Escape Velocity Update 
by Andrew Welch

NOTE WELL: This product is still under development. This is a preview: everything mentioned here is subject to change without notice, because the product is a work in progress. Please don't ask us when it will be released -- that'll give us more time to finish the product up and get it to you all that much sooner. We'll let you know just as soon as it is released, we promise. The best way to stay informed of product releases is to sign up for our announce_list mailing list, or check our web site periodically. 

[Reprinted from the posthumous autobiography of the inscrutable Captain Scumdog]

This is gonna be short 'n sweet. I've been stuck on Alkaidion for the past several weeks, waitin' for some "special" additions to be retrofitted to the Good Ship Darkheart.

Alkaidion boasts some of the best grey-market craftsmen this side of the Serpens Nebula, but they don't exactly work at warp-speed, if you catch my meaning. I guess I can't complain much tho, cuz they do good work and keep their traps shut when you throw a few credits their way.

The thing is, I've been grounded once again, and for someone with space-faring in their blood, it's murder. So I've taken to patronizing a local watering hole known as "The Creek", which is why I'm not in the best of moods -- the morning never is quite as fun as the night before.

OK, enough BS'ing around. I'll get right to the juicy stuff that gives bookworms somethin' to write about, and put a price on my head. I'm not gonna name names -- call me paranoid -- but I will tell ya this: there's no stopping me now.

Ignoring my better judgement, I undertook a special covert mission -- a mercenary-type of operation. I didn't like the smell of it from the start, but I sure as hell could use the credits. That's Credits with a captial C. Halfway through it I wrote myself off as a smudge in the skyline, but luck and some serious firepower saw me through.

No, I'm not even gonna tell you what was involved in the mission, 'cept to say that it's a miracle I wasn't buried in a tomb of scrap metal. I'm in enough trouble as it is, if I can keep 'em guessing, I may actually live to see another moonrise. If ya don't like it, too bad.

It all boils down to this, my friend: that little black box they're installing right now is what I was bein' paid to retrieve. But once I saw what it could do, there ain't no way I was gonna give it back...