Solar Winds Trading Company Headquarters: New Batvia, Venus, Sol Employees: 925 Registered Hulls: 8 League Scepters: 1 (provisional)
Planets Lionel System: Kappa 121-G Star Class: G (Orange/White) Inhabitants: 10 million autochthons. Assorted Iron Age societies. Exports: None to date League Presence: Class D repair base. A-Pow Presence: None.
The Ancient and Honorable League of Neo-Hanseatic Merchants
“Not ancient, not honorable, and only in league to bilk the rest of the galaxy.” Charles Brandle – My Life and Times
The League as is commonly referred to is an organized group of merchants based in Sol. The League holds a technical monopoly on star faring trade beyond the Sol System, a right for which individual companies pay annual dues. Originally viewed by the Associated Powers as a way to organize the gold rush resulting from the development of the Wellerman-Kashogi drive and supra-luminal travel it rapidly developed into the real economic power in the human galaxy. The League is theoretically a democracy in which each member company can cast a number of votes proportional to its earnings, though as a practical matter diets are only called to settle the thorniest trade disputes or as an arbitrator of last resort between rival companies.
The Associated Powers of Federated Sol
Join the navy they said, see the galaxy they said, pursuant to fiscal constraints and compliance with sub clause 222-AC-3 they said. Charles Brandle – My Life and Times
A-Pow is the governing political and military body of the Sol system. Formed of a union of Earth, Mars, Venus, and a score or so of well established colonies in the Solar only after the pressures of extra solar expansion made it increasingly dangerous to resist. Bureaucratic in the extreme, its complicated constitution, set up to appease a dozen mutual exclusive factions means that A-Pow rarely manages to move any issue past the debate stage. It does possess a powerful fleet and several armies, largely as a way to enrich defense contractors. While some of the larger extra solar colonies are members, they are very much poor relations to the Solar core, with correspondingly less constitutional power.
A-Pow is too riddled with internal divisions to have a coherent position on the League, indeed the endlessly political cycle is yet another arena for those members of the League with money to spend to attempt to buy influence. A-Pow can and does act to defend Sol and its extra solar member worlds, at least after every opportunity to dither has been exhausted.
Independent Human Colonies Everything that can be tried will be tried, everything that will be tried will be fucked up. Charles Brandle – My Life and Times
Independent settlements not part of A-Pow have been established on hundreds, perhaps thousands of worlds, asteroid belts, and deep space stations. These range from small industrial operations, to League trading posts, to collectives of political dissidents, cults, utopians, and every segment of solar society that, for one reason or another, wanted to hop a starship and get the hell out of dodge.
One benefit of Lionel’s relatively low level of ambient sunlight was that even at ‘dawn’ it didn’t get very bright. The temperature did warm significantly though, and so the beginning of a new day was marked with heat and by a sudden explosion of activity in the jungle that seemed completely arbitrary to light dependent humans. The other benefit was that you didn’t get a brilliant light shining in your bleary hung over eyes.
“I’m not sure what in the name of all the Gods I did to deserve one of you, much less two!” Maynard raged as he stalked back and forth in front of Bad and Inez. The were in front of one of the warehouses from which a long train of native pack animals were emerging. Like the natives they were hexapods, with powerful jointed knees reminiscent of caterpillars. They clicked and croaked continually as the muscled panniers of woven wire filled with glittering manganese rich ore. Native guards with company lanyards chivvied them along with the points of spears. A few, very few, had breech loading trade rifles and were bestrung with bandoliers of brass cartridges that jingled as they walked. The League had long ago learned not to sell advanced weapons to natives on worlds there they wanted to operate long term, but they had also learned that you couldn’t cut them out entirely without black markets springing up to fill the void.
Inez endured Alrik Maynard’s fury stolidly. He was a handsome man if you liked them a little on the wiry side with radish blonde hair. He wore a coat of brilliant green shimmersilk atop collets of fine linen tucked into polished black boots. The golden seal of a Captain and a Factor of the League hung around his neck, marked with the insignia of the Solar Winds Trading Company. Inez’s head throbbed, the hang over had been largely purged by a judicious dose of booze-be-gone, but her head still pounded from where a boot had caught her during the fracas last night.
“You I expect this from,” Maynard snapped, thrusting a finger into Inez chest, “But you!” He whirled on Bad and stomped over to him, the rings on his fingers glinting as they caught the stray light of a light post on the perimeter.
“The ink not even dry on your contract and already brawling in taverns like a Gods-be-damned common drunk!”
“Sir,” Inez began.
“Quiet!” the captain snapped, “I don’t want to hear you, I don’t want to see you, the only thing I want is this cargo delivered to Loxahar valley without incident. Unless you want me to put the damages the bar owner is claiming on your account I suggest that you ensure this goes off FLAWLESSLY. Am I understood!?”
Call me Bad. The Black Lady save me Inez thought. Next thing we will be Viper or Iceman or some other damn fool thing. Well, given that his parents were probably to blame, she resolved to try and cut him some slack. Inez sipped her beer and found it no better for her attempt to savor it. She wondered if the Sunbeala served food and if that food was anything other than the kind of warmed over rations which she might get on the Arxregnum. She gave it up as a bad bet as her eyes scanned the contract. So much for kicking back while the maintaince crew handled the refit she thought. Contracting her out was a better use of her time, at least from the credit pinching perspective of her League masters.
One thousand three hundred and twenty four Sols and a wake up she told herself.
Endeavoring to look on the bright side she considered the job at hand. She hadn’t known that there was any manufacturing on Lionel but she could see the logic of the enterprise. Processing trace elements into electronic precursors would allow the fabrication of electronics for the repair yard and, eventually, for export to the surrounding fringe worlds. Custom electronics were often more cost effective to manufacture close to where they would be needed, rather than sending all the way back to Sol. The enterprise would also encourage asteroid prospectors whose unfailingly run down ore barges would provide steady business for the expanding repair yard. Native laborers would be needed to work the forges, to construct rail or road connections to the port. This would require modernizing agriculture with tools to make up for the resulting shortfall of peasants. Wages would be paid, wages that could be spent on trade goods and off planet luxuries, and so on and so on. Thus the business of the League grew, interconnected rings of industry and trade, expanding forever towards the ends of the universe. Inez wondered if Aldrik was invested in the scheme personally or if it was a Solar Winds Trading venture. The two things need not be separate of course; all captains were given a certain amount of capital to invest in on the spot ventures and spur of the moment opportunities but she would have wagered that Maynard was up to his eyeballs in the scheme.
“Well, I’ve never worked with a Privateer before, whatever that is I suppose…” before she could suppose any further the ambient buzz of conversation died away and she craned her neck to look towards the door. A trio of natives were entering the bar. They were bipedal and man sized With thick torsos and three sets of powerful limbs, the middle set seemed to function as arms, with three opposable thumbs set against a serrated gripping surface. The upper limbs seemed closer to claws, heavy and muscular. Their entire bodies were covered with glossy carapace, a red so dark that it seemed black in anything but full sun. They had large eyes that seemed to glimmer with the suggestion of internal illumination, though Inez remembered that this was an artifact of the receptors that allowed the natives to see further into the UV than humans. All three wore nothing save leg wraps of some kind of pale local leather and access lanyards which indicated they did menial work in the starport. The largest of the three seemed agitated, and the lower half of his face seemed covered with a fine coating of something golden and powdery. The creature let out a roar, battle cry or curse Inez wasn’t sure, and charged at the two humans, emitting a continual string of clacking ululations. Inez and Bad sprang to their feet, Inez going for a pistol that was in her arms locker back on the ship. She snatched up the lightweight stool instead and swung it in an arc that intersected with the creature’s right claw arm. It caught the cheap extruded plastic and tore it free, pivoting and driving a powerful kick punch combination into Inez, sending her sprawling across a table at which two xenos were playing cards. Credits and chips flew in all directions as the bar descended into chaos. All was screaming and confusion, one of the card players hauled Inez to her feet and drove a fist at her. She twisted aside and snapped an elbow into his face, sending the alien stumbling back. The two natives who had accompanied the original attacker began to ululate the same weird war cry as the first and then charged into the fray. Inez kicked the table into the way of the nearest native sending him down in a tangle of limbs and clacking pincers, the latter quickly reducing the table to splinters. The porcine bar tender ducked down and reappeared with a riot gun, he wracked the slide and fired with a chemical crunch. Where he had been aiming Inez never knew, probably for one of the natives, but the swirling melee threw the creature who had arm wrestled Bad into his line of fire. The bean bag round drove the air from his lungs with a whumph and a spray of vomit. A bottle of liquor flew from the downed gamblers' companions to smash across the bartenders face. The piggish xeno screamed and dropped the gun which bounced of the bar and went off, spraying the back wall with the remains of a dozen shattered liquor bottles. The whole building rang with curses, cheers, and grunts of pain and the air was heavy with spilled booze and hormones.
There were no police in a place like this, but there were bound to be a few star port security types who would show up if this went on long enough. Inez dived across the melee, screaming in pain as medical appliqués tore free and snatched up the fallen riot gun. She turned to survey the melee. One of the natives was drawing back a claw to cold cock Bad. Two bean bags smacked into the alien, the first spinning him ninety degrees just in time for the second to smash into his face, pitching him over into the crowd. The melee closed in around Bad as Inez racked the slide only to feel a limp empty chamber. Screaming in frustration she reversed the weapon and charged into the fray wielding it like a club.
One thousand three hundred and twenty four Sols and a wake up. Some fucking days.
“The paycheck raises a good point,” Cygi declared turning to face Jocasta with large cartoon dollar signs in her eyes, “he is worth a lot of money.” Jocasta rolled her eyes at the AI’s antics.
“It is just not proper to turn someone in after you have shared pizza with them,” Jocasta rejoined. It was just possible that she could sell Neil to another bounty hunter at a discount, and pocket the money to fix the ship, but brokering such a deal would be very risky. Besides she could admit that he was growing on her. Cygi placed her hands on her holographic hips.
“What about that job on Pneumonax, or the one on Kappa Kappa 12, or the Sindic job, or the …” Jocasta waved Cygi to quiet while Neil’s eyebrows climbed higher.
“That is an awful lot of pizza related bounties,” Neil pointed out in a neutral tone.
“Well the Sindic thing doesn’t count, I was only using the pizza as an improvised smoke grenade,” Jocasta replied somewhat defensively.
“Changing the topic, a lot of people have trouble with armies, not every deserter get slapped with a multi-million credit bounty,” Jocasta pressed. She picked up another shot of liquor and tossed it back, this one was piney to the point of making her eyes water.
Solar Winds Trading Company Headquarters: New Batvia, Venus, Sol Employees: 925 Registered Hulls: 8 League Scepters: 1 (provisional)
Planets Lionel System: Kappa 121-G Star Class: G (Orange/White) Inhabitants: 10 million autochthons. Assorted Iron Age societies. Exports: None to date League Presence: Class D repair base. A-Pow Presence: None.
The Ancient and Honorable League of Neo-Hanseatic Merchants
“Not ancient, not honorable, and only in league to bilk the rest of the galaxy.” Charles Brandle – My Life and Times
The League as is commonly referred to is an organized group of merchants based in Sol. The League holds a technical monopoly on star faring trade beyond the Sol System, a right for which individual companies pay annual dues. Originally viewed by the Associated Powers as a way to organize the gold rush resulting from the development of the Wellerman-Kashogi drive and supra-luminal travel it rapidly developed into the real economic power in the human galaxy. The League is theoretically a democracy in which each member company can cast a number of votes proportional to its earnings, though as a practical matter diets are only called to settle the thorniest trade disputes or as an arbitrator of last resort between rival companies.
The Associated Powers of Federated Sol
Join the navy they said, see the galaxy they said, pursuant to fiscal constraints and compliance with sub clause 222-AC-3 they said. Charles Brandle – My Life and Times
A-Pow is the governing political and military body of the Sol system. Formed of a union of Earth, Mars, Venus, and a score or so of well established colonies in the Solar only after the pressures of extra solar expansion made it increasingly dangerous to resist. Bureaucratic in the extreme, its complicated constitution, set up to appease a dozen mutual exclusive factions means that A-Pow rarely manages to move any issue past the debate stage. It does possess a powerful fleet and several armies, largely as a way to enrich defense contractors. While some of the larger extra solar colonies are members, they are very much poor relations to the Solar core, with correspondingly less constitutional power.
A-Pow is too riddled with internal divisions to have a coherent position on the League, indeed the endlessly political cycle is yet another arena for those members of the League with money to spend to attempt to buy influence. A-Pow can and does act to defend Sol and its extra solar member worlds, at least after every opportunity to dither has been exhausted.
Independent Human Colonies Everything that can be tried will be tried, everything that will be tried will be fucked up. Charles Brandle – My Life and Times
Independent settlements not part of A-Pow have been established on hundreds, perhaps thousands of worlds, asteroid belts, and deep space stations. These range from small industrial operations, to League trading posts, to collectives of political dissidents, cults, utopians, and every segment of solar society that, for one reason or another, wanted to hop a starship and get the hell out of dodge.
On any planet visited by the descendants of Earth, the first building to be constructed was, without exception, a bar. After that came a brothel, though often enough the two were in combination. In her year and a half of indentured service to the League, and contract to the Solar Winds Trading Company specifically, Inez had been in plenty of both. This one was better than most, at least the walls weren’t sealed with stinking insect saliva the way they had been in the Miserable Mossie on Caldacot, or upwind of a sulfur processing plant like ‘The Stink of It’ on Mosul’s World. It had all the common characteristic denizens, the tag rag and bobtail sweepings of three centuries of human interstellar travel: Merchants, adventurers, scoundrels, thieves, cut throats and every combination of those categories.
Inez walked over and bellied up to the bar, leaning gratefully to take the stress off her injured core. She held up a hand to the alien bartender who paused from his somewhat desultory attempts to swab out glass with a rag to pull a bottle of beer from an icebox concealed beneath the bar. The bartender struck the cap off the beer against the bar with casual skill and set it down in front of her, dripping with ice melt and condensate. The green and gold check on the can identified it as Zap, a high quantity low quality brew from Earth, underscored by the surprisingly realistic motto Zap beer, all you can get out here. Inez licked the foam beginning to spill from the top of the bottle and took a long pull. Well, at least it is cold, she thought charitably as she set the half empty bottle down on the bar. The bartender grunted when she didn’t produce any currency, then reached into a pouch, produced a debit pad, and tossed it down beside her.
Inez sighed and looked out over the vista that was visible through the window behind the racked bottles of human and alien liquors. The bar was set inside one of the local pyramids, either abandoned with disuse or granted as a trade concession to the League. It formed one corner of a rectangular temple complex perhaps a kilometer wide and half again as long with a pyramid at each corner. The space in between must have started life as a paved plaza, but starship landings had reduced it to a crushed mass of gravel. Only two starships were on the ground at the moment, the Arxregnum and a tramp whose name Inez hadn’t bothered to learn. Differences in design aside, they were both long rectangular tubes of metal with secondary hull sections attached like ancient outriggers. Both vessels bristled with antennae, sensors and the various other avionics that allowed men to travel between the stars. Local vehicles, simple diesel powered haulers, moved around the two ships on their own errands, bringing supplies or people from the workshops and warehouses that had been built around the base of the largest of the four pyramids. A low stone wall, grown through with greenish orange lichen, surrounded the whole establishment, probably ceremonial as it was too low to provide an effective defensive barrier. Roads ran off into the jungle at a strange variety of angles, vanishing quickly in the greenery. Inez knew from the landing that several large local settlements were only a few kilometers distant, though the jungle was thick enough that no sign was visible from here. Judging by the muddy disrepair of the roads, there wasn’t much truck with the locals. Sometimes the best you could say about a place was that it was breathable, and that it kept the rad level manageable. That wasn’t nothing in a wide and hostile galaxy. Inez drew in a long breath that smelled of the tavern, the landing field, and the alien biochemistry beyond.
“What a shit hole,” she sighed philosophically, swallowing the rest of her beer and waving for another. The debit pad clinked up the charge, which would eventually be settled by Alrik Maynard as the operator of the Arxregnum. Maynard might or might not get on her case about charging drinks to the company but she figured after the incident with the kraken she had earned a little grace. Provided she didn’t turn up drunk off her face of course, which, to be fair, would be a job of work on nothing but Zap. As though sensing her thoughts the portable computer she wore at her wrist beeped.
“The Black Lady damn it,” Inez muttered as she opened the message with a few quick keystrokes.
Please collect local contractor for security duty. Ident and particulars attached. AM.
Inez sighed again and turned to scan the bar. Sure enough, a man matching the hologram was just concluding an arm wrestling contest with an alien. The various spectators were hooting and hollering as they exchanged credit chips to settle whatever bets they had placed on the combatants. She slid herself into the vacated seat as the group broke up, flashing a holographic copy of the contract by way of an icebreaker.
“Badrek? Is that a real name? It sounds like something you stepped in and have to scrape off your boot,” she asked, as diplomatically as she could manage. She wondered what hair brained scheme Maynard had in mind that he wanted an additional thug along. History did not suggest that the answer to this question would please her.
The hatches cracked open and hissed down onto landing field of crushed gravel. The smell of baked lime, hot metal, and sea weed burned off during re-entry rushed in, mingling with the slightly cinnamon smell of the local jungle. Inez wrinkled her nose as she came down the ramp, her body stinging from the medical aplique that wrapped her from thigh to mid chest beneath the somewhat battered League arming vest she wore.
Lionel was typical of the out-worlds in the Pegasus Arm, an alien world habital by humans but as yet with little trade to entice the Merchant Princes of the League. It orbited an angry K-type star tha blazed at the high end of the sequence. Luckily the angry ball was far more distant, in relative terms, than Earth from Sol. The result was that even in the 'day' time a kind of eternal twilight existed. The ambient illumination of the nebula colored the light a greenish purple, which deeped during the night without significant decrease in luminosity. The local life forms bore a superficial similarity to ant forms from earth, though they primarily subsisted on the myriad varieties of local fungus which grew in vast, carefully managed forests. Their technological level was iron age without even the wheel, though like the Aztec of ancient Earth, this hadn't prevented them from raising monumental pyramids and other works of sacred architecture. Their society was based on a kind of religious clientage with varigated classes of priest serving as an aristocracy. The appearence of Captain Lionel of the Mars Engineering and Technical Consortium forty years ago had thrown them into significant agitation which was still working itself out.
Regardless of the native's feelings, the League had been able to set up a small trading post and an emergency maintaince depot for ships that got themselves in trouble far from more civilized worlds. The Arxregnum had spent the past six weeks gathering sea weed for the Solar Winds Trading Company, and had been doing quite well before what the crew termed 'The Kraken Attack'. The sea creature should not have existed according to the survey data which reported only plant life above the microbial, something some academic somewhere might someday write a paper about. The creatures sudden appearance, drawn no doubt to the warmth of the hull, had damaged several of the jump antennae that propelled the vessel into the supra-luminal band. She had taken a week to limp to even this out of the way place and would go no further until she was refited. Maynard had done well to get them this far, but they were short of crew and ready cash and it remained to be seen how repairs would be effected.
"Inez de Calabria," she declared to the bored looking Guild apprentice sitting at a table covered by a canvas shade. The apprentice scratched a red rash tha vanished beneath his doublet, a common reaction to exposure to proteins in non human biospheres.
"Good to meet you, frankly its good to meet anyone on this out of the way dung hill," he replied with a slight Martian accent.
"Your captain coming down, or is it hired guns only?" he asked. Inez laughed in response, a tired slightly bitter sound.
"I'm an indentured gun technically," she told him, "Captain Maynard will be down in a few minutes, as soon as he has the fires out in engineering im sure. Anywhere you can get a drink around here?" The apprentice, Walsh but the battered name tape, hooked a thumb towards a small pyramid a few dozen meters away.
"In there, that is where the other outworlders are too, if you care." @POOHEAD189
Phosphorescent foam surged up over the hull in freezing sheets. Inez de Calavria, apprentice armsman of the league, gripped the safety line in one gloved hand and raised the repeater with the other. The bow of the Arxregnum plunged downwards and icy water rushed up over her waist, chilly even through a vacuum rated environmental suit. The winds, close to cyclonic, howled around her whipping the wave tops to ragged flume. The starship rose again, riding up the face of the thirty meter wave until it reached the crest.
Inez had a half a second to look out over a heaving ocean of wind ripped waves. The purplish sky above crackled with a skittish tracery of green lightning that parted the auroral ribbons like cracks running through stressed ice. The view held for a half second and then she was rushing back down into the trough, vision obscured by a storm of flying droplets.
“How is it going out there,” her communicator crackled, carrying with the fury of the permanent storm above.
“Stand by, I…” Tentacles as thick as Inez’ waist exploded from the front of the wavefront, slapping down heavily along the curved silver hull. Unlike its equivalent on Earth, the thing was covered with gripping cillia rather than suckers. A dozen more tentacles followed the first, grappling the ship with dozens of enormous limbs. Inez fired the repeater one handed, it kicked like a steer but she held onto it. A three round cluster, lead by a tracer snapped from the barrel, the explosive tipped bullets shredding a tentacle into hundreds of pounds of fishy offal. The beast went wild, slapping at its wounded appendage with a half dozen of its limbs like a man trying to put out a fire. Inez hurled herself forward, unclipping her line and snapping it to another stanchion. She slipped on the soaking deck and went over snagging up against the line as it drove her harness into her ribs. She sucked in a lungful of spray, half choked and scrambled for purchase. Her hand closed around one of the exterior sensors and she pulled herself to her feet. A tentacle hit her across the chest with the force of a medicine ball and she was punched upwards and away from the hull. Gelatinous tendrils held her as the beast heaved against the safety line. The woven beryllium line could have lifted the ship, unfortunately her bones and sinews had a somewhat lower threshold.
“Fuuuuck!” she screamed as the beast worried at her, trying to pull her towards it’s as yet unseen maw.
“What was that?” the comm cracked, “I cant hear…”
“Shut!” Inez fired, “the fuck,” she fired again, “up!” The last burst caught the base of the tentacle close to the wave front. It exploded in a geyser of spray and blood and the thing dropped her. Inez plummeted to the deck below. Pain exploded across her hips as she bounced off the steel plating and plunged into the frigid water. The helmet was sealed but it didn’t have external air, the filters snapped closed and her available air flashed amber.
“Is there really any need to swear?” the voice in her comm asked pevishly. Inez hauled herself upwards, using the buoyancy of a rising wave to drive her body upwards. Thank the Black Lady for the line because the glittering phosphor bacteria in the water made it impossible to tell up from down. She broached and scrambled up onto the hull. She ducked another slashing tentacle that carried away a secondary communications mast in spray of sparks.
“I have it under…” a giant tripartite beak hammered into the hull, dishing one of the plates in with shattering force. Inez rolled sideways, catching a sensor head between her legs and wrapping them around it. She tensed her screaming muscles and pulled herself upright the beak drew back, revealing three dinner plate sized eyes staring malevolently at her. She flicked a switch on the repeater, deactivating the explosive charges and switching to solid shot.
“Control!” she concluded and emptied the magazine into the things eyes. The fifty caliber rounds punched through the eye in a spray of jelly and blood, they smashed into the nerve ganglia, destroying the primitive equivalent of a brain that motivated the giant creature. Tentacles slashed and battered but the water was foaming with black ink as internal bladders voided, internal buoyancy failed and the thing slipped beneath the waters, washed clear by the next wave.
“It really dosen’t sound like it,” the voice complained. Inez pulled herself to her feet.
“Just open the damned airlock,” she replied, and half limped, half crawled her way back towards the lock.
The khareeds hit the creek bed at full charge, the hooves of their great destriers kicking up great clods of dirt and the low shrubs which lined the slight declivity. Eudoxia slashed down with the point of her spear and a six hundred arrows snapped across the intervening distance like a flight of spiteful birds. The enemy horsemen seemed to leap to meet the arrows and suddenly men and beasts were screaming and falling in an avalanche of horseflesh. Beasts went down, tumbling over the corpses of the fallen, or yanked off their feet by heavily armored riders falling and yanking on the stirrups. The noise and explosion of dust was tremendous as the ranks behind rode over the fallen, horses leaping and skipping to keep their footing.
"Go, go!" Phaedra shouted, spurring her steed forward into the stream bed. She lowered her spear, aiming the point of the ten foot length of timber at a khareed in red and black livery who was struggling to maintain control of his mount as it swerved to avoid the thrashing corpses that now filled the creek bead. There was a shattering crash as the Miravet and the Khareeds smashed together in a collision that could be heard for miles. Thousands of pounds of horse and armor impacting withing a front of a few hundred feet. Phaedra's spear punched through the chainmail at the waist of her target as he desperately tried to pull his shield into place, blood fountained from the mans helmet as he flew from his saddle. Dozens of Khareeds went down in the instant of contact, horses and men both spitted on cavalry spears. Out of the corner of her eye Phaedra saw a Miravette go down, as a lance punched through the breast of her warhorse. The horsewoman stood up in her stirrups and leaped free, hitting the ground in a roll before being lost in the swirling dust that now obscured everything more than a few feet away. Phaedra could only hope the luckless trooper could get back out of the killing zone in the next few moments or she would certainly be trampled by one side or the other.
"Back! Back!" Phaedra shouted, pulling her cavalry saber free and slashing overhand at a Khareed who emerged from the dust with a spiked mace raised. Her stroke took his hand of with the wrist a moment before their horses crashed together and rebounded away. Horns were blaring and the Miravet wheeled and raced back the way they had come, the enemy momentum checked. The Khareeds pursed, flogging their mounts with their spurs till blood ran down their flanks, but their horses had already charging hard and the fresher Miravette mounts opened the distance. They came up over the creek bank and plunged through the ranks of Brasadis' infantry who were formed up in squares with open channels to allow the women to pass, closing ranks as they did so to present a wall of spears to the bloodied Khareeds that came up over the bank in a ragged line of pursuit.
Emmaline attempted to cover herself with the short throw blanket she had stripped from the couch. The attempt was difficult as her figure made it almost impossible to maintain any but the faintest illusion of modesty. She considered a grab for her dress, but the look in the lead bandit's eyes convinced her that it wasn't a good idea. The rest of the motley crew eyed her like half starved dogs, but the leaders eyes were wary and guarded.
"Looking for a crew to tramp with? Well we might be looking at a tramp to screw with," one of the brigands, a wall eyed man with hair the color of dirty straw chuckled lewdly.
"Claus!," the leader snapped, "do what the man says and check their packs."
"Johann..." the blonde, Claus apparently, objected, but Johann gestured with his gun barrels to where their baggage was stacked. Claus scowled and thrust his own weapon, a heavy horse pistol, into his belt without uncocking it. For a miracle it didn't go off as he crabbed over and pulled open Emmaline's pack. Several heavy pouches of gold clinked out, along with a bottle of wine and a piece of chocolate wrapped in grease cloth. There was an audible 'oooh' from the assembled bandits, clearly no strangers to the sound of decent loot. Emmaline attempted to scowl, but it was difficult to appear intimidating when you you could really only manage to cover one boob at a time.
"Looks like they are telling the truth boss," Claus said unnecessarily, his hand still rooting about in Emmaline's pack, intrigued by the clink of glass ware and other odds and ends. With an arched eyebrow he pulled something free. Emmaline's heart sank as she saw it was the wooden case that held the cut warpstone.
"What have we here?" Claus asked, eyes shining with avarice. Emmaline felt her heart rise up into her throat, rather a trick for a naked woman being held at gun point by a half dozen dirty looking thieves.
"Don't..." Emmaline began but Claus was already snapping open the clasps that held the case closed. The wood parted, issuing forth the emerald green glow of the unstable magical stone. The case itself was lined with a thin foil of lead engraved with warding symbols which offered some protection, but if Claus touched the stone with bare flesh...
Emmaline landed on Claus' back at the end of a flying leap, her arms wrapping around his head and her legs around his waist. The thief screamed in anger and surprise reaching back over his shoulder to grab her. As he pulled his hand out of the case the stink of burning keratin came with it, and his eyes widened to see the dirty fingernails burned back nearly to their pads. Her weight, considerable with the leverage she had, over toppled the bandit, and they went down in a tangle of arms and legs. The pistol in his waistband cracked, and the bullet whined off stone and sparked as it ricochet around the room before blasting into the couch with a puff of down feathers. Emmaline rolled off Claus, who was frantically slapping at his crotch in an attempt to put out the fire the pistol priming had started in his greasy trousers. Stark naked, Emmaline reached out with a long leg and snapped the case shut, the click of the locks engaging cutting off the sickly green glow from within.
Johann's blunderbuss was pointing at her, steady as a rock for several long moments before he lifted it skyward and eased the cocked hammers down. Nervous laughter at Claus' expense issued from the remaining men, as well as several whistles and a marriage proposal as Emmaline crawled across the room and pulled her dress on over her head, wriggling into it with distracting haste.
"Well," Johann said as he thrust the coachgun into a leather baldric that hung over his back. "Seems like the pair of you have a story to tell at least."
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