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7 yrs ago
dissertation done. can actually post again. yay.
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Zuukind civil war zone, Celestuial bureaucracy controlled space.
Planet: Rotatha 4.
Town: Saltspire



Having a biological warmachine with me as I made my way across the small town towards the docks was about as detrimental to my standing with the locals as I had expected, the people of the town giving us a wide berth where before i had managed to get at least a few polite how do you dos from passers by. Damage control for this was going to be a nightmare. I hindsight I should have taken the car rather than traveling on tail, but there are few things I’d like less than spend any time trapped in a small metal box on wheels with a feral killing machine. So by our own power we went, along the uncomfortably hot concrete pavements heated by the still sweltering late afternoon sun, till eventually we arrived at the town’s only port.

One thing the monster made easy was getting access to the hanger the wounded women had parked her ship in. The manager of the port was rather reluctant to let me in despite my credentials but one look at Sixer and he was more than willing to cooperate. Sixer being what the Rekshai had informed me, menacingly perhaps, or maybe politely, I couldn’t understand its tone, its name was. A biomech unit having a name was ludicrous of course, but I felt it wiser to humor the beast in this instance. It was at least easier than referring to it by its full designation.


The manger nervously escorted the pair to the specific hanger holding the ship. The structure itself was a large steel framed structure with kevlar paneling filling in between the metal struts, the bear bones of colony infrastructure that no one had ever seen the need in replacing. The ship inside was not much better, a battered black angular thing about the size of two trucks welded side by side, that an expert in human military history might compare to a F-117 Nighthawk, but which Vempt just thought looked ugly as sin. It was unfortunately typical of current design trends, gone where they days of sleek shining vessels designed by gifted artisans, the civil war had replaced such extravagance with need for prideless efficiency, where every second of manufacturing time was precious. As the pair approached the black mass of angles and gave the exterior some closer inspection it became evident that the ship wasn’t in a poor state because of age, but rather because it had been attacked, one side was scorched and partially melted , presumably by a wide beam laser, while the surface was also rendered with clawmark like gashes from higher intensity beams. That the ship had survived being hit said more about the intentions of the attackers than the toughness of the ship, these were clear signs of attempted disabling rather than destruction, which meant either the ship had escaped a pirate attack or it had run foul of either the bureaucracy or republic’s police force, all of whom could potentially want to capture the ship, crew and cargo for financial or legal reasons.

Looking at the thing it was clear why the manager had been so hesitant to let me in. Not reporting an incident like this was inexcusable and could only mean that he had something to hide. If he didn’t he would have informed the theocracy at once that the region contained some hostile force, be it marauders, pirates or worse, republic raiders. That they hadn't wanted this found out meant either they had been paid off by our woman or where in on whatever operation she was running. That was just a hunch of course. A pretty good one I would bet, but you can't just go around arresting people on hunches. Some Inquisitors did do that. It was basically an open secret that the theorcary was ok with it if you got results, but I ain't one of the ones know for getting results. Not yet anyway. That all changed today.

“Right. Let's crack this thing open and…”

Before he could finish Sixer had stabbed the ship’s main door with its Pilum and, demonstrating just how easy it would have been for the ships attackers to just destroy it, slicing a person sized hole in it, wielding the twin pronged force spear like an oversized can opener. After two seconds of slicing the Biomechanical warmachine stepped away and bowed slightly with a hand pointed, with what what Vent could swear was mocking theatrics, at the hole it had created.

“Way is open holy one.”

“I can see that.” the priest responded falsely before muttering under his breath “what is it with this thing and ruining doors”

Despite his contempt at the method of gaining access Vempt nonetheless slithered through the freshly cut hole, carefully avoiding touching the freshly sliced metal with either his tail or his serpents. After being forced to cut open the inner airlock himself for 30 seconds the priest finally got a look at the inside, and what he found was not a pretty sight, for right behind the airlock was as mall corridor containing 3 bodies. One was a Vaun, a biomechanically reanimated and brainwashed human cadavers used extensively during the crusade through Orionic empire, but a rare sight in the subsequent civil war. Not enough raw material available. It and a Lonoxi drone were lying close to the entrance and both were wearing lime green painted vtol capable space combat armor bearing the symbol of the Volt Viper’s mercenary organization. Guess that's what she meant by being attacked by snakes. One seems to have been armed with a laser pistol, the other with a strange flechette gun. Both of them had had a hole punched clean through said armor, presumably by the woman’s gauss pistol, a skillful and risky thing to do, because missing or over penetrating with a too high powered shot could have punched a hole in the hull, dooming her along with the invaders. Across from these two bodies was one of a Draskavian, the bear sized avians found most commonly in the Republic of equals, who had a large semicircle of flesh burned out of their chest. Blackened ribs were visible sticking out the charred crater, some of which was presumably made of the remains of a number of the Draskavian’s vital organs.

Looked like the pair of vipers had managed to jet over to this ship and had been let inside only to be ambushed by the crew. A risky move on both sides and it seemed that nearly everyone had paid the price. The woman who piloted the ship back had only survived because by the narrowest margin. I could see the knife-like projectiles of the fletched gun, some coated with her drying blood, still sticking to the far wall, suck there as sark evidence of her brush with death. Why had they all taken these risk however? Why had the crew not surrendered, why had the mercenaries not vented the ship prior to boarding? What or who was so valuable that both sides had risked life and limb to secure it. That was a mystery yet to be unraveled.

Vempt carefully slinked around the aftermath of the showdown and slipped past the sealed door to the cargo hold into the cockpit. A two person affair it fitted two general species chairs rather than one’s specialised to the two owners, which, along with the distinct lack of any decoration or other modification to the insides of ship, gave the impression that the two people had not been very attached to the vessel itself. Vempt slipped into one of these chairs, which managed to accommodate him uncomfortably, and picked up a small glass pane, held by a thin adjustable arm stand, that acted as the ships main interface, and booted it up, only to be confronted by a password screen.

locked. Unfortunate but not unexpected. I’d need to get a technician in here to take a look at...

“Secrets? I can get them for you”

Sixer, like a antigrav mine, completely derailed my train of thought and sent it crashing down into an abyss of disbelief

“You? Unlock this? What are you going to do, tare it apart?” the perturbed priest asked before quickly adding “Please don't do that.” In response the Rekshai gave a short grunt that might have been a laugh and then reached behind its head and pulled a short wire out from its helm, one presumably leading back to the cyberware inside. Then it bent down and opened a maintenance panel located at knee height at the front of the cockpit and set about rummaging around in the ship’s internals as Vempt watched. After a few moments Sixer reported that it had “found it”, followed by a soft click of the jack being plugged in.

On the screen several passwords were entered in lightning succession until the device hit a cap of attempts and displayed an error mandating a day’s wait till the next attempt could be made. Before Vemt could admonish this failure the timer denoting how long it would be till the next attempt rapidly cycled down to zero, the day seemingly whizzing by in a flash, at which point more passwords were tried, then more and more and more until finally a correct guess was made and the device displayed a simple welcome message. Without looking at the screen Sixer seems to know that its task was complete, the little cable being unconnected and rapidly spooling back into the back to their head as they extracted themselves from the maintenance panel.

“Little voice says she is done. Enjoy your secrets holy one.”

Automated hacking software. Figures.

“Good good. Go sniff for drugs or something while I look into this”

“Yes. Check hold. Hunt for secret compartments. Your will’ll be done.” the apex-predator responded before slinking out the bridges door, heading towards the back of the ship. An occasional tapping of claw against wall could be heard following it, slowly receding deeper into the ship interrupted only briefly by the rending of metal as the monster broke into the cargo hold.

That makes three. At this point i was far past caring and instead got stuck in with trawling through the ship’s computer. There was, both blessed and frustratingly, very little to see. While it was good not to have to trawl through gigabyte’s of personal files and the irrelevant horrors that might lay within it also gave me very little information about who the woman and her dead accomplice were. The flight logs had been scrubbed clean, as had all records of external communication and the cargo manifest. Doing so was illegal, naturally, but seeing as the three corpses on the ship were reason enough to arrest her, this didn't really give me anything new. It was luck and frustration that lead me randomly to check the ships controls, but in hindsight it was the most important thing I did that day. There, in the controls for the shields, I discovered a stealth function of some kind, unusual but not unheard of for civilian ships traversing less than safe regions of space, which lead me into checking the ships specks. Why it wasn't hidden I did not know, but there in the list of installed systems was something called a Ersterban stealth module with a production date that made it archive-tech, real grade A pre-civil war stuff. Anything made at the height of the empire that was still around was valuable beyond belief, so much of that stuff couldn't be made anymore due either to budget constraints or the blueprints having gotten lost during the collapse. This kind of thing being on a civilian ship was suspicious to say the least. There were rare cases of archive-tech being available on black markets, but generally only the major powers had access to relics or the capability to make small amounts of the stuff. As a result you could often use archive-tech components as an indicator of who had made something. Which power had had a hand in my duplicitous scheme I wondered. It was time to find out.

Vemt pushed away the glass interface and then used a wrist mounted computer to compose a request for information about the cloaking device. After he sent it the message first went to the local radio tower, from which it was sent to the planets only interstellar relay. There its inquisitorial signature bumped it to the head of the queue to be broadcast out from Rotatha 4 via a micro wormhole generated within the relay. From there it pinged from world to world until it arrived back at the capital world and inquisition hq. There it retrieved classified info from the theocracy’s tech database, in the process tripping a number of data snooping systems installed by the vaios departments of the inquisition itself. Two of these automated systems managed to trip over each other when they noticed the search request and attached report explaining why the request had been made, each detecting that the other had noticed something relevant with the data and bringing all of this to the attention of their respective creators. It took about 10 minutes for the subsequent inter departmental meeting to unveiled a colossal fuckup in internal comunication. Vempt, entirely unaware of all this chain of events he had set off, continued to dig through the ship’s computer till a small beep from his wrist informed him the data he wanted had arrived.

It was at this same moment that a man came through the door holding a gun.


Seen above are a variety of vehicles sporting the innovated ball tread system utilised by many pre civil war Zuukid vehicles. Best exemplified on the exposed treads on the Vartini scout tank, they are magnetically held spheres that can be made to rotate in any direction, allowing for unprecedented maneuverability. Ball tread tanks are capable of moving freely in any direction like a hover tank tanks, but don't suffer from the same extreme energy requirements, lack of traction or issues with recoil that floating vehicles do. Despite these advantages the ball-treads take considerably more maintenance than traditional treads, maintenance time that most would prefer to spend on the even costlier mechs, and as such most modern armies using these will mix them in with regular caterpillar threaded variants to bulk up their force count.

Vartini: a small lightly armored tank that relies almost entirely on the superior maneuverability its ball treads give it to stay alive, weaving deftly through narrow streets or uneven countryside. Its primary armament is a turret mounted laser blaster used mainly either to harass targets of opportunity or to see of pursuers as it gathers intel.

Vopundre: one of the oldest models, it's more or less a traditional tank with its tracks replaced with ball-treads. Despite this it stayed in production throughout the crusades due to being a reliable workhorse, well armored, powerful main gauss gun, and highly maneuverable, and still sees alt of service in the civil war thanks to the ease of reattaching caterpillar tracks, resulting in some odd looking repair jobs with tanks sporting a track on one side and ball-treads on the other.

Orgivaia A and B: designed alongside each other by two competing design philosophies the empire ended up taking both on thanks to them being able to fill two roles by stapling a different turret on the same base. The A variant acts as a smaller, faster, Vopundre that can duel with other tanks, while the B variant has two twin linked Laser blasters used to combat masses of infantry and light vehicles and is considered the perfect tank for city fighting.

Bakago APC: a large box used to ferry infantry around, the quad barreled turret sat on top of the vehicle is what really makes it stand out. By loading a variety of gauss munitions the Bakago can provide fire support for its passengers against almost any target, providing artillery strikes, suppressive fire, AA cover or anti tank capabilities. Each baral is loaded with a different payload, and when a target is sighted the unsuitable munitions are swapped out while the barrel holding the correct response lets of the first shot of the engagement.

Carall APC: while smaller than the Bakago and armed with inflexible laser blasters the Carall has one major advantage, that being its powerful shield generators that let it bring troops to a location more safely and can also be used to set up an large bubble shield to protect them once combat begins.



Captain Piper

Level: 2
day/time: day 3 - night
Location: Skyrim-Stormcloak Camp
Word count: 355
Interacting with: @Lugubrious


Pipers first thought when she saw Azura was that she had gotten the same idea as she had, to spirit away up the mountain in the dark. She’d thought about it herself but ultimately decided against it, which had turned out to be a doubly good idea as it turned out her theory about who the graybears where calling had been correct, though she wondered why they had only now decided to speak to Azura directly. She theorised that it might harder to target a specific person with whatever the greybeards where using to project their voices than it was to simply shout at 11 volume.

Your a good judge of character it seems, coz your right, I ain't going to stop you. I imagine these bearded fellows ll only get more insistent the longer their calls go unanswered anyway, so this is, I suspect, for the best. As for going with you, I think it might be wise of you to take a sneaking approach for this trip, something I aint suited for.

Why was rather clear, the robot’s furnace bathing her and everything around her in a warm orange glow. Out in the dark woods she would stick out like a sore thumb, rendering the singer’s camo cloak worthless and spoiling spoiling both their night vision. Any half wit could spot the pair a mile off while they would be unable to see anything beyond their little island of light in the inky blackness.

Still. It's is dangerous to go alone, Piper unbuckled the belt and holster carrying her carrion pistol and presented it to the spear wielding woman take this. It might help get you out of a sticky situation, just be aware that it’s a noisy bugger. I’ll be wanting it back later, so be sure to get back safe and sound. It’s the least you can do to repay me for the amount of flack I’m going to get for this from our resident asshat she softly chuckled at the thought of the boss blowing his top when she told him Azura was gone. Anyway. Good luck Azura. I’ll see you soon, and maybe hear you sooner if I’m right about our greybeard friends.


Naija

level: 5
day/time: day 3
Location: Tetris Castle
Interacting with: @Holy Soldier


After the small pink creature ran off Naija was left with the agonising wait for them to return with help. It was just her, rosalina, her little starfish companions and the barely holding on Guile all trapped there by the unhealable wound. After what felt like an eternity kirby returned leading someone who was not Dr Solus but one of the other scientists. In hindsight finding someone unhurt was a better idea than the one she had had. She was glad Dr Solus was getting help. What followed was a discussion containing far to many words she did not understand until she was asked to help move Guile to something called a rejuvenation chamber. Naija could at least guess what that did. There was only one slight problem with all this and that was that her hopping did not mix well with helping transport wounded people.

I. Hmm. let me just she muttered as she rapidly tried to solve this puzzle.

Ok. You carry one side and I’ll carry the other

She moved to Guile’s side, wrapped his arm over her shoulders. Then she quickly sang a rising series of three notes that caused her to transform in to best form. Pink scales coated her arms, lower legs, head and torso, her pupils turned to slits, her teeth grew sharp while her fingers and toes gaind claws that she carefully avoided digging into guils skin. The most important thing however, was that strength surged through her veins that the amphibious woman used to, rather unsteadily, stand tall for the first time, lifting Guile with Rosalina's assistance in the process. The two of them then carried him between them in a human crutch, following after Dr light to the rejuvenation chamber.
Zuukind civil war zone, Celestuial bureaucracy controlled space.

Rotatha 4 was an arid planet with two habitable areas around its poles that made up about 30% of its total surface. Colonised initially by Forensakai wanderers who had introduced a domesticated herd species best described as the animal equivalent of tumbleweed to the center desert regions to make it in some way useful, the world was only notable for being close to the border between the Celestial bureaucracy and the Republic of equals, two of the major factions in the Zuukid civil war. The civil war itself was in one of its colder periods, an armistice signed 5 years ago had led to an era of recovery for the opposed groups, one focused primarily around military build up, civilian relief, infrastructure repair, diplomatic intrigue, political restructuring and, in the case of the republic, preparations for its first election in 125 years. Rotatha 4’s only real gain from this period was that the celestial bureaucracy had finally had time to focus on civilian affairs again, which had mainly involved sending agents of the bureaucracy to assist/interfere with things that had been handled locally out of necessity for fifty+ years. As part of this the town of Saltspire had received not one but two officially trained priests, though sadly the second had come to look for the absentee first.

Saltspire itself was a small settlement on the coast of one of Rotatha’s 3 seas, where its primary purpose was to maintain the large network of wind turbines situated out on the tid-less ocean beyond, as well as the related storage and transmission equipment. It was made up of a combination of prefabricated buildings set up by the original settlers and newer structures made out of local red stone, all surrounded by a ring of farmland. The only thing setting the place apart from a one belonging to a type 1 civilisation was the combined sea, air and space port nestled against the shore, a drab strip of concrete and aloys housing maintenance craft and small cargo haulers. The other stand out pieces of tech in the vicinity where found at the local temple, an unremarkable building denoted only by a large anchor shaped symbol bolted to the wall of an otherwise unremarkable larger redstone building. Inside the recently arrived priest, one Vemt Rasdathian, was holding mass with a disappointingly small congregation in a large chamber that had once been a meeting hall that was currently filled with a thin haze of blue smoke. Suspended in this smoke drifted the congregation, given an illusion of a freedom from gravity by 8 anti gravity field generators, each holding a meditative stance appropriate for their myriad of body structures. Giant hexapodal Rodorphins, their mouths covered in oxygen enriching equipment tailored to still let the hallucinogenic gas in the air in floated alongside stout Lonoxi drones, rugged Kalixurans and insectile Forensakai trying their best to avoid instinctive use of their wings. At the front was the priest himself, a Sethhanide clad in a red toga that reached down to the first half meter of his tail which itself was coiled into a neat bundle blow him. Adoring his head was a crown of red gold adorned with a small anchor made of onyx that held the spaced out serpents affixed to his skull in order as he preached to the assembled faithful.

The priest spoke of the Anchor, how it surrounds them all, how it held the galaxy together and how all its people should be united together in reverence of it. He guided the faithful in first relaxing, then meditating and and finally in entering a trance like state to try and open their minds to the Anchor’s wonder, to reach out with their spirits to make contact with that great universal soul, so that they might learn of their place in the universe, of their purpose. To find meaning in the seemingly chaotic galaxy, to see patterns in the madness. To achieve enlightenment.

Eventually the session wound down, with the priest brining his flock back up out of the trance via a slow countdown, using a device to release a clear white mist into the room that scrubbed the air of the blue smoke and slowly turning down the anti-grav. The congregation drifted slowly back down to the floor and landed with varying degrees of grace. There was a small period of general mingaling afterwards during which most people drifted out of the temple. A handful stayed longer, wanting to talk either with each other or Vemt himself, but after a few minutes they too filtered out.

And then she walked through my door. She was a Forensakai woman in early adulthood wearing a dark green Abolla that mostly hid the flight suit she had on underneath it. She was also trying to hid some kind of injury, 2 of her 4 hands pressed against her side covering a small patch of blood anyone not examining her closely wouldn't have noticed. Perhaps staggered was a better description of how she came in, because she gave up hiding the state she was in once the door slammed shut behind her and I was the only person who could see her. Hands freed from her side she fell into my arms when i rushed to her aid”

“Senfont? Is that you? Thank the Anchor” she muttered, her voice slurred and wracked with pain at the same time.

Senfont. It was a surprise to hear someone actually familiar with the name of the man I had been sent here to replace. He’d been the first official priest this little town had had in years, he had apparently been instrumental in getting them one, and yet from what I’d gotten out of the locals he seems to have been an entirely absent figure from their community. He’d never introduced himself let alone held mass, that had been left to a local untrained preacher who had been doing improvised sessions for decades and who a lot of the populace still seem to prefer despite my arrival, yet had sent glowing reports of his positive effect on the community. Reports that the pencil pusher that sent me out here was still receiving by the way. Here then, completely out of the blue, was my first real link to that traitor and she was rapidly fading in my arms.

“Stay with me ok. Keep talking, tell me what happened while I try and help you” The priest used his long serpentine tail to support the woman as he used a small wrist mounted device to send a message to the only doctor the town had, asking for help.

“I. We were attacked. Damned snakes.” she managed ever so slowly

“Where? Here? Are we in danger?”

“No. no. got away. In the ship. Its safe.”

“Good. I’m going to help you with the wound. Where’s the ship?”

She was slipping away from me, must have used all her strength just to get here and now that strain was rapidly catching up with her

Vempt pulled the cloake aside revealing the flight suit beneath, which at her left side had been shredded by some kind of flechet weapon, creating a gruesome mess of cloth, carapace, and flesh through which she was losing blood. fast. As the priest futility tried to press the woman's cloak against the wound to stem the flow she managed a last “Dock. Hanger. 12.” before losing consciousness. The resident doctor arrived moments later, having been one of those attending the earlier session.




Vemt entered the back of the temple, his hands still covered in the woman’s blood. The doctor, an aged Lonoxi Queen who had had her long since had her pheromone glands removed, was taking care of her as best she could but was unsure if she would recover. There's nothing more I can do for her, so I’ll need to follow up on what little she had given me while I waited to see if she would recover. I’d managed to get a look at her her personal effects and they had been telling: A small wrist communicator, locked by voice id. A series of wallets containing numerous, presumably fake, ids and a variety of currencies and battering chips including a number of microprocessors, compressed gold and vials of panacea. A force-knife and gauss pistol with a variety of munitions. She was, by my bet, some kind of smuggler or mercenary who made illegal trips to areas of the empire currently not under our control, and my predecessor had something to do with that, though what exactly I didn't know. The answer lay in the ship no doubt

The rear of the temple had more in familiar with a police station than it had with the depths of a temple. The drab dull space housed, among other things, a dedicated interrogation room, a weapons rack housing Pilums: short spear like weapons who’s two pronged blades were enhanced with force fields that let them stab or cut through near anything and could also fire lasers from a lense located between them, a selection of less lethal weapons and restraining devices, an attached garage housing an armored car mounted with a siren and painted in inquisitional colours, a small number of spy drones and a old fashioned billboard that had Vemt’s limited knowledge about Senfont pinned all over it. At the far end where a number of holding cells that had been blessedly empty upon his arrival, but now held one occupant. His ‘partner’ who had been secured safely behind the steel door, their only access to the outside world a small barred window. From within the armored chamber came a voice sounding like a low predatory growl tinged with iron. “Blood. Yours? No. Wrong kind. Hmmm. Wasp. Female. Your first kill?” The monster asked, its inflection making it clear that it believed such an event was well overdue.

“No. Someone who was shot. Smuggler probably. Might not recover” the beast moved like lightning inside its holding cell, armored talons grabbing at the bars of the tiny window as the beast pushed the visord dome covering the top of its head to the small gap, its six eyes barely visible below it. “Hunt”

Vemt took a few seconds to catch their breath. Both he and his serpents had recoiled in fear when the predator had surged forwards. Their natural predator, one enhanced with alloys and artificial sinew to the designs of some long dead mad genius. A Rekshai. Anchor damn whichever clerk had decided I needed this things’s assistance.

“You will be staying here. You’ll only scare the people here and it's been difficult enough getting them on side without having a monster following me around”

“Death. Danger. Protocall demands I go” the beast told him matter of factly.

“Protocol be damned, I have evidence there’s no threat here. I am ordering you to stay here” He turned to wash the blood from his hands, the matter, in his mind, settled.

“Have higher orders. To protect you”

“Good luck fulfilling those orders inside that...” there was a hideous screeching of metal on metal interspersed by 3 metallic clunks and followed by the sound of the door unlocking. The beast pushed the door open, some of the bars on its window having been severed so that the Rekshai could reach through and down to unlock the door“...Cell”

The creature, designated REK 0001 6613 7906, was a two meter tall bipedal monster coated from head to toe in unremovable metal armor that had been painted a sharp regal blue, the color of the inquisition. Its head was mostly hidden by a helmet that left only the creatures mouth, a voracious maw filled with razor sharp teeth, tuly exposed while keeping the rest of its visage hidden beneath a cloudy visor. Running along its back where a number of long scythe blade like spines that it could used to communicate with members of its pack. Behind it was a long prehensile tale that undulate lazily, maintaining the creatures balance as it walked with an almost raptor like gait. It’s fingers and toes all ended with the claws it had cut its way out of the cell with, each as deadly as a Pilum’s blade. The freed monster stalked past the horrified priest and picked Pilums from the wall rack, tossing one at Vemt which the Sethhanide just barely caught in his fumbling bloody hands.

“Lead the hunt holy one.”

Well then. this is one cobra that's not going back in the jar any time soon. Just my luck.


Captain Piper

Level: 2
day/time: day 3 - night
Location: Skyrim-Stormcloak Camp
Word count: 1041
Interacting with: @Zarkun, @Holy Soldier, @Mattchstick, @Lugubrious


“This all sounds good to me so far”

Piper hated to admit it, but she was with the boss when it came to being impressed by Ruben, though she wasn’t going to go around backhanding him like the Boss was. How immature the Boss himself was made the continued patronisation double infuriating. Ruben also seemed like he might have a better grasp of large scale combat than she at least did, presumably that came with the territory of still being in the military. Piper still really hadn't managed to wrap her head around the concept that there where going to be, at the very least, one hundred and eighty seven fighters in the upcoming battle. It was, in her opinion, a ludicrous and unfathomable number of people to try and coordinate in a mission. Up in space you would never even be able to fit that many people on a single ship or station, let alone have them fight in anything looking like a battle where tactics and positioning would be playing a pivotal role. Instead she had more or less ignored the vastly bloated number of combatants during the planning, thinking of this as just another plan for a small scale highest with her crew that just so happened to have some big numbers haphazardly pinned onto each member’s role. This plan for stealthily securing first the gate and then the central guard tower however was something far more up her alley, a good old fashioned heist with sneaking, taking the enemy by surprise and involving only a small team and a clear objective. It was as a result something of a shame the boss pounced on it first as, on top of her preference for that scale of operation, the tower could also have have made a good sniper's perch, though she supposed there was nothing stopping her from taking it later in the battle. Still, just because she disappointed that she wasn't going to be taking point it did not mean she wouldn't offer her assistance in another manner.

“I could take a concealed sniper position to cover the gate stealth operation if you like, so that when… if something goes wrong with it I can provide some marksbotship for your gang Boss. Same goes for the tower assault if it doesn't interfere with our push for the mine. Might be able to find a spot where I can cover both? We’ll see when we get a proper look at the place for ourselves tomorrow.”

At a certain point it became clear that discussion was over and the humans, after a bit of scrounging about for supplies, began what piper assumed was what they did to refuse themselves, a process she attempted to avoid staring at in repulsed fascination because of how unpleasantly squishy and wet it was. Instead she saw to the refueling of her boiler, a process which ended up involving melting some snow in a pot over the wood fire to avoid using the humans drinking water, teaching a curiose stormcloak how a steam engine worked and in return rediscovering the production of charcoal as a fuel source for Steambot kind and learning what the Dwarves were, or rather, had been. The tales of the ancients race’s advanced civilisation, the remains of which could be supposedly found buried in the earth reminded her of similar tales of ruins that had existed deep within steamworld before it exploded, though with a lot less toxic waste lying around and with a seemingly equal amount of ancient aggressive bots stomping around, though fortunately the ones here where were not collectively lead by a hostile xenophobic AI mastermind. After she had laid the groundwork for a future Nord led industrial revolution she drank the melted snow to fill up her water tank and briefly opened up the hatch on her chest leading to her furnace, directly fueling the fire raging at her core with some freshly prepared charcoal. She then settled down to clean, oil and polish both herself and her guns to keep the machinery in tip top condition, during which the humans settled down into some kind of low power mode that she assumed was this “sleep” thing Ulfric had mentioned. It was apparently one one that they were easily roused, much to their displeasure, by her making any loud noises as she tried to do some additional solo planning using the crude map. Boredom from the lack of company and the human’s complaining quickly drove her to leave them to it.

Stepping out of the tent she happened to glance up, only to be struck by pangs of homesickness, for above the strange blue sky had been replaced by a sea of alien stars swimming around an uncannily familiar moon. She wondered what nightmares might lurk behind that great gleaming silver orb. Perhaps it was where the dwarves had disappeared to. Despite the fact that her kind had lived, and one day might again live, on a world like this, up among the stars was where Piper felt she belonged. Up there was where her people were, or rather felt like they were, while she was stuck down here with the humans who where, it seemed, all asleep, leaving her without company or distraction to pass the long night. Wondering the perimeter of the camp however yielded unexpected signs of life as she stumbled into the poor sods stuck with nightwatch duty. It was with them she spent most of the night, bonding with a series of watchmen and women as they all took turns in safeguarding the camp from the possibility of night attacks by forsworn or the monstrous things supposedly lurking out there in the dark woods. She took the opportunity to give some, non ammo expending, night lessons in the use of the captured laser weapons, such as which end was the shooty end, what a safety was and how you reloaded them. While it could not compare to the company of a gang of close companions like those she had aboard her ship back home, chatting with and getting to know some of the people she would be fighting alongside when dawn comae was a pleasant enough way to pass the time.

The long dead Zuukid empire’s sheet exists primarily for historical reference and to compare and contrast its various successors with their progenitor.





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