Roddy and Rita

[Qunitinius~Verginix]

It was a nice morning on the Planet New London, there was only a light rain, as Roddy stood on the Prow of his boat the Jammy Dodger. He and his wife Rita had owned that boat for many years and they had spend them doing salvage work in the canals of New London for the Police other factions.

"Hey!" Rita called to him from the small bridge, "Go down and check the main reactor will ya? It bloody loud and think the second engine coil may be jammed!"

"Alright be back in a minute!" He climbed down the ladder to the main cargo hold, and proceeded to the engine. Sitting down, he talked to himself as he did a preliminary check to the old ships small reactor. He had barely been working for 10 minutes when he heard sounds of fighting above.

"Rita! Whats going on?" He shouted from the top of the ladder. I dunno but I think some of those space jockeys are going at it!" Before either of them could make a move, a strange blue ship, most likely from Rheinland, flew over head, followed by ten bloodhounds.

"What the bloody hell is going on?!" Roddy shouted to no-one in particular as the bloodhounds opened fire and the blue ship caught fire and crashed into the canal about 1 kilometre ahead.

"Roddy dear, I smell a salvage, and good money from this one! All ahead full!" Rite called excitedly as she pushed the bug red button on the roof of the bridge, and the small boat sped down the sludgy canal in New London.

Roddy busied himself by getting their cannon on the prow ready. They had that thing installed about 3 years ago, after a small Junker raid. All it really did was fire water, densely packed and at super high speeds. An impact on the chest could break a few ribs and send a target flying a few feet. Head shots usually resulted in sever neck injuries.

Rita tossed him a duffle bag filled with old chunks of metal and rusty tools. With a flick of a switch, the water cannon could become a deadly flak turret. He fired of one concentrated burst of water at the bloodhounds and five of them peeled off from the dying rheinland ship. He made a few adjustments to the cannon and place a bent wrench into the barrel of the flak gun.

'BAM!' The wrench flew at somewhere around the speed of sound and took off one of the bloodhounds engines. It spiraled down and it a bridge support. He dropped in a metal cross and took aim again, but the shot missed by 2 feet.

"Roddy!" Shouted Rita, "Get out of the Gunners seat and take the helm you lousy shot! Lemme have a go!" Rita jumped in and placed something that looked like the broken head of a morning star (spiky mace in case ya dont know) into the barrel.

Roddy swerved to avoid a missile from a pirate as the bloodhounds dove into an attack run. 'BAM!' A bloodhound crashed, its cockpit blow open and its pilot reduced to a meaty paste. "Sorry about that, chap!" called Rita as she slid a small metal gargoyle into the cannon. "She stopped fort a moment. and place three more chunks of metal into the barrel for good measure.

'BAM!' The cannon decompressed violently and another ship was hit with four chunks and exploded. Roddy spun the Jammy Dodger into a narrow ally between two large corporate towers and the remaining two bloodhounds followed, shooting their blasters as they came.

In such a narrow space it was impossible for Rita to miss the next shot as was able to hit both of them with a large spike that traveled through the first cockpit and hit the engine of the second.

"Right," said Rita, "Move to the crashed ship, it should be somewhere around here" She pointed to the map on the roof of the bridge.

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In about 30 minutes they had found the Rheinland ship for that was clearly what it was. There were there remaining five pirates on a section of dock that wasnt destroyed and they seamed to be unloading some strange containers from the gunboat. The bloodhounds were parked in close proximity.

Roddy navigated the Jammy Dodger on low power by a nearby building. Rita signaled to him as she finished loading the gun and they sped out into the open and then in a flash one of the pirates' ships was blow in half by a metal chunk in its fuel reserves.

The pirates were stunned and they dropped their boxes to pick up guns lying around and opened fire on the Jammy Dodger. Rita blasted one with a burst of water and sent him sailing into the sludgy canal.

Lying in a pile of rheinland military bodies, one of the troops sprang to life. He had been faking unconsciousness and he struck down two of the pirates before they could do anything. The other two pirates, on a small scrawny man and another very large albino man, shot at the rheinland man and he fell over as a las-blast hit him in the thigh. This was the distraction Roddy and Rita needed. They pulled the Jammy dodger to the side of the pier and jumped out, grabbing large blunt objects. The two pirates didnt stand a chance and they were both unconscious before they could say "ahoi!"

Roddy ran over to the dying rheinlander. "Sir! Are you seriously injured? What happened to your ship?!"

The rheinlander coughed up blood and said "My crew and I were on an important secret mission for RM." He coughed again. "We were carrying nomads, dont ask what they are, to the Cambridge research institute down here on the planet. They were for a small branch of scientists and the tests they were planning weren't exactly legal, but they said that the Rheinland Military would get a prototype of the new anti-nomad gun they were working on. Unfortunately as were docked with the planet, a large group of Junkers ambushed us." He coughed some more. "Apparently it was a trap set by them to get their hands on these nomads, probably for some disastrous plan."

His next coughs were extremely painful looking and the spat out more blood. "Now I need you two, to go inside and push the green and read button in the cargo bay. This with self-destruct the nomad containers and rid of evidence. Then take the gunboat and say that we were suffering from technical difficulties and crashed, with no survivors. Now remember only tell it to people who ask. Use the gunboat as you see fit, but dont tell the real reason you go it, understan...." He coughed violently and rolled over, obviously dead.

"Well, Roddy, it looks like were space captains now eh?" Said Rita as they climbed about the gunboat. Roddy pushed the button without really thinking, hoping it was the right thing to do and a small thud came from outside. "Indeed Rita! Many adventure await in space!" They programmed the Jammy Dodgers onboard computer to drive it self to their garage, and smashed a small bottle of wine they found in the captains room across the bulkhead of the gunboat, Christening it the Jammy Dodger II.

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They flew to the local bar they hung out it a lot and pick up a few old friends to help crew the gunboat, such as Sid, who would be second in command to the pair.

Upon leaving the Cambridge docking ring, they smiled at each other, knowing that they could do so many more things now that they had a 34million dollar piece of equipment at their disposal, and that they would find out what the Rheinland guy had been talking about and why he had died for it. They flew away from Cambridge, chatting happily away to the disgruntled Brentonians and set off for the far reaches of space.

End Part 1

OOC: wow I finally wrote that and I really enjoyed writing it too! Please post some comments! Thanks a bunch!

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