Sunday January 28, 2007


Note: A Faraday cage is an enclosure made of conductive materials which serves to prevent electrical charges on the outside from frying things on the inside. A Teraport Cage is similar in principle, in that it mitigates the effect of Teraport Area-Denial (TAD) fields within the cage, allowing reasonably safe teraporting from within the cage to any point outside an unfriendly TAD field.

The Touch and Go has been maintaining a TAD field on the entire area for the duration of the current operation, per standard operating procedure. The existence of a teraport cage or cages aboard Commodore Shufgar's vessel suggests that Shufgar and his men can move to and from their ship freely.

This is Not Good News.

Book 8: The Sharp End of the Stick
 Part V: Dropping The Other Shoe
Sunday January 28, 2007

Transcript

Narrator:Aboard the abandoned enemy warship. . .
Elf:Here's the first of those active hyper-nodes.
Kevyn:Hmmm. . . Not much to see, small room.
Kevyn:The sniffer says that the node is up there in the ceiling, but I don't see any console gear in here.
Elf:Is that bad?
Kevyn:No. . . Just kind of weird.
Schlock:Can I slag it with my plasgun now?
Kevyn:Sergeant, "kind of weird" is not the same thing as "terminate with extreme prejudice."
Kevyn:Besides, this should burn that node out just fine.
Schlock:I'm not prejudiced. Some of my best friends are weird.
Kevyn:Ummm. . . I"m getting node resonance in all the walls. Did one of you touch something?
Schlock:In fact, I think all my friends are weird.
Kevyn:Why would it resonate? Backup nodes? Some kind of shielding? Like a Faraday. . . Ooh. . .
Schlock:And bony. Weird and bony.
Kevyn:It's a teraport cage.
Kevyn:SLAG THE ROOM, SERGEANT! WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!
Schlock:I told you, I'm not prejudiced. Weren't you listening?