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by pariah ([[Jess Carver]])
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'''Author’s Note:''' Many of you might remember the
Yachts and Privateers in the Dragon articles at
www.starfrontiers.com but many may not, so see those
for the space of the Rollo’s Revenge. If you are not
familiar with these articles, they are treasure trove of
adventure ideas, corrections for the rules and modules,
and Knight Hawks scenarios. I hope you enjoy this
article which was inspired by those articles.
</div>

As most of my regular readers will know by now, I am
on a quest to prove that an old contention of mine is
true. That contention is that there is at least one
establishment in every system known as The Spacer’s
Rest.

I was on the Ken-zah Kit, and I know I say this about
every one of them, but, it was one of the most
decrepit, rundown and fun holes I’d found yet. In the
slums, near the Starport, sure enough there was the
Spacer’s Rest.

I had been hearing of a legendary privateer named the
“Rollo’s Revenge” for the last three planets. It seemed
this legendary paragon of pirate busting was capable of
simultaneously engaging three Sathar Heavy Cruisers,
Breaking the record on the Dramune Run and making
the perfect cup of Caff in the galley while letting you
drink it without spilling a drop under full thrust and
maneuvering. I had been searching for this paragon of
non-government built pirate busting for the last 1000
hours,so I had introduced myself to the barkeeper, a
large fellow that might even give Britmoll on Triad
second thoughts about starting a brawl with this one,
and he suggested that I might get a good story from
an old wreck in the back at the corner booth.

Most non-spacers think that these dives are dangerous
and a woman like myself is likely to be accosted at the
least in a place like this one. Well, they are right about
that, if they walk in looking like a walking Credit Chit
and soft as Air Shrike down. I however look as tough
as plasitsteel toothpicks with my camera bot looking
more like a combat model, and a Rafflur on my hip.
Also lots of spacers (Never call them Knight Hawks to
their faces, you might not live to wonder what you did
wrong) know me by reputation and usually sort out the
rougher types for me.

I approached his table with a full unopened bottle of
New Pale Bourbon. Known by the Bartender to be my
quarry’s favorite. (Also never offer anyone something
already poured, they will suspect drugs or poison.)
After hundreds if not thousands of false leads, I was
face to face with a grizzled, white haired Knight Hawk
named Donnal Starkiller. His one good, bloodshot eye
was distracting to say the least. His thick white beard
was split along this left jawline where there was a long
scar upon which no hair grew.

“Well, you want ta know ‘bout th’ ‘Venge do ya?” he
asked in a rumbling gravelly voice after formalities
were over. I nodded in trepidation, unable to sto[p my
eyes from traveling back to his rheumy, opaque bad
eye.

“Well, missy, ta tell ya ‘bout th’ Venge, ya gotta know
the story of the Pride first. Catch? See, the
Pride(Rollo’s Pride for those readers who do not know)
was well named. He closed his bad eye and thought
for several seconds.

He says, “See there ain’t always been a ‘Venge’, Rollo
captained a rebuilt Destroyer he salvaged hisself! Rollo
had more pride in his ship than wuz good fer her or her
crew. Well, see there’s lots a spacers whut believes
that the ship’s name has as much ta do with how she
ends up as anythin’ ifn not more. Well, some figgers
that ta put pride in a ship’s name, means she’s gonna
finish up on th’ rough side, but they wudnt tell’n Rollo
thet! No siree! Crystal? Shinny!”

As you might be able to guess, he was very hard to
follow. I mostly just nodded, and kept pouring.

“See it wuz like this. Rollo wuz a pirate buster even
back then. We’d move around a lot cuz’n most
systems, , after we got rid o’ them pirates, the
governments don’t take much o’ a shine ta our kind
hangin’ around. Catch? Good. We had been hired by
the Theseus Gov’t ta rid them o’ a bad batch o Pirates.
They wuz a way oput past the Jovians and “Taxin’”
everythin’ whut come inta er out o’ the system. They
couldn’t stop ‘em an’ the UPF wuz as usefull as paps on
a bull Roller. HEE Haw!” He degenerated into a two or
three minute fit of coughing here and I was beginning
to worry about his life, his face had turned crimson
then magenta, when suddenly he stopped, drained the
half liter glass in front of him and waved it for more
bourbon. I hailed the barkeep and bought the third
bottle that day, but not the last one!

See, them pirates wus as thick as a nest o’ Rasties on a
Loper corpse in a Volturnian cave! They wuz! They had
frigates an’ Corvettes and lots o’ ordinence in them
asteroids they were holdin’ up in. Laser cannon, rocket
batteries, ever’thin ya can imagine! And here we wuz,
one Destroyer,all by ourselves, mostly. We had one
Fed Frigate with us, cuz the UPF was spread as thin as
one patch spread over two holes in a spacesuit.

Well, Rollo figgred out how ta even thing up a might
afore they knowed whut wuz a happenin’. See, Rollo
knowed of a system that weren’t mapped. Nobody else
knowed of it. We came in behind their radar and we
came around the star there, in a long swing around
orbit, we cut the drives 5 AU’s away and coasted in …..
From above the ecliptic! Cut the drives, everythin’
ceptin’ the life support. No signatures, Crystal? Golden!
Them pirates never looked fer that, I’ll tell ya! Coasted
in at Damn near .2C it was! We wuz 20K clicks away
before they saw us a commin. We blasted through and
caught the pirates a nappin we did! Catch? Shinny!
Again he had a coughing fit brought on by cackling
laughter. Again he drained a ½ liter glass of Bourbon
and wanted more.

“So, we caught ‘em a nappin’. They had t Frigates tied
up ta th’ asteroids and we blasted them where they
set. Crippled ‘em afore they could do anything back
“But, we still had 2 Corvettes and all the guns ta deal
with. The asteroids all around cut loose on us and we
only survived cuz the Feds caught th worst of it. Blew
in two seconds. Most o’ the rockets they fired at us
went up in that blast, or we’d a’ been goners too.We
cut in the drives. And went to full throttle and evasive.
Rollo sure knew how ta deal with them pirates, he did.
Them Corvettes was already patrolin’, and as we came
around fer a second pass, they cut across our path and
caught us from astern. Lost 2 guns and some o’ th’
best gunners I ever served with then. Better’n even in
th’ UPF Navy!

We lost our drives too! One of ‘em was so skragged we
had ta eject her before she blew and took us with her!
Rollo shut down th’ other ta maintenance levels. We
had ta hustle inta Damage control drills, or we might a’
been fragged then an’ ther. But Rollo had a surprise up
his sleeve he did. He had a gadget that wuz almost an
ion engine itself. He could generate one window with it,
then its fuel wuz gone. Catch? Shinny!

“So them Corvettes lost us and we shut down
everythin’ again! They couldn’t even track us on energy
sensors. Needed to ta fix the drive anyway.

The two Corvettes came at us from opposite directions
and had fifing solutions already calculated. Well, most
folks would think that meant they had us, but nosiree,
that Rollo sure knoewd how ta deal with pirates, I done
tol’ ya that! He turned right towards the one ta
starboard and full throttled right at it! Them uglies had
us right where Rollo wanted ‘em! Ya see, Rollo’d been
there before and he knew just exactly whut ta do. By
turnin, inta them, he messed up their aiming
computers. They had counted on us a bein’ sommer’s
else’n whur we wuz, Catch? Golden. Ya see Rollo
waited until exactly the right second, and let me tell
you, everybody on th’ bridge thought that second had
come and long gone. At the right second, Rollo flipped
us 90 degrees ta starboard and fired up the drive. We
squirted out o’ the way like a greased Slither. Then
when they both fired, them stupid Flitters, they took
each other out, two great big fire balls a travelin’ at
about 70K clicks and a blowed ta EM CEE squared!

But, them Frigates weren’t as out of the fight as we
had figured, one of em had launched and wuz now on
us. So here we wuz, blacked out, one gun left an two
Frigates a trackin’ us. We musta’ been leaking some
kinda energy cuz one o’ them buzzards turned right for
us. Well, some’ll tell ya this is a space story, But I seed
it muhself that day! Anybody, oughta know that
nobody can hit something a movin thousands o clicks a
second out at 30K cklcks without any radar or
computers or anythin’ but I seed it muhself! Rollo
unstrapped hisself from his command chair and flung
hisself down the length o’ the Pride and made Ratchett
Bill, our laser battery gunner git out o’ his mount and
in Roll climbed!. He used th’ hand crank and fiddled
with th’ aimers. Set real still for ‘bout two ta three
minutes, then all a’ sudden he stabbed that firing stud.
Everybody was so tense by then that when the flash o’
light lit up the cabin, we all jumped an’ hollered like
we’d a’ been goosed with a Cybodragon tentacle! But
sure enough, 3 seconds later, Whammo! That Frigate
blew ta Sathar space! Again he collapsed into one of
his laughing, coughing fits and I was ready this time I
handed him my own untouched glass which he
promptly drained.

When he had recovered, he said, “Well little lady, we
spent so much time and effort a watchin’ that FF, the
other’un a sneaked up on us an’ buggered us good, we
just had got the drives back on line when Blewey! We
was holed through the midships! Av RB ( Rocket
Battery) had scored on us. We lost a good many o our
good friends that time let me tell ya.”

He was silent for several seconds, violent emotions
playing on his face. I thought this grizzled ols spacer
might cry in front of me. Out of respect, I pretended to
be interested in a Dralasite pummeling a Yazarian over
a lost bet at the bar until he recovered his composure
and dignity. He nodded silent thanks, more
acknowledgement than I had expected!

“So, here we wuz, no drives, one gun, and a live
Frigate , even ifn it was damaged and one o’ them
cobbled together pirate rigs anyway, up our bums!.
Rollo’d already figured out what ta do tho! Yessiree!
We wuz a flying out of the system at atleast 50K cliks a
second and the FF wuz a chasing us. Well, the Pride
still had some suprises in her. Rollo had removed the
front half of a torpedo, welded her on ta the bow,
nozzle a facin’ fore. A lot o crew always wondered what
that was for. He triggered that rigged up retro rocket
and cut our speed by half at least. That second AS
whizzed past, firing AR’s where she thought we’d be,
but weren’t now!” He laughed again, but curiously
didn’t cough.

“As she sailed past not 500 yards off, Rollo let her have
it twice with his laser battery. She went off like the
Auroras on Morgaines! Started ta tumble an’ pitch,
dead in space they wuz!

“Now the base hadn’t been silent all this time, no way!
They had been a shootin’ everything they had on em,
but when they seen the last of ‘em go, every Pirate in
them asteroids lit out in anything that’d move, work
pods, life boats, shuttles, what ever they could get and
they lit out, let me tell you what.

“The pride wuz finished, the ejected drive had blowed,
and the other was so fried that if’n we’d a fired her up
ta full, she’d a’ gone off too! But ol’ Rollo, he don’t
never know how ta quit. He rigged the work pods to
the ship’s launch, got some volunteers in suits,
strapped them ta the outside and chased down the
parts of ever thin’ we’d blasted. Every one o them
ships wuz holed and scortched, but we found enough
parts ‘n pieces ta piece something together.Ol’ Rollo
got one whizbanger o’ an idea then.

“Have you ever seen the ‘Venge, little lady? No? Here”
He pulled out a holo of the strangest looking starship
I’ve ever seen. “Nice,” I said.

“You ain’t kidding little lady. The nicest homebrewed
pirate buster in the Frontier!

“Well, we had whut wuz left O the Pride, the Fed
Frigate, one o’ the Pirate Frigates, almost all o’ one o’
the Corvettes, and the empty station to work with! Did
you know one of them Corvettes wuz one of them first
Assault Scouts? One of them with the decks built in the
wrong directions, with all of the crew’s seats like fighter
pilot’s seats? Had a great big bubble on top, looks like
a huge fighter it did, well, that’s the front end of the
‘Venge right there. He indicated the forward section of
the craft in the holo, and indeed, it made sense that
this was originally a separate ship.

He took our one good drive left, fixed up now, of
course, and mounted her in the tail of the least banged
up pirate Frigate! That’s where they kept their own any
way. He then took parts of the other Frigate’s hull and
made engine struts and nacelles, mounted the
Corvettes’ drives on them, and hollowed out the
Corvette, where he’d took out her drives, with a little
cutting an’ welding, the two ships became one! He
mounted her at the front of the Frigate and put his con
up in that bubble, just like a fighter. He mounted a
Laser Cannon from one of the Asteroids and a Torpedo
launcher from the Frigate in the Corvette! We mounted
the Pride’s last LB and two electron Beam Batteries and
an Electron Beam Battery we’d took from some of them
rocks that had been firing at us on the hull too!
“Well, that’s how the “Venge came inta being. She’s
the toughest, best armed class 10 outside the Fleet,
and better’n some there too!

We talked some more, and discussed some of the finer
points of the engagement, he was impress at how
much I understood of such matters, and were nearly
ready to part company. But I made a fatal mistake at
the end. I asked him if having the word Revenge in the
name of a ship was not as bad, if not worse than,
having Pride in a ship’s name.

“Teats on a Sea Shrike, woman! No ya stupid Ground
Hog!” He stormed off, but did not neglect to collect
what was left of the Inner Reach Rum as he left with a
noticeable lurch in his step. Apparently, logging nearly
100,000 hours in space liners didn’t confer the title of
spacer on me as far as he was concerned.

Wishing you, my readers ten light years of fortune<br />
-- Darleene McCoy (No Relation!)

Interview With An Old Spacer - Revision history

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