The Greasy Six

greasy girl – one who behaves/flirts, in a cheesy and/or cringy way.

Guide to Mamamoo by Purple Hawk

Trish isn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, but she works hard at understanding the ins and outs of being a member of a “pirate” crew. Though her aunties proclaim themselves to be a dreaded crew of space pirates, they are mostly a salvage operation looking to score quick riches.

According to Auntie Ginny, she and the others found a vat filled with goo in an abandoned cloning facility. Being the “scientist” of the group, Auntie Ginny spat into the vat of goo, and they twirled dials, pushed buttons and Trish was the end result. Her aunties insist that Trish is “humanish” – she fits the broad galactic definition of being a basic humanoid.

The Unueco Ecumeni (literally the Unity of Inhabited Worlds), has mandated into law that if a being’s genetic composition is ninety-five percent human and has twelve specific genetic markers found in the DNA of the species homo sapiens, then that being under galactic law is a “basic humanoid.” This law came about over time to correct injustices resulting from various practices of the genetic engineering of life forms.

Though legally humanoid, Trish and her aunties often endure the inequalities that accompany the words “mutant scum”.

Some mutations are a result of nature or evolution, some are designed. With more and more worlds outlawing slavery, the mega-corporation, Webb Honeywood Industries, tried to skirt the issue by designing a cheap workforce able to withstand the abysmal working conditions of massive industrial complexes. Thus, through genetic engineering, the goblin stepped out of fantasy literature and onto the factory floor.

Though most of the goblin population remains on the hive world of Kedore, some have ventured out into the galaxy at large including the crew of the Gobbo Queen. The Gobbo Queen was built from wrecked craft. Spaceships built from salvage prove to be either very dependable or inter-galactic deathtraps.

The crew of the Gobbo Queen consists of Captain Rachel, First Officer Denise, Ginny, Contrary Claire, Boom-Boom Betty, and Trish. If pressed for a surname or family name, they grin and reply, “Vat121-Batch1476”, except for Trish to whom they gave the last name of “VatX-Batch1.”

They began their journey as they do all of their travels with Ginny playing her mix of jazz classics over the ship’s intercom. On the eighth day out, Brubeck’s Take Five was interrupted by a distress call from the trader Majestic Mongoose. Upon reaching the debris field, they found a single intact escape pod with two men aboard. Things went smoothly until the night before reaching Nicarro when an impromptu orgy broke out.

After docking on Bishop One, the space station serving Nicarro, the two survivors reported the loss of their ship and crew. Once the inquiry was over, one of the men wanted to join the Gobbo Queen, but Captain Rachel turned him away citing that it was too dangerous to have an undisciplined man among a crew of largely undisciplined female goblins.

Due to recent unpleasantness in the sector, the planet Nicarro was experiencing a fuel shortage. It was a known fact that whenever a galactic naval task force appeared in your system, there was going to be a fuel shortage when they left. The fuel shortage was not much of a deterrent to the Gobbo Queen’s crew, the aftermath of an armed conflict was like a magnet drawing salvage crews from across the galaxy.

Finding wrecked vehicles, abandoned damaged ships, and piles of rubble, which were once buildings, wasn’t difficult. The difficult part was finding someone to buy the salvage quickly with cold hard cash at a good price. Being mutants, the women of the Gobbo Queen made enemies and rivals at an alarming rate, so from experience, the women knew they couldn’t stay on Nicarro or anywhere for very long.

Denise and Ginny dressed in their best business attire and went looking for a patron willing to fund their operations. Rachel and Betty set out to explore Bishop One. Claire and Trish were assigned decoy duty.

After four days of having doors slammed in their faces and brushed off by admin assistants, Denise and Ginny finally found someone willing to hire them. Nivian Cage, an attaché of the Dreys Sector Government, needed a crew to secure a damaged facility prior to the arrival of government inspectors. The pay wasn’t great, and the crew was to be flown in on government transport, so once they were on site, there was no way back until the inspectors arrived. The timeframe was open to any date in the near future as there were numerous such facilities scattered over much of Nicarro.

The few days spent exploring by Rachel and Betty were uneventful. People here were tight lipped around strangers, especially if the strangers were mutants. They did meet a man who was a fanatic on tech, he offered to repair anything, but it was one of those rare times when the crew had nothing which was damaged.

Trish did not like decoy duty, and it seemed she was always assigned to it. Whenever she complained about it, the answer was always “Tough titty, it’s what we designed you to do.” She felt particularly vulnerable since she was often unarmed and dressed in revealing or skimpy clothing. Her purpose was to stand out and distract people while Claire assessed potential risks. So far, none of the Gobbo Queen’s rivals have been detected on Bishop One.

The Bioware Facility

Rachel smiled to herself as the shuttle flew over a small town. From the air you could always tell who designed a settlement; if designed by a corporation the offices, factories and plants were always in the center with residential areas surrounding, if designed by the locals, the factories were at one end of town with water treatment plants and agriculture at the other, and if designed by the government, industrial sites were away from the settlement – the more secret, the further away the site was located.

The shuttle sat down at a facility, which had a fair amount of damage, some twenty kilometers from the town. Before they could say “goodbye”, the shuttle dusted off. Once inside, they gathered around a small table near the reception console. “Listen up, sisters,” Rachel began, “we’re here to secure the reactor room somewhere in the center of the complex and hold it until the inspectors arrive tomorrow. This is not a salvage operation, understand?”

“Yeah,” answered Claire, “if it doesn’t fit in your pocket, don’t pick it up.”

There was snickering and giggles, Denise slammed her hand on the table and the room was quiet. She looked scornfully at each of them and then said, “Exactly!”

“We got three doors here, if we split into teams we can find the room faster,” said Rachel, “Whichever team finds it, calls the others.”

“Something is out of whack here” said Ginny over the comm, “everything is sticky and gross.”

“Same over here, keep looking,” said Denise.

Rachel began “I think I’ve found the reactor -,” she was interrupted.

“Shit, we’re not alone!” shouted Betty, followed by a blast from her handgun. She fired again with the massive hand cannon in her other hand, but the slug only stunned the beast.

On the other side of the building, Denise and Claire took cover at the entrance to a long room. There was movement and it didn’t take long to realize they were being rushed. Denise fired and hit the lead creature, but it only stunned the creature into stopping for a moment.

Standing at the entrance to the reactor room, Rachel fired and hit the beast near the consoles, but it only paused. “They’re not going down, aim for something vital,” Rachel shouted.

The rushing beasts forced Denise and Claire to move away from the long room. They both fired when the creatures cleared the passageway. The one in front of Denise crumpled and fell to the floor, but Claire missed. The beast was on top of her ripping flesh with its claws. In the struggle Claire managed to put the barrel of her pistol in the creature’s side and fired at point blank. The creature fell to the floor dead, Claire slipped to the floor in shock.

It took multiple shots from Rachel’s laser pistol to kill the beast in the reactor room, while Betty backed herself into a corner firing at a pair of charging creatures. Ginny and Trish arrived to help.

As Claire caught her breath and staunched the blood flow from her wounds, Denise cautiously stepped around a corner in the hallway. She saw a tall creature standing erect like a human with a definite feminine form. The creature paused seeming to sniff the air and then turned to face Denise. Denise wasted no time emptying her pistol’s magazine, the majestic creature fell to the floor.

Meanwhile, Rachel was rushed by two beasts. The beasts had sharp claws, but Rachel had one of her own in a finely honed boarding saber. The stunned beasts backed away from the flashing saber, Rachel fired twice and the creature in front of her was dead.

Standing in a corner was the worst thing Betty could have done as a creature was soon on top of her snarling and slashing. Ginny and Trish fired at the beast to no effect. Betty tried to crawl away, but the beast continued its ravenous attack. Stepping to near point-blank range, Trish fired and ended the beast.

Rachel whipped around and fired at the remaining beast, it took a hit and moved back around a corner. Ginny ran up and hit the beast with another shot. Again, at close range, Rachel emptied her clip and killed the last assailant.

With the reactor room secured, the crew settled in treating their wounds and keeping watch. “Where did those things come from?” Trish asked.

Ginny responded, “From the vats in the hall, I’d say they were home grown. I’ve heard of these creatures; they use other species as hosts for their young and absorb some of the host’s DNA.”

“That explains why the one I killed had boobs,” said Denise.

Claire asked “Boobs?”

“Leave it to men to design a viscous instrument of death that’s fuckable,” said Rachel.

“Hey, we resemble that remark,” said Ginny. The gobbo girls laughed.

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This was my first foray into the game Five Parsecs from Home, which is an “adventure wargame.” I’ll attempt to play a twenty game campaign. What better way to start a new game than with new miniatures. I’ve found some cyberpunk-type goblins from Twin Goddess Miniatures (and painted using Cuttlefish Colors) to use as my crew. To me, the goblins best fit the mutant character type, but I could have also portrayed them as a minor alien species. With a crew made up entirely of mutants meant I had to make a small house rule and allow the Captain and First Officer have the ability to recruit and find Patrons.

To save space, the Crew Log with all of the crew’s current stats are on a separate page here:

The Greasy Six Crew Log

Likewise, the World Record Sheet for Nicarro is found here:

Nicarro World Record Sheet

And a turn by turn account of the game is found here:

Greasy Six Campaign Encounter Log

As always, your comments, suggestions, and showers of lavish gifts are appreciated. Let me know what you think and especially let me know your thoughts about Five Parsecs from Home.