Sunday January 28, 2007
Book 8: The Sharp End of the Stick — Part V: Dropping The Other Shoe
Note: A Faraday cage is an enclosure made of conductive materials which serves to prevent electrical charges on the outside from frying things on the inside. A Teraport Cage is similar in principle, in that it mitigates the effect of Teraport Area-Denial (TAD) fields within the cage, allowing reasonably safe teraporting from within the cage to any point outside an unfriendly TAD field.

The Touch and Go has been maintaining a TAD field on the entire area for the duration of the current operation, per standard operating procedure. The existence of a teraport cage or cages aboard Commodore Shufgar's vessel suggests that Shufgar and his men can move to and from their ship freely.

This is Not Good News.

Coins

Transcript

Narrator: Aboard the abandoned enemy warship. . .
Elf: Here's the first of those active hyper-nodes.
Kevyn: Hmmm. . . Not much to see, small room.
Kevyn: The sniffer says that the node is up there in the ceiling, but I don't see any console gear in here.
Elf: Is that bad?
Kevyn: No. . . Just kind of weird.
Schlock: Can I slag it with my plasgun now?
Kevyn: Sergeant, "kind of weird" is not the same thing as "terminate with extreme prejudice."
Kevyn: Besides, this should burn that node out just fine.
Schlock: I'm not prejudiced. Some of my best friends are weird.
Kevyn: Ummm. . . I"m getting node resonance in all the walls. Did one of you touch something?
Schlock: In fact, I think all my friends are weird.
Kevyn: Why would it resonate? Backup nodes? Some kind of shielding? Like a Faraday. . . Ooh. . .
Schlock: And bony. Weird and bony.
Kevyn: It's a teraport cage.
Kevyn: SLAG THE ROOM, SERGEANT! WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!
Schlock: I told you, I'm not prejudiced. Weren't you listening?