Welcome to another exciting installment of Spacemon, the tale of a Pokemon TRPG campaign! It is a sci-fi space epic played using the Pokemon Tabletop United (PTU) system and GMed by fellow TAY author DragonStorm247. You can get caught up on the entire Spacemon saga here!
“The Romanov Crisis continues! This just in! Union forces have been overrun by rebels in Outer Rim Sector 18! Several naval installations have been captured!”
The sounds of the news reports had been heard on the UAS Helix for the past few days now. Morgan stood in the med bay, listening to the broadcast as she observed MARIA tending to the unconscious Alex lying on the medical table. It had been a few days since H had attempted to kill the girl and, in that time, Morgan, Dmitri, and Shane had agreed that she would be allowed to stay on the ship with them. She had proven herself to be a skilled Pokemon trainer and quite knowledgeable when it came to Pokeballs, not to mention the fact that she didn’t have anywhere else to go. They had also tried to reason with H, but he could not be dissuaded from his plan to kill Alex so they had left him tied up in the lab. Alex would soon wake from her medically induced coma and then the crew would have one less thing to worry about.
The Helix had been docked on the Federation metropolis world of Delphyne in Sector 1 for several days while the crew was sorting out their business. Figuring out what to do with Alex was but one of several matters they needed to deal with. For one thing, the ship needed some serious repairs. The patch job the repair bot, HERB, had performed on Vandia had been enough to make the Helix spaceworthy again, but it couldn’t compare to a proper repair job in an actual port.
Additionally, the crew had come to Delphyne in hopes of finding a new pilot. With Arlon gone, the crew was in desperate need of a good one with actual training. Shane had been doing well enough while they were traveling around at a leisurely pace for the past few months, but if they were going to be flying through potentially hostile space they all felt that they needed someone with a bit more skill and finesse. A Federation world such as Delphyne was the perfect place to recruit a pilot. Morgan and her crewmates had already met with several potential candidates, but so far none had the exact qualifications they were looking for. They needed someone at least as good as Arlon, if not better, given where they were headed.
The other reason the Helix was still on Delphyne was that the crew was still working to decipher the star map from Vandia. While they had been attempting to pinpoint the exact coordinates of the location the star map was pointing to, so far they had only been able to narrow it down to a region of Sector 18 in the Outer Rim. Unfortunately, getting there was shaping up to be a bit dicey given recent events.
Morgan sighed as she glanced back at the news report playing on the holoscreen.
“The conflict, ongoing for several months now, continues to escalate, expanding to Romanov holdings in the Outer Rim,” the news anchor continued. “The radicalist group appears to be growing in power, fighting with new weapons and ships unfamiliar to Federation military analysts.”
Ever since the Battle of Solace Prime, the Romanov Union had been quite unstable. The rebel movement in the Union had rallied behind the radicalist faction responsible for the attack, known as the Romanov Supremacy, propelling the conflict into a full-scale civil war. According to the latest reports on the conflict, it had spread to Sector 18, a region of the Outer Rim bordering on Romanov space home to several Union naval bases and mining operations essential to maintaining its fleets. The area the star map pointed to was on the far end of the sector from the gate, but in order to get there, the Helix needed to fly through an area of space now under the control of the Romanov Supremacy.
That would be something to deal with later. Morgan returned her focus to the medical table as Alex began to show signs of awakening. A faint groan escaped the girl’s lips as she slowly returned to consciousness.
“Is she in pain?” Morgan asked MARIA as she walked over.
“Highly probable,” the medical bot stated as it looked up from Alex. “Sensors indicate subject is regaining awareness. Life signs indicate the subjective experience of pain.”
“Can’t you give her any more pain medicine?” Morgan asked.
“That treatment is contraindicated. Further dosage of analgesics may interfere with assessment of neurological function. Do you wish to proceed?”
“No. That’s alright.”
Alex’s eyes fluttered open and, after blinking a few times, she let out a yelp of surprise and fear as she noticed the robot hovering over her. She flailed her arms around and tried to push the machine away from her.
“Hey stop it! It’s trying to help you,” Morgan told the girl, trying to calm her down. She motioned for MARIA to back up and Alex stopped flailing around.
“Where am I?” Alex asked, her voice hoarse from her dry throat.
“In the med bay,” Morgan explained. “Do you remember? H tried to … hit you with lightning.”
“He tried to kill me!” Alex shouted in terror as she recalled the terrifying moment.
“Calm down. He isn’t here. We won’t let him hurt you,” Morgan reassured Alex. “Now hold on, let MARIA do its job first.”
“Please, follow the light with your eyes,” the medical bot instructed as it approached the girl again.
“Tests indicate no damage to neurological function,” the bot declared after assessing Alex. While she seemed a bit loopy from the drugs, she didn’t appear to have suffered any irreversible brain trauma.
With the tests complete, Alex attempted to get up, but, due to the drugs, she started wobbling around, unable to balance. Morgan quickly grabbed her to keep her from following over and sat her back down on the table.
“Hey, don’t get up yet,” Morgan told her. “You’re still on some pretty serious meds.”
Before they could talk any further, there was a knock on the door. Morgan opened it and saw Shane dragging an unconscious H with him.
“What the fuck!?” Morgan screamed.
“Looks like we have someone else to attend to,” Shane calmly told her.
“Oh my God, I guess so …” Morgan sighed, calming herself down. “What the hell?”
“It looks like he tried to escape earlier and it didn’t work out,” Shane explained.
“I see,” Morgan said. “Get him on the table while I finish with her.”
With that, Morgan turned back to her other patient. “Alex, don’t freak out,” she said as Shane started dragging H over to the table.
“No! Get him away from me!” Alex started screaming. “He’s gonna kill me! He’s gonna kill me!” She attempted to get up and run away, but Morgan prevented her and pushed her back down to a sitting position.
“He’s unconscious. It’s okay,” Morgan said. “He’s not going to wake up. It’s okay. Come on, get up slowly.” She helped Alex stand and began to lead her out of the room.
“I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on him,” Morgan told Shane before leaving and heading to the living quarters with Alex.
“This is going to be your room,” Morgan told the girl as she brought her into Arlon’s old room. She sat her down on the bed, then continued, “We’ve been talking about it and we decided it will be fine for you to stay on the ship once we deal with H.”
“Really!?” Alex asked, perking up.
“Yes,” Morgan told her. “You seem to be pretty skilled with Pokeballs and, as long as there are a few rules we can settle first, you can stay on the ship.”
“Oh my God, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Alex squealed, still very much under the influence of the medication, and squeezed Morgan in a tight hug.
“Yes. Okay. You’re welcome. Just try to calm down,” Morgan told her, trying to get her to let go. Alex relaxed her grip and Morgan was able to get her to sit down again. “Now, like I said, we’re going to have to lay out some rules, but it’s not a conversation you’re in a state of mind to have right now so just … stay here for a while so I can go deal with H.”
Skycars soared overhead in the busy skylanes of Delphyne as Shane walked down the footbridge overlooking the sprawling cityscape with Dmitri and Morgan. After H had been properly restrained in the med bay and left in MARIA’s care to get patched up three three of them had headed out to take care of the day’s business. Today, they had three more pilot candidates to meet with. Shane really hoped that one of them would work out.
Returning once more to The Spacebar, the local bar where they had been interviewing the pilots, they got themselves settled in. A few short minutes later, the first candidate of the day arrived.
“I am Nikolai Alkaev,” he introduced himself. The large, bearded Romanov man was quite an imposing figure, his face covered in scars. “I am mercenary. I have seen much combat.”
“Great …” Shane said, not feeling very impressed. “Can you fly a ship?”
“Yes. I am pilot. I have flown many ships. Romanov. Alliance. Genevan.”
“Right … Well we’re going to meet with a few others first and then get back to you,” Morgan told the man. From her tone, it was clear she was feeling similar to Shane.
As the Mercenary walked away, the three members of the Helix’s crew looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Can we even trust this guy?” Shane asked.
“I don’t think so,” Dmitri replied “I mean, he just looks sketchy.”
“Yeah,” Shane agreed. “Let’s see if the next guy is any good.”
The next candidate looked a lot less menacing to say the least. He was an Alliance man of average build with his short blonde hair, neatly combed back. He extended his hand for a handshake as he approached the Helix crew at their table.
“Flight Lieutenant David Matthews,” he introduced himself as he shook hands with Dmitri.
“So you’re military?” Morgan asked.
“Former Alliance Navy. I retired after completing my tour of duty. I served aboard the UAS Stalwart, Alliance third fleet.”
“So you have a strong knowledge of Alliance ships then?” Shane asked, already getting a much better feeling about this guy compared to the last. “I assume flying an Alliance civilian frigate should be no problem for you.”
“Of course not,” Matthews said. “I have flown quite a few since I left the military. If you hire me, I am sure I will prove myself to be an effective pilot and loyal employee.”
“Sounds good,” Morgan told him. “But we do have one more candidate we would like to meet with before making our final decision.”
“I understand,” Matthews said as he got up from the table. “I wish you the best of luck in finding a pilot, even if you don’t hire me.”
“He seemed nice,” Dmitri observed as Matthews walked away.
“And he has naval pilot training,” Shane chimed in.
“He could be a good option,” said Morgan. “But this freelance pilot we’re meeting with is supposed to be really good.”
“So I hear you need a pilot,” the third candidate said as she took a seat at the table. The Genevan woman’s piercing blue eyes looked at each of the crew as she appraised her potential employers. “The name’s Minerva Ljungström, and I do consider myself to be a damn good pilot. So the question isn’t really whether or not you want me to be your pilot, because you want me to be your pilot, but rather do I want to work for you?”
The meeting went on for quite a while as Minerva laid out a long list of requests and requirements. After going over her experience and qualifications, she explained that she had a rare medical condition, then proceeded to grill the crew on whether or not their ship had the proper facilities to manage it, and if they had the proper paperwork to carry the specific medication she required, and so forth. She also listed off several other personal requirements.
Minerva seemed rather high maintenance to Shane, but she was worth the investment in his opinion. His two crewmates seemed to agree and, after briefly conferring, they offered to hire her on the spot.
“So when can you start?” Shane asked.
“Hold on there,” Minerva said, not seeming that impressed with her would-be employers. “Why should I work for you?”
“Well we’re heroes of the Galaxy.” Dmitri said.
“And what’s that got to do with me?” Minerva asked dismissively. “Are you saying I’m gonna be some big fancy hero then?”
“Well sure,” Morgan told her.
“Yeah, we’re hunting down those responsible for the attack on Solace Prime,” Dmitri added.
Minerva raised an eyebrow and looked at Dmitri. “So it’s dangerous work then?” she asked, sounding skeptical.
“Yeah, it can be dangerous,” Morgan said. “But we’ll pay you well and we’ll meet all your needs without asking questions. Isn’t that enough?”
“I charge extra for dangerous work.”
“Hopefully it won’t be dangerous too often,” Shane reassured Minerva.
“Look, we’re really just looking for someone to get us where we need to go,” Dmitri chimed in. “We’re going to be doing the bulk of the dangerous work ourselves.”
“Is this something illegal?” Minerva then asked
“No,” Morgan told her. “If you see us doing anything illegal you can leave.”
“I see,” Minerva said. She still sounded unconvinced.
“If you pilot for us, you’re going to have one really, really interesting adventure,” Shane said in an attempt to persuade her. “And you’re going to enjoy it.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Minerva replied, sounding intrigued this time. “So let’s say I am interested … You still haven’t answered, do you have Federation approval to have all the equipment and medication I need on your ship?”
“Yes,” Shane told her, rather unconvincingly. In truth, he wasn’t entirely sure they did.
“Do you really have all the facilities I need?” Minerva repeated the question.
“We do have the facilities,” Morgan said. “And if we don’t we can have them installed. We can also give you a tour of the ship if you want.”
“Alright then,” Minerva agreed. “Show me.”
“Pretty nice ship you’ve got here,” Minerva said.
Shane had just finished giving the prospective pilot a tour of the Helix along with Dmitri and Morgan, ending with a showcase of their wide array of labs. She seemed quite impressed with the facilities on the ship.
“What are some of these anyway?” Minerva asked, eyeing the security door to the cryo lab where the Genesect specimens were stored.
“One of our crew is a … very talented scientist,” Shane told her. “And he stores his more … delicate samples in there.”
“I see,” Minerva said. “I’ll need my own specialized room of course. For my medical equipment and sleeping pod.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Shane said. “Follow me.” He led Minerva to one of the Helix’s many unused rooms that the crew hadn’t yet found a purpose for.
“This will do,” she said entered and took a look around the room. “Alright, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Shane nodded and extended his hand for a handshake. “Welcome aboard.”
As Minerva sorted out getting all her equipment moved onto the ship and set up in her new room, Morgan returned to the med bay with Shane to check up on H.
“Greetings, Master Morgan,” MARIA said as they entered. “Subject is showing signs of awakening.”
As if on cue, H groaned in pain as he awoke to find himself tied down on the medical table. Morgan hadn’t bothered instructing MARIA to administer pain meds because she felt he didn’t deserve them. Morgan already didn’t like H and the fact that he tried to kill Alex even after she and Shane repeatedly told him to stand down had really pissed her off. On top of all that, H had put himself in this situation by trying to escape, so she really had no sympathy for him at all.
“You are such an idiot,” Morgan scolded H as she glared at him.
“Not exactly,” H grunted through the pain. “By definition, I’m smart, which means I’m not an idiot.”
“I’m sorry, whose definition is that anyway?” Shane asked him.
“It’s the definition of being the chosen one.”
“Right … This bullshit again.”
“Now look,” Morgan addressed H, getting back on track. “We’ve already decided that Alex gets to stay on the ship. You never know, she might even be helpful.”
“Wonderful …” H sighed, clearly frustrated with this decision.
“If we untie you, are you going to try anything?” Morgan asked him.
“No,” H grumbled. “I’ll leave her be, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Good enough,” Morgan said, before removing H’s restraints.
“Also,” Shane said. “While you were out, we fixed the ship and hired a pilot and we took your share out of your funds.”
“Great. More good news … I’m going back to sleep now.”
“Well I guess that takes care of that,” Shane said to Morgan.
“Right,” Morgan agreed. “But I’ve got an idea just in case he changes his mind.”
With H dealt with for now, Morgan departed from the med bay and headed to the Pokeball workshop. After collecting the parts needed for creating a variety of different Pokeballs, she brought them to Alex’s room. When she got there, Morgan found Alex asleep on her bed, her arms around her Umbreon, which was snuggled up against her. Even Morgan couldn’t help but feel a little warm and fuzzy inside after seeing this sight. As much as she would have liked to let Alex rest, though, Morgan knew that it was important that Alex prove her usefulness to H so that he would stop trying to kill her.
“Alex, wake up,” she said, tapping the sleeping girl on the shoulder.
“Huh?” Alex said as she woke. She sat up, and looked at Morgan. She looked a bit groggy, but it was clear that she was no longer loopy from the medication.
“I’ve brought you some Pokeball parts,” Morgan explained. “I know it sounds silly, but if you can show H what you can do with Pokeballs, he might stop trying to kill you.”
“So I just need to make a super awesome Pokeball and he’ll leave me alone?” Alex asked. “Why did nobody tell me this sooner!?”
“Because you were unconscious.”
“Oh … Right.”
“Okay. I’ll leave you to work.”
With that taken care of, Morgan joined the rest of the crew on the bridge. By now, Minerva had finished moving in and Morgan found her relaxing in the pilot’s seat.
“Your pal here tells me we’re looking for a monk or something,” Minerva said when she saw her, motioning at Shane.
“Yes, Gilgamesh. It seems that he went somewhere in Sector 18,” Morgan said. Then, turning to Shane, “We may not know where, exactly, but now that we have a pilot, we should get going before we lose the trail.”
Shane nodded. “I agree.”
Minerva looked at both of them. “Say the word and we’ll be on our way.”
A few minutes later, the Helix lifted off from the spaceport. Minerva gracefully brought the ship up into space and flew it to the nearby Sector 1 warp gate.
When the Helix dropped out of warp space in front of the Sector 18 gate, the ship was greeted by a squadron of heavy cruisers painted in the red and black colors of the Romanov Supremacy. Shane noted that they appeared to be mounted with some kind of high-tech plasma rams on the front. Lines of superheated plasma ran along the length of each ship, giving them the appearance of giant swords. That definitely fit the bill of new, never seen before ship technology that the news had mentioned.
The ships detected the Helix and began turning toward it at a speed that was surprisingly quick for heavy cruisers of their size. They appeared to be moving to surround the ship, attempting to intimidate the crew. They flew in close in a tight formation to prevent the Helix from flying past them and making a standard warp jump to another part of the sector. One transmitted a warning signal, instructing the frigate to head back through the gate.
Turning to Minerva in the pilot’s seat next to him, Shane said, “Remember when I said things would get interesting?”
Minerva glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow. Shane’s mark started glowing as he placed his hand upon the console. A burning cold sensation ran up his arm as he briefly pulled the ship into warp space, then dropped it back out on the other side of the blockade.
“What the hell did you just do?” Minerva asked, quite shocked by what she had just witnessed.
“I can explain later,” Shane told her. “For now, just warp us out of here.”
“Uh … your ship still thinks you’re in warp space,” the pilot sait, glancing at an indicator on the viewscreen.
“What?” Shane asked. He checked the computer; it seemed that his little stunt had overheated the warp drive. “Damn. Forget warp for now. Just go as fast as you can away from them.”
“Can do, boss,” Minerva said as she cranked the engines to maximum and tried to put as much distance as she could between the Helix and the blockade.
In the meantime, the Romanov ships started rotating around to re-engage. It took them a few seconds to figure out what happened, but they were now quickly and gracefully turning to pursue the Helix.
As Minerva attempted to lose them, Shane rushed down to the warp drive with Dmitri and Morgan to assess the situation. Dmitri’s Metang, which had been serving as the ship’s psychic navigator appeared to be quite dazed, and the metal parts of the warp drive were glowing red hot.
“Get your Metang out of there,” Shane told Dmitri. “I have an idea.”
Dmitri nodded and recalled his Pokemon while Shane sent out his Bergmite.
“F.R.O.S.T., use Icy Wind to cool the warp drive down!” Shane instructed his Pokemon. The Bergmite sent a blast of cold wind at the drive and the glow of its metal components started to dull as a layer of frost formed over them.
“Alright, let’s see if that worked,” Shane said as Morgan brushed the ice off to prevent lasting damage to the drive. “Dmitri put another of your Pokemon in there.”
“Right. Houdini, we need you to be our psychic navigator,” Dmitri said as he sent out his Kadabra. The Psi Pokemon entered the warp drive and started powering it up.
“Whatever you did down there worked,” Minerva’s voice sounded over the comms. “Ten minutes till we can jump. Those ships are closing in fast, though. It’s a good thing you hired me; a lesser pilot wouldn’t be able to evade them.”
Shane returned to the bridge with his two crewmates and saw the pursuing ships had really closed the gap. Minerva delicately weaved the Helix around them to keep them from boxing the ship in. They appeared to be going in for a capture as opposed to blowing them up, which was good news for the Helix.
“Hell of a first day, huh?” Shane said to Minerva as she broke away from their pursuers.
“Yeah. The ship’s ready to jump. Where to, boss?”
“Far side of the sector,” Morgan tells her. “Anywhere.”
“Anywhere it is!” Minerva shouted as she jumped the Helix into warp space. “If we come out on the other end in the middle of a sun, don’t blame me.”
Notes: This was an interesting session. DragonStorm and The Other Guy were both participating in Global Game Jam so we legitimately played in the middle of the library where all the students in the university that were participating in Game Jam were working on their games. The Other Guy’s group had finished, but DragonStorm’s group was still working on commits and merges in their version control when we started. He was running this session on like no sleep! In the next chapter, you will see what really happens when a sleep-deprived DragonStorm runs a session!
So you’ve met our new pilot! My old character, Arlon Jett, was the previous pilot, but since he is no longer a part of the party, we needed a new one. DragonStorm generated for us three random NPCs of various piloting skill levels, hiring price, and personality. We eliminated the Romanov merc almost immediately, narrowing it down to the ex-Alliance Navy pilot or the sassy Genevan freelancer. We picked Minerva because we thought she would be better for RP. Also, she’s the best pilot of the bunch! Although not as good as Arlon, it’s hard to beat a PC with an NPC.
Update 10/17/21: There was quite a lot of work needed here, mostly in the first scene. Aside from the inconsistent perspective, the pacing of the scene was kind of weird so I opted to do a lot of restructuring. I reorganized several paragraphs and added a bunch of new writing to make everything flow better, and shifted the whole scene into Morgan’s perspective. I also moved some details from the start of the pilot interviewing scene to this one. The new version of the scene paints a much better picture of why the crew is where they are and what they plan to do. It also has a better description of what’s going on with the Romanov situation. At this point in the game, this was really the first time we’d received any explicit information on that front. The name Romanov Supremacy wasn’t even mentioned until the following session, but they’ve been greatly developed since then and the name has appeared in pieces that take place before this one in the timeline, so it made sense to add it here. Toward the later part of the scene, though, there was less work needed. From that point on, it was just the typical shifting to past tense, making sure the perspective was consistent, some minor restructuring, and adding some extra descriptions here and there where needed. The only thing of note was adding some extra dialogue to Minerva’s interview and ship tour and to Morgan and Shane’s conversation with H.
That does it for this chapter. As always the Spacemon gang and I will be monitoring the comments to foster discussion and answer any questions. Feel free to give feedback and critiques of the writing so I can improve it for the future, or just leave a comment with what you think about what went down in this chapter or what you think might happen next! You can also revisit past chapters, check out the rest of the Spacemon saga, join the Spacemon Discord server, or like our Facebook page to stay updated on all things Spacemon! Click here for the next exciting installment of Spacemon!
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