Penny

Penny's Projects

Anabasis

In Medias Res

Renard de Quentain

The drop ship screamed as it plunged through the upper layers of San Sayeeda’s atmosphere. It bucked and jolted like a wild thing for long seconds before steadying in the smoother air below. The twelve men packed into the troop compartment, a tight space made tighter by body armor, personal weapons and field kit, endured it as best they could.

“Don’t look so worried their Galahad,” cracked the mocking voice of Sergeant Koltz, “We will have em good and whipped by nightfall.”

A couple of the men laughed at the epithet and Rene Queintain forced himself to smile as though the insult didn’t sting. Galahad, Lancelot, Sir so and so. He wished they would let it go and, because he wished that, it never seemed to stop.

“You bet Sergeant,” Rene replied, his voice was quiet and cultured, out of place among these hard eyed killers. Well, he was a killer sure as they were. He was a fine boned young man in his mid twenties with dark hair and dark eyes and seemed ill at ease in the grey ceramic polymer armor he wore over his fatigues. A few more of the soldiers sniggered at his use of Sergeant rather than Sarge but there was no real malice in it. They were just nervous, as was he and that was the God’s Truth.

“Six Zero seconds to the Dee Zee!” announced a voice, the pilot or maybe just an AI synthesis it was hard to tell, over the staticy intercom system. It was a completely unnecessary statement as the heads up display on every Marine’s helmet gave the figure as a running countdown but basic training emphasized that you got to be an old Marine by double checking everything you didn't have time to triple.

The DZ was a point a mile and a half above the point Rene’s helmet listed as Charlie Victor Three Zero. According to the briefing information CV30 was the grid reference assigned to a fire base in the southern highlands of San Sayeeda overlooking the valley of the Pemenec River. Heavy weapons emplaced there could prevent the landings at the Persopolis, the planetary and industrial capital. Command had billed this attack as a bold stroke but Rene knew better than most that history was full of bold strokes which turned out to be complete disasters. He found it was much more difficult to view them with detachment up close. As if summoned by his misgivings the intercom crackled to life again.

“Incoming! Brace for a Sh…” All twelve men grabbed for the restraint stanchions but before their fingers touched the safety bars, the deck seemed to punch up from below with the suddenness of a closing mouse trap and a rending metallic clang like the end of the world. Rene’s stomach dropped beneath him and for a moment he hung weightless before crashing to the deck in a rib pounding clatter of armor and equipment. The platoon was sprawled in a tangle and at least one man was screaming and everyone who didn't have the wind knocked from their lungs was shouting. The air, a moment ago as clear as starship air ever got, was filling with dark smoke and slick oily stench of burning metal.

“Jump! Jump! Jump!” bellowed a commanding voice, and it took Rene’s abused sense a moment to integrate the fact that Sergeant Koltz was speaking. Amazingly the veteran was on his feet, though he had lost his helmet and blood leaked over his face from a pressure cut on his shaven head. Rene’s helmet read forty five seconds to jump but He was hardly going to argue with an order to get out of this death trap. Already the crippled craft was curving downwards like a meteorite on its ballistic course to a fiery grave. A part of his mind, the studied academic part that was currently looking for the deepest mental hole it could find in which to hide, informed him that it boded very badly that the enemy even knew they were coming, much less had had time to move anti ship assets into place but there was no time for such abstract thinking now.

With a blow that would have cracked concrete Koltz smashed the emergency door release and then nested charges built into the wall went off with a hollow boom, peeling the side of the landing craft away like foil being stripped from a ration bar. The night air was a roaring sucking void outside, counterpointed by the scream of overheating vector thrust engines. Rene stumbled forward on all fours towards the sergeant, by luck or the good gods favor the only man not too entangled in his fellows or his equipment to move. The Sergeant gripped a stanchion like a statue of Effort, feet spread and planted on the quivering deck. With his free hand he seized Rene’s equipment belt and pitched him bodily from the dying drop boat into the open sky.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Every trooper had his or her own way of dealing with crisis. Some sprayed the problem with fire power, others put their faith in speed. In the end it didn’t really matter what your reaction was so long as it was action. No decision could be worse than no decision. Junebug came to her feet and stretched her arms to the heavens.

“Praise be to Rakeeri ,” she thundered in a clear calm voice, though she felt the adrenaline beginning to thunder in her mind.

“Praise be to Rakeeri ,” she shouted again this time in Zil. A few of the locals echoed the words. Most were too far away have heard the full exchange between *BLANK* and the ‘star men’ but they had heard the volcano rumble and they knew the name of their deity.

“Praise be to Rakeeri ,” she shouted a third time and this time was answered by nearly all the locals in a throaty roar as they took up the cheer. It wasn’t clear to her whether the Shaman really did believe the volcano wanted Neil’s soul or if he was just reacting to a threat to the pretty girl who seemed to be his favorite servant or slave. Instinct and experience told her it was seldom a mistake to think men were thinking with their genitals.

“Tell them that in honor of this occasion they shall all be elevated,” she said to the Shaman, unwilling to risk such a complicated thought in her limited grasp of the local language.

“Tell them that we shall build a monument to Rakeeri and that as reward they shall all be elevated. *Blank* fixed her with a speculative look before turning and addressing the people in a thundering voice that didn’t seem like it could have come from such a ravaged frame. The content of the speech wasn’t exactly clear but judging by the cheering he hadn’t deviated too much from her instruction.

“Hey what about…” Neil began to protest and Taya, getting over her own shock was already on her feet. Sayeeda slapped Neil hard across the face as he eyed his guards.

“Do not question the will of the great God,” she instructed sternly. Taya took a step forward her eyes scared and angry. Junebug made a stand down gesture with her hand and then realized that no one but her was familiar with her field signals.

@POOHEAD189

The Sorceress and the Slave

Fazel the Eunch smashed his fist down upon the table. Rattling the expensive glassware which covered the surface of mirror polished teak. Before him the captain of the guard, a great ebony skinned man from the far south stared over his shoulder. The room was expensively appointed with walls of smooth white sandstone and brightly colored mosaics inlaid into its floor. Luxiourious furnishings and exotic silks hung in careless testament to a life spent in the acquisition of power. If the Captain was intimidated by the Vizier's outburst he was at pains to show no sign of it.

"So they escaped under the very noses of your men and cannot be found? A thousand soldiers and you cannot bring me one woman and a lowly slave?!" Fazel was a small man of almost feminine build and a bald head that shone with the oil with which he polished it but he had a presence and right now his eyes held a snapping fury which would have cowed lesser men.

"They bought a boat from a merchant on the docks," the captain reported tossing the golden coin the guards had retrieved from the wretch so that it bounced down the length of the table towards Fazel. Before it completed its bouncing journey Fazel swatted it violently from the air so that it clinked musically against a far wall and ricochet off among a stand of pottery.

"I am not interested in some date swindler you cursed fool!" the enuch roared.

"Would you like us to search the river for miles down stream Vizier?" the captain asked in his stony barritone.

"I'm certain that the Sultan would not object to removing guards from the city. The Vizier fumed for a moment in silence. If there was one thing that all who knew Sultan Ali Ib Tariz, Lord of Silver Shod Sharsaya, Lion of the Tagria, Beloved of Allah and Defender of the Faith, agreed upon it was that he was a coward. The Sultan bowels would spasm if Fazel suggested denuding the city of guards.

"Get out," Fazel hissed in a deadly quiet tone that contrasted jarring with the fury of a few moments ago. The Captain banged his fist to his breastplate in salute and bowed himself out.

Fazel turned to a great mirror of beaten copper which hung upon the sacred eastern wall of his chambers and waved a hand in a cryptic gesture. The shadow imperfections of the mirror shimmered and then seemed to coalesce into the barest suggestion of a great face.

"Speak," boomed a low and distant voice, filled with an ageless malevolence. Fazel dropped to one knee an act he would never have performed before Ali Ib Tariz even should the fat old Sultan have demanded it.

"My Lord... I... I regret that the Anhouri has fled the city?" Fazel stammered his voice dropping to a whisper.

"Fled?" the voice enquired with deceptive calm, the shadows shifting once more in less recognisable patterns.

"Y.. yes my Lord, she killed Abdul the Cartographer and fled to the west along the Tagria." Fazel was sweating now even as the room chilled noticeably.

"Fled alone and with the map?" the voice went on. Fazel didn't want to speak, had intended not to speak but some force beyond him pulled the answer from him like a cork being drawn from a bottle of arak.

"With a slave my lord, a nobody."

"FOOL!" roared the voice defeningly loud within Fazel's mind.

"Do you think the Anhouri would delay herself for the sake of a mere slave!" Fazel pressed his fingers to his ears though it provided no more defense than raising ones hands against a spear thrust.

"A nobody my Lord a pit fighter of some note in the squalid hole he came from but nothing to us."

"The Anhouri does nothing without cause worm," the voice went on. The room was chill now, a sheath of condensation forming on the glass ware even as Fazel quivered.

"Find out what you can of this slave. The Cartographer, did she burn his body when she was done with him?"

"No... no my Lord, my soldiers drove her off before she had a chance," Fazel explained in a rush feeling his thundering heart slow to have some news to report that did not end in his failure. His master had little tolerance for failure.

"Very well, bring his corpse to me before midnight and we shall see what this map and this slave have to do with our plans."

With a sudden release of tension, like a storm breaking on a summer night the cold and the voice were gone and the mirror was nothing more than a mirror slicked with moisture which rapidly evaporated in the desert heat. Fazel, Vizier of Shayshaya, shakily stood and staggered towards the door way, a trickle of blood running from his ears and fear in his heart.

@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Early on in her mercenary career, Junebug had learned that it didn’t pay to ask exactly what was in any given dish if you planned on eating it. The table before them was heaped with dishes which ranged from the appealing to the disgusting. Not willing to offend their hosts new found attitude she picked from a few of the less objectionable looking dishes, trying to prioritize protein where she could find it. There were a variety of local beverages ranging from what smelled like rancid and fermented fruit juice to a pale purplish wine. Sipping experimentally at the wine she found it to be more potent than it looked, not unlike some palm wine she had tried in the past.

The table itself was of a polished wood with an almost firey opalesence which was at odds to its crude manufacture. It was lower to the ground than would have been normal in the societies she was used to dealing with but piles of furs were bought for them to longue upon. Sayeeda tried not to think of fleas on her bare skin but there was no reason to imagine that such insects even existed here. Several other natives, all men and all senior looking joined them, their expressions ranging from awestruck to wary.

“How is it that you come to speak… the Language of the Stars?” Junebug asked the scared shaman as she crunched something that might have been a candied insect between her teeth and chewed stoically. As she spoke a gorgeous young woman, naked save for what looked to be carved bone wristcuffs and a grass skirt that could scarcely be considered to preserve her modesty, approached the shaman from behind and draped an odd leather coat over his shoulders. The thing was stained with dyes and piece of vine in a pattern that was oddly reminiscent of military insignia over his shoulders and set what looked to be a human femur, carved into the shape of a wrench on the table before him. Insight blazed for a moment as she realised that these people must be the descendant of a lost colony ship and that the regalia of rank must have derived from that time. Perhaps this man's distant ancestor had been the ship's engineer.

“The Starmen elevated my grandfather's grandfather to the heavens,” the barbaric looking man responded.

“They taught him the secret language before they returned him to us,” the shaman said proudly. It had been passed down through the generations then, as a ritual language like Anglias. Junebug nodded her understanding.

The table stood on the lower step of one of the ziggurats which overlooked the village. As they watched villagers began to assemble on the weed choked stones below. They seemed universally young and healthy and their faces showed a mix of anticipation and fear. Beyond the assembled youths infront of a line of grass huts the older men were gathered, most of them were armed with clubs and spears tipped with bone and sharpened rock.

At some signal Sayeeda could not detect the crowd of youth began to sing an odd keening song. It wasnt exactly unpleasant to the ear but it had the glassy quality of something repeated over and over like a religous mantra.

“Highlander six to Highlander,” Junebug sub vocalized, her throat moving without producing audible sound. There was a momentary hiss of empty carrier wave as her mastoid implant informed her that there was no connection established. Doubtless the hills and valleys here about were enough to block her connection, via a fairly low powered transmitter, back to Lonney.

“Junebug.. Uh that is Captain?” Sayeeda started slightly in surprise but fortunately attention was universally on the singing youths. She cast side eyes at Taya, whos voice had just come across her radio band. The girl still looked nervous and was fidgeting slightly.

“How are you on the net?” she asked silently realising it was a foolish question the moment it came out of her mouth. Taya answered it anyway.

“I have a dental implant that includes radio function Captain,” she replied. The girl was also subvocalizing, which was smart.

“Can it raise the ship?” Junebug asked hopefully, glancing across at Neil. The pilot might not have an implanted radio himself but he could detect the subtle shift in her body language.

“No..uh negative, Its too far without a retransmitter,” Taya replied running her hands over the shimmering table top between unenthusiastic bites of some sort of venison like meat. For a moment Junebug cursed herself for not putting the jeep up on the ridge where its communication gear could act as a relay, but that would hardly be the first thing she would chose to fix if she were given a rewind button for the universe.

“Should we be doing anything, I mean I’m not used to…”

“Negative, sit tight and wait for…” before Sayeeda could subvocalize the word developments, the Shaman stood up and made a chopping motion with the bone wrench. The singing stopped abruptly and for the moment their was the silence of the night, filled with chirping insects and the occasional calling bird. Raising up his hands the Shaman began to speak. The words tumbled past too quickly for Sayeeda to follow with her limited command of the man's tongue, though she caught the words, climb or ascend and chosen. Even unable to follow it was clear it was an oration of some kind, though for what Sayeeda could not imagine. After a few minutes of speech the shaman made a rolling motion with his tool and the young men and women began to file past in slow procession, each one pausing in front of the table to show off his or her physique.

“How many you elevate blessed ones?” the Shaman asked intently, his eyes on Niel.

@POOHEAD189

The Sorceress and the Slave

The sun glinted unpleasantly from the peddlers bronzed tooth. Amira's eyes, until a moment beforehand blank and unfocused sharpened measurably. The fellow before them spread his hands wide in invitation. Behind them came a distant should from the opening in the opposite bank a pair of Janissaries, apparently as many as could be jammed into the small tunnel appeared, mail glinting in the sunlight. The Tagria was a mighty river even when channeled into these canals, and the current had carried them far enough that the shouts of the soldiers were indistinct over those noise of they city. One of the men attempted to duplicate Rhaak's feet but missed the rope and plunged ungracefully into the canal, a serious risk in so much armor. His companion was apparently wise enough not to attempt to duplicate the feet and vanished back into the hole whence he had come.

"A boat," she said in a voice devoid of any emotion, making it neither a statement or a question. The swindler needed no clarification though and launched into speech.

"Yes Yes good mistress," he said struggling to contain a leer. The fabric of her black clothing clung tightly to the curves of her body, leaving little to the imagination.

"A sturdy skiff that can take you anywhere the water flows even down to the Sea of Radan if that is your pleasure, a fine and sturdy vessel I do assure you good mistress! Why..." he froze in mid speech as Amira plucked a golden coin from seeming thin air and tossed it to the man. For all his slovenly appearance he snatched the drachma from the air with the grace of a hunting cat and bit it suspiciously. He made the coin vanish nearly as neatly as it had appeared.

"A fine down payment gentle lady..."

"It will be sufficient," Amira broke in her voice still impassive and cold. The swindler looked between the two soaking stranger and back at the hole into which the par of Jannisaries had appeared in.

"It seems to me you are in a particular hurry, surely that is worth something to you?" he asked, his voice growing measurably slyer and losing some of its false fellowship. Amira turned with slow deliberation to regard the canal and then turned back.

"You might be right, perhaps I should have my slave disembowel you and we can take the boat without need of any further delay." The threat was all the more terrible for its utter lack of emotional loading. The swindlers eyes darted towards Rhaak but he quickly nodded his head in acquiescence.

"I would not have it said that I hindered one of the faithful in distress," he added hurriedly, bobing his head with increasing enthusiasm. With a quick gesture he led them down the dock to where a small boat with a single sale and a pair of weathered cedar paddle bobbed on a filthy rope. Several wicker eel traps stood by, though they looked long unused. Without comment or delay Amira stepped into the rear of the boat and sat, cross-legged and dripping, on the low bench. Rhaak steeped in and seized the oars, severing the rope with a powerful jerk of his arms. With a shove they were out into the canal and heading towards the broad date lined expanse of the Tagria.

@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The smell of blood, sharper and more coppery than one found in Terran species was heavy in the air. The locals stepped out and pulled the door shut behind them. Sayeeda opened the door but found two unfriendly looking tibesman standing with spears leveled, the gestured decisively.

"I'm getting the impression they want us to stay in the hut," Junebug commented dryly. Behind her Taya let out a low moan. Turning she found the girl hugging herself tightly and eyes brimming with unshed tears. There was an uncomfortable moment as Junebug tried to figure out what she should say.

"They are going to kill us aren't they!" The girl blurted before the former mercenary could summon up the correct formula open the conversation. Junebug laughed a short mirthful laugh, the sound as unexpected to the young woman as breaking into a hymn might have been. Her face immediately began to color with anger but Junebug held up a hand.

"Sorry Taya, I'm not laughing at you. It is just I have been in the game so long that it never occurs to me to assume that people ARENT trying to kill me." The girl managed a wry smile at that.

"It really dosen't make that much sense for them to bring us all this way to kill us," she went on in an attempt to comfort the girl. They locals might want them as slaves or sacrifices of course, but there was no point in bringing that up.

Sayeeda felt fairly ridiculous in her sports bra with an air suit wrapped around her waist like a diver taking a few minutes break but there was no help for it. She reached into the medical bag and drew out the sub maghine gun and the one reload of ammunition the girl had brought. She worked the action and caught the ejecting round she kept in the chamber and slipped it into the base of the clip with a quiet click.

"Beside if push comes to shove I guess I've done worse thing than blowing away a bunch of indiges with bones through their noses." She tucked the weapon beneath the fabric of the airsuit and drew out a pistol which she tossed to Neil. Taya hadn't bought a weapon, which was alien to Sayeeda's sensibilities but was probably the right choice given the girls lack of training. A wizard at the data terminal she might be but a gunman she was not.

"They were speaking Zil, or at least an old version of it, you see it sometimes on old colonies that haven't had much contact, I can make out maybe one word in ..."

The door banged open interupting the conversation and an old twisted man stepped through the door flanked by the two spear armed body guards. No, now that she got a closer look he wasnt that old. His body was covered with scar tissue and he had been twisted by massive injuries. His right eye was completely gone replaced by an ugly fleshy patch.

"Are you with the Starmen?!" he demanded in heavily accented but perfectly understandable common.

@POOHEAD189

The Sorceress and the Slave

They moved past the rotting ruin quickly, the woman pulling her veil a little tighter around her mouth and nose as her only concession to the horror. The tunnel appeared to have been an old one, carved from the sandstone by slow hand spans. Here and there weathered wooden beams braced the walls, though what use they were against the stone was uncertain A faint whisper of air from the far end of the passage suggested that it wasn’t merely an artifical cave.

Above them the crashing of boots could be heard along with the shouts of discovery as the soldiers discovered the body of the man who had called himself *BLANK* An authoritative voice cut through the babble like the peel of a bell.

“Find the woman and do not look into her eyes, upon your souls,” the voice instructed, it had a cultured oily quality though clearly well used to being order.

“And the man?” a rougher voice demanded with the sharp burr of the Southern Desert.
“The slave is nothing, kill him if you must.” The voices began to fade as they moved down the tunnel. As they progressed the light grew quickly brighter till it burned like the shimmer of the sand at midday. Dust motes danced in the increasing light until they reached an ancient grate of rusted iron. Beyond the grate stretched on of the great canals that drew the waters of the Tagria through the city. The smooth stonework dropped thirty feet to the sluggish water below. Forward progress was bared as effectively as a stone wall by the grate.

Behind them came a shout of triumph and the scraping of timber on stone as the entrance to the tunnel was discovered. It would be mere moments before the pursuers were upon them.

“Peace be upon you,” *BLANK* murmured when the slave turned with a trapped look in his eyes. Stepping forward she placed a hand upon the stone and began to whisper almost inaudibly, slender fingers tracing the intersection of stone and iron. As her finger trailed a flow of fine sand, as if from an hourglass began to fall away, first slowly and then with increasing speed until the dust began to fill the air and make breathing difficult. The sandstone seemed to melt away, loosening its grip on the iron as it was reduced to blowing grit.
@POOHEAD189

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

All evidence criminal and scientific was engineered by a shadowy democratic clique that is right now planning to take your guns and turn America into a UN camp where you will be forced to use the correct pronoun at gunpoint. And I do mean all evidence. For everything.