The Galactic Adventures of Pierce Darkblade

As you hear the engines start up you realize you need to get out of dodge immediatley. The roar of the engines firing up drowns out the sound of you remvoing the hidden compartment door and crawling up into the hallway behind the cockpit. You run as fast as you can to the ramp you entered the ship from but it's already been closed and secured and you can feel the ship beginning to hover above the landing platform. Your too late to escape, so to avoid detection you quickly crawl back into the hidden compartment,securing the floor panel above you. The smugglers don't notice you.

You curse yourself for making such a stupid move, even communicating with the Pachyderm crew is risky as your not sure if these smugglers have transmission detectors installed. For right now you decide against trying to communicate with your crew.

You sit down and lean against the containers of magpepper listening to the two smugglers idle chit chat. You pick up that these two have been working together for a long time and have had many adventures together and have racked up some pretty hefty bounties on their heads. You pick up that the gruff sounding ones name is Rex and the other smugglers name is Estevon.

Listening more intently on their conversation they reveal that not only do their crimes involve smuggling spices, but smuggling various people and aliens as well. The gruff sounding one also laughs about the few times they kidnapped children and held them for ransom money!

Now you are aware that your not dealing with Robin Hood esque smugglers who use their skills to help oppressed people, but actual hardened criminals who probably will hurt someone, if they have to, just to make some quick cash.

Eventually they begin to chat about their favorite holovision shows; quickly losing interest, you begin to nod off and drift to sleep.

You awake to a jarring jolt of the ship, you are being rocked back and forth as the ship seems to be hit again and again. Suddenly you are thrown from your sitting position and propelled forward in the compartment hitting the back of your head. You wince in pain as you hear the smugglers shouting.

"How the HELL did they find us this time?!" Estevon shouts, "That tracer beacon they were following was heading to the damn horsehead nebula at nearly .6 past lightspeed! Theres no way they caught up to it, realized it wasn't us and tracked us down again!"

Rex gruffly replies with doubt, "There may have been more than one tracer on the ship, did you scan the whole ship or stop after you found the one?"

Estevon loses it after the accusation.
"FUCK YOU REX! FUCK YOU! Your gonna point the finger at me? I scanned the entire ship TWICE you fuck! And thats TWO more times then you scanned it, so don't throw this on me!"

You hear Estevon grimacing angrily and Rex does not reply to him as the ship is hit again by screaming laser bolts. You can hear electrical sparks buzzing above your compartment.

"Shields are down to 9% Estevon. Those fancy maneuvers your always talking about would be appreciated right about now."

"God damn you Rex...They're on us too tight, they must of upgraded their thrusters, I can't shake em for the life of me."

Another screaming laser bolt is heard, the ship shakes violently.

"Shields are down."

"Shit shit shit! I swear to god if I survive this I'm tracking down and killing these fuckin pussy bounty hunters myself! Let me sleep without one damn eye open, hell!"

"Life support system has been damaged. One more hit and we'll be sucking in space air." Rex cooly states.

"Fuck. Drop the rear proximity bombs right now."

"They're right on our ass, you wanna take us both down with that genius plan?"

"Shove the sarcasam Rex and fuckin do it, it's our only shot, we are getting out of here now!"

From the confines of your compartment all you can hear is a large explosion coming from the back of the ship, then you are suddenly rocked back against the compartment wall as the ship rockets forward at hyperspeed.

"WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!" Estevon cries

"You blew them half to hell with that!"

"I know! Fuckin hunters just got proxi bombs shoved down their throat!"

You feel the ship slow down, dropping out of hyperspace. The ship starts to shake violently again, but not from any attacker, as a ship captain yourself you can tell the ship is badly damaged and is about to go out of control.

"Rear stabilizers and thrusters are out of commision. Dropping out of hyperspeed due to low fuel...Where the hell are we?"

"I have no idea, I just punched in a random navigation point on the star chart when we went to hyperspeed, but now the computers are all damaged...I can't tell where we are."

"Yeah...Stopping a couple thousand miles in front of a planet just proves how damn lucky we are. We should be dead."

"Well Rex we still might be dead cuz now I gotta land this piece a shit! Put the last fuel reserves into the port thrusters."

"Your going to spin this ship to land it!?"

"Looks that way! Hold on Rex!"

"Damnnnnn."


Upon hearing this you realize Estevon is going to have to land the ship sideways, and without stabilzers the ship is going to go down fast, either resulting in a fiery explosion or a VERY hard landing. You grit your teeth and hold on to the spice container for dear life.

You have 1 choice: