Fucking Lake Erie, Pt 3

Doc hangs the flintlock rifle back on his shoulder, opting to draw his .44; a much better solution for the tight spaces below.

"People of the steamship Chesapeake, we have come to help! You may be in danger!" he calls out.

There's still no reply. Taking a deep breath, Doc proceeds carefully down the stairs. The whole lower deck is tightly packed with various crates and cargo, not leaving much room to walk. The path leads straight between the boilers to the back, with no where else to go without climbing over stacks of boxes. Doc turns the corner slowly. Thunderhorse follows tight.

The lights are all extinguished. The back of the boat is a pool dark broken only by the red glow of coals from the vents in the burners. Doc shines his flashlight into the blackness.

Three men stand between the boilers, shoulder to shoulder, aiming rifles at them. One has a cloth tied around his head, holding his jaw shut. "Drop your weapons!" another demands.

"Holy shit, its the Shaw brothers!" the third exclaims, lowering his rifle a bit.

"What?! Kill them!" the familiar voice of Judge Olden calls from the back.

2 comments:

ERR said...

ruh-roh, scooby. combat time. move and attack, attack and move, move and move again, or full round action.

Ship is about 170' bow to stern, assume you've got a 5' wide path that length, the rifle men are about thirty feet away, you're about fifty from the bow, the stairs are five to the left.

Doc said...

Doc

Tell Thunderhorse to get down, drop the flashlight, steady my gun hand, and drop to one knee and train my gun on the speaker.

Shoot if I have to, but aim low. I don't want to kill him if I can help it. He may be the butterfly of the past that I step on that screws us all. If I can drop one maybe the other two will hold their fire. I'd like to to use my speechcraft if I could and convince them that I have come to save them from a horrible fate. This boat is going down in ten minutes. I have a boat I can swim to, do they? I am sent by Pres. Andrew Jackson, and the Prussian Government has placed a very lethal bomb aboard in order to cause chaos in an effort to hamstring the U.S. from it's westward expansion so that the Prussians can conquer France without us interfering. Hell, I'm making this shit up as I go, and I know it is a whopper, but I just want to grab our stuff and leave with a minimal amount of bloodshed.

If I don't get the chance to say anything, shoot all three, and then try my speechcraft on the Judge while using one chi towards my roll.

Action: Speechcraft +9, Attack +1, Ranged 3. I'm not sure what applys, but I'm sure you do.

Doc