Sunday September 10, 2006
Book 8: The Sharp End of the Stick — Part I: Jeopardy

Transcript

Narrator: Aboard the Mercenary Warship Touch-and-Go
Kevyn: I looked into that hollowed-out freighter hull. It isn't what we want.
Kevyn: The fake hull thing has been done before. Pirates know to watch for it. Nothing we dress the Touch-and-Go as can hide the fact that she's at least a Destroyer under all the make-up.
Kevyn: Our annie-plants have hundreds of times the output of a freighter's plants. Even if we run lean, a passive scan will give us away.
Kevyn: . . . which is why we will be almost completely powered down.
Captain Tagon: I hate this plan already.
Kevyn: Oh, but there's more. We hide the Touch-and-Go inside a giant canister, and use a mid-range superfreighter to haul her.

Our main annies will be powered down, and emergency and primer plants will only be trickling.

Kevyn: The pirates will disable the superfreighter first. When they close to claim the cargo canister, we power up and spring the trap.
Captain Tagon: What if they're flying around in something that can take us?
Kevyn: Then we get to choose between allowing ourselves to be captured, tortured, and maybe killed, or dying as a bright flash on somebody else's Tac screen.
Kevyn: Or, you know, maybe we could collect a little intel and make sure we know what they're packing.
Captain Tagon: I'll get somebody on that right away.