Strip 195 -- First Seen: 2009-06-12
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

QV on a short break

QUANTUM VIVE is taking a break for a few weeks, as we prepare for Part 2 of the Novo Palermo story, and also for a Kickstarter campaign for Part 1, which will start in September.

In the meantime, Not-Safe.Space will continue, as a murder mystery begins and the relationship between Eithne and Diana develops in unexpected directions.

Not-Safe.Space is a NSFW strip but more than half the pages are SFW so I've set those to *not* require a Patreon membership. Readers should be able to follow the story without seeing the NSFW pages. If I've done this right.

Kickstarter successful and closed

The Kickstarter campaign for Not-Safe.Space Chapter 3 concluded successfully on April 21, and Scott extended the time allowed for late pledges until May 19.

Books have been ordered from the printer and Scott will be spending the next week or so setting up and sending the PDF files to those who asked for them.

(There are still six of you who have not responded to the survey asking for e-mail and snail-mail addresses, he'll do the best he can.)

Thanks to all for supporting this Kickstarter!

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Wide panel. The Little Toot zooms across the field.

Bert (from inside ship): Okay, Ernie, I'm initiating turn-around. Hang on.
Panel 2
Inside the ops cabin, Ernie looks at the stars through his large view port. To one side, there's a silhouette against the stars that looks something like the cross-section of a dragonfly.

Ernie: Huh.

Panel 3
In the pilot cabin, Bert is checking the radar screen.

Ernie (filtered): Bert, do we have company? I think I just saw something eclipse the stars.

Bert: Nothing on radar.

Panel 4
Still with Bert in the pilot cabin. He has a wry grin.
Bert: Must be those darnn Romulans using their cloaking device to tail us on the sly.

Panel 5
Back in the ops cabin, Ernie winces at the verbal jab. But he's still looking intently towards his view port.
Ernie: Ha. Ha.
Ernie (2): Anyway I don't see anything now.

Panel 6
Large panel. In the middle distance, we see the stern end of the Little Toot, although we're ahead of it now because it is turned around and decelerating. We're about three times farther away than we saw in the first panel of Strip 194. In the foreground, we can now see clearly what Ernie briefly glimpsed: the Pale Man's stealth ship.

It looks like a cross between a manta ray and a B-1 Stealth bomber. It has a 3-nozzle burn engine at the stern along the centerline, which is now firing to decelerate the craft. It also has twin aerospike engines and ram jets mounted in its wings, making it capable of atmospheric flight. The craft itself is matte black, visible more because it silhouettes against the stars, and because we can see its burn engine firing, than due to any reflectivity on the surface.

Bert: Well, sit back and relax, we've got another five hours to rendezvous with Chang Li and his iceberg.