Mustang was just returning to the FS after being out to gather some new supplies. He was extremely satisfied; he was just in time for a huge clan war and managed to pick up many interesting stuff that would help him increase his vast fortunes.
He was almost in his home system, when he heard a call for help on his comms system, “Ah more loot” this was his standard thoughts when he heard the sound of battle. He homed in on the origin of the call and started heading in that direction.
***********
Gromit and Darkstone was sitting in the bar on Manhatten, all the blood had been washed away and everything looked normal again.
“You know Grom, maybe we should consider joining OffTopic as well, I think they need all the help they can get and it’s not like we have much to do” Darkstone was in thoughtful mood after the events that transpired in the bar the previous day.
Gromit was not very excited about Darkstone’s idea. He has always been happy to just sit in the bar and join the occasional bar fight; his fighting days were over. “My days of sitting in a Sabre are over Darkie (That he was a good friend of Darkstone was obvious, only his best friends ever dared to call him Darkie), I’m just not up to it anymore. Give me a good bar fight and I’ll jump in. Any day, but not fighting in space.”
“Grom you’re just paranoid after that accident, anybody can make mistakes, you are an excellent fighter, you will be a major asset to OffTopic” Darkstone was not about to give up getting Gromit into OffTopic, for him this was an excellent chance to restore Gromit’s confidence in himself and his abilities.
“Hey fat-ass get off my chair!” An arrogant young man just walked in the door and was on his way to where Gromit was sitting.
“O oh” Darkstone thought, “Here comes big trouble, that young idiot clearly doesn’t know the difference between muscle and fat, in this case, it can cost him a few broken ribs-if he is lucky.”
“I said get off my seat” The young man was tall and strong, but when Gromit stood up, he looked like a fighter would against a battleship; Gromit was simply huge.
“First of all young man; nobody, nobody calls me fat.” With those words Gromit picked up the young man. “Second of all, nobody tells me what to do” Gromit started applying pressure on the young man’s ribs.
The young man then did something unthinkable and extremely dumb; he punched Gromit in the face. To be fair, it has to be said, no ordinary man would have survived a punch like that, but this was Gromit. The man could just as well have hit a brick wall.
“O oh” This time Darkstone said it out loud. “Now you made a mistake Tolo”
“Help! Help! Get this guy off me” The man was really panicking now
“Are going to tell me again what to do?” Gromit asked through his teeth.
“No. No I wont I promise” The man was so desperate to get out of Gromit’s grip that he would have promised never to enter a bar again.
“Good now go find yourself another place to sit.” Gromit dropped the man and sat down again ordering a fresh drink
The young man stared at Gromit a look of admiration on his face. To everybody’s astonishment he struck out a hand and said “Hi I am Indy, you are really very strong, and that is a huge understatement”
“Grommit stared at the offered hand and then just grumbled “Grommit is the name, now leave me alone”
Just then one off Indy’s buddies walked in and seeing Indy standing next to Gromit asked “Hey Indy what are you doing standing next to that fat guy?”
For the third time that day it when through Darkstone’s thoughts “O oh”
Gromit was on his way to get up, when Indy said “Allow me” To everybody’s surprise, he turned around and punched his buddy in the face, “Never call him a fat guy, he doesn’t like it, and if he doesn’t like it, I don’t like it.”
It was hard to tell who were more surprised, Indy’s buddy or Gromit.
“well I guess I owe you a drink, sit down” Gromit was still not friendly, but he was not angry anymore, “By the way this is Darkstone”
***********
As Mustang got near to the origin of the distress call, he got his weapons combat ready, you never know what is waiting for you. The scene he saw before him was something he has never seen before, a Sabre and a Titan were attacking a huge freighter, it didn’t look like the freighter had much fight left in it.
Mustang had a difficult decision to face, either he waited until the guys finished off the freighter and picked up al the loot they wanted and then he picked up some more loot. Or he could do the honorable thing and help the freighter.
In the end, he decided that he would choose the midway; he would call for help. About five minutes after he made the call, the BP’s arrived and engaged the fighters, when the two culprits saw that they were outnumbered, they simply disappeared. Everybody was bowled over; they seemed to have just disappeared into thin air.
************
SirSpectre, freighter fighter, sw and Eraser were sitting in the bar on California Minor, waiting for Bargib who asked for this meeting.
“I wonder what this is about, when I talked to him yesterday; he said nothing about a meeting. I hope he has a mission or something for us.” Eraser was clearly excited about the prospect of a mission, until now; there was really nothing they could do.
“Yes that would be great, then we don’t have to sit around the whole day anymore.” SirSpectre was also excited, as usual he was busy cleaning his huge glasses “It’s just a shame that zlo won’t be able to join us, I think he would have enjoyed it as well”
“As long as it is not a long mission, my freighter need some repairs and updates, and the spares I need is not nearby.” freighter fighter was not as excited about the mission they thought was coming, he was thinking about a meeting that he was suppose to attend. The Evil Thing was not very happy about it if people missed his meetings.
“How come you can’t find the parts you need around here?”
“Well sw, I have a very old ship, the last of them were built about a thousand years ago, it still uses a nuclear reactor as powerplant, if I don’t do repairs regularly, it could be dangerous. Especially if the rods get damaged.” freighter fighter was in his element, he loved talking about his freighter.
“Why are the rods so important?” as usual sw was curious.
“Well, in the core of the reactor, there are slugs of highly active uranium. Each second millions of neutrons are moving and hitting and splitting, if this is not regulated, they will collide with the U235 atoms and splitting them. This causes a too rapid chain reaction, which creates massive heat, which can create a core meltdown.” Freighter fighter stopped to take a breath and then continued: “This is and cannot be allowed, so in the core there is also a system of rods made of hafnium. Hafnium absorbs the neutrons and in doing this stops the system going out of control. These rods also control the amount of power generated by the reactor. If all the rods are down, there are no power, the more of these rods you lift, the more power you will have. That’s basically the reasons why I can’t afford it to have these rods out of action.”
Just then Bargib walked in, he had a serious expression on his face “SirSpectre I place you under arrest for treason, you have the right to shut up and never speak again until the day of execution.”
The silence following Bargib’s words was deafening; everybody was stunned.
If you want breakfast in bed....sleep in the kitchen
Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:15 am 
im not in this one 
