Strip 200 -- First Seen: 2009-06-19
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
Inside the flight cabin of Little Toot, Bert is touching a key on his Comm device, as Ernie looks on.

Bert : I'm switching to speaker-phone so my brother can participate.

Bert (2): Why didn't you call us on the hailing frequency?

Panel 2
Bert and Ernie cast sideways glances at each other as they listen to the Comm.

Voice from Comm: We maintain radio silence out here, and only use untraceable tanglenet communications.

Voice (2): We ask that you do the same.

Panel 3
Close 2-shot of the brothers listening to the Comm in Bert's hand.

Voice: By the way, I'm Commander Drenkowski.

Voice (2): I'm in the speed-burner you should be seeing now, directly on your port side.

Panel 4
Fairly wide panel. Exterior dorsal view of Little Toot on the right side (its waldos extended to brace against the iceberg, of which we might see a tiny bit), a heavily-armed, one-man fighter craft just now pulling up on the left, about 9 meters away.
Ernie: (from inside Toot): Whoa there cowboy!
Ernie: You just scared the bejesus out of this old agnostic!


Panel 5
Viewpoint is just barely past the fighter. We see just a piece of it in the lower left foreground, with at least one nasty-looking forward gun prominently visible. In the middle ground, we can see the brothers looking at it through the Toot's portside window.
Ernie: Don't get me wrong, pard. That was some pretty fancy flying.
Ernie (2): You just sort of took me by surprise.

Panel 6
Our first view of Drenkowski in his flight cockpit. He's wearing a pressure-suit and helmet but we can see his face clearly. Reference the photos Sandy sent on 6/27 under the subject line “NISA Character”. Drenkowski grins and glances over towards the Little Toot.

[Again, just so we are on the same page. Toot is decelerating with its nose towards the berg and its engine more-or-less toward TLP. So B&E are on the top deck with the berg over their heads with their feet toward TLC. Drenkowski is laying on his back in an acceleration seat that sits at right angles to the long axes of his ship Basically, he is standing his ship on its tail and decelerating toward TLC at the same rate at Toot. This is complicated station keeping.]

Drenkowski: Sorry about that, I drove US atmo fighters a long time ago.

Drenkowski (2): Jet jockey habits die hard. No matter how old we get, inside we're still 9-year-old showoffs.