Play By Podcast

Two years. Two years since Trilly had dared to set down on Miranda. When she was a little girl, running errands for the Vory on Titan, she’d heard the rumors about this place even then. She’d come up substantially in the trade since, but the rumors remained. If there was ever a place that gave Trilly the shivers, it was Miranda.

And yet here she was.

When one spoke of Miranda within the Commonwealth, it was with eyes that were fixed to the wall ahead, in words drawn out from the corner of one's mouth. Miranda was the devil that would steal your face if you so much as met eyes with it. The boogeyman of the Lunar colonies.

And yet again, for a second goddamn time, here she was. Waiting for a pickup that might never come. Waiting to get pinched by a few trigger-happy Jovian doughboys in their shiny suits of 20-foot-tall armor.

But she was here for a reason. A damn good one, she knew. Morgen had asked her to save Bete, and now Bete had returned the favor.

Something cosmic in that, she thought.

*

In today’s episode, the Freelancers make their way out of the Mirandan base, but first Scarlett and Otto need to pay a visit to the lab of one Doctor Birch. Plus, a look at the war back home as the Jovian Lunar Commonwealth continues its campaign against the Rectified Solar Union. In this episode: stealthy slips, anthro-hybrids, and one hell of a getaway!

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 13: In the Clear

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter),
Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ),
Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97),
and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@CodyOjea)

From the moment he was brought back online aboard the C.C.V. Shining Sky Rigel had known something had gone wrong. The whole trip home he had worried that he was to blame. Now back on Miranda he was sure of it.

Doctor Xade had been confined to their lab, patched into Rigel’s home network. He knew the toll that interfacing with him long-term would take on them, but Comandante Carcanet had assured Rigel that the Doctor needed more time to “acclimate” to interfacing.

Rigel was fairly sure that was not necessary, but the Comandante had ordered it, so it must have been proper in some regard. At least there was no danger of being forcibly de-synched in the confines of the lab.

Even before Xade had been jacked in, he could feel that they did not want to be there, but they assured him it was not his fault. This did not put him at ease.

Where had it gone wrong? He and Doctor Xade had been operating at near-perfect synchronicity, not a single fluctuation or error. What could they have done differently? The Comandante had told him the operation was to be a test, judging his capabilities. Had he failed the test? Had the anchor that managed to deactivate him been a trick question of some kind? What would Comandante Carcanet think about this? What would the Aspirant-

Rigel did not wish to continue this line of thinking. He disliked being anxious, and thinking about Chyron Kennet was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

*

In today’s episode, we continue our journey into the depths of the Jovian base in search of Bete’s creator, Doctor Morgen Xade. What new friends and foes will the Freelancers meet on their mission to save Xade from the Lunar Commonwealth? A rather fishy gentleman? A loyal AI? A work-a-day guardsman? And which is which? Listen to find out!

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 12: Xade and Rigel

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@CodyOjea)

Vettel had drawn sentry duty again. He always hated guard details. He would just end up standing there for four hours, boring himself half to death. At least the rotating patrols got to move around a little. Got to pilot an anchor, like he’d signed up to. Got to see the sights, if in fact there were any sights to see on this godforsaken rock.

Miranda was always so damn bleak. Year round it was always the same grey flatland, the same blue-grey sky, surrounded by the same awful, choking fog. Even on the best of days you could hardly make out the hulking, behemoth form of the planet below on the horizon.

Kowalski had also drawn the short straw, he noted as the other Jovian joined him at the forward post. He raised his free hand in greeting, relaxing his grip on the rifle slung over his shoulder. Kowalski adjusted his mask, stepping past the safety line that seperated the clean air of the base from the polluted atmosphere.

“Best settle in, V,” he said, voice distorted through the facemask. “Looks like another day of fuck-all.” The footfalls of an approaching anchor thundered in the distance. Vettel didn’t have to look to know it was Jovian. He could tell by the sound of it now.

Yep. Another day of nothing.

*

In today’s episode, we step through the fog and creep through the smog of the Mirandan surface and make our way to a place from Bete’s past: the heavily-guarded Jovian facility where they intend to find one Doctor Morgen Xade. We sneak through the front lines, have some trouble with the front door, and crawl our way to (relative) safety.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 11: Face Adversity

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@CodyOjea)

There was this saying in the old world, a long time ago: “the guilty always return to the scene of the crime” they said.

For folks like me, who do the illegal well and do it often, we’ve taken this old adage and made our own use of it. In a backwards kind of way, anyway. In the circles of smugglers, runners, spys, and info brokers, the sentiment is a little different.

The guilty should never return. Never hit the same spot, attack the same target, never be in the same place, never work with the same people. You cannot go home again. And if a job requires it. Find a different job. There’s plenty more dirt to get on your hands in the Territory.

But here I am breaking the only rule in my profession. Back in the exact spot I pulled Bete from a couple years back. Knowing the kind of grudges the Kennet’s hold, statute of limitations is probably still up on that one. All it would take is one lucky Jovian patrol.

Whatever happens to me on this run is my own fault. Just need to make sure if something does go sideways it doesn’t fall back on Bete and their friends.

*

In today’s episode, the Freelancers are headed back to Bete’s homeworld, the Jovian moon Miranda. But travel takes time, and too much time trapped in the cramped quarters of the Jackknife Soliloquy could be disastrous to our team. Will our heroes maintain composure or will their tempers flare? Expect a little rambling to pass the time, some much needed suit deodorizing, and an explosive setback all straight ahead.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 10: Welcome to Miranda

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@CodyOjea)

After the dust up with that ship of freelancers and that Gentryman from the Union, Commandant Carcanet was happy to turn his attention to more important matters. The expeditionaries from Charon would be returning soon, and the data they had transmitted ahead needed assessment.

All the combat data from each anchor in the lance was in the process of being poured over by Jovian intelligence, but Carcanet had managed to save the very best for himself. The new anchor. The experimental one. He’d even studied Xade’s ridiculous notes so he could better understand the new telemetry from the strange devices they had used to perfect the new anchor’s systems.

In motion the machine was pristine. Quick and graceful like some great, ancient predator. Truly something that would strike fear into the hearts of the enemies of House Kennet. Something about the way it moved even made him afraid.

No, not afraid. Uneasy.

He watched it dance through a hail of incoming fire from the Freeholders in some futile effort to halt its progress. Of course they were ineffectual.

And then, a burst of concentrated fire from an autocannon! The offending anchor was...familiar. He’d seen it on that freelancer ship, he realized! A two-bit mercenary had single handedly bested the Commonwealth’s newest experiment.

The oversights were obvious. Glaringly so. And upon their return, Commandant Carcanet knew exactly who was to blame. And who would take the punishment for their failures.

*

In today’s episode, in the aftermath of the Jovian attack, the Freelancers plot their next course of action. How will they prepare themselves for this leg of their increasingly perilous journey? We'll heal ourselves up, put our digital noses where they shouldn’t be, and chart a new, more covert course.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 09: Good Friends

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@CodyOjea)

They left us here to die, way back when.

The Solar Union. The moons that would become the Commonwealth.

In the beginning they’d taken anyone, the destitute, the hungry, the desperate. Anyone willing to sign their life away, contract themselves to a life of servitude, and take a one-way flight to the edge of the Territory.

A life of hard work for a percentage shaved off interest on their relocation fees. Remainder passed to the next generation. Company scrip for the company store. Things only got worse as time went on.

Contracts meant our work continued apace until Pluto was no more. Mined and extracted of anything of use until all that remained was a field of debris, cold and dead and alone on the fringes of the Territory. A whole damn planet killed by the Gentry and their greed.

We understood our part in it, too. Our labor had been the murder weapon. And while they skulked away with the pilfered remains, we mourned. Not only the scale of the loss we had helped inflict, but our own sorry situation as well. The Charon Freeholds and the thing that had once been Pluto were not unalike in the end. Alone, adrift, dying.

But in that desperation, we found a drive. A spiteful resilience.

We would be goddamned if we were going to die out here, the only memory of what had been done in the dark.

*

In today’s episode, the Vehement crew are spread thin and the Freeholds are under attack! Outnumbered and surrounded by Jovian forces, our Freelancers are forced to defend themselves, but what new danger lurks among the Jovian ranks? We’ll hijack some hardware, reveal a few unwelcome surprises, and suplex some mechs, all right here, right now.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 08: Freeholds Attack!

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@CodyOjea)

Linwood was getting on in years, surely. He had seen generations of folks come and go from the Freeholds in his time as a Dockmaster. Whether they came in from the Venusian plains, or the atolls of Ganymede, or were born and raised in the Freeholds, he never forgot a one of them.

He took a certain pride in that. It gave him an impetus, a drive, a fierceness to protect the folks attached to those names.

Young Ambrose had not been home to Charon in a long, long while. Linwood was beginning to think he had all but forgotten them. When he learned that Ambrose had returned, ship crowded with strangers, and invoked his name in the doing, a grin crossed Linwood Berrett’s face.

He was going to learn a good few more names yet, he thought.

*

In today’s episode, with the Cydonian refugees finally delivered to the safe harbor of the Charon Freeholds, the crew of the Vehement enjoy some well-deserved downtime. What do the Freeholds have in store? Parrot infestations, otherworldly cocktails, and telltale cryo-tubes await within.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 07: Moments and Macaws

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

Miranda, the fog-shrouded moon of Uranus, in the heart of the Jovian Lunar Commonwealth. A strange and enigmatic planetoid where, it is said, the machinations of the Commonwealth’s war machine are brought to life.

Since the outset of the First Jovian War, it has been rumored and propagandized within the Rectified Solar Union that Miranda was home to the Jovian miltary’s intelligence and scientific initiatives. The stories of cloak-and-dagger operations and horrific experiments taking place on the the Mirandan surface prevailed well beyond the war, even among the Gentry.


Regrettably, this has made the true intentions of the Commonwealth on Miranda almost as unknowable as the surface of the moon itself. Though House Kennet and their Gentry bannermen would have it no other way.

*

In today’s episode, the crew of the Vehement have jumped their way to one of the most clandestine outposts in the Jovian Lunar Commonwealth: the mysterious moon Miranda. Survival hangs in the balance as our Freelancers are surrounded by the Jovian military, but is there more than military might waiting on Miranda? We trade metaphors, swap harsh language, and make one last push for the Freeholds.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 06: Thorn in an Elephant's Side

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

Just outside of Jupiter’s gravitational pull, beyond the boundaries of Europa, Ganymede, Callista, and Io sits a massive ship graveyard. A vast field of decommissioned and destroyed debris placed there specifically as to not be an eyesore upon House Kennet’s glorious Commonwealth.

The ships moored there passed on their names and salvagable parts to more worthy vessels long ago, and the graveyard is unknown to most folk in the Commonwealth, but some life does still lurk within the oft overlooked quadrant.

Scoundrels, killers, and cutthroats of all stripes prowl the area, hiding among the skeletons of Jovian starships, masking their signatures to avoid detection, scrounging for overlooked salvage, or lying in wait to strike at unexpecting passers-by on the galactic slipstream.

One such outfit, numbering seven strong ships and a detachment of fighter craft, are a scrappy crew of Jovian deserters turned pirates known to those of the Jovian moons as Vance’s Raiders.

*

In today’s episode we begin our trek across the Territory to the relative safety of the Charon Freeholds. The Vehement is stuffed to the gills with passengers and precious cargo, but will these temporary arrangements lead to lifting spirits or broken hearts? And what else is out there waiting for them? The forging of bonds new and old, an unscheduled stop in hyperspace, and some more crafty hacking await your ears.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 05: Cramped Quarters

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)

In the face of Cydonia’s looming destruction the old worries of Weldon Woldt seemed far away and altogether insignificant. Money, work, comfort, all that mattered now was that next, forward step.

Never quite escaping the shadow of the Amano capital ship that loomed large overhead, never quite out of earshot of the thumping boom of artillery, or the mechanical whirring of distant anchors.

He’d run, and run, and run until he’d entered the Halation square, the shelter a generous sprint across the concourse.

The Security Forces had already mustered, gunmetal grey anchors shining, fresh off the assembly line. A pilot descending to meet him as he approached. Officer Piedmont Kels.

“We were waiting for you, Overseer Woldt, already a few inside.”

He’d barely managed a mumbled response before Kels had rushed him into the shelter proper and shown him to his console. Weldon watched, dumbstruck, as the reinforced metal doors closed, expecting to never open them again. The last he saw of the outside world was a city on fire, and the strong, confident smile of Piedmont Kels.

*

In today’s episode, the Freelancers move forward with their plan to evacuate Mars, and try to help where they can. With a ticking clock and a gang of ruthless mercenaries at their backs the pressure is on! We learn important lessons about close quarters living, do a little experimentation with some alien elements, and try to hold everything together when things look their most grim.

This week on Play By Podcast: Territory Nouveau 04: What I Think is Best

Play By Podcast is Michael Collins (@arealwriter), Leon Barnes (@SlapKatZ), Liam Higgins(@liamhiggins97), and Max Coe (@_NotMyDivision_)
Cover Art by Ariel Corrales (@arielcorrales_)
Music by Cody Ojea (@SixChordCircus)