COMMODORE THEBES OF THE SPACEWAYS

[thebes]

Chapter 1 Choke Point

Back on patrol.

Everybody on the Bridge was looking a little worn but relaxed after a 3

week liberty call at the Planet of the Amazons.

For some reason even the female members of the crew had smiles

on their faces. I quess it came from having us out of their hair for a few days. Communications Officer

Meagain was busy re-staining some of the Ether consoles, Ensign Cluless hadnt

taken a guitar to anybodys head in several days and Petty Officer Dtelswife

had organized a gun-handling competition between the aft and starboard watches.

Task Force K144 had needed the rest. Long patrols out on the Rim were hard on

both men and our aging machines.

Calling ourselves a task force was a bit of a stretch. The Klipsch Confederacy was under

pressure. A festering war in the Home

Theater Cluster was the current priority drawing most of the new production

from the Confederacys naval yards. The latest generation Heritage Class

platforms were all earmarked for the Home Fleet.

Still I could count myself fortunate in some ways. Almost the entire force was vintage

Heritage, designed and produced by some of the most brilliant minds the

Confederacy had ever had.

The heavy units were composed of Khorn dreadnoughts the

LarryC and the GaryMD; 3 heavy cruisers, The Belle-o-picque, Belle-of-theBall and

BelleRinger; 6 LaScala Class medium-heavy cruisers; 10 Colter Class Cornwall destroyers and 20 heavy-scout Heresy class units for

scouting and screening duties. 82 units in all not counting various support

platforms.

Yes 82 units. Its amazing just how many people dont

realize all named ships in the Klispch Navy come in pairs and are treated as

one unit. The origins of this are lost

in antiquity but it does make for some interesting dichotomies. For example, on the Left LarryC all the

crewdogs wear uniforms based on the Napoleonic era and love opera while on the

Right LaryC they all dress in frilled buckskins and listen to cowboy

music. But they are all Larrys. In a port of call if one of them gets in

trouble the rallying call of Gary Owen will bring them all running.

If its only enough, I thought. This sector of the Rim butted right up against the Blose Empire

and tensions were high. Intelligence

figured they might try a push through here at any time, and as always, theyd come in force, the

sneaky little bastards.

What the hell was I doing out here anyways commanding a line

unit. Sure Id made a splash for myself

by saving the day at the Battle of Marantz 8b earning me a Bullshit Medal that

now had 3 clusters. And the newsies

just loved how my devilish smile and my rakish appearance had captivated the

hearts of the Confederacys rulers, Presidents Tawny and Tickles. Life was sweet, Twins to get a leg-over, an

adoring public, and not a pumped laser bolt or anti-matter missile in

sight.

Dont know what I did to get assigned out here, but I was

obviously in trouble with The Twins and it was about to get interesting because

just then the Space Phone dweedled at me.

I picked it up and it was Lt. Max! One of my favorite

up-and-comers. A crazy ex-pat who

combined the unflappability of an Englishman with the passion of a Greek and

who always wanted to be on point, out on the edge, in a lightly armed Heresy.

Hey, afkaristo, Max baby, que passa?

I say Commodore old chap Im over at wormhole 500c and a

swarm of those Blose buggers have simply smothered the orbital forts and look

to be heading your way via point K55. Got rot those Cubeies (our nickname for

Blose attack units) theyve dinged up the bonnet on my ride and all the BLOs

back with you chaps. God rot them all.

Well Max, just how many of them, makeup etc.

Oh mostly the standard acousticmass units: 5 small ones and

the slighter bigger, har, har, single bass module. Probably not more than 400,000 of them or so, should be good

sport, say wot.

400,000! Were in the pot now, I think. Nothing for it

though, but to make plans and soldier on.

I brought up my navigation plot on the Hal 9000 and while

looking over point K55 an idea began to form in my mind.

I called over the fleets BattleMaster, Dr. Who and our best

navigator, Scotto.

Gentlemen, look at this plot, theres a negative matter

field extending down their left flank and a sine-wave storm brewing up on the

Cubeies right. They must go through K55 a natural chokepoint if I ever saw one.

Im thinking the Ye-Old-Switcheroo tactic is the one to try so run the sims and

tell me what you think.

With their concurrence that is was the best option we had, I

ordered the Task Force into standard formation, main fleet units in the middle

and supporting forces to the outside, and headed out for K55.

With battle imminent my XO, Daddy Dee, approached and said,

Sir, the swabbies will be expecting a word or two from you. Just so Xo,

activate the all ships channel.

Now your average sailor is composed of the gutter sweepings

of the Confederacy. Most have been

pressed and learn the ropes the hard way with tough lessons applied by

hard-hearted Bosons, the backbone of the Navy. They lived on a horrible diet of

salt beef and a tot of rum. They had

only two ways out of the service, Run or DD, Discharged Dead. However, give

them a rousing speech and theyd fight like the very devil.

Beings, says I thinking that will cover all the various

genders and others aboard like that large contingent of what-ever-they-ares

from the Zapper Worlds, its a little worse than usual theres 400,000 Cubeies

and were almost out of rum. The good news is that a single Klipscher is easily

worth 10,000 of the pumped-up pansies so by my reasoning weve got them

outnumbered at least two to one!

Now as you know Im the Confederacys foremost coward. When the shooting starts Ill be hunkered

down in the safest part of the ship, passing gas and shaking like a leaf. Its up to you to save my sorry hide so I

can get back to Hope and get my hands on The Twins wonderful poonts.

What say you, what music shall we greet them with?

Now the last is very traditional in the Klipsch fleet. We always greet our enemies with a blast of

music on all channels as part of our psy-ops.

Selections were always left to the swabbies and this had almost cost us

a battle or two in the past when the crews couldnt reach agreement on which

music to play. This time it went well

and we would start the battle with The Ultimate Guitar Riff from Dire

Straights and then hit them with Send Money, Guns and Lawyers by Warren

Zevon.

The Cubeies responded with We Will Rock You which was a

big mistake on their part, since they couldnt handle the bottom notes and at least

5% of their fleet self-destructed when their drivers bottomed out.

They tried to come at us in a globe formation which allows

them to literally chew us up like an apple from the skin into the core. However, this was a choke point and they

couldnt complete the globe and had to come at us head on. Just as they were re-arranging their forces

I gave the order Execute YeOldSwitcheroo and within moments we were line

abreast with the battlehorns on the outside and the Belles filling in the

center.

With this formation they had to close and at mid-range they

were mowed down like chafe. With the

best mid-range weaponry in the known galaxy they didnt stand a chance. Not that it wasnt desperate fighting

,though. We lost the BelleRinger,

Captain Mallete commanding, with all hands and the Colter class Cornwalls took

a terrible pounding. At one point we

almost lost my flagship, the GaryMD.

Our screens in danger of failing, I called down to engineering and

hurried through the traditional exchange (We need More Power! But Captain these

engines canna take anymore of this). I

ordered RightSide Engineer Craig and LeftSide Enginer Mandiville to swap out

the EL 84s for EL34s to deepen our bottom end. Engineeers, phah! They

immediately set to fighting over how to do this and if Chief Engineer Leok

hadnt banged their heads together wed be nothing but radioactive dust.

They got the job done just in time. The Cubeies had formed all their remaining

bass modules and were on top of us when we shattered them with full-tilt

boogie organ music.

Well weve been ordered to the yards in the Village People

Cluster. Not my favorite port of call

but some of the swabbies seem happy and are up on the foredeck singing In the

Navy.

As for me it looks like Ill be re-called, theres rumor of

another cluster on my Bullshit Medal and Ive been granted a very private

interview with The Twins.

End of Chpater 1

This truncated verion of a classic space opera was

wrtten as a lead-in to the introduction of some Hammond chokes to my

Thebes-O-Bogen MO100A amps and would have included a report on how

adding chokes affected the overall sound and presentation.

Along the way myself and my Chief Engineer,

MikeBSe2a3 ran into a complex series of problems that resulted in

abandoning the upgrade.

First we tried them straight up and had

problems with run-away voltage and this problem continued when we tried

strapping them into Triode. These have a voltage doubler circuit

design, and were already converted from 8417's to EL 34's. They also

come with unusually very high voltages (630v) at one end. Mike

reluctantly concluded that we would probably have to redesign the whole

negative bias side to get them to work right. He's not quite sure

though since Mike was doing this with me all long-distance over the

phone without the bricks in front of him and total noob who kept

setting them fire at the other end.

We may revisit this a little later after he has

scratched his head over it for awhile. It's the type of challenge that

will keep him up nights. Still with the total rework we have done on

these things, and the suprsingly sweet iron in them, they sound very

good indeed.

[steamer]

thebes,

I dont know about you...but I like your style! lol.

Interesting,awaiting chapter 2.

Greg

[www.records]

Ground control to Major Thebes. []

[colterphoto1]

If you lived around Thebes you might see some minds being blown!

[Daddy Dee]

Thebes,

great fun! looking forward to chapter 2.

I think part of the crew may still be kralling around the planet of the amazons.

[oldbuckster]

Beam Me Up Mr. Thebes, there's no intelligent life down here!!!!!

[IndyKlipschFan]

And who sais this forum is not great therapy?

[thebes]

This forum is great therapy. For me at least. I love banging out these little tales.

It stimulates my thinking processes just a little which is something I

certainly don't get in the mind-numbing world of house painting.

Snuck a little Patrick O'Brien and "Flashman" into the tale along with a smidge of Maxwell Smart and Star Trek.

Thanks for the kind comments.

[Speedball]

thebes,

I dont know about you...but I like your style!

I could not have said it any better, carry on Commodore.

[steamer]

This forum is great therapy. For me at least. I love banging out these little tales.

It stimulates my thinking processes just a little which is something I certainly don't get in the mind-numbing world of house painting.

Snuck a little Patrick O'Brien and "Flashman" into the tale along with a smidge of Maxwell Smart and Star Trek.

Thanks for the kind comments.

Now I've got it figured out ,its all them paint fumes.

couldnt resist[]

Greg

[dtel's wife]

It is a priviledge to serve as a member of your crew.

That is the hardest I have laughed in a long time.

[sunburnwilly]

Who says lead paint is bad for you ?

[dtel's wife]

This forum is great therapy. For me at least. I love banging out these little tales.

Now I've got it figured out ,its all them paint fumes.

couldnt resist[]

Greg

Only the best for Thebes.

[thebes]

A bump, because it does take a little while to crank one of these things out.

[steamer]

A bump, because it does take a little while to crank one of these things out.

a second bump while you figure it out.

Greg

[thebes]

Bill Silversport has just got his brother to kick his Bose 301's out of the door in favor of Klipsch. For soem reason this prompted me to remember this little peice so I thought I'd bring it back up and maybe provide a chuckle or two.

[BLSamuel]

and so just where is chapter 2?

Not lead paint fumes, I think Thebes was hanging out in the paint booth down at the body shop again. Or maybe he'd been hanging out with the neighbor kid, "helping" him apply his spray cans of primer to his latest Bondo application.