Mid-Rim (approximately V21)
May 2463
"Thar be dragons? Really? We've got interstellar space flight and there's literally a map of the galaxy saying 'Thar be dragons!'?"
"Trader we got this map from said that everyone who went in the direction we're going has disappeared without a trace. Sometimes they get off a quick mayday. Usually they just are never heard of again."
"So why are we going out there?"
"Because the colonists who hired us are looking in that direction? If we don't go, some other poor sap will get to go out this way. At least we know of there being a danger."
---
"We picked up signs of a Human scouting ship. They're heading towards Home. Shall we destroy it?"
"No, not yet. They're unlikely to make it through the shoals for a while yet. I have an idea for the council."
---
Home
Later
"Let me get this straight. You not only want to allow these... 'Hoomans' to come through our exclusion zone, instead of destroying them like the animals they are, but let them settle there?! Are you mad?"
"Not at all. These Humans are proving to be the galaxy's fastest growing race. If we continue the path we are on, eventually they will surpass us, and begin to wonder why 'Thar be dragons'. And then they will come in force. And we will be gone, like ashes in the wind. If, instead, we let them settle, and co-op them, we will be able to use them to protect us."
OOC: none of this is known by outside powers.
SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
-
Skywalker_T-65
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2293
- Joined: 2011-08-26 03:53pm
- Location: Bridge of Battleship SDFS Missouri
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
With Darkevilme~
*********
Border of Hellenic Confederacy and Chamarran Hierarchy
System K-78
ARS Allegiance
June 6, 3294
**************
“We are leaving Hellene space now ma’am. Do you want to keep going?” Jack Harding asked from his post at the Allegiance’s helm station.
Behind him, a young Furling woman was sitting in her Captains chair. She flicked a strain of her non-regulation length hair out of her eyes before answering, “Yes we are Ensign Harding. Our goal is to explore the area outside of the Confederacy, and that is what we are going to do.”
“Of course Captain Masa,” Harding answered, pushing a lever at his station.
The Allegiance’s powerful thrusters pushed the frigate forward, leaving a bright trail of ion particles in its wake. The frigate was sleek, its dark blue coloring doing little to mar its lines. Though it did have a utilitarian look, very similar to the Haruhiist Aya Hirano class frigate. In point of fact, it was a risk to be in a Amagi class frigate this close to the Holy Empire, which is why the Allegiance had taken a long route in order to avoid the Belkan ‘Empire’, Neo Zeon, and the Covenant.
That route had taken them through the Bastian Star Empire, one of the first countries that Arcadia had opened trade relations with. From there, the Allegiance had moved through the Volsican Confederacy, the Capellan Authority, and most recently the Hellenic Confederacy. In the latter two nations, the Arcadian/Furling vessel had been given news of a relatively new power on their borders.
The opinions of this ‘Chamarran Hierarchy’ were very mixed. The Capellans were apparently allies with them, and said they weren’t all that bad of people. The Hellenes on the other hand swore that they were an enemy of all humanity and to stay far away from their territory. Not knowing which group to believe, the Allegiance’s Captain, Rasan Masa, the niece of the current Furling Minister of International affairs, had decided to continue on.
Thus the current situation the Arcadian/Furling ship found itself in. Entering the territory of an unknown (at least to them) power. To say the human part of the crew was nervous was an understatement. The Furlings were calm as could be though, since they had met much larger and more hostile races in their prime. At least, that was what their tales told them.
**********
Sometime later~
************
“You know Captain, I think those Hellenes were exaggerating about the Chamarrans,” Harding said lightly as the Allegiance cruised through space.
Rasan made a non-committal grunt. It was true that the frigate had not run into any ships so far, yet alone any hostile ships. But they were still keeping a very tight watch considering that they were still in unknown territory.
“This is getting somewhat bori…ship detected! Bringing it up on the monitor!” another officer called out, his blue face shining in the light of his terminal.
Rasan and the rest of her crew sat forward in their seats as the screen brought the distant vessel into focus. It was a deep purple with bronze trim, contrasting sharply with the deep blue of the Allegiance. Its design was far more elegant though, with lean forward swept wings giving it a beautiful look that did little to hide how deadly it could be though.
“Any transmissions coming from it?” Rasan asked calmly.
“Yes ma’am. The translator is working on their language now…we’re syncing our monitors with their transmission now,” the comm officer answered.
The view screens switched from a view of the incoming ship to its spacious bridge. It looked surprisingly similar to any other ship in the galaxy. That wasn’t what caught the eyes of the Arcadian and Furling crew though. What did was the crew of the unknown vessel. To use a simple term, one would call them ‘cat-girls’. They had the ears and tails of felines, but were hauntingly beautiful to the human crew nonetheless. The Furlings not so much, since they had a very different standard of beauty.
“This is the Chamarran cruiser Swiftbite you are infringing on our territory, identify yourselves!” the apparent Captain of the other vessel ordered, leveling a glare on the human members of Allegiance’s crew.
“I am Captain Rasan Masa of the ARS Allegiance, an exploration vessel from the Republic of Arcadia. We have been searching for one of your vessels or worlds to begin diplomatic contact, nothing more,” Rasan answered, stepping forward.
The Chamarran woman looked distinctly suspicious, but could recognize this was not a human in command of the other vessel. At least from appearances it would seem that this ‘Republic of Arcadia’ wasn’t ruled over by humans. They couldn’t be sure however, since in all their experience with the Father’s, they had never allowed another race to rule them. And this vessel looked far too similar to the Holy Empire’s frigates for the Chamarran to be truly comfortable.
“I can understand if you are not inclined to trust us however…can we send an envoy over to your vessel? To prove we are being honorable?” Rasan continued when the other woman kept silent.
“No, we will send our own envoy over,” the Chamarran replied, cutting the connection.
Harding shook his head as a smaller shuttle headed out from the larger purple vessel, “Not very chatty are they?”
Rasan nodded, “No they aren’t…and I noticed that the Hellenes were right about one thing…they seem to have a very dim view of humanity indeed. Our envoy will have to be mostly made up of my people…but that could be risky…”
“Why is that Captain?” Harding asked curiously.
“Didn’t you notice that they have feline features? Need I remind you that our people are deathly allergic to that particular breed of mammal?” Rasan pointed out.
Hardin looked confused for a second, then it dawned on him what his Captain meant, “In that case, are you sure it shouldn’t be us who meets them?”
“No, it must be us with only a handful of humans. We shall just wear breath masks and be very careful in decontaminating ourselves afterword’s,” Rasan answered calmly heading for the bridge door, adjusting her dark blue uniform.
**********
Meanwhile~
**********
“Are you certain this is a good idea Shipmistress?” a young Chamarran asked, her tail flicking anxiously.
The older woman turned her head and looked at her escort, “Yes I am certain. Their warship is no match for our own, and I am curious about these blue-skinned people.”
“But it could just be a human wearing facepaint, that vessel looks too much like a Haruhiist vessel Shipmistress Saya,” the young Chamarran replied.
“Of course it does, which is why I am all the more curious about it,” Saya answered, watching as the dark blue hull came closer and closer to them.
Soon enough, the deep purple shuttle had docked, and the Chamarran crew disembarked, watched closely by a large group of the blue skinned people, all wearing breath masks, with a couple of humans mixed in.
As Saya stepped forward, so too did the other vessels Captain, Rasan if the Chamarran remembered correctly, snapping off a salute that seemed universal to all powers, human or otherwise.
“Hello Captain…” Rasan started.
“Saya Veldra of the Chamarran Hierarchy,” Saya answered calmly.
Rasan nodded, “I apologize for the masks Captain Veldra, but our people are deathly allergic to felines, and we can’t take the risk. No insult is intended, I assure you.”
Saya nodded herself, “Perfectly understandable, now can we get down to business? First, who is in charge here really? You’re vessel bears a strong resemblance to the Holy Empire’s, and they are not friendly to us in the slightest.”
“That is true, I can assure you that we are not from the Holy Empire. Our Republic is not even near your territory. As for who is in charge, I am, and I am not human. My race is called the Furlings, and we have been around for thousands of years before even humanity rose to power,” Rasan answered, not really knowing just how deep-seated the Chamarran hatred of humanity was.
Of course, that set the Chamarrans thinking about how these people didn’t stop the original experiments, or at the least destroy humanity afterwards. Though it now appeared that they had done at least part of the cat-girls job for them.
“Why did you come to our territory then?” Saya asked again.
“To open diplomatic relations, and trade. We have heard of your difficulties from the Capellans, and we would like to help you in any way we can to set up your nation and handle any internal issues,” Rasan said with a smile that she hoped helped her case.
Saya nodded, and agreed to contact her superiors. For though the Arcadian/Furling crew didn’t know it, the Chamarrans had been scanning the DNA of the Furlings to see if they genuinely were not human, and the results of that scan proved at least that part of their story true. And neither side knew that this day would mark the beginning of a trade treaty between Arcadia, the New Furling Empire, and the Chamarran Hierarchy…
*********
Border of Hellenic Confederacy and Chamarran Hierarchy
System K-78
ARS Allegiance
June 6, 3294
**************
“We are leaving Hellene space now ma’am. Do you want to keep going?” Jack Harding asked from his post at the Allegiance’s helm station.
Behind him, a young Furling woman was sitting in her Captains chair. She flicked a strain of her non-regulation length hair out of her eyes before answering, “Yes we are Ensign Harding. Our goal is to explore the area outside of the Confederacy, and that is what we are going to do.”
“Of course Captain Masa,” Harding answered, pushing a lever at his station.
The Allegiance’s powerful thrusters pushed the frigate forward, leaving a bright trail of ion particles in its wake. The frigate was sleek, its dark blue coloring doing little to mar its lines. Though it did have a utilitarian look, very similar to the Haruhiist Aya Hirano class frigate. In point of fact, it was a risk to be in a Amagi class frigate this close to the Holy Empire, which is why the Allegiance had taken a long route in order to avoid the Belkan ‘Empire’, Neo Zeon, and the Covenant.
That route had taken them through the Bastian Star Empire, one of the first countries that Arcadia had opened trade relations with. From there, the Allegiance had moved through the Volsican Confederacy, the Capellan Authority, and most recently the Hellenic Confederacy. In the latter two nations, the Arcadian/Furling vessel had been given news of a relatively new power on their borders.
The opinions of this ‘Chamarran Hierarchy’ were very mixed. The Capellans were apparently allies with them, and said they weren’t all that bad of people. The Hellenes on the other hand swore that they were an enemy of all humanity and to stay far away from their territory. Not knowing which group to believe, the Allegiance’s Captain, Rasan Masa, the niece of the current Furling Minister of International affairs, had decided to continue on.
Thus the current situation the Arcadian/Furling ship found itself in. Entering the territory of an unknown (at least to them) power. To say the human part of the crew was nervous was an understatement. The Furlings were calm as could be though, since they had met much larger and more hostile races in their prime. At least, that was what their tales told them.
**********
Sometime later~
************
“You know Captain, I think those Hellenes were exaggerating about the Chamarrans,” Harding said lightly as the Allegiance cruised through space.
Rasan made a non-committal grunt. It was true that the frigate had not run into any ships so far, yet alone any hostile ships. But they were still keeping a very tight watch considering that they were still in unknown territory.
“This is getting somewhat bori…ship detected! Bringing it up on the monitor!” another officer called out, his blue face shining in the light of his terminal.
Rasan and the rest of her crew sat forward in their seats as the screen brought the distant vessel into focus. It was a deep purple with bronze trim, contrasting sharply with the deep blue of the Allegiance. Its design was far more elegant though, with lean forward swept wings giving it a beautiful look that did little to hide how deadly it could be though.
“Any transmissions coming from it?” Rasan asked calmly.
“Yes ma’am. The translator is working on their language now…we’re syncing our monitors with their transmission now,” the comm officer answered.
The view screens switched from a view of the incoming ship to its spacious bridge. It looked surprisingly similar to any other ship in the galaxy. That wasn’t what caught the eyes of the Arcadian and Furling crew though. What did was the crew of the unknown vessel. To use a simple term, one would call them ‘cat-girls’. They had the ears and tails of felines, but were hauntingly beautiful to the human crew nonetheless. The Furlings not so much, since they had a very different standard of beauty.
“This is the Chamarran cruiser Swiftbite you are infringing on our territory, identify yourselves!” the apparent Captain of the other vessel ordered, leveling a glare on the human members of Allegiance’s crew.
“I am Captain Rasan Masa of the ARS Allegiance, an exploration vessel from the Republic of Arcadia. We have been searching for one of your vessels or worlds to begin diplomatic contact, nothing more,” Rasan answered, stepping forward.
The Chamarran woman looked distinctly suspicious, but could recognize this was not a human in command of the other vessel. At least from appearances it would seem that this ‘Republic of Arcadia’ wasn’t ruled over by humans. They couldn’t be sure however, since in all their experience with the Father’s, they had never allowed another race to rule them. And this vessel looked far too similar to the Holy Empire’s frigates for the Chamarran to be truly comfortable.
“I can understand if you are not inclined to trust us however…can we send an envoy over to your vessel? To prove we are being honorable?” Rasan continued when the other woman kept silent.
“No, we will send our own envoy over,” the Chamarran replied, cutting the connection.
Harding shook his head as a smaller shuttle headed out from the larger purple vessel, “Not very chatty are they?”
Rasan nodded, “No they aren’t…and I noticed that the Hellenes were right about one thing…they seem to have a very dim view of humanity indeed. Our envoy will have to be mostly made up of my people…but that could be risky…”
“Why is that Captain?” Harding asked curiously.
“Didn’t you notice that they have feline features? Need I remind you that our people are deathly allergic to that particular breed of mammal?” Rasan pointed out.
Hardin looked confused for a second, then it dawned on him what his Captain meant, “In that case, are you sure it shouldn’t be us who meets them?”
“No, it must be us with only a handful of humans. We shall just wear breath masks and be very careful in decontaminating ourselves afterword’s,” Rasan answered calmly heading for the bridge door, adjusting her dark blue uniform.
**********
Meanwhile~
**********
“Are you certain this is a good idea Shipmistress?” a young Chamarran asked, her tail flicking anxiously.
The older woman turned her head and looked at her escort, “Yes I am certain. Their warship is no match for our own, and I am curious about these blue-skinned people.”
“But it could just be a human wearing facepaint, that vessel looks too much like a Haruhiist vessel Shipmistress Saya,” the young Chamarran replied.
“Of course it does, which is why I am all the more curious about it,” Saya answered, watching as the dark blue hull came closer and closer to them.
Soon enough, the deep purple shuttle had docked, and the Chamarran crew disembarked, watched closely by a large group of the blue skinned people, all wearing breath masks, with a couple of humans mixed in.
As Saya stepped forward, so too did the other vessels Captain, Rasan if the Chamarran remembered correctly, snapping off a salute that seemed universal to all powers, human or otherwise.
“Hello Captain…” Rasan started.
“Saya Veldra of the Chamarran Hierarchy,” Saya answered calmly.
Rasan nodded, “I apologize for the masks Captain Veldra, but our people are deathly allergic to felines, and we can’t take the risk. No insult is intended, I assure you.”
Saya nodded herself, “Perfectly understandable, now can we get down to business? First, who is in charge here really? You’re vessel bears a strong resemblance to the Holy Empire’s, and they are not friendly to us in the slightest.”
“That is true, I can assure you that we are not from the Holy Empire. Our Republic is not even near your territory. As for who is in charge, I am, and I am not human. My race is called the Furlings, and we have been around for thousands of years before even humanity rose to power,” Rasan answered, not really knowing just how deep-seated the Chamarran hatred of humanity was.
Of course, that set the Chamarrans thinking about how these people didn’t stop the original experiments, or at the least destroy humanity afterwards. Though it now appeared that they had done at least part of the cat-girls job for them.
“Why did you come to our territory then?” Saya asked again.
“To open diplomatic relations, and trade. We have heard of your difficulties from the Capellans, and we would like to help you in any way we can to set up your nation and handle any internal issues,” Rasan said with a smile that she hoped helped her case.
Saya nodded, and agreed to contact her superiors. For though the Arcadian/Furling crew didn’t know it, the Chamarrans had been scanning the DNA of the Furlings to see if they genuinely were not human, and the results of that scan proved at least that part of their story true. And neither side knew that this day would mark the beginning of a trade treaty between Arcadia, the New Furling Empire, and the Chamarran Hierarchy…
SDNW5: Republic of Arcadia...Sweden in SPAAACE
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
He awoke with a start. He couldn't remember how he got to the room he was in. It wasn't his, but as he looked around, he couldn't see signs that it was anyone else's. Everything in there looked like something he'd choose. Which was weird, because his room never looked like that. She had far too much pride to let it look like that. His head pounded, like the beginnings of a hangover. He couldn't recall the last time he had one. Couldn't recall if he'd even ever had one. He pulled the covers back over his head.
"Now, now, that won't help things any."
He bolted upright. It's him!
"Yes, it's me again. Time to play another game."
"Fuck you. Can't you leave me in peace?"
"Now where would the fun be in that?"
"Will I find her?"
"Hmm... Maybe, maybe not. She won't be a princess this time. You'll remember more about the new you in the next couple hours."
"I'm going to kill you, you know."
"Ah, death threats. Fascinating. Many have said that. A number of them are, or will be, in this new game. None of them have come close to succeeding."
The mysterious figure snapped his fingers, and disappeared in a flash of light. He looked at the clock, which read 0440, and pulled the covers back over his head.
"Now, now, that won't help things any."
He bolted upright. It's him!
"Yes, it's me again. Time to play another game."
"Fuck you. Can't you leave me in peace?"
"Now where would the fun be in that?"
"Will I find her?"
"Hmm... Maybe, maybe not. She won't be a princess this time. You'll remember more about the new you in the next couple hours."
"I'm going to kill you, you know."
"Ah, death threats. Fascinating. Many have said that. A number of them are, or will be, in this new game. None of them have come close to succeeding."
The mysterious figure snapped his fingers, and disappeared in a flash of light. He looked at the clock, which read 0440, and pulled the covers back over his head.
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
-
OmegaChief
- Jedi Knight
- Posts: 904
- Joined: 2009-07-22 11:37am
- Location: Rainy Suburb, Northern England
- Contact:
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Isidorian Sector (N-23)
Ferand System
Eilaria (Shield World) rapidly approaching ground level
~10 years before present day
The tumbling had stopped, not that it settled Redshirt’s stomach any, but then plummeting from the sky after being in an exploding dropship really wasn’t going to be anyone’s cup of tea.
As the white orbs of the camera drones became increasingly difficult to make out amongst the fluffy white clouds, he rotated carefully in the air, bringing himself to face the ground that was rushing up towards him rapidly and…
“Oh god building!”
Was all he had time to think before with a loud whine of his gravpack kicking in, local gravity was suddenly nullified and mildly inverted, sending him tumbling across the ruined second floor of a formerly five floor building that was diversifying it’s portfolio as the new roof.
Redshirt eased himself somewhat woozily to his feet, hitting the release clasp for the gravpack, causing it to clatter noisily to the ground, the sound echoing off the shattered streets below. Oddly it was almost the only sound; aside from what he thought was some faint yelling on the wind, the ruins were being very quiet for enemy infested sector, almost too-
Once again his train of thought was rather suddenly derailed, as had happened a lot today, when local gravity rather suddenly inverted again sending him flailing helplessly through the air as ‘Suzy’ finally touched down next to him.
“Sheesh kid” she commented as her feet hit the floor, bringing her rifle up, “I did yell at you to get out of the way”
Redshirt coughed as he picked himself up, “Oh uh, I didn’t here you sorry ma’am… um, shouldn’t you follow regulation and unclip you g- ophf”
The universe really didn’t want him to finish any sentences today it seemed, as he found himself being barged into by ‘Suzy’ sending them both skidding through the rubble, just in time too as the wall next to where he had been standing was rather suddenly perforated by rapidly accelerated rounds from the assault rifles of a squad of armour painted red troopers who had been sneaking up on the pair.
The sergeant was quick to act, rolling off the trooper she’d just saved and into a collapsed support pillar, spraying return fire back in short controlled bursts, ducking to wipe the sweat from her face, without her helmet the excessive heat was starting to get to her.
“Tell me you’ve got some grenades kid, I really don’t feel like making this shoot out last any longer then it has to”
“Ah! Sure right here just let me… ooops”
‘Suzy’ heard the beep of the active grenade a second before she felt it nudge against her foot, giving only half a second to sigh before in one fluid motion she kicked it off to the side, near Redshirt’s discarded Gravpack and promptly dove into the trooper pushing them both out of a nearby ruined window and tumbling through the air as the top of the building they had just vacated became a pyrotechnical wonderland, large enough to attract the attention of several camera drones that came down to survey the damage.
With a slight whine from the still strapped to the sergeants armour gravpack, the two luckiest unlucky attacking troopers touched down softly, looking up at the damage they had wrought to the crumbling ruin.
“And that kid, is why it’s sometimes best to ignore regulation and keep your pack on, and next time let me handle the g-“
This time it was ‘Suzy’ who wasn’t allowed to finish, more red painted defenders rushing out of the ground floor towards them, blue muzzle flashes hurling yet more hyper accelerated projectiles their way.
A smattering of return fire was hurled back towards the onrushing defenders as the pair of attackers started to run for their lives through the streets, one of the camera drones rotating slightly to get a better view of the running gun battle.
Luck it seemed hadn’t completely abandonded them though, as a figure in the light enviro-suit of a pilot, most notably not painted red like the defenders stepped out of another ruined building, plinking off shots with a side arm to cover them, gesturing for the luckless pair to get into cover with him.
Which the pair didn’t really need encourgment to do, rolling thankfully into cover, Redshirt fumbling with his rifle as ‘Suzy’ wiped her brow once again catching her breath.
“Nice to see some more survivors!” came the cheery voice of the pilot, “We just need to hold them here for a little bit, got a friend coming”
There was a pause as the two sides traded fire, but the red-painted defenders seemed pretty adamant on closing the group between them.
“I’m Hotshot by the way, my dropship actually made it down, I’ll take you to the other troopers once we’re done here”
“Alright, as much as I love to hear good news” ‘Suzy’ said between bursts of fire, “Can we save the details of your backstory until after we’re out of this, they’re not about to drop down dead and give us an easy time you know”
Just as ‘Suzy’ pointed her thumb towards one of the enemy, that particular defender promptly fell down dead, a large hole blasted through his helmet (And head inside). The others didn’t have much time to react as the miracle repeated itself another five times until all the enemy were in no condition to fight on account of being dead.
Hotshot chuckled, reaching up to tap the side of his helmet.
“About time Longshot, I was beginning to think our wonderful friendship had ended”
There was a chuckling over the radio, which began to overlap with reality as the sniper started to rappel down the side of the building, long rifle slung over his back, his face beaming with purple pride and a large grin.
“Like I’d leave my best buddy out to dry, you picked up some more stragglers?”
“Yea, now we need to get back before El-Tee chews us out for taking too long, c’mon”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wasn’t a long trip in terms of distance, but the rag tag bunch had to pick their way through debris strewn streets, and dart through ruined buildings with Longshot nattering away the entire time, making ‘Suzy’ wish for a stereotypical silent sniper.
As they picked there way through the first floor of another building, Hotshot pointed through a gap where a wall was supposed to be.
“There, almost there, soon we’ll be safe and so-“
It was Redhsirts time to interrupt.
“Hey, do you guys here that?”
Everyone fell silent, much to ‘Suzy’s’ relief before Longshot could detail to her the advanced cooling system of his rifle. There was indeed a noise, six heavy wheels grinding over rubble as the snub nosed gleaming white armoured shape of an Ice Shark AFV trundled around the other building, pointing its long barrelled main gun around to the supposedly safe building, and blowing a chunk out of it.
Return fire from small arms peppered back and plinked off the gleaming armour, the pair of coaxial machine guns on the AFVs main gun warming up to shred through even more of the squad.
They had to act fast, ‘Suzy’ flipped on her wrist communicator.
“Survivour squad, lure it a few marks east, there’s some rubble it’ll have to get over” She said before clicking her radio off, “Hotshot, take a grenade from Redshrit and give it to your buddy, and move it people”
Both groups of survivors quickly started to move east, though the squad in the safe building was rather rapidly running out of members, eventually the snub nose of the AFV nudged against the rubble blocking the street, apparently stopped, everyone present knew better though.
Gleaming white armour panels flipped open, stubby little propellant jets slipping out, and perfectly in time with the whine of a anti-grav field they fired, launching the AFV over the rubble.
The ragtag group of survivors had not been idle though, with the flick of a switch the barrel of Longshot’s rifle split in two, grenade primed and placed between the new accelerator rails. Timing was key; the jets would only stay out for a few seconds, and during those few seconds the target would be rapidly moving through the air, it was going to be a difficult shot to say the least.
There was no time to hesitate, the shot had to be taken now, and the accelerated grenade flew true, striking the jet at the tail end of its burn, explosion scarring gleaming white armour, sending a thousand pieces of former rocket engine scattering over the street, the sudden imbalance tipping the AFV end over end, secondary explosions rippling along the jets fuel lines and warping the internal structure as it tumbled down the street, erupting into flames and setting off a small group of secondary explosions.
Troops from the building the former-AFV had been attacking ducked out of cover to get a better look at the damage, it was quite a sight after all, enough even for yet another camera drone to swoop down from the sky.
Celebrations were short lived however, no one was even able to start to say something before they were interrupted, the underside hatch from the upturned AFV flinign up into the air, and a very large person in bulky armour (The left side of which was burnt and broken, with a large chunk of metal digging through) leap out at a speed someone that injured and wearing that much armour should not be capable of.
Before anyone could even react, a barrel had extended from the still working right wrist of their armour, and well place shots were being hurled up at the shocked survivors in the shelled building, three quarters were down before they could even raise their weapons to retaliate.
“S-shield caste… a shield caste was driving?” Came Redshirts unbelieving voice, everyone’s faces colouring yellow with the prospect of having to fight such a thing, fear leaving them paralyzed to just watch, much like the Camera drone recording the carnage below.
“Snap out of it everyone” ‘Suzy’ growled, “They’re going to attack us once they’re through the other squad, we’ve got one chance, so quick, after me!”
The Sergeant proceeded to jump straight out of cover, flinging herself through the air, her much abused gravpack whining as she touched down… right next to the Sheild Caste member, the gravity inversion sending even them tumbling through the air, and during this moment of weakness, everyone who still could opened fire, most shots aimed at the damaged portions of the armour, though even there a good portion were deflected or had enough of their force absorbed to do no damage, enough got through to splatter blood across the ruined road. High powered sniper shots successfully managing to disable the super soldiers wrist weapon before it finally clattered back to the floor, defeated.
‘Suzy’ let out a long sigh of relief, wiping her brow yet again, it was too damn hot to be doing this, she cautiously approached the burning AFV, retrieving her back up cigar from and equipment pouch, and lighting it from the wreckage. By this time her three companions had managed to scrabble down to join her.
“W-wow, I can’t believe we did that!” Said Redshirt as he glanced around the damage, “I never expected to make it this far!”
Hotshot turned to him with a grin, chest suddenly exploding outwards in bloody chunks as the fist of the not quite dead super soldier exploded from it, splattering Redshirt in his comrade’s blood. Everyone else opened up with their weapons once again, firing until barrels glowed red with head, and clips clicked empty, the hole riddled form of the super soldier slumping backwards.
Redshit was finally taken out of his little shock induced freeze up by a slap on the back,
“Hey kid, smile for the Camera, we’re heroes for today”.
Ferand System
Eilaria (Shield World) rapidly approaching ground level
~10 years before present day
The tumbling had stopped, not that it settled Redshirt’s stomach any, but then plummeting from the sky after being in an exploding dropship really wasn’t going to be anyone’s cup of tea.
As the white orbs of the camera drones became increasingly difficult to make out amongst the fluffy white clouds, he rotated carefully in the air, bringing himself to face the ground that was rushing up towards him rapidly and…
“Oh god building!”
Was all he had time to think before with a loud whine of his gravpack kicking in, local gravity was suddenly nullified and mildly inverted, sending him tumbling across the ruined second floor of a formerly five floor building that was diversifying it’s portfolio as the new roof.
Redshirt eased himself somewhat woozily to his feet, hitting the release clasp for the gravpack, causing it to clatter noisily to the ground, the sound echoing off the shattered streets below. Oddly it was almost the only sound; aside from what he thought was some faint yelling on the wind, the ruins were being very quiet for enemy infested sector, almost too-
Once again his train of thought was rather suddenly derailed, as had happened a lot today, when local gravity rather suddenly inverted again sending him flailing helplessly through the air as ‘Suzy’ finally touched down next to him.
“Sheesh kid” she commented as her feet hit the floor, bringing her rifle up, “I did yell at you to get out of the way”
Redshirt coughed as he picked himself up, “Oh uh, I didn’t here you sorry ma’am… um, shouldn’t you follow regulation and unclip you g- ophf”
The universe really didn’t want him to finish any sentences today it seemed, as he found himself being barged into by ‘Suzy’ sending them both skidding through the rubble, just in time too as the wall next to where he had been standing was rather suddenly perforated by rapidly accelerated rounds from the assault rifles of a squad of armour painted red troopers who had been sneaking up on the pair.
The sergeant was quick to act, rolling off the trooper she’d just saved and into a collapsed support pillar, spraying return fire back in short controlled bursts, ducking to wipe the sweat from her face, without her helmet the excessive heat was starting to get to her.
“Tell me you’ve got some grenades kid, I really don’t feel like making this shoot out last any longer then it has to”
“Ah! Sure right here just let me… ooops”
‘Suzy’ heard the beep of the active grenade a second before she felt it nudge against her foot, giving only half a second to sigh before in one fluid motion she kicked it off to the side, near Redshirt’s discarded Gravpack and promptly dove into the trooper pushing them both out of a nearby ruined window and tumbling through the air as the top of the building they had just vacated became a pyrotechnical wonderland, large enough to attract the attention of several camera drones that came down to survey the damage.
With a slight whine from the still strapped to the sergeants armour gravpack, the two luckiest unlucky attacking troopers touched down softly, looking up at the damage they had wrought to the crumbling ruin.
“And that kid, is why it’s sometimes best to ignore regulation and keep your pack on, and next time let me handle the g-“
This time it was ‘Suzy’ who wasn’t allowed to finish, more red painted defenders rushing out of the ground floor towards them, blue muzzle flashes hurling yet more hyper accelerated projectiles their way.
A smattering of return fire was hurled back towards the onrushing defenders as the pair of attackers started to run for their lives through the streets, one of the camera drones rotating slightly to get a better view of the running gun battle.
Luck it seemed hadn’t completely abandonded them though, as a figure in the light enviro-suit of a pilot, most notably not painted red like the defenders stepped out of another ruined building, plinking off shots with a side arm to cover them, gesturing for the luckless pair to get into cover with him.
Which the pair didn’t really need encourgment to do, rolling thankfully into cover, Redshirt fumbling with his rifle as ‘Suzy’ wiped her brow once again catching her breath.
“Nice to see some more survivors!” came the cheery voice of the pilot, “We just need to hold them here for a little bit, got a friend coming”
There was a pause as the two sides traded fire, but the red-painted defenders seemed pretty adamant on closing the group between them.
“I’m Hotshot by the way, my dropship actually made it down, I’ll take you to the other troopers once we’re done here”
“Alright, as much as I love to hear good news” ‘Suzy’ said between bursts of fire, “Can we save the details of your backstory until after we’re out of this, they’re not about to drop down dead and give us an easy time you know”
Just as ‘Suzy’ pointed her thumb towards one of the enemy, that particular defender promptly fell down dead, a large hole blasted through his helmet (And head inside). The others didn’t have much time to react as the miracle repeated itself another five times until all the enemy were in no condition to fight on account of being dead.
Hotshot chuckled, reaching up to tap the side of his helmet.
“About time Longshot, I was beginning to think our wonderful friendship had ended”
There was a chuckling over the radio, which began to overlap with reality as the sniper started to rappel down the side of the building, long rifle slung over his back, his face beaming with purple pride and a large grin.
“Like I’d leave my best buddy out to dry, you picked up some more stragglers?”
“Yea, now we need to get back before El-Tee chews us out for taking too long, c’mon”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wasn’t a long trip in terms of distance, but the rag tag bunch had to pick their way through debris strewn streets, and dart through ruined buildings with Longshot nattering away the entire time, making ‘Suzy’ wish for a stereotypical silent sniper.
As they picked there way through the first floor of another building, Hotshot pointed through a gap where a wall was supposed to be.
“There, almost there, soon we’ll be safe and so-“
It was Redhsirts time to interrupt.
“Hey, do you guys here that?”
Everyone fell silent, much to ‘Suzy’s’ relief before Longshot could detail to her the advanced cooling system of his rifle. There was indeed a noise, six heavy wheels grinding over rubble as the snub nosed gleaming white armoured shape of an Ice Shark AFV trundled around the other building, pointing its long barrelled main gun around to the supposedly safe building, and blowing a chunk out of it.
Return fire from small arms peppered back and plinked off the gleaming armour, the pair of coaxial machine guns on the AFVs main gun warming up to shred through even more of the squad.
They had to act fast, ‘Suzy’ flipped on her wrist communicator.
“Survivour squad, lure it a few marks east, there’s some rubble it’ll have to get over” She said before clicking her radio off, “Hotshot, take a grenade from Redshrit and give it to your buddy, and move it people”
Both groups of survivors quickly started to move east, though the squad in the safe building was rather rapidly running out of members, eventually the snub nose of the AFV nudged against the rubble blocking the street, apparently stopped, everyone present knew better though.
Gleaming white armour panels flipped open, stubby little propellant jets slipping out, and perfectly in time with the whine of a anti-grav field they fired, launching the AFV over the rubble.
The ragtag group of survivors had not been idle though, with the flick of a switch the barrel of Longshot’s rifle split in two, grenade primed and placed between the new accelerator rails. Timing was key; the jets would only stay out for a few seconds, and during those few seconds the target would be rapidly moving through the air, it was going to be a difficult shot to say the least.
There was no time to hesitate, the shot had to be taken now, and the accelerated grenade flew true, striking the jet at the tail end of its burn, explosion scarring gleaming white armour, sending a thousand pieces of former rocket engine scattering over the street, the sudden imbalance tipping the AFV end over end, secondary explosions rippling along the jets fuel lines and warping the internal structure as it tumbled down the street, erupting into flames and setting off a small group of secondary explosions.
Troops from the building the former-AFV had been attacking ducked out of cover to get a better look at the damage, it was quite a sight after all, enough even for yet another camera drone to swoop down from the sky.
Celebrations were short lived however, no one was even able to start to say something before they were interrupted, the underside hatch from the upturned AFV flinign up into the air, and a very large person in bulky armour (The left side of which was burnt and broken, with a large chunk of metal digging through) leap out at a speed someone that injured and wearing that much armour should not be capable of.
Before anyone could even react, a barrel had extended from the still working right wrist of their armour, and well place shots were being hurled up at the shocked survivors in the shelled building, three quarters were down before they could even raise their weapons to retaliate.
“S-shield caste… a shield caste was driving?” Came Redshirts unbelieving voice, everyone’s faces colouring yellow with the prospect of having to fight such a thing, fear leaving them paralyzed to just watch, much like the Camera drone recording the carnage below.
“Snap out of it everyone” ‘Suzy’ growled, “They’re going to attack us once they’re through the other squad, we’ve got one chance, so quick, after me!”
The Sergeant proceeded to jump straight out of cover, flinging herself through the air, her much abused gravpack whining as she touched down… right next to the Sheild Caste member, the gravity inversion sending even them tumbling through the air, and during this moment of weakness, everyone who still could opened fire, most shots aimed at the damaged portions of the armour, though even there a good portion were deflected or had enough of their force absorbed to do no damage, enough got through to splatter blood across the ruined road. High powered sniper shots successfully managing to disable the super soldiers wrist weapon before it finally clattered back to the floor, defeated.
‘Suzy’ let out a long sigh of relief, wiping her brow yet again, it was too damn hot to be doing this, she cautiously approached the burning AFV, retrieving her back up cigar from and equipment pouch, and lighting it from the wreckage. By this time her three companions had managed to scrabble down to join her.
“W-wow, I can’t believe we did that!” Said Redshirt as he glanced around the damage, “I never expected to make it this far!”
Hotshot turned to him with a grin, chest suddenly exploding outwards in bloody chunks as the fist of the not quite dead super soldier exploded from it, splattering Redshirt in his comrade’s blood. Everyone else opened up with their weapons once again, firing until barrels glowed red with head, and clips clicked empty, the hole riddled form of the super soldier slumping backwards.
Redshit was finally taken out of his little shock induced freeze up by a slap on the back,
“Hey kid, smile for the Camera, we’re heroes for today”.
This odyssey, this, exodus. Do we journey toward the promised land, or into the valley of the kings? Three decades ago I envisioned a new future for our species, and now that we are on the brink of realizing my dream, I feel only solitude, and regret. Has my entire life's work been a fool's crusade? Have I led my people into this desert, only to die?
-Admiral Aken Bosch, Supreme Commander of the Neo-Terran Front, NTF Iceni, 2367
-Admiral Aken Bosch, Supreme Commander of the Neo-Terran Front, NTF Iceni, 2367
-
Simon_Jester
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 30165
- Joined: 2009-05-23 07:29pm
Re: Sirocco Theft
Brennan's Star, Sector W-13
Very Slightly Less Than Five Years Ago
Tornado-class Battlecruiser USS Sirocco
(A distant descendant of this song, with a few trivial revisions to the lyrics, was one of the most popular informal national anthems of the Independent Spinward Republic during the fringe worlders' revolt in 3391-92)
Colonel Bernardo was a commando, not a spaceman. What he knew about a Umerian battlecruiser began with "they have really big guns" and ended with "and this is how you find the bridge and disable the lockouts." This weapon, he didn't know how to aim or shoot, how to protect it and attack with it. Not yet, anyway. So he'd brought along someone he'd hired, a piratical kind of guy, down on his luck... bit who knew how to fight the damn thing.
Rafe Sims smiled grimly. "Reminds me of the last time I stopped by this way."
"You've been to the system before?"
"Back in '91." That must have been during the revolt...
"Yeah?"
"Me in Alabama, a couple of creaky old destroyers we'd yanked from the boneyard, some of the boys in odds and ends. They came gunning for us with a pair of 'heavy' cruisers. Pfah! We came whipping 'round the giant and broke one of those Bombardiers over our knee!"
"...That wouldn't work this time, right?"
"Of course not, planet's on the other side of the star, I checked. But they'll try something. Betsy's a bitch, but she's got guts. She won't take this lying down."
Empress-class Cruiser USS Boudicca
Middle of the Goddamn Night
Rear Admiral Deatherage rolled off the bed and to her feet before the atonal buzz of general quarters finished ramping up. Resenting the moment spent pulling on her uniform trousers, she opened her day cabin door left-handed while flailing her right arm round to catch the other sleeve of her tunic, buttoning it over her undershirt even as she trotted out onto the flag bridge.
Not entirely rationally, she snarled. This had been easier on the old Conductors- the run over to CIC gave you more time to finish dressing when some random nonsense woke you up in the middle of the night- fuck.
"What's wrong with Sirocco?"
"We can't hail her. There's signature in the drive nacelles-"
The admiral scowled. She knew, she just knew somehow.
"Independents. Signals, order in the pursuit boats to catch wreckage, the station will split up soon." Deatherage judged angles, adjusted for windage from the planetary field, and decided not to risk using the lunar mines as a target practice backstop. "Tell Polar Alpha to fire into Sirocco. Other platforms, as they bear if the line of fire clears. Wave those troopships off, they're not going to reinforce the drydock in time to matter."
Missiles- no. The drydock, orbiting a loosely-bound mining moon, stood near the edge of range from rest for planetary launchers- by the time the subs and orbital platforms got shots off the browncoats would have made it away. Was Hanoi back? No, nor near it- four hours out by the clock, so much for her best frigate. She glanced over the plot again.
*BOOM*
Boudicca bucked as a sheaf of nuclear-tipped rockets punched into her shields. Then again. Back to the plot- point blank launches from a set of silos planetside, against a low-orbiting target. Another wave punched up out of the atmosphere- this time, GroundSec's air defense lasered the things before they rose to attack range. Not bad, that was almost fast reactions.
"I'm trying to shut down that platform, ma'am- Fortress Command says it's stuck on local control!"
Subverted. Even four years later, you could never be sure the rebels were down and out properly. She reached to her headset, spun through comm channels- "Arnesh, blow that launch grid. Lasers only. and keep your point defense free- they may have hacked something that can follow up with torpedoes."
"On it, ma'am." Her flag captain sounded ready from Boudicca's own bridge, so she cut the circuit and turned back to her own staff.
"Flagship status?"
"A few shots got through. Nothing critical-" she nodded, those had been fighterweight missiles, after all. "Landing gear is fused, aand... engine damage. Automation is responding, engineering is working on it locally." Why nothing right away from the chief engineer? She might leave it to Arnesh afterward, or she might tear a strip off him herself. Not now, now was for fighting, not for yelling. And she'd probably get most of her yelling done with whoever had let the Browncoats take over a planetary missile battery...
"Order Doyenne and the frigates to chase along Sirocco's vector- torpedoes as soon as they get a firing solution." She cast about- what else did they have to throw...
Battlecruiser Sirocco
A Few Minutes Later
“Huh. That was fast. She’s not slowing down in her old age, that’s for sure.”
“We stung the bastards good with those hacked missile silos, right?”
“Maybe so. I’d know if we had spectroscopy up.”
“Damn.”
“No, wait, look. Doyenne’s chasing us, Boudicca’s not limbered up yet. My bet? That means we got ourselves a piece of dear old Betsy’s flagship.” The rebel captain chuckled. “Now, Doyenne’s just about ready for the scrap heap- the Flight II Conductors don’t have the legs or the brains for the job, anymore. So I don’t think she’ll be getting close enough to us to matter. Those frigates, on the other hand...”
“They’re trying to surround us.” Bernardo could see them on the plot spreading and angling out, forming a pyramid with Sirocco at the tip, trying to encircle.
“Yep.”
“So? What do you aim to do about it?”
The diehard quietly pulled a keychain from his pocket, with a single ancient-style metal key. He looked over at a short, slight young woman working on one of the bridge control boards. “‘Llita, you got the biometrics hotwired?” The girl turned, nodded, and smiled. “Well then.” He strode over to the weapons board, inserted the key, and turned it. Now, “Where’s that other key interlock?”
One of Bernardo’s bohabs shook his head “No luck.”
“Check the gun-captain’s pockets.” At the bohab’s look, Sims gestured with one hand. “That’s him on the floor there. The watch officer.”
“Huh. That’s a stupid place to put a pocket, no wonder I didn’t get it bef-”
“Later. Hand it here.”
The bohab tossed the key over to a friend by the tactical board, who handed it to a browncoat gunnery officer, who clicked the key in the lock and turned it. The controllers mumbled about diagnostics, back and forth, Bernardo didn’t follow the conversation and didn’t much care. Sims looked happy, that was a good sign. He grinned at the weapons board. “Good. Step power to point two percent, run that quadrupole scan again- looks like one of the boys got trigger-happy round about frame sixteen hundred.”
“Hang on, I found it... we can choke off the halo upstream, lemme try- we have beam!”
“Good job. Helm, Pitch minus point two three, yaw plus point oh nine. Guns, walk fire onto the one to ventral and step up. Let’s make sure nothing got knocked out of line when we picked her up from the parking lot.”
Oddly, Bernardo felt relaxed again. Even if he wasn’t doing it, there was shooting now, which meant his side had some control over their fate. It wasn’t all math, it wasn’t all luck or negotiations or hoping the other guy wouldn’t cheat you blind. No, this was war. And whatever he might think of the bastards who’d muscled in on Scumdogia, this was what being a Scumdogian was all about.
“Beam power to ten percent, pushing higher in sequence.”
He looked at the plot, and he could understand some of the basics. The Umerian turret-ship chasing them, trailing them from what had been ‘below’ before the ship angled down for a look, hadn’t even tried firing its own particle beams yet. Sirocco’s proton cannon could go the distance...
FF-6829 USS Chennai
Combat Information Center
The watch officer broke into a sweat when he saw Sirocco’s course change. That could only mean they’d gotten the main battery working, and wanted to point it straight at them...
He already had the bridge EW officer on comm. “You see-”
“Spread out our drones, especially jammers.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He passed on the orders.
“And don’t worry about their component life, we’ll n-”
THOOM!
Every electronic display on the ship blurred, then- thank the stars for milspec- popped back into life. Sirocco’s axial beams had found them. He touched a finger to metal rank insignia, felt it heating slightly in the magnetic field- and that was just leakage, through the force-screen. They were in for it...
FF-6829 USS Chennai
Command Bridge
“Shields down to sixty percent...”
“Yu, I want those drones up now!”
“Out and pulsing...”
“Forty percent, radiation tunnel-through in forward compartments...”
“I’m losing surface peripherals, sir!”
“I have no azimuth control on Turrets Beta and Gamma, turret rings are welded shut.”
“Major radiation spikes in forward drive compartments-”
“Are they evacuated?”
“Yes sir, but computers are going down- radiation flux.”
“Shields down to twenty...”
“Hull temperature rising-” the ship bucked slightly. “Busbar overload, frame one hundred, switching in backups.” Again. “Negative function on backups, we’re losing the dorsal forward power grids. I have thermocouples failure in forward armor belt...”
“Helm, roll one point five.” That’d buy some time, present a new surface- aaand... “Weapons, monitor neutron flux in the ventral missile bays- dump the cell if there’s any danger of spallation cookoff. Tell me if we get any flux in the torpedo magazines.” Screen should keep it out of that, but he wasn’t so sure of the defense missile cells. And he did not want nuclear warheads doing explosive fizzles inside his ship. Not even directional ones pointed outside the hull. That was hard on the bulkheads...
Recommended Listening: Umerian Naval Anthem
Battlecruiser Sirocco
Command Bridge, Kicking Ass
Bernardo watched the blue bubble on schematics frigate’s shields go down- sensors were having some trouble, but it looked like the outer armor was starting to melt.
A heavily tattooed bohab, festooned with knives and pistols, laughed. "This bitch'd mark up someone's ground real good!" He pointed at a small image he’d brought up- Brennan’s world, seen peeking over the edge of the battlecruiser’s bowplate as they backed away at top acceleration.
Captain Sims took two quiet steps over and regarded the Scumdogian. Bernardo eyed the diehard rebel suspiciously when he slipped a hand into his pocket, but Sims' hand came out with no sign of a weapon- just his clenched fist. He drawled quietly. "Saw the Techies do that once, at the end of the war. Fired a battleship's main beams into the moon over Shadow- you can still read the message they left, in the new lava plains they burned into it."
"Really? Sweet! I say we do just that- carve our initials in their shit-eating planet?"
Sims' face creased in a faint smile that didn't reach the eyes. "You do? You know, that's funny-" the Independent's hand blurred, striking the bohab just off the solar plexus. Surprise helped the less-than-precise blow knock the man over, and Sims carried on as if nothing had happened "-as that's an awful ugly sight." He kicked the downed man in the belly. Crew whirled around, drawing Scumdogian razorpistols, Independent revolving slug-drivers, and the odd atomic disintegrator.
Sims turned to Bernardo. "What's this boy doing on my bridge, anyhow?"
Bernardo sized up the situation- too damn many of the bridge crew were browncoats, his men could handle it but it'd really fuck up the plan... "He mouthed off, he got his ass kicked. It happens. Jerg, we've got an aid station set up down the corridor, take him there for a checkup. Maybe he'll learn something." Pitching his voice lower, he stared into Sims' eyes. "Next time, don't be so fucking touchy, or you go with him."
The rebel captain gave him a thin smile. "I’m sure it won’t happen again. Anyhow, their shields are down, armor won’t last- do we keep up fire until she’s slagged?”
“Sure, why not? I’m not the one paying for the helium.”
Sims’ eyes narrowed. “Yeah. I don’t like those ships. I really do not.”
Internally, the Scumdogian chuckled. The diehard would-be rebel pirate might think he was squeamish, but give him the right thing to pound on and he’d be screaming and bloodying his knuckles just like any other bohab.
Then the frigate Chennai disappeared into a ball of fog.
“Did we get him?”
“Nah, still a mass in there somewhere...”
The other ships started to fade out into blurriness too. A Scumdogian guard growled. “So find the shitting tug and finish the job already!”
One of Sims’ technicians, with an accent screaming ‘fringe world yokel,’ called out. “Suh, we have a problem with e-war...”
Bernardo jogged over the few short steps, and read off the display:
“Welcome to Umersoft Disingenuous Advantage! You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. Your authorization codes did not pass genuine SpaceSec validation. Please Resolve Now to resolve this problem.”
“So ah tap continue-” he twitched his control stylus- “an’ it sez...”
“Please enter your 256-character authentication code. And remember, the Ministry of Simulations is here for YOUR protection, citizens!”
The technician began frantically waving his hands, characters popping into existence from the precise twitches and rotations of the wands. “Now, ah have a valid code right here, yew do not want to know what ah went through to get it. But before ah can get it in...” The display vanished in a blur of polychromatic light, then blipped back into focus.
“Welcome to Umersoft Disingenuous Advantage! You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. Your authorization codes did not pass genuine SpaceSec validation. Please Resolve Now to resolve this problem.”
The Scumdogian stared at this nightmare from the elder days of humanity. “Crap! Can’t you bypass it?”
“...I dunno, maybe? Never seen nuthin’ like this before. Weren’t like this back in the War, this here’s a new wrinkle.”
Bernardo turned to Sims. “So the ship’s blind until he figures out a way past the... loop?”
“Not quite. That looks like a lockout on the high-end part of the software, ECM, ECCM, signals analysis. You want my bet, it’s part of an export restriction, not anti-theft at all. Whatever it is, it’s not locking out passives or the basic active modes, just the sophisticated and high-resolution part. We can see all right, but-”
“Yeah. Motherfucker! Those frigates, their e-war’s working just fine, all we see of them’s those big blurs.”
“You said it.”
Empress-class Cruiser USS Boudicca
Still Middle of the Goddamn Night
Rear Admiral Deatherage was not happy. She wanted that battlecruiser to burn, before the Independents got their hands on it. The War had been bad enough, but only a very few axial-beam ships had found their way into rebel hands. It burned her to think that another one might be stolen on her watch. It made her very angry, but the only people for her to shout at was the browncoats.
Chennai was practically a loss- her hull half-melted, her drives disabled. Her captain reported heavy casualties from radiation and electrical failures. She had two frigates coming up- and those small craft she’d hijacked from their training run, out in the Oort cloud of the next star over. She had high hopes for the cutters, and the timing was going to be just about right.
Still, she wasn’t happy. Wouldn’t be, until she saw Sirocco blown apart for what it was doing to her defense force and her reputation.
Battlecruiser Sirocco
Slightly Ambushed
Some Time Later
“Ah’m... pretty sure those are hyper downjumps up ahead and to port.”
Sims was right there by the sensor operator, whose nerves still weren’t too good. “Delocalized- you’re trying too hard, son, let her focus on her own... yeah. Thirty to forty-three lightweight contacts, figure two cutter squadrons.”
Bernardo was there too, now. “What’s going on?”
He pointed to the main display, where the shower of green dots appeared to shimmer and flick in and out of existence- their jammers must already be up. “Those... are two flights of Buccaneers. I’m going to go out on a limb, and guess that they weren’t supposed to be here, but good ol’ Betsy called them in just for us.”
“There’s a lot of them, but not that many. Are they really a threat?”
“Only two kinds of Buckies still in service. The one kind carries Strike troops. We don’t have to worry about those if it doesn’t turn to a brawl in the corridors. But they know that too. They wouldn’t send those.”
“So, the other kind?”
“Strategic torpedo bombers. One big, mean, sneaky anticapital torp each. And us so close to the hyper limit...”
“Crap.”
Sims just nodded once and went back to the tactical boards. A few minutes passed. The frigates got a little closer. The cutters got a lot closer. Bernardo looked back up at one of the main holo-displays. The little sprays of green dots coming from the frigates probably meant what he thought they did. More torpedoes. Chasing them from three directions at once.
Crap.
He joined Sims at the weapons station. “What are you gonna do?”
“If I turn, I can raster any one spread with the main beams. But I get slowed down, the cruisers catch up, and I have more torpedoes. So I’m defending from one side at a time, and with the sensors we’ve got, we’re focusing on one threat axis at a time.”
“You sure we should be worried about those cutters?”
The diehard sneered. "The Buckies, they've got one slung on each of 'em, that's twenty torps. The turret ships are good for a dozen a spread. Should I be worrying about twelve?" He pointed to one frigate. "Twelve?" The other. "Or forty?" he waved his hand at the swarm of cutters.
"Go ahead, captain, I trust you."
He grinned. “E-war, how much control-”
“Still no drones, sir. Barrage jammers I’ve got, but I’m playing it by ear, and they ain’t stopping...”
“Right. Helm, pitch plus point four, clear our lasers better.”
Bernardo frowned. “They still haven’t shot yet...”
Sims shook his head. “Any second now... huh. Was expecting it right then. Well, won’t be much longer.”
There! Just after a laser bombardment from the stolen battlecruiser killed one of the lead Buccaneers, the cutters started dancing away, pushing at right angles to the line of fire. Their torpedoes bored in ahead of them. They screamed out blares of jamming. They wove and sideslipped under magnetogravitic drive, dodging the roiling sheets of infrared that poured from Sirocco’s PAL panels.
Lasers fired back; sensors stuck on rudimentary settings tried to find them and pin them, or trick them into hitting somewhere else.
Battlecruiser Sirocco
In Deep Trouble
Recommended Listening: Battle on the Ice
“Incoming...” Sims stalked back to the still-disabled command chair and strapped in. Bernardo did the same, in an unused chair near the browncoat, facing him over a locked-down terminal that did he knew not what.
Some genius bohab had figured out how to get the ship to launch its own nuclear defense missiles- ‘Honeydews,’ the Umerians called them, for some dumb reason. So the ship did launch, dozens of the things. But any of the torpedoes that had made it this far were smart, fast, and sneaky enough that Sirocco’s computers, still locked in idiot-mode, weren’t finding them.
The Honeydew missiles had their own guidance sensors, which apparently weren’t as brain-dead as the ship’s own computers. They homed in after the torpedoes, but they were smaller, had weaker sensors and shorter range. A lot of them missed. Some of them got close enough, and caught a torpedo in the blast pattern of their own warhead. A lot more thought they did, blew up, and missed. Three torpedoes died. Five. Another one popped by lasers. More.
“Twenty seconds...” Oh shit, he’d heard weird stories about Umerian smart-torps, things like flying past the target and shooting it in the back, he still wasn’t sure how that worked. And almost half the torpedo swarm was still coming. The tactical boards didn’t call out any more times, but it was there in Bernardo’s head. Ten... five... two...
Nothing happened. He thought he felt the ship twitch once, but that might be his imagination.
Wait, what the fuck?
Captain Sims glared at the cutters' light codes. Another of the mob blinked out, coned and burned apart by Sirocco's lasers now that the missiles were gone.
"...You... you cheeky son of a bitch!” The browncoat was almost laughing.
"What the hell was that? Why didn't they blow up?"
"Dummy torps. Training warheads."
"The whole thing was a bluff! Which means..." Bernardo looked wordlessly at the other salvo of torpedoes headed for the battlecruiser. Some of them were wandering away, and a couple of them vanished under laser fire, but...
Sims nodded. "Yup."
"Oh, shit."
“Yeah. Helm, out of that chair, I’m taking over! Get over here!” The browncoat obeyed, and Sims trotted over, taking the stylized pitch, yaw, and roll controls into his own hands. He waited a moment for something, Bernardo couldn’t tell what, then did... something drastic. The Scumdoggian was in no position to appreciate what had just happened, but he could hear a faint groaning echo along the ship’s spinal framework.
Sirocco whipped round with a speed truly astounding, given its length, as the rebel captain tried to present the ship’s bowplate to one spread of torpedoes and the thinnest possible target to the other. Gunnery officers tried to blot out the approaching weapons with raster fire from the main batteries, but they were too close, spreading out too far, wise to the countertactic. Another launch of defense missiles took a few- then the explosions started.
The Mark Four torpedoes cut their main drives, pivoted, and fired shaped nuclear charges into the rogue battlecruiser, spearing it with jets of shortwave X-rays and beryllium plasma. Force fields howled and vanished under the flame, softened impacts punched through the cruiser-weight armor belt wrapped round Sirocco’s long central hull.
Five blasts from the frigate Venice misjudged their attack runs, not being programmed to attack SpaceSec’s own ships. They flashed against the battlecruiser’s bowplate, scarring and cratering those meter-thick strata of ultra-dense alloy and burning ablatives, echoing along blast channels and sending compression waves rippling down the hull- but they didn’t penetrate.
Venice’s sixth and seventh were luckier. One smote the ship in a drive nacelle, coring and disabling- the antimatter bunkerage scrammed, and the secondary explosion merely obliterated the engine pod and sheared away fifty meters of the connecting strut. The other judged wisely and stabbed into the core hull just astern of Frame 1000. Two missed; three died.
The crossing spread from Osaka did better. Five torpedoes missed- side-on, Sirocco’s hull was not a wide target, the range was long, the closing speed high, and the battlecruiser’s jammers not without their say in the matter. Two died, one bit a piece off a nacelle strut without severing it; three more drove great wounds into the ship’s hull, severing two beamlines of four- and doing such damage to the ship’s power infrastructure that even after backups, the ship might as well be half sawn in two.
One worked a miracle. Like most of Venice’s hits, the nuclear charge struck the bowplate; unlike them, it struck from astern. The great disc of armor was still made of vast thicknesses of almost incomprehensibly durable material, which did not yield easily. But layered armor schemes are engineered, not simply slabbed on; against a strike from behind the plate was found lacking, and the torpedo burned deep into the structural underlayers designed to hold the armor together even as it melted and evanesced away.
When Sims spun Sirocco back onto course to compensate for the unbalanced drive thrust, that hurt the ship.
The gap in the structural frame of the bowplate lay on an almost direct line between the elliptical scars of two torpedo blasts. Spun round again, the hysteresis-weakened plates wavered, fractured, and tore with a rending squeal that ran down the ship’s frames despite all efforts at shock-damping. A half-moon bite of the plate, thousands upon many thousands of tons, simply broke loose, drifting outsystem at high speed. The ship whipsawed under the stress, warping keel-girders further and breaking a few nearly-wrecked power and data trunks.
Damage alarms screamed. Umerian renegades screamed. Bohabs screamed. The ship rocked, bent, and burned- but lived!
Bernardo scrambled for the commlink that had fallen out of his pocket during the moments when the bridge gravity got confused and pointed up. He didn’t bother to consult with Sims, or even really to think, as he shouted the order to his men. “This is Bernardo! All of you! Shut up, take it, and kick its ass! Do what the guys with the red arm-bands tell you, they know how to fix shit.”
Sims remained at the helm. He was busy, hanging onto the controls as if it was all the world, and without it he’d fly off into nothing- he hissed in pain when Bernardo came up beside him and touched him on the shoulder. That was a problem for later.
“We’re hit bad. Can you run things here?”
“No... get the pilot. Now!”
There were no more missiles, a bit of desultory beam fire that scattered off what was left of Sirocco’s screen. The helmsman took his proper place; Sims took his, directing damage control. One of the two working proton guns had to be deadlined; the other he directed against the cruisers, trying to slow them and deplete their energy. It must have worked- they didn’t chance a long range torpedo shot against him.
When the ship finally crossed the hyper-limit and blurred into higher, lower, wider reality, Bernardo sighed and knew in his bones he’d won. He kept that knowledge through the strange hyperspace-wrestling match against Deatherage’s vengeful cruisers- they’d survived her best before, they could survive this now. He kept it through the long, painstaking process of nursing a damaged ship through the thick, pirate-infested shoals a mere hundred light years from Terminus. At least there they had the sympathy of some of the stranger, alien tribes of the Nation, who had no love for the technocrats and appreciated the Scumdoggians’ rough jest of stealing a great ship from under their very noses.
Location: Scumdogia
Very Hard Weeks Later
Very Slightly Less Than Five Years Ago
Tornado-class Battlecruiser USS Sirocco
Recommended Listening: Old Gray Brown CoatAs chaos spread through the port, the bribed, dissident, and deserting Umerian troops turned their ray-guns on their erstwhile comrades. Some cursed, some bellowed, some just grinned. Some pulled on long brown coats and charged into the Umerian redshirts' ranks, whooping wild Rebel yells. They rushed onto the Sirocco, boarding through multiple docking hatches, and killed all the loyal SpaceSec troops on board. Bernardo strode onto the bridge himself, calmly shooting the watch officer in the head, directing his own crew to take over after they finished off the duty officers.
“Let's get the hell out of here, now. Install the anti-tracking software, pronto!”
The finest of Scumdogian override bludgeons smashed off the safeties on the battlecruiser's heavy machinery. The Sirocco fired up its reactors- fired up its drives. Shifting into full speed reverse, neither knowing nor caring that the power of the drive fields would tear the drydock apart, Bernardo took the great ship out of orbit and away, alarms spreading behind him among the planetary defenses.
(A distant descendant of this song, with a few trivial revisions to the lyrics, was one of the most popular informal national anthems of the Independent Spinward Republic during the fringe worlders' revolt in 3391-92)
Colonel Bernardo was a commando, not a spaceman. What he knew about a Umerian battlecruiser began with "they have really big guns" and ended with "and this is how you find the bridge and disable the lockouts." This weapon, he didn't know how to aim or shoot, how to protect it and attack with it. Not yet, anyway. So he'd brought along someone he'd hired, a piratical kind of guy, down on his luck... bit who knew how to fight the damn thing.
Rafe Sims smiled grimly. "Reminds me of the last time I stopped by this way."
"You've been to the system before?"
"Back in '91." That must have been during the revolt...
"Yeah?"
"Me in Alabama, a couple of creaky old destroyers we'd yanked from the boneyard, some of the boys in odds and ends. They came gunning for us with a pair of 'heavy' cruisers. Pfah! We came whipping 'round the giant and broke one of those Bombardiers over our knee!"
"...That wouldn't work this time, right?"
"Of course not, planet's on the other side of the star, I checked. But they'll try something. Betsy's a bitch, but she's got guts. She won't take this lying down."
Empress-class Cruiser USS Boudicca
Middle of the Goddamn Night
Rear Admiral Deatherage rolled off the bed and to her feet before the atonal buzz of general quarters finished ramping up. Resenting the moment spent pulling on her uniform trousers, she opened her day cabin door left-handed while flailing her right arm round to catch the other sleeve of her tunic, buttoning it over her undershirt even as she trotted out onto the flag bridge.
Not entirely rationally, she snarled. This had been easier on the old Conductors- the run over to CIC gave you more time to finish dressing when some random nonsense woke you up in the middle of the night- fuck.
"What's wrong with Sirocco?"
"We can't hail her. There's signature in the drive nacelles-"
The admiral scowled. She knew, she just knew somehow.
"Independents. Signals, order in the pursuit boats to catch wreckage, the station will split up soon." Deatherage judged angles, adjusted for windage from the planetary field, and decided not to risk using the lunar mines as a target practice backstop. "Tell Polar Alpha to fire into Sirocco. Other platforms, as they bear if the line of fire clears. Wave those troopships off, they're not going to reinforce the drydock in time to matter."
Missiles- no. The drydock, orbiting a loosely-bound mining moon, stood near the edge of range from rest for planetary launchers- by the time the subs and orbital platforms got shots off the browncoats would have made it away. Was Hanoi back? No, nor near it- four hours out by the clock, so much for her best frigate. She glanced over the plot again.
*BOOM*
Boudicca bucked as a sheaf of nuclear-tipped rockets punched into her shields. Then again. Back to the plot- point blank launches from a set of silos planetside, against a low-orbiting target. Another wave punched up out of the atmosphere- this time, GroundSec's air defense lasered the things before they rose to attack range. Not bad, that was almost fast reactions.
"I'm trying to shut down that platform, ma'am- Fortress Command says it's stuck on local control!"
Subverted. Even four years later, you could never be sure the rebels were down and out properly. She reached to her headset, spun through comm channels- "Arnesh, blow that launch grid. Lasers only. and keep your point defense free- they may have hacked something that can follow up with torpedoes."
"On it, ma'am." Her flag captain sounded ready from Boudicca's own bridge, so she cut the circuit and turned back to her own staff.
"Flagship status?"
"A few shots got through. Nothing critical-" she nodded, those had been fighterweight missiles, after all. "Landing gear is fused, aand... engine damage. Automation is responding, engineering is working on it locally." Why nothing right away from the chief engineer? She might leave it to Arnesh afterward, or she might tear a strip off him herself. Not now, now was for fighting, not for yelling. And she'd probably get most of her yelling done with whoever had let the Browncoats take over a planetary missile battery...
"Order Doyenne and the frigates to chase along Sirocco's vector- torpedoes as soon as they get a firing solution." She cast about- what else did they have to throw...
Battlecruiser Sirocco
A Few Minutes Later
“Huh. That was fast. She’s not slowing down in her old age, that’s for sure.”
“We stung the bastards good with those hacked missile silos, right?”
“Maybe so. I’d know if we had spectroscopy up.”
“Damn.”
“No, wait, look. Doyenne’s chasing us, Boudicca’s not limbered up yet. My bet? That means we got ourselves a piece of dear old Betsy’s flagship.” The rebel captain chuckled. “Now, Doyenne’s just about ready for the scrap heap- the Flight II Conductors don’t have the legs or the brains for the job, anymore. So I don’t think she’ll be getting close enough to us to matter. Those frigates, on the other hand...”
“They’re trying to surround us.” Bernardo could see them on the plot spreading and angling out, forming a pyramid with Sirocco at the tip, trying to encircle.
“Yep.”
“So? What do you aim to do about it?”
The diehard quietly pulled a keychain from his pocket, with a single ancient-style metal key. He looked over at a short, slight young woman working on one of the bridge control boards. “‘Llita, you got the biometrics hotwired?” The girl turned, nodded, and smiled. “Well then.” He strode over to the weapons board, inserted the key, and turned it. Now, “Where’s that other key interlock?”
One of Bernardo’s bohabs shook his head “No luck.”
“Check the gun-captain’s pockets.” At the bohab’s look, Sims gestured with one hand. “That’s him on the floor there. The watch officer.”
“Huh. That’s a stupid place to put a pocket, no wonder I didn’t get it bef-”
“Later. Hand it here.”
The bohab tossed the key over to a friend by the tactical board, who handed it to a browncoat gunnery officer, who clicked the key in the lock and turned it. The controllers mumbled about diagnostics, back and forth, Bernardo didn’t follow the conversation and didn’t much care. Sims looked happy, that was a good sign. He grinned at the weapons board. “Good. Step power to point two percent, run that quadrupole scan again- looks like one of the boys got trigger-happy round about frame sixteen hundred.”
“Hang on, I found it... we can choke off the halo upstream, lemme try- we have beam!”
“Good job. Helm, Pitch minus point two three, yaw plus point oh nine. Guns, walk fire onto the one to ventral and step up. Let’s make sure nothing got knocked out of line when we picked her up from the parking lot.”
Oddly, Bernardo felt relaxed again. Even if he wasn’t doing it, there was shooting now, which meant his side had some control over their fate. It wasn’t all math, it wasn’t all luck or negotiations or hoping the other guy wouldn’t cheat you blind. No, this was war. And whatever he might think of the bastards who’d muscled in on Scumdogia, this was what being a Scumdogian was all about.
“Beam power to ten percent, pushing higher in sequence.”
He looked at the plot, and he could understand some of the basics. The Umerian turret-ship chasing them, trailing them from what had been ‘below’ before the ship angled down for a look, hadn’t even tried firing its own particle beams yet. Sirocco’s proton cannon could go the distance...
FF-6829 USS Chennai
Combat Information Center
The watch officer broke into a sweat when he saw Sirocco’s course change. That could only mean they’d gotten the main battery working, and wanted to point it straight at them...
He already had the bridge EW officer on comm. “You see-”
“Spread out our drones, especially jammers.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He passed on the orders.
“And don’t worry about their component life, we’ll n-”
THOOM!
Every electronic display on the ship blurred, then- thank the stars for milspec- popped back into life. Sirocco’s axial beams had found them. He touched a finger to metal rank insignia, felt it heating slightly in the magnetic field- and that was just leakage, through the force-screen. They were in for it...
FF-6829 USS Chennai
Command Bridge
“Shields down to sixty percent...”
“Yu, I want those drones up now!”
“Out and pulsing...”
“Forty percent, radiation tunnel-through in forward compartments...”
“I’m losing surface peripherals, sir!”
“I have no azimuth control on Turrets Beta and Gamma, turret rings are welded shut.”
“Major radiation spikes in forward drive compartments-”
“Are they evacuated?”
“Yes sir, but computers are going down- radiation flux.”
“Shields down to twenty...”
“Hull temperature rising-” the ship bucked slightly. “Busbar overload, frame one hundred, switching in backups.” Again. “Negative function on backups, we’re losing the dorsal forward power grids. I have thermocouples failure in forward armor belt...”
“Helm, roll one point five.” That’d buy some time, present a new surface- aaand... “Weapons, monitor neutron flux in the ventral missile bays- dump the cell if there’s any danger of spallation cookoff. Tell me if we get any flux in the torpedo magazines.” Screen should keep it out of that, but he wasn’t so sure of the defense missile cells. And he did not want nuclear warheads doing explosive fizzles inside his ship. Not even directional ones pointed outside the hull. That was hard on the bulkheads...
Recommended Listening: Umerian Naval Anthem
Battlecruiser Sirocco
Command Bridge, Kicking Ass
Bernardo watched the blue bubble on schematics frigate’s shields go down- sensors were having some trouble, but it looked like the outer armor was starting to melt.
A heavily tattooed bohab, festooned with knives and pistols, laughed. "This bitch'd mark up someone's ground real good!" He pointed at a small image he’d brought up- Brennan’s world, seen peeking over the edge of the battlecruiser’s bowplate as they backed away at top acceleration.
Captain Sims took two quiet steps over and regarded the Scumdogian. Bernardo eyed the diehard rebel suspiciously when he slipped a hand into his pocket, but Sims' hand came out with no sign of a weapon- just his clenched fist. He drawled quietly. "Saw the Techies do that once, at the end of the war. Fired a battleship's main beams into the moon over Shadow- you can still read the message they left, in the new lava plains they burned into it."
"Really? Sweet! I say we do just that- carve our initials in their shit-eating planet?"
Sims' face creased in a faint smile that didn't reach the eyes. "You do? You know, that's funny-" the Independent's hand blurred, striking the bohab just off the solar plexus. Surprise helped the less-than-precise blow knock the man over, and Sims carried on as if nothing had happened "-as that's an awful ugly sight." He kicked the downed man in the belly. Crew whirled around, drawing Scumdogian razorpistols, Independent revolving slug-drivers, and the odd atomic disintegrator.
Sims turned to Bernardo. "What's this boy doing on my bridge, anyhow?"
Bernardo sized up the situation- too damn many of the bridge crew were browncoats, his men could handle it but it'd really fuck up the plan... "He mouthed off, he got his ass kicked. It happens. Jerg, we've got an aid station set up down the corridor, take him there for a checkup. Maybe he'll learn something." Pitching his voice lower, he stared into Sims' eyes. "Next time, don't be so fucking touchy, or you go with him."
The rebel captain gave him a thin smile. "I’m sure it won’t happen again. Anyhow, their shields are down, armor won’t last- do we keep up fire until she’s slagged?”
“Sure, why not? I’m not the one paying for the helium.”
Sims’ eyes narrowed. “Yeah. I don’t like those ships. I really do not.”
Internally, the Scumdogian chuckled. The diehard would-be rebel pirate might think he was squeamish, but give him the right thing to pound on and he’d be screaming and bloodying his knuckles just like any other bohab.
Then the frigate Chennai disappeared into a ball of fog.
“Did we get him?”
“Nah, still a mass in there somewhere...”
The other ships started to fade out into blurriness too. A Scumdogian guard growled. “So find the shitting tug and finish the job already!”
One of Sims’ technicians, with an accent screaming ‘fringe world yokel,’ called out. “Suh, we have a problem with e-war...”
Bernardo jogged over the few short steps, and read off the display:
“Welcome to Umersoft Disingenuous Advantage! You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. Your authorization codes did not pass genuine SpaceSec validation. Please Resolve Now to resolve this problem.”
“So ah tap continue-” he twitched his control stylus- “an’ it sez...”
“Please enter your 256-character authentication code. And remember, the Ministry of Simulations is here for YOUR protection, citizens!”
The technician began frantically waving his hands, characters popping into existence from the precise twitches and rotations of the wands. “Now, ah have a valid code right here, yew do not want to know what ah went through to get it. But before ah can get it in...” The display vanished in a blur of polychromatic light, then blipped back into focus.
“Welcome to Umersoft Disingenuous Advantage! You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. Your authorization codes did not pass genuine SpaceSec validation. Please Resolve Now to resolve this problem.”
The Scumdogian stared at this nightmare from the elder days of humanity. “Crap! Can’t you bypass it?”
“...I dunno, maybe? Never seen nuthin’ like this before. Weren’t like this back in the War, this here’s a new wrinkle.”
Bernardo turned to Sims. “So the ship’s blind until he figures out a way past the... loop?”
“Not quite. That looks like a lockout on the high-end part of the software, ECM, ECCM, signals analysis. You want my bet, it’s part of an export restriction, not anti-theft at all. Whatever it is, it’s not locking out passives or the basic active modes, just the sophisticated and high-resolution part. We can see all right, but-”
“Yeah. Motherfucker! Those frigates, their e-war’s working just fine, all we see of them’s those big blurs.”
“You said it.”
Empress-class Cruiser USS Boudicca
Still Middle of the Goddamn Night
Rear Admiral Deatherage was not happy. She wanted that battlecruiser to burn, before the Independents got their hands on it. The War had been bad enough, but only a very few axial-beam ships had found their way into rebel hands. It burned her to think that another one might be stolen on her watch. It made her very angry, but the only people for her to shout at was the browncoats.
Chennai was practically a loss- her hull half-melted, her drives disabled. Her captain reported heavy casualties from radiation and electrical failures. She had two frigates coming up- and those small craft she’d hijacked from their training run, out in the Oort cloud of the next star over. She had high hopes for the cutters, and the timing was going to be just about right.
Still, she wasn’t happy. Wouldn’t be, until she saw Sirocco blown apart for what it was doing to her defense force and her reputation.
Battlecruiser Sirocco
Slightly Ambushed
Some Time Later
“Ah’m... pretty sure those are hyper downjumps up ahead and to port.”
Sims was right there by the sensor operator, whose nerves still weren’t too good. “Delocalized- you’re trying too hard, son, let her focus on her own... yeah. Thirty to forty-three lightweight contacts, figure two cutter squadrons.”
Bernardo was there too, now. “What’s going on?”
He pointed to the main display, where the shower of green dots appeared to shimmer and flick in and out of existence- their jammers must already be up. “Those... are two flights of Buccaneers. I’m going to go out on a limb, and guess that they weren’t supposed to be here, but good ol’ Betsy called them in just for us.”
“There’s a lot of them, but not that many. Are they really a threat?”
“Only two kinds of Buckies still in service. The one kind carries Strike troops. We don’t have to worry about those if it doesn’t turn to a brawl in the corridors. But they know that too. They wouldn’t send those.”
“So, the other kind?”
“Strategic torpedo bombers. One big, mean, sneaky anticapital torp each. And us so close to the hyper limit...”
“Crap.”
Sims just nodded once and went back to the tactical boards. A few minutes passed. The frigates got a little closer. The cutters got a lot closer. Bernardo looked back up at one of the main holo-displays. The little sprays of green dots coming from the frigates probably meant what he thought they did. More torpedoes. Chasing them from three directions at once.
Crap.
He joined Sims at the weapons station. “What are you gonna do?”
“If I turn, I can raster any one spread with the main beams. But I get slowed down, the cruisers catch up, and I have more torpedoes. So I’m defending from one side at a time, and with the sensors we’ve got, we’re focusing on one threat axis at a time.”
“You sure we should be worried about those cutters?”
The diehard sneered. "The Buckies, they've got one slung on each of 'em, that's twenty torps. The turret ships are good for a dozen a spread. Should I be worrying about twelve?" He pointed to one frigate. "Twelve?" The other. "Or forty?" he waved his hand at the swarm of cutters.
"Go ahead, captain, I trust you."
He grinned. “E-war, how much control-”
“Still no drones, sir. Barrage jammers I’ve got, but I’m playing it by ear, and they ain’t stopping...”
“Right. Helm, pitch plus point four, clear our lasers better.”
Bernardo frowned. “They still haven’t shot yet...”
Sims shook his head. “Any second now... huh. Was expecting it right then. Well, won’t be much longer.”
There! Just after a laser bombardment from the stolen battlecruiser killed one of the lead Buccaneers, the cutters started dancing away, pushing at right angles to the line of fire. Their torpedoes bored in ahead of them. They screamed out blares of jamming. They wove and sideslipped under magnetogravitic drive, dodging the roiling sheets of infrared that poured from Sirocco’s PAL panels.
Lasers fired back; sensors stuck on rudimentary settings tried to find them and pin them, or trick them into hitting somewhere else.
Battlecruiser Sirocco
In Deep Trouble
Recommended Listening: Battle on the Ice
“Incoming...” Sims stalked back to the still-disabled command chair and strapped in. Bernardo did the same, in an unused chair near the browncoat, facing him over a locked-down terminal that did he knew not what.
Some genius bohab had figured out how to get the ship to launch its own nuclear defense missiles- ‘Honeydews,’ the Umerians called them, for some dumb reason. So the ship did launch, dozens of the things. But any of the torpedoes that had made it this far were smart, fast, and sneaky enough that Sirocco’s computers, still locked in idiot-mode, weren’t finding them.
The Honeydew missiles had their own guidance sensors, which apparently weren’t as brain-dead as the ship’s own computers. They homed in after the torpedoes, but they were smaller, had weaker sensors and shorter range. A lot of them missed. Some of them got close enough, and caught a torpedo in the blast pattern of their own warhead. A lot more thought they did, blew up, and missed. Three torpedoes died. Five. Another one popped by lasers. More.
“Twenty seconds...” Oh shit, he’d heard weird stories about Umerian smart-torps, things like flying past the target and shooting it in the back, he still wasn’t sure how that worked. And almost half the torpedo swarm was still coming. The tactical boards didn’t call out any more times, but it was there in Bernardo’s head. Ten... five... two...
Nothing happened. He thought he felt the ship twitch once, but that might be his imagination.
Wait, what the fuck?
Captain Sims glared at the cutters' light codes. Another of the mob blinked out, coned and burned apart by Sirocco's lasers now that the missiles were gone.
"...You... you cheeky son of a bitch!” The browncoat was almost laughing.
"What the hell was that? Why didn't they blow up?"
"Dummy torps. Training warheads."
"The whole thing was a bluff! Which means..." Bernardo looked wordlessly at the other salvo of torpedoes headed for the battlecruiser. Some of them were wandering away, and a couple of them vanished under laser fire, but...
Sims nodded. "Yup."
"Oh, shit."
“Yeah. Helm, out of that chair, I’m taking over! Get over here!” The browncoat obeyed, and Sims trotted over, taking the stylized pitch, yaw, and roll controls into his own hands. He waited a moment for something, Bernardo couldn’t tell what, then did... something drastic. The Scumdoggian was in no position to appreciate what had just happened, but he could hear a faint groaning echo along the ship’s spinal framework.
Sirocco whipped round with a speed truly astounding, given its length, as the rebel captain tried to present the ship’s bowplate to one spread of torpedoes and the thinnest possible target to the other. Gunnery officers tried to blot out the approaching weapons with raster fire from the main batteries, but they were too close, spreading out too far, wise to the countertactic. Another launch of defense missiles took a few- then the explosions started.
The Mark Four torpedoes cut their main drives, pivoted, and fired shaped nuclear charges into the rogue battlecruiser, spearing it with jets of shortwave X-rays and beryllium plasma. Force fields howled and vanished under the flame, softened impacts punched through the cruiser-weight armor belt wrapped round Sirocco’s long central hull.
Five blasts from the frigate Venice misjudged their attack runs, not being programmed to attack SpaceSec’s own ships. They flashed against the battlecruiser’s bowplate, scarring and cratering those meter-thick strata of ultra-dense alloy and burning ablatives, echoing along blast channels and sending compression waves rippling down the hull- but they didn’t penetrate.
Venice’s sixth and seventh were luckier. One smote the ship in a drive nacelle, coring and disabling- the antimatter bunkerage scrammed, and the secondary explosion merely obliterated the engine pod and sheared away fifty meters of the connecting strut. The other judged wisely and stabbed into the core hull just astern of Frame 1000. Two missed; three died.
The crossing spread from Osaka did better. Five torpedoes missed- side-on, Sirocco’s hull was not a wide target, the range was long, the closing speed high, and the battlecruiser’s jammers not without their say in the matter. Two died, one bit a piece off a nacelle strut without severing it; three more drove great wounds into the ship’s hull, severing two beamlines of four- and doing such damage to the ship’s power infrastructure that even after backups, the ship might as well be half sawn in two.
One worked a miracle. Like most of Venice’s hits, the nuclear charge struck the bowplate; unlike them, it struck from astern. The great disc of armor was still made of vast thicknesses of almost incomprehensibly durable material, which did not yield easily. But layered armor schemes are engineered, not simply slabbed on; against a strike from behind the plate was found lacking, and the torpedo burned deep into the structural underlayers designed to hold the armor together even as it melted and evanesced away.
When Sims spun Sirocco back onto course to compensate for the unbalanced drive thrust, that hurt the ship.
The gap in the structural frame of the bowplate lay on an almost direct line between the elliptical scars of two torpedo blasts. Spun round again, the hysteresis-weakened plates wavered, fractured, and tore with a rending squeal that ran down the ship’s frames despite all efforts at shock-damping. A half-moon bite of the plate, thousands upon many thousands of tons, simply broke loose, drifting outsystem at high speed. The ship whipsawed under the stress, warping keel-girders further and breaking a few nearly-wrecked power and data trunks.
Damage alarms screamed. Umerian renegades screamed. Bohabs screamed. The ship rocked, bent, and burned- but lived!
Bernardo scrambled for the commlink that had fallen out of his pocket during the moments when the bridge gravity got confused and pointed up. He didn’t bother to consult with Sims, or even really to think, as he shouted the order to his men. “This is Bernardo! All of you! Shut up, take it, and kick its ass! Do what the guys with the red arm-bands tell you, they know how to fix shit.”
Sims remained at the helm. He was busy, hanging onto the controls as if it was all the world, and without it he’d fly off into nothing- he hissed in pain when Bernardo came up beside him and touched him on the shoulder. That was a problem for later.
“We’re hit bad. Can you run things here?”
“No... get the pilot. Now!”
There were no more missiles, a bit of desultory beam fire that scattered off what was left of Sirocco’s screen. The helmsman took his proper place; Sims took his, directing damage control. One of the two working proton guns had to be deadlined; the other he directed against the cruisers, trying to slow them and deplete their energy. It must have worked- they didn’t chance a long range torpedo shot against him.
When the ship finally crossed the hyper-limit and blurred into higher, lower, wider reality, Bernardo sighed and knew in his bones he’d won. He kept that knowledge through the strange hyperspace-wrestling match against Deatherage’s vengeful cruisers- they’d survived her best before, they could survive this now. He kept it through the long, painstaking process of nursing a damaged ship through the thick, pirate-infested shoals a mere hundred light years from Terminus. At least there they had the sympathy of some of the stranger, alien tribes of the Nation, who had no love for the technocrats and appreciated the Scumdoggians’ rough jest of stealing a great ship from under their very noses.
Location: Scumdogia
Very Hard Weeks Later
Akhlut wrote:
“Oh! You fucking bohabs! You've done it! You fucking did it! Ha ha ha! Wonderful! I'll honor you and this momentous occasion, Bernardo, by naming this ship the Sexecutioner! Now! A celebratory orgy and gladiator fight!”
Son of a bitch... thought Bernardo. Really? Naming it after himself? After all the shit we went through to get it? Motherfucker.
This space dedicated to Vasily Arkhipov
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Darkevilme
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1514
- Joined: 2007-06-12 02:27pm
- Location: London, england
- Contact:
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Vault eleven, lunar complex Beneficence, Chamarran Hierarchy space, a few months before game start
“What am I looking at...or more accurately, not looking at?” Melia asked turning to the other feline on the gantry. She wasn't sure which unnerved her more, the object inside the containment chamber or Shiran standing next to her. Sure when she looked at Shiran her eyes didn't desperately try to drift onto something more comprehensible, but she didn't find herself speculating what the object thought of her as it looked back at her.
“The future of our species. Godhood, powers of a scope beyond your comprehension.”
“Again but without the flowery language Shiran, what am I looking at?”
“An entity from beyond our reality. You are quite correct in surmising you cannot look at it and perceive it. A sad fact of our human inheritance which we are yet to out grow renders our minds incapable of processing information on the entity before us with the exception of generalities.”
“Okay, it's not from around here and when I look directly at it I see something else. Why do we have it and more importantly why does this facility have a budget of several billion mou in order to contain it.”
“I take it that pure scientific curiousity will not suffice as a reason. This being gives us a glimpse into realities our creators could not even dream about. We acquired it through one of our early dimensional rebound experiments where the cargo was lost.”
“Our creators also dream about our destruction or enslavement. We have rather more pressing uses for the resources allocated to this facility than 'pure scientific curiousity' Shiran. And considering your claim this entity is beyond our comprehension I question whether even scientific curiousity is meaningful in this case.”
“We are in the process of creating a chain of thinking engines that will be able to decipher the entities's properties. But this is not a purely scientific endeavour.”
“I'm glad to hear it. Now, get to the point where you justify your budget Shiran.”
“The entity is a being of immense power but is currently curtailed from using its power by its comatose state. We speculate that this is because our reality is as incomprehensible to the entity as it is to us and the overload of un-process-able stimuli has forced the entity into its current state. Alternately it may simply have been the shock of transition into our reality during the original experiment over one hundred years ago.”
“Get to the point. Shiran.”
“We believe that while the entity lacks volition of its own attuning suitable minds to it will allow us to direct its potency where we require. Thus finally providing a counter to supernormal talents possessed by Father-kind.”
“You mean to tell me you plan to take a chamarran and link her mind to a sleeping monster from another dimension so she can harness its power? And you believe this to be a safe course of action?”
“Of course not, uncertainty is always present at the frontier of knowledge. Precautions have been taken, but the Hierarchy requires a means by which to not be outmatched by League or Haruhist paranormalists. Necessity for the greatest of rewards requires risk. Also, the die has already been cast. The first of test subjects will be awakening soon. ”
“And you had orders from Naya to go this far?”
“We had an arrangement, one I hope to have renewed upon your sister's coronation.”
“I want reports in future Shiran. I don't care what arrangement you had, you answer to me and my sister if you want to continue these experiments.”
“...As you wish. But do not seek to pull this leash too hard mistress, I would hate for the future of our race to slip from my grasp.”
“You assume you hold it. Let us hope you can live up to your boast.”
Melia replied and turned back to the containment vessel.
“And that it is in fact a bright future you hold for us.”
...
“What am I looking at...or more accurately, not looking at?” Melia asked turning to the other feline on the gantry. She wasn't sure which unnerved her more, the object inside the containment chamber or Shiran standing next to her. Sure when she looked at Shiran her eyes didn't desperately try to drift onto something more comprehensible, but she didn't find herself speculating what the object thought of her as it looked back at her.
“The future of our species. Godhood, powers of a scope beyond your comprehension.”
“Again but without the flowery language Shiran, what am I looking at?”
“An entity from beyond our reality. You are quite correct in surmising you cannot look at it and perceive it. A sad fact of our human inheritance which we are yet to out grow renders our minds incapable of processing information on the entity before us with the exception of generalities.”
“Okay, it's not from around here and when I look directly at it I see something else. Why do we have it and more importantly why does this facility have a budget of several billion mou in order to contain it.”
“I take it that pure scientific curiousity will not suffice as a reason. This being gives us a glimpse into realities our creators could not even dream about. We acquired it through one of our early dimensional rebound experiments where the cargo was lost.”
“Our creators also dream about our destruction or enslavement. We have rather more pressing uses for the resources allocated to this facility than 'pure scientific curiousity' Shiran. And considering your claim this entity is beyond our comprehension I question whether even scientific curiousity is meaningful in this case.”
“We are in the process of creating a chain of thinking engines that will be able to decipher the entities's properties. But this is not a purely scientific endeavour.”
“I'm glad to hear it. Now, get to the point where you justify your budget Shiran.”
“The entity is a being of immense power but is currently curtailed from using its power by its comatose state. We speculate that this is because our reality is as incomprehensible to the entity as it is to us and the overload of un-process-able stimuli has forced the entity into its current state. Alternately it may simply have been the shock of transition into our reality during the original experiment over one hundred years ago.”
“Get to the point. Shiran.”
“We believe that while the entity lacks volition of its own attuning suitable minds to it will allow us to direct its potency where we require. Thus finally providing a counter to supernormal talents possessed by Father-kind.”
“You mean to tell me you plan to take a chamarran and link her mind to a sleeping monster from another dimension so she can harness its power? And you believe this to be a safe course of action?”
“Of course not, uncertainty is always present at the frontier of knowledge. Precautions have been taken, but the Hierarchy requires a means by which to not be outmatched by League or Haruhist paranormalists. Necessity for the greatest of rewards requires risk. Also, the die has already been cast. The first of test subjects will be awakening soon. ”
“And you had orders from Naya to go this far?”
“We had an arrangement, one I hope to have renewed upon your sister's coronation.”
“I want reports in future Shiran. I don't care what arrangement you had, you answer to me and my sister if you want to continue these experiments.”
“...As you wish. But do not seek to pull this leash too hard mistress, I would hate for the future of our race to slip from my grasp.”
“You assume you hold it. Let us hope you can live up to your boast.”
Melia replied and turned back to the containment vessel.
“And that it is in fact a bright future you hold for us.”
...
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Darkevilme
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1514
- Joined: 2007-06-12 02:27pm
- Location: London, england
- Contact:
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Written with White Haven
Descent towards Charros II,
Crusade era, year 2 Chamarran Common Era
“So what do you think their deal is?” Dess asked over the rumble of the dropship aero-braking.
“Survivalist hardcore individualists maybe, or hermits. Doesn't matter though, drone overflight didn't see any weapons so this should be an easy drop for once.” the Pack's leader replied with an encouraging smile.
“Speaking of the last drop, surprised you didn't volunteer for garrison duty Dess to stick with your monkey toy.” one of the warriors jested.
“S'not my style to call twice.” Dess replied.
“Did you even get permission though? I mean I know you skipped out on last drop's language orientation and I'm pretty sure it didn't cover 'drop your pants lets get busy' as one of the phrases and we were sorta still fighting and all.” the warrior replied before getting a flick in the ear from behind.
“As if you were paying any attention. You were yelling for the monkeys to drop their younglings and they would not be harmed.” The interjecting warrior quipped.
“They got the point though. Anyway did ya get permission Dess?”
“Course, he got it up didn't he..”
“I'm pretty sure that's not all there is to it. Just don't be pouncing any monkeys this drop, sure we could give you privacy but there's a lot of ground to cover.”
Lial leant back and zoned her packsisters out at that point as her mind cast back to the last drop.
The sky was overcast and gloomy, but the rubble strewn street was lit by the lingering fox fire of a beam cannon strike. Lial and the others were performing a final sweep to find any stragglers or militants. With the hover drones drifting up the avenues repeating their mantras the only humans who'd still be outside the holding zones would be those who wouldn't or couldn't go there. It wasn't Lial's first drop but nevertheless as they passed the impact site her pace slowed and she looked upon the devastation, the blast had gutted the building from roof to basement and peeled its walls outwards like the skin of a banana. The sparks of foxfire drifting up from the crater juxtaposing beauty amidst the ruin. It was then she heard the voice, pleading and pitiable. She didn't understand the words but as she approached the girl she didn't need to, a mere human kitten pulling on the hand of her mother oblivious to both the lifeless limb she's holding or the weight of rubble that trapped her parent.
For a moment Lial wondered who to blame. Was it the humans for their futile and disorganized resistance, for their establishing this building as a strong point without moving people clear of it? Or was it her own kind on the ships above who had called down the fires of heaven to obliterate the building and cast debris across their surroundings. But all those things ceased to matter as the girl looked up. It was hard to look into those eyes and see the Monster that is Man, The Unworthy Tyrant.. She reached out her hand...
“Alright mask up. We're over our drop!” the pack leader yells and Lial was brought jarringly back to the present. In seconds her and her packsisters became anonymous, white masks covering their faces as they trooped to the hatch. Lial looked over the edge at the ground passing by below a moment, one last drop.
She pitched herself over the edge and the air shimmered around her, the ground coming up to meet her assuming a less hurried approach as the bubble of her shield left her beguilingly light. To her left and right Dess and Aina her packmates were drifting down to the ground with her.
“Hey Lial what do you think made all these craters?”
“Not sure, could be periodic meteor showers maybe.” Lial said though Kess didn’t even need to glance to see that her packmate wasn’t sure of that theory. After all these craters were all different angles and some were awfully narrow.
“Cut the chatter. Monkey over the ridge from us.” Aina interjected and gestured for the others to join her going up over the ridge line. Kess paused at the catching sight of the boy in the field below “You’re sure we couldn’t delay just a bit Aina? He’s a ripe one.”
“Nya, insatiable tigress.. Let me handle this, Lial you cover us.” Aina commanded with an ear flick and advanced on the boy who had already begun to take notice of them
“Alright Monkey, lets see how many languages we have to use till we hit upon one you understand.” she said and then switched languages “Human, your subjugation is at hand. Place your hands on your head and submit to your new masters and you will not be harmed.”
It took a moment for anything resembling coherent thought to recoalesce between Lial’s ears, shock and momentary panic fading replaced by the sensation of rough hewn obsidian at her back and the thrum of her interface bracelet warning her that her personal shield is not in good shape. She raises one hand to the stuff obscuring one of her mask’s eyeholes and her fingers come away bloody. What had he done...he’d just...and then Kess had just...
Think!
The boy is the enemy, know your enemy, defeat your enemy.
Lial looked over the obsidian crater lip as her bracelet ceased vibrating, the boy was still roughly where she’d last seen him, halfway to his knees in the bloody dirt. She fires, another beam to test him. The beam fractured into a thousand shards in the air in front of him, same as before. She ducks down before there’s a thump and obsidian pebbles rain down on her.
Okay, limited mobility, unknown defensive capabilities...attack hits with less force the further away I am from him. Maybe he can only defend against one direction at a time though...
Lial unholstered a Buzzbomb and tapped it thrice, then rose up from behind the crater edge in a fluid twist that set the buzzbomb flying in arc off to one side. After that she had her beam rifle to her shoulder and let the boy have it, beams fracturing in the air in front of him. Lial not relenting as a blast of his retaliation sets her shield alert going again and sends splinters of obsidian through her skinsuit. So long as his attention is on her, so long as he can’t think about that buzzing disc that was flying a long circuit behind him.
The disc that now banked hard and flew inwards towards the boy from behind.
This was no longer Kelvan trying to slip away from Cruciero’s goons. It had never been that, although it almost took the sixteen-year-old a fatally-long time to realize that and adjust. He’d felt presences, vague and misty in his murky Sight, and no one but Cruciero had managed to hold a gang together this long, so a group meant Cruciero. Still, a group was easier to spot, and Kelvan huddled down between a few low mounds of shattered stone, focusing on minimizing his own psychic presence. He didn’t realize in time that the minds moving closer to his hiding-spot were falling, and barely any of the exiles could fly...
A gabble of unknown languages preceded a squadron of blatantly-inhuman figures appearing above the ridgeline. Several unknown weapons angled down the slope at the suddenly-exposed teenager. He froze, staring up at them, his mind racing.
Not Cruciero. Not here to kill either, at least not automatically, I’d be dead. Guns--ships? I could leave!
And then one of them hit on a language with enough in common with the League’s polyglot that the teenager picked up all the words he never wanted to hear. Subjugation. Hands on head. Masters.
Masters.
Kelvan, who in better days might have become a part of Cool Thoughts, or even a Warmind, screamed. Pebbles exploded outwards away from his hiding-place in rippling fans. Larger stones grumbled and shifted as vorticies of force slammed into them, the ground undulating beneath his feet. And the aliens, the invaders, those who would enslave him and Cruciero and everyone else here went flying, the lucky ones just scattered and pummeled, the less-fortunate squeezed and twisted and deposited on the loose obsidian as broken, dying wrecks. The howl raced outwards into the mid-afternoon light, carrying with it a fragmentary image seen from Kelvan’s eyes, pain, and a warning.
Kelvan himself lay half-buried in shifting stone and earth, barely-able to manage a shield when one of the aliens opened fire with an energy weapon of some sort. Wavering patterns of light and spalls of blackness competed inside his head, the backlash of a psychic manifestation that dramatic, that sudden, that unpracticed. He never even heard the low, buzzing hiss of the explosive circling around behind him until its kiss brought a moment of hot pain, then finally cool oblivion.
Dark, purring snarls answered his death-scream, only audible to the sixteen-year-old children awakened to the threat by the slaying of one of their own.
Some League subcultures make an effort to take fairly ‘normal’ names, trying to tie themselves down to a human culture in the hopes that they’ll be able to understand and emulate it. Others, however, take on more descriptive names, often changing in life as the individual him or herself goes through major, life-changing events. Lens of Wrath was one of the latter, properly identifying herself through a mind-glyph rather than anything spoken. She was the senior Murderous Rage representative on duty at the rimward command center when the report came in.
Incursion.
A small force, but an incursion on one of the exile worlds. A quick check of a record gave a number. Sixteen. The survivors there would be sixteen, still at least a year from being picked up again. And someone, someone unknown from the report, was on their way straight there.
There were situations that demanded measured responses, or carefully-coordinated actions. This was not among them. Lens of Wrath hammered a broad red button on her watch station, bells hammering throughout the base for the benefit of those members of Murderous Rage who were functionally non-telepaths. Within seconds, the empathic atmosphere of the base was heavy with clouding hatred.
Within the hour, ships began to pour forth from the base, battered freighters, the occasional passenger liner. As one, they shone with a peculiar intensity on sufficiently-sophisticated sensors, radiating energy out into the void far more than their humble equipment would suggest.
“This is Dropship nine to all units, humans are not defenceless! repeat humans are not defenceless, consider all humans armed and extremely dangerous. A general regroup has been ordered, fall back towards our location.”
Bit late to tell us late, far too late for Dess and Aina Lial finished her appraisal of the dead and took stock of her situation: One warrior, alone and well armed, versus several kilometers of broken terrain infested with enraged godlike superhumans.
‘Least Dess and Aina left her as many buzzbombs as she can carry.
Lial set off towards the sound of gunfire, the soaring contrails of missiles serving to mark her destination as they arc up and then arrow down to be followed seconds later by the sound of thunder. The craters all made sense now, the shelters and blast marks an indication that these humans held as little love for eachother as they did for those now intruding on their world.
There was a sudden roaring sound as Lial entered the next valley and Lial nyah’d as she leapt aside to take shelter behind a rock. The air where she stood but a moment ago reeking and roiling with volcanic superheat. Another one? why’d it have to be another! Lial peeked past the rock. She got but a glimpse before another roaring blast came and forced her back behind cover.
Another three? what am i going to do against three
Lial got out another buzzbomb, ignoring the sensation of heat radiating from the stone boulder at her back.
Well it worked before
She rose to her feet and threw, arcing the buzzbomb out to seek and destroy.
There was another roaring blast and an explosion, her bracelet vibrated softly as fragments scattered against her shield.
But it won’t work now
Lial tried to snap some shots out from behind the rock, there was another roaring blast, she made an attempt to run for the entrance to the last canyon, there was another roaring blast, she threw a second buzzbomb, roaring blast.
Lial slumped behind the rock hearing laughter from the valley, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t escape, she was like a rat in a cage and she didn’t like the feeling. She heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Why’d this have to be her last drop. Her hand creeps to a familiar object...
“So all it takes is one injection” Lial asked.
“One injection and a few months, the retrovirus will integrate the Chamarran genetic template into any human.” came the reply followed up with “You have cleared this with your clan matriarch yes? We came to subjugate mankind not adopt them as our own.”
“Let me worry about that, I’ve paid in full your responsibility ends the moment you hand me that vial.” Lial said
The boy looked down at her, she could see the sick amusement in his eyes as he stood there atop the rock with one hand shimmering hot and ready to end the life of this frightened feline.
NO!
Everything seemed to move so slowly as Lial unfurled, springing upwards as the boy’s eyes widened in surprise, and then fear. Lial’s master knife gleaming in the light suddenly in her hand as she comes at him.
The knife connects, the force of it nearly enough to knock him free of his perch but not enough to stop him seeking to retaliate. That shimmering fist swinging at Lial’s head to incinerate her, only to be met by her open palm. Lial feels her biot glands contract as she contracts her hand around his, burning muscles still able to exert enough force to grind bone against bone and as Lial looks into the boy’s eyes she sees the agony grow within them.
But she is merciful, the knife slashes upwards and free of his torso in another instant. The feline warrior reversing grip and then thrusting on upwards, the blade cutting through tongue and palate and bone and finally brain to end his torment.
Lial slipped the blade free, and let the boy fall. She stood alone on the rock, snarling down at the two who remained. She motions dismissively with her bloodied knife, a splatter of brainmatter hitting one of the boys in the face..and they ran.
Lial didn’t wait for the boys to remember courage, the moment they were out of sight she set off at a run towards the dropship cradling her ruined hand. It wasn’t a pleasant sight though there was no pain, her glands saw to that, she’d have the use of her hand back once she had a chance to regenerate. But till she did there was the fact she couldn’t properly aim a beam rifle one handed.
…
“This is dropship 9, Lightbringer has inbound ships on hyperscope and is calling for full withdrawal. Launch is in five minutes.”
The announcement hadn’t made Lial run any faster, her biot glands were contracting all the faster to prevent her heeding the build up of fatigue poisons in her legs. She knew at this rate she’d be facing everything this drop had put her through without the aid of pain relief in a few minutes, but it didn’t matter..she had to get to the dropship, all that had changed with the announcement was why.
The dropship was in sight, a sculpted fortress that commanded the land around with beam and missile while rebuffing the superhuman assaults with force shields.
She was still running when she reached the edge of the curtain shield, the scorching sensation as she leapt through without waiting for an opening didn’t trouble her any with her bloodstream saturated with biot juice. And now the dropship loomed above her and welcomed her, safety in the form of an armoured shell. A safe few had made it to; Lial saw many empty areas aboard where comrades and sisters in battle had rode less than an hour before.
“This is dropship 9, launch in ten seconds, transferring power to antigravity generators.”
Retreating from untrained teenages, no matter their individual abilities, is a relatively simple task in almost any conceivable case. The invaders’ dropships, some sporting a broad panoply of damage, some untouched, streaked for the heavens with an impressive variety of manifestations of psychic force chasing them up and away. One, however, began to launch...and then slammed to a sudden half, engines at full burn, the spaceframe beginning to buck and shudder and flex as boosters thunder against something far more than simple gravity. The stony ground beneath the arrested ship began to undulate and shiver as if suffering from an impossibly-localized earthquake.
Between the two, a lone figure crouched on the ground, one knee pressed to the earth, head and torso bowed forwards, muscular arms stretched upwards and outwards as if gripping the trapped dropship. More sophisticated sensors could easily reveal the thick layers of improbable force rising up to shroud the landing craft and plunging into the earth below, melding them into a cohesive whole that represents far more than the dropship’s engines are rated to lift. Beamfire from swivel turrets splintered and bent in midair, at first just on the youth’s own shielding, then on that of a bare few others emerging from the broken terrain to lend their efforts to his defense.
Dropship nine
“This is Lightbringer to dropship nine, we are commencing burn to break orbit. Be advised interception window closes in three minutes.”
Kyral snarled, at the controls at the announcement, at the bastard Fatherkind whelps who were restraining her craft and the escape of her and all her passengers.
“This is dropship nine, we will not be making intercept..prepare for bounceport evacuation of remaining personnel.” Kyral replied and then switched from orbital to internal communications.
“Ready the bounce port Ammi and get everyone prepared.” she said before snarling anew as she slewed the dropship around to counteract an effort by one of their attackers. Bastards had been trying to roll her over..
“Kyral, we can’t get a lock onto the Lucifer. Whatever they’re using to hold us here is putting too much interference on the U and K bands.”
Kyral glared at the speaker for a moment as Ammi’s voice finished conveying the news. They couldn’t pull away, and even if they did there wasn’t enough fuel in the dropships tanks to match velocities with the Lightbringer once it got under way.
There was one and only one chance.
“Ammi, transfer all power to bounceport. We’ll have one chance to punch through the interference...and Ammi, don’t wait up for me when you get a lock.”
“..Understood, good luck.”
The dropship’s guns went silent, its shields evaporated and its full weight returned as all power was channeled into the bounceport. Passengers and crew watched anxiously as Ammi wrestled with the convergence indicators, then fearfully as the dropship started to lurch and fall.
Kyral tried her best to control the descent as the dropship started to come apart, never meant to handle the stress as engines fought their losing battle with psychic power and gravity. The barriers of energy that had warded off the brunt of the psychic assault now in their absence did nothing to abate the full fury of their anger. Hull plates started to buckle and tear loose, beam cannons twisted and crumpled as paranormal forces grasped and pummeled the vessel.
“We’ve got a lock, everyone out now!”
Even in the midst of seeing her beloved craft come apart around her, Kyral smiled.
You can take us, but you can’t take our cargo!
And now that you have us? now what?
Kyral’s smile grew feral, the dropship tumbled and burned towards the ground below.
This!
Kyral pressed one final button to let another emergency alarm join the cacophony that was the dropship’s death cries. The neko pilot leaned back to watch the sky and ground whirl switching places beyond the glass.
Nothing more to do now, just sit back, relax and...
The dropship hit the ground and the world turned white. A fusion reactor is a terrible thing to waste and with no safeties there was nothing to stop this one being put to one final use.
HSF Lightbringer
Lial watched the vidscreen and looked up to the tech kitty she’d followed through the bounceport. She looked back to the screen and wondered why she had no tears of her own for her comrades who had died down there.
The explosion receded quickly, and the planet soon after as the destroyer accelerated away from that ill fortuned world. Lial could only hope for those who still had battles left to be fought that no others would be fought here. Whoever these strange humans were, they were clearly unlike the humans we had come here to subjugate.
Descent towards Charros II,
Crusade era, year 2 Chamarran Common Era
“So what do you think their deal is?” Dess asked over the rumble of the dropship aero-braking.
“Survivalist hardcore individualists maybe, or hermits. Doesn't matter though, drone overflight didn't see any weapons so this should be an easy drop for once.” the Pack's leader replied with an encouraging smile.
“Speaking of the last drop, surprised you didn't volunteer for garrison duty Dess to stick with your monkey toy.” one of the warriors jested.
“S'not my style to call twice.” Dess replied.
“Did you even get permission though? I mean I know you skipped out on last drop's language orientation and I'm pretty sure it didn't cover 'drop your pants lets get busy' as one of the phrases and we were sorta still fighting and all.” the warrior replied before getting a flick in the ear from behind.
“As if you were paying any attention. You were yelling for the monkeys to drop their younglings and they would not be harmed.” The interjecting warrior quipped.
“They got the point though. Anyway did ya get permission Dess?”
“Course, he got it up didn't he..”
“I'm pretty sure that's not all there is to it. Just don't be pouncing any monkeys this drop, sure we could give you privacy but there's a lot of ground to cover.”
Lial leant back and zoned her packsisters out at that point as her mind cast back to the last drop.
The sky was overcast and gloomy, but the rubble strewn street was lit by the lingering fox fire of a beam cannon strike. Lial and the others were performing a final sweep to find any stragglers or militants. With the hover drones drifting up the avenues repeating their mantras the only humans who'd still be outside the holding zones would be those who wouldn't or couldn't go there. It wasn't Lial's first drop but nevertheless as they passed the impact site her pace slowed and she looked upon the devastation, the blast had gutted the building from roof to basement and peeled its walls outwards like the skin of a banana. The sparks of foxfire drifting up from the crater juxtaposing beauty amidst the ruin. It was then she heard the voice, pleading and pitiable. She didn't understand the words but as she approached the girl she didn't need to, a mere human kitten pulling on the hand of her mother oblivious to both the lifeless limb she's holding or the weight of rubble that trapped her parent.
For a moment Lial wondered who to blame. Was it the humans for their futile and disorganized resistance, for their establishing this building as a strong point without moving people clear of it? Or was it her own kind on the ships above who had called down the fires of heaven to obliterate the building and cast debris across their surroundings. But all those things ceased to matter as the girl looked up. It was hard to look into those eyes and see the Monster that is Man, The Unworthy Tyrant.. She reached out her hand...
“Alright mask up. We're over our drop!” the pack leader yells and Lial was brought jarringly back to the present. In seconds her and her packsisters became anonymous, white masks covering their faces as they trooped to the hatch. Lial looked over the edge at the ground passing by below a moment, one last drop.
She pitched herself over the edge and the air shimmered around her, the ground coming up to meet her assuming a less hurried approach as the bubble of her shield left her beguilingly light. To her left and right Dess and Aina her packmates were drifting down to the ground with her.
“Hey Lial what do you think made all these craters?”
“Not sure, could be periodic meteor showers maybe.” Lial said though Kess didn’t even need to glance to see that her packmate wasn’t sure of that theory. After all these craters were all different angles and some were awfully narrow.
“Cut the chatter. Monkey over the ridge from us.” Aina interjected and gestured for the others to join her going up over the ridge line. Kess paused at the catching sight of the boy in the field below “You’re sure we couldn’t delay just a bit Aina? He’s a ripe one.”
“Nya, insatiable tigress.. Let me handle this, Lial you cover us.” Aina commanded with an ear flick and advanced on the boy who had already begun to take notice of them
“Alright Monkey, lets see how many languages we have to use till we hit upon one you understand.” she said and then switched languages “Human, your subjugation is at hand. Place your hands on your head and submit to your new masters and you will not be harmed.”
It took a moment for anything resembling coherent thought to recoalesce between Lial’s ears, shock and momentary panic fading replaced by the sensation of rough hewn obsidian at her back and the thrum of her interface bracelet warning her that her personal shield is not in good shape. She raises one hand to the stuff obscuring one of her mask’s eyeholes and her fingers come away bloody. What had he done...he’d just...and then Kess had just...
Think!
The boy is the enemy, know your enemy, defeat your enemy.
Lial looked over the obsidian crater lip as her bracelet ceased vibrating, the boy was still roughly where she’d last seen him, halfway to his knees in the bloody dirt. She fires, another beam to test him. The beam fractured into a thousand shards in the air in front of him, same as before. She ducks down before there’s a thump and obsidian pebbles rain down on her.
Okay, limited mobility, unknown defensive capabilities...attack hits with less force the further away I am from him. Maybe he can only defend against one direction at a time though...
Lial unholstered a Buzzbomb and tapped it thrice, then rose up from behind the crater edge in a fluid twist that set the buzzbomb flying in arc off to one side. After that she had her beam rifle to her shoulder and let the boy have it, beams fracturing in the air in front of him. Lial not relenting as a blast of his retaliation sets her shield alert going again and sends splinters of obsidian through her skinsuit. So long as his attention is on her, so long as he can’t think about that buzzing disc that was flying a long circuit behind him.
The disc that now banked hard and flew inwards towards the boy from behind.
This was no longer Kelvan trying to slip away from Cruciero’s goons. It had never been that, although it almost took the sixteen-year-old a fatally-long time to realize that and adjust. He’d felt presences, vague and misty in his murky Sight, and no one but Cruciero had managed to hold a gang together this long, so a group meant Cruciero. Still, a group was easier to spot, and Kelvan huddled down between a few low mounds of shattered stone, focusing on minimizing his own psychic presence. He didn’t realize in time that the minds moving closer to his hiding-spot were falling, and barely any of the exiles could fly...
A gabble of unknown languages preceded a squadron of blatantly-inhuman figures appearing above the ridgeline. Several unknown weapons angled down the slope at the suddenly-exposed teenager. He froze, staring up at them, his mind racing.
Not Cruciero. Not here to kill either, at least not automatically, I’d be dead. Guns--ships? I could leave!
And then one of them hit on a language with enough in common with the League’s polyglot that the teenager picked up all the words he never wanted to hear. Subjugation. Hands on head. Masters.
Masters.
Kelvan, who in better days might have become a part of Cool Thoughts, or even a Warmind, screamed. Pebbles exploded outwards away from his hiding-place in rippling fans. Larger stones grumbled and shifted as vorticies of force slammed into them, the ground undulating beneath his feet. And the aliens, the invaders, those who would enslave him and Cruciero and everyone else here went flying, the lucky ones just scattered and pummeled, the less-fortunate squeezed and twisted and deposited on the loose obsidian as broken, dying wrecks. The howl raced outwards into the mid-afternoon light, carrying with it a fragmentary image seen from Kelvan’s eyes, pain, and a warning.
Kelvan himself lay half-buried in shifting stone and earth, barely-able to manage a shield when one of the aliens opened fire with an energy weapon of some sort. Wavering patterns of light and spalls of blackness competed inside his head, the backlash of a psychic manifestation that dramatic, that sudden, that unpracticed. He never even heard the low, buzzing hiss of the explosive circling around behind him until its kiss brought a moment of hot pain, then finally cool oblivion.
Dark, purring snarls answered his death-scream, only audible to the sixteen-year-old children awakened to the threat by the slaying of one of their own.
Some League subcultures make an effort to take fairly ‘normal’ names, trying to tie themselves down to a human culture in the hopes that they’ll be able to understand and emulate it. Others, however, take on more descriptive names, often changing in life as the individual him or herself goes through major, life-changing events. Lens of Wrath was one of the latter, properly identifying herself through a mind-glyph rather than anything spoken. She was the senior Murderous Rage representative on duty at the rimward command center when the report came in.
Incursion.
A small force, but an incursion on one of the exile worlds. A quick check of a record gave a number. Sixteen. The survivors there would be sixteen, still at least a year from being picked up again. And someone, someone unknown from the report, was on their way straight there.
There were situations that demanded measured responses, or carefully-coordinated actions. This was not among them. Lens of Wrath hammered a broad red button on her watch station, bells hammering throughout the base for the benefit of those members of Murderous Rage who were functionally non-telepaths. Within seconds, the empathic atmosphere of the base was heavy with clouding hatred.
Within the hour, ships began to pour forth from the base, battered freighters, the occasional passenger liner. As one, they shone with a peculiar intensity on sufficiently-sophisticated sensors, radiating energy out into the void far more than their humble equipment would suggest.
“This is Dropship nine to all units, humans are not defenceless! repeat humans are not defenceless, consider all humans armed and extremely dangerous. A general regroup has been ordered, fall back towards our location.”
Bit late to tell us late, far too late for Dess and Aina Lial finished her appraisal of the dead and took stock of her situation: One warrior, alone and well armed, versus several kilometers of broken terrain infested with enraged godlike superhumans.
‘Least Dess and Aina left her as many buzzbombs as she can carry.
Lial set off towards the sound of gunfire, the soaring contrails of missiles serving to mark her destination as they arc up and then arrow down to be followed seconds later by the sound of thunder. The craters all made sense now, the shelters and blast marks an indication that these humans held as little love for eachother as they did for those now intruding on their world.
There was a sudden roaring sound as Lial entered the next valley and Lial nyah’d as she leapt aside to take shelter behind a rock. The air where she stood but a moment ago reeking and roiling with volcanic superheat. Another one? why’d it have to be another! Lial peeked past the rock. She got but a glimpse before another roaring blast came and forced her back behind cover.
Another three? what am i going to do against three
Lial got out another buzzbomb, ignoring the sensation of heat radiating from the stone boulder at her back.
Well it worked before
She rose to her feet and threw, arcing the buzzbomb out to seek and destroy.
There was another roaring blast and an explosion, her bracelet vibrated softly as fragments scattered against her shield.
But it won’t work now
Lial tried to snap some shots out from behind the rock, there was another roaring blast, she made an attempt to run for the entrance to the last canyon, there was another roaring blast, she threw a second buzzbomb, roaring blast.
Lial slumped behind the rock hearing laughter from the valley, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t escape, she was like a rat in a cage and she didn’t like the feeling. She heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Why’d this have to be her last drop. Her hand creeps to a familiar object...
“So all it takes is one injection” Lial asked.
“One injection and a few months, the retrovirus will integrate the Chamarran genetic template into any human.” came the reply followed up with “You have cleared this with your clan matriarch yes? We came to subjugate mankind not adopt them as our own.”
“Let me worry about that, I’ve paid in full your responsibility ends the moment you hand me that vial.” Lial said
The boy looked down at her, she could see the sick amusement in his eyes as he stood there atop the rock with one hand shimmering hot and ready to end the life of this frightened feline.
NO!
Everything seemed to move so slowly as Lial unfurled, springing upwards as the boy’s eyes widened in surprise, and then fear. Lial’s master knife gleaming in the light suddenly in her hand as she comes at him.
The knife connects, the force of it nearly enough to knock him free of his perch but not enough to stop him seeking to retaliate. That shimmering fist swinging at Lial’s head to incinerate her, only to be met by her open palm. Lial feels her biot glands contract as she contracts her hand around his, burning muscles still able to exert enough force to grind bone against bone and as Lial looks into the boy’s eyes she sees the agony grow within them.
But she is merciful, the knife slashes upwards and free of his torso in another instant. The feline warrior reversing grip and then thrusting on upwards, the blade cutting through tongue and palate and bone and finally brain to end his torment.
Lial slipped the blade free, and let the boy fall. She stood alone on the rock, snarling down at the two who remained. She motions dismissively with her bloodied knife, a splatter of brainmatter hitting one of the boys in the face..and they ran.
Lial didn’t wait for the boys to remember courage, the moment they were out of sight she set off at a run towards the dropship cradling her ruined hand. It wasn’t a pleasant sight though there was no pain, her glands saw to that, she’d have the use of her hand back once she had a chance to regenerate. But till she did there was the fact she couldn’t properly aim a beam rifle one handed.
…
“This is dropship 9, Lightbringer has inbound ships on hyperscope and is calling for full withdrawal. Launch is in five minutes.”
The announcement hadn’t made Lial run any faster, her biot glands were contracting all the faster to prevent her heeding the build up of fatigue poisons in her legs. She knew at this rate she’d be facing everything this drop had put her through without the aid of pain relief in a few minutes, but it didn’t matter..she had to get to the dropship, all that had changed with the announcement was why.
The dropship was in sight, a sculpted fortress that commanded the land around with beam and missile while rebuffing the superhuman assaults with force shields.
She was still running when she reached the edge of the curtain shield, the scorching sensation as she leapt through without waiting for an opening didn’t trouble her any with her bloodstream saturated with biot juice. And now the dropship loomed above her and welcomed her, safety in the form of an armoured shell. A safe few had made it to; Lial saw many empty areas aboard where comrades and sisters in battle had rode less than an hour before.
“This is dropship 9, launch in ten seconds, transferring power to antigravity generators.”
Retreating from untrained teenages, no matter their individual abilities, is a relatively simple task in almost any conceivable case. The invaders’ dropships, some sporting a broad panoply of damage, some untouched, streaked for the heavens with an impressive variety of manifestations of psychic force chasing them up and away. One, however, began to launch...and then slammed to a sudden half, engines at full burn, the spaceframe beginning to buck and shudder and flex as boosters thunder against something far more than simple gravity. The stony ground beneath the arrested ship began to undulate and shiver as if suffering from an impossibly-localized earthquake.
Between the two, a lone figure crouched on the ground, one knee pressed to the earth, head and torso bowed forwards, muscular arms stretched upwards and outwards as if gripping the trapped dropship. More sophisticated sensors could easily reveal the thick layers of improbable force rising up to shroud the landing craft and plunging into the earth below, melding them into a cohesive whole that represents far more than the dropship’s engines are rated to lift. Beamfire from swivel turrets splintered and bent in midair, at first just on the youth’s own shielding, then on that of a bare few others emerging from the broken terrain to lend their efforts to his defense.
Dropship nine
“This is Lightbringer to dropship nine, we are commencing burn to break orbit. Be advised interception window closes in three minutes.”
Kyral snarled, at the controls at the announcement, at the bastard Fatherkind whelps who were restraining her craft and the escape of her and all her passengers.
“This is dropship nine, we will not be making intercept..prepare for bounceport evacuation of remaining personnel.” Kyral replied and then switched from orbital to internal communications.
“Ready the bounce port Ammi and get everyone prepared.” she said before snarling anew as she slewed the dropship around to counteract an effort by one of their attackers. Bastards had been trying to roll her over..
“Kyral, we can’t get a lock onto the Lucifer. Whatever they’re using to hold us here is putting too much interference on the U and K bands.”
Kyral glared at the speaker for a moment as Ammi’s voice finished conveying the news. They couldn’t pull away, and even if they did there wasn’t enough fuel in the dropships tanks to match velocities with the Lightbringer once it got under way.
There was one and only one chance.
“Ammi, transfer all power to bounceport. We’ll have one chance to punch through the interference...and Ammi, don’t wait up for me when you get a lock.”
“..Understood, good luck.”
The dropship’s guns went silent, its shields evaporated and its full weight returned as all power was channeled into the bounceport. Passengers and crew watched anxiously as Ammi wrestled with the convergence indicators, then fearfully as the dropship started to lurch and fall.
Kyral tried her best to control the descent as the dropship started to come apart, never meant to handle the stress as engines fought their losing battle with psychic power and gravity. The barriers of energy that had warded off the brunt of the psychic assault now in their absence did nothing to abate the full fury of their anger. Hull plates started to buckle and tear loose, beam cannons twisted and crumpled as paranormal forces grasped and pummeled the vessel.
“We’ve got a lock, everyone out now!”
Even in the midst of seeing her beloved craft come apart around her, Kyral smiled.
You can take us, but you can’t take our cargo!
And now that you have us? now what?
Kyral’s smile grew feral, the dropship tumbled and burned towards the ground below.
This!
Kyral pressed one final button to let another emergency alarm join the cacophony that was the dropship’s death cries. The neko pilot leaned back to watch the sky and ground whirl switching places beyond the glass.
Nothing more to do now, just sit back, relax and...
The dropship hit the ground and the world turned white. A fusion reactor is a terrible thing to waste and with no safeties there was nothing to stop this one being put to one final use.
HSF Lightbringer
Lial watched the vidscreen and looked up to the tech kitty she’d followed through the bounceport. She looked back to the screen and wondered why she had no tears of her own for her comrades who had died down there.
The explosion receded quickly, and the planet soon after as the destroyer accelerated away from that ill fortuned world. Lial could only hope for those who still had battles left to be fought that no others would be fought here. Whoever these strange humans were, they were clearly unlike the humans we had come here to subjugate.
Last edited by Darkevilme on 2012-06-16 07:59am, edited 1 time in total.
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Karmic Knight
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1005
- Joined: 2007-04-03 05:42pm
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Multiglobal United ZLC © Runner – Class © Mobile Cargo Container © Copy Protection
34 days before the Game Start
As the final releases on the Copy Protection slowly released, the freedom of open space, without the oppressive silence of deep space, filled Melvin Recesses. He was the current lead caravan ship, and the majority of ships in his caravan were slaved AI ships to him, a handful of human piloted ships and an even lesser amount of ‘free’ AI ships, so Melvin would have quite a bit of time to himself for the trip.
Looking at the outline for the trip, he noticed something that would be catastrophic for his personal moral; the plan would put him in Chi-Sqee-Squeek space during the Millennial. Now, he would thus be far-far away from the parties commemorating one of the most important dates in history.
He thought now about the almost weeklong bender he would be missing through taking this job. Throughout the Millennial Week, celebrations will be held across the Commonwealth, celebrating 1000 years of history. And now Melvin will be missing it.
The Copy Protection was still moving, along with the rest of the caravan and as was Melvin’s patience with the entire trip he had signed on to. He wasn’t going to get his celebratory drink in The Commonwealth and, thinking on it, he wouldn’t have to deal with the Rats damn swill. He’d heard of people acquiring a taste for the shit, but it was not something to celebrate the Millennial to.
The ship slowly exited the final docking locks of the station, setting for the long, boring, and featureless trip to the Chi-Sqee-Squeek.
____________________________________________________________________________
’Great White Shark’ Magu Tapa, Deep Space
‘Special Commander’ Cret Basto looked across the bridge with pride, his father, Ernesto Basto liked to tell him he would never make anything of himself without his influence in the Port Authority, but these, these Great White Sharks of Space that Multiglobal designed, under the very noses of the Port Authority were his pride and joy. These massive ships were mobile enforcers of the Board’s will, referred to in official statements to investors as ‘Great White Sharks’ these mobile battlestations were armed for all types of commercial combat that the enemies of the Board would bring to bear.
Magu Tapa, translated from some pre-Historic language as ‘the cloak of bloodstained scars,’ was an imposing sight in and outside space controlled by Mutliglobal, its numerous heavy weapons could damage both pirate’s nest and enemy combatant, and its compliment of unmanned drones uncountable by the primitive systems of local pirates trembled where they tread.
Basto’s loving monologue was interrupted by a junior officer who said trepidatiously, “‘Special’ Commander, Contact at heading 05.01.02.357.221, hailing under Port Authority distress single 125 – 103, th”
“I know what that distress single means, now, what is it flying under.”
“Port Authority Flag 19-A sir, it appears to be set to flag-itself Blernsballian when it leaves The Commonwealth.”
“Well, 19, a foreign service craft.”
“Foreign Trade Convoy, Sir.”
Basto let his officer stew as he walked from the command trenches to his chair. Regardless, a foreign craft would be quite the feather in his cap to say the least. He let his thoughts settle, as he motioned to give the order to “defend this Foreign Service at all costs.”
________________________________________________________________________________
Recesses watched on his monitors as the ship broadcasting as Magu Tapa, a name only haughty enough for his patron company, began moving to intercept the pirate vessels, he had watched as the pirates had stalked the convoy as it made it further and further towards deep space, presumably piecing together how much intelligence was in the convoy. Recesses would have been offended had he not feared for his life, and the timely announcement from the company, and the presence of the Magu Tapa were the only salves that really did anything to the wounded pride.
The battle began with the company vessel releasing what Recesses could only assume were drones, to engage the pirate vessels. All the while, Recesses noticed that the radio channels, and presumably other channels but he didn’t have anything but radio in his cubby, were blaring bombastic and propagandistic messages recorded by someone who sounded very stupid.
“This is Cret Basto, and you are about to die!”
Was the choice piece, from what Recesses heard. The battle itself was fairly one sided, after a single coordinated pass, the Pirates dispersed under the assault of the drones. As the drones mopped up the remaining pirates, his radio crackled as Basto’s voice returned.
“Foreign Service Vessels, remember, when you return from your far off land, to put in a good word for Commander Cret Basto!”
Recesses prayed he never saw Basto again.
34 days before the Game Start
As the final releases on the Copy Protection slowly released, the freedom of open space, without the oppressive silence of deep space, filled Melvin Recesses. He was the current lead caravan ship, and the majority of ships in his caravan were slaved AI ships to him, a handful of human piloted ships and an even lesser amount of ‘free’ AI ships, so Melvin would have quite a bit of time to himself for the trip.
Looking at the outline for the trip, he noticed something that would be catastrophic for his personal moral; the plan would put him in Chi-Sqee-Squeek space during the Millennial. Now, he would thus be far-far away from the parties commemorating one of the most important dates in history.
He thought now about the almost weeklong bender he would be missing through taking this job. Throughout the Millennial Week, celebrations will be held across the Commonwealth, celebrating 1000 years of history. And now Melvin will be missing it.
The Copy Protection was still moving, along with the rest of the caravan and as was Melvin’s patience with the entire trip he had signed on to. He wasn’t going to get his celebratory drink in The Commonwealth and, thinking on it, he wouldn’t have to deal with the Rats damn swill. He’d heard of people acquiring a taste for the shit, but it was not something to celebrate the Millennial to.
The ship slowly exited the final docking locks of the station, setting for the long, boring, and featureless trip to the Chi-Sqee-Squeek.
____________________________________________________________________________
’Great White Shark’ Magu Tapa, Deep Space
‘Special Commander’ Cret Basto looked across the bridge with pride, his father, Ernesto Basto liked to tell him he would never make anything of himself without his influence in the Port Authority, but these, these Great White Sharks of Space that Multiglobal designed, under the very noses of the Port Authority were his pride and joy. These massive ships were mobile enforcers of the Board’s will, referred to in official statements to investors as ‘Great White Sharks’ these mobile battlestations were armed for all types of commercial combat that the enemies of the Board would bring to bear.
Magu Tapa, translated from some pre-Historic language as ‘the cloak of bloodstained scars,’ was an imposing sight in and outside space controlled by Mutliglobal, its numerous heavy weapons could damage both pirate’s nest and enemy combatant, and its compliment of unmanned drones uncountable by the primitive systems of local pirates trembled where they tread.
Basto’s loving monologue was interrupted by a junior officer who said trepidatiously, “‘Special’ Commander, Contact at heading 05.01.02.357.221, hailing under Port Authority distress single 125 – 103, th”
“I know what that distress single means, now, what is it flying under.”
“Port Authority Flag 19-A sir, it appears to be set to flag-itself Blernsballian when it leaves The Commonwealth.”
“Well, 19, a foreign service craft.”
“Foreign Trade Convoy, Sir.”
Basto let his officer stew as he walked from the command trenches to his chair. Regardless, a foreign craft would be quite the feather in his cap to say the least. He let his thoughts settle, as he motioned to give the order to “defend this Foreign Service at all costs.”
________________________________________________________________________________
Recesses watched on his monitors as the ship broadcasting as Magu Tapa, a name only haughty enough for his patron company, began moving to intercept the pirate vessels, he had watched as the pirates had stalked the convoy as it made it further and further towards deep space, presumably piecing together how much intelligence was in the convoy. Recesses would have been offended had he not feared for his life, and the timely announcement from the company, and the presence of the Magu Tapa were the only salves that really did anything to the wounded pride.
The battle began with the company vessel releasing what Recesses could only assume were drones, to engage the pirate vessels. All the while, Recesses noticed that the radio channels, and presumably other channels but he didn’t have anything but radio in his cubby, were blaring bombastic and propagandistic messages recorded by someone who sounded very stupid.
“This is Cret Basto, and you are about to die!”
Was the choice piece, from what Recesses heard. The battle itself was fairly one sided, after a single coordinated pass, the Pirates dispersed under the assault of the drones. As the drones mopped up the remaining pirates, his radio crackled as Basto’s voice returned.
“Foreign Service Vessels, remember, when you return from your far off land, to put in a good word for Commander Cret Basto!”
Recesses prayed he never saw Basto again.
This is an empty country and I am it's king, and I should not be allowed to touch anything.
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KlavoHunter
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1401
- Joined: 2007-08-26 10:53pm
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Music
Sector AA-21
RKS Djebel al-Tariq
June 22, 3125
The lumbering form of the Klavostani superheavy flag dreadnaught had, despite all assertions to the contrary by the Navy and its Admirals of orbital supremacy, had taken a single hit during the furious counterattack by remaining Orkish planetary forces, every last surface-to-space rokkit and cobbled-together ship that could be built thrown up in defiance, one last WAAAAGH before the end came. That hit was a terrible affront even though it was easily absorbed by the extra shield generators, not even marring the paint that covered additional meters of the latest hyperalloys of armor, for they'd sworn space was safe enough for the Sultan himself to come to observe from the Flag Bridge the final act of the long campaign that Klavostan had fought!
Da 'oomies did not intend to fight fair, lamented da Orks after so long, but dey were ready for dis, shielded under da strongest and most kunning shields and fortresses da Meks kould build at da Warboss' orderz, ready to snarl back wiff da biggest soopagunz dey'd built after da last orbital shipyards dat had built ded killy kroozers n dreadnaughts were blasted smouldering into orbit. Good refined slag for pilin' onto da fortz.
The dread convoy of the most brutal starships the Sultanate had ever constructed sank into orbit of the final, kapital planet of the Ork empire that they had fought for so long. Thickly armored along the bellies they presented to the planet below, armored ports would slide open only for the moment they hurled forth a railgun-accelerated projectile, with a nasty nuclear bomb behind the penetrator tip. It turned out, according to a slightly deranged Shepistani scientist, that when you didn't care, or better yet, desired a dirty initiation, there were some tweaks you could make to the bomb to get the most out of it with the latest generations of weapons.
This is not wanton genocide, the Sultan tried to justify himself the end of the course his predecessors had settled the nation upon, We know these are not the only Orks in the galaxy. Having been the most... intolerable... neighbors a nation could have ever had, no amount of diplomacy could keep the greenskins from raiding everything in sight, and even occasionally launching great WAAAGH expeditionary warfleets. They'd killed billions of Klavostani citizens throughout history until now, admittedly only a few such billions the few times their brutal kunning had gotten them through to civilians. The Ork death toll over these final few years had been significantly more than that now that the long decades of back-and-forth all-out interstellar war were over, and the boot was being put to their neck finally.
"Fire." Sultan Klavo the 89th dispassionately ordered, forcing himself to watch as the sky of an alien world lit up with a terrible, terrible rain. A WAAAAGH roared up from billions of Orkish throats in defiance, and the planetary forts blazed back with everything they had. The most major installations were localized, and then the space fleets concentrated their fire to lend to the terrible barrage that slowly, steadily began to murder the planet. Force Fieldz crackled, fizzled, failed and exploded, while Mekaniakz frantically smashed away with wrenches and spanners, and kicked away with steeltoed boots to hold out longer, to keep letting their prize gunz keep firing one more punishing volley. Already, despite the best protection for this terrible job available, one of the planetkillers was bisected by a lucky shot that punched through weakened shields and a slid-away armor sheath, exploding with such terrible force that it broke the ship's back, halves spilling escape pods that screamed desperate for rescue before they would fall to the planet full of hostiles and hard-radiation death.
It was destined to be a long, expensive siege, but it was necessary. Klavostan had steeled itself to go all the way, and against such a deserving foe as well, or else such a distasteful measure would have never been agreed to by the majority of the people. Absolute as the Monarchy was, the Sultan alone could not prosecute a war like this. They were prepared to go all the way.
And they did.
Sector AA-21
RKS Djebel al-Tariq
June 22, 3125
The lumbering form of the Klavostani superheavy flag dreadnaught had, despite all assertions to the contrary by the Navy and its Admirals of orbital supremacy, had taken a single hit during the furious counterattack by remaining Orkish planetary forces, every last surface-to-space rokkit and cobbled-together ship that could be built thrown up in defiance, one last WAAAAGH before the end came. That hit was a terrible affront even though it was easily absorbed by the extra shield generators, not even marring the paint that covered additional meters of the latest hyperalloys of armor, for they'd sworn space was safe enough for the Sultan himself to come to observe from the Flag Bridge the final act of the long campaign that Klavostan had fought!
Da 'oomies did not intend to fight fair, lamented da Orks after so long, but dey were ready for dis, shielded under da strongest and most kunning shields and fortresses da Meks kould build at da Warboss' orderz, ready to snarl back wiff da biggest soopagunz dey'd built after da last orbital shipyards dat had built ded killy kroozers n dreadnaughts were blasted smouldering into orbit. Good refined slag for pilin' onto da fortz.
The dread convoy of the most brutal starships the Sultanate had ever constructed sank into orbit of the final, kapital planet of the Ork empire that they had fought for so long. Thickly armored along the bellies they presented to the planet below, armored ports would slide open only for the moment they hurled forth a railgun-accelerated projectile, with a nasty nuclear bomb behind the penetrator tip. It turned out, according to a slightly deranged Shepistani scientist, that when you didn't care, or better yet, desired a dirty initiation, there were some tweaks you could make to the bomb to get the most out of it with the latest generations of weapons.
This is not wanton genocide, the Sultan tried to justify himself the end of the course his predecessors had settled the nation upon, We know these are not the only Orks in the galaxy. Having been the most... intolerable... neighbors a nation could have ever had, no amount of diplomacy could keep the greenskins from raiding everything in sight, and even occasionally launching great WAAAGH expeditionary warfleets. They'd killed billions of Klavostani citizens throughout history until now, admittedly only a few such billions the few times their brutal kunning had gotten them through to civilians. The Ork death toll over these final few years had been significantly more than that now that the long decades of back-and-forth all-out interstellar war were over, and the boot was being put to their neck finally.
"Fire." Sultan Klavo the 89th dispassionately ordered, forcing himself to watch as the sky of an alien world lit up with a terrible, terrible rain. A WAAAAGH roared up from billions of Orkish throats in defiance, and the planetary forts blazed back with everything they had. The most major installations were localized, and then the space fleets concentrated their fire to lend to the terrible barrage that slowly, steadily began to murder the planet. Force Fieldz crackled, fizzled, failed and exploded, while Mekaniakz frantically smashed away with wrenches and spanners, and kicked away with steeltoed boots to hold out longer, to keep letting their prize gunz keep firing one more punishing volley. Already, despite the best protection for this terrible job available, one of the planetkillers was bisected by a lucky shot that punched through weakened shields and a slid-away armor sheath, exploding with such terrible force that it broke the ship's back, halves spilling escape pods that screamed desperate for rescue before they would fall to the planet full of hostiles and hard-radiation death.
It was destined to be a long, expensive siege, but it was necessary. Klavostan had steeled itself to go all the way, and against such a deserving foe as well, or else such a distasteful measure would have never been agreed to by the majority of the people. Absolute as the Monarchy was, the Sultan alone could not prosecute a war like this. They were prepared to go all the way.
And they did.
"The 4th Earl of Hereford led the fight on the bridge, but he and his men were caught in the arrow fire. Then one of de Harclay's pikemen, concealed beneath the bridge, thrust upwards between the planks and skewered the Earl of Hereford through the anus, twisting the head of the iron pike into his intestines. His dying screams turned the advance into a panic."'
SDNW4: The Sultanate of Klavostan
SDNW4: The Sultanate of Klavostan
-
Skywalker_T-65
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2293
- Joined: 2011-08-26 03:53pm
- Location: Bridge of Battleship SDFS Missouri
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Sector P-23
Orbit of Planet Danzig
ARS Trotsiga
September 19th 3299
______________
Captains Log, September 19th 3299:
“This station is truly in the middle of nowhere. I was the best for this job, though I do wonder if someone back home has a grudge with me. That is most likely the case, considering I was the top of my class and the only Captain to fight the VIKINGS to a standstill…probably ticked off some Admiral. So here I am, on the border of Hellene space and Capellan space, building a multi-national trade station, on the one ship that no one in the navy wants, because it was a failed design.
My crew is a real piece of work too, Bashir, the Umerian designer baby/super soldier (no one knows for sure) who fled his country, and got an assignment as my medical officer…Masa, my Furling XO…probably the only member of my crew I can really count on. And I’m supposed to get a Hellene named, Galenos and a Chamarran tactical officer. How command expects this to work is beyond me. I’m sure one of the great scholars of Arcadia would have a comment that fits, but I can’t think on that right now, too much work.
Now, as to the station itself, it’s based on a design from a race that the Furling’s called the ‘Savanas’, which we translated as ‘Cardassian’ or something similar. Maybe I should ask the New Romulans…they seem to know these random races better than we do.
Back on subject though, the station is massive, much bigger than the original Savana design, its big enough to dock several of our dreadnoughts, though I doubt they would ever come out here. The arms are designated as docking space for the patrol fleet, which is depressing in of itself. All of the ships are old, and most are from the Furling Navy. So I have no direct control over them, other than to give orders and hope they are followed. I will have to ask Masa about being a liaison with the Furlings, it should smooth things over.
As for the other nations berths…we are enlarging the central section even further, allowing for everyone to dock there. The Commonwealth’s request struck me as odd, but I am using a new design we made just for this station…their section will look much smaller on the outside than the inside. Though they still haven’t provided a size for their docking berth. The other ones are much easier to understand, like the Capellans requesting their section to have separate life support systems…so that it can mimic Adjoria’s climate without freezing everyone else. Need to reinforce the electronics in that section however. And make sure that someone, maybe the Holy Empire, is between the Chamarrans and Hellenes. It will be enough trouble keeping their ships apart, can’t have them running into each other on the station.
Now, as to the name of the station, the Senate decided on ‘Evigt Hopp Stationen’. But who knows how that will go over with the other nations. They are likely to request their own names, and we will have to remind them that it is our station. I’ll just call it EHS myself, so much easier than using the formal name.
Now, to go see if the engineers will build a football stadium on the surface of Danzig…this is Captain Sven Sisko signing off.”
Orbit of Planet Danzig
ARS Trotsiga
September 19th 3299
______________
Captains Log, September 19th 3299:
“This station is truly in the middle of nowhere. I was the best for this job, though I do wonder if someone back home has a grudge with me. That is most likely the case, considering I was the top of my class and the only Captain to fight the VIKINGS to a standstill…probably ticked off some Admiral. So here I am, on the border of Hellene space and Capellan space, building a multi-national trade station, on the one ship that no one in the navy wants, because it was a failed design.
My crew is a real piece of work too, Bashir, the Umerian designer baby/super soldier (no one knows for sure) who fled his country, and got an assignment as my medical officer…Masa, my Furling XO…probably the only member of my crew I can really count on. And I’m supposed to get a Hellene named, Galenos and a Chamarran tactical officer. How command expects this to work is beyond me. I’m sure one of the great scholars of Arcadia would have a comment that fits, but I can’t think on that right now, too much work.
Now, as to the station itself, it’s based on a design from a race that the Furling’s called the ‘Savanas’, which we translated as ‘Cardassian’ or something similar. Maybe I should ask the New Romulans…they seem to know these random races better than we do.
Back on subject though, the station is massive, much bigger than the original Savana design, its big enough to dock several of our dreadnoughts, though I doubt they would ever come out here. The arms are designated as docking space for the patrol fleet, which is depressing in of itself. All of the ships are old, and most are from the Furling Navy. So I have no direct control over them, other than to give orders and hope they are followed. I will have to ask Masa about being a liaison with the Furlings, it should smooth things over.
As for the other nations berths…we are enlarging the central section even further, allowing for everyone to dock there. The Commonwealth’s request struck me as odd, but I am using a new design we made just for this station…their section will look much smaller on the outside than the inside. Though they still haven’t provided a size for their docking berth. The other ones are much easier to understand, like the Capellans requesting their section to have separate life support systems…so that it can mimic Adjoria’s climate without freezing everyone else. Need to reinforce the electronics in that section however. And make sure that someone, maybe the Holy Empire, is between the Chamarrans and Hellenes. It will be enough trouble keeping their ships apart, can’t have them running into each other on the station.
Now, as to the name of the station, the Senate decided on ‘Evigt Hopp Stationen’. But who knows how that will go over with the other nations. They are likely to request their own names, and we will have to remind them that it is our station. I’ll just call it EHS myself, so much easier than using the formal name.
Now, to go see if the engineers will build a football stadium on the surface of Danzig…this is Captain Sven Sisko signing off.”
SDNW5: Republic of Arcadia...Sweden in SPAAACE
-
White Haven
- Sith Acolyte
- Posts: 6360
- Joined: 2004-05-17 03:14pm
- Location: The North Remembers, When It Can Be Bothered
Re: SDNW5 Prologue Thread
Rimward Frontier Command
Sector AA-20
16 years in the past
The sound of rapping knuckles almost fell beneath notice in the background of activity outside Andre Pentelecos’s office, but not when it was accompanied by a familiar voice calling, “Boss, got a minute?”
Andre, a grey-haired figure of moderately-indeterminate age, looked up and waved the painfully-young figure of his protégé in. The budding smile slid off his face at the same time as his eyebrows made a bid for his receding hairline when she pulled the door closed behind her and flipped the lock into place. As she turned back towards his cluttered desk, the seated man waved her to one of the two vacant chairs facing it and forced a wry smirk across his face.
“Not good news, then, I take it? Well, have a seat at least, Ash.”
With a frown, she shook her head slightly as she settled into the half-worn-out padding. A moment passed as she gathered her thoughts, and then began speaking in a notably-worried tone, “Odd news, at least, possibly bad. You know how you had me sifting through the last post commander’s reports, reading between the lines, finding out just how bad of a fuckup he was?”
Andre winced at the blunt phrasing, but nodded both an acknowledgement and a request for her to continue.
“Well, I’ve been going over the reports from the deep rimward frontier exile colonies, and he was either clueless or covering up some serious anomalies to avoid having to deal with them. Nothing catastrophic, they’re still there!” she quickly blurted out as stormclouds began to move in across her superior’s face -- figurative, for the moment. “That’s the spot of good news, really; the census estimates are above the curve for the whole sector. That was undoubtedly your predecessor’s excuse to avoid looking any more closely to begin with. In any case, the whole sector’s sitting at or around Stage 16, it was all opened up at roughly the same time, and have you ever heard of a bunch of sixteen-year-old exiles with settlements like these?”
With that, she started pulling full-page glossy photographs out of a folder and laying them across the paperwork on Andre’s desk. Any thoughts he might have had of objecting to the increased chaos died as the content of the mixed aerial and orbital surveillance photos registered in his mind. Burned-out buildings were nothing new -- heartbreaking, given the death tolls on exile worlds, but nothing new. For them to be almost uniformly concentrated on the outskirts of the initial drop settlement defied probability. For the initial drop settlement to still be densely populated by Stage 16 was nigh-impossible, given the generous census data.
The fact that the settlements had makeshift walls and barricades ringing it, all facing outwards, and clearly had children manning the defenses...there were no words for how unlikely that was.
“What in...never mind, shock won’t help. Ash, draw up a communique to Cool Thoughts. The census figures at least tell us we’ve got the time to do this calmly, rather than just dumping Murderous Rage all over things. I want realtime orbital and aerial recon of every last settlement in the sector, and I want it yesterday. ...Check that, just as soon as possible, I don’t know if they’re experimenting with temporal displacement, but if they are, well, things aren’t that desperate. Then get all of this officially documented and scanned into the system. Something tells me this report is going to have legs, so make sure it looks good.”
She nodded curtly, then stood and began to turn towards the door before a raised hand stopped her. She turned back with a questioning look on her face as he added, “And catch a lift there yourself. I want my own eyes on-site with one of the recon teams. Keep me posted.”
Another nod, and she turned, unlocked the door, and hurried out. Quite a number of faces in the common work-room outside abruptly turned back down to their desks a touch too late to avoid being noticed, drawing a brief grin from the base commander before his eyes drifted back down towards the photos staring up at him from the cluttered desk.
Planet Ylysses
Sector AA-21
Drop Settlement C22 (Local Name: Fort Exile)
Daydreaming about Amanda Cyrus’s ass came very, very close to killing everyone on the planet that Warren had ever met. It was quite an ass, hence the daydreams, and he’d been hoping for a better look for quite some time; as a result he was staring off into space instead of watching his assigned approach to the makeshift walls of Fort Exile. Warren himself wasn’t much of a telepath. Amanda, however, was, which explained the sharp slap right between his eyes and the caustic tone that followed.
You’re leaking. Probably into your pants too. You want a better look? Get us off this rock alive.
Warren’s face flushed bright red at the rebuke -- delivered, he realized, in an open call for anyone with any shred of the right talents to pick up. Already, he could sense amused laughter cluttering the mental airwaves around him; he hunched his shoulders and turned his attention out across the lip of the barricade in an attempt to shut it out.
Just in time to catch a flash of motion as a mud-smeared green figure slipped between two rocks.
Warren didn’t have anywhere near the telepathic ability to broadcast a warning. His talents lay elsewhere. Tendrils of electric current crawled over his skin as he brought his hands up, teeth gritted in a strained, feral grin. A bolt of blue-white lightning leapt between the seventeen-year-old and the rock he’d just witnessed an attacker taken cover behind. And thunder rolled out across the walled settlement, carrying with it a simple message of warning to the other defenders on the walls.
As the rock -- and the ork kommando behind it -- exploded, an answering sound rose up from a broad arc centered to the left of Warren’s own position. One sound, rising from many throats. A sound the too-young defenders of what should never have been a fortress knew far too well.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
Cool Thoughts Orbital Reconnaissance Vessel Private Eyes
In orbit of Exile World Ylysses
Sector AA-21
Even having seen the failed attack from orbit in realtime, Ash could hardly believe what she’d witnessed. Hostile aliens, somehow missed by survey teams on half a dozen worlds across a freshly-opened sector. And were that the only revelation, a number of survey teams and several officials and officers (including her boss’s predecessor) would be in for certain execution. But...
But the numbers didn’t lie. Despite being under siege from, presumably, the moment they arrived, the exiled children on every last one of the hostile-occupied worlds had lost fewer of their number, proportionally, than almost every other exile group in the history of the League. They had banded together! They had survived and not only that, against all odds, they had thrived under the adversity. She shook her head back and forth, staring at the glowing monitor and its empty, unwritten report. She was the woman on the spot, she had the ear of the man who would, ultimately, make the call. Should she call in Murderous Rage, sear the strange, hulking, green-skinned figures from the sector?
If children could hold them off, she’d no doubt Murderous Rage could eradicate them entirely. But.. should she? It all came back to the numbers. Fewer children were dying, and in the final calculus, that was the entire point of the exile worlds in the first place. With a curt nod, seen by no one in the cramped compartment, she began to type.
RECOMMEND OVERWATCH, BUT NO ATTACK OR EXTRACTION. ALL SURVIVORS SHOULD BE FLAGGED FOR INDUCTION INTO MURDEROUS RAGE AND ENCOURAGED TO VOLUNTEER AS UNITS BY SETTLEMENT. THEY’RE NOT DYING AS MUCH, ANDRE, AND THAT’S WHAT MATTERNS.
-ASH
Sector AA-20
16 years in the past
The sound of rapping knuckles almost fell beneath notice in the background of activity outside Andre Pentelecos’s office, but not when it was accompanied by a familiar voice calling, “Boss, got a minute?”
Andre, a grey-haired figure of moderately-indeterminate age, looked up and waved the painfully-young figure of his protégé in. The budding smile slid off his face at the same time as his eyebrows made a bid for his receding hairline when she pulled the door closed behind her and flipped the lock into place. As she turned back towards his cluttered desk, the seated man waved her to one of the two vacant chairs facing it and forced a wry smirk across his face.
“Not good news, then, I take it? Well, have a seat at least, Ash.”
With a frown, she shook her head slightly as she settled into the half-worn-out padding. A moment passed as she gathered her thoughts, and then began speaking in a notably-worried tone, “Odd news, at least, possibly bad. You know how you had me sifting through the last post commander’s reports, reading between the lines, finding out just how bad of a fuckup he was?”
Andre winced at the blunt phrasing, but nodded both an acknowledgement and a request for her to continue.
“Well, I’ve been going over the reports from the deep rimward frontier exile colonies, and he was either clueless or covering up some serious anomalies to avoid having to deal with them. Nothing catastrophic, they’re still there!” she quickly blurted out as stormclouds began to move in across her superior’s face -- figurative, for the moment. “That’s the spot of good news, really; the census estimates are above the curve for the whole sector. That was undoubtedly your predecessor’s excuse to avoid looking any more closely to begin with. In any case, the whole sector’s sitting at or around Stage 16, it was all opened up at roughly the same time, and have you ever heard of a bunch of sixteen-year-old exiles with settlements like these?”
With that, she started pulling full-page glossy photographs out of a folder and laying them across the paperwork on Andre’s desk. Any thoughts he might have had of objecting to the increased chaos died as the content of the mixed aerial and orbital surveillance photos registered in his mind. Burned-out buildings were nothing new -- heartbreaking, given the death tolls on exile worlds, but nothing new. For them to be almost uniformly concentrated on the outskirts of the initial drop settlement defied probability. For the initial drop settlement to still be densely populated by Stage 16 was nigh-impossible, given the generous census data.
The fact that the settlements had makeshift walls and barricades ringing it, all facing outwards, and clearly had children manning the defenses...there were no words for how unlikely that was.
“What in...never mind, shock won’t help. Ash, draw up a communique to Cool Thoughts. The census figures at least tell us we’ve got the time to do this calmly, rather than just dumping Murderous Rage all over things. I want realtime orbital and aerial recon of every last settlement in the sector, and I want it yesterday. ...Check that, just as soon as possible, I don’t know if they’re experimenting with temporal displacement, but if they are, well, things aren’t that desperate. Then get all of this officially documented and scanned into the system. Something tells me this report is going to have legs, so make sure it looks good.”
She nodded curtly, then stood and began to turn towards the door before a raised hand stopped her. She turned back with a questioning look on her face as he added, “And catch a lift there yourself. I want my own eyes on-site with one of the recon teams. Keep me posted.”
Another nod, and she turned, unlocked the door, and hurried out. Quite a number of faces in the common work-room outside abruptly turned back down to their desks a touch too late to avoid being noticed, drawing a brief grin from the base commander before his eyes drifted back down towards the photos staring up at him from the cluttered desk.
Planet Ylysses
Sector AA-21
Drop Settlement C22 (Local Name: Fort Exile)
Daydreaming about Amanda Cyrus’s ass came very, very close to killing everyone on the planet that Warren had ever met. It was quite an ass, hence the daydreams, and he’d been hoping for a better look for quite some time; as a result he was staring off into space instead of watching his assigned approach to the makeshift walls of Fort Exile. Warren himself wasn’t much of a telepath. Amanda, however, was, which explained the sharp slap right between his eyes and the caustic tone that followed.
You’re leaking. Probably into your pants too. You want a better look? Get us off this rock alive.
Warren’s face flushed bright red at the rebuke -- delivered, he realized, in an open call for anyone with any shred of the right talents to pick up. Already, he could sense amused laughter cluttering the mental airwaves around him; he hunched his shoulders and turned his attention out across the lip of the barricade in an attempt to shut it out.
Just in time to catch a flash of motion as a mud-smeared green figure slipped between two rocks.
Warren didn’t have anywhere near the telepathic ability to broadcast a warning. His talents lay elsewhere. Tendrils of electric current crawled over his skin as he brought his hands up, teeth gritted in a strained, feral grin. A bolt of blue-white lightning leapt between the seventeen-year-old and the rock he’d just witnessed an attacker taken cover behind. And thunder rolled out across the walled settlement, carrying with it a simple message of warning to the other defenders on the walls.
As the rock -- and the ork kommando behind it -- exploded, an answering sound rose up from a broad arc centered to the left of Warren’s own position. One sound, rising from many throats. A sound the too-young defenders of what should never have been a fortress knew far too well.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
Cool Thoughts Orbital Reconnaissance Vessel Private Eyes
In orbit of Exile World Ylysses
Sector AA-21
Even having seen the failed attack from orbit in realtime, Ash could hardly believe what she’d witnessed. Hostile aliens, somehow missed by survey teams on half a dozen worlds across a freshly-opened sector. And were that the only revelation, a number of survey teams and several officials and officers (including her boss’s predecessor) would be in for certain execution. But...
But the numbers didn’t lie. Despite being under siege from, presumably, the moment they arrived, the exiled children on every last one of the hostile-occupied worlds had lost fewer of their number, proportionally, than almost every other exile group in the history of the League. They had banded together! They had survived and not only that, against all odds, they had thrived under the adversity. She shook her head back and forth, staring at the glowing monitor and its empty, unwritten report. She was the woman on the spot, she had the ear of the man who would, ultimately, make the call. Should she call in Murderous Rage, sear the strange, hulking, green-skinned figures from the sector?
If children could hold them off, she’d no doubt Murderous Rage could eradicate them entirely. But.. should she? It all came back to the numbers. Fewer children were dying, and in the final calculus, that was the entire point of the exile worlds in the first place. With a curt nod, seen by no one in the cramped compartment, she began to type.
RECOMMEND OVERWATCH, BUT NO ATTACK OR EXTRACTION. ALL SURVIVORS SHOULD BE FLAGGED FOR INDUCTION INTO MURDEROUS RAGE AND ENCOURAGED TO VOLUNTEER AS UNITS BY SETTLEMENT. THEY’RE NOT DYING AS MUCH, ANDRE, AND THAT’S WHAT MATTERNS.
-ASH
Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Darth Nostril.
-'If you really want to fuck with these idiots tell them that there is a vaccine for chemtrails.'
Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)
