Penny

Spinward from the Marches - Penny x Kylia Quilor

Kade nodded impatiently as the mercenary geared up. Grex and his men withdrew from the bar, sensibley realising that a blood bath might result if they refused to comply with Janna's demand to leave. Men like Grex didn't have a moral objection to blood baths of course, provided they were on the winning side. They might be forced to leave, but it was unlikely they had gone far and it was certain that he had called for back up.

It was natural for spies and other covert operators to default to subterfuge and deceipt, but their were times, like now, when there was no substitute for firepower. The mercenary finished belting on her gear. Suddenly Kade felt decidedly under equiped in her nondescript dark clothing and concealable pistol.

"We need to get moving before they can bring in more men to lock the place down," Kade began, unconsciously switching into the tone she had used when briefing strike teams with the Tee-Sees.

"Thanks to your handywork back there Id estimate they have no more than a squad outside," she went on. It might be more like a half squad, but there was no point in assuming the enemy was incompetent. Men like Grex didn't get to their positions by way of incompetence.

"Once we break through the perimeter, we can go to ground in Undertown and get the lay of the land, It will be too obvious that we would head for the spaceport," she explained. They moved to the rear exit behind the bar. The flow of conversation was starting back up when they headed back into the main bar. Kade knelt beside the thug whom her new friend had shot through the eye and stripped him of his chest plate, a sub machine gun and a pair of grenades of unknown function. She opted to leave the helmet given the amount of brain matter splattered across the inside of it. Other enterprising mercs were already starting to strip the dead Cartel soldiers, a pair of them were even tossing one of the corpses into the garbage recycler.

Kade glanced out the back door and took stock. The rear entrance opened onto an alley that bent in an long L shape. Dillapadated habs loomed over one side and associated detritus lay in the street.

"There is one at the end of the alley behind that low wall," she told the mercenary, "another on the catwalk the other way, both covering the door."

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/west-virginia-teachers-deal-day-strike-180306155659273.html

While I feel like they caved a little, it is encouraging to see a decentralized social unionism winning at least small victories.

How do *you* get into your characters' heads?

I usually give my characters two or three guiding attributes, some positive and some negative. A character might be brave jaded and traumatized for example. Whenever I'm unsure about what a character will do, I go back to those aspects and a response usually writes itself.

Spinward from the Marches - Penny x Kylia Quilor

The bar hung in a moment of frozen silence broken only by the trickling fall of powdered masonry where a plasmabolt had shattered one of the cinderblocks. Small fires burned in a couple of places and the air was thick with the stink of ionized air, chemical proplents, sublimed metal and even more exotic scents of weapon fire. Beneath it was an even more unpleasant smell of cooked meat, blood and the waste men voided as they died.

Every hand in the bar gripped a weapon, with even the pink haired bartender pointed an electromotive shotgun in the general direction of the interlopers. Kade gripped her own electromotive pistol, a Lymar IV, favored by spies and insertion types for its customizable muzzle velocity, though the sleek grey plastoid weapon was unfired.

With commendable care one of the intruders, a heavily build man in olive drab and black battle dress, lifted a hand slowly to his face plate and pressed a stud. The reflective visor hissed back into the helmet to reveal a hatchet sharp face, distinguished by a serpentine tatoo that coiled up his cheek and over his left eye. Internal lighting, probably from a HUD in his helmet lit his face with sinister red light.

“My name is Grex Pan, and I’m with the Cartel,” he said identifying himself as a hitter for the group of corporate interests that informally governed Panopontus.

“I’ll pay whoever kills these three…” he started and Kade opened her mouth to shout him down. Before she could interrupt a piercing whistle shattered the artificial silence.

“I don’t care who the fuck you are,” the bartender snarled, “take your shit out of my bar.”

“Madam…” Grex began to interject but the pink haired woman racked the slide of the shotgun and leveled it at Grex’s face.

“Out. Side.”

Kade and her companions backed towards the rear exit of the bar.

“Get me to the spaceport alive and I’ll pay a bonus,” Kade said.

“The Cartel takes a pretty dim view of anyone who takes down their thugs.”

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

So apparently someone shot himself on the white house lawn. The secret service thought it was a shooting and placed the white house on lockdown.

@POOHEAD189

Way to make manifest that which is hidden.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeiSDF83mXo

Spinward from the Marches - Penny x Kylia Quilor

It is always ok to use my character. I find it makes it much easier to make the plot flow. If I ever have a real issue, I will just ask you to edit. No problems.

The Book Club

Book Recommendation (sort of)

The Warrior's Apprentice - Louis McMaster Bujold

This book is a very mediocre space opera. It is bland and formulaic setting, the plot makes little logical sense and the characters are inconsistent and unbelievable.

I nearly didn't finish it until an odd piece of mental gymnastics totally changed the book for me. The protagonist is a young aristocrat name Miles who is conveniently a cripple for the presumable purpose of making us overlook the fact that he is a monster. Miles of course is a word derived from Latin that meant knight in the middle ages. When you look at Miles as a knight, it actually turns a rather crappy book into a masterful take down of Medieval Knighthood and the myth of the martial aristocrat. I dont think Bujold meant it this way but it made the whole exercise way more enjoyable!

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Working her way along the ventilation tunnel, Junebug finally found an access tunnel that let her drop into the broard corridor of the station proper. She pressed herself immediately into a shadowed recess and took stock. The place seemed very neat and well lit for a bandit hide out and nearby she could hear the burr of voice raised in conversation. The air still read breathable and the risk of spores was probably low so she switched off her bottled air and removed her helmet to pull of the rubberized hood. It was alot more comfortable with just the helmet and if she needed hard vac again she would probably live long enough to get the hood on.

There was a decision to be made now. Either she was a hostile intruder, or she was a poor lost spacer who's shuttle had crashed and had made way aboard. The problem was that the second option might not work, if these were hardcore criminals then the likely hood was they would either shoot her in the neck and put her out the airlock or worse. Pulling open her pack she retrieved her sub-machine gun and checked the readings before loading one of her specially prepared magazines and working the action with a quiet snicker snack. Properly armed she crept forward into the station.

After about ten minutes of exploring Junebug was starting to get a sinking feeling. It must have been a night cycle because there were few people awake and about. She passed a mess hall and what appeared to be a data center of some kind. At both places she had seen occupants but neither that two males or the woman she had seen matched her description of criminals. They seemed clean cut and well dressed and whatever else they were doing it certainly wasn't mining. Fortunately frequent access corridors made remaining hidden a fairly simple task. She waited outside the data center until the woman got up and left, perhaps for a refresher and then slipped inside. The console was a modern high tech model, the sort she had used on the highlander and when she had been forced at gun point to do admin work in the armored, usually when recovering from wounds. The woman hadn't bothered to shut it down completely so she bought it live.

The system wasn't comprehensible to Junebug, though it seemed well ordered, she bought up the search bar and ran a search for outpost floorplan. Several pages flashed passed in quick succession but her helmet captured the images for later examination. There wasn't much time before the consoles owner returned. She entered Nia into the system and to her surprise, recieved a pulsing dot on the map. Switching the terminal back to standby mode she scrambled into the concealment of the access a few moments before the woman returned with a can of a local cola Junebug vaugely remembered mixing with burbon the night before and went back to work.

"The fuck is going on?" she mused and pulled up the data from her helmet. At least she had a location for Nia. With careful stealth she worked her way down another level to where the map data had located Nia. Why would they put the location of a prisoner in the system. Could they be that organised. Corperate crime maybe? Finding the room she was looking for she held her gun back with one hand and pulled the door open, sweeping silently into the room in a classic assault entry.

It as no prison cell. Functional but tasteful furniture dotted the small room and pieces of an abstarct style of art hung on the walls. THere was a personal console and a large bed in one corner with a small refersher station off to one side. A woman turned from behind the console to look at her in shock. It was Nia. Just as the holo depicted her, but instead of loose fiting civilian garb she wore tight trim tactical clothing, not that much different than those Junebug herself frequently wore beneath her armor. It looked like she was wearing a shoulder holster but Junebug didn't see a gun.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the woman snapped, eyes blazing with fury.

"Uh... yeah thats a good question," Junebug admitted, barrel of her weapon sweeping to cover the room.

"I was..." the woman dove at her, crashing into Junebug and sending her staggering back. She was shouting and grabbed at the sub-machine gun trying to wrest it from Sayeeda's hand. People who didn't get much practice at real war often viewed weapons as a semi magical thing. A wand of sorts that solved problems. Junebug let go of the gun and Nia stumbled back at the sudden loss of resistance. Junebug caught her in a flying tackle slamming her into the ground. Nia struck at Junebug's neck but she dropped her chin in time to take it as a stunning blow to the head. Unarmored the match might have been even, but the ceramic body armor not only protected Junebug's vitals from Nia's rabbit punch but gave her an extra thirty pounds to play with. Nia tried to spring to her feet but Sayeeda kicked her ankles out from underneath her. Then she was on top of the woman raining blows down on her face. The moment she slackened Junbug wrapped her body around her opponent and caught her neck in the crook of her arm. She squeezed hard against the carotid artery. Nia struggled for a moment and then went limp. She kept the grip up for a few more seconds and then released, letting the unconcious Nia slither to the ground.

For long moments Junebug lay gasping for air. Outside she could hear yelling but there wasn't much she could do about it right at this moment. Crawling over to the unconcious Nia she picked a badge out of the other woman's tunic pocket.

Captain Nia Travinski - System Gendamarie - 8343A34
A holographic picture of Nia winked in the aperture.

"Well fuck..." Junebug sighed as a wailing alarm siren began to go off.

______________________________

Taya pulled her pistol from her pocket and checked the load then ran for the cockpit door. The hatch banged down violently sealing her inside.

"Lonney the door is malfunctioning!" she yelled pounding at the hatch, eager to get out there and help her new found allies.

"Och, Sorry Lassie, I closed it miself," the AI admitted.

"Well open it again," Taya demanded, confused and irritated at this sudden intransigence.

"That isn't what first officer Neil would be having me do," Lonney said sounding conciliatory.

"I don't care what Neil would have me do open the door," she demanded.

"That isn't what he would do either," the computer repeated. Taya pounded on the door in frustration as the fire fight outside grew much more intense.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Le Pen...is facing charges of circulating “violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography or seriously harm human dignity”, and that can be viewed by a minor. The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£66,000).

I also didn't look at the pictures because I have a personal policy not to view things that DAESH is putting out as propoganda but apparently the pictures were of the Jordanian Pilot being burned, a beheading of an american hostage and a guy being crushed by a tank. There had been some text added.

Seems to me that she would have been charged if she had been posting pictures of random murders and the fact that its ISIS related is really a secondary point. I don't know enough about the French law to go much further than that.

As for policing speech on the internet. I think enforcement of existing hate speech laws and what not is probably fine. I'd maybe like to see a little more enforcement of threats of violence (who hasn't collected a few rape threats) but I understand that this is hard to enforce from a practical standpoint. Basically if it would be illegal to do it in a public setting I'd probably be ok with it in an online one.

Things like porn and such are in an at least theoretically private setting and I suppose that images and videos like those Le Pen is accused of spreading should exist in such theoretically private spaces. Provided they dont have calls to kill all muslims/jews/Rohinga or whatever which would be covered under hate speech laws.

Also Fuck the National Front.