Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Donald Pleasance's gripping magnum opus!

“Make a suppressor? Make a suppressor?” Ennik grumbled and scratched himself. The quiet Sandrider kid, Torgath, had asked nicely enough, Ennik conceded, but it rubbed him the wrong way.


“Kids think they can beat people up, run ‘em down with a car, and treat them like dawg dung, and then turn around and ask real nice for a new toy. Fuck ‘em!” he poured himself a shot of the rot-gut and lit a cigarette. “Operation: Spy War. What the fuck?” Ennik cast a disparaging glance at the datapad. Torgath had left it. It contained what Ennik had correctly surmised earlier: a trashy technothriller novel.

“I got more important things to do,” he concluded, tossing back the shot, jamming the cigarette in his mouth, and trundling off to work on the damage Pig Pen had taken the previous night. It was just a scratch. The Jager hired by the marshal in Haven had connected with a vibroblade, and sent hot bits of metal into the cockpit. Ennik’s clothing had protected him from the worst of it, but the armour needed patching and the interior needed a quick going-over. It wouldn’t take the mechanic more than a couple of hours to do the repair, but he needed parts.

And that meant seeing Melaya.

Ennik walked over to a mirror in the corner of his workshop. He had looked better, and he knew he’d be in need of a sandshower. But at least he had taken the time to shave. He examined his whiskey bottle. It was past noon and not even a quarter consumed. He nodded with satisfaction: this meant that he would not have to postpone his visit to Melaya for another day. She had already refused to deal with him when he was inebriated. She didn’t like the smoking either, but Ennik rightly suspected that Melaya knew that it would be asking too much for the rover to swear off both vices. He smeared a greasy hand through his hair. This was a professional visit, but he considered that a brushing couldn’t hurt.

As he dragged a brush through his hair, Ennik took stock of what it was he needed. “Two bottles of smart-glue, and maybe forty square centimetres of durasheet,” he took a drag from his cigarette, “some paint,” he frowned, “a couple of frag rounds and a hand grenade for Pig.” He shook his head. That Jager should have been crippled by that grenade, but it kept on coming.

“Car muffler,” he blurted, and then countered, “no, fuck him!” Torgath’s suppressor would need a functioning car muffler that Ennik could not manufacture. He let the smoke seep out of his nose and mouth, forming a haze around his head. “Sandriders… buncha savages…” His eyes fixated on the datapad, and he snorted in derision. Still, he could not deny that he was curious as to just how bad the technothriller would be. And he would never admit it, but the challenge of creating a suppressor for a legendary Sandrider rifle was very tempting. He’d have to get Torgath to bring the rifle to have the suppressor properly fitted, and that would allow him to see the weapon up close. Ennik’s eyes twinkled. He picked up the datapad and his checklist and sauntered down to visit Melaya, wondering if she liked technothrillers…




Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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