Gunboat Diplomacy

Of course the Khan of Xanadu wasn't going to allow the powers involved in the pirate conference to send any real force into his system.....each party would be limited to one gunboat of no more than 2.5 megaton firepower. So S.A. Shelby had to wait for the Sparrow class light aerospace attack vehicle HSS West Covina to power out from Base before he could get going. Sparrow class only carries a crew of six, with minimal allowances for any extra passengers, so he found himself jammed into a berth smaller than anything he had seen since his days in Cadet training. Oh well, once they were planet-side he was sure to rate something of a more proper size for an Earth Envoy. Crossing into Nether Space, they suffered the usual complications.....shipbrain started to complain of a headache....the comm channels started playing what looked like old alien cartoons.....crew all got that strange brain-melt sensation....Shelby told them to just stay focused if they could, and go ahead and take the drugs if they couldn't. The stars seemed to shift around a lot. Strange apparitions wheeled by....visions of flying castles, detached forests or lakes, dragons, chimera, unicorns running races, that sort of thing. And there was always haunting flute music playing over the P.A., with no way to turn it off. Yes, here we go on a mission into the Crazy Zone.....