Breaking the Cycle

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Breaking the Cycle

by Saless
This story is very loosely based on the Car Wars game universe by Steve Jackson Games.

The year is 2061. Global war has reduced the government to a shadow of what it once was. Individual cities handle most of the governing of the land, with the areas between cities lawless and wild. Travel between cities is fraught with danger, leading to vehicles being outfitted with armor and weapons for the journey. Most travel is done in convoys for safety. But these armed and armored vehicles have led to a new sport; auto dueling. A vicious and bloody sport, where the loser often loses their life along with their car. But new technology means that death in the arena is not necessarily permanent. But for some it is much more inconvenient than others...


"Well, that's it. There's nobody going to Colorado in the next month." Tammy said with a sigh.

"There's got to be someone! This is the only chance I'll get!" I yelled, jumping out of my chair.

Tammy winced, "Keep it down! I'm still getting used to these new ears."

"Sorry." I mumbled.

"I'm sure there will be another opportunity." she said.

"No there won't. You heard; they're moving to Albany in a month. There's no way we'll ever get out there. And nobody else is bothering with the tech. Not enough demand." I whined.

"Isn't what you have enough?" she tried, though we'd argued that point lots of times.

"Sure, it's okay. Until I get killed again. If there were any safer ways of making money around here it would be one thing, but we don't have a choice. And every time it happens I have to start all over again! I hate it!" I replied.

"Okay, okay! But what can we do? With all the trouble lately nobody's going that way without a major convoy and there aren't any...wait, I know that look!" she said fearfully. "We can't do that alone!"

"Sure we can!" I said excitedly, pacing back and forth as I thought about it. "The hummer is all fixed up and ready to go. We could make the trip in a day or two. Even if we run into trouble we'd have time to stop and get it fixed before moving on. We still have most of a month, after all!"

Tammy rolled her eyes, "You and that hummer! It's so old it takes forever to find any decent parts for it. We usually have to make or modify them ourselves. Do you really think it's up for a trip like that? Even if we didn't get shot at?"

I was nodding like one of those old bobble things before she'd even finished talking, "Yeah, it can take it! We've got that new metal armor on it now with the laser reflective coating. And I've modified the lasers to act as a targeting laser for the rocket pod. We can take care of a few measly raiders!"

"You know raiders probably won't have lasers, right? They'll have fifty cals, cannons and probably a few missiles. Laser reflective coating won't do us much good against that!" she countered.

I shrugged, "Sure, but it's still metal armor, with a decent under layer of plastic. It would take a pretty good hit to penetrate with 50s. The cannons might be a problem, but that's what the vulcans and missiles are for, not to mention the lasers. We can do this!"

We went back and forth for a while, but I knew I'd won when I mentioned the flaming oil slicks I'd added. Those things clear the way real good! She's been itching to try them out.

After that it was a flurry of activity. We had to get our memory cards updated and loaded in the safe, along with the money for the clone. It was pretty well hidden so we just had to hope if anything happened it wouldn't be found by the wrong people.

Tammy insisted on going over the hummer about a dozen times before she was satisfied it was loaded and ready to go. After a sat call to make sure the clinic knew we were coming Tammy took her place in the driver's seat and I climbed into the gunner's seat. Before I knew it we were exiting the gates with the guard's warnings ringing in our ears.

"I sure hope you're right about this." Tammy griped as we left the city behind.

I nodded, "So do I."


The first few hours were tense but quiet. We saw a couple of dust plumes in the distance but they veered off before we could even see what was making them.

We didn't really expect any trouble this close to the cities, but you never know. Then we started getting up into the mountains. At this time of year the snow wasn't a problem, but it was still cold enough and barren enough that we weren't likely to run into any trouble. It was the desert beyond that we were really worried about. That's what nobody wanted to cross.

We were halfway through the pass when a couple of guys on motorcycles drove up along side us. Where they'd come from I couldn't guess. They were yelling and jeering at us, but I figured they were just kids out playing around. Stupid ones, they'd be dog meat if any raiders ran across them, but harmless. Then I heard the tink-tink-tink of bullets bouncing off the armor.

"Char! Get that laser going!" Tammy yelled. She needn't have said anything, I was already charging it up and spinning the turret around to target the closest one. He was totally oblivious, firing away with his little pea shooter like it was going to do something. But there was always a chance he might do enough damage to mess up the new tires, so I fired a warning shot right in front of him.

There was little more than a flash of light and plume of dust and smoke where the shot hit, but you'd think a bomb had gone off the way those two reacted! They scattered and turned tail without another word.

"Stupid kids." I grumbled.

"You should have blasted his tire, given him something to think about." Tammy said angrily.

"Sure, then he wouldn't have a chance of getting home alive. At least this way he might learn something." I said.

"You're too soft hearted. How you became the best gunner in the area I'll never understand." Tammy said.

I couldn't help but smile at the praise. It didn't come often; I figured she was worried about me getting a swelled head.

We didn't run into any more trouble on the pass and Tammy decided to stop once we were on a nice flat, open area with nothing around us to make sure there wasn't any damage.

"See? Nothing but a little scratch. This new armor is great!" I said.

She waved that off, "Those guns weren't even fifties, I'm not surprised. That doesn't mean anything about how we'll handle serious opposition. Hopefully we won't run into any."

"Well, yeah, that would be best." I agreed, crossing my fingers. As she turned to get back into the hummer I noticed hers were crossed, too. Neither of us really expected to be that lucky.

We were both almost asleep at the switch in the barren wasteland when we saw it. In the desert it's easy to feel like you're not moving at all. But when we saw the big dust plume headed our way we snapped awake real quick.

"What do you think it is?" I asked.

"It's not a convoy, or a bus, that's for sure. Either somebody else is as suicidal as we are, or we're about to break in those modifications of yours." Tammy said tensely. I noticed she clicked off the safeties on the vulcans and checked her harness was tight. I did the same with mine and armed the rockets. But when I hit the button for the laser no light came on.

"Uh, we might have a problem here." I said worriedly. "The laser's not charging."

"Fix it, quick! I can make out at least a couple of cars out there now, and they don't look friendly!" Tammy screamed.

"Fix it, she says." I grumbled. I tried flipping the switch a few times, but that didn't do anything. A few good whacks didn't either, though they made me feel a little better.

"Here they come!" Tammy growled and I heard the roar of the vulcans firing.

"Shit!" I said, pulling the casing open on the control box. That's when I saw the loose wire. "No wonder!" A few seconds later I had the wire spliced back in and the box closed up. When I hit the switch the power light came on this time.

"I need some help here!" Tammy said as she swerved wildly to avoid an oncoming rocket. She managed it, but the blast rocked the hummer a little. Bullets were bouncing all over the place and I hoped the armor was holding.

"I'm up, just a sec!" I screamed, spinning the turret around to find the nearest target. That turned out to be a camper with a pair of 50s in a turret on the shell. I switched the laser to targeting mode and targeted the turret. We were swerving around like crazy and it took me a few precious seconds to get a hit.

"Char!" Tammy screamed.

"Target's painted! Firing now!" I screamed back, slamming my fist down on the firing button for the rocket pod. The truck was behind us at this point, but the rockets fired out the front. I watched as they arced up and back, slamming into the truck from above. What was left of the turret was blasted away, along with the shell. The truck lost control, and a tire or two, and slammed into a ditch on the side of the road.

"Ha, gotcha you bastard!" I crowed.

"The other one just passed us, can you hit it?" Tammy asked.

I swiveled the turret around, but the van that had just flashed past us was already well down the road and wasn't turning around. I switched the lasers back to pulse mode and fired off a few shots but they didn't do much. "Sorry Tammy, he got away." I said. "Are there any more?"

Tammy shook her head, "No, we're clear for now. How's the laser holding up?"

"It's fine, just had a loose wire in the control box. It's fixed now, but if there's nothing around I think I'll pop it open again and tape it up so that doesn't happen again." I replied.

"Do it, I think we're okay for now. I'd stop to see what the damage is, but I don't feel safe out here right now." she said.

I nodded and got to work on the box. While I had it open I tested the other wires and tightened a few up to be on the safe side before taping them all up again. "Wish we still had Dad doing the electrical stuff for us." I mumbled.

"Yeah, he was really good at that." Tammy agreed.

We lapsed into silence, tensely watching for anymore dust. We saw a few cars on the sides of the road stripped of pretty much everything but the chassis, but nothing alive.

"Maybe we'd better take a break and see how the hummer held up?" I suggested. We'd been on the road at least forty minutes since the attack without seeing anything.

"Yeah, I guess." Tammy agreed reluctantly.

We stopped right in the middle of the street rather than pull over. There wasn't much of a shoulder and we didn't want to waste precious time spinning out in loose sand and gravel if trouble came calling.

We both walked around the hummer checking it out, while keeping an eye out for anything moving. The left side was unscathed aside from a few scratches from bullets, but the right side was a different story. "This where the missile hit?" I asked, pointing out a scorched area at the rear right corner.

"It didn't actually hit us, but yeah, that's it. Looks like the blast tore up the tire a little, but not too much. There's some shrapnel in the armor here and this piece looks like it's about ready to fall off." Tammy said.

"Let me see, maybe I can tack it back on. It won't take a whole lot but every bit counts." I said, reaching into the hummer for my toolbox.

Tammy kept watch while I patched up the armor on that side. There were a couple of plates that were loose besides the one she noticed, though I was able to fix them better. We were also missing a plate or two it looked like.

"Good driving Tammy. If that rocket had hit us dead on we'd be in trouble." I said as I stowed my toolbox away.

"Thanks." Tammy replied absently, still watching out for other cars. She paused for a moment and then said, "You know...we're still closer to home than the clinic..."

I sighed, "I know, but we're actually in really good shape. And the van went back towards home, so we're more likely to run into him again, or his friends, going that way. It would be a shame for this all to be for nothing, too, when we've already come so far..."

Tammy shook her head, as if to shake something off, and turned to face me. She looked at me closely for a moment before nodding, "Okay, we'll keep going. But if we take much more damage we turn back, okay?"

"Only so long as we're closer to home than the clinic. It'd be silly to turn back if we're more than halfway there, right?" I said hopefully.

She sighed, "Okay, okay, we're going." She rolled her eyes before taking another look around. I did, too, and then we climbed back in.

Nothing was said as we drove down the road. We were both doing our best to be alert, despite the unchanging terrain and heat. The heat shimmers made it hard to tell if there was movement or not. I was starting to regret leaving during the day, but then I thought about having to fight at night and decided we'd made the right choice.

Green was just starting to appear in the shape of some grass, weeds, and the occasional bush when we saw another dust plume coming. This one was coming from the side, obviously off-road.

I was about to point it out to Tammy when she said, "Two incoming on the left!"

I spun to look and saw two more dust plumes coming from the other side. "There's one on the right, too!"

"Shit! You'd better target the lone one or we'll be in a crossfire." Tammy said, slamming on the gas.

We lurched forward as I armed the laser and missiles and took aim at the car on the right. I couldn't see much more than the dust it was turning up, but I decided to take a few shots anyway. But only with the laser, no point in wasting missiles if I missed.

I got really lucky. On my third shot I clearly heard the sound of a tire blowing out and saw the other car, some kind of jeep by the looks of it, slew to the side and roll. It ended upside down and the driver didn't look too good.

"All right Charlene! Great shot!" Tammy crowed.

"Thanks!" I replied absently, already turning to target the nearest of the other two. That one was a big pickup with lots of obvious armor. Seeing the smaller SUV beyond it I switched targets. This one wasn't much bigger than the jeep and had 50s mounted on the sides and a missile rack on the roof. I just couldn't resist the target.

There wasn't time to switch to targeting mode, so I stayed with the lasers. Just as I hit the firing button I saw smoke start coming out of a rocket on the rack. It had only moved a centimeter or two before my laser blast hit it, causing it to explode. The explosion set off the other rockets, tearing the SUV apart.

"Damn, girl! You're on a roll!" Tammy laughed.

"Yeah, but that truck is going to take more than a laser blast to take it out." I said. "Keep it occupied for a sec, will ya, while I switch to targeting mode?"

"Sure thing!" she agreed happily, arming the vulcans and turning us to bring them to bear. That took us off-road, but our hummer was better built for it than the truck was. Most of our shots went wild as we rocked on the uneven ground, but that got the truck's attention. It swerved to the side, but that's when I saw the turreted cannon in the back.

"Shit!" I screamed, scrambling to get the laser switched over. I kept missing the switch because of the way we were bouncing all over the place. Finally I hit it, linked up the rockets, and took aim. But I was too slow.

"Char!" Tammy screamed, just as something slammed into the side of the hummer. The whole car slid sideways a bit from the anti-tank gun blast. The armor held, but I knew we had to have lost some from a blast like that. I hurriedly lined up a shot and fired. I hurried too much.

The laser briefly lit on the cannon and slide over to the side of the truck. That's where the rockets hit. Well, three of them. The other three hit the ground. The truck slewed to the side wildly and missed their next shot because of it, but they didn't take much damage.

"Dammit!" I growled, trying to get a better shot. When the truck turned I lost sight of the cannon, but I was worried that by the time I could see it we'd already be under fire from it again. And to make matters worse they had 50s roaring away, trying to tear through our damaged left side.

"I can't go head-to-head with them, Char, do something!" Tammy yelled, swerving wildly to at least present a less damaged side to the rain of bullets.

"Okay, here goes nothing." I said, switching my target to their right front tire. Mom always said to never shoot at tires because the shot is too difficult and you'd waste time and ammunition. But we needed to do some serious damage quickly and I didn't think we could pierce that monster's armor with one barrage of our little missiles.

The truck's driver took that moment to turn for another shot with its cannon. My shot went wild again, but I got lucky. The laser just turned up the dust, but two of the missiles hit the tire dead on. The explosions weren't big enough to turn it over or anything, but as I'd hoped the tire was low grade and was completely destroyed. The truck fishtailed and their gunner missed us again, just.

"Nice shot, sis, but that cannon is still lined up with us!" Tammy screamed. Another shot rang out, blowing up a rain of dust and dirt where it hit right beside us.

The truck was still trying to recover from the blow-out and moving really erratically. That made it harder for their gunner to hit us, but it also made it harder for me to hit them. I knew we were running low on rockets, so this shot had to count. I took my time and targeted the back right tire. If I could blow it out they'd be dead in the water.

We took another hit, this time in the back, before I got my shot. This time it was perfect. All six missiles and the laser itself hit that tire. If there was anything left of it, I'd be surprised. With all six going off at once, and with a tire missing already, they were flipped over onto their left side. They slid like that for a second or two, their cannon falling away, before they flipped over the rest of the way.

"Nice shooting sis! Let's get the hell out of here!" Tammy said. I couldn't agree more.


We made it another hundred miles at least before we said anything. Tammy hadn't made a move to go back, thankfully.

"Char, how's the ammo doing?" Tammy said suddenly.

"Let me check." I said, pulling up the ammunition display on the computer. I frowned at what I saw. "Not too good. We've only got six missiles left. The laser's good, but we're down to about five hundred rounds each on the vulcans."

Tammy shook her head, "That won't last long. I probably fired twice that many in the last fight. Too bad it's too dangerous to stop and scavenge ammo, but we can't afford to stay out here any longer than we have to."

"Maybe we can reload somewhere up ahead?" I said, pulling up the map.

"Is there anything close?" she asked.

I looked it over and frowned, "The only thing I see is another hundred miles or so ahead. And it's small. We might have trouble getting what we need."

"How far to go back?" she asked.

I sighed, "We're about two third of the way there, we passed the halfway point shortly after that last fight."

She nodded, "I figured as much. So, no going back now. Guess we'll head to that town you found."

"Okay." I agreed, sighing in relief. For a moment there I was sure she'd turn us around.

She was silent for a moment, then said, "You know I understand, right? It's just...I'm scared."

That threw me for a loop. Sis never said she was scared, of anything. She's been stabbed, shot, blown up, burnt to a crisp and poisoned and keeps on going. Well, usually it's her clone with her memories, but you get the idea. 'Course, she doesn't remember a lot of those deaths since the memory sticks are recorded before we do anything life threatening, but she always has me fill her in on the details. Assuming I didn't get killed myself.

"We'll be fine, you'll see." I said with as much confidence as I could fake. I was getting worried myself, but no need her knowing that.

We continued on in silence. The sun was slowly sinking, putting an end to some of those confusing heat images. But that also lengthened the shadows and made us nervous. Tammy started reaching for the lights, but thought better of it. "No need to advertise." I heard her say under her breath.

The town came into view after a curve in the road. It was bigger than the computer information made it seem, and well enough guarded. That made us both feel better, but first we had to get there. And that was going to take some doing.

"You've got to be kidding me." Tammy breathed as eight cars of varying sizes and shapes pulled up between us and the town. They were taking their time, spreading out to have plenty of room to blow us to bits.

"Any chance of going around them?" I asked.

Tammy shook her head without taking her eyes off of the cars, "No way. There's a deep ditch on our left and a river a little ways on our right. We're in big trouble. Don't suppose they're friendly?"

"Right." I drawled. I looked at each in turn to get an idea of what we were dealing with. What I saw was more encouraging than I was expecting.

"Should we turn back?" Tammy asked.

I shook my head, "No, they'd run us down easily. Blow through."

Tammy did something she very rarely does and took her eyes off the road to look at me incredulously, "Blow through?! How the hell am I supposed to do that?!"

I smiled weakly, "Trust me."

She turned back to her driving, muttering things I was probably glad I couldn't make out under her breath. But she hit the gas like I wanted and I warmed up the weapons.

"Don't shoot yet." I said as her finger hovered over the firing switch for the vulcans.

She didn't say anything, just tensely waited for me to give the word. I de-linked the lasers and missiles and targeted a car to the side of the car directly in front of us. As bursts of light streaked out to strike that car I slammed my hand on the missile firing button, sending our last six missiles flying forward randomly. "Fire!" I screamed, swiveling the turret over to another car.

The missiles didn't do much but cause confusion. The laser blasts added to that, along with the bullets flying from the vulcans. Much to my surprise, the car directly in front of us was stupid enough to veer away from our fire and slammed into the first car I fired on. They spun out, leaving us a nice big opening to drive through. We were almost through the opening when they started firing, but most of it was laser fire from turrets because we'd gotten too close before they could target us.

"Lasers?!" Tammy exclaimed as they, mostly, reflected harmlessly off of our armor.

I grinned, "Yeah, I noticed they all had lasers in turrets. I figured if we closed the distance enough, and distracted them with the missiles and guns, we could get through before they could fire their other weapons. Their lasers aren't doing much to us thanks to that laser-reflective coating."

Tammy shook her head, "You're a genius Char! But they're going to come after us. They're bound to be pissed!"

"Ah, but we have one more surprise, remember?" I said as I pressed the button for the flaming smoke screen. Flaming oil and smoke boiled out of the back of the car. Tammy threw a grin at me through the rear-view mirror as she veered all over the road, making sure our smoke screen and flaming oil covered the whole thing.

"Ha ha! My baby sis is the best gunner in the world!" she crowed. I swiveled around to make sure nobody came through the smoke, but we were practically through the gates before I spotted anybody. And that was only because the smoke had largely dissipated by then.

"Thank you, thank youuuu...." I said, a wave of weakness passing through me just before everything went black.


I woke in a well lit room in a lot of pain. Tammy was leaning over me worriedly. "Hey sis, how you feel?" she asked.

I groaned and tried to sit up. Only nothing seemed to work the way it was supposed to. My muscles kind of spasmed but that's about it. Groaning I asked, "Did they get me?"

She nodded, "Yeah, one of those laser blasts must have slipped through. I found a gap in the armor and the plastic armor underneath is totally gone. I'm afraid the lasers are fried."

"Huh, I've never had a new body be so awkward before." I said as I tried to sit up again.

Tammy smiled, "That's because they were always the same. This one isn't."

I paused to take that in, "Wait, you mean...?"

She nodded happily, "Yep. You're 100% bona fide female now. Even if you get killed and get a new clone, it will be female. No more having to transition all over again every time you get a new cloned body!"

I frowned, "But, how? We were still a few hundred miles away from the clinic the last I remember."

"Yep." she said, glancing over to my other side. I followed her gaze and saw this grizzled old guy sitting there in a chair against the wall. He looked like he was asleep.

"Who's he?" I asked.

"That's Rex. He showed up a couple weeks after we got in town. You were in the hospital, but you weren't doing too good. Everybody said he's nuts, even more so than us, because he wanders around between towns all the time. When I saw the beat up old junker he was driving I knew he was nuts!" Tammy said, shaking her head ruefully.

"Hey, that's my old Maizie you're calling a junker, girl!" he growled, slowly tilting his head up and opening his eyes. He winked at me and then relaxed again, closing his eyes.

Tammy smiled at me, "Don't mind him. Anyway, apparently he only uses that car to get from his place to the town. That's the main reason people think he's nuts, because he lives outside of the towns. Turns out it's a well fortified place with lots of weapons and vehicles, though. They never bothered to find out what the place was like!"

"So, what happened then?" I asked.

"He came into town asking about the beat up hummer. Said he hadn't seen one of those in a long time and wanted to find out who it belonged to. When he found us, and found out where we were headed, he volunteered to get us there. I wasn't too sure, especially after seeing his car, but he assured me he could get us through without any problems.

"I was frantic, though, because we were running out of time. You were probably going to die any day, and I knew how angry you'd be if you woke up in a male body again. So I agreed." Tammy said.

"So, what, he drove us all the way there in some old junker?!" I asked incredulously.

I glanced at Rex, expecting another outburst, but he just smiled without moving or opening his eyes. "No, he took us to his place." Tammy replied, also glancing at Rex. "Turns out he runs a pretty good sized farm. Naturally he has to protect it, so he's got walls, guns, cars, the works. But he also has to get his grain to the towns, so he has this huge tractor trailer rig, with a few different trailers. He disconnected the one he moves the grain in and switched in this big van trailer filled with more weapons and nasty surprises than you would believe!"

My eyes went wide at that. If it weren't for the expense of my having to re-transition every time I died and got cloned, and saving up for this special clone, we would have been looking at getting one of those a long time ago. Makes moving between towns a whole lot safer. Also makes it a lot easier to scavenge the wrecks since you have all that space to store stuff in.

Tammy nodded at my look, "Yeah, it's really cool. Anyway, we loaded you and the hummer in the back and off we went. There were way more cars out there than what we'd encountered. I was scared we still wouldn't make it through, but he's got this new kind of armor on his truck that's much tougher than metal or plastic. He's also got a whole series of heavy lasers mounted on the roof of the trailer. We cut through those guys pretty easily!"

"Wow!" was all I could get out.

Rex grunted, "Still could have been bad, without those army boys." He still didn't open his eyes or even seem to be breathing, really.

"Army boys?" I asked, glancing at him and then back to Tammy when it was clear he wasn't going to say anything.

"Yeah. Things were worse than we'd heard, a lot worse. The army finally got called in to clear the roads around here. We were under fire from at least eight cars when one of them suddenly exploded just before a jet flew overhead." Tammy said. "Next thing we knew, a whole convoy of tanks and hovercraft were sweeping through, blowing up anything that moved. Rex had to talk pretty fast to convince them we were the good guys!"

"And I slept through all this?!" I exclaimed.

Rex finally opened his eyes again and looked at me, "Miss, you were already dead. We found that out when we got to this clinic. Good thing you were coming to get cloned anyway, is all I can say." With that he snorted and closed his eyes again.

"Weird dude." I said. That earned me another snort, but otherwise he didn't react. "But wait, why do I remember the fight if I died?"

"Rex updated your memory stick before we left. Said you should remember doing such a great job." Tammy said.

I grinned at Tammy, "So, I'm all fixed?

Tammy nodded happily, "All fixed, now and forever! I've got to say, scary though it was, the trip was definitely worth it. Not only are you finally able to be yourself fully, but we save the expense of all that estrogen, surgery, and everything. And..." she drawled, glancing at Rex, "we have a new job if you want it!"

"What?" I asked. She just grinned and the thought she might be talking about the rig flitted through my mind, but surely it wasn't that...

Rex finally sat up, as if that was a cue he'd been waiting for, "You're sister's been singing your praises since we met. And, frankly, to have gotten as far as you two did you've got to be a mighty fine gunner. Why, if not for that lucky shot and a bit of damage to your armor in just the wrong place, you would have gotten through in pretty damn good shape! I'm gettin' too old to drive this rig. I need someone to drive it for me, and a gunner to keep them safe. You two are about as good a team as anyone could hope for."

I glanced at Tammy and saw the hope in her eyes. "As if I'd turn down an offer like that?!" I said. She smiled and nodded. "When do we start?"


The End

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Comments

Dating yourself

I met Steve Jackson at WarCon once at A&M and played Car Wars, that was many moons and trips around Sol ago. I even met Gary Gygax there. Also remembered many late night sessions of Nuclear War, D&D and gosh I just can't remember.

Paula

Paula

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

The Coda
Chapterhouse: Dune

Steve Jackson

I might've played Car Wars a time or two. :) Messed around with Ogre/GEV/Shockwave too! Nice story in that sorta kinda universe. Transitioning once is bad enough but to have to keep doing it? No wonder Char was willing to take chances.
hugs
Grover

:D

Extravagance's picture

Kick-ass! :) It's just a pity the fighting can't get up close and personal and involve swords...

Catfolk Pride.PNG

Car Wars with Swords?

Actually, I think Uncle Albert's Catalogs may have included a sword somewhere. (it had almost everything else...) But it took three grenade-equivalents, probably. (Grenade-equivalents were the unit of measurement for determining how much a person could carry on themselves, whether inside the car or on foot.)

Dang, I gotta see if I still have all my old Car Wars stuff. (Except the first few years of Autoduel Quarterly, which my brother scoffed and never returned.)

Lisa #8 (seventh Gold Cross clone of the original)