Sky Pirates Finale!

[telerib]

(Max "the Scorpion" Carnent's player is MIA for the next two weeks, so Max led a bunch of goons on a merry chase around the base before rejoining the player group at the very last minute, and hence does not appear in the climactic action).

As more and more thugs boiled up out of the bowels of the ship, Reg and Carina Olsson realized the extent of their predicament and surrendered. Carina stashed her pistol before the thugs got close enough to see, and misplaced chivalry (or chauvanism) kept them from thorougly searching her. Reginald was relieved of his guns and grenades.

Adam, after bandaging the white-suited man as best he could, reappeared outside the office. At about the same time, two other men - one small and reedy, one huge and muscular, and both rather Aryan-looking - appeared across the harbor. As "Vladimir," Adam ordered the prisoners brought up to him. The two Germans did not contradict the order, but rather began working their way over to where the group was assembling.

Adam explained the interlopers away as troublesome sorts who had been plaguing Don Bruno, and reassured the little guy that they worked alone. The smaller man named the white-suited man "Dr. Cordas" and introduced himself as Dr. Gunter Schlosser and his brother as Hans. Dr. Schlosser was very upset about these invaders and was quite worried that operational security had been compromised; he ordered Hans to get the boat ready ahead of schedule, and hurried back to his office for last-minute planning himself.

Meanwhile, Greta and Phineas ransacked the office they were in, finding a logbook which gave the time and place for a meeting with "the Asgard" for "servicing." Haughtily informing any mooks who questioned them that she was a relative of Don Bruno and he was her bodyguard, they moved about the base, "looking for vermouth." They found the radio room, transmitted the information they found back to MI2, and then broke the radio set.

Adam called in two mooks to "guard" Reginald while he took care to watch his more mobile "prisoner." After a quick planning conference with Greta and Phineas, the groups parted ways again. Greta and Phineas would try to get into the armory, to see if the nerve gas was stored there. Adam and Dr. Olsson would try to sabotage the Argo, the huge boat.

Hans was bothered by "Vladimir"'s presence on the boat, and that of the prisoner. Adam adeptly explained that he needed to check on a few things, and that he didn't trust the mooks with his prize. Hans, not a terribly bright boy in any case and definitely aware of the combat limitations of the hired help, accepted this.

Touring the engine room, Dr. Olsson noted that this was just a normal, although very large, steamer. Tracing the various pipes, tubes, and couplings with her eyes, she detected a small juncture that, if a certain pin were removed, would malfunction when certain operating pressures built up - typically, this happened about twelve hours into a journey, or when the ship would be far from shore but nowhere near the rendezvous. The sabotage would be difficult to find and, while replacing the pin would be easy, the damage its removal would cause would take longer to fix. She yanked the pin.

Phineas and Greta were almost caught trying to pick the lock to the armory, and were summarily escorted away from it. They ran into another thug - actually Reginald in disguise! Despite his wounds, he was able to beat down the two men guarding him, tie them and Dr. Cordas up, and dress himself in the garments of one of the men. The guard with the pair wasn't keen on going through the desks of the Big Bosses to look for vermouth, and happily fobbed them off on Reg.

Phineas hooked onto another thug and asked to be admitted to the armory for some new clips of ammo - he was guarding Don Bruno's niece, after all, and with the intruders... The man complied, and the two happily compared some of the choicer pieces in the room. Phineas noticed a large crate near the door and asked, but the guard begged off: it was delicate, it was Dr. Schlosser's, and it would be going on the boat. That's all he knew, and about all he wanted to know.

Work done, the group collected Dr. Cordas. Telling the Schlossers that his condition had worsened, they offered to take him to the mainland for treatment. Gunter was quite happy to be left in charge and gave no argument. They took the yacht (with Max leaping aboard at the last moment) back to the neighboring island, then flew the seaplane to Athens. Reg and Cordas were checked into the hospital.

In the hours and days that followed:

Cordas, when he was more lucid, requested a radio set. The party provided, then prompty eavesdropped: he contacted Marie Deschamps, who was apparently waiting for just such contact. He told her of his location and predicament, but did not give details of the entire adventure: the transmission was kept short. She replied that she'd come as soon as possible.

The party tipped off the Athens police about Cordas. Locals from the oppressed island (happy to no longer being threatened into silence about the situation) identified him as one of their tormentors, meaning he'd be staying in jail for a while.

An international coalition was waiting for the Asgard (which was indeed the silver zepplin) when it arrived at the rendezvous point. The zepplin and its flying disks fought ferociously; in fact, with nowhere to land but the ocean, they fought until they crashed down, each and every one. While terrors when ambushing unsuspecting cargo carriers, they were no match for a coordinated military operation that had the drop on them. Enough ejected pilots and other survivors were picked up to clearly demonstrate to the public that these were humans, not aliens, and that the threat was over.

A similar action took place at the island base. Scores of men were rounded up and the place ransacked.

The Argo, however, was not found! First, it is hard to find a single ship in a large ocean. Second... Dr. Olsson suspects that Dr. Schlosser might be a scientist as gifted as she, judging from some of the equations she had seen in his office. He might have gotten the Argo moving faster than she anticipated, and taken it into hiding.

Two months later...

Reginald finally recuperated fully from his wounds. Dr. Olsson had produced three compact radio units the group can use to keep in touch with each other. And Max, in his endless search for evidence of Don Bruno and EVIL, came across an unusual new item: electrical devices and furniture on the Carribean island of St. Thomas are catching fire, apparently for no reason.

What could be behind it? A twisted arsonist? An unknown natural phenomenom? Or something else altogether? Find out next week!