Thunder Guns of Olaf Olafson

Pi is upgraded for a second time, the crew arranges a meeting with pirate fleet captain Saito, and Mr. Sicarian is trained by the viking clan of Sigrid

Short Summary
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Detailed Summary
The date is August 2, 3200. After just having upgraded Pi as well as dealing with both Constantine Fang and Ms. Fate, the crew currently has options as to whether or not they are going to do something about the dual with Mr. Titan, try and rescue lord Lucas McCrary, or maybe start a brand new adventure altogether.

Premise
The scene fades in onto an Earth-like planet orbiting a large red gas giant. There is text on the screen consisting of a mixture of triangles and lines, and after a couple of seconds, the symbols converge into English text that reads, 'Shindalean colony - Andoni - 422nd year of the Arzan dynesty'. The camera zooms in onto the orbiting planet and you can see black and green war ships drifting amongst the clouds. The camera then fades into an underground bunker. Lights bolted to the dirt ceiling are swaying back and forth and dirt can be seen falling to the ground as heavy artillery fires outside. Within the bunker is a group of cloaked figures huddled around a hologram projector. At first what is projected are many sharp lines but after a few moments they converge on one another and form a sphere. The huddled figures start to speak to one another in an ancient language and the subtitles read, "It is done. The child is safe." "Can we be sure the War Mind will not find it?" "We can be sure of nothing." "Then all that remains is to wait." "Yes... Wait... and prey the gods forgive us." The scene fades out as the inside of the bunker shakes from another artillery shot.

The scene fades in this time, not to the Swan Song, but to an unknown location on Andoni. The warships that were seen previously are landing on the ground, dismantling troops who shuffle away from the ships like ants. In the foreground is a large tank with octopus-like appendages that is being addressed by a nearby officer who shouts, "We found them. Soon the seed will be yours War Mind." The familiar fluid-metallic face of the War Mind projects out of the tank and you hear the deep booming words, "Good. Soon I will be complete." As this sentence concludes, a white flash of light beams across the horizon and an immense wave of force emanates from a distant plane and splashes over former Andoni.

Pi Is Feeling Better, But Different
Pi’s upgrade completes and Prosper Trudeau and Piani Pic are standing in the room alone with them. Prosper asks how Pi is feeling and they say that they are feeling better, but different. That things are available to them now that weren't available to them before and that they don't quite understand what those things are yet, but with time, they should be able to figure it out. Prosper explains to Pi that he omitted Order-specific code (that was to be included in the upgrade) because he was uncomfortable with people in Cabral being able to monitor how Pi grows.

Once the private conversation has ended, captain Dulac tells Prosper that the Order has discovered many great things on Andoni now that the former government is gone and that the situation turned out for the better even though many lives were lost. Dulac also re-mentions to Prosper that Odette Rainier would like to talk to him if he ever finds his way out to Cabral. Dulac and the scientists then get back onto their ship and the Two of Wands decouples from the Swan Song and flies away.

The Next Destination
Mr. Sicarian sends an email to Mr. Falcon's ship to see if what Ms. Fate said to him about Mr. Falcon being dead is really true. Piani sends out a ship-wide email saying that there are pirates who are selling the Kafkaesque, as well as its former owner, who want to meet on planet Sigrid in the Laodice System to further discuss the terms of selling the ship. Seeing this email, Wilbur Higgins III flips on the Swan Song’s emergency systems and calls yet another annual meeting. The meeting is short, and the crew decides to head to planet Sigrid to meet with the pirates.

It takes twelve days for the crew to successfully jump from the Varvaressos System to the Vafa'i System and another twelve days to get to the Laodice System. The Laodice System has two planets, Sigrid and Laertes. Planet Sigrid is home to both humans as well as a human-like species called the Wah. The people of planet Sigrid are basically Vikings and are known to be some of the most highly-trained warriors in the sector. During the 24-day flight, Connor Wu is initially sad due to some recent news regarding Nika Starlight but eventually gets over it and continues working around the Swan Song like normal. Piani spends most of her time playing a hologram chess-like game with Pi. Higgins spends his time looking at cached internet pages trying to find information on Fang. What he ends up finding is a security image originating from the same Exchange station that the crew was just on, but instead of the image being of Fang talking with Higgins, it is of Fang talking with Ms. Fate. Lastly, Mr. Sicarian gets a video message from a soldier on Onintza who confirms that Mr. Falcon has indeed died from Fate's Rangers.

The crew arrives at Planet Sigrid on August 28, 3200. Sigrid's atmosphere is very cold and corrosive due to a large amount of seismic activity on the planet. The Wah are explained to be 10-12 feet tall, weigh up to a ton, and are covered in white fur. When the Swan Song settles into orbit, the crew find themselves surrounded by the entirety of the Highbeam fleet consisting of hundreds of pirate ships in various sizes. Piani connects with the pirates who are selling the Kafkaesque and schedules a meeting with a captain Saito to be held in 2 days down on Sigrid.

After the Swan Song docks at Sigrid, the crew immediately commissions for an upgrade to the ship's power which costs them a total of 180,000 credits as well as 3,000 credits in docking fees and 8,220 credits for the monthly payment of August. To pay for this upgrade, each crew member deducts 25,000 credits from their own personal accounts and adds it to the upgrade-the-ship fund that already has 100,000 credits in it. The power upgrade is estimated to take one month, and so during the downtime, Mr. Sicarian seeks out a hand-to-hand combat specialist and spends his time training with him and his Viking clan [Mr. Sicarian temporarily remains away from the party].

Captain Saito and the Kafkaesque
As Prosper positions himself and his newly-bought sniper rifle into an over-looking tower, the crew (now consisting of Higgins and Piani) begins to head towards the warehouse to meet up with captain Saito. Before they are able to get into the warehouse, a group of nomad-looking people (who are oddly enough all missing a single eye) walk past them. Piani notices someone reach out to her mind but she disregards the feeling and her and Higgins walk into the warehouse.

The inside of the hanger looks like that of a hack-shop, but with spaceships instead of cars. The Kafkaesque can be seen in the back and tied up to the bridge is an unconscious, beat-up Lucas McCrary. Higgins and Piani get introduced to Saito and then Saito then gives the two a mini-tour of the ship. The tour ends and the three of them end up at the bridge. Saito tells Higgins and Piani that in the condition the ship’s in, it's worth 3 million credits but that he is willing to give them 2 for it. Higgins and Piani ask if they can discuss things between themselves and when Saito temporarily leaves the bridge, Higgins takes a picture of Piani with Lucas McCrary in the background. Saito then comes back and Piani tells him that they will buy the ship but that they will need some time to get their finances in order. The crew then leaves the hanger and goes back to the Swan Song [They may or may not leave Prosper behind in the tower].

The Viking Clan
The scene cuts over to Mr. Sicarian in a bathhouse surrounded by Vikings. This is one of the few times that Mr. Sicarian has spent an extended amount of time outside of his exo-suit, and despite him feeling bad for the past couple of months due the exposure to space-travel outside of Harridan's Heart, Mr. Sicarian seems to be in a genuinely joyous mood. For the past couple of weeks, Mr. Sicarian has stayed with the Viking clan learning about the people and their culture. The Vikings have been very friendly towards Mr. Sicarian. They have had beer drinking, shirtless montages of working in the sun, and Mr. Sicarian even got his fortune told by a creepy old woman. One day, Mr. Sicarian invites the crew to come to the lodge of the Iron Wolf to join him in drinking with his Viking friends and the night is filled with drinking and laughter.

Lord Lucas McCrary
The next day rolls around and the whole crew head to the warehouse with the intent on telling Saito that they are willing to pay for Lucas McCrary alone, without his ship. As they are walking up to the warehouse, they pass by the same group of one-eyed people. The person who had previously reached out to Piani’s mind does so again and says, “The one-eyed god is watching you.” Piani then gets a series of images imprinted into her mind that leads her to a location on-planet that she has never been to before, but with the images, now feels like she knows how to get there. The man also telepathically tells Piani, “Come to the well of memory and I will show you” before leaving with the Nomad group.

This time the entire crew gets introduced to captain Saito. Piani fabricates a story that Lucas McCrary had killed some of Mr. Sicarian’s family because they couldn’t make a payment on a debt, but Saito doesn’t believe it. Mr. Sicarian then bluntly asks what they can do to get Lucas McCrary from him. Saito tells them to come back in 24 hours after he has thought about it.

After 24 hours, the crew comes back and Saito tells them that he did some research on them and their ship and that he may have some use for them. He asks if they have ever been to the Protagoras System and they tell him no. Saito tells them that he and his men can’t go to the system but that they should be able to go and pick up some cargo for him on Thoe. Mr. Sicarian asks to let them have Lucas McCrary now, instead of after completing the mission and captain Saito agrees to the request, saying that his mission is not time sensitive and that he knows the crew are not stupid enough to piss of the Highbeam Fleet.

An Insight into Piani’s Life
It is a few days later and Piani is surrounded by miscellaneous robot junk and ship parts. She is currently arguing with an old man, the two of them are haggling over the price of a cybernetic eye. After a couple of minutes, Piani pays 10,000 credits for a box of cybernetic parts. She looks at the parts and figures that she has about 1/3 of all the things she needs, and that the best place to get the rest would be from Cabral. Prosper has been telling the crew that he is interested in stopping at Cabral to see General Odette Raineer and so stopping there would be advantageous for both her and Prosper.

Higgins sends an email over to Laura McCrary telling her that they have her husband and that he will be sending over proof of death in about a week once they get some things sorted out. He then emails Rajani Van Dorne and tells her that they will soon be in the Hlif System and to meet them there if the Syndicate wish to pick up Lucas McCrary.

Another scene is introduced with Piani, but this time she is standing outside of the ruined building that the man with the one eye gave her a memory of. When she walks up to the entrance of the building the door opens and standing there is a young girl who tells Piani that “the elder” is waiting for her. The young girl then asks Piani to wait in a waiting room that is filled with a heavy haze of narcotic smoke. After only a few moments, an older gentlemen walks into the room and asks Piani to follow him. Piani then gets led to a room that has a brazier lit in the middle of it, the smell of the narcotic smoke is even stronger in this room. The man asks if Piani is ready and when she says yes, her mind is immediately assaulted with memories that are not her own. She sees Constantine Fang killing Prosper, the War Mind destroying Majid, the Purity Initiative seizing villages on Onintza, and many other disturbing images. A voice then enters her mind and tells her that these are images of things that have been seen but did not come to pass. Her mind gets flooded again, this time with images of things that are happening in the present; Piani sees the Pizza Party floating in space, Prosper is playing holo-chess with Pi, Mr. Sicarian is training with the Viking clan. Last but not least, Piani is left with an image of a very royal-looking place. It is a planet that is completely covered up by one large city. The city has very large silver spires, and from one of the spires you can make out a fleur-de-lis. Piani knows that this place is Cabral without even having been there before. The voice in her head comes back and says that ‘they’ were instructed to show her these images so that they could warn Piani. Piani asks the voice what it is that it wants from her and the voice responds, saying that it doesn’t want anything and that someday, the wolf will wake up and swallow the sun and that ‘they’ are simply waiting for that day to come. Piani then asks if there is some way to make these images not come to fruition and then all of a sudden she is dragged out of her mind and she finds herself sitting in the same room that she was in just a minute ago. The elderly man that she is with pulls out a glass eye from his pocket and hands it to her. Piani takes the eye and inquires further, but seeing that the man will give her no more response, she heads back to the Swan Song.

Shouting, Brawling, and Female Suplexes
The crew has all been invited to a large ceremony to celebrate the end of Mr. Sicarian’s training and the initiation of him into the Viking clan. As Mr. Sicarian sits next to the Vikings that he has been training with for the past month, he realizes that he is not simply sitting around people admired for their bravery and ferocity in combat, but that he is sitting next to his new brothers and sisters. And even though he came to the Viking clan to simply improve himself as a warrior, he came out improving himself as a person by growing closer to the Viking people and their culture. To give insight on how the celebration played out, this was the first time that the crew had ever seen Mr. Sicarian drunk. Part-way through the celebration, Mr. Sicarian was given a tattoo of a wolf head on his back. Many of the Viking clan would go up to Mr. Sicarian and say things like, ‘Odin’s table at Valhalla will save a space for you Mr. Sicarian’. Maybe Mr. Sicarian was aware of this, maybe he wasn’t, but the Viking clan had taught him, not how to survive, but instead, how to die gloriously. At the very end of the ceremony, Olaf (the head Viking) comes up to Mr. Sicarian and presents to him a very large gun that says ‘mjolnir’ (the hammer of Thor) on its side. Olaf says to Mr. Sicarian, “I hope you make a big mess with it” after clasping him on the back. Mr. Sicarian responds, “It is the single most beautiful fucking thing... I’ve ever fucking seen. Thank you.” At the end of the sentence, Mr. Sicarian headbutts Olaf and the rest of the night is filled with shouting, brawling, and female suplexes.

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