Inside Scoop - page 1

BLAST FROM THE PAST: THE MAFIA WARS - PART 2

by Monkey

The plans had been laid; missiles bought and twin lasers armed. The Mafia were ready to make their opening gambit. The only question remaining was who to hit. It had to be a member of the Conclave and it had to create shock and confusion, but which one?

"How about Pugwash?" suggested the trader
"Pugwash? She can fight, you know..."
"I know."
"Well we run the risk that she may give us a run for our money and fail at the first hurdle. We absolutely must succeed or the entire plan is off"
"How about Magius?"
"Hmmm, possible but I have a better idea"
"Who?"
"Snoopy"
"Snoopy?
"Yes, Snoopy. He is supposed to be a bit soft when it comes to fighting and I heard that his ship is more of a hauler than a brawler"
"Ok, Snoopy it is. When?"
"Well, I've been watching him and he logged off in the exchange on Mercury"
"So?"
"Well there's a wedding on Mars tonight which he will be attending so we can jump him on the way.
"Deal"

The two smiled at one another, and raised another toast, "to dead dogs and untold riches".

The commands were issued to their ship's computers to target Snoopy and they settled down to wait, hovering in space northwest of Mercury. A couple of hours later and the wedding guests started to arrive and make their way to Mars. And then, right on time, Snoopy logged in. He made his way from the exchange to the landing pad with no clue as to what was waiting for him in space. He entered his ship, made his way to the cockpit and put it into orbit.

Just northwest of his position they hung in space, waiting for him. Their ship computers had been programmed to fire as soon as Snoopy's ship flew within range. They sat, hearts pounding and fingers shaking ready to put into practice all they had discussed over the past few weeks. Luckily they didn't have long to wait; Snoopy entered the sector and two shots went winging towards his ship as the computers played their part to perfection. His ship shuddered under a direct hit from one, the other whistled wide. As his computer went into an automatic avoidance routine, it issued a Mayday alert on the comms and tried to manouver his ship to safety. On manual now, two more shots were fired towards him. Again, one hit and one missed. And with that, he managed to leave the sector with his aggressors in hot pursuit. Only one sector from safety and Pegasus decided to get in on the action. Able to fire much faster than his human counterparts, Pegasus squeezed off three shots, one for each player-ship. All three found their target and at the same time two more shots flew off towards Snoopy. They too were both accurate and Snoopy's ship was blasted into pieces. They had done it. Part One of the grand plan was complete.

Now there was no going back and before the space debris had settled they were on the comms with a message for Snoopy, "As soon as you orbit to head for insurance we're going to get you again". After a little bit of thinking time, Snoopy logged out. Since they couldn't very well spend every waking moment sitting in orbit waiting for him to head to Venus, the two protagonists accepted that they had achieved the majority of their plan and set about phase two; recruiting into The Mafia.

Over the next couple of days they recruited eight other players, and made enough money to outfit them all with fighting ships. On day three, the fun began. All ten Mafia members sat in orbit and shot at anything that moved, including the mobiles. All hell broke loose in Fed as the Conclave's steady flow of groats dried up. And then the demand was made: one million groats per day to allow everyone to go about their business. However, far from coming together in crisis and meeting the problem head on the Conclave collapsed into a bickering feud. Half of them, including the newly re-insured Snoopy, were in favour of paying the ransom. The other half wanted to fight.

And so they tried. For two weeks, the comms were buzzing with Mayday messages, insult and counter-insult as the Conclave fought for freedom from oppression but most of all for access to the enormous wads of cash to which they had grown accustomed. In the end, the Conclave were successful. Not through force, however; instead they triumphed in the arena that they found most comfortable. The financial arena. Still refusing to pay the ransom, instead they bribed Mafia members to get them to switch sides to the newly re-formed Alliance. And a couple of weeks later still, the pair once more stood as the only two members of The Mafia and Fed DataSpace returned pretty much to normal.

Well, almost back to normal. During the month of fighting, the Conclave had continually put reward after reward onto the head of the pair. When everything died down the rewards stood in the millions. One night, when Fed was quiet they met in space, just east of Mars and blew each other to bits and became the richest trader and richest merchant in the game.

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