can't be shot! >climb boulder I can't climb the ice. >take rope I haven't seen anything like that. >l Bottom of Mine We are in the bottom of the mine here in the city. A small piece of neon rope that is powered from who-knows-what gives us a little bit of light, but that's it, really. It's cold in here as we are surrounded by icy rock on all sides. The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. There is a boulder of ice here that is preventing exit from the room. >talk to captain I think she is having a nervous breakdown at the moment. >talk to mailx I think he's sulking. >shoot captain That can't be shot! >shoot mailx That can't be shot! >shoot rope I haven't seen anything like that. >shoot ice That can't be shot! >shoot boulder That can't be shot! >i I am carrying the x-ray specs, the star pistol, and the key. >scan I take a quick scan of the area. This boulder is definitely pure ice, nothing else to it as far as I can tell. The only issue is that the ice is harder than anything I can imagine and we have a giant chunk of it in front of us. I... okay, I do find something interesting in the mine itself, however, a vein of silver ore about the size of a baseball, just half an inch from the side of the northern wall. Covered in much more supple icy snow, I dig at it until it almost pops out and ends up on the ground. I pick it up. I have no idea if the Captain is aware of what I just did, I should definitely talk to her about it. >talk to captain "Captain ..." I was going to mention the silver, but I don't. "Are you okay?" She doesn't open her eyes right away. She's always just so inscrutable, and I'm not always great at reading people to begin with, so I don't know, I don't even know if I should be asking, but it's like some other force compels me to do so, so I do. "Wait. You're not okay, are you, Captain? What happened to you when I was gone? I know Forburn left, but..." Her smile gets broader, but it is lacking all warmth. "You hadn't heard, Ja'Rod?" I shake my head in the negatory. No, I hadn't heard what happened to her husband when I was off the ship. "I thought you had heard. You know, unlike popular opinion, I don't actually read the direct messages of everyone on the crew. I think the ship computer supported that, but I never wanted to know what any of you were thinking anyway. I disabled it permanently when Forburn... he died, Ja'Rod." "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I had sort of thought something like that had happened but I didn't know. I am so, so sorry, Captain." She opens her eyes for the first time and smiles when I say the word 'Captain.' "We were bringing blood, actually," she says. "Hundreds and hundreds of bags of blood to one of the colonies. All the different types. A ... B ... er..." "A. B." adds Mailx. "I said that," says the Captain. "Wait." I turn to Mr Mailx. "Are you saying A and B? Or AB?" "A. B." he says. The Captain, still sitting with her back against the cold wall of the cave, manages a shrug towards me. "Forburn had gotten off the ship. We were delivering them to some dump in downtown Mimas, right inside the crater, and he had gotten off the Plagoo to talk to our contact with the government. I was going to join him after running the last batch of tests on the cargo to make sure it was still good. I don't know exactly what happened. I didn't have a camera or a drone on him or anything. But he got bit by the contact's dog. I don't know if it's because something went wrong in the deal or if the contact was just a piece of garbage or what. And it wasn't just a bite, it couldn't have been. When I left the ship and went to the meeting point, I found him dead, his eyes pointed in horror, dried blood on his cheeks and chest. He had been mauled. The dog had a splattering of blood all around her face, but she was just calmly looking way from him, breathing roughly, peering out into the cosmos." "Oh my God," I say. "That is horrible." She nods. She closes her eyes again. "I had to get his body back on the ship... What I hated most about myself is that I knew he was dead and I just switched off and had to get some tasks done and didn't feel anything for that initial moment, Ja'Rod. There was nothing at first. It was like I was being told a fact instead of experiencing it. I left the dog on Mimas. We buried Forburn on Earth, we had him cremated, he said he always wanted that. But there was a mixup at the crematorium and I was in so much grief, it was so senseless. I thought I would have forever with him. You know I didn't say goodbye to him before he left that day? We usually had coffee in the morning, but I was running late. First time in forever and it was that day. It doesn't seem fair ... well, he's gone, right? What else can you say?" "What did you do with the blood?" I asked. Maybe a bad question with poor timing, but God, nobody gives you a manual for when your boss tells you about how her husband got murdered. "I dumped it. I dumped it out just wanted to do something hateful. We left Mimas three hours after I found him dead and by then I was grieving and I specifically wanted to do something terrible. I pushed every crate of blood into the airlock and slammed the red button when we started to fly away. Jupiter's not the only thing in the solar system with a big red spot now, mind you." I don't know whether to laugh at that or not. Suddenly there is a change in her demeanor. She looks at the boulder. She stands up. Her chin becomes a rock. "We, Ensign Butler -- " "Captain, if you want to wait and -- " "We need to get out of this cave. I assume it was McGrathley that locked us in here. We have a punching robot that doesn't listen to women and some ice that needs to be punched. Do you care to give him the order?" (My X-ray specs just automatically went back up.) >mailx, punch boulder Mr Mailx ignores me. >talk to mailx "Mr Mailx, could you please destroy the ice blocking our exit? "All. Right," he says. Mailx attempts a K-turn. It takes about five minutes for him to turn around. He then lines his spindly fingers up with the boulder of ice. His fingers sort of intertwine within each other. I would describe them looking kind of like the end of a drill bit. They definitely come to a sharp point. He then slides them each back about six inches from the front of the boulder. Then he strikes. I guess I've seen videos of martial artists breaking through cement and stone with their bare hands. Mailx has chi, I guess? At some point in the future I will ply myself to enlightenment thinking of how this robot harnessed his inner energy to save us all, but right now, man is it freezing down here. He only needs to strike twice before managing to completely pulverize the ice boulder into harmless rubble. Whoever pushed the boulder down on us used a chunk of aluminum as the centerpiece to it, probably because they wanted to have the same effect as putting a rock in a snowball does. I take it. >scan My specs aren't lowered. >lower specs Okay, I've lowered my X-ray specs. >scan I don't get anything interesting in the scan. >l Bottom of Mine We are in the bottom of the mine here in the city. A small piece of neon rope that is powered from who-knows-what gives us a little bit of light, but that's it, really. It's cold in here as we are surrounded by icy rock on all sides. The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. (My X-ray specs just automatically went back up.) >w Mine Level Three The mine shaft ends here, in terms of going into the center of Enceladus. Carved out from the rock and snow is a path to the east. The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. The mine cart is here. >enter cart The three of us hop into the mine cart and are taken to the top ... [Strike any key to continue] Mine Entrance The mine descends deep into the belly of the moon, but standing before us at the moment is a formidable door. The Captain and Mr Mailx are here. >x door Looks like a reinforced metal door, about five feet tall so we'll have to duck under a little. >duck You don't need to use the word "duck". >e I can't go that way. >s Center of Town The Captain walks over to what I thought was a broken and useless snowmobile. She breaks open a panel underneath the steering mechanism and holds two wires together. Nothing happens. She rolls her eyes and gives it a push down the snowy hill leading to the hot sauce bar... only she goes straight past the bar and descends out of sight. Twenty seconds later I hear a roar. Ten seconds after that, I see her come back up the hill with the now-working snowmobile. "Get on, let's go," she says to me. The snowmobile is here. >enter snowmobile Outside the Plagoo McGrathley and the werewolf are here, it appears that they are trying to hack into the boarding ramp of the Plagoo in order to board it. Upon seeing us, they put their handheld scanner away. The werewolf begins snarling, having recognized us, but it is waiting for a command to strike. "The cave-in should have crushed you, Captain," says McGrathley. "Enough, I'll just kill you myself." He produces a revolver, an old fashioned six shot. The Captain disembarks the snowmobile and slowly begins walking toward him. McGrathley fires once. The bullet misses the Captain by about twenty feet and reaches escape velocity, leaving Enceladus until it is presumably captured by the gravity of Saturn. I roll off the snowmobile and stand towards the Plagoo. The werewolf begins scrambling toward me. The Captain, Mr Mailx, the werewolf, and McGrathley are here. "Ja'Rod, kill that werewolf!" shouts the Captain toward me. She whips out the star pistol, which she took from me at some point. She aims it at McGrathley, who is clumsily trying to reload his revolver, apparently being too inexperienced with it to understand that you can load five or six bullets at once. >i I am carrying the x-ray specs, the key, the silver ore, and the aluminum. The werewolf is quickly gaining ground and coming straight for me. Fangs out, tongue out, chest completely undefended. McGrathley fires again, this time somehow missing by an even greater distance. Apparently threatening to throw people out airlocks develops different skills than using handheld weapons. The Captain didn't even flinch. >kill werewolf Sure, but with what? The werewolf, with that head start, covers more ground than I would have thought possible and places both of its hands around my neck. It screams in pain for a moment when it accidentally comes close to the silver ore I am carrying, but with one quick swipe it manages to rip apart that piece of my torso and fling it halfway across the universe. The blood comes squirting out of me and without Earth's gravity to bring it back down in a normal fashion, my blood seems to be firing thirty feet into the air. The werewolf digs its other hand into my neck and its nails pierce my flesh, the oblivion comes. It is all over forever. *** I have died! *** The game has ended. Do you want to (R)ESTART, R(E)STORE a saved game, (U)NDO your last turn, or (Q)UIT? undo Undone. Outside the Plagoo I am outside the HMCS Plagoo, although the ship is locked and the walkway up is closed. The other three members of my party have gone east. This is my first time on Enceladus, the sixth moon of Saturn. The gravity is a lot lower than Earth or the ship, although a injector has been installed in the moon's core to give it a little more pull than it had naturally. Virtually the entire surface is covered with ice, or (where people have set up civilization) crushed ice. The Captain, Mr Mailx, the werewolf, and McGrathley are here. >undo Undone. Outside the Plagoo I am outside the HMCS Plagoo, although the ship is locked and the walkway up is closed. The other three members of my party have gone east. This is my first time on Enceladus, the sixth moon of Saturn. The gravity is a lot lower than Earth or the ship, although a injector has been installed in the moon's core to give it a little more pull than it had naturally. Virtually the entire surface is covered with ice, or (where people have set up civilization) crushed ice. The Captain, Mr Mailx, the werewolf, and McGrathley are here. >scan werewolf That doesn't make any sense. >x-ray Better start with a verb. >throw silver at werewolf I successfully strike the werewolf in the chest with the silver. The thing about the plastic genetic surgery that these people sign up for is that in order for the Live Action Role Playing to be accurate, they give themselves the weaknesses of the legendary creatures they want to be as well as the strengths. The chunk of silver ore goes right through the sternum of the werewolf, passing through like a metal skewer through marshmallow. The ore isn't even particularly slowed down by the werewolf's flesh and strikes the Plagoo, falling to the ground. The werewolf falls over, dead. McGrathley fires again, this time somehow missing by an even greater distance. Apparently threatening to throw people out airlocks develops different skills than using handheld weapons. The Captain didn't even flinch. >talk to captain I don't have anything to say to her at the moment. After being targeted twice, to say nothing of having her life and the life of her crew threatened by this unhinged lunatic, the Captain flips the cooldown override on the star pistol, which I didn't even know it had, steadies herself and fires a single shot. The Captain, my hero, quietly and without fanfare hits McGrathley right between the eyes. His body freezes in mid-action, as if possessed by a scarlet ghost, and then disintegrates into a sticky pile of ash. Finnian lowers the boarding ramp of the Plagoo with enough force to cause McGrathley's ashes to scatter into chunks upon the Enceladean surface. The Captain puts the star pistol away as all of us ascend the boarding ramp. I can't help notice that she quickly twirled it one time before hiding it though. [Strike any key to continue] Rec Room The Recreation Room of the Plagoo is twenty feet by fifteen feet and placed way in the 'back' of the ship. I think the theory for the designer of the class of ship that the Plagoo is, is that we'd constantly have people firing weapons at us, so put the least important thing towards the tail. We are all gathered here. I am the last to arrive and overhear the Captain talk about how we can process the aluminum until we can get to a shipyard with Finnian while asking Doctor Nahas to help with arrangements for Grimes's body. The Captain sees that I have arrived and gives me a genuinely warm smile, the first I've seen her make in ages. "I think we just need to all have a drink together after everything that went down," she says to all of us. The Captain and Finnian each have a glass of scotch. Doctor Nahas has a ginger ale. Alexandra has an entire bottle of vodka and someone gave Mr Mailx a Dixie Cup with engine oil in it. (He can't actually drink anything, so this was someone's attempt at humanizing him.) Alexandra hands me a drink of my own invention, a gintata. "To those we miss terribly and to all who remain," says the Captain as everyone raises their glass. >raise glass I raise this perfect drink, this perfect specimen of alcohol with the others before drinking it. >drink Be a little more specific about what you'd like me to drink. >drink alcohol I take a sip of my gin-tata. The Kool-Aid tastes pretty fresh, I have no idea where you get Fruit Punch flavor this far from Earth. The Captain consumes her scotch without fanfare, Finnian starts in on his with as much fanfare as humanly possible. Alexandra opens the cap slightly and with a flick of her finger sends it spinning clear across the room. She takes a long pull from bottle of vodka and Doctor Nahas looks at all of us, leaving his drink raised. [Strike any key to continue] Alexandra keeps drinking the vodka. [Strike any key to continue] Alexandra keeps drinking the vodka. The oil melts through the Dixie cup Mailx was holding, creating a mess. Doctor Nahas drinks his ginger ale out of polite awkwardness that Alexandra hasn't stopped yet. [Strike any key to continue] Alexandra keeps drinking. [Strike any key to continue] Alexandra finishes the bottle of vodka. Everyone except Mailx is looking in her direction. Maybe he is too. "I'm parched," she says. "A girl really feels the lack of humidity out here on the Jovian moons," she says as Finnian's eyes light up and he gestures in laughter towards the Captain. I look around for something to clean the spill up with as I make myself another drink. We might be a million miles from where we meant to be and ten million miles from where we want to be but at least for the moment we're right where we belong. Together. [Strike any key to continue] *** You have won Enceladus, my entry in the 2019 Interactive Fiction Competition. *** The game has ended. Do you want to (R)ESTART, R(E)STORE a saved game, (U)NDO your last turn, or (Q)UIT? q