Slipstream: Defeat on Dracos!

Exciting developments in pulp adventure! Here's last time.

Our heroes return to where they park their ship and find it gone. They haven't received any transmission from their crew, so something is wrong. Zeenia activates the ship's teleportation disc. It can't transport them to the ship, but she can at least use it to find the ship. They get on the rocket sled and zip off towards the coordinates, and Iris radios Genko to tell him what's happening. It is a decision she will live to regret. 

The heroes follow the ping out of the city and into the jungle. They spot a huge, ruined stone structure, covered in moss. Their ship is parked outside, and a contingent of Drascos, some 20 strong, are patrolling. In addition, they see a group of armed toughs, probably bounty hunters. Some are Dracos, but a couple are Raptor Men and one is a Pyrite (an alien made of living rock). They see their crew trapped under transparent forcefields. 

Zeenia turns invisible and surveys the scene, and then realizes that the trees are soft and spongy. She can probably ram her rocket sled right through them! She heads back to the sled, while Iris takes to the sky to get a good vantage point. Abbas tries to climb a tree, but the bark is, as mentioned, spongy, and he falls, landing near a Drascos guard. The guard shrieks a warning. Abbas pounces and punches the Drascos out, but the damage is done. 

The heroes have faced worse odds, of course, but then things get really bad. Genko zips up on a rocket scooter and Zeenia un-cloaks and calls to him. She tells him what's happening and has him get on her sled...and then she blacks out. 

A Dracos bounty hunter cocks an ear (?) and listens to a radio transmission, and then yells to the trees: "Iris Blue, daughter of Orchid Blue of the Daikini Valkyrie!" ("That's my line," growls Iris.) "Abbas of the Lion Men! Surrender or face a foe you can't hope to beat!"

And at this point, Genko emerges from the tree, with Zeenia, under his control. The heroes black out as well...

...and come to under one of the forcefield domes. Their gear has been stripped from them. They're wearing their spacesuits, but they spot Zeenia's "danger bling" on one of the bounty hunters. Another is carrying Abbas' big ol' rifle. Iris' glittery armored shirt is nowhere to be seen. The bounty hunters are gathered near the ship, talking, while the Drascos are rushing around attending to some unknown task. The heroes spot a rope-and-pulley system in front of the ruin, but no sense of what it's there for.

Genko is talking to the lead bounty hunter: "I'm not leaving Dracos again. This is my home! The only place I am safe!" 

The leader responds, "Fine, Genko. Just don't expect us to come back to give you a bigger cut of the reward." One of the Dracos yells something at him, calling him "Haresh", and he yells back "Hurry up and use the thing! We're not going to wait around for you!"

The heroes aren't sure what "the thing" they're referring to is. They don't see a controlling back for the forcefields, and no way out of this. Zeenia comes up with an ingenious plan, though. She strips off her suit, and begins to burrow into the moist, soft earth like a worm. She has to cope with being out of her suit and therefore not having her own atmo to breathe, but she's tough. Iris spreads her wings to block off Zeenia's escape, and the heroes wait.

Zeenia tunnels through the earth and comes up on the side of the ruin. She finds a crack in the stone and squelches through, and starts searching around for a way to turn off the forcefields. Outside, one of the guards notices that Zeenia isn't there anymore and informs the bounty hunters.

Haresh walks over and tells Iris and Abbas that they can either tell him where "the jellyfish" has gone, or he can have Genko mind-control them again. Iris keeps him talking, calling him out for being a coward, and he gently reminds her that bounty hunters generally avoid fighting if they can - it's not good for the payoff. 

Abbas says that if all they're interested in is money, maybe they can come to an arrangement? Haresh says that it's unlike to that they can come up with the money to cover the bounties, the money they'll get from selling their ship, and the money they'll get from selling off their gear ("I ain't selling this!" yells the one carrying Abbas' gun). At this point, some Drascos unload the sonic lance and put it on the pulley. They raise it up to the top of the ruin, and Iris wonders if they're trying to open it or drill past a locked door...

About now, Zeenia finds the wires that control the forcefields and yanks them out. The forcefields fall, stunning the crew momentarily but allowing the heroes to leap to battle!

Abbas wastes no time. He rushes Genko, smacking the slave controller from his head and slashing his face. Iris swoops in and catches it, and smashes it against a tree. Genko shrieks in rage, and the rest of the bounty hunters attack. Zeenia emerges from the ruin and slinks over to get her suit back, but doing so makes her visible. The Drascos shoot at her, and Haresh screams that they need the prisoners alive. He fires a small pistol at her, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

The crew, meanwhile, shakes off the cobwebs and leaps to action! Craw punches a Dracos guard and grabs his gun, and the others follow suit. Without their gear, though, they can't quite manage to overpower the armed and armored Drascos, and the heroes are, of course, highly outnumbered. 

A group of Drascos shoots Zeenia again, and one of them fells her with a well-placed blast. Iris swoops toward Haresh in anger, and he fires his weird little pistol at her. This time it works, and she crashes into Zeenia's inert body, unconscious. 

Abbas, facing off against two bounty hunters, seeing the crew losing their fight, and still armed only with his claws, knows he can't win this fight. He also knows, however, that he'll never get another chance Genko, and Genko probably tricked them into believing Anburn had betrayed him. He tears Genko's throat out, throws it to the ground, and raises his hands.

"Fair enough," says Haresh, and fires his stunner. Abbas passes out with blood on his claws. 

Next time, we'll see where our heroes end up!