Sunday November 11, 2001
Book 2: The Teraport Wars — Quest for Second Sight

Prologue: If you're reading the archives from the beginning, and you've made it this far (congratulations!), just skip this little blurb. The rest of you might want to skip it, too. It's not nearly so well-written as the comic itself, and serves only to get you caught up on stuff that you don't really NEED to get caught up on in order to enjoy the story.

A long time from now in a galaxy right here strike that. This is not a parody of some over-hyped movie. This is the continuing story of a band of mercenaries in the late 31st century, and stands on its own as a work of character-driven science fiction. It's exciting. It's funny. It should be made into a movie. Somebody call DreamWorks.

The story began when the tiny mercenary company (a mere 30 employees on a single ship a mere 70 meters long) was bought out by the marketing arm of a startup company hoping to cash in on a brand-new hyperdrive technology called the Teraport. This technology is so new and so revolutionary that it has since started numerous wars, and has brought our little company of mercenaries to the attention of some of the great sleeping powers of the galaxy (mostly the ones who own, operate, and exploit the wormgates, which are the only other way to get around faster than light does. You might think light moves pretty fast, but for 31st-century purposes, it's not fast enough).

As of this point in our story, the mercenaries have a much (much) larger ship, and have bought themselves back from their rich compatriot, Sergeant Schlock, who bought them back from their bankrupted parent company. Better than two-thirds of them have needed their bodies regenerated, thanks to some poor planning, and some very big bugs with sharp things. It's time now to start making money the old-fashioned way: hurting people and breaking things...


Transcript

Narrator: Back aboard the Post-Dated Check Loan, Tagon's crew is reunited. That last gig was rough, but it wasn't anything that the judicious application of illegal medical technology couldn't fix.
Tagon: How are we doing, Doctor? Everyone back to normal?
Bunni: Thurl is having a hard time adjusting to his new weight, and complains that he can't put away food the way he used to.
Bunni: Brad hasn't adjusted to being a two-legged behemoth, yet.
Bunni: And Nick hasn't adjusted to Brad's new size, either.
Bunni: My biggest concern is Sergeant Schlock.
Tagon: We haven't been able to clone eyes for him yet?
Bunni: No. His genes don't code for them. Apparently carbosilicate amorphs don't have eyes.
Tagon: Oh, wow.
Bunni: As you might imagine, this raises some very, very interesting questions.
Tagon: Did he steal the eyes he had, and will the original owner be looking for them?
Bunni: My questions weren't quite that interesting.
Schlock: Tagon's question is better than the science-y kinds, though.
Bunni: Sergeant, were you eaves-dropping on us?
Schlock: We can talk about how loud you talk and how well I hear later.
Schlock: For now, let's just say 'yes, I stole them,' and 'no, the owner won't come looking for them.'
Schlock: And to answer the question you haven't asked yet, 'Yes I would like your help stealing a new pair.'
Schlock: Oooh. . . It's time for a good, old-fashioned quest!