The Stone Tiger

Setting: Mauthus II

• Scene 1: The Long Drop
  • Drug smuggling, Mauthus II style - an orbital drop in a cargo pod.
  • The pod is grappled, but Jon Hector shakes it loose.
• Scene 2: Off Target
  • Eight and Dirk Richter scout the environment, while Xiao Ling meets the locals.
  • Richter offers a tasty target.
  • Eric Carson combines frontier know-how with high-tech savvy.
• Scene 3: Enter the Tiger
  • The team meets a dangerous and desperate woman.
  • Carson sets to work, healing bodies and minds.
• Scene 4: The Lay of the Land
  • Mauthus Capitol: decadence and corruption in an Ancient shipwreck.
  • Eight, Hector and Carson contemplate dark marvels, while Ling and Richter encounter dark motives.
  • There is no sign of Shank…

• Scene 1: Up and Over
  • Eight, Dirk Richter and the Tiger take the long way up and around.
  • Jon Hector, Xiao Ling and Eric Carson join the frontal assault party.
• Scene 2: Driven to Distraction
  • Eight makes contact with the Ancients' legacy - and finds it uncooperative.
  • Distractions abound as Hector instigates a dishonorable discharge; Ling and Carson arm the troops; Richter takes control of the situation; Eight persuades the systems to accept her; and Lady Oq forces a confrontation.
  • Richter is a little short for a stormtrooper.
• Scene 3: The Dark Thought Generator
  • Richter dodges a bolt or three.
  • Eight makes a bid for the throne.
  • Hector makes a bid for the throne.
  • Lord Zaous places his faith in technology; Lady Oq keeps her distance.
  • Carson faces his darkest thoughts, and triumphs.
• Scene 4: Aftermath
  • Ling makes an unauthorised broadcast.
  • Zaous is brought low, and the Tiger is triumphant.
  • Eight takes a souvenir.
  • Mauthus II begins a long and painful rebirth - but how ancient are the Ancients?

• Jon Hector: Do you shoot it to switch it on, or switch it off?
• Xiao Ling: When he's fascinated by an object he counts as an innocent.

• Brilliant inventive ideas of Jon Hector needlessly shot down as overly complicated and hazardous to life and limb. In this case:
  • Modifying the GravChute of the cargo pod to discharge all its energy in a giant leap at a modified handscanner as a location beacon (for when a safe location was found for the pod to land)
  • Having Dirk Richter sneak the handscanner into the lair of the big bad and circumventing the loss of peasant army lives with this makeshift suborbital weapon.